Wicked Bindup

by Paul Jennings

  ‘I’m okay,’ she said. ‘It was only a scratch.’

  I pulled at Dad’s arm. ‘Listen to me,’ I pleaded. ‘We were attacked by giant worms. Huge giant worms. And sheep on a tractor.’

  Dad was staring at me now. Not with concern, with irritation. ‘Dawn,’ he said sharply. ‘You can see what Eileen and me have been through. We’re having the world’s crookest honeymoon and this is no time for games.’

  ‘It’s not a game,’ I yelled. ‘It’s real.’

  I heard Rory stand up at the kitchen table behind me. He’d been quiet till now. The infection seemed to do that to people. Now he stopped being quiet.

  ‘She’s right,’ he said angrily. He pointed to the purple bruise on his arm. It was growing even as we watched. ‘The slobberers did this,’ he said.

  Dad stared. ‘Jeez,’ he said. ‘You look worse than your mum. Must be some sort of stress reaction.’ He spoke softly to Eileen. ‘Has your family ever had a skin complaint like this before?’

  My head felt like it was going to explode. What was happening? Why wouldn’t Dad believe me?

  I turned frantically to Eileen. ‘Tell him about the sheep,’ I pleaded. ‘The tractor. The wrecker’s ball.’

  Eileen stared at me, puzzled. There was a long pause. ‘Tractor?’ she said finally. ‘Wrecker’s ball?’

  ‘The sheep on the wrecker’s ball,’ I yelled. ‘You were there. You saw it. You were infected by a steel lamb. Tell him.’

  Eileen looked confused. ‘Steel lamb?’ she said, staring at the floor. ‘I can remember the explosion, and the car skidding …’

  ‘Dawn,’ said Dad with rising anger, ‘this is not the time for these games.’

  Frustration and panic exploded in my guts.

  ‘Come on,’ I screamed at Eileen. ‘Get real. It was less than two hours ago.’

  ‘Dawn,’ roared Dad. ‘You do not speak to Eileen like that.’

  ‘Leave her alone,’ Rory yelled at Dad. ‘She’s just trying to tell you what’s going on, you stupid idiot.’

  Eileen slammed her coffee mug onto the table.

  ‘Rory,’ she said furiously. ‘Apologise to Jack this instant.’

  Suddenly everybody was shouting at everybody. I yelled at Dad that he was pig-headed. Then I stopped. I realised what was happening. Another type of disease was sweeping through the family. We’d been infected with it the day Dad and Eileen got the hots for each other, but we’d never had as bad a dose as this before.

  I saw what the anger was doing to Rory and Eileen. The more worked up they got, the more the purple blotches on their skin quivered and bloated. And it was making their faces change too, just for short spells. A couple of times I could hardly recognise them.

  Then Rory yelled at Dad that he was pig-headed, and I wasn’t going to put up with that.

  ‘None of this would have happened if you weren’t such a grub, Worm Boy,’ I yelled. ‘Carrying around rotting apples and pockets full of filthy worms.’

  Eileen glared at me icily. ‘That’s good,’ she said, ‘coming from a kid whose bed is a dumping ground for half-eaten biscuits and mouldy toast crumbs.’

  ‘Fair go,’ said Dad. ‘The first time you and Rory stayed here I found half a pizza in his bed.’

  Eileen’s blotch gave an angry twitch. ‘Why is it,’ she said, ‘that when Rory and Miss Perfect here do exactly the same thing, Rory always gets bad-mouthed?’

  ‘Because,’ said Dad heatedly, ‘pizzas stain and biscuits don’t.’

  Eileen laughed bitterly, ‘Oh yes, you’d know all about that. You who haven’t made a bed once in the fifteen months we’ve been together.’

  ‘Haven’t made a bed?’ roared Dad indignantly. ‘The first time I slept at your place the sheets had so many holes in them I had to go out and buy a new pair.’

  Eileen stared at him.

  ‘You never bought new sheets,’ she said.

  ‘Two pairs,’ he said.

  Eileen frowned. ‘No, you didn’t,’ she said.

  I stared at Eileen. I’d seen those new sheets with my own eyes.

  ‘I see,’ said Dad, furious. ‘And I suppose when I hopped into bed and you said I looked like the bloke in the sheet ad, that didn’t happen either.’

  Eileen frowned again, then glared. ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘My mistake,’ yelled Dad, pulling open the back door. ‘You must have thought I was someone else.’ He hobbled out, slamming the door behind him.

  I followed him out.

  He was sitting on a stump staring at the lawn. I put my arm round him.

  ‘Let’s go somewhere,’ I said. ‘Start a new life. Just you and me.’ I hadn’t planned to say it, but when it came out I realised I meant it.

  Dad gave me a squeeze. ‘Love,’ he said softly. ‘I know all those tales about monster worms and crazy infections are your way of telling me you’re not happy. I get the message you think Eileen and Rory are a bit of a plague. But I need her. After Mum died I was as empty as this poor blighter.’

  He picked something up and brushed ants off it. I realised with a stab it was the dry flat body of the magpie that the slobberers had sucked out.

  ‘There was nobody around to save this poor bloke from the ants,’ said Dad. ‘I was lucky. I had Eileen to save me.’

  I opened my mouth to tell him it wasn’t ants that had emptied out the magpie. But before I said a word I knew I wouldn’t be able to convince him. Not about the slobberers or leaving Eileen.

  A cry came from inside the house.

  ‘Help.’

  It was Gramps. I rushed in. Gramps was sitting on the dunny, the door open, yelling hysterically. ‘It attacked me,’ he shouted. ‘A giant worm.’

  Eileen and Rory got to him first. By the time I’d sprinted down the hall, Gramps’ cries had turned to quiet sobs.

  ‘A giant worm,’ he sniffled.

  ‘It’s okay, Wilf,’ said Eileen gently. ‘It’s just the draught excluder.’ She held up the cloth tube filled with sand we used to stop draughts whistling under the dunny door.

  ‘Don’t worry, Gramps,’ said Rory. ‘It’s scared me a few times too.’

  While they comforted Gramps, I noticed an amazing thing. The blotches on their skins were shrinking.

  ‘I’m just a dopey old man,’ sobbed Gramps.

  ‘No you’re not,’ said Dad, hobbling along the hall. ‘Anyway, a bloke doesn’t have to be old to be dopey.’ He turned to Eileen. ‘Sorry I blew my stack,’ he said softly.

  Eileen looked at him and frowned. ‘Did you? I don’t remember.’

  Dad put his arms round her. As I watched them hug and kiss, I realised that for all their good qualities, me and Rory couldn’t depend on them to get to the bottom of the weird and scary stuff that was happening.

  And if our own parents wouldn’t believe us, the police and the army certainly wouldn’t.

  It was up to us kids.

  FIVE

  For a second or two I had thought that Mum and Jack were going to bust up. But no such luck. After the big row everyone settled down and went back to abnormal. Mum and Jack were as thick as thieves again. All lovey-dovey.

  I showed Mum the remains of my mouse and she just said, ‘Poor thing. Must have died of stress, listening to you two fighting.’

  Dawn didn’t fare any better when she showed them her sucked-out fish. ‘That’s a shame, love,’ said Jack. ‘But the only slobberers around here are you two at tea time.’ Mum and Jack both laughed like crazy. Parents can be maddening sometimes.

  Dawn and I went outside and dug two little graves. I put my mouse skin in the bottom of one and Dawn slipped her flat fish into the other.

  ‘Say a few words,’ said Dawn.

  I bowed my head over the graves. ‘Nibbler,’ I said. ‘You were happy until you got into a step-family.’

  ‘So were you, Finger,’ said Dawn.

  ‘You didn’t really want a step-fish but you put up with it,’ I said.

  ‘Same for you, Finger,’ said
Dawn. ‘A step-mouse is just like a step-brother. Painful.’

  I cleared my throat. ‘But then you both got sucked out by slobberers. We know you had a terrible end to your short lives. But now you can rest in peas.’

  ‘Peace, idiot,’ said Dawn. ‘Rest in peace.’

  ‘I know that,’ I said in an embarrassed voice.

  I picked a white onion-weed flower and threw it into Nibbler’s grave. Dawn threw a buttercup on top of Finger and we filled in the two small holes. Then we went into my bedroom where we could talk.

  The snail box was on the bed next to my apple-man. Dawn stared at the snail. It was safely tucked up inside its shell and nothing was happening.

  ‘It doesn’t look infected,’ said Dawn. ‘I don’t think you’re contagious. But I reckon your mum probably is. She’s going to infect an animal, and then it’s going to go looking for another one of your relatives. Who will it be?’

  I didn’t want to think about that. ‘What will carry the germs?’ I said. ‘Mosquitoes? Or ants? Or wombats? Or kangaroos? Or elephants? It could be anything.’

  ‘What I want to know, Worm Boy,’ said Dawn, ‘is where this germ or whatever it is came from in the first place.’

  I felt sick in the stomach. I couldn’t think about that either. I didn’t want to face the thought. When you don’t want something to be true you can pretend that it’s not. But in the end it gets to you. Like a slobberer in an apple. In the end it will come for you.

  Dawn was never one to beat around the bush. She took a deep breath. ‘Your dad,’ she said. ‘Your dad sent the slobberers in your apple-man present.’

  ‘He didn’t,’ I screamed. ‘The slobberers were only normal grubs. They probably got infected in the mail. Or after I got the apple-man. Dad wouldn’t send slobberers after me. I’m his son. He wouldn’t. He could be the next victim. We have to find him.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Dawn. ‘Keep your shirt on. You could be right. But it’s up to us. We are the only ones who know what’s real.’

  ‘But some things aren’t real,’ I said.

  ‘Like what?’ said Dawn.

  ‘Like the bus getting new again. Like the goat coming to life. Like the flies and the maggots. Like me seeing your mum.’

  It slipped out. It just slipped out.

  ‘What?’ shrieked Dawn. She sprang up into the air like a demented cat. ‘You saw my mum? Don’t be ridiculous. How dare you. You must be out of your mind.’

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ I said. ‘It’s the disease. It makes you see things when you get upset. Hallucinations. Like a nightmare. That’s what happened on the bus.’

  Dawn calmed down a bit.

  ‘My mum’s dead,’ she said sadly. ‘I saw her body in the funeral parlour. Her hair was all wrong. And they put a horrible shade of lipstick on her lips. But it was her all right. She looked peaceful and …’

  A little tear ran down her cheek before she said the last word.

  ‘… dead.’

  I didn’t know what to say. What can you say?

  ‘Dawn,’ I said after a bit. ‘In the dream she was her old self. She had the right lipstick. And her hair was the same as always. And she wore both shoes. And those leather gloves you gave her.’

  Dawn suddenly gasped as if she had swallowed something that wouldn’t go down. ‘Mum only wore those gloves once,’ she yelled. ‘The day after her birthday. The day of the last bus trip. The one you can’t remember. When Mum died. You must have been re-living the last journey.’

  That made me stop and think. The germs in my mind must have made me believe that the bus was growing new again. And then I’d started to remember the last journey.

  ‘What happened next?’ Dawn yelled. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I jumped out of the bus and everything was back to normal.’

  Dawn started to punch my pillow. I think she was pretending that it was me. ‘Trust you,’ said Dawn. ‘Trust you to wake up just at the wrong moment. Can’t you do anything right? You’re just like your useless father.’ She picked up my apple-man and threw him across the room.

  ‘You ratbag,’ I yelled. I grabbed her by the arm and gave her a bit of a shake. In a flash we were scratching and pulling and rolling over and over on the floor like two fiends.

  She was too strong for me. She always got the better of me.

  ‘Ugly step-sister,’ I shouted.

  ‘Ugly?’ she yelled. ‘Ugly? You should take a look at yourself.’

  She suddenly let go of me and started backing away. Staring at me as if I had just landed from Mars.

  ‘What’s up now?’ I spat out.

  ‘Look in the mirror,’ said Dawn in a horrified voice.

  I stood up and stared into the mirror.

  It wasn’t me. The reflection belonged to someone else. A mean face. Sort of like a bully. A snarling, hateful vision of what I was feeling.

  ‘Aagh,’ I screamed. ‘Aagh …’

  ‘Calm down,’ said Dawn. ‘Calm down. It’s the infection. Feeding on the anger. Think of peaceful things.’

  I closed my eyes and tried to think of something relaxing. It’s hard to be calm when you have just turned into a monster. ‘Think,’ I said to myself. ‘Think peace.’ I tried to force pleasant images into my mind. The moon reflected in a silver pond … a hamburger … gentle sea breezes … a trail bike roaring through the forest … a waterfall … a bucket of ice-cream. Gradually my breathing slowed and my heart stopped its hammering.

  ‘That’s better,’ said Dawn. ‘Keep it up. It’s working.’

  I opened my eyes and examined my reflection. The hateful face was draining away. I was coming back to normal. I felt a little better. I couldn’t get rid of the fear though. And it still showed in my face. But fear isn’t as ugly as hate and I didn’t look nearly as bad as before.

  ‘Dawn,’ I said. ‘Whenever I get angry the illness starts to spread in my body and changes my looks. It’s the same with Mum. Did you see her ugly face when she told you off?’

  ‘You’ll have to keep your cool,’ said Dawn. ‘Otherwise you’ll stir it up again.’

  ‘Then don’t rubbish my dad,’ I said. ‘He wouldn’t send germs. He doesn’t know anything about it.’

  Dawn was staring down at the floor with a startled look on her face. ‘He might not know anything about the slobberers,’ she said. ‘But the slobberers sure know about him.’

  She pointed to a silvery trail on the floor. It looked like a snail’s track. But we both knew that it wasn’t. It was the trail left the day before by the last slobberer out of the apple. The long, long one. The one that had spelt out a word with its body.

  We both stood there in silence. My secret was out. The silvery trail spelt out the word Karl for anyone to see.

  ‘He didn’t send the slobberers,’ I shrieked.

  ‘All right, all right,’ said Dawn. ‘Maybe he did and maybe he didn’t. But there’s one thing for sure. If he didn’t, the next creature that gets infected is going to go looking for him.’

  She was right. She was dead right. If Mum infected any living creature, it was going to make Dad its victim. The slobberer’s message said so.

  I jumped to my feet and ran to the window. Outside in the forest were all sorts of animals. And insects. Mum could infect any of them.

  I felt like a paper-clip between two big magnets. I wanted to stay and protect Mum. Keep creatures away from her. But I wanted to go to Dad too. Mum might already have infected something that was on its way to Dad.

  Mum. Dad. Mum. Dad. How could I choose? In the end I decided to try and help Dad. After all, Mum had Jack to look after her. Dad might not have anybody. And I hadn’t seen him for so long.

  ‘We have to find him,’ I said. ‘We have to find Dad before it’s too late.’

  ‘Does Eileen know where he is?’ said Dawn.

  ‘No. He never told us. We’ll have to find him ourselves. Let’s go.’

  A hand grabbed my arm. A powerful hand. It was J
ack. ‘The only place you’re going, young man,’ he said, ‘is to hospital.’

  SIX

  The staff at our local hospital were having a quiet afternoon. Until we walked in.

  ‘Yuck,’ said the young doctor in Casualty when he saw Rory and Eileen’s skin, which I thought was a bit slack for a person with years of training.

  The doctor asked Rory and Eileen if they’d been in contact with acid or crop-dusting spray or sewage. Eileen looked bewildered. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said.

  Rory didn’t say anything. I could see he was trying hard not to get angry, but he looked pretty trapped and unhappy.

  He put his mouth close to my ear, which felt a bit strange. ‘Help me get out of here,’ he hissed. ‘Please.’

  Dad explained about the car crash and the step-family and the stress. ‘Stress-induced skin complaint, I reckon,’ he said to the doctor. ‘Plus Eileen’s probably got a bit of concussion.’

  ‘From the war,’ said Gramps. ‘Against the green army.’

  The doctor asked Dad if Gramps had concussion too. ‘No,’ said Dad, ‘he’s just old.’

  I squeezed Gramps’ hand.

  The doctor took Rory and Eileen off for tests, and Dad for a leg X-ray. As they were going, Rory grabbed my arm. ‘Please,’ he whispered desperately.

  I didn’t say anything.

  As I watched them go I struggled with my second shameful thought that day. What if the doctors couldn’t find out what the infection was? What if Rory and Eileen were shut away and kept under observation for weeks or months or years?

  That would just leave me and Dad and Gramps. And Dad would go back to hugging me first.

  I tried hard not to feel too happy. It didn’t seem right in a place where there were people with tubes up their noses. But I did feel my heart beat a bit faster and I did have a sudden urge to hug Gramps.

  Then, as Rory was being led away down the corridor, he turned and looked at me. The look only lasted a few seconds, but it left me shaking. It was the look of a kid who wanted to save his dad. Not just a bit. Not even quite a lot.

  Desperately.

  And even though I didn’t want to, I knew exactly how he felt.