I somehow survived the first week at Per petual Suckers and was into the second before I knew it.
Life had become almost bearable since Hero and I had settled into our afternoon training routine. I say ‘almost’ because I still couldn’t hang out with him at school.
Pretty much everyone still avoided me. But Hero was Hero and usually made an effort to say hello, which would earn him a shove, a nipple cripple, or worse, from Joey Castellaro. So I tried to stay clear, to make his life less complicated.
I haunted the library during lunch break and volunteered to change the school sign most days, effectively padding out the morning breaks.
Everyone next door had retreated behind their lion’s-paw doorknocker; I hadn’t seen any of them for days. Before and after school, the place was as quiet as a grave, and at night, only the flickering glow of candlelight in the darkness within gave away their presence.
‘Getting their house in order,’ was Mum’s verdict. ‘They’ll surface eventually.’
She was so busy with her new job that I’d barely seen her either. I’d filled the yawning emptiness of the weekends with long lazy days at the pool and the latest Robert Muchamore novel.
In Week Three, I developed an acute case of tunnel vision, shutting out everything around me and focusing on the swimming that was my reward at the end of each day.
It wasn’t what anyone would call living ... I wasn’t sure how much longer I could cope with merely surviving.
Manny appeared at the side fence when I slid my key into the front door one evening after training.
‘Better call your mum, Henry; she’s been chasing you.’
He was wearing a skin-tight black T-shirt featuring a grinning red devil spearing a sausage with his pitchfork.
He threw a bursting garbage bag into the bin and slammed the lid. ‘Then come on over, if you’re hungry. There’s enough food here to feed ten bears, so you can bring them too, if you want.’
He waved a massive arm and shambled off, not waiting for an answer. Fiery red letters on the back of his T-shirt announced Mr Good-Lookin’ is Cookin’.
I shoved open the door and went in to retrieve my mobile from the kitchen bench where I had left it. Three missed calls. Five messages. All from Mum.
A wave of irritation washed over me. She should know by now that I never took my mobile to the pool. That I couldn’t risk having it nicked or ruined around all that water. Not when neither of us could afford to buy a new one.
I scrolled through the messages.
The first was bubbling with excitement. She reckoned she had a buyer for the old place near the river and needed to drive to Ascot to get him to sign the contract.
The next was upbeat too, sent on her way back to Indooroopilly to persuade the owner to countersign.
The next two were more tense, with protracted negotiations and progressively later ETAs, the estimated times of her arrival back home.
The last was an order.
Go next door. Manny will feed you. xx
I opened the fridge door and examined my options. A toasted ham and cheese sandwich. Another homemade pizza. Or Manny’s bear food.
I slammed the door shut.
Silence bounced off the bare walls of the empty house. I looked around for something to fill it with, and found nothing but my swimming bag, lying on the floor where I’d dumped it. I reached down and pulled out my balled-up togs and towel, and drifted back through the darkened rooms, hanging the towel on a railing, and my Speedos on a doorknob.
The evening stretched before me like dead elastic, no snap left in it at all. The thought of hanging around like a lump of limp lycra was more than I could bear, so I headed for the door, tapping two letters – OK– into my mobile.
My thumb hovered over the xkey as I yanked open the door. I usually added a couple to every text – it was our signature sign-off – but tonight I didn’t feel like sending her kisses.
I was sick of her always running late; of her never being there when I wanted her, when I needed her.
I was sick of relying on the kindness of strangers for meals, for everything, so I pulled the door shut behind me, and hit Send.
The smell of Manny’s cooking had already made it as far as the squawking front gate: something roasted, wafting out the open door and down the garden path.
I took the front steps two at a time, my salivary glands flushing out my braces, my gut rumbling like an oncoming train.
‘C’mon in, Henry,’ yelled Manny from the back of the house. ‘I’m in the kitchen.’
I padded through the house. ‘How’d you know it was me?’
He leaned through the kitchen door, his broken face dripping with sweat. ‘It was either you or ten bears; I’m not expecting anyone else. C’mon through.’
I was hoping Caleb and Vee would be there too, but Manny was alone in the kitchen with his back to me. Metal snicked against metal, and he turned, a wicked-looking knife pointed in my direction. My heart jumped.
‘I’m thinking roast beef salad – that OK with you?’
He didn’t wait for a reply, and started carving into the side of beef that was resting on the bench. My heart rate returned to normal as shaved slices fell cleanly onto the cutting board in the wake of the razor-sharp blade.
My stomach rumbled again, louder this time. Manny grinned and used the flat of the blade to fold the meat into a huge platter of roasted vegetables. ‘Not long now, matey. Go tell Anders to come and git it, before I slop it to the hogs.’
I hesitated, and he nodded in the direction of a brightly-lit doorway off to the side of the kitchen. ‘Go on, he won’t bite. He’s in the studio. Tell him dinner’s two minutes away.’
Anders, the bloke from the truck, sat with his back towards me at a slope-topped workstation, a large sketchbook open in front of him.
He worked in a sharp and focused rhythm, his head, and I presumed his eyes, tracking the dark forms that were taking shape on the page.
His arm swept in sure arcs across the page, shading and sketching in rapid strokes, a stub of charcoal stick gripped in the fingers of his right hand. His blackened fingertips smoothed at too-sharp lines, rubbing, softening and blending, then adding more charcoal lines that drew the eye towards a corner of the page that was obscured by his body.
I stepped forward, unable to resist the pull of the charcoal, each sweep of dark upon white funnelling the eye towards that hidden corner.
The white lights of the overhead fluoros showed a barren landscape, bleak and desolate, curving away to the part of the page that was concealed by his body.
I edged round and saw a tiny figure standing alone at the edge of the page. A detailed sketch of a child, his back turned away, one arm stretched up and out, as though clinging to an unseen hand. He was being led away by someone – from something – turning the world bleak and desolate in his wake.
The power of the sketch pulled the words from my lips. ‘That’s really good.’
Blue eyes blazed up at me, startled, as though I’d yanked him out of some private space. He snapped the sketchbook shut and stood, his hand clamping down on the cover.
Judging by the dirty edges of all the preceding pages, he had almost filled the book. I could only hope all his pictures weren’t as sad and dark as the one I had just seen.
I backed away from the intensity of his gaze. ‘Dinner’s nearly ready. Manny said that you should come–’
He nodded once, eyes burning into me.
I kept back-pedalling, not taking my eyes off him. Telling myself that he didn’t scare me. Not for a minute. No-siree.