by Sue Lawson
They didn’t stop running or screaming.
“Should we go see what that was all about?” asked Micky.
“I suppose so.” Shoulders back, I walked over and rapped on the open wooden door. I made my voice deep, like Barry’s, and called out, “Excuse me, ladies, anyone in here?” I waited a moment before knocking again. “Anybody in the shower block?”
I glanced at Micky. He shrugged. I counted five heartbeats then walked into the dank building.
Sinks and mirrors lined one wall and a bench the other. The rest of the room was filled with toilets and showers separated by sheets of masonite. A waist-high table and bench ran down the centre of the building. The green wooden doors on the showers and toilets were ajar or wide open.
While I peeped into stalls, Micky hovered by the edge of the table.
Giggles echoed through the room.
The two girls who’d bolted as though an axe murderer was after them stood in the doorway. The smaller of the two hid behind her sister, skirt bunched in her fist. “Can you see it?” she asked.
I’d finished checking and had come back to the sunlight splashing the entrance. “See what?”
The girl with the bunched skirt shuddered and whispered something that was more hiss than word.
“What?” I asked.
“Snake,” said the other girl. She thrust her arms out wide. “This big.”
“Jeepers,” muttered Micky.
“Over there,” whispered the younger girl. She stared at the corner stall.
“You sure? Because I’ve checked and there’s no snake.”
A woman, who I figured was the girls’ mother, arrived. She gripped the girls by the shoulders and pulled them to her. “My daughters never lie.”
I looked over the woman’s shoulder to the office. Barry would know what to do. And he’d handle this prickly woman, who was looking at Micky as though he was a piece of rotten fruit.
As I stepped towards the office, I remembered the hurt and worry in Barry’s face.
I took a deep breath and turned back to the shower block entrance.
“All right, ladies, you need to wait outside the shower block.” Once they moved from the door, I spoke to Micky. “Grab a spade from the shed.”
He nodded and fled, arms and legs pumping.
“Don’t kill it!” squealed the older girl.
“I won’t kill it. The spade is just in case …” My voice trailed off. Sending Micky for a spade seemed the adult thing to do. Just what I’d do with a spade if I came across a snake was a mystery to me.
Micky returned, clutching a rake.
“Really?”
He shrugged. “First thing I saw.”
I shook my head and turned to the corner shower stall. The green door was ajar. Somehow it seemed more threatening than the other stalls. I crept forwards but stopped, aware Micky hadn’t followed. “Well?” I said, over my shoulder.
He stood in the doorway, arms folded. “Well, what?”
“Let’s do this.”
“There’s no us, mate. I’m staying here.”
I spun around. “But …”
“But what? Oh, I get it. The black boy will know how to deal with a snake. Forget it. The buggers scare me shitless. You’re on your own!” He stuck his chin out.
I glared before continuing my search for a snake that probably didn’t exist.
Rake across my chest, the way a soldier holds his rifle, I inched closer.
At the cubicle, I stopped, heart thudding in my ears. I prodded the door with the rake handle. The door swung open with a creak and banged against the stall. The masonite walls quivered.
I jumped back. Behind me, someone gasped.
Rake gripped tight, I inched forwards. Scanned the cement floor. Bent to peer under the masonite partitions. Nothing.
My shoulders slumped with relief.
I spun to face the entrance. “There’s no bloody snake.”
The girls and their mother, in the doorway behind Micky, all had the same wide-eyed and slack-mouthed expression.
“What?” I snapped.
Like a robot, Micky raised his hand and pointed above my head. “There.” At least that’s what I thought he said. It sounded more like a gasp.
“Where?” I spun on my heels to face the brick wall.
“Up there,” came his high-pitched reply.
I raised my gaze. A strange series of sounds rushed from me. Part squeals, part squawks and part swearing.
Stretched along the shower arm, staring at me with cold eyes, was a snake. Its tail end rested on the windowsill, its body on the shower arm and its head hovered above the showerhead.
I stumbled backwards. In my panic, the rake jammed across the doorway. I couldn’t lose my only weapon. I tugged. The stall shuddered. The rake stayed stuck. I twisted my wrist and pulled hard. The rake clattered to the floor. I tumbled to my bum.
Laughter boomed around the shower block. I scrambled to my feet.
From outside the stall I studied the snake.
And the snake studied me.
“Is it poisonous?” asked the woman.
How would I know? I’d never been eye to eye with a snake before.
“I think,” said Micky, clearing his throat, “it’s a python.”
My breath rushed from me. A python. The only thing I knew about snakes was that pythons weren’t poisonous. I could deal with a python.
“Nasty bite,” said the woman. “Saw one swallow a pig whole once.”
“Can you not talk? Please,” I said, staring at the reptile’s creamy stomach.
Its tongue flickered from its mouth. I shuddered.
Ian Wright’s words flooded back. “You’re weak as piss, Bower.”
I swiped sweat from my top lip and reached for the rake.
“No need to hurt each other,” I whispered. Its head and neck, if snakes even had necks, still swayed above the shower arm. “Just moving you on.” I raised the rake and nudged the snake’s belly. It bunched into a tight knot on the window ledge and lowered its head. It studied my face, tongue darting in and out.
I poked harder.
The snake raised its head.
I held my breath.
It slithered down the wall, movements fast and smooth. It was even bigger than the girl had shown me.
I stumbled backwards out of the stall. The rake clattered from my hand.
Behind me, squeals, yelps and the sound of running footsteps shattered the quiet.
I knew without looking that Micky, the girls and their mother had left me to face the reptile, alone and without a weapon.
I’d just about regained my balance, when I crunched into the table and bench in the middle of the room.
The snake rippled forwards, a wave of muscles, head raised from the concrete.
Was it headed for me?
I clambered onto the bench and tugged off my shoe to chuck at the reptile that clearly wanted to bite my face off. I raised my arm to pitch the shoe. The snake altered course. Faster now, all arcs and waves, it slithered to the toilet nearest the door.
It slid out the hole between the concrete and the toilet pipe. The hole that Barry had talked about fixing last week.
“Where’s the snake?” asked Barry, bursting into the shower block.
I pointed a shaking hand at the hole. “Bloody huge,” I blurted. The pulse in my ears faded and I could hear the sounds around me now – the breeze through the gum trees, a toilet flush from the men’s block.
Barry entered the cubicle and squatted to inspect the hole. “Looks like we’d better patch this straightaway. Can’t have guests having heart attacks in the showers.” He straightened up. “Or my staff.”
I realised I was still sprawled across the wooden table. I slipped off the table and put my shoe back on.
“Evil-looking buggers.” Barry grinned. “Give you a fright?”
“Should we … I mean … wouldn’t it be best if we killed it?” I asked, my voice steadier than I expe
cted.
Barry shook his head. “He won’t hurt anyone. And they keep the mice down.” He picked up the rake from where it lay abandoned. “Good job, Robbie.”
Was he being sarcastic? I mean, I hadn’t done anything except frighten the hell out of myself and the snake.
“Seriously. You handled it well.”
“Just about fouled myself,” I said.
Barry laughed. “But you managed to keep the guests safe and move the snake on. Impressive effort.” He guided me to the door.
Micky was waiting in the sunshine. “Good going, Robbie,” he said, looking at his feet.
“Thanks for keeping the girls out of the way,” I said. “And for getting the rake.”
“Great work, team,” said Barry.
CHAPTER 31
I slammed on the brakes. My bike skidded to a stop, spraying gravel onto the grass. A police car was parked outside the caravan park office. As I stepped off my bike and wheeled it down the park entrance, Barry and Keith’s dad walked out the office door.
“Hi Barry, Sergeant. How’s Keith?” I asked.
Keith’s dad rolled his eyes. “Buggerising around. Wish he was more like you, Robbie.” He strode to the driver’s door. “Sorry I can’t be more helpful, Barry, but we did warn you.” He tapped the car roof and climbed inside. We watched him do a three-point turn and steer onto the road to town.
“What was that about?” I asked.
Barry jerked his head at the men’s shower and toilet block.
“Oh hell.” Even from the office, the huge black letters sprawled across the back wall, which faced the road, were easy to read.
“Boong Lover.”
“Piss off Abo.”
“I’ll wash it off before Micky arrives,” I said, laying my bike on the grass.
“Micky won’t be in today.” Barry’s voice was flat.
“Did you … you didn’t …”
“It’s his day off.” He sighed. “Let’s get that rubbish off the wall.”
Barry and I attacked the wall with scrubbing brushes and soapy water. Up close I could see the brush marks in the black paint and the drips running down to the grass.
I placed a third bucket of steaming soapy water between us. The graffiti now read “over” and “Piss”.
“We’ll paint the wall once it’s clean,” said Barry. “Maybe a dark grey rather than white.”
“Good idea,” I said, wincing as I dipped my brush into the scolding water. That was when I noticed the white thing against the wall. At first I thought it was a scrap of paper, but when I picked it up with my finger and thumb to throw it in the bin, I discovered it was a handkerchief. It was smattered with smudges of black paint, as though its owner had used it to wipe his hands clean. Embroidered in blue on the corner was the letter K. The summer sun seemed to beat harder on my skin.
“You okay, Robbie?” asked Barry, his scrubbing brush resting on the wobbly letter P.
I closed my fist around the hankie. “Just going to chuck this rubbish in the bin,” I said, walking to the silver bin outside the shower block.
My ears rang and my mind whirled. Why?
“Sure you’re okay?” Barry watched me with narrowed eyes.
“Fine. Just hot. Mad about this.”
He plunged the scrubbing brush back into the bucket. “I know.”
I stuffed the hanky into my pocket.
Instead of going straight home after work that night, I rode to Deakin Street. I leaned my bike against the fence and headed for the back door.
“Bower.” Past the clothes line, Keith tossed a cricket ball from one hand to the other. “How’s work?”
“Busy. Lots of people staying.”
“Not what I heard. I heard people were leaving because of that boong.”
My skin prickled. “Don’t know about that.” But I did; so far seventeen campers had left and four more had cancelled return bookings for next year. I nodded at his hand. “What’s with the cricket ball?”
“Signed up to play with Walgaree Central.”
“Wright’s team.” My voice was dead.
“Yeah. Is that a problem?”
“No problem at all.” I slipped my hand into my pocket and pulled out the handkerchief I’d found earlier. I held it out to him. “You left this at the caravan park last night.”
His eyes widened. He lurched for the hanky. I snatched it away.
“Why, Keith?”
“You can’t prove it’s mine.”
I showed him the embroidered letter. “You bellyached last Christmas about the handkerchiefs your grandmother gave you, and how she’d stitched the letter K on them. I’ve seen you use them enough to recognise them.”
His fingers tightened around the cricket ball. Fear swam in his eyes. “Jeez, Robbie, who have you told?”
“Why’d you do it, Keith?”
“Because it’s not right, that’s why,” he snarled like the guard dog at Bull Jackson’s yard. “Abos have no place in town and they have no place taking a white person’s job. And the sooner Barry Gregory works that out, the better. Bloody boong lover.” His nose and lip curled as he spat the word. “Maybe his mum liked a bit of Abo.”
I grabbed him by his T-shirt and pushed him towards the garden shed. “Take that back.”
“Make me.” His breath was hot and sour in my face.
I tightened my grip and shook him. “Don’t speak about Mrs Gregory. Ever.” I caught a glimpse of my face, twisted with rage, reflected in the shed window. I thought of Wright and released my grip. “And stay away from the caravan park.”
“Or what?”
“Or I’ll show this hanky to your dad.” I prodded Keith in the chest with my index finger. “He’s the cop investigating the graffiti.”
“Do what you like,” he said, but his arrogance had crumpled.
“Yeah, I will.” This time my nose curled. “Enjoy the cricket.”
I should have felt better, freer, after confronting Keith, but I just felt sad.
“Where have you been?” asked Dad, when I rode down our driveway. He stood on the house side of his car, wringing a rag over a bucket.
“Work.” What I’d really been doing since visiting Keith was just riding around thinking.
He leaned on the car. “How is work?”
“Good. Slowing down. You know, not long ‘til school goes back.”
“From what I hear, the caravan park’s quieter than usual.”
I shrugged. “We’re busy enough.”
Dad’s lips twisted. “How are you finding that Barry?”
“Why does everyone say ‘that Barry’ or ‘that Gregory boy’? He’s just Barry.”
“Sorry, Robbie.” Dad crossed his legs at the ankles. “I haven’t had much to do with him, that’s all. You like working with him?”
“Very much.”
“What’s the deal with the Abo kid?”
“Micky?”
“Does tha … Barry owe his family or just feel sorry for the boy?”
I took a breath before answering. “I don’t know.”
Dad folded his arms. “It’s wrong. Him giving an Abo a job when a white boy would do it better.”
“Maybe no other white boy wanted to spend his holidays working. Not everyone is as weird as me.” I pushed my bike to the garage.
Why couldn’t I just say that Micky was a hard worker, a good bloke? I kicked gravel at the garage wall and stomped to the back door.
CHAPTER 32
I blundered into Keith and Wright at the newsagent the Thursday before school went back.
Since I’d confronted Keith about the hanky, I kept away from any place he or Wright might be. Once, when I was on the post office steps, I’d spied them outside the cinema. I darted inside before they saw me. I just about knocked Mrs Dixon over in my rush. I lingered at the bench where people filled in forms for what felt like hours. By the time I emerged they’d gone.
But Thursday in the newsagent, I was so engrossed in checking f
or that magazine Barry had been reading – OZ – I didn’t notice Keith and Wright until I heard their high-pitched sniggers. They stood at the men’s magazine rack and giggled over an open Pix or Man magazine. A blonde, bosomy woman with pouting lips reclined on the front cover. I crept towards the office supplies down the back of the store.
“That boong still working at the caravan park?” boomed Stretch from his lair behind the counter.
I cringed. Keith and Wright had to have heard him. “Bit cooler today, Mr Edwards, isn’t it?” I replied.
“You ignoring us?” The voice was gruff.
I turned, pulling a look of surprise. “Ian, Keith. Didn’t see you. Too focused on finding glue and rubber bands.”
“You didn’t answer Stretch,” said Wright, swaggering closer. “Is the boong still at the park?”
“Micky still works there.”
Wright sneered. “He’s a slow learner.”
My chest lurched. “Actually, he’s pretty smart.”
Keith’s eyes bulged. “You serious?”
I wasn’t going to look away first.
Wright stepped forwards. “You better watch yourself, Bower.” He jabbed his finger into the bony part of my chest. I tensed to stop myself from stumbling backwards.
“Everything all right, boys?” called Stretch from behind the counter.
“Absolutely, Mr Edwards,” I sang.
Keith flinched when I reached past him for the rubber bands and glue. “I have to go.”
It wasn’t until I was outside that my hands started shaking.
CHAPTER 33
The flickering shadows and light from the television flashed across the pages of The Catcher in the Rye, the latest book Barry had loaned me.
Nan sat in her chair, sipping a cup of tea.
Dad smoked and watched the television news. His thumb drummed against the chair arm. Every now and again he grunted.
His twitching and grumbles, Nan’s slurps and the drone of the news made it tough to concentrate on Holden Caulfield’s problems.
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” bellowed Dad.
The book tumbled from my lap.
Nan yelped. Her teacup chinked against the saucer as she set it down.
“What on earth is the problem, Francis?” Nan’s brow was more wrinkled than ever.