‘That’s as maybe,’ Uncle Vern would reply. ‘But them pigs’ll be missin’ Ned summat rotten. He has a way with them pigs, does young Ned, specially when their nostrils gets blocked.’
And Ned would give a small smile, partly from the fond memories, and partly because he knew how lucky he was to have Uncle Vern.
With Uncle Vern around, there was no chance of a young man getting full of himself and ending up with a head like a custard bun. A big one with silly gold leaf on top.
And that’s just how Ned wanted it.
I might be a Fool, he thought happily, but I’m not a fool.
Look at that,’ says Gavin, putting his hot chocolate down and tapping the screen of his tablet indignantly.
None of us look.
We’re not being rude. We like Gavin a lot. But getting indignant is Gavin’s hobby. And when he says ‘look at that’, he doesn’t really want anybody to actually look.
Gavin’s a good step-dad and we’re glad he’s got a hobby he enjoys. He spends hours each evening flicking around the news sites on his tablet, looking for things to make him feel indignant and stunned and outraged by what people get up to.
He loves it. He likes nothing better than finding something that makes his voice go squeaky with indignation.
‘Look at that,’ he says again, his voice squeaky with indignation.
We still don’t look.
Mum stays dozing on the settee in front of the TV because that’s her hobby.
I stay on the floor sending texts because that’s my hobby. Well, not so much a hobby. I’ve got several friends whose lives would be a total mess without advice from me, so it’s more of a job except I don’t get paid.
Trump our dog stays on the floor next to me licking his bottom, which is his hobby. Like Gavin, he doesn’t expect other people to do his hobby either.
‘Look at that,’ says Gavin for the third time. He usually says it three times.
We still don’t look because we know he’ll tell us about it.
‘This report here in The Guardian,’ says Gavin. ‘It’s about a nun helping injured children. She’s devoted her life to setting up a clinic in Miami to treat children with serious head injuries.’
‘Mmmm,’ says Mum in the tone she always uses, the one that means ‘that’s terrible’.
‘Exactly,’ says Gavin. ‘They mostly get the head injuries from walking into things while they’re looking at their phones.’
You’ve got to hand it to Gavin. Most of the things that get him worked up are pretty interesting.
Except it turns out that this time it isn’t the phones that have got him indignant. Or the children.
‘As you’d expect,’ says Gavin, ‘the comments are mostly nice ones about the nun. God bless you, sister. Stuff like that. But look what some miserable, sour-minded troll has written. You smell, fat bum.’
Suddenly I’m not smiling.
I go over and look at Gavin’s screen.
Oh, no.
I’m shocked, and I can see Gavin is too. Though his shock might mostly be because I’ve actually come over for a look.
I’m feeling shocked for another reason. And horrified. But not by the comment on the screen. By the username.
Beansprout.
He’s at it again.
‘Trolling a nun,’ says Gavin. ‘It’s a sick world.’
I go back to my spot on the floor, trying not to show how I’m feeling. I casually send a message on my phone to the friend I was giving advice to before this happened.
Sorry, family emergency. If the vinegar doesn’t work, try the hair dryer. Don’t squeeze them. Catch you later.
Then I casually get to my feet and head towards the door.
‘Back in a sec,’ I say.
The others don’t even look up from their hobbies.
I sprint down the hallway to Nate’s room. I don’t check if his door’s unlocked. It won’t be. I give it several thumps.
‘Nate,’ I hiss. ‘You’re gunna be in big trouble if you don’t stop that right now. Let me in.’
A long silence.
Then Nate’s voice. ‘Go away.’
‘Open this door,’ I say, ‘or I’ll unscrew the lock.’
He knows I could. His history project in term three was on convicts and I helped him make convict chains out of Mum’s metallic link belt and the lock from the shed door.
I listen, trying to tell if he’s coming to open his door.
He’s on his feet, I can hear him. It sounds as though he’s moving things around. If he’s trying to hide his computer, that’s stupid. We all know he’s got it. Gavin bought it for him to do his homework.
What a mistake that was.
The door opens. Nate glares at me.
‘What?’ he says.
He knows what. I steer him back into the room and close the door behind us.
‘You said you’d stop,’ I say.
‘Stop what?’ says Nate, his blond curls flopping into his eyes which he does when he wants to look innocent.
‘This,’ I say, stepping over to his computer which is still on his desk and still switched on.
I peer at the screen and see that Nate’s been looking at a YouTube video of an Olympic weight lifter. There’s a list of comments under it. The last comment is from Beansprout.
You’re weak.
I click into the computer’s history.
More comments under a cute cat photo.
Beansprout: You’re ugly.
Click. The Prime Minister talking about bilateral free-trade negotiations.
Beansprout: You’re stupid.
Click. A news report about sick kids in Finland.
Beansprout: You’re Finished.
I turn and give Nate a look.
‘It’s my hobby,’ he says quietly.
I sigh. Poor kid. In a way I don’t blame him, but I can’t tell him that. If Mum finds out what he’s doing she’ll go ballistic.
‘It’s alright for you,’ says Nate. ‘You and Mum and Gavin have all got your hobbies.’
‘I don’t call this a hobby,’ I say. ‘Adding to the anger and unhappiness and bad feeling in the world.’
‘It’s what Dad does,’ mumbles Nate.
He looks so sad I want to hug him.
Instead I grab his shoulders.
‘Dad’s got his own shock-jock radio show,’ I say. ‘Adding to the anger and unhappiness and bad feeling in the world is his job. You’re a nice kid who’s not on the radio, so stop being a troll.’
‘I’m not a troll,’ says Nate.
‘Yes you are,’ I say.
‘You don’t know anything about trolls,’ says Nate.
I’m about to say ‘I know a troll when I see one’, but I’m distracted by a noise from inside Nate’s wardrobe.
Two noises. A thump and a snort.
‘What was that?’ I say.
‘Nothing,’ says Nate, too quickly.
There’s another snorting sound from inside the wardrobe.
I step over and open the wardrobe door.
I don’t know what I was expecting to see in there. A schoolmate, maybe. Or Nate’s iPod running a podcast of Dad’s radio show, which Nate secretly listens to sometimes.
But not this.
‘Get lost, big nose,’ growls a raspy voice. ‘This is flosshead’s room.’
For a second I think it’s some sort of animatronic toy. An amazingly lifelike robot, waist-high with dirty green rubbery skin and about sixteen batteries.
But when it rolls its eyes at me and screws up its snout and then snorts again and strings of snot flop onto the floor, I know it’s a living creature.
‘Are you deaf,’ it rasps, ‘as well as thick as a toilet roll?’
I don’t reply. Just sort of gape.
‘You can stand there with your stupid mouth open all week,’ says the creature. ‘I’m not throwing you any fish.’
I turn to Nate. I still can’t speak, but I can see he’s imagining the questions I’d be
asking if I could.
‘I told you I’m not a troll,’ says Nate quietly. ‘This is a troll.’
‘Mr Troll to you, toilet brush,’ says the troll.
‘Where did it come from?’ I squeak, my voice suddenly back.
‘It climbed in through the window about two weeks ago,’ says Nate.
I stare at them both. Two weeks? No wonder Nate’s been keeping his door locked so much lately.
‘Dropped in to visit a workmate,’ says the troll. ‘But the flabby big-mouth’s done a runner.’
Does he mean Dad?
Must do, the rest of us are still here.
Which is gobsmacking. We’ve met some pretty horrible friends of Dad’s, but nothing like this.
I start to ask the troll how long he’s known my father, then stop myself. I must still be in shock. Only people in shock would try to have a normal conversation with a creature that could be from outer space for all I know.
‘W-where are you from?’ I stammer to the troll.
‘Adelaide,’ says the troll. ‘At least, that’s where my last job was. Insult adviser to some meathead in the state government. Got bored. Same old crapola. There’s thousands of us trolls in this country and most of us work in politics. I fancied going back to radio for a bit. Not that it’s any of your business, mudflap features.’
‘He’s been helping me with my hobby,’ says Nate.
‘Helping you?’ sneers the troll. ‘Get real. You haven’t written a word, fluffhead. All you’re good for is scraping the dog’s bum.’
‘He likes dog poo,’ says Nate. ‘On cracker biscuits.’
I stare at Nate again. That explains the smell in his room, and why there’s never any cracker biscuits when I get home from school.
I turn back to the troll.
‘Well that’s all over now,’ I say. ‘You’re leaving.’
The troll gives a snort and another blob of something stringy flops onto Nate’s carpet.
‘I’ll leave when I want to, darling,’ says the troll.
I see red. We’ll have to clean that carpet now. And nobody with yellow teeth calls me darling unless I let them.
I pick up the troll.
He’s heavy, but no heavier than a big plastic garbage bag full of garbage.
‘OK, Mr Garbage Bag,’ I say. ‘Listen carefully. We’ve got friends up north. Last visit they showed me how they kill cane toads. Lots of salt, then into the freezer. If the toads struggle on the way to the kitchen, sometimes a cricket bat is used. Nate, grab your cricket bat.’
Nate doesn’t move. He’s staring open-mouthed at me and the troll.
‘Now,’ I say.
Nate grabs the cricket bat.
The troll is swearing at me and spraying me with stringy stuff, but I don’t let that distract me.
‘So,’ I say to the troll, ‘here’s your choice. Go now, or we’ll be paying a visit to the spare freezer in the garage.’
I carry the frothing troll over to the window.
‘Open it, Nate,’ I say.
Nate opens the window.
I throw the troll out.
He lands on his head on the lawn, scrambles to his feet and yells at me.
‘Interfering cow,’ he splutters.
‘It’s my hobby,’ I say.
The troll takes a couple of steps towards me.
I take the cricket bat from Nate and grip it in both hands.
The troll stops and snorts again.
‘I’m done with you dopey frothheads anyway,’ he says. ‘I’ve got more important things to do. Policy advisor to the education minister probably, so I can get your school shut down.’
Muttering, the troll stomps away into the night.
I close the window.
Nate is looking at me like he thinks I’m going to yell at him.
I don’t.
‘Let’s sit down and have a chat,’ I say.
‘Don’t want to,’ says Nate.
‘If you really want to get Dad’s attention,’ I say, ‘I can tell you a better way of doing it.’
Nate sits down and we have a chat.
That was a month ago.
Things have been very different since.
For some of us, anyway. My friends are still mostly disasters and I still have to put in overtime to stop them ruining their lives and their skin.
Mum has started helping me, which is great. She knows some great healing ointments and natural moisturisers for people who’ve tried to get rid of pimples with a nail file.
I still have to spend a lot of time on the floor with my phone, which is what I’m doing now.
Gavin still spends a lot of time being indignant, which is what he’s doing now.
‘Look at this,’ he says indignantly, putting his hot chocolate down and tapping the screen of his tablet.
Nate goes over and has a look.
For a moment Gavin looks pleased, which is one of the things that are different now.
Then he goes back to being indignant.
‘More state schools being closed down,’ he says. ‘And at the same time they’re giving more cash to private schools.’
Nate nods thoughtfully.
‘Probably be closing ours next,’ he says.
‘Exactly,’ says Gavin. ‘Elitist mongrels.’
Nate thinks some more.
‘Why don’t we write a letter,’ he says to Gavin. ‘To the education minister. Explain to him in simple words why this’ll harm the future of our country. We’ll put it on your Facebook again. That letter we wrote last week to the health minister got twenty-seven thousand likes.’
‘OK,’ says Gavin to Nate. ‘Let’s do it.’
I smile, in a relieved sort of way.
It was a risk, but I’m glad it’s working out. Anyone can be a troll, look at Dad. But our world needs us to use our hearts and brains instead of our spleens and bile and other stringy bits.
I said this to Mum the other day.
She agreed.
‘All our futures depend on it,’ she said.
She paused and smiled.
‘Plus,’ she said, ‘it’s so nice to see Gavin finally sharing his hobby.’
Archie wanted to go home, but he couldn’t.
There was too much blood.
It was dripping through his fingers. If he didn’t do something fast, his school uniform would look like a year-one art project.
An elderly man walking past gave Archie a sympathetic nod.
‘I had nosebleeds when I was a lad,’ said the man. ‘Frozen peas, that’s what you need.’
Archie didn’t reply. He kept his hands over his nose and gave the man a grateful look.
I need more than frozen peas, thought Archie. A bag of frozen pineapples would be better. Then next time Rosco Kruger picks on me, I can flatten him with them.
Trying not to drip too much, Archie hurried into the kids’ playground behind the public library. He went over to the rubbish bin next to the monkey bars. The only useful thing he could see in the bin was a half-eaten Big Mac. He kept one hand on his nose and with the other he squished bits of the bun into two balls and stuffed them into his nostrils.
The blood stopped. For now.
Archie glanced around. At least the playground was empty. At least he didn’t have to put up with little kids pointing at him and saying ‘Mum, why has that boy got a bun up his nose?’
Archie wondered if his nose was bent. It felt bent. Rosco Kruger always twisted it hard, but today he’d twisted it extra hard.
That’s all Mum and Dad need now, thought Archie. The expense of nose surgery on top of everything else.
He peered at his reflection in the shiny metal rubbish bin. His nose looked swollen but not bent or broken.
Archie waggled it cautiously.
Pain flashed through his head. So did a jolt of anger.
That vicious bully.
If there was any justice in the world, Rosco Kruger would be hanging upside down from these monkey bars now w
ith the chains from the swings wrapped tight around his body, sobbing about how sorry he was while Archie stuffed McDonald’s buns up his bully-boy nose till his head exploded.
Calm down, Archie told himself. Violent acts of revenge only happen in movies.
Mum was always saying that. Just like Dad was always saying how sometimes life does a poo on your head and you just have to wear it.
Archie sighed.
The bun balls were starting to feel like quarter pounders. Carefully Archie unplugged his nose. He waited a while to make sure the bleeding had stopped, then scuffed a hole in the ground and buried the bun balls hygienically under the slide.
He decided not to go home yet.
Best give the swelling a chance to go down.
Archie headed towards the library, trying not to think about what a happy place this playground had been for him and Mum and Dad before all their problems started.
As he passed the adventure sand-pit, he noticed a red blob on one of the white-painted car tyres.
Oops, he thought. That was probably me.
Archie crouched down, spat on the dried blood and rubbed at it with the strap of his school bag. He didn’t want hungry dogs licking the tyre and developing a taste for them and then chasing cars and getting run over.
The blood was really dried on.
He rubbed it as hard as he could.
‘G’day,’ said a gruff voice behind him.
Archie turned and peered up.
A large bloke in a work singlet and shorts was standing there, holding out his hand as if he wanted to shake.
Archie stood up nervously. Mum and Dad were always warning him to be careful of strangers.
‘You’re probably wondering who I am,’ said the bloke.
No I’m not, thought Archie, but he didn’t say that. He just gave a shrug, which he hoped made him look not that interested without being rude.
‘I’m your FDC,’ said the bloke.
Archie tried to work out what that meant. FDC?
‘Fairy Demolition Contractor,’ said the bloke.
Archie stared at him.
‘I’m sort of like a fairy godmother,’ said the bloke. ‘Except I demolish things.’
Archie took a step back. Mum and Dad had warned him to be very careful of strangers like this. Ones with sad mental conditions who’d been released into the community without adequate medical support.