

### Salt and Pepper

Short Stories and Poems

Susan Sowerby

Smashwords Edition, end notes

Table of Contents.

Short Stories.

Boiled Fruitcake

The Angel in the old Spring Cart

Something Different

Twist

The Pinchbeck Mystery

Relentless

The Jenuine Junkyard Dog

See also, Saltwater in the Soul, young adult/adult novel with the Seven Daughters of the Sea, ceramic mermaid illustrations by author.

http://www.susansowerby.com.au

### Poems

What Ned Said.

Iraqi Sister

Bush Neighbours

Dragonfly Smoke

Vampire in a Bottle

The Search of the Fool

### Boiled Fruitcake

Susan Sowerby

Humorous

'Grandar, Grandar! Max's dad is stealing your water!' The wild shriek seemed to emanate from beyond the horizon's green curve. The old farmer looked fearfully in its direction and chewed nervously on his strand of straw. Without a doubt his peace was about to be shattered. Only two forces in the universe possessed that power; his neighbour and his grand daughter.

Peace meant everything to old 'Grandar' Johnson. He played symphonies to his cows on an battered old record player in order to soothe them in the milking shed. The latest craze, Elvis Presley, with his wild rock n roll, was definitely not his style. Cows were peaceful creatures which is why Grandar liked to hang around them. He liked his foolish dog, Ronald, his ancient hat, his philosophy books and his clumsy round toed boots, but most of all, he liked his peace.

Soon the noisy, diminutive speck exploded into full view. Her pink nylon dress already displayed several rips and even from a distance, he could see grass stains on her knees. An eighth birthday had done nothing to make her more lady-like. Her grandfather watched as she became more of a tom-boy each time she visited. The fact that her mother continually dressed her in pink nylon frills was beyond his comprehension, especially when her one burning ambition was to become a "roarin, ridin cowgirl." He'd often complained that she attracted more trouble than Elvis did fans.

'Grandar! My Grandar, I'm with you today,' she handed him two rather battered and shaken slices of Grand-mem's famous boiled fruit-cake. Without drawing another breath, the she managed, 'Grandar, what will you do to Max's dad? There are five rabbits over there, is that cow pregnant and why haven't you got a horse yet?'

Grandar sighed with resignation. The mosquito had found him. Wearily, he took the peace offering. 'How can Max's dad be stealing my water?' How, also, could his own wife do this to him? Grand-mem had got rid of her this time, but even two slices of her amazing fruit cake were no payment for such a cruel trick.

'He is stealing it!' the invader shouted, offended by his disbelief. 'He is! he is!'

'Show me Jube.' said Grandar, finally sorting the right command. Her father had christened her 'Jubilant Julie,' which convenience had shortened to 'Jube.'

'Over here Grandar!' Without hesitation, Jube plunged across the muddy swamp. She knelt down by the fence. Her pink knickers were in the air as she jammed her head down what appeared to be a hole. 'He's pinching it, isn't he? He definitely is!' her muffled yell echoed back.

Puffing profusely, Grandar caught up with her. With a sinking feeling, he inspected the long drain from which Jube lifted her eager, mud spattered face. A deep furrow had been freshly dug right up to his fence line where it was artfully hidden behind some bushes.

'Well begger me, he is too!' He scratched his head with concern. Water to his farm was as blood to his body.

'What will you do about it Grandar? What will you do, what will you do?'

'Well I don't know, Jube. Perhaps we'd better sit down and think about it.'

'That's not doing something. Why don't we blow him up - his horrible kid, too.'

'What have you got against Max?' Grandar asked, surprised.

'Lots,' Jube revealed mournfully as she washed her face in the spring pond and wiped it on her dress. 'I saw him throwing baby rabbits against a tree today and I asked for one as a pet, but he said, 'Rack off, squib, they're vermin, like you.'I waited till he put a board on the bramble-berries and climbed up so he could get all the best, then I sneaked up and pushed him in. He chased me and when I got caught in the fence he spat in my face. He's a maggot, and now his rotten dad is stealing your water.' She bounced up and down like a boxer, and smacked her fist into her hand. 'Let's fight 'em Grandar, let's fight.'

Heart of a lion, thought Grandar, applauding her David and Goliath stance, but a wispy eight year old girl and an elderly man against a champion ex boxer and his very aggressive teenage son, did not hold the best odds.

'No,' he grinned, 'Lets be clever. Brains are often greater than brawn.'

'What's brawn?' asked Jube, equally unsure of what brains meant.

'Strength, muscles, force.'

Considering herself to be low on all the mentioned attributes, Jube looked at her Grandfather with trusting eyes, but he just kept chewing away on his straw. After a while, she volunteered impatiently, 'We could put a bucket full of cer-ment where the water drains out.'

'Wouldn't work,' grunted Grandar, 'the ground's swampy and my water will just seep around it into that big ol' drain Ed Ransom's dug. Very sly! He wants me off my little patch. He wants my house for Max, too. My farm's the best in the district. I won a prize for it once,' he added proudly.

'How dare he do this to my Grandar!' Jube shouted, clenching her fists fiercely, 'he's a bad man!' She gagged on 'baaaad' as though something revolting had stuck in her throat.

Her grandfather glanced at her warily. It had never been a safe thing to be thought 'bad' by Jube.

'Durned hombres,' she muttered dangerously, holding her hands at her sides like a cowboy ready for the draw.

'No Yankee movie lingo around here Jube. We can't shoot them, we need a real solution.'

'But we'll git 'em, won't we? Tell us a plan Grandar, Tell us, tell us!'

'Now look here young lady, I need time to cook it up.' He had no idea what he could do. 'I certainly don't want to spend my holiday nest egg on a large dam I don't need.' The spring pond was fine for his small thirty acre holding. The rest had been sold to his ungrateful neighbour some years before and he was saddened to see that land degenerate.

'How long does an idea take to cook Grandar?' Jube wanted to know.

'About as long is a piece of string.'

'What?'

'Well, a piece of fish might take five minutes, while a really good boiled fruit cake can take as much as four hours.'

Jube thought for a moment. 'Don't like fish. I'd rather have boiled fruit cake.'

'Then fruitcake it is.' Grandar sighed, relieved to be let off the hook if only for a moment. It irritated him that no clear solution presented itself. It irritated him even more to think he had already fought for his land in the war and believed he should not have to do so again. He was further irritated when he admitted to himself that he did not want to lose the tremendous faith and adoration his grand daughter heaped on him. If he didn't come up with something, his pride would be seriously dented.

She burst out, 'What are you thinking Grandar? Are you thinking? What is it? Tell me, tell me!'

Grandar looked up to see her balanced precariously on a corner post, sharp barbed wires leading from it in four directions. She danced on one foot, then the other in an awkward, angular kind of ballet. 'Get down, Jube, if you want to live to reach womanhood. Heaven help those men is all I can say!'

The bull in the paddock behind her watched with a jaundiced eye and pawed his territory wrathfully. 'For goodness sake, get down, you're giving me the willies,' he shouted.

'Willies? How many willies can one man.'

'Jube, get off!' he yelled, 'though perhaps you are living proof that we can't go before our time.'

'What does that mean?'

'I shouldn't tell you this, but a friend of mine who flew a bomber during the war was shot down in France. He crashed his plane along some telegraph wires to break the fall. As he hung upside down underneath with his foot caught in the fuselage, fourteen German bombers flew over and used him as target practise. Not one of them hit him. He regards that as proof we can't go before our time.'

'No it isn't. It proves that we won the war because the Germans couldn't shoot straight!' Satisfied with her own explanation, she leaped, landing with her face dangerously close to a large green cow plop.

'Grandar!' she squealed, 'Look, a 'shroom. I squashed it wiv me face!'

'That's right. For goodness sake, go pick mushrooms!' At least it would give him time to think. What could happen to her doing that? 'Er, not in the bull paddock,' he added quickly.'

She accepted the mission with gusto. Ronald made crazy circles around her, appearing ecstatic to be in the presence of someone as idiotic as himself. She returned in far too little time, her frilly knickers showing beneath her bunched up dress which was laden with every kind of fungi she could lay hands on - plump field mushrooms, bloated over ripe green puff balls and a smattering of psychedelic psilocybin.

'We'll have to sort these for dinner,' Grandar warned her, 'They aren't all edible.' With every reject, he desperately racked his brain for a viable water idea. The bunch of psilocybin, he quickly cast aside.

'Why can't I eat these?' Jube retrieved one and held it up by its knobbly stork.

'You can't eat it because you'll grow fluorescent hairs out of your eyeballs!'

Jube considered this for a while and decided to err on the side of caution. 'Can you eat one Grandar, so I can see what it looks like?'

Just then a roar echoed across the valley. Ed Ransom was crossing the swamp on his brand new tractor with Max balancing on its tray. He was crossing the line too. 'Git orf the land ya useless old bastard.'

'A Merry Christmas to you too!' Grandar shouted back in as genial a tone as he could muster. More questionable language followed.

Jube joined in with a cheeky, 'and a happy New Year as well, so there!'

Ronald punctuated her greeting with sharp barks, then, he crouched down and growled. The men were carrying something in a knapsack. His nose twitched as the wind bore it some very interesting information.

Jube and Grandar watched as Ed proudly parked his shining farm vehicle near their dividing fence.

'He's making sure we admire that new fandangled thing,' muttered Grandar.

Ed patted the tractor lovingly, then walked with his son to the farthermost end of the drain. They opened the knapsack and drew out what appeared to be several sticks of gelignite.

Grandar's eyes narrowed. 'So they're going to blast a dam to receive my water.'

'Varmints!' growled Jube, trying hard to squint like a cow-boy.

Carefully, they dug into the bank at the edge of the swamp, and placed their prize in it. Ronald growled even louder. He'd never liked Max.

'Fetch!' muttered Grandar wickedly. He didn't, for a moment believe that Ronald would obey since he hardly ever had before, but to his surprise, the rogue was off like a gunshot.

'He thinks it's what Grand-mem gives him as a treat!' Jube squealed with laughter, 'those bungers look exactly like a bunch of hot dog sausages.'

Ronald arrived over the bank just as Ed and Max lit the fuse and beat a hasty retreat. They froze as Ronald's strong jaws closed around the string and he reefed the bundle free. Ed had made the mistake of dipping his home made explosive in some old tallow his wife kept in the tin at the back of their stove. He'd had the idea it would keep out any seepage from the swamp. The fat was not fully rendered down, so the tantalising smell of sausage still lurked therein. They chased the renegade Ronald, cursing, trying to stamp out the fuse with a dance macabre,

'Stop the bastard!'

'Call yer dog!'

'No, don't call yer dog!'

But Ronald was too fast. Flattening himself under the fence, he made it to safety, his prize clutched firmly in his drooling mouth.

Ronald - DROP IT!' roared Grandar from a little way up the hill. But of course he knew he wouldn't. Jube, ever wanting to be helpful, rushed to the pump-house where the dog lowered his head stubbornly.

'No, Jube. For God's sake run,' bellowed Grandar, beside himself with horror, but Jube was as stubborn as Ronald.

'Do what Grandar says!' his self appointed sergeant barked, glad to force obedience on one of lesser rank. Picking up a stout stick, she gave Ronald a resounding whack over his spotted nose. 'Drop it, mutt!' He howled and let go, leaving for home and mother, suffering badly from the shock of having obeyed twice in a day.

'For God's sake run,' wailed Grandar, searching for words she'd understand. 'That thing will blow your silly head right off your shoulders. Run. Don't worry about me.'

Jube ran, but towards Grandar and attempted to push him up the hill with all her might.

'Geddown!' he bawled at the top of his voice.

A bang to shame any bang ever heard in the valley rattled windows for miles around. Jube and Grandar hit the ground, Jube lying protectively over her precious Grandfather like a match-stick trying to cover a log. Another all resounding bang sent the cows stampeding as a huge pall of flame burst skywards. The forty-four gallon drum of fuel lifted the pump-house roof into a nearby gum tree and set it dramatically alight.

Max and Ed, already half way up the opposite hill and still running, were alarmed by the power of their home made job. When they glanced back, they were mortified to see burning debris from the gum tree raining down on their pride and joy. The tractors' vinyl seat cover bubbled and flared skywards to join the conflagration.

'Holy sh...!' screamed Ed.

They turned and raced down-hill towards it, hollering and frantically waving their arms as though they expected Grandar and Jube to do something. When they saw the upset jerry-can on the back, furtively leaking fuel into the tray, their direction changed abruptly once again. Another loud report, obscenely amplified through the tractor's exhaust pipe hastened them on their way.

Cautiously, Grandar and Jube sat up, brushed themselves off and did a quick check to make sure all body parts were still attached.

As the dust cleared, they looked down on a great gulf where the rustic pump house once clung to the bank. The spring pond had been extended by several yards, the water already seeping into its new premises.

Grandar let out whoop, 'The scoop on my old tractor will quite easily rearrange that rubble to make a very viable dam.'

Jube gazed at her Grandfather with astounded admiration. 'Wow Grandar. That was one boiled fruitcake of an idea! However did you cook that one up?'

'Heh, heh, heh,' Grandar tipped a few clods off the brim of his hat. His grin would have put the Cheshire cats' to shame. 'Piece of cake!' he chuckled

##

### The Angel in the Old Spring Cart

Susan Sowerby

Ghost Story

I know this snippet of my diary is not an easy read. One turbulent emotion follows hard on the next, so I beg my reader's forgiveness for a blatant crime against light entertainment. Some things must be said.

I've written this in retrospect, but it is as raw as the day I lived it and the reason I share it is only because of its power to uplift others like me.

This is serious women's business, a sacred right between sisters. Many of us have experienced devastating events and some have endured unspeakable states of mind, but when we discover our power to transform adversity, we become Goddesses.

25 August 2007, the eve of a major change.

The sky is black and a moaning wind pummels my walls. He sleeps now and I feel an eerie presence overtake me. My face is wet with tears, and my hair, plastered against it. I gave him a very large draught, so he'll sleep forever. I don't care anymore.

I know there are ghosts in these old walls. I can hear them calling. From my crouched position on the floor, I'm staring in horror at the big oval mirror on the wall. I've seen a fleeting image cross its surface before, though all it reflects now is the ceiling and a bit of the encircling lintel. For me, it's been a long slow slide down, trapped in nowhere.

My partner, Brett, is enthralled by this place; he has a great plan. He wants to restore this convict built hamlet, but he has to work far away in the mines for the money. I feel like a widow. He can't understand how I feel - he has no idea what this place is doing to me. Wherever I turn, I'm surrounded by a hard arid landscape that offers nothing but a cruel sense of timelessness. It ignores me, and offers no identity. Phones don't work here and that has driven away the girl who came as company. The vastness swallows me and this ancient stone house feels like my tomb. I've given up shouting, 'Joanna! Joanna!' - just to hear my own voice.

Now a desolate wind howls through the eaves and I feel settler women crying in my bones. Nothing has changed here since those days when they scratched out their crazy lives in isolation. It is as though time stands still. Tonight, I hear snatches of their voices bursting through the windy gusts, worn, craggy cries a hundred years old and I clench the razor as though it's my saviour.

A settler woman's bloodless presence moves in close. She's like a spider.

Trapped now, I flutter helplessly, a frail, broken insect caught in her web. She leans out of the mirror and grins down at me, a semi toothless leer. Her hand beckons. Nothing feels real, I'm in a nightmare.

'Leave me alone,' I whimper, 'I don't know you.'

But I have no will and my fading mind is hooked and reeled into her reflection. I see the woman in an English setting way back in the roaring twenties. Through a cloud of disinterest, I watch a beautiful young "flapper" celebrating her "wings" by dancing the Charleston on the hood of an early model car. Why should I care that she was once the toast of her town? She whirls her beads and the fringes on her dress swing. Fawning suitors from the upper crust raise their glasses, but she keeps them at bay, relishing her freedom. Its fun to push for the vote, though the rich babe wants for nothing. 'Tame porkers,' she calls those men, 'well fed but without substance - only good for the stock-market.' Deep down, she's deathly bored.

'You won't distract me,' I tell her 'I will do what I have to do.' But she ignores my cry and keeps her pictures moving.

A handsome adventurer invades her father's plush mansion like a refreshing storm. James Bellamy's sense of adventure is an instant aphrodisiac for Lord Ellington's daughter. The man has trekked through African jungles, been ship wrecked sailing around the Cape of Good Hope and has almost died of thirst in the Gobi dessert. He's like no other she's ever known. His deep voice resonates with the romantic echo of the unknown as he entices her with stories of far away places. When she lays her soft manicured hand on his shoulder, she feels strength beneath her fingers.

It matters little that he is almost penniless. In blind infatuation, Cassandra Ellington believes James Bellamy will bring meaning to her pampered life and she is determined to follow him to the ends of the earth. Australia is the next frontier he wishes to conquer.

With confident ease, James reaches out and plucks young Cassandra from her rooftop and her fledgling independence vanishes. The image before me changes to a cloud of flying confetti. Cassandra is radiant in her white silk, but her disappointed father stands wooden in the back ground. He will not offer assistance until his son-in-law has "made good" in the far south land. Though James is extremely proud of the fine flower on his cuff, I can see that her personal needs will do little to influence his plans.

I hiss at her. 'Get out of my head, witch. I'm beyond your woes,' but she forces me to witness the endless nothingness of her early days in Australia, trapped in a little shack with a dirt floor, far from her moist green home. I hate to watch as the withering sun robs her of her rose petal skin, her hopes and her dreams.

'This is not my life,' I hear her sob. 'This must be someone else's! Must I who an innocent endure punishment more cruel than a convict in a penal colony?' But there's no one to hear.

Her anger and disappointment echo sharply inside me. My distorted voice blarts out like a trumpet. 'I'm living Brett's dream, but I had no idea it would be fatal.'

Without mercy, she keeps on. Her James is away droving when their three year old daughter dies of fever on that hot, still summer night. I feel her desperation when her twelve year old son succumbs to snake bite in the old spring cart on their endless journey for help. How she hates the land for its obscene lack of empathy. How she hates James for what she sees as his coldness. How can he simply get on with what has to be done? She believes he's become as harsh as the land he struggles to subdue and even blames him for the fact that she ever loved him.

James, baffled by his demon wife, finds every excuse to go further a field for work. She knows she's driving him away, but her grief and rage are as unstoppable as a bolting horse. I see her stagger trance-like through the days, feeding the ducks, the chooks, the poddies and pigs. Though she's empty, every farm creature depends on her for its food, its very life.

My own G.P. blithely assured me my state isn't serious 'It's only a "touch" of Baby Blues, love. Just feed Billy, look after him and you'll be alright.' Others say, snap out of it. Oh God!

I see Cassandra's eyes fill with longing as she looks down the rough red track, but no one ever comes. The wild neurotic woman terrifies them, and they stay away. James does not understand her desperation, her wanting to kill or maim or die. The lumberjacks and shearers are his friends. He has other company and just keeps saying, 'She'll be right.'

My dread is that Billy will wake and I will have to give him another dose. I can't leave him all alone so I'm forced to wait and see, entangled with this Cassandra creature, witnessing her wretched life.

Like me, she stares out across the flat, unsmiling landscape. As her dry heart contracts, she flees from the emptiness of her shack, screaming helplessness at the sky and the earth, wrapping the venom of her tongue around every living thing until she falls unconscious in the dust. Like me, she's hit the bottom.

Gradually her senses return. A native flower bobs close, reflecting its blue into her glassy eye. She struggles to restrain an impulse to pulverise it with her fist. Its petals dance and nod in the breeze. She stares puzzled at the fragile miracle springing from a dry crack in the earth, born of the marriage between soil and harsh Australian elements that split tough seed pods open to release new life. In her heart, something cracks, and at last, moisture seeps in.

It takes all of her courage to face the truth, to let go of the choking grief, the image of herself as an influential society woman and most of all, the fiery resentment of loss. A flame licks out of the small opening and ignites her world. She hears distant angel voices calling through the trumpet of the tiny perfect flower. The sky, the trees, and even the dry red earth are bursting with life. An invisible door has opened in the desert's heart. She kneels on its threshold, humbled, amazed.

Wanting to enshrine the moment forever, she reaches out, and, with great reverence, plucks the blue enamel orchid. She prays that through it, she will be able to return. I feel new thoughts flooding her mind. Is this game of life about a more perfect situation or a more perfect self? Though she feels she's the ugly old witch who grabbed at Rapunzle's hair, she is determined to pull herself upwards on this strand of light, a life-line thrown to her from the top of what seems to be an endless black chasm.

As I watch her, a cold trembling starts up inside me. Where's my thread? Lost, I panic, but fascination takes hold as I see this woman press the flower between the pages of the old leather bible that has lain untouched for thirteen years. Each morning, she gazes at the flower and the text, trying to recreate that moment when she heard the angels speak with living voices. Inch by inch, she begins to redefine herself as a woman in the Australian landscape until at last she can peep into the mirror and make sense of her own reflection.

I whisper, 'Good for you, but I'm nothing, not even a reflection.'

Then a terrible shock comes to her with the news of Dan Winter's young wife. It rocks the whole district and sets it buzzing like a hive.

'Surely she'll burn in hell?'...'It's bad enough drowning herself, let alone her own wee mite!' Outrage, gossip and so much judgement fly from mouth to mouth, but Cassandra feels only an agonising tenderness for the pale young mother, so alone beneath vast Australian sky. She understands there are many settler women who share the same terrifying state of mind as Sarah Winter.

I say, 'go away, you might care, but I'm past it.' Still she won't give up.

In a blinding flash, I catch another glimpse of her blue flower. It's as though she's tapping on a high window, calling for me to look up.

I witness her hitching old Gee-up to the battered spring cart and venturing out alone into the strange, ferocious land in search of women under siege. From Wilyabrup to Dunsborough, from Rosa Brook to Nannup, she learns to administer bush medicine, deliver babies and apply her own form of rudimentary psychology.

Riding so far alone in the old cart, often at night, I witness Cassandra's bravery as she faces up to her fears - her fear of herself, of the wide open spaces and of the dark enclosing bush. Blood-curdling cries of screech owls so like the sound of a mad woman screaming, echo her past. Luminous red eyes of unknown creatures peer at her from the dark. No, she cannot tame this rugged primordial land, so different from the gently rolling hills of England, but she can meet it with equal ferocity. In turn it blesses her with wildness, filling her heart with a savage joy, birthing new life and new passion in her.

Each September, Cassandra is entranced by exotic sparks of colour which eddy through the undergrowth and by the shrieking fire tailed cockatoos as they explode into the treetops. Rainbow Rosellas flash between the sombre grey gum trunks whose canopy will soon burst into bloom like unexpected laughter. Striped snakes and speckled spiders become active under the sun.

Once a whirling flood forced her to climb a tree and another time, she drove old Gee-up into a river to escape a bushfire. This land of extremes is a new love, a love that stretches her to the limit. Now that she is strong again, now that she has wrested back her independence, James pursues her as he once did. He wants to meet her everywhere and often tests the bush craft he's learned to find her unexpectedly. There are magical nights when they lie together in the back of the old cart, when the stars in the southern sky seem within reach, and the spirits of their children feel close. Her nightmare is over, but I'm in the middle of mine.

She points to a picture of Brett on my dresser. I don't want to look at him, but I'm stuck to her like fly paper.

She smiles, amused that James appears to have changed, but she's shrewd enough to realise she's the one who changed. She knows that in different and extraordinary ways, he's fulfilled every promise she saw in his eyes when they met. Neither has the land changed, though both are loved now, as they never were before. She's a conqueror, a dingo queen of the elements and I see her stand up in the old cart, yelling her triumph at the sky. Cassandra knows she's no longer the spoilt darling of the soft society she despised, but a woman of substance, tried and tested, transformed in the fiery furnace of this new land.

I'm shaking now, coming apart. I feel as though Billy and I are spinning around in a paper boat together. I just can't think. Everything is whirling. The only anchor is Cassandra's strong hand reaching out.

Her front teeth are gone now she's middle aged. She smokes an old clay pipe like the men and sings hymns at the top of her voice, often substituting her own amusing lyrics when she can't remember the original score. The power of her spirit shines through like the lights of a rough opal, a mysterious new product of a land where the dark people hunt, where creatures hop and flowers wear fur.

Something is bleeding from her into me. Tears fill my eyes as I watch her sow settlements together as simply and practically as any woman would darn a sock. When Cassandra Bellamy speaks, the community jumps for even though she was too late for Sarah Winters and little Danny-Joe, they know that her constant dedication saves lives.

But what about me? My shaking is uncontrollable and the razor clatters to the floor. 'Cassandra,' I howl, 'help me.' She's gazing down from the mirror with such compassion I feel ashamed. Now, more than anything in the world, I'm praying Billy will wake. If he doesn't, I know what I have to do. Cassandra is assuring me that she will call the neighbours. I feel a soft breeze as her ghostly hand brushes my forehead. A strange quietness ripples through me, then, she's gone. I collapse exhausted on the floor.

***

It's ages later. I lift my head. The sun is high and I hear the wuzzling drone of a blow-fly winding its way through the house. All else is silent - dead silent. Dread knots my stomach. Billy! This can't be real.

Then I hear it. Achingly sweet, it bursts on me like a heavenly choir. Billy is jumping in his cot, raging for food! I laugh and cry and scream all at once. My voice wails out, full of bitter-sweet, uncontrollable relief.

With great effort I reach for the brush on the dresser, drag it through my damp hair and dab my blotched face. I have to pull myself together. I tell myself the weather beaten angel was nothing more than a figment of my crazy imagination and that I'm alone here. Why would my closest neighbours, who live one hundred and eighty kilometres north want to come all that way in the wee small hours? The enormous will it takes just to wipe my nose and straighten my hair defies description. Like a clumsy wind up doll, I stagger mechanically towards Billy's cot. He chirrups when he sees me and stretches up chubby arms, love and joy radiating from his trusting little face. I'm his world, his wretched wrecked world. I grit my teeth against the pain.

Suddenly, I hear the sputter of an engine as the peel of a heralding bird slices the new morning. Then there is the scrape of the gate and footsteps coming to my door! My heart leaps to my throat. The neighbours are really here! Clutching Billy tight, I flop down on the floor with a thump. He laughs, then sprawls backwards on the carpet, bumps his head and cries.

Just a breath away I hear Cassandra's husky clay-pipe voice ringing in my ear.

'We're only helpless, dear, when we _believe_ we are.'

###

### Something Different.

Susan Sowerby

Young Adult

Some things you really can't explain. I don't know what it was about them that seemed so different, it just was. I first noticed them when I looked up over the rim of my cappuccino as I sat alone and embarrassed, feeling a lot like a social reject on display. You know it's not cool to be fifteen and sitting alone in a public place. It's kind of silly, but I felt so insecure I could have been sitting there completely naked. I guess I really needed someone else to stare at so I could get my painfully shy mind off myself.

Those two stood out in sharp relief against the writhing café population. It flowed around them like human larva, unseeing and unaware, but even the air above their table felt electric to me. I could almost hear it crackle. Despite my feeling, I thought they appeared normal, even perhaps a little careless and unkempt among the polished city movers, yet normal enough. What was it about them? Was it just my imagination?

Then, I noticed something odd. Her straight black hair sparkled with tiny silver droplets even though I was sure it wasn't raining outside. The man wore a grey jacket with a little rip at the pocket and I wondered if it was the result of a recent tussle.

As I scrutinised them, the woman suddenly looked up and her eyes hit mine. 'Hit' is the word. She had black eyes with a bright glare in the centre - what I'd call a 'sharp Spanish' look. Discreetly, I glanced away and then back again just in time to catch her leaning over and saying something to the man. Whatever it was, it made him look straight at me. Most people wait before they stare, so it isn't obvious. Indignantly, I judged him as short of a few manners. When you are shy, you rely heavily on such customs as a sort of shield, something to hide behind.

When his attention drifted back to her, I snatched the chance to study him more thoroughly. Although his hair had turned grey, I thought he still looked rather sexy because fascinating expressions flickered across his face continuously, plus he reminded me a bit of Richard Geer.

Before I had a chance to avert my gaze, he turned straight towards me and smiled broadly. My face prickled bright red and I shrank to about two inches tall. Oh God, they really were talking about me! Or, again was I imagining it? Anyway, I'd noticed his front tooth was chipped. Funny, I thought he must be from the country because most city image freaks would get that fixed right away, before they dared to inflict their cheesy grins on society.

I looked down and counted five because I felt really awkward - the usual teenage curse. It was only a moment, but when I glanced out of the corner of my eye, they were gone! I mean, it was only a few seconds. In all logic, they couldn't have got from their seats to the door in that time, it wasn't mortally possible. Everyone in the cafe was seated, so I would have seen them if they were on their feet and still around. I felt all confused. Human beings don't just disappear! Not in my reality, anyway. I stood up to see if they had just bobbed down to pick up some money or something, but no, nothing. Then I hit panic buttons, you know, when pins and needles go all over you. I wondered if maybe I'd just had a fit and missed a few seconds of life. I really didn't know which version of reality I preferred. 'Maddy, get a grip,' I told myself, 'you don't want to live up to the silly name your mum gave you.

Spooked out of my brain, I wasn't going to hang around any longer. Apart from getting a nasty shock, and needing to chill, I'd run out of patience for my scatty friend who always keeps everyone waiting. It's her way of feeling important. Amanda's a bit of a twit, but she is my link to a better social life. She's popular because she's noisy and pretty - a typical attention addict. I think she likes me because I listen and no one listens very much to anyone these days. Every one's too busy trying to be cool.

'Madoleine,' she says, primping her hair, 'You're the only one who understands me.' Well, I've got to say there's not much to that. It's just about boys, clothes and parental unfairness. You can catch the same theme on any soapy. Mean, aren't I? I want to be a writer, but I'd have to starve in an attic because I'd hate to write mainstream stuff.

The trouble is, I feel really different from the others, but no one else knows it because I pretend I'm the same. I can rave on about boys, makeup and superstars as well as anyone of them. That gets me through the day. My problem is that I'm not thrilled by it. I hate feeling different, it's a strain, but just when I think someone else is ok and doing fine socially, I find out they are as stressed as I am. We all think everyone else is ok. What a wacky world!

I knew I'd had quite a shock that day because when I went out onto the street my knees were all unsteady and my feet refused to walk in the right direction. I admit I get sick of everything being so normal and boring, but when its not it sure freaks me out and makes me realise how weird and contradictory I am. I wish I didn't notice those things about myself.

When I finally got home, Ben and Frankie were watching T.V. and they'd been eating donuts on the couch. It was all covered in sugar, so like a virus they'd migrated to the next level, i.e. the carpet. At least reality is consistent around home. I'd have to clean the couch before I could sit down, so I stalked off to my room feeling like a cat switching its tail. No way could I say to them that I'd just seen a couple of people disappear. I know the response already - 'Yeah, right, freak!'

I stood for a while glaring furiously at my pillow. I had two options. One - ignore the weird event and pretend it didn't happen or two; play like a sleuth and see what I could dig out. So much for a decision! Where could I start anyhow? I spent the next week diving between the two solutions like some kind of faulty oscillator.

You know, I've got a problem I don't tell anyone about. I get depressed. Sometimes the world is not enough and sometimes it's too much. I know I think about things and want to talk about things other people my age don't, but I've learned not to do it because my friends look at me like I've got two heads, or if they're older, they patronise and say a 'pretty poppett' like me shouldn't be worrying her 'darling brain' about such things.

Needless to say, after a few days I decided I'd suffered some kind of aberration, and was prepared to let the whole café incident go. But just when I had, I caught sight of them again as I headed home from school. It was a particularly wet and unfriendly afternoon. They were walking together arm in arm in the rain. Was this an example of a good relationship? I sure needed to witness one. Although I could only see from behind, I could have sworn it was them.

I walked fast to catch a look, but right then they turned off and crossed the road. I felt I couldn't do it again without looking obvious. I've finally decoded the general social code which is about doing things in non obvious ways so no one knows what you're really doing.

When the woman turned her head to the side, I was almost certain it was her profile. Anyway, you can't run up to someone and say, 'Er -Did you disappear in a cafe last week?' They'd think I was a real fruit loop. The situation was ridiculous. I decided to follow them even though the rain pelted down and soaked me to the bone. They had raincoats and I didn't, but I foolishly followed them for blocks. They didn't turn around and they didn't slow down. Car lights began flicking on, all blurred in the rain and the sky was getting darker. I thought of rushing up to them and asking the way, but you know I'm a bit low on courage. I bet they'd see right through me and I'd make a fool of myself.

Finally I gave up and turned back dejected. I was probably following the wrong people anyway. It was unlikely I'd see them again unless they lived on my street and I knew they didn't. Mum would be having a stress because I was so late. If I stayed out any longer she would be ringing the cops. I glanced back one last time and thought I could see that couple, hazy in the distance, standing motionless, looking back at me. The increasing rain blocked my vision, pouring a double dose of frustration down on me.

I have to admit I felt super stupid trying to explain to mum why I was so late and so wet. I'm a lousy liar, but really, I couldn't say I was traipsing around in the rain after a couple who disappeared last week. She worries about my mental health already, and she'd think I'd completely lost my marbles.

After that I tried, but I couldn't get them off my mind. You know how things bug you? What did they have on me, or again, was I imagining it? Maybe I just wanted to relieve my brain from social pressure and school work. When you already doubt your sanity, happenings like that don't help much. I wondered about escapism and if I'd invented these people as an escape route out of reality – like a schizophrenic episode. What's reality anyway? Was I going around the twist in my usual quiet and unspectacular manner?

I'll confess that I don't want to do school work at all. I want to write plays. It's not just a whim, but dad says one big N.O. He says he wants the best for me and he doesn't want to see me as a poor, barefoot, morally loose, bohemian psychopath. Boy, what an image! My downfall is that I'm not dumb enough. I get good grades. Good grades seem to work for everyone else, but they're a disaster for me. I mean, what depresses me is that I seem to be going back to front with everyone else, a kind of heyoka indian, swimming upstream.

What I want to say next is that just when I'd firmly told myself I'd never see them again and dealt with lots of interesting fantasies concerning them, there they were coming down the escalator in the supermarket. Talk about electrocution! Of course I had to be going up the crowded escalator at the time and I could hardly scramble across the moving belt in the middle could I? How embarrassing would that be? I hate attracting attention, yet I know I crave it.

I craned my neck around as they went down and I went up on life's merry-go-round and they disappeared through the revolving door. Not literally this time, because I saw them through the glass as they walked away on the other side. I felt an unutterable longing to go after them.

By the time I got up the top and back down again, of course they were gone, but I had seen their faces clearly, fresh and alive among the clock-work city crowd, as if they'd just come from an adventure in the jungle. I had the fleeting fantasy that he was Indiana Jones. This time, I'd noticed her hair was dry, fantastically black and silky. He still wore the old ripped jacket and jeans, but she was in smart suede and boots. I told myself that this little saga was no doubt in my head, some need in me, perhaps a desperation for something different in life, something fresh, something real.

In my heart and in my mind, I told myself I'd invented them as people who really understood me. I'd imagined the most delicious moments of kinship with her, and as for him, I pretended he totally admired me as a young woman of substance. Like, yeah! From experience, I know that this kind of fantasising is dangerous because reality always comes around and knocks you flat - like when I dream about a boy who looks good, and he ends up being a rat. That's why I decided I didn't want to meet that couple any more. My fantasies were probably better.

After that decision, I felt depressed, so I went for some donuts. Donuts help \- marginally. It's great that I'm one of the few girls who can do donuts, because no matter what I eat, I never get fat. I'd be a _never do well_ if I were a cow and they'd probably shoot me, though I'm not complaining. I reckon life is unreasonably rough on those chubby girls who get low and can't pig out on comfort food because it lowers their self esteem even more. Poor chicks, they must hit rock bottom with a real splat!

As I walked my well worn track to the good old café, I felt someone walking too close behind me, literally breathing down my neck. I glanced around and it was them. Talk about freak-out! Again, they looked straight at me. I walked faster, pretending my sneakers were really fascinating and felt the back of my neck sizzling red like a peppered frank-furt. This was way too weird! They walked close up behind and stayed there even when I was nearly running. Help! I wasn't imagining this. They turned into the café behind me, staying in close formation. It had to be deliberate, I couldn't avoid this. My heart was pounding madly. What could they want? Could they have noticed the time I'd followed them and taken offence? For goodness sake, it was only once. Were they like those serial killers who prey on the vulnerable? Shaking, I grabbed my donuts and turned to go, not daring to look at them at all, but the woman blocked my way, smiling like a cat who'd cornered her mouse.

'Aren't you staying for coffee? Our shout.' I looked at her then, my eyes just about popping out of my head. I must have looked stupid, like a scared rabbit. She just stood there smiling sweetly. I noticed that under her smart suede coat she wore buckskin and beads. At first I felt relieved. So that's it! She's an Indian, South American by the look, but not pure! As my dad would say, a Spaniard had 'slipped in' somewhere. The man was the same but with even more Indian blood, I guessed. So that's what it was about them. That was the jungle freshness! At least I had solved that bit, but I'd also heard about drugs in the jungle and I was scared. Then the man smiled too. He had broad cheekbones and looked a bit wolf-like, I thought.

'We aren't kidnappers you know,' he said amiably, 'We've noticed you around and we'd just like to buy you a coffee and have a chat.' I detected a slight Mexican accent.

'Oooh...kay,' I replied shakily. I never have been good at saying no, even when I'd like to run away, so this was not usual. Still, these kinds of things don't happen to the likes of me. I mean events usually stay boringly normal, but I knew I'd been longing for something different, just a small change - preferably a new life.

This hombre and his woman told me to choose a table and they returned with three steaming coffees. I'd watched like a hawk, so I knew they hadn't put any stuff in mine. They didn't ask me my name or tell me anything about themselves. Instead they wanted to know what my favourite animal was. I felt really shy and stupid. I said Razzer my dog, but they ignored that and asked which animal really attracted me. It was weird, but they seemed to have really good vibes and to be genuinely interested. I thought of the sinuous black panthers I'd seen in the Zoo, the eyes of pumas, and the taut walk of jaguars. I felt there was a sleek feline stretching and waking up inside me. I love big cats, even though I feel myself to be such a mouse.

When I admitted I'm crazy about big cats, I couldn't stop laughing, it was such a relief. They laughed too and he said to her, 'I told you she's a cat. She might be the one.' At that I froze inside. The one what? All of a sudden I felt I'd been wrongly cast. I suddenly felt I was in the Matrix and really unsuited for any kind of heroine role.

"What one?' I faltered out loud.

'A good one,' he chuckled, 'We go a long way to find a good one.'

'Good what?' The hair rose on the back of my neck.

'A good student,' he shrugged. How did they know I was a good student? I didn't want to hear that, I wanted to hear something different, weird and special. I was disappointed. He continued to look at me strangely as though I didn't get what he meant, but he didn't say anything more.

After that they dropped the spooky bit and just chatted about what I liked, what I didn't like, my aspirations as a writer etc. It was terrific. I've never had so much attention in all my life and it felt great, though I never stopped feeling wary. They were powerful and the whole thing seemed too much like my fantasies - better in fact. Mostly, I find this world flat and unresponsive. It usually ignores insignificant teens and their dreams.

When I'd drained my coffee, they looked at each other and nodded. I was alert again and tingling all over with fright. What were they up to? Then he pulled something on a chain out of that torn pocket of his. It was like a strange metal symbol with a stone in the centre. It looked like an eye, a big cat's eye.

'What do you think of this?' he asked.

'It's beautiful,' I stammered, 'I feel like I could fall right into it' I don't know why I said that.

He was looking at me intently. 'Excellent! Would you like to keep it for a while?'

'Why, yes,' I heard myself saying foolishly before I had time to think. Unfortunately, I wasn't born wise. What if it was a stolen priceless relic worth a million and he needed a carrier? Another voice in my head said, 'Idiot! He wouldn't expose it in the café like this, if that was the case.'

'It's very special,' I heard her say in the distance as my ears were buzzing, 'When you want to chat again concentrate on it. Think the time, think the place and we will meet you there.' She touched my shoulder and added in confidential a whisper. 'Remember to keep it hidden.'

'Yes but,' I looked down at it as it rested in my hand. It seemed to be drawing me in, warm and intense. When I looked up, my friends had vanished again and I hadn't noticed a thing, not even the scrape of a chair. My heart banged in my chest like a sand shoe in a washing machine. I wished they wouldn't do that! The guzzling café crowd were oblivious, no one had seen anything. Was my aching need for real communication getting the better of me?

I trembled, confused, yet the amulet rested in my hand, warm and real. A tingle of fear ran through me as I put the chain over my hair and the emblem fell down between my breasts, safe and hidden inside my shirt. Forgetting my donuts, I ran home, raced into my bedroom and slammed the door. I was breathing hard and I could feel my heart beating against the metal and stone. What did all this mean? I felt alive and excited for the first time in ages. Even school bore no sting.

I grabbed the relic out of my shirt and examined it, because all of a sudden I thought it might have contained a micro camera, like in James Bond movies. I fought fear of the unknown and the need to see if I could call them up right away. This was our only link as we had exchanged no names or places. Were they laughing at me? Playing a joke on a silly gullible teenager? I decided to wait for the right moment to try to call, but it was hard. It felt unbearable to think they might be laughing behind my back. Still I had the amulet and even though it was probably not valuable in the money sense I knew it was, in some better way. Where would it lead? That horrible little voice inside me kept saying,

'You're fooling yourself, baby.'

I knew I had to stop thinking, because this was one of those things you just can't explain. I raced out of my room, leaped over the back of the couch, ignoring the Pizza remnants and sat cross legged staring at the T.V. That's pretty mindless and it worked, but the amulet still nestled warm against my pounding heart. At last something real, live and different is happening to me!

##

### Twist.

Susan Sowerby

With great trepidation she edged out into the cold dusk. It couldn't have come at a worse time. She knew he would throw her out, but why just now, with night falling and nowhere to go?

In the hazy distance, the town's gas lamps flared to life, reminding her of fairy lights, but the dark glowering forest stood between their invitation and the closed doors of Weatherford Hall.

The cry of a wolf sounded somewhere and the toll of the church's Evensong bell rang out. A callous sun abandoned the earth to darkness. Cold night air carried cheerful wafts of families cooking over the top of the dense trees. A test of courage seemed to rise with the mist from the very pores of the ground. There was nowhere to go but forward.

She wondered what sort of life awaited her. What could this world offer? Who would take pity? Pity! Her mother had bought her up not to indulge in pity, though now tears silently flooded her cheeks. She carried a burden within and without, though the cloth that held her few belongings was by far the lighter. Since the death of her mother, the Manse had been her home, her life, her protector. She'd heard frightening stories of the outside world. Fear of being expelled into it had forced her to allow favours which, in the end had caused fear to become reality.

The wolf howled again as she remembered her mother, the one person from whom she had learned real love, and was comforted by the nursery rhymes she had taught her. What did it matter if the wolf ate Little Red Riding Hood when her life had already been consumed by a wolf? Even the prospect of being eaten seemed far better than the narrow option before her. Hollow eyed women of the streets stared from every shadowed corner of her imagination.

As Agnes turned her face from Weatherford Hall, the factory that churned out such women, and stumbled toward the dark trees, she thought she caught a glimpse of a shadowy form close behind. Was it fear or reality? She walked a little faster, thinking about the curse of beauty. A plain maid would be left alone to work her way into calm and respectable old age.

As she walked, rage boiled. She thought about life forcing her into positions, of men forcing her into positions for the rest of her life. Who would take her in when she arrived at the village late at night? Had poisoned tongues from 'The Hall' already contaminated their ears, hardened their hearts? A chill shivered through her as she remembered how the rich protected their reputations by ruining those of the poor. She'd heard them at it, behind closed doors.

As her feet carried her into the forest's maw, she chanted an angry nursery rhyme to quell the hideous fear.

'Duke of Weatherford, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?

With silver bells and cockle shells and pretty maids all in a row,

a row, and pretty maids all in a row!'

As she walked, disgust at her own compliance mauled her. A wolf seemed to rise up within as she stood in the darkest part of the forest. It was a choking, hairy ball lodged in her throat. The silent stalker closed in for the kill.

Suddenly, her snarled, knotted emotions burst up and out as something inside her struggled to free it's self. The cry that issued from her throat was not human. It could have been a crazed were-wolf.

The black shadow - vanished.

### The Pinchbeck Mystery

Susan Sowerby

Romance

This one got third place in the 'Seeya Later Alligator' young adult contest. I feel pleased because I am told there were 360 entries.

No one at high school knew what made Ashley Ostfeld tick. He was a strange boy given to sudden unintelligible out bursts. Sometimes he would sigh impatiently, slam a book down, then angrily leave the student room where ordinary peer group conversations were taking place. Other times he left with quiet deliberation. No one, except Samantha, was any the wiser as to why. They never noticed that these reactions occurred whenever a group of teenagers bewailed the fact that they had parents, a very common topic in most high school student rooms.

Samantha Westaway, classy, well off, and beautiful, felt annoyed she found this marginal character attractive. She didn't understand why the quiet outsider intruded so thoroughly into her perfect world. What was it? He didn't try to fake, he didn't try to be any one or anything. He was just quietly and doggedly his own man, and he kept to himself. She judged his looks as too angular to be main-stream classical like her boyfriend, Joe's. Hot Joe appeared to have recently stepped out of a high fashion magazine. Sam knew she looked terrific beside him.

She judged Ashley as way too thin, his clothes too worn, his mood too taciturn, yet there was something about him. He had those lazy eyes she hadn't realised were two different colours until he opened them up at her that time she returned the photograph, and he had a chiselled mouth like a Greek statue's that could curl and say the most cutting things at times. It hurt. She had been on the receiving end lately.

He'd just happened to be standing behind her as she looked up the new timetable to see where they shared classes, and he had seen her print 'Ash' in each space on her own copy.

She'd even blushed when he retorted. 'Haven't you got a better use for your time?'

His cold shoulder only served to excite her curiosity. She felt certain he deliberately stayed on the outskirts of social life, yet he had a peculiar status of his own. No one really knew anything about him. She had to concede that although he looked like a poor boy,

there was some sort of elegance about his person, especially his voice. He spoke as though he was on the BBC – perfectly, without an accent. Something about Ashley Ostfeld didn't make sense. He intrigued her.

Joe called Ash a 'fruitcake,' but Sam had to admit she liked fruitcake. Joe didn't like Ash much or vice versa. One could say they entered from completely opposite sides of the stage. When Marta Jansen had called Joe 'swanky,' Sam had overheard Ash's sly comment,

'Just drop the 's' and you'll have it right.'

Sam sighed as she picked up the strange pen Ashley had given her early in the year when he had been more friendly. It appeared to be very old, artfully encased in green fabric to make it look like a stem. It blossomed into a small beautiful red cloth rose at the top. She imagined this to have been a lover's pen, one used to write love letters at the turn of the century, perhaps. Ashley said he found it in a disused house and he gave it to her simply because, well, what else would he do with it? How should she take that? It could have meant everything or nothing, you just didn't know with Ash. She knew it must have been washed and then freshly perfumed with something unfamiliar and beautiful. That had to be a clue. But whatever he felt about her back then, didn't seem to be happening now.

She sighed again, 'Ash, get out of my head, leave me alone.' But the harder she tried to evict him, the stronger he stuck. Outwardly, he seemed to be pushing her away as though he had taken a sudden dislike. And yet, at other times, she caught him considering her from across the classroom with those strange eyes of his, weighing her up. He never looked away when 'sprung', just gazed right through her as though she wasn't there. Damn you Ash. What is with you?

School work didn't worry him at all. He was bright. She could see he could do a lot better if he wanted to, but he didn't seem quite focussed. In her imagination, Sam made him everything from a spooky serial killer to the most amazing teen hero in history. He certainly was an enigma. How long had Ashley been a student at her school? He never invited anyone home and no one really knew him. Sam loved mysteries, in fact, she dreamed about becoming a great female sleuth, not a model as she was set up to be by her ambitious mother.

As her fascination for Ashley increased, she decided to follow him home and see what his house was like. What if his parents were so deformed he didn't want anyone to see them? What if they lived in a house like the Munsters? Wow that would make a good school yarn. Sometimes his peers made up stories about him. Was it an attempt to fill in the blanks, because no one could get close. Everyone knew they weren't true - or were they? In response to the rumours, he wrote an essay on school gossip. It was so hilarious the teacher couldn't resist reading it out.

Sam thought of the time he had dropped the tiny picture of the woman in an ornate gold frame. She was striking, dressed in what appeared to be eighteenth century garb, and adorned with the most amazing jewellery. The other boys had said 'Woo Wooo,' and thrown it around. Ashley simply shrugged and walked back into the classroom, but Samantha noticed the anxiety in his eyes. No, you wouldn't catch Ash giving them satisfaction by chasing it. Sam had finally caught it. Who was this gorgeous woman? The gold inscription on the back said 'Elizabeth Pinchbeck, 1968'. The girl must have been in fancy dress. When Sam returned it, the look in Ash's eyes had been monumental and she experienced a strange instant. Was that the moment she'd fallen in love with him? She still struggled with the fact.

On the day she decided to follow him, she waited behind the school gate in her blue raincoat. Drizzle fell incessantly, so she could effectively withdraw like a snail into the dark hood. It would not be easy to follow Ash because he noticed everything, but on this day he seemed worried, more than a just a little distracted, which was why she had chosen it.

Sam followed him onto the bus to Sheldon Park. That in itself was unusual. She had expected him to walk from school as he usually did, in a different direction each day. She chose a seat behind him just across the aisle and watched carefully, trying to keep her hood covering her face so she couldn't be seen in the bus driver's mirror. Once seated, Ashley took an old brooch from his pocket and stared at it. Sam didn't know for sure, but she thought she saw a quick tear fall. He alighted seven stops down, with Sam sliding out like a ghost behind him. Ashley did not turn or show any sign he noticed her, but walked straight into the Pawn brokers on the other side of the street. Wondering if he was a thief, Sam stood out side the door listening to the argument that broke out inside.

She heard Ash yell. 'It's worth a lot more than that and you know it! It's an antique made by old Pinchbeck himself. It's totally authentic. Rub it, smell it and you'll know, if you're any sort of a jeweller.'

Phew thought Sam, Ashley can be tough. I wonder who 'old Pinchbeck' is.

She heard the pawn broker mumble again then Ash's raised voice, 'That's not enough and you know it!'

Shoving the brooch back in his pocket he strode towards the door. Sam quickly turned her back, but she felt the angry breeze as he whooshed past, muttering,

'Bloody old miser, how dare you make me barter over this!'

Such a strange self-possessed boy, thought Sam - more man than boy, actually. She identified the trait as one of the attractions. Stealthily, she followed at a distance. Ashley slowed, hands in pockets as though thinking hard, then turned abruptly into the industrial area where the city smelled ever more mundane. Warehouses and trucks faced each other on either side of the street like commercial cowboys ready for a draw. Sam saw Ashley approach several of them until one nodded. She wondered what it was about. Drugs? But Ashley took off his now wet jacket and laid his shoulder into the boxes along with the truck driver. Sam scratched her head. It seemed he only wanted a job after all. Not prepared to spend hours killing time till he finished, she unwillingly turned back. The mystery had only deepened. If it was anyone else, she would simply ask what he was up to. Not Ashley. Either he would tell her something way out or simply say 'Mind your own business' if he happened to be having a bad day. Sam decided to stop the imagination and the stories and strip it right back to the facts. One thing seems to be true, she surmised, he's badly in need of money. Why? Drugs? Oh shut up on the drugs, she told herself. Nothing is proven.

The next day at school she called, 'Hello Ash,' in all innocence. He put down his pen and gazed quizzically at her. He did looked tired and no wonder.

'Hello Sam-an-tha,' he returned coolly, almost threateningly, definitely warning her off.

Damn you Ashley, she thought, you know! He compressed his mouth and stalked off. After that, he treated her with even more diffidence. In fact, he shut her right out. Before, he had shown bursts of warmth, which she found completely disarming. Angrily, she realised she had lived for those moments. Now, without them, her popular life quickly slid into meaninglessness. How could he exert such a hold on her, especially when he didn't seem to want to?

Damn you Ashley, damn, damn, damn you! How dare you make me cry! Do you have any idea how much that hurt? As the longing to reach him grew, she felt completely stymied. It didn't make sense, plus it affected her school work. He remained doggedly distant. She wondered how following him could have constituted such an offence when it should have been a compliment. She watched him in the classroom. Something vulnerable and mysterious hung around him, fine spun as a spider's web. Maybe he's gay? She wondered. Maybe he hates me or he's some kind of a 'Mr D'Arcy,' and is secretly madly in love with me?

Sometimes, as she watched, she glimpsed a private smile, directed down onto his books. Then he would close his eyes and shake his head slowly as though struggling with a painful dilemma. With all her heart, she wanted to touch this strange distant boy, to make him feel warm and somehow loved.

She couldn't believe it. Samantha Westaway, the most desired girl in school, brought down by the one boy who wanted nothing to do with her! In that very brief moment when their eyes had met over the photograph, it seemed to her as though they looked right into each other's soul. For Sam, it was a truth. Did he miss it completely? Was it not a reality for him? He was driving her crazy. Sam, the great sleuth of her own imagination couldn't get the slightest handle on Ash Ostfeld, not even where he lived. He only had a post box for an address. Sometimes she felt she hated him for leading her on such a chase, yet it wasn't his fault at all. All the while, her fake life went on like a box office hit as she walked beside her picture perfect boyfriend. She felt she was walking in slow motion, while everything gradually dissolved and it was all because of Ash!

A few weeks later as she wandered despondently through an unfamiliar suburb, something stopped her abruptly. Her much loved, but long divorced father planned to meet her there and take her for coffee and a movie. He offered light relief from her scheming, socially prominent mother. The blue flash caught her eye as though beckoning her to cross the road. The jeweller's shop from where the light glinted sported a sophisticated looking façade. Sam approached hesitantly. A gasp escaped her lips. No, it couldn't be, but there it was! The brooch Ashley had shown to the other pawn-broker! She put aside the foolish notion that it had beckoned her. How many of them there could be? By the price, plus the argument in the other shop, this must be something special. No! I'm not going to look, she warned herself, but was propelled through the door as though by an invisible hand.

Since hearing Ashley mention 'Pinchbeck' to the jeweller, she had read up about it on the net and discovered it was the name given to a metal invented in the seventeen hundreds by a talented clock-maker and metallurgist whose name was Christopher Pinchbeck. Though popular in its time, the word 'Pinchbeck' later became synonymous with 'cheap' and 'tawdry.' Back then, there had been an exciting race among the alchemists of the day to invent an untarnishable substitute for gold that looked as beautiful, but weighed in as light as a feather. This would enable the society ladies to wear large gold trinkets without the inconvenience of heavy weights or the danger of theft when they wanted to travel. Christopher Pinchbeck had won the race, but since his secret died with his son, those trying to copy it did not quite succeed. They managed similar, but not the same. This made the original antiques and metal very valuable.

Samantha fell into conversation with the German born pawn broker and finally asked the question bugging her. 'Did a young guy, tall, thin with one hazel and one grey eye like David Bowie, sell you that brooch?'

The jeweller raised an eyebrow and answered in his accented voice. 'I don't like to discuss suppliers. Is there a problem?'

'No, not at all,' Sam improvised, 'I'm just surprised the Ostfeld family decided to sell it. Of course it was a much loved heirloom,' she improvised.

The pawn-broker looked perturbed and repeated 'Ostfeld?' He shook his head as though puzzled and replied absently. 'Yes, seemed nice young chap. We had a wonderful conversation in German. I miss the old country you know.'

Sam left also puzzled. German? He speaks fluent German? She had thought he was English. Obviously, he hadn't used his true name, if it was his true name. The plot thickens, she thought. Of course, 'Ostfeld' is a German word.

After the movie, she hugged her father, hurried home to look for Ashley's name on the net. She found that Ostfeld meant 'east field' in German. A nice name, she thought, and here am I, Samantha Westaway! Our names are complementary at least.

In the following weeks, Sam felt depressed. She also felt silly because she knew she was behaving like a jilted lover over a love that had never happened. How could this experience be so intense, just because two pairs of eyes met over a photograph? Her relationship with Joe faded by comparison.

In a final hour of darkness, she decided to end it with Joe. The glamour of the school ball was coming up on the next full moon and though her flattering ball gown hung ready, she thought, 'what the hell. Everything seems so unreal - sick.' A weight constricted her chest. She felt that if she didn't get out of the life she was leading, she would go mad.

Inside the locker room, after the others had left for class, Sam decided to break the news to Joe. Of course, she made no mention of Ash. How could she? There really wasn't anything between them. Joe was angry and disappointed,

You can't Sam. It will be the talk of the town.'

He seemed angrier about losing her image at his side than the loss of any form of affection. She detected something she didn't like in his eyes. It looked like rage over the loss of a possession.

'Who is he Sam! I'll rip his head off.' The threat in his tone chilled her.

'There's no one else, Joe. I just need to be on my own for a while.' The tremor in her voice betrayed her.

Joe didn't look convinced. Like her, his looks and style gave him the pick of the school. Though tears ran down Sam's face they were not for Joe. She realised how little there was between them, other than appearances. After she had finished her confession, a locker suddenly slammed on the other side of the locker row, and none other than Ashley sailed out the other end, nonchalantly flicking up his pen and catching it. He didn't look back, but continued towards the classroom with his proud, straight backed walk.

So you know, thought Sam bitterly, and I don't care if you do. I don't care about anything anymore.' The rose, un watered, was dying in her heart.

The night of the ball came around with brutal suddenness. What made it more traumatic for Sam was that her Birthday fell on the same day. Excited friends had been arranging the big celebration. When the news of her break-up got out, suitors fell over each other to ask her to partner them. Who would she choose? Gossip, gossip. She selected one, but only out of duty. How could she let her social circle down without awkward consequences? Ash would never go to anything like this.

The sad princess looked beautiful in the low cut ball gown her mother had picked out for her. Crystal earrings hung like tear drops and a real gold pendant glittered on the smooth tanned skin of her chest. Her model mother looked the costume up and down with an approving eye.

'What time do the photographers arrive?' she asked.

'Don't worry,' Sam snapped, 'they're always there.'

She hadn't told her she and Joe were no longer the showy magazine couple she loved to brag about. How could she? She wouldn't understand her reasons at all. And she would never approve of a boy like Ash! Sam sighed. What did it matter? Sometimes she felt her mother's values came straight from Mrs Bennet out of 'Pride and Prejudice.'

As she stepped into the hall, the evening burst to life with streamers, balloons and birthday greetings. A cloying confusion of perfumes almost suffocated her. She executed her social tasks with a grace far distant from her inner state of mind. Her mother had told her that being a model was very close to being a queen. You did everything in a way that never betrayed how you felt. Story of my life, thought Sam ruefully. If my actions get much further from how I feel, I will explode. She finally acknowledged she had never wanted to be a model. That was her mother's life.

The noise in the hall seemed to close in as her outrage swelled. She became desperate to escape, but how, when everyone would follow the 'worlds' next top model' like a bunch of sucker fish? Of course, the good old toilets always provide refuge! Excusing herself, she fled through the boisterous knots of students, but slipped past the ablutions and out into the fresh air outside. Tears stung her eyes.

The belle of the ball stood panting in the half-light, her back up against a hard brick wall. Now that she had finally admitted she didn't want the perfect life her mother had mapped out for her, she felt lost. Where to now? The moist air caressed her troubled brow and played sensually against her bare chest. Coils of mist rose from the damp air's contact with the hot tarmac. Sam felt a scream of frustration rising in her throat, but froze when she heard a voice call her name. The single soft word came from the shadows. A figure stood at the other end of the wall, obscured by the street light. Oh no! She could not bear to deal with anyone just now.

Suddenly, the figure strode towards her. The lamp glared into her eyes, showing nothing more than a black silhouette rapidly approaching. Surprised, she tried to step back, but the shadow took hold of her firmly, and laying his whole body shamelessly against hers, kissed her with startling passion. Something astonishing happened. The ghost in each of them seemed to merge for one split second. Ash! The kiss burned right down to the soles of her feet. Just as suddenly, he stepped away and putting his back to the wall, slid to the ground with a groan as though he had been shot. Sam gasped as she tried frantically to scrape her wits together.

'A-are you .... Ok?' she stammered.

'Me? Maybe - I think,' came the faint reply. She could hear the twinge of humour in his tone.

Struggling to suppress her amazement, Sam pounced and slid down beside him. Not daring to expose the true nature of her obsession, she fumbled at a joke. Lifting her finger to his throat like a knife, she whispered in a heavy German accent.

'Ashley Ostfeld. You haf much explaining to do! How long have you felt like zis?'

'Oh, only about a year,' he replied carelessly.

Sam's heart missed a beat 'Er - what?' she stammered, all eloquence deserting her.

'I mean, you did me in long before I got you back.'

She stared in disbelief. Much to her annoyance, a rogue tear escaped and made a track down her cheek as she burst out,

'You hurt me so much! 'Why were you so horrible?'

Reaching over, he followed the tear with his finger. 'Innocent as an angel! You won't believe it.'

'How, what?' she repeated, confused and annoyed that she sounded so dumb.

'It's a long story. Suffice to say I have my reasons. I thought you weren't my kind of girl, but I couldn't lose you, no matter how hard I tried. When you started to feel the same way, I couldn't do it anymore. A girl like you doesn't just give up does she?' As he reached out and held the softly sobbing Sam, she felt a flicker of joy. It's true! This is Ash after all, warm and responsive, but in the next instant, he let go and frowned at the ground as though believing he was making a big mistake.

No, thought Sam desperately, don't you dare close up on me, not now. Don't you dare open my heart just to crush it again! She grappled for her newly discovered authenticity, believing it might be the key to keeping him there. 'I feel my whole life has been a lie and illusion. I've been pleasing everyone else. I'm done with that. Give me your true story or I want nothing from you.' How hard was it to say that? Especially to someone she wanted to know more than anyone else in the world. At last, Sam Westaway knew she was making a stand where it really mattered! Elation and liberation fizzed through her veins.

In the half light, she was relieved to see the secretive smile she'd often seen directed down on his books. He sighed and reached an arm around her shoulders.

'I was wondering when you'd get real and dump that poster boyfriend of yours. At the same time, I was afraid you would because I'd be forced to deal with you.' He gave her a little shake.

She opened her mouth to speak but was stopped by another surprising kiss. Sam had received many kisses, some stolen, some approved, but this time it was different. She felt she was opening like a flower, there was no resistance. It frightened her and at the same time, filled her with joy. This was Romeo and Juliet stuff, Elizabeth and D'arcy power - what she'd always longed to feel, but was afraid she would only ever read about it in romantic classics. Was this happening because she 'got real' at last?

'Give me your full story before you undo me completely!' She panted, pushing him away and pulling him to her at the same time.

Ash laughed and held up both hands in surrender. 'O K Interrogate me! I'll tell you anything you want,' then he dropped his voice to a warning whisper, 'but only if you promise not to tell anyone else.

With all her heart she prayed that what she was about to hear would not be terrible or compromise her in some way, but he had put her in a position of power by inviting her to ask anything she wanted and that felt wild!

'Right! Why were you keeping me away?'

'In a nutshell? I've been living incognito. I don't have parents: I don't have a proper home: I've been keeping myself for the last three years: I'm saving up to go back to Britain to find my parents, and the last thing I need is a girlfriend to tattle on me or get in my way. Enough reasons?'

Sam didn't like the finality in his tone. 'But why does she have to get in your way? She protested. 'She could be your 'Ninety-nine' and help you, Mr Smart!'

'Then she'd better be as smart as Ninety-nine,' he chuckled, 'and I really hope I'm not as dumb as Smart!

Sam laughed, her heart overflowing. 'Are your parents in England then?'

She saw a shadow cross his face. 'Both my parents disappeared four years ago, when we lived in Edinburgh, Scotland.'

'But you would have been only twelve or thirteen, four years ago. How come you're in Australia?'

'The police closed the file on my parents and after a while they simply became missing person statistics. I put up with a string of foster homes, but finally, I was sent to an aunt in Australia. The police said I was a problem child because I kept running away in search of my parents. Well they weren't doing their job properly were they? At first, this aunt said she didn't want me, then after seeing a photograph, she said she did. Through my own internet investigations I found out she had become well off through running some sort of introductory agency. I didn't like the sound of her. Did she want to train me up as a gigolo or something?'

'You might make a good one,' Sam put in mischievously, 'if kissing's any indication.'

'Humph! So much for sincerity!'

Sam giggled. It struck her as funny that he actually seemed offended. She knew most boys egos would take it as a compliment, but her skin tingled as she realised he was letting her know that the kiss was hers' alone.

'Go on,' she begged, 'I'm intrigued by your story. Don't let me distract you.'

'You, not distract me? Impossible,' he muttered gruffly.

'Please, do go on,' she urged.

'Alright, Okay. After so many foster homes, I wanted to live my own life with my own agenda, so I sent my aunt the appropriate letters from the department, with the wrong return address of course and the appropriate letters back to them. It wasn't too hard. I'd pinched a bit of stationary with their letter head, since I ended up back there so many times. Now both parties think I'm safely overseas.

'And what was that brooch about?' Again, Sam felt the chilling fear that she was she about to find a serious flaw in her Romeo.

He glanced at her. 'You think I stole the brooch?' Sam cringed feeling he'd picked her doubt up too quickly. He went on, 'the truth is, it was handed down the Pinchbeck line from mother to daughter, but because I'm an only child, my mother gave it to me for any daughter I might have. It is an authentic family heirloom, made by the original Christopher Pinchbeck.

'But you sold it!' said Sam accusingly.

He glanced at her sharply, 'Some things have to be sacrificed Sam. In a few months, I'll be gone, another reason not to have a girlfriend.'

Sam gritted her teeth, 'What about me? You can't kiss me like that and then sacrifice me as if I don't exist. I'm in it too now.'

'I can't, I'm not,' he returned desperately, 'but I have to work all the time to pay for my fare and investigations. The brooch helped somewhat, but it's still not enough and I don't want to sell the others. I have to do this for my parents, Sam.'

'Why did your parents disappear?' she laid her head against his shoulder, determined to help, not hinder. She would collect all the data she could.

'They knew something I think - some old formula, some old alchemy. Of course there was old Pinchbeck too. Way back in the seventeen hundreds, he and his sons made amazing clockwork toys, planetariums, little singing birds and things, but I think there was more. He was an alchemist who belonged to a secret fraternity. There might have been something else he discovered, not that they told it to me, mind you. My parents might be dead, they might be alive. I have no way of knowing, but I intend to find out.'

Sam considered the hugeness of what he'd told her and how it would feel, not knowing where your loved ones were, whether they were imprisoned somewhere, abandoned by the authorities or if they were actually dead. Alone in the world, Ashley Ostfeld had to grow up fast. It certainly explained why he was different from all the others. From her own painful experience with Ash, Sam understood why a few hard knocks gave a person a different perspective on life. No matter how he might deny it, the woman in her immediately understood how much he needed her. She knew she would be all he had in the world, and she found that exciting.

'Ash, that picture?' she asked quietly. 'Is she a relative?'

'My mother.'

'Is she German? How come you speak German?'

He frowned, 'How do you know that?'

'The guy in the jewellers shop.'

For a second time that night, she saw him smile. 'You mightn't make such a bad sleuth after all, Ninety-nine. My father was ..... is, German.' Ash's confusion over whether his parent was present or past hurt her heart. She took his hand.

They sat in silence, hardly daring to breathe. Mist gathered, and the air around them seemed pregnant with magic and mystery. Finally Ash spoke,

'Let's move before all those deros. come out looking for you.'

He pulled her to her feet and they walked out onto the frosted street. Sam shivered. Ash made the comment that her dress was too low and she should snuggle close or she might catch a cold. She willingly did as he suggested.

'At what point did you know I was following you, that day you first tried to sell the brooch?'

'I looked up in the bus mirror. I couldn't see your face, but I know your shape, your presence anywhere. I think you saw me having a blub about that brooch. I felt like I was selling my daughter. It didn't matter that you saw me try to sell a brooch. Anyone can do that, but I didn't want you to follow me to where I live. That really is illegal.'

Sam asked boldly, 'Where do you live, Ash?' Would he answer her question? He'd certainly thought on his feet that afternoon to make her lose the scent. It was unlikely he'd had a job in that suburb before. She found his predicament more moving by the minute.

'Truth is,' he sighed at last, 'I live in that condemned house at the end of Rowe street.'

'Where all the morning glory is?'

'Yes.'

'But how can you live there? It's collapsed, condemned and there are danger signs all around it.'

The enigmatic smile surfaced again. 'With wind up toys, amazing clocks and little birds that sing. I'll tell you a secret, Sam. At the back, a new room had been built late in that house's history. It's large and very strong. The way it stands, it can not easily be accessed as there is thick briar rose all over it at the back. I have my own ways in. It's not like you think. I've made it very comfortable.'

Sam could see it was a relief for him to confide in someone at last. She hoped he knew she wouldn't betray him. Since he was almost seventeen, child welfare would not bother him, either. Though he was two months younger than her, she could see that life had made him years older. Obviously, he did not want to live someplace where he had to pay rent while he saved for England. All he had told her reeked of intrigue. In truth, she found his tale far more exciting than any of her fantasies. Ash revealed had scrubbed up better, smarter and far more passionate than she'd dared to imagine. A little shiver ran down her spine. She could feel this guy's heart.

Sam made a snap decision. She could not step backwards. Something beyond her false little world had beckoned her towards Ash. That world felt like a nightmare now. She had to step forwards, even if no one else understood. He had wounded her, and at last, he was claiming her. Did he know what he had done? His timing seemed uncanny, perfect. She felt that in a way, they were both orphans. Taking a deep breath, she extended her arms like a tender fledgling, poised at the edge of a cliff, about to fly into the vast blue unknown,

'It's my seventeenth birthday today. Will you take me home with you?'

He stared at her for a moment. 'With me where? To England?'

She shook her head. 'No. To where you live. Now!'

He stopped abruptly, alert and confused. 'Steady, Sam,' he said softly, 'Are you sure?'

'Yes,' she murmured, 'Are you surprised?'

'Well, yes, that's - fast!'

'Fast! Fast?' Sam felt incensed. 'Ashley Ostfeld, you forget. You've been a long, slow agonising trip for me!'

'Sorry. As you have for me.' He gathered her into his arms, somewhat unsteadily. 'Happy Seventeenth, Sam, lovely girl who's better than she knows! Want a confession? For a long time I've pretended you were with me, but I thought it way too risky to act on. I keep my space beautiful, as though you're beside me. It helps me keep my act together and makes me feel less lonely.'

That took Sam's breath away. The world ceased around her. This was her coming of age. It was her life, no one else's. Not her mother's, not Joe Hamersley's, not her friends. Hers! And she was taking it back.

'You really are as contrary as Mr D'Arcy.' She murmured, snuggling close, desperately wanting to merge with something she felt was steely strong and honest in his character.

'Mr D'Arcy?' he began to laugh, 'Oh God, I know why the poor dude seemed all screwed up! He didn't want the inconvenience of a hook through the heart, but he copped it anyway.' Sam joined his laughter until the tears rolled down their cheeks.

'Whatever rules,' she spluttered, 'It definitely isn't us!'

Still laughing, they began their journey hand in hand. Rowe street loomed close, only four streets on. As Sam moved, she could feel the soft silk gown caressing her thighs. Dew congealed on her chest and trickled between her breasts. She wasn't cold. All her sensations felt heightened, every inch of her skin glowed with a mysterious age old rite. Steam rose from the road as they passed, twisting around her hem like dancing wraiths. Once or twice he halted her under a hazy street lamp, and held her hand above her head in a dancers grip, turning her with slow appreciation. This beautiful girl seemed like a miracle gift in his troubled life. Sam felt that he saw her completely, not only the much desired outer form everyone else saw also, but something much deeper, something much closer.

As they tip-toed towards the wall of morning glory, she felt both fear and exhilaration. There was no posing here. This was real. She knew she was walking towards the portal that led from childhood to womanhood. In the last few weeks, she had become brave, honest and naked in her own eyes. She had faced the phoney, suffered the truth and grown. She had changed, her life had changed - the honesty and power in Ash's kiss had also changed her. She had thrown herself into the void, and he had caught her. Once she entered this portal, she knew there could be no going back. Sure, he had offered her a choice, but she knew there was none. Tonight, she would have to be woman to this strange, intense young man, for there was no other honest way to manage the fire that had grown so silently, so magically between them.

##

### Relentless

Sue Sowerby

Thriller

'You can get out.' he snarls. A chill creeps through me because he means it. 'You've been nothing but trouble on this trip. You only think of yourself.'

'That's rich,' I yell, 'everything I do is for you, but can you see it? No! This trip has shown me you're nothing but an ungrateful control freak, not worth my time.'

'Me! Not worth your time?' His eyes narrow. He hisses like a snake. 'Get out then!'

Believe me, I want to get out, and I do - in the middle of nowhere. He roars off. Even the dust he leaves behind looks enraged.

Dumped! Why aren't I surprised? I'd stood up for myself consistently since we left the Murchison and headed back down the old coast road. I guess I really exposed his control trips, but I don't expect to be abandoned completely. He'll be back.

I wait. Nothing! I look around, scared. I'm not used to this. I'm a city girl - I work in a bank. Is he trying to frighten me into submission? I wait some more – hours more.

Blinking back tears, I start down the orange gravel road which arches over a stunted out-back hill and winds away into nowhere. Black shadows from the straggly scrub streak across the orange. It makes me feel I'm walking up the back of a tiger. I might as well be. The sun is low - sinking lower than low. I'm alone, utterly alone. I wonder if this is the usual form of punishment the gallant Brad metres out to girls who stand up to him. Are women who do so routinely dumped into situations that force them to fight for survival?

Well, I'm free of him, I need to be, but this is way too free!

When will the next car come? Not soon I imagine. It could be a whole week and I haven't even got a suitcase or a bottle of water. Is Brad really so phsycho he'd leave me out here to die? A chill shivers through my spine as it dawns on me that he might be. The more I think about him, the creepier he becomes. I recognise there has always been something wrong, but I've been conned. He has money, standing, looks – all that society holds dear, yet travelling with him in the wide open spaces allowed me to see his ugly side in techno-colour.

I feel like a stranded fawn, not native to this land, a land with a bad reputation for dealing savagely with uninitiated foreigners, a land with a dark appetite like a crocodile. I hear the drone of an engine and instead of relief a wild fear grips my guts. I'm wearing short frayed shorts and a low top. This could be my salvation or my doom. As the vehicle approaches, something feral overpowers me and I jump into a drain, cringing down out of sight. Has he seen me? My heart lurches with disappointment as the car passes in a pall of dust.

As I lie here, I tell myself I must stay positive. Negative thoughts will draw evil this way. I feel a new unfamiliar fear of the power of my own chaotic mind. I can smell the crushed leaves beneath me – sharp, pungent, herbal and alien. I fear that fear is turning me into something wild and unreasonable. If I'm no longer the banker's daughter, who or what am I?

My neck prickles as I realise people meet themselves out in this empty land where there are no distractions, no connections, only a road like a whip scar across a hostile, unforgiving back. I've never felt so thirsty. I catch the scent of the sea from the west but I can't see it. Its cool salty freshness is delivered like manna on the evening breeze. My nostrils quiver like a roo's. Fear is awakening a raw primitive side I never knew before. Now that I face death, I've never felt so alive. I'm excited, and terrified.

As the sun goes down, I feel strange spirits rising. Something in my blood is aware of this. It seems to know other things my city office self doesn't. I've always felt quite proud that I had an aboriginal great grand mother, though I never met her.

I hear the rumble of another car. Though logic tells me it could mean death to hide again, my awakening instinct is uneasy and demands that I do - more powerfully than the first time. I battle with it. Logic wins, civilisation has taught it to win. I jump forward and wave the vehicle down. I'd hoped for a couple, but it's a lone man. When I tell him what happened his eyes glint as though they see prey. I feel a dingo growl inside me.

'He left yer in the lurch, aye?' the man chuckles.

He has bad breath, and reeks of cigarettes. There's a huge black dog panting in the back. I ask where he's going.

'Aw, Geraldton. Not in a hurry, though. Reckon I might camp the night.' He grins, but his mouth looks savage. 'I got a spare blanket.'

My heart sinks. Geraldton must be only about two hours away. It's barely sundown and definitely not necessary to camp. Fear slices into my gut. Not knowing how to react is the worst feeling. A helicopter passes high above, no help to me.

I tell him I need to get to Geraldton by eight o'clock - that some one is waiting for me. He doesn't respond.

The cold desert night is creeping in. His behaviour appears friendly, but he talks too loud and sounds too excited. My hackles are up. I've never felt instinct warning me so strongly before, but its here now.

We eat a rough dinner of toast browned on the fire and pile baked beans on top of it. I continue to hope, suppressing instinct, but it keeps screaming at me to get out quick. The man puts his hand on my shoulder as he passes. My skin crawls. There's nowhere to run and he's got a dog. I'm aware of another large animal circling in the darkness. I can't see it, but I can hear it walking. I try to smell what it is, but only get a nasty whiff of the sweat from the man leaning over the fire.

The fire is comforting. I keep staring into it, invoking the survivor in me. For the first time in my life, I hate being female and wrap myself tightly in the blanket. Smoke billows around me. He glances toward me from time to time like a cat watching a bird, and licks his lips. There is no talk now, just tense, tense silence. The thing out there in the dark keeps walking, circling closer. I feel like an animal in a trap.

Suddenly, out of the dim light, a man on a horse appears. 'Mind some company?' he asks cheerfully.

My heart jumps at him as though he's the Saviour. I let out a breath. 'Please join us,' I'm nearly crying with relief. My host offers him only surly silence.

'Lost some steers a couple of days ago,' the new comer mentions as he tethers his horse, 'Buggers must have strayed all the way to the sea. I've tracked 'em this far but now I'm forced to camp.' I notice his horse is lathered in sweat. He's been riding too hard. Why, if he's just tracking steers? I shudder. This could be a planned meeting. I strain to assess this new arrival.

He's tall and lanky, reminding me somewhat of Rowdy Yates, a cow-boy out of one of mum's old Raw-hide movies. I notice animal stealth in the way he moves. I want to get a look at his face, but he stays back from the fire light and keeps his hat on. I have a nervous feeling that it's deliberate.

He sits down and I want to creep closer, but I don't know if I can trust him. My mind is fearful, but I feel no protective dingo growling in my gut. His talk is easy enough, but I can smell tension in him also. The other guy glares, silently hostile. I doubt they are working together.

After a casual smoke, the stockman rolls out his swag. I don't want him to sleep. The other guy sits crouched on his heels, hunched, watchful. I sense any wrong move on my part could be fatal.

I say to the lanky guy, 'My boyfriend dumped me out here. This man,' I indicate, 'Mr?' After a moments hesitation the dog owner reluctantly mutters, 'Larsen,' 'has offered me a lift, but he wants to camp instead of going on to Geraldton.' I'm silently pleading, hoping the stockman will get it, and protect me. Any decent man would.

I sense he acknowledges this, but he stares steadily at me as though assessing what I'm made of. The fire flares briefly on his face. I can't quite fathom his expression, but it looks more thoughtful than lustful. What is his agenda? Not just steers.

After that moment of scrutiny, he nods, but he doesn't offer his name and he doesn't smile. Instead, he lies down and puts his hat over his face.

Who can I trust? I'm alert and want to keep watch all night. It's dark. There's no moon, but I'm exhausted and finally lose consciousness.

I awake to the raucous dawn chorus, a crazy corroboree of outback birds, yet it takes me a moment to remember where I am. Then, with horror, I notice my stockman friend has vanished silently in the night. I feel betrayed to the core. For a moment, I'm paralysed. How could he do this when I thought we had an understanding? I snatched a glance at Larsen. After sleep, my gut is doubly convinced there's something wrong with that man, though my intellect is still reasoning I might be wrong. He's asleep, or I think he is. There's a water bottle beside him. I'm getting out of here, but I won't try to take the bottle. It's too close.

I'm away and running in the cold dawn. I haven't time or nerve to circle the camp and look for the stockman's hoof prints as they do on TV shows. How far could a guy on a horse get? Will he hear me if I scream? I dare not. I'm running, panting, mouth open. Already it feels dry as sand paper. I keep telling myself, I'm a dingo, not a roo, I'm a hunter, not a victim.

I can feel the strength of my body's will to survive. It's as if I've turned feral overnight. I scoop up some dirt and dust my dark hair till it's the same colour as the earth. It's camouflage, but there's more. For the first time, I'm asking the land to be my friend, my guide.

Suddenly, I'm aware of my white top glaring in the red landscape. It stands out like a beacon. If he's after me, he'll spot it straight away. I ditch it. My shorts, pale blue and pebble washed won't hide me against this tanned landscape. I bury them under some leaves. Now I'm running in a flesh coloured bra and knickers, not the best look when fleeing from a possible sex predator, but I'm aware my scanty top and shorts will have little influence on his intentions. I'm praying my suntan will blend with the land like the skin of a lizard.

I look up and see an area where the trees group more tightly on the side of a rocky rise. I'll get up in there and look down. Maybe I will see Rowdy Yates or chillingly – Larsen following.

My heart freezes as I spot the psycho below. He's intent on tracking me, having put on a bright blue t-shirt as though he wants me to see him. Why did he leave his dog back at camp? Instinct whispers that his craving is to see me to run in fear, so he can hunt and trap his prey. The bank worker whimpers that he might be just a decent guy out to rescue a vulnerable girl from certain death in the wilderness, 'Don't be an idiot,' the dingo growls.'

My only hope will be to move fast, real fast, but I'm desperately thirsty now. From up here, I can plot my path through the thickest of the scraggy trees. No doubt he will get up here too, and try to spot me. I'll go around the hill, use it for cover and run as fast as I can before he climbs into view. If I run light as a fairy, leaving few clues, I can reach the valley, hide in its folds and look back to watch him descending. Having to track me will slow him, though logic screams that he has water and knows the desert. He'll wear you down. He'll win, finally, it sneers. I won't listen. I won't give up.

All day, through sheer panic, I stay ahead of him. Relentless, he stalks behind. I feel animal strength growing in my legs, in my thighs. I have long sleek thighs I often used to show off to men, but they are meant for more than that. I appreciate their strength now as they carry me with long powerful lopes.

The sun is sinking again. Must the sun abandon me? I curse the glorious crimson ball, helpless as it slips from view, the last rays of hope vanishing in the same way the stockman did. Soon it will be so cold I know I won't survive the desert night in my underwear. I can't even light a fire.

Suddenly, I sense an ancestor close, as though soothing me, instructing me. I find a sharp rock and begin to dig in the soft red soil. I dig frantically. Then I find a pile of rotting leaves. The warmth of a chemical reaction is in them. I line the bottom of my nest with the leaves and get in, then I scrape more leaves over the top of me and finally a blanket of earth. Only a little part of my face shows. I feel I'm in the arms of my mother and have the illusion of safety.

Suddenly, a roar like a monster trumpeting breaks above me. I'm dragged from mother earth by my hair. A voice cackles and gibbers like a mad monkey. Two heavy knees pin my arms to the ground. A face crazed with triumph leans over me. Sweat and spittle drip from it. The corner of my eye sees a knife blade glinting in the darkness,

'I'm gonna bleed you babe, and then I'm gonna do it to you as you're dying.' His sick breath smothers me as he continues, 'the little blonde bled like a pig and cried for her mumma. Let's see what you do.'

I wretch, but he has me pinned as he slits the soft part of the inside of my two upper arms, and then holds the knife to my throat. I feel the point sink in and realise it's too late for me. Terror and revulsion flood over me like a tidal wave, yet I manage to gasp,

'The stockman knows who you are. He's out there.'

'He won't talk \- I'll see to that.'

Suddenly, I'm past panic. I've lost all strength, but my animal ally is helping to calm me, preparing to release me. Totally clear and still, I'm strangely peaceful as I accept the end. A timeless feeling swallows me, a sense of floating into boundless empty freedom, leaving this body and sadly bidding farewell to those I care for. For the first time, I understand that I'm spirit, living in body.

In the next instant, Larsen is ripped away. When I shake myself out of shock, I see he's locked in a ferocious battle with another man. Dust demons rise around them.

'It's O.K.,' yells the man and manages to throw something from his pocket.

Shaking, I pick up what looks like a wallet. In the dim light I read Detective Sergeant D. Wyndam, and there's a photo I can't see properly. My throat constricts: what if the other guy wins? Survival mode kicks in again, though my body seems slow and drugged. My brain grinds into action and I scrabble around in the dark for my sharp digging rock. Vision blurs as a dark head and a semi bald blond head alternate. I'm terrified I'll hit the wrong guy, but finally manage to strike the blond head with a force I never knew I possessed. He rolls off the cop, face up, blank eyes staring. I think I've killed him.

The cop staggers to his feet. I blink, confused for a moment. He's the stockman! 'I'm sorry,' he says thickly, 'I'm really sorry.'

I can't comprehend what he means by 'sorry.' He saved me. His nose is pouring blood like a tap, but I howl and hug him, covering him with my own blood. He puts his hands above his head as though he's under arrest. I desperately want to be held, but maybe he's more concerned about the distorted evidence a half naked woman in shock might give.

'Sorry,' he mumbles again, out of breath.

I don't get it. 'Why sorry? You saved me.' I'm bleeding and crying hard and I can't stop.

'I mean sorry I had to put you through this to catch the bastard. It's all over now. Good crack to his head - thanks. You're the hero. Gotta radio my backup, they're at the ute, but they'll take a while to get in – ground's sandy.'

He hand-cuffs Larsen and checks for vital signs. 'Still alive, unfortunately,' he mutters, then turns to me. 'I'll get the supplies I dropped down the track.'

My knees buckle. 'Don't leave me with him.' I whisper. He catches me as I go down and lays me on the ground. It's freezing. He takes off his bloody shirt and puts it on me.

***

I wake to the crackling of a fire and find my arms are bandaged. The neck cut is not deep. D.S. Wyndam is boiling a billy. I'm wrapped in a blanket now and he's wearing his blood soaked shirt again. I see a water bottle beside me and grab it, draining the last drop. Drinking is unspeakable pleasure - a phenomenal, sensual experience. When I notice a gun with his things, I find my voice.

'Why didn't you hold him up with that?'

'Time! He had a knife at your throat, if you remember correctly. Some psychos would slit it just to spite me.' The shuddering takes me again.

We huddle in silence, shoulder pressed to shoulder in the firelight and drink hot sweet tea. When my shivering finally ceases, endorphins take over. I feel high. Man was my enemy, now man is my friend. This one doesn't say much, but his sweat smells sweet in my nostrils. For one astonishing moment, we seem to merge through our touching shoulders. I sense a solid core in him, a strong heart and suddenly know him beyond words. As stealthily as it came, the extraordinary doorway closes. Did he feel it also, or is it only me?

'Just an illusion caused by trauma,' blarts my logic.

'Shut up. You don't have a chance,' instinct snaps back.

I ask D.S.Wyndam. 'Why did you come alone?'

'Three girls have already gone missing! I did call for backup, but I knew I had to get here quicker than it would move. Actually, I was on leave, visiting my real mother at Barlow Station about ten kilo meters as the crow flies. A police helicopter looking for some lost tourists gave me Lynch's camp co-ordinates. I knew he was travelling this way and asked them to keep an eye out. When they said there was a girl with him, I freaked out, took Gunshot, and rode cross-country. I _knew_ this bloke was a killer, but I couldn't convince my superiors. They said there was no hard evidence, and that he would have to be caught doing something. Bit close. Sorry.'

I shudder, 'How did you know it was him?'

He turns his head now, and looks at me with dark, smoke coloured eyes. I see a quadrant of blue light in them at the three o'clock mark and something else I can't define. With a start, I realise I could love this man. His eyes draw me beyond the superficial world of civilization. There's no dingo there, but my new self sees a kind of panther. Its luminous eyes glow in the fire light. His lip curls to reveal two side teeth. The shadowy beauty is like a dream-time creature. Oh the stealth! No wonder he was right behind, right up close and I never saw him.

With a shrug, he answers my question, though I already understand it was his panther who let him know. 'I interviewed Lynch once. Evil like that can't hide.' I catch a flicker of respect in his eyes as they search me in a similar way they did at the Larsen/Lynch's camp. 'It would have been over sooner if you weren't so damned clever. I'm afraid I underestimated the girl from the city. Can she ever forgive me for allowing her to be bait?'

I don't flinch, don't answer, just stare back into his eyes. The fire and our allies dance for a moment. There's power between them, sleek, delicious, living power. I can't believe I wore a straight-jacket and worked in a bank for seven years.

Though I could sit in silence with him all night, his back-up arrives, shattering the desert silence with spot-lights, whoops and whistles. They put me on a stretcher and load me into one of the four wheel drives. Larsen – Lynch, who's just coming around, is bundled into the other.

D. S. Wyndam rides off on Gunshot to fetch Lynch's ute, while we take a short cut. A fat chatty cop keeps me company. He's a mine of information, though I'm drowsy and don't take in much of what he says. I'm aware of how tired and starved I feel, but I manage to whisper,

'Is D.S. Wyndam married?'

'Married? Na,' the fat cop chuckles, and offers a short summary on his colleague. 'Got a woman in Broome, but I reckon she ain't his type. Don't know who would be. They try but they can't snare the bugger. Unusual dude - clever. Mixed blood. One of the "stolen generation" I'm told.

I'm aching all over, but I can't stop smiling. I came so close to dying horrifically out in that desert, yet I love the place for forcing me to find my life and my passion. That freezing, burning land ignited parts of me I never knew were there. Now I know there's more to me than I ever could have imagined. I'm no longer the pale excuse for a woman I once was. My blood is awake, I'm honest, alive, and I won't hold back. If that half wild cop, known only to me as D.S. Wyndam agrees, he's going to cop the lot. After all, we have an affinity. Amid this rugged beauty, on the brink of death, we've tasted each other's blood.

### The Jenuine Junk-yard Dog

Susan Sowerby

Young Adult

The Graffiti King

Joel Denby knew the 'Junk-yard Dogs' were just around the corner. The gang usually made a nuisance of itself in front of the hot dog shop where he wanted to go. If only they'd move! He squeezed the hard earned coins in his hand till they cut into his palm and his empty stomach growled as loudly as any junkyard dog's.

Pushing a wary eye around the corner, he spied Tom Pratt, their esteemed leader, locked into his routine, putting on his tough show. Pratt liked to hang out late at the Hot Dog joint because he thought it made the Junk-yard Dogs look cool. Ever since Sally Grey, the cutest girl in school had taken a liking to Joel, the gang had given him a hard time whenever he crossed their path. Joel knew she had no idea of the pain she caused, and he wasn't prepared to tell her.

'Mangy lot,' he grouched to himself, 'no wonder she doesn't like them, especially Pratt,' but then again, he didn't know why she'd settled on him. Often he wished she hadn't because it thoroughly confused him. He didn't understand why he felt so driven to please her even though he barely knew her.

In his own judgment, Joel didn't see himself as a better catch than any of the Junkyard Dogs. In fact, he had a record of petty theft, while Sally came from the up side of town. Without knowing, she had already begun to reform him. Because of her, he didn't steal food anymore, because of her, he'd got a job unloading trucks after school, and because of her, his body ached, covered with bruises inflicted by the Junk-yard Dogs. Every time he talked to her at school it inflamed the gang, but he did it anyway, and despite wanting to look tough, he'd let his hair grow for the simple reason that she loved the resulting riot of curls.

'Unfortunately, he mourned to himself, 'it makes me look like one of those cherubs out of the weird old paintings. If you don't look tough, life gets tougher around here.' Even jealous girls said they'd 'rip his head off' to get his thatch of hair, but make no mistake, Joel had grown up rough and that made him stronger than any of them - including The Junk-yard Dogs.

The gang had succeeded in isolating him from his friends. They thumped them so thoroughly they wouldn't be seen talking to him at school. Only one soldier, Joey Ainsworth paid the price, yet kept on. In Joel's eyes Joey scored higher than all the others put together. Popularity was one thing, but having one real friend was worth much more.

He crouched down by the wall, hoping enough customers would come along so he could use them for cover. He knew well that seven savage 'Dogs' to one underfed kid was not a great ratio for survival and he had no wish to add fresh blows to the fading set of bruises he'd collected the week before.

First came three young teenagers talking among themselves, furiously avoiding eye contact with the Dogs. Wimps, thought Joel, they wouldn't be much help in a crisis. Then an elderly, moustached gentleman with a cane followed them. As a street vagrant, Joel had already learned these old gents could behave more fiercely than any delinquent when suitably annoyed. He might be useful. Then, bonanza! A tall lean cop in uniform sauntered casually towards the door. Made brave by hunger, Joel shinnied up fast behind him and slid in.

'Denby!' the Dogs hissed, 'We'll pulp you when you come out.' and they meant it.

Summing up the situation, Joel knew he'd find it hard to jump queue with only four customers and the cop in there, but he certainly didn't want to leave last and alone. He eyed the cop warily. The guy towered about six foot four and bore a strong resemblance to Clint Eastward. Joel thought he looked out of place in a hot dog shop. A James Bond movie would be a more suitable setting. Though he didn't consider cops his friends, he decided to swallow his pride in the interest of survival.

'Excuse me,' he said as politely as possible, 'There's some low-lifes out there who want to bash me. Can you please wait and walk out with me?'

The cop's blue eyes searched him for a moment, roving from the bruise on his forehead all the way down to the spray paint smudge on his left sand-shoe. The corner of his mouth twitched.

'Yeah, I heard what they said,' he responded.

Joel sighed with relief. Hunger and adrenaline had not been comfortable amigos in his protesting belly. He could relax now - and feel smug. The cop didn't know he was the notorious 'Graffiti king.' No one did. He found it irritating that his one claim to fame forbade him from claiming it.

Good as his word, the policeman waited, and together they strolled past the Junk-yard Dogs, chatting as though they'd known each other for years. The gang paced like dangerous zoo animals curbing primitive instincts.

'Where you off to?' The cop asked as they continued down the street.

'Er home,' Joel lied.

The man took a bite of his hot dog and then asked an unexpected question - one the boy least wanted to hear from a cop.

'You the Graffiti King, kid?'

A sting shot through Joel's body as he scrabbled to collect his splattered wits,

'Er, no one knows and no one tells around here,' he muttered. Those blue eyes were boring holes in him. Uh oh, he thought, perhaps there is a price to pay for everything in this world, even a little bit of protection.

To his immense relief, the man shrugged dismissively, 'Well, whoever he is, he's bloody good,' he took another a bite. 'He's just got to learn to put it in the right places.'

Joel knew he should play disinterest and not betray himself. His internal warning bell went off, but he couldn't resist,

'Right places?' he repeated, curious. As far as he was concerned the whole slum could use a face-lift. The possibilities were endless, the panoramas terrific, could any place be more 'right?'

'Yeah – signage, murals, that sort of thing. He could get paid for it. Vandalism is a chargeable offence you know.' With that, he turned to go, 'Catch ya, kid.' He waved and walked casually away. Along with a scorching mouth full of hot dog, Joel gulped down a medley of confused emotions. He didn't like those departing words, "catch ya", least of all, from a cop. If the guy really suspected, he hadn't been direct about it. Why? Probably because he needed to catch him in the act! Never the less, he'd offered an encouraging compliment. That meant the world to Joel who felt rather starved and isolated in his artistic endeavours. Some cops were idiots. That one obviously wasn't, so he'd better be careful. He'd have to control the crazy impulse that drove him to transform ugly walls.

Crossing over to the Jack Hatch'es Junk-yard, he sat down against the tall wire fence to scoff the rest of his hot dog. He'd bought the biggest one possible, but still could have eaten more. Dam the growth spurt, it made him ravenous.

Suddenly, something hit the fence like a torpedo, and shanghaied off like a rocket. He turned and saw a black demon with savage teeth and a tunnel throat that howled like the horrors hell. Joel sprang to his feet in one leap, shooting the sausage skywards with his sharp reflexes. With a desperate grab, he caught it again, before it hit the dirt.

'Got me!' he laughed as he saw it was just the poor junk-yard dog. At first he thought he'd have to move to eat in peace, but then glanced at the thin, hungry creature and felt sympathy. A few weeks earlier, he'd taken a snoop around the junk-yard when it was open and he'd seen the poor thing tied on a short chain with no water. He overheard the unpleasant proprietor.

'Starve 'em a bit. That keeps 'em mean. Mean is what I like.' The question had crossed his mind, why does a worthless old junkyard need such a ferocious dog. Humph! Being underfed had not made Joel vicious, only small. The dog wasn't small, but it was far more under privileged than he was. That unfortunate prisoner couldn't nip down to the pub for a drink or grab a hot dog when its owner didn't feed it. Joel broke the end off his precious hot dog and pushed it through the wire. The dog wolfed it with one greedy gulp. The tail wagged just a little bit as the big soulful eyes begged for more. He broke off another chunk.

'That's all you get mate, I'm hungry too.' The dog lay down against the fence, its skinny ribs warm against the boy's back. A sense of kinship passed between the two at the point of bodily contact. The boy bravely put his hand through the wire and stroked the dog's coarse hair. It gently licked his fingers.

'I'm going to name you JD because you're the genuine junk-yard dog, not fakes like those guys around the corner. Guess what. We've got the same initials, see?' Initials were easy for Joel. He always had a hard time with spelling, which sometimes spoiled his graffiti. On other occasions, it looked deliberate and cool with a letter or two turned back to front.

From that day on, Joel brought JD food or scrounged it for him from various bins. Within a couple of weeks the dog's hair became sleek until he looked quite reasonable. After dark, he would bound to the fence to meet the source of his sustenance, the god-like object of his adoration.

Down at the Station!

On one particular night several months later, Joel brought a bag of spray cans out of hiding. He planned to honour his new friend with a portrait on the opposite warehouse wall. He'd decided to accompany with the caption. 'The Jenuine Junkyard Dog.' Of course, it had its implications, but the fake Junkyard Dogs didn't know he was the Graffiti King, no one had any idea, except maybe, that damned cop.

On this fateful night, Joel concentrated so completely on his portrait of JD, he didn't hear the police vehicle turn into the street. The car pulled over by the junkyard fence and they peered in there. He swiftly turned out his flash light, crouching down low among the bins, but it was too late.

'Hey! You!' a voice called. He sprang like a rabbit from his hiding place and though he could run like a hare, there were four uniforms closing in on him. He ducked under the arm of one, up over the bins, put a foot on the shoulder of another and tried to jump over the next who caught him by the shoe and brought him down. Seeing his friend so roughly handled, JD broke into hysterics. He would have eaten the lot of them.

'Caught the brat at last,' one of them crowed as he picked him up and dumped him squirming in the back seat of their car. JD's howl faded in the distance like a lonely police siren. He slumped onto the ground. They'd taken away his only friend!

Joel hunched miserably in the back seat. He was in real trouble now.

In the interrogation room, they said, 'Why all the graffiti, why the picture of the dog?'

Joel mumbled, glum in his honesty. What did he have to lose? 'It's the only thing I'm good at and that dog's my friend.' Just then the tall cop walked in. He raised his eyebrows and crossed his arms. Joel felt embarrassed, as though he'd let him down. The burly cop turned to his lanky colleague and said. 'Thanks for the tip off, Jason.'

So he did know! Joel rankled with dark resentment. Can't trust him.

The stocky cop continued. 'One of yours I reckon. We can only caution him, he's only fourteen. Sorry mate, I know you've got enough of them on your plate already - all over the place like spaghetti, this kid's graffiti.'

'It's OK. One more won't make any difference.' Joel bristled at 'Jason's' comment. Nice to know I don't make a difference, he thought bitterly. In his own way, with his graffitti, he'd been trying to make a difference for years.

Suddenly, his betrayer offered his hand in a friendly fashion. 'Jason Lander,' he nodded. The gesture made Joel feel equal, not like a criminal anymore.

He slowly offered his own hand. 'What will happen to me now?' he muttered.

'Nuthin,' said Jason Lander, 'If you stop writing all over everything.'

Joel smothered a gasp. Of course his game was over! He'd lived for the game! A sudden wave of tragedy flooded his body. He felt like half his world had just gone down the drain. Amazingly, Jason noticed.

'Remember what I told you at the hot dog shop? One door closes and another opens. I might be able to land you a job or two doing exactly what you're good at. Cheer up, the world hasn't come to an end.' He picked up the bag of spray cans and handed it to him. Joel could hardly believe the man was actually returning the tools of the crime. Jason gazed down at him with an open, accepting kind of look that made him want to cry.

He looked away sharply and muttered 'Can I go now?'

'Yep, I know where you live. Later on, I'll drop off some boards for you. We have a few photos here of your previous efforts. I'm not supposed to but I'll see if I can sneak some copies so you can make a resume.'

'Thanks,' replied Joel politely. He hadn't missed the statement that he was just one of many, so he wouldn't hold his breath. People often promised him things they didn't do, especially his parents.

At the door, Jason Lander pointed to a car, 'Get in,' he said, 'I can't let you loose on the streets in the dark.'

Why not? thought Joel. The dark is when I come out. What will I do when I can't graff.? Make a nuisance of myself like the Junk-yard Dogs? What he really wanted was to go and see JD to show him he was OK. Amazingly, Lander stopped by the portrait and got out his flash camera. Joel bounded over to JD. Though overjoyed to see him, agitation gripped the dog. When his friend walked away, his bark became even crazier. He sounded totally insane.

'Wow, He hates to let you go doesn't he?' Jason Lander observed with a sigh.

Joel glanced at him. He'd caught something quite sad in his tone. 'You got kids?' he ventured.

'No.'

'A wife?'

No. She left me a couple of months ago because my job with borderline kids proved too demanding. I thought she understood, but then again, there are limits.' Joel almost felt guilty. 'Get in, kid, I'll take you home.'

'But something's wrong with JD. I need to find out.' He blurted.

'Yeah, He's probably saying 'get me out of here.' 'JD,' is that what you call him?'

'Yeah - Junk-yard Dog.'

'Why'd you give him the same name as your enemies?'

'Because he's the real junk-yard dog, they're just fakes.'

'Of course,' Jason laughed and nodded towards the portrait. 'Look kid, I can't leave you here, it ain't protocol and I've got to get back to the station. Get in. Sorry. I can see you'd rather talk to that dog than to your parents'

'They'll be in the pub.'

'So you usually fend for yourself?'

'Yep.'

Do you have breakfast before school?'

Joel didn't like these questions, but he mumbled the truth

'Not often.'

Rummaging over the back seat with his long arm, Jason came up with a loaf of fresh bread. He was thinking, these poor kids are between a rock and a hard place - the law on one side and useless parents on the other. Jason handed it to him. Joel felt himself blush. Accepting this felt worse than stealing. It felt like begging. At least he felt there was some skill and ingenuity in nicking things.

'Thank you,' he muttered politely as he fled from the car. Would this Jason Lander guy prove to be friend or foe?

As soon as Lander's car disappeared from view, he jogged the few kilometres back to JD who exploded into a volley of barks, running into the centre of the yard and back again. Joel had never thought of letting JD out, though Jason had unwittingly sown the seed. It wouldn't be wise, he decided. JD might eat someone and get shot.

He could see the dog wanted to show him something, wanted him to follow. He went totally berserk. Joel looked up at the barbed wire on the top of the fence. It didn't look very inviting. Then he spotted an old car mat on JD's side. He'd never asked JD to do anything before and presumed he hadn't been trained, but the dog actually did understand when he called 'fetch!' though he didn't know what to fetch. He tried a bit of an old fender, a smashed car light and a torn singlet, before finally dragging the car mat over. Joel managed to squeeze his hand underneath the wire and pull it through. With characteristic agility, he scaled the fence, flapped the mat over the sharp bit and flipped onto the inside. JD barked, beside himself with joy at having his friend on the same side for once. After smothering him with licks, he loped off towards the old cars. Joel followed, knowing he was trespassing, but he felt driven to find out what the trouble was. The dog rushed to a small red car and scratched at the boot. It proved to be firmly locked. Maybe someone had left food in there thought Joel. JD was a sucker for food. He looked around for something to force it with and found a wheel brace and a sliver of metal to poke in the lock. As he worked on it, he was aware that now he was breaking and entering, something else to add to his record. Then, he noticed something that stopped his heart dead. Blood spattered all over the back bumper! He felt the impulse to drop the wheel brace and run, but the thought that who or what was inside the boot might still be alive, kept him there, nerves shaking. There wouldn't be much air left. He knew the crusher came on Thursdays - tomorrow. Was this actually a murder?

'Come on, 'he growled through clenched teeth as he wrenched at the lock. Sweat stood out on his forehead and beaded his downy upper lip. Suddenly, the boot popped to reveal the worst – a middle aged man in a suit with a bald and bloodied head. Joel poked him warily in the ribs with the wheel brace. It was against his instinct to touch a dead guy. When the man groaned, he jumped back and stood stock still, shocked and gob-smacked for a moment. Then, realising the victim might be near death, he grabbed his wits and sprinted to the office building, forcing the door with his pick and brace. An alarm rang out. The night guard and police would soon be here. Scrabbling for the light, he flipped the switch. Finding the phone, he quickly dialled emergency and gave the address for an ambulance. Then pacing nervously, he waited. Should he run away? What if the murderer came back? 'Breaking and entering' kept running through his mind. He didn't know which way to go. It seemed all too easy to get into further trouble once he'd started, even with the best intentions.

Before long, a night watch arrived. When he appeared at the door with his flash light, JD flew at him, hackles up and tore the sleeve off his uniform. Joel dragged him off with great effort, barely able to hold him.

After regaining his composure the Watch asked sharply. 'What are you doing here?'

'There's a guy almost dead in the boot of a car in there,' Joel pointed. The guard was obviously not going to walk past him. Who could blame him? As far as he was concerned, apart from JD, a gang of thugs could be waiting on the other side of the door.

Astride JD, Joel puffed as he held him down, 'I've rang the ambulance, they should be on their way.'

At that, the guard relaxed. He'd already called the police on his mobile, so it didn't take them long to appear. Joel hoped Jason Lander would be with them, but he wasn't. One of them pointed his gun at the hysterical JD.

'Its OK,' yelled Joel, 'I'll tie him up.' He reluctantly dragged him over and clipped him onto the short chain in his filthy corner. The cop took the boy by the arm and snapped a hand cuff over his wrist.

'Why are you here, kid?

'There's a man in trouble out there in the boot of a car.' How many times did he have to say it?

When the ambulance arrived, Joel did not see what happened because the cops whisked him off to the police station again. Where was Jason Lander? They locked him in the interview room. Because of several emergencies going down, he spent the whole night in there with nowhere to sleep. The only comfort he felt was that it wasn't a cell. In the morning the door unlocked and two unknown cops burst in.

'Opps, sorry, forgot we had you here!' One turned to the another. 'For goodness sake, contact his parents and let them know he's here. They'll be worried sick.'

'Can I have a glass of water?' Joel croaked. 'And can I speak to Jason Lander?'

'Jason? Is he your mentor?'

'Yes.'

'Should be in soon. We should wait for him,' suggested the other guy. 'They talk better with him around.'

JD never left Joel's mind. If they arrested the owner what would happen to him? He was too mean for any of them to handle. They might just shoot him. What was worse, the cops seemed deaf to all his questions. At least Jason might listen. He waited, nervously rocking to and fro, clutching his jug of water. JD would need his help urgently. No one else would help him.

Jason came in whistling. His carefree attitude annoyed Joel who sat grumpily hunched over on his chair, wound up tight like a spring. Others followed the youth worker and the interrogation began.

'What's going on?' asked Jason, straddling a chair backwards. 'Why did you break in last night after I took you home?'

'You know. I went back to see JD. He went ape so I climbed the fence to see what he wanted. He led me to that car. It was locked so I opened it with a wheel brace. There was a man in there. I broke into the office and rang the ambulance. The night watch came, then the police, then the ambulance. That's all. What will happen to JD?'

'Dunno,' said Jason, scratching his chin.

'They'll kill him won't they?' The boy held a sob down with great effort.

'Stay on track,' the other policeman demanded. 'This looks like a case of attempted murder. It's serious. You could be telling us anything. Once again, why were you in there?'

'I told you,' snapped Joel, weary with sleepless worry, 'The dog showed me.'

'I don't think -'

'Its OK,' said Jason, 'That's all for now.' The other cop shrugged, picked up his file and walked out with the others.

'They locked me in here all night, I lay down on the floor but I couldn't sleep,' said Joel, rubbing the sore spots.

'That was a mistake. I'm not supposed to tell you this, but they've arrested the junk-yard owner. They know you didn't do anything, but they think you might know something.

'I don't. What about JD!'

'OK, I'll go and see what the score is for JD. The trouble is, only you can control him. The problem is that we can't let you go before we've thoroughly questioned you. You were at the scene of the crime you know.'

Joel groaned. Would a busy guy like Jason really bother about a scruffy down trodden dog like JD? He was angry.

'I've told you everything I know,' he yelled, short tempered from lack of sleep.

'Calm down, I feel you have, but they don't know that. Trust me. I'll do all I can for JD, apart from getting my head gnawed off.'

When the detectives came back to question him yet again, Jason was not with them. Joel's heart sank. He kept repeating the little he knew. It was a harrowing experience, especially being held, with JD's welfare constantly on his mind. When they finally brought him some lunch, he was so wound up, he couldn't eat it.

The sun was setting by the time Jason finally came back. They charged Joel with breaking and entering and then sent him home because he was under age. Jason said it was just a formality, that the charges would be dropped.

'Where is JD?' Joel demanded.

'Where he always was,' replied Jason calmly. 'Because of the investigations, I can't let him off that little chain. More to the point, I'm too damned scared. I have fed him, if that's any comfort. C.I.D. want him removed, but I managed to say that in the interest of the youth group, he is to be protected. Messages can get confused, so I also put a big sign in front of him. Still wants my skin though.'

'J.D. or C.I.D.?'

'Both! JD makes a lot of noise. They long to shut him up, but hello, they aren't going to let you into the scene to have a go are they?'

Joel, struggled, feeling resentment rising. 'It's because of him the man's alive,' he muttered, grateful that JD was OK - for the moment at least.

Jason answered, 'Don't know if the man is saved yet, but he's hanging in there. He has a mighty skull. I'm told the blow he took was guaranteed to kill. Anyone with a normal conk would be dead.

'Who is he?'

'I'm not at liberty to say.'

'How long will it be before I can see JD?'

'Don't know. He's a part of the evidence.

'As if he can tell them anything.' sneered Joel.

'He told you something fairly important, didn't he?'

'He's a hero, he shouldn't be a candidate for death row.'

'Yes, and you shouldn't be a kid charged with breaking and entering, either. The world of law is a very strange one, master Joel.'

'You're telling me nothing,' he returned sulkily.

Joel's mother came to the station. She looked sober and frightened. When Jason told her Joel had not been a bad boy, but rather a smart one, she visibly relaxed. She didn't want to take any responsibility. They left together, as the law would have them do.

Jason would try not to let him down. Despite the present chaos of his occupation, he managed to feed JD as well as drop off some painting boards at Joel's house. Joel stood them against his bedroom wall. He felt obliged to decorate them very well now that Jason Lander had become his only link to JD. At least he could occupy himself over this worrying time. Joel's bedroom literally bulged with the strange perspective of graffiti. He could make the room seem bigger or smaller at whim. There were dark, virtual corridors leading off to all kinds of light filled snapshots, from battles to tranquil lakes and alien landscapes. The phenomena deserved public attention.

After a week of worry about JD, for he couldn't hear him bark at the back of the junkyard anymore, his mother told him Jason Lander had come and taken away the painted boards while he was at school. He hoped she hadn't sold them herself. To his relief, he found a hastily scrawled note on his bed. Had Jason seen his room or had his mother put it there? She wouldn't have thought to show him the room. The note said

'JD in pound. The police canine unit says you will have to prove you can control him and that you have a place to keep him. Check you later,

singed 'Jason.'

Stuck in the Pound

Joel felt cold. He didn't know if he could control JD in public. How the heck could he find out with him stuck in the pound? He had absolutely nowhere to keep him even if he could get him out. Anger prickled on the back of his neck. Life seemed over fond of harassing the down trodden. It loved presenting them with impossible hoops to jump through. He did not have a phone number for Jason Lander and waiting for him to make a move rankled hugely. Joel saw himself as a man of action and the waiting game had never suited him. He decided to walk to the pound during school time to visit JD. Poor JD. None of this was his fault. The pound was kilometres away and his skateboard was broken. At times like this he wished he had a bike. Of course he could 'borrow' an idle one he saw along the way, but a picture of Sally Grey came up in his mind. These days, he tried not to do that sort of thing.

Sweat ran down his back by the time he got there. When he asked to see JD the girl in charge said,

'I don't know about that. He's in the restricted area.' Still puffing hard from the very long jog, Joel managed to hold his temper. Restricted, did that mean death row?

'Not yet. It just means he's vicious.' she explained. 'If someone wants a watch dog and can prove they can handle him, then perhaps he'll get a reprieve.

Who could do that? wondered Joel. He knew JD presented a very unlovable face to everyone else but him. Squeezing the pork crackle in his pocket, he begged.

'Can't I just say hello? JD was a hero in a police investigation.' The young woman raised her eyebrows. He hoped he'd find her a soft touch.

'Alright but I can't let you take him out, OK?'

JD howled and shrieked when he saw his friend. He ran around in tight circles.

'Oh no!' said the girl. 'He's only just quietened down. Tell him to shut up or we'll have neighbourhood complaints all over again.' Joel told him to shut up which he did. The girl looked surprised. He whined softly through clenched teeth and pawed the fence, his big brown eyes gazing lovingly at his lord and master, begging, 'Take me out of here!' Joel cased the lock. It looked very sturdy. If he tried to bust him out at night, all the dogs there would raise hell. Even if he did, where would he hide him? With a voice like his, JD would betray himself at every turn. Death row was full of beautiful, mean dogs, much more appealing than JD. Did his friend stand any chance for adoption at all?

'I'd take them all home if I could,' confessed the employee softly.

I'm in! thought Joel.

She smiled 'You can get through to most of them after a while. Treat them nice and they become nice.'

Yeah! thought Joel, All dogs and some kids! He stared at the other JD's on death row who looked back at him with what he saw as hope in their eyes. He couldn't let himself think about it and he couldn't allow himself to do anything wrong now. He was stuck, having to depend on this Jason Lander fellow.

'I want him back,' He stated flatly. The girl's brown eyes were soft, quite like a dog's. She said 'My name's Sophie, what's yours?'

'Joel.'

'OK Joel, I'll pretend I didn't see you. Hang out, spend some time. If you hear anyone coming, it might be my boss. Hide around the back or I'll be in big trouble.' she winked and walked away.

Even when you can't see the full plan, you have to start somewhere, thought Joel. JD's wise eyes were on his master. 'Sit!' he said. JD seemed to sense his urgency and did so. He'd learned that somewhere. 'Lie down,' proved a little more difficult, Joel had to put his hand through the wire and push him down. After a while JD got it. He wagged as though he quite liked the game. 'Fetch,' was easy he'd already learned that too. The question was; could he control him if he wanted to rip a member of the public apart?

At closing time Sophie returned,

'Golly,' she said, 'That was a long stretch. I nearly forgot you and locked you in.'

Story of my life thought Joel. 'Can I come back?'

'I don't want this to break your heart.' She replied, it mightn't work you know.'

'I got to try.'

She sighed. 'OK. I work Monday Thursday and Friday.' Joel wanted to hug her. He thanked god for people like Sophie and maybe Jason - people in the world who allowed him to breathe and be alive.

On Thursday, he skated to the pound. He'd spent all night repairing his old skate board. When he got there, he found Sophie was sick and had been replaced by her very officious boss. Though tempted to punch him squarely on his dogged chin, Joel settled for calling 'good bye!' to him in a very loud voice, so JD heard and set the whole menagerie howling like the hounds of Baskerville. As he took off he decided to detour to the police station. Where was Jason Lander? He had to contact him somehow, this was intolerable. When he got there, of course, the guy wasn't around, and when he asked for his phone number, of course it was denied,

'Oh well if he didn't he give it to you, it's not for us to do.

'When's he back?'

'Dunno. He has his own schedule.'

'Could you tell him Joel Denby wants to see him?' Would that work? Would they bother? He didn't think so.

Joel cursed under his breath as he left. Life was tough. Still, it had taught him not to let anything beat him, so he decided to do his own sleuthing and find out where Lander lived. Thinking of telephone addresses, he cruised into a phone box and was surprised to find there were five J Landers in nearby suburbs, though he sensed not one of them was Jason. A guy who worked with delinquents would probably have a silent number. He considered the youth group. It would probably be as difficult to wrangle the number off them as it was off the police station.

Suddenly, he hit on a great idea. Joey Ainsworth's dad's Pizza delivery! He hoped Jason liked pizza. If he liked hot dogs, without a wife to cook, there was a good chance he'd be into fast foods and would get pizza deliveries quite regularly. Joel was off like a rocket on his skate board, trying to think of a valid reason why he should be given Jason's phone number, let alone be taken there by the delivery van. When he reached the pizza parlour, he found Joey's dad overwhelmed, fighting a sea of dough and molten cheese.

'Hi Mr Ainsworth. I found Jason Landers credit card in the parking lot. Do you have his number so I can return it asap?'

'Whoops!' said Joey's dad, 'He'll want to know about that.' Ted Ainsworth was too busy to think much about it and flipped open a diary near his phone.

'Look under L, and give him a bell.' There was a line of hungry, impatient punters stretching out his door.

Of course, Jason wasn't home. When-ever was he? Never-the-less, Joel scribbled the number on his wrist.

'He's not home,' he said. 'It's urgent. Will the delivery van take me there? I'll post the card under his door or wait till he comes home.'

'Possibly.' replied Joey's sweating dad, 'Do you need to see him personally?'

'Yeah,' smirked Joel. 'Actually, I need to see the man about a dog.'

'OK. Be here in an hour. We've got seventeen Pizzas over that way tonight.

'Bulls-eye! thought Joel, and amended it to 'maybe' bulls-eye. He'd learned well that life can be contrary. It was a plus that the boss didn't know Jason's was a silent number.

At six-thirty the delivery van dropped him at Jason Landers. No one was there - of course! The tucked away house looked like an ordinary, friendly suburban home with a nice peaked roof, much better than anything Joel had ever lived in. It looked as though it had been made to house a woman. He poked around as evening crickets sang. A fence encircled the back yard as though in preparation for children, or, maybe, thought Joel - a dog? But why would Jason want a scruffy, vicious mongrel in his back yard? Obviously, it would be very different from his original plan.

Joel knew he shouldn't poke around someone else's property too much, so he waited on the step for a long time. In deep disappointment, he stood up to leave, just as Lander's car appeared in the drive-way.

The cop stared at him hard, as he closed his car door. 'How'd you find me Joel? Most don't unless I want 'em to.'

Joel stared back just as hard. 'Since you eat hot dogs, I thought you might order Pa's Pizzas now and again. I told them I'd found your credit card, and that I know you so they let me come with the delivery van to return it. They don't know you have a private number by the way.' He was worming to get on the right side of Jason.

Lander raised his eyebrows, assessing him. 'Thanks, maybe I'd better fix that. You're not stupid, are you kid!' He looked tired. Joel guessed that he'd probably been dealing with difficult kids all day and here was another one right on his doorstep, but he continued. 'Now you're here, you'd better come in.' He opened his door and laid some files on the table. The place seemed clean but a bit of a mess. Joel could see a woman didn't live there anymore, just a busy man.

'What do you want? I see you've missed a lot of school this week,' he said.

Damn. How did he know? 'I was visiting JD.' Joel returned with a stubborn glare.

Lander stopped, 'Oh god. JD! Look, I'll ring about him first thing in the morning.'

Joel' heart sank. His hopes sank. How long did JD have? With that horrible boss guy in charge, he might be gone already.

Looking Lander in the eye, his voice caught in his throat, 'I want him back!' His mentor's track record was not looking good.

'I'll try,' replied Jason somewhat weakly. He felt bad. No matter how much he did, they always showed him up. Just now there were too many serious things going on to get everything right. He needed a break.

You said that before, thought Joel accusingly, but he held his tongue and fiddled with a segmented wooden fish on Jason's side-board. After all it was a favour. He knew street kids and junk-yard dogs don't rank high on most people's list of importance, but he hoped they'd score little better with a youth worker.

'I got you a job,' said Lander, in a consoling tone.

'I've already got a job,' snapped Joel, abruptly, as he thought, don't you dare change the subject on me.

'Not like this one. It's a commission to paint a large sign above the hot dog shop. The guy was impressed with what I showed him. He'll pay you well, too.'

'I can't do it.' Joel muttered, tight lipped.

'You holding me to ransom? What do you want?

'JD! How can I concentrate with him on death row?'

'That bad is it?'

'I don't let friends down.' stated Joel firmly. Joey Ainsworth floated across his mind with that crooked smile of his and an eye blackened on his account.

Jason Lander smiled. He had to admit that he quite liked this kid. 'If I don't manage to get this dog for you, will you write me off?'

'I'll just walk out of your life. It's not the worst thing that could happen to you.'

'It might be for you.'

'I don't need anybody, I just want JD.'

'You might need someone to head you off in the right direction.'

'You get me JD and I'll do anything you want.' Joel replied. He hoped Jason saw it as a fair bargain.

'Will you!' Jason relaxed into a grin. The kid was bargaining for the dog, not really intending to hold him to ransom., He saw him basically as a boy worth salvaging - lousy back ground, but fine, strong character. Talent too. These kids were worth the effort. It usually didn't take much for the borderlines - a bit of attention and a shove in the right direction. Often they didn't get it because the real hard core kids took up all his time, ending with little change. Unfortunately, Management worked that way.

If the dog is what it takes, then that's what it takes, Jason decided. 'Alright. He can live in my yard for a while. Unfortunately, there's nothing else going on here.'

Joel wanted to leap up on him like an elated pup and hug him, but instead he paced stiffly up and down.

'You feed him though,' warned his mentor, who in Joel's eyes, had taken a sudden promotion from dung-heap worm to hero. 'Remember, you're the one who has to care for him.' Jason added'

'Yes' replied Joel meekly, then his hopes took another dive. 'But how can I do it? I'll have to give up my job because I can't get here, and there, at the same time after school and then I won't have any money to buy our food.' Joel stood frowning. Another impossible hoop loomed in front of him. Life really was a circus, full of ridiculous stunts.

Jason raised a brow, making note of Joel's 'our food,' comment. 'You forget. I already got you another job that can be done in your own time. Changed your mind about that one yet?'

'You bet, but it's only one short job. I'll have to find others. What else do you want me to do? I'll do anything for you if you save JD.'

Jason laughed, 'I'm not bargaining for a slave you know.'

Joel smiled apologetically. 'I might have to stay in the yard with him till he learns to shut up at night or your neighbours will get him thrown out, maybe you too. He sounds like twenty hell hounds at a football match when he gets going.'

'Wow! Didn't think of that. Actually, there is a sleep-out at the back. You can go in there for a couple of weeks. Both of you are on trial though, remember that.' Lander led him through and showed him the yard and the sleep out. Suddenly, everything seemed too good to be true. Then Joel heard something even more remarkable. 'Would you like to watch the police dogs being trained? Leave JD home though. Just watch and learn.'

Joel felt elated. He wanted to shriek, but managed to control the impulse. Lately, when his emotions were high, strange, rather inelegant sounds escaped his mouth. Just when he wanted to sound cool in front of Sally Grey, he honked like a crate full of demented drakes.

'Can I come with you to pick him up?' He kept his voice low and tentative, hardly believing he would be allowed.

The classic expression on Jason's face let him know how dumb the question was. 'What do you mean can you come? Do you think I want to get my gawd-durned head ripped orf?'

Joel laughed. Why was the guy doing this for him? Perhaps he'd let himself like this Jason Lander fellow after all – just a little bit.

Hot Dags

After a very happy boy had left, the tired policeman sat on his back veranda with a cold beer, wondering if he should pour it over his own head. Instead, he gave himself a severe lecture. 'Just what do you think you're doing, Lander? You know damned well you shouldn't let these kids into your space. This might be the last time you can relax in your own fav. spot. It'll be out of bounds with a hairy, sharp toothed, half psychotic tenant here. He meant the dog, not the boy, though he thought about the wayward youth he had been and still cringed at some of the things he'd done. Since he'd changed, life was better in some ways and worse in others. Back then, he'd thought his friendships in crime were close, but now he could see they were illusions caused by the risks they took together. They vanished whenever his presence didn't serve them anymore. He knew the gangs sealed the mouths of their young recruits by making betrayal heavy with shame, so few had the courage to speak up when they thought things had gone too far. Human nature was still the same in the police force, though hopefully on the right side of the law. Here too, friendships increased with risks. Having experienced these scenarios had made Jason Lander cynical about friendship.

In the morning light, he was as equally doubtful as he had been the night before. He wanted to change his mind, but he nobly kept his word and picked Joel up at his house at nine. Joel had spent the whole night worrying that Jason would back out. He knew the decision hung by a thread. The boy flew into the seat beside the policeman, relieved and excited as a puppy going a holiday, trying hard not to show it. Jason was wise enough to know that with these kids, you didn't break your word, unless you wanted to lose them altogether. This dog meant everything to the skinny urchin. He knew Joel had to deal with double alcoholism in his home. He would not be used to people keeping their word. Lander knew that what the kid thought of him could make or break his young life, but he felt weary of all the responsibility. Usually the good workers burnt out, but he knew someone had hung on long enough for him, so he'd try to hang on as long as he could.

Because of the police business, the red tape seemed endless, but finally the pound released JD into Jason Lander's care. Officially, he still belonged to Jack Hatch who had been charged and arrested, but not yet convicted.

The savage junkyard dog sat with Joel in the back seat of Jason's car, trembling all over. The boy placed his hand on the broad head. 'Stop shaking, you big whoos. Remember you're on probation, so you'd better behave yourself.'

Jason didn't miss Joel's imitation of his voice and sighed silently. OK kid, I won't let you down if you don't let me down. Jason was used to being let down by them, used to disappointment, though there seemed to be something different about this one, something he couldn't quite figure.

Joel diligently attended the police dog training. He had a special pass that made him feel important and carefully transferred all that he learned to JD. Finally, he was allowed to bring JD to be tested, and the junkyard mongrel came through well at least he didn't to eat any policemen.

With this positive social progress, Joel took him down to the Hot Dog shop along with his spray cans and his father's extension ladder. It was imperative that he keep this relationship with Jason Lander sweet, not because it was important to him in itself, but because of JD.

He showed the shop owner his sketches. It struck Joel as weird that Mr Ainsworth, an Englishman did pizza and an Italian did hot dogs. Was it some kind of cultural exchange?

With the enthusiasm of his race, Mario had him up the ladder and painting right away, amid ecstatic shouts. 'Muma Mia! D' drawing looks so gooda! I could bring sauce and eata d' paper.'

It took Joel some time to feel comfortable painting in front of the public eye. At first, he felt rather rude exposing his talent, so to speak. His art had always been practiced illegally and in the dark with only the stars to watch. He felt almost as though he was streaking naked in broad daylight, or something equally antisocial. He also knew he had to finish the masterpiece before sundown when the Junk-yard Dogs would come skulking around. Even with JD on guard, being perched on top of a ladder made him a sitting duck for an attack from below. It wasn't the most secure position.

He sprayed the finishing touches on his hot dog extravanza. As he worked, fat sausage letters appeared and curved enticingly, sizzling with promised flavour, dripping with luscious sauce. He even painted globules of sauce running along the veranda guttering and drooling down the upright poles. The effect was sensational. He felt warm and proud, even better than he did about his graffiti. Just as he gathered up his cans and brushes to climb down, he heard a triumphant roar.

'You're dead, Denby.' Tom Pratt! JD's hackles stood up, but with great effort, he stayed down. He was doing as he had been taught - being a good dog. The rest of the gang appeared from around various street corners, gloating, feeling safe with their seven to one odds. They didn't even notice JD.

Pratt bumped the ladder hard with his shoulder, unbalancing Joel. 'Oops!' he yelled. 'Oh I am sorry!'

Joel knew the only way to break a devastating fall would be to land directly on Pratt. He assessed which way the ladder was about to fall and leaped, landing nimbly on his opponent's shoulders, knocking him to the ground. Another of the gang raced up, and grabbed Joel by the hair. Another kicked him. Instantly, JD buzzed himself up like an ogre and flew at the aggressor from behind, ripping the seat clear out of his pants. Strands of fabric and traces of flesh came away on his teeth. The boy screamed and ran off with JD hot after him, his bloody buttocks working hard, diminishing rapidly with distance.

Pratt sat on the pavement stunned and confused. With JD safely off after their mate, the rest of his gang bravely converged on Joel. They pushed the smaller boy back against the wall and punched him in the face.

'Pulp him!' slurred Pratt stupidly, rubbing his head and staggering to his feet. Just then Jason Lander happened to cruise by to check on Joel. He was in plain clothes. Jumping out of the car, he slammed the door and roared,

'I'm a cop, so nic orf before I shove ya all in the clink.'

Strangely they did not recognise him without his uniform, and believing it was all bluff, they began to bait him. Joel wondered if all policemen in uniform looked the same to them, kind of like cows, horses and of course, pigs.

'So what, big boy,' said one large, heftily built member. 'There's six of us and one of you,'

'Get him,' said the next, attempting a dangerously tough stance that bordered on the ridiculous. Jason casually put his back to the wall. They had no idea who they were dealing with - the long legged Tie Kwan Do mogul who taught all the great moves at the Police Boys club. Just then JD returned, tongue lolling out, puffing with satisfaction at the success of his little venture. Then he saw Joel. Completely ignoring Jason's plight, he raced over to lick the blood from his young master's nose. Meanwhile Jason managed to hold the gang at bay. He kept them away without hurting them much, teasing and playing with them. The infuriated gang flailed wildly. Them one bent to pick up a stone. Joel came to his senses in time and yelled in alarm,

'J D, Git 'em,!'

JD powered in like a crazy Ferrari, scattering boys in all directions.

One of them yowled as he beat a hasty retreat, 'We'll get that thing put down, you wait and see.'

'Not smart, was Jason's retort. 'The dog's record is much better than yours.'

Joel reluctantly called JD off. Miraculously, he obeyed, satisfying his fury by ripping up an abandoned sand-shoe. After the scrap, having carefully avoided the action, Mario invited them in and gave Joel some tissues for his nose.

'Da boys eata mucha hot doga, so I let dem hang up here.' he apologised.

Joel thought, Don't put me off. Hot dogs must pickle their brains.

Mario paid Joel well for a young non professional and apologised again for not yet having installed lights to offset his wonderful signage. Because it had become too dark to see, neither Joel nor Jason saw the glaring mistake. They were offered a free hot dog each and left for home, oblivious of what Joel had written for the world to see.

To protect his privacy, Jason changed his phone number. A few days previously, he'd upgraded to a new phone and passed his old one on to Joel. The boy noticed he didn't give him his new number, but still he felt he'd come up in the world. He had a phone number to give to Sally Grey, which he did immediately. Now they could talk without a Junk-yard Dog eaves-dropping on every word. He waited, wondering how long it would take to get a call from her. He felt fearful that he may have lost her. Conducting their relationship under such traumatic circumstances had not been easy for him.

Early on the Saturday morning, on a rare night he'd stayed at his parents, his phone rang. It was Sally Grey! In surprise, Joel made to sit down on his bed, missing the edge completely and falling with a heavily onto his skate board. It behaved noisily. He heard a growl from JD whom he had sneaked in the night before, and who lay snoring under his bed, his watchful nose sticking out like a gun barrel. Joel had wanted to test how quiet he could keep him while his parents slept after a bender the night before. They'd be very grumpy. He was grateful when JD only grumbled, pulled his nose in and redistributed his considerable weight, bumping around softly under the bed.

'You alright?' Sally asked with a giggle. 'It sounded like you fell and then growled like an animal.'

'Just the man practising his stunts,' Joel replied as coolly as he could, grinding his teeth and rubbing his backside. It really hurt.

'You did a funny stunt on the Hot Dog shop.' Sally chuckled with delight.

'Funny?' Joel froze. What the heck did she mean - funny? It was meant to be stunning!

'Looks great, but who told you to write 'Hot Dags. It's classic. Every-one is laughing.'

Joel's bubble burst, almost audibly. He felt all his pride in his work splat all over the four walls of his bedroom and drool dejectedly down. So it wasn't a sweetheart's call at all, but worse, he'd botched the job. He could feel his face sizzle like a sausage. Hot dags. Oh no, oh god! He'd done it again, just when it meant everything to impress Sally and the world with his first legitimate sign. He'd have to fix it soon as possible. His eyes swivelled towards the clock which showed eight-thirty.

'Oh, ....er.... I've got to go. I'll ... er ... ring soon.' Her first call and he sounded so lame, but he knew he had barely half an hour before Mario opened for special weekend breakfasts.

Joel grabbed his paints, skate-board and ladder. Avoiding pedestrians on a skate-board with a swaying ladder proved extremely difficult. He hoped there weren't too many casualties littered in his wake. With monkey-like agility, he scaled the shop front, held the card-board in place and aimed his spray can. Just then another explosion erupted from across the street.

'Naw, Naw! Donta you touch!' There was no mistaking Mario's frantic call. Joel froze. What now?

'I grab you stop!' puffed Mario, jogging up, his ample stomach swinging from side to side. 'Since you do signage, every one come in to tell me. Dey laugh and dena dey buy! Don'ta change nothing. I do very happy!'

Joel perched on the top of the ladder feeling quite confused. His elbow bumped his knee, causing him to depress the nozzle and spray a large hot dog coloured blotch behind his ear. Never before had praises been sung for his spelling mistakes - certainly not at school. They had been a terrible blot on his life, high among the other blots allotted to him, rather unfairly, he felt.

Though he had other plans for the night's meal, Mario plied him with some frozen junk food he couldn't refuse. Actually, he'd purchased ingredients for a tasty Thai dinner which he wanted to make as a thank you for Jason. He would not say thank-you directly, it wasn't his style, but in truth, he could not thank him enough. He'd found the recipe poking out from under a rubbish bin lid. Jason had made comments about the bad diet he ate ever since Shaz had left him and Joel noted it was the same as what he himself had grown up on. Jason mentioned that junk food stunts growth, yet still manages to make folk fat. Well it certainly hadn't stunted Jason's growth, but he wasn't so sure about himself. Actually he was worried. Lately his own legs seemed to have grown alarmingly, while his body stayed the same, making him look like a pea on top of a couple of bean stalks. It bothered him mildly, so, hoping it wasn't too late, he resolved to eat a better diet if his luck held out with jobs and money.

Recently to his surprise, his mentor had shown him where the house key lived. He'd said, 'If you need to go in and make a hot choc after school, feel free.' That to the street kid showed a great deal of trust. Though Jason liked to take risks, he'd also noticed that Joel had a mouth like a locked vault. He wouldn't brag about the key to the other boys. Also, with JD in his back yard he could be reasonably sure the boy wouldn't pull any silly stunts. The kid's heart was stamped on that dog.

Joel let himself in. He rummaged the cupboards and found all the spices he needed. Having already guessed that the woman of the house would have left things like oil, curry etc behind, he'd budgeted fairly well. After almost mistaking detergent for cooking oil, he read everything twice and wrote it down as well, double checking on himself to prevent any horrendous culinary disasters. Jason would be at the Police boys club tonight, so he could be quite late. Joel had already observed in the markets how they half cook food and finish it off later. The result proved tangy and tasty, filling the room with enticing odours.

As Jason burst in late, Joel whacked the wok triumphantly on the gas. He prayed his mentor hadn't already eaten. He'd learned early in life that it has a way of thwarting good intentions. Jason stood surprised for a moment, a bag from the hamburger shop dangling limply from his hand.

'Wow, what's the occasion?' he said at last.

'Non junk food,' replied Joel glibly.

'You're on!' he chuckled as he walked out the back, calling 'JD!' A yap of appreciation was heard, followed by a piggish gulp. At last the dog had taken a shine him. It occurred to Jason that the three of them did not find trust an easy number.

He returned to a steaming plate of prawn and vegetable with noodle.

'What a team!' he enthused, 'The triple J team. Joel cooks it, Jason eats it and Junk-yard Dog disposes of the junk food.'

'Triple J sounds like the radio station.' Joel loaded his fork, 'Could use a bit stronger curry,' he added. 'I picked the one that says 'wild.'

'This tastes great. It's perfect. I don't like hot curry.' replied Jason, examining the curry container. He laughed, 'It says 'mild,' not 'wild. You read the 'm' upside down.' Joel could feel the old embarrassment colouring his jaw line.

He didn't really want to tell Jason about his goof up with the sign, but he cleared his throat courageously, 'Mario says he likes it, but I accidentally wrote 'Hot Dags' on his shop.'

Jason burst into laughter, barely managing to contain his mouthful. He grabbed some kitchen paper and wiped his mouth. 'Well, your next job is at the hamburger joint. Perhaps you should write Hambuggers for him.'

Joel's own weird cacophonous laughter broke out, relieved.

'Maybe I could start a craze!' he honked. Goodness sake, he wished the dam voice would settle down.

'Yeah! You could attract tourists like blowflies, just to read the funniest signs in slums-ville. They'd bring money in. You'd change the face of the place.'

Always my intention thought Joel.

Jason glanced at him, suddenly serious. 'It's not inconceivable, you know. I've seen your bedroom. We need to get some photos because now I'm looking at the Games Cave. First, to build a reputation, it had better be me who approaches the proprietors.'

Wow. Games Cave! Joel marvelled and offered his hand 'Team?' asked tentatively.

'Team!' agreed Jason shaking the hand firmly.

Joel was aware that Jason asked nothing for his help, except to see a boy go straight. Jason had changed his life, now he wanted to return the compliment.

'What would you really like to do for your own job Jason?'

Ignorant of Joel's mindset he answered truthfully. 'Aw. Finally I'd like to be a detective. I get a kick out of solving riddles. I guess I do it anyway.'

Joel pulled a wry face. 'But you want to be paid for it, for like, pinging the neighbourhood Graffitti King.'

'It didn't turn out so bad did it? Now you get paid for graffiti and all it required was a minor shift. You just had the wrong locations.'

Says who? thought Joel, but his mind clicked like a calculator. This was the first adult he'd ever wanted to impress. Could he be as good for Jason as Jason had been for him?

'You want a shift of position too? Like a promotion?'

'Something like that. I'm stuck here with the whole mortgage and no Shaz. She and I were a team. Shaz and Jaz, we were.' Joel glimpsed the sadness again. He'd noticed how Jason ignored other women. Wow, this Shaz took some getting over! He thought about Sally Grey, how she confused him. He didn't know what to do with her, but his pride wouldn't let him ask any advice.

'How do you get a promotion?'

'Out-standing performance is one way, though often it isn't even recorded. Weedling and weaselling is probably more successful. Unfortunately I do a good job with young offenders, so I guess I'm stuck there, but I'd rather work with them in my own way. I reckon I'd be more effective.'

So, thought Joel sagely, my friend needs his woman back, plus a better paid job. I'll see what I can do. Luckily, Jason Lander was blissfully ignorant of his charge's secret intentions.

Thin Ice

Joel skated in ever tightening figures of eight until his spine wound up like a cork-screw. JD ran in mad circles around him, desperately compressing his deafening barks to a few strained yelps, quite like his boss's split vocals. Sharon Lander was on Joel's mind. How could he find out where she lived? He couldn't ask Jason directly as this mission had to be top secret. Jason certainly wouldn't approve. He'd tried to provoke an answer from his friend by stating casually,

'So she moved right away - inter state?'

Jason had mumbled, 'No, only a couple of suburbs.'

Joel could see he wouldn't tolerate questioning on the subject, so he thought long and hard about what to do. Given his old street habits, he would have rifled through Jason's belongings to further his investigations, but now the idea repelled him. It would be sacrilege to do such a thing to his new friend.

'What kind of a sleuth are you then, Denby?' he asked himself sternly. 'You found Jason didn't you? So you can find his woman.' All he knew about Sharon Lander was that she was small and liked to skate on ice. Of course the 'liked to skate on ice' bit had to be the best clue as there were myriads of small women running about everywhere. A brain-waive struck Joel and he screeched to a halt in front of the post office. He'd remembered the huge map of the city on the wall in there. He was up the steps like a scalded rabbit. With some awkward mental gymnastics he deciphered the names of the suburbs in immediate radius to Jason's and managed to copy them onto a scrap of paper. The next step would be to look up ice rinks in those areas. The post office was closing so he'd have to make do with a telephone booth book. Of course Joey Ainsworth had a computer, but Joel needed to keep this mission strictly under wraps. Telephone booths in themselves had become antiquated dinosaurs, but he remembered there was one of these quaint Dr Who-like structures right beside the police station. That in itself was disconcerting because he needed to find a book he could nic and view in comfortable surroundings, rather than jammed in a glass box in sub zero temperatures. Living with Jason had made him aware of his public nuisance value, which he gauged as considerable, and something he dearly wanted to change. Any citizen who headed for a phone booth and found the frustration of missing book would consider him a definite public nuisance, but as he skated in, he saw the receiver itself had already been half torn from its socket, and left to dangle like a dead rat at the end of a mangled cord. He regarded that as clear evidence somebody had been pushed beyond their limit at the end of a long day. No one could use it now. Relieved of his dilemma, he pounced on the book and shoved it up his jacket, escaping swiftly into the cold dusk, his conscience purged and free.

He reasoned that her address probably wouldn't be in the phone book as she had left Jason less than a year ago, but it did have the addresses of the skate rinks. There were two within 'a couple of suburbs' of Jasons. Since they were closer to his school he decided to skate there afterwards, leaving JD home. He sidled into the first stadium, hat back and board under his arm. Would they give a kid like him any info about clients? He knew an angelic face paid off with some adults, even if it didn't on the streets.

He offered the girl at the desk his most disarming smile, 'My aunt, Sharon Lander, left some of her precious skating photos at my place. I'm sure she'll want them back.' He held up a convincing envelope. 'She's moved house since. Do you know where she is?'

'Oh Sharon? yes.'

Bulls-eye! thought Joel. First skate rink, but then the girl gave a secretive frown.

'It isn't our policy to give out peoples addresses. I could ring her for you. She picked up the phone receiver.'

Fear lurched in his stomach. A phone call would be as useful as a hip pocket in his jocks. What would he say to Sharon? She didn't even know him.

'Ok,' he replied smoothly, 'but if she lives nearby, I can just post them under her door. I've skated a long way today.' A noisy group of foreign customers approached the counter, and rescued him in time.

'I suppose it won't hurt,' the girl replied hastily and scribbled an address. 'Sharon's only a few streets away. She turned away to the new customers.

'Jackpot!' thought Joel, but now he needed the street directory again and that was at Jason's. Life specialises in being a nuisance, he grouched. Then he spied a tourist board with a map on it and skated joyfully over to it. He loved doing this and suspected JD felt the same when he found a squirrel on the trail!

Keeping left and right turns firmly in mind, he found Pincher street without much trouble and skated along until he found number one hundred and seventy-seven. A young woman was washing a car in the drive-way. Joel didn't even know what Sharon looked like. He hadn't been able to squeeze the slightest description out of the tight lipped Jason. Did his friend have to be such a difficult man to help?

He skated nonchalantly past her, trying for a good look. If this was Sharon, she was little and dark, with curly hair and black eyes. There was a slight smattering of sparse freckles on her face, and her lips were full as though there might have been a tad of African American in her. If this is Shaz, thought Joel, I approve. His artistic eye picked up a kwirky handsomeness in her face, something beyond 'plain beauty.' To Joel, there was plenty of what he thought of as 'plain beauty' around. Beside tall lanky Jason, this girl would look like a cute little school kid.

She washed the car with furious energy. Joel did his moves as he skated too and fro. Once she looked up and noticed him looking and waved cheerily, but mostly she jumped around like a little ant in her black tights and skivvy. She was on the bonnet, the roof, at the wheels and all around.

Joel did another U turn and came back fast. If this wasn't the woman, he'd be very disappointed. Something about her simply yelled 'Jason.' His mind was racing. How could he get to meet her? How could he bring her back for his friend?

Just then a man came out of the house.

'Hey, Mal!' called Sharon happily. Joel took an immediate dislike. The Yerk was a Jason opposite – short and square with a self important walk.

'Good job, Shaz,' He called back, then sleezed up to her and began munching on her neck. Joel was horrified. He considered her Jason's property! Never the less, he skated by, craning his neck. Any tips he could pick up on neck munching might come in handy for future Sally Grey scenarios. Alas, he was distracted a moment too long. His skate board hit a water trap and threw him headlong into a lamp post. He swore he saw it grinning, just before it struck. As steel and flesh met in the head-butt of the century, Joel heard a ringing noise reverberate through his head and all the way down his spine. He wasn't sure whether the sound was between his ears or in the lamp post. A split second later, his crutch also connected with the offending object, freezing him in an agonising embrace before throwing him backwards onto the equally unyielding side walk.

Sharon gave a horrified shriek and ran to his aid. She put her arm under his shoulders as he rolled around, in semi-conscious agony, too embarrassed to do the Michael Jackson clutch. Pins and needles rushed through his body and he slipped from consciousness.

He woke groggily to find himself being pushed laboriously into the car. Through a weird buzzing sound, an irritated female voice echoed.

'At least you could help me get him in.'

Joel felt blood trickle into his eye as an equally irritated male voice retorted,

'I told you he isn't our problem. Just phone an ambulance.'

Joel tried to say 'creep,' but it came out spastic and slurred, sounding more like 'craaap!' Damn it, he thought fuzzily, JD isn't here. He has a talent for acting on my dislikes.

'But ambulances take ages and cost a lot. He looks like a poor boy,' he heard Sharon object.

'Please yourself,' came the resentful reply and the man stumped off into the house.

Sharon jumped into the driver's seat and hastily backed out. As Joel faded into oblivion, he congratulated himself on such a convincing way of getting to meet her. He couldn't have done better if he'd thought of it himself. By the time he reached the hospital emergency, he was still aware, but extremely disoriented. Everything went round, and he felt sick - worse than the time he'd had a bad reefer. Since that, he'd decided his body didn't like it and never smoked again.

When Sharon jumped out and pulled the car door open, he almost fell out.

'Can you walk?' She asked anxiously.

What did she mean 'can he walk?' Of course he could walk! What did she take him for, an idiot? He put both feet out and promptly fell on his face. Sharon grabbed him before he hit the tarmac and hauled his arm over her shoulder. She smells nice, he thought vaguely, and made a note of the scent. His nose seemed to be the only part of him still in working order. They staggered to 'Emergency,' where they were told to wait as there were more urgent cases before him, specifically, a group of users suffering serious pangs.

'I'm a nurse,' said Sharon, 'this kid has quite a concussion.'

'Then you'll know not to let him sleep,' called the nurse as she hurried off.

'At least, you could give him a pain killer,' Sharon called after her. Joel wondered vaguely if that was for his head or his crotch. He wasn't quite sure which was worse, but he felt a twinge of guilt because she was forced to stay and mind him. At the same time, he knew he needed to keep hold of her in order to make a more permanent connection, but he just couldn't think.

'I'm alrigh. Yew can gob.' he slurred stupidly.

'Alright? My foot! I can't leave you like this! You'll fall off the chair and hit your head again.'

'I can lie down,' he sighed blearily A nasty image of the man curled in the boot, bathed in blood, flashed before his throbbing eyes. Jason had said the guy was still in a coma. Joel wondered if he was in this hospital. Wow. He'd really have a headache when he woke up!

'No you cant lie down, you'll go to sleep,' he heard Sharon's voice mumble as though under water.

'I feel terrible,' the sound his own voice blarted out like a saxophone.

'I know, put your head on my shoulder. I'll keep you awake.'

To be kept awake was the last thing he wanted and the idea of having his head on someone's shoulder alarmed him. He'd never experienced that before, except with JD, who injected fleas into his hair. At least Sharon wouldn't have any of those. His body felt awkward and distorted, like a Picasso painting, and he decided that he understood his famous fellow artist at last. The poor man must have suffered from some sort of severe pictorial dyslexia, caused by a blow to his head.

'I'm going to talk to you and shake you to keep you awake.' Sharon broke in. 'What's your name?'

'Er Joel,' he answered, and thought, Oh God in this state I'll blow my cover. His mind felt like a very blunt instrument.

'Suits you, someone must have been tuned in when they named you.'

'Muzz be the only time,' he retorted a little more savagely than he meant.

'And you're Joel who?'

'Denby.'

'Who lives where?'

'Fifty four Delilah Street, Ridge Hill.' It came out as a big sigh.

'I should phone your parents and tell them where you are.'

'Phone's disconnected,' was the glum reply.

'I could drop in on them and tell them you're here.'

'Don't bother, they won't notice I've gone.'

Sharon looked horrified. She didn't know what to say for a moment. She seemed to be thinking hard. Joel's head dropped forward and she grabbed him by the hair and pulled his head up.

'Stay awake,' she snapped.

'Ow!' he yelped.

'Sorry, but you're like those kids my ex used to spend so much time on.'

Joel felt himself shrink to the size of a pea. After all, it was the likes of him that had caused her to leave Jason. Perhaps she had a right to pull his hair.

Sharon settled his head back on her shoulder. 'Jase is a good man,' she sighed. 'He helps everyone. Seems I've gone from one extreme to the other with men.'

Too right, thought Joel, snapping out of his torpor a little. She had his attention now. There was one last rather scruffy patient left in the waiting room. He looked ill, but was alone and appeared to be asleep. Sharon seemed happy to prattle on.

'Jase has such a good heart, but he's so remote, it's very hard to touch it. I think he's scared of love. Don't think he got much of the real stuff as a kid.'

Joel felt even more uncomfortable. There hadn't been much in his life either, and he was sure he didn't know what it was either. Sally Grey had made life hard for him. She was scaring the living daylights out of him, yet he didn't want to lose her. He felt for Jason, but realised that two drowning men can't save each other. As for insight around the Sally problem, he decided Sharon would be the better bet. She continued blithely on,

'The only time he'd let me close was in the bedroom. He's a great lover, but you can't do that twenty-four seven can you? There are other aspects of life that are just as important.'

Too much information thought Joel. A vague worry surfaced that his collision with the lamp post might have damaged his credentials, but it was better not to dwell on the matter. He wondered what she was going to tell him next? Maybe she thought he was like a hitch-hiker. The drivers tell all because they think they'll never see the hitch-hiker again. He secretly hoped for all the info he could get, though he thought he'd better cover his butt for the future.

'Sorry, I can't understand a thing you're saying,' he slurred.

'Not to worry,' laughed Sharon, 'I'm just using the chance to get something off my chest.'

When at last the nurse returned and delivered a pain killer, Joel dissolved into a world of cotton candy, though he was still half conscious. Sharon continued her chatter, but this time, try as he might, he really couldn't understand it. Of one thing he was sure - he thoroughly approved of Sharon. As the room faded away, his last thought was; how can I get them back together?

The House of White Starch

Joel awoke in a starched white room, not feeling like himself at all. He'd never been in a hospital before, and felt like a wild animal trapped in a lab. They forced him to wear funny pyjamas, an item he'd never owned, but worse was that people in white kept waking him up and writing things about him on clip boards. He couldn't wait to get out of there, but they insisted on doing what they called a 'brain scan' and put him in what felt like a long coffin. He was never sure when he should panic.

After rough night punctuated with nightmares of JD alternately chasing the devil or being eaten by him, Joel awoke wondering what time it was. He found it almost impossible to tell in the hospital environment, but then he smelled the lunch trolley. Ugh! He couldn't think of eating. The room still floated with wispy things he knew shouldn't be there, but this time, Jason stood amongst them. Joel blinked. Jason surveyed him with his cool blue eyes. As always with Jason, he didn't know whether the look meant a reprimand or compassion. Joel wondered if he was really there, or if his beleaguered brain had imagined him? Then the apparition spoke,

'Doctor told me you tried to hump a lamp post. I have to say bro, you could do better.'

Joel tried to laugh, but his head thumped and he became aware of an uncomfortable tube sprouting from between his legs and attaching itself to an embarrassing bottle strapped to the side of the bed.

'No permanent damage done,' Jason put in quickly. 'Doctor also said you have a fairly thin skull, so head butting solid objects shouldn't be part of your career.'

'Thin skull?' moaned Joel, 'Not another problem' He felt he already had enough disabilities to sink the Queen Mary and didn't need another.

'Well, I'm glad you don't have a thick one,' snapped Jason, 'I've seen enough of them.'

Joel's heart swelled with warmth. Good old Jason. He'd bothered to find out where he was! He realised he should have told the nurses to phone him, but they had assumed Sharon was his next of kin. He wasn't used to having anyone look out for him, certainly not two in twenty-four hours. The emotional meal felt just a little too rich. He had to swallow hard to keep suppress sudden bubble of tears which surfaced containing his neglected childhood. He had never allowed himself the luxury of wallowing in self pity. He remembered that lately, Sally was looking out for him too, in a different way but he was so afraid, he only gave her enough time to string her along. It troubled him to admit he would have to make some sort of a move soon, if he didn't want to lose her. Jason's voice broke into his dilemma

'How'd it happen?'

Joel decided to go as close to the truth as possible. Jason wasn't a person to lie to, but he could allow himself a few strategic omissions. 'I was watching a couple pashing and I ran into a lamp post,' he replied glibly

Jason dissolved into laughter, 'Rough lesson,' he chuckled.

'Yeah, I needed a few hints.'

'I meant a lesson not to purve on others!'

'I don't _purve_ , I was gathering info,' Joel bit back so furiously that Jason backed off holding up his hands.

'Okay, okay, but tell me where it happened?'

Nosey bugger thought Joel, but decided not to lie about the location either, he so wanted Jason to trust him. He wouldn't put it past the cop to casually check with the ambos.

'Down on Higgins Street in Eland.'

He saw Jason hesitate. Of course he knew where Sharon lived. 'What were you doing way over there?'

'I was looking for a friend called Damien who moved away from my school.' The explanation seemed to satisfy Jason, but then again, he couldn't quite tell. Still, Joel felt smug. It gave him a reason to be over there often without the need for more explanations.

'Sorry I didn't tell you I was here,' he apologised. Changing the subject seemed like a good idea.

'I don't think you could have, in your state,' observed Jason. 'Look, I've got to get back to work. You'll be here for another day or two. I'll feed JD, but don't expect me to walk that maniac. He only answers to you.

'Thanks,' said Joel weakly as Jason made to leave. There was a lot more he wanted to say but couldn't think of words that didn't sound silly. As Jason strode across the ward he glanced down the adjoining corridor. Joel saw his eyes widen, then darken for a moment, then he was gone. What the heck had he seen. It seemed really scary, and obviously it was coming this way!

He felt abandoned for a moment, but a few seconds later, he understood Jason's panic. Sharon bounced into the ward. She stopped abruptly, frowning.

'What's wrong?' asked Joel even though he had a pretty clear idea.

'Oh, I just thought I saw the back of my ex's head, leaving through that door.' Her eyes narrowed. 'Of course you probably know him.'

'Know who?' Joel was all angelic innocence, but he didn't like being forced to lie when he was trying to reform.

'Jason Lander!' she delivered the name like a hammer blow.

'Never heard of him.' The statement felt terrible as it came out of Joel's mouth, like Peter denying Christ.

Sharon breathed a sigh. 'I seem to see him everywhere. I mean, I see men I think are him. Don't worry, I'll get him out of my hair soon.'

Not if I can help it thought Joel.

She smiled apologetically. 'Sorry, this should be about you. How are you feeling?'

Joel felt his cheeks redden as she leaned over him with concern. He hadn't entertained the idea that she'd come back to him. What if she and Jason had collided by his bed-side. Wow. It had been close. He could see that Sharon was still 'holding a candle for Jason', though neither were ready to meet again, and that if his orchestration was to work, he'd need to be a very clever conductor.

****

Joel felt less like a Picasso painting and more like a human being the next morning. Having spent what he considered a couple of days in torture tied to a hospital bed, he was restless. He'd always believed adventures kept him sane, or there abouts. To distract himself from worrying about JD's abandoned emotional state, he thought of the boot man. Just a little harder against that lamp post and he could have been in the same situation. Jason had been very vague about the guy. There was as good a chance as any that the man was in this hospital. It wasn't that far from the incident. He wondered where the coma unit was, so he slyly asked one of the younger nurses.

'If I'd bashed myself senseless and was in a coma where would they put me?'

'Sixth floor, in the big ward, but if you were a high risk like someone wanted to murder you, you would be in security right up the end,' she chatted away airily as she changed his bottle and checked the catheter. Joel reflected on how lightly nurses converse while they do strange things to embarrass their victims. He decided there probably was someone in security, or why would she bother to mention it?

When she'd left, he considered his situation. Damned bottle! Maybe he could go for a wander if he shoved it down the leg of his pyjamas and held it there. He still felt weak and his head seemed like it belonged to somebody else, but all these sensations steadied after he stood upright for a while. He un strapped the bottle off the side of his bed and proceeded cautiously. It made him walk in an awkward manner, but he couldn't bear another moment tied to that hospital bed. He wove his way unsteadily to the lifts. Other patients were wandering the halls, some wheeling trolleys with strange apparatus dangling from them, so he knew he blended in among the odd looking parade.

He followed a laundry trolley into a lift, and got out on the sixth floor. The whole place seemed as foreign as any he could imagine. The walls were bare, clean and white - so very inviting. If he could do a job on all these at least no one would get lost, not ever again

He padded down the corridor on floor six. All seemed so quiet and devoid of life. There wasn't even a nurse to be seen. He wondered if he was in the morgue. Then he remembered the patients were all comatosed. It was like being in the city at night when every one but him was asleep. That was comforting. Finally he reached the ward marked

'security.' It looked grim. The windows were too high to see into, like a jail and the door needed a special tag to open it. He knew he shouldn't be there, but the halls were so clean and stark there was no where to hide. It was nothing like a regular dirty street. Joel was used to being places where he shouldn't be, but there were always hidey holes. This place made him feel like a rabbit under a spot light.

A lift bumped to a stop and opened. A cheerful, laundryman who looked as though he was from India, pushed a trolley out of a lift, and conveniently left it outside 'security.' He greeted Joel without question and re entered the lift. Joel bobbed down gratefully behind it, a little awkwardly as the bottle obstructed him.

After what seemed an eternity, a nurse came along and 'blimped' the door. She left it ajar as she performed hasty duties. Joel slid in like a ghost, and, keeping her on the other side of the curtain, slipped into a niche behind a bed-side cabinet. After checking all the monitors, she left and locked the door. What a silly move this is, reflected Joel. How long would it be before someone else came in? He'd certainly be in trouble if he got caught. He looked at the unconscious man and then at the name on the clip board at the end of the bed. Abraham Port-Robert. At first, he didn't think it was the same man, but as he looked more closely, he became certain it was. The guy'd lost a lot of weight while in the coma. There were dark circles under his eyes and he was surrounded by beeps and blimps from the equipment. Joel stood in confusion for a moment. The pride he'd felt in saving a man's life slowly faded away. What did the man know? What had he done to cop this?

Suddenly there was a movement outside and Joel hastily stepped between the bunched curtain and the window. A woman, a girl of about twelve years old and a small boy were ushered in. Joel barely breathed. Mr Port Robert's Family!

As soon as they saw the man, the girl and the mother began to cry. The nurse folded her arms and stood by the door. It was obvious the scene had been re enacted many times over the past few weeks. The little boy happily got down on his hands and knees and began to drive a small truck around under the patient's bed.

'Daddy didn't deserve this,' sobbed the girl as she picked up his hand and put it on her cheek. The mother wiped her eyes and bowed her head as though praying. The little boy played closer and closer to Joel's hiding place. Finally his truck bumped into his toes. Slowly he looked up the length of Joel's body. Joel winked tightly.

'Look mum, a boy!' squealed the toddler. This is it, thought Joel. How could he explain this one? Got lost and ended up in security? Hardly!

'Shush Ari,' said the mother, 'this is a quiet place.'

'The boy will wake daddy up,' sang Ari, at the top of his voice.

'Yes,' whispered his sister, 'please wake daddy up, Ari.'

At her invitation, the little boy sprang like a monkey over the end of the bed and landed astride his father's thighs, shouting, 'Wake up lazy old daddy, you make mummy and Rachel cry.' With all his small might, he threw his metal truck which bounced off the unconscious man's skull, then clanged loudly against the monitoring equipment. Joel winced. His own head still felt a little delicate.

Horrified the mother grabbed Ari off the bed. It was only then that the little boy began to cry. He was obviously trying very hard to do the right thing and yowled at his mother in hurt tones. The nurse hastened over to wipe the trickle of blood off Abraham's brow as the family hurried out through the door. She left soon after them. In the mayhem, there was no way Joel could get through, and worse still, his bottle was filling up! Locked in again, he looked anxiously around. There didn't even seem to be a bathroom attached to this room and he realised people wouldn't need one if they were in a coma. There was a small area like a pantry containing a basin and medicines, but the nurse had locked it.

He glanced at the unconscious man again. One thing was certain. If he could get in this easily, Mr Port-Robert wasn't all that safe, but then again, if no one knew he was there, they wouldn't come for him. Now he understood why Jason wouldn't tell him anything about the man.

He hoped they hadn't missed him. Understaffing might be useful at times! He waited another agonising fifteen minutes. Finally the door opened and a nurse accompanied by a burly orderly, entered. Joel sized him up as was his habit. He wouldn't want to be caught anywhere he shouldn't be by that huge guy! The nurse and the orderly bantered with one another and walked very close together. Joel could see they had some mush going on between them and that was all the better! Maybe they wouldn't notice him. They'd come to turn Mr Port-Rober onto his side. The nurse took care of the wires while the orderly turned and propped his back. They'd left the door ajar for the moment, and while they were occupied, Joel made a desperate bid for freedom. He squeezed through the slit making sure his bottle didn't clank against the door, but he was looking over his shoulder to see if they'd spotted him and collided with someone in the otherwise empty corridor.

He felt a sickening wrench as the bottle fell from his grasp and landed on the floor. Urine rolled in all directions and there seemed to be an endless amount of the stuff. How could it go so far? He looked to see who he had connected with in such an inelegant way and found it got worse. Sharon Lander! He stood with his back against the wall looking as white as a hospital sheet, breathing hard. Sharon shook her head as she bent down and picked up the bottle, the catheter and attachment that had parted company.

'One hell of a way to remove a catheter,' she muttered. 'You, boy, are a walking disaster!' She was obviously annoyed and in a hurry

Joel was too overwhelmed by body shock to register embarrassment. He stared with pained amazement as the urine slick appeared to reach a mile down the corridor and was still rolling. Sharon grabbed some dirty towels from the trolley and threw them on the rapidly expanding lake. Luckily, the laundry-man returned just then and Sharon yelled 'accident here, can you do a mop?' The man nodded obediently as he glanced at the name tag on her pocket, but his eyes opened wide at the extent of the flood.

Joel finally managed to rasp, 'What are you doing here?'

She scowled at him. 'I'm a physio. I work in hospitals. The better question is: what are you doing here?'

'Exploring,' replied Joel, contritely, trying to look as though the pain wasn't as bad as it was, 'I got sick of being in bed so I went for a walk and got really lost.'

'Humph!' said Sharon, 'You could have asked directions, but then again, men prefer to get lost. Come on I've gotta get you back to the ward. I'm supposed to be working, I'm late and this is my first day in coma.'

Joel looked at her, uncertain whether he like being lumbered with all other men's defects 'I bet you get lost in this place too,' he said.

'Don't be irritating,' she chuckled, 'I'll forgive you because you've given me an excuse to be late. Are you OK to walk?'

'Almost,' muttered Joel as he stepped out shakily. One leg of his pyjamas was soaked in urine, and he was glad Sharon did not look up and see 'security' written above the door of his hasty exit. He wondered about fate. What were the chances of colliding with Sharon Lander? He wasn't a mathematical genius, but he knew they would be very few.

She took him by the elbow and led him to the lift. 'My younger sister's a Sister,' she said conversationally, 'You might have seen her around.'

Joel gave her a blank look, thinking, of course your sister's a sister. The sensation of the lift seemed to be robbing him of the ability to think or to stand upright.

'No silly, I mean my sister works as a Sister on your floor.'

Joel didn't remember hitting the floor.

When he woke, he found himself back in the hated hospital bed. An irritable conversation was going on between Sharon and the old ward Sister.

'He'll have to go home tonight because we need the bed.'

'His home isn't suitable. He doesn't seem well enough,' Sharon was saying. Joel closed his eye again, quickly.

'Don't worry,' answered the head Sister, 'We'll check out that everything is working down below before we kick him out. We were going to remove the catheter today, though not quite in that manner,' she laughed harshly, 'he might pee a little blood, but that will pass. If anything else is wrong, his parents can ring us back.'

Bitch! thought Joel, in one of his moments of lesser charity.

'Then he'll have to come home with me,' sighed Sharon.

'Fine,' was the haughty answer, 'just get him out by six.'

The young nurse came in and pulled a face at the head Sister's receding back. Joel could see a likeness to Sharon in her. She began to do the weird hospital ritual of tucking him in so tightly, he felt he couldn't breathe. Sharon helped her.

'He's pretty cute, this young kid,' commented the little nurse.

'What do you mean 'cute,' was Sharon's tart retort. 'If you ask me, Emm, this boy's a whole bag of trouble.' There was an edge to her voice and Joel wondered what darling Mal would think of his lady love bringing home the stray cat he'd rejected two days before. Apparently she and Jason shared the same penchant for picking up strays. Though this was great luck for furthering his plans, he really wanted was to see JD as soon as possible. Before he could stop it, a sigh in the form of a weak puppy whimper escaped his lips.

'Did you hear that?' asked the young nurse, puzzled. She looked under the bed. 'There can't be any animals in here.'

Sharon suppressed a smile, 'Look kid, if you want to come home with me you'll have to behave as you look.' Joel wondered about his chances for survival around that Mal fellow. He might end up killed and dumped in a skip bin somewhere, but he decided there was no time for morbid fantasies.

Meet Perkins

Sharon arrived at six o'clock and bundled up his old clothes. She instructed him to put on his sand shoes, but in her haste, she forgot that his pyjamas belonged to the hospital. He felt like he was still in prison uniform.

When they pulled up at the house he was relieved to see the lights weren't on. Hopefully the wolf was out. Joel thought about it and was unable to distinguish whether his instant dislike of Mal was based on a real gut level instinct or simply the fact that he was annoyed at the fellow for 'cuck-holding' his friend. Maybe it was because he didn't like the guy's romantic style? All these possibilities mixed him up so that he couldn't decide where the creepy feeling was coming from, or if it was valid at all.

They were greeted wildly by a small hairy ball which threw itself at Sharon, bursting with glee. Its name was 'Perkins' Sharon informed him. At least she likes dogs thought Joel. That was very important if his plan to import her back to Jason's house was to succeed.

Perkins examined him thoroughly, and despite the weird hospital smells decided he was acceptable. Perkins had a silly tail, short with an excess of hair that fell over one side. He didn't have a pug nose like most dogs of that ilk, but a pointed one that turned up slightly on the end, topped with a black jube that gave him a snobby look. The black markings around his eyes made him look somewhat bad tempered, but despite that, his disposition seemed fine. Joel wondered if JD would swallow him whole on first meeting, even if he was excessively hairy.

Sharon led them into the house and deposited the boy on a sumptuous couch. The place looked like a manse and he felt he shouldn't be there. It made him feel even more apprehensive about Mal.

'You didn't eat your hospital dinner,' said Sharon accusingly, 'I saw it sitting on the side board. Bangers and mash do?'

Joel smiled, Easy! Bangers and mash were his comfort food. When his grandmother was alive, she often made them for him. He knew at the end, she had been afraid to die because she didn't want him to be on his own. She had always looked out for him.

Finally he managed to say, 'What will Mal do when he finds me here? He didn't like you helping me.'

'He won't know. He doesn't get home until late tonight. If you sleep in the room at the back, he won't know a thing about it. I can take you home in the morning after he's gone. I don't have to start work till tomorrow arvo.'

Joel finally relaxed and asked, 'What does Mal do for a crust?' Crust! Good heavens if the house was anything to go by, the man must be loaded with doe, let alone a crust! Perhaps Sharon was the material type? No good for Jason if she was, because he wasn't.

Real estate,' said Sharon as she rattled around in the kitchen, 'but he's got lots of other investments.'

Joel felt crestfallen as he looked around. Jason couldn't compete with all this. 'Is Perkins yours' or his?'

'Good heavens he's mine. He's only allowed in the house when Mal's not home.

Dictator! thought Joel, though JD wasn't allowed in Jason's house either, mainly because he'd clear the shelves with one sweep of his tail.

Sharon fed Joel. She sat down with him and ate bangers and mash. Her manner seemed friendly and down to earth, though she did ask too many questions. She managed to squeeze out of him that he's been the one to paint "Hot Dags" and Ham buggers on Quiggley Street - mainly because he was proud of those signs. He was uncomfortably aware that people talk and such info could lead back to Jason. It was easy not to talk about his family. She'd picked up enough and kept politely off the subject. Joel knew that if he kept the talk on her, he would be safe. They prattled on about dogs. How long had she had Perkins?

'I got him for consolation when I left Jason, but Perkins doesn't like Mal and Mal doesn't like Perkins.'

Well done Perkins, thought Joel.

Sharon continued, 'Perkins is a funny mixed breed and Mal wants to get a large pedigree dog, something he can brag about, I reckon.'

'Do _you_ like Mal?' The words suddenly tumbled out of Joel's mouth unbidden. He didn't mean to say them. He wondered if that smack on the head have anything to do with it.

Sharon looked surprised and didn't answer for a while. Then she said slowly, 'I think I like him less the better I get to know him.'

'Great, thought Joel, and asked 'What's wrong with him?'

'Can't exactly put my finger on it. He's very controlling. I feel I haven't got much freedom, whereas with Jase, I had too much.' She looked confused for a moment then added, 'Maybe I'm just a hard woman to please. Mal's going in for politics and I suppose he requires a fairly special lady for that.'

Politics? thought Joel, suits the creep!

'He's got a lot of money, so he can go in for that sort of thing.' Sharon picked up the dishes, 'You know what? You're good to talk to for a kid your age. All I can get out of most them is a grunt or a 'whatever.'

So far so good, thought Joel. He yearned to make a friend out of her, but time was cut short because she wanted to put him in his room in case Mal came home early. She gave him a towel and a face washer and told him not to flush the toilet. Mal mustn't hear a peep. You won't hear even a fart out of me, he thought, but he didn't say it.

In the over comfortable room, Joel felt trapped. What could he do to thank Sharon, or more especially, to charm her? Then he noticed a note pad and pen on the bedside table. Great, he could draw something for her. He made a few doodles, but nothing seemed right. Then he heard Perkins being evicted out of the front door.

Fantastic! He'd draw the funny little guy. But how could he get him in? He tried the window. Great, it was locked from the inside so he could slide it open. Most locks in his life had to be busted open.

'Perkins!' he called in a whisper. The officious little fellow came to investigate and Joel hauled him in.

'Can't believe your luck can you little guy?' The dog arrived all feet and licks, then went off to investigate the room he'd never been in

'Shhhhh, ' hissed Joel, listening out for Mal. Perkins was very interested in something behind the wardrobe. Finally he gave up and settled down for a snooze on the end of the bed giving Joel a chance to put pen to paper. The portrait progressed well, but soon he heard the thrum of an expensive car pulling in. Perkins opened one eye and growled

'You be good,' whispered Joel, 'We're under cover remember?'

He heard Mal enter the house and slam the door. Perkins made a little growl every time he heard the man's voice. Joel strained his ears. Mal seemed to be chiding Sharon for something she'd forgotten to do, training the future first lady, he supposed.

Then all hell broke loose. Perkins saw a mouse go behind the wardrobe. He let out a bark, did a back flip off the bed and threw himself at the small gap between the wall and wardrobe.

The resulting crash brought a loud, 'What the heck!' from Mal. The hall door opened and Joel could hear heavy footsteps coming his way. In one acrobatic movement, he catapulted the unfortunate Perkins out of the window, and dived under the bed, dragging his bag of clothes with him. He was determined not to get Sharon into trouble. As the bedroom door opened he sighted his battered old sandshoe staring impudently at him from across the floor and his heart sank. Sharon wouldn't be able to explain that dirty old shoe away as hers. The drawing also lay exposed on the bed. He held his breath as the door opened and Mal strode in with Sharon anxiously close behind.

'What's going on he demanded, his eyes straying from the runkled bed cover to the open window. Then they fell on Perkins portrait.

'Can you explain this?' He looked meaningfully at Sharon.

'Yes,' she said brightly, picking up the note book, slapping it and hastily kicking the sand shoe under the bed at the same time. It connected rather rudely with Joel's nose. 'I've been drawing Perkins. What do you think of it?'

Joel grabbed his offended nose, desperately trying not to sneeze.

'Has he been in the house.' Sharon looked shocked for a moment.

'Who? Oh, Perkins, yes but only in this room.'

'Well he's not to be any where in the house. Got that, got it?'

'OK.' Joel could almost hear Sharon's teeth gritting.

'And don't leave the window open ever again. You don't know who might be around.'

'Mal picked up the note pad. 'It isn't bad, 'he conceded. 'The only flaw is that it is of Perkins. Maybe you could do one of me one day.'

'Fat chance, pig, thought Joel, cringing as Mal opened the wardrobe.

'How do you explain all that banging?' he asked

'Probably Perkins trying to get in again,' said Sharon quickly.

The culprit under the window heard his name, and obliged by yowling and jumping up and down like a yo-yo.

Brilliant Perks, thought Joel, you're a real ally.

Mal seemed to accept that explanation with a shrug and locked the window

'You better remember, that mutt doesn't come in my house, he repeated in a rather threatening tone. Then the man stumped out and a very relieved Sharon closed the door behind him.

Bully thought Joel. He decided that Sharon definitely needed to be rescued. Jason could not be worse than that creep!

He strained his ears to hear if she was getting any more of a dressing down and caught the word 'security.' He supposed Mal was talking about his house – windows being left open etc, but froze as he crept down the hallway and heard 'coma wing.' Mal was using a _sweet-talk_ voice. Why would he want to know who was there? What would it mean to him if anyone was in security? Suddenly, Joel shivered. What if he was grilling Sharon because he really was a bad egg and wanted to finish Mr Port-Robert off because he knew too much about him? If Joel's hospital investigations had been a rain-check on reality, getting into security wouldn't be hard to do. He felt he had a responsibility to make sure the life he'd been through so much trouble to save, stayed saved. He'd seen the hope and grief of Mr Port-Robert's family.

He was relieved, to hear Sharon's reply that she didn't know because it was her first day working there. Good, but he wondered if Mal would work on her again, the next time she worked there. He hated the man's demanding and commanding attitude. It got him right off side. He liked his sweet talk even less.

Suddenly, the door knob turned. Joel flattened himself against the wall. The door flew back against him hitting his already throbbing nose. Joel's nose was quite small, but misfortune was making it larger by the moment, and more painful. The door swung forward again leaving him in full view and there was nothing he could do about it. Luckily, Mal didn't notice. He was fiddling around inserting a key into a door that proved to be his office. He looked as though something big was on his mind. Wow thought Joel. He sure is weird! He's so paranoid he locks his office, even with only Sharon in the house, - so to speak. Maybe he does keep some shady secrets in there? He secretly hoped the man was a crook who would get what was coming to him. Even better if it came from Jason!

He could hear Mal making a phone call and jammed his ear up against the lock, but the voice was low and all he could pick up was the word 'mission' - twice. When he heard the receiver click, he sneaked hastily back to the safety of his room. With Mal's mind-set, if he caught him in the house he would probably end up in jail with Sharon close behind. The thought occurred that maybe he would have been safer at his own home. My God! What did she see in that man other than his money? He must have some sort of hidden charm. If he did, Joel wanted to know exactly how it worked.

Suddenly, the door burst open and Joel found himself instantly on his feet, backed into a corner. Then he realised it was morning and he had slept rather heavily. Sharon was trying to manipulate a breakfast tray through the door.

'Mal's gone,' she laughed as he emerged from the corner, feeling foolish. 'My, your reflexes are sharp.' She stopped in astonishment. 'Goodness, what happened to your nose?'

'Someone kicked a shoe onto it under the bed.' He wasn't about to mention the door as well, for spying would have been unforgivable.

Sharon burst into laughter, 'Sorry, but I had to get rid of the incriminating evidence. You were smart, and it was a great idea to recruit Perkins. That picture is like – wow!'

'The little hairy guy was such a great support, he should be called Watson.' chuckled Joel as he sat gingerly on the edge of the bed. His heart was thumping and he still ached in various uncomfortable places.

'Watson? Mal calls him 'Whatsit.' Get under the blankets,' Sharon demanded, 'this is breakfast in bed, a treat for getting us off the hook.'

Joel crawled reluctantly back under the sheets. The only time he had ever had breakfast in bed was in hospital and he wanted to forget that.

'You transferred water this morning?' she asked in a matter of fact tone.

'No,' he said, but didn't tell her that he nearly had when she opened the door so suddenly.

'Then you'd better drink more,' she replied bossily as she left the tray and went out.

The breakfast was delicious. Lucky Jason if he'd received this treatment. He had orange juice, toasted muesli, fried egg, tomato, and onion with bacon, topped off with some of Sharon's home brewed coffee. He'd never been a coffee drinker, but after that, he decided it was worth a review.

She came back before he'd finished and sat on the end of the bed to chat about his portrait of Perkins. The attention embarrassed Joel. He wasn't used to it. Then she embarrassed him even more by insisting on buying it.

'I did it for you for free,' he mumbled, 'It's a thanks for what you've done.'

She leaned forward to hug him, 'What mother wouldn't love you?' As she realised what she'd said she covered her mouth and coughed 'Better get yourself ready to go, then I'll whiz around the room and erase any evidence.' The delight that lit up in Sharon seemed to be at having defied Mal. The question remained in Joel's mind, _was he just a creep or a real nasty pastie_? He resolved to investigate him more thoroughly. Maybe Sharon needed protection? She was gorgeous. She'd made him feel safe and cared for despite their tenuous situation. She had risked for him. No wonder Jason had trouble getting over her. She was pretty darned special.

A Couple of Dudes

They drove to Delilah Street and pulled up in front of his parent's house. It was a sorry sight. When he was there at least he kept the front presentable, mostly to stave off the prying eyes of his peers.

'Looks quite empty,' said Sharon, doubt in her voice, 'are you sure you don't live there alone?

'May as well,' muttered Joel, as he grabbed his skate board. His mood had changed radically. He left the pyjamas in her car. The hospital could have its prison uniform back.

'Thanks for everything,' he hesitated by the driver's window, uncertain, but wanting to say something about Mr Port-Robert. Was the nasty feeling about Mal which persisted in the pit of his stomach real? He scrabbled to find a way to maintain contact with her. But Sharon smiled as she looked out the window, one eye closed against the brightness of the sun.

'I love your picture of Perkins. When you go to visit your friend on Higgins Street, call in and say hello, but only if Mal's car isn't there.

Joel knew what that meant. Mal kept his own circle of prestigious 'friends' and a street kid on his premises just wouldn't cut it. He guessed that was why nothing much ever happened for the poor when it came to politics.

Because Sharon sat watching for a moment, he was forced to go inside his house. He didn't want to go there. All was silent. If any one was home they were asleep - as usual. As he heard Sharon roar off in her little bubble car, anger sprang up, dangerous, like a black snake. He threw his skate board down hard on the floor. A hissing growl emerged form the room down the hall. So his father was home sleeping it off? What did it matter? Circumstance no longer forced him to live here. Rage swelled in him and finally burst like a boil. He grabbed his skate board again and threw it against the wall that had once given him refuge. A chunk of plaster fell from the dizzy mountain height he'd painted there. Driven by who knows what, he repeated the action again and again, destroying the amazing paintings of his self created haven. He hoped he would never have to do this again, but deep inside, he understood vandals.

His father appeared in the doorway. Red lines showed in his drooping eye lids. 'Don't you come here vandalising the place you good for nothing delinquent,' he slurred.

'Watch me!' Joel yelled. He realised that suddenly, he'd grown almost as tall as his father and could look him in the eye. He flipped up the skate board and though he was tempted to throw it at his head, he threw it against the wall again. More plaster fell.

'How dare you. I've kept a roof over your head for the last fifteen years.' His father raged

'Yeah, and that's about all.' Joel raged back.

His father took a swing at him. 'I don't owe you.' Joel ducked and though he had always been afraid of his father drunken cuffs, he found, despite the thin skull diagnosis, he had no fear.

'I'm out of this dump for good, old man,' he laughed harshly as he pushed his father roughly backwards and made it down the steps and onto the street. Leaping onto his skate board, he was away. The breeze blew back his curls and he felt immense relief as he left 54 Delilah Street behind, and skated like mad to JD and Jason. The only missing piece in the new world he was constructing was Sharon. He didn't realised he'd moved from creating virtual worlds around himself to the real one. He thought he was doing this for Jason, but missed the fact that he was really trying to build a different family, to add the missing jigsaw pieces to his life. He had no idea what a puzzle it would prove to be.

As he skidded into Jason's driveway, JD went berserk, slathering him with affection as he squeezed through the gate. At least he knew what a dog's love was, though it would be very different with Sally Grey.

He spent the afternoon with JD, putting him through the hoops, running, playing, but he couldn't lose the hot anger that boiled just below the surface. Then he remembered his phone and Jason coming to the hospital to see him. He was relieved to find it in his back pocket, though it was very flat. Jason had probably been to the hospital to pick him up. He could have run into Sharon's sister and she might have told him he had gone home with Sharon. That would blow his plans. Why hadn't he remembered Jason? What was wrong with his brain? Seemed his memory was still out at lunch. What an insult to Jason not to have phoned him. Joel wasn't used to being cared about and he wasn't used to the responsibility it creates. When his phone finally held its charge he found it was full of messages from Jason, also two from Sally. Hers simply said 'R U OK?' And 'Where R U?' He decided that his accident was simply too silly to tell her about.

Jason's messages were more explicit, the last of five ending in '****! answer, will you?'

Ooops! At no time did Joel want to seem careless or ungrateful to Jason, especially now that he'd burned bridges behind him. He was his rock. Quickly he texted, 'Sory, i'm ok. Styed w frend. Fone switched of, also memry.' He liked texting. It was comforting. He could legitimately get away with shocking spelling. He found he was afraid of Jason's reaction, then realised, he was very different from his father. He wouldn't behave in the same way. One thing he'd worked out about relationships is that you have to be 'there' and you have to 'respond.' He knew he'd have to learn fast if he didn't want to offend everyone. There had been no role models to copy in his household.

He took a shovel and buried some of JD's poo, then sat down with him under the tree in his yard. Anger still surged through his veins like molten metal and would not abate. His father had called him a delinquent. Is that what he wanted him to be? If he was bad would it absolve all guilt? Well, he wouldn't be. He'd sit there and control his rage, just to spite him. Slowly, he realised it consisted of disappointment heaped on disappointment, years of it. Tears tried to squeeze out under his eye lids. Joel had not allowed himself to cry for years, and he wondered if the smack to his head had loosened things up a little too much. Thank God for JD. He didn't judge, and obligingly licked the evidence off his face.

Jason arrived on dark. 'Thought you might be back,' was all he said as he went inside. Joel didn't follow. He sat confused. Was Jason mad at him? His stomach lurched like a bag of snakes. Leaving home had opened a Pandora's Box inside him and he didn't want to spill it all over Jason.

After a long time, Jason came out. 'Do you want to eat? Or maybe more appropriate, what's eating you?'

'Nothing.'

'Yep, right!'

Joel sighed. Sharon's comment bugged him. 'The trouble with Jason is he never shared what he was feeling with me.' He realised he was doing a 'Jason' on Jason. If that kind of behaviour got rid of someone like Sharon, he didn't want to be the same. He decided he'd better learn to talk, so he said, 'I pushed my dad over; he called me a delinquent and now I want to bust the world.'

Jason grinned and squatted down, 'Yeah, I wish I could have done that.'

What? Busted the world?'

'No, my dad. I _did_ bust the world and all it got me was jail.'

'But you never got to thump your old man?'

'Nup.'

'That why you're so bottled up?'

'Me? Bottled up? Nar! I just get on with life. I'm a simple soul,'

'Like yeah! I reckon you're carrying enough shit to sink the Titanic.'

'Speak for yourself,' Jason returned the sling-shot. Joel seemed poised to sting him like a wasp, so he changed the subject, 'The Titanic didn't sink because she was full of shit. She hit an iceberg.'

'Like Sharon did.' muttered Joel, hanging on like a dog with a bone. Jason's glance held a warning. Joel new it was a punch below the belt, but he didn't care. Before his mind's eye he saw Sharon, the Titanic, all love and celebration, running up against Iceberg Jason. He thought Jason's eyes even looked like smashed ice - clear blue and full of little white shards. Joel supposed women would find them attractive. Women! He'd been away from school only a couple of days and Sally was firing frantic texts at him. He felt under siege. Maybe she thought he was going back to his old ways, wagging, stealing etc.? Though he really needed to talk to someone, she was the last person he felt he could deal with. He felt embarrassed. Jason should understand, but would the Iceberg choose to share equally with him, or just listen? He fought the idea of being just another of Jason's juvenile delinquents. He wanted to feel special and to be his friend. Jason turned and walked into the house. Joel got up and followed.

He could not understand why he wanted to tear the world apart, right now, after coping like a champion for so many years. The desire to go home and really show his father what it felt like was burning him up. He wanted to pour the stupid grog over his stupid head and smash the bottle over the same. All those bad moments in his life seemed to ball into one. If someone couldn't help him soon, he feared he'd go 'off his face.' He put his head in his hands and felt every muscle in his body shake.

Jason shoved his chair back. Joel couldn't look up at him. Insight told him he was at the same fork in the road where Jason had lost the plot. Jason had made his enraged decision to spill it on the world and the world had fought back. He once told him. 'If you try to destroy the world, kid, it will return the compliment - ten times harder. Take it from me; it's not the way to go.'

There seemed no way out! Just as he felt he was in danger of imploding, Jason reached across and dropped a telephone book at his feet. He pushed a short length of flexible hose into Joel's hand and said,

'Hey, Thunder-God. Lay into the book before you blow a fuse.'

Pages flew in all directions and the loud crashing of the hose satisfied Joel's need for chaos and destruction. Tears of rage flew in every direction until he'd finally transformed the heavy book into a pile of butterfly pages which continued to float delicately down off picture frame and light fixture long after his frenzy had ceased. He lay down amongst the carnage, exhausted and laughing.

As he sat up, flushed and disoriented, Jason shook his hand, 'Congratulations, Looks like you've initiated yourself. You passed this one better than I did. I tore down signs, smashed windows, assaulted a policeman and ended up in a remand home.'

'I'm OK only because you're here,' Joel looked up then. He could see the damage in Jason. He knew little of his friend's past, nothing of his childhood, or of the misery he must have felt being locked up so young. Sharon was right. He made everyone else talk, but he didn't talk enough. A person could stay in their own cocoon while still helping others, but that wasn't good enough for Joel.

'I need a strong coffee,' he muttered.

'You don't drink coffee.'

'I do tonight. I'd ask for something stronger if it was legal.'

'Then how about an Irish coffee with a little tipple in it?'

'I'm a minor, remember. You're a cop and you're breaking the law'

'It's not the first time.' replied Jason. 'What else do you need to tell me?' He arched a brow.

'I want your story first. Then, if you're lucky, I'll talk,' Joel stated with a belligerent scowl.

Jason dropped his spoon. As he retrieved it, he replied sourly. 'I've never been good at D and M's that involve my story.'

'Why would I be any better?' Joel grouched back, just as sour.

Jason's mouth twitched. He didn't reply, but his mood darkened. Damned kid was holding him to ransom, again!

'You first or nothing,' repeated Joel. He wasn't prepared to lose this round.

Jason frowned as he carefully poured the cream onto the spoon and watched it creep over the surface of his coffee. 'You've got no idea how much I hate repeating my stuff.'

'Oh don't I now?' Joel stuck out a stubborn chin, but slopped his coffee in surprise at Jason's burst of laughter.

'You're a ripper, kid,' he said, grinning down on him, 'You make sure everyone's equal. What's this called? Mentoring the mentor?'

'Leave me out of your work tonight,' snapped Joel, 'Can't we just be a couple of dudes having a conversation?'

'OK. Shove me back in my box,' chuckled Jason. He was wise enough to know it was important to let a young male win sometimes, though he was on uncertain ground himself. Joel seemed intent on taking him back to a time when he was so confused he could barely remember it. Not everything could be solved by Tai Kwan Do and boxing.

'Psychologists couldn't pry this out of me. I hope you know you're honoured.'

'And I hope you know you're honoured too.' Joel returned, firmly holding his ground.

Jason glared at him, the strange icy glare he often handed out, but he talked.

'My problem was that my situation appeared ideal from the outside, so no one could understand what I was going through. My father is a boxer, the twice over heavy weight world champ, Lars Lander.'

'You mean, the Mad Dane?'

'Yeah and is he mad!' No one around here knows he's my father, O.K.?'

Did he punch you up?

'Not much physically, nothing anyone could charge him for. He wanted me to be a champion, see. After he lost his last fight, he took it out on me. He'd make me run kilometres after school every night, running beside me, driving me along, yelling, 'faster, faster!' and punching me on the shoulder if I didn't. I was eight years old.'

Joel felt sympathy. 'Bad news! Nothing you could do about it back then.'

'He never stopped. I was constantly exhausted. He insisted I work out all the time and called me 'piss weak' whenever I begged to stop. I was interested in building things, engineering and creating little habitats. When he came home, he'd kick over what I made. I ended up so angry I couldn't breathe. There was no outlet. When I got asthma, he had to leave me alone. I was about eleven then and clearly going to follow my mother's tall thin shape, not a boxer's build at all. I was a great disappointment to him, something he never let me forget. If he introduced me at all, it was as his 'piss weak' son.'

'Cute guy!' muttered Joel.

'By thirteen or fourteen, I hit the street like a crazy bear, a mad mix of my dad and a demented eight year old. No one could make me do anything or talk any sense into me. It was all down hill from there.'

'What did your mum do?'

'At first we had nice times, but then I noticed she was weaker than me around him and I lost respect for her. She could have defended me, but she never did. She was 'piss weak.' Jason hadn't stopped moving the whole time the whole time he spoke. He took out a pile of delinquent files and slapped them on the counter.

'Your turn,' he growled. His residual anger was like steam left in the air after a kettle has boiled. It did not help Joel get started.

He sat frowning for a while, then he said. 'Put those things away first.' He could see now why Jason gave everyone close to him a lot of freedom. Young offenders saw him as the strong man, some saw him as a hero. He disciplined them very fairly and seemed to know exactly what line to take with each one. No one could call Jason 'piss weak.' Why didn't he talk about his struggle? Joel guessed it was because there'd been no one to talk to all through his young life - not even his mum. Ditto! He wondered if softening towards a woman made Jason feel 'piss weak?'

'Done mine. Your turn,' said Jason tightly.

'Seems like you got too much attention and I didn't get enough, but it landed us in the same place.'

'Yep. Your turn.'

'Alright. This is it, for what it's worth. My life feels like one big hole and I'm trying to fill it with meaningful things. Graffiti: JD: you.' He hesitated almost adding "Sharon," but Jason dropped "Sally?" in for him, then hesitated when he remembered he shouldn't put words in client's mouths.

Joel continued, I don't know how to do this very well, but in music, I think they call it improvising. Anyway, I'm trying to improve - ise on all the things in my life. You want my history? I've really got nothing to say. It's a big black hole. I remember some good times, with dad and mum and me playing together, but that was when I was a little grommet. Then they started to stay away in the pub night after night. I got so lonely I'd draw and draw and draw to make worlds for myself. I learned to keep out of their way when they were home because my father lost any kindness he had when he was drunk and my mother was too pissed to care. She was 'piss weak' in a different way to your's. You don't need to know any details, it's easy to guess them anyway. I used to feel angry when I saw kids who seem to have it good acting bad.'

'Yeah, like me. Because I was the great Lars Lander's son and we were rich, they all wanted to be me. Idiots!'

'O.K. I'd better put that one in me pipe and smoke it, hadn't I?' Joel said with a wry smile.

Jason gave him a glance of appreciation, 'You know where I reckon you have the edge on other kids? You're creative, so you think it's possible to change your situation. You don't just rail against it as I did - like a condemned pig on the rampage in a slaughterhouse. I wanted to fight something, but I didn't know what to fight.'

Joel shook his head. 'You're too hard on yourself, you're still being just like Lars Lander taught you to be. He didn't even let you breathe, so don't make it your fault.'

Jason cracked a smile, 'Thanks for the insight, doc. I've read kids become very perceptive around puberty, though it's true most of us lose our brains after that. A few find them again later on, if they're lucky.

'Yeah, 'said Joel dolefully, 'you just need to watch young guys trying to talk to girls. All the posing and bragging they go on with looks stupid to me. Maybe that's why I go blank around Sally.'

'Testosterone blues, drives men to booze,' Jason howled, imitating JD's mournful cry. He seemed a little lighter for having shared his childhood suffering. 'Let's clean this place up. It looks like a serious brawl's gone on in here.'

'It has,' said Joel, 'I Jihadded myself, and what's more, I won!'

Jason chucked him on the shoulder. 'You know, when I was your age, I pinched money off this old guy who wore a turban. He tried to help me. He said, 'Fight the good fight' lad, sort it out, do true Jihad.' Because I couldn't figure out what he meant, I thought he was a twit - as we do. What you said just then made it clear. You might be the best thing that ever happened to a worn out youth worker.'

Joel's chest swelled with pride. No one had said anything like that to him before.

##

Note from Author. This is like a 30% sample of a complete ebook. Obviously, there are a few issues to be resolved, so I might continue it, if you want me to. 'Likes' and useful suggestions encourage authors and help them deliver better stories. Blog.

### Poetry

### What Ned Said

Susan Sowerby

This poem which won a place in the Bunbury writing for performance street festival, 'Shorelines,' It happened on a strange night when I was caught in a storm which kept me in my studio. A fellow artist, Lorraine Bawden, had sculptured a very good likeness of Ned Kelly. It was as though he was there and said what he wanted to say.

The night was dark and stormy-wild, my students had gone home

I had the spooky feeling that I was not alone

I looked towards the portrait heads all lined up in a row

My sculpture students have such fun in my bush studio

A clap of thunder took the light, my heart-beat froze in fear

The hair stood up upon my head, I knew someone was near

I struck a match in need of all the courage I could rally

Then an eerie light lit up the portrait of Ned Kelly.

The atmosphere around it grew, I noted with a start

I heard his voice inside my head, it nearly stopped my heart

'Write a ballad for a man the public never heard

I'll tell the people how it felt with every flamin' word.'

I gasped, 'I'm just a nobody, I can't write well for you.'

He snapped, 'We're all a nobody, and yet somebody too!'

His presence was so very strong, I could say overbearing

It made me doubt I had a choice about what we were sharing

I begged, 'Allow me freedom, if you want me to connect'

'Freedom. Yes!' He took a bow, 'now that I do respect.'

His attitude seemed quite polite - for a wild bush ranger

Though dark and wilful, angry too, I felt I liked the stranger

I said to him, 'My late great aunt used to dance with you

She told us tales about the pranks Kelly's gang got up to'

There's one about the policeman's ball, hidden from archives

You locked the cops in their own cells, and then waltzed with their wives.

His smile was grim, 'We lively lads, were only out for fun

The silly gendarmes took offence, and kept us on the run

In time the problem escalated, turned out for the worst

But anything we did to them, I say they did it first.

What they really wanted was to take my family's lands

Won by honest sweat and work, with bare and calloused hands

They told the town I was a thief, and passed around the rumour

When little men abuse their power, I lose my sense of humour

But those up high saw fit to cry, 'selectors are invalid

It wasn't bought, your work means naught, because we want to sell it'

To see gross greed and unjust gain, masquerade as justice

Us Kellys took the brunt of it, it really did disgust us.'

Well, the coppers had their day, Ward, Steele and Goebles

Flouncing with the 'upper crust'- folks they saw as 'nobles'

I've no respect for little men who carry out the plan

For the vultures on the top - we had to make a stand!'

I saw that Ned was quite a man, handsome, vain and proud

Who would defend right to the end, all the Kelly crowd

I had the thought to ask of him, what it was he wanted

He turned on me the haunted look of a creature hunted

'To work my family's fields in peace, a pretty bride beside me

The same as any other man, but all that was denied me

Day and night they'd not let up, they harried and they hounded

They came in greater numbers till they had us boys surrounded

I didn't fire first amid the turmoil angst and strife

Before I knew it I was trapped and fighting for my life

I vowed that if they wanted war, then a war I'd give

'Come and get me, do your worst, but let my family live.'

And while they spewed such hogwash as 'Australia fair and free'

I swore that I would make them pay for what they did to me

Oh, God, I want to curse those men, curse them all to hell

To break their bones and flay their hides and purge their rotten smell

His outrage grew to fill my shed, and though it terrified

At last I saw the reason why he felt so justified

My wish was then to give him voice, his message to relay

I asked him what he'd like to say to Aussie folk today

'They praise me as a legend and my memory they anoint

They make of me a hero, yet they damn well miss the point!

Wake up my strong and hearty lads, get up and seize the reins

Let the greedy rule you, and you'll all end up in chains

Many doleful hours spent, a-sitting in the clink

Awaiting execution gives a man much time to think

When you hear a free bird calling just outside your cell

Freedom will mean more to you, I learned that lesson well

And while I beat on midnight's door with deep despair around me

The legal bandits went Scott free, a fact that still astounds me

My kindly chaplain always preached 'these souls you must forgive'

I couldn't do it - I was young and just wanted to live.'

Kelly bowed, he'd said his bit, I offered a salute

To this man of spirit, fame and disrepute

An angry gust and he was gone as wind roared through the valley

I won't forget that stormy night, the night I met Ned Kelly.

##

### Iraqi Sister

Susan Sowerby

Trapped in a war of desolation

My parched heart craves

A flower for your grave

In this land, once ancient Syria

Where Eagle triumphs over dove

Where oil is deemed greater than love

Can a simple flower grow?

Tiny hand beneath the rubble

Cold to my clasp,

Means nothing to those who ordered the blast

From far away towers of power

Throughout the ages, little changes

Rachel weeps; Herod rages

And the blood of the innocents

Drips down the pages

Beneath my bhurka

I will hide the cradle of life

A woman's tender body

The brutish eyes of war

Shall not defile

Hidden, sacred, beauty

And I will search this wilderness

This minefield once my home

If I find one flower

One flower alone

I shall have found -

Hope

##

This one comes directly from stories my Grandfather, Jack, told me about their real life neighbours.

### Bush Neighbours

Susan Sowerby

When Jack rolled up on horse and cart

The Gippsland hills stole his heart

He made it known around the town

That he was there to settle down

On a patch of land with rickety quarters

Jack moved in with his wife and daughters

They scrubbed the kitchen and swept the halls

Dusted the shutters and painted the walls

Then Jack hit town to buy some calves

Met the locals and shared some laughs

An odd-looking fellow approached him and said

'I'm your neighbour, me name is Fred.'

'We lives close by, just over the hill

Chrissy, Davey, me and Lil

Come to tea, bring all your crew

Lil will make a spread for you.'

So Jack and Maggie, Jeanie and May

Got all dressed up to go that day

Such welcome burst from the slovenly shack

It dashed their hopes of turning back

Inside, the house looked more like a stable

Bottles and tins littered the table

Fred waltzed in with the cow-yard broom

And knocked some aside to offer them room

Under their seats of upturned boxes

Grumpy hens sat safe from foxes

If anyone wriggled as little girls will

A peck on the leg made them sit still

A trail of soup had been swept out the door

Ted told them dirty folk lived there before

'So you are new?' Maggie wanted to know

'Yep!' said Fred, 'ten years ago.

'Tell me Jack, I hear you can box

That's somethin' to know in this world of hard knocks

When thugs belt our Davey, enough is enough

Teach him the ropes so he learns to be tough'

Jack picked a day and a time was agreed

Happy to rescue a neighbour in need

For though they lived rougher than Ma and Pa Kettle

Their kindness helped Jack and Maggie to settle

Even though poor, they offered their neighbours

Meat and fresh eggs, fruits of their labours

Such friendship's a gem that can never be sold

Although they were grubby, their hearts were of gold

Over the hill, there was no need to yell

For words echoed freely, clear as a bell

Tipsy from town, on his shed Fred would beat

Yowling, 'Crikey, woman, when do we eat?'

Or perched on the fence as his wife ploughed

Fred read out romance books, bellowing loud

His passionate prose made the valley resound

Each time she ploughed by, trudging round and around

But Lilly took ill and was taken away

To hospital for a very long stay

Maggie told Jack, 'She's nothing to wear

I'll bring a silk nightie to show her I care

Lilly refused in bashful distress

'Missus I can't take your evenin' dress

Thank you most kindly you're thoughtful an' all

But I'm goin' t' horspital, not.to a ball!'

Chrissy got lonely with mamma away

She visited Jack's house, begging to stay

Maggie, embarrassed, choked back a laugh

'Of course you can darling, but please - take a bath!'

Like Venus reborn, Chrissy rose from the suds

The scrubbing revealed one of May's darling buds

Her daddy cried proudly, 'Oh please stay like that

It's only a month until mamma gets back!'

When Maggie went in for her own operation

Lilly's banana gift caused consternation

'Here y' are missus, I hopes they all keep

I brought a whole chaff bag 'cos they's goin' cheap!

News of Dave's boxing lesson got out

So locals arrived to cheer clap and shout

Their ears were flapping to pick up Jack's tips

Jack was still speaking when Dave split his lips

'Steady young pup; if you want to fight?

Duck to the left, as you punch with your right

Keep your eye steady and stay on your toes'

But Dave didn't listen and copped a blood nose

Fred got upset, it didn't seem right

To see his son bleeding, was this done in spite?

'Quit it,' he bawled, 'or I'll see to you buddy

You've beat up me boy and made him all bloody'

That was their cue, down off the fence

Sprang various locals, mad and intense

Every man there, fought for his hide

Raw, rough and ready, on no body's side

With one in for all, and all in for one

Dave's dog became baffled. What side was he on?

With jaws like a vice, old Rat grabbed the chance

To rip the seat clean out of Jack's pants.

Covered in dust, onward they brawled

And didn't let up until 'smoko!' was called

Each man shook hands, for everyone won

They knew it was silly, but crikey! what fun.

Though death in a family rarely is funny

It's true that old Fred passed away on the dunny

Lil's wail rang out in grief and despair

'Our Fred looked like Jaesus, sittin' up there.'

Although this story sounds rather absurd

I'll swear on a bible, its true, every word

Bush folk survive, though not hand in glove

For better or worse, on neighbourly love.

###

### Dragonfly Smoke

Susan Sowerby

A shimmering, delicate, mortal

Vanishes like smoke

Fleeting beauty gone

A cruel cosmic joke

I live in the middle of nothing

For nothing everything is

A thought in a dreaming mind

Who cares nothing for this?

My hectic head, aches for sense

My heart begs rest in non-sense

Between the two, I learn to dance

Nature's religion - Balance

Upon a tight rope taut with stress

Embracing a pilgrim's loneliness

Yearning for wings with the power to express

Freedom's wild restlessness

In a stormy search for the core of love

Below I'm told, is as Above

Eternal truth of futures past

Is found anew,

By each,.

At last.

##

### Vampire in the bottle

Susan Sowerby

Once you danced, sweet princess

Holding fast your man

You walked together through life's maze

Strolling hand in hand

But now Sherrie, you dare not look

Into your lovers eyes

You see a mocking stranger there

Wearing his disguise

Grief shatters you, why should I care?

For I'm the new ring master

I crack the whip and you will dance

Faster Sherrie, Sherrie, Faster

I love it when you mirror me

It triggers sweet despair

He beats you when he cannot face

My dark reflection there

How can he partner you, Sherrie?

While he is slave to me

Another swinging marionette

Upon my brewery tree

Just a slight of hand, my sweet

No time for social graces

I'm out of the bottle and he is in!

I've cleverly switched our places

The tune is mine, and I say dance!

Your man is yours no more

He can't resist my dominance

Sherrie, you've lost the war

Oh! Help me quench a vampire's thirst,

M'dear, what can I do?

His wine red blood is not enough

For now I yearn for you

Forsake yourself and turn to me

Sherrie I'll take you there

Sons and mothers wives and lovers

All makes tasty fair

So drown your sorrow little one

Your every need I'll meet

Come to me, my sad Sherrie

Your flesh is young and sweet

###

### The Search of the Fool

Susan Sowerby

Life has meaning I haven't found

'Its Tirra Lirra River' gets me down

So I walk the streets a friend to hale

And meet a man without a pail

Who milks a cow which sups up ale

From a huge and crumpled horn

I ask of him how he will drink

Without a pail, without a sink

What he's about I cannot think

He cries

'Sit down and hear my tale'

'Once life had meaning,' comes his sigh

'Then looking on the world one dye

I saw its meaning by and by

Is only what I give it.'

Assaulted by that meddlesome thought

My mind lies empty holding naught

I cannot think of what to do

So I sit and talk to you

Which is of course,

Meaningless.'

'Is such a thought of any use?'

I ask of this strange recluse

'Exactly!' I've already said

'What use to be alive or dead?'

His words needle me

I sit and stare a little while

Completely blank and out of style

My new coat dabbles in the dirt

As he milks his cow another squirt

And gazes wisely down

Say I, 'I've sat here long enough

I need to go and do my stuff

Yet don't know why I'm doing it

I feel I'm just a senseless twit

Going round and round and round'

So if you see an odd little man

Who milks a cow without a can

Do not stop, don't ask him why

Hide your questions, walk on by

Or you'll never be the same.

Tomorrow I will pack my bag

Roll my blanket, strap my swag

And walk out in the empty day

To see if I can find my way

In a world that's lost its Meaning

###

