Dirt Bomb (11 page)

I WAS SOUND asleep and probably in the middle of a brilliant dream about cars and girls when I woke up because my shoulder was taking a beating. ‘What the … Bugger off!’

It was Mum. ‘Jake, wake up and talk to this woman. She wants you to milk for them.’

I hauled the duvet over my head. ‘No. No way.’

Mum hauled it off my head. ‘Talk to her, Jake.’ By the sound of her, she wasn’t going to let me alone until I did.

I took the phone. ‘What?’

Mum glared. I shut my eyes.

‘I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,’ phone woman babbled. Man! She was crying — howling her eyes out, I’d say.

I wriggled up further on the pillow. ‘Who are you?’
And why are you crying into my ear in the middle of the night?

I took a look at the clock. 5.18 — in the freaking morning.

I heard her snatch in a breath. ‘Sorry. I can’t think
… I’m Louise Long. We need a milker. My husband …’ She started to cry again.

Mum reached for the phone. ‘Tell me what the trouble is, Louise. Calm down. If Jake can help you, he will.’ She glared at me.

Like hell I would.

But Mum was listening and then she was asking for directions. To put the finishing touch on the conversation, she said, ‘You do realise that Jake is very inexperienced? He’s only milked four times in his life, and never by himself before.’

Mum! What the hell are you getting me into?
A second later I found out. Louise’s husband had been carted off to hospital because he’d collapsed in the middle of bringing the cows up to the shed. She was desperate to rush to his side, according to Mum, but she couldn’t until she’d found a milker.

‘How the hell did she get hold of my name?’ I growled, not moving in an upward direction.

Mum got snappy. ‘I don’t know. But she did and she’s relying on you. Get up now and I’ll take you.’ She snatched a bunch of clothes off the floor and threw them at me. ‘Move, Jake. I’ll make some toast. You can eat it on the way.’

I moved. There was no escape. I didn’t say a word to Mum the entire journey.

I got out of the car just as Louise Long got into hers. She was still saying, ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry.’ Then she took off. So did Mum. And now I was all alone in the middle of the night at some farm in the middle of nowhere. It would serve the pair of them
right if I couldn’t find the fecking shed.

Unfortunately, it was rather obvious. The cows were in the yard and a bit restless by the look of them. I stood still for a second. I should never, never have decided to earn money by milking. A dog ran up and nuzzled my hand. ‘It’s just you and me, boy,’ I said.

Best get started. I remembered to wash out the vat. I didn’t have a clue what time the tanker was due, but if I wasn’t finished he’d have to kick his heels and wait. If tankers did that. Who knew? Not me. I got on with the milking.

The shed was sixteen a side. Busy enough, Buzz said. Bloody frantic, I would have said. Don’t know how many cows they had — somewhere around a million at a rough guess.

About forty cows into the milking, I was ready to chuck the whole thing. I was stressing out big time, the cows didn’t like me and they were shitting like there was no tomorrow. It was only a matter of time before one of them let fly with me right underneath. I looked at the yard — swimming in muck and as full of cows as before I’d started. Looked like the whole bloody neighbourhood had wheeled their cows in for the great Jake Stringer to milk them.

My brilliant mind saved me. I remembered how Buzz dealt with the cow who hated being first in the line. I didn’t have to milk sixteen at once. I would still get through it, even if it took a bit longer. This shed was about to turn into a twelve a side. All I had to do was leave four cows right where they were once
they’d finished. ‘Sorry, old girl,’ I said to each one. ‘Don’t worry, you’ll escape soon.’

I calmed down.

I’d done around twenty-four more cows when I realised they’d stopped shuffling their feet and the shitting was back to acceptable levels. And when the yard was about half empty I figured I had it under control enough to tackle fourteen a side.

Gramps was waiting for me by the time I finished the milking. He’d have to wait longer. I had cows to shut in. They seemed to know where they were going, though, so I shut the gate on them and went back to sort out the shed.

I was washing it down when it crossed my mind to think about my pay. Louise hadn’t mentioned the P word. I hoped she wouldn’t forget, which she might do if the old guy carked it.

I washed my boots and plodded to the car, carrying with me odour of cow. Gramps didn’t complain, but he drove home with his window right down.

Mum had gone to work when we got back. I stood under the shower for ages. When I came out, Gramps had done the worker breakfast again. I was right ready for it. He watched me and waited till I’d wiped my plate with a piece of toast before he said, ‘That Louise woman rang.’

I grunted. I hoped she’d talked about paying me. But no — didn’t mention it. What she wanted was for me to do the same thing all over again in the afternoon.

‘No,’ I said.

Gramps pushed the phone at me. ‘There’s her
number. You ring her and tell her you’re too
miserable
to help out in a crisis.’

‘Tell her yourself,’ I said. ‘And lay off the emotional blackmail.’

He shook his head. ‘I’m not telling her. If you don’t want to do it, you tell her.’

‘Go to hell,’ I said, just as the phone rang.

Gramps left it sitting on the table. ‘Could be Buzz. Or Robbie,’ he said.

We both knew it wouldn’t be. I answered it. ‘Yeah?’

It was Louise, sounding a lot better than earlier. ‘Jake? Thank you a thousand times …’ and off she went into a rave about how I’d saved her life.

‘Is he okay? Your husband, I mean,’ I asked.
Anything
to shut her up.

She said he was very sick but the doctors thought he’d pull through, and that led her straight into why she was calling, which was to bend my arm to make me milk again that afternoon.

‘Look,’ I said. ‘I’m really not up to it. I didn’t even know where to put the cows this morning.’

She brushed that aside. If I’d just milk tonight, they had somebody who could take over tomorrow. ‘Please, Jake, I know it’s a lot to ask.’

She still hadn’t said a thing about paying me. ‘See if you can get somebody else,’ I said.

She started crying again. ‘I can’t. I can’t think, not with Bill lying here looking so awful.’

Great. ‘All right. I’ll do it.’

She went into raptures again.

I hung up and chucked the phone on the table.

‘You’d better take me, because if I have to bike out there I’m not going.’

Gramps said, ‘Course I’ll take you, son. Anything to help a neighbour in trouble.’

I left. I was late and the others would have hit the paddock without me.

‘WHO SLEPT IN then?’ Buzz jeered when I arrived.

‘Bro, you need an alarm on your phone,’ Robbie said, busting a gut laughing.

I stared at Buzz. ‘So it’s not your fault I’m late?’

‘Huh?’ he said.

I’d been sure it was him who’d given Louise my name. I told them about the morning’s drama.

Buzz whistled. ‘Wasn’t me, bro.’ Then light dawned. ‘I bet it was Dad.’

That figured. Frank would have been falling over himself to make me work.

I drove flat out all day until we ran out of gas
midafternoon
. We’d run out of money too.

‘I’ve got six bucks left,’ I said.

‘You’ll get paid for this morning,’ Buzz said.

I shrugged. ‘She didn’t say anything about paying me. Crying too hard.’

They shook their heads. ‘Bad,’ Robbie said. ‘Very bad.’

We left the car where it had died in the middle of the paddock. Robbie rode off to hang with Jayna, but hadn’t gone far when he turned around and raced back.

‘Forgot to ask you. Jayna says do you want to hang
out at hers tonight? The ancient guardians will be out. She’s going to order pizza and get some DVDs. No alcohol though. She’s gone off it, she says.’

‘Nah. Thanks,’ I said. I didn’t want to watch Robbie getting cosy with his girl.

‘She’s invited some chicks,’ he said.

Buzz and I looked at each other. ‘Might as well,’ Buzz said.

So all I had to do between now and then was milk a thousand or so cows all by myself.

I hoped there’d be an envelope waiting for me when I got home, and that in it would be a huge stack of dollars to pay me for rescuing the Longs. No such luck. Gramps wasn’t there either, and I hoped he wouldn’t turn up. But of course he did.

I didn’t chat to him on the way, just like I hadn’t chatted to Mum when she took me. They could twist my arm and make me do this, but I didn’t have to like it.

The dog and I brought the cows up from the paddock. I started the machines, remembering in the nick of time to check to see if the vat needed washing. It did.

This milking went much better than the morning’s, though. Smoother. I didn’t hassle the cows and they didn’t hassle me. I did the entire milking with fourteen a side.

Gramps poked his head in just as I was finishing up. ‘Louise rang. She said to put the cows in the nearest paddock to the shed on the right.’

Bloody brilliant. Now I’d have to trudge half a
kilometre to get them back from where they’d been. Just as well the dog was keen for a run. I gave him an extra helping of biscuits when we’d got the old girls safely parked in their new paddock.

I washed the shed down, rinsed off the boots and got in the car. Gramps had an old towel on the seat and newspaper on the floor.

‘By the way,’ he said. ‘I gave Louise your number.’

‘She doesn’t bloody need my number,’ I growled. ‘She found it quick enough this morning.’

‘Your bank account number,’ Gramps said, his face straight.

I let that sink in. ‘She’s going to pay me?’

‘Don’t you think you’ve earned it?’ he asked.

I don’t answer dumb questions.

‘You’d better start putting some of it away, lad. The IRD will be after you for tax. Best to save it as you go.’

I slumped down in the seat. The rat-race was grabbing me by the throat and slowly choking the life out of me.

I GOT SHOT of odour of cow, had a bite to eat just in case Jayna’s idea of enough food was one pizza to share between ten people, and took myself off to her house for an evening of alcohol-free fun. I had a game plan, though — when it got too boring, I would leave and say I wasn’t used to getting up before daylight.

Buzz was already there and so was Robbie, sitting with his arm around his girl.

‘Hi,’ I said.

‘Hi,’ Jayna said. ‘Good to see you, Jake. It’s nice that you could come.’

I found a spot on the deck that just happened to be between the other two girls.

‘Meet Mary Lou,’ Jayna said, pointing to the chick on my right. ‘And Erina.’

We all smiled and said hi. Buzz was eyeing up Mary Lou, so I talked to Erina.

‘You live around here?’ I asked.

She smiled. She had a nice smile, so I smiled back and hoped mine was nice too. ‘I’m staying with my aunty. I live in Stratford.’

Jayna ordered the pizza — and everybody put money on the table. Except me. I hadn’t given it a thought. She said she’d order pizza, but I hadn’t connected the dots that said we’d all chip in for it.

‘Uh,’ I said, and I could feel my face getting hot. ‘I haven’t been paid. No money.’ Except for six bucks which was at home lying on my desk.

Buzz said, ‘No sweat. I’ll put in for you. Pay me back when you get paid.’ He threw a twenty on the table. ‘She’s going to pay you, is she?’

‘Yeah. Putting the money in my bank account. Don’t know when, though.’ I took a breath. ‘Thanks, bro. I’ll pay you back.’

He gave me a look that said
That’ll be a change
, but he didn’t say it out loud and just because of that I would definitely pay him back.

It turned out to be a good evening. Erina was easy to talk to and she didn’t freak me out the way Melanie had done. Buzz was going okay with Mary Lou too.

The talk turned to school, though. Erina and Mary Lou were both going into Year 13, same as us, and the year after that Erina was going to go on to uni.

‘What for?’ I asked. ‘I mean, what course?’

She took another bite of her pizza — it was only her second slice. No wonder she looked so streamlined. ‘Physics.’

I gaped at her. ‘Physics?’

She laughed. ‘Yeah. It’s interesting.’

She had to be one seriously smart chick.

‘What about you?’ she asked. ‘What are you going to do when you leave school?’

I shrugged. ‘Not milk cows.’

‘I’m going into the army,’ Mary Lou said.

That made me gape at her too, and I noticed Buzz was doing the same. ‘The army?’ he asked, his voice almost squeaking.

Now she laughed. ‘Don’t I look tough enough?’

To be truthful, she didn’t. Too short and too skinny.

‘I want to be an electrician,’ she said, ‘and the army pays you while you train.’

Robbie chipped in with, ‘Jayna’s going to do web design.’

Then all three of them wanted to know what we were all going to do. ‘Not milking cows gives you a lot of choice still,’ Erina said, laughing at me.

Yeah. I had other things I could add to the list of what not to do, and top of it would be don’t turn out like my old man. I tuned into what Buzz was saying and I had to work hard to keep my mouth shut. He’d never said any of this stuff before — but then, it wasn’t something we talked about either. ‘I’m going to get my pilot’s licence.’

‘Cool,’ Mary Lou said. ‘You might be flying the plane next time Jayna comes to En Zed.’

Buzz shook his head. ‘Not me. I want to fly small planes and helicopters. I want to be a rescue pilot or fly one for the police.’

I was still digesting that when Robbie put in his two cents’ worth. ‘I want to go to art school.’ That
wasn’t such a surprise. He was good, really good.

So that just left me. I lay back on the deck. ‘Plenty of time to decide. School hasn’t started yet.’

‘But we’ll have to confirm our subjects any day now,’ Buzz said. ‘I’m dropping Bio and picking up Engineering instead.’

‘Hey, it’s still the holidays,’ I said. ‘What DVDs did you get?’

We stopped talking about the weighty stuff and went inside to watch a DVD. I sat beside Erina.

Jayna’s guardian dragons came home at 10.30. That broke the party up. They’d been out dancing. Life was full of surprises.

Jayna came with us out to the road. I said, ‘How about we all go to a movie? Wednesday?’ But I was looking at Erina.

She smiled her awesome smile and said, ‘Sounds fun. Let’s do it.’

So the others all said yes, a good idea. Which it was, so long as Louise had the cash in my account before then.

I checked next morning. ‘Yee ha!’

Mum came in clutching a long spoon. ‘What’s the matter?’ She looked worried.

I jabbed at the screen. ‘Nothing’s the matter! Louise has paid me one hundred and fifty bucks.’ First thing Monday, I would book my learner’s test.

Mum gave me a one-armed hug. ‘You’re a man of means, Jake.’

I left home early enough to go to the ATM. Man, it felt good to get those notes in my fist. Weirdly, it even felt good to hand over the fifty we’d each
decided to put into the kitty for petrol. And I gave Buzz the tenner he’d put in for me.

He grinned at me. ‘Thanks, bro.’

It felt different, blatting the car round the paddock, knowing that it was my hard-earned cash it was chewing through. I couldn’t decide if I liked the feeling or if I resented it. A bit of both, probably. Then I decided it would be okay if I knew I’d be getting more work, but Buzz hadn’t said anything about milking that night. I asked him.

‘Solo job again,’ he said.

But when I got home, Gramps had left a note on the table for me:
Louise wants to know if you would milk for them till Sat. Guy they got in was a useless prick.

He’d left her number. I sat down and looked at it for about five minutes, tossing up the pluses and minuses. But both were so obvious they didn’t need a lot of thinking about. I picked up the phone. ‘Yeah, I’ll do it,’ I told her.

I waited while she raved about how wonderful I was and how her husband would relax now he knew his herd was in good hands.

So I did the decent thing and asked, ‘How is he?’

She actually laughed. ‘He’s getting better. Thanks, I have to say, largely to you.’

That might be piling it on too thick, but hey, if it made her happy.

I raided the pantry. A working man needed to keep his strength up.

Mum did the honours in driving me out to the Longs’. I thought she might go on about how pleased
she was with how I was turning out, but she just chatted away about nothing much and she seemed suspiciously happy.

‘Have you met a guy?’ I asked. She was an okay looker, it wouldn’t surprise me.

She looked startled. ‘No! Whatever makes you think that?’

‘You just seem happier than usual. Excited.’

She laughed. ‘I wasn’t going to say anything till it’s certain. But I’ve probably got a new job.’

‘Wow, Mum. That’s spectacular!’ I patted her shoulder. ‘What doing?’

‘Manager of a plant shop,’ she said. ‘I’ll know for definite on Monday, but it’s all looking good.’

‘Brilliant.’ She’d be good at it too.

Then she stunned me by saying, ‘It’s really thanks to you, darling.’ She took her eyes off the road to smile at me. ‘You dived in and did something you didn’t want to do. And it’s worked out. So I thought if you could be brave, then so could I, and I applied for this job.’

Well, well. I sat chuckling to myself the rest of the way.

I BOOKED MY learner’s on Monday and hoped I’d be awake enough not to make dumb mistakes. I fronted up, carrying the proof that I was me and not a Martian. Got my sight checked and did the test. Aced it.

I biked home. Excellent. Gramps was there.

‘I can drive to work,’ I yelled, waving the licence at him.

He clapped me on the back. ‘A double celebration then,’ he said. ‘Your mum got the job.’

‘That’s great,’ I said round a mouthful of the chocolate cake he’d made.

It was a bummer that Gramps had to come with me while I drove, but at last I was on my way. When I pulled up at the farm, making sure I didn’t stand on the brakes when I stopped, he said, ‘You’re doing okay. For a learner.’

The other event of that week, in between milkings, was the movie evening with the girls. I kept trying to imagine Mary Lou in army fatigues, but I just couldn’t see it.

Erina asked for my mobile number. ‘You haven’t got one?’ She couldn’t get her head around it.

‘You could get one,’ Robbie said.

‘I might,’ I said. I turned to Erina. ‘Give me your number and I’ll text you if I do.’

She didn’t write the number on my arm the way Jayna had done for Robbie. Erina had class. She whipped out a little notebook and wrote on a page of that.

I wondered whether to hold her hand in the movie. I thought about that instead of concentrating on the screen. About halfway through, I decided to go for it. She’d be going back home in a week anyway. What was there to lose?

When I took her hand, she squeezed mine and snuggled in closer. I watched death and destruction on the screen with a big smile on my face.

We went to Maccas afterwards, but lucky for me we
didn’t discuss the movie. When we left, I asked Erina, ‘Where are you staying? Want me to walk you home?’ Then I held my breath — what if she was staying a zillion miles away?

She said, ‘I’d like that.’ She gave me the address. Not too far — phew.

We started walking and we found stuff to talk about all the way. She asked what I’d thought of the movie, so I said, ‘Didn’t take much notice. Too busy thinking about you.’

She didn’t seem at all upset by that. We got to her house really quickly and just as I was wondering if I could kiss her, she leaned in and kissed me. ‘It’s been a lovely evening, Jake.’

And it hadn’t finished. I put my arms around her and kissed her back again. She didn’t get upset about that either.

I walked home, smiling all the way. Not even depressed at the thought of milking again in the morning.

That was a long week, though. I would never get used to the early mornings and then repeating the whole process again in the evenings.