Finally, after a lot of pleases, they walk around the corner. ‘We lost them,’ Daisy says. ‘They’ve probably gone to Barry’s since it’s open all night. How bad do you want revenge?’
‘I want a hamburger and chips more,’ Jazz says. ‘So I guess not very bad.’
‘They haven’t gone to Barry’s. They’ve gone to rob the school. Ed told me.’
‘How is it possible that I saw none of this coming?’ Jazz asks. ‘I’ll have to quit my job telling fortunes at the café. I can’t keep taking people’s money.’
‘Some things are hard to see,’ I say.
‘Everything’s hard to see when you’ve got your eyes closed. I’m sorry I got you into this, Luce. I thought my night of action would be less full of, you know, action.’
‘I want to go to the school.’ I look over at the one taxi left in the rank. ‘Do you have any money? I’ve only got fifteen dollars.’
‘I don’t know, Luce. If we get caught on school grounds with them . . .’
‘It’s goodbye uni, hello prison,’ Daisy says. ‘Dylan doesn’t even need money. His parents pay for everything.’ She thinks for a bit. ‘Except our holiday.’ She smiles. ‘He doesn’t want me to date a surfer.’
‘I don’t want Ed to get arrested.’ I look at the people milling around. Any minute that taxi will leave and if we have to wait for another we might not make it in time. ‘You don’t have to come with me.’ Please come with me.
‘Why don’t I try to call Leo?’ Jazz asks.
‘I’ll try Dylan,’ Daisy says.
I watch them dialling. Please, please, please.
‘Leo’s must be switched off or he’s not picking up.’
‘Same,’ Daisy says.
I walk fast to the taxi so I don’t change my mind. I don’t want to think about what Mrs J’s face will look like if I get arrested on suspicion of robbing the school.
Daisy sits in the front of the taxi and gives directions while I sit in the back with Jazz. ‘Luce,’ she says, ‘I don’t want my diary entry tomorrow to be:
Stayed out all night. Went to prison.
I have this urge to go home and watch TV with my parents and be completely boring.’
‘I have the same urge,’ I tell her. And then, because I need to tell someone I say, ‘Only, I don’t want to watch TV with my parents. I want to go home, hang out with them, and say it’s okay if they get a divorce. I have this feeling that maybe Dad wouldn’t still be living in that old shed if I hadn’t made him feel like he couldn’t leave me.’
‘That’s stupid,’ Jazz says. ‘You’re not in control of your dad. He can do what he wants.’
‘So why don’t they get on with it? It’s weird, isn’t it, my family?’
She hands me a lollipop. ‘It’s a little weird. But my mum worships the moon on Friday nights. Parents are all a little weird if you ask me.’
‘What if we turn out like them?’ I ask.
‘No way I’m worshipping the moon on a Friday night. You should ask your parents to explain, Luce. It might make you feel better.’
‘You got one of those lollipops for me?’ Daisy turns around from the front seat.
‘Does your dad live in the shed?’ Jazz asks.
‘No. He lives in the house. I have to watch him and Mum kiss every morning.’
Jazz fans out the lollipops for Daisy. ‘Pick any flavour you want.’
The driver stops in front of the school and we pay and get out. I give Jazz a hug for being here. ‘Thanks,’ she says. ‘But I’ll need that more when they’re fingerprinting me. I wish it were lighter. What’s the time?’
‘Two forty-five,’ Daisy tells her. ‘It doesn’t get light till at least five. I guess that’s why they’re robbing the place now.’
‘They are so stupid,’ Jazz whispers. ‘Why do I like a guy who’s so stupid?’
‘I ask myself every day,’ Daisy says. ‘Actually, you know, Dylan’s not stupid. He scored higher than me on all his practice exams.’
‘Leo’s not stupid, either, really. He recited me his poetry tonight. You know some journal accepted his work for publication?’
‘No way,’ Daisy says. ‘He really is Poet.’
‘Ed’s smart,’ I say.
‘Ed’s super smart,’ Daisy answers. ‘He set all the sheddies talking when he left school. We figured he and Leo must have done something bad for him not to come back.’
‘Okay,’ Jazz says, straightening her dress. ‘We have to save them. So remember. Stick together and run if you see the cops.’
I’m not a psychic but that goes without saying.
The Casino
2.15 am
Losing her
Running from my girl
Past the glitter of the casino
Past the line at the ATM
Past the reflection of me in the glass
Looking scared
Past the sign that says Wrong Way Go Back
Past the fireballs tearing at the sky
Back past the glitter
Back past the line at the ATM
Back past the reflection of me in the glass
Still looking scared
Back past the sign that says Wrong Way Go Back
Past the fireballs tearing at the sky
Till I’ve lost her
I get in the van and Leo hits the road, making Lucy nothing but a dot. A dot I never had a chance with. ‘Turn your phone off, Dylan.’ Leo throws his phone at him. ‘Turn mine off, too. We don’t want to make any stupid mistakes.’
‘So we’re still going?’ I have the urge to leap out of the free love van and into oncoming traffic.
‘You want me to let you out?’ Leo asks. He’s not mad. It’s a simple question. I say the word and he’ll stop. Through the front window the world is nothing but a tangled glare bouncing and moving past us.
‘You don’t want to do this, either. You think this is stupid. It is stupid.’
‘I know it’s stupid. So is Malcolm Dove coming over to my house and doing something bad to my gran. And then to you and me.’
‘Sooner or later you have to stop,’ I tell him. ‘Deal with the stupid things we’ve done without doing more stupid things to undo them.’
The van slows and I figure Leo’s actually listened.
‘The engine cut out,’ he says, pushing his foot on the accelerator as horns go off around us.
‘Get out of the intersection,’ some guy yells from the car behind.
‘There’s nothing I can do, moron,’ Leo yells back.
‘Maybe it’s the gasket,’ Dylan says.
‘I didn’t blow the gasket.’
‘Maybe it’s the transmission,’ Dylan says.
‘It’s not the transmission.’
‘Oil?’
‘
No
.’
‘Leo, that money Jake gave you for petrol. You filled it up before you leant me the fifty, yeah?’ Leo’s quiet and I can’t help laughing. ‘Criminal mastermind at work. You forgot to put petrol in the getaway van.’
‘Dylan, slide across and hold the wheel. Me and Ed’ll push.’
I jump out and lean on the back of the van. ‘Lucky we’re inconspicuous,’ I say.
‘Just push.’
‘You know, when they report this on
Crime Stoppers
half the people in the city are going to remember us.’
‘Will you push?’ he asks.
‘I am pushing. We’re not going anywhere.’
‘We are going somewhere. It’s taking a while because this thing weighs a tonne, that’s all.’
Cars roll past and people call us bad things. ‘You still got a good feeling about tonight?’ I ask as we turn and try shoving the van with our backs. More cars go past and more people yell at us. ‘The general consensus seems to be that we’re losers,’ I say.
‘Well, we’re not. Can you believe no one’s offered to help us?’
‘It’s a thirty-degree night and the city’s going crazy. Would you help two guys push a pink van?’
‘Yeah,’ he says, ‘I would.’
‘Yeah, you would,’ I agree. ‘You’re a good guy, Leo.’
‘Strange time to tell me, but whatever. Head for that traffic island.’
We manage to get the van across to the island and we lean against the back, catching our breath. ‘I really messed things up with Lucy.’
‘Join the club. I really messed things up with Jazz. No more lollies for me. I wanted to say sorry and I was all ready to do it and then my legs took off.’ He moves his hand quick across the air. ‘Just like that.’
‘Did they catch you?’
‘Dylan and I lost them in the crowd.’
‘You haven’t had a girlfriend since Emma. Maybe you panicked.’
‘I knocked a little old lady over and she spilled her coins. It’s safe to say I panicked.’
‘So tell her you’re sorry. Explain that your last girlfriend nearly had you arrested.’ I watch as he slides onto the ground and leans his head against the back door. ‘Leo?’
‘I lied to you,’ he says. ‘I haven’t been mowing lawns for the past ten Saturdays. I needed the five hundred dollars for a poetry course. My gran wanted me to take a TAFE poetry course on Saturday mornings.’
I don’t say anything because I don’t know what to say. It surprises me and it doesn’t.
‘I was writing poetry. I owe Malcolm because I want to write poetry. You got attacked in the park for poetry.’ It’s like once Leo starts saying poetry he can’t stop. ‘Mainly I work with free verse. I did a haiku last week, though. “I am in deep trouble/I owe lots and lots of cash/Malcolm will kill me.”’
I can’t stop laughing about Leo’s haiku, about the guy who wants to kill us. ‘My teacher said it was earthy.’ Leo imitates her. ‘Most of the women in my course are Gran’s age. I like them.’ He looks at me. ‘Stop laughing.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ I ask, but I know why.
‘You didn’t want to make me feel like an idiot because you can read and I can’t.’ ‘You’re so full of it,’ he says. ‘You can read, it just takes you longer. I heard what Lucy was saying to you. About that course at Monash.’
‘I’m not doing it.’
‘I know you won’t do it. If Bert hadn’t died you’d have stayed there with him, bored out of your brain, because it was safe.’
‘I liked working with Bert.’
‘You liked Bert,’ he says.
I’d get mad only I know he’s right and so does he so there’s no point. I take out the sketchbook and flick through it for a while. Bert smiles and waves, like he’s agreeing with Leo. ‘He was a good guy.’
‘He was a great guy,’ Leo says. ‘He would have told you to stop bitching and apply for the course.’
We watch the traffic for a while; coming and going, thoughts of Lucy and the course she told me about come and go. Thoughts about Leo’s course come and go too. ‘So, why didn’t you tell me about the poetry?’ I ask.
‘Because I was writing haikus on Saturday mornings with little old ladies,’ he says. ‘It’s different from writing on a train carriage. I felt like a bit of a wanker.’
‘You’re not a wanker.’
He shrugs. ‘I don’t care anymore. I like poetry. Anyone who doesn’t like that can shove off.’
‘And you’re big enough to make them shove off.’
‘Exactly,’ he says.
We watch more traffic and listen to people yell more interesting things at us and then Leo says, ‘Bert would have told you to go see Beth.’
‘I told Lucy everything tonight. Unemployed graffiti artist who quit school before he finished Year 10. She couldn’t wait for me to get into the van. Beth won’t be any different.’
Leo takes a while to answer. ‘She knows. I told her. She doesn’t give a shit.’
I think about that. I think about her standing there in front of me with the box of my things, waiting for me to say something. She’s been waiting for months. I think about her waiting at the tree tonight, about how she’ll feel if I don’t show. A taxi slows and stops in front of us. ‘You need a lift?’ the driver asks.
‘We could still make it to the school,’ Leo says.
But you have to stop doing stupid things sometime. ‘I’m not doing the job,’ I tell him.
He waves the cab on.
‘You’re a smart guy,’ he says. ‘You know, Emma dumped me because I’d abseiled out of that window and she’d said I had to grow up or that was it. I told her I’d grow up when I felt like growing up. Emma dumped me because I chose not growing up.’ He shakes his head. ‘So to get her to take me back I vandalised the side of her house.’
‘Technically, I vandalised it and you gave me artistic direction.’
He chuckles. ‘The course made me think a bit, you know. That we’re smart enough to get out of here. We’re just too stupid to work out a way.’
‘That course was really worth the five hundred dollars.’
He chuckles again. ‘Robbing the school was not one of my brighter ideas.’
‘You’re not going either?’
‘Tomorrow we sign up at Maccas. I’ll come clean with Jake and ask for some help in the meantime.’
Dylan gets out of the van and sits next to us.