Nowhere Boys (10 page)
He ran out of the house and down to the driveway. ‘Mum!’
She turned sharply. ‘Oh, you gave me a fright. Are you looking for Sammy? He should be home soon.’
‘I’m not looking for Sammy. It’s me, Sam!’ He grabbed her arm and almost instantly she started to breathe raggedly. ‘Mum, that boy Sammy, he’s not your son. I am!’
His mum looked up at him, her breathing laboured. ‘Sweetie, I’m not your mum.’
‘You are. I promise you.’ Sam racked his brain. He had to convince her. ‘Every birthday you make us a cheesecake. It’s black cherry. The same cake that your mum used to make for you …’
She looked confused. ‘What?’
‘When you were my age you lived at the beach and were a junior surf champ. Uncle Noel still calls you Gidget …’
His mum bent over double, her breath rasping.
Sam kept going desperately. ‘That’s why I started skating. To be like you.’ He grabbed her arm harder. ‘I miss you, Mum. Please, remember me!’
He took his hand away and in its place, a creeping bright-red rash made its way up his mum’s forearm. She clutched at it and collapsed unconscious on the pavers.
Oh God. What had he done? Had he killed her? Was it all too big a shock? He should have kept his big fat mouth shut.
He turned and sprinted back inside. He grabbed the phone and punched in 000. The impersonal voice of the operator came on the line. ‘What’s your emergency, please?’
Sam looked out the window and saw Sammy running up the path. He ran straight to Sam’s mum. Sam watched as she slowly stood up. Sammy put his arms around her and helped her to sit in the front seat of the car.
‘What’s your emergency, please?’
Sam watched his mum smile and reassure Sammy. She tousled his hair affectionately.
Sam hung up the phone and stared at them through the glass. He’d been absolutely, unquestionably replaced.
‘So, if by chance we stumbled across a wormhole, then we could have slipped through space and time into an alternate universe.’ Andy was sitting on a Bob the Builder sleeping bag, trying to convince Felix and Jake of his latest theory.
Andy took a bite of pigweed and chewed it thoughtfully. He’d been going over and over this in his head. The only explanation that really made sense was that they were in a parallel universe. ‘It’s possible that large bodies of mass can move between dimensional planes –’
Andy’s stomach made a terrible gurgling sound.
Felix looked up from his black journal.
‘You’re talking out your arse, man,’ said Jake, cracking himself up.
Andy ignored him. He needed to concentrate. ‘An Einstein-Rosen bridge is basically a tunnel with two points in different space-time continuums.’ His stomach gurgled again. Andy stopped talking. Maybe Jake was right. ‘Have we got any toilet paper?’
Jake laughed. ‘Dude, we don’t even have a toilet.’
Andy made a run for the door.
He crouched behind a tree, feeling the effects of a twenty-four-hour diet of weeds. It wasn’t good. Even worse was only having a handful of gum leaves to finish the job. Bear Grylls must have the constitution of an ox. Andy Lau’s bowel was more equipped for spicy pork buns than dandelion leaves.
He brushed away thoughts of his
nai nai
’s cooking. No point thinking about that now. He had a Lorentzian wormhole to find. If that was how they got here, then surely that was the way home. Only problem was, how do you find a wormhole? And even if you
do
find one, how do you keep it open long enough to transport four boys? That’s a lot of mass.
Andy frowned. If they had got here via a wormhole then it must have been a total freak occurrence, so the chances of them returning the same way were infinitesimally small.
He sighed. He wished he could talk to his dad.
He’ d
be able to explain what had happened to them using some complex mathematical formula that made utter logical sense.
Andy staggered back towards the shack. He was going to have to hold off on the weeds for a while. But they needed food, and so far he hadn’t had any luck catching fish. Bear Grylls sure made it look easier than it was.
He could try trapping some wild animals. Possums, maybe.
He opened the door to the shack. It was looking almost cosy. Camping mats lay on the floor. Jake had blown up an old li-lo, and some rickety camp chairs surrounded an old card table.
Home sweet home.
Jake and Felix were arguing. Felix had found fifty cents in the pocket of one of Sam’s dad’s old raincoats and Jake wanted to go and spend it straightaway.
Felix disagreed. ‘You can’t buy anything useful for fifty cents. We should wait until we get more and then put it together.’
‘How are we going to get any more? We can at least buy some gum. Remind our mouths what they’re meant to be doing.’
Andy looked at the silver coin Felix was twirling in his fingers. He suddenly had an idea. ‘We could get a really good meal for that!’
Jake looked up. ‘No way, man. You’re not on dinner duty
ever
again.’
Andy smiled. ‘Trust me, this will be a dinner fit for a king.’
The boys made their way into town. Andy walked purposefully. This was the best idea he’d had in ages. Okay, so it didn’t involve a camel’s stomach or boiling live crickets, but it did involve the stealth and ingenuity of a hunter. And if the end result was food, who really cared?
‘There’s Sam,’ said Jake.
Sam was sitting on a bench next to the skate park, staring into space.
The boys surrounded him.
‘You okay, man?’ asked Jake.
‘How okay can you be when your parents had another kid instead of you? And they called him Sammy and he’s a pro skater and his girlfriend is …’ Sam looked across the skate park at Mia.
Jake followed his gaze. ‘That totally sucks.’
‘Yep,’ said Sam.
Andy had no idea what to say. He’d never had a girlfriend in his life, let alone lost one. But he did know one thing that would cheer Sam up. ‘Do you want some food?’
Andy opened the door of the phone box and the four boys squeezed in. Andy nodded at Felix. ‘Okay, put it in.’
Felix reached up and pushed the precious fifty-cent coin into the slot. The stench of his armpit wafted into Andy’s face.
‘Ooh, that’s really not good.’
Jake shrugged. ‘I’ve tried to tell him but does he listen?’
Felix scowled at them both, but Andy was busy punching in the number.
The phone rang twice and his
nai nai
came on the line. Andy had an overwhelming desire to tell her how much he missed her and loved her. But remembering the way she’d chased him out of the house with the meat cleaver, he stopped himself.
‘Hello, Mrs Lau … yes … two serves of 22, extra spicy. Yep … four 63s … and a 54. Deliver to 144 Acacia Court … Yes, in cash.’
Felix leant in. ‘Get some lemon chicken.’
‘Seriously? That’s not even real Chinese.’ Andy turned back to the phone. ‘And a 37, that’s all thanks. How long will it be?’
He hung up.
Jake looked unimpressed. ‘Now what? We kill the delivery guy?’
‘The ninja must learn to wait,’ said Andy cryptically.
The four of them waited on the street opposite Lily Lau’s Chinese Restaurant.
Andy’s sister, Viv, and his
nai nai
were struggling to unfurl a banner across the front of the restaurant, which said, in bright red letters,
FESTIVAL OF THE HUNGRY GHOST
.
Every year Andy’s
nai nai
forced him to make dumplings for the hungry ghosts. Apparently if they weren’t fed they got angry – very angry.
Andy thought the whole thing was hocus-pocus but Nai Nai insisted on the tradition. So every year, he and Viv made mountains of perfectly shaped dumplings that they never got to eat. He’d once snuck one off the pile for himself, and Nai Nai had whacked him across the shins with her rolling pin.
Andy sighed. Happy days.
An overweight man with a handlebar moustache came out of the side door of the restaurant, carrying some plastic bags.
‘That’s him. Kevin,’ Andy whispered.
The man jumped on a moped with
LILY LAU’S CHINESE RESTAURANT
emblazoned on the side and started the engine.
‘Come on,’ said Andy, as the moped put-putted down the street.
At that moment, Viv spotted him. ‘That’s him again,’ she yelled. ‘The
stalker
!’
Andy and the others took off after the moped. This new version of Viv disturbed him. He’d never got on all that well with her, but now she’d had a personality transplant, he found himself kind of missing his old goody-two-shoes sister.
The moped made a right turn into the main street.
‘Okay,’ said Andy, indicating for the others to stop behind a tree near the newsagency. ‘Kevin has a crush on the newsagent. Every afternoon he sneaks her over a little package of love dumplings. There he goes.’
Kevin drove straight past the newsagent.
Andy’s face fell. ‘Maybe it’s different in this reality.’
Kevin stopped at the post office, posted a letter and turned the moped around. He glided to a stop outside the newsagent.
Andy grinned. ‘Okay, watch and learn.’
Kevin took a package out of the moped and walked into the newsagency.
Andy sprinted across the street. He grabbed the bags of food and was back with the others just in time to see the bewildered expression on Kevin’s face as he discovered his delivery had disappeared.
The boys sat in the sunshine outside their shack. Andy unpacked the small plastic boxes and placed them reverently on the grass.
‘63: Phoenix Talons – steamed chicken feet. 22: Szechuan liver with snow peas. And 54, the ultimate: Chu Kiok Chou – pigs’ trotters in vinegar.’
Jake and Sam looked miserably at the display.
‘Why didn’t you order normal food, nerd?’ muttered Jake.
Andy looked sideways at Jake as he reached for a pig’s trotter. It was unbelievable. He’d provided enough food for all of them, which was a lot more than Jake had ever done. He squared his shoulders. ‘Why do you keep calling me nerd?’
Jake almost smiled but quickly covered it by shoving a snow pea in his mouth.
Andy noticed Felix, who was looking somewhat dismayed. ‘Oh, I nearly forgot …’ He pulled out one more container and opened it with a flourish. ‘Number 37: Lemon chicken.’
Felix smiled gratefully. ‘Thanks, Andy.’
Andy picked up his chopsticks and began to eat. Eating his
nai nai’s
food had a strange effect. Yes, it was delicious, but with every mouthful, Andy felt more and more homesick.
Every flavour and spice seemed to be related to a memory. Nai Nai hitting his knuckles for folding the dumpling dough the wrong way, his dad telling him bedtime stories about particle physics, Viv beating him at the science fair, and his mum making him wear three singlets to school when the temperature dropped below thirty degrees.
Funny how the things that drove you crazy about your family were the things you missed the most.
Andy felt a tear fall and quickly wiped his eyes. ‘It’s the chilli.’
Jake held his gaze for a moment. ‘You did well, nerd.’ Only this time he said ‘nerd’ with a smile.
Andy smiled back. He watched Jake, Sam and Felix gulping down the food. He might not be Bear Grylls, but this feast wasn’t a bad effort.