I guess he’s about Dad’s age, and he’s worked – if that’s the right word – for us ever since I can remember.
‘Morning, Master Silvagni,’ he said when he saw me, a hint of sarcasm in his voice.
‘Morning,’ I replied, before I continued on.
Toby, my thirteen-year-old brother, and Miranda, my sixteen-year-old sister, were in the kitchen, sitting at the table eating. Miranda was in a black dressing-gown and black slippers, black flashdrives – four of them – dangling around her neck. Toby was already in his school uniform, or his deconstructed version of the school uniform.
‘Toby made pancakes,’ said Miranda loudly. ‘They’re splendid.’
‘They’re technically crepes,’ said Toby.
‘I already ate ugali,’ I said.
‘Yuck!’ said Toby. ‘I don’t know how you can eat that muck.’
‘Thirty million Kenyans eat that muck,’ I said.
‘And Kenyan food is really up there, isn’t it? Have you ever heard of a Kenyan restaurant? Ever heard of people ordering in Kenyan?’
Miranda just gave me one of her smiles; she’s pretty used to her younger brothers going at it like this.
‘See they caught the Zolt,’ I said.
She scoffed at that – and Miranda delivers pretty serious scoff.
‘Not for long,’ she said.
She, like many teenage girls – with the honourable exception of Imogen – is totally infatuated by the Zolt.
Mom came into the kitchen. If you’ve ever seen the episode ‘Pretty Angels All in a Row’ in the TV series Charlie’s Angels, then you’ve seen my mum.
In case you’ve forgotten, the Angels go undercover and become beauty contestants to find out who is scaring off the other contestants. In the scene where they’re parading in Las Vegas, well, that’s my mum behind Kelly and Sabrina, the one in the red bikini. Okay, you don’t really see her face. And in the credits at the end, because of some union thing, she’s listed under another name. But it is my mum.
Even now, because of her big hair, because of her Marilyn Monroe-style mole, because of her Californian accent, people will come up to her and say, ‘Weren’t you in Dallas, or Dynasty, or The Love Boat?’
Her face will brighten, but then quickly fade again before she’ll say, ‘No, that wasn’t me.’
‘Oh,’ they’ll say, disappointed.
‘Sorry,’ Mom will say, equally disappointed.
A few weeks ago, when it happened again, Toby said to Mom, ‘You should just say you were in Dallas, no one’s going to know the difference.’
Mom’s answer was really weird: ‘That’s all we need, another lie.’
She hasn’t done any acting since she married Dad. Instead she runs this charity called the Angel Foundation which takes some of the money Dad earns and gives it to the disadvantaged.
‘Sweetheart, I’ll pick you up after school to take you to the audition,’ Mom said to Toby.
‘What audition?’ I said.
‘For Ready! Set! Cook! of course,’ said Mom, throwing Toby a winning smile.
In case you live under a rock or something, Ready! Set! Cook! is this TV program where the contestants compete against each other in cooking challenges. It’s, like, the biggest rating program in the history of the universe and the winner is guaranteed to become filthy rich, appear in millions of ads and live happily ever after.
‘Isn’t he a bit young for Ready! Set! Cook!?’ I said.
‘It’s Junior Ready! Set! Cook!’ she said.
The only reply I could come up with was a pathetic ‘Oh.’
‘So when are you going to open the rest of your presents?’ Toby asked, a smear of maple syrup glistening on his top lip.
‘I’m not,’ I said. ‘I’m donating them to Mom’s foundation.’
‘We’re going to re-gift them,’ she said as she took out her BlackBerry.
‘So your friends have spent hours and hours and hours searching for just the right present and you give it away without opening it?’ said Toby.
‘Seems like it.’
Toby and I both knew that the presents I was donating, which were being re-gifted, weren’t the ones from my friends. Mostly they were from my parents’ friends, most of whom hardly knew me and had probably had them purchased by professional present buyers.
‘I’m donating them,’ I said. ‘So you really need to install the Get Over It app on your phone.’
‘Even this one?’ said Toby, bringing out from under the table a present wrapped in glossy grey paper. ‘I reckon it’s a laptop.’
‘Who’s it from?’ I said.
Toby turned the present over in his hands before he said, ‘There’s no card.’
‘Mom!’ I said. She looked up from her BlackBerry. ‘Do you know who gave this to me?’
‘Now, let me see. I do believe a courier dropped that off on your birthday.’
‘So there’d be paperwork somewhere?’
‘Over there, sweetheart,’ she said, pointing to a stack of manila folders on a side table. ‘There’s a folder with your name on it.’
Indeed there was – Dom’s 15th Birthday was Dymo-labelled on the cover – and inside I found the docket from the courier. My name was in the recipient’s box. And in the sender’s box were two words: The Debt.
I closed my eyes, but when I opened them again those two words were still there.
I guess my mind had been resisting the idea of The Debt all along. It was too outlandish, too unbelievable. Despite the brand inside my thigh, despite Elliott dead and broken on the bitumen, despite the evidence that said The Debt was real and imminent and dangerous, I kept thinking that it would go away and life would return to normal. But here was more evidence; and furthermore, there was nothing ambiguous about it. They, The Debt, the ’Ndrangheta, had sent me a birthday present!
‘Okay,’ I said to Toby. ‘Let’s see what it is.’
It’d been shrink-wrapped and I needed a sharp knife to prise off the covering.
‘I told you it was a laptop!’ said Toby.
Maybe, but its case was like no other I’d seen. It was matte black, made from some sort of burnished metal.
‘What type is it?’ asked Miranda from the other side of the table, removing the iPhone buds from her ears.
‘I’m not sure,’ I said.
‘PC or Mac?’ said Miranda.
Again, I wasn’t sure. I handed the laptop to Miranda.
She turned it around in her hands, the look of puzzlement on her face growing.
‘It’s got USB ports,’ she said, ‘but no ethernet. No power inlet, either. That’s strange, it must be totally wireless. But how do you open it?’
I could see what she meant: there were no buttons, no latches, nothing that interrupted its smooth hi-tech surface.
‘It’s like a clam,’ said Miranda.
‘A ClamTop,’ said Toby, laughing, pleased with his own joke.
‘Maybe it’s voice-activated,’ said Miranda.
She put the ClamTop on the table, and said, ‘Open.’
The ClamTop remained resolutely shut.
‘What about “Open Sesame”?’ said Miranda.
Nothing happened.
‘Or “Open Extra-Virgin Sesame Oil”?’ said Toby, opting for even more humour.
‘Or touch-activated,’ said Miranda, running her hands over its surface.
Again, it didn’t work.
‘Time for school, you lot,’ said Mom, putting away her BlackBerry.
I took the ClamTop up to my room and put it on my desk. As I got ready for school I kept sneaking glances at it.
If I’d doubted The Debt before I couldn’t doubt it now, because here was the proof that it existed.
There was a cursory knock on my door before Miranda barged in, flashdrives jangling.
‘I need to have another squiz at that thing,’ she said, picking up the ClamTop.
‘Give it here,’ I said.
Miranda kept hold of the Clam
Top, a defiant look on her face.
‘It’s my present, give it to me,’ I demanded.
More defiance from Miranda, but then Mom’s voice came from downstairs. ‘We’re leaving in five, people!’
Miranda handed me the ClamTop and hurried back out of my room.
A FORMALITY
As the ten of us in the Coast Boys Grammar track team got changed in one corner of the change rooms, everybody was joking and mucking about. Well, everybody except Rashid, who was his usual hyper-serious self. I looked over at Seb and thought it was a shame he wasn’t eligible, because then we really would have a race on our hands. As it was, the result was pretty much a foregone conclusion. All season there’d been four of us – Rashid, Gabby, Charles and me – who had clearly been the best performers and deserved a shot at the state titles. Even if one of us fell over, or sprained an ankle, none of the other members of the team would run past him, finish before him. Okay, maybe Bevan Milne would. That’s because Bevan Milne was a bit of a turd.
‘Coming in, boys!’ came Coach Sheeds’s voice from outside the change rooms.
Which meant that you had about a millisecond to get unnaked if you were naked, unless you were Charles and you just didn’t care. ‘She’s a lesbian,’ he’d say. ‘It’s not a big thing to her.’
Although Charles Bonthron looks like a surfer – he’s tanned, he’s blond, he’s scruffy – and although he talks like a surfer – ‘I was, like, totally stoked’ – he is actually from Grammar royalty. His family has been coming to this school since it was first formed, when the Gold Coast was all Coast and no Gold. Our running track – the Bill Bonthron Running Track – was named after his great-grandfather, and a grand-uncle of his won bronze in the mile at the Auckland Commonwealth Games. If it weren’t for the patronage of his family, we probably wouldn’t even have a track team and we definitely wouldn’t have any athletics scholarships.
Coach Sheeds appeared with Tristan Jazy by her side. A smirk on his face, a sports bag in his hand, he towered over her.
What the hell was he doing here?
‘You all know Tristan?’ said Coach Sheeds.
It was a rhetorical question, because everybody in the school knows Tristan Jazy, or is aware of his accomplishments. He was the youngest boy ever to play in the senior rugby team. He’d scored a century off twenty-eight balls in the interschool cricket competition. He was a state-ranked swimmer.
‘Tristan’s going to run with us today,’ said Coach Sheeds.
Once a world-ranked 5000 metre runner, Coach Sheeds has the poker face of a professional athlete, and I couldn’t tell whether she was pleased or as perturbed as I was by this revelation.
‘But he’s not even in the track team,’ I blurted.
Only the other day Tristan had been telling me how useless track running was, how it was for wusses who were scared of getting hurt playing a proper sport.
‘Tristan is a member of our school body,’ said Coach Sheeds, ‘so there’s nothing to stop him from joining us today.’
‘You worried you going to get your butt kicked, Domino?’ said Tristan, moving next to me so that he could give me a playful punch on the arm.
Playful for him, painful for me.
With that, Coach Sheeds left us to get changed. There was no joking now, no mucking about, and the only person talking was Tristan.
‘Look at those guns, will you?’ he said, flexing his admittedly impressive biceps.
Followed by, ‘And how’s that for a six-pack?’ as he peeled off his shirt.
And then, grabbing his crotch, ‘No wonder the chicks are lining up for a bit of Tristan action.’
What chicks? What action?
Seb nudged me with his elbow, and mouthed, ‘Moron.’
‘Prize,’ I added.
‘How about you close your mouth now?’ Rashid said to Tristan in his less-than-perfect English. ‘We need to think before big race.’
Rashid’s parents are Afghani refugees and he’s at the school on a scholarship. Which was something the school never seems to get tired of mentioning in its newsletter. But it also meant that he was under pressure to perform.
‘What was that?’ said Tristan with exaggerated enunciation.
Cupping his ear, he moved closer to where Rashid was sitting. ‘Sorry, but I only speak English.’
Rashid stood up. Though he’s a big kid, with a keg of a chest, Tristan’s way bigger than him, way bigger than all of us.
It was like somebody had decided to build a skyscraper in a country town.
‘You know the score, Abdul. I grew here and you flew here. Actually, I’m wrong, you’re one of those boat people, aren’t you?’
Rashid tensed, moving closer to Tristan.
‘Hey, you’re probably one of those kids they threw overboard,’ said Tristan.
‘That’s enough,’ said Seb, stepping between the two much bigger boys just when Rashid decided to punch, or attempt to punch, Tristan’s skyscraper lights out.
Somehow Rashid’s fist caught Seb on the nose. His head snapped back and blood immediately began pouring from one nostril.
‘Look what you’ve done now, Abdul,’ taunted Tristan.
Both Rashid and I went to Seb’s aid.
‘I’m sorry,’ said a mortified Rashid.
‘Here, use this,’ I said, handing Seb my towel.
‘Thanks,’ he said, holding it to his face.
‘We better see the doctor,’ said Rashid. ‘Nose might be destroyed.’
‘I’m running,’ said Seb.
‘But –’ I tried.
‘I’m running.’
It was no use arguing; nothing was going to stop Seb from running, from showing Coach Sheeds what he had. I ducked into the cubicle, grabbed the roll of toilet paper, came out and handed it to Seb. He understood, disappearing back into the cubicle. He reappeared with a swollen nose and a nostril bulging with paper, but at least the flow had stopped.
‘Just don’t let Coach see you,’ I said, ‘or she won’t let you run.’
‘Come on, boys!’ came Coach Sheeds’s voice from outside. ‘Time to boogie.’
She got us all together at the long-jump pit for one of her little pep talks, opening with what I liked to think of as her Hakuna Matata, though there was nothing really Hakuna Mata-esque about it.
‘Every morning in Africa a gazelle wakes up knowing it must run faster than the fastest lion, or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa a lion wakes up knowing it must run faster than the slowest gazelle, or it will starve.’
As she Hakuna Matata-ed away, I looked at my fellow competitors. They, like me, had heard this a thousand times before, but they were still intent on every word.
Not me, however.
I couldn’t stop thinking about the ClamTop, about how to open it. And what if I couldn’t open it? What then? Dad had repaid all six instalments. Gus had repaid five. Would I even repay one?
I focused on Coach Sheeds, determined that I wasn’t going to let The Debt distract me from my dream to be a champion runner.
She ended with one of her favourite sayings: ‘Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional, boys.’
Afterwards, she took me aside.
‘Champ, I’m thinking four-o-six will do the job today,’ she said.
As in four minutes and six seconds.
‘Keep the splits to around sixty-two and show us your usual kick.’
‘And Tristan?’
‘Tristan?’
‘Yeah, what time are you thinking for Tristan?’
‘Look, I didn’t ask him to run, okay?’ said Coach Sheeds.
I wasn’t too sure if she was telling the truth or not. Getting a star like Tristan involved in the track team would be a big feather in her cap, and lately Coach Sheeds’s cap was sporting about as much plumage as a battery hen.
Coach Sheeds continued. ‘Besides, if that rumour about the Kenyans is right, then you need all the competition you can get.’
The rumour was that
Brisbane Boys School, our archenemy, had imported some Kenyans to juice up their track team.
‘On your marks!’ said the starter, and as we took our positions at the starting line I noticed that there were quite a few people in the stands.
For one second I allowed myself a fantasy: middle distance running had suddenly become as popular as rugby, as sexy as surfing, but then I noticed that all the kids looked around the same size, the same age.
Obviously a teacher had brought his class down, and I had a pretty good idea which teacher it was: Mr Ryan. As far as I knew he was the only one who had any interest in running.
‘Ready!’ said the starter.
The gun went off.
Rashid was straightaway in the lead.
Charles tucked in behind him.
And then Tristan.
I had to admit he looked pretty good. He was a bit stiff, but a lot of footballers are like that when they ran. All those muscles they grew in the gym might come in handy for busting through tackles, for scrummaging or whatever they called it, but they just get in the way with middle distance running. Still, Tristan had an uncomplicated running style, and he had a hungry stride that gobbled up the tarmac. Seb, Gabby and I sat behind him. And behind us Bevan Milne, that bit of a turd, headed the pack.
We ran the first lap in sixty-two seconds and the race was going to plan. The four of us on the team had put at least twenty metres on the pack. So had Seb. And so had Tristan.
Suddenly a thought occurred to me: though he wasn’t on the team, Tristan must still be eligible to represent the school at the state titles. And wouldn’t the school love that: Tristan Jazy, champion rugby player, champion cricketer, champion swimmer, now champion runner. How good would that look on the front page of the school newsletter?
We had to drop him, or one of us – Rashid, Charles, Gabby or even me – would miss out. We’d trained all season together, done all that gym work together, run in the rain together, run through mud together – none of us deserved to miss out.
I ran up beside Rashid.
‘Put some pace on, we need to drop Tristan.’
Rashid smiled at me: he likes dropping people no matter who they were, but I reckoned dropping Tristan would be especially satisfying. Immediately he increased the pace. We did the next lap in a brisk sixty seconds, and by then the pack had fallen way back.
Catch the Zolt Page 4