‘Well, yes, it is usually about money at the end of the day, Alison, as you say. Some people also call advertising ‘propaganda’. Does anyone know what that is?’
I smile weakly and slide down in my chair so my tailbone is pressing against the seat edge. I can’t believe it. Not only did I go LAM, but I sounded like Mum in one of her raves about materialism! She’s getting to me; it’s working. I’m going to have to keep a check on things. I’m almost glad Shelly wasn’t here to witness that. She reckons I’m always suspiciously quiet during maths and science, and only go LAM in English and SOSE. She’s right: I have a disorder! She’d keep me in line if she were here, confiscate my Killer Pythons for a few days, or something.
I try to catch sight of Ms Carey’s left hand from where I’m sitting. She has a few different rings on, so it’s hard to tell. Ms. Hmmm. I wonder where she lives. I bet she commutes. No one cool would live down here by choice. I tried to convince Dad to commute. He runs his own business, designing timber-framed homes, so he could do it, since he works from home and only occasionally has to go on-site. We could all stay in Perth and Mum could come and live down here since she’s so keen on peace and quiet, and Dad could just drive down to Melros to check on her as well as his projects—you know, like commuting—and be home in time to cook us dinner. Actually, I did offer to cook dinner, but by then he was angry (I could tell by the way he was stirring his tea) and I shut up. He looked up at me a bit strangely and said that nothing in the world would make him live away from Mum. Jerry looked down at his pre-bed peanut butter sandwich, and I found a crumb to pick up off the counter.
I’m walking home from the bus stop a different way today. I hate walking along the road, with cars hurling past, and that rank feeling of being checked out by each driver. I cross the road and head into the bush. From our upstairs verandah, you can see how the firebreaks run through the scrub, so hopefully my mind has stored that info somewhere. Magpies curdle way above me and banksias fling their cones into the undergrowth. My bag’s a lead weight on my shoulder. I still haven’t figured out which teachers want you to bring which books to class, so I just take them all. I swap shoulders.
The roof of a house pokes through the bush. It’s a tin roof, one of those ones that sound really cool when it’s pouring with rain. I peer through the bush, no one seems to be about, so I proceed with caution. This place is amazing. It’s made of rammed earth and has its own water tank. There’s a beautiful wood door and the garden’s all messy and rambling, except for one big tree, which looks like it’s got fruit on it. I go over there to see: yep, fruit. As purple as the Doc Martens Mum won’t let me buy. (She says they’re too expensive and that I shouldn’t feel that I have to adorn myself with a marketed identity—it’s my personality that counts. All the more reason for the boots, I think. My personality stinks.)
Mulberries. There was a mulberry tree in our street at home. Every summer, squashed fruit stained the footpath, and every winter, the rain washed it clean again. There’s no one around now, and I drop my bag and reach up to taste them. They’ll probably be hard and sour, so I put just one in my mouth. I crush it slowly against my tongue and feel the juice soak into the fleshy part of my cheeks. It’s the best mulberry I’ve ever tasted. I look up. There are thousands of them. I grab a couple more, pop them in. I don’t want to hang around; I start collecting some to take home. The last thing I need is to be busted in this town for picking some old granny’s mulberries. The kids at school’d know about it before I did. I put about thirty in the side pocket of my bag, being careful not to squash them. I’m reminded by the look of my hands—stained, like I dipped them in shoplifter ink—that mulberry juice is not something to be taken lightly. I’ll have to use Dad’s special mechanics’ soap to remove the evidence when I get home. Right now, though, I reckon this tree is just about the best thing in Melros. I pull off three or four more berries and cram them into my mouth for one last hit. They are soft and sweet and probably make me look like Dracula.
As I get closer to home, seagulls whirl above me. If I hurry, I’ll be able to clean up before anyone gets back.
SUNSET
I’m lying on my bed. I’ve got the covers up around me. It’s seven in the evening, and Mum’s been in here, hassling me. She’s drained me of all my energy. I feel as floppy and tired as the leaves on the peppermint tree outside. And because of her, I missed the sunset. I haven’t missed one yet and it’s almost like I’ve let someone down. I mean, obviously the sun wouldn’t give a rat’s whether I’m there or not, but I know I wasn’t there. And I might have missed the seal. All because of Mum being on one of her missions. She keeps telling me not to worry about things like boobs and clothes and hair and guys, but she doesn’t understand, let’s face it. It’s not important for her anymore—it’s not like she has to look good for Dad, or anything. I’m really tall and skinny and shapeless and my waist—well, it just doesn’t exist. I press my T-shirt against my chest. Mosquito bites. I tell you, I get mistaken for a boy all the time. Especially since Mum conned me into getting my hair cut short last year. I can’t bear growing it out—that in-between, nothing stage you have to go through. So it’s short hair and no boobs. A great look. Thanks, Mum. I’m not like most girls. I’m big and skinny and loud, and I really want a boyfriend but no one’s tall enough. And everyone knows the guy has to be taller than the girl. You see short guys walking around with tall girls and you do a double-take, like something’s definitely got to be wrong with one or both of them, apart from the fact that they look totally ridiculous together. Mum just doesn’t have a clue. Look at her and Dad: Dad’s taller than Mum. See? Even them. Ms Carey’s not tall. No one good is tall, apart from Steve Hooker and Ian Thorpe—and guess what? They’re guys!
I open my diary. I feel almost too pissed off to write in it. I hate writing in my diary when I’m angry, but afterwards I always feel a bit better. On good days, I write notes about the day—people I see (not many anymore, since moving down here), things I’ve done, blah, blah, blah. It’s pretty boring, really. The juicy bits are when I’m dark. My handwriting goes big and swipes across the page, and I must press really hard with the pen because it scars the next few pages. I hide my diary, just in case Mum or Jerry snoop around when I’m not here. Dad would never do that. It would never occur to him. And he’d never resort to writing in a diary, either. He keeps to himself with stuff like that, goes out for a walk or fishing on his own when he needs to think.
I shove the diary under my doona and fling Shel a quick text instead.
Get me back there! City detox sucks. Mum on mycase. Hope ur cruising.
The moon’s a yellow lampshade just above the water. A not-quite-full moon. They say it does funny things to people when it’s full. Dad says that’s crap. Mum says you shouldn’t snub what you don’t understand. She says the moon moves water and that can’t be all. She always says stuff like that these days. I tell you, she hasn’t been the same since that accident. I don’t really know why it affected her so badly, but something shifted in her brain, never quite slotted back in where it should have.
BEACHED
Another school day done and dusted, and I’ve survived past the middle of week two. At the top of the path through the dunes, I stop for my first breath of the ocean.
My mobile blimbles. Shel.
Cruising, schmoozing ... but missing u, chick. Staycool, A, ur here with us all the time, even when ur not.
My lungs fill. She’s a champ.
I look out over the bluest water. It takes a moment to really see what I’m seeing. People—hundreds of them—lining the beach. In between, like big inverted commas, are whales. Maybe forty of them, all different sizes. There’s heaps of movement and it takes a while for it to sink in, what’s going on. There are 4WDs on the sand, boats in the water. There are whales on the beach. On our beach.
Energy surges into me. I vault homewards to tell Mum, Dad and Jerry.
The house is empty. If Cathy Freeman had been there, I wou
ld have just beaten her in a series of sand-dune time trials. I dump my gear and climb upstairs, calling out. No one’s around—they must be down there already, among all those people.
Right. Think! I need equipment. I throw things around in the shed, cursing Dad for being so messy, until I find my wetsuit. I chuck it into a bucket and grab another plastic container that might be useful for collecting water.
I slam the door behind me.
The sand’s hard to make ground over—it’s like I’m walking through water, or something. There’s rangers in Hiluxes all over the place and more whales than I can believe, right up on the sand. Their eyes are so small and glossy against their huge bodies. What are they doing? Why are they all up here, out of the water?
I look down the beach. There are whales in the whitewater, too, with people circled around. They’ve got big hammock things they’re trying to roll the whales on to, and the boats are waiting to tow them out to deep water. That’s when I see Dad out there in his old Quiksilver wettie, and Mum in her rashie and bathers and her favourite hat, and next to them is Jerry, pouring water out of a bucket over the smooth head of a whale.
I’m sploshing sea water over this incredible ocean creature with a sad, wet eye looking out on a strange world. I’m just trying to keep its skin smooth and wet—that’s all the marine biologist guy wants us to do, just keep them watered. Mum wades over to us, just back from walking the length of the beach. Her face pulls with anxiety.
‘Oh, you poor thing,’ she croons.
‘The bloke reckons this one’s doing okay, Annie,’ Dad says.
Mum looks at Jerry and me. ‘You two are doing a fantastic job.’ She reaches out and rubs my back.
I focus on my waterpouring. Imagine if we can keep this guy alive!
Suddenly, I turn to Dad, then Mum. ‘The full moon!’ I say. They stare at me, and then turn to one another, each with an eyebrow raised. Mum tries hard not to look smug. After a couple of moments, Dad goes back to his bucket.
I don’t say anything, just keep filling and pouring, filling and pouring, watching the water slide off the whale’s thick grey skin and back into the ocean.
At dusk, the rangers and the marine biologist come around to fill us in on the situation. They let us know more volunteers have arrived to do the night shift and encourage us to go home and rest up for tomorrow. A handful of people ignore them and settle in for a night on the beach; they pull out jackets and BBQ Shapes and sit with their backs to the dunes. As I look around at the last of the original helpers, I spot a boy from school, squatting at the water’s edge with a smaller whale. He gets up to haul more buckets of water. I look away in case he sees me watching, and try to focus on the ranger.
I reckon there’ll be heaps of us watching from our balconies and coming back down with torches during the night to see how it’s all going. The guy in charge says that thirty-eight whales washed up on the beach, and seven have died. The others are okay, apart from two or three they’re a bit worried about. There are a few whales still out in the water, not far from shore, and the idea is to try to get one of them to head back out to the open ocean. If that works, the others just might follow.
Leaving our whale is one of the worst things I’ve ever had to do. I feel like we’re abandoning it. But I’m so tired. I squint into the fading light, scouring the beach for the kid from school. It’s impossible to see. Everything’s going grainy.
I wonder if the seal is out there, watching this.
‘You never know,’ Dad murmurs as we trudge home, ‘they might have headed back out to sea by the time we get up in the morning.’
No one says anything. Our feet crunch loudly over the path. Saltbushes shiver.
What sort of a place is this?
MARINE LIFE (AND DEATH)
I’m awake before it’s light enough to see anything. I pull on my trackies and creep upstairs to wait for the panorama from the verandah. The floor croaks like a toad under my feet.
I pull open the sliding door, letting the vacuum of the house escape.
Dad’s in the hammock.
‘What are you doing?’ I whisper.
‘The same as you, I think.’
‘Can you see anything yet?’
He shakes his head, and pats the binoculars in his lap. ‘No. But ready and waiting. Should be about fifteen minutes, I reckon.’
Dad and I can see a circle of lamps on the beach and hear the quiet murmurs of the night crew. Once dawn cracks through, the sky lightens up like a sheet.
There they are, the whales, sprawled out as they had been yesterday—and behind them now is another row. Another row of whales, about twenty of them, heavy, still, on the sand.
Dad and I keep our eyes forward. A blink and I’ll never stop crying.
After I while, I turn to him, and he is crunched forward, chin in his hands.
Mum and Dad insist we have breakfast before we head back down to the beach. While we eat it comes on the news, on the local ABC radio station Mum and Dad always listen to in the mornings. ‘Forty-two long-finned pilot whales have been found beached on Melros beach, approximately eighty kilometres south of Perth. A Department of Conservation and Environment marine animal expert has confirmed that fourteen of the whales are dead, and, while a troupe of volunteers and DCE officers are doing their best to save the creatures, more yet may die...’
I know she can’t do a thing, or even know what it’s like, but it feels important that I tell Shel what’s happening. I hunt around for my phone, and press in a quick message:
Shel, the whales in the news are on our beach. We cansee them from our place.
Half an hour later, when I’ve given up on waiting, she replies:
Holy crap, r u serious? Keep me up to date.
By nightfall it’s all over. We got eighteen of them back out to sea. Half of us worked on keeping the beached ones wet, while the other volunteers tried to herd the loitering whales away from the shore, with the help of a couple of DCE powerboats. Apparently, that’s the best survival rate for a beaching in Western Australia ever. It doesn’t feel like a success, though—all those dead whales. We watched the dozers come in not long after and take the carcasses away. They must have been waiting. Expecting things not to work out. The ranger said they’d already found a place to bury them all.
We sit around the lounge room in a weird silence. Mum makes us Milos.
It was a day off school, at least. The Milo sticks in my throat. They died so slowly. I wonder if they were scared.
Before I turn off my phone for the night, I send Shel one last text.
24 dead whales right out the front of our place. How’sthat for metaphorical significance?
CICADAS
I’m following my little brother down to the beach. It’s seven in the morning, and Mum and Dad are still asleep. It’s Friday, a school day, but Mum and Dad decided last night before we finally went to bed that we don’t have to go today. So it’s a rest day. Mental health day. Mum said something about squeezing an extra day into the weekend, since it’s all been a bit ‘action-packed’. A bit shite is my translation. And Dad warned that if anyone interrupted his sleep-in, he’d be confiscating a Dick Smith set and a mobile phone. Guess whose. But it looks like Jerry’s up-and-at-’em this morning, going fishing on his own.
Before I left, I saw from our verandah that the beach has been completely cleaned up. It’s like nothing ever happened here. The dead whales have been deleted from the scene. Is that what we’re meant to do, just forget it ever happened, just move on?
Weirdly, it’s a perfect morning. It’s all still—the air, the bushes, the ocean. It’ll change later. It always does. Dad showed me once how you can tell when the wind’s coming in, and when it does, the whole day is different. Even what people do is different—they don’t hang out on the beach because the sand gets in their gear and the water is whipped up and dark, kind of cranky. That’s why we always go to the beach in the morning.
I hide behind a bush that juts o
nto the path before the long, straight stretch, keeping my eye on Jerry, with his bucket and flick rod. He’s even got one of Dad’s leather rod-holders around his hips—I bet he doesn’t even know what that’s for, let alone know how to use it.
I run down the limestone track, watching for snakes, just in case. They all come out of hibernation about now. Jerry’s not paying attention; he’s got no idea I’m following him. He wouldn’t even notice if a snake jumped out and bit him on the bum, probably. I hide behind a saltbush. He’s up at the highest point of the path, overlooking our bit of beach, trying to figure out where to cast out. There are dark blobs where the seaweed has parked for the day. It looks like he’s come down without a hat. Mum will not be happy. It’s not hot yet, but the UV rays are already blazing down on his neck. What should I do? Blow my cover and tell him he’d better go back and get one? Go and get it for him? Or pretend I haven’t noticed—I mean, I’m not really here, anyway, am I?
Have You Seen Ally Queen? Page 2