A Croc Called Capone (2 page)

Me.

This makes my life hard.

I've tied strings of garlic on my bedroom door. Didn't work. I keep a sharpened stake under my pillow. I'm saving up for a silver bullet.

As I said, Rose doesn't normally need an excuse to make my life a misery. This time, though, there was a specific reason. The holiday. The holiday Dad announced at the kitchen table during breakfast.

‘Guess what, kids?' said Dad, peering at us over the edge of his newspaper.

I didn't answer. For one thing, my mouth was crammed with cereal. But the main reason I kept chewing was because we'd been through this before. Someone would say, ‘What?' and Dad would come out with, ‘The Dow Jones index has recovered from a slump in share investment after a bear market futures scare.' There is no answer to a pronouncement like this. You don't know whether to say, ‘Bummer' or ‘Excellent' or ‘Pass the marmalade.' ‘Please speak English' is an option, but I've never had the courage to try it.

‘What, Daddy?' said Rose. She actually sounded interested. The sun streaming through the kitchen window reflected off her halo and made patterns on the ceiling. Her snow-white wings flexed. An invisible choir started singing.

‘We are going on a family holiday at Christmas!' he said. He put his paper down flat on the table, the better to see our reaction. Mum stopped washing dishes and placed a hand on Dad's shoulder. She smiled down at us. If this scene became any more Disney, I'd throw up my Weet-Bix.

‘Oh, Daddy, that is soooo exciting,' said Rose. I swallowed hard. The cereal was keen to make a reappearance. ‘Where? Where?'

‘A wilderness lodge in the Northern Territory,' said Dad. ‘Fourteen days. Accommodation, food, trips out – river cruises, safari guide, the works.'

‘It's your dad's bonus from work,' Mum chipped in. You could see the pride oozing from her every pore. ‘He made more money for the company this year than anyone else.'

I have very little idea what Dad does at work. I know he wears a suit. I also know he spends most of his time on the telephone or on his computer. Buying and selling, he says. But when I push him on this, he says he's buying and selling money. How do you do that? I mean, if I've got a dollar in my pocket, would you buy it for one dollar fifty? You'd have to be a moron. But it seems there are plenty of people out there who do just that. Maybe he only rings up the mentally ill.

‘Daddy!' shrieked Rose. She jumped up and threw her arms around Dad. If her nose travelled any further up his bum she'd suffocate. Mind you, I have to admit I was pleased too. I'd never been to the Northern Territory, but we'd done a project on it at school the semester before last and it seemed like a cool place. They've got crocodiles there. With a bit of luck, Rose would get eaten by one.

‘Oh noooo!'

I paused, another spoonful of Weet-Bix halfway to my mouth. Rose had clamped a hand over her mouth, the back of the other hand pressed against her forehead. I told you she was a keen actor, but this was cheesy even by her standards.

‘What is it, sweetie?' said Mum, her voice dripping with concern. She and Dad had matching wrinkled brows. This is the way things are in my house. I could be ripped apart by a pack of dingoes during dinner and no one would notice. Rose chips a fingernail and the emergency services are called.

‘Oh, Mummy. Oh, Daddy,' moaned Rose.

Oh, puhlease,
I thought.

‘What, sweetie-pie? What's the matter?'

‘I'd forgotten, Mummy. In the excitement, I'd forgotten I promised to spend a week with Siobhan at Christmas. Oh, Mummy, Daddy. Can she come with us? Please? Can she? Pretty please? If she can, I don't want anything else for Christmas. I swear.'

I put my spoon down. There was no way I could carry on eating breakfast. My stomach can only put up with so much. Just as well, because things took a turn for the mushier, though you might find that hard to believe.

Dad looked at Mum. Mum looked at Dad. Rose looked at both of them. They all smiled. Small, cute, furry animals performed a song-and-dance routine across the tablecloth.

‘I suppose so, sweetie,' said Dad eventually. ‘After all, I'm not paying for the four of us, so I guess we can afford to bring your friend along as well. Sure. Let's go for it.'

Rose shrieked. She jumped up and down. She howled with joy. She hugged Mum and Dad. They hugged her back. I watched. Beams of sunlight played around the kitchen. Pearly white teeth flashed. Cartoon chipmunks turned somersaults over the milk jug.

Time for Marcus to introduce a reality check.

‘Okay,' I said. Three pairs of eyes turned to me. There was faint surprise in them, as if they'd forgotten I was there. ‘If Rose can bring her friend, then I guess I'll be able to invite Dylan.'

The sun vanished behind a black cloud. Furry critters disappeared with a pop. A clap of thunder shook the room. Lightning crackled. Everyone except me aged twenty years. There was a silence so heavy you'd need a forklift truck to shift it. I tried lifting an eyebrow expressively.

‘'S only fair,' I added.

And it was.

If you can ever say that inviting Dylan to anything could possibly count as fair.

It's like this.

Dylan is my best friend.

Siobhan is Rose's best friend.

At least it's easy to pronounce Dylan's name. Apparently, Siobhan should be pronounced ‘Shuh-varn'. So why didn't her parents just call her Shuhvarn, then? Were they deliberately trying to confuse people? I refuse to have a bar of it. I call her Cy Ob Han, which at least sounds like a minor character from Star Wars. And it really annoys Rose, which is a bonus. Rose, pronounced ‘Loo-za'.

Anyway, Dylan. I could give you a rundown on Dyl. But it's easier if you follow me as I leave the stunned kitchen table, go to my bedroom, get into my uniform, have my skull jack-hammered by Rose, walk to school and enter the playground …

‘Yo, Dyl,' I said.

Dyl sat on a wall, drinking a can of cola. Dyl is always drinking cola. He's so full of sugar that if he had a bath he'd dissolve.

‘Hi, Marc,' he said.

‘What are you doing for Christmas?'

Dylan frowned. He has trouble with the concept of time. He has no real idea what he is going to be doing in the next thirty seconds. Christmas was six weeks away. Might as well have been six years.

‘No idea, mate,' he said.

‘Well …'

But I got no further.

A couple of kids passed by, handballing a footy to each other. Dylan jumped off the wall, intercepted a pass and kicked the ball onto the gym roof. It bounced a couple of times and then settled into the gutter. If Dyl had been anyone else, there might have been trouble. But no one wanted to fight Dylan. It's not that he's big and scary. He's smaller than me. But everyone knew that if you picked a fight with Dylan, he never gave up. He's as mad as a dunny rat.

‘Dylan! That's my footy,' whined one of the kids.

‘No worries,' said Dyl. ‘I'll get it back.'

There are very strict rules at school. No one is allowed to climb onto buildings to get balls back. You must tell a teacher, who will inform the school janitor, who will, when he has a spare moment, take a ladder and clear the roof of all the stuff that finds its way there. This takes time. Normally, if you lose a footy up there, you're married with grandchildren by the time the janitor gets around to returning it.

But the rules are very clear.

Which is one reason why Dyl likes to blur them.

He shinned up the drainpipe like a greased ferret, hooked a leg over the gym wall, dangled for a second just for the sheer drama of it and then pulled himself onto the roof. Miss Lyons was on yard duty. It took her a moment to realise what was going on. When she followed the eyes of the kids in the playground, hers came out on stalks and a thin jet of coffee spurted from her nose.

‘Dylan Smith! Get down this instant!'

Dylan didn't. He waved. He smiled. He strutted along the edge of the roof like a tightrope walker, hands out to the side.

‘Dylan!' yelled Miss Lyons. ‘Remember what we have said about this behaviour. You have a choice. You can escalate or you can defuse. Which is it?'

This was standard stuff. The school's policy on bad behaviour was to remind kids that they could either make things worse – escalate – or they could make things better – defuse. I have no idea what they hoped to achieve with this. It's no choice at all for someone like Dylan.

He escalated.

He stood on his hands and walked upside-down along the guttering.

Miss Lyons turned white.

The rest of us cheered.

Finally, Dylan flipped onto his feet, picked up the footy and hoofed it into the playground. Then he turned his back, dropped his dacks and mooned us. The cheering escalated as well.

I didn't see him again until lunch.

‘Dyl,' I said. ‘Remember I was asking what you were doing for Christmas?'

‘No,' he said.

‘Well …'

But I got no further.

Miss Prentice, the Principal of the school, loomed in front of us like a ghastly nightmare. She had a bucket in one hand, a mop in the other.

‘Dylan,' she said. Her face was covered in lines. She looked really old. She'd not always looked that old. She'd actually looked quite youthful until Dylan enrolled. ‘You were on internal suspension this morning.'

‘Was I?' said Dylan.

‘You spent the morning in my office. I allowed you to visit the toilet once. It seems someone stuffed a roll of toilet paper down one of the toilets and then flushed repeatedly until the entire boys' convenience block was flooded. I just have one question, Dylan. Why?'

Dylan frowned in concentration.

‘Science experiment?' he tried.

‘Why, Dylan?'

There was a long pause while the cogs whirred in his brain.

‘Why not?' he said. He smiled as if pleased with his answer.

I didn't see him again until after school.

‘Dyl?' I said. ‘Remember …? Never mind. Would you like to spend Christmas with me and my family? On holiday up in the Northern Territory?'

‘Cool,' said Dyl. ‘When?'

I sighed.

‘Christmas,' I said.

‘Cool.'

‘You don't think your parents would be a bit upset? I mean, you wouldn't be around for Christmas and that's a big family thing.'

‘They might. When would we be going?'

I sighed.

Welcome to the strange and wonderful world of Dylan Smith.

Mum and Dad gave it their best shot, but I had them over a barrel.

They couldn't retract their offer to take Cy Ob Han on holiday. That would have sent Rose into hysterics. They couldn't, therefore, stop me taking someone. I could sue them in the International Court of Absolute and Obvious Unfairness to Siblings. So they tried to persuade me that another friend would be a better option.