by Sally Gould
***
At midnight, I crept downstairs with a sleeping bag and my pillow and snuck into the garage. I left the light on because the garage is a bit spooky. I unlocked the Monaro, made myself comfortable across the back seat and breathed in the smell of the car. It reminded me of Uncle Jack.
If Uncle Jack were alive, he might’ve looked after me and Charlie in the holidays. We could’ve watched him race the Monaro.
Nanna was the best Nanna, but two weeks of school holidays at her house would be the boringest two weeks ever. And now I’d never get to Chook’s party. I wiped my eyes on the sleeping bag.
If it wasn’t for Aunt Evil ...
6. CRICKET
Nanna was glad we came to stay with her. She needed the company because her Maltese Terrier, Winston, died. He got sick the day Archer had his party and he died at the vet’s the next day. Nanna couldn’t stop crying. Mom said Winston was like Nanna’s baby.
Now Charlie and me had to look after Nanna. It’s weird the way things happen. It’s like the Universe knew Nanna needed Charlie and me so she’d forget how much she missed Winston. And Mom and Dad needed a holiday by themselves so I got in big trouble (even though I didn’t deserve it) and then we got sent to Nanna’s and Mom and Dad went to Queensland.
It wasn’t that bad really, except for missing Chook’s party. And I couldn’t talk to Lucy anyway, because she’d gone away to Queensland. And I’d sort of got used to the old-people smell of Nanna’s house.
Charlie and me had done all these strange things. We went to a hall and watched all these old people do square dancing. Even Nanna danced half the night. The dancing was real complicated, so Charlie and me just watched. Thank God for that. There was heaps of great food, so we stuffed ourselves. Dancing was good for Nanna because it was the first time she forgot about how sad she was.
We had to do boring things too. Like hang out the washing. That doesn’t sound bad, but have you ever hung out your nanna’s undies?
And Nanna didn’t have a dishwasher, so we had to wash the dishes in the sink. That sucked. At first we had fights over who washed and who dried, so Nanna made us take it in turns. The first time I got to wash up I chucked soapsuds all over Charlie, so every time we did the dishes we had a water fight. Nanna went outside and watered the pot plants so she didn’t have to listen to us. Afterwards she thanked us for washing the kitchen floor.
Twice a week, Nanna went to the hairdresser to get her hair done. The first time, before she left, she asked us to wheel the garbage bin out to the street. We had a fight about who was going to do it. Charlie said the person who lost “paper, scissors, rock” had to.
“NO!” I screamed, “YOU ALWAYS WIN THAT GAME!”
He laughed at me. “If you take the garbage out, I’ll tell you why I always win.”
“I know why,” I said. “It’s because you’re half-alien.”
He looked so shocked, like I’d said something really nasty. I didn’t mean to be nasty. “Well,” I added, “you’ve got alien powers anyway.”
Charlie stared at me like I was crazy. Then he said, “Just do it and I’ll tell you.”
I took the garbage out while he sat on the front steps with his arms folded. He had Nanna’s telephone message pad and a pen.
I sat down facing him.
“Okay,” he said, “I’m going to write down every move we make. Then you’ll see a pattern.” He drew a line down the middle of the pad and wrote Max on one side and Me on the other.
We held out our fists and moved them up and down. One, two, three.
Charlie’s fist was in the shape of a rock.
My hand was in the shape of scissors.
“See?” I said.
We did it another four times. He won every time. What a surprise. Not.
Charlie showed me the pad. “See the pattern?”
I didn’t at first. I hate that. When someone tells you to look at something like it’s real obvious. Like an elephant wearing a red vest flying up in the sky. Then I saw what Charlie meant. I clapped my hand over my mouth. Far out! I felt sick in the stomach. What an idiot I’d been. How could I do that every time and not realize I was doing it?
Charlie laughed his head off. “I had to tell you one day.”
I studied the pad again, just to make sure. Whatever shape Charlie chose, I chose the same shape the next go. So he always knew what I was going to do. “But how’d you know the first time? You can’t be that lucky.”
“You do scissors first, every time. I reckon it’s because you like scissors. When you were little you used to steal all the scissors in the house and hide them in a shoe box under your bed.”
“Oh.” I remembered getting caught stealing a pair of scissors at school. I guess I did sort of like scissors - I don’t know why.
Charlie still had that stupid grin on his face. Did that mean he wasn’t an alien? It might and it might not. There were still all those other weirdo alien things Charlie did. Like how he’d move one half of his chest up and then the other half. Then he’d keep doing it faster and faster like his chest was doing some crazy alien dance. And how he sensed when Dad was going to kill us and he’d disappear. That was one alien power I wish I had.
“Let’s play cricket,” said Charlie, standing up.
I jumped up. “If I can bat first.”
“You batted first last time.”
“I just lost ‘paper, scissors, rock’ five times in a row.” I stopped myself saying, ’Cause you cheated. “I deserve to bat.”
“Okay, Max. You bat. But when I catch you out, you’re out. Don’t say, That was just a practice.”
We went round to the backyard and grabbed the bat and ball. The stumps were already set up. Nanna’s backyard was huge, much bigger than at home. We could really whack the ball.
Charlie rubbed the ball on his leg and made a red mark on his jeans. He thought he was going to be a test cricketer when he left school. I’d show him. I bent my knees and concentrated. Hopeless, Charlie, I thought, before I whacked the ball with all my strength.
Brilliant. The ball flew over the fence. I didn’t even run. “Six,” I yelled. Then I heard the sound of glass breaking. I gasped. The ball had gone straight into Madge’s dining room window. I heard screams. OH, NO! Madge and the three old ducks she played poker with every afternoon had probably been sitting around her dining table.
“Max!” Charlie yelled.
Within a nanosecond, I saw two things that frightened me to death. First, I saw Aunt Evil come out the back door with a bald man in a suit. Then I saw Madge at her broken window with our cricket ball in her hand. She didn’t speak; she just stared. It wasn’t the first time I’d broken one of her windows. No, it was more like the third time. Well, maybe the fourth.
In slow motion, I saw Madge take her arm back and throw our ball. Before I realized she’d aimed at me, the ball hit me hard on the head. I remember falling.
7. LEO
When I woke, I realized I was on Nanna’s sofa and Charlie was sitting on the floor next to me. I felt something cold resting on my forehead.
“You all right?” he asked.
It took me a minute to remember what happened. OH, NO! The broken window. Dad said next time I’d have to pay for it. I probably wouldn’t get any pocket money until I was sixteen by the time I’d paid for the window. I looked at Charlie. “How’d I get here?”
He said, “The man with Aunt Evil carried you inside.”
“Who’s he?” I picked up the cold thing. It was a packet of frozen peas. I felt a lump on my forehead. My head began to throb.
“She calls him Leo.” Charlie sounded puzzled. “There was a fridge magnet I’ve never seen before on the kitchen bench. Carter and Cassidy, real estate agents.”
I sat up. “She wants Nanna to sell the house and move into a nursing home. Nanna doesn’t want to. We have to get rid of him.”
“We’ll tell Nanna. She’ll be back soon.”
“We can’t. She’s still upset abou
t Winston. That’ll upset her more.” I slowly got up off the sofa. I was all shaky. “We have to get rid of him ourselves. Where are they?”
“With Madge. They’re calling someone to come and fix the window.”
“Oh, I’m so dead.”
I heard the front door open and Aunt Evil’s voice.
“Nothing like a bit of excitement before lunch.” She laughed awkwardly. “Charlie,” she called out.
I fell back down on the sofa, lay back and put the frozen peas back on my forehead. I heard them come into the lounge room. I closed my eyes.
“How is he?” she asked Charlie.
“He’ll live. What about Madge?”
“Keep Max away from her. She wants to kill him. Personally, I don’t blame her.” In a kinder voice, Aunt Evil said, “Charlie, I’d like you to meet Leo.”
“Hello, Leo,” Charlie said in a tone that made it clear he couldn’t care less about Leo.
I nearly laughed.
Leo said politely, “Pleased to meet you, Charlie.”
Aunt Evil said to Charlie, “You stay with Max. We won’t be long.”
As she walked away, I heard her say, “We’ll start with the kitchen.”
I jumped up, letting the packet of frozen peas fall onto the carpet. “Let’s spy on them.”
Charlie sighed. “Do we have to? It’s nothing to do with us.”
“We’ve got to look after Nanna.” I tiptoed out to the hall and clung to the wall near the kitchen doorway. Charlie followed me. I heard Aunt Evil carrying on.
She said, “You could put this kitchen in a museum. The old bench tops and the old oven; it’s all straight out of the 1950s. Some people nowadays try to create this look.” She gave a superior laugh.
I made a mean fist. How dare she talk about Nanna’s kitchen like that? She was the one who dropped in for dinner all the time. She never complained about the oven then. I heard them go into the laundry and out the back door. Charlie and me followed without making a sound. I had to stand with one foot in Winston’s basket. Winston wouldn’t have minded.
“The truth is,” said Leo, hanging on to the rail of the back porch, “it’d be developers who would be the most interested in this property. Land this size is hard to buy. They could build six townhouses or twelve apartments. You’d get an excellent price at the moment.”
Charlie and me, who were listening at the back door, stared at each other. Poor Nanna.
“That’s wonderful,” she replied. “If you could have your valuation completed in the next few days?”
“I’ll have it to you tomorrow.” He and Aunt Evil turned round to come back inside.
We fled back to the lounge room.
“Far out! What’re we going to do?”
Charlie frowned. “We’ll have to call Dad.”
Charlie always went straight to Dad whenever anything got a bit difficult. “What can he do from some tiny island in Queensland?”
“He’ll be back in two days.”
“That might be too late!” I almost screamed. I could hear Aunt Evil showing Leo the bedrooms. I was glad I hadn’t made my bed. He shouldn’t be looking in my bedroom anyway. “I know. You distract Aunt Evil inside. Don’t let her come out to the car and say goodbye to him. I’ll talk to Leo when he goes to leave. We’ve got to turn him off wanting to sell the house.”
“How’re you going to do that?”
I shrugged. “I’ll think of something.”