When he still didn’t say anything, Pip reached into the pocket of her pack and plucked out the photo. ‘This is Cass. I’m trying to find her.’
Grommet’s hand shook a little as he took it from her, and gave it a very brief glance. ‘I knew there was something about you. You have the same eyes,’ was all he said.
A shadow passed over his open face, and his lashes dropped over his eyes. Pip waited patiently for a few seconds. When he said nothing more, she took a chip and ate it just for something to do.
After another minute of waiting, she said, ‘I went to Cass’s old house. The lady next door to said she used to be friends with a surfer who had messy brown hair and an octopus tattoo.’
Grommet looked at her then, and in his eyes she could see the turbulence that she sometimes felt when she thought about things that made her scared or unhappy.
‘How old are you?’ His voice shook, just as his hands had.
‘Ten.’ The extra bit didn’t seem so important right now. ‘I ran away from Sydney to find Cass,’ she continued as Grommet still seemed to be struggling for words. ‘I’m in big trouble, that’s why you can’t say anything.’
‘You ran away?’
She nodded. ‘Cass was my mother a long time ago, but I never knew her, and I wanted to know what had happened to her.’
Grommet seemed to shake himself out of his trance. ‘She never came back. I hoped she would but she didn’t.’
‘Was she your girlfriend?’
‘No!’ He laughed, then abruptly stopped. ‘She was…well, we were mates, I suppose. She worked in a surf shop in town. I would talk to her about the waves and the fish and birds. About the other surfers and the crazy things we did. About how my dad nagged me to get a proper job and not waste all my time out on the water.’
‘Did she talk to you about stuff?’
He sighed and nodded. ‘A bit. She said her dad died when she was young, and when her mum got sick she had to live with other people and she got into trouble a bit.’
‘She stayed with my friend Sully and his Em in Sydney for a while,’ Pip told Grommet.
Grommet sighed again. ‘I remember her saying they were really nice people. I think she regretted leaving them, but she was a bit of a wild child and she said she had been pulled from pillar to post a bit by then. I think she’d forgotten how to stay in one place, how to be in a normal home.’
‘What was she like?’ Pip wanted to know.
He laughed. ‘Cass was like sunshine some days, and a storm cloud over the water on others. She liked to dance and laugh and talk about how she would change the world, but sometimes she got very sad. She thought she brought trouble. Whenever something went wrong, she ran away to escape it. That’s what I think, anyway.’
He was so easy to talk to, Pip found herself explaining the whole story. ‘She left me in an apple crate on Sully’s doorstep when I was a few days old because she thought Sully and his Em could look after me better than she could,’ she told him. ‘She didn’t know that Em had already died, and that Sully was all on his own.’
‘When I knew her, she sometimes talked about going back to them,’ Grommet nodded. ‘She said they were the best thing that ever happened to her, and if only they’d had her from the start, things might have been different.’
‘She did come back later, to get me, but Sully lied to her. He told her that he’d given me away. I think it was because he didn’t want her to take me and leave him all alone. Or maybe he just thought I’d be better off with him. It was a wrong thing to do, but I kind of understand.’
‘It’s not always easy doing the right thing.’
Pip nodded. Sully had once said that it wasn’t the black and white you had to look out for; it was all the shades of grey that tripped you up. At the time it hadn’t made much sense, but now it did.
She asked, ‘Did you ever do a really wrong thing, Grommet?’
‘Only about a million times! The worse thing was something that I didn’t do rather than something I did do, but I’ve always regretted not doing it.’
‘How did you make it right again?’
‘I didn’t get the chance.’ He frowned. ‘No, that’s an excuse. I didn’t get the chance because I didn’t make the chance.’
‘Do you think things can be right and wrong at the same time?’ Pip asked. ‘When I ran away from the Brownings, I thought it was the right thing to do. I thought they’d be happier without me, but the newspapers are saying how upset they are, and now I’m not sure.’
Realisation dawned in his eyes. ‘You’re the kid everyone’s been talking about, aren’t you? The one who escaped from the cops and the welfare workers a few weeks ago?’
‘Yes, because I didn’t want to stay with people who are nutters,’ Pip tried to explain. ‘Except I didn’t know that some people who look after kids are kind, like the Brownings who I’ve been staying with. They’re very nice, but too nice for me.’
Grommet laughed. ‘I know exactly what you mean. They expect you to brush your hair, not talk with your mouth full and never swear.’
‘Or never to give another kid a thump on the nose.’ Pip sighed.
‘Did you?’ He seemed delighted rather than angry, but then he wasn’t responsible for her behaviour, and he wasn’t nearly as old or as serious as Mr and Mrs Browning. ‘I’m sure the other kid deserved it.’
‘Yes, he did. Maybe. Mr and Mrs Browning weren’t exactly happy about it. Then I did something even more stupid and upset them so much they didn’t want me to stay anymore. Or that’s what I thought.’
‘But now you’re not so sure about that?’
‘Yes. No. I don’t know.’
As it started to get a bit dark, the lady came out to clear their plates. ‘I’m shutting up now,’ she said. ‘Sorry.’
‘Thank you,’ Pip said. ‘It was very good. I really wanted to finish it but I couldn’t.’
‘I’ll get you a doggie bag, just a minute.’ She disappeared inside and came out with the remains of Pip’s meal in a takeaway bag.
As if aware that his species was being talked about, Houdini got up, stretched and gave them his doggie grin. When Grommet opened the back of the ute, he jumped right up as if he’d been doing it all his life.
Inside the ute as they did up their seatbelts, Grommet said suddenly, ‘You got all the way here from Sydney on your own?’ He sounded amazed.
‘Houdini was with me. And some people helped.’ Even though some of them hadn’t realised at the time, like the man whose van they had hidden in.
‘So what happens next?’
It was the first time that Pip had ever been asked by a grown-up what she planned to do, and while usually her brain hummed with ideas, right now her mind was a blank. Give herself up and someone else would decide her future for her? Or remain on the run and keep looking for Cass just a little longer? What she really needed was time to track down clues about where Cass had gone after she left Brilliant Street.
‘I’ll be fine,’ she said brightly, but Grommet wasn’t fooled.
He’d turned on the ute’s engine but almost immediately he turned it off again. ‘I’m glad you think so, but Pip, be reasonable. You can’t wander off on your own at night. Anything could happen.’
Pip felt a quiver of alarm. ‘Don’t tell anyone. You promised!’
He raised a hand. ‘I didn’t say I would tell. I just think you need somewhere to stay.’
‘We’re okay.’ Pip was defiant.
‘Pip.’ He said her name very quietly but firmly. ‘I don’t think you are okay. Not really.’
She didn’t answer but her hand slid to the doorhandle in case she needed to run for it. However much she liked Grommet, she didn’t really know him – didn’t know if she could trust him.
‘You can come home with me if you like.’
It was the last thing she’d expected and she had no idea what to say. ‘Why?’
‘You need a safe place to stay, and I have a safe place – not very tidy, but safe.’
‘I don’t know.’
They sat in silence for a minute. Pip wanted to trust him, she really did, but…
‘If I’m completely honest, there’s another reason too. That mistake I made a long time ago? I think perhaps now is the time to try to put it right, and you can help me.’
‘How?’
‘There’s some people I’d like you to meet.’
‘No cops, not till I’m ready.’
He looked at her gravely. ‘No cops.’
‘Cross your heart and hope to die?’
‘Yep,’ he said.
‘Houdini stays too.’
‘Of course! Anyone can see that you and Houdini don’t go anywhere without each other.’
‘All right,’ Pip finally agreed.
They drove in silence for a few minutes down dark streets. Pip wound down the window to smell the fresh, salty breeze, straight off the ocean. The palm trees swayed gracefully, and every so often, she could hear the monotonous summer hum of cicadas from a thick clump of bushes.
‘Don’t expect too much,’ Grommet warned Pip. ‘When I’m not at work, I’m at the beach. I don’t have much time for housework.’
‘Nor do I,’ Pip said, and he laughed as if she’d said something funny, but it was true. When she’d lived with Sully and he’d got too old and sick to take care of the house, she’d hated having to clean so she done it as little as possible.
‘What work do you do?’ she asked Grommet. ‘I thought you surfed all day, which is why your dad’s mad at you.’
‘Used to be mad at me. He’s a bit more relaxed now I have a job, even if it’s one he doesn’t approve of.’ He gave her a quick glance. ‘I make surfboards.’
‘For a job?’
‘Yep, although it’s a hobby I turned into a job.’
Pip thought it was just about the coolest thing she’d ever heard. She might ask Grommet to show her how to make one, in case her preferred career options of policing, journalism and teaching didn’t work out.
They were now travelling up a steep narrow road with a sheer drop down to the ocean, towards what looked like a big wooden birdhouse perched on the edge of the cliff.
‘That’s it up there,’ Grommet said as he braked to turn up a long driveway. ‘But I think we’ve got company.’ He nodded at the flashing lights ahead and stopped the car on the street, turning to her. ‘Looks like we didn’t fool Constable Payne after all. But don’t worry, Pip, I’ll explain and we – Pip!’
But Pip had already spotted the cop car. She had the ute door open before Grommet could stop, leapt out, slung her pack over her shoulder and hit the ground running.