* * *
That’s okay, you don’t have to look. It doesn’t even really hurt, I guess. But I bet you’re wondering anyhow, like we were - what Afsoon Rahimi was doing in Home Country, at night, tapping on windows! And hitting people on the noggin with sticks! And talking in a Flying Fox voice and asking for Ava! Which you know, just passing Ava down to her isn’t so easy. You ‘member how far down it is? And you might not have got to notice yet, but ‘Soon’s pretty little. I mean, for her age an’ all!
Mister Shoomba says that’s because people who lived in Refugee Camp only got curds and whey to eat. Like little Miss Muffet. I don’t even know what curds and whey are, but Mister Shoomba says, with good Australian food in her belly, ‘Soon’s going to grow into an Amazon. An Amazon, he says, is a kind of lady who lives in forests and chops off people’s heads to collect.
He says when Amazons get too many heads and run out of places to put them, they change around and start to hunt hats instead - to put on all their hunted heads. They can steal your hat right off your head while you’re walking down a path, he says. And you won’t even know it’s gone ‘til you reach up to scratch! Or maybe sometimes come into houses at night and creep around, looking for hats. He says if your hat disappears and you don’t know why, there’s an Amazon around in the neighbourhood and you got to hope she doesn’t find any new spaces to put chopped heads. I don’t know. I’d just give ‘Soon my hat if she wanted it but she doesn’t seem so interested. Mister Shoomba says it might be a puberty thing and when she starts to get boobs, nobody’s head or hat will be safe.
Do you think that’s right? I reckon you’d prob’ly know ‘bout Amazons - because of your mind being where it is and all. In a jungle. Do you know?
Okay well maybe I’ll ask again another time. Yeah. That’s what I’ll do. I’ll ask another time. ‘Cause right then I was pretty sure she wasn’t an Amazon. Not yet anyhow. But she was at my window.
I didn’t know what to do for a minute after she whacked me but then Ava started trying to get on the sill to jump out and I was worried she’d get hurt and anyhow I didn’t like to think about ‘Soon being outside, so close to Under, and all alone. So I reached Ava down and ‘Soon caught her and then she said, “Now you.”
I said, “Why? What’s up? Is something wrong?” And she said, “Of course something’s wrong! Come out! Or we’ll have to do everything ourselves, Ava and me!”
So I climbed out and I scratched my leg getting over the window ledge and I was a little frightened to drop into the dark but ‘Soon held onto my legs and it was okay. Still, I guess I made a lot of noise because all the Flying Foxes flew away, all rubbery wing sounds and ‘Soon said, “Noisy Neville! They know we’re out now and they’re going to tell.”
“Tell who?” I asked. But then Ava started kind of whimpering and we looked
and saw the light back on in Hayley’s bus and her throwing a big shadow across the yard.
“Who’s that?” she called out. “Beau? You peeking in my windows? Get your skinny arse back in the house or I’ll tell dad! I’m warning you!”
Me ‘n’ ‘Soon ‘n’ Ava, we kind of slipped in Under - just at the edge - and hid behind the first stump. Not because of Hayley but because of Beau! ‘Cause if he really was out, he might mistake us for something and shoot us with his pellet gun! We stayed very quiet for a bit but if Beau was out, we didn’t see him.
That was my first time in Under at night. It’s not a good place. In the day it’s still okay, ‘specially with the magic words. It’s just the dead forest then and it’s nice and cool! But at night, there are noises! Like scratchy, snuffly ‘Things’ might be there. ‘Soon says they’re prob’ly demons. They got lots of demons where she comes from and she says maybe some came with them or maybe even with you, to Australia. But I don’t know. So far, I just think they’re Things.
When you were at the war once, me ‘n’ Ava found a bandicoot in Under - smelled him out, like, because he was dead and his head was right off. Mum came and buried him and she said sometimes terriers will shake little animals to death - maybe even shake them right in half - and she gave Ava a very annoyed look. Which I don’t know what else might shake a bandicoot in half but I don’t think Ava would either! Mister Shoomba said it’s a very bad thing to bury an animal without its head because the head in one place starts to squeak and the legs in the other place start digging, trying to get it all back together again. He says it’s also a big worry for the Great Tiggywand who kind of is in charge of deads as well as born-agains.
Anyhow, it all makes me think that when I put my trap door in the floor, I’m going to need a lock on it. Unless maybe I dig a trap. Like the Mongolovian wolf hunter! I wish it could be Amazons, ‘cause then I could hang a hat over the trap and if I caught one, I could say she could keep the hat but we don’t want her hanging around in Under. If it’s something else, I don’t know what to do.
Anyhow, we all heard the noises and I was just going to say what do you think it is, but before I could say it, there were eyes - not red like flying fox eyes, but golden ones. Just two, looking at us and then away and then back. It might’ve been a demon I guess. Or maybe the dead bandicoot eyes, looking around for the leggy part.
Anyhow, I was glad when ‘Soon said, “Come on. We have to get away now.”
Her and Ava went off then and I followed but I was too busy looking back at the eyes and I caught my pyjamas on the ant capping and tore ‘em. I wanted to go back in the window then, but I needed ‘Soon’s help to get up to it and she wouldn’t.
“Not yet,” she said. “I need you. Say your words. Don’t be scared.”
I lied a little bit and said I wasn’t scared; I just wanted to go back to bed. But then Ava said, “Neville the Less.” So I went.
I followed them ‘round to South Side and through the paper barks to the edge of Shoomba Territory and I figured then she was taking us to poop over there so I said, “I don’t have to poop right now! And Ava already did her business too, before bed time!”
“Aha!” she said, like it was my idea and not hers and like I’d said, ‘I’ve got a monster poop ready to do’ instead of that I didn’t have to go at all!
“Now is excellent!” she said. “If there are demons in your Under, Terrible Bill will be off watching them and sharpening his claws and there will be no danger to our bums!”
And she waded straight out into the grass and pulled down her pants and squatted there in the middle. I knew if Mister Shoomba turned on his big search light and caught her, she’d be in so much trouble! And he’d say it’s because she didn’t learn to poop right when she was in Refugee Camp and maybe even get her sent back there to learn better! So me ‘n’ Ava went with her and I pulled down my jammies and pretended, so if she got sent away, me ‘n’ Ava would get sent with her. But none of us really had to go so, really, all of us were just squatting there, pretending. Which was still a worry because if Mister Shoomba caught us, he wouldn’t know we were pretending. And also, what if Bill was finished sharpening his claws? What if he or maybe even whatever Thing it was in Under sneaked up and went for one of our bums?
Anyhow nothing came so we just squatted there and I could tell she was thinking something over. After a while she said, “Look up.” I did, and I saw them and heard them at the same time; big birds - night geese - just grey wiggles against the stars, flying over Shoomba Territory. Their voices were like little, far-away people talking in another room when you’re almost asleep. Something about them, though, seemed to mean something to ‘Soon.
“That’s it,” she said, standing and pulling up her pants. “Let’s go.”
Three on the Sea.
Side by side, the three waded out to where Lightning Bug swung on her hidden anchor, Ava leaping against the waves, chesting them aside in her eagerness. At the last, Neville the Less lifted her over the gunnels before turning to Afsoon, so small that she too bounced off the bottom with each step, gasping always for air
. He made a stirrup of his hands and she stepped into it without hesitation, the little bones of her foot flexing against his palms.
Inside, the ship was bare and brooding - too long with ghosts even to recognise the sudden presence of life.
“It’s funny!” Neville whispered, feeling splinters rise from the derelict’s long- untrodden deck. “So long since the storm! Why didn’t anyone come to take her back?”
“Going back is only for the spirit world.” Afsoon replied. “That’s what Riff says. Here, he says, it is only ahead.”
Ava, sniffing suspiciously at the broken wheel, seemed to agree, producing a sad echo: “O-o-on-ly.”
With no clear idea of what to do next, the three scanned the night. Perhaps there would be some evidence of direction. A light. Maybe even a horizon. But the speckled darkness of the sea stretched away on all sides until it met the speckled darkness of the sky, and the waves sighed endlessly in every direction.
“We don’t know the way, ‘Soon,” said Neville presently, because her wish had finally begun to dawn on him. “To the Island of Nobodies. We would get lost!”
She shook her head, her black hair a shadow against the water, and raised her eyes to the sky.
“Lost. What is ‘lost’? What Raff says to Riff when his temper is lost . . . do something, she says. Don’t be still. Go find it.”
“So what does he do?”
“He beats on the Folly with his hammers. And his temper comes back to him.”
Overhead, another flock of night geese was passing, locked in their V-formation, one voice amongst them softly honking out a ghostly tale.
“They know the way,” she said. “From up there by the stars, they can see.”
“D’you think so?” asked Neville, who was torn between wanting to know and not really wanting to know at all. “I wonder if Cookie was here, if he could tell us?”
In response Afsoon, as though he’d leaned across and pinched her, began to haul on the anchor.
“What’re you doing, ‘Soon?”
“If we don’t look, we can’t find,” she declared.
And the Lightning Bug, as though it had never known any sense of being becalmed, turned its prow to the south, to follow in the wake of the night geese.
How long they sailed, Neville couldn’t tell, but the Evening Star fell into the sea in the west and a sliver of moon rose from it in the east. There was no wind, but it didn’t matter because there was no sail to tend. There was no sound of a motor and that didn’t matter either, because there was no motor to tend. Even so, long after the last flight of night geese had disappeared, the Lightning Bug continued to skim along, shuddering under the pressure of some power no greater than that of a dream.
Eventually they passed an isolated rock - Holden Rock - and the little ship swung near to see what sign of life there might be. There was none and they sailed on. In a while, Ava placed her head between her paws and let the night air lull her. Neville and Afsoon, however, remained alert, sitting on the boat’s rails, each alone in the privacy of their own thoughts.
At a point, out of the deepest of ocean-borne silences, Afsoon sighed and murmured his name, as his mother sometimes did. “Neville the Less.” As though the name was part of a clue to some long lost memory.
And Neville, his mind so full of his own concerns over the Quiet Man and the Things in Under, was moved to remember both her pain and her witcherly insights. She caught him looking and, for a moment, the sliver of moon seemed caught in her eyes as she gazed fiercely back at him.
“I want to tell you,” she said. “Tonight I was woken to a dream.”
“Woken from a dream, you mean.”
“No. Woken to. It was Riff’s dream and it came to me and woke me.”
“Waah! How did you know it was his?”
“Because I know his dreams, Neville. And they know me.”
Neville swallowed deeply, shivering at the image of dreams stalking the night, tapping the shoulders of people they wanted to inhabit. And what a long, shimmering, bony-knuckled thing it’d be, the one belonging to Riff. Or even to the gentle and beautiful Parisa, both of them having known so much terror in their lives.
“It doesn’t seem right, ‘Soon - for another person’s dream to come looking for someone! And what about secrets! What if it let you see secrets that Riff wanted to keep hidden?”
“I didn’t ask for it, Neville. It asked for me. Anyhow, you wouldn’t like to know The Quiet Man’s secret?”
“What secret?”
“Riff says he must have one. Why else would a man tell nothing at all, he asks. Many men have gone to the war, he says. He was not there alone. Many are still there! So why are his words locked in his throat, Riff asks; unless they’re holding back a terrible secret?” She laid a hand on his arm to ensure his full attention. “These are things Riff and Raff - and me through their dreams - we know about, Neville. What Raff says is that whatever unhappy thing is locked away by his silence . . . if others knew of it . . . there would be no more secret! And if there was no more secret, his words would be unlocked. And he would speak again! That’s what she says.”
The words of Neville’s own mother came rushing back to him, clear as a drop of rainwater: ‘Soldiers are made to do things.’ And he thought to explain that to Afsoon; that neither Riff nor Raff were real soldiers, like the Quiet Man; could not know that soldiers had no choices about what they saw or did. Therefore unhappy things could not be their fault and so needn’t be kept secret! So there was no secret. But before he could speak, Ava rolled onto her back and yawned out, “Se-e-cret.”
All he could think to say then was, “If someone did have a secret to keep, I think it wouldn’t be anyone else’s business!”
“Neville,” ‘Soon said earnestly, taking her hand away. “If a secret makes even a Hero into someone who can’t talk . . . how can it not be his own son’s business? To help him! To protect him!”
It was an argument too dense and personal for Neville so he veered off, into defensive anger. “Kids don’t protect parents, ‘Soon. It’s the other way ‘round! And anyhow again, if people don’t want to tell you . . . you can’t make them!”
“No. But still. Since he came from the war, he doesn’t speak and you have your Things in Under. And since us Rahimis came from the war, we have our missing Anosh. These things are so. And Riff’s dream says they are connected to each other and to you and me. And it says, how to fix it is for you and me! That’s what it says! Now! Do you want to hear or not?”
He thought carefully. Hearing about one of Riff’s dreams - a man who was basically a stranger - would not seem as disloyal as hearing about those of your own father. And also, why would ‘Soon want him to hear it unless it told something useful - maybe even something that would help drive away the Things?
“Okay,” he said uncertainly. “But just this once.”
And so she started. First, it was a dream she’d told before, of pirates and the fighting for Anosh. Riff, drowning men to try to save his son. But with two new things.
“This time, though, it was not Anosh he fought for! It was me!”
“You?”
“Yes. Two pirate kings; in this dream they were saying to Riff - shouting at Riff - ‘She is just a girl! A girl is Nobody! Now we will take her too!’”
“And Riff fought for you?”
“He fought. And Raff also fought. Like demons. And many of the kings’ pirates were drowned. But not in the ocean, Neville. This time they were drowned in dust!”
“They were drowned in dust?”
“In red dust. And shot with guns and stabbed with knives and struck with rocks and they fell . . . into the dust.”
“Waah! And so . . . what happened?”
“In this dream, there were many other families like ours - many others. But they were not enough. Because the pirates too, they shot and stabbed and struck and drowned - two of ours for every one of theirs. And in the end, Riff and Raff . . . they fle
d.”
“They fled? With you?”
“With me.”
“But not Anosh?”
“Anosh was already gone. Only me this time.”
“But you saw the pirate kings? You saw their faces?”
She shook her head sadly. “One giant man, I saw . . . with no face.” She was so still as to have almost disappeared. “There were others with faces, though; one . . . that made me come for you.”
“Who? Who was it?”
“It was your father, Neville. The Quiet Man. He was there.”
“The Quiet Man? In Riff’s dream?”
“Yes.”
“With the pirates?”
“Just there. Watching. Watching and . . . not watching.”
“Watching and not watching?”
“It was a dream, Neville. Sometimes dreams are not sure of the truth!”
“Well that part . . . that’s not truth! He’s a Hero, ‘Soon! He would’ve been helping! Not helping the pirates! Helping Riff! And . . . your mum!”
“Yes? But what if his secret is that in Afghanistan Riff and Raff were his enemies! And so now, maybe to think they’ve followed him home to Australia for more fighting!”
“No, that’s not right! He wouldn’t think that! And I know what you’re trying to do too! You’re trying to trick me! Into saying it’s okay to look in his dreams! But it’s not and I won’t! ‘Cause even if what you said was true, and it’s not true, but even if it was, it wouldn’t be his fault! Soldiers don’t get to say, ‘Soon! They have to get orders. They have to follow their orders!”
“Neville, listen! The dream doesn’t know about orders. It says only that he was at the war. So maybe, for some time, he forgot who his order said to fight. Riff says a soldier in a war forgets all truth and remembers only to try to live.”
“Well not the Quiet Man! He’s a real, proper soldier and a Hero and he wouldn’t forget!”
“Yes, okay. But why so quiet then, Neville? What secret has stolen his words?”
“I don’t know but you watch! When he comes back, he’ll tell all about not being Riff’s enemy and it won’t be anything like the dream said! You’ll see!”
He might have swung the tiller for home then, if for no other reason than to instantly remind the Quiet Man that Rahimis were friends, not enemies; that if they were the reason for his silence, then his jungled mind could come home and not be lost anymore. But something stopped him. Perhaps it was apprehension - that the impenetrability of the Quiet Man’s invisible world would always defeat him. Or the very visible slump of ‘Soon’s shoulders, speaking as it did of an even greater loneliness than his own. Then again, perhaps it was simply Ava’s quiet little moan: “You’ll se-e-e.”
“Anyways, ‘Soon!” he offered tentatively. “We’re just kids! It’s not going to help anyone, us going looking like this and listening to dreams ‘n’ not even knowing . . . how to get anywhere!”
“We said before, we would go together, Neville. Wherever. Have you changed your mind?”
“No, but . . . we don’t know what to do!”
He could see anger rising in her now - impatience with his timidity.
“Don’t know, don’t know! I know this, Neville! Your Quiet Man has not truly come back. And Anosh has not come back! And now they have come for me!”
“Come for you? Who? Who’s come?”
“The pirates, Neville! I heard them; heard their voices in the dream! Shoomba and the Duke!”
He was dumbfounded.
“Shoomba and the Duke? No! How? They can’t be! They’re just . . . ! Anyways what about your name? Your name protects you! You said!”
“Yes, my name. But the dream reminds me too. I am a girl. And girls are Nobody to these pirates. They want us to always be Nobodies. To be stupid. To marry fat ugly men who will beat us. I have seen it now, on television!”
“Waah! But my mum says that stuff can’t happen here! Not in Australia! And anyhow, even you said, pirates wouldn’t come here!”
“No.” Her voice was trembling now, as he’d never heard it before. “I said when they are not pirating, they pretend to be ordinary people. But if Shoomba is the big fat pirate king without a face, Neville? And the Duke is one of his angry soldiers! And they pretend to fish in boats like this Lightning Bug, but then they sail out and capture children! Like Anosh and like me! Sometimes my dream - Riff’s dream - it even wonders if maybe it is my whole family will be stolen away from me and who will know me then? Maybe even my friend, Neville the Less . . . maybe he will be a stolen boy, like Anosh! And Ava and me - we will be alone!”
Neville shook his head and stamped his foot, causing the boat to rock dramatically.
“You won’t be alone, ‘Soon! Nobody has to be alone in Australia! Because bad people are way away, in other dumb countries where people don’t know how to think!”
He felt terrible the moment the ‘don’t know how to think’ words were out. It was the sort of mean-spirited selfish comment the Duke might’ve shouted over top of the Folly. But the wound that was there in Afsoon’s eyes was already deeper than any barb of his could reach. She rose to face him, looking up from her tiny height. Somewhere in the sky a bird chimed a single note.
“You are so sure of all these things, Neville. That Shoomba is only Shoomba and the Quiet Man has no secret to hide and no others will be stolen! But still, you are frightened to go with Ava and me.”
“Because what could we do, ‘Soon? If Shoomba was the pirate king, what could we even do?”
“We could kill him, Neville.”
“Kill him? Kill Mister Shoomba?”
“If he is the pirate king, he is an enemy. Enemies are killed. That is how to be safe.”
“But . . . how?”
She shrugged; a minor detail. “We will find the magic iron cyclone bolt to be our weapon. And Ava too. She will also be our weapon.”
He looked away and thought. The Quiet Man, in Riff’s dream memory? And Mister Shoomba a pirate king? And the Duke too? And to think of killing? How could she have gotten all that so wrong? And yet, on the other hand! There were the Things! And the Quiet Man’s mind was lost in a jungle! And there was an invisible world.
“‘Soon, you said before, the Flying Foxes were going to tell! Tell who?”
“I don’t know, but I know they watch with the red fire of their eyes. And I asked Cookie about their terrible squawks. ‘Are they about the pirates?’ I asked. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Pirates!’”
Once, Neville had heard Mum and Mister Shoomba talking about ‘Soon. Mister Shoomba’d said, “Psycho-Annie in the makin’, that one! Psycho-annie-lists’ll have a field day!” And Mum had said, “After what she’s been through, it’s a wonder she functions at all! Poor little mite!”
He’d thought then that something might be wrong with ‘Soon - that something about her might be broken. But looking at her now, so deep with determination and focus despite her fear, he knew there was strength in her that neither Mum nor Mister Shoomba could guess at. She was a girl whose parents had drowned pirates in red dust; a girl who could channel minds; a girl who would poop in the middle of Shoomba Territory. And he had no doubt that she would go on. Without him if need be. To confront the stealers of Anosh. To say, ‘I am here! I am a girl! I am a Somebody who will fight you!’ With every ounce of her tiny being.
So, if there was a pirate king waiting at Shoomba Castle where they seemed to be bound, they would certainly be sailing into a very, very dangerous predicament! But if ‘Soon, the future Amazon, would talk of killing even now, even before any sign of boobs, and if she had the Terrier-of-Death on side as she obviously did, and if they could find the magic cyclone bolt before meeting Shoomba, then an ever-increasing amount of that danger would be Shoomba’s to worry about.
He took off his cap and offered it to her and she, without a word, took it and placed it on her head.
“I’m not frightened,” he lied. “I want to stay with you.”
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