Cleanskin Cowgirls

by Rachael Treasure

  Tara stood, arranged the blanket over both of them and looked at Elsie. There was no way they were going out to the councillor-mayor. She flicked her head in the direction of the kitchen door.

  They left Elvis and Gwinnie in each other’s arms, crying as life took them down a tunnel neither wanted to go.

  Seven

  Zac stood at the petrol pump. Culvert’s autumn afternoon sunshine felt feeble and to Zac, life today felt flat.

  ‘How much would you like?’ he asked, looking up at the balding man he recognised as Elsie’s father. Today Kelvin Jones wore a white button-strained shirt and a blue Culvert Council tie that draped over the contoured curve of his ballooning stomach. In the stomach’s shade were tightly belted grey slacks with creases down the front, the cuffs sitting a little too long over RM Williams boots. As Zac reached for the fuel-pump nozzle, he wondered how on earth this man could be tiny, pretty Elsie’s father. He wondered what he ate and drank to gain such a belly and would his methane production be lesser or greater than that of someone slim who ate a raw-food diet? He must remember to suggest it to Amos as an experiment.

  Near the councillor-mayor’s shiny boots was a puddle with a skin of oil that swirled like a dark rainbow in universal soup. Oil belonged in the ground, Elvis always said. Zac thought of his father and hoped he was OK. If anything happened to him, they would never realise their dreams. Dreams that had only just begun in the big shed out the back of the farm. The petrol pump moaned and the car’s tank gurgled.

  ‘Shouldn’t I be doing that?’ Kelvin asked pompously, looking down at Zac with cold blue eyes. He gestured to the nozzle. Although it wasn’t a question. It was more of a command.

  Zac frowned. ‘No, it’s fine. I can do it.’ He held the pump and tried to ignore the fact Elsie’s father was staring at him, shaking his head.

  ‘I think you’ll find I should be doing that. For you to do it is highly unethical and in breach of Occupational Health and Safety regulations,’ Councillor-Mayor Jones said. ‘How old are you?’

  Zac glanced up at the bowser as the numbers spooled towards the fifties. Surely Mr Jones knows I’m in Elsie’s class? wondered Zac.

  ‘Um. Nearly twelve.’

  ‘Look.’ Councillor-Mayor Jones tapped his index finger on the bowser rules, signs that Zac himself had stuck up when they had overhauled old Chopper Reid’s fuel pumps. ‘Pumps not to be operated by children under the age of fifteen. You’re too young.’

  Zac looked up. ‘Well, that depends whether you are thinking within the boundaries set by our human experience of time as linear,’ he said earnestly as the fuel continued along the hose and into the car, ‘or thinking of the situation in universal measures of time, where everything that happened, is happening and is going to happen is in existence all at once, in which case I am already an adult so therefore, no, I would not be too young.’

  Kelvin Jones looked slightly confused, then shook his head. The boy was being rude.

  ‘Where is your father?’

  ‘Inside. With Elsie.’

  A cloud of irritation crossed the councillor-mayor’s face. ‘Hang that pump up at once. I need to speak to him.’

  Zac paused. He knew this was serious. He set down the pump. ‘He’s . . . he’s not . . .’

  ‘He’s not what? Speak up, boy!’

  ‘He’s not . . .’

  ‘Not home? Not sober? Not real?’ asked the councillor-mayor with irritation. It was bad enough for Kelvin Jones that he’d been called away early by Sarah from council to get Elsie. He’d been hoping to stay longer at the offices, where the Year Ten work experience girl, Christine Sheen, was wearing a particularly clingy see-through top today. He’d now not only had to pick up Elsie from the roadhouse after school because Sarah had to get a part for the tractor in Rington, he also had to deal with this.

  ‘Not well,’ Zac at last finished.

  As he entered the diner with the boy, it took Councillor-Mayor Jones a while to recognise that Elvis Smith was lying on the couch underneath a crocheted blanket with his wife. They appeared to be in comas. He was about to cough to make his presence felt when the dreadful chubby Green girl from the abattoir came out from the kitchen whispering that they were meditating, before asking him whether he’d like some soup. Following her like a lost puppy was Elsie. Was that thing on her face getting bigger? What was Sarah thinking, allowing their child to be with these people?

  ‘Can we help you, Councillor . . . er, Mayor . . . er, Mr Kelvin. Er . . . Jones?’ asked Gwinnie, propping herself upright, swiping tears from her face, while her husband remained on his back, his face as white as a sheet, his breathing shallow.

  ‘It’s about this,’ Councillor-Mayor Jones said, indicating Zac beside him.

  The bell of the roadhouse door chimed as Amos came in, worry on his face. Gwinnie detected the note of disdain in Elsie’s father’s voice and her inner Mama Bear fired. ‘This? You mean my son?’

  ‘Yes. He’s a minor.’

  ‘A minor? Well, he’s certainly not a magpie,’ she said with a touch of angry sarcasm in her voice.

  Elsie’s cheeks sizzled. She clutched her hands nervously.

  ‘He is not of adequate age to operate a fuel pump. And I’d imagine your kitchen staff aren’t of age either,’ he said, glaring at Tara. ‘Are they, Elsie?’

  She opened her mouth, but no words came.

  ‘From an OH&S perspective you are more than likely in breach of several fuel-service and hospitality regulations.’

  He waited for a response.

  Gwinnie’s eyebrows lifted and then dropped. She glanced from Elvis to Kelvin standing above them. Was he serious?

  Elsie felt like being swallowed up by the earth. She could see the looks of concern on Zac’s and Amos’s faces. She wished her father would just explode and splatter himself away into oblivion.

  ‘Sir. Sir Mayor,’ Gwinnie said in a tight voice, ‘can you not see my husband is not entirely well? And we rely on the children to help at certain times. Would it not be so in your family too? If the situation were the same. They are bright children . . . Your daughter —’

  Kelvin held up his hand. ‘It’s Councillor-Mayor and I can see from Mr Smith’s condition that what you say is true, however I cannot ignore the fact you have minors illegally working in a business. In particular, my very own daughter. This is a grave situation.’

  Gwinnie stood up, smoothed her hair as best she could and tugged her dress down so she felt less crumpled. ‘And we are in a grave situation, Councillor-Mayor. Can you not see it’s not a good time? And your daughter is not working here. In fact Elvis was helping her with her guitar before he —’ Tears began to pool in Gwinnie’s eyes. Kelvin Jones averted his gaze.

  ‘Dad,’ Elsie began timidly.

  ‘Go get in the car, Eleanor,’ he said, delivering her a look that could freeze lava.

  She looked at him pleadingly, but could see his stern resolve. She grabbed up her school bag and guitar and scuttled out the door, passing Dr Patak who was just arriving in his old Mercedes. Gwinnie suddenly looked more pale than her husband.

  ‘I told you not to call the doctor,’ Elvis rasped, his hands covering his face.

  ‘I did,’ Tara said, indicating the phone in the kitchen. ‘You need a doctor right now. If not for you, to help Gwinnie. It’s up to you to show him how well you are. Not for him to tell you how sick you are.’

  Gwinnie promptly burst into tears of relief. A doctor’s advice would be so reassuring right now, she thought. She gathered up Tara in a hug.

  ‘Oh, Tara, you dear girl,’ Elvis said weakly, ‘I believe you’re right.’

  Kelvin Jones, knowing he was about to be sprung by the doctor bullying the pathetic Smith family, clenched his mouth into a bitter straight line. ‘This is by no means the end of it,’ he said, reefing the door open so the bell chimed in hasty shock. He strode to the car, where he cast his daughter a glare, pasted on a wallpaper smile and delivered it with a friendly salute to Dr Pat
ak before driving away without paying for his petrol.

  Inside the roadhouse the Smiths, Tara and the twins stood in silence, each processing what had happened. What would the councillor-mayor do to them now? They couldn’t afford staff: they couldn’t run the roadhouse without the boys working there. He had them cornered.

  Then Zac spoke. ‘Did you see that, Mum? Did you see?’

  Gwinnie looked to her son through a haze of tears. ‘See what?’

  ‘Elsie’s dad doesn’t have a bum. Councillor-Mayor Jones fully doesn’t have a bottom! He was just a torso, with legs stuck on it.’

  Amos nodded vigorously. ‘Yeah, I saw!’

  ‘How can he sit on council when he doesn’t have a bum?’ Zac asked, pulling a face.

  By the time Dr Patak entered with his doctor’s bag, the Smiths and Tara were already doubled over with laughter. On the couch Mr Smith was coughing, groaning and laughing and colour had bloomed once more on his cheeks.

  ‘Councillor-Mayor No-Buttocks,’ wheezed Elvis. ‘Ah, my boys! My funny, funny boys!’

  Eight

  Judging from his red face and steamed-up glasses, Culvert science teacher Vernon Tremble looked like he was about to ignite in a loud whoomph like a Bunsen burner. He was not yet over the previous week’s ordeal, when Nathanial Rogerson had left the burner’s gas on too long before striking a match. The near-miss accident resulted in the loss of one of Nathanial’s gingery eyebrows and sparked a day’s stress leave for Mr Tremble. He returned to an official complaint from Nathanial’s father, Deputy Mayor Cuthbertson Rogerson, who was livid about his son’s ‘potentially disfiguring accident’.

  The Culvert Grade Six students in their final term had been allowed two lessons with the burners in the lead-up to high school next year. Now here they were again and Mr Tremble was taut with trepidation. He had nowhere to hide, as Miss Beechcroft was loitering for him in the staffroom, and he was still wondering if he was truly over his divorce and if the posting to a country town like Culvert was the right decision. He wished Zac Smith would just shut up. Zac had just pointed out to the entire class in a loud voice that Deputy Mayor Rogerson had failed to see his son was already disfigured.

  ‘Let’s face it. He was beaten over the head with the ugly stick from birth,’ Zac quipped. At the back of the class, Nathanial was turning puce with anger, and the other children snickered nervously.

  ‘It’s clear also,’ Zac said from his front-row command of the classroom, ‘Nathanial could be considered permanently disfigured purely from his genetic make-up.’

  ‘Zac,’ growled Mr Tremble as another warning.

  But Zac inclined his head with a know-it-all expression as if to tut-tut his teacher. ‘Nathanial has obviously not become familiar with Dr Bruce Lipton’s gene theories on the possibility of DNA changes via vibrational thought patterns,’ he said matter-of-factly, half turning to his classmates, ‘otherwise he’d be meditating flatout during his impending puberty to alter his cell biology, so as to avoid resembling his family in any way.’ This was met by a solo eruption of laughter from Amos while his classmates sat dumbly at their desks.

  At the back of the lab, Tara and Elsie were poised on the edge of their seats, trying to will Zac to be quiet. They knew they were witnessing another science-class disaster in the making. This time it wasn’t the flammable equipment but the volatile words and the flint minds of the twins that were about to spark an inferno of anger in Nathanial and most likely another day of stress leave for Mr Tremble. Elsie could understand Zac’s uncharacteristic venom. She knew Nathanial’s father and her dad had launched a targeted campaign against the Smiths’ business soon after her father had seen Zac at the pump and she and Tara in the kitchen. She couldn’t blame him. Zac was holding nothing back. She watched Mr Tremble get redder and redder and do just as his name suggested as Amos joined his brother.

  ‘My esteemed twin has a point about Dr Lipton’s recent work. We can no longer ignore the question, “Is science on the wrong track?”’ Amos said, opening his palms to Mr Tremble as if giving a university speech to the great minds of the world. ‘Newton’s laws just don’t seem to work in isolation and Darwin’s theories are incomplete. Then there’s current science saying that technology is the answer to our problems, and that through science alone we will conquer nature and the forces that are threatening our survival. Surely you won’t be teaching us that stuff next year?’

  Mr Tremble’s eyes seemed to roll right to the back of his head before he cast his desperate gaze to the ceiling as if he wished he was anywhere but Culvert Primary teaching this particular bunch of kids, especially the Smith twins.

  ‘Yes,’ pushed Zac, ‘these ideas are based on false beliefs derived from science that is not only incomplete but in some cases just plain wrong!’

  ‘Enough!’ Mr Tremble said a little too loudly. ‘As I said before, this is not on the school curriculum. And I’m sure your classmates have heard enough, so could we all just turn to page fifty-two before lunch and we’ll review the alternative energy options that you’ve covered in your projects.’

  Nathanial scowled, his fists clenched: he was ready to tackle Zac to the ground, but he knew Amos would have his twin’s back.

  The other students didn’t bother to reach for their books. They’d come to appreciate the distraction the twins always caused in science, even though Zac and Amos were total freaks who talked gobbledygook.

  Mr Tremble gritted his teeth and rammed his glasses up. He looked down at the textbook on his desk.

  Ignoring him, Zac half got out of his chair to speak. ‘Even when our father was in primary school, he was taught about the earth’s finite resources of fossil fuel. Yet here we are still running on those same systems. Why go round and round again teaching another generation the same stuff when we know it’s big-oil business holding back the technology? Listed in our Grade Six text are solar power, coal power, wind power and water power, but that is so outdated! What about geothermal, infusion, wave power, or methane, or biofuel?’

  Elsie and Tara felt Mr Tremble’s fuse burn dangerously short.

  ‘I mean you wouldn’t even let us do an experiment in poo power?’

  ‘Enough! Enough! Enough!’ Mr Tremble said, stamping his Hush Puppy on the linoleum and hitching up his brown cords furiously. He looks not far off a heart attack, thought Tara. Maybe she should send him some healing.

  ‘Mr Tremble, I don’t mean to be rude,’ Amos said, ‘but this science you are teaching us is on the wrong track.’ He looked at Mr Tremble with the open face of hope. The twins were just too smart for their own good. There were special schools for kids like them in the city, but not out here. Not in Culvert.

  ‘Where is quantum physics in the curriculum so we can learn about the things science can’t explain, like the tiny particles we are made up of and the forces underlying our physical world? And epigenetics?’

  ‘Yes! Epigenetics!’ echoed Zac.

  ‘Are they in the texts?’ Amos continued. ‘Are you truly thinking the right way scientifically, Mr Tremble, and asking the right questions? You will be our high-school science teacher next year and these are areas all children need to know about!’

  ‘Yes,’ said Tara, ‘I read something about vibrational energy and metaphysics and that. Can we study it next year?’

  Mr Tremble flinched. Not Tara Green too? ‘That’s it!’ he said, smashing a ruler onto his desk and pointing to the door with an outstretched arm. ‘Out! Out! Zac and Amos Smith, out! Go straight to Mrs Guthridge’s office. Not another word! You are both heading for detention, if not suspension!’

  ‘Cool!’ said the one-eyebrowed Nathanial Rogerson, nodding from the back row.

  That afternoon, riding Jasper back to the Smiths’, Elsie looked down sadly at the boys. Their suspension meant a suspension for her. She’d be back in her mother’s Volvo being driven to school, with Surly Simon hurling nasty comments at her. Since he’d started at Culvert High he’d got worse. He already loathed the fact th
at his parents had held him off going to boarding school for a year until Elsie had caught up to his high-school years. For Elsie, there would be no more easy-going funny conversations about life, the universe and everything on their walks. No more hilarious banter that had her gasping for air and almost sliding off Jasper with hysterical laughter. Tara was in the same frame of mind. Without the sunshine of the walks that warmed her in all weather, her life would be covered by a cloud again. Jasper then lifted his tail right beside the Dolls’ House and let a large pile of dung fall outside the locked front gate. The four of them stood looking at the pile.

  ‘Oh, poop,’ said Elsie, half turned in her saddle, looking down at the steaming dollops.

  Next they saw Mr Queen running at them with a shovel, wearing a crimson skivvy, yellow hibiscus boardshorts and purple Crocs. Tara screamed and the boys began to bolt. By the time Elsie had gathered up the reins and kicked the reluctant Jasper on, Mr Queen was near her behind the gate. With mad ice-blue eyes glinting with humour, he smiled up at Elsie.

  ‘Poo for my roses! Poo for my roses! Manna from heaven. Thank you, my dear,’ he said, his small cragged face reminding Elsie of an elderly pixie. She understood now that he was just a lonely person and, like her and her friends, a bad fit for the rest of Culvert, and that he had most of the town fooled so he could keep to himself.

  She smiled at him. ‘Plenty more where that came from, Mr Queen. Sorry about that,’ she said with a grin before riding off to catch up with her friends.

  At the roadhouse yards, in the wake of the call from Principal Guthridge saying the boys were to be suspended from school for two weeks and banned from the Grade Six Leaver’s formal, the four slumped about on the back patio lethargically, listening to the drum of bees busy in Gwinnie’s garden.

  ‘That’s it,’ Gwinnie said, setting down a tray of milkshakes and handing them out, ‘home-schooling may be the only option for the rest of the year if that’s how they’re going to be.’