Now, only four months later, they stopped halfway down her ankles.
Keith stared.
Blimey, he thought. Swollen spinal fluid couldn’t make that much difference. Either she’s grown or those jeans have shrunk.
He glanced down at his own jeans and saw he was wearing the pair he’d ripped that day.
Just like old times.
Except his were still a perfect fit.
Which come to think of it was a bit strange.
He tried to think how his jeans could have got stretched. A power surge at the laundromat? Mum hanging them to dry over the bath with marbles in the pockets?
Then another possibility hit him.
Keith stared into Mum’s bathroom mirror.
As usual all he could see was the top two-thirds of his face.
As usual the bottom of the mirror chopped him off under his nose like a badly-framed photograph.
Just like it had the first time he’d stood in front of it, three months ago.
He remembered how on that occasion he’d decided the previous tenant must have been a giant, or a circus artiste who liked to wear his stilts around the flat, and that was why the bathroom cabinet was so high on the wall.
The thought had made him smile, which had made him look strange in the mirror because he hadn’t been able to see his mouth, just his twinkling eyes.
He still couldn’t see his mouth.
Not even a bit of it.
Not even three months later.
And his eyes weren’t twinkling at all now.
Keith burst into his bedroom at Dad’s and gasped air into his aching lungs.
He’d never run non-stop from Mum’s before.
But then he’d never had anything this urgent to double-check before.
Still panting, he went over to the boxes of tinned pineapple stacked beside the wardrobe.
Here goes, he thought.
He stood with his back against the boxes and ran the palm of his hand over the top of his head.
It was as he’d feared.
He was exactly the same height as the stack.
He turned desperately and counted the boxes.
The stack was still only four boxes high.
Exactly as he and Dad had made it three months ago because Dad had reckoned a kid shouldn’t have piles of tinned pineapple in his room that were taller than he was, partly because of the danger of them falling on him and partly because of the scary shadows big stacks throw at night.
Keith felt more scared now than he ever had from tinned pineapple shadows.
Because this confirms it, he thought, heart pounding.
I’ve stopped growing.
‘Aunty Bev, wake up.’
Keith tried the door again but it was definitely locked.
He wondered if Mum would mind him forcing her bedroom door open with the bread knife seeing as this was an emergency.
Before he could decide, he heard Aunty Bev moving around inside the room.
‘Hang on,’ she called.
Keith heard what sounded like the rustle of tissue boxes and the hiss of spray cans and the click of plastic lids.
Then Aunty Bev opened the door.
‘G’day Keith,’ she smiled.
Even though Keith was nearly frantic, he couldn’t help gawking.
He’d never seen anyone who’d just been asleep for five hours in such good shape.
Her hair wasn’t sticking out.
There were no pillow creases in her face.
He couldn’t even see any dried dribble at the corners of her mouth.
Perhaps beauticians are trained to sleep sitting up, he thought, like camels.
‘Anything the matter?’ asked Aunty Bev.
Keith hesitated for a moment.
He felt a flash of embarrassment at the thought of blurting out his problem to someone he’d only met twice.
It’s OK, he told himself. She’s a professional. It’s like going to the doctor.
‘What can stop a person growing?’ he asked. ‘A person my age?’
Aunty Bev looked at him and frowned.
Keith hoped she wouldn’t want to examine him physically.
‘Hormones,’ she said. ‘If they’re out of balance they can play havoc with your growth patterns.’
Keith knew that couldn’t be it because he didn’t have any hormones yet. Hormones made your voice go funny like Dennis Baldwin’s and his voice was still normal.
‘What else?’ he asked.
‘Food,’ said Aunty Bev. ‘The more food you have the bigger you get. If you stop eating, you stop growing.’
Can’t be that, thought Keith. I get heaps of food with Dad being in the business. Plus I’m pretty sure most of the major food groups are present in chocolate fingers.
‘Anything else?’ he asked.
Aunty Bev frowned again.
Keith hoped she wasn’t going to say too much exercise. Not with the amount of running he was having to do between Mum and Dad’s places.
‘Stress,’ she said. ‘Tension, worry, anxiety, it can all bugger the metabolism.’
Something clicked in Keith’s brain.
‘You mean,’ he said, ‘the sort of worry you feel when your parents have let themselves go so badly nobody wants to ask them out?’
Aunty Bev gently led him over to the settee.
‘Keith,’ she said, ‘is there something you want to tell me?’
*
Keith was still glowing with happiness when he got to Dad’s place, even though he felt a bit sick from drinking so much carrot juice.
Every time he thought about his chat with Aunty Bev, he glowed even more.
She’d been great.
‘No problem,’ she’d said after he’d told her about Mum and Dad. ‘You won’t recognise them soon.’ She’d patted herself on the chest. ‘Not now they’ve got their own personal grooming and fashion adviser. So you can stop worrying and go back to growing.’
Then, before she’d gone back to sleep, she’d told Keith how vegetable juice was full of growth vitamins and didn’t make you fat, which was really good of her because he hadn’t even asked.
‘Hello Keith.’
Dad was in the kitchen, putting instant coffee into a mug.
‘Hello Dad,’ said Keith.
If he hadn’t been so happy he’d have sighed.
Nine-thirty and Dad was already in his pyjamas.
Keith hoped that when Aunty Bev finished advising Dad on personal grooming and fashion and Dad started going to nightclubs, he’d remember to change out of his pyjamas first.
‘What’s that on your fingers?’ asked Dad.
Keith saw that the fingers of his right hand were stained orange.
‘Carrots,’ he said. ‘They were the only vegetables Mum had. I grated them for juice. It took three hours.’
‘As long as it’s not nicotine from cigarettes,’ said Dad. ‘Smoking’ll stunt your growth and you wouldn’t want that, would you?’
‘No Dad,’ said Keith wearily.
He watched Dad fill the coffee mug from the hot tap and slouch back to the telly.
Keith sighed.
All the personal grooming and fashion advice in the world wouldn’t be any use unless Dad perked up first.
OK Tracy, thought Keith, it’s up to you.
8
Tracy stood next to Mum’s fridge, eyes shining.
‘A whole kitchen, seventeen storeys above the ground,’ she breathed. ‘Unreal.’
She went over to the sink and gazed out the window.
‘There’s another twenty-one kitchens above this one,’ said Keith.
‘Can we go up to the top floor?’ said Tracy excitedly. ‘It’ll be really good practice for when I go to Nepal.’
‘Nepal?’ said Keith.
He wondered if he’d heard her right. Foreign words could be a bit hard to understand sometimes, specially if the person saying them had a mouthful of egg, sausage, bacon and onion sandwich.
‘You must know Nepal,’ she said. ‘It’s just to the right of Afghanistan.’
Keith remembered Tracy’s travel brochure collection at her place in Australia and how in the Campsites With Views bundle Nepal had even more brochures than New Zealand.
‘Highest mountains in the world,’ said Tracy wistfully, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand. ‘It’s gunna be great. They’ve got mountains there so high you need oxygen to get to the top. You dream about that when you come from a place that’s three metres above sea level.’
Keith grinned.
He remembered how Tracy had climbed onto the roof of the post office in Orchid Cove to see if she could see Brisbane.
Then a thought hit him and he stopped grinning.
‘When are you going?’ he asked anxiously. ‘You are still here for ten more days, aren’t you?’
Tracy grinned.
‘Course I am, you dope. I wouldn’t come all this way and only stay for the weekend. We’ve got a stopover in Nepal on the way back.’
Keith felt weak with relief.
To do what he was about to ask her to do she’d need everyone of those ten days, evenings included.
And she’d need all her strength.
‘More to eat?’ he asked.
‘No thanks,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to guzzle all your mum’s food.’
‘We’ve got tons,’ he said. ‘Do you feel like some sugar cane?’
Before she could answer, Aunty Bev came into the kitchen.
Keith realised he was staring.
He didn’t mean to but he’d never seen anyone wearing a tracksuit that tight before.
It was like she’d been sprayed with bright green paint.
He looked away in case she thought he was staring at her personal bits.
Which he had been.
I knew it, he said silently but triumphantly. I knew it was possible for an adult to have a body without a single sag, droop or wobble.
‘Mum’s on early shift,’ he said to her. ‘Would you like some boiled peanuts?’
‘Thanks mate,’ said Aunty Bev, ‘but I don’t eat breakfast.’
Keith was amazed.
‘Don’t you get faint around eleven and start feeling sick?’ he asked.
He realised Aunty Bev hadn’t heard him.
She was looking at Tracy, who was licking the crumbs off her sandwich plate.
Without taking her eyes off Tracy, Aunty Bev slowly lifted one bright green arm.
For a moment Keith thought she was going to hit Tracy.
Then he saw she wasn’t looking cross, just a bit exasperated.
He watched, puzzled, as Aunty Bev held her arm out in front of Tracy and pinched the underneath of it several times.
She did the same with the other arm.
Then she lifted one leg and tweaked underneath her thigh.
Blimey, thought Keith, she must be teaching Tracy aerobics.
Aunty Bev gave the underneath of her other thigh a couple of big tweaks, sighed long-sufferingly at Tracy and went into the living room.
Tracy rolled her eyes and scowled.
Grown-ups, thought Keith. When they decide to teach you something they never let up. It was the same with Dad and washing up.
He rolled his eyes at Tracy in sympathy.
He decided not to say anything to her about the aerobics. No point in upsetting her more. Plus it might turn out to be yoga and he’d look like a wally.
Besides, he had more urgent things to talk to her about.
‘Jeez.’
Tracy gazed up at the mural, her mouth open wide enough for a cane toad to hop in.
Two cane toads, thought Keith, if they didn’t have much luggage.
‘This leaves the mural at the new Orchid Cove baby health centre for dead,’ said Tracy. ‘Keith, you’re a genius.’
Keith grinned and decided he’d done the right thing bringing Tracy here for their chat. Now she could see Mum and Dad’s real selves and compare them to the poor broken-down creatures at home, she’d understand when he explained how urgently they needed perking up.
Tracy gripped his arm and looked at him sympathetically.
Great, thought Keith, she’s on the ball already.
‘Hope the folks round here appreciate how much effort you put into cheering up their street,’ said Tracy.
‘Eh?’ said Keith. ‘Oh, yes, probably.’
He decided now was the time.
‘Though actually,’ he continued, ‘I mostly did it for two folks in particular.’
‘And we know who they are,’ said a gloomy voice behind Keith, ‘don’t we?’
Keith spun round.
It was Mr Dodd, gazing up at the mural with a mournful expression.
‘Gwen and Harvey Nottage in the travel agents, that’s who,’ he said. ‘Sold more holidays in Spain since that thing went up than they have in the last five years. Just a pity it hasn’t sold more of my paint.’
Keith sighed.
Bet the great painters of history didn’t have to worry about sales figures, he thought.
He opened his mouth to remind Mr Dodd that most people who go on exotic colourful holidays paint their houses when they get back, but Tracy spoke first.
‘Course it won’t sell paint,’ she said to Mr Dodd, pointing up at the patches of bare brickwork in the top corners. ‘It’s not finished. To sell paint you need a full and even coverage.’
Mr Dodd stared up at the bare patches and scratched his head with his biro.
‘You could be right,’ he said, ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’
Good old Tracy, thought Keith. She tries to make everything OK even when she hasn’t quite caught the drift.
‘Thanks,’ he whispered to Tracy, ‘but I didn’t do it just to sell paint. I did it to save . . .’
He realised Tracy couldn’t hear him because she was too busy asking Mr Dodd if he had any rope.
‘Blimey.’
Keith gazed up at Tracy as she lowered herself over the edge of Mr Dodd’s roof on the end of a nylon washing line.
Mr Dodd gripped Keith’s shoulder in alarm.
‘I thought she just wanted to tie the ladder to make it more secure,’ croaked Mr Dodd.
Keith felt a bit croaky himself.
He stared up in amazement as Tracy hung off the rope by one hand, locked off the pulley above her head, took a brush from her back pocket, dipped it into the paint tin tied to her belt and dabbed Sky Blue onto a bare patch.
‘Be careful,’ he yelled.
‘No worries,’ shouted Tracy, ‘I’ve been abseiling down Uncle Leo’s grain silo since I was seven.’
Keith and Mr Dodd both gasped as Tracy swung across the mural, wrapped her legs round a downpipe and started brushing paint onto the other bare patch.
‘Her uncle Leo must have nerves of steel,’ croaked Mr Dodd.
‘Plastic,’ said Keith. ‘He fell into a combine harvester and quite a lot of his body’s been plastic since then.’
‘So will quite a lot of your friend if she falls off that rope,’ muttered Mr Dodd.
‘She’ll be OK,’ said Keith.
If it was anyone else up there, he thought, I’d be sending them an urgent message not to fall off and get concussion and possibly brain damage.
But not Tracy.
She’ll always be OK.
Suddenly he wanted to hug her for being the only person in his life he could rely on to be OK.
He still felt like hugging her when she’d hauled herself back onto the roof and climbed down into the shop and handed the ropes and pulleys back to Mr Dodd and come outside to inspect the mural.
So he did.
She was startled at first, then hugged him back.
‘Paint sales,’ she said, rolling her eyes. ‘Bet Picasso didn’t have people whingeing at him about paint sales. Bet if he’d painted this, people’d be raving to him about the ripper colours on the houses and t
he way those weightlifters are so lifelike. How did you do that, it’s great.’
Keith glowed.
‘Actually,’ he said, ‘they’re not weightlifters, they’re Mum and Dad.’
Tracy stared at him.
‘Your mum and dad?’ she said.
‘Yeah,’ said Keith. ‘Not the way they are now, the way they could be if someone perked them up and someone else helped them with fashion and personal grooming advice and they started going out on dates and rediscovered their real selves.’
Tracy stared up at Mum and Dad for a long time.
Then she turned to Keith.
‘That’s sick,’ she said angrily.
Keith felt as if the mural, with the wall attached, had just fallen on him.
He tried to speak, but his brain felt like it was under 14 ton of bricks.
He watched as Tracy walked away down the street.
He sent an urgent message to any part of his central nervous system that was listening.
Help.
Tracy stopped and walked back to him, her face tight with anger.
‘I don’t know the way back,’ she said.
Suddenly Keith knew what to do.
‘This way,’ he said.
He set off in the direction that would take them past Mr Mellish’s.
‘Bull.’
Tracy scowled at the gash on Mr Mellish’s gatepost.
‘It’s true,’ shouted Keith desperately. ‘He died of loneliness and that’s where they bashed into the gatepost with his body.’
‘I don’t mean that’s bull,’ said Tracy. ‘What’s bull is you trying to turn your mum and dad into Madonna and Mel Gibson just cause some poor old bloke died.’
Keith turned away so she wouldn’t see his tears of frustration.
No point telling her I’ve stopped growing, he thought miserably. She’ll say that’s bull too.
Why was she carrying on like this?
Keith stared into the grey and murky distance.
Tragic, he thought. A wonderful person like Tracy suffering from a mental condition brought on by her plane landing too quickly.
‘I’m not trying to turn them into Madonna and Mel Gibson,’ he said quietly, ‘I’m just trying to save them and I need your help.’
‘Perhaps they don’t want to be saved,’ said Tracy. ‘Anyway, how do you know this old bloke died of loneliness?’
Keith took a deep breath.
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