by Greg Fowler
‘Do we have to pay for them? We’re not made of money you know.’
‘No Mrs Sullivan. I’ll process the paperwork and the home school grant’ll cover that cost.’
‘Good.’
‘Okay, well thank you again Eddy and well done.’
Eddy just nodded and smiled. The last few minutes were too amazing to wrap up in words.
‘Bye Eddy.’
‘B..bye Mrs Stanton.’
And that was it…they left the room. They probably had more stuff to say downstairs but Eddy had lost the inclination to eavesdrop. He was still coming to terms with what had just happened to him. Almost as if this incredible energy could gauge when it was and wasn’t needed, it faded away as Grandma Daisy and Mrs Stanton hit the stairs. It had done its job and now all it left behind was the residue of something miraculous. The vibrations were still tingling through his hand but that splash of white light had dwindled to almost nothing. Almost. Something of it remained. A magical little speck that somehow Eddy knew had found a permanent home in the deepest spaces within him. Mr Tree had given him a present and, for some reason Eddy didn’t even try to grasp, he felt it was there to stay.
Way in the back of his mind Eddy figured he must’ve heard the distinctive squeal and squeak of the front door opening and closing but under the circumstances he’d dismissed it out of hand. And he should have also known that after such an unexpected episode Grandma Daisy wouldn’t let the dust settle. The trouble was, right now all his usual defence mechanisms seemed to slip through the cracks and when Grandma Daisy barged back in to his bedroom he was caught completely unawares.
‘Let me tell you something Mr Smarty Pants.’ She charged right up to him and poked a bony finger in his face. Eddy only had time to wonder how close ‘Smarty Pants’ was to ‘Pissy Pants’ before she rattled further into her tirade. ‘You may have pulled the wool over her eyes but I’m not such a walk over. Something funny’s going on here and I’m no fool Eddy. It’s got something to do with that tree.’ She shot a stare at his branch like she could scythe it in half right there and then. ‘I’m telling you now…don’t mess with me boy because I can make you wish she’d taken you away to that boarding school years ago.’
Then, true to Grandma Daisy’s time honoured traditions, she did a one eighty and left the room in her mighty wake.
Eddy didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
19. BLACK OR SILVER
‘Guess what Eddy?’
‘What?’
It was Thursday after school and whatever it was Reagan had to say, Eddy was pretty sure it had something to do with the way she was dressed up all fancy. She did look really nice though, he had to admit that. He’d never tell her that to her face however. Her rolling eyes and his red cheeks wouldn’t be worth it.
‘I’m going into the city with Mum and Dad to have dinner at a restaurant.’ Next came her posh, movie star voice. ‘A big, expensive one.’ She battered her eyelids at him and pretended to throw something invisible over her shoulder.
‘Th…that sounds cool.’
‘Yep, it is and I’m allowed anything I want on the menu. I hope it’s not all vegetables.’ Reagan screwed up her nose. The fact that she didn’t like vegetables was familiar to Eddy. She’d often come up to her room after dinner only to empty a pocket load of beans and broccoli out the window. She said that at the end of the day it was good for his tree and trees couldn’t taste things. It didn’t worry Eddy too much but it did seem strange to him that she wouldn’t eat everything on her plate, even if it didn’t taste that great. Sometimes you never quite knew when the next meal would come along.
‘M…aybe they’ll have j…jam sandwiches.’
‘Silly…they’ll have steak and chocolate pudding. Lots and lots of chocolate pudding.’
‘Y…yummy.’
‘And do you know why we’re going out for dinner tonight?’
‘Nope.’
‘My daddy’s been given a promotion at his work and he gets a new car. A big, flash, brand new car.’ Reagan beamed like the celebrity she so wished she was. ‘It’s even got movies in the back seat.’
‘Wow.’
‘It’s black and Dad says there’s nothing like a new car smell.’
‘Um…um…’ Eddy just knew there was something wrong with what Reagan had said but he couldn’t put his finger on it. It was like having a lost word on the tip of your tongue except this piece of knowledge was buried much deeper than that.
‘What Eddy?’
‘J…just a second.’ Eddy closed his eyes, placed his hand on Mr Tree and relaxed. Relaxing was the key, he had discovered, to truly absorbing those wondrous sensations his branch was feeding him.
‘What are you doing Eddy?’
Eddy placed the finger of his other hand gently to his mouth. ‘Sssh.’ Slowly the colours shifted and reassembled. He could sense something coming through the kaleidoscope, something that would bring his source of frustrated knowledge out into the open. He waited, then waited a little more and…there it was.
‘It’s n..not black Reagan.’ He stated, opening his eyes to find her staring back at him.
‘What? The car you mean?’
‘Yep…it’s silver.’
‘Uh-uh, it’s black. Dad said so.’
‘I b..bet you some ch..chocolate pudding that it’s s..silver.’
Reagan shrugged her shoulders. ‘Okay then but I wouldn’t have a spoon ready if I was you. Dad definitely said it was black.’
Eddy just smiled.
It was about an hour later, Reagan had already been downstairs for a while but was back up again, telling Eddy about a programme she’d watched on TV. The concept of TV was entirely foreign to Eddy but he listened anyway. Reagan could lean against that window ledge of hers and talk for eternity if Eddy had his way. It didn’t matter what she said, it was more that she was there and, even better than that, that she actually wanted to be there.
Then, in the middle of one of her elaborate descriptions a car rolled up past his house and into the driveway in front of Reagan’s place.
It was big, it was flash…but it most definitely wasn’t black. It was a shiny, metallic silver.
Reagan looked across at the boy opposite her and, after a moment of thoughtful consideration, gave him a wonderful, warm smile. ‘Does it still have movies in the back seat?’
‘Y..yep.’
The shallow echo of a front door closing rippled through the air and Reagan took that as her cue. ‘Gotta go, see ya later alligator.’
‘S…see ya in a while..c…cr…crocodile.’ Reagan was gone even before he could finish but that didn’t matter. Her joy was his joy.
Not only that, but later that night, and unbeknown to Grandma Daisy, Eddy had his first taste of chocolate pudding. And it was scrumptious.
20. TURNING A NEW LEAF
The first thing Eddy noticed about this particular Saturday morning was how the weather was already beginning to lean towards autumn. The weight of the heat had left the early hours and you could tell straight away that it’d do the same for the late hours as well. It wouldn’t be all that long before he’d have to really scrunch up tight at night to keep warm and he could already imagine the ‘I told you so’s’ that Grandma Daisy would throw at him when the side window refused to close.
Of course, that finicky fact didn’t bother Eddy in the slightest. He’d had cold nights before and he’d have them again. Even if push came to shove and there was a blizzard outside, he’d still have that window open nice and wide because the best things that had ever happened to him came through that window and he wouldn’t change that for anything.
Speaking of which, he’d had a good long chin wag with Reagan this morning. School holidays were just around the corner, so she was going to be around a whole lot more. Not only that but she could pretty much stay up as late as she wanted and that meant more time for their jam sandwich retreats on Mr Tree. Yep, it could snow as much as it wanted as far as he was concerne
d, nothing was going to dampen Eddy’s spirits today.
She was off shopping with her mum now though, so his attention had switched to the front window, where there was more likely to be some action and he’d be able to spot the return of a grocery clad Reagan.
He was always more careful up at the front window these days. Especially when Reagan wasn’t around. Just because Bert and Ernie hadn’t hit him up lately didn’t mean they wouldn’t grasp the next opportunity with both foul mouths. And, with both the Crowe’s cars missing from their driveway, they’d take it as a license for free reign.
So it was then that he spotted Ernie, all alone, pushing a scooter up the street towards the empty lot, well before he got too close to the house. Eddy’s instinctual reaction was to pull back from the window before it was too late. Just a step and a half or so. Enough so that he wasn’t advertising himself but not too much so he couldn’t watch this little nemesis pass safely by.
His name’s Dion remember…
Eddy closed his eyes. He wasn’t touching Mr Tree this time but he closed his eyes anyway and ‘reached’. If anything it was just an experiment but he sort of knew, going into it, that something was going to come out of the back end. Something very, very interesting. And he didn’t have to wait long.
When Eddy opened his eyes he had three things playing through his mind. Most immediate was that he had to act fast because Ernie/Dion was going to wander past his window any moment now. Infused through that pressing thought was a sense of pity for the young boy and finally, like a bad smell you can’t get away from, was the pervading mood of fear. It chilled him much more than an early autumn morning had a right to. It lurked in a place of darkness, where skeletal fingers grab at you out of the nothingness. Where monsters scavenge and no little boy can ever, ever be safe because they’re always hungry. Hungry enough to suck the marrow from your bones.
Eddy knew he was probably letting himself in for a whole universe of ridicule but it was now or never and he couldn’t let this alone.
Bounding over to his branch (which was now almost the full length of his bed along the wall), he did something he wouldn’t have though he was capable of. He plucked one of the evergreen leaves from the tree, feeling but a momentary twinge of pain between his own ribs, and raced back to the front window.
Phew…not too late.
Ernie/Dion was right there below him, oblivious to anything but the promise of a Saturday morning. At least that’s what everyone else would see. Eddy saw a bit more. Eddy saw the faltering swirls of colour around him. Colours that betrayed the terrifying memories still haunting this tired boy’s early morning mind.
‘D…d…dion!’
Dion jumped, snapped out of his false perception that he was alone in the otherwise quiet street.
‘Dion. Up h…here.’
‘What do you want… freak?’
‘I, um…I’ve g…got something for you.’ Eddy reached with one hand out the window and in that palm sat a still, vibrant, green leaf.
Dion strained through those baggy eyes of his to see what it was. ‘I haven’t got laser vision idiot. What is it?’
‘It’s a l..leaf. To help you.’
‘If anyone here needs help, trust me, it’s you.’ Dion cast a cautious glance at the Crowe residence. ‘She didn’t put you up to this did she?’
‘N..no.’
‘Then leave me alone Pissy Pants.’ Dion continued his scooter bound amble towards the empty lot, seemingly ambivalent to Eddy’s frantic need to get his message through.
I have to do this.
Eddy squashed himself right up to the gap in the window and called out as loud as he dared. ‘It’s f..for your dreams. It c..can make them g..go away.’
Dion stopped dead in his tracks. For a moment Eddy thought he would just kick into gear again and ignore him altogether. But after a few seconds of keeping his back to Eddy, Dion turned around and looked up at the Stupid Boy in the window. The one with his hand hanging out, urging him to come and get whatever it was he held there. As if he could grow twenty feet just like that.
‘What dreams?’ Even Eddy could see the defensiveness in that sentence.
‘The b…bad ones.’
Both boys just stared at each other. One from up high and one from down low.
‘How do you know about them? Nobody knows about them.’
‘I d…don’t like y…your dreams either. Th…they’re scary. Real scary.’
‘You’re crazy man.’ Dion may have actually thought that. In fact, he probably did but Eddy saw the deeper reaction. If Dion really, really believed that there was nothing to this and that Eddy was just playing games with him, why wasn’t he walking? Why was he still standing there like a lost puppy ready to go home with the first soul who offered him a speck of food.
‘I p..promise you Dion.’ Eddy tried to reach his arm even further out the window. ‘This w..will help make them g..go away.’
‘Throw it down then.’
Figuring that Dion was right and there was no other way, Eddy let go of his precious leaf and watched as it flitter fluttered down on to the front lawn. Not far from where, a few weeks back, a pair of soiled pants had landed.
Dion laid his scooter down on the footpath and strode over to the spot where he too saw it land. It was easy to find. Of all the leaves that were beginning to fall this early autumn, it was the only leaf that screamed with vitality. The others were oranges, reds and golds…all pretty in their own right (as far as young boys can appreciate pretty of course) but this particular leaf fairly glowed with wellbeing. Leaning over he picked it up and moved it about in his palm, testing how it felt between his fingers. Then, having completed this little exercise in scrutiny, he peered back up at Eddy, who had been watching this whole episode intently.
‘Like I said,’ stated Dion in a none too convincing manner, ‘you’re a freak.’
With that said, Dion promptly turned tail, strode back to his scooter and continued on towards the end of the street without so much as an acknowledgement that an exchange with the Stupid Boy had ever happened. All except one thing.
A certain, unimaginably green leaf went to bed with him that night. He tucked it under his pillow so his mum and big brother wouldn’t see it. That would raise way too many questions and his big brother could be a real pain in the butt sometimes.
Somewhere in the deepest, darkest part of the night, when the monsters were at the door, he reached under his pillow and felt for that leaf…and it was there…and the monsters went away.
Eddy could never stop Bert/Nathan from tossing the odd piece of abuse in his direction (all tempered by the proximity of Reagan mind you) but Dion never once called him a name again; not once.
2002
21. A SAD FAVOUR
Eddy finished up the last of the words and folded the piece of paper in half.
Done.
That was a relief. He reopened the paper and reread what he’d written. His handwriting was still quite messy, even to his own undiscerning eye, but it would do. At least you could read it and it made sense. Now he had to get it delivered…but he had a plan for that.
Folding it for the last time he placed it on his desk and took a quiet moment to survey his bedroom. He had more books. Quite a few in fact. Grandma Daisy had really cottoned on to the throwaways from the local library and now she’d wander back each Friday with one or two in her shopping bag. Half the time they meant nothing to him but every now and then she’d turn up with something worthwhile.
The jigsaws had mostly disappeared, either tucked away under his bed or gone off to the Salvation Army at Eddy’s specific request.
The biggest change though, without a shadow of a doubt, was Mr Tree. Over the last three years his beloved companion had surged through the room with boundless energy. No longer was Eddy’s ‘branch’ limited to the wall above his bed. It had cast its magical spell right across to the corner, above the head of Eddy’s bed, the entire length of the far wall and then, for good
order, part of the way to the bedroom door along the next wall. All in all, a full halfway around the room. The bough itself had also given birth to other branches which were themselves beginning to stretch out with their own tributaries. They spanned up and down each wall, transforming that half of his room into a virtual tree house that was eternally green with luscious growth. It didn’t matter if it was summer, autumn, winter or spring, there was a constant bed of foliage that never, not once, had so much as shed a single leaf in his room. Grandma Daisy was waiting for it though. She may not have followed through with her chainsaw bearing threats but she had a habit of letting him know she hadn’t entirely forgotten the idea. If, and when, one day she found that stray leaf, she’d be on it like a shot. Even Eddy didn’t think she’d necessarily cut it down now, but she’d ride him something wicked just because she could.
On that basis, not everything had changed as much as he would have preferred.
With his dose of melancholy out the way, Eddy walked over to the side window where he could see Reagan’s light spreading out from the edges of her window blind. She never closed her window, even though she could. She just pulled her blind down when it got a little chilly. That way they could hear each other if one of them called out. Which was something that still happened an awful lot. The jam sandwich committee still met pretty much every week, sometimes twice, and by now Eddy couldn’t imagine a life without her.
She did go out more often now though. But she was always going to do that. Eddy had known all along she was the sort to have a tonne of friends and she was thirteen now. A year older than him. Well, eight and a half months to be exact. Thirteen year old girls did stuff together and, from what Eddy could see, most of that had to do with spending money and talking gooey things about boys. He didn’t mind. Not really. She always came back and she was always the happiest part of his day. She understood him better than anyone and, from what Eddy could tell, she knew he understood her as well.