Do You Dare? Tough Times

by Simon Mitchell

  Frank stood up. ‘We’re just selling these oranges, sir,’ he said.

  ‘You’re stealing all my customers!’

  Frank shrugged. ‘It’s a free market,’ he said.

  Mr Moltisano’s face turned an even deeper shade of purple. He raised his arms, and for a moment it looked like he was about to grab Frank by the neck.

  But then, to Tom’s astonishment, the grocer began to laugh. He gave Frank a friendly clap on the shoulders that was so loud Tom actually jumped.

  ‘Many years ago, I started out just like this,’ said Mr Moltisano. ‘Selling fruit on the street. Now, I am a respected businessman. So I treat you like businessmen. And businesswoman, of course,’ he added, with a nod to Joan. He peered into the two sacks, gave each of them a shake and then pulled a crisp brown banknote out of his white apron. He held it out to Frank. ‘I want to buy all your stock. Ten shillings for the lot, okay?’

  Frank’s mouth opened and shut like a goldfish as he stared at the banknote in Mr Moltisano’s hand. He looked like he was unable to speak.

  Tom stood up. ‘It’s a pleasure doing business with you, Mr Moltisano,’ he said, taking the ten-shilling note and handing it straight to Samson in case it really was too good to be true.

  Back at school, Frank, Joan and Samson beamed at each other over their books for the entire afternoon. Mr Moltisano had brought their total for the day up to fifteen shillings, which was enough to enter five dogs into the trick contest if they wanted to.

  ‘It’s a shame we already picked all of Codling’s oranges,’ Joan whispered across the aisle to Tom. ‘If he had another dozen trees we could forget all about the dog show and get your oldies’ ten quid that way. Still, fifteen bob isn’t bad for a night’s work, eh?’

  Tom knew that he should be as happy as the others, but he was starting to feel very uneasy, and it wasn’t just because Razor kept snarling at him across the classroom and running a finger across his neck like a knife. The dog show was Tom’s last chance to keep his family together, so there was an awful lot riding on it. What if Fungus’s trick wasn’t good enough to win?

  When the final bell went, the Daredevils snuck out the side door to avoid Razor and the Spiders, then ducked into the paper shop near school to change their money into coins.

  The newsagent whistled as Samson produced the crisp ten-shilling note Mr Moltisano had given them. ‘Where’d you get this from?’ He eyed them suspiciously. ‘Did you steal it?’

  ‘Nope,’ said Frank proudly. ‘Got it sellin’ oranges.’

  ‘Crikey,’ said the newsagent, opening his cash register and counting out a handful of coins. ‘I’m in the wrong business.’

  After setting aside Fungus’s entry fee, the Daredevils still had three shillings each to spend. Frank bought the latest issue of The Kookaburra and read the comic on the paper-shop step as the other three craned their necks to look over his shoulder. But after the newsagent politely but firmly asked that they stop blocking his doorway, they turned and started thinking about other ways to spend their fortune.

  ‘I’m off to the sweet shop,’ said Frank. ‘I’m gonna ask Mrs Yates to make me up a bag of licorice allsorts the size of my head.’

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ said Joan. ‘I haven’t had a walnut drop in centuries.’

  ‘You haven’t even been alive for centuries!’ said Frank.

  ‘Well, smartypants, I didn’t eat any walnut drops before I was alive either, did I?’

  Frank didn’t have an answer to that. ‘Who else is coming?’

  ‘Not me,’ said Samson. ‘I’m off to buy some new socks. My old ones are so holey they could probably run for Pope!’ He chortled to himself and wandered off towards Smith Street.

  ‘What about you, Tom?’ said Joan.

  Tom shook his head. ‘I should take my three bob home to Mum. I’m not even supposed to see you lot until tomorrow, remember?’

  Frank nodded. ‘Fair enough,’ he said. ‘We’ll walk back with you in case there are any Spiders around.’

  The whole way home, Joan and Frank chatted excitedly about the huge amounts of sugary wonders they were about to purchase. But Tom wasn’t even listening – he just trudged along to one side, staring at his boots.

  ‘Till tomorrow, then,’ said Frank, as they stopped a few doors down from Tom’s house.

  ‘Yes,’ said Joan. ‘Fungus’s big day!’

  Tom didn’t say anything. His eyeballs suddenly felt as if they were swelling up.

  ‘Tom, are you all right?’ asked Joan.

  Tom swallowed. ‘I dunno,’ he said. ‘It’s just . . . if Fungus doesn’t win the trick contest tomorrow, we’ll be evicted and I’ll have to leave. If that happens, would you two like to keep Fungus? As your dog, I mean?’

  To Tom’s surprise, Joan threw her arms round his neck and hugged him so hard he nearly fell over. ‘Of course!’ she said, her voice muffled by the collar of Tom’s shirt. ‘Of course we’ll take him! Fungus’ll be as spoiled as anything by the time I’m through with him.’

  ‘My oath he will,’ said Frank. ‘Fungus is a Daredevil too, remember? And the Daredevils look after each other, no matter what.’

  Tom felt a tear tickling the corner of his eye and quickly blinked it away, hoping the others hadn’t noticed.

  Frank put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Don’t worry about all that stuff,’ he said. ‘Fungus is going to win, I know it.’

  Tom forced a big smile. ‘Me too,’ he said. ‘Everything’ll work out fine.’ And as he said the words, he actually started to believe them again. Everything was going to be all right.

  It had to be.

  11

  The morning of the dog show was warm but cloudy. The Age had predicted storms, and Tom was up early, anxiously scanning the sky for signs of rain. If the clouds decided to open up, the dog show might be cancelled, and their entire plan would fail before it had even started.

  Mum had taken Tom’s share of the orange money straight to the grocer’s and come back with butter, eggs, tomatoes and beautiful fresh bread, which she cooked up into the best breakfast the family had eaten in weeks. Petey was still too unwell to eat much, but Tom and Dad more than made up for it, stuffing slice after slice of toast into their mouths like they were going for some sort of speed-eating record. Tom stopped chewing long enough to slip a thick piece of bread under the table to Fungus, who tore into the backyard to wolf it down.

  The rain stayed away from Fitzroy, but just after eleven o’clock, a dark cloud arrived on the Parkers’ doorstep in the form of Mr Botherway.

  ‘A very good morning to you, Mrs Parker!’ he said as Mum opened the door.

  ‘Is it, Mr Botherway?’ said Mum. ‘You could have fooled me.’

  Tom peeped round the edge of the corridor and saw that Mr Botherway was wearing what appeared to be a brand-new suit. He felt his temperature rise just looking at the debt collector’s smug face.

  ‘What do you want?’ demanded Dad, marching past Tom to the front door. ‘We’ve already got one rat in this house.’

  ‘Ah! You must be the man of the house,’ said Mr Botherway, appearing not to notice Dad’s insult. ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you. I am here on behalf of the First Victorian Capital Bank to collect the ten pounds outstanding on this delightful property.’

  ‘Well, the bank’ll just have to bloomin’ wait,’ said Dad. ‘We don’t have it.’

  Mr Botherway smiled. ‘Of course you don’t,’ he said. ‘But I’m more than happy to delay eviction for another week or two. Of course, that would require a significantly more generous gesture on your part. Shall we say a pound?’

  Another bribe! Tom clenched his fists and watched the back of  Dad’s neck turn a deep red.

  ‘No we bloody shan’t!’ his father said through gritted teeth. ‘Who the hell do you think you are, trying to gouge money from people who can barely scrape together enough to eat? We’ve got a sick kid in here!’

  ‘Calm down, love,’ said Mum, ‘I’m sure we ca
n work something out.’

  Mr Botherway smiled again. ‘I’d listen to your wife if I were you, Mr Parker,’ he said. ‘It’s a lovely home you have here. A little small for my tastes, but not without its charm. It would be a great shame if you were forced to leave unexpectedly, especially with an ill child.’

  Dad roared with rage and grabbed Mr Botherway by the front of his perfectly ironed shirt. The debt collector’s bowler hat fell to the footpath and he squeaked in fear. He really is like a rat, thought Tom, wishing someone made a trap big enough to squash Mr Botherway.

  ‘Now you listen to me, Botherway,’ said Dad. ‘If you don’t get off my doorstep right now, that suitcase of yours is going so far up your backside you’ll be tasting leather for a month.’ He let go of Mr Botherway’s shirt.

  The small man dashed backwards out of Dad’s reach, then carefully bent down and replaced his hat. ‘I’m sorry you feel that way, Mr Parker,’ he said, smoothing his suit. ‘I’m afraid there’s nothing more I can do for you now.’ He turned and scuttled down the road, leaving Dad fuming on the doorstep.

  ‘You shouldn’t have done that, John,’ said Mum. ‘He’ll have the bailiffs round to evict us any time now.’

  ‘What was I supposed to do – kiss him?’ said Dad. ‘We’ve got nothing to give the little grub anyway.’

  As much as he’d have loved to see Dad get the better of Mr Botherway, Tom didn’t feel like watching his parents have another fight, let alone one that reminded him they were about to be chucked out onto the street. Instead he decided to make an early start on Fungus’s pre-show preparation by giving him a bath in the laundry trough. But Fitzroy’s soon-to-be-champion dog was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘Come on out, mate,’ called Tom, checking underneath his bed. ‘I hate baths as well, but if you smell like an old trout the judges won’t be able to get close enough to give us that ten quid.’

  There weren’t many places in the house for a dog to hide. Tom searched behind his parents’ wardrobe, underneath the kitchen table and in all of their beds, but Fungus seemed to have vanished completely. Tom’s stomach started to twist into a knot – where could he have got to?

  ‘Dot, have you seen Fungus?’ he asked his little sister, who was telling Petey a rambling story about princesses and dragons and knights.

  Dot shook her head. ‘He was digging in the back garden after breakfast.’

  Racing into the backyard, Tom checked behind the woodpile and the outdoor dunny, but there was no trace of Fungus. Then he noticed that the back gate was slightly ajar. He peered out into the laneway. It was deserted except for a small boy walking on stilts made from string and a pair of empty jam tins.

  ‘Oi!’ called Tom, causing the boy to lose his balance. ‘Have you seen a dog come through here?’

  ‘A real funny-looking dog?’ said the boy. ‘With wonky ears, a long tongue and hair like an old bird’s nest?’

  ‘That’s Fungus!’ said Tom. ‘Which way did he go?’ It wasn’t like Fungus to stray too far from home without Tom, but then again, his dog would do anything to get out of having a bath.

  The boy pointed down the alleyway. ‘That way. And he was making quite a carry-on. If I didn’t know better I’d swear he hated the fella who was carrying him.’

  Tom’s stomach turned to ice. ‘What fellow?’

  The small boy shrugged and got back on his stilts. ‘A big ugly boy with short hair and a patch on the back of his trousers.’

  He had barely finished talking before Tom was pelting along the laneway toward Frank’s house, heart thumping in his ears. His nightmares of the past few days had come true – Razor McGee had dognapped Fungus!

  12

  The Daredevils stood on the corner of Little Napier Street, which they all knew was one of the roughest parts of Fitzroy. Most of the cottages were shabby and falling to bits, with cracked windows, tiles missing from their roofs, and warped, dirty boards peeling off their sides. Some of them could barely even be called houses – they were more like tiny shacks built directly onto the backs of other buildings.

  Samson chewed his lower lip. ‘I dunno about this,’ he said. ‘We’d be walking smack-bang into the middle of the Spiders’ turf. Who knows if we’ll ever make it out again?’

  Tom shook his head. ‘I don’t have a choice. They’ve got Fungus. But if any of you want to stay behind, you can.’

  Frank put a hand on Tom’s shoulder. ‘Not a chance,’ he said. ‘I’m coming with you.’

  ‘Me too,’ said Joan.

  Samson scratched his head. ‘All right, me too,’ he said. ‘But if I die, and any of you make it back, can you tell Mr Chapman at the library I’m sorry for sneezing all over the “Ethiopia” page of the encyclopedia?’

  ‘Anything you say,’ said Tom.

  The Daredevils ventured slowly down the road, scanning the run-down cottages on each side for any sign of the Spiders.

  ‘Why are all the fences missing palings?’ whispered Joan.

  ‘They’ve used ’em for firewood,’ said Samson. ‘We had to burn half our fence last winter as well. It was bloomin’ freezing.’

  ‘Nah, I reckon someone’s pulled them off to use as weapons,’ said Frank. ‘Remember that time we saw Razor’s brother’s mob laying into those blokes from Collingwood?’

  The street was quiet except for a pair of girls about Dot’s age playing hopscotch in bare feet, and a bearded man snoring against a lamppost, clutching a bottle of methylated spirits.

  The drunk looked like he’d be out for quite a while, so the Daredevils approached the young girls.

  ‘Hello!’ said Tom. ‘Can you tell me where Razor McGee lives, please?’

  The girls turned their grubby faces towards Tom. ‘Who wants to know?’ one of them said.

  ‘We’re friends of his from school.’

  The girl eyeballed Tom suspiciously. ‘You don’t look like Razor’s friends,’ she said. ‘Rack off!’

  Frank pulled at Tom’s sleeve and pointed to an abandoned house a few doors down, where an oversized cap was peeping out from behind the fence. The cap vanished a split second later, but not before Tom and Frank had recognised the ferret-like face underneath it.

  ‘Archie!’ said Frank. ‘Let’s get him!’

  They sprinted towards the house and reached it just in time to see Razor’s lieutenant ducking through the open doorway. The Daredevils hurtled in after him, and Tom was smacked in the face by a musty, sour smell. Joan caught her foot in a hole in the middle of the hallway floor, and as Tom stopped to help her, he caught a glimpse of a pale, tired-faced woman sleeping on a mattress in a room to one side.

  Archie raced out the back door and through a gap in the fence. The Daredevils followed, but none of them had Archie’s rodent-like ability to squeeze through holes. By the time they’d forced their way out the other side he had disappeared.

  They were standing in a narrow laneway. It was completely deserted and lined by sagging corrugated-iron fences. Weeds grew through the gaps between the grey bricks – clearly this particular alley didn’t get a lot of traffic.

  Then, not far away to their left, Tom heard a dog’s high-pitched yowl. Fungus!

  He ran towards the noise. A few yards on, a narrower alleyway branched off to the right, and Fungus yowled again from this direction. Tom led the Daredevils around the sharp corner then shuddered to a halt – the lane was a dead end, and the only thing ahead of them was a high corrugated-iron wall. ‘Go back!’ he yelled.

  As the Daredevils turned, a gate in the side fence swung open and two figures stepped out to stand in their way.

  One was Razor McGee, who had Fungus on a makeshift leash made from a length of old clothesline. The other was Razor’s older brother, Tank – hoodlum, petty thief and the man responsible for various beatings on the streets of Fitzroy. Tank was six-foot-three and as wide as a tram, with slicked-back hair, a nasty scar across one cheek and a mouth that was set into a permanent sneer.

  As the McGee brothers stood side-
by-side, blocking their only escape route, Tom had the terrible realisation that the Daredevils had walked straight into a trap.

  Fungus spotted Tom and made a dash towards him, but Razor pulled hard on the leash and the dog gave a strangled yelp of pain. Razor had looped the clothesline straight around Fungus’s neck, so any pull on the leash made the knot tighten around the dog’s throat. Tom’s vision clouded over with a red mist and he leapt forward, determined to wrap his fingers around Razor’s neck to give him a taste of his own medicine. But Tank just reached out one huge hand and grabbed Tom’s shirt. He lifted him up and threw him back against Frank and Samson.

  Razor laughed like it was the funniest thing he’d ever seen.

  ‘These the ones, Raze?’ asked Tank.

  Razor nodded. ‘Yep.’

  Tank took a menacing step forward. ‘You and your mutt here have a lot to answer for,’ he said.

  Tom stood up and brushed the dirt off his knees. He took a deep breath. ‘Please don’t hurt Fungus,’ he said. ‘I don’t care what you do to me, just let my dog go.’

  Razor snorted. ‘Now why would we want to do that?’ he asked.

  ‘Because I say so,’ said Tom, not feeling nearly as brave as he sounded.

  ‘Because we say so,’ corrected Frank, taking a step forward.

  They might have gotten the better of Razor’s gang last time, but Tom knew that even all four Daredevils were no match for Razor and Tank together.

  Tank’s top lip curled up like a slug in a dish of salt. ‘Well d’you know what I say? I say you made a big mistake messing with my brother and his friends. And d’you know what else I say?’

  The Daredevils stayed silent.

  ‘I say it’s nearly lunchtime,’ said Tank. ‘And I haven’t eaten a good bit of meat in weeks. So we might have something special today – roast leg of dog!’

  Joan gasped loudly.

  ‘You will not!’ said Tom.

  Tank grinned. ‘You’re right, I won’t,’ he said. ‘This mutt’s too stringy for a roast. Much better to cook up a nice dog stew instead. Come ’ere you!’ He tried to grab Fungus, who scampered out of the way and bolted towards the Daredevils, only to be choked back into place by Razor. Tank lunged again, missing Fungus by inches as the dog frantically dodged his plate-sized hands.