The January Stars

by Kate Constable

  ‘Stop whingeing. This is heaps more comfortable than some places I’ve slept.’ Tash was the veteran of spontaneous sleepovers at her friends’ houses, and occasionally went camping with them. She even kept a toothbrush and deodorant in her bag, to be prepared.

  Clancy, who was attached to the comfort of her own bed, said nothing. But even she had to admit that it was kind of exciting to be camped out on the living room floor of an empty house, with moonlight flooding in and birds chirruping sleepily in the trees outside. And she was nearly as tired as Pa. It had been a long day.

  Tash leaned against the wall, thumbing a text to Tim and Harriet in New Zealand. ‘Just getting in first … All fine here, talk soon, love you, kiss kiss.’

  Clancy startled awake when Tash’s phone buzzed. ‘Mum and Dad?’ she hissed.

  ‘No, it’s Polly.’ Tash shoved the phone under a fold of curtain. ‘I won’t pick up. She’ll think I’m out of juice. I nearly am, anyway.’

  Clancy snuggled down again. Today had been fun, mostly, but she’d be relieved when Pa had been delivered safely back to The Elms. Hopefully no one would ever find out what they’d done … Hopefully Tash’s phone battery would last till morning so they could call Comet Taxis for Sidhu to come and pick them up …

  ‘Tash?’ she whispered.

  ‘Yo.’

  ‘Are you sure this is okay? Us being here?’

  ‘Of course! This is Pa’s house.’

  ‘I guess,’ murmured Clancy doubtfully. Then she remembered that at least Nan seemed to approve. That was a comforting thought.

  There was a rustling from the other side of the room as Tash wriggled out of her nest.

  ‘What are you doing?’ whispered Clancy.

  ‘I forgot to put the security chain on the door.’

  Clancy clutched the curtains under her chin. ‘Do you think a gang of home invaders might break in?’

  ‘Jeez, Clancy, no!’ A pause. ‘But Pa always did it before he went to bed. Remember?’

  ‘How could I remember? I was always asleep.’

  Tash laughed softly in the shadows. ‘Fair point.’

  ‘Tash?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I just thought … nobody in the whole world knows where we are right now.’

  ‘Hey, you’re right. Awesome.’ Tash’s voice was sounding sleepy.

  A longer pause.

  ‘Tash?’ whispered Clancy. ‘If Nan could see us now, what do you think she’d say?’

  ‘Shut up and go to sleep, probably …’

  ‘What’s funny?’

  ‘I didn’t laugh.’

  ‘But I heard you.’

  ‘Must have been Pa.’

  ‘It didn’t sound like Pa …’

  Tash heaved herself over. ‘Shut up, Clancy-Pants, I’m trying to sleep.’

  ‘Are you sure you didn’t laugh?’ whispered Clancy after a moment.

  But there was no reply.

  Clancy’s last thought before she fell asleep was that she wished she’d brought a toothbrush, too.

  Clancy was dreaming.

  In her dream, she was sleeping in the pink room that she and Tash had shared when the family lived at Rosella, the twins’ old room, and Nan was bending over the bed, gently shaking her shoulder. Clancy, her grandmother whispered, it’s time to wake up now…

  Clancy woke with a jump.

  It was morning, and the front door was rattling and thumping as someone tried to force their way inside.

  ‘Tash!’ squeaked Clancy.

  But Tash was already up, creeping to the door like a ninja, the nest of curtains kicked aside. Pa was awake, blinking blearily around as if he’d forgotten where he was, his curtain-covering slithering to the floor. Clancy huddled beneath the fabric, her heart beating fast.

  The stranger outside pushed the door impatiently, but the chain held. There was a brief silence, then the person put their mouth to the crack and called sharply, ‘Is somebody in there?’

  Clancy’s eyes widened.

  Tash stood close to the door, but out of sight. Boldly she called, ‘Who’s there?’

  ‘Who are you?’ demanded the woman outside.

  ‘I asked first,’ countered Tash.

  The door shook violently. ‘What are you doing here? This house is supposed to be vacant.’

  Clancy crawled over to shelter behind her sister. ‘Tash, do something!’

  Tash yelled, ‘This is our grandfather’s house, and he’s here with us!’

  ‘Oh, really?’ said the voice. ‘It says here, the owner of the property is …’ there was a brief pause ‘… a Ms Pauline Sanderson.’

  Pa let out an indignant roar.

  ‘She’s our aunt!’ called Tash. ‘And she’s not the owner, our grandfather is! He’s right here!’

  ‘Then perhaps I’d better speak to him.’

  Tash screwed up her face. ‘You can’t, he’s … asleep.’

  ‘Sp-sp-sp!’ protested Pa, struggling to lower his stiff legs from the window seat, and smoothing down his hair with one hand.

  ‘Can you wake him up so we can sort this out?’ The woman sounded sceptical. ‘I’m the real estate agent, Melissa Katselas, from Whately and Robinson. I’m here to do the condition report, and you guys were supposed to be out of the house three days ago.’

  ‘We’re not the tenants!’ shouted Tash. ‘I keep trying to tell you – my grandfather owns this house.’

  There was a short silence.

  ‘I’m going to count to five,’ called Melissa. ‘And if this alleged grandfather of yours isn’t out here to explain to me what you’re doing, then I am calling the police and reporting a break-in.’

  ‘Sp-sp-sp!’ called Pa. ‘N-n-n-nah!’ He was trying to force out his words, but they wouldn’t come.

  ‘Tash!’ Clancy hissed from the window. ‘She’s doing it, she’s calling them!’

  Tash fumbled with the chain and flung the door open. ‘My grandfather can’t talk to you,’ she said desperately. ‘He has aphasia.’

  The woman swung round suspiciously. ‘He has what?’

  ‘Aphasia. He had a stroke, and now he can’t speak anymore. He can say “yes” and “no” and “bugger”, and sometimes other words sort of burst out, but only when he’s not thinking about it, not when he tries to say them on purpose—’

  ‘Never heard of it.’ Melissa folded her arms.

  She was thin, sharp-nosed and dressed in black pants and a leather jacket. Maybe she was a secret agent, thought Clancy, peering through the crack in the curtains. A spy – an assassin!

  ‘What about your parents? Are they in there with you?’

  ‘They’re in New Zealand!’ called Clancy.

  ‘I’m calling Pauline,’ announced Melissa, punching a number into her phone.

  Clancy and Tash exchanged desperate glances. But after a moment Melissa removed the phone from her ear. ‘Voicemail …’

  Tash let out a sigh of relief.

  ‘Let me talk to your grandfather,’ said Melissa. ‘If he’s really here. Or else I will call the police.’ She made a sudden lunge to get through the doorway, but Tash slammed the door shut and twisted the deadlock so that Melissa couldn’t open it.

  Clancy cried out in terror, ‘Tash, we’re going to be arrested!’

  ‘No, we’re not.’ Tash was racing around the living room, pushing her feet into her runners, seizing the tin with Pa’s stash of cash and shoving it into her backpack. She grabbed her phone and jammed it in on top. ‘Here, Clance, you take this. Ready to go, Pa? Cos when I say run, we’re going to run.’

  Clancy was beside the door, struggling to zip up the overstuffed backpack. ‘Chain!’ commanded Tash in a whisper. Clancy gently eased the security chain from its groove with fingers that trembled, doing her best to be as quiet as possible. Tash stood by, gripping the handles of Pa’s wheelchair. Outside, they could hear Melissa the (secret) agent saying, ‘I don’t want to call the police. I don’t want to report you for breaking and entering, but
if I have to …’

  ‘Ready?’ hissed Tash.

  Clancy nodded.

  ‘Go!’ shouted Pa unexpectedly, and Clancy twisted the deadlock and threw the door open. She caught a glimpse of Melissa’s shocked face as Tash pushed Pa’s wheelchair at her like a battering ram and she leapt out of the way, and then they were surging up the drive, Tash’s backpack bumping on Clancy’s shoulder, Pa whooping with excitement as Tash grunted, head down, driving the wheelchair up the slope with all her strength.

  Clancy heard Melissa howl, ‘—assaulting me! With a wheelchair!’ but by then they were at the top of the driveway and Pa’s chair was swerving down the street with Tash clutching the handles and Clancy sprinting behind them.

  ‘Come on!’ yelled Tash.

  ‘Ah! Ah!’ Pa shouted, but Clancy couldn’t tell if he was alarmed or delighted.

  ‘Are you going to call the taxi now?’ yelled Clancy.

  ‘No time!’ Tash shouted back.

  She swung the wheelchair round a corner and they ran down the next hill at top speed, Tash pulling back hard, barely keeping the chair under control. The air was cool and fresh, and the sun poured down the hillsides of the national park in a flood of liquid gold. Pa raised his left arm and waved it gleefully. ‘Woooh!’

  As they ran, Clancy heard the wail of a siren.

  ‘Tash! She did call the police! They’re coming!’

  Without missing a beat, Tash swerved the chair off the road and onto the gravel track that led into the same dense patch of forest where she’d hidden as a little girl on moving day so many years ago. Clancy stumbled after her, tripping over the ruts in the path. The wheelchair bumped and rattled and Pa protested.

  Clancy gasped as she noticed a rough carving on the trunk of a tall, slim gum tree: a five pointed star, and a crescent moon. ‘Tash! This way!’

  They ducked into a sheltered pocket, just off the path, where they could hide in the thick undergrowth. Clancy leaned against the tree, clutching a stitch in her side, her heart hammering. Tash peered out as the police car zoomed past, siren shrieking. Something bright yellow crunched under its wheels; fragments flew and clattered.

  Tash whipped round. ‘Where’s my phone?’

  Clancy gulped. ‘In the bag …’

  Tash snatched the backpack. ‘You didn’t zip it up!’

  ‘I was trying – there wasn’t time.’

  Tash rummaged. ‘My phone’s not here.’ She shoved the bag at Clancy and took off for the road, leaving Clancy to grab at the handles of Pa’s chair and slowly, painfully, bump him back along the track.

  Tash was squatting by the side of the road, silently collecting up the shattered remains of her phone.

  ‘Bugger!’ said Pa.

  ‘It must have fallen out,’ faltered Clancy. ‘When we were running—’

  ‘Oh, you think?’ Tash shot her a fierce glare. ‘Thanks, genius. And I’ve lost all my streaks … all my photos … my messages … everything!’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ whispered Clancy, stricken. ‘I’m so, so sorry!’

  Tash stood up abruptly, snapped her fingers for the pack and slung it onto her own back. Then she took the handles of Pa’s wheelchair. Clearly Clancy was not fit to be trusted with responsibility for anything.

  Before this disaster struck, Clancy had been going to tell Tash about the carving of the star and the moon on the tree, another clear sign from their grandmother. But obviously her sister wouldn’t listen now.

  Miserably Clancy followed Tash and Pa along the side of the road, bending to pick up shards of bright yellow plastic here and there. Better not to leave clues for the police to find, covered in Tash’s fingerprints and DNA, pointing out their trail …

  A thought struck her. ‘I guess we can’t ring for the taxi now.’

  Tash didn’t bother to reply, just shot a withering glance over her shoulder and marched on, pushing the wheelchair ahead of her in short, angry jerks.

  If Clancy hadn’t felt so guilty about the phone, and so jumpy about the possibility of the police car coming back, she might have enjoyed that walk. The smell of eucalyptus grew stronger as the air warmed, and cockatoos screeched gleefully from the depths of the forest. The moon still shone palely, low in the sky, a circle of tracing paper now rather than silver foil.

  When the side street joined the main highway, Tash was able to tilt the wheelchair up onto the cracked concrete footpath instead of pushing it along the edge of the bitumen.

  ‘Tash? Don’t you think we’re a bit … noticeable?’

  ‘Oh, have you got an invisibility cloak you forgot to mention? This is the only road from here.’

  Clancy lapsed back into silence. Obviously Tash wasn’t over the loss of her phone yet. Considering how much Tash loved her phone, that could take years.

  Nervously Clancy glanced back over her shoulder now and again as they trudged under the railway bridge and past the fire station, in case the police car reappeared; though if they hadn’t shown up by now, they must have driven along the other road over the hill from Pa’s place. Maybe Nan had nudged them that way somehow? Tash’s head was down, and though she wasn’t exactly panting, she was breathing hard. Pushing Pa was a real workout.

  Pa himself seemed oddly cheerful. Clancy wasn’t sure he even realised that the police were chasing them, or that Agent Melissa had evicted him from his own house. They passed the hairdresser, the pizza place, the bakery, the café. Clancy wondered if Tash would stop to buy Pa a coffee; they hadn’t had breakfast. But Clancy’s stomach was clenched tight with worry, and the thought of food made her queasy.

  Eventually Tash parked the wheelchair behind the shelter of a tree.

  ‘Tash, if we can’t call a taxi, how are we going to take Pa back to The Elms?’

  ‘No, no!’ Pa looked dismayed. He waved his hand back toward the hills, in the direction of his house.

  ‘We can’t stay here, Pa,’ said Tash.

  ‘Sp-sp-sp?’

  ‘We just can’t,’ said Tash crossly.

  ‘So, back to The Elms,’ said Clancy.

  ‘Use your peabrain,’ said Tash. ‘By the time we get there, the police will have tracked us down and they’ll be waiting for us. With warrants. We’ll be arrested.’ She lowered her voice. ‘Like Mark.’

  Clancy shot an anxious glance at their grandfather, who wasn’t supposed to know about Mark, but it was all right. Pa wasn’t listening; he was watching a flight of rainbow lorikeets swoop overhead. Under cover of their raucous screams, Clancy whispered, ‘But you said we weren’t doing anything wrong! You said it was all legal!’

  Tash shrugged. ‘What do I know? That woman seemed pretty upset.’ She leaned across to hiss in Clancy’s ear, ‘And Mum’s not here to bail us out. Or even Polly. And now they’ll probably get into trouble for leaving us on our own, too.’

  Clancy screwed up her face. ‘Could we take Pa back, and then just run away?’ she whispered. ‘They wouldn’t arrest Pa.’

  ‘But will The Elms even take him back? Remember what that nurse said?’

  ‘Neneh.’

  ‘Whatever. If they already think he’s too much trouble, what are they going to say when the police turn up?’

  ‘But they can’t just kick him out! Can they?’

  Tash spun their grandfather around to face them. ‘You don’t want to go back to The Elms, do you, Pa?’

  Mum would call that leading the witness, thought Clancy, and sure enough, Pa agreed, ‘No, no, no.’

  He hunched over in his chair, and Clancy looked at Tash, horrified.

  ‘Pa’s crying!’

  ‘I have eyes,’ snapped Tash. She knelt beside Pa’s chair and gently took his hand. ‘We won’t take you back there, I promise. You can come and live with us.’

  ‘With us?’

  ‘Why not?’ Tash straightened up and nodded across the highway. ‘The railway station’s over there. We can catch a train to the city, then tram it back to our place.’

  ‘Sp-sp-sp!’ Pa clutched at
Tash’s hand, his eyes shining.

  ‘See?’ said Tash. ‘Pa thinks it’s a good idea.’

  ‘I didn’t say it was a bad idea,’ said Clancy hastily, though she couldn’t imagine Pa and his wheelchair bumping around inside their tiny apartment. In four years, he had never even come for a visit. But at least there was a lift in their building, so there would be no problem with stairs. And Pa would be safe there until Tim and Harriet and Bruno arrived back from New Zealand. They might even be back tomorrow, she thought hopefully. Just one more night … Then Tim and Harriet could sort everything out.

  As long as the police didn’t catch up with them first. Or Agent Melissa. Or Polly. Sooner or later, Melissa was going to talk to Polly …

  So now it was official. They were on the run.

  Tash used some of Pa’s biscuit tin money to buy them all train cards and load them up with cash.

  ‘It’s like buried treasure,’ said Clancy. ‘From Pa’s pirate past. Pa’s perfidious pirate past.’

  ‘Yeah, Pa was a pirate.’ Tash rolled her eyes.

  ‘He only has one leg – well, one leg that works properly.’ Clancy was tempted to add something humorous about parrots, but she could see that Tash still wasn’t ready for humour. ‘Tash, I’m really, really sorry about your phone.’

  ‘One more thing you’ve ruined, ruiner. You can buy me a new one.’

  Clancy eyed her sister sideways, unsure if this was supposed to be a joke or not. If she could have had that one wish now, she would have used it in a heartbeat to fix Tash’s phone. She closed her eyes and imagined all the shattered pieces leaping back into place, like in a video run backward. But that really would be magic. Not even Nan’s ghost could manage that.

  Meanwhile, no phone meant no phone calls, no texts, and no way to tell Tim or Harriet or Polly where they were, even if they weren’t sure they wanted them to know. A chill trickled down Clancy’s spine. Technically Pa was an adult, so they weren’t actually all alone. But really, Pa needed more taking care of than they did, so did he still count as an adult? At least Tash was here to tell Clancy what to do. Tash was capable, Tash was responsible, Tash was brave. Their parents said that often enough. So all Clancy had to do was follow her sister’s orders, right?