FRIDAY, 4.40 P.M.
Things felt better after talking to the dog, thought Mike, as his feet pounded along the rough track behind the houses, worn by generations of bicycles and scooters and gardeners dumping lawn clippings.
Silly little hairy dog, sang his feet against the ground, how he’d like to have a … what rhymed with dog, he wondered. Frog? Log?
The dog was such a normal thing, such an everyday thing. Suddenly the world looked like it always did — the dip and slope of tin roofs, the dull-leafed camellia trees and leggy clotheslines and bright plastic little kids’ wading pools in the backyards, the mutter and excited music of a game show on someone’s TV set behind the curtains.
Right, thought Mike. All he had to do was cut along the backs of the houses till he came to the creek. Then if he snuck along among the willow trees he could come up behind his place and Loser’s.
Mike hesitated. If he went in through Loser’s back gate Mrs Loosley might be looking out of the kitchen window and see him, or Mr Loosley might be feeding the chooks or something. Of course, they were probably both out looking for Loser, but he still couldn’t risk it.
No. What he needed to do was sneak up into his own garden. Then he could climb over the fence right next to the shed and there’d be no chance of the Loosley’s seeing him at all.
Mike glanced at his watch: 4.45. On a normal Friday, Mum would still be at the gallery. She usually picked up a couple of pizzas on her way home. Mike always got a couple of videos on the way home, one for him and a not too bad chick-flick that Mum might like as well. He watched the first till she got home, then they watched the next one as they ate …
For a moment a longing ran though him — so, so deep it made his bones ache. There’d be no videos tonight and no pizza either.
Suddenly the vision of Jazz lying so still on the stretcher flashed into his mind. Mike ran faster.
Past the rest of the houses, over the sun-hard ground, its gold grass like thin tufts of hair. The creek smelt like it always did; half of sheep and half of too-still water, with the almost-pepper scent of willow trees and rotting wood.
It was harder running here, though he didn’t have to worry about anyone seeing him. The creek narrowed then pooled; broken branches lay propped against the trunks, their heads decaying in the water. It was almost like hurdling in athletics, except on the oval there weren’t rabbit holes or unexpected puddles. A red-bellied black snake looked up, startled from its perch on a log in the last of the sunlight, then slipped soundlessly down the log and disappeared between the roots.
His footsteps sounded doubly loud in the silence under the trees. Every inch of this creek was familiar to him. He’d played pirates here as a little kid, with Mum keeping half an eye on him and Loser as she read a magazine on a low branch.
There was the pool he used to fish in, hoping to catch a shark or at least a barramundi, though all it held was tadpoles and dead leaves. There was the old cubby he’d built with Loser when they were in Year Two. Mr Loosley had given them some old corrugated iron and bits of wood and a hammer and nails.
Loser hadn’t been so bad back then, thought Mike. Or maybe when you were a little kid you just wanted company. You didn’t think what the other person was really like. Or maybe … maybe it was a bit of both. Loser was always Loser, but things had changed him too …
Mike stopped, out of breath, and leant against a willow tree. He could see his house through the leaves, his bedroom window with the dark blue curtains. He could even see the clock in the kitchen and the dumb kitchen mobile of plastic cups and spoons and forks he’d made as a little kid and Mum refused to take down.
There was Loser’s house, too, with its overgrown garden that seemed to cut the house off from the rest of the world, the chook shed leaning slightly to one side, the boat that Mr Loosley had started but never finished (Loser had said that he was going to sail it round the world), and the two old cars behind the garage for spare parts. He and Loser had pretended to drive them and crash into each other …
The Loosley’s back fence was too high to get over. He’d have to go through his own garden first, then through the side fence. Luckily, Mum would still be at the gallery …
Mike took a deep breath. He looked both ways, then ran across the space between the creek and the fences, through the back gate of his house and up the side of their house. Now all he had to do was …
‘Mike!’
Mike froze. His mum stared down at him from the kitchen window. She looked older, Mike thought. There were shadows on her face that hadn’t been there this morning. ‘Mike, darling, what are you … what’s happened … is it all over?’
‘Mum, no! Stop!’ But it was too late. The face at the window disappeared. Mike heard the back door open and her footsteps clattering down the stairs. ‘Mike, I was so worried. I’ve just been sitting here by the phone. I tried to ring your father but he’s not in yet. Tell me …’
Mike’s heart began to race. What if she stopped him going over to Loser’s? What if she called the police to report him for being away from the quarantine area?
What if it was a virus? What if he was wrong, and it wasn’t poison at all? What if he was infected too, or carried it on his clothes? Mike’s heart began to beat hard and painfully. All Mum had to do was come closer and she might be lying on a stretcher too …
‘Mum, stop!’
She hesitated. ‘But, Mike …’
‘Mum, don’t come any closer! Please!’
‘I don’t understand …’
It was no use, thought Mike desperately. Mum still thought of him as a little kid, not to be trusted even to buy a cheese and salad sandwich at lunch time. She’d never listen to him.
Mum stopped in the middle of the kitchen path, next to the lilac tree. ‘Mike, what’s happened?’ she whispered.
‘I sneaked out of the hall. There’s something I have to do. It’s urgent. I can’t explain. Just … just please, go back in the house and don’t tell anyone you saw me.’
Mum shook her head dazedly. Her lipstick was long gone. She looked pale and frightened. She took a step closer. ‘Mike …’
‘No, Mum!’ cried Mike. ‘Don’t you understand? I might be infectious! You have to stay away!’
‘Mike, I don’t care! You’re my son! I just want to …’
‘Please, Mum! Just for once in my life could you trust me?’
Mum stopped. She stared at him. She was crying, Mike realised, the tears slipping silently down her cheeks. Suddenly she nodded. ‘I trust you, Mike,’ she said. Her voice was very soft. ‘Of course I trust you. Ring me … let me know …’
‘Yes, Mum,’ whispered Mike. ‘Now go inside. Please. I know what I’m doing. Just go inside.’
Mum hesitated. She looked at him as though she was drinking in his whole appearance, to save it in case she never saw him again. Then she turned and went inside.