The bloke grinned.
‘Dunno what I’m talking about, do you?’ he said.
Archie shook his head. He wished his school bag was over his shoulder instead of on the ground behind the poor unfortunate deranged person. Then he could run.
‘It’s simple,’ said the bloke. ‘Everyone’s got a fairy somebody.’
Archie didn’t say anything.
Best not to encourage him.
‘Which you probably didn’t know,’ continued the bloke, ‘cause you’ve never met me before. We only turn up when you really really need us. Then you get your three wishes.’
Archie wondered if he should offer to go to the chemist and fetch some medication.
‘With me you get three demolitions,’ said the bloke. ‘You choose three buildings, I knock ’em down.’
Or food, thought Archie. If there’s any more McDonald’s in the bin, I could distract him with that.
‘We can start now, if you like,’ said the bloke. ‘I’ve got the rig with me.’
He pointed to something over Archie’s shoulder.
Archie turned.
And almost fainted.
Behind him, parked in the library carpark, was a huge semi-trailer with a massive crane on the back. Hanging from the crane was a giant metal ball.
Archie sat down on the roundabout. It wasn’t moving, but he felt like everything else was whirling around.
‘I’ve got explosives in the truck,’ said the bloke. ‘And a sledgehammer for small jobs. You choose.’
Archie struggled to get his thoughts straight.
Would a sick person in the grip of a tragic fantasy actually have a truck like this? With a metal ball this size?
Archie didn’t think so.
Perhaps it’s me, he thought. Perhaps I’m hallucinating from loss of blood.
‘I can see you’re having a bit of trouble digesting it all,’ said the bloke. ‘What say we get started on the first one, so you can see how it works.’
Archie waggled his nose again.
Pain, just like before. Real pain, which meant this was almost certainly really happening.
Most of Archie still wanted to run, but part of him was beginning to feel a tiny bit curious.
Alright, very curious.
‘What’ll it be?’ said the bloke. ‘Flatten an old shed? Knock your school down? How about Parliament house? Wouldn’t mind giving those mongrels a shake-up.’
Archie’s mind was racing.
‘By the way,’ said the bloke, ‘the name’s Noel.’
He held out his hand again. Archie shook it cautiously. It was a big muscly hand with ginger hair on the back. Warm and solid.
It felt completely real.
Archie let go of Noel’s hand and sat there for a few moments, waiting for a very strong feeling to leave him.
It didn’t.
He looked up at Noel’s big weatherbeaten face.
‘Do you do violent acts of revenge?’ he asked.
The Krugers’ place was a big two-storey house in a posh street.
At one side of the house, next to the swimming pool, was Rosco’s cubby.
Gang headquarters, that’s what Rosco called it. But Archie knew a cubby when he saw one, even when it had gang members in it.
Archie could see the shadowy shapes through the cubby window as he peered out from his hiding place inside the front hedge. He could also see Noel’s huge truck and gigantic wrecking ball filling up most of the Krugers’ driveway.
Mr Kruger was coming out of the house, looking bewildered.
‘What’s going on?’ he demanded.
Noel wound his window down.
‘I’m here to demolish the cubby,’ he said. ‘Mind yourself.’
Mr Kruger stared up at him, dumbfounded.
Noel revved the huge engine and drove through a fence and across several flower beds and parked next to the swimming pool.
Mr Kruger yelled angrily.
‘You can’t do that!’
Somebody else screamed. It was Mrs Kruger, coming out of the house with a small dog and a terrified expression.
On the semi-trailer, winch motors howled and the giant metal ball started to move.
Archie tried to yell at Rosco to get out. But his voice was in shock. All he could do was croak, and that was muffled by the hedge and drowned out by the grinding of heavy machinery.
‘Rosco,’ yelled Mr Kruger.
Rosco’s face appeared at the cubby window. He looked up at the metal ball and his mouth fell open.
The two gang members scrambled out of the cubby. Rosco followed, frantically trying to push them out of his way. One of the gang members fell into the pool.
Archie held his breath as the metal ball whooshed down. It hurtled over Rosco’s head and smashed into the cubby.
Fragments of gaily-painted wood and brick-textured plastic were flung across the garden, slicing the heads off flowers and shredding the washing on the line.
For a moment everything went quiet, except for the sound of a heavy-gauge chain being rewound into its storage position.
Archie realised his hands were hurting from gripping the hedge.
Rosco looked as stunned as if the metal ball had hit him. So did his parents and the gang members.
While Mr and Mrs Kruger dragged the dripping boy out of the pool, Rosco stared at his own wet clothes.
From the miserable expression on Rosco’s face, Archie could see that the big wet patch on Rosco’s pants hadn’t come from the pool.
Noel was whistling an Abba tune as he backed the truck out into the street. He stopped next to Archie and held something out of the driver’s window for Archie to take.
‘When you’re ready for your other two,’ said Noel, ‘ring this number.’
It was a business card.
Noel Watson, it said. Demolition Contractor (Fairy). And a very long phone number. Heaps of digits.
Archie didn’t count them.
He was too busy diving back into the hedge as Mr and Mrs Kruger sprinted out of the garden after Noel’s truck.
And too busy watching them come back in a daze because when they’d got round the corner, the truck had vanished.
‘Mum,’ said Archie in a small voice. ‘Can I ask you something?’
Archie hated disturbing Mum while she was doing her paperwork. She needed all her energy and concentration for the letters she got back from the insurance company. For swearing at them and wheeling herself up and down the backyard till she’d calmed down.
But this was urgent.
‘Course you can, love,’ said Mum. She swung her wheelchair round to face him. ‘What is it?’
Archie took a deep breath.
‘Do you believe . . .?’
He couldn’t say it.
Mum looked at him, concerned.
Archie blurted it out.
‘Do you believe in fairies?’
Even as he heard himself say the words he knew it was a dopey question to ask a woman whose whole life had been ruined by a harsh world.
Except Mum didn’t look like it was a dopey question. She was staring at him with a strange expression, concerned but sort of fascinated, and Archie was pretty sure it wasn’t because his nose was still swollen.
‘Has yours come?’ she said quietly.
Archie stared at her.
She sounded like she’d almost been expecting this to happen.
Archie felt a bit faint. All he could do was nod.
‘No details,’ said Mum quickly. ‘Don’t tell me any details. This has to be your secret. You mustn’t ever say who your fairy person is or what he or she does.’
Archie sat down on the settee. He could barely take this in. Your fairy person? Did that mean that everyone had a . . .?
Dad came in from the kitchen. He and Mum swapped a look.
Mum gave him a nod.
Dad blew out his cheeks. He sat down next to Archie and gave Archie’s shoulder a squeeze.
‘It’s a sh
ock, isn’t it, mate?’ he said. ‘It is for all of us when we first find out. But it has to be a secret, son. Between you and your fairy whatever. If you break the secret, they go and they don’t come back.’
Archie managed to find his voice.
‘Does everybody have one?’ he said.
Mum and Dad nodded.
‘Everybody in the world?’ said Archie.
‘Sooner or later,’ said Dad.
Archie felt like he was back on the roundabout.
‘Are you OK, love?’ said Mum.
‘I think so,’ said Archie, hoping he wouldn’t faint or throw up from the shock. ‘Why didn’t you tell me? When you told me where babies come from, you could have tacked it on the end.’
Mum and Dad both sighed.
‘All the parenting experts say it’s best not to tell,’ said Dad. ‘Otherwise kids’ll waste their childhoods wondering when their fairy person is going to turn up.’
Archie thought about this. He could sort of see the sense in it.
Sort of.
‘Plus,’ said Mum, ‘some fairy experts reckon that knowing in advance, you run the risk of wasting your three wishes. Letting little problems get on top of you. So your fairy person appears too early and you use up your wishes before you really need them.’
Archie saw Mum and Dad give each other a sad glance.
He stared at them.
‘Is that what happened to you?’ he said.
They both nodded.
‘I got a Fairy Chef,’ said Mum quietly. ‘Dad was up for a promotion at work and his boss was coming here for dinner and I was desperately worried that I wouldn’t impress him with the meal. Then Marco appeared. Three delicious courses.’
She shook her head sadly.
Archie looked at Dad.
‘Fairy Golf Instructor,’ said Dad miserably. ‘When I got the promotion, they told me I had to join the golf club, same as the other managers. What a waste. I only won the first three holes.’
Archie gave Mum and Dad a hug each. He knew exactly why they were so miserable. How awful it must be, to have used up all your wishes before the really bad things happened.
Mum and Dad were both looking at him.
Archie wanted to tell them that he wasn’t going to waste his wishes. He was going to make the most of his. He was going to use his to bring a smile back to both their faces.
He was about to tell them how, then he remembered the rules.
So he kept quiet.
This was between him and his Fairy Demolition Contractor.
Archie stared up at the building. He’d forgotten it was this tall.
Eighty-six storeys.
Could Noel manage eighty-six storeys?
‘G’day, Arch,’ said Noel’s voice behind him.
Archie jumped and turned round. Noel was standing at the kerb in front of his truck.
Amazing. He’d only rung Noel two minutes ago. And two minutes ago there hadn’t been a single parking spot available.
‘This one here, is it?’ said Noel, squinting up at the insurance company building.
Archie nodded, trying to look more determined than he suddenly felt.
‘Right oh,’ said Noel. ‘Better stand back a bit. Next street might be best.’
Archie didn’t move as Noel heaved himself up into the cabin of the semi-trailer. The winch motors started whining and the chain started clanking.
‘Wait,’ yelled Archie.
The winch and the chain went silent. Noel leaned out of the driver’s window.
‘What is it, boss?’ he said to Archie.
Archie tried to look like a boss. Like he wasn’t having doubts.
Which he wasn’t. Not really. It was just the people coming in and out of the building. People with their breakfast and their phones and their friends.
Ordinary people.
‘No rush,’ said Noel. ‘Couple of minutes if you like. You probably want to take some photos, right? Before and after.’
Archie didn’t want to take photos.
He had all the images he needed in his memory. Images of Mum’s and Dad’s sad and anguished faces.
Archie stared up at the top floors of the tower. On those floors, in those offices, the people weren’t ordinary. They were the monsters who’d ruined Mum’s and Dad’s lives.
The insurance company managers.
‘Just say the word,’ called Noel from the cabin, ‘and we’ll get this one knocked over by morning tea.’
Archie clenched his teeth and kept staring up at the top of the building. He imagined the faces of the insurance company monsters when they realised their luxury offices didn’t have floors any more. He imagined their screams as they plummeted down, surrounded by disintegrating concrete and other howling managers. He imagined the hundreds of other employees on the floors below, all plummeting too. All crashing down onto the people visiting the building, like this lady just going in with a toddler in a stroller.
He turned away.
‘Right to go?’ called Noel.
Archie looked up at his Fairy Demolition Contractor.
‘Noel,’ he said. ‘Can I have a word please?’
The inside of the Noel’s cabin didn’t seem very luxurious for a fairy workplace. The vinyl on the seats was cracked and the whole cabin smelled of chips.
Archie only noticed this once he’d stopped talking and was waiting anxiously for Noel to reply.
Noel was frowning, perplexed.
‘Never been asked that before,’ he said. ‘Just the top three floors? That’s all?’
Archie nodded.
Noel rubbed his stubbly chin, still frowning.
‘Nah,’ he said. ‘Sorry. Can’t do it.’
Archie didn’t understand. Before, when he was telling Noel the terrible story of what the insurance company did to Mum, how they’d refused to pay for the special operation that could have got her walking again, Noel had been outraged.
‘The slimy mongrels,’ Noel had said. ‘If some maniac chucks a rock off a freeway footbridge and smashes your car windscreen and you stop and get out and another rock hits you, that’s a car accident as far as I’m concerned, end of story. Only a slimy mongrel would quibble about that.’
And when Archie had told Noel how Dad, who worked for the insurance company, had tried to stand up for Mum and had been fired on the spot, Noel was ropeable.
‘Don’t quote me on this,’ he’d said, ‘because I’m just a Fairy Demolition Contractor not a Fairy Hit Man, but those scumbags deserve to be whacked.’
Archie had been pleased to hear it.
So why had Noel gone all doubtful just because Archie didn’t think the bottom eighty-three storeys deserved to be whacked?
‘It’s structural,’ said Noel. ‘To whack the top bit, you have to whack the bottom bit. The crane won’t reach past the eleventh floor.’
Archie couldn’t argue with that.
He looked out the window and saw the lady with the toddler leaving the building. He wondered if they were the family of one of the monster managers. Even if they were, did they deserve to be whacked?
‘Do the lot, then, eh?’ said Noel.
Archie struggled to give Noel the go-ahead.
He couldn’t.
‘What about all the innocent people?’ he said.
Noel shrugged.
‘I’m just a demolition contractor,’ he said. ‘Not a philosopher.’
‘I’m not a philosopher either,’ said Archie. ‘But it doesn’t seem right, whacking innocent people.’
Noel gave a long sigh.
‘Sorry, Noel,’ said Archie. ‘Sorry I dragged you out for nothing.’
‘You didn’t,’ said Noel. ‘See, there’s a rule. Once you make the call, I have to knock something down.’
Archie stared at Noel.
Noel shrugged apologetically.
Somebody tapped on the cabin door.
‘Jeez,’ said Noel, suddenly rigid with alarm. ‘If that’s a Fairy Inspector, I??
?m cactus. Duck down, I’m not supposed to have clients in the cabin. Haven’t got the insurance cover.’
The knock came again, louder.
Looking ashen, Noel slowly opened the cabin door.
Standing there, blinking up at them nervously, was Rosco Kruger.
‘Hi Archie,’ said Rosco. ‘Sorry to disturb you.’
Archie stared.
‘How did you know I was here?’ he said to Rosco.
‘I saw you hiding in the hedge yesterday,’ said Rosco, ‘after my cubby got demolished. And I came to see you this morning at your place. As I was arriving you were leaving, so I followed you here hoping you were coming to see . . . him.’
‘The name’s Noel,’ said Noel gruffly.
He’d obviously decided Rosco wasn’t a Fairy Inspector.
‘What do you want?’ said Archie.
Rosco didn’t reply at first, just took several deep breaths.
While he was doing that, Archie had a sudden thought. If he told Rosco all about Noel now, his name, what he did, what he’d done to Rosco’s cubby, then Noel would have to immediately disappear forever and nothing else would need to be demolished.
Except, Archie remembered with dismay, Rosco already knew all that.
Archie tried desperately to think of something he could tell Rosco about Noel that Rosco didn’t know.
Before he could, Noel gave an exasperated snort.
‘We’re busy people here,’ he said to Rosco. ‘What do you want?’
Rosco took one more big breath and spoke up.
‘I want you to demolish our house,’ he said.
The big metal ball smashed through the upstairs of the Kruger house, hurling handmade convict bricks, chunks of high-quality plaster, slivers of Italian bathroom tile and bits of genuine roofing slate across the garden like shrapnel, where they made a complete mess of the Balinese gazebo.
‘Yippee,’ squealed Rosco, jiggling up and down and clapping his hands. ‘I’ve wanted this for ages. My Fairy Sports Coach was hopeless. Get good at squash, he said. Win tournaments. Make your parents notice you. Make them as proud of you as they are of their house.’
Rosco suddenly scowled.
‘As if,’ he said.
Archie looked anxiously at the disintegrating house.
‘You’re totally sure your parents aren’t in there?’ he said to Rosco.
‘I told you,’ said Rosco. ‘My mother’s at the designer lighting shop and my father’s at the art dealer’s. As usual.’