‘There were four babies,’ Macka said, remembering the bird’s head ducking and gulping.
‘I know. That’s okay. A person can only do so much.’ She looked at Macka’s guilty expression and laughed softly. ‘You did well,’ she said. ‘You saved her, didn’t you? You could’ve just deleted and gone home. Plenty of people do, you know.’
‘They do?’
Joan nodded. ‘They certainly do.’
Macka closed her eyes and sighed deeply. ‘Geez, I wish I had. I feel completely revolting.’
Joan laughed again. ‘Have a snooze until your parents get here,’ she said. ‘You’ll feel a lot stronger by then.’
‘I’d better,’ said Macka. ‘They’ll want to know what the hell I’ve been doing since Saturday afternoon.’
‘Don’t worry about it. The most important thing to them will be that you’re alive and safe.’
Macka didn’t think that was quite true, but when Joan had mentioned sleep her whole body realised what a good idea it was. She closed her eyes again and let unconsciousness carry her off.
10 HEAVY READING
Razz Hart stood up, and the sun caught his curly red hair and made it flame.
‘Two females and a male,’ he said with satisfaction. ‘And as healthy as all get out.’
Macka grinned and drew in a noseful of the ripe air. ‘They certainly look happy enough.’
The three young rat-kangaroos were putting their elders’ patience to the test, bounding around the sandy floor of the cage and engaging each other in mock battles. They were fully furred now, with spotless white chest-crests and neat black chevrons between their ears.
‘They’ll be happier when we get them to the sanctuary,’ said Razz. ‘There’s a bit more room to move there.’
One of the young cannoned into an adult male, and was swiftly knocked off its feet with a blow from his hindfoot. Unfazed, it righted itself and headed for the feed bowl.
Razz snorted. ‘And I’ll be glad to get those foul-smelling nuts out of my lab, too. The stink gets into my clothes, my hair—when I get home at night my kids won’t come near me until I’ve had a shower!’
‘I’d better head off, Dr Hart,’ said Macka. ‘I promised to meet Vinnie down at VideoZone—’
‘Ah, our little, um, socially disadvantaged friend, eh?’ said Razz, giving her an amused look through glinting glasses.
‘That’s the one.’ Macka nodded cheerfully.
‘Still can’t figure out what you two thought you were up to, running off like that.’
‘No, well, we really didn’t know, ourselves.’ Macka looked at the toes of her school shoes, polished to a high shine by her father the night before.
Razz’s hand landed on her shoulder. ‘Doesn’t matter. You brought her back. How, I’ll never know—you sure made Security nervous when I told them. No windows broken, no locks smashed, no nothing. Still, I guess that’s the kind of street lore one learns as a delinquent, hey?’
Macka met his searching glance with a bland smile. ‘Oh, Vinnie knows all sorts of stuff.’ To tell the truth, Macka found it just as inexplicable. How had the animals made it to Razz’s laboratory? Had The Fun Company arranged a break-in, or had the machine just known, and transmitted them here directly? Maybe she’d get to ask Joan sometime.
Razz watched her a moment longer. ‘Got something you might be interested in,’ he said suddenly, turning away towards a pile of papers on the bench. ‘A sad story, but it makes your actions look all the more … noble. Or at least, timely.’ He drew out some photocopied pages, stapled together. ‘One of my colleagues who came on the field trip last year sent me these.’
FREAK LIGHTNING-STRIKE SPOOKS WORKMEN
read the headline of the first news article:
PILDA CREEK, SUNDAY—Construction workers on the Hiroshige–McCann WestAus Mining Project walked off the job today after their foreman was struck by lightning.
Harry Menken, 48, was felled at around noon by freak lightning which came out of a cloudless blue sky, immobilised construction machinery and caused a small fire in the site office. Menken was revived by fellow workers and is now in a stable condition in Exmouth Hospital.
Menken’s crew refused point-blank to return to work after the accident, despite the efforts of representatives of their unions. ‘The men appear to have been badly frightened by the accident,’ said one union officer. ‘I think Hiroshige-McCann will have to think about nominating a new crew for this particular project.’
The walk-out is the latest in a series of industrial problems encountered on the controversial WestAus project. Representatives of Hiroshige–McCann would not comment today on whether such problems might cause them to withdraw their sponsorship of the project.
‘Badly frightened, hey?’ said Macka, grinning. ‘I guess it must have been pretty scary.’
‘What’s so funny?’ Razz gave her a peculiar look. ‘Actually, it’s more the second article that I meant you to see.’
Trying to control an impulse to giggle, Macka turned the page. There was a picture of the article’s author, bearded and bespectacled like Razz, with ‘MAMMALWATCH’ printed below it. His column was headed
BAD NEWS FOR BLACK-FACED ROOS
CONSERVATIONISTS are up in arms about the slaughter of a colony of endangered black-faced rat-kangaroos (Caloprymnus coronatus) by construction workers on the Hiroshige-McCann mining project near Pilda Creek in the Pilbara last Sunday week.
Mike Hannan, who worked as a consultant on the Environmental Impact Study carried out before the commencement of the project, has led the campaign to have the workers responsible for the shooting brought to book.
‘They may have been responsible for the total extermination of the black-faced rat-kangaroo,’ he told me last week. ‘We’ve long suspected that there were a few, a very few, rat-kangaroos left in the area, and in fact the EIS recommended against the project going ahead for that very reason; as far as we can gather, the species is extremely sensitive to habitat interference.’
Hannan and a number of other researchers undertook a search for remaining specimens of the endangered species last year, and managed to capture two males, now being held at the University of Sydney. These two are probably, Hannan maintains, the last surviving specimens.
The shooting was only brought to light when an accident at the Hiroshige-McCann site attracted police and rangers to the area. A freak lightning strike injured the foreman of the construction crew and struck the site office, setting it alight. Rangers investigating the site found the bodies of five black-faced rat-kangaroos, including two females, each of which had been suckling four young, a short distance from the excavations. Two workers later admitted to hunting and shooting the animals. They said in defence of their actions that they had mistaken the rat-kangaroos for rabbits.
Mike Hannan says he does not expect this excuse to stand up in court. ‘Rat-kangaroos are an entirely different shape from a rabbit, and their stride could never be mistaken for that of a rabbit. Anyone who could confuse that long, red-tufted tail with a rabbit’s white scut would have to be half-blind.’
The hunters face charges of wilfully destroying native wildlife. Whatever happens to them, says a bitter Mike Hannan, it’s probably too late for the black-faced rat-kangaroo.
Macka’s urge to giggle was gone. She handed the pages back to Razz.
‘So you see,’ he said, waving a hand at the cage, ‘this little lady and her children are extremely valuable.’
‘Yes,’ said Macka. ‘I guess they are.’
‘That’s some game, then,’ shouted Vinnie over the traffic noise. ‘I mean, all that really happening—in the papers and everything.’
‘Well, it’s not really a game, is it, when you think about it. Those animals were always real, somewhere or other.’ Macka gazed through VideoZone’s window and watched a boy smash his car to pieces in Grand Prix.
‘No. They call themselves The Fun Company, but really it’s a kind of rescue operation. Heavy
.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Hey, you must have scared ‘em stiff, appearing out of nowhere like that!’ Vinnie laughed.
‘I reckon. Especially Harry Menken.’ Macka grinned and rubbed her forehead. Sometimes she still felt the soreness where she’d struck him, just as her wrist and her leg ached occasionally, reminding her of those weird, half-real wounds she’d sustained during the game.
‘Let’s go up to the library,’ she said. ‘I want to get my maths done for tomorrow, ‘cause home’s going to be chaotic tonight. A couple of Mum and Dad’s Indian mates are turning up today, staying for I don’t know how long.’
‘Huh, they probably won’t recognise your parents,’ yelled Vinnie as they ran across Erskineville Road.
‘I know. Mum with her “power dressing” and Dad in his apron, sweeping up every crumb they drop. Gee, it’s nice, though, not to have to live in such a grotty house any more.’
‘I have to admit, it wasn’t a very nice place to visit.’
‘The bathroom’s still not one hundred per cent.’
‘At least you can tell it’s supposed to be white now, instead of mouldy greeny grey.’
They walked in silence, remembering Trish and Dave’s faces pale with worry at The Fun Company. They’d made it easy for Macka in a way, sweeping her feeble explanations aside. Macka still got a lump in her throat thinking of her dad crushing her in a big bear-hug, saying, ‘It doesn’t matter, love, it just doesn’t matter. As long as you’re okay. You’re sure you’re okay?’
They’d been so funny since then. You could see how hard they were trying to do everything right; it was like watching a couple of kids who hadn’t quite learnt to co-ordinate their movements. Macka’s mum would come home at night complaining about her own scattiness, and her dad kept making these impossible sandwiches, multi-layered exotic fillings between great wodges of focaccia bread, for Macka and Phil to take to school. Struggling through them, Macka sometimes half wished for the old, unhealthy days when lunch was a Mars or a Picnic bar. Oh well, she thought, they’ll get it right some day …
‘Hey, we know her, don’t we?’ Vinnie said. The Koori girl was coming out the door of the library, a stack of books in her arms.
She saw them and lifted her head in recognition. ‘How are things?’ she said, cheerfully offhand.
‘Not too bad,’ said Macka. She scanned the titles of the books: The Fight for the Forests, Animals Under Threat, Land Rights and the Law … ‘You’ve got some pretty heavy reading there.’
The girl looked a tiny bit embarrassed. ‘Yeah, well, you know, I’m just interested. Hey, did you get your animal back in?’
‘Sure,’ said Macka coolly, ‘no worries.’ Then she and Vinnie broke up laughing. ‘It was bloody hard work,’ she said to the girl.
‘Yeah, it takes it out of you, doesn’t it?’ The girl grinned. ‘You just been down at VideoZone?’
‘Not really,’ said Vinnie. ‘We don’t go there so much any more.’
‘I know,’ said the girl. ‘That game wrecked all the others for me, too. Better to save your dough. Anyway, I’d beaten everyone on most of those games. I got bored.’
Vinnie looked at Macka. ‘What’s your name?’ he asked the girl.
‘Karen Martin,’ she said. Then, seeing his face fall, she laughed. ‘But most people call me Bruce.’
‘Dead set?’ said Vinnie.
‘Yeah, and I guess you two must be Macka and Speedy, though which is which …’
‘I’m Speedy, she’s Macka.’
‘Though he’s really Vinnie,’ said Macka.
‘And she’s really Louise,’ said Vinnie.
‘But how come we never saw you down there?’ Macka asked.
‘Oh, I hate the place when it’s crammed with school-kids. I used to go there during the day when it was quiet. See, for a while there I wasn’t going to school. I wagged for a couple of months, till I got bored. Now I’m back trying to catch up.’ She rolled her eyes and hitched the books a bit higher. ‘These are for a couple of projects I’m doing. It’s a pain, but it’s better than smashing up racing cars and blowing people to bits, if you know what I mean.’ She gave them a lopsided smile.
‘Yeah, we do,’ said Vinnie, and Macka nodded.
‘Well, I gotta go,’ said Bruce. ‘My arms’ll break off, standing here with these books much longer.’ She flashed them a last laughing grin. ‘Hey, see you guys around, all right?’ she said, turning away from them.
They watched her walk briskly off down King Street.
‘Nice girl,’ said Vinnie.
‘“Nice girl!”’ Macka repeated in a dopy voice. ‘Geez, you’re a deadhead, Vinnie!’
Vinnie went deep pink. ‘Give us a break!’
Giggling and shoving one another, they ran up the library stairs.
Margo Lanagan, WildGame
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