‘Alright you—out.’
Keith sat up, cold and dazed and aching.
Something was different.
The vibrations had stopped.
So had his dream. He’d been on a yacht with Mum and Dad, a luxury yacht with built-in fish fryers and solid opal taps.
The man with the earrings and the scowl hadn’t been on the yacht.
He was here now though, glaring at Keith.
‘I said no lifts,’ growled the man.
For a moment Keith wondered if the man was a lift operator, then remembered he was a truck driver.
A pang of fear gripped Keith just before the truck driver did.
Keith grabbed his schoolbag as the truck driver dragged him out of the bulldozer and down off the back of the truck.
He staggered and blinked. The sun was just coming up over the horizon.
‘Where are we?’ asked Keith as his teeth started to chatter.
‘Twelve hours inland,’ said the truck driver. ‘Which means it’ll take you about twelve weeks to walk back.’
Keith looked around. It was the country alright, but there weren’t any trees, just bushes and dry grass.
And concrete. He was standing on a square of concrete with two petrol pumps on it, and a small fibro office to one side.
‘Is this the opal fields?’ asked Keith, struggling to control his teeth.
‘Opal fields?’ said the truck driver, with a snort of laughter. ‘They’re four hours further on. If you start now you should get there in four weeks.’
‘Fair go, Col,’ said a voice.
Keith turned and saw another man with a plump face and dirty orange overalls coming over from the office.
‘He’s only a kid,’ said the other man.
‘Still could have got me the sack,’ said Col.
‘Get lost,’ said the other man. ‘When was the last time you saw an inspector out here?’
‘Could happen,’ muttered Col.
The other man turned to Keith.
‘You on your own?’ he asked.
Keith took a deep breath, sent his teeth a stern telepathic message, and told the two men about Mum and Dad’s financial problems.
Col leant against the truck and rubbed his face in his hands and listened gravely.
The other man looked at Keith and then at the ground and then back at Keith.
They’re sympathetic, thought Keith. They can see I can’t afford to waste time and they’re going to help me.
He’d just finished thinking that when they took him across and locked him in the office.
Keith sat in a cracked vinyl swivel chair and stared gloomily at a model train on a shelf on the office wall.
Outside he could hear Col and the other man arguing about him.
‘It’d only be till tonight, Mick, the cops’d be here before dark,’ said Col.
‘You can’t leave him here,’ said Mick. ‘I’m not having the cops coming out here. I’ve got an unregistered tow truck out the back and six microwaves I’m looking after for someone.’
‘Well I can’t take him to the cops,’ said Col, ‘not with the state of my logbook.’
Keith wondered what the wages would be like in gaol. Probably take twenty years to earn enough for a yacht.
He wondered if Tracy would come and visit him.
He wondered what she’d say if she was here now.
‘Jeez, you’re a worry wart,’ that’s what she’d say.
Suddenly he knew what he had to do.
He went and banged on the office door as loudly as he could.
‘Col, Mick,’ he shouted. ‘Open up a sec.’
The door flew open and the two men stood there, looking at him.
‘Col,’ said Keith, ‘if you take me to the opal fields I’ll paint your truck.’
Col stared at him.
‘And the bulldozer too if you want,’ said Keith. ‘I’m good at it, I’ve done a car and a fish-and-chip shop.’
Col and Mick exchanged a glance.
Col sighed.
Mick grinned.
Col stared at the horizon and rubbed the back of his neck for about a minute.
‘Alright,’ said Col, ‘paint my truck and if it’s any good I’ll take you as far as the opal fields.’
‘Thanks,’ said Keith, ‘you won’t regret it.’
‘Get him some paint, Mick,’ said Col.
Keith went over and walked round the truck. It was at least twelve times bigger than the Corolla.
This could take all day, he thought. Hope they’ve got a big brush.
Mick came over and handed Keith a cardboard box.
Inside were some tiny tins of hobby paint and some skinny little brushes.
Keith stared at them.
‘I build model trains,’ said Mick sheepishly.
Keith looked up at the truck towering over him.
That’s all I need, he thought. Stranded in the bush with a couple of loonies.
‘I won’t get half a bumper bar done with these,’ he said. He spoke softly so as not to startle Mick and cause him to have a fit or a violent outburst or something.
Col appeared and handed Keith a piece of plywood.
‘There you go,’ he said, ‘you can do it on that.’ He went and stood next to the truck. ‘Is this a good place for me to stand?’
Suddenly Keith understood.
Col didn’t want him to paint the truck, he wanted him to paint a picture of the truck.
Mick brought a wooden crate for Keith to sit on, which was just as well because Keith’s knees had suddenly gone a bit wobbly.
It wasn’t that Keith didn’t like painting pictures, he did.
But every time he painted one something seemed to go wrong.
At school Mr Gerlach had kittens.
At home Mum and Dad got tense and unhappy just because a couple of times Keith had left tubes of paint on the settee with the tops off and Dad had sat on them.
OK, said Keith to himself, stop being a worry wart. Mr Gerlach isn’t here. Mum and Dad aren’t here. There’s just me and Mick in the office and Col standing over there sticking his chest out.
‘Behind the wheel might be better,’ Keith told Col.
Col climbed up into the cab.
Keith picked up a stub of a pencil and started sketching the truck onto the plywood.
He’d be OK as long as it didn’t end up looking like a cane toad.
‘Finished yet?’ called Col. ‘My arms have gone numb.’
‘Nearly,’ said Keith, ‘Hang on.’
Just a few more dabs of Burnt Ochre on Col’s cowboy hat and . . .
‘OK,’ said Keith, ‘finished.’
Col climbed stiffly down from the cab, rubbing his arms, and looked at the painting.
Keith crossed his fingers and hoped Col’s mum and dad had taken him to lots of art galleries when he was a kid.
If he likes the colour of the truck, thought Keith, I’m probably OK.
It had been a big risk, changing the colour of the truck to purple, but off-white wouldn’t have shown up as well against the gold and silver sunrise. He’d thought at first of making the truck orange, but that would have clashed with the blue snake wrapped around the black bulldozer.
If he likes the snake, thought Keith, I’m probably OK.
He peeped up at Col’s face.
Col was frowning.
‘It’s flying,’ he said. ‘The truck’s flying.’
‘That’s right,’ said Keith. ‘I’ve painted it from the point of view of a truck inspector as you roar out of the sunrise over his head.’
‘What are those things flying around the truck?’ asked Col.
‘Vampire bats,’ said Keith.
‘What’s that gleam coming from Col’s mouth?’ asked Mick, who’d come over from the office.
‘An opal tooth,’ said Keith.
Col slowly broke into a grin.
‘It’s a beauty,’ he said to Keith. ‘Let’s go.’
He gave Keith a leg up into the cab, said hooroo to Mick, gunned the motor and they were off.
While they bounced along the dusty road Keith told Col about South London and how big trucks from Europe used to get wedged under the pub overhang coming round the corner from Pontefract Road.
Col told Keith about the Birdsville Track and how once he’d hit a pothole so big he’d lost three hundred fan heaters and the can of drink he was holding at the time.
Then the vibrations from the road started to make Keith feel drowsy and he closed his eyes and thought about the opal fields and wondered if they really were fields or if they were just called that because the glittering opals were in rows like strawberries.