Ben Rice - Pobby and Dingan

“What were you looking at, Mum?” I said.

Colour went over her cheeks like rolling-flash. “Oh. It’s just a photograph, Ashmol.”

“Mind if I see? I really need something to knacker-out my eyes so as I can sleep.”

Mum paused for a while, and then handed me the photograph with a trembling hand and sat back down on the floor. I sat down opposite her, cross-legged. The photograph was of four people standing in a line with their arms around each other. Two blokes and two women. Behind them was a sort of a hill with trees on it and the side of a building. And the hill was covered with purple dots. The sky was a mixture of blue patches and very bulging sorts of grey clouds. But the most amazing thing about the photo was the purple dots.

“What are those?” I asked, pointing at the dots.

“Bluebells,” said Mum. “It’s a photograph taken in England, Ashmol.”

“And who’re those guys in the line?” I asked, scanning over their faces. The girls were very pretty and the blokes looked smart and rich and totally into themselves. And the blokes had expensive black suits and sharp noses, and the sheilas had flowers in their hair and pale skin and dresses like they wear at the Opal Princess competition.

“That’s me, Ashmol,” said my mum, in a whisper. “Aged nineteen. In Granny Pom’s paddock before the Castleford Ball.”

“What?” I said. “Which one?” And I looked again at the photo and saw her immediately. But she looked so different it was amazing. Much sparklier and cleaner in the photograph. Slimmer and with longer hair, but not as pretty as now, that’s for sure. And then I noticed one of the blokes was holding his face next to my mum’s, and was looking at her real close, and his hand was on her bare shoulder.

“Who’s that bloke?”

“Which one?”

“That one.” I pointed to the man in the photograph with the side parting and the hand.

“Peter Sidebottom.”

“Peter what?”

“Peter Juvenal Whiteway Sidebottom.”

“That’s a funny sort of a name,” I said. “Was he a mate of yours?”

“Yes. He was.” My mum paused and did her long-look-out-of-the-window thing. “He was my boyfriend before I met your father, as a matter of fact,” she said.

“Oh,” I said, a bit embarrassed and not sure what to say next. “Did he know the Queen?”

My mum laughed. “You’re a funny boy, Ashmol! What do you mean: Did he know the Queen? ”

“Well, he looks sort of rich,” I said, “and like he might know the royal family and go shopping with them or something,” I said.

“No. He didn’t know the Queen,” said my mum. “But you’re right, Ashmol. He was rich. Well, his parents were, anyway. Now he’s left England and gone to live in a place called New York in America.”

I felt a bit hot under the hair and I sort of didn’t want to be in the room any more. But my legs weren’t going nowhere and my mouth was still wanting to talk.

“Mum, were you going to marry this Juvenile Side-bottom?” I asked.

My mum thought long and hard about this one and then said: “Perhaps. But that was before your father swept me off my feet.” I felt sort of sick inside when I heard this.

“I bet that Juvenile Sidebottom’s a total dag,” I said. “And I bet he’s not half as happy in New York as we are here at the Ridge.”

“Are you happy here at the Ridge, Ashmol?” my mum asked, not taking her eyes off herself and Peter Sidebottom in the photo.

“Sure as hell am,” I said, forcing out a big smile. “And you want to know why? Because here there’s always opal waiting to be found, and there’s always something to dream about, like another Fire Bird or a Christmas Beetle or a Southern Princess or an Aurora Australis.”

“Well, yes, I suppose that’s true,” said my mum a little sadly.

“And I reckon my dad is going to find something real special pretty soon,” I went on, “because he may not have been first in line when the money got handed out, and he may have rocks in his head, and he may have the rough end of the pineapple at the moment, but he’s a pretty amazing sort of a dad all in all.” Well, then I stood up and walked back towards the door, but before I went out I said, “One thing’s for sure, I’m bloody glad I ain’t called Ashmol Juvenile Sidebottom!” Then I walked out of the living room and closed the door behind me, and I heard my mum call out in a wobbly voice: “Good night, Ashmol Williamson! See you in the morning, hey?”

The next day people came up to our camp saying they had found Pobby and Dingan. When I made my plan I hadn’t reckoned people would actually claim they had found the imaginary friends and come for their reward. The trouble was I hadn’t got a reward to reward them with, because I hadn’t thought that far ahead. I always just sort of thought Kellyanne would find Pobby and Dingan by herself when she realized other people were taking an interest, like. But no. At nine o’clock in the morning Fat Walt, who owned the house-made-completely-from-bottles, came and knocked on the door, calling out: “Hey, little Kellyanne Williamson! I got yer Pobby and Dingan right here wi’ me!” He strode in holding his arms outstretched like he was carrying a bundle of dirty washing or something. I looked at him with a doubtful expression, knowing it wasn’t going to work. “Found them out at Coocoran, I did,” he said proudly.

I led him through to Kellyanne’s bedroom. I said: “Kellyanne! Fat Walt’s here! Says he’s found Pobby and Dingan.”

Kellyanne opened her eyes and I helped her sit up.

Fat Walt came through into the bedroom. “Here they are, Kellyanne,” he said. “They’re asleep. I found them out at Coocoran. They was shooting roos and they must have dozed off under a tree.”

Kellyanne closed her eyes again and pulled up the covers. “Stop pretending,” she said. “You haven’t got Pobby and Dingan there, anyone can see that. Pobby and Dingan don’t sleep and they don’t shoot. They’re pacifists. You’ve got nothing in your arms but thin air, and you know it.”

Walt looked defeated. He said something like, “Well, have it your way, then, you little Williamson brat!” and walked out. I felt sort of sorry for him all in all.

An hour later the legendary Domingo from the castle came in all excited, mopping his forehead with a cloth. His hands were all blistered from all that lugging of rocks and castle-building he had been doing and he wore a pair of boots and blue socks pulled up to his knees. He yelled, “Hey, you fellas! You’ll never guess what I found roaming around the dungeon in my castle, all lost and bewildered? Yup — your friends Pobby and Dingan. They said they’d walked twenty miles back from some opal fields. Well, you can relax now, mate, because Domingo has found them and now I’ve come to claim my reward. They’re back at the castle waiting to be collected.”

“What did Pobby and Dingan say when you found them?” asked Kellyanne in her weak little voice.

Domingo thought carefully and scratched at his chin, and said, “Hmm, well, they said they were very relieved and they wanted to see their best friend, Kellyanne Williamson, and have a big meal of steak and chips, because they were bloody starving.”

“No they didn’t,” said Kellyanne. “Pobby and Dingan only eat Cherry Ripes and Violet Crumbles and lollies.”

Domingo looked a mite desperate. “Maybe they’ve outgrown them now,” he said. You had to give him points for quick thinking. But Kellyanne wasn’t having any of it. She rolled over in her bed saying, “I wish people would stop making up such stupid stories about finding Pobby and Dingan. This whole town is going crazy. They should go back to their mines. I need to get some more sleep.”