The Slightly True Story of Cedar B. Hartley Page 9

  Kite lay on the road and put his eye on that small hole in the lid. It’s a round, heavy lid made of steel or iron or something, so that cars can drive over it or you can jump on it as hard as you like and it won’t bust. There’s a hole the size of a twenty-cent piece right in the middle.

  ‘Can’t really see it,’ he said. The stolen thing.

  ‘Nuh, I know, it’s too dark in there.’

  ‘I know what it is. In the hole. I saw,’ said Jean-Pierre, rushing over all importantly. He had a cashew-coloured tummy which stuck out a bit over his shorts. His hair was very short and stood on end like a nail brush, which always made him look a little alarmed or electric. I bet he still sucked his thumb at night.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s a light. Like a lantern. They all stole it. Patrick and Harold and Frank, from Hutton Street. Where the roadworks are. It’s to stop the cars driving into the big hole in the road at night. They’re gonna get in big trouble if someone catches them. What if someone drives their car into the hole?’ Jean-Pierre shook his head and his mouth made an O shape, and you had the feeling he wanted to see someone get in big trouble. But he wasn’t going to be the dobber.

  ‘Why’s Harold putting it in the hole?’

  Jean-Pierre shrugged. ‘Dunno. Just to hide it.’

  I was a bit envious, actually. Harold having a hidden thing in that hole. Once, Barnaby put a whole lot of water in it, but that wasn’t any good—you have to put something that needs hiding away. A stolen thing is the best. Something that someone is looking for. That’s what makes it thrilling. There can’t be hiding if there isn’t seeking; it wouldn’t make sense. Like if no one is looking for you, then it’s boring to hide. Even Stinky knows that. He only wants bones and sticks if you pretend you want them, and chase him. Hailey asked us if we wanted to go to her house and see where Madge the rabbit lived, but I said no thanks. Hailey always wants to play blackboard games, and she gets huffy if you don’t play it her way. She sulks off when you start adding ears or roots or revolting words to her drawing.

  Kite and I went to my place to watch tellie. Ricci was walking back from the boys’ house with her little puffy dog, Bambi. She moaned and said Bambi wasn’t well, but then she smiled and showed us her fancy new grey-and-orange slip-on sneakers that she got from the Chinese two-dollar shop. She said Prince William had the same ones. She saw a picture of him, in a Women’s Weekly. She laughed and said Prince William must be bloody cheap like her—they only cost five bucks.

  Usually I didn’t ask people over to our house, not kids from school, because at other kids’ houses there would be a mother there to make sure you weren’t going to burn the house down, or drink the Bailey’s Irish Cream, or get kidnapped by a boogie man. Also, the house would be much tidier than ours, and there would be stuff to eat, like squashed fly biscuits or icy poles or red cordial.

  Once, Tophy Sutton from school came over and when she saw in our cupboard she said, ‘boring, boring, boring’. She said our stuff looked like jars full of bird food. Then she told everyone at school the next day: Cedar’s mother eats bird food, Cedar’s mum works, Cedar doesn’t have a dad. Tophy Sutton said that because she lisps, and she likes to point out other people’s shortcomings, too, just so that she’s not the only one with stuff that makes you different and good for a stir. I didn’t get her back, like I could have. I didn’t say one thingle lisp joke. Tophy’s real name is Sophie Sutton. For a while she got called Thophy Thutton, but then she told Mrs Mayberry, so we shortened it to Tophy.

  Our cupboard has a lot of things like lentils, rice and sesame seeds. Mum says people call it bird food because they don’t understand nutrition. Still, I’d be happy if we had squashed fly biscuits. I gave Kite a Granny Smith and a handful of almonds, because it tastes good if you put apple and almond in your mouth at once.

  With Kite, I didn’t care about our big messy old empty-afternoon house, because he didn’t have a mother at home, either, and his house was untidy, and he didn’t even have cordial. We sat at the kitchen table and I showed him the cards from Barnaby. They’re all stuck on the fridge with magnets.

  ‘He’s loopy,’ said Kite.

  ‘Yeah. He makes you laugh.’

  ‘Why did he leave?’

  ‘He ran away from boarding school because the beds were thin.’

  ‘When is he coming back?’

  ‘We don’t know. He doesn’t leave an address. We don’t even know where he really is, except that it’s Perth somewhere.’

  ‘Do you miss him?’

  I stuffed a big handful of almonds in my mouth. I had to think about it. I never would’ve thought that I’d miss Barnaby, because we used to have some big barneys. Once, he punched me in my mouth because I kicked his sandcastle, and I got a chipped front tooth. But that was when we were just kids, and now that he’s seventeen he never punches me. And he doesn’t kick me out of his room, either. He lets me sit on his bed and ask questions. Mostly, what I missed was just him being there, even if we aren’t in the same room talking. I missed all the stuff that comes along with him: his weird singing, the trouble he gets into, the things he knows. I like that. I liked it when the family felt bigger, with Granma and Barnaby. Four of us was enough to feel like a regular family. Now there’s only two, it feels too small to be a real family. It feels like a thing with holes in it. So, did I miss him?

  ‘Yeah, kind of. It’s quiet here now,’ I said. ‘Wanna watch tellie?’

  We sat on the couch. Stinky got up with us, even though he’s not allowed. It was nice just sitting on the couch and watching tellie. We weren’t even talking, and we weren’t sitting so close that we were touching. It would be funny to touch on a couch, even though when we’re practising balances we hold wrist-to-wrist, or stand on thighs, or grab hips. I even sit with my boney bum on his feet, like this:

  But it’s not the same if you touch on a couch. On a couch it would mean something. Just before he left, Kite dropped his hand on my leg and leant towards me.

  ‘Hey, I better go. Mum and Howard are taking me out for dinner before they leave again on tour.’ He took his hand away and stood up. So I stood up and walked with him to the door, like my mum does when she has guests.

  ‘Where will you go for dinner?’

  ‘Somewhere fancy with white table cloths. I don’t really want to go, not with Howard, but I have to because I won’t see my mum again for a long time.’

  ‘Do you miss her?’

  ‘I’m used to it now.’ He kicked a stone and it went hurtling off and crashed into the fence.

  ‘Well, seeya tomorrow?’ I said.

  ‘I can’t train tomorrow, I’m busy.’ He looked down and put one foot on top of the other.

  ‘Okay.’ I looked at his sneakers. They were dirty and old.

  ‘So I’ll see you Wednesday?’ he said.

  ‘Okay.’ I wanted to ask him what it was he had to do, but I didn’t. I could tell it was secret. Of course, after he went I thought about it and I was sure he was going on a date with Marnie Aitkin. They were going to Luna Park or the movies or even a fancy restaurant with waiters in bow ties, and she would be wearing some kind of sexy necklace, and he would notice it and she would giggle into her hand with the coral fingernails and—

  Oh, Signor Dongato was a cat.

  On a high red roof Dongato sat,

  Oh Signor wrote a lady cat, who was fluffy white and nice and fat . . .

  I went upstairs and tried on some of Mum’s lipstick, but I don’t think it made me pretty. I tried talking at the mirror with the lipstick on. I tilted my head sideways like Marnie does. Then I went and tried watching tellie with it on. Just to get used to it. Mum came home.

  ‘You look glamorous,’ she said.

  I rubbed it off with the side of my hand because I felt stupid.

  ‘Look, I got Ratsack,’ she said.

  ‘What for?’

  ‘To get rid of the rat. I can’t have it waking us up every night.’

  ‘You’re
going to poison it, not get rid of it.’ Grown-ups can be so sneaky with words, you have to watch out for it. ‘You can’t poison it. What about animal rights?’

  ‘Cedar, it’s vermin!’ Vermin, another one of those camouflage words that are used to justify the slaughter of little critters.

  ‘It’s an animal, a mother with babies.’

  ‘Oh, stop it Cedar, you’re being silly. Look, Oscar gave me a note for you.’

  A distraction device. I took it and shut up about the rat. For the time being.

  Lucky I wasn’t training, after all. I love cake.

  Oscar was mowing his front lawn when I arrived. He was wearing a red cape tied around his head, a bit like a shepherd or a wise man in biblical drawings. It billowed out behind him. He stumbled forward on the grass behind the mower. I yelled out hi. He turned off the lawnmower and raised his hands in the air, his face like a child who had just seen something exciting, like a cow, out of the car window.

  ‘Oh, I’m all right,’ he said grabbing my hand. (He must have thought I said, ‘how are you?’) ‘I’m trying to be useful, come in.’ He took me inside and introduced me to his mother.

  Oscar’s mother was very old, and very tall like Oscar. It didn’t suit her to be so tall. She was very talkative and she hunched her shoulders forward, as if she mightn’t otherwise fit inside the house. She said the house was in a terrible mess and her husband should have done the vacuuming, since he’s been laid-off work, and would I like a drink of lime cordial. Oscar’s father was at the pub. The house looked completely in order and arranged to me, plus there was a mother and a father not far away, and cordial. I was impressed.

  For a minute I thought she was about to ask me questions about my family, but she didn’t, luckily. She just squeezed out a smile and went and poured the cordial.

  ‘Oscar’s made a cake.’

  I wasn’t sure what I was meant to say, so I just smiled and looked at my hands. There was dirt under my fingernails. Oscar laughed into his lime cordial and it spluttered everywhere. The mother frowned, and said, ‘Oscar why don’t you show Cedar your books?’ I was wishing I’d washed my hands. They’re always grubby from handstanding on the street. I can walk around on my hands for about twenty-two steps. Oscar started to say something, his voice rumbling and stumbling. The doorbell buzzed right on top of the rumbling voice. Oscar’s mum was wiping up the lime cordial. Oscar lumbered and lurched towards the door.

  ‘Kite’s here,’ he said, words ejected like bullets. Then he smiled at me. ‘It’s my birthday.’

  Kite was wearing the apricot beanie. I went red. He looked surprised to see me. I don’t know why, but I felt as if I’d just been caught doing something wrong. Oscar’s mum talked loudly, wiping her hands on a tea towel.

  ‘Hello, Kite. Would you like a lime cordial? Oscar’s made a cake. It’s chocolate and orange. You know Cedar, don’t you?’

  ‘Yep, hi Cedar. I didn’t know you were coming.’ He raised his eyebrows at me. I didn’t think he looked thrilled or out of his mind with happiness to see me. He seemed even a bit suspicious. Then he gave Oscar something that was wrapped up in newspaper. ‘Happy birthday, mate,’ he said.

  Oscar sunk into a chair with a big gasp. He unwrapped the present very carefully and slowly, as if the wrapping paper was the kind that you might have to keep and use again. (Mum always makes us use things again.) But it was only newspaper. If it was me I’d have ripped it off, but then I have no patience. It was a book, a small hardback. Drawings and Observations by Louise Bourgeois.

  Inside, there were almost abstract drawings with a paragraph of writing. The drawings were kind of unusual; wobbly, funny, awkward and confusing. But Oscar loved it. He beamed and stood up and threw his arms around Kite, nearly whacking him in the nose. Oscar’s mum brought the cake over and we sang happy birthday. Oscar wanted to know where Kite found the book and Kite said he went and looked around at the Art Bookshop and of all the books this was the one that reminded him most of Oscar’s books. So I asked about Oscar’s books, and Oscar’s mum said Oscar was an artist of sorts. Oscar laughed and said he was just doing the only thing he could, and would I like to see?

  Oscar’s room had a single bed with a blue cover, and a large desk with a muddle of pens and paints and jars and paper and books. All over the walls there were pictures stuck up with Blu-Tack; some were photocopies of old diagrams, some were drawings, some were photos of stars or pyramids or colour pages ripped out of a book. There was a photo of Oscar riding a bike with his hands off, the way Jean-Pierre does. He looked different—brighter and strong. Oscar shoved a black hardcover book into my hand saying, ‘Here, look, this is mine.’ Kite picked up some socks and started juggling them. I sat on the bed and looked at the book. The first page was just a word written in shaky writing. It said Commonplaces. The rest of the book was full of pages and pages of drawings with words, like this:

  I liked it, but I can’t say why. Perhaps because it was odd and small and quiet, not grand, and because it made you smile just a little inward smile, and the way it scratched at your mind, like a funny tickle. Not a big one. It wasn’t big, but still it made you wonder. It made you think maybe you were a solitary leg wandering around looking for another.

  I told Oscar that I liked it and that my brother would too. Oscar was sitting in a chair and letting his arm dangle down. He said again that it was all he could do. Then he dropped his hand on his knee and his eyes went sad.

  ‘I’ve got a brain injury,’ he said, his hand thumping up and down, stuttering on the knee. He turned just his eyes towards me, head bent forward, his smile like wire stretched taut across his face, eyes like dark windows on a limousine, the bright look that I saw in the photo gone dim, as if it was covered in shadow. Somewhere behind those eyes, I thought, there was a part of Oscar all locked up. I wanted to say something, but I couldn’t think what. I looked at Kite, who had his hand on Oscar’s shoulder. He’d hardly said a word to me all afternoon. I said I had to go. Oscar said he was happy that I’d come and please come again and look at all his other books. He said it seriously, with a slow purposeful weight, as if he was lowering a precious piece of furniture to the ground, and then he pointed to a stack of black books on his shelf. I went and said goodbye to the mother.

  ‘Thank you for coming, Cedar. Oscar rarely meets new friends now. He’ll be so pleased you came.’ I asked how long Oscar had known Kite. She seemed surprised.

  ‘Hasn’t Kite told you about Oscar?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oscar’s our youngest, you know. His brother and sister have left home.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, hoping she would say more.

  ‘Kite and Oscar were best friends when they were just kids. They used to ride around together on bikes. They used to do a lot of things. Kite was learning acrobatics from his father, you know. The mother was never there. Oscar took an interest. Those days, Oscar took an interest in anything.’

  She broke off and a cloudy look came over her face. I tried to picture Oscar running and riding skateboards and climbing trees and shouting. She started talking again.

  ‘I don’t know what they did together in that garage, how far Oscar got with the acrobatics, but anyway, one day Oscar took it upon himself to practise hanging upside-down on the Hills Hoist out the back here, and he fell. He was alone.’ She sighed and twisted the tea towel in her hands. I almost could have guessed what she was going to say. ‘He landed on concrete on his head. That’s how he got the brain injury. He’s all right now, he loves his art work. But you know, Kite is about the only friend of his who has stuck by him. The poor dear felt terribly responsible for Oscar’s accident. But of course Kite couldn’t have known Oscar would try out things on his own. In some ways, Kite took it worse than Oscar, I think. He’s very protective with Oscar. He won’t let people make fun of him. Of course, Oscar’s getting better all the time. We hope he’ll just keep improving.’

  ‘Yes, of course. I hope so too,’ I said, and my mother would h
ave been proud.

  That explained why Kite got so angry with me for hanging on the trapeze. It made me think about how Mum always worries at me too, and how I always get annoyed at her worrying, because she’s just such a big worrywart, and why can’t she see that I’m well co-ordinated? I know I go around as if I’m some kind of Bionic Woman, like I’m invincible. But of course I know that I’m not. No one is. Not even Barnaby. After all, I really did break a rib. So no wonder Mum worries. I wish she wouldn’t.

  I leapt up on the wall and walked along it, thoughtfully and carefully.

  ‘Why do you always walk on the wall, Cedar? You look like a dag.’

  Aileen was standing beneath me. Next to her, surprise surprise, Marnie Aitkin. I stayed where I was on the wall. They seemed smaller that way. Marnie’s mouth was half open, as if her jaw had just got too heavy to close. I looked firmly into the small snake eyes of Aileen.

  ‘I walk on the wall because there are snakes all over the pavement.’

  ‘Oh sure, very funny,’ said Marnie with relentless predictability. Then she folded her arms on her chest, rolled her eyes and shook her head at me. I didn’t think she looked very pretty. I kept walking. Think Dinosaur I said to myself, and I became larger and larger.

  ‘Hey, Cedar,’ called out Aileen. ‘We want to ask Kite to a party. Can you give us his number?’

  ‘Haven’t got it. Sorry,’ I said, without even turning back, because luckily, as I said, the only number I know is the Ingswood’s number plate, JJH 339. That’s the truth.

  ‘Liar,’ one of them called out, but I didn’t even look back to see who.

  When I got home from Oscar’s, I went outside to put Rita and Door in the chook shed and I saw Madge the rabbit, chomping on the long grass. I got Hailey and Jean-Pierre and we chased Madge around the garden until Hailey caught her.