Shooting Stars

by Brian Falkiner

  My father says Jack has to stay outside in the back yard, but it’s okay because he can’t run away because of the fence.

  As if Jack would run away.

  I don’t think my father likes Jack very much.

  We had pizza for dinner!

  Word of the day:

  SCRUFFY

  Thought for the day:

  Pizza is my new favourite thing!

  Another thought for the day:

  My father said it was not polite for me to keep staring at Lauren’s boobs.

  There is so much to learn here.

  February 17th

  I have my rucksack back. My crossbow too.

  The detective who doesn’t wash his hair brought them both around.

  He doesn’t drive a police car. Just a big silver car. I was going to ask him why, but I was so excited to see my stuff that I forgot.

  He seemed a bit reluctant to give me the crossbow. My father said he would get a permit for it.

  The detective said we didn’t need a permit, he just wanted to make sure that I understood that it was a dangerous weapon, and I couldn’t walk around the streets with it.

  I promised I would be really careful with it, and he gave it to me.

  My father asked if there was any news about Moana, but the detective said no. He said local detectives are working on the case and there is a search team being assembled.

  He said they will find her.

  I also had my DNA test today. Dad had one too. I didn’t have to do anything.

  A lady, who I think was a nurse, poked a long white stick inside my mouth and scraped it along the inside of my cheek. It didn’t hurt or anything.

  That was it.

  Seriously.

  That is a DNA test.

  I asked if I passed the test, but she said they wouldn’t know for about a week.

  There is going to be a ‘news conference’. That is where a lot of reporters for the newspapers and the TV and radio, and Internet come to one place to ask questions.

  Apparently my coming back to the world is ‘big news’. I don’t know why.

  I don’t know why it is anybody else’s business, or even why they would be interested, but my father says people are like that. He says lots of people are famous just for being famous.

  That makes no sense at all, and I will have to ask him about it later.

  He said that there was a lot of interest in my story, but there was no pressure. I wouldn’t have to come to the press conference until I was ready.

  I was actually quite afraid of going to a press conference, but rule #20 is ‘face your fears’.

  So I said I was ready.

  Thought for the day:

  They are going to find Moma!

  The detective promised!

  Moma’s Code #20

  Confront your fears and problems.

  Things you are afraid of will not go away if you ignore them.

  Problems will remain problems if you avoid them.

  Worry is wasted energy.

  February 18th

  We had the news conference today.

  My father said that I needed to be there, but I didn’t have to say anything.

  Lauren thought we should wait until we found out about the DNA test, but my father said he was sure. He said I looked like Moana and I knew too many things about her to be making it up.

  Lauren also thought that I might need more time before facing a ‘gang of rabid paparazzi’ (her exact words).

  They had a little fight over that. There was a bit of shouting.

  I used to fight with Moma sometimes. It’s no big deal. She always said it was okay to fight as long as you made up afterwards.

  I am sure that my father and Lauren will make up afterwards. (In fact I think they are doing it now. I am going to go and close my bedroom door.)

  Back to the news conference.

  I had visualised a gang of rabid paparazzi as being like a swarm of wasps or a feeding frenzy of tiny sharks. (Actually, that wasn’t too far from the truth.) But really it was just a bunch of news reporters with cameras and microphones.

  My father had said that I didn’t have to say anything; he would answer all the questions.

  It started off like that, but all the reporters kept asking me things, and after a while it got really awkward and embarrassing ignoring them.

  The whole thing actually became kind of a blur. But when I got home Lauren told me she had ‘taped’ it so I could watch it. I had no idea what she was talking about, but she explained it all to me. So I got to see myself on television – even though I was on the television at the time!

  First thing, I can’t believe what I look like.

  I have seen myself in mirrors, and in water reflections, so I thought I knew. But I was amazed and a bit shocked when I saw me. At first I wondered who that scrawny kid in the funny clothes was who was walking in next to my father, then I realised it was me.

  To give you an idea how it went, I have copied a bit down from the ‘tape’.

  Lauren stopped and started it lots of times so I could copy the words accurately.

  Reporter #1: So you’ve never seen cars, aeroplanes or houses before?

  Me: Yeah nah. That’s not true. We lived in a little house, and I used to see helicopters sometimes and I’d see cars driving along the road if I went down near the town.

  Reporter #1: But you’d never been in a car or an aircraft.

  Me: I still haven’t been in an aircraft.

  Reporter #1: What do you think of all these things?

  Me: I think there are too many things. It’s very complicated and confusing.

  Reporter #1: It doesn’t make you unhappy that you’ve missed out on all these things all of your life?

  Me: I don’t think you need a lot of things to make you happy. I was happy living in a stone hut in the middle of the forest. A lot of the people I’ve seen in the city don’t seem to be very happy. Especially those ones who want more things.

  Reporter #2: What was your overall impression of Auckland when you first arrived?

  Me: What do you mean?

  Reporter #2: How did you feel about it?

  Me: (after quite a long pause, thinking) I remember thinking that it was like a big bonfire.

  Reporter #2: What do you mean, a bonfire?

  Me: A little fire can burn for hours with just a little wood. But a big city is like a big bonfire. You need a lot of fuel to keep it burning.

  (I remember saying that, and after I said it, the reporter wrote it down really quickly as if I had just said something clever. But then all the other reporters saw, so they all started writing it down too. I don’t think you have to be particularly smart to be a news reporter.)

  Reporter #3: So what do you think of city people.

  Me: I think they must be scared of each other.

  Reporter #3: Scared?

  Me: Yeah, scared. When I was in the forest, I had no one to talk to except for Moma and Jack.

  Reporter #4: Who is Jack?

  Me: My dog. But he don’t talk much.

  (They all laughed a little too loudly at my joke.)

  Me: I would have loved to have had other people to talk to, but I never did, until I met J.T. People in the city don’t talk to each other. Some of them listen to music so that they don’t have to talk. Some don’t look at anyone in case they try to talk to them. Lots of them stare at their portable telephones the whole time. Almost everyone I’ve met here has been really nice. But they’ll never know it because they are too frightened to talk to each other.

  Reporter #5: Who is J.T.?

  And on it went. The press conference lasted for an hour. I think they were hoping for something deep or profound, from the ‘boy from the bush’ but I’m a pretty
simple person, and I didn’t have anything to give them.

  J.T. was standing by the doorway when I hobbled out, trying not to hit any of the reporters with my crutch (I am using just one crutch now). I looked back, but my father was still tied up in a crowd of people.

  “J.T.!” I said.

  He reached out to shake my hand, and I shook his, but then he put his other hand on top of mine, and then he said, “Stuff it,” and pulled me in and gave me a big hug. I hugged him back as best as I could with one arm.

  “I’m really sorry I didn’t turn up at the DOC office that day,” I said. “I just kind of … all this happened.”

  “I completely understand,” he said. “Is everything okay?”

  “Yeah mate, I think so,” I said.

  “How has he been?” he asked, with emphasis on the ‘he’ so I knew he was talking about my father.

  “Sweet as, so far,” I said. “Everybody says that he is a really nice person, and that it was Moma who was wrong. She was mentally ill.”

  J.T. nodded. “It was a bit strange to go and hide in the woods for fifteen years,” he said. “But if you have any kind of problems, any problems at all, you call me.”

  “Chur bro,” I said.

  He gave me a small rectangle of cardboard like the one he had shown the hunters that day, but not made of plastic. It had his name on it. At the top it said “New Zealand Warriors” with a picture that looked a little bit Maori. Underneath his name it said ‘Motivational Trainer’.

  “You know the Warriors?” J.T. asked.

  I shook my head.

  “They’re a rugby league team,” he said. “I quit my job with DOC and came back to Auckland. Found me a job with the Warriors. Got a new girlfriend too.”

  A pretty girl with long black hair tied back in a ponytail was standing just behind J.T. She was very slim and fit and had really nice boobs although not as big as Lauren’s. She looked very huggable.

  I already knew it wasn’t polite to look at her boobs too much so I didn’t.

  She stepped forward and held out a hand. I gave her a hug instead.

  “This is Angel,” he said. “She works with me at the Warriors.”

  “Hi Angel,” I said.

  “And it’s all thanks to you,” J.T. said.

  “I don’t see how,” I said.

  “I’ll explain it someday,” J.T. said, looking behind me.

  I looked around. My father was standing there.

  J.T. put out his hand again. “Ray, it’s an honour,” he said. “Jeffery Hunter. J.T.”

  My father shook his hand, but didn’t try to hug him. “You’re the one who met him in the bush,” he said.

  “I had no idea who he was,” J.T. said. “If I had known …”

  My father held up both hands. “You couldn’t have known,” he said. “But he thinks the world of you. Thank you for being his friend.”

  “Stay in touch,” J.T. said, as my father and I pushed our way through the crowds to get to the taxi.

  I smiled back at him, and put his card safely in my pocket.

  When we got home, Jack was missing.

  He’d dug a hole under the rear gate and run off over the little bridge across the river and into the reserve, which is like a small forest. Somebody reported him and the dog catcher caught him. (It took two of them!)

  I was lucky to get him back. Dad rang the dog pound and they identified him by his description.

  We are taking him to the vet tomorrow to get some shots and he needs to be registered with the city council.

  Life in the city is complicated.

  Thought for the day:

  I have been getting lots of hugs lately.

  February 19th

  I am a famous writer!

  That’s kind of a joke, but I am a writer (although not a published one) and I definitely am famous.

  Although I think I am like my father said, famous for being famous, because I haven’t actually done anything to be famous for. I haven’t had a book published. I haven’t had a painting exhibited in an art gallery. All I have done is hide in a forest for fifteen years.

  But I definitely seem to be famous.

  I see my face on the television and in newspapers and on the Internet and on the radio. They call me Egan ‘Bush’ Tucker, or just Bush Tucker.

  I don’t know who thought of that. It certainly wasn’t me.

  Today a news company called CNN came to interview me. They wanted to know all about my time in the bush and what it was like to live without electricity or running water etc etc etc.

  Then they wanted to know how I was adjusting to living in the real world.

  I said I was doing okay thanks.

  They wanted to know how. So I told them about the code. About how my mother had driven into me over and over again all these rules for how to act and how to treat other people in the outside world.

  So they made me go through the code. Every item. Explaining what it meant to me.

  Actually the whole thing got a bit boring. But they said people all around the world would see the interview, so I guess that means I am now famous.

  We took Jack to the vet to get his shots today. He didn’t like it much. When we got home he kept giving me the sad eyes and I had to keep scratching his tummy. Then he went to sleep cuddling his bunny.

  February 20th

  I have a Facebook page.

  Funny to think that a few weeks ago I didn’t know what the Internet was, let alone Facebook. Now I have a page.

  I didn’t make it. Someone else did that, I don’t know who.

  It is all about me, and all about Moma’s code. According to the page, if people follow the code, they will live better lives.

  I suppose that is true.

  My Facebook page has about 4000 ‘likes’.

  Thought for the day:

  I must find out what a ‘like’ is.

  PS:

  I was wrong about people not talking to each other. They do. This is why they all stare at their portable telephones. But they are not talking to the people around them. They talk using their thumbs on their telephones. This is called ‘texting’. I have seen Lauren doing this. I wonder if she will show me how.

  February 21st

  Okay. This is getting a little bit silly. Now I have to do interviews with:

  •60 Minutes

  •Fox

  •TNT

  •CBS

  •ABC

  •Some other letters that I don’t remember.

  Everybody seems to want to know all about me.

  And I haven’t done anything to be famous for!

  Lauren turned on the television today to show me something she thought I would be interested in. She had taped it earlier. It was a news reporter interviewing J.T.

  He didn’t seem very happy about being interviewed. He said they should leave me alone and let me get on with my life.

  They asked him if he knew about my code.

  He was a bit quiet for a moment on the interview then he nodded his head and said yes.

  They asked him to elaborate but all he would say was that I had changed his life.

  He says some funny things, J.T.

  I didn’t change his life. He did that.

  February 22nd

  I can text!

  I asked my dad and Lauren about texting. Lauren said I needed a phone of my own. So my dad bought me a portable telephone that fits in your pocket. You can message people by pressing letters on a keyboard and sending them to their number. (Everybody in the world has their own number.) You can also talk to them by pressing a different button.

  Lauren is really clever with this stuff.

  My dad bought me the phone so he could call me if he wanted to know where I was, and I could call him if I n
eeded anything. That was a cool thing to do.

  Later, after Lauren had gone out shopping, my dad took the phone back off me for a while. He did something to it. Now he can find where I am, he said, in case I get kidnapped. He said New Zealand is a really safe country, but with his fame, and all the publicity about me, we need to be careful.

  So he put a special something on my phone that lets him know where it is all the time. He told me not to say anything about it to anyone. That makes sense, because if a kidnapper knew about it, they would just throw the phone away, or put it on a bus driving to Wellington or something like that.

  Safety is very important to my dad.

  Thought for the day:

  I wonder if Lauren has this on her phone too. I’d ask her, but I promised I wouldn’t mention it to anyone.

  Moma’s Rule #17

  Always keep your promises.

  Or you will turn friends into enemies.

  Facebook page update:

  I now have 116,832 likes.

  That is awesome! That is more than a hundred thousand people. I can’t even imagine that many people.

  February 23rd

  I got my DNA results today. I am my dad’s son. That’s good, although I never had any doubts about it.

  The other thing that happened today was that Lauren caught me looking at her boobs.

  Some days I just can’t take my eyes off them. They are big and round, and seem to pop out of the dresses or blouses she wears.

  Some days I am talking to her and I should be looking at her eyes, but I find myself staring at her chest, and have to quickly pretend that I was just thinking about something complicated and didn’t realise where I was looking.

  But today she caught me good. She was wearing a low cut t-shirt and some long necklaces that hung down and got trapped in the valley between her boobs.

  “Enjoying the view?” she asked.