by Paul Collins
I like to be left alone when running, so I can relax and think. That was a bit hard when people threw cans from passing cars or jeered at me from balconies. Sometimes drunks would jog along with me. I’m not sure why. Other times the police would stop me and make me turn out my pockets. I only ever carried the front door key and my phone.
One night I realised that I could do something so strange that it made me feel as cool as a movie star who had just been given an Academy Award. If I ran at a particular speed, people didn’t notice me.
I experimented to prove it. Run too fast, and it’s,
‘Wow! Look at him go.’ Run too slow, and they try to talk to you. Run just right, and you’re fast enough so people don’t bother you, but slow enough so they don’t pay attention to you. You’re something they don’t notice, so you’re outside their world. You’re invisible.
When you’re invisible, people do things without realising that you are there. One night I jogged past three guys breaking into a house. I called the police from around a corner. They were being arrested as I ran back, but nobody noticed me then, either.
Animals see right through me as well. People know that a lot of possums live in the suburbs, but I discovered that there are lots of foxes and owls, too. When I run invisible, they don’t bother to hide.
I was surprised when some really odd people became visible who hadn’t been before. They didn’t notice me, but I could see them. It was just like the foxes, possums and burglars. If I stopped running, they vanished. So I kept running.
Some of these people looked a little weird, and most of them looked seriously weird. Quite a lot of them were not even people. In fact, I’m not sure what they were.
There was one guy who rummaged in the garbage bins along the beach every night. He had a door open in his chest and a fire was burning inside. As far as I could tell, he was tossing garbage into the fire like the rest of us eat food. Smoke was coming out of his nose.
I’ll admit I was seriously weirded-out the first time
I saw him. Then I discovered that he was one of the more normal ones.
On Saturday nights I always saw a couple made of gold, walking along the esplanade. They looked like Oscar statuettes, because they wore no clothes and had no faces. They talked to each other by play ing tunes on trumpets that came out of their bums. When a vampire leaped out of the bushes and bit one of them he broke a fang.
At first I thought I was just seeing things, like dreaming but awake, but then I had to do Art Appreciation at school and that changed everything. There was this painter named Pieter Bruegel who lived over four hundred years ago, and he painted some heavily weird stuff. The funny thing was that his paintings looked quite a bit like what I saw when I went running.
The teacher asked the class where we thought
Bruegel got his ideas. I said he probably thought of them while jogging. The teacher said people didn’t go jogging back then. Oh well, you can’t tell a teacher anything.
The drop bears were a worry. I could see them waiting in the trees. They only dropped onto werewolves, and would cling onto their heads. Apparently the only way to get rid of them was to go to another tree, where they would get off They never dropped on me, but I still worried about them.
One time I saw a werewolf trip, and the drop bear fell off his head. A little dinosaur with lots of sharp teeth and long claws like sickles ran out of a storm water drain and ate the bear. That explained why drop bears don’t do their own walking.
When I ran back, the werewolf was buying the dinosaur a takeaway coffee from the man with a fire in his chest. He now had a sort of coffee machine backpack with tubes coming from his chest to heat it. Maybe he was trying to improve himself
At first I could hardly believe what was going on around me, all invisible unless I ran at invisible speed. I really looked forward to going for a jog because it was so much more interesting than the real world.
At school my results in maths and science were still so-so, but in English I started to do brilliantly. The teachers said I had such a wild and wonderful imagination, and everyone kept asking me where I got my ideas. I just said it was pretty strange inside my head. I never told them it was strange everywhere else, too. All you had to do was go for a run, late at night, at the right speed.
Most of the humans in the invisible world dressed in black, and wore little clockwork machines on sil ver chains. I think they were sort of weird iPhones, because they stared at them closely and tapped at them. The Goth motorcycle gangs rode black horses that drove steam-powered sports cars. I always won dered why they didn’t just drive the cars themselves, and forget the horses, but maybe they didn’t think it was cool.
The Goths seemed very peaceful, but then all of them wore rings with little cannons mounted on them. They were only as big as pen tops, but I think they worked. Everyone was armed, so it was too dangerous to start a fight.
The only police I ever saw were police dogs wear ing top hats and carrying whistles around their necks. The cats all wore masks, so I presume they were cat burglars. I only ever saw them lying about and drink ing coffee from saucers, so maybe the masks were just a fashion statement. Or maybe they were just to annoy the police dogs.
Out on the water there were always pirate ships with paddle wheels and steam engines. On the decks were lots of girls wearing black body-stockings and floppy hats with feathers. Some of them were fencing with silver swords, but most were doing Pilates.
There were always plenty of huskers. I rather liked the gorilla belly dancer, but when I tried to toss her a coin as I jogged past it just vanished. Her music was supplied by an octopus playing a steam-powered organ. It was breathing through a long pipe that led to the sea.
All that was long ago when I was still at school. I know what you are thinking. You think I’m going to say that I grew up and stopped seeing really weird stuff, and that I don’t even jog any more.
You’re wrong. When I got home I started typing what I saw into my computer. At first I used all that weird stuff in English projects. Then I wrote stories. The stories got published. I earned lots of money. I was flown all over the place, appeared on TV, and got to meet lots of really famous people. It was a seriously cool way to earn a living.
My life is very busy these days, but when the pressure gets too much, or when I need some new ideas I go for a run. I can always be sure of relaxing when I am running invisible because I am, well, invisible.
Until tonight. Tonight I am not very relaxed at all. Sometimes I run past a lady dressed in a black cloak and black leather jacket, and wearing so much clockwork jewellery that you’d think she had just mugged a watchmaker. Her fingers are tipped with silver claws, and they look sharp and pointy. A chain is attached to her belt, and at the end is a tiny stove on a trolley. Gathered around this are six possums wearing black chef hats. They always seem to be making tea and scones.
Last night I noticed that the lady was reading one of my books. That was a bit of a shock. Nothing I do ever gets into this world.
Tonight the cloak, jacket, clockwork and chain are draped over the bench, and the possums are standing guard with a little cannon. The lady is nowhere to be seen . .. but I can hear another runner closing in behind me.
Rachel woke from a dream in which she had been called on to cover for Ringo Starr at the Beatles concert. She sighed. If only. Ringo was sick, but his cover was some guy called Jimmy Nicol, not a girl called Rachel Silverstein. Pity. Still - she had her ticket.
Mum bustled into her room, opened the blinds and bent over to give her a kiss. ‘Sorry to wake you, but you really need to eat before you go to school.’
Rachel stroked her mother’s huge belly. Mum was due any day now. ‘Call him Ringo, Mum? Pleeease?’ Mum laughed. ‘No. Not even if it is a boy. Now get up.’
In the kitchen, the radio was advertising free Beatles beaker
s with every thirty shillings spent at Spotless Dry Cleaners. Rachel, whose school uni form had to be drycleaned, had been nagging Mum, but there was only one uniform to clean at a time and it would take a lot of drycleaning to spend thirty shillings.
Dad looked up from the Sun, which had a front- page picture of a girl who had written an eighty thousand-word letter to the Beatles and was being flown to Melbourne for their concert. lf on!)! I’d done that, thought Rachel sourly. All I did was save up rrry paper-round money ...
‘Good morning, love.’ He smiled.
Rachel smiled back and poured cereal and milk into her bowl. ‘Dad, Mum, there’s a Beatles rally at the Southern Cross Hotel this Sunday. Can I go?’
‘Not by yourself,’ Mum said firmly. ‘There’ll be thousands of people. You could get lost, knocked over, hurt.’
‘So I can go if I’m with someone?’
‘We’ll see,’ said Dad. ‘Depends who. Now eat you’re going to be late for school. You were up late last night.’
‘Rehearsing for the school social,’ Rachel pointed out. ‘It’s my first gig. Only two weeks away; we have to get it right.’
‘Darling, what if that girl Hannah comes back from hospital?’ Mum said. ‘The band will want her, not you. You’ll have done all that rehearsing for nothing.’
‘Not for nothing, Mum. The Commas are a terrific band and I’ve learned so much from them. Please, can I go to the rally?’
‘I don’t know why you want to go anyway,’ Rachel’s older sister Beck said, looking up from her politics textbook. Beck was in her first year at Monash University. She went on a lot of protest marches. ‘If you’re going to go crazy over a musi cian, what’s wrong with Bob Dylan? “Blowin’ in the Wind” says something. But the Beatles? “I Wanna Hold Your Hand”? They’ll be forgotten in two years. I mean - priorities? There’s going to be a war in Vietnam. They’re already talking conscription. And you scream about a rock band!’
‘Come with me to the rally then?’ Rachel sug gested slyly. ‘Bring a protest placard?’
‘No way!’ Beck slammed her book shut and stomped to the bathroom.
Dad winked at Rachel. ‘Leave it to me.’
On the way to school she met Margaret, head of the school’s Beatles Fan Club. Rachel was a passion ate Beatles fan, but passionate wasn’t the same as crazy. Margaret was crazy.
‘.. . and there’s this girl, Suzette, who’s going to their reception and she said she could get me in, too.’ Rachel cringed. People like Margaret make the rest qf us look like idiots.
‘So are you coming?’
‘Urn. Maybe. I might have rehearsals.’
But she was at her locker when Andrea, the Commas’ lead singer, tapped her gently on the shoulder.
‘Rachel?’ Andrea was apologetic. ‘Look, sorry, but Hannah’s back. We won’t need you at rehearsal today after all. I’m really, really sorry. Maybe you can join us next year.’
Rachel tried to smile. ‘Sure. No problem.’
Damn!
At lunchtime she took her cheese-and-Vegemite sandwiches and sat with the Beatles Club under a tree. From the window of the music room, she heard the Commas playing.
Margaret looked up. ‘Hey, Rachel, I thought you were with the band?’
‘Hannah came back.’
‘Oh, well. Meet us at the rally, then?’ Rachel said nothing.
The Saturday Sun had a picture of a thrilled hairdresser clutching Beatie hairs she’d cut. There was another photo of Ringo cringing while two girls kissed him. He’d recovered and was on his way to meet the others.
Sunday morning, she and Beck went to the city.
‘You owe me,’ Beck said as they joined the huge crowd climbing Bourke Street towards the Southern Cross.
‘I owe you,’ Rachel agreed. Anything to be here.
‘Hi, Beck!’ called someone.
Beck turned and waved. ‘Hi, Jen! What are you doing here?’
Beck’s friend waded through the crowd, smiling.
‘Well, you know . . . When will we ever get to see them again? You?’
‘Taking my little sister.’
‘Yeah, sure.’ They laughed together. ‘Look, there’s
Sylvia and Barb -join us?’
Beck glanced at her sister. ‘Want to come with us, Rachel?’ Please sqy no, she meant.
‘Nah. I’ll meet you back at Flinders Street Station, under the clocks at two, right?’
Beck gave her a grateful grin and went off with her friends. Now Rachel really was alone in a mob of thousands.
Despite that, she recognised the girl slung over the saddle of a passing mounted policeman on his way to a first aid station. It was Margaret. Rachel rolled her eyes and pushed on.
The Southern Cross loomed over Exhibition Street. Girls pressed against the glass doors. Rachel wondered what would happen if the doors broke.
‘Look!’ someone shrieked. ‘They’re coming out onto the balcony!’ At once the crowd went wild, pushing forward, screaming, knocking Rachel to her knees.
‘Ow!’
Someone helped her to her feet. It was Mr Pearl, a young music teacher from her school. ‘What a crowd!’ he said. ‘I didn’t know there’d be this many people ... are you okay?’
‘Yes, I’m fine. I just wanted to see Ringo.’ She brushed down her knees, which were slightly grazed.
‘Well, he’ll be on TV tonight. Going to the concert at Festival Hall?’
She nodded shyly.
‘Lucky you! I couldn’t get tickets, they’re all sold out.’
‘I didn’t know you like them.’
He laughed. ‘I’m a musician. Of course I like them. They’re special.’
‘My sister says they’ll be forgotten in a couple of years.’
‘Don’t you believe it! We’ll be singing their songs with our grandchildren.’
She smiled.
Still, she was squashed, she was out of breath and she couldn’t see much anyway. Rachel decided she’d had enough. With the help of her teacher and her elbows, she managed to get to the station. The crowd was thinner here and they spotted Beck just coming out of a phone booth. Beck saw them and smiled.
‘Oh, hello, Mr Pearl. Nice to see you again, haven’t seen you since the Form Six formal! Rachel, I’ve just rung Mum and Dad. My friends live near Melbourne Uni and invited us to their place. Dad says it’s fine, as long as we ring the hospital.’
‘The hospital?’
‘Yeah, Mum’s going now and Dad is sitting with her. The baby is being born in the next few hours!’
‘Shouldn’t we be going home, then?’ She wasn’t sure she wanted to hang out with Beck’s friends for hours.
‘No. Dad doesn’t want to leave you by yourself and I haven’t seen Jen, Sylvia and Barb in months. I’d really like to catch up. Would you mind?’
Rachel did mind, but said, ‘Okay. I guess I do owe you one.’
‘See you Tuesday,’ said Mr Pearl. ‘Tell me all about the concert and the new baby.’
The girls walked up Swanston Street towards the university. Barb, Sylvia andJen shared a small house in Parkville.
They spent the rest of the day playing records and catching up on gossip while Rachel browsed the bookshelves. She found a book called New Writings in SF and settled down to read while her sister and the others chatted.
Still, she was bored. She wondered what was hap pening with the baby.
‘Do you have a phone?’ she asked the girls.
‘Nope. There’s a phone box on the corner, though,’ saidjen.
‘Good, you can call Dad for us.’ Beck handed her some change and the phone number.
‘Sorry, no news yet,’ Dad apologised. Would the girls let you stay the night? It’s getting a bit late to t
ake the tram home, and I don’t want to leave the hospital now.’
Rachel’s heart sank, but she said, ‘Sure, Dad. I’ll call you first thing tomorrow.’
Beck and her friends were delighted at the excuse for a sleepover. Barb fried some fish-and-chips and they had dinner before some uni friends dropped in. The music became loud and the talk even louder. It was all about their studies, Vietnam and whether there would be a war, and a folk group called Peter, Paul and Mary. Rachel excused herself and found a spot on the floor to sleep as best she could with the racket going on.
It was early when she woke, cramped and uncom fortable. She slipped out of the house to go to the phone box. The staff couldn’t find Dad, but took her message. She decided to go to the hospital anyway; Beck could come or not. She went back to the house, but the door had locked behind her and no one was up.
Rachel made a decision. Beck might get mad but they’d sort it later. She began to walk into town.
It was early for trams to South Yarra, where the hospital was located, and too far to walk, but while she was waiting - why not? She grinned.
Breakfast was set up in the Southern Cross dining room. She had enough spare change for tea and toast. Rachel ordered, then glanced at the next table where a man was sitting, steaming mug in hand. He looked like a Beatie at first glance. He wasn’t.
Jimmy!’ A man in a suit approached him. ‘Where have you been? We were looking everywhere for you. You know you have to leave early today.’
‘Went for a drive, didn’t I?’ He had a soft accent.
‘Couldn’t sleep. Found this seaside place called
Beaumaris.’
‘Well, please don’t disappear again. The plane won’t wait for you. Have your breakfast while I get us some transport to Essendon.’
The man went outside.
Jimmy saw her looking at him and smiled.
‘A bit young to be out on your own this time of day, aren’t you?’