Crown Park (11 page)

On Wednesday afternoon, Jack was
transferred by ambulance to Taupo Hospital.

From the nurses he heard that
Professor Rackman had been discharged on Tuesday evening. He’d gone
back to Auckland where he lived.

Jack was disappointed. There
were so many things he wanted to ask Fluoro. Things that only he
could answer. Now that wasn’t going to happen. Jack didn’t want his
last contact with the man to be that disastrous attack on the moho.
Somehow there had to be more.

His parents visited him again
that evening. It was not an easy visit. Jack couldn’t keep his mind
on the conversation.

“Are you worrying about
something?” asked his mum.

“Is it that cat?” said his
father. “The one you mentioned last night?”

“Yeah,” Jack said. “I’m just
worried about him. He was so much like Magic.”

“Probably the professor took him
home.”

His mother touched his arm.
“Would you like to have a cat?”

Jack nodded.

“You’d have to feed it and clean
up its mess.”

“And it’ll have to be desexed,”
added his father. “Or there’ll be kittens everywhere.”

Jack burst out laughing. It was
just like the conversation he’d imagined Chainsaw having with his
mum.

His parents laughed too. Happy
because their son was happy.

It wasn’t until Thursday afternoon that
Jack got some answers to his questions. Melissa visited on her way
to work. She sat beside his bed and in a quiet voice told him about
the rescue.

“There was so much steam in the
park. It was more than I’d ever seen before. Then I heard these
screams. I knew straight away it was you. I had to use the light
from my phone to find you because it was so dark in there. As soon
as I saw Fluoro I rang one-one-one. By then you’d stopped
screaming. It took me three goes to get you out. I kept running out
of breath and had to go back up to the top. I tried to shift
Fluoro, but he was too heavy. Fortunately the ambulance arrived
when it did or he’d have died. One of the paramedics reckoned that
you were conscious longer because you were closer to the entrance
and could still get a bit of oxygen. Just as well you did or…” She
gave a little shiver. “I don’t like thinking about that.”

“Did you see Chainsaw?”

Melissa lowered her head. “No,”
she whispered.

“Have you seen him since?”

She shook her head.

Jack could tell she was holding
something back. “Tell me!” he said.

She took a deep breath. “I was
worried about him and put a note in the shop window asking if
anyone had seen a big tabby cat. Well, this old lady came in
yesterday and said there had been one run over on Crown Road. I
went and had a look, but by then… Well… By then a lot of cars had
run over it. It was hard to tell, but it was big enough to be
Chainsaw and the fur was the right colour.” She shook her head
slowly. “I’m sorry Jack, but I think it was him. He never was
careful when crossing the road.”

Jack was silent for some while.
He’d thought it might be like that. Every time something terrible
had happened on one of their trips, something had also happened in
real time. It wasn’t strange that Chainsaw’s body would turn up on
a road in modern Taupo.

His thoughts were broken by
Melissa squeezing his arm.

“Well, that’s got rid of the bad
news. Do you want to hear the good stuff?”

Jack forced a smile. “There’s
good news?”

“Oh yes! Very good news.”
Melissa paused for dramatic effect. “Yesterday afternoon Dad had
some visitors while he was off duty.”

This time Jack gave a real
smile. “The Bennett brothers,” he said.

Melissa’s jaw dropped. “How did
you know?”

Jack shrugged. “I guessed.”

“Well then, can you guess what
they did?”

“You tell me.”

“They dumped five black rubbish
bags on the front lawn. The things stank! They’d had them soaking
in water. Dad watched them from the window. He expected them to try
and run off once they’d dumped the stuff. But they didn’t. They
came to the door and rang the bell. When Dad answered, they handed
him a box and asked where the treasure was.”

By then Jack was laughing.

Melissa turned on him. “You knew
this would happen, didn’t you.”

Jack flicked his eyebrows.

“Did you and Fluoro set it
up?”

He shrugged. “What happened
then?”

“Well, Dad asked them inside and
opened the box. There was lots of crazy stuff inside. Like toy
windmills which they’d taken off graves at the cemetery. A Canadian
flag from a motel down at the lakefront. Some tee markers they’d
stolen from the golf course. And other stuff. A few bits had been
reported, most hadn’t.”

“Was there a GPS navigator?”

“Yeeesss,” said Melissa,
slowly.

“Fluoro had one,” said Jack.
“The Bennett boys must’ve taken it.”

“That and a Blackberry phone
were the only two things of any value.”

“Did your father arrest
them?”

“It doesn’t work like that,”
said Melissa. “He told them who he was, and said he’d be meeting
with their parents to discuss what would happen.”

Jack was disappointed. He’d
wanted them arrested and locked up.

“Dad went and saw the parents
last night,” continued Melissa. “And guess what?”

“They’re going to tell them
they’re naughty boys and to never do it again?” suggested Jack.

Melissa gave a smug shake of her
head. “Nope!” Again the dramatic pause. “They’re sending them away
from town. Brian signed out of school today. Word is they’re going
to Coromandel to live with an aunty who’s going to sort them out.”
She gave a big grin. “They’ll be gone by this weekend. From now on
Taupo will be a much nicer place for everyone.”

Jack closed his eyes, breathing
slowly and deeply. This was better than being arrested. This was
perfect.

That night Jack decided to go looking
for Chainsaw back at the time of the eruption. After lights went
out in the ward, he lay in his bed emptying his mind of its
clutter. There was so much of it: annoyance at Fluoro for not
staying around to see him, and fear for Chainsaw.

Piece by piece the clutter went
and a scene formed in his mind. It was the path beneath the tree,
and Chainsaw was being held by the adzebills. But nothing was
happening. The image was a freeze-frame. No matter how much Jack
tried he couldn’t make the movie play. It was stuck on that one
disturbing view.

In the end he gave up and tried
to sleep. That also didn’t work. He had found out that perfect
hearing has its drawbacks. Every snore, grunt and gurgle from the
sleeping patients came through loud and clear. To Jack it was like
being in the middle of a noisy factory. Now, he didn’t want to
empty his mind, he wanted to fill it with thoughts to block out the
noise. But the only thoughts that came were the ones he didn’t
want.

When sleep did come, it was long
and deep. The ward was alive and working when he woke. His father
was standing by his bed.

Jack blinked as if it might
still be part of his sleep. “You’re early.”

“Thought you’d want to hear the
news,” replied Dave.

“What news?”

“About the truck.”

“What truck?”

“I’m buying my own rig.”

“You’ve got enough money!”

“No. But Professor Rackman,
Mike, is lending us the rest. He came around last night and made
the offer. It’s his way of rewarding the family for what you did.
He reckons he wouldn’t be alive if you hadn’t saved him. So he’s
lending us the money at next to no interest.”

“Does that mean you won’t both
have to work all the time?”

Dave nodded. “Yep! That and many
other things are going to change. This is the start of a new life
for our family, Jack. And most of it is thanks to you.”

The stitches under Jack’s ears were
removed later in the morning. Then there were some hearing tests.
Everything was OK. The doctor told him to take things easy for the
next couple of weeks and then signed his discharge. He could go
home in the afternoon when his mother arrived.

After that there was nothing for
Jack to do, except lie in bed and try to make sense of all the
stuff his father had said. One thing in particular bugged him: if
Fluoro was in town then why hadn’t he come to see him? It was
almost as if he was avoiding a meeting. Maybe now that he was
Professor Rackman, he had no time for a boy. Perhaps he was
embarrassed about the things they had done. Jack wished he had some
way of contacting the man. Unless they did another trip together,
Jack would never know the truth about Chainsaw.

Not long after lunch, Jack was
woken from a snooze by squeals and laughter coming from the nurses’
room. One of the patients went to see what was happening. He
returned with a big grin on his face.

“What’s going on?” asked
Jack.

“Some dude is handing out gifts
to the nurses. He’s heading this way. Maybe we’ll get
something.”

Soon afterwards a well-dressed
man entered the room and walked up to Jack’s bed. “Hello, Jack,” he
said. “I hear you’re getting out today.”

It was Fluoro, or rather
Professor Mike Rackman. Nobody could think of this man as Fluoro
the vagrant.

“Hi,” said Jack with a big grin.
“I was wondering if you’d ever come to see me.”

“I always leave the best part to
last.” He stood looking down at the boy for a time. “You’re looking
great, Jack.”

“You’re looking pretty good too.
What’s with this professor stuff? What does a professor do?”

“A professor is in charge of a
subject at a university. Can you guess what I might be in charge
of?”

Jack smiled. “Something to do
with volcanoes?”

“Spot on! It’s called
volcanology. My specialist study is the Taupo Volcanic Zone.”

“Is that why you could make it
seem so real?”

Fluoro glanced around the room,
and lowered his voice. “Actually, I didn’t know about some of that
stuff we saw.”

“You mean it was real?” Jack
whispered.

“I don’t know. I can’t see how
it can be.” A long pause. “But I want to go back. I want to see the
last part of the eruption.”

This was what Jack wanted. “Can
we do it here?”

Fluoro shook his head. “No! But
I think I’ve worked out a way.” He lifted a plastic shopping bag
onto the bed. “This is a gift for you. It’s a phone.” He gave a
little chuckle. “A Blackberry.”

“A stolen Blackberry?” asked
Jack with a grin.

“No. This is yours. I’ve got to
head back to Auckland in a few minutes, but I think we can use
phones to do a trip.”

“When?”

“How about Saturday at
10pm?”

“OK. Who rings who?”

“I’ll ring you.”

Jack nodded. Then he asked the
question that was at the top of his mind. “Do you think we’ll find
out about Chainsaw?”

“I hope so,” said Fluoro. “I
hope so. But I don’t think we’ll be able to save him. Too much time
has passed.”

“I just want to know if what I
think happened did happen.”

“Me too, and maybe we’ll find
out on Saturday. We’ll just have to wait and hope.”

After picking Jack up at the hospital,
his mum took him to the pet shop in town. They had kittens, but
they were all fancy, fluffy things. None of them looked like they’d
ever have the guts to take on an adzebill. Jack didn’t want any of
them. Anyway, he felt it would be disrespectful to Chainsaw to buy
one just yet.

Saturday morning he was home by
himself again, hopefully for the last time. Both parents left early
in the morning claiming that next weekend would be different. Jack
hoped so, because he’d had enough of being home alone.

To fill the day he went to Crown
Road to look for the squashed cat. It had gone, although a dark
patch stained the road near one of Chainsaw’s crossing points. He
had probably walked across as if he owned the place, except this
time a vehicle didn’t stop. Jack wiped his eyes and moved away.

The thermal activity in Crown
Park was almost back to normal. Orange netting surrounded the
gully, with signs saying “Keep Out! Danger! “ Through gaps in the
steam Jack could see that Fluoro’s home had been removed. The only
things left were the storage holes in the bank.

Jack walked home feeling as if
something had gone from his life. Fluoro’s home had also been
Chainsaw’s home. Now both of them had gone and his life was emptier
for it.

The morning dragged into the
afternoon, and then the evening. Jack watched television and played
with his new phone. He wanted to make some calls, but had no one to
call.

By the time ten o”clock came,
Jack had been lying in bed for ages, growing increasingly nervous.
Maybe Professor Rackman was feeling the same, for the phone rang at
exactly 10pm.

“Hello, Jack,” said Mike. “Are
you ready?”

“Yes.”

“Then let’s go.” There was a
long pause before he spoke again. This time it was not Professor
Rackman speaking. It was Fluoro, sounding just as he had on that
first trip a week before.

Any doubts Jack had about it
working, faded as he drifted off to that land in the past. He was
on his way to find Chainsaw. Alive or dead? He would soon know the
answer.

They were standing near the summit of a
mountain. In the distance was the lake, if you could call it that
now. It was more like a lot of smaller lakes, each reflecting the
light from a full moon. The part where Chainsaw had almost drowned
was now a cone volcano spewing a plume of stuff high into the sky.
The bottom of the plume reflected a glow from the molten material
in the vent. Higher up, the ash was lit with the eerie white light
of lightning flashes. Even from their distance, Jack could hear the
rumble of thunder and a roar from the vent.