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RANDY CATHRO WAS STUCK on the beach with his big sister Beau. Well, to be more precise, he was being stuck in the beach by his big sister Beau.
“Dig your feet in a bit more!” she told him. With a tired sigh he twisted his feet deeper into the wet sand. “Now hold the driftwood up a bit..., no! Like I showed you: heroically!” He did his best to look heroic. She raised her camera, fiddled, focused, crouched, focused again, then, “Aww!” she huffed, lowering her camera, “It’s no good!”
“I’m doing my best!” he snapped, lowering his aching arms.
“No not you, I mean the found object!” (‘Found object’, Randy had soon figured out, meant the ugly great lump of driftwood she had found and conned him into posing with.)
She gazed out at the wide sweep of Haulaway Bay, from the north-west headland across to the distant islands in the east, and sighed, “I want a good storm!”
Randy chucked down the driftwood in disgust, “I’m not doing this in a storm!”
“Don’t be such a pillock!” she snapped, “What I mean is: I need a storm to wash up something interesting! Something inspiring!”
Randy sneered and turned to mooch back to their rented beach-house, “Yeah well good luck with all that. The local council wants a real artist to do their dumb mural, not some teenage kid!”
“I am a real artist!” she yelled after him, “Age has nothing to do with it! I was born an artist.”
“Yeah,” mumbled Randy under his breath, “a bull-crap artist.”
“What?!” she demanded.
“I said a crack artist, like, ah, like actually really good. For your age.”
He quickly changed the subject, “Say, what about that old bit of seaweed there?” He pointed into the stagnant pond where the local creek made its last gasp attempt to reach the sea. Just to show he wasn’t such a nasty little doubting brother he found a stick and hooked the piece of seaweed out. It stank.
But Beau liked it, “Wow,” she said, breathlessly, “it’s like the Jewellery of a Sea-Goddess! The Enchantment of the Waves! The Spirit of the Deep! It’s perfect!”
Randy, who was feeling breathless for quite a different reason, also looked more closely. It was only a tattered fragment of something that once must have looked quite impressive; alive and waving about under the waves, but even so it was very pretty, with long curly pinkish ‘leaves’ and little grape-like bubbles. He tried to squeeze one of the bubbles, hoping it would ‘accidentally’ burst all over Beau, but it was too tough and rubbery. It was sticky too, probably because it had begun to go rotten.
“They look like little apples.” crooned Beau.
“Yeah, crab-apples,” said Randy knowingly, “because crabs eat them.”
“I told you that...” she murmured, turning the seaweed over, then holding it up to the light. She was so busy, so intent, that she didn’t bother to add, ‘...and it was a complete load of bollocks, actually.”
Randy, meantime, had began to back away, thinking, ‘No way am I going to hold THAT over my head and look heroic! It’s heroic enough just breathing next to it!’
“Well,” he said casually, backing further away, “I, ah, I think I’ll go down the shops and see if Piho’s on the bus today.”
“Yeah,” answered Beau absent-minded, still in her artistic reverie.
He didn’t hesitate any longer and set off at speed, skirting the dead-end of the creek on the seaward side and heading back inland towards the main road on the far side.
“Hey,” called Beau suddenly from across the way, “if you see any more...?”
“Yeah, okay!” He called back cheerfully. Like sure: I’ll just drag around bits of rotting crap for you, Beau, and smell like a dead whale! Sure!
But as it happened he did find some, snagged low in the vegetation near where the road bridge crossed the creek, and quite dry and clean-smelling. He took it, figuring it would save him being stunk out while Beau did arty things to her grotty old ‘found object’ for the rest of this dead-end, dead-boring holiday in dead-end, dead-boring Haulaway Bay.
#
IT WASN’T SUCH A BAD place, really, and it would have been great if he’d had more money, or if his parents had a speed-boat or something. But he’d already done his dough down at the video-game place. At least it was not like the ‘Zap-Zone’ back in his home town. He had been banned for life from the ‘Zap-Zone’ by the guy who owned it: a nasty piece of work called Barry Boyd.
‘That’s one plus about this holiday,’ he had to admit to himself, ‘at least I don’t have to be in Boyd-Avoid Mode every day!’
He passed the camp-ground on the right (the hill side) and then the little public park on the left with the big ugly concrete-block changing sheds where the council wanted the new mural, then he was in among the shops. There were the usual crowds of wandering holiday-makers about, all drifting along in that maddening slow way they had, and he wove his way through to the place where the bus from Hamilton came in. Piho had to be on it this time, had to be! Or he was going to go mad with boredom!
#
RANDY WATCHED AS THE people got off; a Swedish backpacker, a few hippies, a clump of sticky-looking children with their flustered parents quacking after them, and then he got a real shock. The last one off wasn’t Piho at all, but Tammy Turinger!
Tammy! Tall, thin, goofy-looking Tammy; with those wonderful lips... and those neat little knees... and ... and ...
Randy’s heart began to flutter. Suddenly he felt sticky and flustered too. (Of course it wasn’t LOVE or anything! Sure: everyone else said it was but hey: - what did they know? He and Tammy were just friends, that’s all. Just friends; okay?!)
“Randy!” she said in surprise.
“Uh, hi,” he stammered, “I, uh, I was waiting for you, sort of...” and to save himself any further embarrassment he held out the piece of dried seaweed he still had clamped in his sandy hands, “Here.”
“Ooooo-oo!...” said Tammy in exactly that kind of tone that always sent shivers up Randy’s spine, “...Ooooo? What’s this?!” (Well, it wasn’t exactly a rose!)
He stammered, “it’s a ... a found object, like, like something I found. For you.”
“Cool.” She said, taking the dried seaweed and holding it up to the light, “It’s rather lovely, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” he said, “It’s, uh, it’s sort of like the Enchantment of the Waves.”
Tammy looked up at him, her eyes shining. “Randy, sometimes you say the nicest things. Thanks, and thanks for being here. But how did you know I was coming?”
He shrugged, “Oh, ah, I kind of ... it was a sort of a feeling, that’s all.”
“Thank you.” she said, and gave his hand a quick squeeze, then suddenly she was looking up and down the main road as if she had actually been expecting someone else.
“Where'ya staying?” he asked.
“With my aunty, Daddy’s big sister.”
He looked up and down the road too. “She not here then?”
“She’s a bit of an absent-minded-professor type.”
“Cool! Is she an inventor then?”
“No, a marine biologist.”
“Ahhh.” Randy nodded wisely. He didn’t have much idea of what a marine biologist even looked like. Sort of blobby, maybe, with tentacles?
“Oh well,” said Tammy suddenly, “I’ll just walk.” She fetched her bag from where the driver was unloading and set off towards the west end of the bay. Randy’s heart fluttered uncomfortably. That meant she would be staying close to where he was staying, and that meant Major Anxiety! He would have to think of things to say to her, every day!
“I’ll take it!” He took her bag, nearly dislocating his shoulder in the process.
They walked slowly. It was hot and Tammy was looking around and smiling and breathing deeply and generally enjoying the seaside. “Been fun?” she asked.
“Oh yeah, great, just great!” (Like hell!)
“Whatcha been doing, then?”
“Oh, hanging out, sleeping in, helping Beau with her art project...”
“Yeah? What’s that?”
“The council wants to paint a big mural over there.” he pointed to the place, “Beau wants to do something natural looking, y’know, and ‘heroic’. It’s a competition.”
“Great....” began Tammy, but right then a car drove by, came to a fast stop, and began reversing towards them.
“This your aunty then?” asked Randy.
“No.” said Tammy, puzzled, “Not her car.”
The car stopped and the doors flicked open. Two people got out, male and female, sort of clones of each other. They were dressed up rather flash, hippy style but a lot more neatly, and had short bleached hair and great sun-tans and expensive sunglasses. The car looked expensive too, a white two-door Mercedes with a sun roof.
“Hi!” said the male one.
“How are you today?” crooned the other, “Are you good?” It was said ever so sincerely. The kind of voice that made Randy want to puke.
“Everything’s cool.” said Randy cautiously.
The woman smiled. “Ooo I love the way kids talk these days!” she said, then added, “Say,” (it was said ‘say-eeee’; - very drawn out and American style) “we couldn’t help noticing that bit of seaweed you’ve got. Mind if we take a closer look?”
“No.” said Tammy, because Tammy was always so nice, and she passed it over.
They studied the stuff closely for some time, murmuring and nodding and making knowing looks at each other. Finally the woman reluctantly handed it back. “Say-eee,” she crooned, “would you mind if we could all share in this treasure? Remember: ‘What Goes Out Comes Back Multiplied’.” She tilted her head and made her eyes go all soft and loving. It gave Randy the creeps.
“No,” he said quickly, knowing what a soft touch Tammy could be, “It’s, ah.., it’s a special thing, a sort of a love gift thing, coz, like; - we haven’t seen each other for weeks and I only just gave it to her and....” He left it alone there, making his own eyes go all funny looking too. It worked. Clone-woman smiled even more and tilted her head even further and gave them both a gooey look. “Ahhhh, that’s so sweet!”
“Beautiful,” crooned the man, “So.., ah.., would you mind then if you could share with us where you found it? After all: ‘Life is Abundant!’”
Randy shrugged, thinking, Sure – there might be a nice piece waiting for you, just like Beau’s! “Just down the beach there, by the bridge.”
Clone Woman smiled her dopey smile and said, “I want to thank you, I really want to thank you. This is a very special moment for us, a Really Special Moment!”
“Yeah, uh.., okay.” said Randy. Like; oh yeah? Big fat hairy deal!
The Clones got back into their car, did a U-turn, and drove slowly back the way they had come, peering excited towards the beach.
“Sheesh!” said Randy to Tammy, “Weirdos, man!”
“Yeah,” she agreed, “they were kind of unusual.” (Strong words for her.) Then she turned the seaweed over in her hands, looking at it as if in a new light, “Gee? What’s so special about this stuff? I wonder what Aunty Jan says about it?”
Randy didn’t care. Seaweed was such boring stuff. Then he had a worrying thought; Beau’s piece stank like a dead whale and he’d just given Tammy the ideal replacement. Damn! If only Piho were here, then he could have goofed off for a few days at his uncle’s place like the useless little toe-rag had promised, and gotten away from Beau, her stupid project, and the even bigger problem of what to say to Tammy next.
His troubled thoughts were interrupted when a large, old, randomly-painted bus roared past, slowed up, stopped, and began to grind its way slowly back towards them. Probably another bunch of freaks after that flipping seaweed!
The bus stopped and the driver’s side window began to slide open. Randy filled his lungs and hollered across the road above the racket of the old motor, “You’re not getting it either, man!”
The face that leaned out the window was big, suggesting an even bigger body attached to it on the inside. A Maori guy. “Hey!” he boomed, “What do you know about what I’m getting or not getting? Come over here and say that!”