Bleakboy and Hunter Stand Out in the Rain (10 page)

24

jesse

Kate and I are sitting on a comfy old lounge on her back deck, watching her dog, Misty, chase its tail. Round and round Misty goes, until she gets so tired she falls in a furry bundle on the grass, whining with dizziness.

Kate has a pen in her hand and an exercise book in her lap. She taps the pen on her knee. ‘Come on, Jesse,' she implores. ‘“Save the whales now!” is a little boring. No-one will read a leaflet like that. We need something catchy.'

‘It would help if we could use pictures,' I say.

Kate shakes her head. ‘Sarah's Number One Rule: no gore, no,' she giggles, ‘rude words.'

I try to imagine what my dad would say. He's the expert in puns.

A whale of a problem.

Worth blubbering about.

All far too embarrassing to say aloud.

Kate sighs. ‘We should be able to show the truth. No matter how ugly it is. People like Skye need to understand.'

‘Why don't we have a picture of a mother whale and a calf?' I suggest. ‘Nothing yucky, just a happy photo of mother and baby. And then a headline like—'

‘My baby! Eaten by the Japanese!' says Kate.

‘Maybe something less—'

‘My baby is not a burger!'

I smile. Kate is already scratching the headline across the top of the page.

‘My baby is not a takeaway!' I suggest.

Kate laughs.

She slowly fills the page with writing. She knows everything about the whales and the Japanese without once checking the iPad on the table in front of us. I watch her as she writes. A slight frown line across her forehead gets deeper as she concentrates. She has the lightest freckles on her nose, as if they're fading right before my eyes. Her curly hair is tied in a ponytail with a green ribbon to keep it in place.

‘I like green,' I blurt out without thinking.

‘Pardon?'

‘Green. It's my favourite colour,' I stammer, my eyes straying to the ribbon.

Kate sees me looking and smiles. ‘Me too!' She stretches her legs toward the table and rolls up her pants to show me her socks. Green. ‘My lucky socks,' she says. Then she blushes and goes back to the whales and Japanese.

‘When I rang Dad, I asked him what else we should do,' I say, ‘at the protest.'

‘And?'

‘He said we should form a group with Sarah and ask to see the Japanese Ambassador.'

Kate's eyes sparkle. ‘Great idea, Jesse. Me and you and Sarah, and Eoin with his excellent Japanese.'

‘Not Hunter.' I giggle, thinking of what Hunter would say. All that swearing wouldn't be very diplomatic.

Kate reaches for a book and offers it to me. ‘You can borrow it to learn all you need about whales for our meeting.'

‘I don't know if it'll be that easy to get inside,' I say.

‘No worries, I'll email the embassy, so they know we're coming.'

‘What if they ignore you?'

‘Mum says I should contact the newspapers and television stations. She says whenever there's a camera around, people can't say no.'

As if on cue, Kate's mum arrives home from work, carrying a briefcase, her high heels clicking on the timber kitchen floor. She waves to us and mimes having a drink. I'm not sure if she's asking if we'd like a drink, or saying she can't wait to have one herself, so I just smile.

A minute later she carries a tray of soft drinks and chocolate biscuits out to us.

‘Hi Jesse.' She smiles. ‘Have you and Kate saved the world yet?'

‘Almost, Mrs Hughes,' I say.

‘Call me Aristea please,' she says.

I wonder what that name means.

Mrs Hughes smiles. ‘I bet I know what you're thinking. It means the best ever.' She pours Kate and me a glass of lemon drink. ‘When I was Kate's age, I never told anyone that. I used to come up with fake meanings to avoid embarrassment.'

‘It's lovely,' I say.

‘I've grown into it, you might say.' Mrs Hughes points at the biscuits on the tray. ‘Eat them all okay. It'll be hours before dinner.' She walks back into the kitchen, humming.

I reach for a biscuit. ‘Aristea, goddess of chocolate biscuits!'

Kate laughs.

I offer her the tray. She shakes her head. ‘The chocolate gets caught in my braces.' She blushes.

‘That's okay,' I say. ‘It means you'll have the taste of chocolate in your mouth for longer.'

Kate reaches for a biscuit. ‘You always see the
positives, don't you, Jesse?'

My mouth is full of crumbs, so I just nod.

‘Maybe we should take a packet of biscuits to the embassy. To encourage them to eat biscuits, not whales,' says Kate.

‘Now there's a slogan,' I say.

Kate and I both giggle. Kate says, ‘One, two, three,' and together we shout, ‘Eat biscuits, not whales!'

Misty whines from the garden and starts chasing her tail again.

25

HUNTER

After school on Friday, Hunter enters the phone number of the Salvation Army into his mobile and listens for a ringing tone. He sits on the bed in the spare room, staring at the boxes of his father's cast-off clothes.

‘Hello,' a lady's voice answers.

‘Hi,' says Hunter. ‘I've got lots of clothes.'

There's silence on the end of the line.

‘I don't want them,' Hunter adds. ‘They're not mine.' He stands and pushes a box away with his foot.

‘You can bring them into the store, if you wish,' the lady says. ‘Ask for Margaret.'

Hunter looks at the three boxes in the corner. It's too many to carry.

‘Um, okay,' he says. Three trips to the shops just to get rid of a bunch of rags.

‘I'll be here until five today,' Margaret says, before hanging up.

Hunter sighs and tosses his phone onto the bed. He lifts the top box in both hands. It doesn't weigh much, but he can't carry all three to the shops in one go. Maybe he should just leave them on the footpath and hope someone will take them away.

He walks into his bedroom and looks out the window. Mrs Betts is wheeling the rubbish bin out to the gutter. He looks down the street. Everyone's bin is on the footpath, like a sentry line of smelly soldiers. Hunter imagines himself under cover of darkness, running up and down either side of the street, dumping his father's clothes into each bin. A shirt here, a jacket there. He giggles. He could set the stopwatch on his phone. How long would it take to remove all traces of his father?

He thinks of all the homeless people who could use the clothes. Kate and Jesse would definitely take them to the Salvos. Maybe he should phone Bleakboy. He's such a do-gooder, he'd come round and help carry the boxes to the shops.

‘Ha!'

He walks downstairs to where the rubbish bin
stands beside the garden shed. He tilts the bin, opens
the side gate and pulls it onto the footpath. He checks his watch. Still an hour until Mum gets home from work. He walks around the back but before
going inside, he spies his old skateboard next to
the shed.

Hunter picks it up and spins the wheels. A little squeaky, but they still roll. He carries it upstairs to the spare room and puts it on the floor beside the boxes. Carefully, he lifts a carton and balances it on the skateboard. He stacks a second box on top. Then a third. The pile looks cumbersome and awkward. Hunter stands behind the boxes and pushes them across the bedroom floor. The skateboard trundles along.

‘Ha!'

Hunter lifts the top box from the pile and carries it downstairs and out to the footpath. He races back upstairs for the next box. Soon enough, Hunter and his dad's clothes are rumbling down the footpath toward the shops. When he gets to the bottom of the street, he slowly turns the wide load and it clatters across the road. A woman in a four-wheel drive smiles as she waits for Hunter to get to the other side.

The gutter looms in front of him. Normally, there's a flat section for cyclists, but not here. Hunter pushes the skateboard into the gutter and unloads one box at a time. He kick-flips the skateboard onto the footpath and reloads the boxes. He's sweating with effort when he reaches the Salvation Army store three doors down from the Berliner Cafe. He remembers his mum and the man at the cafe. His mum smiling as she held the rose.

A woman wearing a black-and-white chequered dress with white stockings comes out of the Salvos and, when she sees Hunter's load, holds the door open for him. He wheels the skateboard through the doorway.

‘Men's or women's clothes?' the woman asks.

‘My dad's,' Hunter answers.

‘Oh well,' the woman says, before walking away.

Hunter hears the bell above the door tinkle as it shuts behind him. He pushes the boxes along the lino floor toward the counter.

A woman wearing glasses with a purple scarf covering her hair walks out from the rear of the store.

‘So, what have we here, young man? A year's supply of comics? Broken toys and a video game from the dark ages?'

‘Are you Margaret?' Hunter asks.

The lady tilts her glasses and looks at Hunter. ‘One and the same,' she says. ‘Did you ring earlier about clothes?'

Hunter nods.

‘Well, bless me, finally we may have a donation that doesn't go straight to the tip.' She opens the top box and pulls out one of Hunter's dad's work shirts, nodding approvingly. She lifts a few more shirts from the box, holding each one up to the light, inspecting the collars and the stitching along the sides.

‘Excellent quality, young man,' she says. ‘I won't even bother checking the other two boxes. You have a trustworthy face.'

No-one has ever said that before, Hunter thinks.

‘May I ask whose clothes they are?' Margaret says.

‘My dad's.'

Margaret removes her glasses.

‘And he's?' She bites her lip and waits for Hunter to finish the sentence.

It occurs to Hunter that she thinks his dad is dead.

‘He's gone to New Zealand,' Hunter says.

‘Oh, I see,' says Margaret. ‘Well, you can thank your mum for sending us these.'

Hunter wonders why she's thanking his mum. It was his idea.

‘It's very kind,' Margaret adds.

Hunter unloads the boxes and places them near the counter. He picks up his skateboard and walks out of the shop. On the footpath, he looks back and sees Margaret folding and stacking the shirts on the counter.

He drops the skateboard, places a foot on it and skates along the footpath, weaving in and out of pedestrians and cafe tables. He can't help but smile. Almost as much fun as riding Les's scooter.

‘Hunter!' a voice calls.

He slows and looks around.

On the verandah of the Berliner Cafe is his mum. She holds up her mobile.

‘I was just about to text you for a thickshake,' she says.

Hunter blushes. If his mum had been on the verandah a few minutes earlier she would have seen him trundling along with his dad's clothes.

The same four men in cycling outfits who were there the other day are sitting at an outdoor table. The man with the yellow bandana is fiddling with his helmet strap. The waitress brings him a slice of lemon meringue pie with a huge mound of cream on top.

‘Where have you been, Hunter?' his mum asks, as they sit at a table near an open window. She motions for the waiter to bring a coffee and a thickshake. He knows their usual order.

Hunter looks at the table of cyclists. Bandana-man has a dollop of cream on his knuckles. He wipes it on his jersey and keeps eating.

‘Hunter?'

‘I was just skating,' Hunter says.

‘I could see that, dear,' she says. ‘Did you go to the skate park?'

He nods.

The waiter brings his mum's coffee and slides the thickshake across the table to Hunter.

The table of cyclists laugh. One of the cyclists in a red jersey stands and pretends to be riding a bike slowly up a mountain. He sways from side to side, grimacing, before collapsing back into his chair. The men laugh again.

‘I finished work thirty minutes early. I couldn't resist a little treat for you,' Mrs Riley says.

Hunter sighs.

‘What is it, dear?' His mum reaches across and touches his shoulder.

‘I wasn't at the skate park,' Hunter says, taking a deep breath. ‘I was … I took Dad's clothes to the Salvos.'

There, he said it. He reaches for the thickshake, but doesn't take a sip. He hopes his mum doesn't cry. Not in the cafe. Not with all those men around.

‘All the boxes?' his mum says.

Hunter nods. ‘On my skateboard.'

His mum laughs. She gets up and wraps both arms around Hunter in a big hug. Hunter feels his face pressed into her chest. She strokes his hair.

‘Oh, you beautiful boy!' she says.

Hunter squirms free. He notices the table of cyclists looking at him, except Bandana-man. He's scooping up the last of the cream.

‘I've been wanting to get rid of them for ages,' Mrs Riley says. ‘But I was worried about …' She shakes her head. ‘I'm such a fool.'

She signals to the waiter and sits back down. The man comes from behind the counter.

Hunter looks at his mum. Her eyes are sparkling and her face is flushed. She's smiling. She leans back in the chair and exhales, as if a great weight has been lifted from her shoulders.

The waiter asks if there's a problem.

‘Not at all,' Hunter's mum says. She looks at Hunter.

‘Let's have a cake, dear.'

Hunter looks at the cyclists.

‘Lemon meringue pie, Mum?'

She laughs.

‘With double cream. And two forks,' she says.

26

jesse

A few days later on a Wednesday morning, all of Class 6S are standing under an awning, watching the rain fall. I look up at the skyscraper towering above us. The Japanese Embassy is on the sixteenth floor. Office workers hurry past, their heads bowed against the rain. I zip up my black jacket. I was tempted to wear my hoodie but I didn't want to scare the pedestrians. Everyone in my class holds a stack of leaflets, waiting.

Sarah nods. ‘Now remember, don't force anyone to take one. Just offer it with a smile.'

I step forward, nervously offering a leaflet to a man wearing a suit and carrying an umbrella. He looks at me and brushes past. A man in shorts and a fluoro vest rushes toward me. He's carrying a parcel under one arm. I smile.

‘Not today, mate,' he says.

Next, a bicycle courier jumps the gutter and rides past. Rain drips from his helmet. He shakes his head as I step forward. I look across at Kate. She's standing in the middle of the footpath, handing out leaflets to everyone as they walk past. Most people ignore her, but she walks alongside them until they relent and take the paper from her hands. She keeps repeating, ‘Save the whales,' or, ‘You can change the world'.

When she runs out of leaflets, she rushes back to Sarah and grabs another bundle. The rest of the class are standing in twos and threes, taking turns to offer the leaflet. No-one seems particularly enthusiastic. Skye is yawning under the awning.

There's no sign of newspaper reporters or television cameras to record our protest.

A lady with a shopping trolley approaches me. I smile at her. ‘Would you like a leaflet?' I ask. ‘It's about the whales.'

She takes the leaflet and studies it.

‘Whales?' she says.

‘Yes, the Japanese are,' I don't really want to say the word killing to this nice old lady, ‘hurting them.'

‘Oh, that's not fair,' she says, tucking the leaflet into the top of her shopping trolley. ‘I'll talk to Gerald about that.'

‘Who's Gerald?' I ask.

The old lady stops walking and smiles. ‘You know my Gerald, do you?' She reaches out a hand and touches my wrist. ‘Lovely man, my Gerald.'

‘Yes,' I stammer, not sure what else to say.

‘SAVE THE WHALES,' yells Hunter. The old lady jumps and lifts her hand to her mouth.

‘Don't worry, he's harmless,' I say.

‘My goodness. Where was I?' she mutters.

‘Gerald,' I prompt.

‘Yes, Gerald's father fought the Japanese in the war, you see. He'll stop them. Of course, I haven't seen much of him lately,' she says, quietly. ‘Not since he …' She looks skyward.

‘Heaven,' I say.

She laughs and looks at me strangely. ‘No, silly. He's managing director, with a new office on the twenty-second floor. Lovely view.'

She pats my hand. ‘Well, I best be going. Good luck with the …'

‘Whales.'

‘And the Japanese,' she adds.

The rain falls steadily. Sarah and the class huddle together under the awning. Kate and I are the only ones still in the rain. I've only got a few leaflets left. Kate is walking around gathering more leaflets from the rest of the class and frantically handing them out. I give my last leaflet to a tourist, who looks at it and hands it back, saying, ‘No Ingleesh'. I stuff the leaflet into my pocket and walk toward Sarah.

‘Well done, Jesse,' Sarah says, ‘but I'm afraid we have another stack of leaflets in my bag.'

‘I'm hungry,' says Skye.

Sarah sighs.

Kate walks back to the group. She looks at Sarah, hopefully. ‘Have we heard from the embassy? Are they going to send somebody down to meet us?'

Sarah checks her mobile phone and shakes her head.

‘I'm hungry,' repeats Skye and a few others join in. Hunter starts walking toward McDonald's.

‘Hunter, you know that's against school policy.'

‘Food is against school policy,' Hunter says.

‘Multinational corporations,' says Sarah. ‘We'll find a small kiosk, or maybe we can go to the food court.'

‘Not Japanese,' says Kate. ‘I'm starting a boycott.' She crosses her arms. ‘I'm not buying anything made in Japan.'

‘What sort of car does your mum drive?' Hunter asks.

Kate ignores him and walks toward the food court. The rest of us follow her. Sarah says, ‘Hunter, could you try to be more supportive, please?'

‘Sure, Sarah.'

We all wait for the punchline, but Hunter just smiles and walks on ahead.

In the food court, Sarah orders huge plates of Chinese dumplings.

‘Dumplings are for fatties,' Skye moans.

‘Yeah, dumplings for dumplings,' adds Anastasia.

Sarah looks reproachfully at both of them. ‘We've made a communal decision, girls.'

‘What does that mean?' asks Anastasia.

‘Sarah says dumplings, we eat dumplings,' interrupts Hunter.

‘That's not true, Hunter. I asked everyone what they wanted,' says Sarah.

‘Yeah, and we all said no to everything,' answered Hunter.

‘So that's why I chose dumplings,' says Sarah.

‘I like dumplings,' I say.

‘Who asked you, Jesse?' says Skye.

I go back to eating dumplings. While they're arguing, there's more food for the rest of us.

‘Okay, you three can choose whatever you want from the food court but don't wander out of my sight.'

Hunter salutes. Anastasia and Skye giggle and walk straight to Pizza Hut. Hunter wanders around the food court until he reaches the sushi stand. He studies the menu before ordering. The girl he orders from retreats into the kitchen and a man in a white shirt and tie comes out to talk to Hunter. During the conversation, they bow a number of times at each other, before Hunter carries his food back to our table.

As soon as he sits down, Kate says, ‘How can you eat sushi?'

‘Simple, I open my mouth and chew.'

Everyone at the table laughs.

‘Don't you feel bad,' says Kate, ‘supporting whale killers?'

‘It's,' Hunter holds up the sushi, ‘chicken, not whale.' He makes a clucking sound from the back of his throat. ‘And,' he waits until everyone is listening, ‘Sarah, you said you had more leaflets?'

Sarah nods, uncertainly.

Hunter smiles. ‘The sushi owner has asked me if he could display the leaflets on his counter.' Hunter can barely contain his excitement. ‘His staff will hand them out to the customers.' He sits back in his chair, satisfied.

‘Wow,' says Kate. ‘That's genius!' She smiles at Hunter. ‘I take it all back, Hunter.'

‘Very impressive,' adds Sarah.

Kate says, ‘We could print more leaflets and leave them at every sushi stand in the city.'

Everyone moans, except me and Hunter.

He looks at Sarah. ‘Sarah, can I have every morning off school next week to deliver the leaflets? To save the whales?'

‘Good try, Hunter,' says Sarah. ‘I don't think Larry will agree to you wandering the streets when you should be in class.'

‘It's for a good cause,' I offer. Keep Hunter out of class for as long as possible, I think.

‘Thanks, comrade,' says Hunter.

‘The answer is no, Hunter,' says Sarah. ‘But I'm happy for you to draft a letter to each of the sushi shops in town and we'll send them the leaflets.'

‘I could do it, Sarah,' interrupts Kate.

Hunter shrugs. ‘It's all yours, Protest Girl.'

‘Name calling, Hunter,' says Sarah.

‘Thanks, Sarah,' answers Hunter.

Sarah sighs again.