Dust

by Christine Bongers

  ‘What’s up your bum?’

  They were the first words Punk had spoken to me since the caning.

  ‘It’s the flaming dust. I can’t stand it. Rubbing dusty feet together is worse than scritching nails down a blackboard. It’s driving me nuts.’

  He brightened, beaming a psycho smile straight at me. ‘That’s easy to fix.’

  I didn’t even have a chance to ask how, before he had me on the ground, rubbing great handfuls of dirt all over my feet.

  Screaming just seemed to encourage him.

  ‘Sis, you just gotta get used to it and it won’t bother you anymore!’

  I kicked him hard when he finally released me. As if he cared. He was still laughing as he trotted off.

  I shoved myself back up onto the fuel tank and tried to wipe my feet with the T-shirt that barely covered the elastic top of my shorts. The thin cloth stretched accommodatingly over my knees then tore along the underarm seam.

  I gave up and glowered at Punk as he scouted the empty Big Shed and circled back to where I was sitting.

  ‘Want to do something?’

  He had to be kidding. I gave him a hard stare but he just looked back, all innocent.

  OK, if that’s the way he wants to play it, fine by me.

  I pushed down a weird angry thrill – like the ground that Punk and I had been working was about to push up a toxic new plant – and thumbed the gum beside the fuel tank.

  ‘Let’s climb the tree.’

  He glanced up and frowned. ‘Sis, you’re dreaming. No-one’s ever climbed that tree. The first branch is eight foot off the ground.’

  I slid off the tank and headed for the Big Shed. I didn’t need to check if Punk was with me. He was a boy. The challenge would be irresistible.

  It was still on the bench where Dad had plonked it after cutting down the 800-pound bullock he had shot and bled from a tree at the dairy two weeks ago. The one we had helped slice, mince, bag, label and pack into our huge chest freezer before school. The one we would be eating till Easter.

  I picked up the rope and pulley system and dangled it in Punk’s face.

  The view was mighty and Punk was tickled pink that we were the first in the family to enjoy it.

  ‘Hairs isn’t going to believe that we thought of this without him!’

  ‘We?’ The unfairness of it hit me like a train, setting off an explosion that had been building for days.

  ‘What do you mean We? I thought of this. Me. Not you. Not us. Me.’

  He frowned. ‘Get real, you’d never be up here without me. You don’t even know how to work a pulley.’

  He turned away, his voice full of contempt.

  ‘Jeez, Sis, you can’t even stand a bit of dust on your feet. Face it. You’re pathetic.’

  Pent-up fury exploded in my chest, slamming both my hands into Punk’s back.

  A sudden stillness settled over me, like a warning that had come too late.

  A half-formed scream froze in my throat.

  Punk had been standing on the branch, not hanging on or anything. Then suddenly he wasn’t.

  He wasn’t there.

  chapter 5

  Punk sprawled on his back beside the fuel tank.

  My guts lurched.

  Lamby.

  Our long-gone pet: dumb as a doornail and the size of a Shetland pony by the time he ate Ratsak and died. We found him in the grain storehouse at the back of the dairy, legs stuck out parallel to the ground. Ants skating across the green ice of his spooky sheep eyes.

  My eyes and throat closed against the rising panic.

  Punk’s eyes were wide open. Like Lamby’s.

  He lay without moving, an arm flung out, the palm of one hand cupped beseechingly towards me.

  ‘Punk! PUNK!’

  I crashed down the rope as a shudder rippled through him. Like the final convulsion of a shot roo, or a dog, lost to a truck tyre on the highway.

  ‘Oh God, you’re not dead, are you?’ My voice sounded like a stranger’s. I grabbed his shoulders. ‘Tell me you’re not dead!’

  He blinked and a sob caught in my throat.

  ‘Sis …’

  His whisper drew me closer. A hand closed on my wrist and I winced, confused, then shocked, as he reared up, a furious grin baring his teeth, his voice an octave higher than normal: ‘Oh God, you’re not dead, are you?’

  His voice dropped back to normal. ‘Suck eggs!’

  Three hard corkies to my bicep and he shook me off, rubbing the dirt out of his hair as he strode away.

  I collapsed against the fuel drum, pistons hammering in my chest, fingers clawing at the dead leaves that had blown up against the tank’s base.

  I felt a sickening vertigo, as though I had come too close to the edge of a hidden hole. An elephant trap of planted stakes, sharpened and pointing at my heart.

  The breath shuddered through me.

  I nearly killed Punk.

  An escalating panic took hold, bearing me relentlessly towards an uncertain future.

  In one short day I had made an enemy of Aileen Kapernicky and almost killed my own brother.

  My life was out of control, heading nowhere good and heading there fast.

  When would I learn?

  chapter 6

  ‘GET IN DER CAR!’

  Dad was half in the Holden and disappearing fast.

  People called him ‘Billy Vanderbomm, the Big Dutchman’ even though he’d been in Australia for nearly twenty years. He could talk the leg off a side of mutton when he was in the mood, but he still couldn’t pronounce words like ‘the’ properly.

  He reckons there’s no ‘th’ sound in the Dutch language, so ‘that’, ‘this’ and ‘the’ come out ‘dat’, ‘dis’ and ‘der’. ‘Thirty’ is ‘tirty’, and ‘thing’ and ‘think’ make my big burly dad go ‘ting’ and ‘tink’. And as for ‘third’, well that’s been a running joke in this family as long as I can remember.

  ‘GET A MOVE ON! WE’RE GOING TO BE LATE!’

  I wish.

  Sunday. Confession Day.

  My feet dragged as Mum shoehorned all eight of us into the two bench seats of our HR Special station wagon.

  Lick and Fatlump squished in between her and Dad in the front, so that poor little Lick got mashed in the chops by Dad’s elbow every time he changed gears with the column shift.

  The rest of us crammed in the back, sweaty as hell after our weekly battle for the window seats.

  God only knows why we bothered: hundred-degree heat and we still weren’t allowed to open a window. Mum didn’t wash and set her hair on Saturday night just to have us windblast it to scary heights on the way to church on Sunday morning.

  Dad was even worse.

  Sundays, he demanded respect from his unruly thatch of curls. He’d wash it, then stare it down in front of the bathroom mirror, rubbing Brylcreem threateningly between his palms. He’d strike without warning: subduing the thick wet thatch with a slick coating of grease and combing it straight back before it could put up a struggle. With chin lowered, he’d splay the fingers of both hands over his head as if about to don an invisible crown. Then, working methodically from front to back, he’d crimp his wet locks into orderly curl lines between his fingers. A stunning transformation: farmer to matinee idol in less than five minutes.

  All the way to Jambin, Mum’s freshly set hair and Dad’s slick rows of obedient curls bobbed in vacuum-sealed safety above the front seat.

  Mum had squirted on so much Cedel hairspray we’d be lucky to survive the drive. Which could be a good thing. Dead kids don’t need to confess; they can just go straight to hell … end of problem.

  I fiddled with the hanky Mum had shoved into my hand as we left the house. Dead from Cedel inhalation wasn’t much of a Plan A. It hadn’t killed us before and was unlikely to do the trick today.

  I glowered at the Beatrix Potter ducks on my hanky.

  Why are they wearing headscarves? They’re ducks, for Pete’s sake.

  I scrun
ched them into a ball. Dead ducks now.

  With a bit of luck, we’d be too late for Confession anyway. The thought pushed me forward in my seat. Plan B.

  ‘Dad, can you slow down a bit? I think I’m going to be sick.’

  Dad’s foot came off the accelerator and he grabbed the rear-view mirror, swivelling it in my direction. Mum swung round, searched my doleful face and sniffed. ‘She’s fine.’

  Dad grunted and floored it, throwing me back onto Wart and Punk who’d spread out into the gap I’d left. I pushed back between them, scowling at the growing slick mark where Dad’s head brushed the cream vinyl ceiling.

  He was built like the well-upholstered armchairs in Grevell’s Furniture in Biloela: long-backed and short-legged. By rights he should have been six foot four, but thanks to those short Dutch cycling legs, he barely hit six foot. Thank God I inherited Mum’s long Danish pins; the lizard look – stumpy legs and a long back – was such a bad look on a girl.

  His eyes were still on me in the mirror.

  ‘That girl needs to see Father.’ Only it came out Dat girl and Farder.

  ‘They all need to make a good Confession, get rid of their sins.’

  ‘Better out than in, hey, Dad?’

  Punk’s tone alerted me a split second before something punched a hole in the chlorofluorocarbonated atmosphere of the HR.

  Something Silent But Deadly.

  The back seat erupted.

  ‘JESUS! YOU STINK!’

  ‘Get out of my way! Where’s the freakin’ window?’

  ‘Use the one on your side, y’idiot! Get off me!’

  ‘No way am I leaning over him to get at the window! Jeez, get the thing open, you complete spastic! Let some air in!’

  We were too young to die – we needed to live and kill Punk – so we hurled ourselves at Big Hairs’ window and attacked the open air.

  The HR hiccuped hysterically, with Mum’s hair in a flap, Lick gagging on Dad’s elbow in his throat and Dad bloody-helling and fighting to get his window down while keeping the car straight on the lumpy bitumen.

  In the eye of the cyclone sat Punk, nearly busting his foofer valve he was trying so hard not to laugh.

  Big Hairs slapped him in the chest with the back of his hand.

  ‘What did you do that for, you dirty dog? You saving it up all week, just for the car trip to church?’

  ‘I can’t help it.’ Punk was indignant. ‘I’ve got a leaky valve. If I try to hold it in, I get sick in the guts.’

  ‘You smell like you’re sick in the guts,’ muttered Big Hairs. ‘I’d check that for follow-through if I was –’

  A short but resonant ‘phut’ interrupted him. Punk’s eyes widened. He pressed back into the window as a gaggle of little stragglers followed the first phut out. A moment’s silence, then the Holden sagged in relief.

  ‘Why don’t those ones stink?’ Fatlump and Lick were on their knees facing backwards, bobbing up and down in time with the potholes in the bitumen.

  Wart tested the air, just to be sure. ‘I think he used it all up on the SBD.’

  Happy to be diverted, I laid out my own theory.

  ‘Farts are smarter than you’d think. It’s about survival of the host. If the stinky ones made a noise, everyone would know who did it and kill them. Self-preservation isn’t an issue when a fart doesn’t smell. It can make as much noise as it wants because no-one is going to kill you over a fart that doesn’t stink.’

  ‘If you’re so smart, why do farts smell worse in the bath?’ challenged Punk.

  Good question. ‘Dunno. But if we figure it out we could win the Nobel Prize for furthering mankind’s knowledge of the universe.’

  The tension slipped away as we compared personal bests, agreeing that Punk retained the crown for Best Ever (performed in the car during a thunderstorm, ensuring the judges remained captive for the entire performance).

  Mum ignored us, phoofing her hair with her fingers, while Dad drove in silence, the air cleared, the rest of the way to our reckoning with Father.

  chapter 7

  ‘Oh, it’s the Vanderbomms. Father must be running late this morning.’

  Mum stiffened. It sounded like one of the Mrs Kennys from Goovigen. There were five of them: Old Mrs Kenny, married to Old Mr Kenny; and the wives of their four sons – Mrs Nat Kenny, Mrs Tim Kenny, Mrs Dan Kenny and Mrs Len Kenny. Each of the young Mrs Kennys had at least four kids so church was like a Kenny layer cake with families like ours as the icing in between.

  We settled into our long-standing seating ritual designed to prevent fights in church: Mum, then three kids, then Dad, then three kids.

  Dad was in charge of crowd control, stretching his arms out along the back of the pew, embracing the whole family within his reach. A flick of his wrist and he’d clipped any misbehaver on the back of the head and had his arms back on the pew before anyone knew what hit him.

  ‘Time for Confession.’ Dad scooped us out of our seats with an efficient shrug of his arms.

  My heart thumped.

  ‘Do we have to? We went last week.’

  ‘No, Mum and I went last week. You lot are going right now and you can add that fib to the list you’ve got to tell Father.’

  Mum was on the end, presumably to catch anyone trying to do a runner. She stopped Punk and me with a raised hand as we tried to shimmy past.

  ‘Make sure you talk to Father Brophy about the Kapernicky girls and that nasty game and say you’re sorry.’

  Punk nodded the way he does when he’s not listening; I squirmed and muttered something vague. She gave us the hairy eyeball, but let us pass.

  The polished pine of the back pew pressed cold and hard into my knees. Mournful eyes stared down from a dozen portraits punctuating the otherwise bare walls. The Stations of the Cross had me surrounded. Pinned down by portraits of Jesus on his way to his doom.

  ‘BLESS ME, FATHER, FOR I HAVE SINNED –’

  Old Mrs Kenny had forgotten her hearing aid again.

  Mrs Beavis came in at a run, heels click-clacking across the polished floorboards, sheet music fluttering in her wake. The opening notes to ‘How Great Thou Art’ surged out of the organ just in time to save us from discovering the sins of the elderly at 9.30 on a Sunday.

  Time for Plan C.

  I leaned across Punk and whispered over the swelling organ, ‘Will we give it a go? Saying the same four sins, with telling lies last?’

  ‘We’ve got five.’ Big Hairs checked them off on his fingers. ‘Fought with my parents, fought with my brothers, fought with my sister, used bad language, and told some lies. We’ve got one more sin than you.’

  Punk cast me a sly sideways look. ‘You can have five too, if you want. All you have to do is confess to playing “Aileen Kapernicky’s germs”.’

  ‘As if.’ I did my best to look unconcerned. ‘That doesn’t break any commandments, so it’s not a sin.’

  Wart disagreed. ‘Yes it is. It goes against the do unto others rule. That’s why Mum wants you to tell it in Confession.’

  Wart accepted everything Mum said as gospel. Which was OK for him because he never did anything wrong.

  ‘That’s not a commandment, so I don’t have to confess it.’

  Old Mrs Kenny shuffled past, giving me a chance to bolt for the curtained cubicle before he had a chance to argue.

  Father Brophy was barely visible behind the screen. I ducked my head in the hope he wouldn’t recognise me and lowered my voice.

  ‘Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been um, two weeks since my last Confession, Father …’

  That wasn’t even vaguely accurate. But it was too late to back up now, so I kept my head down and ploughed on through.

  In the post-Confession kerfuffle, we managed to sabotage Mum and Dad’s carefully orchestrated seating plan. A bit of origami on the church bulletin lured the little boys my way, effectively sidelining Mum and Dad against the wall.

  Relief that it was over, at least till next time, jostled
with a vague disquiet.

  I had never been able to figure out if anyone apart from Wart ever told their real sins, or if I was the only one who didn’t. I couldn’t imagine asking the boys, they never took anything seriously; I had a fair idea what Mum and Dad would say and there was no-one else to turn to.

  The pew rattled against the floor as Big Hairs landed with a thump. I leaned over Wart and Punk. ‘What’d you get?’

  ‘An Our Father and a Hail Mary.’

  ‘What! What about you, Punk?’

  ‘Two Hail Marys.’

  ‘Wart?’

  ‘An Our Father and a Glory Be To God.’

  A warm hand circled my arm: Mum, leaning over the little boys, with a question.

  ‘While you’re all comparing penances, perhaps you’d like to share yours with me?’ She arched an eyebrow in my direction.

  My voice sounded stricken, even to my ears.

  ‘I got three Our Fathers, three Hail Marys, a Glory Be To God and a Hail Holy Queen.’

  And I had one less sin than the rest of them.

  ‘Good, I hope you’ve learned your lesson.’

  She made a sign of the cross and settled back in her seat on the far side of Lick and Fatlump.

  Punk couldn’t have been happier. ‘See – it is worse for girls to sin.’

  I blocked the corky with my cast, wiping the smile off his face.

  ‘Sis, you know you gotta be punished before you can be absolved –’

  I elbowed him away and glowered at the plaster weighing down my left arm, an all-too-familiar anger building in my chest.

  That’s it. If they’re going to come down harder on me than the boys, then I’m never going to tell my real sins.

  Wart leaned across. ‘Don’t worry about it, Sis. Father probably realises you’re the only one who even knows all the words to Hail Holy Queen. Take it as a compliment.’

  A little of the strain in my chest eased.

  Besides, there was something creepily appealing about whispering into my knuckles: Hail Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy; Hail our life, our sweetness and our hope. To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve. To thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this Valley of Tears.