by Sandy McKay
Dad reckons the cellphone makes her feel important and it’s all part of “this ‘mid-life crisis’ thing she’s going through”. Which also accounts for why she’s suddenly taken up hang-gliding which is quite a dangerous sport for mothers. Dad reckons it’s barmy to want to go chucking yourself off hilltops at her time of life. Mum reckons it’s good for stress and beats mucking about in the garage and besides, it’s the only time she gets to be alone.
I went up with her once, on the back. It was the most scary thing I’ve ever done. Just hanging there, in the middle of the sky miles away from the ground, felt pretty freaky. I couldn’t look down. I looked straight ahead and held on so tight my hands were hurting for ages after. When we came in to land I thought I was going to die, I even felt my life flashing before me and after it was over I felt relieved, like I’d just escaped some plane crash or something. I thought about it afterwards and it worried me that when my life flashed before me it was very short and pretty boring. All there was was school and homework and a few games of rugby and the odd holiday or two. I decided I better have some adventures so I’ve got something more interesting to look at when it happens for real.
Dad went up after me, just to prove he could, and it was three days before he stopped spewing up.
I guess everyone’s different.
My sister Allie is very different from me. She wants to be a model like Rachel Hunter and the boss of the modelling place told her she’d have to lose some weight so she’s been trying hard ever since. She wants to be one of those skinny models in magazines who look like they’ve just swallowed something sharp and now they have to stay still until it’s gone down properly.
So she counts these things called calories that seem to inhabit every bit of food worth eating in massive numbers. And she does other weird stuff too, like the other day I found her sitting at the table with her head stuck over a pot of boiling water and a towel draped over it.
“What are you doing?” I asked, as any normal brother who cared about his sister’s welfare would do.
Well, she looks up and her face is dripping with sweat and she says she’s ‘steaming’ it open. Her face, she means. I said I thought you steamed open letters, not faces. She says it’s to open up the pores and then she splashes cold water and closes them up again. Weird, aye!
When she looks in the mirror she sucks her cheeks in and opens her eyes all wide like a cod fish. And when she’s trying on clothes she holds her tummy in tight so she can hardly breathe to try and make it look flat.
“Does this make my bum look fat?” she asks me whenever she gets new jeans. And I don’t know what to say.
If I say ‘no’, she says what am I greasing for, and if I say ‘yes’, she throws something at me and goes into a real shitty. “What would you know frog ass?”
I must be the only normal one in the family.
My name is Colin Charles Kennedy. The ‘Charles’ part is after my great-grandfather who was a gold miner in Australia. I’m the worlds best collector. I have so many collections that one day I might open a museum. I collect cans, bottles, pocket knives, cigarette lighters and basketball cards. I also have a really cool camera collection that includes a ‘Box Brownie’ that Mum’s grandfather gave her when she was my age. I haven’t used it yet because you have to get a special film that you can’t buy in the shops. I love cameras and I’m quite good at taking photographs with the instamatic I got for my tenth birthday.
Mum says I’ve got a good ‘instinct’ for it, whatever that means.
Whenever we have family get-togethers like for birthdays or at Christmas time she gets me to take photographs. We always look like we’re having a good time in these photographs. That’s what she likes about them. Even if we’ve been moaning at each other all day, when the camera comes along we say cheese and look like the happiest family in the world. It’s sort of like telling lies, I reckon, but I guess it doesn’t do any harm.
Just now I’m in form two at Ballymore Intermediate, I play rugby for Southsville West under-thirteens and Byron Banks is my best friend. We’ve been friends since kindergarten and when we grow up we’re going to travel the world and then settle down and open a museum with all our treasures. Byron hasn’t got as many collections as me but he’s got more money which makes up for it.
So that’s my family. Mum, Dad, Allie and me.
The Kennedys.
Right now Dad is out in his garage working on a two-stroke Masport, Mum is getting ready for an open day in a ‘character villa’ she’s been trying to sell, Allie is riding her exercycle to burn off the calories she ate at lunchtime and I’m looking through the rubbish bin.
Like I said – I’m the only normal one in the family.
4
“Some plastics will take up to 400 years to biodegrade in the ocean.”
MR READ was so impressed with my ‘rubbish’ ideas that he wanted me to be in charge of our group’s project folder. The project was about recycling and we had to find out what facilities were available in our community.
We had three boys and three girls in our group. Byron, Phillip and me and Alice Fraser, Miriama Ekotone and Lizzie Bennett (I’ll tell you about her in a minute!).
Our whole class was going on a trip to the Roseview Rubbish Rescue Centre – which was supposed to be a really cool recycling place. Mr Read wanted us to see how recycling worked in practice. I couldn’t wait. Ever since that run-in with the shaved-head drongo I had become dedicated to saving Planet Earth. Well, the bit around my neighbourhood anyway.
And besides, I wanted to sit next to Lizzie Bennett on the bus. It wasn’t that I liked her or anything. Well, not that much. I only liked some things. Like the way her hair sat all sleek and black and shiny on her collar; I liked that. And I liked the way she played netball. She was the best player in the team but she made it look like she wasn’t even trying. I liked that too.
I also had a sneaky suspicion she liked me back. It was the little things that gave it away, like the way she never spoke to me even when we were sitting next to each other in class. And the way she pretended not to notice me when I rode up beside her on the way to school. And the way she always ignored me when we had to choose someone from the ‘opposite sex’ to do our science projects with.
It was getting pretty obvious. Byron thought so too. He was getting the same treatment from Melanie Watson. We both agreed she must have a supersonic crush on him to go to such amazing lengths to pretend he didn’t exist.
Girls, aye!
The guy in charge of the Roseview Rubbish Rescue Centre was called Paddy McTavish and he looked like a real hard case. He was Scottish or Irish or something with an accent, and he wore a denim cap, floppy black gumboots and a red and black checked bush shirt. He had a cigarette stuck behind his ear and a couple of teeth missing.
I liked the look of him a lot.
When he spoke he had you on the edge of your seat. He stood back and kind of rocked on his heels with his hands in his pockets and every now and again he let out a real daggy laugh. It was fascinating and I was glad Lizzie had chosen to keep up the charade of pretending she didn’t know I existed because I might not have been able to concentrate if she’d been sitting beside me.
“In the old days,” he said, “everything was recycled only we didn’t call it that. It was common sense. We didn’t have much and we didn’t waste much. We used stuff over and over again. In those days there was no plastic and things lasted for more than five minutes. All this plastic we use nowadays may be useful and easy and convenient, but it clutters up the environment. Take a look out there now. See all those plastic bags blowing in the wind. We’ve got to stop all this waste and it’s up to you kids to lead the way.”
Then he leaned down and picked up Phillip’s lunch bag.
“You can recycle anything,” he said. “Even this.” And he pulled out a couple of soggy tomato sandwiches and a plastic drink bottle.
“We recycle everything here. Cans, bottles, paper, metal, garden
clippings. We also re-use stuff. If someone comes along with a bike that’s broken, I put it aside and fix it. Then I sell it, or give it away.”
Paddy was cool. He reckoned Southsville could be a ‘waste-free’ city in 20 years if the Council put their minds to it.
I looked across at Lizzie who was giggling with Melanie, rolling her eyes at Scott Turner and not taking a blind bit of notice. I didn’t like that scatty streak in her much.
The place was divided up into different sections and there was a concrete path with a few newly planted trees running down the middle.
“Paper products over here,” shouted Paddy. It was difficult to hear as there was a lot of machinery going. “Then over here we have aluminium cans.” Byron’s eyes lit up immediately at the sight of 17 million aluminium cans. There was bound to be the odd one in there we didn’t have in our collection.
After the aluminium place we were shown over to a big composting section.
I couldn’t believe the size of those machines. There was a big giant thing that was moving around bits of trees and stuff. Then Paddy showed us the biggest compost heap I’d ever seen. He said that inside it got to over 60 degrees. Man, that’d be hot.
I had my trusty instamatic camera with me and I took a lot of photographs. Mr Read had made me chief photographer after hearing about my genius with a camera. Well, Dad says ‘if you don’t blow your own trumpet no-one else will blow it for you’.
I took a couple of shots of Paddy, some of the machines, one sneaky one of Lizzie eating her lunch and one of the whole class lined up beside the bus.
At the end of the day Paddy asked if we had any questions and Byron asked him if he had any Budweiser cans. Mr Read gave him a dirty look but Paddy didn’t mind. He told him he could help himself so then I said I’d seen some old lawnmower bits I thought Dad might be interested in. I explained about Dad being a bit of a lawnmower buff and he said Dad was welcome to come and have a look. “Any time,” he said. “Any time.”
In fact, he was so nice that I also got in a bit about my pocket-knife collection and the old skateboard I’d seen over by the caravan. (I had some wheels at home that would fit perfectly.)
Paddy said he’d put them aside and I could come back with Dad some time. By the end of the day I felt like we were old buddies. He was a great guy.
On the way home on the bus I felt pretty good. The day had gone well (even though Lizzie was still pretending not to notice me), I thought I had some good photographs and I couldn’t wait to tell Dad the news about the lawnmower parts.
5
“Glass is the only packaging material that is both re-usable and 100 percent recycleable.”
WHEN I GOT HOME my good mood was shattered.
The rubbish bin was chocablock with cardboard and stuff from Mum’s work. There were also two new milk cartons, three tins, another Weet-bix packet? (did we have a phantom Weet-bix eater in the house?), today’s paper, Allie’s lunch (again!)… It was so depressing.
Also I’d missed the milkman so Mum made me go all the way to the dairy on my bike, in the dark. Lucky I’ve got a good light. She was in a real foul mood because she’d missed out on a house sale because of some guy in the office who’d forgotten to give her a message. Boy was she fuming. If she got any madder I’d have to call the fire brigade and have them hose her down.
Dad was a bit down in the dumps as well. He wasn’t fuming, just quiet. There was still no sign of any work. He perked up when I told him about the lawnmower parts though, and said we could go down on Saturday to take a look.
The lawnmower parts were perfect, exactly what Dad had been looking for and we spent ages prowling about the place. The things that people threw out were amazing. We managed to rescue two good deckchairs that just needed some patching up and a bit of CRC, a hand carved chess set with not too many pieces missing and a radio that Dad reckoned he could get going again, no sweat.
Then we got talking to Paddy and he said I could help out on Saturday afternoons if I wanted. He said he couldn’t pay me much but I could grab whatever I wanted for my collections and I could nab a few bits and pieces for Dad as well. I might even get some good photographs.
I couldn’t wait.
Then something else happened.
(If there are any squeamish readers out there you might need to skip over to the next chapter.)
We’d just finished loading our loot onto the trailer and Dad was backing out when I heard this noise. It wasn’t very loud but it was squeaky and high and sounded like someone in pain.
I yelled for Dad to stop and when I got out of the car there was a sack, just lying on the road, and I thought I saw it moving.
It was tied with some old rope and when I untied it I saw the sickest sight I’ve ever seen in my life.
“Ughhhhhhhhhhhhh…”
A tangle of straggly, skinny bodies slowly uncurled itself to reveal… two, three, no… four little kittens. One had a sticky, bunged up eye that leaked out all this gungy stuff and another one looked like half of its fur had fallen out. It looked scared out of its wits. I put my hand under its belly and held it out in front of me. It felt so bony and light – like it could blow away in the wind.
Dad got out of the car and tried to help a little ginger one stand up but its poor wee legs just buckled.
“Rickets,” said Dad.
Then Paddy came over and muttered stuff like they’d have to be ‘put out of their misery’ and ‘this sort of thing happened all the time these days,’ and ‘whoever did it should be shot’.
While we were talking, a little grey and white one managed to struggle to its feet. Its eyes looked slightly brighter than the others and I reckon it knew what was going to happen. It even started licking its paw. I couldn’t help but admire the wee bloke. Here it was, on death row and it was trying to make a good impression.
We’d have to keep it. “Please, Dad,” I said using my whiningest, pleadingest voice.
“Pleeeaassee…”
“We can’t, Col.”
“Why not?”
“Imagine what your mother would say. She’ll be mad enough when we bring all this other gear home. She won’t stand for a mangey cat as well.”
“It’s not mangey, Dad. This one looks okay. Please.”
I didn’t like cats normally. I’d rather have dogs as a rule. But this wee bloke was different. He was a survivor. You could tell.
Dad was weakening. I could tell that too. He was such an old softy there was no way he was going to abandon this wee bloke in his hour of need.
Mum would be a different story.
When we got home it took us a while to get everything unloaded. As expected, Mum went mad. And that was before she got wind of the cat.
“All this junk,” she raved – dashing about with her cellphone glued to her ear.
“Where’s it going to go? Not more lawnmowers!!! And where do you think you’re going to put all those cans?”
Meanwhile, the cat was quivering in my jacket on the front seat, too terrified to do anything. We left that news until last. It sent her scurrying off to an ‘open home’ in a heck of a hurry – before she did ‘something I’ll regret’.
But Mum was definitely out-numbered on this one. Allie had fallen in love with the kitten before he was even out of the car. She’d called him ‘Lucky’ (as in lucky-to-be-alive), made a bed for him in her bedroom and was feeding him a mixture of sloppy Weet-bix and milk.
I took a photograph of our newest family member, curled up in Allie’s school jersey and looking like something out of a concentration camp. I figured I would have a couple of good ‘before and after’ shots in a couple of months.
If they turned out okay I could enter them in a competition.
6
“Making recycled paper uses half as much energy as producing new paper and reduces water and air pollution. Seventeen trees are needed to make one tonne of paper.”
MR READ invited a man from Greenpeace to talk to us. Peter Peat. What a
handle!
He had some interesting and seriously mind-boggling information which he proceeded to fire at us, close range, like shots from a BB gun.
• “Did you know – each year the average person in the ‘developed’ world throws away 160 cans, two trees worth of paper and cardboard, 45 kilograms of plastic, 107 bottles…” Pow!
• “The average New Zealand person uses ten times more energy than the average Indian person.” Pow! Pow!
• “Twenty percent of the world’s population uses 70 percent of the world’s energy, and 50 acres of rainforest are destroyed every minute.” Pow! Pow! Pow!
• “Five million tonnes of oil winds up in the ocean every year.” Pow! Pow! Pow! Pow!
• “If you throw away two aluminium cans you waste more energy than one billion of the world’s poorest people per day.”
• “More than one billion trees are used to make disposable nappies every year.”
I made a solemn vow, there and then, that if Lizzie and I ever had children, we would wash and dry every single nappy by hand. It was the least we could do.
Then Peter Peat talked about packaging and how useless most of it was and how we should all be writing letters to manufacturers and refusing to buy products that were over-packaged.
It was all a bit scary, really.
“Look at your average Easter Egg,” he said. “How much of it is packaging and how much is chocolate?” He had a point there. I mean, those eggs you get at Easter, by the time you’ve unwrapped them, they’re hardly worth the trouble.