John Marsden - Incurable

‘Ellie, we don’t have much time. I was going to say that it’s complicated by the fact that he doesn’t want me personally to get involved, which is really hypocritical of him, although he says it’s not, it’s just because I’m too young and inexperienced. But he knows that half the people in Liberation are young, and the ones who have experience train the ones who don’t.’

‘What does the Scarlet Pimple think?’ I asked, with a little smile just to show that if Jeremy was the Scarlet Pimple, I already knew, if that makes sense.

He laughed. ‘Huh. The Scarlet Pimpernel. Well, the Scarlet Pimple thinks that we should lie low for at least a week or two, to get a whiff of which way the wind is turning. But if something desperate comes up, something really important… And to make it more complicated, the whole thing scares the crap out of me. Like, it was a totally insane rush when we were out there, and even after we came back in a way, but there’s also the total terror and the feeling that I aged about twenty years, and the fact that I couldn’t stop choking for about a week afterwards.’

‘You hid that pretty well.’ Those two little ridges, from your nose to your mouth, I don’t know if they’ve got a name, Jeremy’s were a little longer and more prominent than most people’s.

‘Well, you do don’t you? Why are you looking at me like that?’

‘Oh, am I? Sorry.’

‘Anyway, it’s time for you to spill your guts. There’s only about two minutes left.’

Yes, there was, just like I’d expected.

‘Oh, it’s just Gavin,’ I said lamely. ’He’s getting in more trouble than normal. He and his friend Mark did something pretty horrific the other day.’

The bell rang. Jeremy started getting up, brushing bits of grass and leaves off him. ‘Yeah, I can imagine he’d be a bit of a problem,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what you do with a kid like that.’

Deep down I had known that Jeremy wasn’t perfect, but the only reason I’d known that was because no human being is perfect, and sometimes, especially when you meet someone new, you try to keep that in mind. But at least now I knew for sure that he wasn’t perfect even if he was good looking. I tried not to grind my teeth as we walked back towards the lockers. Teeth grinding is so unattractive.

I tried again with Homer on the way home on the bus. He laughed when I told him that Gavin was being difficult. To be fair, I had made the same comment to him quite a few times before. I’m not saying that Gavin or Jeremy or Mrs Rosedale or anyone else was insensitive or uncaring. I think it was partly that people were so busy in their brave new worlds. Dealing with their own war scars, physical and mental, the injuries and the damage, was enough to keep everyone busy. And I guess I always understate things, so when I tried to tell people I was worried about Gavin, I didn’t pitch it strongly enough.

When I mentioned something about the cat, Homer launched into a monologue about cow-tipping. This quickly became a conversation, because Sam Young got involved. Sam leant up from the seat in front of Homer, turned around, and they started comparing notes.

Cow-tipping is illegal, according to Shannon Young, who was sitting next to me. I suppose I should mention that cow-tipping is when you go up to a cow who’s sound asleep in the paddock, give her a push in the right spot, and she just rolls over and lies on the ground, still asleep. It is pretty funny, because their legs stick out, but it’s very bad for cows, although I’m not quite sure how. Probably bruises their meat for one thing, and even more probably gives them bad sleep patterns. I mean, how would you be if every time you went to sleep you did so with the fear that in the middle of the night some teenage idiot might sneak up to you and tip you over? Probably about the same as I felt every time I went to sleep since the war started, not sure whether some guy with a rifle might appear in the middle of the night and do something a lot worse than tipping me over.

Maybe that’s why, when it came to cow-tipping, I took the side of the cow. Since the war anyway.

It was time to have a second attempt at the mountains. I was determined not to let them get the better of me. After all, what would they know? Just because they’d been around for thousands of years, just because they were made of rock, just because they covered thousands of k’s, didn’t mean that I, made of skin and bone and squishy internal bits like heart and liver, weighing as much as a fairly small boulder, but with a vast experience of life, couldn’t conquer them. After all, I was a mountain girl. Just call me Maria.

This time I took Gavin, because I figured it would be harder for me to run away if he was there. And I thought it might be a good idea for us to have a break, spend an afternoon somewhere beautiful, even do a bit of bonding. A positive time, far away from Mark’s place, and the poor dead cat.

Not that we actually needed bonding. Our relationship was good, despite all the frustrations and arguments. I could see how he still had big issues, was carrying a lot of baggage, was being inappropriate, etc, etc, but neither of us let that poison what we had. I knew he loved me, and if he didn’t know that I loved him, then he couldn’t tell the sun from the moon.

After the awful thing with the cat, and my visit to the school, he became painfully, painfully good. Not just doing his homework, but doing it conspicuously — coming and asking me for help every five minutes, and using some fake excuse to show me what he’d done, so I would realise how hard he was trying. Not only that, but doing all his chores like he loved them, going to bed without any fuss, getting up early in the morning, and being on time to the bus. I felt like gently pouring a cup of water over his head and saying, ‘Don’t worry, just be yourself again, it’s OK,’ but there were two reasons for me not to do that. One was I figured I might as well enjoy the peace while it lasted, and the other was my deep fear that maybe it wasn’t OK.

Anyway, doing something reasonably normal seemed like a good idea. At first Gavin didn’t want to go but he gradually changed his mind. We decided we’d make a picnic of it, and in the end we both got quite revved up by the whole thing. I’d made some relish the weekend before, using an old recipe of Mum’s, with ginger plus the usual tomatoes and onions and vinegar. We had some cold roast lamb from Mrs Yannos, which she’d sent over on Thursday, so I made sandwiches out of that, with some cos lettuce from the supermarket. Sometimes I get sick of beef, but never lamb, and Gavin’s totally carnivorous, so I knew we’d both be happy with that.

Climbing, climbing, climbing. There were a few steep bits that I really hated, but most of it was good, even when it was hard work. I stopped once to let Gavin catch up, but I think he saw that as an insult, because he went on past me without a word, and from then on continued to lead.

Everything felt so familiar. The gum trees, the spur, the sky, and Gavin’s stocky little body, head down, relentlessly ploughing forwards. I often felt grateful that we could walk through the bush in broad daylight again, and almost as often I wondered how we could have been so mobile at night. Of course, when the moon is good, you can go just about anywhere, but on those dark nights you can hold your own hand up in front of your face and say, ‘How many fingers?’ and you don’t have a clue.

As we got closer to the spot where I’d packed it in last time I wondered if Gavin would react. It must have held the same memories for him as it did for me. I fixed my gaze more and more steadily on the back of his neck, trying to concentrate on it. Not for the first time I appreciated the strength in him. I knew I was sweating more than the sun and the physical effort of climbing could explain. I just kept shoving one foot in front of the other. My heart was fluttering in my chest like the beating wings of a little bird that you find on the ground after a storm and hold in your cupped fist. Gavin didn’t look left or right. I felt like he was towing me through the danger zone.