I look about for Emmerllee but I can’t see her. I am actually just so tired of this whole business that in some ways I feel like I’d be happiest if I never find her. I plonk my butt down next to a tree on the bank of the river and close my eyes. I can hear the burbling of the river over the spillway, the thumping music in the distance and the rattle of voices carried by the wind. Also I can hear paper flapping about in the breeze. I don’t believe it! Some people really irritate me to the limit with their leaving all their rubbish around.
That’s when I see it and it all makes sense. I look down beside me at the base of the tree and there is a little hole there with paper and stuff sticking out. Fuming, I put my hand in and pull out a whole bunch of stuff while exclaiming, ‘man what if this is an animal’s home, fer crying out loud!’
Falling from my hands is what can only be described as stuff. Ripped material stained with mud and muck, cardboard playing cards…no…. trading cards, what looks like a school report card and lastly a muddy and smashed but still shiny old gold watch.
Things like ‘what the?’ And ‘I don’t believe it’, slip from my lips as I fumble through all the junk. Who would throw away collectors Gin-gi-ko cards, let alone a beautiful watch like this?
And yes, finally I understand. I understand the pillow case and trading cards being vomited up on my space cats doona – Gilbert often noses around the river. I get the sudden appearance of a scooter, the anger of a mother who obviously knew more was up than I did. And Mrs V. She knew, and she tried to protect the little protozoa by sacrificing her own limited money. I will MURDER the little worm.
I shove as much of the rubbish/evidence into my pockets as I can and take off back towards the skate park. My brain is ticking everything over. He said he was sick of getting things like monogrammed pillow cases and watches and all he wanted was a scooter: MOTIVE! He is small and a shifty little worm with long fingers: MEANS! He was there, the whole time, talking about rubbish behind the cake stall: OPPORTUNITY!
I am certain it was him.
How stupid am I! I didn’t even consider him. I was so sick of Carter and The Grater that I totally blanked out on Billy Bilberry. He is our thief.
‘Get off me you freak! How can you go out with this loser?! I will not come and see your lame mother and I don’t know what you’re talking about. You are unhinged you mental person’. The Grater is screeching across the playground and I turn to see my sister grabbing at Emmerllee Lamb trying to pull her towards the skate park. Emmerllee gets fed up and turns and grabs Celia’s bright pink hair. ‘AHHHH’, ‘LET ME GO YOU SCABBY COW!’
They are wrestling pretty hard now so I think it best I run over. I kind of have no idea what to do. Emmerllee calls out for help from her friends or her brother, but her brother looks completely confused. Does he help sister or his girlfriend? Celia is quite scary when she’s angry and is landing a few good scratches and slaps here and there. Carter looks at me, I think he wants me to do something. I shrug because I have no idea. Emmerllee’s stupid friends have finally realised what is going on and surround the two flapping and flailing girls. Emmerllee’s BFF Laquata pushes Celia over, but Cee Cee has such a firm hold on The Grater that they both fall over into the bark chips surrounding the stupid little seesaw animals.
‘I am going to kill you hippie, if you don’t get off me I’m going to mumwahshdnd slkdn skls’. Emmerllee’s rant is interrupted when Celia shoves a handful of bark chips in her mouth. Emmerllee responds by giving Celia a good knee to the guts. This winds Celia and she releases her prey. They both lie on the ground panting and groaning. I see the sharks circling, about to pounce on my sister the baby seal so I run over and grab her hand. ‘It was Billy Bilberry Celia, not her, now LET’S GET OUT OF HERE!’
‘Good idea!’ Shouts Carter and he helps me pull Celia to her feet and we three run for it towards the skate park. The sharks are screeching after us and I glance over my shoulder to see Emmerllee now on her feet and limping after us.
I can’t see my mum anywhere. Of all the times to disappear! The band is playing some emo-scream-y thing and the announcer is shouting skating moves over the mike. I spy Mrs V.! She is over by an ice cream truck trying to get the ice cream man to put sprinkles on her cone.
‘Mrs V. it’s really important – WHERE IS MY MOTHER?’ I kinda shout the last bit and it shocks my elderly friend.
‘Oh, Valoura, I don’t know, she went to the toilet I think’.
‘Thanks’ I yell back, we are already half way to the toilet block. The announcer calls Carters name. He is up for the comp and we spin around like dandelions in a breeze, not knowing what to do.
‘I have to go Celia, I need the money’, he looks at my sister like a dog begging for cheese. Celia melts – she is such a sucker.
‘Alright, I’ll lure Emmerllee and her people towards the other side of the skate park. Valoura, you get mum, tell her it was Billy, TELL HER Emmerllee wants to kill me and Carter’, she grabs him by the shoulders and plants a sloppy kiss on his face – you win that damn competition!’
Carter is shocked, ecstatic and scared at the same time, ‘OK, good luck you guys!’ He gives me a smile and I can’t help but smile back.
I run to the toilet block and shout for my mother. No answer. A toilet flushes and a girl with violet tipped hair comes out of the stall and gives me a ‘what are you about you weirdo’ look.
‘ARGH!’ I scream as I run back out the door. I spin around and around scanning all the faces for that pale freckly one I want to see so badly, more than I have ever wanted to in my whole life. A big dog runs up and sniffs at my feet, it gives me a stupid goofy dog look like Gilbert gives me…hang on, it is Gilbert! I drop to the ground and nuzzle his neck.
‘Where is mum boy, where is Beattie?’
‘She is right behind yoouuuuu’. Someone says with a daggy ghost voice.
‘MUM! Thank goodness!’ I launch myself at my lame mother almost knocking her to the ground. She giggles and puffs, amused and shocked and my OTT behaviour.
‘What’s up kitten?’
‘Whats up! What’s up!’ I screech. ‘EVERYTHING! Emmerllee is trying to kill Celia and Billy took the money but Celia didn’t know and she confronted Emmerllee and they were fighting and Carter didn’t know what to do but I found all this stuff (I start pulling pillowcase and Gin-gi-ko cards from my pockets) and Mrs V. knew and she worked for the Bilberry’s and why anyone would want to protect that worm but CELIA! Yes, we need to go now because Emmerllee and her sharks will pound her to dust!’
My mother is speechless. Her face betrays her mixed feelings of shock, surprise, a little bit of anger, confusion and worry. ‘Well, come one then, let’s save your sister!’
We run around the skate park, I can see Carter skating, he is doing ollies and other moves I don’t know the name of. He is actually really good. He pulls off this mad jump with heaps of air and the crowd gasps audibly.
‘I can see them’, mum shouts over the noise and kerfuffle. She points to the fence by the highway and let’s out a loud gaffaw! I am surprised she is laughing, doesn’t she know how serious this is? But then I get it, because I spy my sister and Emmerllee with a large man. This man has his hands on both their foreheads, holding them apart while they lash out at each other. Three girls with toothpaste tube jeans are standing nearby, looking scared, angry and unsure what to do about this humongous dreadlocked man restraining their friend.
‘Ok brother of mine, what do we have here then?’
‘Ahhh sister of mine, I fear we have a teenage ritual underway – the cat fight.’ Kai giggles and pushes harder on Celia who lashes out at The Grater.
‘She is a moron and she won’t leave me alone!’ Emmerllee whines as she gives up, pushes my uncle’s hand away and slinks over to her friends.
‘She is a hooligan and tried to kill me!’ Celia also gives up and crosses her arms with a serious pout.
‘She started it!’
‘Yeah, well, you deserve it, yo
u hate me and you told Carter I was a “mad professor” and he should dump me!’
‘Who is Carter?’ My mother asks with a wry smile playing on her lips.
‘Uh, well, umm I was going to tell you but….’ Celia realises she has put herself in it now. I am on the edge of my feet (I’d say seat but I’m standing) to know what my mother is going to say.
‘Well talk about it later, first we get this cake stall business sorted out once and for all’.
Chapter 15
This table is mighty interesting. I like how the patterns move out from the centre to the edge like ripples in a pond. I trace the waves around and around with my fingers until I feel a sharp slap on my knuckles.
‘Hey!’ I start looking around for my attacker.
‘Stop it!’ Whisper spits Aunt Stacey, she looks like a duck eyeing off a frog – sinister and hungry. She nods to my mother who is sitting with her hands folded and placed gently on the dining room table.
I glance around at everyone. We are doing our best impression of a painting, not moving too much, trying to keep a straight face so as to not betray any emotion. Well, no one is really managing that too well.
Mum is looking sad and firm; a mixture of ‘I don’t want to come off looking like I’m as furious as I could be so to show you that I am actually really approachable even though I’m the victim in all this’. Or something like that anyway.
Mr and Mrs Bilberry look like army drill sergeants all buttoned up and tense. My uncle is grinning under a pile of dreadlocks pouring from the top of his head, his knee doing that bouncing up and down thing it always does. I can see that he’s trying to look inconspicuous, but Mrs Bilberry keeps shooting him dirty looks, like Kai is about to do something so random at any moment and she isn’t going to have any of it.
Celia, Carter and Emmerllee look like a teenage doom cloud. All hormones and anger. Celia and Emmerllee try to not make eye contact and poor Carter looks like a fish out of water gasping for air.
Billy and my brother Bas are well shamed. They won’t look at either of the parentals at the table. Bas shoots me a ‘save me and I’ll clean the cat litter for a year’, look. I snicker and slowly shake my head. Bas slumps back into the old oak chair, defeated.
The only person who looks truly happy is my Aunt Stacey. She is in her zone. To her this is like a corporate board room in the middle of a hostile take over. Her face is lit up like the Harbour Bridge at New Years.
I wonder who will speak first.
‘Mr and Mrs Bilberry’, Aunt Stacey declares imperiously and straightens her spine so much she looks like she’ll take off. ‘Your son has been involved in a VERY serious incident. Very serious indeed. In fact one might say that it is a criminal matter that should be resolved in front of the police. But of course my sister, in her kindness and wisdom (here Aunt Stacey nods somewhat condescendingly to my mother) has decided it best for the boy that-it-is-not.’ She puts a pause between the last four words, I get the feeling she thinks she is addressing a jury in a court room or something.
‘Will you just bloody well tell us what is going on!’ Mr Bilberry loses it and slaps his hand on the table. It must have hurt as he now rubs it with his other hand sheepishly* and clears his throat. ‘Uh, what I mean to say is, my wife and I are unsure quite why we are here. We were supposed to be having dinner with the minister Gregory Hulton and he was very upset we cancelled on him.’
*any word involving sheep is a totes awesome word in my book.
‘Yes, William, you had better have a good reason for bringing us…here.’ Mrs Bilberry scrunches her nose and looks about the dishevelled room with a mixture of disgust and like she was going to catch leprosy or something. I open my mouth to tell her to sod off to the ministers house because we don’t want her snooty posh face in our house any way when my mother catches my eye and gives me a withering look. I clamp my hand over my mouth instead.
‘Billy, would you like to explain at long last why you stole the cake stall money’. My mother offers in a kindly voice. My uncle giggles and receives his own withering look. Billy’s parents look well shocked and turn to Billy in outrage.
Billy looks like he would love for a portal to open in the green and purple wallpapered wall behind him and suck him into a parallel universe. But then he sighs cos he knows it aint gonna happen.
‘I stole the money because I wanted a scooter’. He then does something I’m not expecting. He looks straight at his mother and father and says loudly through gritted teeth, ‘because YOU wouldn’t get me one. YOU got me things I DIDN’T even want. I TOLD you I wanted a scooter, but no, you got me a STUPID WATCH.
Billy’s parents look like they’ve been hit by a tornado. His mothers’ eyes are darting around the room looking for the exit and his father has his jaw clenched tight and a purpling face. But Billy is not put off. He seems to get more wound up if anything.
‘You NEVER listen to me. I try to tell you OVER and OVER what I want, but all YOU do is pat me on the head and tell me you’ll talk to me LATER. BUT YOU NEVER DO! Mrs Vanmanthy talks to me, SHE knew I wanted a scooter but my OWN parents are too BUSY off with MINISTERS and CEO’s and other STUPID people.’
‘Right, I’ve had enough, I told you Billy that if you kept causing trouble you’d be off to boarding school, get ready because you are going TOMORROW!,’ Billy’s dad declares and stands suddenly. No body else moves. Mrs Bilberry just looks at her hands, sparkly and plump on her lavender lap.
‘Mr Bilberry, if you’ll kindly sit and listen to your son, I think what he is saying is rather important…don’t you?’ My mother gives the pompous prat his own withering look and he sits slowly, as though stunned by a hypno ray.
‘As you were saying Billy?’ Beattie gestures for Billy to continue.
‘Because you never listen and because you’re never home I thought I would take the money and get my own scooter. I wanted to SHOW you that if you wouldn’t pay attention then I would look out for myself. I saw the tin at the stall. It had more money than you would ever give me so I took it!’
Billy looks triumphant for one second, but the next second something washes over him and he looks totally deflated
‘I felt awful as soon as I took it, you have to believe me,’ he looks pleadingly at my mother, who simply nods her head with understanding. Kai snorts now and is looking a bit miffed.
‘You bloody should hope you felt bad mate. Lots of people put a lot of effort into raising that money and it was going to a much better place that some poor little rich kids’ scooter. If I was yer dad I’d be making you scrub toilets at the nursing home for a year!’ He sits back and crosses his huge tattooed arms. Mr Bilberry is slightly scared but also starting to get defensive now; of the boy who was just one minute ago accusing him of neglect.
‘Now you look here, that’s my son you’re talking to, I won’t have it! You can’t tell me how to discipline my own child!’
‘It’s not discipline he needs. Both of you shut up!’ Beattie leans forward towards Billy and takes his hand. ‘You don’t need a telling off do you Billy, you need to be heard, I am listening, everyone is listening (she shoots a passionate look around the table) please go on.
Billy is starting to cry now and we are all getting really uncomfortable. The look of delight is draining from my Aunts’ face as she and all of us realise that this is about a little boy.
‘I felt so bad, you have to believe me’, his sobs growing louder with each word.
‘I believe you Billy’, mum tightens her grip on his arm.
‘I wanted to give it back. I hid the money in my room and just looked at it. That night I went into your study dad to tell you, to confess but you just told me you were busy and to come back tomorrow. You ALWAYS say to come back tomorrow.’ Billy wipes at his tear soaked face with his sleeve. His mother goes to tell him off but decides not to.
‘I’m a busy man. I own a lot of the farms in this area; I am also running for local government. I don’t have time for this
sort of distraction. Billy’s dad crosses his arms and grins like a vindicated man.
‘So you see your son as a distraction? That’s funny because my kids are the best distraction I could ever have. They give me an opportunity to think about someone other than myself once in a while and that makes me happier than anything else’. My mother looks him straight in the face, never wavering. The man’s smug smile falters a little.
‘My husband is a very important man and I myself work full time – I’m sure you don’t understand what that’s like’. Mrs Bilberry says judgmentally.
‘Look, it’s not about my mother, or how we live our lives, this is about your son who stole a large amount of money because you can’t take five minutes out of your day to be with him!’ It’s now Celia’s turn to look smug.
‘I will not have someone with bright pink hair tell ME how to parent my child’. Mrs Bilberry now stands up and starts to walk to the door, but she doesn’t see Gilbert lying on the rug and lurches forward tripping over him, she lands sprawled out on the rug with her designer dress over her head. All the young people (and Kai) have to bury their fists in their mouths to stop themselves from shrieking with laughter. Mr Bilberry hurries to the aid of his wife and my mother also rushes to help.
Jock Bilberry holds his hand up signalling my mother to stay away. ‘You have done enough damage, don’t you think. Billy we are going.’ And the Bilberry’s move to the foyer. Billy however stays right where he is. You’ve got to admit, the kid’s got a lot of pluck to stare down his parents like this.
‘William, we are going.’
‘No’.
‘Now’.
‘No, sit down, I am not finished.
‘Oh let’s just get it over with! Mrs B. flaps as she hobbles back to the table.
All eyes turn to Billy.
‘So dad wouldn’t listen to me and mum was out at another CWA meeting so I rang Mrs Vanmanthy. She is the only one who has ever listened to me. She was upset because she likes Beattie very much.’ Billy blushes when he uses my mum’s name, she’s cool like that letting kids call her by her name. ‘She wanted to call Beattie right away but I begged her not to, I told her I would confess and give back the money and she promised not to say anything. Anyway, that night I got so angry. It wasn’t fair that Bas had this great family who listens to him and like him. I thought I had the right for something good to finally happen to me. I’d been a good son, gone to that stupid school with those stuck up snobs, I wear dumb suits and stand around at boring functions while you tell everyone I’m going to be Prime Minister one day. Did it even occur to you that I DON’T WANT TO BE THE STUPID PRIME MINISTER! No, it’s always about you and what you want. I don’t even understand why you had kids, we are just like ornaments to you, something to pull out now and then to make you look good.’