So Sick! (11 page)

Zac squeezes under the climbing frame. Karl scampers into a rolling barrel and tucks himself inside. It doesn’t take long for Luke to realise that there is no more hiding places for him. Thanks guys! he thinks. Heartbeats, toots and beeps vibrate in his ears, along with,
I recognise
those bags. Whoever you are I’m going to get you. You’re a thief
.

Luke searches frantically for a place to hide. He hears footsteps. She’s coming!

Mrs Sully’s face is purple. The pigeon is flapping on her head like a pigeon about to be made into a pie.

Luke looks for an escape route, at the same time pulling his beanie low over his face. He sees a large metal frame close by a wire fence. Might work, he thinks. Then …

‘Gotcha!’

Hands grasp at air as Luke scrambles up a ladder. He scampers along the monkey bars.

Mrs Sully keeps on coming, yelling, ‘Get down, you thief! Get down!’

From the corner of his eye Luke can see a line of cars stretching out at the traffic lights. Drivers are getting out. Drivers with angry voices and even angrier faces. He decides to go for broke. Poised on top of the monkey bars Luke leaps, fear carrying him over the wire fence. He lands on the roof of a truck, which is parked in a side lane, does a roll like a professional stuntman, then clambers to his feet.

He’s outta there! Like a homing pigeon Luke heads for the Wallaroo’s special tree.

‘Talk about scared!’ gasps Zac, swinging up into a branch some twenty minutes later.

‘Nearly pooped myself!’ agrees Karl as he climbs up, too. He stretches. ‘Boy, am I sore. Any longer in that barrel and I’d’ve turned into a stiff.’

‘What happened?’ asks Luke.

He hears how Mrs Sully, single-handedly, picked up each sack of chook poo and lugged it back to her car. One by one she carried them, completely ignoring the commotion she had caused.

‘By now there’s cars queued up from Simpson to South Australia!’ Zac sweeps his hand depicting an imaginary highway line.

‘And that’s not the end of it!’ says Karl.

‘Tell me!’ insists Luke, absent-mindedly flicking off pieces of bark.

Karl drops his voice. ‘She comes back … ’

‘Was she coming to get you?’ asks Luke, his voice full of awe.

‘Uh, uh,’ says Karl. He squirms, then drops his gaze.

‘What?’ asks Luke, grabbing Zac’s arm.

‘You sure you want to know?’ asks Zac.

Luke pushes him in exasperation. ‘Of course, I want to know.’

Zac looks at Karl. ‘Tell him,’ he says.

Karl nods. ‘She comes back,’ he whispers, ‘for the hanky!’

Karl could have said she came back with a gun and it would have had the same effect. All colour drains from Luke’s face. His pupils are black pits. He is aware of having to work to breathe. He pictures the white hanky — Luke Bladen printed in black laundry marker along one seam. ‘Dad!’ is all he says.

Sure enough, that night, the phone rings. Luke’s dad lumbers to get it. Luke sits at the dinner table, mashed potato stuck in his throat. He can hear the politeness in the voice start to fade leaving in its wake, a sharp edge.

Luke’s heart is beating a rap. It’s saying, Mrs Sully. Mrs Sully. Mrs Sully. He wonders if he should hide then thinks, what’s the point? He’ll find me anyway. He remembers that the show is tomorrow and curses his bad timing.

Luke’s father stands at the door, his face like thunder. Luke puts a hand to his forehead. He can feel it twitch, the blood pounding in his veins like waves. He watches his father cross the room …

‘Cold callers!’ says his father, thumping the table. ‘Always asking for money!’

Luke sags in his chair, the pounding in his chest and head ease to a mere tugging. ‘Blood suckers,’ he says in agreement.

His father chuckles. ‘That’s right, Lukey. Leeches!’

When Luke wakes up the next morning his heart is light. He hums as he climbs out of bed and pulls
on his clothes. Thoughts of Hamish and chook poo hide in the recesses of his mind because today is the day of the show! As Luke steps out from his door, the glare of the sun turns to gloom. Hope it’s not going to rain, he thinks to himself as he squints at the sky. But it’s not rain that hides the glare.

It is hundreds of pigeons, gliding and swooping together in a great tapestry of flight. The pigeon race has started.

Wonder which one’s Pretty Boy? thinks Luke watching the flock of birds, the white ones stark against a sea of grey.

Pretty Boy. Pretty Boy means Mrs Sully. And Mrs Sully means …

Luke shivers and pulls his jacket tighter.

‘Six shots for two bucks! C’mon boys, show us what you’re made of.’

Luke looks at Zac. ‘Time for another gnome?’ he asks.

Zac’s pulling out his money before Luke’s even got to
gnome
. ‘Sure,’ he says. It’s one hour later.

‘I’ve had enough!’ says Luke. ‘Let’s go.’ His pockets are lighter and the two gnomes he’s won he has given to Zac.

Karl lies on the ground, resting against the tent pole with his hat over his face. Luke is pacing up and down like a dingo at a boundary fence.

And Zac?

Zac’s won rent-a-crowd. He has Sleepy and Sneezy and Dopey and Bashful. Happy and Grumpy are there, too.

‘Time,’ says Luke.

Zac swivels around. He puts his hands up as if to beg. ‘Not yet, please. There’s only
one
Doc left. I just wanna win that Doc, then I’ll be done.’

‘Broke, more like it!’

Just then, Hamish, Eli and Oscar wander up.

Luke frowns. What’s Hamish doing here? ‘Aren’t you meant to be grounded?’ he asks Hamish.

‘What Mum doesn’t know won’t hurt.’ Hamish narrows his eyes to slits reminding Luke of a pig dog.

‘Six,’ says Hamish, holding out two dollars to the man. He turns to Zac. ‘Pretty good stash you’ve got there.’ He gets down on his haunches to inspect the gnomes then asks, ‘What are they? The seven dwarfs?’

‘Yeah,’ says Zac. ‘All I need is Doc.’

‘Doc, huh?’

‘Then I’ve got the set.’

Luke nudges Zac to shut up.

Karl is on his feet, looking as uneasy as Luke. ‘Let’s go,’ he says in a quiet voice and goes to grab Zac’s arm.

Hamish pushes between them and reaches for the rifle. He aims, then fires six shots in quick succession. Six ducks topple over.

The man in the gallery whistles, then grins. ‘Not bad,’ he says. He points to the shelves of prizes. ‘What do you want?’

Hamish laughs, a hair-raising laugh. To Luke it sounds like a finger in an electric pencil sharpener. Hamish inspects the prizes. He rubs his chin, pretending to make up his mind. He takes his time. Eventually, he says, ‘I’ll have — Doc.’

‘No!’ Zac stands there, looking like he’s won the lottery, then lost it all on one bet.

Hamish reaches for Doc. ‘Ooops!’ he says, in a voice as fake as vinyl. Plaster shatters everywhere.

Doc’s hat lands at Luke’s feet. Luke sees Hamish wink at Eli and Oscar. He can’t believe it! But then again, he can.

‘No-o-o!’ wails Zac, bending down to pick up the pieces.

Luke grabs Zac’s arm. With a gentle voice he says, ‘Don’t bother. It’s no good.’

Karl reaches for a plastic bag to start packing the other gnomes away. ‘Let’s go,’ he says as he picks up Dopey.

But Dopey never makes it to the bag. Dopey gets halfway when he is launched from a Hamish boot to the buttock.

‘Oops, sorry,’ says Hamish. ‘Must’ve tripped.’

Dopey hits the tent pole. His body slides against the stand but his head goes west.

Zac looks like he’s about to cry. Hamish looks like he’s about to laugh. And Luke? He looks like he wants to smash something. He lunges at Hamish who steps out of the way. Luke swings around to face him.

‘Hey, fellas,’ interrupts the gallery man. ‘Take your business elsewhere.’ He makes cluck, clucking sounds with his tongue and quickly shuts the flaps of the shooting gallery.

Hamish snatches Dopey’s head and hurls it at Luke who ducks and collides with a popcorn machine. The popcorn machine starts spewing. The popcorn lady races to stop the machine but trips and knocks over the fairyfloss stand. Fairyfloss flies through the air. Zac grabs a handful of popcorn and chucks it at Hamish who promptly chucks some back.

Not again!

It’s hard to tell who is who and what is what. Popcorn and gnomes and boys covered in fairy floss tussle in a heap when suddenly a hose is turned on them.

Luke is the first to get away. He stands to the side laughing as Hamish tries to escape the cold blast. It takes Luke a while to register who is
holding the hose. She looks strange without a pigeon in her hair. Luke feels a sting on his cheek. He swipes and inspects the imaginary insect. He is surprised to find his hand covered in blood. Luke looks around. He sees Hamish — Hamish who managed to escape the blast is now smashing gnomes, deliberately stomping them into the ground. A shard of flying plaster has cut him.

Zac is yelling and Mrs Sully is yelling.

Hamish opens his mouth to yell, too. He starts his war cry, the thumping, stomping, bumping war cry of the Warriors. He throws back his head and opens his mouth — wide …

Then, all of a sudden the most wonderful thing happens. The most marvellous thing that Luke could wish for.