* * *
Shadows. A Shamble of shadows. Shadows that grew from shadows; shadows that were sharp edged and angular, grotesque and huge; shadows that wriggled in the sickly orange light. Almost immediately, Neville’s and Ava’s and ‘Soon’s own shadows began a struggle to save themselves, pulling free and being absorbed again - in danger of being swallowed up entirely.
Shadows only pretend to be real, Neville kept repeating to himself. Was that what Mum had said? Or was it that shadows were nightmares?
“What now?”
“We find the magic cyclone bolt! Ava can nose it out, can’t you Ava!”
And straight away the shadow that was Ava’s began to move with purpose, sniffing and snuffling, pushing under and between. A bloodhound for magic, shouldering around and through and over until, inevitably in so densely packed a place, her enquiring nose gave offence. A stick-like thing with a bulbous head tilted away from her, scraping amongst the objects around it before edging to a stop. Then, with slow certainty, it began scratching and bumping its way back. Above them, in the upper storey, a pair of enormous feet struck the floor.
“What? What? What?” a voice bellowed. “Someone down there?”
It was Shoomba’s voice, of course, and its booming challenge froze them all - all but the offended object whose bump had revealed their presence. It moved on, unperturbed, unsettling more objects around it, producing, despite Neville’s fervent prayer, further grumbles, nicks and knocks; promises that it had something momentous yet to do. At the last moment Neville had no choice but to lunge amongst the boxes and catch it.
“Intruders!” came Shoomba’s immediate and rampant roar from above. “By God, woman! Hand me the weapons!” And before Neville had time even to discover what he was holding, the castle’s outside landing was shuddering under the stupendous weight of Shoomba.
“By the powers o’ whistlin’!” he was promising loudly. “Not gone when I get to ground, yer done for!”
The threesome had no chance, not even to run. All they could do, as the concrete vibrated dangerously beneath their feet, was shrink into the quietest stillness they knew.
On the stair, a pair of feet appeared, slippered in scarlet and overhung by the hem of a voluminous robe. And then the robe itself, swelling out to cover the great wobbling roundness of a belly. Harrumph harrumph whirrr wuzza wuzza - like an engine angry with its own workings. And then . . . stillness. Head and shoulders still unrevealed. Shoomba, shuddering into his own listening stillness.
For a blink of time Neville felt sorry, remembering the fear instilled by the sounds that crawled up from his own Under. Only in this case, he and ‘Soon and Ava, were the Things - a trio of plotters crouched below, listening back. And with the fear, regret, that their plan had been so short sighted. At the very least they should’ve concocted a soothing lie for ‘Soon to plant in Shoomba’s mind. Without that, all Neville had was the power of the magic words - the secret prayer that ‘Soon had taught him.
“La-ila-ilala-Muhammed-rasul-i-Allah! La-ila-ilala-Muhammed-rasul-i-Allah!” he whispered silently to himself. “Go back! Please please ple-ee-se go back!”
But he was too weak; and Shoomba too provoked. And the great man, be he a pirate king or not, began once more to move. Slower now, and more cautious, bending to look, showing a face which, as it hove into view, was not the expected face - not the face of a foolish and garrulous old man. It was the face of a hunter, aglow with unmistakably sinister capacity. And in his fists there truly were weapons! In the left, what looked like a wrecking ball on the end of a tall spear. In the right, without mistake, a half-metre long club.
‘I’d fight a Taswegian tiger if it was messin’ with my stuff.’ That’s what Shoomba had boasted. And from the look of his preparations, that was precisely what he was expecting to find. Any doubts Neville may have had about how badly they’d underestimated the danger vanished in that moment beneath a wave of paralysing fear. In his confused way, he prayed that the wave would spread and the paralysis would reach them all! Shoomba might overlook them; might glance about, satisfy himself that nothing was amiss and retreat to his tower in peace. But no. Ava, it seemed, would have no part of that. If a Taswegian tiger was what Shoomba was expecting, then fang and claw was what he’d find.
“Arrrr.” she growled; a rumbling hair-raiser of a growl, launched just as Shoomba’s foot reached for the concrete. A growl the menace of which would’ve caused Shoomba the neighbour to take to his heels. Shoomba the hunter, however, instantly and astonishingly ramped it up a notch and shot it straight back at her.
“Arrrrrrrr!” And then, squinting into the shadows. “Stinkin’ Shaggy Little Bitch is it? Spreadin’ your mess all over Hell’s Half Acre?”
Ava bowed low on her front legs in acknowledgement and laid her ears back. Shoomba thumped the butt of his spear against the concrete.
“Get off, ye mongrel! Before I set Bill onta ya!”
Given a similar opportunity, to ‘get off’, Neville would’ve ducked, run and, if need be, swum all the way back to Home Country. Ava though, in her ancestry, was a creature of a wholly different and darker sort of night. She stepped clear of the shadows, bared her teeth and, in the shadow of a blink, transformed herself from a defiant middle-sized terrier into something that even the Duke of Daisley’s Mongolovian wolf hunter would’ve trembled to see. It was the first time Neville had witnessed Ava’s full blown Terrier-of-Death glory, and it would be the last. The next time she appeared to him in this incarnation, she’d be bloodied, crippled and half blind, her magnificence a mere memory.
Happily, he didn’t have to know that now. What he did have to know - and it was a shock to do so - was that the killing ‘Soon had spoken of so lightly might well be about to happen before his eyes! If her hand, for instance, had fallen on the magic bolt, or even on a discarded cane knife or grass scythe resting within the Shambles! She could be hefting it even now, weighing its capacity for lopping off Shoomba’s head while Ava held him mesmerised! It would be done in an instant and the truth - whether he was the pirate king or not - would never be known! He swivelled his eyes - only his eyes and almost squeaked with gratitude. She hadn’t moved. Some hesitation, some doubt, was holding her attack in abeyance. He ratcheted his eyes back. Only to find that for Shoomba, no such hesitation was on the cards.
If the patch of clear concrete between he and Ava was to be the arena, he had entered it without hesitation, the spear’s shaft now braced under his arm, the club swinging lethally at his side, his eyes locked on those of Ava. Only then was Neville able to see, in that mournful orange light, that the ram’s end was already leaden and dripping. With a substance which could not have looked more like blood if it had been spurting from an artery!
“For the last time!” Shoomba growled. And took a step.
“La-ast!” Ava throatily replied. And also took a step.
“Uh-hmm!” A small but necessary squeak from Neville. For Shoomba’s sake more than for Ava’s - Ava who, rightly so, being totally focussed on her deadly intent, hardly flinched. Shoomba, on the other hand, reacted as though he’d stepped in a nest of fire ants.
“HOE-WER-ZAK!”
His knees partially buckled. He stumbled and fumbled his hold on the dripping battering ram. For a moment Neville felt sure he would fall. Perhaps roll to the concrete, clutch his heart and gasp out an ending.
But no. Astoundingly, like a man for whom battle truly was a second, deeply hidden nature rather than a faint fantasy, he re-gathered himself. Re-gathered himself into a new and doubly formidable balance, with the spear-ram once again centred on Ava. And with the club, its aim ninety degrees to the right, pointed directly at Neville’s noggin.
“Who? Who? Whozat?” he rasped, like an owl startled awake at noon.
“Um! Err! Ahh!” Neville answered.
“Eh? Eh? What?”
“It’s (gulp) me, Mister Shoomba! Neville!” And because some further assurance of harmlessnes
s seemed appropriate, he added, “The Less!”
“Less? Less? Step out, lemme see ye!”
There was, of course, no alternative. And so, with the greatest trepidation and still clutching the bulbous-headed object that had set these events in motion, Neville arrived within striking range of the heavy club; a club which, in fairness, now revealed itself to be a monstrous, arm-thick cucumber; just as the spear-ram revealed itself to be actually a sodden string mop. Just as Neville’s shadow revealed itself to Shoomba to be, indeed, that of a small, familiar boy. Thin tentative smiles crept slowly onto both their faces.
“Well write me a letter!” Shoomba sighed, not quite over-ruling the note of relief in his voice. “Young Lord o’ the manor is all! Come callin’ on his neighbour!” And with more than a hint of suspicion, “After dark! Right ‘n the middle o’ me favourite ‘tective show!”
His voice was not unfriendly but his gaze and his glance at Ava were not welcoming and he showed no inclination whatsoever to lower his weapons.
“Whatcha want? Is it yer ma? She need me over there?”
“Um!” Neville gurgled in his throat, searching desperately for a plausible distraction. “No! We just . . . I mean me ‘n’ Ava ‘n’ . . . !” And he stopped, freezing the peek he so desperately wanted to cast again in Afsoon’s direction. Ava, with a sniff of disgust, a perfectly good battle gone begging, sat down, donning once more the disguise of a poodly mutt with nothing more important to do than scratch beneath her chin. The conversational halt did not register at all with Shoomba.
“You tell her what I toldja? You tell her, she needs anything, Shoomba’s her man? You tell her that?”
“Um, yes sir. She said to say thank you.”
Shoomba nodded in a way that did not seem to indicate belief and Neville joined him, realising that the weakest and least anticipated link in the chain of their quest had suddenly arrived in his hands. Finding the magic cyclone bolt had been their first priority; a firm prelude, they’d agreed, to challenging Shoomba’s true identity. But having him make an armed-and-dangerous appearance before its finding, left them with no plan at all! How, then, to proceed? The one thing Neville was certain of was that it should be ‘Soon, not he, doing this confrontational work. She it was, after all, not he who had the witcherly powers to peek inside brains for memories of battle and stolen children.
Though now that he thought about it, perhaps that was exactly what was happening! Which would mean that his task had become to concoct a distracting lie! Something that would soothe and inoculate. Despite being caught clutching a hard, heavy Shoomba-owned-and-treasured object in his hands. Which it probably looked like he was intending to steal! Should he put it down? Try to stand it back up? Wait to see what Shoomba did with his mop and cuke? The silence extended excruciatingly.
“So!” Shoomba finally harrumphed, his curiosity shifting toward impatience. “Dangerous to be wanderin’ the Territory, Nev’! Un-es-corted! At night! I got me own pits ‘n’ traps here ye know! Make the Duke’s look like flamin’ mossie coils! Ddja know that? Not to mention what Bill’ll do to ye if he catches ye creepin’ ‘round! Fact is, he be stalkin’ ye right now, ye know! Use ye for bait down a rat-hole soon as I turn me back I expect!”
He gave the cuke a light warning shake, causing it to wobble visibly on its axis - a very ripe cucumber indeed. And Neville, alive to the foolish sound of it but driven by desperation, burped out an ill considered version of the truth.
“Um, the magic cyclone bolt, Mister Shoomba! Me ‘n’ Ava . . . we were wondering . . . what it looked like!”
“Yeah? Wonderin’ in yer sleep, were ye? In yer jammies! Wonderin’ an’ then wanderin’?”
“Not wandering, no! We came in the Lightning Bug.”
“What? Ye did what?”
“Yeah, we were in it and we pulled up the anchor and . . . it brought us here! Like you said it used to do - like a bloodhound. Following the night geese!”
“Night geese?” Shoomba, it seemed, had nothing but questions. “You saw night geese?”
“Yes sir! Twice!”
“Twice?”
“Uh huh!”
“Night geese?”
“Yup!”
“Headin’ my way?”
“Yup!”
“South?”
“Uh huh!”
Shoomba’s mop-ram finally began to dip and he peered into the darkness where the little ship lay hidden at anchor.
“Well! I can see why Bug’d be curious then!” He waggled the wobbly cuke at the sky and winked a flabby eyelid. “I’m not s’posed to tell about them geese, ye know. Very hush-hush powerful stuff! But since it’s you . . . an’ yer ma’s such a nice lady . . . an’ ye come this far . . . I guess I can make an exception. Thing is, if ye see night geese . . . an’ ye follow ‘em, like you done . . . you follow ‘em long enough . . . they lead ye to yer future! Guaranteed! D’ja know that? ‘S true! But thing is, Nev’, this in’t likely to be your future is it? Not here! So ye didn’t follow ‘em long enough. Get me? You ‘n’ the mutt, ye wanna jump back aboard an’ sail off somewheres else, see? Try the Duchy maybe!
“Now if ye wanna do the test on that, jus’ to be sure, ye gotta think about the direction ye come - south. Back in me Go-wally Lumper days the Chinamen useta say south’s about Beginnings. Or was it Adventure? Or both? Hard to remember ‘cause everythin’ means at least a couple o’ things to a Chinaman ye see. Very deep, Chinamen are. But anyways, the question to ask yerself is, was it one o’ them ye were after? Beginnin’s or Adventures?”
And that, of course, left Neville in another predicament. Because first up, if anyone was looking for Beginnings, it wasn’t him. It was ‘Soon, who’d initiated this strange journey. Though even she, if he thought about it, was well past beginnings. For her, the beginning must’ve occurred somewhere way back; before the Lightning Bug and the Things in Under; before Riff’s dream had come tiptoeing into her head and maybe even before Refugee Camp. Somewhere closer to the time of men at war. So far back that it surely couldn’t be Beginnings that the night geese had been seeing from their place, up by the stars.
But if it was Adventure? How could he explain an Adventure that was aimed at changing a future that the past had made entirely terrifying? All of which assumed, of course, that the Go-wally Lumper Chinamen knew what they were talking about!
Neville, being the sort of boy who always tried to make his own understandings fit with what adults told him, thought taking Shoomba’s advice, to sail on, was probably much preferable to trying to answer such complicated questions. He could, he thought, wade out, wait for Shoomba to depart and come back for ‘Soon. It only remained to talk himself free and he started that by clearly saying, “Um.”
“‘Sa matter, matey?” Shoomba demanded, obviously wearying quickly of Nev’s unresponsive and uninvited presence. “Cancha think? Got this far on yer own an’ can’t think how ta go?” And then, waving the cuke over Neville’s head, “Hey where’s your cap, anyways? You be flat out survivin’ any more sailin’ at all without a cap, ye know! Night geese ain’t the only things in the sky after dark! Oh no! Night pelicans! Night pelican shit’ll burn a hole clean through your skull bone if yer not wearin’ a cap, mate! Hey! It ha’nt been hat-napped by yer little ‘Ghani Ama-zanie refo’ girlfriend, has it?”
His pleased-with-himself chuckle was barely two syllables long before it was snuffed out by the incensed whip-crack of ‘Soon’s voice.
“REFO’?”
The word came loud and acid sharp, slashing through the darkness and spinning the hearers like a trio of gimbals. “Arf!” barked Ava in it-took-you-long-enough relief and “Wha . . .?” croaked Shoomba in where’d-you-come-from astonishment. A series of nervous farts stuttered out of Neville’s bottom and the cucumber, as though of its own accord, jumped up once again to become an uncertainly threatening club.
“I am not refo’!” ‘Soon snapped. “My family is not refo!”
“Oh
, hey now!” Shoomba stammered. “Whatcha . . . ! I was . . . ! You never . . . ! Well . . . listen!”
He was ruffled. Unnerved. Taken aback. Was the whole neighbourhood ensconced in the shadows under his house, waiting their turns to pop out at him? Lurkers he didn’t even know yet? Home invaders? Thieves? Camel eating goat-milkers? He braced himself until the shadows had yielded her fully up, frailly alone in the bloody orange light. And only then did a slippery smile slide onto his lips.
“Ahhhh-Ha! Gotcha! Ha ha! Good ‘n’ proper. Yessir! There ye go! Thought I didn’ know you was there, didncha! Hah! No way! Ol’ Shoomba had ye sniffed out! A mile back! Seen yer tracks in the dust! Heard ye breeeee-th’n! Oh yeah! Clever Clogs where you come from maybe! But nobody sneaks up on a ol’ Aussie Bushy, mate! ‘Specially not in his own bit o’ bush! Hoh! Me for one! I got the entire book o’ the Ways o’ Wariness in me head, kiddos. Learned it from the Cheery-patchy Abo’s, back in the Moberley Mountains. Long before either o’ you tadpoles even knew what a mountain was!”
A speech during which the threatening cucumber-club had become once more, in Shoomba’s pudgy hand, a wobbly wand of instruction. And once started, it seemed intent on drawing from him ever deeper clarifications.
“An’ what’s more, Missy, before ye go takin’ all that hoity-toity tone o’ voice wi’ me, lemme tell you somethin’ true! Your lot . . . an’ don’ get me wrong, I’m not classin’ youse as any sorta illegals or nothin’ . . . refo’s is exackly what yez are! An’ it beats the bejabbers outta me why yez aren’t fallin’ over yerselves sayin’ thankyou! Not whinin’ about it! Coulda bin left in yer God-forsaken own country, ye know, ‘stead o’ havin’ our Gov’mint givin’ ye half our taxes to keep yez from blowin’ yourselves up! But still yer all, ‘Ooo, look at us, we got it so hard, don’t call us names!’ Not that I care what they give ye, mind. I don’ give a stuff! I got me own in hand! But what’s wrong wi’ your lot is yer too inward-lookin’, see? Clingin’ to all them useless habits that gotcha inta yer mess over in Af-goony-stan ‘stead o’ jumpin’ in, showin’ some proper gratitude an’ learnin’ what’s the better way! Now just for example, I can tell ye . . . I been involved in all sorts o’ gobble-de-gook languages over the years. One time I learned the entire Siamesian dictionary just so’s I could explain the priv’lege o’ bein’ here to one o’ them barbarian Siames-ee wogs down the boat ramp. ‘Bout as useful as bark on a bird, it was! Poor ignorant bloke - jus’ went right over his head!”
The cuke wand wheeled demonstratively above his own head and came back again to point.
“But one thing it taught me, Little Missy, an’ I never get tired o’ tellin’ folks this! There’s one language everybody oughta get edj-u-cated in. An’ that’s the ‘Stralian one! See where I’m goin’ here? I mean, if we’re gonna have laws, that oughta be Law Number One! ‘Cause we’re all doin’ our best to help youse gooky-talkers but yez aren’t always puttin’ in yer own adequate effort, eh? Speakers o’ the lingo, we know to watch for the clues! Like for instance, ‘refo’! Proper word, that! Only a idjit’d not know that. An’ ye know for a fact ye got no run-o-the-mill idjits in this neighbourhood, am I right? Not in the ‘Stralian part, anyways! Eh? A proper ‘Stralian’d be able to see that straight off! Be able t’interpret the talky-talk, ye get me?”
He leaned conspiratorially toward Neville then, waving the increasingly limp cucumber as though it were a spray of water. “They’re a caution, ent they, this mob? I was right about the hat though, eh? That’d be yours, wouldn’ it, Nev-ster?”
There was a hectoring tone in Shoomba’s lecture that Neville found unnecessarily mean - mean enough, maybe, to have actually been spoken by a child-stealing pirate. But Shoomba, having sensed in it nothing other than the deep profundity he always ascribed to himself, barrelled obliviously on.
“Oh yeah! How right can a man be, yer askin’ yerself! ‘Cause I’d never a doubt she was nearby, ye know! No sir! An’ the Amazani thing? Really . . . jus’ a little bait on the hook, that’s all. Nothin’ personal. Just a gift I got. Once lured a five metre croc’ out’ve a swamp the size o’ Townsville, I did . . . jus’ by yellin’ out a description of a ham sandwich! True story! I know all the tricks, oh my sweet word I do! Stories I could tell you pair . . . things I seen . . . make yer eyes pop!”
Afsoon, her eyes already popping with a dark radiance that Shoomba would never in a hundred years fathom, stepped even further into the ghoulish light, which somehow managed to re-enliven the shadows about her.
“Tell the story about the killing then!”
“Eh? What? What killing?” The cucumber club trembled precariously, as though it, independently of Shoomba, had become aware of the ill omen in her challenge.
“The drowning of men in red dust! The beating of mothers with stones! Are all your stories lies, or can you tell the true ones too?”
The cucumber wobbled in a panicked little circle, as though drawing an invisible line around her body, and Shoomba’s mouth juddered open. He looked from Afsoon to Ava to Neville; three sets of expectant eyes staring back at him.
“Say what?” he said again.
“Or better yet . . . tell us about your pirates at the boat ramp who steal away children! You know about that, don’t you! You, who stands by to watch.”
The face of a jovial fat man, Neville learned then, can alter in instants to be the face of a man who has never heard so much as a rumour of laughter. Shoomba’s lips peeled back to reveal a sharp little gold tooth. His eyes receded from the light and the skin on his forehead curled into a sea of deep waves.
“Children?” he growled, causing Ava’s ears to flatten against her head. “Watch?” And then, swiping at the air with the cuke, causing a weighty half to break away onto the concrete: “You tryna trick me are ye, ye cheeky little heathen? That it? Well let me tell you! Yer smartsy foreign finger pointin’ won’t ever get by anyone this side o’ the water! ‘Specially not me! ‘Cause I had your number long ago, Little Missy. Me ‘n’ the Duke, we both had it! When your ol’ man was still paddlin’ his little boat out at sea, we had it! Get me? An’ while I’m on it, don’t get me started on that sad little effort he got floatin’ on his pond over there, eh! What’s that about, we got a right to ask! Eh? Look at us, we got problems, is that it? Well ye know what it tells me? Tells me yer just a ungrateful pack o’ whos-its! Ignorant enough to think we don’ see! Eh? Look here!”
He flicked the remnant of the cucumber-club away into the darkness. Neville listened for the sound of it splashing into the sea, but it never came.
“Be easier for you,” Shoomba sneered, his arm still pointing after the vegetable weapon, “. . . be easier for you to o’ caught that cuke, Missy, than to catch a Shoomba out any which way. Understand? You don’ wanna be tryin’ me on, little refo’ girlie! No sir, you don’t! You think you wanna know about pirates? No ma’am you don’t! Squid bait! That’s what pirates make o’ cheeky little smart faces like you!”
There were long, thinly stretched moments of silence as he glowered down on her and she, unflinchingly, glared back up at him. Until finally, with something that faintly smelled of victory, Shoomba broke and turned his florid attention back to Neville. And his face, flicking through a series of dark expressions, once again sought out that of the jovial fat man.
“An’ another thing Nev’ here’ll vouch for, won’t ye mate, is I never been caught out in a lie! Never! Here! Lookit this! Lookit this proof!”
He dropped his remaining weapon, the mop-ram, and at last lifted the tipped object from Neville’s trembling hands. In an instant, he’d pulled off and thrown aside the bulbous head which, as it disappeared, was seen to be a fountaining cobweb brush.“Whatchu come to see!” he cried triumphantly, clanking the heel of the shaft against the concrete and waving a magician’s hand. “One magic cyclone bolt! Thirty centimetres long when it was new! Metre an’ a half now, an’ straight as a mast! Now pay attention, girlie, ‘cause I’m gonna demonstrate to y
e a real civilisation fact - the proof o’ magic!”
He spat on his hand, rubbed the gob of saliva into the rod’s rusted pocks and thrust the damp end towards them. “Smell that! Go on, smell that!”
‘Soon and Neville leaned away but Ava, who understood the language of the nose better than any, leaned forward, twitching from top to tail.
“There! See? Know what she’s smellin’? Blood, that’s what! There’s blood in iron, jus’ like there’s iron in blood! Neither one o’ ye little smartarses knew that, didja?” His head bobbed with the weight of superior knowledge. “Yessir! That’s why, put the right piece o’ iron in the right pair o’ hands an’ the invisible world starts payin’ attention! Old’m times them pioneers’d stick a chunk under their doorstep. Know why? ‘Cause nothin’ unnatural’ll go near it! Not fairies nor ghosts nor witches nor gooblers! Iron, see? Magic! End of!”
Neville had no wish to smell blood, even if it was stuck in iron. But he was more than a little dismayed, to have had the very salvation they’d sought, in his hands all along. And to’ve handed it over so easily.
“Yer ol’ man had any sense,” Shoomba was continuing, “he’d o’ kept this bolt! But he didn’ want it. Give it away to me like it didn’t matter! An’ now he’s gone an’ got his Where-Am-I button broke, ent he!”
“You must give it back!” ‘Soon demanded.
“Oh? I must give it back, must I?” Shoomba’s smile was sharp and hard. “Well what I think is, I must not be gonna do that! ‘Cause it’s mine, see? An’ I’ll tell ye what else! Case you had more in mind than just a look! Last person come tryin’ to pinch stuff o’ mine, I sic-ed Bill onto ‘em. An’ they went home lookin’ like bio-degraded bio-degradable bags! Get the message?”
‘Soon’s eyes flared in the dark. “Neville needs it!” she hissed. “The Quiet Man needs it!” Shoomba turned on her, baring his teeth.
“No they don’t! An’ I’ll tell ye why! There’s a old Australian story o’ Humpty-Dumpty, says all the king’s horses and all the king’s men, that’s what it says! Couldn’ do bugger all. An’ Humpty-Dumpty, that’s him over there! End o’ story! So no! My bar stays wi’ me. End of.”
This was exactly what Neville, whose heart already felt leaden, had not wanted to hear. Nor, of course, had he wanted to hear Ava release a hideous growl or Afsoon flare up so violently that Shoomba was driven a step back.
“Liar! The story is not ended! Nothing is ended!”
Shoomba trembled with suppressed rage and frustration, but she held him with her gaze - fearless, demanding, hopeful and pleading, all at the same time. And Neville the Less marvelled at the sheer quantity of her. But even as his amazement grew, Afsoon’s composure crumbled and she came at last to the point where only tears would suffice.
“Give me back my brother!” she cried.
And to Neville’s surprise, the half sly, half relieved look of a victor - a thin smile under arched brows - like that of a great man telling a poor servant to leave his house and never return, re-established itself on Shoomba’s face.
“You really are ‘round the twist, ent ye?” he scoffed. “You got no brother, kid! Yer an only! A loony an’ only! An’ I got no more time for yer fantasies.”
“Anosh is not a fantasy!”
But Shoomba, in his own mind, had won - had no more need to argue.
“Oh sure. Righto then,” he said, drawing a deep breath, tainting it with feigned reasonableness and dribbling it back at them. “Whatever you wanna believe! But listen. Lemme give yez both one last lesson, orright? In this country, we got all kina March flies, right? An’ we got Mayflies. But yez’re never gonna come across no April flies, as long as ye live. Eh? Now what flies know ‘bout April that you ‘n’ me don’t, what that is, is an example, see . . . proof positive . . . that there’s some things folks jus’ aren’t meant to understand! Ye follow? An’ my advice to you,” (giving Afsoon his squarest look) “is to take that as a warnin’. Fer yer own good! Ye wanna drop this pirate-brother-gotta-have-it nonsense right now.”
Neville, Afsoon and Ava all looked at him, one agog, one in tears, one with a barely controlled impulse to attack.
“Now! If yez wanted more’n that, ye shoulda stayed on the Bug. Like I tolja, South is Beginnings. Ye want Conclusions, ye gotta go west. That’s Chinaman knowledge an’ there ain’t none truer. Meantime, get yourselves home an’ tell yer mums ye need wormin’! An’ make sure that Stinkin’ Shaggy Little Bitch don’t leave me any dark surprises!”
It likely would’ve ended there if he’d stopped. But he didn’t. Almost as an afterthought, he let a horrible accusation slide out past his gold tooth.
“Ye reckon yer not a refo’, kid. But I can tell ye, yer not Australian neither. So what does that make ye? Far as I can see, nobody at all!”
It was a step vastly too far. Neville, chirping with dismay, saw Afsoon launch herself fists flying, into the billowing depths of Shoomba’s robe. He saw Ava begin her charge at the lower level, a snarling dart of glistening fangs. He saw Terrible Bill land like a miniature leopard on Ava’s back, all claws and hiss and spit and he saw Shoomba falling back instinctively, his magnificent robe shimmering through flashes of iridescent orange, blue and purple.
He even saw the broken end of the over-ripe cucumber-club, as it slipped beneath Shoomba’s foot, turning instantly to slush and ripping away the big man’s balance. The one thing he didn’t see was the magic cyclone bolt that could repel ghosts and fairies and witches and gooblers, which rose so high it flew free of human grasp.
Neville the Less did not even see it coming.
Sorting out
He was no longer in Shoomba Territory. That was the first thing he noticed. And it was no longer night. That was the second thing. And his head hurt - in fact, on inspection, was found to be decorated with a goose-bump almost the size of a real goose. That was the third thing. Other things he managed to gather included the facts that it was ten o’clock in the A.M., that he was in his own bed and that Ava was not with him, in her usual place at the bed’s foot. He rolled gingerly onto the floor and waited while an unfamiliar spinning sensation subsided. Then he crawled out through the pantry to the edge of the kitchen.
Peering around the corner of the fridge to the left, he could just see the end of the lounge and one of the Quiet Man’s hands dangling limply to the floor. Beside it lay Ava, once again the mild mannered guardian terrier. So. Her presence there answered one question. And the small sad shake of her head as she looked back at him through chair legs answered another; that not too surprisingly, except for the egg on his head, the journey into Shoomba Territory had produced no changes in Home Country. On the other hand, out on the veranda a conversation was in progress.
“I am so sorry!” mum was saying, her voice low and muffled. “I can only imagine that, somehow, Ava got out and he went after her. He’s never wandered off in the night like that before!”
“Kids these days, eh Love! When we were their age we were twice as old as them!”
The twice-as-old voice was unmistakably that of Mister Shoomba, once again in its ‘I’m-a-good-guy’ mode but still incapable of sharing mum’s concern for quiet.
“Not a worry though, no harm done over my way! A little twist to me back, but you know what they say about a good man, eh? Ha ha! An’ your boy got a head like a macadamia nut, I guess! Hooo! Don’t know how that bar got away on me like that! Like it had a mind’ve its own there for a minute! Blimmin’ rotten cuke didn’ help neither! Dunno where that come from! Blimmin’ fruit bats, fer all I know!”
“Yes, yes.” Mum was clearly caught up in her own thoughts. “And that story about sailing in the Lightning Bug? I mean that’s just . . . odd! A waking dream of some sort obviously, but . . .! Well I knew he was off centre a bit and imagining things. What with his father’s condition and all. But I never . . . he’s never . . . !”
“Course! O’ course! Just all that weird, made-up where’s-yer-donkey stuff kids
got in their heads these days. Computer clog, I call it. I give ‘im a pep talk t’other day, did he tell ye? No? Well, man to boy kinda thing it was - not really for sharin’ wi’the women folk prob’ly. ‘Bout real problems I faced in me life, though. Make a normal man’s life look like a walk in the bakery, I can tell ye. Seemed to cheer ‘im up I thought. Tell ye what - I could spend some time over here if ye like? Chat with the boy. Help you out. Missus wouldn’ mind. Can’t let our favourite neighbour struggle away on her own, can we? Ha ha!”
“Thank you, that’s very kind, but . . .!”
“Sure, sure! Or you could jus’ sing out if ye need me, ye know? Jus’ leave it like that? I was just thinkin’ . . . functionin’ adult male on the premise! Alpha male kinda thing. Boys need that! Women too sometimes, come to think of it! Ha ha! Not you, o’ course! Nor Missus S’ neither; but some women! Ha ha! Anyways, whatever you need ‘til yer soldier boy comes marchin’ home or whatever . . . you keep ol’ Shoomba in mind, eh? Be no trouble ay-tall!”
“Well thank you, Dennis, that’s very kind. And listen, my deepest apologies once again. And for getting him home - thank you. Thank you so much. But look, I should let you go. I’ll walk you down to the trees, shall I? And I’ll get back to tending my injured men.”
There was only one way to get rid of a Shoomba and that was to walk it to the edge of the property, park it there, and back away, nodding and smiling all the while at the receding wave of commentary. Neville listened to her footsteps, light on the stairs - one, two, three, four, five. She was on the bottom step before Shoomba hit number two, but they both stopped there while she put a question to him.
“Um! You did say that . . . she was there last night as well?”
“Oh yeah! Fiery an’ full o’ cheek, like always. Real funny view o’ the world, them ones. Like they’re owed somethin’, ye know? Or somethin’s missin’ ‘n’ they gonna find someone to blame? None o’ my business really, Love, but I’d be thinkin’ twice about lettin’ the boy mix wi’ that lot. Bin through the mill, I know, an’ real good people o’ course. Got nothin’ against any of ‘em at all, an’ I tol’ her exactly that las’ night. Happy to have ‘em here! But they come wi’ their ways, don’t they? Catchin’ onto bein’ normal seems to be just . . . beyond ‘em.”
The voices moved off and Neville crawled out onto the veranda, straining his ears to hear what else might be said. The words quickly became indistinct, but through the rails he could see that Mister Shoomba was no longer wearing his satiny robe or his stocking cap. In fact his head, which had been bald last night, was back to sporting his usual full head of hair. His ‘going visiting hair’, as he called it. Which, to say the least, was distracting.
Not as distracting as Ava though, who came click-clicking out onto the veranda at that stage. Her nose was bloodily streaked from Bill’s claws, but she poked it bravely and immediately through the leafy shell of the Lilly-pilly. Neville, from his hands and knees position, followed suit and found, not unexpectedly, Afsoon Rahimi, seated comfortably in his private ounce of shade, her green eyes blinking up at him. She poked her tongue and, from the leafy litter, raised the end of a long metal bar - the magic cyclone bolt.
Neville was so startled that he bumped his already throbbingly goose-egged head on a railing slat.
“Where did you get it?”
“From where you last saw it, of course.”
“You stole it?”
She shrugged. “You heard Shoomba. I haven’t caught on to being ‘normal’ yet.”
It was no kind of an argument and Neville shook his head in reproof.
“I don’t care,” she sniffed. “It shouldn’t be his. It should be yours. Anyhow, see what he did to your head with it? And another anyhow . . . we need it.”
“Need it for what?”
She sighed with exasperation. “Has that big noggin bump made your brain dumber, Neville? Tell me, is the Quiet Man talking this morning? Is he better?”
“Uh, I don’t think so. Ava just . . . !”
“No, he’s not. And has Anosh come sailing home?”
“I don’t know! I just . . . !”
“No he hasn’t. And last night Riff sat in his little boat on the pond for hours. Fearing still that something bad will happen. It’s too much being frightened, Neville! So what we need to fix has not been fixed. That’s why we need it.”
“But we tried ‘Soon! Tried our best and . . . !”
“Neville! Listen. This Shoomba thinks to fool us, with his big sometimes bald head. But you heard him say! He has his pirates at the boat ramp! And even since Riff took us on the sea, he said, he has known my number! My number, Neville! Then he laughs and says I am Nobody! I cannot be Nobody, Neville. It is death to be Nobody. But now us - we - we have his magic! And we have his clue!”
“Clue?”
“He let slip! West, he said. South for Beginnings and west for Conclusions, remember? With the magic cyclone bolt, we must go west.”
“But west is . . . Rahimi Island!”
“West from Home Country is Rahimi Island, head-bump! West from Shoomba Territory is . . . ?”
He stared at her blankly, waiting for the answer, though Ava, saying, “Oooh!” seemed to understand right away.
“You see? Ava understands. Because she is a girl, like me. Girls understand things much quicker than boys.”
“You mean . . . ?”
“Yes. We tried Shoomba. And I think the dream was showing us how to be more careful. But I think now Shoomba is not the king. I think we must look to the Duke.”
And, determined to show himself as smart as any girl, Neville pounced straight away on the obvious arguments.
“We can’t go to the Duchy, ‘Soon! No one can go there! Especially not kids! There’s traps! And anyhow, the Duke can’t be the pirate king ‘cause you said the king was fat! And Duke Ralph is just skinny! And also he’s way too old to’ve fought at Riff’s war or the Quiet Man’s war! And most of all, we can’t go there because the Duke hates your family! That’s why he made the Folly! He doesn’t even hardly know my family but he hates Riff! No, we can’t go there!”
She made a fart sound with her lips. “The dream didn’t say he fought in the war, Neville. It said he watched. That’s what kings do; they watch. And they decide who to hate. Families like Rahimis, they hate! But look! We have the magic iron now! If we strike first, he cannot win.”
Neville stroked his throbbing goose-egg, glanced at the scratches on Ava’s nose and murmured, “I dunno, ‘Soon! I think Ava’s already got hurt!”
“Foof! Ava is too strong and brave to be hurt, aren’t you Ava! Listen, Neville. When she lets you come out, come straight to Rahimi Island so we can plan! Okay?”
“Uh. Okay,” he said, and his lack of enthusiasm went right over her head.
“Good. Maybe we should ask Cookie to help us too. He can ask the kites to spy out the traps for us. And maybe Beau the Bum too - because he has a gun.”
“You want Beau the Bum to shoot the Duke?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. If it will make him tell us of Anosh and of the Quiet Man’s quietness and your Things in Under . . . why not?”
In Neville’s mind, it was all getting very quickly, very much out of hand.
“Well Cookie might help but Beau the Bum won’t! He hates me and my family, ‘cause mum dobbed him in for shooting drunken parrots. He won’t help.”
“Hmm,” she said in a tone that even Neville understood to mean, we’ll see about that.
At that point the crunch of footsteps sounded in the driveway and Mister Shoomba’s last encouraging words floated over:
“Don’t you worry, Love, I’ll be doin’ a little night time patrol, I will. Keep an eye out for developments. You chain up the dog though, eh? Bill gets her in his sights again, he’ll peel her like a banana!”
There was an indistinct mutter that followed, probably something about ‘Stinkin’ Shaggy Little Bitch,’ and then mum’s almost-escaped-from-him
reply: “Righto. Good. I’ll do that. Thanks again, Dennis.”
By the time she got onto the veranda, Neville was back lying on his bed, stroking Ava’s ears. ‘Love’ was a name he hadn’t heard mum called before, so something was new there. But then, he’d never known before that his best friend would steal or that anyone would contemplate enrolling an armed Beau the Bum as an ally. He rolled to face the wall, feeling slightly sick to his stomach about how the future was shaping up.