* * *
The first choko missed him by a mile. The second thudded into the ground like an iron shot-put, directly at his feet.
“I hate him!” she howled. “And I hate you! And I wish I could go home! Stupid country!”
“I don’t want you to go,” Neville sniffled, choking back his own tears. “Look! I brought you something!”
“I don’t want it! Leave me alone! What is it?”
“His medal, see? I took it. I smashed the glass and took it!”
Her hands as she reached for it, were so small, her nails dark and shiny.
“Look, see?” he pointed out. “Afghanistan. That’s what it says. But on the back it’s just got the emu and kangaroo. It doesn’t say it’s for a hero. I always thought it would say that, but it doesn’t.” And though it hurt him deeply to be the one to say it, it was important that it be said, “‘Soon, I don’t think he’s a Hero at all!”
She sniffled into her sleeve, mopping up tears and nose-drip and, “What did he say to you?” Neville asked gently.
She shook her head, looked at him fiercely and, spitting on the ground, held the medal out for him, dangling it from its stripy ribbon.
“I don’t want it,” she said.
“Okay,” he answered. “Me neither. I don’t want it either.”
So she put it on the ground between them and they sat quietly, side by side, looking out through the green foliage, past the chokos that were almost as big as heads and that could sometimes seem like they were looking back at you because the souls of dead Boogerville kids were in them. Beyond the green curtain, Hayley’s decrepit bus and Beau the Bum slouched against one another, waiting to take possession once again of their yard.
“If you did go back - back to Refugee Camp or Afghanistan,” Neville said, “I’d go with you. I wouldn’t want to stay here where there’s liars.”
She pulled her knees up and pressed her face into them.
“I wish Ava was here,” Neville said after a bit.
“Me too. And Anosh. I wish they were both here.”
“Things’d be better, wouldn’t they?”
“Way better. Wa-ay better.”
In the yard Beau raised his pellet gun rifle and aimed it into the chokos where they were sitting. “Doosh! Doosh! Doosh!” they heard him mutter before lowering it back to the ground.
“Stupid boys,” she muttered. “Stupid weener-heads. It’s all guns and shooting. They’re why everything’s all wrong.”
“Me ‘n’ Cookie ‘n’ Robert - we don’t have guns!”
“You will. Someday you will. And you’ll all be soldiers and go off and be glad there are wars to fight and people to make frightened of your big scary selves!”
“Not me! I’m not ever going to be in a war. I promised Mum. And I promise you too!”
She looked at him askance and sleeved her nose a second time.
“Really?”
“Really! You can . . . !” He’d been about to invite her into his head, to see how resolved he was, but he stopped himself at the last moment. Because what if, as the Ragged Man had intimated, there were unrecognised lies of his own lurking somewhere there? Then he would surely lose ‘Soon forever. “I bet Anosh wouldn’t either,” he finished softly. “I bet he wouldn’t even be a pirate if he could stop. I bet he’d just want to . . . find something just ordinary to be.”
She dug the heels of her hands into her eyes, grinding out the last of her tears.
“I don’t want to be ordinary. Not ever.” She turned over the medal; the mountains of Afghanistan on one side, the emu and kangaroo on the other. “Which one do you think is me?”
He began rocking, tapping his head lightly again and again, against one of the head-sized chokos. Everything was so confusing and bad - the Quiet Man not being Dad or even a Hero any more; the Rahimis having to ride on a boat from Refugee Camp and having to lose Anosh to the pirates; the Duke hating Riff and building his Folly; someone stealing Ava and Beau the Bum shooting the heads off drunken parrots and Shoomba seeming to be Mum’s friend but saying ‘hopeless Nevilles’!
Something has to change, he thought to himself. But how? The Ragged Man had said such confusing things. Fear is what feeds wrong things, he said. Don’t put up with it, he said. Imagine there to be hope.
‘Soon looked at him through red-rimmed eyes that were full of sorrow. “What?”
He’d said the words aloud: Imagine there to be hope. He’d thought the Ragged Man had given him no useful answers. But suddenly, the thing that he’d known that morning, before ‘Soon’d dragged him from his bed, he knew again.
The Quiet Man was scared of Things that had followed him home from the War. Scared they might get inside him! That was why he’d lost himself in the jungle! To hide from them! And he couldn’t ask for help because . . . because he was ashamed of being scared!
“I still have to do it,” he said to ‘Soon. “Get rid of the Things in Under. That’s the place to start!”
“You can’t go by yourself,” she said. “I will go with you.”
“No, ‘Soon. Ragged Man said I had to go alone - that they wouldn’t come out for someone they don’t belong to!”
“Why would they come out for you then Neville? If he’s right, only the Quiet Man should be able to go! And he won’t!”
Somehow the false hero’s medal had come back into Neville’s hand. He gave her his levelest look; one that he hoped would disguise the fear already bubbling up in him. “No. But I’m the next, aren’t I. I’m the next Neville. And I can hear them, so they have something to do with me. I don’t know what, but I have to be the one! And once they’re gone . . . he’ll come back! And he’ll be able to tell us about the red dust and help chase the pirates and Shoomba’ll stay away and we’ll get Anosh and Ava back and everything’ll be fixed!”