Lisdalia (6 page)

15

UNDERSTANDING

Things certainly weren't easy at home. Since Mum had started work at the biscuit factory, there was more to do around the house, and, of course, most of it fell to me. Dad was out of hospital, dying of boredom and taking it out on everyone in sight. And I was making it hard on myself as usual by actually doing the homework that most of the kids quite sensibly ignored or thought up imaginative excuses to avoid. As well, I was helping Michael with his Maths (and anything else that happened to be due “yesterday”) and trying to teach Nanh a few basic phrases and survival skills — like any good buddy would.

Actually, as it turned out, Michael and I ended up sharing the role. After that first game, most recesses and lunchtimes were spent on the courts. I got to enjoy the game a lot more when I learned a little bit about the rules — and the tactics. The pair of them even spent a few afternoons, while we were waiting for the buses to arrive, teaching me how to shoot and dribble and pass. Michael said I learned quickly, but I think he was just being kind. I missed a lot more than I hit. There again, on those rings, most people did. Except Nanh.

Nanh rarely said anything, though over the next few weeks his English did improve gradually. He looked more comfortable, though, and there was a confidence in the way he moved.

And at least my “strike” was over.

After a couple of pretty tricky weeks, I'd come to an agreement with Tony and John. I lowered my demand to fifteen dollars a week between them, and as a trade-off, they gave me a lift to the library if I needed to go when they happened to be home. In return, I picked up after them, made their beds in the morning, and did all the sorts of things that had always been taken for granted in the past.

I know it still sounds like slave-labour, but I really felt like I'd won. What I did now, I did because
I
agreed to, not just because it was expected of me. Fifteen dollars, a few less bus trips and the occasional “thanks, kid” may not sound like great wages, but it sure beats “Do it, or else!”

And it gave Dad one less reason to get angry — which was worth a whole lot more than fifteen dollars.

Mind you, I could understand how he was feeling. Mum was getting home in the afternoon, exhausted, then trying to do all the things she would normally have done during the day, and he was left feeling useless.

He'd never been the slightest use around the house at the best of times — anyone who can burn spaghetti should stick to laying driveways and slabs for project-homes — and with his right hand looking like a scene from
The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb,
he couldn't even push the vacuum around properly. He tried a couple of times, but his heart wasn't in it.

In the end, apart from his daily trip to the physio, he took to sitting around the house, looking for things to get mad about and picking fights with Mum as soon as she came in through the door. I could see her biting her tongue, trying not to fight back, but it must have been hard. You could almost feel the pain in her eyes.

Sometimes, I tried to comfort her, to let her know I was on her side, that I understood how unfair he was being, but she just shook her head.

“No,
querida,”
she told me once, “you
don't
understand. If you did, you would not talk about ‘fair'.”

And she was right; I didn't understand. Not how he could be so mean to her when she was trying so hard, nor how she could defend him for it. And I didn't understand the look of … love she gave him when he fell asleep in front of the TV, and she paused as she bent down to pick up his empty coffee cup. I guess I do now, but I was only just turning twelve then, and a lot of things have happened since.

16

TANJA'S STORY

Between them, Lisdalia and Michael did wonders helping Nanh fit in. I guess it was too much to expect them to be able to prepare him for Shane Thomas. After all, you never knew exactly what would set “the Pain” off.

It wasn't that he was particularly racist, or anything. Actually he was quite democratic. He picked on
everyone,
it didn't matter who they were.

But he shouldn't have picked on Nanh. The poor kid had only been at the school for a few weeks. I guess if he'd known what he found out later, Shane would have left him alone, but
no
body knew. Not Lisdalia, not Mike
—
and certainly not Chris Walker.

He was really the one who started it all.

The thing about Chris Walker was that he was a complete dork. Terry Dickson called him “the Ferret” on account of his face, which was all pointy; Tes reckoned it reminded him of the little furry rodent he kept in a cage on his back veranda. Terry's family had a small farm out the back of Cecil Park, near Kemp's Creek, just beyond the bus-route, which was why his dad had to drive him to school every day in the ute. Living out there, he could afford to keep all kinds of pets: snakes, rabbits, a blue cattle-dog called Harley, a couple of half-feral cats and a sulphur-crested cockatoo called Rambo, who lived up to his name by mumbling meaningless words all the time and attacking total strangers when they visited the house. But I think Terry's favourite was the ferret. It was certainly
my
favourite.

Chris Walker wasn't anyone's favourite. He wasn't even cute. He had the pointy face all right, but he wasn't small and furry, and he had so little personality that he was always trying to borrow Shane Thomas'. Why you'd want to, I don't know, but if you're a dork, who knows why you do anything.

Like trying to pick on the new kid.

It began in English. Mr Dunford was away, and the E.S.L. kids were spread back into the “normal” classes. Nanh was sitting next to Lisdalia, so that she could explain things to him, and when Miss Vegas left the room for a minute, “the Ferret” leaned forward and spoke to him, loud enough for the rest of the class to hear.

“Hey, Nanh, got a thpecial girlfriend? Did she kith ya yet? Better watch out for Harrithon, he might get jealouth.”

He thought he was being
so
smart, picking on Nanh's speech problem, and he looked around the room for approval, but everyone was acting like they hadn't heard. Lisdalia gave him the sort of hand-signal my dad uses all the time when he's driving, and I kicked his ankle as hard as I could from across the aisle.

“Hey
—”
he began, but he didn't go any further and he didn't even turn his head to face me, because at that moment, Nanh turned around and just stared at him. I was sitting a short distance away and just slightly behind Nanh, and I caught the look on his face. There was no anger there, just a cold pity. The kind of look a cat might give a mouse, while it's deciding whether it's really hungry or not.

Then Miss Vegas came back into the room, and Nanh faced the front again.

Chris Walker should have taken the warning but I guess one of the things about dorks that makes them dorks is that they're slow learners. Besides, he was one of “Shane's Shadows”, so he didn't need to worry, did he?

17

SHARING

When Tanja told me about “that look” later, I guess it made sense.

Even though he was in Year Seven, Nanh was a little bit older than us — about fourteen, I suppose; he'd had a really mixed-up childhood, and his language problems had kept him back in school, but he was really quite small for his age, so he didn't look older. And if you're not too bright and you're used to relying on force to get your way, you tend to rely on appearances a bit too much. Shane Thomas and his “Morons Anonymous” certainly did this time.

Chris Walker, who was the only one in the group with even half a brain — even though he'd been hanging with “the Pain” for so long that he'd basically forgotten how to use it — made the mistake of thinking that just because someone has trouble using a particular language, it means that they're stupid, or they don't understand what's going on. Or that they'll just stand there and let you treat them like a victim and take what belongs to them without a fight.

If he'd remembered how to use his brain, and thought about it for a minute, he might have figured that to someone who has spent the best part of his life having what belongs to him taken away or threatened by people with guns, or by desperate and hungry gangs, a bunch of zit-faced school bullies, even if one of them is the size of Shane Thomas, aren't exactly a terrifying sight.

In Year Seven, “Shane's Shadows” had changed their old tactics. In the last couple of years of Primary, they'd been able to make a big thing of their size — or
his
size, at least — and their power around the whole school, but in this pond they were little fish, so they were more sneaky. They only picked on the other Year Sevens — and only when they could catch them alone, and the older kids weren't around.

Which was the way they found Nanh, a few days after the incident in English.

Nanh brought his lunch from home, and he'd just bought a can of drink from the machine, then headed for the seats near the MPC. Michael was getting my lunch for me from the canteen, so I was standing just outside the building, about two metres from where Nanh was sitting. I could see what was happening and I tried to get Michael's attention, but he was in line, talking to Tanja, and had his back to me; and the noise in the canteen at the start of lunchtime sounds like the kick-off in the Grand Final.

I didn't want to let Nanh out of my sight even to go and get help, so I was stuck. I moved towards him, to warn him, but I was too late. The pack had formed around him, and Chris Walker had started.

He was a wimp himself, of course, but he had the goons behind him, so he came over like the
big
man.

“Thay, Nanh, I'm real
thirthty.
Howth about sharing thome of your drink.” And without waiting for a reply, he grabbed the unopened can from where it stood on the seat.

He had his finger inside the ring ready to open it when it all happened.

It was so quick that it took me — and everyone else, I guess — by surprise. I had closed the distance between us, and I was just behind the Ferret's shoulder, when all of a sudden, I wasn't behind his shoulder at all. In less time than it took Chris Walker to scream, Nanh had made it to his feet, grabbed the wrist of the hand that held the can, swept the Ferret's feet out from under him, and lowered him almost gently to the ground.

Nanh stood over him with one foot planted firmly on his chest, while his eyes ran wamingly over the rest of “the Shadows”. Then he looked down at Chris — that “cat-and-mouse” look that Tanja had described to me — and spoke, so quietly that I could barely hear him from two metres away.

“You thirthty, I … share drink. But …” he paused as he spoke, pulled the ring on the can and took a sip. ‘You don't take. You
never
take.”

Then he crouched down, and with one movement pulled off the Ferret's right shoe. It was a white Adidas hi-top that looked like he'd been wearing it for the best part of a year — without once taking it off. Nanh straightened, looked at it, sniffed at it slightly and pulled a face.

“You want drink … I share.” He took a couple of huge swallows. “Half me … Half you.”

For a moment, I thought he was going to pass the can down to Chris Walker, who hadn't moved a muscle — nobody had — but at the last moment, he stopped, as if he'd changed his mind, and poured the remaining drink into the Ferret's boot. Then he leaned over and placed the boot into his would-be tormentor's hand.

“Now you drink … pleathe … Or I get —” he looked across at me, as if he was searching for the right word — “how you thay … I get offending.” It was a gentle threat, but a threat, just the same.

“Offended,” I corrected him, and smiled. He smiled back.

Chris Walker wasn't smiling. He looked terrified. He held the boot out in front of him like it was full of toxic waste. I suppose, considering what might have been inside that shoe, mixing with what came out of the can, it could well have been. His eyes looked for help from his mates, but they were frozen. “The Pain”, their protector, was in the canteen, looking for a lunch to steal, and without him they were nothing.

By now, the brown liquid was seeping out through the stitching of the boot and dribbling down over Chris Walker's hand, and I was wondering if he'd really put it to his lips and drink. If Nanh would really make him.

I never found out, because at the moment, Shane Thomas came around the corner of the MPC, out of the canteen.

Nobody realised that he was there until he yelled out: “Hey, you!”

Nanh held his position over Chris Walker, but he turned his head slightly at the sound of the shout. I could see the muscles tense just slightly in his shoulders, and I noticed
that
look again in his eyes. He didn't answer.

Thomas pushed past me, and stood about a metre from Nanh, facing him.

“Maybe you don't know the rules around here, seeing how you just got off the boat …” He paused, but no one laughed, and suddenly he seemed to become aware that there was something more going on here than he'd realised. He nodded towards the Ferret, and continued, less certainly, “Let him up … now.” There was a threat in the tone that anyone in Year Seven would have responded to immediately, but Nanh just smiled. A cold smile.

“You let him … finish drink. He thay he thirthty.”

Thomas's answer was to lean forward with both hands, intending to push Nanh away from the kid on the ground, but he never made contact. Moving even more quickly than he had before, Nanh swayed to one side, grabbed his opponent's right wrist with both hands, then twisted around, somehow, and turned that wrist behind Shane Thomas' back while he took the legs out from under him, so that “the Pain” ended up on his knees with Nanh behind him, holding his arm painfully up around his shoulder-blade.

Securing it there with his left hand, he grabbed a handful of hair with his right one and pulled Shane's head back — not viciously; almost gently, in fact. Then he looked down into those confused eyes, and smiled again.

“Pleathe, no try push … I no like it.”

Then, placing a foot in the centre of Shane Thomas's back, he gently nudged him over onto his face. He looked down at Chris Walker, only to find that in the commotion, the bootful of toxic fluid had been knocked out of his hand, so that he was sitting there on the floor, with a huge brown stain soaking into the front of his school-shirt.

“I thorry … You thtill thirthty? I get you more drink …”

But Chris Walker was on his feet, and hobbling backwards across the quad, leaving his boot behind on the ground next to Shane Thomas, who was sitting up now, more than a little confused.

Nanh bent down, picked up the boot and dropped it in Shane Thomas's lap, upside down, so that the dregs of the liquid spilled out all over the front of his trousers and made it look like he'd had an accident. Which, I suppose, in away was true.

Then, as if nothing had happened, Nanh returned to his place on the bench, picked up his lunch and continued eating.

By the time Michael and Tanja arrived from the canteen, it was all over, Shane and his Shadows had disappeared, and so had most of Nanh's lunch, but there was still a buzz around the place.

Michael handed me a pie and a packet of those disgusting cheese-ring things. For a future Olympic athlete, he has
no
idea about good nutrition.

“What's going on?” he asked. At least, I think that's what he asked; the words had to escape through a mouthful of half-masticated meat and pastry. He has no idea about good manners either, sometimes.

“Oh, nothing,” I looked across at Nanh, and winked. “Nanh was just showing us how they share things in Cambodia. Could you do me a favour, get me a can of drink from the machine? I'd ask Nanh for a sip of his, but he's already shared it around …”