Danny lurched forward. ‘Who?’
The rain had eased and the black tar of the dark street below shone silver. The growl of the city traffic was almost drowned out by the loud whispers of wet tyres.
The window was open slightly and jammed so that it couldn’t be opened too far. Danny took a deep breath through his nose. The smell of city rain was different, not thick with dust like in Mundowie, but thick with grimy city smells.
‘What am I looking at?’ he asked.
‘Him,’ Vicki pointed. ‘The round rainbow man.’
The yellow light from their window reached into the darkness. A bald man with the biggest black moustache Danny had ever seen was sweeping the dry part of the street under a huge striped awning below. He was a giant of a man with a boulder-sized stomach that seemed to swell from his double chin all the way to his waist. His red-velvet bow tie was only just visible from within the folds of his double chin. His chunky arms teetered like the wings of a penguin as he walked.
Danny stared at him. He was surprised to see such a big strong man wearing an apron. It wasn’t a plain apron – Danny thought gangster black would have been a suitable colour – it was bright and striped with more colours than a rainbow.
As if aware he was being spied upon, the big man looked up at the window. When he saw two small faces peering down at him he leaned on his broom, smiled broadly, showing his brilliant white teeth, and waved. ‘Ha, ha, hellooooo up there,’ he sang.
‘Let’s wave back,’ said Vicki, raising her hand.
Danny slapped it down. ‘No!’
‘Why not?’
‘Because this is not Mundowie! This is the city.’
‘I waved yesterday.’
‘Well, you shouldn’t have!’
Vicki shrugged. Then she nudged Danny again. ‘That’s his place there.’
Danny’s gaze drifted away from the large man in the coloured apron to the glow of the equally colourful, well-lit shop behind him.
Danny liked the shop. He had put it on his map earlier. When he wrote the name he had tried to copy the curling swirl of the coloured neon words above the store: CARUSO’S WORLD OF FINE CAKES AND CONFECTIONERY.
‘Looks to me like he’s spent too much time in there,’ said Danny with a wry smile.
Above the neon sign there was an illuminated globe of the world, about the size of a large beach ball, spinning slowly. The oceans were deep blue and the continents were green with brown tinges and rivers running in thin blue veins. The ice caps glittered silver. Danny gazed at the globe and especially Africa when it drifted into view. He loved Africa.
Vicki took a deep breath and sighed. ‘Caruso world looks wonderful, doesn’t it?’ she said dreamily. ‘I’d love to go in there right now and buy heaps.’
Her face suddenly crumpled. She turned to Danny, looking puzzled. ‘What’s a Caruso, anyway?’ she asked curiously.
Danny pointed to the man sweeping. ‘That is a Caruso.’
‘What? The big rainbow man?’
‘Uh huh, the big rainbow man.’
‘Mr Caruso?’
‘I guess so.’
Vicki peered silently out of the window before saying, ‘I bet Mum will take us there tomorrow if we ask.’
Danny shook his head sharply, ‘No, we mustn’t go.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I said so.’
Disappointed, Vicki’s face crumpled again. She leaned sullenly on Danny’s shoulder. The white net curtains were draped across her head like long flowing hair. The eerie street lighting shadowed her gloomy expression, presenting a ghostly image.
‘Besides, we have things to do tomorrow,’ Danny explained. ‘We’re going to look at the school and . . .’
‘But there’s another week of holidays left,’ Vicki protested. ‘Sam promised.’
‘Yes, there is, but we’re going past the school when we go to get Billy.’
Vicki leapt and clapped. ‘Yay! Billy! I miss . . .’
Her bounding joy was suddenly interrupted by the sudden shrill screeching of tyres.
Screeeeeeeeeeeeeee . . . A horn sounded long and strong. Hooooooonk!
In a mad scramble Danny and Vicki pushed their faces close to the window. A small red car, braking sharply, slid on the wet streets.
Danny pressed his nose against the glass. ‘Whoa!’ he cried.
The skidding car drifted sideways. Screeeeeeeeeeeee . . .
‘Look out, rainbow man!’ Vicki cried, pushing her hands and face flat against the glass, squishing her nose flat.
The headlights spotlit the large man’s exasperated expression. His mouth was open and his moustache quivered like a convulsing caterpillar. His bulging eyes were fixed on the blinding glare of the headlights. He was about to be flattened . . . if that was possible. Vicki closed her eyes and winced. ‘Ooooh! Mr Caruso!’
The driver of the car pulled hard on the steering wheel. The car spun. It drifted sideways to miss Mr Caruso, but it was heading toward the huge window of Caruso’s World of Fine Cakes and Confectionery.
Danny put his hands to his head. ‘Oh jeez,’ he cried. ‘It’s going to smash into the . . .’
Luckily, facing the opposite direction to which it had originally been heading, the little red car slid, with an earth-shuddering thump, into the kerb. Crunch! Some wheel trim fell from the front wheel. The sad sound of it rolling away brought an end to the wild ride.
Mr Caruso ran into the middle of the road waving his broom. The rain didn’t bother him. The driver, a young woman, threw her car door open and, wielding an umbrella, ran toward him.
They were calling to each other across the shimmer of the wet city street. Danny couldn’t understand what they were saying. Their voices were muffled by the shooshing of falling rain. Danny was puzzled by the tone of their voices. They sounded distressed, not angry as he had expected.
Seeing the umbrella and the way the young woman was charging, Vicki jumped to an obvious conclusion. She clapped her hands excitedly. ‘Hey, I reckon there’s going to be a fight,’ she said with misguided delight.
Road rage, thought Danny. Huh, we never had this in Mundowie. Wait till I tell Thommo.
Mr Caruso suddenly dropped to his knees in the centre of the road. It was a spot not well lit by streetlights, which made it hard for Danny to see what was going on.
Mr Caruso looked up at the young woman as she approached and said something. She put her hand to her mouth in dismay and let out an anguished squeal. She dropped her umbrella.
‘What are they doing?’ Vicki asked.
To Danny, the man appeared to be praying, but then he began to jerk and jump a little as if he had a bad case of hiccups. He whipped his apron from his waist and thrust it toward the ground.
The young driver also fell to her knees. Their movements were frantic.
After only a few seconds they both stood and, to Danny’s surprise, the young driver patted Mr Caruso gently on the back as if thanking him for something. She spoke for a few seconds, nodded her head and then scurried back to her car. She drove slowly away, tooting her horn twice.
Mr Caruso waved, then hurried toward the old theatre, with his huge shoulders hunched to the rain. He cradled his bundled apron in his arms.
Danny wanted to open the window and stick his head out, but try as he might it wouldn’t budge. His face pressed against the glass as he watched Mr Caruso arrive at the front of the theatre.
Out from the shadows of the old building another dark figure emerged and drifted, like a ghostly apparition, from within the walls.
Danny was stunned. He recognised the hunched posture, the shuffling gait, the frizz of sleep-teased hair.
‘It’s her,’ he breathed.
‘Who?’ asked Vicki. ‘Who? Who?’
‘The old woman,’ Danny said.
Vicki leaned on his shoulder annoyingly. ‘Oh her, I saw her yesterday too. She was with Mr Caruso the rainbow man when I waved.’
The two dark figures moved into a huddle and Dan
ny pushed his face harder against the glass.
They were up to something. Something sinister, it had to be.
Danny squinted. He kept his keen eyes fixed on the shadowed figures.
‘Quick!’ he cried, reaching back at Vicki without turning to face her. ‘Get Dad’s binoculars.’
‘Where are they?’
‘In one of the boxes on the bed.’
Both figures suddenly started moving, wrestling. ‘Hurry up, will you?’ Danny hissed. ‘Something’s going on.’
Vicki was on the bed rifling through a landscape of open boxes, throwing clothes into the air in her haste.
‘I can’t find them. They’re not here.’ She kept looking.
Danny heard the noises she was making as she tipped out boxes and frantically flung out clothes that hit the ceiling. He kept watching the street.
Behind him his mum’s clothes were now spread across the floor. Jeans, T-shirts, bras and knickers flew through the air, swept up in the tornado of Vicki’s wild tossing. She was having fun.
The bed was soon clear, but the floor was covered. Only small islands of the horrible mustard carpet were visible.
It wasn’t until one of his mum’s bras landed on his head and one of the cups covered his right eye like a bulging pirate patch that Vicki’s eruption of clothes caught Danny’s attention. He spun round.
Vicki pointed at him and laughed. ‘Ha, ha, ha, boob-eye pirate!’ she cried.
Danny tossed the bra aside in disgust and looked around the room, gob-smacked.
Vicki was sitting smirking in the middle of the mess. ‘They aren’t here,’ she announced, throwing her arms to the air.
It took a few seconds for Danny to comprehend what he was seeing.
‘W . . . wh . . . what are you doing?’ he stammered.
Vicki looked bewildered. ‘Getting the binoculars, of course.’
Danny surveyed the room. There was a pair of his mum’s knickers hanging from the ceiling fan. He couldn’t look.
He put a hand to his forehead, stunned at how quickly such a small person had made such a big mess. He couldn’t begin to imagine what his mum would say when she saw it, especially when she saw her knickers on the ceiling fan. She would go nuts. He didn’t need that aggravation.
He was speechless for at least five seconds. Then his face darkened. ‘Look what you’ve done!’
Vicki looked around at the mess with sudden realisation. ‘You told me to,’ she said quickly, trying to deflect the blame.
Danny stood up. ‘I didn’t tell you to do all this!’ he snapped.
Vicki leaned forward. ‘I had to find them quickly. I knew you’d be cross if I didn’t.’
Danny heard a noise in the street and turned back to the window. Mr Caruso and the old woman had gone. The street looked sinister and deserted. The lights of Caruso’s World of Fine Cakes and Confectionery were switching off.
The spinning globe of the illuminated world at the front dimmed to a soft, midnight blue. It looked as if the light of the moon were being cast upon it. A blue moon, Danny thought.
Danny slapped the glass. Whack! He was angry. ‘Now I’ve missed everything, thanks to you! They’ve gone. We’ll never know what happened now! They must’ve known we were watching them. They’ll be after us now. We’ll be hunted down.’
Danny’s teeth were grinding and his eyes were glassy and frightening. He glared at Vicki. At least in Mundowie he could get away from her. He could never get away from her here. She was always in his face.
‘Sam’s right,’ Danny said. ‘You ruin everything!’
Vicki stuck her tongue out. ‘I’m going to tell Mum.’
Danny charged at her in rage. He bumped her hard against the wall. ‘You shut up, stupid! Don’t say a thing, or else!’ he growled.
He marched off to his room and crawled under his bed. The darkness there was like the darkness in his hollow-tree hide-out back by the creek in Mundowie. Danny reached for the tin of treasures he had hidden there. He thumped the floor when he heard Vicki’s feet shuffle in behind him.
‘I see you, Danny Allen, and you have to help me pick up all the clothes.’ she said, foot tapping.
Danny’s hiding place muffled his voice. ‘No, I don’t. You did it.’
‘But you told me to. It’s your fault.’
‘It is not! Now get out.’
‘This is my room too, you know.’ Vicki sat on her bed, right next to Danny’s. She swung her dangling legs.
‘I’m not picking up the clothes,’ Danny said.
‘I can’t get the knickers off the fan.’
‘Leave me alone!’
Vicki swung her legs to kick Danny’s exposed feet. ‘Hey, Danny, I’m talking to you.’
No answer.
She knelt down and peered into the private darkness under the bed, the only patch of space Danny felt was his and his alone. Her upside-down face peered in at Danny and her hair looked like torn hessian. ‘I’ll tell Mum. I’ll tell her you made me do it.’
Danny didn’t respond.
Vicki stood and walked toward the door. ‘Muuum,’ she called. ‘Danny made a big mess in . . .’
Danny saw red. Right! That was it! The last straw! He had had enough! She was going to get what she deserved!
He flew from his hiding place like a cornered snake from beneath a drum. The tin of treasures he valued so much was sent tumbling, spewing some of its contents: a tuft of wool from a favourite ram, a few flakes of snake skin, a varnished dough-head his mum had baked for him in the Mundowie kitchen. The tin hit the leg of the bed.
Clang.
‘You little idiot!’ he snarled, lunging in her direction. ‘I told you to leave me alone!’
Startled, Vicki drew back. ‘You have to help.’
Danny flew at her and grabbed her arm so hard that his knuckles went white and her flesh went red.
Snarling fiercely, he yanked her in close.
‘Muuum!’ Vicki called in panic.
Danny struck out at his sister with a clenched fist. She dodged, and cowered away.
Missing his target of a fleshy bicep, Danny struck her throat. Vicki screamed and tumbled backwards.
The scream she let out had no effect on Danny. Uncontrollable emotion had built up inside him like a shaken bottle of fizzy drink. He had exploded and it made him feel better, for an instant at least.
He stopped when he saw Vicki crying loudly on the floor, her arms wrapped around her head for protection.
The bedroom door flew open, letting the light of the lounge room flood into the room. The sound of the TV was louder than it needed to be because Sam had turned it up to hear his show over Vicki’s screaming and it added to the chaotic feel of the moment.
Danny’s mum rushed to Vicki’s aid. ‘What are you doing, Danny?’ she yelled.
Vicki got all the gentle attention. Danny was sent from the room. ‘Go and pick up that mess you’ve made in my room. And get my knickers off the ceiling fan.’
Danny’s dad appeared in the background. He wasn’t wearing his hat. ‘Off you go, Danny,’ he said sharply.
Danny was furious with Vicki. As he stormed past her, teeth grinding and tears welling, he snarled, ‘I hate you, Vicki.’
‘You’re mean, Danny Allen,’ Vicki whimpered. Her bottom lip quivered. ‘I wish . . .’ she began.
‘Wish what?’ said Danny.
‘I wish . . . you were dead, Dan.’
Danny was still angry with Vicki the next morning. His parents had both given him a stern lecture that he felt he hadn’t deserved and it was all her fault. He didn’t look at her on the way to the boarding kennels.
When Billy saw Danny he went berserk! The little white ball of fur ran in crazy circles at Danny’s feet and his tail never stopped wagging. Billy jumped and bounded, yapped and howled before settling for a gentle cuddle and a massage of his floppy ears.
Once in the car, Danny cuddled him tightly and turned his back so that Vicki couldn’t reach the pup.
‘Get off! He’s my pup.’
‘Mum, Danny won’t let me pat Billy.’
‘Stop it, both of you. I’m trying to drive.’
‘He’s my dog,’ Danny said.
Sam was sitting in the front giving their mum directions. ‘You need to go left here, Mum.’ He had the street directory in his lap. He was good at reading maps.
When they pulled up in front of the Mercedes showroom their mum said, ‘You go over to the park. I’ll just put my bag and things upstairs and I’ll be over.’ She leant over to them. ‘Stay together and don’t talk to strangers.’
Sam ran ahead as the three of them crossed the road. Danny was finding it hard to walk in a straight line because Billy was licking his face, nonstop. Danny didn’t notice Mr Caruso standing on the front step of Caruso’s Fine Cakes and Confectionery; he was too busy gazing up dreamily at the spinning globe and Africa.
Then came booming laughter. ‘Ha, ha, ha. My new neighbours!’ the big man called.
Startled, Danny jumped and walked briskly away.
The big man in his rainbow apron stood at the doorway of his shop. He beamed as he waved.
Vicki wanted to wave back. Danny warned her off with a scowl. ‘Don’t you dare,’ he mouthed. ‘Ignore him, pretend he’s not there.’
‘But . . .’
‘No buts! Remember what Mum said: “Don’t talk to strangers!”’
The big man looked perplexed. He spread his arms like an opera singer on the stage of the Old Kings Theatre. ‘I say helloooo,’ he sang.
Danny looked at him shiftily out of the corner of his eye. Sinister images of him in the rain lurking in the shadows came back to him. He marched quickly away without responding. It was rude, but necessary.
Vicki kept up with Danny and grinned smugly at him before giving the man a friendly wave just because Danny had told her not to. ‘Helloooo,’ she said.
The man’s big smile widened further. He nodded happily and continued waving.
Danny glared at Vicki, his scowl darkening.
The main entrance to the park was crowned by a large green archway wrapped in a twisting tangle of leafy vine. Two towering green cast-iron gates, each crowned by a large crest with lions and bears, were permanently open. Danny stood at the gateway. Billy stuck his tongue in Danny’s eye. ‘Yuck! Get off!’
Take it Easy, Danny Allen Page 5