Besides, we were only in Year Nine. There was plenty of time for serious stuff when we hit Year Ten. Maybe.
Chris was in Year Twelve when he disappeared. And it was big news at school and in our street.
The rumours had him kidnapped for ransom, taking drugs at Kings Cross and a hundred other ridiculous things, which just proved that no one had a clue where he really was or why he’d just disappear.
I asked Mick what he thought. After all, they were good mates. Chris didn’t have too many close friends – he worked too hard – but we’d lived in the same street all our lives, and you had to get a bit close in that time.
Besides, Chris helped Mick with his homework sometimes, like when there was a big basketball match on and it had to be done in a hurry. So I figured if anyone knew the real truth, Mick would.
Maybe he did, but he wasn’t letting on. When I asked him what he knew, he turned his system up really loud and told me to get out.
He didn’t use those exact words, of course, but that’s what he meant. You get used to translating when you’ve got a brother who’s two and a half years older than you and hormonal and bad-tempered most of the time.
I suppose it was about a week after Chris disappeared that I noticed Mick acting weird. I mean weird even for him.
At first I just thought he had a new girlfriend. I walked in on him in the study while he was on the phone, and he shut up completely until I left the room. There was nothing too unusual in that, but I guess it was the way he was speaking, sort of whispering but really loud, like he was worked up and he didn’t want to shout.
‘It’s not going to work,’ he was saying. ‘I can’t …’
But that was all I heard.
Then he started bolting his bedroom door. No one in our house ever does that. Whatever he was doing in there, he didn’t want anyone walking in on him while he was doing it.
I don’t think Mum noticed. If she did, she wasn’t saying anything.
So I did a bit of spying.
When he was out, I sneaked into his room. You can’t lock the door from the outside, so there was no way he could keep me out.
It’s funny. I’ve been in his room a hundred times when he was out and I never thought anything of it. Everything in our house is open and we’ve never kept any secrets. At least, not up until now. But this time it was different.
I didn’t know what I was looking for, but if he went to all the trouble of locking his door, he wasn’t going to leave whatever he’d been doing out in the open for anyone to see.
Where would he hide something? There weren’t a lot of hiding places in that room.
The robe … nothing; just clothes and the smell of old sneakers.
Under the bed.
There it was: his big sports bag, stuffed in as far as he could push it. It lived behind the door. Why would he go to the trouble of pushing it under there?
I checked it out.
It was full of clothes and food – the kind that doesn’t go off, cans and stuff like that.
Was he planning to disappear too? Or …
I pushed the bag back where I’d found it and ran to phone Sasha.
Have you ever tried following someone without them knowing you’re there? It’s not as easy as it looks on TV. Especially when you’re looking out to make sure no one sees you who might ask why you’re not at school in the middle of the morning.
The hardest part was when Mick decided to catch the train.
We had to wait until he actually got on before we ran out from where we were hiding and jumped into the next carriage. Then we had to watch him through the window in the connecting door, so we’d know when he was ready to get off.
Luckily, he was reading one of his basketball magazines, so he hardly looked up.
I didn’t notice the name of the station when he finally did get off. I was too busy watching his back, waiting for the right moment to jump off and run for cover.
Anyway, we made it, and from then on it wasn’t so hard following him. We passed down a couple of streets and around a couple of corners and suddenly we were in a park. Not a big one. Just a few trees and an old rusty swing-set. And a boy standing beside the fence.
‘Chris!’
That was Sasha.
I saw her brother’s head snap around at the sound of her voice. Mick stopped and turned to face us. He looked confused.
Chris sounded angry … or hurt.
‘What are they doing here? I thought I said —’
‘How do I know? They must have followed me,’ Mick cut in, staring at me with one of those ‘killer looks’ he’s famous for in our T house.
‘It’s not his fault.’ Sasha had moved up to face her brother. She reached out to touch his sleeve. He went to pull away, but stopped himself. ‘We figured that if anyone knew where you were, Mick did, so when Claire found all that stuff in his bag —’
‘You went through my stuff?’ Mick had turned to me when Sash mentioned my name. I didn’t say anything. There wasn’t anything to say.
‘Look, it doesn’t matter. It’s too late to worry about it. They’re here.’ Chris didn’t sound too angry. ‘The question is, what are we going to do now?’
For a moment there was silence, then Sasha spoke. Her voice was quiet and gentle.
‘Why, Chris? What’s wrong? Why did you have to —’
‘Escape?’ Chris finished the question for her.
‘Is that what it is? What was there to “escape” from? Are you in some kind of trouble?’
He just looked at her.
Of course he was in ‘some kind of trouble’. Or he wouldn’t be playing secret agents in some park miles from home.
After about a minute he sat down on the grass and began speaking.
‘Do you have any idea what it’s like to be me?’ He didn’t expect an answer, and no one tried to give him one. He went on.
‘All my life I’ve worked as hard as I knew how. For my teachers, for Mum and Dad … for me even. And I can’t do it any more. But try stopping …’
I got the feeling he wasn’t really talking to us. He was talking to himself, trying to get things in order.
‘Don’t you see? I was trapped. In November it’s all over. They already have everything planned for me. All my subjects, uni, everything. But I can’t do it. Not any more.’
I looked at Sasha. She looked as confused as I was. This was Chris. Chris could do anything. Everyone knew that.
We were in Year Nine, what did we know?
He was talking again.
‘Do you remember the summer science school they sent me to?’ I didn’t, but Sash and Mick both nodded, so I didn’t say anything. ‘That was when I realised. Hard work isn’t going to be enough. Some of the kids there … They just did everything so easily. I can do well, but I can’t ever compete with them. I’m going to let them all down. They want too much from me.’
Suddenly I understood. Here we were getting ready for Year Ten and that was bad enough, but no one expected great things from us. What was it like to be the one everyone looked up to?
He stood up again.
‘The more I try, the less I take in. I feel like I’m burning out.’
‘Did you try talking to them?’ Mick spoke for the first time in ages.
‘To who? My parents? The teachers? Of course I did. But they don’t hear. They have this picture in their head, and they don’t see anything that doesn’t fit in with it. I couldn’t …’ He ran out of words. ‘Look, it’s just something I have to work out for myself.’
‘And what about us?’ Sasha turned on him. ‘OK, so it’s hard, but you can’t just dump us. How do you think Mum feels, or Dad? Or me? We can talk to them. They’ll understand. We can make them. It doesn’t have to be like this.’
Sash and I are the same age, and I’ve always been bigger than her. She looked so small, standing in front of him, but there was something about her at that moment that seemed much older than me.
He looked at he
r, then he shook his head. ‘Not yet. I’m not ready. I have to sort it out.’
He picked up the bag.
‘And what if you don’t sort it out?’ Sash was crying now, my age again.
He looked at her.
‘I’m sorry.’ Then he turned to go.
We both started out after him, but suddenly Mick’s hands were holding us back. I tried to break free, but his arms were stronger than both of us.
I kicked at him and so did Sasha, but he didn’t let go. He wasn’t angry. He just held us until Chris had disappeared into the maze of streets behind the park.
When he finally let go, there was no point in following. Chris was gone.
‘He has to work it out for himself.’
I’d never seen Mick so quiet. He was still my brother, but all the bull was missing. I realised suddenly that he had grown up.
And I hadn’t even noticed.
‘Let’s get back to the train,’ he said, and he started walking. He knew we’d follow.
I was at Sasha’s house a week later when Chris came home.
Our parents knew all about the park and what he’d said and what we’d done.
They were angry with us, of course. Especially with Mick. They grounded him, but he just took it and stayed in his room playing his music and saying nothing.
He didn’t know where Chris was. That was why they’d met at the park: so he wouldn’t know.
He just told our parents what he’d told us. ‘He has to work it out for himself.’
I guess Mick was right. I guess Chris did work it out for himself.
But his parents must have done some working out too.
It must be hard to realise that what you want for your kid isn’t what he wants. I guess it’s easy to push too hard. To expect too much.
Anyway, Chris walked into the kitchen where his mum was. I heard the crash of a plate on the tiles. And I knew it was time to leave before the soppy stuff started.
I waved goodbye to Sash and headed home.
Chris was back. Now they could talk and sort things out.
As I walked home, I thought about all we don’t know about people. Like Chris. Who would have guessed it?
Or Mick. He isn’t such a meat-head after all.
Next year things will start to get serious at school.
But it’s not all that frightening. Not really.
I never realised before how great it is to be just plain average …
THE LONELY PLANET GUIDE TO INTER-DIMENSIONAL TRAVEL
I am easily satisfied with the very best.
Winston Churcmll
SMS
Lijséf_dç
10Ó?ku_hv
uhlhlAkh{z|}
Zcv,bl/izdo_
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‘What the …?’
I was staring at the mobile with a frown. What I was reading made even less sense than things related to Chad usually make. And I’m pretty used to things not making a whole lot of sense when they have anything remotely to do with my devo big brother.
‘You’ve got to stop squinting like that, Sarah,’ my mother said, sneaking up behind me with a washing basket full of damp football jerseys. ‘It’s unladylike.’
She’s immune to ‘searing looks’, of course, but I shot her one anyway. On principle.
‘What do you make of this?’ I asked, moving across to the washing line and shoving the mobile under her nose.
‘Very nice, dear. Is it new?’
‘Not the phone, Mother. The message. Can you understand it?’
She looked down, squinting the way she’d just told me not to. ‘All this text messaging stuff,’ she complained. ‘How you kids can make any sense of it, I don’t know.’
‘That’s the point. I can’t make any sense of it. Chad was in the shower and his phone rang, but when I checked the message, all I got was —’
‘What are you doing reading Chad’s messages?’
‘Hello? I’m his sister. I’m supposed to be doing things like that. It’s expected.’
She shook her head, giving her best what-did-I-ever-do-to-deserve-this? performance. She even rolled her eyes, shook her head and did the big breath-intake, like one of those prom-queen mega-bitches in a third-rate teen comedy. I nearly pointed out that the Oscars weren’t on for another six months, but I was about three seconds away from having to help her hang out the washing, so I chose discretion over valour.
‘Maybe it’s a code,’ I muttered to myself, as I carried the phone back inside the house.
‘Touch my phone again and I’ll … I’ll …’
Chad always has trouble threatening me. It’s easy to threaten other boys. Boys understand threats. But girls, especially younger sisters, even if they are fifty IQ points smarter, at least twice as athletic and only one year younger …
Okay, it isn’t fair. But who said life was supposed to be fair?
Especially for big brothers.
I think there must be a statute somewhere that gives younger sisters the sovereign right to do things to their brothers that no boy would dare to. Because when you’re sixteen and basically decent, and you’d never dream of doing anything remotely in decent to get even with them, you’re basically … well, basically, you’re stuffed.
Chad would go to threaten me, then realise there was really nothing he could threaten me with, so he’d end up standing there like a goose saying, ‘Touch my phone again and I’ll … I’ll …’ and coming up with nothing.
‘And you’ll what?’
I stood there with my hands on my hips for a three-count, showing absolutely no fear. Three is the ideal number. Any less doesn’t have the desired effect; any longer and you enter the realm of diminishing returns.
Then I skipped out of the room, tossing the phone onto the bed as I went.
Chad was always football mad. Well, from the time he was twelve years old, at least. That was when the entire Parramatta first-grade team had come to train on the school oval as a publicity stunt and they’d let him do the ‘ball-boy’ thing.
He’s big for his age. Which is the reason he ended up playing front-row, even though he really wanted to play half-back.
‘Not that it matters,’ I used to point out. ‘When you play for the worst team in the history of the sport, it really makes no difference where you play. Full-back, right-wing … or left right out!’
The Stranglers. Amil Chopra had thought up the name.
Amil didn’t play rugby. He played badminton – really badly too.
Amil reckoned watching the team run around getting beaten was funny. So funny that everyone on the sideline was choking with laughter.
Choking … The Stranglers …
Okay, Amil had a lousy sense of humour, but somehow the name had stuck. And now they wore it like a badge of shame.
At the Glass Factory
As soon as Sarah leaves the room, Chad picks up the phone, twists the stubby antenna three turns to the right, then two to the left, and presses the zero.
The screen turns bright red, which makes him blink as he reads the message:
MEETNG ARRANGD
B AT ASSMBLY POINT
AT 0200 WTH OTHERS
SHP LEAVES 0205
WILL NOT WAIT
He looks down at the phone and thinks of Xzaltar, and a smile sneaks slowly over his face.
At one-thirty in the morning, Sarah hears footsteps outside her room. Then Chad stubs his toe on the cupboard at the top of the stairs, and the next few seconds consist of a whispered monologue which could have been lifted directly from a Quentin Tarantino movie.
The swearing gradually recedes until finally the front door clicks closed. From her bedroom window Sarah watches him sneaking out of the front gate, then turning left, which can mean only one thing – Sam Greenberg.
Chad and Sam have been friends since the second day of primary school. Sam is in the Stranglers because no other team would let him play – the same reason most of the boys are in the team.
Sam’s dad coaches the team – or tries to. It isn’t easy.
As she watches her brother disappearing around the corner, she can’t let an opportunity like this slip by. She dresses quickly and takes the stairs two at a time, silent in her padded sports socks.
Closing the front door quietly, she slips on her sneakers and moves out into the cold night air, watching her breath steam out in front of her as she breaks into a jog.
Inside the old glass factory, the shadows cling around the walls as if they, too, are nervous.
A hesitant beam of moonlight struggles through the murky skylight in the high roof, falling like a pale spotlight in the centre of the vast open space and making it seem somehow colder. A few candles cast flickering spots of illumination into the gloom of the huge structure, but their feeble light fails to make it above shoulder height, and only serves to give the solid shadows a more sinister presence.
Sarah watches through the window as the boys begin to arrive. Chad and Sam and the Jackson brothers, Danny and Pete, stand by the wall. Perry Richards is throwing a tennis ball up in the air and trying to catch it as it falls back down out of the darkness. Snitch and Sunil are laughing quietly about something – which probably has something do with some lame computer game.
The others arrive in ones and twos from all directions, until finally the whole team is assembled.
Fifteen boys without an ounce of athletic talent between them. Fifteen boys who are tired of being called losers.
The Lonely Planet Guide
I watched them through the filthy glass of the window, trying to figure out what they were planning. The old factory was huge and empty, and the space where they were standing was big enough for playing a game of football – or landing a good-sized spaceship.
Which is exactly what Xzaltar did.
Standing on the windowsill to get a better view, I watched the boys spreading out around the walls.
What are you up to?
The thought had barely formed when suddenly the air began to ripple, then glow red, then a huge silver egg appeared out of nowhere.
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