by Sue Lawson
Khaden stared at the bubbling water and wondered if Anika had ever cooked him pasta.
A crash from the back shed made him jump. A string of swearing floated on the evening air. Mike was in the shed, mucking around with his car and drinking beer. Taj was where he spent most of his time at home, either playing an online game or editing music on the computer.
The computer was in the family room, which was really just a wide corridor outside Taj and Khaden’s bedrooms. Ceiling to floor windows overlooked the concrete drive and wilting garden. Taj and Khaden started calling it the ‘family room’ after they set up the PlayStation and computer in there. Back then, they were a family. They used to go places together, to the movies or the cricket—one time, even the circus. But not now.
Khaden put placemats and forks on the table and called Taj and his dad for dinner.
‘Gotta wash my hands,’ grunted Mike, showing Khaden his short nails edged with dirt and grease. ‘Where’s your brother?’
‘Computer,’ said Khaden.
The creases in Mike’s forehead deepened as he headed to the bathroom. ‘Get off that bloody thing. Dinner is ready.’ His voice rolled from the family room like thunder.
Khaden drained the pasta. Suck it up, Taj. Please.
‘Yeah, in a minute,’ said Taj.
Khaden gritted his teeth. Another night, another fight, or could he stop them? He called from the kitchen door. ‘Hey, dinner’s getting cold.’ He cringed. He sounded like one of those perfect American TV mums.
As he poked his head into the family room, he saw Mike wrench the office chair backwards and Taj tumble to the floor. ‘Your brother cooked you dinner. Show some respect.’
Taj sneered as he stood. ‘What, and treat him like you do?’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
Khaden’s toes curled as though gripping the world, preparing for what he knew would come next.
‘You don’t even know he exists,’ said Taj.
‘Your head is so far up your arse, you wouldn’t know,’ Mike scoffed. ‘All you care about is that crap.’ He pointed at the editing on the computer screen. ‘What sort of future do you reckon you’ll have hanging around bands?’ Spit flew from Mike’s mouth.
Neris’ dog, Cuddles, barked.
‘You’re a waste of space, Taj.’
Taj shook his head and pulled the chair back to the computer. ‘Yeah, right. I’m the loser.’
Khaden knew something bad was about to happen, but he couldn’t look away.
Mike spun the chair. Taj wobbled but kept his balance.
‘Who are you calling a loser?’ asked Mike, his face red.
‘What would you prefer? Bully?’
Dad snarled. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’
Taj shook his head. ‘Yeah, right. Play dumb, like you’re not being investigated for bullying at work. How is Wayne?’
Khaden felt the air rush out of him. Bullying? Wayne? Was that why he, Sally and the girls had stopped coming around?
‘Was it your bullying that drove Mum away, too?’ yelled Taj.
Khaden shuddered. This was bad, and loud. Even if her windows were closed, Mrs Neri, the whole Neri family, would be able to hear them. Joey and Mr Neri wouldn’t want him working for them now, not when his family behaved like this.
Mike dragged Taj to his feet. They wrestled, snarling angry words. Taj punched Mike in the guts. Mike grunted and doubled over. Taj’s second punch hit Mike’s shoulder. Mike crashed onto the tattered sofa, then lurched to his feet.
‘Enough!’ bellowed Khaden, rushing between them.
Mike shoved him aside. The side of Khaden’s head smacked against the office chair. He knelt, head whirling and face aching. He heard a grunt and a body slam into something solid. The sound of shattering glass filled the air. Cuddles’ bark was fiercer and the traffic from the main road louder. When a cool breeze lifted Khaden’s fringe, he realised the computer desk had smashed the window overlooking the driveway.
Khaden stared at the shards of glass, the toppled computer and discs scattered over the carpet. The vertical blinds shivered as the breeze flowed through the broken window.
Chests heaving, Mike and Taj stared too. Mike had a red mark on his cheek and a scratch on his throat. Taj’s lip and fist were bloody.
A police car pulled up in the driveway.
‘Bloody hell,’ muttered Taj, wiping his lip.
‘This is your fault,’ snarled Mike.
Taj’s laugh was short and bitter.
Two cops, one about Mike’s age, the other in his early twenties, climbed out of the car. The younger cop whistled at the broken window.
Dad met them at the front door. ‘I’m Mike Elliot.’
Khaden heard the cops introduce themselves, Senior Constable John Dobson and Constable Nathan O’Brien. The older one, Khaden figured, asked if they could come in.
Mike led them into the family room. ‘My sons, Khaden and Taj.’ He nodded at the boys. ‘So what’s the problem, officers?’
‘We’ve had a complaint,’ said John Dobson.
‘About a domestic,’ added O’Brien.
Mike folded his arms. ‘Domestic?’ He forced a laugh. ‘Nah, we were moving the computer and this oaf,’ he nodded at Taj, ‘slipped and sent the desk through the window.’
‘You haven’t disconnected the printer, mouse or hard drive,’ said O’Brien squatting like a TV cop to study the computer.
John Dobson looked at Taj, then Khaden. ‘How’d your brother cut his lip?’
Khaden, unable to look at the policeman’s face, shrugged.
‘Fell and hit his lip on the desk, didn’t he Khade?’ said Mike.
Khaden nodded.
‘Is that what happened?’ O’Brien asked Taj.
‘Whatever he says.’
Khaden remembered how his English teacher, Ms Dimasi, had raved about how the word ‘glower’ described an angry person’s face. He didn’t get it then, but now he did. Taj was full-on glowering.
‘And you fell too?’ asked the older cop, frowning at Khaden’s face.
He touched his cheek and winced. ‘Yeah, clumsy family, eh?’
Dobson nodded and stepped around Khaden into the kitchen. ‘Smells good. Who’s the cook?’
‘Me,’ said Khaden.
‘Giving your mum a break, then?’
Khaden leant against the doorjamb. ‘Mum doesn’t live with us—took off when I was three or something.’
‘That hole in the wall,’ said the cop, nodding at the spot where Mike’s fist had punched through the plaster, the edges the same shape as Mike’s mouth when he yelled—jagged and cruel. ‘What happened there?’
Khaden regretted not sticking one of his Ramones posters over it. ‘What hole?’
John Dobson’s smile was gentle. ‘Want to tell me what’s really going on, Khaden?’
Khaden glanced into the family room, where Mike and Taj stood by the broken window with the younger cop, then back at John Dobson. ‘Nothing to tell.’
‘Khaden, if you need to talk … or if your father and brother slip moving furniture again, give me a call.’ The cop pulled a pad and pen from his pocket, scribbled his number and handed it to Khaden. ‘Anytime.’
Khaden stared at the paper, not seeing the numbers. ‘Everything’s fine. Honest.’
‘I can see that.’ Dobson walked into the family room. ‘Right, O’Brien, let’s go.’
‘But,’ said O’Brien.
‘Now,’ said Dobson.
Mike followed them to the car.
‘What a mess,’ said Taj.
Khaden wondered if Taj was just talking about the window.
‘Why can’t you just do as he says?’ said Khaden, the buzzing in his head growing to a roar. ‘If you’d just shut up—’
‘So, what, this is my fault?’
‘That’s not what I meant.’
The police car reversed out the driveway.
Mike walked inside and picked up hi
s car keys. ‘Clean up this mess.’
From his bedroom, Khaden heard his father’s ute roar to life. He peered at his reflection in the mirror and winced. The red mark from where his cheek had hit the chair was already puffy.
No way could he front up to school tomorrow looking like this. He couldn’t face the questions. Not even from Sas.
Ruby
Waves crashed and rolled onto the white sand, seagulls skimmed the water and palm trees swayed. As I rubbed sunscreen into my perfect, long legs and adjusted my floral bikini, the silver charm bracelet on my wrist jingled. It was a gift from Taylor, no, Luke, the incredibly hot, tanned guy lying beside me. We were the only people on the tropical bea—
‘Why do they make us turn up?’
Sas’s voice was a sledgehammer to my daydream, shattering my perfect beach and replacing it with the dark school gym. Horses galloped across a makeshift screen, and row after row of green plastic chairs were filled with slumped, fidgeting students. I’d almost been able to smell the coconut sunscreen.
‘Damn it!’
‘Yeah. Damn them for making us keep coming to school. I mean, what is the point of watching Phar Lap? Again. I recognise babysitting when I see it,’ said Sas, twisting in her seat to look around her. ‘Where’s Khaden?’
‘Dunno. Could be sitting with Eli and Kurt.’
Sas rolled her eyes. ‘He better not have blown us off for those geeks.’
‘You can’t blame him. Look where you made us sit.’ I nodded at Lyndal and Penny in front of us.
‘All part of the plan.’ Sas winked.
The Fink stood and scanned the gym.
‘Check her out,’ I whispered. ‘Part woman, part meerkat.’
Sas shuddered. ‘She’s gross. Creepy gross.’
We stared at the screen in silence until The Fink sat back down and continued her conversation with Bosworth. After a few minutes of horseracing and cheering, Sas slithered down in her seat, moaning.
Panic flooded through me. ‘What’s wrong?’
Sas writhed and gasped.
‘Sas? What is it?’
She reached for me, her hand twisted like a claw. ‘Ruby. The boredom,’ she gasped. ‘It’s killing me.’
Relief swallowed my panic. ‘You idiot. I thought you were really sick or something.’
Lyndal and Penny spun around and glared at us.
‘Will you two shut up?’ snapped Lyndal in her clipped voice. ‘We’re enjoying this movie.’
‘The horse dies, Lyndal,’ said Sas.
Lyndal gasped. ‘Ruin it why don’t you, Sarah?’
I bit my bottom lip to stop myself from laughing.
‘You two are so gay,’ sneered Penny.
It was like she’d jabbed Sas with a stick. Sas lurched forward. ‘What did you call us?’
Penny scoffed and turned back to watch the film. Lyndal shook her head before facing the screen.
Sas lifted her feet onto Lyndal’s seat and, when Lyndal didn’t react, tapped a rhythm on the seat with her toes. Lyndal dragged her chair forward. Sas’s feet crashed to the stadium floor.
‘Everything all right, girls?’ asked The Fink, looming over us.
‘Ruby and I are busting,’ said Sas, bringing her knees together and pulling a desperate face.
The Fink sighed. ‘Then go to the toilet. But not together. Ruby, you can go when Sarah returns.’ The Fink glared then glided back to her seat.
Sas winked and trotted out of the gym.
I’d just about become lost in my beach daydream again when Sas returned, beaming.
‘You took your time,’ I whispered.
‘Stuff to do,’ she said. As she sat down, she slipped a mobile phone onto my lap. I gasped and shoved it in my dress pocket.
Our school has a full-on ‘mobile phones in lockers during school hours’ rule, no excuses. Last term, when Shay Barrow’s mum was having a major operation, Shay kept her mobile in her pocket so her dad could call her, which seemed fair enough to me. But our English teacher didn’t see it that way when Shay’s phone rang in class, and neither did our year coordinator, Mr Meyer, who gave Shay a weeklong detention. According to them, the school had ‘made it clear in such emergencies, calls are to go through the school office’. Control freaks.
‘If we get busted, it’s detention,’ I whispered.
Sas shrugged.
‘We aren’t the ones about to get busted.’
‘Who is?’
Sas opened her pocket to show me another mobile. This one was pink. She pointed at Lyndal.
So who’s is this?’ I nodded at the other phone I’d hidden.
Sas pointed to her chest.
‘But, Sas—’
She cut me off with a wave of her hand. ‘Changed my settings so instead of my number showing up on Lyndal’s phone, it’ll just say “private number”.’
Excitement bubbled under my skin. ‘How’d you get her phone?’
‘Her locker’s under mine.’
‘So you broke—?’
‘Shhhh,’ spluttered Penny, glaring.
‘Keep your hair on,’ muttered Sas. She turned back to me and whispered. ‘Technically, I didn’t break in. I’ve had a year to memorise her combination while I waited for her to get her books.’ She shrugged. ‘Lyndal’s combination is Chris Holbrook’s football number—three-two-three-two.’
‘What if her phone has a password?’
‘Sorted. Same as her locker.’
‘Figures,’ I said.
‘And so to my prank.’
Part of me was so excited I thought I’d explode; the rest of me was wringing my hands, terrified of being caught.
Sas’s eyes sparkled in the gloom. ‘I’ll stick Lyndal’s phone under her chair. You take mine to the toilet and call her.’
I nodded, then frowned. ‘What’s her number?’
‘I just put it in my phone. When you’re done, stick my phone in my locker and come back here. You know my password?’
I nodded. Sas’s excitement was flowing into me, almost. ‘And if we get caught?’
‘Ruby—stop being a wuss!’
‘I just…’ I let my words trail off.
Lyndal turned around. Even in the gloom I could see the zits on her forehead and her pointy little teeth. ‘If you two don’t shut up, I’ll call Mrs Finkle.’
‘You’ll need your phone to do that,’ said Sas, her face deadpan.
I held my hand over my mouth.
Lyndal’s eyes narrowed. ‘You two are so immature.’ She huffed and turned back to the front.
Stuck-up weirdo. ‘She deserves this,’ I said.
‘So, what are you waiting for?’ asked Sas.
The Fink looked up and I motioned towards the door. She nodded. I leant down to Sas. ‘What’s the combo again?’
Sas sighed. ‘Three-two-three-two. And my locker is—’
‘I know that!’ I scurried from the gym, Sas’s phone in my pocket.
When I returned about five minutes later, the lights were on, the film had been paused and everyone, staff and students, faced the middle of the room where Lyndal slumped in her seat.
The Fink stood over her, more fire-breathing dragon than meerkat. ‘If you didn’t bring it in here, who did?’ she raged, her neck as red as her shirt.
Lyndal slipped further down in her seat.
I glanced at Sas. Her face was set in a shocked expression so real that, for a second, I almost believed her. Then I noticed the gleam in her eye. I eased into the seat beside Sas, hoping I looked just as surprised and innocent.
Penny pointed at me. ‘She did it!’
I looked from Penny to The Fink. ‘Did what?’
The Fink glared at me. ‘Where have you been?’
‘The toilet. You said I could.’
‘Are you sure?’
Sas stood. ‘Want her to tell you what she did in there?’
The red on The Fink’s neck spread to her face. ‘Well, no…’ she blustered. She turned back to Lynda
l. ‘Take yourself to Mr Meyer.’
Lyndal’s eyes filled with tears.
‘Now.’
She huffed past The Fink.
‘Right, Alistair, resume the film. Lights, Jesse.’
The stadium plunged into gloom and the frozen horses galloped across the screen again.
The Fink leant towards us. ‘I’m watching you two,’ she hissed.
I dug my thumbs into my elbows to stop myself from laughing.
IM Chat
Sas: Lost—one tall, skinny guitar hero. Last seen after school
Khaden: Found—one tall, rippling rock god. Recovering from spew-fest. C u 2morrow
Ruby: Don’t give it to us!
Sas
I figured Dad had gone as low as he could, but no, now he’s trying to bribe me. Wonder what I’m worth to him? Mum refused to tell me how much money he sent; just that he’d sent cash for me to buy new clothes. If I’d been spending summer with him, like he promised, I’d need new boardies and tops, maybe even a dress or two. But now—meh.
And as if Dad trying to bribe me wasn’t bad enough, Mum has turned it into a mother-daughter shopping trip for ‘just the two of us’. Oh, joy!
Guess it beats another night babysitting, which I am doing again tonight because Mum is working.
Grrrrr! I’m so over myself, over the massive weight pressing down on my shoulders, I could scream. I need to break free, to quote that Queen song Khaden loves. If only I could escape from all the hassles and lies, scrape off all the sludge and gunk and wash it down the drain with the shower water. Maybe then I’d feel like me again—excited, happy, like I did today when The Fink sent pig-faced Lyndal to Meyer. The look on Lyndal’s face was the funniest thing ever. That’ll teach her and Penny to carry on as if their poo doesn’t smell.
It even loosened Ruby up, too. She actually laughed—sure, it wasn’t until the end of the day while we were walking home, but she still cracked up for the first time in ages.
The only thing that would have made the whole thing better was if Khaden had been there too.