The 10 P.M. Question (12 page)

Ma turned up the music again.

“So, who wrote this?” Frankie asked.

“Shostakovich,” said Ma. “Stalin was horrible to him.”

“Wonder what
he
thought of daylight saving?” said Frankie, hauling himself off the bed and heading for the door.

“Only three months to the shortest day,” said Ma.

“’Night,” said Frankie.

It was raining, a real downpour — you couldn’t race between these raindrops. Frankie thought of Davy Crockett and the story Uncle George had once read him about Davy dodging between the raindrops and staying completely dry. Frankie had been impressed. He’d tried to do it himself until Louie told him it was physically and scientifically impossible. It really was a continual disappointment, thought Frankie, how all the little pieces of story magic were eventually crushed by the weight of reality.

He looked left and saw a stream of traffic bearing down, but ran across the street anyway, his new hoodie pulled tight. Even so, he was sodden by the other side. Perhaps Louie would have a spare sweater in his truck.

It was Year Eight work experience day, and Louie was picking Frankie up at 8:30 a.m. outside the city library so Frankie could spend the morning observing, and possibly helping him, “in the execution of his job.”

“Execution of his job” was, of course, a Mr. A term.

“Why can’t he just say, ‘
doing
his job’?” said Gigs irritably after Mr. A had given room 11 his famous Work Experience Rave. Gigs was grumpy about work experience day because he would be spending the morning with his uncle Graham (a librarian) and the afternoon with his grandfather (a gardener at the Senior Center).

According to Gigs, these were the two dreariest possible jobs in the entire universe. And worse, Uncle Graham was a law librarian; all the books in his library were hefty, devoid of pictures, and deadly dull. Plus, Uncle Graham was very quiet and had absolutely no interest in cricket.

Gigs’s grandfather could talk happily about cricket for hours at a time, but, unfortunately, gardening for the elderly really meant
weeding
for the elderly, and if there was one thing that made Gigs foam at the mouth, it was weeding.

“It’s so
pointless,
” he said. “You pull them out — if you
can,
because half the time the stupid root gets stuck and crap breaks off in your hand — and then, about one minute after you’ve pulled them out, they start growing again, practically in front of your eyes!”

Every spring and summer, Dr. Pete dragooned Gigs into the garden to help with the weeding, and every spring and summer, Frankie heard Gigs say the same things. He did
not
believe in gardens; they were a waste of space; he was
never
going to have one; he would have grass only in his backyard and a decent cricket pitch.

Gigs had wanted to go to the hospital with Dr. Pete so he could walk up and down the corridors in a white coat and stethoscope and make coffee with four spoons of sugar at the nurses’ station. He wanted to check out the analog sphygmomanometers and the digital thermometers and the endoscopes. He wanted to watch all Dr. Pete’s medical examinations. But these were mostly up people’s bottoms, and observation was strictly confined to certified medical personnel.

Personally, Frankie found the idea of botty doctoring (as Gigs called it) entirely repulsive. He didn’t know how Dr. Pete did it. Weeding seemed a very pleasant career by comparison.

“You would say that,” said Gigs. “You get to tool around town in a truck with a dog! And eat kebabs!” Louie had promised Frankie takeout from the Istanbul. Gigs, on the other hand, was doomed to old-lady sandwiches and soft shortbread.

“Gravits plodney malet tarlick weasels,” said Gigs, swiping fiercely at a patch of gravel with his bat. (They had been walking to Westside Park at the time, for the final school cricket match — another reason for Gigs’s ill humor.)

“Dark curses on useless parents,” said Frankie, translating for Sydney, who was walking with them. Or rather, part walking and part cartwheeling. She had recently mastered the cartwheel and practiced it at every opportunity. It didn’t seem to bother her at all if she was wearing a skirt and so revealed thighs and knickers every time she turned an arc. Frankie felt obliged to avert his eyes, but Gigs had no such compunction. He had already told Sydney that today’s knickers were
Bonga Swetso!

“Quit moaning,” said Sydney. “At least you’ve got uncles and grandparents. And at least they’ve got jobs. I’ve only got my mother and she doesn’t believe in working.”

“How can you not believe in it?” said Frankie. “You can’t believe or not believe. It’s a fact of life.”

“Ask my mother,” said Sydney, launching into a cartwheel. She was getting good, no doubt about it. Frankie could cartwheel very adequately himself but felt it undignified for someone almost thirteen. Sydney, who was six months older than Frankie, didn’t seem to believe in the notion of undignified anything.

“My mother,” said Sydney when she was upright again. “My mother thinks that some people are meant to have jobs and some aren’t. She thinks that there are some people in the world who need to be supported by others. She thinks she’s one of those people.”

“But that’s not
fair,
” said Frankie.

“Who said anything about fair?” said Sydney.

“But how does she get money?” asked Gigs. “How do you live?”

“One step ahead of the creditors,” said Sydney.

“Creditors?” said Frankie.

“The people you owe money to,” said Sydney, raising her arms in preparation.

Frankie looked blankly at her.

“My mother doesn’t pay her bills,” said Sydney matter-of-factly, slipping sideways and down.

“But that’s
absolutely
not fair,” said Frankie to Sydney’s bare legs. Her knickers were red and decorated with California thistles.

“Nah, it’s not,” said Sydney a moment later, brushing down her skirt and re-securing her dreads in their strange bulky ponytail. From behind, it looked as if she had a knotty shrub growing out the back of her head.

“But the
point
is, because she doesn’t work and because I don’t have any relatives here, I’ve got nobody to do work experience day with. Which is why I need to borrow one of yours.”

Standing now, shivering in front of the city library, Frankie could almost smile. It had been just a moment’s work for Sydney to maneuver things so she could have the day at
his
house. With
his
mother. Baking.

Right now, Sydney was playing junior pastry chef. She’d be chopping nuts, creaming butter and sugar, separating eggs, any one of a dozen very pleasant tasks. She’d lick all the used bowls and sample the rough edges. Between cakes, she’d drink sweet tea, like Ma. She’d listen to Russian opera. She’d be
warm
. Even considering the Russian opera, which he hated, Gigs had been almost mute with envy.

Frankie hadn’t been envious; he’d been very dismayed.

He didn’t want Sydney alone with Ma. He didn’t trust that situation at all. He’d lain in bed for three nights worrying excessively about it and then, at school, had pulled Sydney — literally — out of lunchtime cricket to have a very serious talk with her. As much as any talk with Sydney could be serious. He supposed it’d been semi-serious.

In any case, he’d put some rules in place. He was extremely stern about it. He’d decided to take a leaf out of Sydney’s own book of wacko etiquette and, for once, talk straight and tough.

One, he said, she couldn’t chatter on and on, because Ma liked it peaceful in the kitchen. Two, she wasn’t allowed to ask
any
personal questions. Three, she definitely was
not
to mention camp.

“First,” said Sydney, “I don’t
chatter
. I
talk
. And I can be quiet when I have to. Second, what do you mean by personal?”

“You know what I mean,” said Frankie. He didn’t want to go into it.

She did know what he meant. He knew she knew. They absolutely did not need to go into it. Again. This had already happened when Frankie had said he wasn’t going to camp and Sydney had finally blurted out the question that had been burning her up for weeks.

Frankie did not want to think about that.

He was looking out for Louie’s truck and watching all the people in suits (the worker bees, Uncle George called them), crisscrossing at the intersection in front of the library, heading for their workplaces. Some had their heads down against the rain; some smoked last quick cigarettes; some held umbrellas and downed coffees as they walked. Some strode purposefully, and others moved at leisure, despite the rain, talking to their mates, laughing. They, Frankie supposed, were the keen ones.

According to Mr. A, people had very different attitudes toward their jobs. According to Mr. A, some people were as keen as mustard; they looked forward to work; they relished it; some people
lived
for their work. (Evidently Mr. A belonged in this category.) Others, said Mr. A, were less enthusiastic; they didn’t
not
like their jobs — perhaps they mildly enjoyed them — but they worked principally because they needed to earn a living, as everyone must. (At this point Frankie had exchanged with Sydney what he was sure could be called
a wry smile.
) These were the people, said Mr. A, who worked to live.

Furthermore,
according to Mr. A (you could write up all the “according to Mr. A-isms” and get quite a fat book out of it, Frankie thought) a surprising number of people knew next to nothing about what their nearest and dearest
did
at work. A lot of kids, said Mr. A, looking meaningfully around the classroom, had
no idea
what their parents’ jobs involved. Or whether they liked them.

“Hence,” said Mr. A, “
hence
— what does
hence
mean, Gigs?”

“Forthisreason,”
Gigs intoned.

“
Hence
— work experience day! Where you will
experience,
insofar as it’s possible — or at least
observe
— some of the particulars, or absorb the atmosphere of your parents’, or guardians’, or grandparents’, or siblings’ jobs!”

Hence,
as happened annually, Year Eights were distributed about the city for the day, dogging the heels of their parents or other willing relatives as they went about a day’s work. According to Mr. A, it had to be a close relative because his point was then best proved (
that a surprising number of kids, blah, blah, blah
). But failing blood relatives, you could hit up an obliging family friend or a friend’s parent.

Hence,
Solly Napier was at the offices of Napier Roofing for the day, standing beside his father as he supplied screws and seals and underlay and spouting, and watching his mother while she did the accounts.
Hence,
Vienna Gorman was down at the Bus Stop Theater for the morning, where her mother did lighting design, and in the afternoon with her father at the polytech, where he was a technician at the Jazz School.

Hence,
Esther Barry was spending the morning with her grandmother at James Real Estate, where she was the administrator, and the afternoon with her grandfather in the Botanic Gardens, where he worked in the Begonia House. Esther’s parents were both vets and she helped them on weekends, so she knew more than enough about their jobs; according to Mr. A this put her in the 27 percent minority.

Hence,
Bronwyn Baxter was spending the morning with her mother, who was a district health nurse, and the afternoon with her father, who managed a cleaning company.

Hence,
David Robinson was at Boys’ College for the morning, where his auntie was a math teacher, and in a taxi all afternoon with his father, who was a driver. (David Robinson’s mother was a counselor, but he couldn’t observe her at work because her clients cried a lot.)

Hence,
Frankie would be at Parsons Porritt Public Relations this afternoon, watching Uncle George “wrestle a recalcitrant re-branding to the ground.” These were Uncle George’s very words, and Frankie hadn’t a clue what they meant, thus proving Mr. A’s theory. (One of their tasks for the day was to make a list of all the specialist words and phrases their parents’ jobs involved. Gigs observed with great regret that if he’d been with Dr. Pete, he could have legitimately put
arsehole
on his list.)

But
hence,
currently Frankie was standing in front of the city library, wet and cold, and possibly risking a chill, as he waited for his brother, who — very predictable, this — was late.

On any other day, Frankie loved the city library. Alma had enrolled him on his first birthday and he’d been coming pretty much weekly ever since. When he was little, he’d come with the Aunties and Gordana and Louie. Later, he’d come on the bus just with Gordana.

Louie had stopped reading books when he was ten, which was also the time he’d decided he wasn’t, after all, going to be a zookeeper. Up until that moment, all the books he’d read had been about animals. He said he didn’t see any point in reading unless it was about animals and he didn’t want to read about animals now that he wasn’t going to be a zookeeper. So he was giving up reading. Frankie still occasionally puzzled over this explanation.