by Joan Kilby
“Don’t you think your father can tell the difference between faking and real illness?” Sienna came farther into the room, picking up Oliver’s discarded shirt. “Not that Erica would fake something like this. Preeclampsia is serious. She could die. The baby could die. I can’t believe you’re acting like this. I’m sorry about your trip, but compared to what Erica’s going through it’s nothing.”
“She hates me.”
“Of course she doesn’t hate you,” Sienna began, then the misery of Olly’s expression registered. “Did she say something? Was she mean to you?”
“Not to me,” he said. “I overheard her complaining to Dad about him going off skiing. She said she and the baby are his family now.” Oliver’s voice broke but it was a tearful wobble, not a symptom of puberty. “Like I’m not his son anymore.”
“Oh, Oliver.” Sienna put her arms around him but he turned aside, refusing to be comforted. “I don’t blame you for being angry. That’s a horrible thing for her to say.” And wouldn’t she give Anthony an earful as soon as Erica and the baby were out of danger! “But when you’re pregnant you feel vulnerable. She must have already been feeling sick when she said that. Don’t ever think your father doesn’t want you.”
“If she doesn’t want me what’s the difference? He does everything she says. Every little thing.” Oliver’s face was pale, making the pimples on his forehead and chin stand out red and furious. “In the car all he talked about was the baby. He didn’t ask me about school or my friends or what I’ve been doing.”
“He’s excited about the birth, just as he was when you were born. He wants you to bond with your stepbrother or sister,” Sienna explained. Anthony had good intentions where Oliver was concerned, she knew that, but his execution was clumsy.
“The baby’s not even born. How can I bond with it?” Oliver brushed past her and headed for the front door.
“Hey, guess what?” Sienna said, following him down the hall. “I won a joyride in a Tiger Moth airplane at the Trivia Night. Do you want to take the flight instead of me?”
“No, thanks,” he grunted. Grabbing his jacket from a hook, he pushed his feet into his running shoes without undoing the laces. “I’m going to Jason’s.”
Sienna caught him by the arm. “Listen, Olly, I know you’re upset, but now that you’re not going to New Zealand you could take that math qualifying exam tomorrow with the rest of the students.”
“I’m not going to school tomorrow.” Oliver shook her off and reached for the doorknob. “If I was skiing I wouldn’t even be here.”
“That’s not acceptable and you know it,” she said, furious. But short of engaging in a scuffling match she couldn’t prevent him from leaving.
“Whatever.” Oliver jammed his hands in his pockets. Head down, he spun off the steps in one long stride, shoulders hunched up around his ears.
She hurried after him in her dressing gown as far as the sidewalk. “Come back here.”
He kept on walking. Sienna clenched her hands into fists hidden by her blue satin sleeves. The man who lived on the corner was walking his bulldog. Across the road, a car had pulled up and an elderly woman emerged. They both glanced her way, curious.
Gritting her teeth, she waved at Oliver, pretending nothing was wrong. “See you later.”
Gathering the skirts of her dressing gown, Sienna ran back up the steps, seething. He’d never openly defied her before. And he wasn’t going to get away with it.
She got out her address book and rang Jason’s mother. “Hi, Lisa. It’s Sienna Maxwell. I’m sorry to call so early. Oliver’s on his way over. Could you send him home, please?”
CHAPTER NINE
SIENNA SLID THE PAN of her homemade lasagna into the oven. It was Oliver’s favorite—and one of the few things she could cook.
Hands on hips, she glanced at the clock and frowned. It was nearly five and he wasn’t home from school. The Men’s Shed was finished, so he couldn’t be there. His advanced math exam had been today and he knew she’d be anxious to hear how he’d done.
Yesterday, when he’d gotten home from Jason’s, he’d apologized for being rude, then he’d sulked in his room for the rest of the day. This morning he’d mumbled and groaned and stomped out the door to school, his shirt untucked and hanging below his pullover in defiance of school rules.
Sienna didn’t condone his behavior with regard to Erica, but she understood. He wasn’t just disappointed at not going skiing; he felt rejected by his father and jealous of the new baby. Between lasagna and the dogbot she hoped to make him feel better.
The front door opened and shut. Sienna listened for the sound of Oliver kicking off his shoes. As they hit the wall she winced, thinking of the smudge marks. Today she wouldn’t chastise him.
“Hi, Olly,” she called, expecting him to come directly into the kitchen to forage for food. “I made lasagna.”
He muttered something, but the sound was distant as if he was down the hall, halfway to his bedroom. Sienna shrugged and finished rinsing the dirty pots. When he hadn’t emerged after fifteen minutes, she went looking for him.
He lay with his face to the wall, turning the pages of a magazine, music blaring from his CD player. “Will you turn that down, please?” she said loudly.
Oliver rolled over, stabbed at the volume control, then rolled away from her again.
Sienna took two deep breaths, telling herself not to get angry. “How did you go on the math exam?”
He just shrugged.
“Why were you late?”
“I was with Jason.”
Getting information out of this kid was like pulling teeth. Sienna thought wistfully of the days when he talked nonstop. “At his house?”
“No.” Oliver flipped the page of his magazine. Cars, of course. In another year he could get his learner’s license. That thought scared the life out of her.
“Olly, would you please look at me when I’m talking to you?”
“What do you want?” he asked without turning to her.
“Dinner will be ready in half an hour.”
“I’m not hungry.”
Her head jerked, she was so surprised. “Since when are you not hungry?”
He made no reply.
“Oliver, what’s going on?” She stepped over the books and dirty clothes on the floor to touch his shoulder. “Are you sick? Let me feel your forehead.”
At the tug of her hand he reluctantly flopped over onto his back and glared up at her. The reason stood out immediately. On the right side of his upper lip was a piercing. Oliver’s downy young flesh had been perforated by a stainless steel spike.
“Oh, Oliver.” She pressed her fingers to her own lips, the wind knocked out of her. It looked so ugly, so painful. “How could you do that to yourself?”
He sat up and swung his legs off the bed. His chin rose. “It’s cool. Jason got one in his eyebrow.”
“If Jason walked off a cliff, would you follow him?”
“It was my idea.”
“But…you have to be sixteen years old to get a piercing without parental permission.”
Oliver’s defiance drained away. He scuffed the toe of one sock foot against a crumpled piece of paper on the floor. “Jason’s brother made us fake ID.”
“He what!” Sienna could feel her blood pressure rise. “Hand it over, right now.” Oliver dug a plastic-coated card out of his pocket and gave it to her. She looked at the card. “Eighteen! I suppose you thought you’d go into a pub and buy beer.”
“No!” Oliver jumped to his feet. “I don’t know why he made us eighteen instead of sixteen. Jeez, Mum, what do you think I am?”
“I don’t know anymore, Olly. You never talk to me—”
“’Cuz you’re always yelling—”
“I am not—”
“You’re doing it now!”
Sienna closed her eyes and drew a deep breath. Letting it out, she opened her eyes again and said more calmly, “I’m a parent. It’s my job to yell when m
y kid does something this foolish. There’s no way you look eighteen. I’m going to have a word with the owner of this piercing place. Where is it?”
“In the city.”
“You went all the way to Melbourne?” Her mouth opened. He must have taken the train. But he couldn’t have gone to the city and back in the short time after school. “You skipped classes to do this.”
“It’s no big deal.”
“It’s a very big deal. Your grades are slipping. You can’t afford to miss class.”
“If I’d been on the skiing trip I wouldn’t have been in school at all.”
“Don’t keep harping on the ski trip. That’s completely beside the point.” She sucked in a breath. “The exam!”
“Missed it.”
“You what? That’s it. You’re grounded for a month.”
“A month!” he wailed as if she’d given him a life sentence.
“Don’t think you’re getting out of the exam,” she said, stabbing a finger in his direction. “I’ll call your teacher and arrange for you to take a makeup test. Now, get washed up. Dinner will be in twenty minutes. And don’t you dare tell me you’re not hungry.”
“I am. But I’m not supposed to chew for three hours and I can’t eat hot food for twenty-four hours.”
“I made lasagna.” She didn’t have to add that she’d made it for his sake. He would know that. But instead of looking remorseful his face flushed with resentment.
She strode out, shutting the door behind her. Hard. Angry tears pricked at her eyes and she dashed them away. He was changing, and not for the better. Skipping school, insolence, the piercing. She hated to say it, but things had gone from bad to worse with Oliver ever since he’d started hanging around the Shed and spending time with Jack. Thank goodness that was over.
JACK TIDIED THE REMNANTS of the toy-making enterprise in his workshop. Now that the Men’s Shed and Trivia Night were over, it was good to have his life back again. But it sure was quiet.
Hampered by the sling, he took it off and tossed it onto the back of the faded couch. His shoulder still hurt, but it was nothing he couldn’t handle. Bogie flopped on the area rug in the sitting area, muzzle on his front paws, his liquid brown eyes following Jack’s every move.
Small things had been left behind—a few blocks of wood from Ralph’s toy boats, scraps of colorful fabric and string from Bob’s kites, empty paint pots Steve had used. In Paul’s work area, a can of WD40.
Whatever was still usable Jack put aside, and the rubbish he piled in cardboard boxes to go out with the trash. It was nice not to have to listen to Bob needling Paul. Or Steve and Ralph jawing about how life was so much better back in the ’60s and ’70s. He would be able to concentrate. Still, as he passed the radio he flipped on a talk show.
The commentator’s words flowed in the background as Jack’s thoughts turned to Trivia Night. He hadn’t spoken about Leanne in a long time. But he had to admit it hadn’t hurt as much as he’d expected. Sienna was compassionate but she didn’t gush with pity, and it helped that she was an outsider who hadn’t known and loved Leanne.
Sienna seemed less and less like an outsider all the time, though.
He’d like to do something to repay her for fixing his shoulder. Taking an interest in Oliver might count—except that was no hardship. The boy was everything Jack would have wanted in a son.
After he had all the large pieces of rubbish gathered up he brushed down the workbench of sawdust, string and metal filings.
When he came to the shrouded GPS some impulse he didn’t want to analyze made him set down his dustpan and brush and peel the plastic covering off the metal casing. If he was going to fix it, the first thing he’d need to do after replacing the damaged casing and components would be to reprogram the satellite signal receiver—
Footsteps crunched on the gravel driveway. Jack slipped the plastic back over the GPS. He wasn’t going to fix it. So what was the point of even looking at it?
Oliver hovered on the threshold, hands in his pockets, shoulders hunched. “Hey, Jack.”
“Olly!” Jack said. “I thought you’d gone skiing.”
“Dad had to cancel. My stepmother is sick.” He explained the situation in a few bitter words.
“I’m sorry to hear that.” Jack glanced past Oliver for his buddy. “Where’s Jason today?”
“He’s got an orthodontist appointment.” Oliver glanced around the empty workshop. “Where is everybody?”
“The Men’s Shed is finished now that Trivia Night is over. Didn’t you know that?”
“Yeah. I just thought…” He trailed off with a shrug. “I thought they’d stick around anyway.”
Jack massaged his bad shoulder. Bob had hinted that he’d like to make more kites. Ralph and Paul had seemed disappointed, too. Jack had put them all off. The Shed was temporary, damn it. “What’s that in your lip?”
Oliver touched the steel spike sticking out of his red swollen skin and grimaced. “It’s a piercing. I think it might be infected.”
“You should get Sienna to look at it… What does she think of you getting a piercing?”
Oliver dropped his gaze. He scuffed the toe of his black leather school shoe. “She doesn’t like it much.”
Jack just bet she didn’t. “What made you do it?”
Oliver shrugged. “Dunno.” His gaze roamed over the end of the workbench they’d shared. “Did all the dogbots sell?”
“Ye-es,” Jack replied warily. From the wistful expression in Olly’s eyes he surmised that Sienna hadn’t given her son the dogbot she’d paid a small fortune for. It could have something to do with that bit of steel sticking out of Oliver’s lip. Or not. If she was saving it for a special occasion he’d better not spoil the surprise.
Jack’s arm was aching after his exertions, so he nodded at the broom in the corner. “How about giving me a hand cleaning up?”
“Sure.” Oliver set to work. “What happened to your shoulder?”
Jack put the sling back on and explained how the injury occurred and how Sienna had fixed it. “It was pretty handy having a doctor in the house.”
Oliver swept in silence. Dust flew in a small cloud around the head of the broom.
“Bummer about the ski trip,” Jack ventured.
“I didn’t really want to go anyway. I was just doing it ’cuz my dad wanted to.”
“I see.” That wasn’t the impression Oliver had given in the days leading up to the trip. “I’m sorry to hear about your stepmom. I hope it’s nothing serious.”
“It’s pretty bad,” Oliver admitted grudgingly. “She’s pregnant and had to go into the hospital early.” He swept Paul’s area even though Paul had left it spotless. “Did that black-and-red BMX sell? That was cool.”
“It was raffled off. Don’t you have a bike?”
“I left it at my dad’s place so we could go riding when I visit him.” His eyebrows pulled together in a scowl. “We won’t be doing that now, though.”
O-kay. Oliver was in trouble with his mother and mad at his dad. Jack walked over to the fridge and brought out a couple of cold cans. “Want a soft drink?”
“Sure. Thanks.” He popped the top and drank. “I’m thinking of getting my tongue pierced next,” he said, full of bravado.
“Lots of blood vessels in the tongue,” Jack observed mildly. “A high concentration of nerve endings, too. That’s got to be a painful place to get pierced.”
Suddenly Oliver looked a little less certain, if not downright ill. “We could start up the Men’s Shed again, couldn’t we?” he asked, changing the subject. He waved his soda can at the workbench and tools. “I’ll bet there are lots of projects we could do.”
Jack’s heart gave a funny lurch at the “we” and all it implied. “I’ve got a lot of stuff to do in the next few months.” He had nothing coming up. Why was he making excuses?
“Oh. Right.” Oliver put his can in the bin and went back to sweeping.
Jack watched him a moment. “Y
ou can still hang out here whenever I’m around.”
Oliver lifted his head. “And make electronic stuff?”
“Sure. I’ve got an old voltmeter you can have. I’ll show you how to make a simple circuit board and you can play around with that at home.”
“Cool. Now?”
“You finish sweeping and I’ll get the things.” Jack went to his shelves and took down a box of spare circuit boards and odds and ends.
Oliver dumped the dust and put the broom away. Over the next couple of hours Jack showed him how to solder wire, and how to set up and test an electromagnetic circuit, light a tiny bulb and a few other basics. “What grade are you in again?”
“Nine.” Oliver pressed a switch, delighting in seeing the lightbulb glow.
“Do you like school?”
“I hate it,” Oliver said with a passion that startled Jack. “Math, English, biology, they all suck. I can’t wait until I’m old enough to quit.”
“Quitting isn’t an option at your age. But you might prefer a different type of school when you’re a little older,” Jack said. “Have you thought about technical college?”
“I don’t know anything about it,” he said, touching the voltmeter leads on either side of the lightbulb to test the strength of the current.
“You can learn a lot of practical things. I left school when I was sixteen and did an apprenticeship in airplane mechanics. Later I took electronics courses.”
Oliver put down the leads and stared at Jack. “You mean you didn’t finish grade twelve?”
“I’ve found that for me, the best way to learn is by doing. Never be afraid to get your hands dirty.”
The boy’s face lit up. “I like getting my hands dirty.”
“That’s the spirit,” Jack said. “The trades need smart young guys like you. You’d have to be willing to work hard, though.”
“Oh, I would,” Oliver assured him. “How do I start?”
“In a couple of years you’ll be able to sign up for introductory courses in whatever field you’re interested in. Then once you get an apprenticeship you take more courses at the same time as you’re working and earning money.”