Underdogs: Three Novels

by Markus Zusak

  By half-past eigh decided I should get going. As I moved away, I scuffed the ground and Rube looked up and saw me, or at least an edge of me.

  “Oi!” he called, and he came toward me. I froze. “What are y’ doin’ here, Cam?”

  I shoved my hands in my pockets. “I don’t know.”

  We met under a streetlight that poured over the street. It was the only light on it.

  “He’s late,” my brother said. A long time elapsed before I answered.

  “Maybe we should have it ou

  t instead.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  Rube scanned the street for any more people but it was still deserted. He looked back at me and said, “Have what out?”

  “You and me and Octavia and the kitchen and Scraps — how’s that for a start?” I said the words quickly. Instantly.

  “I don’t have time for that tonight, Cam.”

  “Fair enough,” and I started walking off. My feet scraped the road. “When you and me are important enough, let me know.”

  A fair way up the street, I heard him call out.

  “Cameron!”

  I turned. “What?”

  “Get back here.”

  And I walked back to my brother and said it all. We stood under the streetlight that showered over us. My words were fists and I threw them at my brother. There was no hesitation. “Why’d y’ have to do it, Rube? Tell me. Why did you have to ruin my first chance — my first chance ever?” The combination of words lunged at my brother, hitting him in the face.

  He took them well and came back. “I don’t know, okay!”

  “Yes you do.”

  The light seemed even brighter now. No place to hide.

  “All right,” he said angrily, conceding. He looked at the ground, as though he were reading it, checking the sentences over before he said them. “I just — bloody hell, Cam — I didn’t want you to have her.”

  “That’s it?” I was incensed. “Why the hell not!?”

  “Because …” He shifted feet. “You’d treat her so sickeningly bloody good, Cam, and I’d have to look at her as she compared us and thought about what a bastard I am. Okay?” My brother’s eyes sank into mine. “That good enough for

  I let the realization of that kick in. It took a while. Eventually, when I went to speak, Rube beat me to it. He said, “I didn’t know she’d get the hell out of there so fast either. How could I know that, Cam? … Do you think I haven’t been walkin’ round hating myself? Of course I have.”

  We stood there.

  Should I have pitied him, or hated him?

  So long went by and finally, I realized it was me who had to break the silence. Everything was changing, on a quiet back street, with no one but ourselves to watch.

  I said, “You were always the one, Rube. You always got the girls.” I looked him flatly in the face. “But not one of those girls ever got you. They got your filthy good looks, your hands, and everything else you wear, but they never got you. You’re too busy taking to give anything….”

  An even more penetrating silence arrived then, and I knew it was time to leave.

  Rube remained a few paces away from me, shocked by what he’d heard, or actually, not that he’d heard it, but that someone else had told him exactly what he’d been trying to tell himself for a long time but refused to hear.

  Just before I left, I said, “You weren’t only my brother, Rube — you were my best friend.”

  He nodded then, and I could see emotion welling in his eyes.

  “I’ll see y’ then.”

  “Yeah,” he spoke quietly. “I’ll see y’ later,” and I walked off. Not triumphant or successful. Just satisfied that what needed to be done was finished.

  At the top of the street, I called back one last time.

  “Y’ comin’ home?”

  Rube shook his head. “No, I’m waitin’ a bit longer.”

  With that, I turned back onto the street that belonged to the world — the one leading to the train yard seemed removed, like it was its own entity. As I walked, I imagined the shadow of Rube, still leaning against the fence, waiting. One of his feet would be up against the wire and his breath would be going smoky in the winter air.

  When I made it home, I didn’t do too much at all. I thought about our conversation and started reading a book for school. Not one word made it inside me.

  The night went on and I resolved to wait up for Rube. I fell asleep on the couch a few times, and when everyone else went to bed they woke me and told me to go as well. I wanted to keep hating him, but as the hours went by, a strange determination kept growing inside. No matter how much I hated him, I was determined to see Rube come walking through the front door. Don’t ask me why, but I needed to see it.

  I wanted to see

  Unmarked.

  Unbruised.

  I wanted to hear his voice tell me to get up as he went past.

  But that night, my brother Rube didn’t come home.

  It was just past midnight when I woke up with a silent start. My eyes opened and the yellow light from the lounge room sliced me through the eyes.

  I was hit twice by one thought.

  Rube.

  Rube.

  His name was repeated in me as I scissored off the couch and walked slowly into our room. I was hoping against hope that he would be in there, sprawled out across his bed. The darkness of the hall captured me. The creaking floorboards gave me away. Then, as the door crept open, I sent my eyes into the room, ahead of me. It was empty.

  I turned the light on and shivered. It blinded me and I realized. I was going back out, to the night.

  In the lounge room, I pulled my shoes on as quietly as possible, slipped my jacket back on, and headed for the kitchen, toward the front door. A pale light from the moon was numb in the sky. I was out in the uncertain coldness of the street.

  A bad feeling intensified in my stomach.

  It made its way to my throat.

  Soon, as I walked fast to the old train yard, I could feel it gathering on its way through me. There were drunk people who made me edge out onto the road. Cars sped toward me with the brightness of their lights, then passed and faded away.

  My hands sweated inside my jacket pockets. My feet were cold inside the warmth of my shoes.

  “Hey boy,” a voice slung out to me. I avoided it. I pushed past the guy who said it and broke into a run and had the street leading to the train yard in sight.

  When I made it there, I could feel my heartbeat’s hands, ripping me open.

  The street.

  Was empty.

  It was empty and dark except for the widening light of the moon that seemed to spray down on each forgotten corner of the city. I could smell something. Fear.

  I could taste it now.

  It tasted like blood in my mouth, and I could feel it slide through me and open me up when I saw him….

  There was a figure sitting down, crooked, against the fence.

  Something told me Rube didn’t sit like that.

  I called his name, but I could barely hear it. There was a giant pounding in my ears that kept everything else ou

  Again, I called, “Rube!?”

  The closer I got, the more I knew it was him. My brother was slumped against the fence and I could see the blood flooding his jacket, his jeans, and the front of his old flanno.

  His hands gripped the fence.

  The look on his face was something I’d never seen on him before.

  I knew what it was because I was feeling it myself.

  It was the fear.

  It was fear, and Ruben Wolfe had never been afraid of anything or anyone in his life, until now. Now he was sitting alone in the city and I knew that one person alone couldn’t have done this to him. I imagined them holding him down and taking turns. His face almost made its way into a smile when he saw me, and like a breeze through the silence, he said to me blankly:

  “Hey Cam. Thanks for com
in’.”

  The pulse in my ears subsided and I crouched down to my brother.

  I could tell he’d dragged himself to this position on the fence. There was a small trail of blood smeared to a rusty color on the cement. It looked like he’d climbed two yards when it was too much and he couldn’t go on. I had never seen Ruben Wolfe defeated.

  “Well,” he shuddered, “I guess they got me good, huh? You must be glad….”

  I ignored his comment. I had to get him home. He was shivering uncontrollably. “Can you get up?”

  He smiled again. “Of course.”

  Rube still had that smile perched on his lips when he staggered up the fence and collapsed. I caught him and held him up. He slipped through me and fell facedown, holding on to the road.

  The city was swollen. The sky was still numb.

  Ruben Wolfe was facedown on the road with his brother standing there, helpless and afraid, next to him.

  “You’ve gotta help me, Cam,” he said. “I can’t move.” He pleaded with me. “I can’t move.”

  I turned him over and saw the concussion that surrounded him. There wasn’t as much blood as I’d originally thought, but his face was brutalized by the night sky that fell on him and made him real.

  I dragged him back to the fence, propped him up, and lifted him. Again, he nearly collapsed, and when we started walking, I knew he wasn’t going to make it.

  “I’m sorry, Cam,” he whispered. “I’m sorry.”

  “We’ll just get y’ home, ay.”

  “No,” he said, hanging on to me. “Not sorry for this — sorry for everything.” His expression swallowed me.

  “Okay,” I said. “We’re okay.”

  That was when relief seemed to wash over him and he fell to the ground. Maybe that was the sweetest punch — and the final defeat. “We’re okay, huh?” I had never heard a person so happy in this condition.

  We’d traveled only about five yards from the fence.

  I rested for a minute as my brother continued lying on his back….

  As the moon was smothered by a cloud, I slid my arms beneath my brother’s back and legs and picked him up. I was holding Rube in my arms and carried him up the deserted street.

  On the way home, my arms ached and I think Rube fell unconscious, but I couldn’t rest. I couldn’t put him down. I had to make it home.

  People watched us.

  Rube’s tough curly hair hung down toward the ground.

  Some extra blood landed on the footpath. It dripped from Rube onto me and then onto the path. It was Rube’s blood. It was my blood. Wolfes’ blood.

  There was a hurt somewhere far down inside me, but I walked on. I had to. I knew that if I stopped carrying him it would be harder to keep going.

  “Is he all right?” a young party-going sort of guy asked. I could only nod and continue walking. I wouldn’t stop until Rube was in his bed and I was standing over him, protecting him from the night, and from the dreams that would wake him in the hours until morning.

  The last turn onto our street finally came and I lifted him in one last effort. He moaned.

  “Come on, Rube,” I said. “We’re gonna make it,” and when I think about it now, I don’t understand how I made it that far. He was my brother. Yes, that was it. He was my brother.

  At our gate, I used one of Rube’s feet to free the latch and walked up the porch steps.

  “The door,” I said, louder than I’d wanted to, and after putting him down on the porch, I opened the flyscreen, got my key in, and turned back to face him. My brother. My brother Rube, I thought, and my eyes ached.

  As I walked back toward him, my arms throbbed, and my spine climbed my back. When I picked him up again, we nearly fell together into the wall.

  On the way through the house, I managed to jam one of Rube’s knees into a door frame, and by the time I got us into our room, Sarah was standing there, sleepy-eyed until terror strangled her face.

  “What the hell —”

  “Quiet,” I said. “Just help me.”

  She stripped the blanket off Rube’s bed and I placed him down on it. My arms were on fire as I took his jacket and flanno off, leaving him in his jeans and boots.

  He was cut up and badly bruised. A few ribs were swollen and one of his eyes was pitch-black. Even his knuckles were bleeding. He got a few good ones in, I thought, but all of that meant nothing now.

  We stood there. Sarah looked from Rube to me, recognizing his blood on the arms of my jacket. She cried.

  The light was off now but the hall light was on.

  We could feel someone else arrive and I knew it was Mrs. Wolfe. Without even looking, I could picture the hurt expression on her face.

  “He’ll be okay,” I managed to say, but she didn’t leave. She came toward us as Rube’s voice fought its way next to me.

  His hand came out from under the blanket and held on to mine.

  “Thanks,” he said. “Thanks, brother.”

  The pale light hit me from the window. My heart howled.

  THE EYES HAVE IT

  I see myself standing on a city street, where a flood of people crowds toward me. Somehow, I manage to stay still, and I soon realize that all of these people are faceless. A blankness shrouds their eyes and they have no expression at all.

  It’s only when I begin to walk, through the gaps, against the flow, that I notice that some of the faces have actually kept their form.

  At one point, I see Sarah, finding her own way through, and at another, I see my father, and Mrs. Wolfe, walking together, holding hands.

  A long way off, I see Octavia.

  I don’t see her face, because she’s going in the same direction as me. I see only her hair, and her neck and shoulders through the crowd.

  Of course, like before, my first instinct is to go after her — but immediately, I stop. I stop and look to my right and see my reflection, even though there’s no mirror or glass to speak of. There’s only a concrete wall, but I’m able to see myself.

  I see my eyes.

  They’re eyes of hunger and desire. They tell me:

  Don’t move from here — not yet.

  They ask me:

  Are you okay, Cameron?

  I think about it and take a good look at me. I look at my boyish arms, my dirty fingers, and wanting face. I look at the eyes, and I see the hunger and desire, growing and feeding, determined to make me worthwhile, to be somebody, on my own.

  And I nod.

  I can move on now, because here, at this moment, no matter how fragile it might be, I can feel okayness growing inside me.

  The funny thing is that okayness is not a real word. It’s not in the dictionary.

  But it’s in me.

  CHAPTER 19

  I’ll give it to him.

  Rube actually got up the next morning and went to work with Dad and me. He was bruised and still prone to constant bleeding, but he still showed up and worked as hard as he could. I don’t think there are many people who could take a beating like that and get up the next day and work.

  That was Rube.

  There isn’t anything else I can say to explain it.

  Everyone woke up in the morning when he and Dad argued, but once it was over, that was it. Mrs. Wolfe asked, or actually, begged Rube to stay in at night more often, and there was no way he’d be arguing with that. He agreed completely and we filed out to the car and left. In the car, I could smell him — there was disinfectant on all his cuts.

  It was mid-afternoon when Rube finally asked about some of the hazier details of the previous night.

  “So how far was it, Cam?” His words came and stood in front of me. They wanted the truth.

  I stopped work. “How far what?”

  “You know.” He caught himself in my eyes. “How far did you carry me last night?”

  “A fair way.”

  “All the way?”

  I nodded.

  “I’m sorry,” he went to say, but we both knew it wasn’t needed.


  “Forget about it,” I said.

  The rest of the afternoon passed by pretty quickly. I watched Rube work at times and knew that somehow he’d be all right. He was just that type. If he was alive, he’d be all right.

  “What are y’ lookin’ at?” he asked me later, when he saw me watching him and wondering about it.

  “Nothin’.”

  We even afforded a laugh, especially me, because I decided I had to stop being caught when I was watching people. Watching people isn’t really a bad habit in my opinion. It’s the getting caught I need to cut out.

  When we got home, there was a present waiting for me, on my desk in Rube’s and my room. It was an old gray typewriter with black keys. I stopped and looked at it from a few steps away.

  “You like it?” came a voice from behind. “I saw it in a secondhand shop and had to buy it.” She smiled and touched the back of my arm. “It’s yours, Cam.”

  I walked to it and touched it. My fingers ran along the keys and I felt it under me.

  “Thank you.” I turned around and faced her. “Thanks, Sarah. It’s beautiful.”

  Later on, Sarah was on the phone for a while, talking to Steve. His semifinal was on the next day and everyone decided on going. What I didn’t count on was Steve coming down to our place later that night.

  I was on the front porch when his car pulled up and he walked toward me. He stood there.

  “Hi Cam.”

  “Hi Steve.”

  I stood up and we both watched each other. I remembered the last time we’d spoken down here. Tonight, though, Steve’s face was shattered, like it was at the oval, way back at the start of winter.

  “I heard what happened last night,” he began. “Sarah told me on the phone.”

  “You came to see Rube?” I asked. “He’s in bed, but I’d say he’s still awake.” I went to open the door, but Steve didn’t go in.

  He stayed in front of me and didn’t move.

  “What?” I asked. “What?”

  His voice was abrupt, but quiet. “I didn’t come here to see Rube — I came to see you.” He adjusted his eyes slightly. More respectful. “Sarah told me you carried him home from the old train yard….”