BILLY KNEW AND DIDN’T KNOW TOO. First the news made a white buzzing start in his head. Then he cried and cried. He wanted to sleep in Jase’s room that night, so he would hear him when he came back.
‘Hey, kiddo,’ said Liam gently. ‘He’s not coming back.’
‘I know,’ said Billy, ‘but—’
‘Let him sleep there if he wants,’ said Iris. So Billy slept in his cousin’s bed that evening, only to wake up after a dream where Jase was holding his head and it came off in his hand like a basketball and the basketball broke like a chocolate egg after the first bite. Billy pounded down the hall, whimpered at his parents’ door, and for the first time ever Liam let Iris bring Billy in under the covers with them. And Billy was glad and sad and found himself thinking, What will Jase say? Will he be jealous? That was one of the thoughts that had walls in it, thrown up like a dead-end in a maze, because Jason wouldn’t know. Dead-end meant Billy had to burrow in even closer to his mum, finding loose nightgown to clutch and bring up to his nose, hiding his thumb so he could snuffle and suck hard, back down into sleep.
He knew that his cousin’s ghost would never come and hurt him but he couldn’t go into Jase’s room after that dream, not even quickly, in case Jase watched from the wardrobe. He couldn’t touch Jase’s basketball: even the colour made Billy feel queasy. And one weekend, when his dad said, in a flat kind of way, ‘Would you like to go and shoot hoops?’ Billy said no. His dad asked, ‘Why not, kiddo?’ Billy explained: ‘It’s Jase’s ball.’ Dad said, ‘Billy, Jase isn’t … The ball’s yours now. He’d want you to use it.’ And Billy said, ‘NO.’
One day, he was meant to be walking home from school with neighbours because Iris was unwell — for a couple of days she couldn’t get out of bed and Liam said it was all right, he’d organise things. But Billy ran on ahead. It was very important that he got to the accident corner. He had a powerful feeling that the world was about to go on rewind; knew it from a shiver in the poke-bones of his neck and a strange ringing at the back of his skull. He ran and he ran and he ran, even with Gregor the neighbour-dad yelling Billy come back!
Billy knew, he just knew, that Jason would be there. Billy would see it this time. Jase would be on his bike, balancing his basketball, but Billy would be able to shout out. He’d run up, he’d grab Jase’s jersey, even pull him off the bike if he had to. It was all going to be okay.
Billy pounded up to the corner, chest hurting, and there was plenty of traffic, but no bike, no other pedestrians. No kids from Balmoral or Wesley. He stared at the footpath, disappointment blurring his vision. A bird hopped out from behind a kerbside wheelie bin. It was a myna, making its squeaky noise as if squeezing a rubber toy to get Billy to take chase. And first of all Billy did want to run at it, throw a stone, because why should a nothing bird still be alive when Jason wasn’t? Then it cocked its head and, like a bandit in its yellow eye-mask, looked right at Billy.
‘Bir-duh,’ heard Billy in his head. He started, turned around, but there was no cousin to be seen. Gregor the neighbour-dad jogged up, giving his son Jimmy a piggyback. Gregor looked like he was going to yell but Jimmy said, ‘That’s the bad corner, eh Dad?’ Billy turned to look for the bird and the silent-speech in its eye again, but it was already strutting off. It soared up, white flashes on its wings.
Billy had to turn and walk home heavy with knowing and not-knowing.
‘You okay?’ asked Gregor. ‘You’re awfully quiet for the Billy we know.’
‘That was a myna, eh?’
‘Yep. Horrible things. Noisy. No good for the native birds. They eat their eggs, did y’know that?’
‘Yeah. Not all mynas would be bad, though. How can we tell if one certain bird of a whole kind of bird is bad? Maybe that one’s never eaten anybird else’s eggs. Maybe that one only eats scraps and leftovers. Did you ever think about that?’
Gregor laughed at the back of his throat, all phoney. ‘Thaaaaat’s more like Billy. C’mon. Homeward bound.’
Billy scuffed along, two dark pails of knowing and not-knowing slipping and sliding inside him.