by John Larkin
He’d told Helen that he was going to York the following day—he just couldn’t bring himself to lie to her. What he hadn’t told her, though, was that he was going overland. Nor had he informed her that he would be lugging an old laptop computer with him in order to communicate with a ghost when he got there. And he’d totally failed to mention that he and the ghost would be performing some sort of exorcism once they’d worked out a plan. Helen thought he was going to try and talk his dad and Ducky into coming home—fat chance of that. But it was not a thought Brendan wanted to discourage, especially since telling her the truth would probably see him banished from her arms forever and into the loony bin.
Brendan pedalled up the Wongs’ driveway and parked his bike against the side of the house. He knocked on the door and was immediately bustled into the lounge room by Helen’s younger brother and sister, Robert and Karen. They went to great lengths to keep him entertained while Helen and her parents finished making dinner.
After finding Wally for about the millionth time, Brendan was relieved about half an hour later when they were summoned to the dinner table.
Despite strong protests from Robert and Karen, who wanted him to sit between them, Brendan sat next to Helen. And although he had trouble focusing his eyes with Wally practically burnt into his retina, he figured that as long as he didn’t do a Blow-wave and puke, he couldn’t fail to make a good impression on Mr and Mrs Wong. He’d only spoken to them on the phone before. This was the first time he’d actually met them so he was feeling a bit nervous.
During the first course, Helen put her hand on Brendan’s knee, causing him to almost choke on a piece of sweet corn. He had to hold her hand to stop her from squeezing his knee and making him kick out involuntarily in the direction of her parents.
While it felt great to be holding Helen’s hand through dinner, he wasn’t sure what Mr and Mrs Wong would think about such and open display of affection.
‘So, Brendan,’ said Mr Wong, breaking a rather awkward silence. ‘Helen tells us that you’d like to get inside her blouse. That’s nice.’
Brendan closed his eyes and hoped that when he opened them he’d be back home in bed. He opened them. He wasn’t.
What had Helen been telling them? Her parents couldn’t be this open, surely, not in front of Karen and Robert. Brendan almost spat out his mouthful of soup. Maybe Blow-wave had been provoked.
‘I’m sorry, Mr Wong,’ said Brendan. ‘I didn’t quite hear you.’
‘I said that Helen tells us she’s been inside your house and that it’s very nice.’
‘Oh, yeah,’ said Brendan, totally relieved. ‘It’s next to the beach. Handy for surfing and all that.’ Phew!
‘Brendan?’ said Mrs Wong as he tried to come to terms with eating a chicken drumstick with cutlery. ‘According to Helen, you swim like you’ve got a fire cracker up your arse.’
Brendan almost burst out laughing. She didn’t—couldn’t have said that, could she? What the hell was wrong with his ears? He gave Mrs Wong a blank look.
‘I said, according to Helen you swim really, really fast.’
‘Don’t embarrass him, Mum!’ interrupted Helen.
Brendan, relieved that Helen had saved him, moved in for the kill on the drumstick. Finally, after manoeuvring it between some potatoes and a mound of pumpkin, he thought he had it cornered. The chicken, though, had other ideas. As Brendan stabbed it with his fork, it leapt into the air, did a triple somersault, and finally landed in Mr Wong’s wine glass with the sort of splash that would have made a Mexican cliff diver proud.
‘If you wanted your chicken marinated,’ said Mr Wong, fishing the dripping leg out of his glass, ‘you should have said.’
‘Err, sorry.’ Brendan was totally embarrassed and wondered if they’d take a cash settlement to forget the whole incident.
‘My uncle once tried to breed five-legged chickens,’ said Brendan, thinking that a gag might ease the tension that he was feeling.
‘What did they taste like?’ Helen knew the joke.
‘Dunno,’ said Brendan, ‘we could never catch them.’
Everyone broke into a long, loud silence. A silence that consumed the room and engulfed Brendan’s very being. Just when he was wondering if it was possible to commit suicide with a couple of wellplaced snowpeas, Mrs Wong burst out laughing.
She had an infectious laugh and soon everybody was cracking up. Even Ruskie, the Wongs’ cocker spaniel, could see the gag and jumped up onto Brendan’s lap, obviously hoping that the humour currently being displayed would be enough to secure him a piece of dead bird.
Brendan thought about capitalising on the gag by telling them about the time his mum had served octopus for Christmas dinner, but decided to quit while he was ahead. And seeing that the Wongs had had McDonald’s for their last Christmas dinner, it was probably a smart move.
After dinner Brendan helped Mr Wong to wash up. Unfortunately, he smashed a china teapot into about three million pieces. Brendan’s noble offer to go home and get his extra strong super glue was brushed aside by Mr Wong, who suggested that Brendan’s presence might be better suited to the tv room.
Brendan was forced to find Wally a few hundred more times before Helen finally saved him.
‘Mum. Brendan and I are going into my room to play with my chest.’
Now Helen was doing it. What had gone wrong with his ears?
Brendan followed Helen into her room, where she immediately took out her chess set.
‘Did you just tell your mum we were coming in here to play with your chess set?’
‘Yeah,’ said Helen, ‘something like that. Why?’
‘Doesn’t matter!’ said Brendan. ‘You got any ear-buds?’ he added quietly.
Their chess battles were practically legendary. When they were going out before, one of their games in Brendan’s room lasted about five hours. This was partially due to their equal skill level, but mostly to the fact that Brendan wanted Helen to stay longer and kept sneaking pieces back onto the board when she wasn’t looking.
Brendan hadn’t been very good at chess until he’d met her. He had a copy of Battlechess on his computer, but only used to play it to watch the pieces beat the living crap out of each other. But when he saw that Helen was pretty good he’d practised fairly hard on Battlechess with the graphics turned off. He’d heard it said that love could do strange things to a guy, but never had it been suggested that it could make them remove the graphics capabilities on Battlechess. Weird.
‘Helen?’ Brendan was setting up his favourite defensive rooking manoeuvre that usually kept her at bay for about an hour. ‘You said at the swimming carnival that you’d tell me why you gave me the flick. Cause I’m stuffed if I can work it out.’
‘You really wanna know?’
‘Yeah,’ said Brendan. ‘I think I do.’
‘Michelle Pender,’ said Helen.
Michelle Pender? What did she have to do with it? Sure, she was a bit of a babe, but she was a permanent fixture in Brains’ dreams, not Brendan’s. His dream girl was lying on the floor in front of him about to put some heavy pressure on one of his knights.
Helen looked up at him and correctly interpreted the blank look on his face. ‘Do you remember that school excursion we went on to the museum last year, when we didn’t have to wear our uniforms?’
‘Yeah,’ said Brendan, unsure if she’d dumped him because he’d made some cutting remark about the way a mummy had styled its hair.
‘Do you remember what Michelle Pender wore that day?’
Huh! What Michelle Pender wore? He didn’t have a clue. How could he? What was she getting at? Wait a minute, didn’t she wear those really tight jeans that were practically painted on? Yeah, yeah, right.
‘I see that you do,’ said Helen, again interpreting his smile correctly. ‘You couldn’t take your eyes off her. And do you remember a little remark you made out loud so that the whole bus could hear?’
This time he was stumped. ‘No.’
/> ‘Something about wanting to come back in the next life as a pair of Levis, wasn’t it?’ said Helen.
Oh yeah. Not one of his greats but not bad under the circumstances. ‘So is that all I did wrong?’
‘All? How would you feel if I carried on like that?’
Brendan thought for a minute. Yeah. He’d feel pretty ticked off if she perved at some guy that way. ‘But you went out with Blow-wave.’
‘Only to get you jealous.’
‘You mean you didn’t like him?’
‘I’ve got better taste than that. He’s just a tanned bicep. He thinks all he has to do is click his fingers and he can get any girl he wants. He’s nothing but a bimbo.’
‘But didn’t he come here for Christmas dinner?’
‘No! Where’d you hear that?’ said Helen as she did some major damage to one of his bishops with her queen.
Hmmm. The old Year 9 rumour mill had stuffed it up again.
‘He only came over once, uninvited as well. I tried to teach him how to play chess; it would’ve been easier to teach a snake to juggle tennis rackets, because all he was interested in was trying to get his tongue down my throat.’
‘Gross!’
‘Exactly.’
Brendan lay back against Helen’s bed while she worked on her next move. So that was it. She didn’t even like Blow-wave, and had put up with the creep to make him jealous. Well, her plan worked. But he’d got her back now and he intended to keep her. Have to watch himself though. He couldn’t let her catch him looking at other girls no matter how hot they were. Maybe he’d buy an extremely dark pair of glasses so she couldn’t see his eyes. He’d also keep his witty remarks to himself until he was alone with the boys. That was the way to go. Or maybe he’d simply change his attitude and stop talking about becoming a nineties guy and actually start being one. Yeah, keep his eyes just for Helen and stop gawking at other girls.
‘Your turn,’ said Helen, looking up at him.
Brendan picked up his remaining rook and slid it down the board. And with some great support from his bishop and knight, casually announced that it was checkmate.
He leaned back against her bed again as Helen tried to come to terms with his latest move. He would have preferred to slip on his sunglasses and light a cigarette to support his coolness. But seeing that his glasses were at home and he didn’t want cancer, he’d have to try and carry off the look without any props.
He’d keep his eyes just on Helen. She was the best. And let’s face it, when you were in love with the Mona Lisa, why would you even want to look at a sketch-a-graph?
Helen packed her chess set away and walked him to the door. He wanted to get an early start the next day so he needed some serious zzzzzz’s.
Brendan held her hand tight on the front step. He wanted to tell her he loved her, needed her, that he had to be with her forever, for better or for worse and all that sort of stuff. Instead he gave her a kiss on the cheek and said, ‘Later, babe.’
Brendan picked up his bike and wheeled it down the drive. He was keeping his cards to his chest this time. Those poker guys knew a few things about human nature all right. Don’t reveal your hand, keep your cards to yourself, know when to fold ’em, and all that.
Wait a minute.
He dropped his bike, ran back down the path and knocked on the door. When Helen answered he gave her a huge bear hug and planted about a thousand kisses on her face and forehead.
‘I love you forever, Helen Wong.’
‘Me too,’ said Helen, still a bit shocked.
Ten minutes later Brendan said goodbye for the second time that night, picked up his bike and pedalled off.
Poker players! What did a bunch of morons who sat around drinking and smoking with not a babe in sight know about anything?
Chapter 23
The following morning after his mother had gone to work, Brendan dragged his body out of bed and slowly threw some things in his backpack. He had all the essentials for crossing the Nullarbor Plain: sunglasses, walkman, some 15 plus sunscreen, an apple, and of course the laptop. Maybe a map might have come in handy. But then again, how wrong could you go? Just keep on heading west seemed to be the deal. If all else failed he’d just follow the sun.
There was a note on the coffee table from his mum. It told him to enjoy himself and that sort of stuff. She’d also left him forty dollars. She thought he was going on a surf camp. Brains had even reluctantly typed out a permission note that she eventually signed.
He locked up the house, went out the back and picked up his surfboard. First stop Brains’ house to dump his board. Worst luck: it was raining.
An hour after leaving Brains’ house, Brendan found himself on Central station waiting for his train.
Brains had given Brendan another long lecture on the dangers of hitchhiking. He then went totally feral when he realised Brendan didn’t even have a clue which way to go.
Brains had dragged out an old map of Australia and together they finally managed to work out the best highways to take. Brains reckoned the best plan of attack was for Brendan to catch a train out of Sydney and up to Katoomba or Blackheath and then hitch from there and hey, why didn’t he come too.
‘What? Are you nuts?’ Brendan had said when he realised Brains was serious. ‘You’ve never done anything spontaneous in your life. And what about your parents?’
‘I’ll tell them I’m going on a maths camp.’
‘A maths camp? What the hell is that? What would you do there? Sit round counting tents? At least my mum thinks I’ll be having some fun.’
Brains quickly packed his own bag with maps, compasses, sensible clothes, energy bars and drink bottles. In fact, all the dull, boring things that a person would need to cross the Nullarbor Plain.
Brendan tried to talk him out of tagging along, but Brains was having none of it. He reckoned Brendan needed him. And judging from the contents of his own backpack, Brendan had to admit that Brains had a point.
He’d stood awestruck in the kitchen as Brains bamboozled his mother with equations, notes and excuses as to why he needed fifty dollars for the week-long camp that she’d forgotten all about.
‘Here!’ said Brains, breaking into Brendan’s thoughts. ‘Our train’s coming, so eat this. We’ll need the energy.’
Brendan looked at the Mars Bar that Brains was holding out. Energy? They weren’t going to be walking across the Nullarbor. With any luck they’d pick up a Perth-bound eighteen wheeler and spend the entire journey in the sleeping cabin listening to their walkmans and trucker stories. But when Brains got his mind wrapped round something, it was hard to shake him back to reality.
They jumped on the train and settled back to enjoy the ride up to the Blue Mountains. Brains busied himself working out a budget for their journey. Brendan fell asleep.
About an hour and a half after leaving Central, their train pulled into Katoomba. The train terminated there so Brendan and Brains hauled on their backpacks and joined the swelling throng of tourists who were bounding off the train eager to do healthy things.
Most of the other tourists would probably spend the day clambering down nature trails, wading through streams, swatting flies and generally falling over each other. Brendan and Brains had bigger fish to fry and headed off in the opposite direction—towards the highway.
‘Why’s it called the Great Western Highway?’ said Brendan as they excitedly stuck out their thumbs for the first time.
‘Well,’ said Brains, ‘it’s a highway, it’s great, and it heads west.’
Brendan couldn’t see what was so great about it. It was just a road as far as he was concerned.
As cars raced by their outstretched thumbs, Brendan noticed that a lot of the drivers seemed to get involved in a sort of cryptic game of charades with them. Brendan reckoned you probably had to be a seasoned hitchhiker in order to accurately interpret the puzzling messages. But the general idea appeared to be that the drivers were saying that they’d normally pick them up but the
y were only going a bit further down the road.
After about an hour, Brendan slumped down on his backpack a bit dejected. ‘Maybe this was a dumb idea. I mean, you’re right: hitchhiking is really dangerous.’
‘We’ll be okay. Most of the motorists on the road are normal, caring people.’
‘In Sydney? You must be kidding!’
‘We’re not in Sydney any more.’
‘Just my luck there’s probably an axe murderers’ convention in Lithgow this weekend.’
‘Axe murderers do not hold conventions,’ said Brains. ‘Although if they did, I agree with you—Lithgow would be an ideal location.’
‘Look, Brendan! Stop being so negative. I’m enjoying myself.’
Brendan looked at Brains in awe. They were stuck on the side of the road. Drivers kept making suggestive gestures at them, it was cold, and it was starting to rain again. Brains was enjoying himself? Brendan made a mental note to get him out more.
A honk of a horn yanked Brendan out of his thoughts.
‘C’mon, dude!’ yelled Brains, totally excited. ‘We’re in luck.’
They quickly climbed into the car’s back seat, shut the door and introduced themselves.
‘Where you young fellas off to?’ The driver had introduced himself as Bob. He was so old that scientists would probably be quite interested in carbon dating his birth certificate.
‘York,’ said Brains.
‘The one in England or the new one in America?’ said Bob as he pulled out from the kerb in a move that suggested he’d somehow managed to survive his ninety or so years without once either indicating or looking over his shoulder.
‘Neither,’ said Brains. ‘There’s another one in Western Australia.’
Brendan didn’t know a great deal about driving. But he was fairly sure that the gears shouldn’t be making that noise. He would also have bet that you were probably meant to have gone further than ten metres before putting it into fourth. Clearly Brains’ comment that they were ‘in luck’ had been a bit hasty.