Freedom Ride (14 page)

I parked my bike against the verandah post, smoothed my hair and strolled inside. Usually Edwards’s buzzed with people poring over magazines or talking by the fountain pen display case, but today the place was empty.

Stretch, the newsagent’s owner, was another of Dad’s army buddies and David Edwards’s father. He stood behind the counter writing in a ledger. The counter’s edge pressed into his gut. He looked over the rim of his glasses. “Hello, Robert. Here to pick up something for your nan?”

“Actually, I’m here to buy things for work.” I glanced around the wooden racks of magazines and newspapers. “Envelopes and a new receipt book.”

Stretch Edwards folded his arms over his chest and jerked his head at the back wall. “Down there.”

“Thanks.”

I chose a receipt book bound with blue cloth and puzzled over the different-sized envelopes before selecting the long thin ones.

By the time I returned to the counter, Rosie Kelly studied birthday cards. Don Matthews and Chas Wilmot, from the stock agent’s over the road, flicked through
The Walgaree Herald
, pointing to what I guessed was a photo spread. Mrs Saxby picked up the CWA newsletter from beside the newspapers. I nodded and smiled greetings to each of them and laid my purchases on the counter. “Barry asked if you could add these to the account please, Mr Edwards.”

“Don’t think so, Robert.” Stretch rocked back on his heels.

I was aware of the stillness around me. My forehead tightened into a frown. “But Barry has an account here.”

“
Had
an account here.” Stretch spoke as though he was making a grand announcement. “But that was before he hired a bloody boong.” He slapped his hands either side of the envelopes and receipt book on the counter. He reminded me of a mongrel dog guarding its bone. “Cash only from now on for Barry Bloody Gregory.”

I dug my hands into my pockets – a bent nail, a folded hanky, a coin, probably a half-penny by the feel of it, and pocket grit and fluff. I sensed rather than saw more people enter the shop.

This was Walgaree, the town where a dogfight in Main Street was a social event. These new customers, just like the ones already here, would be transfixed by what was going on.

Maybe if I sold tickets to the “Humiliate Robbie Bower” show I’d raise enough to pay for the things on the counter.

“Mr Edwards …” I stood a little straighter, trying to use my height over the angry ant. “Seeing as Barry wasn’t aware of the change, perhaps you could make an …” What was the word? Assumption? Expedition? Example? I wished I’d paid more attention in English. “An exemptation.”

A smirk crawled across Stretch’s face. “As eloquent as your father on a Friday night. I think you mean exception.”

The back of my neck prickled. “Mr Edwards, how was Barry to know you’d changed the agreement if you haven’t told him? Surely you could add these things to the account. What harm would it do?”

Stretch glanced to my right. I knew by the sharp, tangy stink of sheep shit and lanolin that the stock agents stood there.

From the corner of my eye I caught movement – a shrug maybe – from one of them.

Stretch scooped up the receipt book and envelopes. “This is the last time, Robert. You make sure you tell Barry that.” He slipped the purchases into a brown paper bag, stamped with “Edwards’s Newsagency for Friendly Service” and slid it across the counter. He glared, hand still on the package. “And tell Barry I want the account settled by Friday.”

I snatched the bag out from under his hand and stalked out the door. I stopped in the doorway and turned back. “Thank you, Mr Edwards.”

Anger thudded against my skull. I tried to burn it up by pedalling hard back to the park. All that did was make me angry
and
sweaty.

When I burst into the caravan office, Barry stood behind the counter, pencil in his hand, examining the booking sheet. “Two more are leaving, Robbie.” He tapped the pad with the pencil. “We’re down to half the usual summer numbers.”

I handed him the package from the newsagent. “Barry, Stretch Edwards said you have to pay the account by Friday. And that he was cancelling the account.”

Barry looked up from the booking sheet. “Micky?”

I nodded.

The office back door opened and Mrs Gregory slipped into the room. She looked frail and her eyes didn’t have their usual sparkle. “What about Micky?” she asked.

“Stretch Edwards has cancelled our account,” said Barry.

Barry’s mother leaned against the counter. “Oh dear. That’s Des Mathes, the butchers and now Edwards.”

“And Murray at the servo,” added Barry.

“Oh, gracious,” said Mrs Gregory. She reached out and placed her bony hand on Barry’s tanned one. “Maybe, Barry, it’s time we admitted defeat. Micky would understand …”

I watched a thousand different expressions flash across Barry’s face. “I can’t, Mum. It’s not right.”

Mrs Gregory sighed. “It’s only going to get worse, Barry.”

“I know.”

I wondered what they thought was going to get worse … the way people acted towards the Aborigines or the way the businesses treated Barry and his mum?

“I’ll get back to work,” I said, feeling out of place.

Barry looked up, as though he’d forgotten I was there. “Good, Robbie. Micky’s cleaning the laundry. Some fool dyed clothes in the trough. Blue dye everywhere. Be great if you check the barbecues.”

“I’ll help Micky first.” I hoped he’d understand what I didn’t have the words to say.

Micky stood by the cement laundry troughs, bucket of murky blue water and rags splattered with blue dye at his feet. “Look clean?” he asked as I walked through the door.

I bent over the troughs. They were cleaner than I’d ever seen them – pale grey rather than dark and grungy. “Good job. Barry’ll be impressed.”

“Where is he?”

“In the office. Finishing up … bookwork.”

Micky nodded.

“Want to check the barbecues with me?”

Shrill screams ripped through the air. Micky and I sprinted into the sunshine. Two girls, maybe eight and ten years old, ran from the shower block. Their squeals ricocheted around the caravan park.

“What’s wrong?” I bellowed at their backs.

They didn’t stop running or screaming.

“Should we go see what that was all about?” asked Micky.

“I suppose so.” Shoulders back, I walked over and rapped on the open wooden door. I made my voice deep, like Barry’s, and called out, “Excuse me, ladies, anyone in here?” I waited a moment before knocking again. “Anybody in the shower block?”

I glanced at Micky. He shrugged. I counted five heartbeats then walked into the dank building.

Sinks and mirrors lined one wall and a bench the other. The rest of the room was filled with toilets and showers separated by sheets of masonite. A waist-high table and bench ran down the centre of the building. The green wooden doors on the showers and toilets were ajar or wide open.

While I peeped into stalls, Micky hovered by the edge of the table.

Giggles echoed through the room.

The two girls who’d bolted as though an axe murderer was after them stood in the doorway. The smaller of the two hid behind her sister, skirt bunched in her fist. “Can you see it?” she asked.

I’d finished checking and had come back to the sunlight splashing the entrance. “See what?”

The girl with the bunched skirt shuddered and whispered something that was more hiss than word.

“What?” I asked.

“Snake,” said the other girl. She thrust her arms out wide. “This big.”

“Jeepers,” muttered Micky.

“Over there,” whispered the younger girl. She stared at the corner stall.

“You sure? Because I’ve checked and there’s no snake.”

A woman, who I figured was the girls’ mother, arrived. She gripped the girls by the shoulders and pulled them to her. “My daughters never lie.”

I looked over the woman’s shoulder to the office. Barry would know what to do. And he’d handle this prickly woman, who was looking at Micky as though he was a piece of rotten fruit.

As I stepped towards the office, I remembered the hurt and worry in Barry’s face.

I took a deep breath and turned back to the shower block entrance.

“All right, ladies, you need to wait outside the shower block.” Once they moved from the door, I spoke to Micky. “Grab a spade from the shed.”

He nodded and fled, arms and legs pumping.

“Don’t kill it!” squealed the older girl.

“I won’t kill it. The spade is just in case …” My voice trailed off. Sending Micky for a spade seemed the adult thing to do. Just what I’d do with a spade if I came across a snake was a mystery to me.

Micky returned, clutching a rake.

“Really?”

He shrugged. “First thing I saw.”

I shook my head and turned to the corner shower stall. The green door was ajar. Somehow it seemed more threatening than the other stalls. I crept forwards but stopped, aware Micky hadn’t followed. “Well?” I said, over my shoulder.

He stood in the doorway, arms folded. “Well, what?”

“Let’s do this.”

“There’s no
us
, mate. I’m staying here.”

I spun around. “But …”

“But what? Oh, I get it. The black boy will know how to deal with a snake. Forget it. The buggers scare me shitless. You’re on your own!” He stuck his chin out.

I glared before continuing my search for a snake that probably didn’t exist.

Rake across my chest, the way a soldier holds his rifle, I inched closer.

At the cubicle, I stopped, heart thudding in my ears. I prodded the door with the rake handle. The door swung open with a creak and banged against the stall. The masonite walls quivered.

I jumped back. Behind me, someone gasped.

Rake gripped tight, I inched forwards. Scanned the cement floor. Bent to peer under the masonite partitions. Nothing.

My shoulders slumped with relief.

I spun to face the entrance. “There’s no bloody snake.”

The girls and their mother, in the doorway behind Micky, all had the same wide-eyed and slack-mouthed expression.

“What?” I snapped.

Like a robot, Micky raised his hand and pointed above my head. “There.” At least that’s what I thought he said. It sounded more like a gasp.

“Where?” I spun on my heels to face the brick wall.

“Up there,” came his high-pitched reply.

I raised my gaze. A strange series of sounds rushed from me. Part squeals, part squawks and part swearing.

Stretched along the shower arm, staring at me with cold eyes, was a snake. Its tail end rested on the windowsill, its body on the shower arm and its head hovered above the showerhead.

I stumbled backwards. In my panic, the rake jammed across the doorway. I couldn’t lose my only weapon. I tugged. The stall shuddered. The rake stayed stuck. I twisted my wrist and pulled hard. The rake clattered to the floor. I tumbled to my bum.

Laughter boomed around the shower block. I scrambled to my feet.

From outside the stall I studied the snake.

And the snake studied me.

“Is it poisonous?” asked the woman.

How would I know? I’d never been eye to eye with a snake before.

“I think,” said Micky, clearing his throat, “it’s a python.”

My breath rushed from me. A python. The only thing I knew about snakes was that pythons weren’t poisonous. I could deal with a python.

“Nasty bite,” said the woman. “Saw one swallow a pig whole once.”

“Can you not talk? Please,” I said, staring at the reptile’s creamy stomach.

Its tongue flickered from its mouth. I shuddered.

Ian Wright’s words flooded back. “You’re weak as piss, Bower.”

I swiped sweat from my top lip and reached for the rake.

“No need to hurt each other,” I whispered. Its head and neck, if snakes even had necks, still swayed above the shower arm. “Just moving you on.” I raised the rake and nudged the snake’s belly. It bunched into a tight knot on the window ledge and lowered its head. It studied my face, tongue darting in and out.

I poked harder.

The snake raised its head.

I held my breath.

It slithered down the wall, movements fast and smooth. It was even bigger than the girl had shown me.

I stumbled backwards out of the stall. The rake clattered from my hand.

Behind me, squeals, yelps and the sound of running footsteps shattered the quiet.

I knew without looking that Micky, the girls and their mother had left me to face the reptile, alone and without a weapon.

I’d just about regained my balance, when I crunched into the table and bench in the middle of the room.

The snake rippled forwards, a wave of muscles, head raised from the concrete.

Was it headed for me?

I clambered onto the bench and tugged off my shoe to chuck at the reptile that clearly wanted to bite my face off. I raised my arm to pitch the shoe. The snake altered course. Faster now, all arcs and waves, it slithered to the toilet nearest the door.

It slid out the hole between the concrete and the toilet pipe. The hole that Barry had talked about fixing last week.

“Where’s the snake?” asked Barry, bursting into the shower block.