Ben Rice - Pobby and Dingan

I led Domingo out, saying I was real sorry and thanks for trying at least, and he sloped off back to his half-built castle shrugging his shoulders and kicking at the dirt, saying, “Seems to me she doesn’t want to find them at all.” I was worried he was also thinking: “I reckon Rex Williamson’s a ratter.” But anyway he shook my hand and went off to work on his turrets and to wait for his dream princess to arrive on her flying horse.

All in all about ten people came that day claiming they had found Pobby and Dingan. One old lady turned up with a little jar saying she had caught them in it. Ken from the chemist’s came in all stooped over saying he was giving Dingan a piggyback. He made out he had found her with a broken leg. He said he hadn’t found Pobby yet but would go back to the same place he found Dingan and have a scout around. Joe Lucas, who won the log-throwing competition the year before, reckoned he found Pobby and Dingan drunk in his grandpa’s wine cellar. He spent about twenty minutes doing this conversation thing in front of Kellyanne to try and make her laugh. He pretended to be trying to keep Pobby and Dingan under control and cracked lots of good jokes. A girl called Venus turned up with her Alsatian saying her dog had sniffed out the imaginary friends. Even the little boy with the Eric-the-ninja-platypus came along, claiming that his own imaginary friend had found my sister’s friends. He reckoned it was only possible for imaginary friends to be found by other imaginary friends. He did the best job of all of them. But at the end of the day Eric and him were sent away with their tails between their legs. Kellyanne said that there was no way Pobby and Dingan would come back with a giant ninja platypus, because giant ninja platypuses don’t exist. Anyone knows that.

Well, for a day or so all this action perked up Kellyanne a bit. It perked Lightning Ridge up too, I reckon. People around here like to get ahold of weird things, and they got so involved with the idea of Pobby and Dingan and my sister Kellyanne that they seemed to forget about Dad and Old Sid the Grouch for a while. And no one had tried to burn down our fence recently either. But even though everyone was giving her plenty of attention, Kellyanne still wasn’t eating. She really did think that Pobby and Dingan had died now, and all she could talk about was bringing their corpses back. She said she’d feel plenty better if she could just be with their dead bodies. But bodies still need finding. I was getting a bit impatient with all this and so I said: “Kellyanne, you’re worrying Mum and Dad sick. Everyone’s trying to help, but you know damn well that you’re the only one that’s ever going to find Pobby and Dingan or Pobby and Dingan’s bodies or whatever. Now, either find them or forget about them so you can get better and we can go back to normal!”

Kellyanne looked like she was thinking this one over and over. Eventually my sister said, “Ashmol. Please can you go out one more time to Wyoming and go down the mine. I’ve got a hunch about it. A sort of a feeling.”

“What? You want me to go down the mine looking for Pobby and Dingan?”

“Please. And go alone and at night so that people won’t be able to see you, and you won’t get into trouble.”

“You think they’ll be there?”

“Like I said, I’ve got a hunch.” She put her head on the pillow and pulled the blanket up to her chin. “Maybe they got lost in the drives and their bodies are still lying there in the dark all starved.”

“Supposing I go,” I said. “How will I know it’s them? I can’t see Pobby and Dingan like you can. Never could.”

Kellyanne didn’t answer. She had fallen asleep, and her arm was thin and deathly-looking. There were rings under her eyes and her face was the colour of shin-cracker.

So that night I got dressed into warm clothes and took a sausage from the fridge and put it in my pocket. I could hear Mum and Dad talking in their room in murmurs. I also got a ball of string out of the garage. I crept out of our camp and tiptoed over to where I keep my bike lying down in the dirt. I pushed it out of the drive so it didn’t clank too much. And then I tied my little pocket torch to the handlebars with a bootlace and started the long journey out to the Wyoming claim. My heart was beating so hard it was like someone was pedalling inside of me.

When I was half the way out to Wyoming I stopped and asked myself what the hell I was doing going looking in the middle of the night for two dead people who didn’t exist. It seemed like a pretty stupid thing for a kid to be doing. I almost made up my mind to turn around and go back, pretending I’d found the corpses of Pobby and Dingan straight away. But I knew Kellyanne wouldn’t believe me. So I decided just to go and have a look down the mine shaft, and hang out there for an hour or so, so that at least I could say I’d been down and done my best. I thought Kellyanne would appreciate that. And she’d think I’d come a long way since the days when I used to punch the air where Pobby and Dingan were supposed to be. And I didn’t want her to die thinking I was the kind of Ashmol who didn’t believe anything.

It was a good ten miles of cold road to the claim, and once I got off onto the dirt tracks it became harder to see where the hell I was going. I had to weave my way in and out of the burs and bindies. Luckily I sort of knew the way across the wheat paddock to the Wyoming claim blindfolded, because I’d been out there so many times with Dad. But I still had to guide my bike along the tracks without going down any potholes or knocking into any rocks. It was scary, though, being out there on my own, and so, to brave me up a bit, I kept pretending to be James Blond and I made myself a Colt.45 revolver out of two fingers and a cocked-back thumb and held it down by the leg of my trousers as I rode along. I swear for about fifteen minutes I almost forgot I was Ashmol Williamson altogether.

Well, it was now so quiet that I could hear the blood in my head creeping around and my teeth chattering together. Plus — there was this huge sky with stars peppered all over it, and I remembered Dad telling me that for each star in the sky there was an opal in the earth, and that opals are hidden from view because they are even prettier than stars and the sight of a whole lot of them would break people’s hearts. And I also remembered him telling me that all this land where Lightning Ridge is now was once covered by seawater and how all kinds of sea creatures had been found fossilized in the rock. I felt a shiver go down my spine just thinking about how strange this was, that a sea was once here where now there is nothing but dry land. And suddenly I thought how maybe if this amazing thing was true it was just possible Pobby and Dingan were true too. But then I told myself: “Jesus, mate, you’re losing your marbles, you fruit loop. Snap out of it.” And that made me bike a little faster towards my dad’s opal claim.

When I got there I undid my torch and turned it off. I laid down my Chopper and tiptoed off carefully, because I was worried that Old Sid might wake up and think I was ratting his claim. See, ever since my dad punched him in the face for calling him a ratter everyone knew that Sid stayed up late with a candle burning in his caravan, eating his frill-neck lizards and holding a gun out of his window. And I also knew he had bought a guard dog, which was why I put a sausage in my pocket.

Sure enough, Sid’s dog ran out barking. He was attached to Sid’s caravan by a rope. I threw him the sausage and crept over to our mine, taking care not to trip on the star-picket or fall down any holes that had been left uncovered. I heard that dog slobbering in the dark. When I got to the mine shaft I remembered how my dad would always say, “Always put your lid on when you go underground, kiddo!”—and so I tiptoed over to our old caravan and took out a yellow mining helmet from underneath it. I put on the hat and tightened the strap up under my chin. And that made me feel a little better. Then I tied my torch to my belt by the bootlace.