The Peacock Detectives

by Carly Nugent

  Sight

  Autumn by the river looks like fat leaves and thin leaves. Some of them are still green, and some are a bit green and a bit yellow, or orange, or red. There are all different kinds of red: there is red like fire, and red like an English bus, and red like those pencils that are not quite red and not quite pink. And some leaves are brown, but not brown like a tree—they are brown like a worm, or the tummy of a bird. And when the leaves start to fall off the trees the ground is coloured, too, and it looks like the world is a room with matching wallpaper and carpet.

  Sound

  Autumn by the river sounds like walking through crunchy leaves, and sometimes swishing through slippery leaves that are thin and soft. Sometimes it sounds like kookaburras laughing, or magpies singing. And sometimes it sounds like Diana’s Messenger app.

  Smell

  Autumn by the river smells like smoke. I think this is because people somewhere are burning leaves or sticks, because autumn is a safe time for burning and not a bushfire time, like summer.

  Taste

  Autumn by the river tastes like fresh, damp air. Sometimes it tastes like wet leaves. And sometimes on Saturdays it tastes like Wizz Fizz.

  Touch

  Autumn by the river feels slippery, and almost-but-not-quite cold. It sometimes feels dark, too, because in autumn we put the clocks back, so when it’s five o’clock it’s really six o’clock, and there’s less daylight. It’s the reverse of daylight savings. It is daylight spendings.

  When Simon followed his nose onto the track I followed him (happily) and Diana followed me (not so happily). I could tell Diana wasn’t happy because she was sighing a lot and stomping her boots. Boot stomping is good for scaring away snakes, but Diana isn’t scared of snakes so I knew that wasn’t why she was doing it. Now that Diana is fourteen-turning-fifteen there are a lot of things I don’t understand about her. Here is a list of the things I do know:

  1) Diana has straight hair, and skin that tans when she goes in the sun and doesn’t freckle at all. Everyone always says that Diana looks like Mum, and they are right.

  2) Diana is in Year Nine, which is secondary school, and she learns things like literature and algebra.

  3) She smokes cigarettes sometimes. Mum and Dad don’t know this, but I do, because I’m good at noticing details and a detail that I notice sometimes about Diana is the smell of cigarette smoke mixed with the smell of too-much-deodorant.

  4) Lots of people like Diana. I think this is partly because she is pretty and smart but mostly because she doesn’t care if people like her or not.

  The list of things I don’t understand about Diana is much longer than the list of things I do know. For example, I don’t understand why she was unhappy when we were walking through the bush looking for peacocks. And not being able to understand my sister, even when she is stomping along right behind me, makes me feel like I’m a million miles away from her.

  While we were walking (me) and sniffing (Simon) and stomping and texting (Diana), I tried to think of something nice to talk about that would lighten the mood, i.e. (i.e. stands for id est which is Latin and means ‘in other words’) something that would make our walking feel less serious.

  Whenever I’m feeling sad I think about the best-thing-that-has-happened-in-my-life-so-far. The-best-thing-that-has-happened-in-my-life-so-far is going to the beach on a Family Holiday. Last year Mum and Dad and Diana and I went to Queensland. We stayed on the fourteenth floor of a big hotel and our room had a balcony and windows that went all the way down to the floor so you could always see the ocean. And every day we went swimming and every night we ate in restaurants and played Scrabble. And Diana played sharks and dolphins with me in the pool, and Dad made jokes like ‘Why did the sand blush? Because the sea weed,’ and Mum held Dad’s hand and smiled.

  Remembering the Family Holiday made me feel happy and I thought saying it out loud might make Diana happy, too. So, while we were stopped for Simon to sniff and pee in some long grass, I said, ‘Remember how in Queensland we found that thing on the beach? And we thought it was a giant shark’s tooth, but Mum said it was a cuttlefish bone?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Diana, looking at her phone.

  ‘And remember how—in Queensland—Dad ate so much Mexican food that Mum said he would turn into a taco?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Diana, typing something.

  ‘And remember how it was sunny every single day, and it never rained?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Diana, still typing.

  ‘And remember how we had ice cream, and we saw a pelican, and Mum and Dad held hands on the beach?’

  Diana didn’t say anything then, but she did look at me. Simon had finished sniffing and peeing, and he was looking at me, too.

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘You shouldn’t lie like that, Cassie,’ Diana said, in a quiet voice. ‘It’s not funny.’

  ‘But I’m not lying!’ I said, because I wasn’t. Cross my heart. I felt that hot feeling behind my eyes that means tears are growing there.

  ‘Whatever,’ Diana said. ‘We’re not going to Queensland again, you know.’

  I didn’t say anything.

  ‘I’m going home,’ Diana said, and then she turned around and started walking. When I saw her from behind she looked much more like fifteen than fourteen. And even though I didn’t know why Diana was angry with me I did know—because of the way she hugged her Buddhism book against her chest and stomped her Doc Martens up the hill—she wasn’t coming back.

  Simon and I kept walking because we didn’t know what else to do, and also because there were still peacocks to find. We walked for a long time in the bush-quiet, which is like ordinary quiet except with trees rustling and kookaburras calling and river-water running. I wished there was a switch to turn my brain off because the whole time we were walking I was thinking about Diana and her stomping boots and her Buddhism. I wished I was like Simon and could only think about what I was sniffing. But I wasn’t, and I couldn’t.

  People always tell me I’m lying. It’s unfair because—most of the time—I’m not. For example, one weekend I couldn’t finish my times tables homework because there were new people moving in next door. I was pretty sure they were exotic animal smugglers so I had to investigate (it turned out that they just had a pet iguana). And when I told Mrs Atkinson at school on Monday she said, ‘Don’t lie, Cassie,’ and made me write out my eight and nine times tables, even though everyone else only had to write their eights. And another time when Mum asked me to help her pull out the weeds in the backyard I explained that I couldn’t because there were fairies living under the rose bushes that needed those weeds for spells. Mum said, ‘That’s not true, Cassie,’ and gave me the gardening gloves.

  Even Dad sometimes thinks I’m lying. Like when I got a C-minus on my history project because the night before it was due a witch came to me in my sleep and told me she had hidden some treasure in the sandpit. She also said that if I didn’t find it before the full moon (which was the next day) it would disappear.

  ‘Come on, Cassandra,’ Dad said. He took off his glasses and rubbed the part of his face where his nose becomes his forehead.

  ‘Really!’ I said. ‘I had to dig all afternoon, and—’

  ‘Stop it.’ Dad interrupted me before I could tell him that I had found treasure in the sandpit: a pink bead necklace that I had lost two years ago, and an expensive-looking screwdriver. ‘That’s not the truth and you know it,’ he said.

  ‘But it is!’ I said, because it was. ‘Cross my heart. I did see a witch, and the next night it was a full moon, and—’

  ‘No.’ There was something deep in Dad’s voice that made me be quiet. ‘The truth is that you were lazy.’ Dad leaned forward so that he was looking right into my eyes, like he was trying to peer inside my brain. ‘Isn’t it?’

  After Dad said that, I went to my room and pretended I was a wombat, burrowing deep under the ground. I wasn’t lying, but still I had this heaviness in my stomach that wouldn’t go
away. And I couldn’t understand—even though I understand lots of things—why the person I love most in the world would want to make me feel that way.

  Today was Sunday, and Diana didn’t go to church. Because Diana is fourteen-turning-fifteen this year she has started making her own decisions. One of the decisions she made is not to go to church anymore. When I asked her why, she rolled her eyes and said, ‘You wouldn’t understand.’ Then she went into her room with her phone so she could talk to Tom Golding, who is a boy who is her friend, but not her boyfriend.

  I think I probably would understand because I understand a lot of things, like Japanese and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and what a simile is (a sentence that describes something by comparing it to something else. For example: fourteen-turning-fifteen Diana is as annoying as March flies).

  I understand words more than anything else because when I was little Dad would tell me stories before I went to sleep. My friend Jonas, however (‘however’ is a transition word that means something different is coming up), knows more about facts, like why ships don’t sink and what jelly is made of. He knows facts because when he was little his dad told him scientific things. Because Jonas knows facts and I know stories, together we know almost everything.

  When Diana decided she wasn’t going to church, Mum said, ‘Oh? Why’s that?’

  ‘It’s not for me,’ Diana said.

  ‘Fair enough,’ Mum said.

  I didn’t know you could choose whether church was for you or not. I thought it was for everyone, like brushing your teeth or sleeping.

  Dad was in the car waiting for Mum and me to hurry up. We got in, and that was when I spotted William Shakespeare. He was standing on our roof, playing hard to get. Another thing I know about peacocks is that they are clever—especially William Shakespeare and Virginia. For example, they know when they are in danger of being caught, and when they aren’t. And right then, William Shakespeare knew that I was stuck and he was safe.

  Mum and Dad didn’t see him. They were too busy talking about Diana.

  ‘She’s not coming, then?’ said Dad.

  ‘She’s old enough to make her own decisions,’ said Mum. Her face looked like a full stop.

  When Dad started the car Diana was still wearing her pyjamas, and William Shakespeare was still on our roof. It didn’t feel right to leave them both behind like that. As we backed down the driveway William Shakespeare called out in his sad/happy peacock voice. It sounded like he was saying ‘Come back!’ but I don’t speak peacock, so he might have been saying ‘Good riddance’.

  Church without Diana was like a number seven without a line across the middle: still a number seven, but not as much fun to write. There was no one to elbow when Miss Watson wiggled her hips around during the hymns, and when it was time for Sunday school I had to walk down the aisle and out the back on my own. Grandpa wasn’t at church either, which was weird because Grandpa goes to church every-Sunday-always. It made me sad because the best thing to do at church is sit next to Grandpa when he sings his favourite hymn (which is ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’) and feel his voice vibrate all the way down from his throat to the chair and from the chair into me. And Jonas isn’t ever at church because his parents are atheists, which means they believe in science instead of God.

  In Sunday school Miss Robinson told us The Creation Story, which we all knew already but I didn’t mind hearing again. In The Creation Story first there is nothing, and Miss Robinson used a piece of black paper to symbolise this. A symbol is a thing that is easy to see that stands for something that is hard to see. For example, it is hard to see love, but it is easy to see my dad, so my dad is a symbol for love. And William Shakespeare’s feather is a symbol for looking for the peacocks, since the feather is easy to see, but the peacocks—unless they are standing on my roof—are not. But symbols are not the same for everyone. When I told Jonas about my symbol for love he didn’t understand. He said his symbol for love is the Internet.

  So the black paper was a symbol for nothing. And then out of nothing God made everything, including the planets and grass and caterpillars (Miss Robinson used coloured stickers to symbolise those). And then, after six days, God had a rest. Miss Robinson didn’t have anything to symbolise this—she just said it, which I thought was a bit unfair because it was hard to imagine God resting.

  I think The Creation Story is a good story but Jonas doesn’t. Jonas says The Creation Story is not good because it isn’t true. He says the true story is that there was a big explosion in space that threw a lot of stuff around and then the Earth and the planets slowly happened. He says grass and caterpillars weren’t just there after six days because they had to evolve, which means they came out of other, older things like algae and prawns. Jonas says that the algae and prawns kept getting better and better until they became grass and caterpillars. And today grass and caterpillars are still getting better but they’re doing it so slowly that we don’t notice it, and one day they won’t be grass and caterpillars anymore but something else that we can’t even imagine.

  When Jonas told me this I thought it was interesting and true, but I also thought there was something missing from it, like a Main Character and an ending. Which is why even though I like Jonas’s story, I still like The Creation Story, too. So when Robert Radley said Miss Robinson was lying in Sunday school this morning I told him to shut up. I felt bad for Miss Robinson because people tell me I’m lying all the time, but I’m not.

  ‘Cassandra,’ said Miss Robinson in an I’m-warning-you sort of voice but with a thank-you sort of face. Then Sunday school was over and we could go, and I didn’t have to say sorry to Robert Radley, which was a good thing because saying sorry to Robert Radley really would have been a lie.

  After church Simon and I (and not Diana) went for a Sunday walk. My feet and Simon’s nose led us to Grandpa’s house, which is small and yellow and wooden and has a back door you can walk to from the river. I knew Simon wanted biscuits (because Simon always wants biscuits) and I wanted lemonade, so together we decided to stop for a visit.

  We found Grandpa in the backyard. He was sitting on a lawn chair doing the Sunday crossword.

  ‘Hello, Cassie Jane,’ he said. Grandpa is the only person who can call me Cassie Jane. This is a compromise I have made, because I really don’t like my middle name, but I really do like Grandpa. Simon ran over and started licking the back of Grandpa’s hand. Grandpa gave him a pat and said, ‘Seven down. Nine letters, second letter i. Hard, if lift cud.’ He tapped the newspaper with the end of his pen. ‘Any ideas?’

  Grandpa doesn’t do normal crosswords, like other people. He does cryptic crosswords. Cryptic crosswords are crosswords where the clues don’t mean what they seem to mean. For example, the clue ‘Hard, if lift cud’ doesn’t actually have anything to do with cows eating, but cows eating is what your brain automatically wants to think about when it hears the word ‘cud’. When you do cryptic crosswords you have to make your brain think in a different way. In a way that sees how words are made, and not what they stand for.

  When Grandpa said ‘Hard, if lift cud’ I couldn’t get my brain to change its thinking. This was because I was still worried about things like Diana stomping off on me, and Robert Radley saying Miss Robinson was lying. So I shook my head. Grandpa put down the paper. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘Time for a break anyway, I think. Lemonade?’

  Simon and I followed Grandpa inside. (Simon is an outside dog at our house, but at Grandpa’s he is an inside and an outside dog. He is an everywhere dog.) Grandpa’s kitchen isn’t very big, but it’s very cosy. He has stick-people drawings that Diana and I did for him when we were little on his fridge, and framed family photos of us when we were babies and of Mum and Dad at their wedding. He also has photos of the kids he sponsors in other countries, and letters they have written him about what they are learning at school and what their hobbies are.

  Grandpa is like my dad in looks—he is also tall, and he used to have curly hair before he went bald�
��but not really in personality. Instead of reading, Grandpa likes to weed the garden or tinker with the car. He is always busy, and loves talking to other people, and planning things to do. I’ve never seen him quiet and sad and lost inside himself, the way Dad is sometimes.

  When Grandpa had finished boiling water for his cup of tea and pouring lemonade we went back outside. I carried the biscuits on a plate. Grandpa likes to feed the birds while he has afternoon tea and biscuits, and as soon as we sat down two sparrows hopped over to us.

  ‘Good afternoon, George, Mildred,’ Grandpa said, and threw them each a crumb of Scotch Finger. Then he took a sip of his tea. ‘Now, Cassie Jane,’ he said. ‘What story have you got to tell me?’

  I thought for a minute, and then I started. I told Grandpa a story about a family of kangaroos that lived in the bush. The little kangaroos played together every day—they played Hide-and-Seek and Chasey and Blind Man’s Bluff. Their favourite game was Scavenger Hunt, where they had to work as a team to find a list of things hidden in the bush, like red berries and pine cones and wombat poo. But then one day the oldest kangaroo said she didn’t want to play anymore.

  ‘She just hopped off by herself,’ I told Grandpa. ‘Down a different track. And left all her brothers and sisters behind.’

  Grandpa was looking at me carefully. Grandpa is the best at listening to stories. When he listens his eyes focus totally on you, and you know he isn’t thinking about what to cook for dinner or what’s on TV later. His eyes are almost better at listening than his ears.

  ‘Is that the end?’ he asked.

  I shrugged. ‘I guess,’ I said. I couldn’t think of another way to finish the story, even though I knew it wasn’t a great ending.

  ‘Why did the older kangaroo leave her little brothers and sisters behind like that?’ Grandpa said.

  ‘I don’t know.’ I gave Simon half of my Monte Carlo. ‘Probably because she’s mean.’