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RANDY DIDN’T KNOW WHAT to do, except maybe run away. Not tough, not cool, but it would hurt a lot less! Fortunately he was saved from such a major life decision by the appearance of another brown face beside the first, calling, “Yo, whitey!”
It was Piho.
More faces appeared at the sliding windows, all grinning and laughing and calling out; “Yeah?! Whadda you know about what we’re not getting?!”
“Er, uh, nothing!” stammered Randy, turning red, “Ah, it was something else, doesn’t matter!” Once the laughter died down he called to Piho, “Hey, so you’re here at last! Great!” Then he added for everyone else’s benefit, “Hey: cool bus!”
“Yeah, he-he.” giggled Piho, “Told ya I was coming by bus, he-he. Hey, is it still cool with your folks you coming to stay? We’re going up to Uncle’s Bubba’s right now!”
“Ahhh...,” Randy hesitated, glancing towards Tammy, “...Ah, can I catch up with you latter, bro? Like, - where’re you gonna be?”
Several people on the bus laughed, “You got a map and two hours? You’d better get in with us!” Randy glanced helplessly in Tammy’s direction again as if to say, ‘Yeah well y’see, I’m kind of engaged at present...’ “Ooo-oooo-oo!” they went.
Randy was turning red again, but he was saved from further embarrassment when a yellow car went by, stopped and began reversing. “It’s Aunty Jan!” said Tammy.
The yellow car stopped and Aunty Jan got out. She was terribly tall and thin, just like Tammy. “Sorry, love!” she said, “I’d gotten completely caught up in something on the Internet. Who’s this?”
Tammy introduced Randy and Piho, and then Piho introduced everyone on the bus. Tammy’s aunt said, “Would you all like to come up for a cuppa tea? The place is a bit of a mess I’m afraid, but...”
“Hey, thanks Mrs Turinger,” said the driver of the bus, Piho’s cousin Raymond, “But we’re kinda late as it is and ... Hey: maybe next time, eh?”
“Oh well, jolly good.” said Aunty Jan, “See you all later then.”
“So, Cathro;” called Piho, “you coming or not?!”
Randy glanced at Tammy, who was loading her bag into the car, “Ahhh, yeah! But I’m gonna have to let my folks know.” He pointed back towards the beach-house.
“Catch up with us in town in, say, twenty minutes?” called Raymond, putting the bus into gear with a long growling crunch, “We’ll be at the supermarket!”
#
TWENTY MINUTES LATER, after a quick bit of negotiation with his parents and a promise to phone every day, a bit of hasty packing and a sprint back into the township, Randy was on the bus. Soon they were under way, past all the big flash holiday homes overlooking the inlet, across a bridge at the inner end of the waterway and back into the countryside beyond the town. The bus turned onto a gravel road, passed the town dump, rumbled along a bit of winding road, then with its gearbox whining it crept up a long hill and down again until it reached a narrow driveway on the left.
Randy clung to the edge of his seat as Raymond eased the huge bus down the drive and onto a flat area beside a red-brown bach set above a small sandy bay between two high rocky headlands. It was truly the wildest, loneliest, most beautiful place Randy had ever seen. “Cool!” he said.
#
RANDY WAS INTRODUCED to Piho’s uncle. “Gidday,” said the old dude as they shook hands, “So you’re gonna stay a few days?”
“Yeah, if it’s okay with you, sir.”
Uncle Bubba roared with laughter, “Sir?! What’s this ‘sir’?! Geez, boy, you can call me Bubba like everyone else does!” So they began to get along okay.
After dinner Piho said to Randy, “I’ll show you round.” He led him about the place, showing him this and that, and then they clambered down a steep path to the beach. It wasn’t a very big beach, just a strip of sand between the rocks at each end. They poked around a bit, and talked, and wandered up onto the rocks at one end.
“Hey!” said Randy suddenly, and he reached into a high crevice and hauled out a good long piece of the same type of seaweed he'd found earlier. It was fairly dry and not too stinky, and because it had been in the shade it still had a good amount of colour. “Excellent! Now I’ll be in credit with Beau.”
“Whatcha mean?” asked Piho as they started going back. Randy told him. Piho laughed, “No hurry to give her the good piece, then?”
“He-he, no, I might wait a few weeks, eh?!”
At the top of the path Piho turned left. “You haven’t seen the garden yet.”
“Wow! Look at the size of those veges!” gasped Randy, “And those chooks!”
Uncle Bubba popped up from a huge clump of rhubarb, knife in one hand and a bunch of rhubarb about the size of a small hang-glider in the other, “Yeah, he chuckled, “it’s my secret ingredient.... - Oh, I see you’ve already discovered it!”
“Huh?”
“Seaweed,” said Bubba, stepping back onto the path, “just plain old seaweed. It’s funny, eh. You see all that expensive stuff they sell in the gardening shops, so if they knew about this they’d probably pay a fortune for it!” He laughed about that.
Randy looked down, still wondering what Bubba meant. Then he saw it. All over the garden, barely visible under the huge vegetables, was a thick layer of seaweed; the same stuff as he had in his hands.
– A fortune, huh? –
#
THAT NIGHT RANDY BUNKED down in Bubba’s back room with Piho. As he lay awake, listening to the lingering laughter and singing in the next room, he did some major thinking. After a bit, and when it was quieter, he spoke into the dark. “Piho?”
“What?”
“You awake?”
“No, no, I’m totally asleep man.”
“Oh.”
“Course I’m bloody awake! Waddya want?”
“Well, like, how’re you off for money?”
“Why you asking?” replied Piho suspiciously.
“Well, you know how crazy people are for putting stuff on their gardens, right? Like: they’ll even pay two bucks for a bag of horse sh–”
“Don’t talk about it!” Piho snapped in the dark, “Okay?!”
“Okay, okay! That’s history, man, that’s history, but, well, what would they pay for that seaweed stuff? I mean it’s dynamite, man! Remember the size of that rhubarb?!”
“No, no, no!” shouted Piho, “I’m not gonna get mixed up with another one of your crazy criminal schemes! I’m not!”
“No wait, wait,” urged Randy, “It won’t be criminal! It’s not! It’s just selling a product, that’s all!”
Piho snorted, “But who’s gonna buy it, man? I mean geez, this is a holiday resort, not a flippin’ suburb!” Then he rolled over and tried to get back to sleep.
But he couldn’t. It was the thought of the money, and he sure did need some. Maybe Randy was right. Maybe people would pay for Bubba’s super-duper seaweed. ...
“Okay!” said Piho suddenly, “Let’s give it a go!”