Five Parts Dead
Tim Pegler is an award-winning journalist and author. His first novel for young adults,
Game as Ned
, was a Children's Book Council of Australia Notable Book in 2008. Tim lives in Melbourne with his family.
FIVE PARTS
DEAD
TIM PEGLER
TEXT PUBLISHING
MELBOURNE AUSTRALIA
The paper in this book is manufactured only from wood grown in sustainable regrowth forests.
The Text Publishing Company
Swann House
22 William Street
Melbourne Victoria 3000
Australia
textpublishing.com.au
Copyright © Tim Pegler 2010
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright above, no part of this publication shall be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.
First published by The Text Publishing Company, 2010
Cover and page design by WH Chong
Typeset by J & M Typesetting
Printed and bound in Australia by Griffin Press
National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication data:
Pegler, Tim.
Five parts dead / Tim Pegler.
ISBN: 9781921656286 (pbk.)
For secondary school age.
A823.4
For Lawson & Rose
Luceat Lux Vestra
CONTENTS
RU: KEEP CLEAR/MANOEUVRING WITH DIFFICULTY
ZL: YOUR S IGNAL HAS BEEN RECEIVED BUT NOT UNDERSTOOD
B: DISCHARGING DANGEROUS CARGO
QX: REQUEST PERMISSION TO ANCHOR
C: AFFIRMATIVE/CHANGE OF COURSE
A: I HAVE A DIVER DOWN, KEEP WELL CLEAR & SLOW SPEED
T: KEEP CLEAR, ENGAGED IN TRAWLING
FA: WILL YOU GIVE ME MY POSITION?
M: I AM STOPPED. MAKING NO WAY.
Q: MY VESSEL IS HEALTHY. REQUEST PRATIQUE (PERMISSION TO ENTER PORT)
I hate the wheelchair. Loathe it. Mum's at the back of the Landcruiser doing reverse-origami trying to unfold the bloody thing.
âDad!' I groan. âCome off it. I can make it that far. I'm not aâ¦'
âInsurance, mate,' he interrupts. âThe stairs are steep. Probably wet, too. They specifically asked, no,
demanded
, you use the chair, Dan. Can't risk you falling and suing them for buggering upâ¦making your foot worse than it already is.'
Mum opens my door as a bloke in orange safety gear and earmuffs beckons the car in front into the bowels of the ferry. I drag my arse across the seat, my left leg trailing. I shift my right foot to the side step and plonk down, wincing as the plaster cast hits the ground.
I slump into the wheelchair and scowl. Mum stoops, fussing over the bracket that supports my smashed foot. The campervan behind us honks. I wave to them. With one finger.
Normally Mum'd give me a serve for that. Today she pats me on the shoulder. âGood on you,' she says. âWhat sort of mongrel blows their horn at someone in a wheelchair?'
She's trying to be sympathetic but it just pisses me off more. I don't want to be âsomeone in a wheelchair'. And I'm fed up with all her mollycoddling.
âWhere'd Mel and Pip get to?' I mutter.
âThey're already on the ferry. You're never going to believe what's happenedâ¦'
Shit. I clench my jaw, knowing there will be some miracle, some vomit-inducing twist in the latest and greatest adventures of Mel. My sister is charmed, I tell you. A magnet for freakish good fortune. As her twin, I'm the polar opposite. Of course. Yang to her yin. Cursed.
Mum loves it. She basks in the sunshine of Mel's luck.
ââ¦So we're standing there at the kiosk, waiting to pay for the drinks, and a bus pulls up, loaded with tourists. The guide steps out and it's Hiroshi, Asami's elder brother, from her host family when she was in Tokyo. What are the odds of seeing him here? Unbelievable.'
Unbelievable would be right if it was anyone but Mel. That sort of Midas-touch shit happens to her all the time.
âWhat's Pip up to?'
âShe wanted to photograph the ferry loading. She'll catch us up inside.'
Pip is Mel's best buddy, but I reckon their friendship sort of defies logic. The two of them couldn't be more different.
Mel is tall, like me. We're alike but not so much that people always pick us as twins. I'm fair-haired in an inconspicuous way, while Mel has yellow-blonde hair she keeps cropped short. We're both athletic but Mel is leaner, and faster, damn it. She's loud, confident and super-popular, one of those Queen Bee types that other girls circle like satellites.
Pip is short, freckled and has long dreads. She avoids sport and couldn't care less about the social politics of who's in and who's out. Her dad died last year so maybe that put school stuff in perspective. I mean, her dad was sick for two years. The cancer ate him from the inside until there was nothing leftâjust a brittle old cicada skin. Then that was gone too.
Pip took time off school to be with him at the end. Her mum had to keep working because their family had bugger-all money for so long they nearly lost their house. It was brutal. The bank came knocking, demanding repayments while her dad was on morphine, dying in the back room. Arseholes.
So Pip hasn't had a summer holiday for a few years. She was rapt when Mel asked her to come with us. Normally I'd have invited a mate along too. But my matesâ¦well, three of them are gone. There's really only Barney now and he's not exactly flavour of the month with Mum. Besides, with my bung foot, I was hardly going to be Mr Party-Animal and Barney likes to be where the action is. And that isn't where we're going. Not even close.
Mum and Dad booked a cottage on Tammar Island. Not just any cottage, mind you. Not in a postcard-perfect beachside village with shops, a cinema and mini-golf. Nope, that's not their style. Not my folks.
They booked a lighthouse keeper's cottage at the northwest tip of the island. In a national park. Near absolutely nothing.
If I sound dirty on them, it's because I am. I'm filthy. I didn't want to come, don't want to be here. They plan to hike, go bird-watching and work on one of Dad's nature documentaries. Fine for them.
Knowing Mel, she and Pip will stumble across a Swedish boys' school doing massage classes and an extended chocolate-tasting tour of the island. Which leaves me. Alone at the end of the Earth with a smashed-up foot, in virtual solitary confinement. Seriously, it's a custodial sentence, not a summer break. But after recent events, maybe that's exactly what Mum and Dad had in mind.
RU: KEEP CLEAR/MANOEUVRING WITH
DIFFICULTY
I ditch the wheelchair and stagger to a window seat. Given the stack of seasickness bags wedged beside the armrest, this isn't going to be a pleasure cruise. I'm happy to surf or swim or paddle a canoe but put me on a boat and I'm all at sea. My head's in the dunny within half an hour.
I was mighty pissed off when Mum and Dad told me we were taking the ferry to the island. I suggested I fly out and meet them but there was no way they were going for that. Maybe they thought I wouldn't get on the planeâor they're tightening the reins, paying out on me for making poor choices in the lead-up to the accident. Whatever.
This summer was doomed, totalled before it began. Wiped out with Carlo, Aaron and Boris, three of my best mates.
âDan. Dan! Wake up. We're about to land.'
I yawn and look around, trying to remember where I am. Aah, yesâ¦that queasy sensation. The ferry. Tourists jostle on the upper deck, shooting photographs as we approach the island. Bet Pip's among them. She wants to be a photojournalist after we finish school.
Maybe snoozing saved me from seasickness. That's a win. Especially when I don't like sleeping during daylight. I always feel crook when I wakeâall Rip Van Winkle and out of sync with the world. It's a different story since the accident, though. I can sleep at the drop of a hat. Must be the painkillers.
Wish the drugs were doing their job right now. My foot throbs in the cast like someone's inflating it with a tyre pump. I grit my teeth and try to flex my toes. My bum's numb from sitting in one position so long. Gripping the seat armrests, I push myself up, wiggle a bit and then slouch to the chair. That's better.
âNice moves, Dan. Not sure they'd work on the dance floor, though.' Pip smiles across at me andâ¦I think I'm blushing. Weird.