James is looking across at my house again. He’s not behind his window like usual. He’s on the front verandah. I’m inside looking back at him from behind the curtain so he can’t see me. I don’t want to be friendly after school today. It feels like he caused all of Ranga’s problems and Ranga is my friend so I should be mad at James. The trouble is I know that’s not fair. James didn’t do anything.
‘What are you doing?’
I jump like I’ve had an electric shock. Mum’s voice is normal but I feel like she just leapt out at me and shouted. My fingers are tingling.
Mum walks to the dead centre of the window. ‘What are you looking at? Oh, it’s your friend James.’ She waves at him.
My friend? James? It’s another surprise — thinking that James might be my friend. I hardly know him. If he’s my friend, why am I hiding from him?
‘Looks like he wants to play,’ Mum says. She’s looking at me kind of funny.
I think I have to say something, explain why I’m still behind the curtain, but I don’t know why. James must know I’m here now, and anyway, what has he done except be friendly to me?
‘I’ll go over for a bit,’ I say. I have to do something.
‘Okay,’ says Mum.
James is still on the front verandah of his house when I walk down our driveway. He’s smiling. I can see it from here. It’s a big happy smile. He’s happy to see me and I don’t know how I feel.
I glance down the road at Ranga’s house and then I cross over.
James rolls his wheelchair forward a bit as I walk up the steps. ‘Hi,’ he says.
‘Hi,’ I say back. Then we both just start looking around. I don’t have anything else to say. I don’t think James does either.
I’m starting to feel really stupid when he says, ‘Do you want to see my room?’
His room is down the back of the house. I follow him there. He drives his wheelchair fast: a bit too fast I reckon. There are chips out of the plaster on all the corners — the same height as the footrest on his chair. I imagine him banging into everything like a bumper car at the Royal Show. It’s a funny idea but it can’t be right because he doesn’t hit a thing all the way through the lounge room and down the passage to his room. Maybe he only sometimes loses control or misjudges corners.
His room is set up so he can get around easily. James coasts down to his desk. He judges it well, stopping just before he crashes into it. The desk is extra high so he can get his legs underneath it when he is sitting in his wheelchair. He edges forward, a bit at a time, until the desk is pressing against his chest. If he ever crashed into it quickly I reckon it would almost cut him in half.
He boots up his computer and double clicks on a game icon. It’s one of those games that make you think, a quest game where you have to collect things and use them to solve puzzles and get to the next level. I don’t usually play those games because I get impatient. I’d rather drive a virtual car or fight someone with swords and guns.
James is trying to get the cursor to point at a bag of food so he can collect it. He keeps overshooting and trying to move back over it but he just overshoots again. Perhaps I should help. I reach for the mouse but James snatches it away from me. He looks angry.
‘I’m doing it!’
‘I was just …’ but James cuts me off.
‘You can’t just take over!’ He turns back to the game, but his hand is shaking worse than before. ‘It’s a stupid game anyway,’ he says.
His eyes are watery like he’s almost crying and I feel bad because I did something wrong but I didn’t mean to. He’s just blown up over nothing at all and I feel like I’ve got pins and needles in my hair and up my nose. I mean, I just tried to help. He should be saying sorry, not me. And then he does — sort of.
‘People always try to take over, like I can’t do anything at all. They think they’re helping but they’re not.’
I don’t know what to say so I just go, ‘Sorry,’ and sit there for a long time saying nothing. Then James hands me the mouse.
‘Do you want a go?’
‘I’ll wreck your game.’
‘There was a save point not far back so it won’t matter.’
Bewdy! I click on the food bag. A little hunger graph at the top of the screen turns green and goes down. That’s got to be good. Not being hungry, I mean.
‘Now what?’ I say.
‘We need to find a key so we can open the door to the library.’
‘What for?’
‘To get a street directory so we can find our way around the city,’ James says, like I’m a little kid.
‘So where do you reckon it is?’ I’m walking the avatar around the room. If I click on a spot it walks there, like Michael Jackson doing a reverse moonwalk. I’m just going around in circles. It’s frustrating. I want to do something but I can’t. There aren’t any hotspots. I head for the door. It’s shut. The avatar just stops, facing it. I can feel James watching me. He isn’t saying anything. I back up the avatar and run at the door but it just stops in the same place.
I turn around to see what James is doing. He’s just watching me. ‘What do I do?’ I ask.
He smiles. ‘Type “open door” in that box at the bottom of the screen.’
I do and it does. Doh!
We keep playing and at first James has to tell me how to do everything, but after about an hour I’ve pretty much worked it out. It’s a tricky game and I’m sick of having to think all the time. I want to shoot something or drive a car or something. It’s frustrating but James is having fun. He’s smiling and laughing so I play for a bit longer. James seems to want to keep going on forever but I’ve had enough. Eventually I say I’ve got jobs to do and head home.
As I walk across the road I glance down towards Ranga’s place. Maybe he’ll come over later. That’d be good.