by Paul Collins
Oddly enough, this time the play took a different turn. Kon didn’t jump in, drums thumping and flags waving. Not straightaway anyway. Instead he paused and muttered, ‘Geez, Sam! What if Mum and Dad had built our new house right on this spot?’
Sam continued to scratch at a piece of peeling wallpaper. He had no intention of asking Kon what he was on about. His mate was probably still baiting. But he was about to lose his audience. ‘I reckon I’ll head off,’ Sam said, ‘and leave you with your hole.’
Kon blinked, as if suddenly brought back down to Earth. ‘No, hang here, mate.’ His dark eyes shone with urgency.
‘Nah.’ Sam flicked a scrap of wallpaper in Kon’s direction. ‘Not unless you’ve found treasure or something.’
Kon’s expression remained blank, but his mouth opened and shut, goldfish style.
It took Sam by surprise. Had his offhanded com ment hit some kind of mark? ‘You haven’t, have you?’ he said, his voice rising.
The corners of Kon’s mouth curved upwards and he edged closer to the hole. ‘Well, have I got a story to tell you, mate. Listen to this. I pulled up those boards, right, and I was feeling around underneath, like this, and the next thing ...’ He paused, leaving the rest of the sentence dangling mid-air.
‘So did you or didn’t you?’ said Sam.
‘Did I or didn’t I what?’ repeated Kon, rolling his eyes and reaching into the small, square recess.
‘Mmm. I wonder what’s in here?’
Sam sank back against the wall. Damn Kon. It was a set-up. Showmen had their practical jokes and Kon was no different. It’d be just like his friend to produce a large fistful of dust and hurl it at him with a loud, gotcha laugh.
But he didn’t. With a flourish Kon drew from the hole an old-fashioned tin, its gold pattern scratched and worn. He offered it to Sam.
‘Open it,’ Kon said.
Sam laughed, now totally wised up. ‘Nup. Not falling for that one. You open it.’
‘Ah.’ Kon sighed with mock resignation. ‘You’re a sad case, Sam. Okay, if I have to.’ He prised open the lid and casually held the tin at arm’s length. ‘Check it out yourself’
Sam rolled up on the balls of his feet, head tilted. He was primed and ready to back off fast if necessary.
He peered at the contents.
‘Man oh man!’ he whispered. ‘Is that for real?’ This kind of thing didn’t happen to ordinary kids like him and Kon, living in an ordinary suburb in Adelaide.
‘Course it’s real!’ Kon’s laugh barely concealed a note of triumph. ‘What did you think it was? Monopoly money? I found it right there, in that hole, like I said.’
Sam clasped his hands on top of his head and breathed out noisily. ‘How much?’
Kon flicked at one bundle and twisted his lips, considering. ‘I reckon ... about five hundred.’
‘Five hundred dollars,’ sighed Sam, sinking down onto the floor. ‘That’s one helluva lolly tin!’
‘I know. Sweet as!’
‘Now what?’
‘Now what, what?’ Kon gaped as if confused.
‘Come on. Do I have to spell it out? What’s going to happen to the money?’
Grinning, Kon hammered the lid back on with his fist. ‘Finders, keepers,’ he said as he attempted to push a piece of paper into his jeans pocket.
Curious, Sam snatched it out of Kon’s hand and waved it aloft. ‘Caught out, mate. This was in the tin as well, wasn’t it?’
Kon made a grab for the paper. ‘It’s nothing!’ he cried. ‘Nothing. Like it’s so hard to read, I dunno what it says.’
‘Okay,’ said Sam. ‘I’ll try and decipher it. “],
Josephine Martin,”’ he began slowly, “’being qf sound mind, bequeath the contents qf this tin to the Stirling Dogs’ Home. In the event qf my death, I trust my savings will be delivered to the Home to help care for the animals I love so dear(y. Yours sincere(y ...” and signed by Josephine Martin.’
Sam looked up. ‘Old Mrs Martin. Remember her, Kon? She used to bake biscuits for us and let us play on her trees. Grew veggies for people even though she could hardly use her hands. Remember the accident she told us about? When she fell in a campfire as a kid and burned them.’
‘Yeah, course I remember,’ said Kon. ‘And I re member the white gloves she always wore. But mate, what’s all that got to do with this?’ He rapped his fingernails on the tin. ‘Like, the old lady’s dead. I’m sorry about her burned hands and I’m sorry that she died, but none of that’s my fault.’
Sam turned away from the steely look in Kon’s eyes. ‘Finders, keepers, eh?’ he said, feeling disgust rise in his throat. ‘I reckon you’d better think again, Kon. That tin goes to the dogs’ home.’ Sam was surprised to feel his heart thumping so hard.
Kon stood. ‘You’re joking, right? If I hadn’t found this tin, guess what would’ve happened to it? The bulldozer would’ve come in and buried it under all this crap.’ He gestured at the ruin around him. ‘You don’t like finders, keepers? Mate, what if no one had found this tin? Then no one - not you, not me, not even one little four-legged terrier at the dogs’ home would’ve got a cent of this money. So, all I’m saying is that the lady’s dead and I found the money. Simple.’ Sam stood and faced him. ‘You’re right, Kon. It is simple.’
A smile spread over Kon’s face and he punched
Sam’s arm. ‘That’s my man.’
‘Because it’s all going to the dogs’ home.’
‘Sam!’ Kon took his friend by the shoulders.
‘Listen. The old lady said in the note that she was of sound mind. Well, if you’re of sound mind, you don’t go burying your money, do you? Besides, I’m not going to keep it all for myself You were here when I found it, so there’s a share in it for you, too.’
‘I don’t want a share.’
‘That’s very generous, but we’re mates and mates share. So I’m telling you we’ll split. No questions asked.’
‘And you’re not listening to me. I don’t want any.’ Sam turned to go. ‘You found it,’ he said over his shoulder, ‘you keep it.’
Kon put his hand on Sam’s arm. ‘Hey, we’re not doing anything illegal. If you found a five-dollar note on the footpath, what would you do? Try and find the owner? Course not. You’d keep it.’
‘Yeah. I would.’ Sam pulled free from Kon’s grasp.
‘But this,’ he said, ‘is very different. See ya ‘round, Kon.’
Kon’s new family home was built on the spot where Mrs Martin’s house had once stood. One blowy day Kon noticed something odd from his bedroom win dow. He’d just unpacked some sound equipment and happened to glance at a large gum tree swaying in the wind. He’d never noticed before but when he lined up the tree and a neighbour’s fence, he discovered that his bedroom was roughly in the same position as the old bedroom with the pink rose wallpaper. How was that for weird?
The brand new sound system looked great and had only cost six hundred dollars. ‘Wicked,’ Kon murmured, fixing the last speaker in place. He’d told his parents he’d saved his pocket money and earned more by doing odd jobs around the neighbourhood. He figured it wasn’t really a lie. It had been odd that he’d found the money tin in the first place; it had been a hardjob to get the floorboards up and it had all happened in the neighbourhood.
Not only had his dad bought the white lie, he’d even praised Kon for what he called ‘his effort’, add ing, ‘What goes around, comes around, son. It’s the nature of the universe. You worked hard to get the money and so the sound system is your reward.’
Kon stood back now to admire it. Pity Sam wasn’t here to check it out with him. But then, he and Sam didn’t hang around much together anymore.
By nightfall the wind had died down, and all Kon heard was a gentle rustling in the trees. Some time later, how
ever, he was woken by a strange scratching noise. Sleepily, he turned on his bedside light, but after checking the room, he turned it off and went back to sleep.
Next evening, the same sound woke him again.
It was a clawing, scraping sound, the kind a rat might make. Kon checked the room once more. Still nothing.
The following night, the sound was there again. Kon grabbed a torch and shone the beam out the window just as a sudden gust of wind sprang up. Something thin and spiky flicked into view and Kon’s heart leapt to his mouth.
It was one of his mum’s outdoor potted plants.
‘Great,’ he mumbled and snapped off the torch. Relieved, he dragged up his bedclothes and was asleep in minutes.
But the next morning he sat up in bed, his face crumpled with shock.
On the wall in front of him was a large crack. It zigzagged right above his sound system.
Kon’s dad was even less impressed. ‘A new house, and this is what happens. I’ll get on to the plasterer today and he’d better have some answers.’
But all Kon could think about was how the ragged snaking line spoiled the look of his new equipment.
When the noise came again that night, it didn’t come as a rasping, scratching sound. It exploded like a crack of thunder. Kon sat bolt upright in bed, wide eyed. After fumbling for the light switch, he gaped, terrified, as the crack slowly widened like the mouth of a large creature. Then from somewhere came a voice. ‘Give me back my monty,’ it wailed. ‘It was not yours to have. It was.for the dogs. Give it back. Give it back.’
Next, from the great yawning gap, appeared a pair of hands. They were wearing white gloves and they flew, flapping, towards him.
Kon screamed. And he kept on screaming as he fled from the room, batting his hands at the gloves that refused to be knocked away.
The plasterer was completely baffied. But he and the brickie repaired the damage at no extra cost and assured Kon’s parents that it was unlikely the problem would return.
Later Kon’s dad said to Kon, ‘Sorry about your new sound system, son. Such a terrible shame all that rubble falling on it. We’ll claim insurance of course, and get you another one.’
Whitefaced, Kon nodded. His mum put her arm around him. ‘Fancy a nightmare and the wall crack ing at the same time. Not much fun. Come and I’ll make you a Milo.’
That night Kon chose to sleep in the small, spare bedroom. Weeks later, his mum said to her husband,
‘You know, Steve, Kon hasn’t really settled since that night, has he? What do you reckon about getting him a pet? He’s never had a dog and they’ve got plenty at the Stirling Dogs’ Home.’
‘Yeah. Good idea, love. Let’s go and tell him.’
But Kon wasn’t in either of the bedrooms. He was already at the Stirling Dogs’ Home.
‘I can come after school to help,’ he said. ‘I’ll do anything.’
‘We can’t pay you,’ said the woman behind the desk.
‘I don’t want money,’ said Kon as he tried once more to push away the image of the white gloves that still haunted his days and nights - that hovered like giant moths around a flame.
My life got tipped upside down in the library. I was sitting there with a book, when I became aware of a stare burrowing into me. Yes, burrowing is the right word - it was that intense. I glanced up and saw the culprit was a beautiful vision in black- a girl vision. There had to be some mistake. Girls didn’t look at me. They didn’t even see me, or if they did, they quickly looked the other way. Fat guy, that’s me. But this girl’s eyes were locked on tight. Strangely enough, I didn’t feel annoyed about it or uncomfort able. I felt peaceful.
Then something truly amazing happened. She came over and sat down beside me.
‘Hi,’ she said.
‘Urn,’ I replied.
It wasn’t up to my usual witty standard, but you have to remember, I was in shock.
‘I’ve seen you here before,’ she said.
That was odd. I hadn’t seen her - and believe me, a Goth girl stands out in sleepy Canleytown.
‘I noticed that you’re nearly always in the same section of the library,’ she continued. ‘Non-fiction - literary stuff. That’s why I came over. I got curious.’
‘About what?’
‘The whole deal - who you are, what you do.’ She gestured at the book beside me: The Lives qf Writers.
‘Why do you read books like that?’
I’ve got this theory that sometimes the words that fall from our mouths are chosen by someone else. I never would have been brave enough to say, ‘I want to be a writer.’ But those are the words that tumbled out.
‘Are you sure?’ She leaned in closer. ‘I know a lot of people say that, but it’s not easy. Hardly anyone makes it.’
‘I don’t care. That won’t stop me.’
Someone else had picked out those words for me, too. I didn’t share my crazy secrets with strangers - until now.
‘Wow ... what do you want to write?’
‘Poems. Stories. Anything. Everything. I’m into writing. Full stop!’
Her chalk-white face lit up. ‘Yes, you are a writer, I can tell. And you’re really passionate about it. That’s so cool.’
Those words went straight to the framers. In my mind I have a shop that frames good things that have been said about me. It doesn’t get a lot of business. No one had ever thought of me as ‘passionate’ or
‘cool’ before.
I tried to nod in all the right places as she raved about books and her fondness for words.
‘My faves are true stories,’ she said. ‘That doesn’t mean they can’t be fiction, but they have to ring with honesty and be written from the heart. Good writers can transport me to another world.’
I was having trouble finding any words at all. My brain was in meltdown, possibly because I was day dreaming about kissing those red, red lips. But I was able to conjure up one small slice of conversation.
‘Are you interested in angels?’
The book she was clutching hinted that she was.
‘Not this kind. This is silly stuff I only flicked through it to see if they got it right.’
‘And did they?’
‘Nope.’ Her eyes were the colour of clouds. ‘They never do.’
That was too good an opening for me not to dive in.
‘So you know about angels, do you?’
I said it in a jokey way, hoping it might score a grin. But she looked back at me very seriously and said, ‘I’m learning.’
There was an uneasy silence after that. I didn’t know what to say next, apart from, ‘You’re really weird,’ which didn’t seem like a good idea.
Thank god she laughed. Not a rattle-your-bones kind of laugh or a cute chuckle, but enough to let me know she wasn’t so strange after all.
‘It’s good to talk to you,’ she said.
I shrugged as if this was nothing to me, as if I regularly got chatted up by drop-dead gorgeous girls. I did, too, though not in my waking hours. But this girl was definitely not a dream, and I didn’t even know her name - so I asked her.
‘Shari,’ she said.
I told her mine - Andrew - and as I did, I took a huge risk. I smiled at her.
My smile hadn’t been used for a long time so it probably wouldn’t have won any awards, but if it was lame she didn’t say so. Instead, for the first time in my life, a girl looked at me as if I was more than a fat boy.
It was all going so well, until she crushed me to a pulp.
‘This place is way too cold for me,’ she said. ‘I’m out of here.’
But then, in her very next sentence, she un-crushed me. ‘There’s a cosy coffee shop at the mall. We can talk some more there - if you like?’
I managed to rest
rict myself to only two nods, in case my head got up momentum in the excitement and couldn’t stop.
I was worried. The mall was more brightly lit than the library. Perhaps Shari hadn’t really seen me prop erly before. The subdued lighting might have made me look slimmer; that and the fact that for most of the time we talked, I’d sucked in my breath to shrink my waist.
I couldn’t go on doing that forever or I’d need major surgery. Take me as I am, or don’t take me. That’s what I decided.
Relax. It’s okay.
Shari didn’t say that out loud, but as we sat down, her facing me and looking happy to be there, I heard those words in my head. It was her voice that said them. Most probably I imagined it, but whatever, it worked.
We drank hot chocolate and ate raspberry muf- fins. And took turns at talking. Shari went first.
She had two sisters, both older than her.
Rachael was getting married next year. Emily was in a convent training to be a nun. There was a mum and a dad, and two cats.
‘But what about you?’ I asked.
‘Oh, I’m not very interesting.’
‘Tell me anyway.’
‘Okay. You’ve twisted my arm. But where do I start? Well - I love acting. From when I was little I was always doing a drama class. I’ve been in four plays. Never the major role. I was the girl in the back ground who screamed or giggled- they were my best acting qualities. Ummm - my best friends are Amy and Kendall. They’re Harry Potter experts. You can ask them anything - they’ll know it .. . I miss them.’
‘You don’t see them anymore?’
‘No, wish I did. We were at Saint Brigid’s together. But then - almost a year ago now - I had to move on.’
‘How come?’
‘Don’t ask.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘For a while I didn’t think I’d survive, but I did. I’m doing okay now.’
The words that had evaded me when we first met were now lining up eagerly and clamouring to get out. I had heaps of questions.
Where do you live?
Wiry haven’t I seen you brfore? And what does ‘doing okay’ mean? But Shari got in first.