The Secret of the Lonely Isles

by Joanne Van Os

  ‘Dad can’t help it, getting angry all the time like he does,’ Karen had said to them after the first major blow-up, not long after he’d come home. ‘It’s a big shock for him, not being able to walk yet. He feels frustrated and helpless, and he’s not used to feeling like that. We just have to put up with it. Try not to get upset when he loses his temper.’ She dragged her fingers through her hair, and Jem thought how tired she looked. ‘He’s not angry with us,’ she sighed, ‘it’s that wheelchair he hates.’

  It wasn’t just that Steve got angry so easily, it was also the way he nagged them all about being careful all the time. It was as if he expected everyone to have an accident every time they stepped outside the house. If he’d been able to, he would have banned the kids from riding their horses and their bikes, and from walking to school by themselves. And then when he found them inside the house reading or playing games, he would tell them they were lazy and should be outside doing something useful.

  ‘Get out and weed the yard! What are ya doin’ layin’ around here when there’re jobs to do! Just because I can’t get out and work doesn’t mean you can slack off.’

  And so it went. Jem woke up every morning with a knot in his stomach. It was hard to remember that when his dad yelled at him, he was actually angry at a piece of machinery.

  It was Friday afternoon, the beginning of the school holidays, and Jem and Tyler were over at Zac’s house. His mum had bought him a new PlayStation game, and the three of them were in the living room putting Dynasty Warriors 4 through its paces. Zac’s little sister Celie was watching them. She was ten years old and had a big crush on Jem – to his utter embarrassment. She sat and watched him play, and squealed every time he scored in the game. Zac also had an older brother, Ricky, who was eighteen and worked in a dive shop. The phone rang, and Zac raced to answer it. He’d been waiting for his father to call, because he’d promised a week ago to take Zac to a football game that evening.

  ‘Hello … Dad? Hey Dad! How ya goin’? Guess what, Mum bought me a new game and Ty ’n’ Jem ’n’ me are – Yeah, yeah I’ll get her. Are you gunna pick me up to – yeah okay, but are we – OKAY!! I’LL GET HER!!’ and he slammed the phone down on the hall table and shouted to his mother. He stalked back into the living room and dropped down on the floor beside Jem and Tyler. No one said anything until a few minutes later when Zac’s mum, Carol, hung up the phone and came into the room.

  ‘Zac, your dad can’t come tonight. He’s gotta go out somewhere and he can’t take you to that game. I’m sorry mate.’ She looked upset and shook her head, and left the room. Zac sat there stunned for a minute, then jumped up and hurried into the kitchen after his mother. Jem and Tyler could hear their raised voices as Zac raged about his father’s call and his mother tried to calm him down. Celie curled up on the couch with her cat and looked unhappy.

  ‘C’mon Ty, let’s go, huh?’ said Jem. He felt embarrassed for Zac, and sad for him too. ‘See ya later Celie – tell Zac we had to go home for tea, ay?’

  ‘Poor Zac – he was really looking forward to that game tonight,’ muttered Tyler as they climbed back through the fence to their side. ‘It’s not fair of his dad is it?’

  Jem shook his head. ‘Nah, it’s not.’

  In the Isherwood House, Maddy was being unusually pleasant. She was helping Karen get dinner ready, and seemed to have gotten over her bad temper about the party she wasn’t allowed to go to.

  ‘… so I’ll meet Aleisha and Caitlyn at the Plaza, and we’ll go shopping for Aleisha’s dress. She doesn’t know what she wants yet …’ and she chatted on to Karen happily about the next day’s plans. Jem breathed a sigh of relief. At least things were peaceful for once at the Isherwood House. Dinner was peaceful too. Steve just ate his food quietly and didn’t yell at anyone, although Karen went to bed early with a bad headache.

  Jem was in the middle of a dream about his father when the tapping woke him up. In his dream Steve had two good legs, and was riding his horse, Cavalier, beside Jem, just about to tell him something important, when it all faded into an insistent knocking on the window beside his bed. He rolled over and pushed the curtain aside.

  ‘Jem! Jem!’ a voice whispered loudly. ‘Wake up!’ It was Celie.

  ‘Whassamatter?’ said Jem groggily. ‘Celie? What are you doin’ here?’

  ‘Zac’s not in his room. I can’t find him!’

  ‘What’s goin’ on?’ said Tyler sleepily from the other side of the room.

  ‘Celie says Zac’s not in his room,’ said Jem. ‘Why don’cha tell your mum?’ he said to Celie.

  ‘Mum went out with Aunty Cheryl, and she’s not back yet.’

  ‘What about Ricky?’

  ‘He was supposed to be looking after us but when I went to bed he went out with his mates. I went in to Zac’s room to tell him and he’s not there. He’s not anywhere! I’m scared at home by myself now,’ she sniffed. Jem was afraid she might start crying.

  ‘It’s okay, we’ll find Zac. You come in here and wait while we go look for him, then you can both go home, okay?’

  While Tyler let Celie in the back door, Jem tiptoed down to Maddy’s room and woke her up. He told her what had happened.

  ‘We better wake Mum, ay?’ he said.

  Maddy shook her head. ‘She had a migraine when she went to bed tonight. Leave her asleep. And Dad’ll only get upset if he knows about it. We’ll go find Zac.’

  They pulled their bikes out from the shed and set off through the darkened streets. They rode on the footpaths as much as possible, keeping out of the way of the fast cars and loud hoons that occasionally roared past. Jem hadn’t been out at night on his own before. The familiar streets became a totally different place. The overhanging trees that made them cool and shady during the day now turned them into blind, dark tunnels. He heard running footsteps as they passed a shadowed laneway, and his heart began to beat faster. Every dog in the area seemed to be barking.

  A figure leaning on a wheelie bin scared them half to death when he yelled suddenly, ‘What’re you kids doin’? C’mere!’ and staggered drunkenly into their path.

  They swerved around him and pedalled away as fast as they could. After fifteen minutes or so, having crisscrossed the neighbourhood and finding no sign of Zac, they pulled up under a streetlight.

  ‘Where to now?’ puffed Tyler.

  ‘D’you reckon he went into the city?’ Jem hoped not, but Zac certainly wasn’t anywhere near home.

  ‘Well he’s not around here. We’d better look there, I guess,’ said Maddy.

  Jem hadn’t been into the city at night very often, except for the rare occasion when they went to the movies or out to a restaurant in the evening. He’d enjoyed those times with his parents, before Steve’s accident. They never went anywhere now. The noise and the bright lights were exciting, like being at a huge fairground. People were strolling around, relaxed, happy and friendly, and he thought it was a great place to be.

  But now, very late, and with no parents nearby, it was a different place altogether. Cars cruised up and down the main street, the shouts of young blokes hanging out of the windows competing with their noisy exhaust pipes. Loud music boomed and throbbed out of smoky nightclubs where large, bald-headed men in tight black T-shirts stood guard outside, big tattooed arms folded across their chests. Throngs of people roamed the footpaths, laughing and shouting, sometimes staggering and lurching. A man fell out of a doorway in front of them, and vomited noisily into the gutter.

  ‘Oh, gross!’ muttered Maddy, as they wheeled their bikes past him. People bumped and jostled them, and told them to get home, or to get out of the way. A stumbling drunk asked for money. Jem found it hard to believe that he ever thought this was a great place to visit.

  They were riding past some all-night fast food shops, a few blocks from the city centre, when Jem spotted a group of older teenagers in a small park opposite. They were crowding around something, jeering and cat-calling, and Jem suddenly had a very bad feeling in his
stomach. Maddy stopped in front of him, and they watched for a few moments from the edge of the grass. The kids were milling around – there were about seven or eight of them – and they were laughing and shoving at something or someone in the middle of the group.

  ‘Hey! Stop that!’

  To Jem’s horror, Maddy suddenly rode her bike straight at the group, shouting at the top of her voice. The group turned to stare at her, and she stopped a few metres from them beside a small tree, jumping off her bike and dropping it to the ground.

  ‘Leave him alone, you big bullies!’

  A small dog, tied to a tap stand, cowered on the ground at their feet, whimpering from being kicked. ‘Shove off, ya stupid cow,’ said one of the kids menacingly.

  Jem and Tyler left their bikes and hurried to where Maddy stood, her hands on her hips and her eyes blazing. Jem brushed past the tree, and felt something bite him. There were several large papery balls in the low spindly branches, balls of dry leaves knitted together with a silvery web. Tiny creatures swarmed out of them, disturbed by Jem’s movement. He flicked a green ant off his arm.

  ‘What are ya doing, kicking a little dog like that? You should be ashamed of yourselves!’ shouted Maddy. She was so angry she was shaking.

  Jem’s stomach plummeted. Three against eight. Not good odds. He nervously brushed away another biting ant.

  ‘Ya should be ashamed of yaselves!’ mimicked another kid in a high voice, and they all laughed. ‘Well maybe we’ll just give youse punks a kickin’ instead!’ And they began to move towards Maddy, grinning malevolently. Jem glanced around in panic.

  ‘Tyler! Quick!’ whispered Jem, and he snatched off a branch with a large green ant nest in it, and rushed at the nearest, biggest gang member, whacking him over the head and chest with it.

  ‘What the – oww! Aahh! Gerroff! Aaahh!’ and the big boy began to dance around, tearing at his clothes. His mates stopped moving and stared at him, confused. The boy was twisting and gyrating like he’d suddenly gone crazy.

  ‘Bombs away!’ shouted Tyler and tossed a football-shaped nest at the next boy. It broke into pieces, spraying angry green ants all over the rest of the mob. Jem followed immediately with another. Within seconds they were all yelling and jumping around, and then the gang took off, running away into the darkness, leaving bits of clothing behind them as they fled. Jem and Tyler were doing their own version of the same dance, flapping their arms and swiping at the ants that crawled and stung all over them. Maddy began to laugh hysterically, fear and relief crashing over her in a big wave. Jem stopped slapping ants, and patted her anxiously on the back.

  ‘It’s okay Maddy, they’re gone now, they’re gone … C’mon, let’s have a look at the dog.’

  It was a half-grown mongrel pup and it was probably the ugliest dog he’d ever seen, Jem thought. He had a short squashed nose, long floppy ears, and a low slung body with short legs. Thin patchy fur stuck out all over him. He shrank away from them at first, but when Jem spoke softly to him and let him smell his hand, he stopped whimpering, and allowed Jem to feel his flanks and legs for damage. There was blood on his nose, and a couple of teeth were broken, but otherwise the pup didn’t look too badly hurt.

  ‘Poor little bloke,’ muttered Jem, anger rising up in him now the danger had passed. He untied the string from the tap, and the pup shivered and whined.

  ‘What’re we gunna do with him?’ asked Tyler, picking green ants out of his hair.

  ‘We’ll take him home,’ said Maddy. ‘We can’t leave him here, they might come back.’ At this thought, all three of them straightened up and looked around, and decided to make tracks immediately. Jem bent to pick up the pup, but it shrank back in fright, snarled, and snapped at his fingers before running off into the darkness.

  ‘Oww!’ yelled Jem, shaking his hand.

  ‘Ha! That’s gratitude for you,’ snorted Tyler. ‘C’mon, let’s get outta here.’

  ‘What about Zac?’ said Tyler as they rode away from the park.

  ‘I think we’re just gunna have to tell Mum,’ said Maddy. ‘She’ll freak! I dunno what else we can do. She’ll have to call the police I guess.’

  When they arrived home, they were horrified to see all the lights on, and a police car parked in the driveway. They looked at each other nervously, and grimly began to climb the stairs.

  Zac was sitting at the kitchen table, his mother Carol on one side of him, red-eyed and sniffing, and a young policewoman on the other. A wide-eyed Celie was perched on a chair next to her mother. Another police officer stood by the sink, his arms folded. And across the table from Carol and Zac were Karen and Steve.

  Karen looked pale and had dark shadows under her eyes, but her face lit up and she sagged in her seat with relief as they filed in through the back door. Steve also looked relieved, even though he frowned severely at them.

  The policeman by the sink unfolded his arms, and spoke briefly into his walkie talkie: ‘Yeah – call off the alert, they’re all home safe.’ He looked at them sternly, and said, ‘It’s been a bit of a night for runaway kids, huh?’

  ‘We didn’t run away,’ said Tyler indignantly. ‘We were looking for Zac!’

  Maddy, as relieved as anyone to see he was safely at home, rounded on Zac fiercely.

  ‘WHERE WERE YOU?’ she yelled. ‘We nearly got ourselves killed trying to find you, you big idiot!’

  Zac blinked at her, looking miserable and mutinous at the same time. He sat at the table with his chin on his hands, bit his lip, and stared back down at the table again.

  ‘Perhaps the young lady can tell us what’s been going on?’ asked the policewoman.

  Maddy took a deep breath. ‘Jem woke me up because Celie told him that Zac wasn’t in his room. She was scared being at home by herself –’

  ‘I’m going to KILL Ricky when I get my hands on him!’ said Carol fiercely.

  ‘– so we got on our bikes and looked around everywhere for him. Then we saw these horrible kids kicking this dog around in the park, and when I yelled at them to stop, they were gunna bash us up, but Jem and Tyler chucked green ant nests at them, and they ran away. Then we came home, because we couldn’t find Zac and we didn’t know what else to do.’

  ‘You chucked green ant nests at them?’ said the officer leaning against the sink.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Tyler. ‘It was Jem’s idea. There were eight of them an’ three of us. We wouldn’ta had a hope. But they ran a mile once the ants started chewing into ’em. It was brilliant!’

  ‘Green ants,’ repeated the young female officer, jotting notes on her pad and looking mystified. The other officer looked like he was trying very hard not to laugh.

  ‘But how did Zac get home? Where was he?’ asked Jem.

  ‘We found young Zac here wandering along the Esplanade by himself at midnight, so we picked him up and brought him home,’ answered the police officer by the sink. ‘Not the safest place for a young bloke to be at night,’ he added. ‘And not the safest place for you kids to be either. I know the gang that hangs around the park there. They’re a nasty mob – you could’ve been hurt. What you should have done, was to wake up your parents, and tell them Zac was missing, not go out looking for him yourselves.’ He stood up, and nodded to his partner. ‘We’ll be off now. No harm done. But just remember what I said. All of you were very lucky tonight, not to get into a lot more trouble.’

  Karen showed the officers out, and Carol stood up.

  ‘Thanks for trying to find Zac,’ she said, as she ushered Zac and Celie out the door. ‘He went out lookin’ for his dad, he says. He was cranky ’cause he didn’t take him to the footy tonight.’ She paused, and then said, ‘You should’ve woken Mum and Dad like the policeman said, not gone out yourselves. But I know you were just lookin’ out for your mate. Thanks kids.’ And she took Zac and Celie by the hand and said goodnight to Steve as Karen came back into the kitchen. Maddy, Jem and Tyler sat down at the table.

  Steve rocked his wheelchair back and forth, lookin
g from one to the other. ‘Why the heck didn’t you wake us up? What were you thinking, going out in the middle of the night like that? You know it’s not safe!’

  ‘You would’ve just yelled at everybody, and Zac would’ve got into even more trouble, and everyone would’ve been more miserable than they are now!’ said Maddy passionately, and burst into tears. The tension of being out at night on their own, and how near they’d come to being bashed by the gang in the park, flooded over her and she dropped her head onto her arms and sobbed. Jem and Tyler sat awkwardly either side of her, not knowing what to do or say.

  Steve opened his mouth to speak but Karen shook her head at him, gathered Maddy up in her arms and hustled her off to bed. ‘You too, fellas, c’mon. It’s been a big night. We’ll talk about it in the morning, okay?’

  Jem lay on top of his sheets, thinking about the little dog. He was only trying to help it, and it bit him. It made him think of his father. What was it, when people got hurt, that made them turn on the people helping them? He could, just faintly, hear his parents arguing in their bedroom. He felt a rush of misery wash over him, and wanted to cry, just like Maddy.

  Suddenly, Tyler gave a yelp, and sat up. ‘Ahh! I’ve still got green ants biting me …’ He squirmed around finding the culprits, and then lay back again. ‘That was sweet, seeing those guys run for it!’ And he closed his eyes with a happy grin, and was snoring in no time.

  Jem and Tyler were in the kitchen, leaning on the kitchen table, chins in their hands, looking and feeling gloomy. Karen and Steve had talked to the three of them earlier that morning, and extracted promises from them that they’d never go out at night on their own again. Maddy looked uncomfortable for a moment, but had brightened up soon after, and gone off to meet her friends at the Plaza shopping centre. Karen looked at the two boys and put down her coffee mug.