by Darren Groth
After a quick lunch in the cafeteria, Caro and I crash the personal-safety talk at the Rec Refuge. A Working Partner named Darrell is in charge. His subject for today is online dangers—specifically, ransomware. As he outlines the best course of action—“Whatever you do, do not pay anything to these people!”—Caro notices a second instructor readying for her bit.
“Is that Florence?”
“Yep.”
“There’s not much to her.”
I nod. “She’s real strong though.”
Caro rubs her hands together like an evil mastermind. “I’ve been looking forward to this. What’s that move you said she was showing the others at Bribie?”
“The Blue-Ringed Octopus Bite. I think Iggy’s still recovering.”
Darrell passes on his final bit of ransomware advice: “Whatever you do, do not pay anything to these people!”, then motions for Florence to join him at the front. “Okay, to finish up, folks, as per usual we have our resident ninja goddess, Florence, here to teach you her self-defense move of the week.”
“You weren’t kidding about her teeth,” says Caro.
“She refuses to get them fixed,” I reply. “I don’t know why.”
Caro presses on her thigh, close to the site of her scar. Florence begins.
“The Flo-jitsu move I wanna show youse today, I call it the Kookaburra Laugh. It sounds like it’s funny, but it isn’t, ’specially for the person getting it.” She grins, and a squirrel’s squeak leaks out of her mouth. “I’m going to need a volunteer. A bad guy.” She scans the room, and her search lands on me. “Come here, Munro.”
All eyes laser-point my way. Caro nudges me forward.
“Um, okaaay.” I shuffle to the front. Settling in beside Florence, I whisper, “You sure you don’t want to thumb-wrestle instead?” She ignores me and addresses the class.
“So the Kookaburra Laugh is really good if you wanna get someone under control pretty quick. But you gotta be up close, within reach.”
Without warning, her Swiss-cheese grin vanishes, replaced by the stony stare I’ve encountered on a regular basis. She spins me around and clamps onto my neck.
“The reason I call this the Kookaburra Laugh is ’cause it makes the bad guy giggle and cry at the same time.”
The grip tightens, and it’s like I’m being tickled with a pair of pliers. My eyes water. Giggles dribble from my lips. My knees start to give. I try to squirm away, but Florence just tightens her hold.
“You hear that? And can you see where I’ve got him?” She turns me with ease, deftly avoiding my flailing arms. “Make sure you get it right, where the neck and the shoulder muscles join together.”
I’m going wobbly in the legs. It’s like I just came out of the water at Centennial Beach on New Year’s Day.
“Now, if your sensei kept goin’, I could put Munro down on his knees, maybe even on the ground. Would you like to see that?”
There’s a yes or two from the class. I want to shout no, but my throat is thinner than a drinking straw.
“I said, would you like to see that?”
A better response this time. They’re going to be disappointed when I pass out.
“Well, as much as I would love to do it,” says Florence, “I think this bad guy has had enough.”
She releases me. I stagger away, moaning with relief. The class gives a round of applause. As they file out, Darrell reminds everyone not to practice on each other. I collapse into a nearby chair.
“Flo, don’t I…get to try…on you?” I ask.
She cracks her knuckles. “Never.”
Caro joins us. The two share intros and a few thoughts on self-defense. Caro lifts her shorts to reveal the scar on her leg.
“I could’ve done with a few of your moves when this happened,” she says.
“But you got him, yeah?” asks Florence.
“How did you know it was a him?”
“It’s always a him. And you got him, yeah?”
Caro’s face goes rock hard for a second. “Yeah, I got him.”
Florence grins. “Fuck yeah.” She checks the time. “I gotta go. I wanna help Iggy stack shelves at the shop. But we can talk more this afternoon at the Shed.” She looks at me and sighs. “I s’pose you’ll be there too, Bad Guy.”
“You’re not doing another demo on me, are you?”
“If you didn’t treat Ig so good, I would.”
Florence departs. Caro lays her hands on my neck and begins massaging the site of the Kookaburra Laugh.
“You make a much better good guy,” she says.
“Oh. My. GOD!”
Blake screams and hugs Caro. Then she hugs her again.
“Soooo pretty!” she says, punching me in the arm. “Just as well you’re good-looking too, Munro! Otherwise, she would want a better boyfriend!”
“We’re not together, Blake.”
“What?”
“Caro isn’t my girlfriend. We’re not together.”
Blake looks at Caro. She shrugs and nods. Blake looks at me like a disappointed coach. Before she can follow up with a comment, I redirect.
“Blake, why are you in this hut?”
“It’s a gazebo.”
“Okay, gazebo. Aren’t you supposed to be doing agriculture this shift? Looks like a good time out there.”
A girl whistles as she stacks mangoes into a wheelbarrow. A guy in a scruffy straw hat is down on his knees, talking softly to a bed of tomato plants. “Keep growing, babies…You’re going well, babies…” A Working Partner is high-fiving a resident as the two of them bring a tractor back to the small barn.
“Agriculture Precinct is not my favorite. I hate getting dirty,” says Blake. “So I do extra in the Digital Media Center.”
“Are you working on something now?” asks Caro, nodding toward Blake’s open laptop.
“This is something for me and Dale. Our wedding invitation.”
“Oh, wow.”
Blake spins the laptop around and pushes it across the table. “Could you look at it for me? My spelling is really bad.”
Caro starts reading. I put a hand up to shield my eyes from the sun rays sneaking through the gaps in the gazebo. “Is Dale here? Does he hate getting dirty too?”
Blake busts out one of her giant laughs. “No chance! Agriculture Precinct is totally his favorite! He stinks like hell when he’s finished a shift.”
“What about Shah? He’s scheduled to be here too, yeah?”
“I haven’t seen him today. I think he chucked a sickie.”
“Uh-huh.”
Caro raises a thumb. “This is great, Blake. I love the border of roses. Only two spelling mistakes that I could see: occasion has just the one s and celebration has a second e instead of an a.”
Blake punches me in the arm again. “Pretty and smart.”
“Oh, and you didn’t put in a date,” Caro says.
Blake flicks her hair. “That’s right.”
“You haven’t decided on a date yet?”
“No, there isn’t one.” She delivers the spiel I’ve heard several times now, about how her dad won’t allow her and Dale to get married. Caro fidgets and frowns. She’s about to launch into a response when Dale rocks up to the gazebo, all grime and sweat and a grin to put the Joker to shame. Blake stiff-arms his cheeky attempt at a hug and lifts his iPad from her bulging handbag. He taps the screen and bows in Caro’s direction.
Hey, I’m Dale.
“I’m Caro.”
More taps. Would you like a tour of the Agriculture Precinct?
“Well, we’re here to help, Dale,” I say. “We did enough touring during the school term, eh?”
He makes a sound, a cross between a cough and a “meh.”
We’ve done the tasks for today. Watering, spraying, bringing stuff to the kitchens. Tomorrow there is more to do.
I clap my hands, hoping it hides my disappointment. “I guess a bit more touring wouldn’t hurt.”
Dale fist-bumps Caro and me, b
lows a kiss to Blake, then leads the way. He takes us through the greenhouse and the barn and the vegetable patches. He gives us the lowdown on Fair Go’s produce, with a special mention for basil. It goes good in hot, dry weather. Too good. We have so much bloody pesto to sell!
Dale then escorts us a short distance along the fence line that separates the property from “the Bush.” He says the neighboring forest reserve is the biggest in Brisbane and is mostly made up of eucalyptus trees. It’s home to more than a hundred different types of wildlife, including wallabies, koalas, echidnas and powerful owls. As I digest Dale’s info, it occurs to me I’ve never felt bad before that he can’t speak. A chunk of me feels it today though. The voice program’s burry monotone and occasional half-assed pronunciations don’t come close to conveying the passion in his gestures and facial expressions.
We head back, passing by the herb gardens and a big mango tree that has an abandoned bathtub beside it. On the path to the gazebo, Dale picks an orange flower from one of the garden beds. He hands it to Blake on bended knee.
“This smells better than you,” she says.
Dale rolls his eyes, then waves at Caro and me. I’ll see you soon, after I’ve had a shower.
We leave the Agriculture Precinct. Before we’re out of range, we hear Blake’s final, shouted command. “You should make her your girlfriend, Munro! Then take her back to Canada, Munro!”
Around three, we roll up to the Shed, Fair Go’s indoor basketball court. Kelvin is there. My team as well, minus Shah.
“So what’s the big secret, guys?” I ask. “You got a Zamboni here or something?”
“What is a Zamboni?” asks Bernie. “Is that a type of pasta?”
“I think it’s one of Infecto’s archenemies,” suggests Iggy.
“Good guesses. It’s actually kind of like a lawn mower that makes the ice nice and smooth on a rink,” says Kelvin, creating more confusion. “No, Munro, we couldn’t get you a Zamboni. But we don’t need one for floor hockey, do we?”
Dale emerges from a storage locker with two large equipment bags. He follows it up by dragging out a full six-by-four net and setting it up on the nearest baseline.
“The blue bag next to Florence’s feet—that’s probably the one you want to check out,” says Kelvin.
I walk over, kneel down beside the stacked Bauer bag, pull back the zip. “You bought goalie gear?”
“We did, yeah.”
“For me.”
“Technically, it’s for the residents, but who else has a clue what to do with it?”
I take the pieces out and lay them in a semicircle around me, just as I would on game day. Caro kneels beside me. “What’s that thing?” she asks, pointing.
“That’s a blocker. Goes on this hand.”
She nods. “Your right? Makes sense.”
The final item in the bag is the helmet. I hold it up and out, like I’m Hamlet with his skull. It’s literally a work of art. The lump in my throat gets bigger, heavier.
“Who painted this?”
“We all did,” says Blake. “I painted the heart inside the maple leaf. Ig did the Brisbane Wheel. Bernie wrote Freetard, of course. Flo did the weird three-leg sign—”
“I wanted to do a middle finger,” she says. “But Iggy said I shouldn’t. So I did this—a mitsu-tomoe. It’s a symbol samurai families had in Japan.”
“Whatever,” Blake says. “Dale did the wattle tree. And Kelvin painted the zombie wombat.”
“It’s a squirrel, Blake,” corrects Kelvin.
“A zombie squirrel.”
My fingers brush over the glossy surface, absorbing the awesome artwork. They stop on a small pic under the right ear hole. A black pawn. “I wonder who did this one?”
“Me.”
Shah ambles in from the entrance. He’s wearing a Lionel Messi Barcelona team shirt that’s one, maybe two, sizes too big for him. There’s a couple of extra lines on his face. My guess is they’re from the cushions on his couch.
“I am tired of beating you in checkers,” he says.
“You’re tired of beating me? I don’t think so. I think you’re tired of getting beat.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah!”
“You think?”
“I think!”
We eyeball each other for a second, all puffed chests and fake sneers. Then we crack up, me laughing, Shah twitching his lips. The truth of our checkess games over the past month is we’ve both been winning. Little by little, Shah’s using more chess moves, usually without warning, occasionally with a half smile. If only YOLO could be there with a camera to make it all legit. They could call the video Checkmates For Life.
Kelvin unzips the second Bauer bag and starts passing sticks around. “So I think we’ve done enough dillydallying. Time to get this show on the road.” He picks up a ball and rolls his arm over, a la cricket bowling. “We could use your help, Munro.”
I stand and scan the group. These faces. Looking at me. Looking to me.
I don’t feel so much like a Living Partner right now. I feel like something more, something close to family. A brother, maybe.
A big brother.
We did basic stickhandling stuff, Evie. Like when I was in seventh grade and we did floor hockey with your class. Keep Away. Red Light/Green Light. Then a couple of passing drills, one in pairs going up and down the floor and another one, Around the House. You remember that? Everyone gets in a circle and does random passes. So fun! Then we did a shootout to finish. I dressed in the goalie gear and faced some fire from the team. Except for Kelvin, I made sure everyone scored a goal, even Shah, who didn’t want a stick. He kicked the ball instead.
I wish you’d been there to see it.
“Are you talking to me, Munro Maddux?”
Caro’s brief doze is over. Her head, though, still rests against the train window.
“No. Just myself.”
“Where are we?”
I look out the window, squinting into the setting sun. Stretches of golf course glide by. A group of men in plaid shorts hacks at the long grass beside the tracks while a pair of crows keeps watch over their cart. “About ten minutes to Wattle Ridge.”
“I’ll go back to my nap then.”
“More sleep? I’m going to start calling you Shah.”
“Been a big day.”
“Been a great day.”
Caro rubs her nose, pulls her hat down lower. “Hey, at the end of First Aid with that fella Perry, what did he want to talk to you about?”
“Nothing much.” I plant an elbow on the window frame and rest my head on my open hand. “He wanted to make sure I didn’t feel uncomfortable in the class.”
Caro shifts. I see her puzzled reflection in the window. “Was there a reason for you to feel uncomfortable?”
“None whatsoever.”
“You sure?”
“Totally.”
“I remember you spaced out a bit at the start.”
“That was just your bad hygiene. Look, let’s change the subject, eh? There’s so much awesomeness from today we should focus on instead.”
She nods. “Yeah, we should. Although I felt sad for Blake with that wedding invitation. I’d love to give her father a gobful.”
“That’s your change of subject?”
“Sorry. It’s the future lawyer in me. If someone’s copping a bad deal, I want to defend them, I want to make things better for them. It’s what I do.”
“What you do, Caro, is sleep on the train. So how about you do some more of it. I’ll wake you up when we’re getting close.”
To my surprise, she heeds my advice. She brings her legs up onto the seat, leans against the window and crashes before the next station, her whistly nose-breathing a dead giveaway she’s out. I resist the urge to lean across and sneak a kiss on her slightly parted lips. Instead, I close my eyes. The wires thrum above my head. The wheels gallop under my feet.
Make things better.
For them.
From
day one, the student exchange was about regaining myself and getting rid of the Coyote. Now that I’m within reach of that goal, I can look beyond it. Who do I want to be? What do I want to do?
I have an idea. A big idea. One that means I won’t just be leaving the past here.
Mom and Dad:
Things are great. Best they’ve been since I arrived. Best since Evie died, to tell the truth.
Hey, what would you think of the Foundation setting up an assisted-living residence like Fair Go back home? Would it be possible? Would you be interested? I know it would involve a ton of cash and time and godknowswhatelse, but I think it would be awesome.
Just a thought for the future.
Talk soon.
M
THE JAIL
Fifty hours.
Today’s Straya Tour trip will see that number officially reached. April 17, first weekend of term two. It’s been a snap of the fingers. It’s been a lifetime. A life-changing time. Just like it promised.
The Coyote’s gone, but I won’t forget the place that muzzled it. I’ll keep doing Wednesday afternoons until Shah plays a full game of chess. For the rest of the exchange, I’ll come back every now and then, to listen and talk and guide. Hang out. Play some floor hockey.
I’m sad my volunteer time is up, but I’m also stoked for today. Shah shared some exciting news at the end of last Wednesday’s visit.
I am taking my turn this week on tour. I am choosing place to go, he said.
Finally! A fitting end to the fifty for sure. I’d tried my best to bait the place out of him, but he wouldn’t bite.
You will find out soon enough, he said, waving goodbye from his front door.
“Can I have a word?”
“Sure.”
Kelvin pulls me aside in front of the bus.
“Whassup?” I say, flicking a dead bug from the grille. Kelvin removes his sunglasses and hangs them off his shirt collar. His face has more sheen than usual, and there’s a thin line of sweat across his top lip. I don’t think I’ve seen Kelvin Yow sweat before, not even on the hot-as-hell days.
“Shah’s not here,” he says.
“He’s late?”
“No.”
“He bailed on his turn?”