There was this crazy sense of celebration; people were spontaneously hugging and high-fiving each other.
Facebook really did have a lot to answer for, I thought. And I wondered if, had it been around in Robin Hood’s day, he also would’ve been a viral internet sensation.
I could see the Zolt’s Facebook Fan Number 94, Miranda, sitting with her friends, a circle of emo nerds.
We walked past a news crew, reporter Teresa Budd standing in front of a camera, mike in hand. She looked tiny, much tinier then she did on any of our fifty-inch plasmas.
‘This is certainly the biggest crowd I’ve seen here since the passing of Princess Di,’ she said, looking meaningfully into the camera. ‘That these young people are celebrating the escape of a criminal has many parents concerned, however.’
I watched as a muffin – mixed berry, by the look of it – flew through the air.
‘Watch out!’ I yelled but my warning was too late, and the muffin collected Teresa Budd on the side of the head.
Although it disintegrated on impact, becoming a puddle of crumbs – I was right: mixed berries – at Teresa’s tiny feet, she wasn’t happy.
‘And as you have just witnessed,’ she said, gripping the mike harder, ‘this young man is certainly no role model!’
We kept moving.
‘He’s the reason I get up in the morning,’ said somebody.
‘They reckon he’s gone to Vanuatu,’ said somebody else.
‘Like, this is, like, unreal,’ said yet another person.
Imogen’s phone beeped and she checked the text.
‘Okay, Tristan’s over here,’ she said, pushing through the crowd.
Tristan was wearing a brand new Fly, Zolt, Fly T-shirt and his customary smirk.
When he saw Imogen coming towards him he threw up his arms in a sort of mock surprise and said, ‘Ohmigod! Did a more beautiful girl ever walk the earth?’
It was so cheesy it made a Big Pete’s pizza look dairy-free, but when I looked over at Imogen she was actually blushing.
Then Tristan proceeded to give her about a thousand kisses on each cheek.
After that performance, he turned to me.
He wasn’t about to shake my hand and I wasn’t about to shake his, so there was a standoff.
But then we both looked at Imogen and she had this sort of pleading look on her face – Please play nicely, you two. So we played nicely, we shook hands.
‘What do you want to do, Im?’ Tristan asked.
‘Im’? Who had given him permission to call her Im? I was the only one who was allowed to do that.
‘I just want to absorb,’ she said.
So that’s what we did: we absorbed, sitting down on the grass while all sorts of Zolt-related activity went on around us, Imogen dutifully texting her mother every thirty minutes. It soon became apparent – to me, anyway – that, despite the Fly Zolt Fly T-shirt, Tristan knew a lot less about the object of today’s gathering than even I did. So I went in hard, dredging up every snippet of information I’d retained about the Zolt, passing them on to a hopefully mega-impressed Imogen.
‘Hollywood is negotiating with his mother for the movie rights,’ I told her.
‘Really?’ she said.
‘And Johnny –’ I started but Tristan came in right over the top of me: ‘You know he broke into our holiday house on Reverie?’
I knew it was a despicable lie to divert Imogen’s attention away from me to him. Unfortunately Imogen’s usually reliable bullcrap-detector wasn’t working, because she said, her voice strained with emotion, ‘He did?’
‘Yeah, he stayed there for, like, a week. Ate all the canned food. Even the Spam. Hey, he actually had a go on my flight sim.’
More despicable, despicable lies.
‘Why didn’t you tell us this before?’ I said.
Tristan ignored my question, fixing his attention even more firmly on Imogen.
‘There’s this big charity thing at our Reverie house during the start of the school holidays. Why don’t you come along and see where the Zolt slept.’
I had this weird feeling that although I was there, I wasn’t really there. That what had once been a triangle – me, Tristan, Imogen – had collapsed into a straight line that ran between the two of them.
‘Could I really?’ said Imogen.
Once, at kindergarten, Imogen had got so excited about a Wiggles concert that she’d wet herself. Literally. Messily. That was the Imogen I was seeing now, the overexcited, liable-to-wet-herself Imogen, and I had to do something about it. I looked at my watch in the same way somebody from a TV soapie would look at their watch – very conspicuously – and then said, again borrowing from the excellent acting talent on display in those shows, ‘Isn’t it time you texted your mother again, Imogen, as she’s probably getting really worried about you?’
‘I can’t go,’ said Imogen. ‘Mum won’t let me go anywhere.’
‘You came here, didn’t you?’ said Tristan.
Imogen looked over at me, smiled and said, ‘Only thanks to Dom.’
Silvagni scores and leaves his opposition floundering!
Tristan was quiet. It was obvious that he was thinking, and thinking hard; you could almost hear the click click click of the cogs turning in his head. He looked over to where somebody was playing guitar. When he looked back again, there was a smile on his face. ‘Then I guess my old mate Dom had better come to Reverie with us,’ he said.
Of course, there was absolutely no way I was going to Reverie Island. Absolutely no way I was going to give Tristan even the smallest opportunity to get with Imogen.
And I guess there were a number of ways I could’ve conveyed this pretty straightforward piece of information.
A simple ‘No, I don’t want to go’ would’ve done the job nicely. Or, if I’d wanted to make myself look less petulant in Imogen’s eyes, I could’ve lied, said something like, ‘Oh, I’d love to go, I really would. But unfortunately I have an important race on.’
So did I go with either of those? No, of course, I didn’t.
Instead I said, ‘Tristan, I’d rather eat Ronny Huckstepp’s faeces than go to Reverie Island with you.’
Ronny Huckstepp is this tiny anonymous-looking kid at school, but there’s something truly rotten going on with his digestive tract. If you saw other kids running out of the toilets, hands clamped over their mouths, you knew that Ronny Huckstepp was in there taking a dump.
Imogen gave me another play-nicely look, this one much more severe than the previous one. And Tristan clenched his fist tight, as if it was taking every bit of his willpower to stop himself from driving it into my face.
‘Only kidding!’ I said. ‘Love to go, but unfortunately I’ve got this really important race on.’
This seemed to work – Imogen stopped giving me the look and Tristan unclenched his fist.
After a further hour of absorbing – and two text messages to Mrs Havilland – a girl’s voice joined in with the guitar, singing to the tune of Bob Dylan’s ‘Blowing in the Wind’.
‘The Zolt, my Facebook friend, is dancing on the wind
The Zolt is dancing on the wind.’
Other voices joined in.
‘The Zolt, my Facebook friend, is dancing on the wind …’
The three of us stayed there until the sun disappeared, and the air was full of squawking bats that roosted in the town hall eaves. Nobody had gone home. If anything, the crowd had swollen.
Maybe it’s getting close to the record held by the funeral of Princess Di, I thought.
Then, as well as the squawking bats, the singing, the guitar, there was another sound, like the buzz of a bee.
The sound got louder.
‘A plane,’ somebody said.
‘It’s the Zolt!’ somebody shouted.
My first reaction was ‘Sure thing’, but as the plane came into view – according to somebody nearby it was a little Cessna 182 – I realised that they were right.
Light plane
s weren’t permitted to fly over the city centre, especially not one flying as low as this, skimming the tops of the buildings.
So it had to be the Zolt, the Facebook hero, the modern-day Robin Hood.
Everybody was on their feet, waving, cheering or, like Imogen, declaring their eternal love. As it came nearer the Cessna swooped even lower and I started to get a bit worried.
Apparently, the Zolt had never had a flying lesson in his life. Apparently, the Zolt had learnt everything he knew in his bedroom, on his computer, using flight sim. And reading flight manuals he’d bought on eBay.
If you made a mistake on flight sim, a few pixels got rearranged. If he made a mistake here, half the high schools on the Coast would have empty desks tomorrow.
As the Cessna passed over us, it wagged its wings.
I was sure I could make out the Zolt in the cockpit. And I was pretty sure he had that same cheesy smile on his face. The cheering was incredible, a tsunami spreading out and up, but it was soon joined by the sound of police sirens. And another sound, the thwocka thwocka thwocka of a helicopter.
Imogen’s phone rang.
She answered it.
‘Is everything okay?’ I asked when she hung up.
‘It’s Mum,’ she said. ‘She doesn’t like to be at home by herself when it’s dark. I’d better get home.’
Tristan decided that he was going too, so we all took the same bus home. Even though Imogen was sitting next to me, she spent the whole time talking to Tristan across the aisle. Actually I didn’t mind being detriangled so much, because I had plenty to think about.
If the police – state and federal – couldn’t catch the Zolt, if Hound de Villiers couldn’t keep hold of the Zolt, then what chance did I have?
And then I felt a flush of terror – what if I couldn’t do it, what if they took my leg like they took Gus’s?
Tristan and I both walked Imogen to her door and she gave each of us a hug and a peck on the cheek goodnight. As we walked towards Tristan’s house he smiled at me and said, ‘You know what, Dom, maybe you and me could be mates after all.’
‘Maybe,’ I said, and I actually meant it: maybe, just maybe, we could work through our differences and learn to be, if not mates, then at least civil in each other’s presence.
‘Like hell,’ said Tristan, driving his fist into my solar plexus before he walked away.
I’d been winded before, but nothing like this. It was like every molecule of air had been knocked clean out of my body. But worse, it was like he’d also knocked out my you-must-breathe-to-live response. I collapsed on the ground, every cell in my body screaming for oxygen, but I couldn’t do anything about it.
I’m going to die, I thought. At the very least I’ll have permanent brain damage.
Then my phone rang.
You’re the one that I want. Uh uh uh.
What the hell was she ringing for? I wondered, and by the time I’d finished the thought I realised that I was breathing again.
I answered the phone.
‘Dom, I just wanted to thank you for everything today,’ said Imogen.
‘That’s okay,’ I managed.
‘I know you and Tristan don’t really get on.’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that,’ I wheezed as I picked myself up off the ground.
MERE ANARCHY
The next day, at school, it was assembly in the great hall. With its high vaulted ceilings, stained-glass windows and rows of gleaming pews, the great hall was the sort of place you’d expect to find God hanging out. But today it was Mr Cranbrook, the principal, who was holding forth. Standing up high on the podium, microphone in front of him, he was telling us how disappointed he was that so many Grammar students had been at Town Hall Square yesterday.
‘I know what you are all thinking,’ he said in his overenunciated voice. ‘But, sir, it was after school. But, sir, we were not in uniform.’
He was right: that was exactly what I was thinking. Though probably without the sir bit.
‘Well, let me tell you something – a Grammar boy is always a Grammar boy. Twenty-four hours a day. Seven days a week. No matter where you are or what you are wearing.’
He paused to let this sink in. ‘If you attend this school, then you represent this school!’
Another pause.
‘All of us belong to family, to community, to nation,’ he said. ‘And, yes, we have obligations to all of these. And sometimes those obligations are onerous. Sometimes they involve work. But if we were not to fulfil these obligations, if we were to ignore the rules of our family, of our community, of our nation, if we were all to behave like Mr Zolton-Bander, the result would be chaos. I’d like to quote from a great Irish wordsmith.’
Bono? U2’s lead singer was the only Irish wordsmith I knew.
Mr Cranbrook continued, ‘And I’m sure some of you are familiar with the work of William Butler Yeats.’
Was that Bono’s real name? No wonder he changed it!
Mr Cranbrook adjusted the microphone slightly and began to recite the poem.
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned.
Another pause from Mr Cranbrook, before he gathered himself up again and said, ‘Gentlemen, Otto Zolton-Bander is no hero.’
I walked out of the great hall with Charles Bonthron and Bevan Milne.
‘That really was an excellent speech,’ I said, figuring that if I talked the talk – the Zolt needs catching – it would somehow be easier to walk the walk – i.e., catch the Zolt.
Both Charles and Bevan Milne gave me a funny look.
‘I mean, Cranbrook’s right: the Zolt is no hero. He needs to be caught and rehabilitated.’
‘If the cops catch him,’ said Bevan Milne, ‘they’ll break every freaking bone in his freaking body.’
‘Sorry?’ I said.
‘I said, if the cops catch him, they’ll break every freaking bone in his freaking body.’
Bevan Milne may have been a bit of a turd, but he was absolutely right about this. The Zolt, supposedly, was always taunting the cops online, saying how useless they were, how they would never catch him.
I was kidding myself if I thought that this instalment didn’t have the mother of all deadlines: I had to get the Zolt before somebody else – the cops, Hound de Villiers, some reckless vigilante – did.
At lunchtime I went immediately to the library. Mr Kotzur was on duty. He rode a recumbent bicycle to school and was vice-president of the Gold Coast Stars Wars Society
‘Mr Silvagni, to what do we owe this unexpected pleasure?’ he said.
I wouldn’t say I’m exactly a regular at the library, especially not during lunchtime when I’m more likely to be found at the basketball court shooting baskets or on the oval kicking a ball around, but I didn’t think there was any need for Mr Kotzur to go the sarcastic route with me.
For a second I considered returning a bit of what I’d just got, say something like ‘I’ve just come in to bask in the glow of your incredibleness’ but I didn’t: in a library it’s the librarian who’s got all the power.
So instead I said, ‘I’d like to use a computer, sir. I left my laptop at home.’
‘Did you book?’ he said.
‘I didn’t think I had to,’ I said.
‘You don’t!’ said the librarian. ‘Got you a beauty. You should’ve seen the look on your face. Priceless! Hop onto number eighteen, Stormtrooper.’
I hopped onto number eighteen and logged onto Facebook.
Well, tried to log onto Facebook, because it was blocked. I’d forgotten about the school’s Net Nanny, or whatever it was called.
I sent a text to Miranda telling her the problem.
Yes, Miranda – like me – was at school. Yes, she – like me – wasn’t supposed to have her phone on. Yes, she – like me – wasn’t supposed to send texts.
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It took less than a minute to get a reply from her, a step-by-step explanation on how to trash Net Nanny.
I followed the instructions and it worked a treat – I was able to log onto Facebook.
I’d assumed that the Zolt, Facebook hero and all, would have his own page: the Zolt posting messages poking fun at the cops; the Zolt offering tips on how to eat well while maintaining a fugitive lifestyle. But I was disappointed.
There was an Otto Zolton-Bander page, but it was a fan page, created by somebody else.
He did have 1,421,356 fans, though.
Make that 1,421,357 fans.
1,421,358 fans.
Okay, put it this way: he had a rapidly expanding fan base.
And an incredible number of postings, especially since he’d escaped. As you’d expect, there were plenty of people who loved the Zolt, who posted stuff like:
Keep it going, Zolt.
and
Fly, Zolt, fly.
But there were also quite a few people who hated him, and it became evident from looking at the page that when you hated the Zolt, it became your life’s work.
Zolt you are skum and when they catch you they will throw you in jale forever you skum.
It also became evident that when you really hated the Zolt, you couldn’t spell very well either.
There was also quite a lot of stuff for sale on the website. Fly Zolt Fly T-shirts (hand-screened) for $24.95 (p&h not included). Fly Zolt Fly coffee mugs at $9.95. Bumper stickers ($4.95). Mouse pads ($3.95). There was a song called ‘The Ballad of the Zolt’ that you could download from iTunes for $2.95.
As I scrolled through the posts, I had this weird feeling that I wasn’t the only one looking at this material. I looked around the library, which was now pretty much full, and saw the librarian’s reflection in the window. He was sitting at the desk, gazing at a screen, but every now and then he’d sneak a look at me.
Is it him? Is he monitoring me?
One way to find out.
I brought up Google.
Typed in star wars sucks.
There were about a million Star Wars hate sites. I clicked on the most venomous-looking one. A video started playing, a spoof of the famous ‘I am your father’ scene.
Catch the Zolt Page 7