Tigers on the Beach (18 page)

There is a card in the store window. In big angry letters are the words:

MOONING NOT ALLOWED

There is uproarious laughter from the next table. I look up at the convex security mirror and see someone mooning in aisle number two. Moments later, Ben Beacham proudly emerges from the small grocery department, hitching up his shorts. Three yachties sitting at the table alongside us give him a round of applause.

‘Hi, Adam,' Ben says. ‘Hi, Sam.'

‘Hi, Ben,' we both say.

‘You guys are still together?' he says.

‘Yes,' I say.

‘I decided to dump Michaela Debeljak.'

‘How come?'

‘She wasn't mature enough. She didn't even like my Kevin Bloody Wilson CD. And “Where's Me Fuggin Bike?” is a modern classic.'

Ben joins the three yachties and they work out who will be the next one to moon the mirror. There really is an acute shortage of things to do in Samsara.

‘Will you come to our next concert?' Sam asks me.

‘I'll come to all your concerts,' I say.

‘We're playing at Park Lake again. Will you get up and dance?'

‘If I'm asked.'

‘I'd really like it if you got up and danced.'

I shrug. ‘For you, Sam, I will get up and dance even if I'm not asked and even if I make a fool of myself. I figure that's my job.'

‘We should do a project together. It would be more meaningful.'

I don't ask, ‘More meaningful than what?' though I'd like to.

‘We could write a book together,' says Sam.

‘No, let's do something easier. Like learning Chinese.' Sam smiles. ‘Mandarin?'

‘No, Chinese.'

There is another round of applause.

‘Get the hell out of here, you disgusting kids,' yells Victor Burns, bringing the mooning contest to an abrupt close. I am amazed to see that one of the kids who has observed the mooning contest is Siggy Townsend, who is easily one of the brightest kids around. When he sees me he looks confused, as though he has appeared in the wrong place, or he's a character in the wrong book. Siggy has a stunningly beautiful black-haired girlfriend called Amber. Everyone who sees her falls in love with her. I could never understand what Amber saw in Siggy. He's average-looking, like me. Maybe he knows that powerful joke that Grandpa never got around to telling me? Surely Siggy isn't a member of the mooning group? Amber would hate that. She's more into fashion than flashing.

‘How are your milkshakes?' Siggy asks, wiping the table in a professional way, and I realise he has taken on part-time work at the store. It must be tough for him, looking after the customers and trying to control the regular outbreaks of public nudity.

‘I didn't know you worked here,' I say.

‘I'm saving up enough money to take Amber to Paris.'

Suddenly, Siggy seems more like a man than a boy. His voice is deeper than I recall. I feel like a minor, even though I am thirteen years, eleven months, two weeks and three hours old.

‘Wow. Going to Paris,' I say. ‘How is that even possible?'

‘Adam, have you ever heard of aircraft?'

‘Yeah, but air tickets are so expensive. How are you going to get enough money?'

‘Slowly. But I'll do it. You really don't have to stay in Samsara all your life. There are other places to see. Look at the postcards.'

Siggy is referring to the revolving postcard stand that Victor Burns keeps near the magazines. The postcards feature photos of Rome, Paris and London. The weird thing is, there are no postcards of Samsara. Victor Burns has tried to correct this omission by having
Greetings from Samsara
printed in gold at the bottom of each postcard. Anyone who comes to Samsara hoping to get a view of the Eiffel Tower is in for a major disappointment.

‘We can save up enough money to go to China,' Sam says to me. ‘That can be our big shared project. We can go to the Great Wall.'

I nod. ‘Yes, I would definitely like to see the Big Wall with you.'

‘
Great
,' says Sam.

‘Fantastic,' I say.

‘No, I mean, it's the
Great
Wall not the
Big
Wall.'

‘I don't care what size it is,' I say. ‘I would love to look at it if you are there with me. Actually I could even tolerate a trip to Kryal Castle, provided you are there with me.'

Xander has decided that tonight is the night he'll release his bug collection back into the wild. His recent interest in girls means that his bugs are no longer a priority. I wonder what sort of girlfriend Xander will get. A lot of girls find him cute, and maybe he
is
cute with his long yellow hair, green eyes and high cheekbones, but when he starts reciting numbers it puts the girls off. The ideal girlfriend for Xander is someone who can love him for what he is and also prevent him from walking into trees. Maybe he'll find someone like that.

Xander wants to release the bugs near the beach, which means I have to walk with him to make sure he doesn't hurt himself. We carry six shoeboxes each. It takes us forever to find the perfect location. Well, it takes
Xander
forever. I'd be just as happy to release the bugs anywhere. But Xander keeps wandering along the foreshore until he finds the perfect bush. It's getting dark. I want to get the ritual over and done with. But this would be expecting too much from Xander. He doesn't just shake out the contents of the shoeboxes. He gently lifts out each bug by hand and tells me I have to do the same. It takes nearly half an hour. Xander decides at the last minute that he doesn't want to release the tractor beetles here. He has other plans for them.

When Xander and I emerge from the beach track, we see a shiny car parked out the front of The Ponderosa. You can't see colours at night, but I know that this car is red. I know the owner.

Xander and I arrive at the office to find Stanley Krongold. He is crimson-orange with rage. My parents are doing the most annoying thing you can do to an enraged person. They are remaining perfectly calm.

‘There's no question,' yells Mr Krongold. ‘It was quite deliberate. It was a savage, malicious act and I intend to launch legal proceedings.'

‘Are you sure?' asks Mum.

‘Of course I'm sure.'

‘It just seems so unlike my mother to try to run someone down.'

‘She's such a gentle person,' says Dad. ‘I can't believe that Doris would try to kill you. Were you jaywalking?'

‘I was standing outside a house waiting for a client. She drove up onto the grass and headed straight for me.'

‘My mother wouldn't do that. She's a sweet person.'

‘No, she bloody well isn't.'

Mr Krongold's anger is so great it seems impossible for it to be contained in such a small space as the office. Xander and I put down the shoeboxes and spectate.

‘Mr Krongold, I thought you liked my mother,' Mum says. ‘You're always talking to her at the store.'

‘I'm taking this to the police,' says Mr Krongold. ‘And please understand that I have quite a few friends on the force.'

I know for a fact that Mr Krongold doesn't have any friends on the force. Or if he does, they're certainly not at the Flanders police station.

‘Your mother will be charged,' says Mr Krongold. ‘She'll be found guilty, I can guarantee it. You'll lose a lot of money.'

‘I doubt it very much,' says Dad.

‘But even if we do,' says Mum, ‘even if we are so broke that we have to sell The Ponderosa, we would never in a million years sell it to you.'

Stanley Krongold looks as though he is about to say something else, possibly even accuse me of being a roadside sex-maniac, but he just shakes his head and releases a contemptuous puff of air. He leaves the office.

Mum and Dad exchange a look of quiet satisfaction. They are the old team again, the high school sweethearts who weather thick and thin.

‘Where have you boys been?' Dad asks.

‘We released Xander's bugs.' Mum is surprised. ‘All of them?'

Xander nods. ‘We found the right bush.'

‘Well, I'm sure they'll be happy there,' says Dad.

‘Actually, we didn't release
all
of them in the bush,' I admit.

I hear Stanley Krongold start his engine and wonder how long it will be before he realises that Xander has released his tractor beetles into the car.

Two days later, Grandma's stay at The Ponderosa comes to an end. She moves back to the big house on The Escarpment. Cabin number two is officially handed over to me as my own private bedroom, where I will be able to sleep and shave and keep all my important personal things, such as my Chinese plank.

At the big house, Grandma admires the two new additions to her back garden. They are alder trees, secretly planted by Dad, Xander and me. Well, Dad did most of the work. It was my job to make sure that Xander didn't walk into them. The two alders are Xander's idea, our shared birthday present to Grandma. She looks at the trees as though they are old friends.

‘There are still possums,' she says.

‘There will always be possums,' says Dad. ‘But they might leave these trees alone.'

‘If you put out some fruit, that might work,' Mum suggests.

Grandma shakes her head. ‘I've tried that. They're greedy.'

‘We could make possum collars,' I say. ‘If we wrap some tin around the tree trunks, it would stop the possums climbing up.'

‘It would also look ugly,' says Grandma. ‘I think I'll take my chances and leave the trees as they are.'

‘If the possums kill them we'll come back and plant more,' I say. ‘And if the possums kill
those
, we'll plant even more.'

‘That's utterly ridiculous,' says Grandma. ‘Thank you.'

‘You're mostly welcome,' Xander and I say.

So far, Mr Panozzo's book about Australian holiday resorts hasn't come out. I doubt it ever will. Dad's eyebrows are bushy again. But now the left one points
down
and the right one points
up.
Life is full of surprises. I told Sam the joke about the two goldfish in the tank, where one says to the other, ‘How do we drive this thing?' It's the joke that nobody in the world ever laughs at.

Except Sam. She laughed.

Grandpa and I are sitting on the back landing again. His bald head shines in the morning sun.

‘You gave me a nice send-off,' he says.

‘It was good,' I say.

‘And I liked the penguin joke, even though it's old and corny.'

‘It was either that or the one about the farting Lady Mayoress.'

‘It's probably just as well you told the penguin joke. Though I wouldn't have minded the other one.'

‘It wouldn't have been right.'

‘Probably not.'

‘I've been thinking a lot about this whole business of when it's okay to laugh.'

‘I know. It's why I'm here.'

‘The way I see it, comedy is like music.'

‘I agree. But then I would.'

‘There are lots of different kinds and not everybody is going to like the same thing. But people are more passionate about comedy than they are about music.'

‘How do you mean?'

‘Well, if your girlfriend likes classical music but you like heavy metal, you might convince each other that both forms of music are okay.'

‘Possibly.'

‘But this won't happen if you like different types of comedy.'

‘You're right.'

‘People who don't like the Mr Creosote vomiting sketch from the Monty Python movie will
never
like it, no matter how funny you tell them it is. When people hear music they don't like, they usually just shrug and walk away or turn off the radio. When people see or hear comedy they don't like, they actually get mad. And they persist and just get madder. They don't walk away.'

‘I've always thought that was odd,' says Grandpa, stretching his legs.

‘Nathan says it's because laughing is a primitive thing. It goes way back to when humans were less evolved.'

‘You mean, like Tony Palin?'

‘Even less evolved than Tony Palin. People get angry because they think they've been cheated out of a laugh.'

‘And laughing feels good.'

‘Yes.'

‘So when people
don't
laugh when they're expecting to –'

‘They feel bad. Even angry. A book that is supposed to be funny is more likely to get a savage review than one that is boring. Funny books rarely win awards.'

‘So what do you do if you and your girlfriend don't find the same things funny?'

‘What did you and Grandma do?'

‘We never went to comedy movies together.'

‘I bet you didn't watch TV comedies together either.'

‘Just documentaries. Oh, and
The Simpsons
. Doris and I both laughed at
The Simpsons,
but never at the same jokes. The only time we laughed together was when she read me
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
'

‘Is it really that good?'

‘It has excellent jokes.'

‘By the way, what is the best joke in the world?'

Grandpa considers my question but when he answers, a helicopter lands and the noise drowns out everything he says. That's what always happens in dreams, when you really, desperately want to know an answer, it's impossible to hear. A man with a white robe and a long beard steps out of the helicopter.

‘I'd better go with him,' Grandpa tells me, standing.

‘Who is that?' I ask. ‘Is that God?'

‘It might be.'

‘But you made so many jokes about him,' I say. ‘Does this mean that God has a sense of humour?'

Once again, the helicopter is making too much noise for me to hear Grandpa's answer.

I went online to find out what is supposed to be the best joke in the world. At least, it's the joke that people of different nationalities laugh at the most, even Eskimos and bushmen of the Kalahari. Here it is:

Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn't seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other guy whips out his phone and calls the emergency services. He gasps to the operator, ‘My friend is dead. What can I do?' The operator says, ‘Calm down. I can help. First, let's make sure he's dead.' There is a silence, then a gunshot is heard. Back on the phone, the guy says, ‘Okay, now what?'