A Croc Called Capone

by Barry Jonsberg

  Finally, I got up. The alarm clock said five-fifteen and I knew there was no chance of getting any more sleep. So I slipped into shorts and T-shirt and cracked open my bedroom door. The house was quiet. I made my way silently to the kitchen, which was still shrouded in darkness, and fumbled towards the fridge. I needed a glass of milk.

  I opened the fridge door and plucked the carton from the shelf. When I closed the door and straightened up, I came face to face with a creature from your worst nightmare.

  Time froze. A ghastly white face with red staring eyes loomed before me.

  I screamed.

  The creature screamed.

  I think I had more reason. After all, I was dressed in shorts and T-shirt and my face was as normal as it ever gets. Average, you might say. This thing was hideous. Then I noticed it was wearing a disgusting nightdress covered with cartoon characters. The white face was vaguely familiar. It all clicked into place. I wasn’t being attacked by a badly dressed zombie. It was Rose in some sort of facepack.

  ‘What the hell are you doing, Mucus?’ she yelled. ‘Are you trying to give me a heart attack?’

  How’s that for unfairness? She skulks around in the dark, doing a terrific impersonation of the creature from the Black Lagoon, and I’m the one trying to scare her? There are demons in the deepest reaches of Hell that would soil their pants if they came face to face with Rose in a facepack.

  ‘Why are you wearing that muck on your face?’ I asked. Perfectly reasonable question, I thought.

  She grabbed me around the neck and beat a quick tattoo on my head with her knuckles. It was only a short performance. She knew my screams were likely to wake the entire household.

  ‘Beauty pack, Mucus? Getting ready for the holiday?’

  Rose and a beauty pack. A bit like smearing five-day-old dog poo with moisturiser. You know it’s not going to make any difference. She needed something, sure. A garbage bag over the head was the solution that sprang to my mind.

  We didn’t get a chance to explore this idea because the kitchen light came on at that point. Rose quickly let go of my neck and ruffled my hair. She smiled, which made her look even more bizarre than usual because the meringue around her face cracked. She appeared to be impersonating a salt flat.

  ‘Excited, Marcus?’ she asked in a syrupy tone. ‘Oh, hi, Mummy and Daddy!’

  Mum and Dad grinned at us from the kitchen door. It was obvious that Rose’s brief torture session hadn’t woken them. They basked in this vision of sibling bliss.

  ‘Couldn’t sleep, huh, kids?’ chuckled Dad. ‘Neither could we. This is going to be a wonderful holiday. The great Australian outback. Nature in all its glory.’ I could tell he was getting into the right state of mind. He hadn’t worn his suit to bed, for one thing.

  ‘It’s going to be brilliant, Daddy,’ purred Rose. ‘I am sooo excited. What’s the schedule today?’

  ‘Last-minute packing, maybe brunch here,’ said Dad. ‘Then we’re going to leave for the airport around eleven-thirty, pick up Dylan on the way. The flight goes at two, so I want plenty of time to check in. I’ll rustle up some breakfast.’

  Cy Ob Han turned up twenty minutes later, just as Dad was serving up the bacon and eggs. She had a facepack on as well. All we needed was a Big Top, a couple of lions and we could have run our own circus. After breakfast everyone went off to check their packing. For the hundredth time.

  I went into the garden. The horizon was smeared with red and a couple of early birds were getting in rehearsals for the dawn chorus. Inside my head, I yelled as hard as I could.

  ‘Blacky! Where are you?’

  No reply. But it shut the birds up, which was a bit weird.

  The taxi arrived at eleven-thirty on the dot. I slung my bag into the boot and watched while Rose and Cy loaded their luggage. There are rock bands on world tours that travel lighter. What were they going to do out there? Open a shop?

  ‘Got your light sabre?’ I asked Cy as we got into the taxi, but she ignored me. Luckily, it was one of those cabs that can fit in a hundred and twenty people, so she took the seat next to Rose, while I sat by myself at the back. It was only a short journey to Dylan’s place. He burst through the front door almost before his parents opened it and would have shimmied through the taxi window if Dad hadn’t opened the door in the nick of time.

  Dyl plopped himself and his one small bag in the seat beside me. I desperately wanted to tell him about my visitor from last night, but that would have to wait until we were alone. So we peered out the back window as Joe and Mo waved us around the corner. I wouldn’t swear to it, but I think they were carrying a bottle of champagne.

  I wouldn’t swear to this either, but as we headed for the freeway, I thought I heard fireworks exploding behind us. And possibly a marching band.

  It’s not often you hear a marching band exploding.

  It took some time to get through the security scanner. Dylan was wearing his bar fridge jacket, and a can of cola in an inside pocket set off the alarm. He wasn’t happy about handing it over to the guard and going through the scanner again. I think he didn’t trust the man not to drink it. The alarm went off again. And again. Eventually, he had handed over six cans. I have no idea why he didn’t just give them all up at the same time.

  On the seventh attempt they found his Swiss Army knife.

  ‘Whaddya mean, it’s a security risk?’ Dylan said.

  The guard was built like a concrete dunny and had a sense of humour to match.

  ‘It’s a knife. You can’t take a knife on a plane.’

  ‘Why not?’

  The guard just gave him a steely gaze.

  ‘Well, when do I get it back?’ said Dylan.

  ‘You don’t.’

  ‘You mean you’re stealing my knife?’

  ‘No,’ said the guard. ‘I am confiscating it.’

  ‘You can’t do that.’

  ‘I just have.’

  ‘But it’s mine.’

  ‘You can have it back, but then you don’t fly.’

  There’s no saying how long this fascinating conversation might have gone on, but I dragged Dylan away before things got worse. For the sake of the holiday I chose to defuse, rather than escalate. Plus, I could see the glint of hope in the eyes of the rest of our group. I knew what they were thinking. Maybe, just maybe, at the final moment, when all seemed lost, Dylan would get himself arrested and thereby save the holiday. I wasn’t going to let that happen.

  ‘That sucks,’ said Dyl. ‘My best knife! It had a thing in it that could take stones out of horses’ hooves.’

  ‘You reckon there’s going to be a call for that on this holiday, then?’

  ‘You never know,’ he said.

  ‘Excuse me, sir. You have been selected for a random explosives test. Would you please step this way?’

  Of course they would pick out Dylan. Of course they would. We stood around yet again while Dyl was given a going-over with a security wand. At least this pleased him.

  ‘Cool,’ said Dylan. ‘Just like in the movies. Do you want me to spread my legs and adopt the position?’

  ‘You can adopt a whale as far as I’m concerned,’ replied the security guard, showing there was at least one person in the airport with a sense of humour.

  Surprisingly, no trace of explosives was found anywhere about Dyl’s person. Mum and Dad looked vaguely depressed when he was given the all-clear and we trooped upstairs to the departure lounge. There was still an hour and a half before our plane took off.

  Dyl was overexcited. You could tell by the gleam in his eye and the way his muscles twitched, even when sitting down. An under-excited Dylan is too much for most people to handle. An overexcited Dylan is a disaster waiting to happen. So I took him off to one side of the room where there were a few arcade games consoles.

  ‘Guess who came to see me last night, Dyl,’ I said when we were far enough away.

  ‘Paris Hilton?’ he said.

  ‘Whaaaat?’

  ‘Well
, I dunno. You asked me to guess. Do I get another go?’

  ‘Never mind, Dyl. It was Blacky.’

  ‘Whoah! You’re kiddin’. Blacky the white dog? Does he have another mission for us, Marc? Does he?’

  Dylan was my partner-in-crime last time Blacky had called. He’d had so much fun. More importantly, I think our success in completing the mission made him feel he wasn’t useless, like everyone said. That he could succeed. That he had a talent. I know I couldn’t have done it without him. Now I felt really sad that both of us might miss out on a new adventure.

  Dylan’s face was glowing brighter and brighter with excitement. I needed to dampen his enthusiasm before his head exploded.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But I don’t know if it’ll still be around when we get back.’

  I explained what had happened and how Blacky had left without giving any details. We mulled the situation over.

  ‘Well,’ said Dyl eventually. ‘Nothing to be done now, mate. And at least you can be grateful for one thing.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘You avoided Paris Hilton.’

  Our flight was called and we joined the queue to board. Dyl and I had boarding passes giving us seats together. Cy Ob Han and the demented sibling were behind us. I let Dylan have the window seat because this was his first time in the air. We buckled ourselves in and settled down for the flight.

  ‘This is so cool,’ said Dylan after ten minutes or so. He was peering through the thick plastic of the window. ‘The people look just like ants.’

  ‘They are ants, Dyl,’ I replied. ‘We haven’t taken off yet.’

  I’ve said before that Dylan has no fear. The normal human instinct that makes the rest of us shy away from fire, for example, is simply missing in Dyl. He’s more likely to stick his hand into a fire to see if he can use his fingers as candles. But, as we taxied along the runway, I noticed that his knuckles were white. I glanced at his face, which wore a matching colour.

  ‘Not nervous, are you, Dyl?’ I enquired.

  ‘You kiddin’?’ he replied in a shaky voice. ‘Piece of cake, mate.’

  But when the plane accelerated and we felt that force pushing us back into our seats, I heard him whimper. I filed this information away. Dylan was scared of flying. I had no idea what I’d do with this fact. It was enough just to know he was scared of something.

  Mind you, it didn’t stop him eating all of his in-flight dinner when we finally settled at our flying altitude. Even I couldn’t eat the food and I’ll eat just about anything. The flight attendant called it salmon tortellini with basil pesto. It looked like she’d thrown up in an aluminium container. Dylan ate mine as well.

  Then we put on headphones for the movie, which was a particularly putrid romantic comedy. Dyl wouldn’t normally watch bilge like that. Unless a movie had chainsaws, mutant monsters and fountains of blood gushing from severed arteries, he’d give it the flick. But now he watched as girl met boy, girl met other boy, girl had row with girl, girl learned the true nature of romance. Blah, blah, blah. Maybe he was hoping there’d be a dramatic plot switch. Girl gets sick of romance and sparks up a chainsaw. Maybe it was because the movie was free. Dylan liked free things. This probably explained his double helping of flight-attendant vomit.

  Anyway, after half an hour I took off my headphones and left him to the wholesome fun. I closed my eyes. After the night I’d had, I could do with catching up on sleep. I nearly dozed off. It was only a commotion towards the front of the plane that snapped my eyelids open.

  For a moment I couldn’t work out what was going on. It seemed as if the entire first-class section was visiting the toilets at the back of the plane at the same time. I was puzzled. Didn’t they have their own toilets? I thought one of the advantages of travelling first class was that you didn’t have to use a seat polluted by an economy bum.

  Then I noticed they all seemed distressed. Most were holding their noses and some appeared on the verge of throwing up. Possibly the movie was even worse than I imagined. Or maybe their first-class stomachs were rebelling against fish-smelling puke in an aluminium container.

  I don’t know which hit me first – the blinding realisation or the evil smell.

  ‘Blacky!’ I yelled.

  ‘Wotcha, tosh,’ came the voice in my head. ‘That’s cleared a bit of space. What’s the point of travelling first class if you’re crammed in like a sardine?’

  ‘Can’t someone open a window?’

  The flight attendant was pale, but still standing. ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ she said to the man across the aisle from me. ‘That’s not a good idea at thirty-two thousand feet.’

  ‘Can I have a parachute, then? I’m prepared to take my chances.’

  I left them to their conversation and concentrated on the voices in my head.

  ‘Blacky! What are you doing here?’

  ‘Well, mush, at the moment I’m watching a particularly excellent movie. It’s a girl-meets-boy-meets …’

  ‘Yeah, I know about the movie. Why are you here?’

  ‘The mission, tosh, the mission. Even you can’t have forgotten so soon.’

  ‘But I thought that was back home.’

  ‘Thinking isn’t your strong suit, boyo. Best leave that to me.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘I’ve noticed.’

  ‘Are you saying our mission is based in the Northern Territory?’ I felt a sudden surge of excitement. ‘That all the time you knew I was going on holiday there?’

  ‘Amazing!’ said Blacky. ‘It can work out simple problems!’

  ‘But how did you know I was holidaying in the NT?’

  ‘Sorry, tosh. I never reveal my sources.’

  ‘And how did you manage to get on board this plane?’

  Blacky sighed in my head.

  ‘I’m trying to watch the movie here, you twonk! Not field questions from a certified halfwit. However, in the desperate hope of shutting you up … I am, as I have told you before, a master of disguise. It is, therefore, but the work of a moment to avoid airport security measures. I always travel first class, by the way. If I was eligible, my frequent flyer points would be a wonder to behold. Now, I would take it as a personal favour if you would kindly shut your cakehole.’

  ‘But what about the mission, Blacky? What does the mission involve?’

  ‘I have my limits, mush. I have my limits. Okay. I’ll tell you this much. Can you see a guy in an expensive suit? He’ll be one of those who deserted the first-class cabin a few moments ago. Built like a medium-sized skyscraper? Head like a bowling ball?’

  I craned my neck. People were still milling around the toilets at the back of the plane, waiting for the atmosphere to become breathable. I spotted him immediately. Blacky wasn’t exaggerating. He was huge. Muscles piled upon muscles. And bald as a coot. Balder, probably. I have no idea what a coot is.

  ‘Got him,’ I said.

  ‘Well, the mission is simple, tosh. You’ve got to stop him.’

  After that, Blacky refused to say anything more.

  I filled Dyl in on developments. He stood and peered back over the headrests to check out the muscled guy. Judging by the yelps from Rose and Cy, they obviously weren’t expecting Dylan’s face to suddenly loom up like a scary, loomy-up thing. It was small payback for the early-morning facepack terror, but I was grateful.

  ‘Man,’ said Dyl. ‘He is humungous. What have we got to stop him doing?’

  ‘No idea, mate. Blacky, the annoying little mongrel, refused to say.’ I allowed this thought to roll around in my head, but the annoying little mongrel was still ignoring me.

  ‘The size of him,’ moaned Dyl. ‘You couldn’t stop him with a tank.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Whatever it is, we are going to have to rely on brains and cunning.’

  ‘You’re on your own as far as brains are concerned,’ replied Dyl. ‘But I’ve got a black belt in cunning.’

  It was true.

  ‘Which makes us a brilliant combin
ation,’ I said. ‘Holmes and Watson; Batman and Robin; Frodo and Samwise.’

  ‘Kath and Kim,’ said Dyl.

  I sighed and closed my eyes.

  We landed in Darwin. Briefly. The wilderness lodge we were booked in to was a further hour’s flight, so we transferred to another plane. I kept my eyes peeled for Blacky, but there was no sign. Not so the bald-headed mountain. He boarded the small aircraft ahead of us. I swear I could see the plane sink a metre or two as it took his weight.

  ‘Why do we have to put our heads between our knees in the event of an emergency?’ Dyl whispered to me as we watched our second safety demonstration of the day.

  ‘To kiss our bums goodbye,’ I replied.

  Dyl just nodded.

  An uneventful hour later, we landed at a small airstrip. While everyone waited for their luggage, Dyl and I stepped outside to have our first proper look at the Territory.

  The first thing I noticed was the heat. It was like a thick wet blanket. A bead of sweat formed on the back of my neck, trickled and itched its way inside my T-shirt. The second thing I noticed was the sky. It was huge. Night was drawing in and the vast bowl above us was dusted with stars. Even as we watched, the sky darkened and pinpoints of light multiplied. I was amazed. I had never seen night fall so quickly, so dramatically. I saw the spiky silhouette of palm leaves against the sky. The sunset flooded the horizon with yellows, reds, purples. As I stared, the colours shifted, rearranged themselves. It was a miracle. The hairs on the back of my neck stood. I shivered with the wonder of it.

  ‘Dylan,’ I said, my eyes fixed on the glory above. ‘Is that the most wonderful thing you’ve ever seen?’

  ‘It certainly is,’ whispered Dyl. Like me, his voice hushed with emotion. We stood in silence for a moment. ‘Can you lend me a dollar?’ he added.

  ‘What?’ I wrenched my eyes away from the sunset and looked at Dyl. He stared at something away to my left. I followed the direction of his gaze. A cola-dispensing machine.

  ‘Beautiful,’ he whispered. ‘Just beautiful.’

  A guy waited by the baggage collection area. He held up white card which read BRANAGHAN WILDERNESS LODGE. A number of people were already standing by him, including our target, Goliath.