The Minnow (5 page)

‘Thanks for the dictionary.'

‘You're welcome, sport,' says Papa. He is sitting in the rocker on the front veranda. He looks out of place at the Mavis Ornstein Home for the Elderly. He looks too young.

‘I know,' he says, when I tell him, ‘but I'm old. I'll be eighty this November, just behind your grandmother.'

‘You're not old, Papa. You're fifty.'

‘No, Tom, I
was
fifty. Looks can be deceiving when you're dead.'

Sometimes Papa and I sit on the veranda all afternoon. Some of the old people say hi to him as they walk past, some don't. I guess some of them recognise him from his photo. Some don't see either one of us. Papa calls them the sad cases.

Every hour or so, he checks on Nana. They never chat or anything. Nana has imaginary conversations with him, rather than the real thing. But I think she knows. Little things give her away. For example, she never sits on the rocker if Papa is already there. She always walks around him, not through him (like the sad cases do). And it would be just like her to ignore Papa for thirty years as punishment for leaving her so young. Mum and Dad are lucky they are together. I wonder if they have found Sarah.

Sarah is three years younger than me. Well, in a way she is four years younger now. It's a bit confusing. When she drowned she was three years younger and that is over a year ago. Anyway, in between Sarah and me, Mum had a miscarriage. Twins. I wish I knew if it was two boys, two girls, or one of each.

I often keep an eye out, just in case they're swimming around with the Sarah catfish. Jonah says I am getting ahead of myself when I worry about such things. He says to let it go.

I have never understood the let-it-go advice. What does it mean? Let what go? And how do you let something go if you're not even sure you're holding on to it? And anyway, what's so wrong with holding on?

Papa says ‘letting go' is new-age bullshit.

I'm wandering back to Jonah's house in the dark, when I hear voices up ahead. The Minnow is fast asleep and I don't want to wake her, which is a shame because she's really good at hearing from a distance. The gravel is crunchy and noisy so I stand still. I recognise Jonah's voice. He is laughing about something. There is a man's voice. Older and more musical, almost like he's singing rather than speaking. I concentrate really hard but I can't make out any words.

‘Tom!' It's Jonah. I don't answer. ‘Tom!' he yells. ‘Come and meet Mr Wo.'

I realise I am standing in a pool of light. The moon has appeared from behind a cloud and given me up. ‘Okay,' I call back, trying to sound normal and not like a complete idiot, and I walk the thirty or so metres to the house.

Mr Wo is really young. His name is James and he says it's okay to call him that outside of school. He says he'd prefer everyone to call him James but that Mrs Haversham, one of the new senior teachers, thinks it is disrespectful. He has come to the house to meet me. This is Jonah's fault, I know it. He keeps avoiding my eyes.

‘So, Tom, when do you think you'll be coming back to school?' Mr Wo says, getting straight to the point.

‘I'm pregnant,' I say, and I can feel my eyes sting. Please don't cry in front of Mr Wo, I beg them, but they ignore me, and small tadpoles drop onto my cheeks.

‘I'm so sorry,' says Mr Wo. ‘Can I help?'

‘It's all right,' says Jonah. ‘She'll be okay in a minute, won't you Tom?'

I nod. Yes.

I stop crying, eventually. I blow my nose and look up to find Jonah and Mr Wo smiling at me. ‘What?' I say to both of them.

‘Nothing,' Mr Wo says. ‘Are you okay to talk now?'

‘I guess.'

‘You haven't been to school since the flood, which means you missed most of year nine and it's already September so year ten's going the same way.' He waits for me to speak, but I don't say a word.

‘Okay,' he says, pausing to take a breath, ‘how do you feel about using the next few months catching-up on year nine, with the idea of going into year ten next year?'

I look across at Jonah. ‘It wouldn't be too bad,' he says.

He's right. But I'm still going to feel like a loser.

‘Tom,' says Jonah, reading my expression, ‘it's not like you're
repeating
.'

‘Easy for you to say,' I reply.

‘I know,' says Jonah.

The three of us are quiet for a minute or so. Eventually Mr Wo breaks the silence. ‘So,' he says, ‘I was thinking I could send some work home with Jonah. And I could come here once a week and check how you're doing.'

He raises an eyebrow at me. Jonah makes a face. ‘How does that sound, Tom?'

‘Good. It sounds good. Thanks, Mr Wo,' I say.

‘James,' he says, and smiles. He's nice. He has a really pretty face.

Mr Wo—
James
—stands to leave. ‘I'll see you Monday, Jonah,' he says. Then he turns to me and says, ‘and I'll see you Friday afternoon, Tom.'

‘Yes, okay,' I say, leaving out his name. ‘Thanks.'

Jonah and I stand and watch him walk down the drive to his car.

‘Oh, no,' I say to Jonah, ‘I forgot to tell him how much I love the mural.'

‘Tell him on Friday,' says Jonah.

The Minnow and I are down at the inlet. Jonah walked us there when he got home from school. He carried the Fish-Master. He's returning at dusk to walk me and the Minnow and the FishMaster back home.

I'm not really enjoying it. There is no Bill, there has been no sign of Sarah, the Minnow can't seem to get comfortable and, to put the pie in the freezer (another Nana saying), a cold breeze has picked up from behind Ponters Corner and I'm starting to shiver. I should walk home, but I don't want to leave the FishMaster.

‘Look at who the cat dragged in.'

‘Hi, Bill, I was just thinking that if you were here you could walk me home.'

‘You're a lazy pike,' he says.

‘I'm getting cold.'

‘Come on then,' he says, helping me to my feet. ‘Where's your line?'

‘I didn't cast,' I say, feeling a bit silly. ‘It's not the same,' I say, stopping before finishing the sentence. But Bill knows how the sentence ends.

He leans down and grabs the FishMaster. ‘How's the Minnow?' he asks.

‘Uncomfortable,' I answer.

It is Saturday afternoon and I'm in town. Jonah finishes work at two today, so I'm pottering around till then. The pet shop shuts anytime between midday and one-thirty (depending on business) so the Minnow and I go there first.

‘You look well,' I say to Oscar.

‘I've felt better, truth be known,' he says back. ‘How's the Minnow?'

‘Good, thanks. Can I ask you something?'

‘Sure.'

‘You know how the police have been asking around about stuff.'

‘I told you they'd been here.'

‘Should I go see Sergeant Griffin?'

I've known Sergeant Griffin all my life. He's been the town cop for as long as anyone can remember. He, Dad, Paul, Jacko and Bill go way back. The five of them used to fish together, in the early days, before Dad met Mum.

Before the flood, Sergeant Griffin was everyone's friend But the flood changed everything. Papa says it changed everyone, just some more than others.

But Sergeant Griffin looked on The Crossing as his responsibility, so he took it personally. Small communities can be like that.

Before the flood, things were predictable. Every Friday night, Sergeant Griffin would lock up the drunk'n'disorderlies. Bill says they weren't bad blokes if it weren't for the drink (although I'd have thought that was the point). Anyway, they would be given a bed in the cop shop, they would sleep it off and then, in the morning, the wives would come and take them home. Sergeant Griffin had been doing it for years. Some of the women thought he was better than a marriage counsellor.

The rain started to bucket down late Thursday, and by Friday evening the creeks had begun to rise. At ten o'clock, Sergeant Griffin did his rounds, collected a couple of drunks from the Pearl and Swine, tucked them in for the night and went home. But the rain turned angry around midnight. The storm became fierce. The power went out at one, and Sergeant Griffin was caught between staying at home with his wife and four-week-old baby daughter, or battling the weather and driving to the station. I don't know if he debated it much. From what I know of Sergeant Griffin, he has always been a cop first.

When the rain hadn't eased by two, he headed out. But he didn't get far. He had only driven a few kilometres when the flood waters threatened to sweep his truck into the creek. He had to turn back.

He made it home. The two men in the lockup drowned.

The flood peaked at around midday, Sunday. Mother's Day. When the water subsided, there were bodies and trees and mud and dead cows and upside-down cars and rubbish. It smelled pretty bad. Sergeant Griffin borrowed a tinny with an outboard and was rounding up people by first light, Monday morning. He rescued me from the roof of the fire station. I don't know how I got there. I don't know how long I'd been there. By the time he found me, I was cold and hungry and probably in shock.

Once I was safely in the tinny, Sergeant Griffin handed me a jar of peanut butter and a spoon. ‘Here kid,' he said. ‘Get that into ya.' I've never liked peanut butter, but Nana says hunger is the best ingredient in any dish. That's not really a saying; it's just an observation.

Sergeant Griffin spent all day Monday ferrying people to the Mavis Ornstein Home for the Elderly, which was high and dry on the hill above town. It became a sort of emergency centre, and some of the residents had to be sedated because they couldn't cope with the intrusion. I was lucky. Nana showered me, dressed me in her flannel pyjamas, wrapped me in her arms and rocked me to sleep. For the next two weeks I ate, slept, cried and waited for Mum and Dad and Sarah to collect me and take me home.

Sergeant Griffin arrived one morning and told Nana that the house had been washed away. There was an emergency fund, he said, that would help with expenses. And the public pool was full of fish.

‘You want to come along, Tom?' he asked. ‘Help us get them out?'

Nana looked at me and nodded.

‘Yes, thanks Sergeant Griffin, but I don't have any clothes.'

‘It's fancy dress,' said Sergeant Griffin.

Nana said I could wear anything I wanted. She suggested her blue checked dress and Betsy Groot said I could borrow her fish brooch. But I'd never worn a dress in my life. So, instead, I wore Mr Greerman's grey-and-green striped pyjamas. Mr Greerman only ever wears pyjamas and he has an extensive collection. In fact, he has so many pairs of pyjamas that he houses them in a capacious wardrobe.

Okay, I made up the bit about the wardrobe. I just wanted to use the word ‘capacious'. It's one of the alternatives for ‘extensive' and Mr Wo (James) has been encouraging me to expand my repertoire. ‘Repertoire' is listed in Nana's thesaurus under ‘repertory'. My thesaurus leaps straight from ‘repercussion' to ‘repetition'.

Mrs Blanket is so devastated when Oscar dies, she closes the shop. Just for the day, not forever. The Minnow and I are standing outside, peering through the front window. But we can't see anything because of all the clutter in the middle isle. Under the ‘closed' sign on the door, Mrs Blanket has written ‘death in the family'.

‘The Minnow knew he was dying,' I tell Jonah that night over dinner.

‘Tom, you gotta be careful who you say that kind of stuff to,' says Jonah.

‘What do you mean?'

Jonah is often like this. Mr Concerned. I tease him sometimes. ‘So, Mr Concerned,' I say, ‘what do you think about the situation in Afghanistan?' Jonah will usually start to smile. ‘Really?' I say, pretending he has answered. Then I continue, ‘So, Mr Concerned, do you have an opinion on the money crisis?' I keep on going until I've made him laugh.

‘I'm serious,' says Jonah. ‘You're not in the best situation.'

‘Not in the best situation? Wow, Jonah, that's awesome.'

‘I'm sorry, Tom,' Jonah says, because now I'm crying and we haven't finished dinner. ‘I worry about you. What are you going to do when the Minnow arrives? Where are you going to live? What are you going to use for money?'

I can't listen anymore and I get up from the table and go to my room. Jonah's room. And I'm upset because he's right. I don't even have my own room.

‘Tom,' Jonah says. He's standing outside my door—his door. ‘Tom, can I come in?'

The weather's quite warm, which is lucky because none of my clothes fit. Jonah says I look beautiful. No one around here has ever shown off their belly before, and everyone has been quite lovely, touching it and putting their ear over my bellybutton to listen to my little Minnow swimming around.

The police station is really a house. It is cream and white, with a half-porch out the front. You don't have to knock— even though there's a big brass knocker on the front door.