It wasn’t true but he hoped it’d help.
‘If you want me to shift some more of this stuff into my room, I will,’ said Dad quietly. ‘If I put the Irish stew on top of my wardrobe . . .’
‘Dad,’ interrupted Keith, ‘I wasn’t making a list for that. I was just checking we’ve got enough food for Tracy. I like staying with you.’
Dad’s drooping mouth slowly straightened itself.
‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Right.’ Then he grinned. ‘What was it Tracy used to say? “I’m so hungry I could eat the fingers off a goat”?’
‘Fish,’ said Keith, grinning too. ‘I could eat the fingers off a fish.’
‘That’s it,’ said Dad. ‘OK, we’d better get out to that airport before she has a go at the luggage scales. Scales. Fish. Get it?’
Keith realised he hadn’t heard Dad make a joke for months.
Amazing, he thought as he followed Dad out of the room, Tracy’s not even here yet and she’s perking him up already.
And as for those lines at the corner of his mouth, I won’t have to worry about those any more.
Not once Aunty Bev gets her hands on them.
Keith stood at the barrier on tiptoe and strained for a glimpse of Tracy among the arriving passengers.
He couldn’t see her.
For a horrible moment he had a vision of Tracy and Aunty Bev under arrest at Singapore airport because Aunty Bev’s parrot earrings had set off the metal detector. Then he remembered they were plastic. He wondered if Aunty Bev had many fillings.
‘G’day Keith.’
That familiar voice.
His heart did a backf1ip and he turned and there was Tracy coming towards him, grinning and waving behind a trolley piled with luggage.
Keith felt his own grin nearly splitting his cheeks.
Even his insides were grinning.
‘G’day Tracy,’ he said.
She hadn’t changed a bit. Same fair hair, same tanned face, same pink patches where the brown was peeling off.
‘I didn’t reckon the plane was ever gunna get here,’ said Tracy. ‘I thought the pilot had fallen asleep in the movie and missed the turning at Bombay.’
Same old Tracy, thought Keith happily.
Except something was different.
It took Keith a moment to realise what it was.
He looked down at her feet to see if she was giving herself a ride on the trolley.
No, her feet were on the ground.
Blimey, thought Keith, she’s almost as tall as Mitch Wilson.
He stepped closer to her, amazed.
Five months ago she could have chased cane toads with six green shower caps on her head and still been shorter than him.
Now, without even one, she was the same height.
And he was wearing really thick socks.
‘What are you staring at?’ said Tracy, still grinning. ‘Have I got ink on my teeth? While we were landing I got a bit excited and chewed the sick bag.’
‘Sorry,’ said Keith, stepping back, ‘just getting used to seeing you again.’
No point in embarrassing her.
Anyway, he thought, it’s probably just temporary. Some people’s feet swell on long flights, with other people it must be their spinal fluid. She’ll be back to normal in a couple of hours.
‘Where’s Aunty Bev?’ he asked.
He’d just realised with a jab of alarm she wasn’t there.
‘Dunno,’ said Tracy. ‘Maybe customs shot her.’
Keith looked anxiously towards the customs exit.
No sign of her.
Just a glamorous international model in a pink tracksuit probably coming back from starring in an instant coffee commercial in Jamaica or somewhere.
‘Tracy,’ said the glamorous international model, ‘I asked you to wait for me while I was in the ladies.’
Keith saw with a jolt that the glamorous international model was wearing plastic parrot earrings.
‘Sorry, Aunty Bev,’ said Tracy.
Keith realised his mouth was hanging open.
‘G’day, Keith,’ said Aunty Bev, ‘good to see you again mate.’
‘G-g’day,’ stammered Keith.
She shook his hand and the movement made her blonde wavy hair bounce up and down.
No wonder I didn’t recognise her, thought Keith.
At Tracy’s barbecue her hair had been black and Keith was pretty sure that hadn’t just been the soot from the sausages.
He tried not to stare.
It was incredible.
All the other passengers had got off the plane looking like they’d just spent twenty-four hours in with the luggage. Keith had never seen so many puffy eyes and rumpled clothes and saggy bottoms and flattened hairdos.
There wasn’t a single part of Aunty Bev that was puffy, rumpled, saggy or flattened. Her shiny red high-heeled shoes weren’t even scuffed.
‘Is your dad here?’ she asked.
Keith struggled to tear his eyes from Aunty Bev’s face, which looked like it had been painted by one of those great painters of history who specialised in painting faces without a single crease, wrinkle, line, pimple or droopy bit.
‘Urn, he’s still parking the car,’ said Keith.
‘This way?’ said Aunty Bev, pushing the trolley on ahead.
They followed her, Keith’s chest thumping with excitement.
‘She’s a bit of a gutful,’ whispered Tracy, ‘but I’m hoping your mum and dad’ll knock her into shape.’
Keith decided not to say anything, not just yet.
Wouldn’t be fair, telling a best mate who’s still woozy from one of the world’s most gruelling flights that she’s got everything back to front.
‘Nice car,’ said Aunty Bev as they sped along the motorway.
‘Sixty-eight Jag,’ said Dad. ‘It’s my boss’s. He rebuilt it.’
‘I think that’s a wonderful thing to do,’ said Aunty Bev, ‘take old wrecks and restore them to their former glory.’
In the back Keith sighed happily.
He wondered if Dad knew she wasn’t just talking about cars.
From the way Dad was grinning at her and nodding it looked like he did.
All I’ve got to do now, thought Keith, is make sure Dad and Mum don’t start squabbling about which one of them Aunty Bev’s going to fix up first.
He felt a tap on his arm.
‘Brought you a prezzie,’ said Tracy.
She was holding out a cane toad money box.
Keith took it, delighted.
‘Thanks,’ he said, ‘it’s just what I need.’
Trust a mate to know when your old money box was on its last legs.
Keith thanked Tracy again and asked her if she’d made it herself and she said she had and explained that the hardest bit was getting its guts out through its bottom. Then Keith remembered he’d brought something for her. He pulled it out of his jeans pocket and unwrapped it.
‘It’s sausage and onion,’ he said, ‘to keep you going till we get home.’
‘Ripper,’ said Tracy, taking the sandwich eagerly. ‘Thanks.’
‘Tracy,’ said Aunty Bev from the front, ‘do you remember what we were yakking about on the plane? About how eating too much when you’re sitting around a lot can bugger your metabolism?’
Tracy paused with the sandwich halfway to her mouth.
Keith waited for her to tell Aunty Bev that those sort of theories didn’t count for cane toad hunters with huge appetites.
Tracy sighed.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I forgot.’
She wrapped the sandwich up again.
Keith stared.
‘It was a really nice thought,’ she said to Keith. ‘I’ll have it later.’
Keith looked out the window, stunned.
Must be the effect of the flight, he decided. Poor thing must be exhausted. Once she’s had a chance to unpack and get her spine back to normal she’ll be fine.
7
Keith sent an
urgent message to Tracy.
Wake up.
Please.
The bedroom door stayed shut.
Come on, pleaded Keith silently, you’ve been in there for hours. Anyway, you shouldn’t sleep too long directly after a long flight, you can get leg clots, it’s a known fact.
The bedroom door stayed shut.
Tracy, continued Keith urgently, Mum’ll be going to work in a sec.
‘Keith, I’ll be going to work in a sec,’ called Mum from the bathroom.
Keith sighed.
Tragic.
A whole day of Mum being perked up going to waste.
Well not if I can help it, he thought.
He headed for the bedroom door.
If he could get Tracy to cheer Mum up for just a couple of minutes now, Mum’s posture would almost certainly improve a bit and male motorists were bound to notice while she was writing out their parking tickets.
‘Keith,’ called Mum, ‘here a sec.’
Keith sighed and went into the bathroom.
Mum was brushing her hair in the mirror. Keith watched her sadly. On telly when women did that it made their hair thicker and bouncier. When Mum brushed hers it made it flatter.
‘When Tracy and Bev wake up,’ said Mum, ‘make sure they have everything they want. The chocolate fingers are in the medicine cupboard.’
Keith looked at her.
She opened the bathroom cabinet and pointed to the top shelf.
Keith stood on tiptoe and could just see the chocolate finger box.
Fair enough, he thought, they are a type of medicine.
‘I put them up there so you wouldn’t scoff them all,’ said Mum.
Keith decided not to argue.
If he reminded her that she was the one with the chocolate finger problem it would probably make her hair even flatter.
‘Don’t forget to clean your teeth,’ he said to her, and hurried to the bedroom.
Tracy was stretched out on his bed asleep, still in her jeans and T-shirt.
Beside her on the pillow was the half-eaten sausage and onion sandwich.
He shook her gently.
She mumbled and turned over, still asleep.
‘Tracy,’ said Keith, ‘it’s urgent. I need you to tell Mum about your dad’s cousin Phil.’
Tracy opened her eyes and stared at him blearily.
‘Uh?’ she mumbled.
‘You know,’ continued Keith, ‘about how he got trampled in that rodeo and had to have thirteen metal pins surgically implanted in his body which gave him good posture for the first time in his life plus greatly improved TV reception.’
Tracy rolled over.
‘Not now,’ she moaned into the pillow. ‘I need more sleep. Aunty Bev didn’t stop yakking the whole flight.’
Keith watched as her body went limp and her breathing became heavier.
Poor thing, he thought.
Normally she’d swim through wet cement to finish a sausage and onion sandwich and here she was, too tired to even pick out the fried onion.
‘It’ll only take a couple of minutes,’ he said, ‘then you can go back to sleep.’
She didn’t stir.
Keith was debating whether to give her another shake when Mum appeared in the doorway.
‘I’m going now love,’ she said. ‘Bye.’
‘Mum, wait,’ said Keith.
‘What is it love?’ she said.
Tracy started snoring.
‘Doesn’t matter,’ said Keith.
Mum went.
Keith sighed, picked up the sandwich and took a bite.
Oh well, he thought, one more day won’t kill her.
He opened his wardrobe and pulled out a blanket. While he was spreading it over Tracy he noticed something.
She was wearing the jeans she’d ripped crawling under a cane harvester to rescue a frightened blue-tongue lizard.
He saw how short they were on her now.
That day in the cane field they’d fitted her perfectly. She’d tucked them into her socks so snakes wouldn’t crawl up her legs.
Now, only four months later, they stopped halfway down her ankles.
Keith stared.
Blimey, he thought. Swollen spinal fluid couldn’t make that much difference. Either she’s grown or those jeans have shrunk.
He glanced down at his own jeans and saw he was wearing the pair he’d ripped that day.
Just like old times.
Except his were still a perfect fit.
Which come to think of it was a bit strange.
He tried to think how his jeans could have got stretched. A power surge at the laundromat? Mum hanging them to dry over the bath with marbles in the pockets?
Then another possibility hit him.
Keith stared into Mum’s bathroom mirror.
As usual all he could see was the top two-thirds of his face.
As usual the bottom of the mirror chopped him off under his nose like a badly-framed photograph.
Just like it had the first time he’d stood in front of it, three months ago.
He remembered how on that occasion he’d decided the previous tenant must have been a giant, or a circus artiste who liked to wear his stilts around the flat, and that was why the bathroom cabinet was so high on the wall.
The thought had made him smile, which had made him look strange in the mirror because he hadn’t been able to see his mouth, just his twinkling eyes.
He still couldn’t see his mouth.
Not even a bit of it.
Not even three months later.
And his eyes weren’t twinkling at all now.
Keith burst into his bedroom at Dad’s and gasped air into his aching lungs.
He’d never run non-stop from Mum’s before.
But then he’d never had anything this urgent to double-check before.
Still panting, he went over to the boxes of tinned pineapple stacked beside the wardrobe.
Here goes, he thought.
He stood with his back against the boxes and ran the palm of his hand over the top of his head.
It was as he’d feared.
He was exactly the same height as the stack.
He turned desperately and counted the boxes.
The stack was still only four boxes high.
Exactly as he and Dad had made it three months ago because Dad had reckoned a kid shouldn’t have piles of tinned pineapple in his room that were taller than he was, partly because of the danger of them falling on him and partly because of the scary shadows big stacks throw at night.
Keith felt more scared now than he ever had from tinned pineapple shadows.
Because this confirms it, he thought, heart pounding.
I’ve stopped growing.
‘Aunty Bev, wake up.’
Keith tried the door again but it was definitely locked.
He wondered if Mum would mind him forcing her bedroom door open with the bread knife seeing as this was an emergency.
Before he could decide, he heard Aunty Bev moving around inside the room.
‘Hang on,’ she called.
Keith heard what sounded like the rustle of tissue boxes and the hiss of spray cans and the click of plastic lids.
Then Aunty Bev opened the door.
‘G’day Keith,’ she smiled.
Even though Keith was nearly frantic, he couldn’t help gawking.
He’d never seen anyone who’d just been asleep for five hours in such good shape.
Her hair wasn’t sticking out.
There were no pillow creases in her face.
He couldn’t even see any dried dribble at the corners of her mouth.
Perhaps beauticians are trained to sleep sitting up, he thought, like camels.
‘Anything the matter?’ asked Aunty Bev.
Keith hesitated for a moment.
He felt a flash of embarrassment at the thought of blurting out his problem to someone he’d only met twice.
It’s OK, he told himsel
f. She’s a professional. It’s like going to the doctor.
‘What can stop a person growing?’ he asked. ‘A person my age?’
Aunty Bev looked at him and frowned.
Keith hoped she wouldn’t want to examine him physically.
‘Hormones,’ she said. ‘If they’re out of balance they can play havoc with your growth patterns.’
Keith knew that couldn’t be it because he didn’t have any hormones yet. Hormones made your voice go funny like Dennis Baldwin’s and his voice was still normal.
‘What else?’ he asked.
‘Food,’ said Aunty Bev. ‘The more food you have the bigger you get. If you stop eating, you stop growing.’
Can’t be that, thought Keith. I get heaps of food with Dad being in the business. Plus I’m pretty sure most of the major food groups are present in chocolate fingers.
‘Anything else?’ he asked.
Aunty Bev frowned again.
Keith hoped she wasn’t going to say too much exercise. Not with the amount of running he was having to do between Mum and Dad’s places.
‘Stress,’ she said. ‘Tension, worry, anxiety, it can all bugger the metabolism.’
Something clicked in Keith’s brain.
‘You mean,’ he said, ‘the sort of worry you feel when your parents have let themselves go so badly nobody wants to ask them out?’
Aunty Bev gently led him over to the settee.
‘Keith,’ she said, ‘is there something you want to tell me?’
*
Keith was still glowing with happiness when he got to Dad’s place, even though he felt a bit sick from drinking so much carrot juice.
Every time he thought about his chat with Aunty Bev, he glowed even more.
She’d been great.
‘No problem,’ she’d said after he’d told her about Mum and Dad. ‘You won’t recognise them soon.’ She’d patted herself on the chest. ‘Not now they’ve got their own personal grooming and fashion adviser. So you can stop worrying and go back to growing.’
Then, before she’d gone back to sleep, she’d told Keith how vegetable juice was full of growth vitamins and didn’t make you fat, which was really good of her because he hadn’t even asked.
‘Hello Keith.’
Dad was in the kitchen, putting instant coffee into a mug.
‘Hello Dad,’ said Keith.
If he hadn’t been so happy he’d have sighed.
Nine-thirty and Dad was already in his pyjamas.
Keith hoped that when Aunty Bev finished advising Dad on personal grooming and fashion and Dad started going to nightclubs, he’d remember to change out of his pyjamas first.