by Colin Bowles
But I did it. My dad was a good surfer and he’d taught me a lot. I had also inherited his style and balance. There were six rosebushes; cut back, cut back, cut back, a radical turn at the end then surf back. Easy. I got a little too casual at the end, went too fast, lost it, toppled forward and crashed onto the driveway.
The screen door banged open. Mister Petrovic stood there in a white singlet with tomato stains on the front, his face the colour of raw liver.
‘Be careful my rose, stupid thing!’ he shouted.
I picked up my skateboard and ran. Matt and Bluey were already twenty metres ahead of me down the road. I could hear Mister Petrovic. He was still shouting but this time I didn’t look back.
6
I don’t know if you’d class picking your nose as a hobby exactly, but it’s something I do when I haven’t got anything better to occupy myself with. I suppose it’s one of those habits like fluffing in the bath and counting the bubbles – if someone else does it, it’s really disgusting, but when you do it yourself it’s kind of interesting and fun.
So there I was, up in my bedroom, picking my nose and doing my homework when I heard this big bang and a yelping sound from outside. I knew straight away what it was but as I ran down the stairs I was hoping that I was wrong, that it was someone else’s dog that had just got run over.
But it wasn’t.
Blooch lay there in the road and when I came through the gate he half raised his head and looked around at me. He had that look in his eyes like he was frightened I was going to yell at him for doing something wrong. I just stood stock-still on the footpath and stared. I didn’t want to get closer because I was afraid of what I was going to see.
The woman who had run over him was standing by her car with her mouth open. She just kept saying, ‘There was nothing I could do, there was nothing I could do.’ Suddenly Barry was there, and he knelt down beside Blooch in the middle of the road and I could tell by the look on his face that it wasn’t looking good.
He looked up at me. ‘Get your boogie board, Tao,’ he said.
‘My boogie board?’
‘We need something solid to lay him on,’ he said, not panicking at all. ‘It will work as a body splint. We don’t know what damage there is inside.’
I nodded and ran back inside the house to fetch it. This crazy thought just kept going round inside my head. Why did the Blooch cross the road? I laughed, even though nothing was very funny. I suppose it was just nerves, I don’t know; I’ve never felt that way before.
I found my boogie board and brought it out. There was a small group of our neighbours standing around Barry and Blooch in the middle of the road now, and the woman was still saying, ‘There was nothing I could do.’
I gave Barry the board and two of our neighbours helped him slide Blooch onto it. Blooch gave a little whimpering sound.
I wanted to help them but I just couldn’t.
Barry and the two neighbours carried Blooch over to Barry’s Combi van and slid him onto the back seat, still on the boogie board. About then Mum came home. She got out of her car and ran over to see what was wrong. ‘Oh, not the dog,’ she murmured. ‘What was he doing in the road?’
‘There was nothing I could do,’ the woman said, again.
Barry turned to me. ‘Can you help?’ he asked.
I nodded. I didn’t want to say anything because I was afraid I was going to cry.
‘I want you to sit in the back seat and keep him steady on the board. Talk to him and stroke him. It might help. But be very gentle. We don’t know how badly he’s hurt.’
I knew from Barry’s face that he knew exactly how badly he was hurt.
‘I’d better call Greg,’ Mum said. ‘I’ll see you at the vet’s.’ And she went inside.
I got in the back of the car. There wasn’t much blood but Blooch’s back leg was at a funny angle and he was breathing very fast. I didn’t want to touch him. I don’t know if I felt that way because I was afraid I would hurt him or because I knew he was going to die.
Barry drove off, very slowly. When we got to the vet’s, he carried him inside.
I stayed in the car.
When Mum got there she came and sat in the Combi with me. A little while later Barry came out of the vet’s. I knew what he was going to say. You could tell by the expression on his face. He put the boogie board in the back of the van and then got in the front, behind the wheel, next to Mum. He put the keys in the ignition but he didn’t start the engine. Instead we all just sat there for a while.
‘He was too old for an operation,’ Barry said finally.
I just looked out of the window.
‘Why did he cross the road?’ I said.
Barry didn’t know and Mum didn’t have an answer either. It occurred to me that perhaps he was just fed up with lying around on the front verandah and falling over every time he had to have a wizz. I think maybe he just walked in front of the car so he didn’t have to bother with any of it any more.
‘Where’s Dad?’ I asked Mum.
‘I left a message at his office.’
‘He should have been here,’ I said.
‘I’m sure he’ll come round tonight.’
‘Tonight’s too late.’
For some reason I felt really, really angry at my dad. It should have been him carrying Blooch into the vet’s for the last time, not Barry. I’d never really hated my dad before.
‘He should have been here,’ I said.
‘Let’s just go home,’ Barry said.
There is this photo of me and Mum and Blooch and Dad sitting on a beach under a tree. We are all laughing. I don’t remember when it was taken or where we were, but we look happy. I looked at it and wondered why things couldn’t always be like that.
There was a knock on the door. I thought it was Mum or Barry, so I hid it under my pillow. But then the door opened and it was Connie. She looked kind of awkward. I don’t suppose people really know what to say to you when you’ve just lost something you love.
‘You okay?’ she said.
Connie was all right, I thought. It was nice of her to worry about me. Michael apparently couldn’t be bothered. ‘Yeah, I’m okay,’ I said, even though I wasn’t.
‘I’m sorry about your dog.’
‘Yeah. Well, he was getting old anyway.’
‘We’re going to make nachos for tea. Do you want to help? We get to eat all the corn chips that are left over.’
I shook my head.
‘You can borrow my Nintendo if you want.’
‘I don’t feel much like playing. But thanks anyway.’
She went to go out.
‘Connie,’ I said.
She turned around.
‘How did you feel when your mum and Barry split up?’
She shrugged her shoulders. ‘Pretty sad, I guess.’
‘Did you ever feel angry?’
‘Sometimes.’
‘I feel angry almost all the time.’
‘You get used to it. I mean, I really like your mum now. She’s not like my mum or anything, but she’s sort of an extra friend.’
‘Don’t you ever wish they’d get back together?’
‘All the time.’
‘When did they split up?’
‘I was in grade one.’
‘That’s five years ago.’
‘I’d better go downstairs or Michael will eat all the corn chips.’
Connie went out. I thought about my favourite subject, Mum and Dad never ever getting back together again. I felt really depressed. I took out my photograph and stared at it for a long, long time.
Dad came round about nine-thirty that night. Normally I would have been asleep – or faking it, anyway – but tonight no one had bugged me about cleaning my teeth or doing my homework or getting dressed for bed. Mum and Barry had pretty much left me alone. I think I could have sat and watched television all night and no one would have said anything to me, but I didn’t feel like doing that. I just went up to my bedro
om and sat on the bed and stared out of the window. I didn’t do anything. I didn’t even pick my nose, which was a first.
I heard Dad downstairs. Barry opened the front door and I heard a whispered conversation in the hallway. Barry and Dad actually get on okay, which doesn’t make sense to me. Go figure grown-ups.
I heard Dad coming up the stairs. I turned off the light and jumped into bed with my clothes on and pretended to be asleep. I didn’t want to talk to him right now.
The door opened. ‘Tao?’
I put my head under the covers and kept quiet.
‘Tao, I know you’re not asleep. I saw the light on when I drove up.’
‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ I said.
Dad sat on the edge of the bed and turned on the bedside lamp. He pulled back the covers so he could see my face. ‘Are you okay?’
‘I’m fine. He was your dog.’
He sat there with his hands on his knees, not saying anything for a long time. ‘You didn’t need this, did you?’
‘It was that woman.’
‘What woman? Belinda?’
‘The woman driving the car. She wasn’t watching where she was going.’
‘It’s not anybody’s fault. Blooch shouldn’t have been on the road.’
I kind of knew that.
It didn’t help.
‘Where were you?’ I said.
‘I was out on a shoot.’ That’s what Dad calls it when he goes out of the office to make a commercial. Sometimes he spends two or three days on a beach or up in the hills just making one thirty-second ad for chocolate milk.
‘Mum said she rang your office. Don’t you have a pager or something?’
‘I just got the message to ring your mum. I didn’t know it was important.’
‘You should have been here.’
‘Yes. I’m sorry, Tao. I’m sorry I wasn’t here for you.’
‘Not for me. For Blooch.’
Dad looked away. He was wearing his favourite old bomber jacket. I could smell the leather. I missed that smell.
‘I wish it was just the three of us again,’ I said.
He reached out and took my hand. ‘Tao … I know this is hard for you. It’s hard for me too.’
‘But you can do something about it.’
‘I don’t think I can.’
I felt myself getting angry again. I always thought my dad was smart and here he was sitting here and being stupid. ‘Of course you can. All you have to do is come home!’
‘Your mum’s got Barry now.’
‘You can beat him up easy,’ I said. ‘I can beat him up. I’ll do it for you, if you want. Just say when.’
He smiled. We both smiled. ‘It’s not just Barry.’
‘Then what is it?’
‘I don’t want to come home.’
I don’t want to come home. Was that really what he’d said? It felt like the time I was playing footy for the school team and Matt tried to kick the ball down the field and instead kicked it straight into my stomach. Pain and no air to breathe. I just stared at him.
‘It’s not you, Tao. Please don’t think it’s you.’
‘Just go away,’ I said, and jerked my hand free.
‘Tao …’
‘Just go away.’
Dad stood up. ‘One day you’ll understand. I just … can’t …’ Whatever he was going to say, he didn’t finish. I wasn’t listening anyway. I put my head back under the bedclothes and my hands over my ears. I hadn’t realised it before but my dad was a loser.
After he’d left I thought about old Blooch. The last time he’d fetched a stick was on my ninth birthday and the last couple of years all he’d done was sort of hang around and be a home for fleas. When he did come inside, like when there was a bad thunderstorm, all he did was let off and make terrible pongs. His breath smelled like dead kangaroo and he slept almost all day.
There really wasn’t anything much to miss any more.
But then I realised what it was that made Blooch so important and why I was going to miss him so much.
It was because he was the last bit of my dad I had left at home.
7
We hadn’t been surfing the Croat for about a week, ever since Mister Petrovic nearly caught us that time. We had been avoiding Cantonment Street again and going home a different way. It was my idea to go back. I don’t know what made me do it. It was just a feeling I had, like I didn’t care what trouble I got into any more. In fact, looking back on it now, I think I was even kind of hoping I would get busted. So the day after Blooch died I suggested to Matt and Bluey that we go surfing the Croat.
‘I don’t know,’ Bluey said. ‘Don’t you reckon it’s a bit soon? He’s still probably looking out for us after last time.’
‘Yeah,’ Matt said. ‘I think maybe we should leave it another week.’
I puffed out my cheeks and made the chicken noise.
I knew Matt would come in spinner when I did that. And if Matt was in, so was Bluey.
Sure enough, Matt said, ‘All right, if that’s what you want, let’s do it.’
The driveway gates were open again and so it was real easy. I just dropped my schoolbag, and gave my board a little push and did it. Really slow. So that Matt and Bluey could both see I wasn’t scared of anything. Cut it real cool, cut back with a gentle flick, cut in again, turn around and grin at them then, very, very laid-back, another right-hander, left-hander, get off the board and bow. I was on the other side of the yard, completely vulnerable, and there I was, off the board, grinning like an idiot, one fist in the air.
Bluey’s jaw was hanging open. Even Matt looked impressed.
I got on my board again and came back across the yard, in and out of the roses, rolled out of the drive, then jumped off, flicked my board in the air with my foot and put it under my arm.
‘Surfing the Croat by Mister Cool,’ I said.
Matt couldn’t help himself. He tried to do the same thing, but he wasn’t as good on a board as I was and he kept falling off because he couldn’t keep his balance when he went slow. But he did it.
It was Bluey’s turn.
Bluey was white. He wasn’t even trying not to look scared. He set off really slow, then looked back at us. I could see his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down in his throat like a cork on the ocean. Then he gave the board another kick and nearly rode straight into Mister Petrovic.
He gave a yelp like a scalded puppy, jumped back off the board and landed on his bum on the driveway. He was like that for probably one ten millionth of a milli-second and then he was on his feet again and running. His eyes were huge, like a runaway horse’s.
I almost stood my ground. It was the bravest moment of my life. But then the real me took over and I shot through with Matt and Bluey. But I stopped halfway down the street and looked back. Mister Petrovic was scratching at his stomach through his singlet and looking down at Bluey’s skateboard. Then he picked it up and took it inside.
‘Mister Petrovic stole Bluey’s board,’ Matt said.
Well, I think we all knew that that wasn’t quite true but it’s what we had to tell ourselves. Otherwise we would have to admit to each other that we had bolted like rabbits. We were sitting under the Moreton Bay fig in the front yard of the school. It was morning recess and we were trying to work out a way of getting Bluey’s skateboard back. Apart from knocking on the door and asking Mister Petrovic if he would give it back, no likely solution presented itself.
‘Don’t get mad, get even,’ Matt said. ‘That’s what my dad always says.’
‘Yeah,’ Bluey said. ‘Let’s go and turn off his shower again!’
I groaned. I had visions of me being the one to have to creep up the side of Mister Petrovic’s house again. And besides, I didn’t actually think what they were saying was right. It occurred to me that there was nothing to get even with Mister Petrovic for. ‘Hey guys, yo,’ I said. ‘He hasn’t really done anything to us. I mean, we were in his front yard.’
Matt
gave me a look of complete disgust. As if I was a traitor or something. ‘Whose side are you on, Symo?’
‘That’s not the point, guys.’
‘Then what is?’ Bluey said. ‘If you don’t want to hang out with us, you can go and hang out with Mister Petrovic.’
‘Yeah,’ Matt said. ‘You choose.’
I shrugged my shoulders. I didn’t see what I could do. They were going to do it anyway, so I’d have to go along for the ride.
We all crammed into the phone box outside the deli on South Terrace.
It was Matt’s idea. He was the one who had worked out what he said was a suitable punishment for Mister Petrovic and then found the number he wanted in the local community newspaper. But he insisted we were all together when he made the phone call. I guess that way he didn’t have to shoulder the blame if we were caught.
Matt put a handkerchief over the mouthpiece and dialled the number.
‘Allo …’ Matt said into the phone. ‘Is that-a da Tomasseti’s Mill?’
Bluey and I looked at each other and tried to stifle giggles. Matt sounded ridiculous trying to put on that silly voice. He had dropped his voice as low as he could but he didn’t sound anything like Mister Petrovic. He sounded more like Con the Fruiterer. But I supposed the order clerk at Tomasetti’s Mill had never spoken to Mister Petrovic, so he wouldn’t know he didn’t talk like Con.
‘I make-a da order now, okay, stupid thing?’
Bluey sort of creased around the middle and slipped to the floor of the phone box. More chatter on the other end of the line.
‘Okay, you give me ten tons,’ Matt said.
I gaped at him. Ten tons sounded like an awful lot of wood.
‘You give me Wednesday after-da-noon-a, okay? … Where to deliver?’
Matt looked at me and grinned.
‘I want you leave da wood in da driveway outside da garage. Okay you?’
I heard the man say something on the other end of the line and Matt seemed to hesitate.