Other Brother

by Simon French

  “Scaredy cat,” I mumbled, hoping Dad might agree.

  “He’s okay,” Dad said. “This is all kind of new to him.”

  After a while, Bon hovered closer and Dad offered him a turn fishing with his rod. “But you hold it good and tight,” Dad said firmly, though he smiled as well. “Because if you drop my rod, you’re going in after it. I assume you know how to swim, Bon.”

  “I’m a good swimmer,” Bon replied. I wondered how much of a fib he was telling. “And if I catch anything, I’m throwing it back. I don’t want my fish killed.”

  Dad and I laughed. “It’ll be your fish and your decision,” Dad told him.

  In the end, Bon didn’t catch anything, but he sat for quite a long time with Dad’s rod, gazing out at the water and humming to himself. I thought I saw the rod twitch one time, but Bon didn’t flick the rod back or wind the line in until he decided he’d had enough of a turn. The bait had well and truly gone when the hook came spinning shinily from the deep water below.

  Between us, Dad and I caught five fish. Bon turned away each time we caught something, and he refused to look into the catch bucket, or go anywhere near us as Dad and I scaled and filleted our catch at the preparation benches near to the jetty bait shop. And when we had dinner at the beachside barbecue area, I saw Bon avoiding the fish and eating only the salads Mum had prepared.

  It had been a good second day and when we returned to the motel, we all went for a sunset swim in the heated pool. Except for Bon, who shook his head and went back to our room.

  “He’s fine,” Mum said to no one in particular. “I imagine he wants to watch television or draw in his book.”

  His stupid book of maps and inventions, I thought. Waste of paper.

  But I knew Bon was trying to hide something the moment I walked back into our room. He hunched over his bed cover, scrunching the doona into an awkward handful.

  “What are you doing?” I demanded. “What have you got?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Liar,” I replied, and pulled the doona from his grasp. I was stronger than he was, and the doona came half off the bed, spilling the hidden contents onto the floor. Just as before, they were figures from my medieval castle. “You thief!” I shouted.

  Mum was at the doorway. “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “Him,” I said, scowling at Bon. “He’s been sneaking around my room at home again. He’s taken things without asking.”

  “Those?” Mum asked, pointing at the figures – the same white horse and the same knight with the blue crested flag that Bon had taken two years ago. There was another knight as well this time, and the princess with her conical hat and long red gown. “Did you take those without asking, Bon?”

  “Yes,” I answered, because Bon, looking guiltily at Mum, said nothing.

  Mum glared at me a moment and then looked back at Bon. “I’m asking you a question, Bon. What’s the answer?”

  “If I’d asked,” Bon replied, “Kieran would have said no.”

  Mum sighed, and then lectured Bon about not helping himself to things that weren’t his. “And now you’ve got them, I’d like you to say something to Kieran.”

  Bon looked up quickly. “I’m sorry,” he said to me.

  I scowled back at him.

  After a pause, he asked, “But can I borrow them? Just till we go home?”

  In the dark after bedtime, I hissed, “You take my things without asking, and you barge in on our family holiday. I wish you weren’t my cousin and I wish I didn’t know you.” I heaved a long, angry breath, and then waited in silence, wondering if Bon would reply or not. Keeping still, I realised I could hear him whispering to himself, the way I’d heard him do at home. It went on for a long time, until I interrupted. “Say it out loud to me. I dare you.”

  The whispering stopped, and for a moment there was silence.

  Then Bon said in a quiet voice, “I’m sorry about being here. But my mum can’t look after me. It’s too hard for her.”

  I wasn’t sure how to reply to that. His answer unsettled me in a way I couldn’t quite explain, so instead I listened as his breathing slowed into the steady softness that told me he was sleeping.

  For the rest of that week, I did my best to avoid wherever Bon would be, which was easy at least some of the time. He didn’t come fishing with me and Dad any more, preferring to stay with Mum and the girls, exploring the rock pools or walking around the beachside shops. Once or twice, I walked into our bedroom to find Bon kneeling with his drawing book at the foot of his bed. He had the doona cover bunched up and my medieval figures arranged across the folds. I pretended not to be interested, but I realised what he was seeing and drawing when I stopped at the doorway to look more carefully. The folds of the doona were a landscape of hills and valleys that the knights on horseback were travelling across. On a distant hilltop, the princess in her gown and cape waited and watched.

  I waited until Bon was outside in the motel swimming pool before quickly searching his overnight bag and pulling out his maps and inventions book. Soon enough, I found the page he’d been working on, and there was the doona landscape as a story picture, together with a paragraph scrawled underneath in Bon’s messy handwriting.

  Bon the Crusader and Kieran the Brave have journeyed to the ocean’s edge. Back at the village, Julia the Fair is preparing for her own journey.

  I read it twice, annoyed and embarassed to see my own name mentioned. For a moment, I toyed with the idea of tearing the page out, but instead closed the book and shoved it back into his bag before deciding to go for a swim as well.

  The pool was fairly crowded with other people staying at the motel. Gina and Emily were playing some kind of chasing game at the shallow end with a bunch of other little girls. Mum was in the middle of the pool, trying to keep away from all the splashing at the shallow end, and was talking with another of the parents. Bon was up near where the kids were playing and whooping. He wasn’t part of any game or group, and wasn’t doing much of anything. I’d heard Mum tell Dad the day before, “Bon’s actually a really good swimmer. I’m surprised. Where would he have learned?”

  Because I’d been doing my best to stay away from him, I hadn’t seen any evidence of this fantastic talent. Maybe Mum was trying to find nice things about Bon, and a bit of leg kicking and dog paddling passed for good swimming.

  I found an empty patch of pool, dived in and swam to one end, thinking it might be possible to do some laps without bumping into annoying little kids or, worst of all, Bon. I knew I could show him a thing or two about swimming because, like Gina, I had learned before even starting school.

  “Ten laps,” I murmured, brushing the comfortably warm water from my face. “Too easy.” The pool was short and ten times would be, I guessed, about two hundred metres. I launched myself away.

  And it was easy. I managed one, two, three laps without a pause and without anyone else getting in the way. At the third turnaround I glanced sideways and found that Bon had moved across to my part of the pool.

  “Keep out of the way,” I muttered quickly at him, before setting off for lap number four. But when I returned next and set off on lap number six, Bon launched himself off beside me. Trying to ignore him, I focused on my stroke and speed, but knew by quick glimpses and the close sound of his own hands and feet splashing in the water that he was keeping up with me. Bon could swim.

  “Stop following me,” I told him, feeling both surprised and annoyed.

  “I’m not following you,” he replied. “I’m just swimming.”

  Without saying any more, I launched myself into lap number seven. And so did Bon, who kept up with me again, all the way to the other end of the pool. We stopped next to the tiled edge and looked at each other. Bon wiped water from his face. His plait half-floated in the water behind him and his mouth was open a little, as though he was lost for something to say.

  I wasn’t. Against the noise of little girls shrieking and splashing, I asked, “Who taught you to swim?
”

  Bon hesitated. “Sam,” he answered at last.

  I remembered Bon at Dad’s training session. Which one is Sam? “Who are you talking about?” I demanded.

  “Someone my mum used to know. When I was little.”

  “You mean a boyfriend – that guy with the black ute.”

  “No,” Bon answered abruptly. “That was Brian.” He said the name as though spitting it out. “Sam taught me how to swim. He was nice, but Mum …” He looked away from me, as though distracted.

  “Yeah – what?”

  “Nothing.”

  I wanted to finish my laps, but had something else to say, something else to make him feel awkward. “Where is Julia the Fair going?” I asked.

  Bon blinked in surprise. “Why did you look in my book?”

  “Because I wanted to see what you were writing and drawing. And anyway, I’ve looked at it before – Bon the Crusader.”

  He paused. “It’s just a story I’m writing and drawing. It’s imaginary.”

  “But bits of it are real – the names. And I’m in the story too. How come I’m Kieran the Brave?”

  “Because,” Bon answered, sounding embarrassed, “I think you are. And it suits the story character. That’s all.”

  “That’s stupid,” I sneered. “I don’t want to be Kieran the anything. That’s so lame. Anyway, are you going to keep writing and drawing it, now that I’ve seen it?”

  Bon looked steadily at me. Dribbles of pool water were still running down his face, and he wiped them away with one hand. “Yes,” he answered. “It’s not a story unless it’s finished and the adventure has a proper ending.”

  “How’s the story going to end?” I put on a squeaky voice to add, “They all lived happily ever after.”

  “It might be like that. I don’t know yet.”

  “So,” I said, “you don’t know where Julia is going yet? In the story?”

  “No. Not yet. I have to wait and see.”

  “I bet you miss your girlfriend,” I said sarcastically, “being this far away on your free holiday.”

  After a pause, he answered. “Yes.” Then he said, “Are you missing her too?”

  Before I could think of something to say, he dropped down beneath the water and I saw him move swiftly across the bottom of the pool towards the steps. He knew I wouldn’t want him to hear my answer. And he knew the answer would be, Yes, I miss her.

  CHAPTER 11

  Bon had set off for school with us that morning looking clean and tidy. He came home looking exactly the opposite, his hair half undone and his clothes looking grimy.

  “What happened?” Mum asked as soon as she saw him. “It looks like you’ve been caught in a hurricane!”

  Bon shrugged, and didn’t say anything about how in the playground, Mason had yanked on his plait so that Bon’s hair elastic had sprung loose. His plait had unravelled and he’d not been able to get it quite right again afterwards. Bon also didn’t say anything about how his new school shirt had lost two buttons. That had been Lucas heaving Bon out of his place in the canteen line at recess.

  “Some boys in Kieran’s class were annoying Bon,” Gina reported. “I saw them and told the teacher.”

  “Is that so?” Mum asked Bon. She looked at me. “Did you see any of this, Kieran?”

  “I thought they were playing a game,” I said, hoping it sounded like an innocent reply.

  I could tell from her expression that Mum guessed there might be more to the story. She pointed to the kitchen stool. “Come and sit down,” she told Bon.

  The ritual of Bon and his hair usually took place each school morning that he was with us. It would always be Gina first, with her request for ponytails, plaits or something more complicated, and then Bon. Mum usually had his plait done quickly, but this afternoon she worked more slowly. She pulled his hair loose and took some time brushing it out. She stopped and stood back for a moment, telling him, “You look like you’ve stepped out of a medieval castle.”

  Bon looked pleased about that. “Do I?” He looked straight at her and smiled a little.

  I rolled my eyes and shook my head before raiding the fruit bowl on the kitchen benchtop. Noisily, I crunched an apple and silently watched all the attention Mum was giving Bon. The plait had curled his hair, and it dropped in curtains past his shoulders. His face seemed smaller and younger with his hair out.

  “But your ends are all split,” Mum told him. She picked up strands of hair and looked at them closely. “Will you let me give you a trim?”

  Bon looked doubtful. “What do you mean?” he asked cautiously.

  “Just the ends,” Mum explained. “No more than a centimetre off.”

  Bon frowned.

  Mum laughed. “I promise! Trust me, Bon. Didn’t your mum ever get someone to cut them?”

  “No,” Bon answered in a flat voice. “But she taught me to do the plait bit.”

  Mum turned to me. “Kieran, make yourself useful. Go and get me the hairdressing scissors from the bathroom. You know where they’re kept.”

  Of course I knew where they were kept. And knowing how to keep Bon feeling nervous, I came back with the blades loudly clicking open and shut in the air above my head. “Let me help!” I offered, using my best Crazy Guy voice. “I’ll cut Bon’s hair! I’m good at cutting hair!” And I clacked the scissor blades loudly again for extra effect.

  Bon jumped off the stool and looked ready to run out the back door.

  “Kieran,” Mum scolded. “Give me the scissors and then go and do something else. Like homework, which I know you’ve got in your bag.”

  “Bon’s got homework as well.”

  “And he’ll be doing his shortly. Go away and stop causing trouble. Bon, come sit down again. I’m the only hairdresser in this household, so you can ignore your cousin, who’s just going off to do his homework. Now.”

  Bon stared at me for a moment more, as though I had another pair of scissors hidden in my hand and was ready to give him a buzz cut. Then he edged back to the stool and sat down again.

  “Homework, Kieran,” Mum said.

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m going,” I answered wearily. As I walked away, I heard her say to Bon, “Do you want to tell me what really happened at school today?”

  I was grateful for the peace and quiet of my room, to know that I had it to myself for at least a little while, without Bon fidgeting in the background. Even if he had left his clothes and, worst of all, yesterday’s underwear, lying all over the carpet. When I thought I’d spent enough time on the maths and language activities Mr Garcia had set us, I walked back up the hallway.

  I could hear Bon’s voice. His own homework was spread across the kitchen table, but he was standing over at the kitchen bench next to Mum. Or rather, he was leaning – not against the benchtop, but against Mum, as though expecting a hug. And he was reading from one of her cookbooks.

  His voice sounded different as he did this – confident, I realised, which surprised me.

  It had the same effect on Mum, because she suddenly told him, “Bon, you’re a good reader. Really good.”

  “It’s because I practise,” he told her, as though stating an obvious fact.

  “I mean it,” she answered. “I thought it’d be something you’d have trouble with. Going to so many different schools can affect the way kids learn sometimes. How many schools have you been to?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. A few.”

  Mum paused and looked at Bon for what seemed like a very long time. “Well,” she said at last, “you can read to me anytime you like. Okay?” And she let the arm Bon was nestling under wrap around his shoulder in the hug I guessed he’d been hoping for.

  “Okay,” he answered. His hair was brushed and neatly plaited, and he would have looked pleased if he hadn’t seen me back in the kitchen again. I looked at his homework and pulled a face. He really did have the messiest writing I’d ever seen. It was scrawled over the lines and answer spaces in a way that I could barely read.


  “That looks really gross,” I remarked. “It’s like a two year old snuck in and scribbled all over the page.”

  “Bon’s finished his homework for Miss McLennan. How’s your homework, Kieran?”

  “All done,” I answered. “And it’s really neat. As usual.”

  Mum smiled at Bon. “Tidy your things away, and then your choice for half an hour before dinner – computer or television.” As he slipped away, Mum turned to me. “You and I need to go outside for a little while. We need to talk.”

  As soon as we were on the back deck, Mum sat down on a bench seat and had me sit beside her. “Kieran,” she said, “you’re not being very nice to Bon.”

  I was expecting a scolding, not this quiet voice.

  “No,” I admitted.

  “Like we said, this is a big change – for all of us. And I can tell you’re not finding it so easy.” Mum waited for me to say something, but when I didn’t, she continued. “As your nan put it, this is not about playing favourites. It’s about giving Bon somewhere he feels safe and somewhere he can be happy. Everybody deserves that, and it’s something Bon needs very much.”

  “Why does he have to sleep in my room?”

  “We’ve been through this before. He’s your cousin. And now he’s very much a part of our lives. You need to share and give a little, Kieran.”

  “Why can’t Gina and I take turns then? Or he can go sleep in the shed; Dad’s got a couch there.”

  “With the lawnmower, the tools and the beer fridge?” She almost laughed at that. “Kieran, our house is just not big enough for him to be anywhere else. Gina’s room is smaller than yours. Bon would have trouble finding space on the floor amongst all the dolls and toy ponies. Would you like to sleep in there?”

  “No,” I snorted.

  “It’s going to be a special thing for Bon to get to know us properly. There’s probably a great deal he’s not had in his life. He and you are the same age, and I think there’s nothing he’d like more than for you to be more than a cousin to him.”

  “What d’you mean?” I asked, looking down at the deck.