The day Lockie turned fourteen the Sarge wangled the day off. After all the little presents were opened and the candles sprayed out, he drove Lockie down to the beach for a surf.
‘See you in an hour, Birthday Boy,’ said the Sarge. Til take these two for a drive.’
Lockie hit the water running. The surf was small but beautifully formed. He rode long, sweet left handers out on his own with the sun coppering his back and his board and the whole rippling sea. The ocean hissed in his ears and made him sleepy with happiness. He carved and floated. He crouched and flew with spray and rumbling at his back. He was as stoked as a grommet gets. Out off the point the dolphins leapt like a fountain.
After a long while Lockie looked back to see the Sarge and Phillip waving him in from the beach. He waved back to show them that he’d seen. They waved back harder, they jumped up and down, their mouths open with yells he couldn’t quite hear. The Sarge signalled him to come in; it seemed urgent now.
Lockie’s throat tightened just a teensy bit. What exactly were they yelling about back there? He glanced over his shoulder at the broad sea. Hmm. Don’t suppose they’re yelling something scary, he thought. Like maybe they can see something I can’t. Something bitey, perhaps. Something of the toothy sort. Like . . . the S-word.
He hunkered down and headed for shore, paddling hard. He hacked and dug at the water, toes and fingers tingling. He made a bow wave like a navy destroyer, he went so fast. He saw his family running down the beach. Aw no. They were still shouting and jumping. Their eyes like dear Pop’s golfballs. Even his mum was yelling. His mum?
Lockie stopped dead and sat up in the shore-break, heaving and puffing.
She stood there in a cotton dress, barefoot with her hands on her hips. ‘C’mon, slacker,’ she called. ‘Can’t you make it?’
He hit the beach and chucked his board and soaked her with a bear hug.
‘I don’t believe it.’
T m home, love.’
‘Happy Birthday,’ said the Sarge.
They all hugged and jiggled and laughed and bawled. In the end they rolled around in the sand like seals until they were exhausted and quiet.
‘Look at that,’ said Joy Leonard, pointing at the wide rolling sea big as life itself. ‘I’ve looked forward to that.’
‘I’ve got something better still,’ said Lockie, looking over towards the point. ‘Just step this way, madam.’ Lockie led them down the end of the beach to the granite point and up the bush track between boulders.
‘Where are we going, Lockie?’ whined Phillip. ‘Darwin?’
‘Mum’s going for a bit of a dip,’ said Lockie.
‘No, I didn’t bring any swimming things, love.’
The Sarge heaved up the track with Blob hanging off him like a sack of A-grade spuds. You could see he had serious doubts about all this.
At the end of the track they came to the wide flat rock above the water where Vicki had brought him fishing. The sea glittered and shifted. Everyone pulled up puffing.
‘You strong enough to swim?’ Lockie asked his mother.
She smiled. ‘Yeah, sure. But I’ve got nothing to wear.’
‘There’s no one around,’ said Lockie with a grin.
‘Only the police, Lockie,’ said Phillip. ‘Like, duh.’
‘Lockie, I don’t think I—’
Just then a dolphin reared out of the water and hung in the air like a thought.
‘Figured you might wanna swim with a few of the locals,’ said Lockie. ‘They’ve only got their birthday suits on.’
Joy Leonard dumped the frock and bombed in with only her knickers on.
‘Go, Mum!’ said Phillip in awe.
Lockie dived in behind her and saw the dreamy grey bodies of dolphins shooting up from the deep towards them.
He listened to his mother’s laughter as they leapt around her and that laughter was the sweetest sound he ever heard.
‘Lockie, love,’ she said, treading water behind him, ‘Vicki’s right. You’re a deadset legend.’
Lockie Leonard, hot surf-rat, is in love. The human torpedo is barely settled into his new school, and already he’s got a girl on his mind. And not just any girl: it has to be Vickie Streeton, the smartest, prettiest, richest girl in class.
What chance have you got when your dad’s a cop, your mum’s a frighteningly understanding parent, your brother wets the bed and the teachers take an instant dislike to you, and then you fall in love at twelve-and-three-quarter years old? It can only mean trouble, worry, mega-embarrassment and some wild, wild times.
Nothing’s easy for Lockie Leonard. Dumped by his girlfriend, he’s back to being the loneliest kid in town and life looks bleak. That is until he meets Egg – who might be the weirdest human being he’s ever met.
On top of all that, Lockie decides to save the planet; at least the bit of it he lives on. Then he falls in love again, which would be OK except she’s younger and surfs better. Can a thirteen-year-old surfrat have a headbanger for a best mate? Will he save the town from vile pollution? Will his love outlast the school term?
Another gnarly situation for Lockie Leonard, Scumbuster!
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First published in Pan by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd., 1997
This edition published by Penguin Group (Australia),2013
Text copyright © Tim Winton 1997
The moral right of the author has been asserted
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ISBN 978-1-74348-120-2.
Lines from ‘Black Hole Sun’ by Christopher Cornell, courtesy of Mushroom Music on behalf of You Make Me Sick I Make Music/BMG Gold Songs
Publication of this title was assisted by the Australia Council, the Federal Government’s arts funding and advisory body.
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Tim Winton, Legend
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