He looked at Mum, dozing in her seat, and remembered how her face had lit up when she first saw Orchid Cove.
And how she’d smiled when Dad had announced the shop was a goer.
Now, as she dozed, not only was her brow furrowed, her mouth was starting to droop too.
‘Mum,’ he said.
She blinked awake. ‘Yes dear?’
‘I’ve got something to tell you.’
‘What’s that, love?’
Keith took a deep breath. This wasn’t going to be easy but it might just make her feel a bit better about having to leave.
‘There are poisonous jellyfish,’ he said. ‘In the sea off Orchid Cove. And all up and down the coast.’
‘I know love,’ she said.
Keith had already started telling her about the stonefish before he realised what she’d said.
She knew?
‘Stonefish,’ she was saying, ‘that’s right.’
‘And crocodiles in the rivers,’ he said, wondering if he was dreaming.
‘I know,’ she said, smiling.
‘And poisonous snakes,’ he said.
‘That’s right,’ she said.
‘And spiders,’ he said, suddenly desperate to find at least one horrible thing she didn’t know about.
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘And coconuts that drop on your head and coral that infects your fingers,’ he shouted.
Mum bit her lip.
At last, thought Keith, something.
‘I’m sorry love,’ said Mum, ‘we should have told you about all those things.’
Keith stared at her.
‘But we knew how much you wanted this place to be perfect,’ she continued, ‘and we didn’t want to make you miserable.’
Keith tried to speak but couldn’t.
‘We should have told you,’ said Mum, ‘when Uncle Derek’s travel agent friend told us.’
‘So you mean,’ said Keith with difficulty, ‘you don’t mind about them?’
Mum smiled and shook her head.
Keith’s head was spinning.
‘So if the cyclone hadn’t come,’ he said, ‘we wouldn’t be leaving?’
Mum looked at him with a puzzled little frown.
‘Leaving?’ she said. ‘We’re not leaving.’
Keith realised the ambulance had come to a stop and the driver had turned the engine off.
The doors opened and Keith could smell fish and chips.
He stepped out.
They were in Orchid Cove.
The ambulance was parked in front of the shop.
The shop had a new front on it.
Keith could smell the primer on the new timber. Through the new panes of glass he could see Dad at the fryer, hair curled up at the front.
Dad saw him and came out.
‘Not a bad job, eh?’ said Dad, pointing to the new front of the shop. ‘Mind you, I had expert help.’
Out of the shop came Doug from the service station and Tracy’s dad and Tracy, all eating fish and chips.
‘G’day,’ said Tracy. ‘Your Dad’s been telling me some of the things you used to get up to in England. Pretty wild stuff for a Pommy whinger.’
Grinning, she offered him a chip.
Dazed, he took one.
‘They reckon,’ Dad was saying, ‘that cyclones only come once in a blue moon, so we’ve decided not to worry about the next one till it happens.’
Keith stared at Mum and Dad.
Grinning, they both gave him a hug.
‘OK,’ said Dad, ‘enough of this. There’s a shop to be painted. We’ve saved you the top coat.’
He handed Keith a paintbrush and a tin of paint.
Keith looked at the brush and the tin. Then he looked back at Mum and Dad, whose grins had become huge smiles of delight. They gazed at him, eyes shining.
Keith realised he was feeling something he hadn’t felt for a very long time.
He was feeling happy.
He dipped the brush into the Tropical Mango Hi-Gloss.
MORRIS
GLEITZMAN
For Chris, Sophie and Ben
Contents
Title page
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
1
The trouble with tropical paradises, thought Keith as he sprinted out of the school building, is that everyone’s too relaxed.
He swerved to avoid a year-four kid strolling along sucking a mango, leaped over a group of year threes sprawled under the palm trees swapping shells, and glanced at his watch.
Sixteen minutes past three.
Only two hours and forty-nine minutes left.
Thanks a lot, Mr Gerlach, thought Keith bitterly. There ought to be a law against teachers being that relaxed. Yakking on for thirteen minutes after the bell. Couldn’t he see when a person’s guts were in knots because a person was running out of time?
Keith hurtled out of the school gate, skidded to avoid a year-five kid trying to crack a coconut with a recorder, and sprinted along the dusty street towards the shops. He glanced at his watch again.
Two hours and forty-eight minutes left.
Would it be enough?
He felt the knot tightening in his guts.
Calm down, he thought. I’ll be OK as long as Mrs Newman in the post office doesn’t start yakking on about her grandson.
Mrs Newman in the post office started yakking on about her grandson.
‘Only seventeen months old,’ she said to Keith, ‘and he can say prawn.’
Pick up the savings book, thought Keith. Pick it up.
Mrs Newman picked up Keith’s savings book from the counter.
‘Gee,’ she said, looking at the withdrawal slip, ‘thirty-eight dollars. Are you sure you want to take all that out in one go?’
No, thought Keith, I want a one-cent coin every Friday for the next fourteen thousand years.
‘Yes,’ said Keith. ‘And I’m in a bit of a hurry, thanks.’
He glanced up at the post office clock.
Two hours and forty-one minutes left.
‘That only leaves one dollar and twenty-seven cents in your account,’ said Mrs Newman.
‘That’s right,’ said Keith.
‘Must be for something important, thirty-eight dollars,’ said Mrs Newman.
‘It is,’ said Keith.
‘That’s good,’ she said, ‘cause it’d be a shame to take out thirty-eight dollars and just fritter it away.’
‘Mrs Newman,’ said Keith, ‘I had to peel seven hundred and sixty potatoes to earn that money. I’m not going to fritter away seven hundred and sixty potatoes.’
Mrs Newman smiled and started writing slowly in his savings book.
Keith looked up at the clock again. Two hours and forty minutes left.
Mrs Newman stopped writing.
Oh no, thought Keith. Please don’t ask me how I’m liking Australia. Not again. I haven’t got time.
‘How are you liking Australia?’ asked Mrs Newman.
‘Fine thanks,’ said Keith, making a mental note to write to the council and ask when Orchid Cove would be getting an automatic teller machine.
Mrs Newman wrote a couple more numbers, then stopped and looked up again. ‘Tell your mum and dad I’m sorry I couldn’t get in for my fish and chips yesterday, but Gail had to get her feet done and I had Shaun and Alex so we had baked beans. How are your mum’s feet?’
‘Fine thanks,’ said Keith, sighing.
‘The trouble with North Queensland,’ said Mrs Newman, ‘is that your feet swell up.’
The trouble with North Qu
eensland, thought Keith, is that everyone’s too friendly.
He glanced at his watch.
Two hours and thirty-nine minutes left.
No need to panic, he thought. I’ll be OK as long as there’s not a queue in the hardware store.
Keith stood in the queue in the hardware store and started to panic.
Two hours and thirty-two minutes left.
He was running out of time.
Relax, he told himself. It’s only a short queue, just Gary Murdoch and his dad. They can’t need that much hardware cause they only moved into their new house three weeks ago.
‘Tap washers,’ said Mr Murdoch to the assistant. ‘You wouldn’t credit it. Brand new place, all the taps are dripping.’
Keith’s heart sank. Gary had been boasting all week in class about how his new house had twenty-seven taps. This could take ages.
‘How many?’ asked the assistant.
Mr Murdoch started counting in his head.
‘Twenty-seven,’ said Keith.
Gary and Mr Murdoch both turned round.
‘G’day Keith,’ said Gary. ‘Dad, this is Keith Shipley, the kid I was telling you about.’
‘G’day,’ said Mr Murdoch, looking down at Keith with a grin. ‘You’re the bloke dragged his parents out here from Pommyland to cheer ’em up, right?’
‘I didn’t drag them,’ said Keith, ‘they agreed to come.’
‘Only after you burnt half the street down but, eh?’ said Gary.
‘It was just one fish-and-chip shop and it was an accident,’ said Keith, hoping the dripping tap in Gary Murdoch’s ensuite bathroom flooded his bedroom and made his Walkman go rusty.
‘Has it worked?’ asked Mr Murdoch. ‘Have they cheered up?’
‘Actually,’ said Keith, ‘if you don’t mind, I’m in a bit of a hurry.’
‘There,’ said the assistant, scooping a pile of washers into a bag, ‘twenty-seven.’
Mr Murdoch ignored him. He looked hard at Keith. ‘Bowls,’ he said. ‘Get ’em to join the bowls club, that’ll cheer ’em up. And if they’re having a house built, tell ’em to watch the taps.’
The trouble with tropical paradises, thought Keith, glancing at his watch, is that everyone’s too helpful.
Keith sprinted out of the hardware store, paint cans thumping together in his school bag.
The clock on the war memorial across the street said eight minutes past eleven. Keith stared. Then he remembered it had been wrong ever since a coconut had hit it in the cyclone.
He looked at his watch. Nineteen minutes to four. Two hours and twenty-four minutes left.
He should just make it.
As long as Mum and Dad didn’t see him.
Keith decided he’d better not risk going too close to the shop so he ran across the road, through the fringe of palm trees and onto the beach. He ran along the soft sand, trying to look like a tourist out for a jog with a couple of tins of paint in a school bag.
He glanced through the palm trees at the shop.
Mum and Dad were both behind the counter but neither of them was looking in his direction. They were looking at each other. Dad was saying something to Mum, pointing at her with a piece of fish, and Mum was saying something back, waving the chip scoop at him.
Even at that distance, Keith could see that Dad’s mouth was droopier than a palm frond and that Mum’s forehead had more furrows in it than wet sand when the sea was a bit choppy.
Keith’s stomach knotted even tighter.
Another argument.
Poor things. Stuck in a fish-and-chip shop all day in this heat. Anyone’d get a bit irritable standing over a fryer all day with this poxy sun pounding down nonstop.
The trouble with tropical paradises, thought Keith as he ran on along the beach, is that there’s too much good weather.
He went back up to the road and crossed it at the spot where the bus from the airport had dropped them four months earlier.
He remembered Mum and Dad’s faces, aglow with huge smiles as they saw Orchid Cove for the first time.
All they need is a bit of cheering up again, thought Keith as he sprinted towards the house. Which is exactly what they’ll get when they arrive home in two hours and twenty-one minutes.
2
Keith looked at his watch. Forty-seven minutes left and he’d almost finished.
Not bad going, he thought, considering it’s the first time I’ve ever painted a car.
He crouched down to do a bit he’d missed at the bottom of a wheel arch, and noticed that one of the back tyres was a bit flat.
Stands to reason, he thought. Sitting out here in front of the house for weeks without being driven.
While he did around the numberplate he tried to remember the last Sunday they’d gone for a drive. Was it the time they went down to Mission Beach and Dad dropped his ice cream and they all had a good laugh and then Mum got a migraine? Or was it the day they went to the crocodile farm and Mum insisted on having lunch in the cafe there and Dad spent two hours in the public dunny with the trots?
Keith couldn’t remember.
Anyway, he thought as he finished off the exhaust pipe, it was before Mum took up Sunday bushwalking and Dad took up Sunday crosswords. Which hadn’t fooled Keith for a moment. He knew exactly why Mum and Dad didn’t want to go out for Sunday drives anymore.
They were embarrassed.
Embarrassed to be seen driving around in an off-white 1979 Toyota Corolla with rust spots when Gary Murdoch’s dad had a bright red 1990 Mercedes with speed stripes and chrome wheels.
Well you won’t have to be embarrassed anymore, thought Keith.
He put a second coat on the dent Mum had made in the passenger door the day she flung it open and hit a steel girder.
Keith shuddered as he remembered that day.
They’d been parked in the drive-in bottle department. Mum and Dad had been arguing about which beer to buy.
The trouble with tropical paradises, thought Keith as he put a third coat on the dent, is that there are too many brands of beer.
‘Jeez.’
Keith turned at the sound of the familiar voice.
Tracy stood there looking at the car.
‘It’s a bit bright but,’ she said.
That’s a good one, thought Keith, coming from a girl with a luminous orange and purple skateboard. And pink patches on her face where the brown was peeling off.
‘It’s a wedding anniversary present for my mum and dad,’ he said.
‘Hope you got them sunglasses as well,’ said Tracy.
A twinge of panic hit Keith under the ribs. Perhaps it was a bit bright. The Tropical Mango Gloss he’d painted the shop in England with had been a bit bright and they hadn’t liked that at first.
Relax, he told himself, this is different. Mum and Dad were misery guts then. Now they’re cheerful adventurous globetrotters who are just feeling the heat a bit. Don’t be a worry wart.
The panic went as he remembered how Dad had stared enviously the first time Mr Murdoch had driven past in his bright red Mercedes.
‘Do they know about it?’ asked Tracy.
‘It’s a surprise,’ he said.
‘It’ll be a surprise alright,’ said Tracy, ‘when they find they’ve got the only green car with yellow stripes in the whole of Far North Queensland.’
‘It’s not green and yellow,’ said Keith, ‘it’s Tropical Parrot and Hot Sunflower. And they’re speed stripes.’
‘Gary Murdoch’s dad’ll chuck his guts with envy when he sees that,’ said Tracy, grinning at him.
Keith grinned back. Good old Tracy. You could trust a mate to say the right thing.
‘What made you choose green and yellow?’ asked Tracy.
‘I wanted it to be Mum and Dad’s favourite colours,’ said Keith, ‘so I checked out their wardrobe. Mum’s got three separate things that are green-and-yellow stripes, and Dad’s got a yellow shirt and green socks.’
‘Jeez, you’re a clever bugger,’
said Tracy.
Keith glowed. When some kids said that they were sending you up, but when Tracy said it you knew she meant it.
‘Is this why you nicked off after school without hanging around for softball?’ she asked.
‘Sorry,’ said Keith. ‘I was on a tight deadline. I only had the idea in art. Had to make sure I got it finished before Mum and Dad got home from the shop.’
‘They don’t get home for another forty minutes,’ said Tracy.
‘Thirty-nine,’ said Keith, ‘thirty-eight if they walk fast.’
‘Jeez, you’re a worry wart,’ said Tracy, grinning at him again.
He asked her whether she thought he should do the bumper bars to disguise the dent where Dad had backed into a concrete post in the Cairns car park the day Mum had bought her green-and-yellow striped swimmers.
Tracy said she reckoned he should leave them in case his mum bought some more expensive clothes and his dad backed into something else, which would only chip the paint.
Keith agreed.
‘Gotta go now,’ said Tracy, ‘gotta help clean out the chooks. See you down the beach later?’
‘Maybe,’ said Keith.
He didn’t want to be more definite because there was always the chance that when Mum and Dad saw the paint job they’d want Keith to leap straight into the car with them and drive up to Port Douglas and have a pizza in the outdoor restaurant under the fairy lights where they’d all clink their glasses together, or their metal containers if they were having milkshakes, and toast their happiness together for ever and ever.
One minute to go.
Keith did a final check. Camera. Anniversary card. Ribbon.
He hoped Mum and Dad wouldn’t mind about the ribbon. He hadn’t been able to find one long enough to go round a car. The clothes line looked OK anyway, even if the bow was a bit floppy.
The anniversary card looked great, standing on the bonnet. Now it was painted you couldn’t see it was made from bits of Chiko Roll boxes. The Hot Sunflower Happy Wedding Anniversary stood out really well against the Tropical Parrot.
He checked round the car for drips.
Hardly any.
It had really paid off, using quick-drying plastic paint. Much better than the gloss stuff he’d used on the shop in England, which had taken a week to dry just cause there’d been a bit of rain.