Living With Leanne (9 page)

‘Huh?’

‘You’re as white as a ghost.’

‘Just tired, I guess.’

‘We’ll get some hot coffee, eh? That might help.’

The guys are lounging against the car when we go back.

‘Got some money?’ says Alicia, ‘Leanne and I want a coffee. Ya want one?’

‘Nah. But you can bring us some Cokes when you’ve finished,’ says Danny.

He shoves some notes into Alicia’s hand and we walk into the diner.

‘He’s nice,’ I offer as we sit at a table.

‘Who? Danny? Victoria’s most wanted?’

My heart thumps.

‘How do ya mean, most wanted?’ I go.

‘He’s a wild boy, Danny Preston.’

The waitress takes our order. Black coffee for me because Alicia says that’ll wake me up, and a Mugacino and bowl of chips for Alicia.

‘Why’s he wild? What’s he done?’

‘What hasn’t he done’s more to the point,’ says Alicia. He’s from the Lake Wendora Reserve. He’s been chucked out of more schools than you can count on your fingers and there’s a ban on him entering any government school in Victoria.’

Gentle Danny? I can’t believe it. She must be making a mistake.

‘What did he do?’

‘What didn’t he do, more like. He’s been in trouble since kindergarten when he unscrewed the hinges off all the
gates and let the other kids out into the street. And primary school when he kept running away, or the time he climbed on the roof and they had to call the fire brigade to get him down, or the time he nicked the gardener’s ride-on lawnmower and chewed up all these posh gardens, and the stones he’s chucked through heaps of windows, and … Oh. Then there’s high school. At his first one, he and three other kids smashed up the locker rooms and hit a teacher over the head with a chair. They got split up and sent to different schools and Danny trashed that one, too. Broke into another school and stole stuff. Then he was sent to this special school at Healeston for out-of-control kids and the first day he stole the school bus and drove it into the river.’

‘How do you know all this is true?’

‘He’s from my tribe. Spent most of his life down south but.’

I feel angry.

‘So why didn’t the tribe try and control him? I mean, there’s no way my mum’d let me or my brother get away with stealing stuff or trashin a school. She’d go berserk.’

‘What if she was drunk all the time, and the guy she was living with was drunk too? And what if she whipped you every day and belted you till you could hardly stand up since you were three years old because she couldn’t cope? And what if people called you a dirty black Abo? How
would you act then? You’re white, right? You wouldn’t have a clue what it’s like for my people and the things that’ve been done by you whites.’

She’s leaning right into my face, her face is angry, and I’m frightened. When my dad yelled from the landing his words cut deep.

‘I’m sorry,’ I mumble, ‘I’m really sorry.’ But then as she munches her chips I start getting mad myself.

‘Listen,’ I go, ‘my dad might be rude and ignorant, but that doesn’t mean I am. And you can’t make me responsible for all the rotten things that my ancestors did.’

‘Hey. Heavy.’

It’s Danny behind me, his hand on my shoulder.

‘Amos’s arrived. You finished?’

His voice sounds tight. He’s only heard what I said; he hasn’t heard Alicia’s stuff at all.

‘You don’t understand,’ I say, getting up. ‘We …’

‘Let’s go!’

Alicia storms past.

‘She’s got a lot of hassles on the inside,’ says Danny quietly. ‘And maybe if you ask her she’ll tell you some of them and maybe you might start to understand …’

I lean in towards him but he moves away slightly: it might as well be ten kilometres. I feel totally rejected.

‘Are you two comin’ or not?’

‘Yeah. Right with ya, man.’

He strides off and I follow. I can’t believe this. In the last ten hours I’ve fallen out with my dad, Alicia and now Danny. And before that, Nathan, Rick and Mattie. The only one I can yell at’s Mum and she still likes me. In fact, the only one in the world who loves me is Mum and I have to go and be somewhere near the Queensland–New South Wales border with a bunch of people who couldn’t care less. I must be crazy!

Amos turns out to be a giant, tall as the door, and with big, bulging muscles, and he’s older, maybe thirty. But he listens to Danny and Ty quietly as they tell him my story before he points us into the car. I calm down because I realise that they do care about me, otherwise they wouldn’t be going to all this trouble. I give Alicia a smile. She shrugs then grins back. Friends again!

I sit in the back with Danny and Alicia and listen to the conversation. And gradually as the car eats up the k’s and they talk about Aboriginal issues I start to get it, just a tiny bit, but enough to make me reach across and squeeze Danny’s hand. I don’t care if he pushes me away or doesn’t want me to touch him, I want to let him know I care. He looks at me, grins, and squeezes me back. I relax against his shoulder and keep listening.

‘So. What did the elders say?’ asks Amos.

‘Come on, man. I can’t tell you that. But I got clearer in myself, got rid of a lot of the bad vibes, ya know?’

‘What’re you gonna do when you get back, then?’

‘Yeah,’ says Ty. ‘When you’ve got a rep it’s hard to change, man. The jacks are still gonna be on your case even if you sit in church all day long.’

‘They’ll be thinkin ya gonna whip off with the gold crosses and stuff,’ says Alicia.

‘Yeah, well, what’s new?’

‘Tell ya, but, they’re stayin outa the reserve since their cars got trashed.’

‘Yeah? Well, they can’t pin that on me,’ says Danny, and I can feel him tensing up beside me. ‘I’ve got witnesses who know I was up north.’

Then he turns to me.

‘We shockin you, Whitey?’

I think about some of the white kids I know who’ve got drunks for parents, who get bashed. There’s kids at school who’ve been hauled off to Youth Training Centres for trashing schools, breaking and entering, robbery with violence, arson … and the cops have got their numbers, too.

‘Get real. You lot think you’ve got the monopoly on misery?’

‘Whoa. Serious!’ says Alicia.

She’s confusing me. What have I got to do to gain her
confidence? I thought I had it till the guys turned up. I guess I’ve got a lot more listening to do before I’ll be really accepted by my new friends. I just hope I can make it. We roar along the highway into the dark and the oncoming headlights. Then a flashing blue light’s zooming up behind us. A flashing blue light?

‘Cops,’ says Amos grimly, and pulls over onto the side of the road.

Now what?

Home life sucks right now. Mum was so excited when Leanne phoned from Dad’s place in Noosa. Then when Dad told her Leanne had racked off for no apparent reason she was cracking them bad.

‘What do you mean, she raced out the door? What do you mean she was with a bunch of no-good Aborigines? Did you talk to them? No? That’d be right, you’ve always judged people on face value, Vince,’ she yelled down the phone. ‘Well, don’t just stand there moaning at me. Find our daughter.
Now
.’

She’d slammed down the phone and burst into tears. Then she wanted to call again and didn’t have the number. When she got onto the operator she discovered it’s a silent
number. So Steve got into the act and started pulling cop strings and got it. By the time Mum rang again Dad was out searching Noosa for Leanne, and this woman who Mum said was probably the Lollipop Lady, was totally uncooperative. Mum said there’d been this kid bawling in the background, too.

‘Get Vince to phone me as soon as he comes in,’ she’d said.

Then Steve had phoned his cop friends and got wheels turning in Noosa, so we’ve been sitting on a time bomb waiting for either Dad or the cops to find her. But it’s like she’s disappeared into thin air.

Since Leanne’s left Mum’s lost heaps of weight. Figure-wise she looks good, but her face looks tired. Her sense of humour’s dried up too. It’s amazing that Steve the super cop still wants to hang round our place, but at least he hasn’t quit on Mum. Or Leanne.

And school’s no better. Time bomb there, too. Tomorrow’s Saturday and Cooja’s got himself working about eighteen hours, and Sunday as well. He’s already made two hundred bucks working five till twelve in his uncle’s best friend’s pizza shop. He looks like death. I reckon he’s nearly lost as much weight as Mum. Nah, just joking. But if we ever get to go on this double date with Eva and Gabby we’ll only need three seats because he’ll be able to sit on my lap!

I go down to Strapper courtesy of Mum who’s dragged
herself away from the phone for the occasion.

‘So. How’s it going, Sam?’ says Mike.

He’s trying to be sympathetic but I feel like an idiot. The whole world seems to know that my sister’s cleared off. It’s embarrassing.

‘Okay, I guess.’

‘Heard anything about your sister?’ goes Ant. He’s been teaching me board shaping as well as improving my surfing techniques, though I’m finding the water too cold to actually hit the waves in the middle of winter (due to the fact that my wetsuit’s worn so thin it’s next to useless). But there’s some great surfing videos always playing in the front of the shop and I can watch them in the breaks and hear the guys talking about them. Without Strapper and Mike and Ant and the other guys I think I’d have gone psycho by now.

‘Dad phoned from Noosa and Leanne had turned up there, but then in the middle of the phone call she cracked it and cleared out.’

‘Well, at least you know she’s all right,’ says Ant.

Then we get onto it and I forget all my problems as I work with the fibreglass. By the end of the day I’m exhausted, but I’m feeling okay.

‘Can you come in tomorrow? We’ve got an order to fill for Japan,’ says Mike.

I’m rapt. At least one thing’s working out in my life.

Mum collects me and says that Cooja wants me to call him urgently.

‘Although what Cooja could want “urgently” is beyond me,’ says Mum.

I know. My heart sinks. The Madonna tickets.

I ring him.

‘So, have you got it organised?’ he goes.

‘What?’ I say, playing for time.

‘The tickets. You
do
remember the tickets?’

‘Yeah, yeah, no worries.’

I hang up and phone Belinda.

‘Sorry, she’s not home,’ says her dad.

Then he wants to know if there’s any news of Leanne. He’s only seen Mum about an hour ago (she’s taken over Leanne’s hot bread shop shift so the job’ll stay open for when Leanne gets back, as well as doing her own shifts, although I think she keeps dashing home every hour to listen to the answerphone that Steve’s had installed). I’m getting fed up telling everyone there’s no news.

‘There’s no news, Mr Strachan. Er … do you know where Belinda’s gone?’

‘Round to Cathy’s I think.’

I phone Cathy’s place. Her mum tells me she’s round at Belinda’s place, so I quickly hang up. They’re doing the old
con and I don’t want to get them sprung, do I? Only one thing for it: I’ll have to go down town and look myself. I drag on clean jeans and a t-shirt.

‘Where are you off to, Sam?’ goes Mum.

‘Just downtown for a while.’

‘Well, be careful.’

She never says that to me now. I guess having one kid disappear off the planet is making her nervous about losing the other one.

‘Mum, I’m not gonna get lost downtown!’

‘When can I expect you back?’

Leanne, you are responsible for ruining my future life. I’ll kill you if you ever get back here.

‘An hour or so, okay?’

‘I’ll pick you up if you like.’

‘Mum!’

‘All right, all right, but phone me if … phone me at nine if you’re still out, okay?’

Oh, man!

‘Yeah, yeah.’

I go down to the bus stop. The graffiti on the bus shelter says, ‘Leanne Studley is
hot
’. She’s going to be so famous when she gets back to this hole. There’ll be kids going on the run in droves just so they can get their names on bus shelters. There’s a couple of Year 9s on the bus.

‘Heard from Leanne?’ they go, ears flapping.

‘Yeah. She’s in Hollywood at the moment doing
Jurassic Park II
’.

‘Yeah?
Hot
!’

I feel like reminding them they’ve left their one shared mobile brain cell at home, but what’s the use? The bus rolls on townwards and I bail in the main street.

‘Any news of Leanne?’

‘Leanne back yet?’

‘Hey, see that kid? That’s Leanne Studley’s brother.’

‘Leanne still on the run?’

If I hear that name once more … But I’m on a mission, to find Belinda and Cathy. I cruise into the Golden Cue and peer through the gloom. Nearly every kid in the city’s jammed in there and I push and shove my way through kids playing pool, kids playing video games, kids playing pinball machines, kids trying to get on with other kids, and a few suss types trying to flog off drugs.

‘Want to buy some top gear?’ says this sleaze-bucket in my ear.

‘Not today.’

You’re not going to get Sam The Stud Studley gunking up his lungs and brain and sperm with skunk weed or stuffing up his system with goey. Forget it. I’ve got enough problems without drugs.

‘Anyone seen Belinda Strachan or Cathy Fletcher?’ I keep asking.

No one.

I go down to Bruisers. No Belinda. No Cathy. Cruise on over to Lushies … not there either. Now what? The shops. They might be trying on gear. It’s late night Saturday shopping till ten, it’s new. So I hang outside the jeans shops peering in windows. Then I go into Speaky’s surf shop in case they’re checking out guys or gear in there. I’m getting desperate. Where else? Just as I’m giving up I run into Chani, Mel and Brooke cruising down the street.

‘Ya seen Belinda? Or Cathy?’ I go.

‘Tryna get on with Belinda again?’ says Mel.

‘
No way
. But I can still talk to her, can’t I?’

I think they were going to get their hair done at Stefan’s in the Bay City Plaza,’ says Chani. ‘You could try there.’

‘Thanks.’

I take off, thinking about Chani as I go. She’s nice, sort of sensible, not a woolhead like some people I know and have to find in a hurry. I wonder if she’d go out with me? Nothing heavy, maybe a movie?

Stefan’s is one of those open-plan hairdressing places. When you stand outside you can see all these people getting dye jobs and haircuts and blow waves. I peer in and sure enough there’s Cathy and Belinda side by side sipping
orange juice out of tall glasses with all this purple gunk on their heads.

‘Can I help you?’

The receptionist smiles, a Colgate-dazzling effort, and I nod.

‘Can I just speak to those two girls?’

I point.

‘Sure.’

I zip over.

‘Belinda, Cathy, I’ve gotta …’

They give little squeals and cover their faces with their hands. Now I’m close I can see that their hair has been pulled through holes in some sort of shower cap and it’s sticking out like porcupine quills.

‘Does that hurt?’ I say to Belinda, pointing to her head as she takes her hand away from her face and glares at me.

‘No. Course not. What are you doin in here, Sam?’

She sounds cross. Cathy’s looking daggers at me, too. I guess girls don’t like it when guys see them sitting with their hair in tortured purple spines all over their heads.

‘I’ve gotta talk to you.’

‘Yeah? Well, go on, talk, then.’

‘Well … I need a favour …’

‘And what makes you think I owe you anything, Spud?’

I suss out the tone. Is she teasing? Joking? Mad? Peed
off? It’s hard to tell with girls. They say one thing and mean another.

‘We’re friends aren’t we, Bin?’

She rolls her eyes to the ceiling and takes a swig of her juice.

‘I guess so.’

The tone’s long-suffering. I know I’ve got her!

‘I need four tickets to the Madonna concert,’ I go.

‘So? You have to sit in the queue tomorrow like everyone else.’

‘Yeah, we’d be there now except the cops have banned anyone from queuin till tomorrow, seven a.m., because of the last time when Ten Bands To Go was on, the shop windows were all smashed and people peed on the footpath,’ says Cathy.

‘I can’t sit in the queue. I’ve gotta work at Strapper.’

‘Well, get ya slimy little mate to sit, but.’

I figure she means Cooja.

‘He’s gotta work for his uncle till twelve.’

‘So? He can hop in the queue then.’

‘I’m talkin midnight!’

‘Yeah, well … four tickets? You takin someone, then?’

Belinda’s eyes have narrowed. Whoops, this is getting tricky. I’ve got to get the smarts, and quickly. Ah!

‘Aren’t you s’posed to be at Cathy’s? And you (I point to Cathy) at
her
place?’

They look at each other.

‘I get it. You’re gonna pretend you dyed each other’s hair, right? And you haven’t paid …’

I glance round and find the price list on the wall. Are these purple spines called ‘tips’?

‘Forty bucks? Fifty bucks?’

‘Okay, Sam. Four tickets. Not a problem.’

She’s caved in awfully quick. I’m suss. Years of living with Leanne have given me this natural uneasiness when females change moods in a flash. And here it comes …

‘I’ll get the tickets, money up-front, of course, but only …’

She pauses and looks sideways at Cathy.

‘If you tell me who you and Cooja are takin.’

I think quickly.

‘Well … okay, I’ll level.’

I sigh, pretending to draw it out.

‘Two are spec, ya know? We figure we can flog em for double the price.’

‘Bull,’ says Belinda very softly.

That’s one of the things I admire about Belinda Strachan. She’s no budget brain.

I decide to level with her.

‘We’re takin Gabby Zanoni and Eva,’ I go. ‘But Gabby won’t sit next to Cooja. He’s got to sit with Eva, and I’m next to Gabby.’

Belinda leans forward and yanks at my windcheater. Purple spikes press against it as she hisses, ‘And have you got the hots for Gabby Zanoni too, Sam?’

‘No,’ I blurt, ‘She scares me stiff.’

She lets go of me so suddenly that I fall back against the wall. She whispers to Cathy, their two heads so close that their purple spines are meshed together like two praying mantis antennae. They giggle. Then they whisper again. They break apart and Belinda looks at me.

‘Okay, as a favour to you, Sam, we’ll get you the tickets. Where’s the money?’

‘I’ll bring it to you in the queue,’ I say quickly.

If I give it to them in front of a hundred witnesses they can’t rip me off, can they?

‘Right, girls, time for the wash basins,’ interrupts the hairdresser, coming up and beaming at us all. Then she looks me over.

‘Hey. You’d look great with blond streaks, wouldn’t he, girls?’

I bolt for the door as they all start cacking away fit to burst. Phew. I look at my watch. Oh, no. It’s five past nine and I haven’t phoned the parent police. I rush to the public phone near the Tattslotto booth and of course wouldn’t you know it, there’s three giggling girls there taking turns talking to someone. I prop and look pointedly at my watch.
They keep talking. I cough. They keep talking.

‘Hey,’ I butt in, ‘I have to make an important phone call.’

‘Go drop off a rock.’

So much for cooperation.

‘You can use my phone, mate,’ says the Tattslotto man.

‘Thanks.’

I dial our number. Mum must’ve been sitting on top of the phone because she answers on the second ring.

‘Yes?’

‘It’s me, Mum.’

‘Oh. Sam.’

Well, excuse me for not being Leanne, I think.

‘Mum, you told me to phone at nine and …’

‘Sam Studley. It’s quarter past. Where are you?’

‘I couldn’t get to a phone, Mum. This Tattslotto man in the Bay City Plaza’s letting me use his, and …’

‘Tattslotto? Can you get me a Quick Pick? I forgot.’

‘Mum. You’re too late. It was drawn at half past eight, remember?’

‘Oh, no. I’ve been so busy worrying about Leanne that I’ve forgotten all about … I’ll bet it was my lucky night, too.’

‘Don’t stress, I’ll buy you a scratchy. I’ll be home in about twenty minutes, Mum.’

I hang up. The girls are still hogging the public phone.

‘I’d report em,’ says the Tattslotto man as he sells me a two dollar scratchy. ‘But there’s no law about talking forever on a phone in this country. Hope your ticket’s lucky.’

‘Yeah. Thanks.’

I shove it in my pocket and take off for the bus stop. I should really explain about Mum and Tattslotto. She’s got these two dreams. One is to win big bucks on her weekly Quick Pick, and the other is that some long-lost rich rellie’ll cark it and leave us piles of money. Well, I guess without something hopeful to cling to life gets pretty miserable if you’re a deserted mum slogging away in a hot bread shop with two teenage kids.