by Cath Crowley
“It’s the sound of people leaving, Charlie.”
“Listen more closely, really listen.”
She closes her eyes again and leans her whole body toward the road. Sometimes sounds can have more than one meaning. Before this summer, the sound of trucks reminded me of Mum dying.
“I know what you mean,” she says. “But it’s not enough.”
I guess life’s never perfect, not for me and Dad, not even for the Rose Butlers of the world.
“So when do you leave?” she asks.
“Tomorrow. Dad and I decided we need a new start. He’s going back early to look for a job with fewer hours, one where he only works during the day.”
“I’m happy, but I’ll miss you, Charlie. The start of the summer seems years ago.”
“We’ll visit each other. You can come and stay with me in the holidays. I asked Dad. He said he’d talk to your mum.”
“Really? Dave might want to come, too.”
“Did he tell you we kissed?”
“Some things a guy doesn’t have to say.”
“It was a thousand times better than how I imagined it, and I’ve got a great imagination. Is that how it was with you and Luke?”
“Yep,” she says, and we think about that for a while.
“So it’s not all bad in this town, then,” I say.
“Not all bad. That’s what scares me.”
“I don’t think we have to end up like anyone except us,” I say, and she nods.
I leave before she does. “Look for me at the side of the road tomorrow morning, Charlie. I’ll be waving.”
“Look for me in the car. I’ll be waving back.”
“Hi, Mrs. Butler. Can I come in?”
I don’t even get to say the whole speech I planned about Rose and why she wants to go to the city and how I’ll look after her. I say the first bit, about how I miss Mum and I wish that she was here so that I could tell her stuff, and Mrs. Butler’s hands start checking in her sleeves for tissues.
“She’ll be at the side of the freeway at about seven o’clock,” I tell her. “I can show you the spot on a map—”
“I don’t need a map,” she says. “I know how to get there.”
Dad’s closing the shop for the day when I leave the Butlers’ house. “You’re finishing early.”
“It’s our last night in town,” he says. “I thought I’d make some Grandpa Gnocchi for dinner and Charlotte Chocolate Mousse for dessert.”
Dad looks sad still. But he’s trying, and he gets loads of points for that. I’ve put my iPod away for a little while so I don’t miss him talking when he gets the urge. “They’re good names,” I tell him. “What about some Dave Robbie Antipasto?”
He frowns. “I invited Dave. But I’m not naming a dish after him.”
“Fair enough.” Dad’s as friendly as he can be with the guy who’s kissing his daughter, and it feels good to be over-protected again.
After dinner, Dad and Grandpa leave Dave and me alone. I give him his CD. “I’ll listen to it tomorrow at the scoreboard,” he says.
We do some half dancing, and we talk a little about Fozzie toothbrushes and designing cars, and we come up with fifty things to do when you’re missing someone that don’t involve kissing someone else.
“‘Kissing’ is a funny word,” he says.
“It is. But I like it,” I tell him, and he looks at me like I’ve been waiting to be looked at, and it’s nothing like how Luke looks at Rose. It’s a cello look. A song played late at night by wishful fingers. Wishful fingers covered in car oil. More important: it’s a look that’s all about me.
“There’s a song about you on that CD,” I say.
“How will I know which one?”
“Trust me. You’ll know.” Maybe it’s desperate, Louise. But I just don’t care. And neither does he.
This Is a Song About Dave
I like the little shadows
You got sitting in your smile
I could watch them for a while
Quite a long while, actually
I like how I never had the call before
To use the word “adore” before
But now I do
I got a little piece of what I want with you
I like how you don’t score
At football, or with girls
Except for me
I think we should keep it that way
I like how you say
I’m fucking gorgeous and shake
Off years of ordinary
Cover me with extraordinary
Ways of seeing I never saw before
But now I do
I got a little piece of what I want with you
The air is warm this morning. It’s going to be a beautiful day. It’s funny how the weather takes no notice of how you feel. Things just are how they are, I guess, and you can’t change them.
I keep a lookout for the old blue Ford, even though I know they won’t be leaving for a while yet. Luke and Dave and I are planning to hang out this afternoon, and I’m glad. The day would be empty without them.
There’s rustling behind me, but instead of Luke, it’s Mum. “What are you doing here?” I ask.
“I came to find you,” she says.
“Well, here I am.”
“And where’s that?” She eases herself down next to me.
“I don’t know.” I keep watching the cars.
“Most people’s lives look better than your own,” she says. “Most other parents look better than your own.”
“I only said those things because I was mad. I don’t want you dead.”
“That’s a relief.” She shifts closer and watches with me. “I wanted to give you such a good life.”
I have to tell her how it is, or I’ll be sitting here forever. “You have. But you and Dad used to be different. We read books and went for walks. But then you started working all the time. The old you would have let me go to the city. Don’t you remember what it was like to be excited?”
“Of course I remember. I felt it when I found out I was pregnant with you. I fought with my parents and told them nothing was going to stop me raising you. We were one person then.”
“But we’re not now. I want to be at that school. I want to learn things, read books, and have people talk to me about them.” I let out that thing I’ve been keeping in. “I don’t want to get pregnant by Luke and never leave here.”
She sucks in her breath. “Is there a real chance of that?”
“Not yet.”
She lets her breath out. “God. That’s a relief. I guess we haven’t talked much about anything lately.” She plays with a button on her cardigan and her face sags.
“Mum, don’t cry.”
“I wanted to talk, when I knew things weren’t right for you. But you’re so much like me, Rosie. When things go wrong, the barriers go up, and it takes an army to get through. I was just too tired to try.”
“Me going doesn’t mean I don’t love you. It doesn’t mean I won’t come back.” The whole time we’ve been talking, the sky has been feeding on the sun.
“Okay, Rosie Butler,” Mum says. “We’ll work out a way.” She loops her fingers through mine. “You’d better come back once in a while.”
“I can go?”
She nods, and the sky explodes around the two of us. The world is fat with color. “I’ll come back and tell you all about school and the city and the things I’m doing there.” I stop. “Who’s going to tell Dad?”
“He knows. We made plans last night. ‘You have to let her go,’ he said, ‘or she’ll rip you in two.’” She laughs and wipes a few tears. “It’s hard to let you go.”
It feels good to hold Mum’s hand today. “I can’t wait to see the world,” I tell her.
“I couldn’t either at your age.”
“What happened?” I ask.
“I get to choose my life, too, you know.”
I think about that. “You choose working in a caravan park?
”
She grabs me and pulls me close and smacks a kiss on my face. “I choose you and your dad and my friends and this gorgeous place.” She smacks another kiss. “There’s Charlie,” she says, and points at the old car making its way home. I raise my hand and wave. I know that she’s doing the same thing.
After the car has disappeared, I keep staring. “What are you looking at?” Mum asks.
I point ahead. “Those mountains at the back of the freeway.”
“The light makes them change color during the day,” she says. “You never noticed that?”
“I guess I never looked that closely. They’re pretty amazing.”
“You’re smiling again,” Mum says. “That’s nice.”
“I can’t help it,” I answer. “There’s so much to look forward to.”
I see two small figures at the edge of the freeway, and I know it’s Rose and her mum. I wave till they’re dots in the distance. Goodbyes are hard, but I’m not saying goodbye. I’ll be back. “See you next time, Charlie Brown,” Grandpa said when I kissed him.
The sun’s behind Dad and me when we leave this morning. I keep my eyes open. I smile at Dad. I smile at the thought of Dave sitting on the scoreboard listening to me. We pass that skeleton tree, bare branches covered in birds now, and I smile at the road ahead.
acknowledgments
Thank you very much, Knopf Books for Young Readers. Special thanks to my editor, Allison Wortche—A Little Wanting Song has greatly benefited from your care and insight. Thank you, Pan Macmillan, especially Anna McFarlane, Brianne Tunnicliffe, Jo Jarrah, and Cate Paterson. And lastly, thank you to all the friends and family who let me talk constantly about Rose, Luke, Dave, and Charlie as if they were real.
Cath Crowley grew up in rural Victoria, Australia. She studied professional writing and editing at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and works as both a freelance writer and a part-time teacher in Melbourne. A Little Wanting Song was short-listed for the Children’s Book Council of Australia Book of the Year Award.
To find out more about Cath, visit www.cathcrowley.com.au.
THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2005 by Cath Crowley
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in different form in Australia by Pan Macmillan Australia in 2005 under the title Chasing Charlie Duskin.
Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Crowley, Cath.
[Chasing Charlie Duskin]
A little wanting song / Cath Crowley. — 1st American ed.
p. cm.
“Originally published in different form in Australia by Pan Macmillan Australia in 2005 under the title Chasing Charlie Duskin.”
Summary: One Australian summer, two very different sixteen-year-old girls—Charlie, a talented but shy musician, and Rose, a confident student longing to escape her tiny town—are drawn into an unexpected friendship, as told in their alternating voices.
eISBN: 978-0-375-89703-0
[1. Friendship—Fiction. 2. Love—Juvenile fiction. 3. Self-esteem—Fiction. 4. Loneliness—Fiction. 5. Bashfulness—Fiction. 6. Musicians—Fiction. 7. Australia—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.C88682Ch 2010
[Fic]—dc22
2009020305
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