| |
HE DREAMED ABOUT MONEY. He also dreamed about drowning, and woke up suddenly. The storm was still moaning around the little house, but now it sounded different, quieter. He sat up and peered out. It was starting to get light. He dressed up warmly, tip-toed across Bubba’s lounge and slipped out the front door. The sky was filled with scattered clouds, lit pink. Down on the beach there were still some deep lurking patches of night. Randy hesitated at the top of the steps, thinking spooky thoughts. He watched the sea. Out on the edges of Scone Island the waves whumped and heaved, sending up great plumes of spray that drifted on the wind. It all looked really good.
He turned his eyes back to the beach, looking for seaweed. It was lighter now, but the lumps of shadow still lay across the sand. That was odd. He looked again.
Then suddenly he let out a loud whoop.
They were not shadows; they were great heaps of seaweed!
#
“MOST I’VE EVER SEEN,” said Bubba when he saw it, “Cripes! How am I going to get rid of that lot! It’ll be stinking to high heaven within a week!”
The boys grinned knowing at each other and said helpfully, “Oh, we’ll pick it up.”
“Yeah,” added Randy, “like doing our bit for the environment. Hey, ah, d’ya mind if we use all those supermarket bags in the cupboards?”
“Help yourselves!” said Bubba. So they did, and headed straight down to the beach before breakfast.
“Man,” said Randy after a few minutes of filling bags, “There’s so much of it!” He was delirious at the thought of all the money he was going to make.
“Yeah.” Piho agreed cautiously, “It’s a bit of a problem.”
Randy stopped gathering. “Eh?”
“Well: - we were making out, like, that it was so scarce and all that, right? So how’re we going to explain that we’re coming in with tons of it all of a sudden?”
“Errr...?” Randy hadn’t though of that. So he thought about it for a while. “Ahhh, we.., ah.., we say...” He was stumped.
“See; what’ll happen is: - they’ll suddenly realise that there’s actually heaps of it around, then they’ll want to pay less, then we’ll have to work harder, then it’s all just not going to be worth it!” Piho chucked another bag onto their growing heap. It went ‘squish’ and slithered sideways onto the sand. “- And we’re running out of bags.”
“Don’t panic, don’t panic,” said Randy as he began to panic, “We’ll get more bags.”
“Yeah, but how’re we gonna carry it all, huh? C’mon, man, we’ve gotta be realistic.” And with that Piho stopped work.
“We gotta try, man!” cried Randy, “There has to be a way!” And to show Piho he really meant business he set off up the path lugging his full pack, plus two full shopping bags in each hand. By the time he had reached the top his fingers were just about cut in half. He put the bags down.
“Those for me?” said Bubba from the door of the bach. “Thanks, Randy!”
#
THE BOYS SAID NOTHING and kept hauling it up from the beach until Bubba said, “That’s enough.” They collapsed into the cane chairs in front of the bach, puffing and heaving and feeling incredibly hungry.
“Yous boys’ve really done me a favour,” Bubba said, “getting all that up for me before breakfast. Here:” he set out two plates loaded with fried ham, eggs and lard butties, then added with a wry chuckle, “But I usually wait a couple of days till it dries out a bit. It ain’t so heavy then.” He chuckled some more and rolled himself a thin cigarette and sat back in the sun.
Randy finished his breakfast and got up. “Well, ah.., no time like the present, I guess.” And he set off down towards the beach again with the empty bags. He had filled five of them before Piho mooched down with some more bags. Randy said nothing, but he was busy thinking. ‘There’s gotta be a way for me to take in a few secret loads...’
“We’re never gonna do it.” said Piho, looking at all the stuff.
“But, geez, man!” urged Randy, “We could make a thousand bucks here, maybe two thousand...each!!”
“Yeah but how’re we gonna keep it fresh?!”
This set Randy thinking. He though of refrigerators, but Bubba didn’t have one. There was a big fridge in the beach-house. If he could just talk his parents into... -Yeah; sure; and why not go scuba diving in a live volcano while he was at it? And then there was the transportation problem. Sure, with the bikes they could do three trips a day, maybe four, but there was so much of it, and he had already seen how quickly it went off in the summer sun. There had to be a way to store it. Had to be!
“That’s it!” he shouted suddenly, “Those blue drums! We’ll use them ...”
Piho rapped Randy sharply on the head with his knuckles. “Hey; anybody home?! Listen, man, how’re we gonna get a whole flippin’ barrel to town?!”
“Geez, man!” snapped Randy, growing impatient in turn, “We don’t take the whole barrel! I didn’t say that! We just use it as our stash! Keep the bugs off it! Then we just load our packs each time we head in!”
“But it won’t stay fresh, even in the barrels,” said Piho, still shaking his head, “The sun belts in here all day. How you gonna keep the stuff cool?”
“Geez, man! I mean we fill the barrels there! Hey, and there’s even a little creek there, we’ll sit them in the creek! Stay cool, stay fresh! Then every day we just cruise through, pick up a load, three loads a day. What could be simpler?!”
“Doing nothing.” said Piho, still shaking his head doubtfully.
Randy snorted. “And staying broke! Come on, man; - you can make a hundred bucks, every day! You’ve gotta do this with me! Please!!!”
#
PIHO WENT AND FOUND some buckets. With a full pack each, plus a full bucket swinging on the end of each arm, they set off up the track that led around the point. There was a bit of old fence at the top, which they stomped down flat, then they shoved and smashed and trampled a decent wide path through the bush. Before too long they were at the place with the abandoned house. Randy put down his buckets and slipped off his soggy pack, anxiously checking the track for new tyre prints. There were none. The single upright barrel was still standing at the end of the track. They went down and wrinkled two empty ones out of the scrub, found them lids, and rolled them back up to the corner.
They worked hard, only pausing for lunch. Their backs and fingers ached. They were sore and sunburnt and thirsty. They bitched and complained and argued. But each time one of them suggested quitting, the other would say, “Think of the money, man, think of the money!!” and they plodded on.
By four o’clock they had filled the two barrels.
“I’m shagged!” Piho announced as they screwed the second lid into place, “This’ll bloody do! Now let’s get a load into town before we miss the shops!”
“Oh hell!” groaned Randy. He thought of all the seaweed they had just dumped into the barrel and immediately regretted it. “We should have kept a load in our packs!”
Piho growled impatiently and began unscrewing the lid on the nearest barrel, “C’mon, let’s just get it out of here.”
“Good thinking!”
They hauled out enough seaweed to stuff their packs as full as they could get.
“Right, let’s go.” commanded Piho.
“What about the barrels? Shouldn’t we put them in the creek first?”
Piho looked towards the creek and sighed. It was about twenty metres away down near the half-finished house. “I can’t be stuffed!” he said tiredly, “It’s cool enough here in the bush. C’mon.”
Randy was too tired to argue. He heaved his bike out of hiding, secured his pack to the carrier and they set off. The track was muddy and they soon gave up trying to pedal, and pushed instead. The track seemed to be longer than it had ever been before and it seemed to take forever to reach the road. Then, just as they were easing their painful bodies and bicycles over the barrier, they heard the rumble of a vehicle racing towards them on the road from town.
“Quick! Hide!” shouted Randy guiltily, although he was in no position to take his own advice. He had a leg each side of the manuka pole and his bike had chosen that moment to hook up its pedal. Right then the vehicle hove into view. It was a fat old Bedford van, and when the driver saw them the brakes went on.
And to Randy’s surprise Piho began grinning and waved his arms frantically.
The van crunched to a dusty halt, backed up a dozen or so metres, and turned into the entrance to the track where they stood. Piho trotted excitedly to the driver’s side and greeted the young man at the wheel. “Billy! Howya doin’, Cuz?!”
“Hey, it’s cool, little dude, it’s cool! How’s the folks?”
“They’re cool, they’re cool.”
“Awesome. So, you up at Bubba’s too?”
“Yeah. Hey, this is my mate from school; Randy. Randy, this is cousin Billy.”
“Kia ora.”
“Kia ora.”
“So,” Piho asked Billy, “whatcha doing these days? Why you here?”
“Ah well now, I’m not supposed to say much, eh, but I’ve got this little job on.”
“Oh. What doing?”
“Oh, moving some stuff, for a man.” answered Billy vaguely.
“Gonna be around long?” asked Piho, obviously with something on his mind.
“Aw, maybe. Gotta wait for the call, see. Hey, check this out!” Billy reached over the passenger’s seat and picked up a mobile telephone, “This dude that’s employing me, he gave me this so he can call me any time. Cool eh?!”
“Yeah. Hey, let’s make some calls on it! Let’s call London or something!”
“Uh uh,” said Billy, putting it away again, “The dude said I wasn’t to use it. It’s just for him to call me.”
“That’s pretty weird, isn’t it?”
“You don’t argue with the boss. He’s paying. Hey, where’re you guys off to? And what’s that stink? You fall in a pile of dead eels or something?”
“Well, ah..,” began Piho, “...see, we’ve got a bit of a job on too.” He paused a moment, as if considering something weighty, then he continued, “Hey, ah, Billy, if you’re gonna be around a while, could we rent your van for a few trips?”
Billy was mildly surprised. “Rent it?”
“Yeah, and you too of course, to drive us. See, me and Randy have got onto a real big number...” and he told Billy the basic story, leaving out all the stuff about land claims and crippled uncles, of course.
“Cool,” said Billy after he got the picture, “Sure, I can do you that little service. You’d better jump in now or you’ll miss the shops.” Randy and Piho’s faces lit up. They chucked the bikes in the back, then jumped in beside Billy in the front. With a bit of reversing and turning they were soon pointing towards town. Piho chatted with Billy about family things as they rumbled along and Randy just sat back with relief.
At last! Things were starting to go his way!