I ran out of the kitchen but she came after me.
“Go away!” I yelled, slamming the door against her.
“Don’t you shut me out, young lady. I’m your mother. When you’re eighteen you can do what you like but while you’re in this house you’ll do as I say. I’m only doing what’s best, you’re just too young to understand it now. One day you’ll know all about it!”
I opened the door wide and yelled at her angry back disappearing up the corridor. “One day I’ll leave this house and you’ll never hear me sing again. I’ll be out of here!”
Mom came flying back down the hall then with her mashed potato thingy in her hand so I shut the door quick as lightning. She banged on the door, telling me she didn’t know how she’d got a daughter like me and I said well there must have been a mistake at the hospital and she said she would never have dared to speak to her mother like that, so I said maybe her mother was much nicer than her and that really got her because she kicked the door with her foot, it was a low savage futt sound and then she started going on about her mother and how much she missed her and she would have known what to do. I was starting to melt a little hearing the break in her voice and all this stuff about her childhood but then she said the thing about mindless airhead again so I yelled, “Leave me alone!” and pushed over the chair at my desk and it made a great crack as it fell against the bookcase. A chunk of wood fell out of the leg.
I didn’t have any dinner. I stayed in my room, watching the light dying outside. Asim would have gone to the pub with Jackson. He said he was going to ask his father. His dad would have let him go, for sure. Asim says his dad just wants him to be happy. But then Asim gets good grades in math without even trying. I guess when your kid is really smart it must be easier to let them be happy.
I hate it when they say, “We’re so disappointed in you.” That’s worse than anger. Mom gets this sorrowful tone in her voice as if she’s at a funeral; you can see all her hopes for her daughter’s bright future flashing before her eyes, R.I.P.
I creep out of the room about nine o’clock to pee. I tiptoe into the kitchen to get a glass of water. The television in the living room is blaring away and the Treasurer is talking about interest rates going up. Is that all anyone talks about in this country? Dad is shaking his head, groaning, and Mom is holding his hand. You’d think war had just been declared on Australia, the kind of grief they’re in.
On the way back to my room, Daniel bumps into me coming out of his room. He’s carrying a plate.
“We had hamburgers. I said I wanted two but I only ate one. Here,” and he shoved the plate into my hands. “I can’t sleep when I’m hungry, can you?”
Daniel’s always the one that tips me over the edge. Little kids, they’ve got such big hearts. If grown-ups only knew it, they could learn so much from them. Little kids only want the people they love to be happy. You don’t have to be rich or smart or anything for Daniel. Just happy.
He starts to pat my shoulder, which is a bit awkward seeing he’s so much smaller than me. We stand there in the hall with the hamburger balanced between us, and he’s making this kind of cooing sound he’s heard Marge do for little Maggie on the Simpsons. “Don’t cry,” he mumbles.
“Go on, you get back to bed,” I say softly. “I’m all right. I’ll go to sleep now. Thanks for the hamburger.”
Sleep. As if. Hunger isn’t good for getting to sleep, but anger is worse. There was this boy from France in our class last year and he used to get “unger” mixed up with anger. He had trouble with his “H’s,” never putting them where they should be. “Et ez almost ze time for lernch?” he’d ask. “I ham very angry.” Everyone laughed but I remember thinking that maybe the two things are connected. When you’re really, really angry, there’s a kind of emptiness in your stomach, a hole that feels as if it will never be filled.
After I ate the hamburger (it’s your own fault it’s cold, if you’d come to the table when you were supposed to it would have been much nicer), I tried getting into bed and closing my eyes. But behind my lids there was Valerie at the mike in her black dress. The drummer sitting behind her, the electric guitarist on her left. There’d be a sax, too, and a keyboard. By now Valerie would be really loose, she’d be getting wild. There’d be sweat running down her neck and dark patches under her arms. She said she always bought dresses for performing that wouldn’t stain under the arms because if you didn’t get hot on stage, then you weren’t really singing. Once, in America, when she went to a Tina Turner concert she got front row tickets and got hit by flying sweat when Tina did a shimmy way down low like a wet dog shaking.
It’s no use, this sleeping business. I’m not hungry anymore but I’m angry. Will I be angry all my life? I won’t live very long in that case because Jackson said just six minutes of anger and your immune system is disabled for five hours. Or was it the other way around? Numbers just don’t stick in my no-brain. Why doesn’t my mother get that? Why doesn’t she know her own daughter? Hi, I’m Esmerelda Marx, I’ve lived here for thirteen years and I like hard rock, soul, a bit of jazz, some heavy metal, fish and chips, my brother, catching waves. I hate math and tautologies. How do you do?
Sometimes when you can’t sleep you get so hot under the covers you feel like you might start melting into the bed. I’m sure sticking to the sheets. So I give up for a bit and trudge over to the window. I open the window wider and lean on the sill, my face in the breeze. Except there is no breeze. It’s a hot, still night, like a pot of glue. Everything looks stuck on out there, even the white circle of light beneath the street lamp. It lies on the road like a big paper moon some kindergartner might have cut out and pasted on.
I look across at number seventy-three. You can’t see the number very clearly, not like our sixty-eight that Mom polishes with Brasso. Valerie has let Chinese jasmine grow all over it. There’s no outside light on. The house is so deserted it looks as if no one’s lived there for the last century practically. They’re all out far away, dancing in the light. I’m stuck here in the dark looking at the last signs of life like some usherette after a movie.
I pinch my arm to make sure I still feel. How does that song by The Rasmus go? It’s from their album Dead Letters. Something about watching and waiting in the shadows, waiting for the right time…
There are snatches of song, melodies in my head all the time. Sometimes I wonder if I’ve ever had an original thought (as my mother suggests) or if everything I think is some line from a song. It’s a frightening idea. But music takes you over, takes you somewhere else. It’s like Valerie said that day after the beach—about kids dancing to rock ’n’ roll. Listening to a good song is a bit like going into a trance: you forget the outside rules and go inside, into this space of your own. How good will it be one day when I have a boyfriend? We’ll dance with our arms around each other, in that space together. My head will be on his shoulder and we’ll feel so close. We’ll listen to our favorite songs, over and over. I can’t wait to be older.
Valerie showed us a video of those Motown singers, Diana Ross, Marvin Gaye. They practiced their hip wiggles and grapevine dances six hours a day. Marvin Gaye did this song, “Sexual Healing.” That’s a bit gross but he just wanted people to love each other. Jackson rolled his eyes when his mother put on the song. Make love not war, Marvin Gaye said.
My dad thinks Frank Sinatra was the best singer in the world. Well, you know what old Frank said about rock ’n’ roll? He said it would be the end of civilization.
What are they all so afraid of, I want to know?
All the lights are off across the road. It must be really late. I check the clock—11:41. Geez, and on a school night. Jackson and Asim are so lucky. Valerie must be doing about a hundred encores.
Suddenly, in the light from the street lamp, I see something move. A shadow creeps across the pool of bright asphalt. It freezes for a moment in the middle of the road. I can see a solid shape, bulky but not tall. He’s twisting around, looking straight at this window
. Quickly I snap off the bedside lamp and duck down, so that only the top of my head peeps over the windowsill. But I can make out a baseball cap and a bomber jacket. The light is glinting off the metal buttons. He raises an arm. Is he pointing at me? Waving? No, he’s picking his nose. He’s doing a real excavation. It’s Badman!
I almost laugh out loud but then I see he’s turned and is crossing the road. He’s careful to go slow, his boots making no noise on the road. He steps up onto the sidewalk, across the grass. He’s heading toward Jackson’s house. Oh, no, what’s he planning to do?
Just before he opens the gate he fumbles in his jacket pocket. He brings something out and looks at it.
I’m not waiting to find out what he’s got. I yank my bathrobe off the bed and run down the hall. He’s going to blow up their mailbox, I know it. Idiot, he’s everything Jackson said he was. I can’t believe it. I make myself slow down at the front door and carefully twist the knob so it doesn’t squeak. I leave the latch thingy pressed in so it’s unlocked and I can get back in. I won’t be long, I tell myself, unless Badman kills me.
My heart is pounding away as I spring out onto our lawn. Ow, those damn thorns! I wish I’d put on slippers. No time, for sure he’s heading toward the mailbox. What nerve—Valerie could be home any minute. But wait, he’s not stopping at the mailbox. He’s disappearing inside the gate … Oh, no, the possum house!
I run at the gate and push it open. There, right under the maple tree, a small plume of flame floating in the dark. I make out Badman, leaning against the tree. He swings round to face me. There’s a lighter in his hand. In the light of the flame I see his eyes go wide and a surprised smile flits across his face. Everything’s happening together, fast like a speeding train, but it’s so weird because I’m picking out each detail in the dark as if it’s a list I’ll need to remember. I watch him open his other hand, and see the long thin cylinder that fits neatly in his palm. He grins at me and his fingers close around it. I’m stuck here, glued. It’s like watching a bus coming at you and not getting out of the way.
The wick catching alight does it. As he reaches up toward the little house I leap across the path and lunge at him, my head barrelling into his stomach. He topples and we both crash to the ground, football style. Out of the corner of my eye I see the firework still in his hand. The wick has almost burned away. It’ll blow any minute. “Throw it!” I yell.
“Get your shoulder off me!”
I lift up and he throws the thing way down the lawn. Just a heartbeat later there’s the loudest explosion I’ve ever heard. My ears are singing in top C. The sound keeps going, eee eeeee, like ripples around a stone after you hurl it in a river.
“You moron!” I pant.
“That was my best Thunder!”
“Cretin!”
“Hey, you like this position? I do.”
I look at him and realize I’m still lying on top of him with his great mug leering up at me.
I jump off and pull my bathrobe around me. I’m shaking like a leaf. “Why do you do this stuff? You’re such a fool, I just don’t get it, hurting people, hurting yourself.”
“You’re the one who goes jumping on me like Bruce friggin’ Lee! My back’s just about split down the middle!”
“You could have blown off your hand, or my head!”
“No, see, I made the wick extra long. You just add string to the real wick and dip it in a bit of kero and that way there’s time to put it where you—”
“But why? What’s Jackson ever done to you?”
“Friggin’ almost broke my nose—”
“Only when you insulted him nearly to death. And all those phone calls, what a cowardly bloody thing to do, just breathing away like some shabby porn star.”
“What phone calls? I didn’t do any phone calls. I just like burning stuff.” He bends down and starts hunting around for his lighter. “Where is it? Now look what you’ve done.”
“What I’ve done? God almighty.”
“That lighter is my dad’s, from his Queensland tour. Everyone in the band got this special Zippo each. It’s a world famous windproof lighter with a lifetime guarantee. My dad gave me his.”
“Oh, boo hoo.”
He finds it halfway down the lawn near the mango tree. I hear his grunt of relief and he comes back, trying to walk casual, with his old swagger.
“You ever try this again, and I’ll tell the world,” I say.
“Yeah? Why don’t you tell them now?”
We’re standing there, glaring at each other, when we hear a car door slam.
“They’re home!” I whisper. I don’t know why I’m whispering. But I feel guilty standing here in my pajamas, as if it was me who was trying to blow up the possum house.
“Ah crap!” hisses Badman. “What’ll we do now?”
“We?”
“You messed this up, I’d have been outta here so fast—”
Another door slams.
“Come on. We can go that way, climb over the side fence.”
I’m standing there wondering what I should do when the gate opens.
We freeze.
It’s not Valerie. It’s not Jackson.
It’s a man built like a mansion with extra guest rooms attached to his shoulders. The muscles in his legs are so big they seem to prevent him from walking. He’s moving toward us, lumbering from side to side like a doll that can’t bend at the knees. It’s like watching King Kong coming at you.
I want to scream but there’s a stone in my throat.
“What are you two kids doing?” His voice is low like a double bass. I bet he could get the bottom C on the piano.
“Nothing,” mumbles Badman. He’s staring like a maniac.
The man raises his hand to smooth back his hair. His coat swings open and I see SECURITY written on his black T-shirt.
“You make that explosion?” asks the man. His voice doesn’t go up at the end. It isn’t a question.
We just go on looking at him.
“Are you Neighborhood Security?” asks Badman. “Like Neighborhood Watch or something?” There’s relief in his voice. I know how he feels. Even if we do get into trouble, a neighborhood kind doesn’t seem so bad. There’d probably be a lot of sitting around and talking about anger management. Maybe some community service. This guy probably lifts weights because he’s got low self-esteem. Maybe he’s a banker.
But the man just raises an eyebrow. “Something like that. Do you live here?”
“Yes, sure do,” says Badman quickly.
The man nods. “Your mom out, huh?”
“Yeah, we just had some friends over,” Badman goes on. “A party.” He points at me and grins. “She’s my sister. She’s thirteen today. We just had a little firework or two, you know, to make it special. We’re sorry,” Badman adds with an oily smile, “we didn’t know it would be so loud. We won’t do it again, sir, promise.”
Fool. He’s thinks he’s being so clever.
A cold feeling like iced water is spreading along my neck. If this guy belonged to Neighborhood Watch he’d be part of the neighborhood. He’d know who lived here, wouldn’t he? And we’d sure have spotted this King Kong on the street before now.
I kick Badman but he ignores me.
The man is frowning at Badman. Then he glances at me. “Didn’t tell me he had a sister,” he mutters to himself.
“What?” says Badman.
The man is looking around, over our heads. “Seventy-three all right,” he says, nodding his head. Then he does something that makes my heart just about leap through my chest. He starts humming the theme to Rocky.
“Listen,” I burst out. My voice is a squeak. “Listen,” I say, a bit louder, “we don’t live here at all, he’s just making up stories—”
“Why are you here in the dead of night in your pajamas then, girlie?”
I look at Badman. But he’s standing there like a tree. I open my mouth to explain about Badman’s firework fixation when the man reaches into his jack
et, pulling it to one side. We both see the gun sticking out of his belt.
“Hey, you’re no Neighborhood Watch!” bursts out Badman.
“No kidding,” says the man. He pulls out a pack of cigarettes and a box of matches. He takes his time lighting a cigarette. I grab Badman’s hand and tug it. But he’s still doing the tree thing, rooted to the ground. The man slides his pack of cigarettes back into his inner pocket.
The repeat glimpse of that belt must have unfrozen Badman because suddenly I feel his hand tugging mine and he starts to yell. “HEL—” he screams but the man whips out his gun so quick that his hand blurs. He drops the matches.
“Shut up,” hisses the man.
The sound is sliced off. It falls dead into the silence.
Badman starts to whimper.
“Now you’re irritating me,” the man says. He leans close to us so that the gun just brushes Badman’s bomber jacket. “And I don’t like to be irr-it-a-ted.” The man looks at us and smiles slightly. He looks pleased with himself, as if he’s proud that he knows such a big word.
Four syllables. Jackson would notice that. Oh, Jackson, why don’t you come home?
“The people who live here aren’t home,” I try again. “See there was no party—”
“Yes, there was,” Badman cuts in, staring hard at me, “and our mom and dad are right there in the house.”
“Thought you said your mom was out,” the man says.
“No, she went out before, I forgot, but she came home. And my dad will come out here any minute with his hunting gun…”
Rocky looks at the dark house that was supposed to have just finished a party.
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