A Man Melting (20 page)

He was exhausted by now, and felt the town was at least a kilometre away. Hope was disappearing just like Fortitude’s island had. This water will swallow everything, he thought.

His limbs became limp.

His torso felt as if it was full of concrete.

He began to sink.

He opened his eyes underwater, but it was too cloudy to see anything.

He thought of Fortitude’s ‘rich organic matter’.

Of the rainbow trout who were afraid to go to the surface.

Of perhaps finding his mayoral regalia lying on the stony bottom.

Tilly Thompson received a call from the mayor of Blenheim that evening informing her of Mayor Kissick’s passing, and was asked to pass it on to the mayor of Taihape. This
longstanding
method of mass communication amongst the League of Mayors was notoriously unreliable. Once, the re-election of the mayor of Havelock North was Chinese-whispered into
‘The mayor of Gore has erectile dysfunction’ by the time it reached Tilly’s ears. But on this occasion she was early in the chain, and the internet verified the tragic, tragic news.

She had only just returned to her office after an
all-day
meeting with the planning committee for the new Whangamanu landfill. She waved the cursor over her computer screen, trying to decide how to react to such news, and noticed the little envelope icon at the bottom of her screen indicating she had unopened email. When her inbox opened, Tilly Thompson was surprised to find — amongst parish newsletters and invites to school prizegivings — a message from the late Mayor Kissick, sent that morning, with the subject line ‘The Designs of My Heart’.

I didn’t want to go to Uncle Roger’s. We were supposed to pick up my sister, Melanie, from a birthday party on the way. ‘It’s all arranged,’ Mum said. ‘And we haven’t been for over a month.’

I told her it was okay because she had been really busy with all the hoaxes, and that it would be better if she rested.

‘Jamie,’ she said, ‘we are going to Uncle Roger’s.’

‘But I don’t like him.’

‘Don’t say that, Jamie.’

‘I don’t like the way he touches me. He’s not even our real uncle.’ This was the first time I had said this, even though I had figured it out ages ago. I knew he wasn’t one of Mum’s brothers, and if he was related to my dad, who I don’t remember, how come he never talked about him? If Melanie died I would talk about her all the time, even if she is annoying. She’s only six and still believes that you can grow up to be a ballerina.

‘How does he touch you?’ Mum asked.

I was surprised the touching was more important to Mum than the fact I’d figured out her lie about him being our uncle, especially since she’s so obsessed with telling the truth.

‘Men aren’t supposed to touch boys,’ I said. ‘They tell us in school.’

‘What sort of touching, Jamie?’

I was starting to think having an argument was worse than just going to Uncle Roger’s. At least me and Melanie could play outside and leave Mum to deal with the weirdo.

Mum was still staring at me, waiting for my answer. ‘Just on the shoulders,’ I said.

‘Get your shoes on, Jamie, because we’re going.’

Uncle Roger lives in one of those boxes that they have at building sites. Normally builders have three or four of these boxes connected together to make an office, but Uncle Roger just has the one, stuck on the side of a hill out past Papakura. There are no other houses around and no fences, which means you can go anywhere in the bush you want, but also that it’s easy to get lost.

Uncle Roger says he is a writer, but I’ve also heard him called a hermit. According to dictionary.com, a hermit is either
1.
A person who has withdrawn from society and lives a solitary existence or
2.
A spiced cookie made with molasses, raisins and nuts. It would be much better if he was number 2, but he isn’t. He doesn’t have a TV, or a computer, or a radio. Nothing except dusty old books.

The last time we visited I’d asked him why he didn’t have a TV. I’d asked this before, a hundred times probably,
but the answer never seemed to stick in my head.

He said, ‘I don’t find it an enticing proposition.’

‘You don’t want one?’

‘Precisely.’

‘But what about cooking shows?’

He shook his head.

‘What about the news? Isn’t that important?’

‘Not really. Not to me.’

This was before all the reappearances started and watching the news got interesting, but I still knew that something wasn’t right with Uncle Roger.

As soon as we got there I wanted to go outside, but Melanie had eaten too many lollies at her party and just started talking and talking to Uncle Roger.

‘First there was a big eagle,’ she said. ‘It was on the news. Then there were all these people saying they had seen a moa.’

Melanie was interrupted by the sound of ‘My Favourite Things’ from
The Sound Of Music
, which is the ringtone I helped Mum download. Mum went outside to take the call, and I couldn’t very well let Melanie mess up the story, even if it was Uncle Roger’s own fault for not having a TV or computer.

‘One man,’ I said, ‘claimed to have seen a whole family of moa, but it was hard to believe him because he looked like he had never had a haircut in his whole life.’

Uncle Roger smiled. On top of everything, he doesn’t read newspapers, so this was all news to him. If Mum didn’t make us visit, he’d probably still think it was 1991.

‘And then it wasn’t just hawks or moas,’ Melanie said.

‘Moa,’ I corrected.

‘There was a dodo.’

‘In Mauritius.’

‘And the tiger.’

‘Tasmanian tiger, in Australia.’

‘Sounds positively biblical,’ Uncle Roger said. I wasn’t sure if he believed us.

‘People had photos and videos,’ Melanie continued, ‘but they were fuzzy. They showed them on the news and then they would get people to argue about them.’

‘A debate,’ I said. ‘They had a debate between people who believed the sightings were real and people who didn’t believe. Underneath the names of the people who didn’t believe they always put the word “sceptic”.’

‘I was going to say that,’ Melanie said.

‘No you weren’t,’ I said.

Uncle Roger looked over to where Mum was outside, but she was still on the phone.

‘Then they caught the really big eagle,’ Melanie said, yanking his hand to make him pay attention. ‘I think it was the government.’ I nodded. ‘They tried shooting it with darts to put the eagle to sleep, but it was so big they had to shoot a lot of darts into it, and when it finally went to sleep it didn’t wake up again. The scientists did tests on it and said it was a Fast Eagle —’

‘She means Haast’s eagle.’

‘— which everyone thought was extinct!’

‘And suddenly,’ I said, ‘the people claiming to have seen moa didn’t seem so crazy. They were men with good haircuts and women with sharp-looking glasses. And last night there was only one person willing to go on the news
with the word “sceptic” below their name.’

‘Let me guess,’ said Uncle Roger, and put on a deep voice: ‘Diana Shepherd, Sceptic.’

Melanie giggled and pointed over by the doorway. There was Mum, looking in at the three of us in Uncle Roger’s tiny lounge. She gave a little bow.

At first the kids at school thought it was cool to have a mum on TV, which made me a little bit cool for the first time in my life. Only Matthew Morgan, the pain of my existence, teased me about it. He called me Sceptic’s Kid, but it didn’t hurt my feelings because it was the truth, and because I am used to him calling me names. But when all the other sceptics began to chicken out and Mum was the only one prepared to supply the voice of reason, as she put it, the other kids started calling me Sceptic’s Kid, too. Even though I knew that being a sceptic was a good thing, the name bothered me when it was everyone saying it. It bothered me so much I ended up in the principal’s office.

‘Now, Jamie,’ said Mrs Oe, and folded her laptop lid shut.

‘They were calling me names,’ I said.

Mrs Oe is an Asian New Zealander. That is what our old principal, Mr Shanklin, said when he introduced her at the final assembly last year. I think she is Japanese, because she looks a little like one of the guest judges off
Iron Chef
, which is a Japanese show on FoodTV.

‘Name-calling is no excuse, Jamie,’ she said. ‘Especially not to push a girl.’

I was confused. This was the first time I had ever spoken to Mrs Oe, but she was talking like she had known me all
my life. It was actually the first time I had seen her up close, because the Year Six kids all sit up the back in assemblies. I had never noticed how skinny Mrs Oe’s fingers were. I thought of Joanna, my piano teacher, who does not have skinny fingers. Joanna is always looking at her hands and sighing.

Mrs Oe called Laurel into her office and made me apologise for pushing her over.

‘Sorry for pushing you over, Laurel,’ I said.

‘Thank you, Jamie. But I’m still going to have to call your mother.’

‘But —’

Laurel gave me a look that made me want to push her over again.

‘She’s a busy woman, I know,’ said Mrs Oe, ‘but she needs to know what’s going on in
your
life.’

That night Mum was on the news again. Melanie and I sat on the couch and watched as usual. A man in Pahiatua had caught a huia, which is a black bird with orange things on either side of its face. According to the news, no one had seen a living huia since 1907.

‘I’d now like to bring Diana Shepherd, the president of the New Zealand Sceptics’ Society, into the discussion,’ the news presenter said. ‘You’re becoming a regular fixture, Diana. Always a pleasure to have you. What do you make of this latest claim?’

‘My views have not changed. My feeling is that this rash of reappearances is scientifically implausible, and a much simpler explanation lies at the root. We should, perhaps, be proud that this meme, this trend for fabricated sightings of extinct animals, forged photographs and increasingly
professional-looking videos, originated here in New Zealand with the affair of the Haast’s eagle —’

‘Which scientists have verified —’ someone called Dr Moore butted in. Melanie booed, as she did every time his face came on the screen.

‘— for which a government laboratory’, Mum continued, ‘ran mitochondrial DNA analysis on three samples: one returning harrier hawk, one Haast’s eagle and one human being —’

‘I’m amazed you are still clinging to this worldwide hoax theory,’ said Dr Moore and Melanie booed again. ‘Look around you, Diana.’

‘And I am amazed that all it takes to sway you is quantity. I’m standing firm.’ Mum turned and looked down the camera. ‘I’ll believe when
my
burden of proof is met.’

She looked angry, or something like angry. I was there when Mrs Oe had called her that afternoon, so I knew she knew about me pushing Laurel. It made me nervous. When the sports news came on I went to the kitchen and I tried out a new recipe to take my mind off what would happen when she came home.

When I heard the front door at eight o’clock, I called out, ‘Your tea is in the microwave and will be ready in two minutes.’

‘Okay.’

‘Melanie went to bed half an hour ago,’ I said when she came into the kitchen. She dropped her satchel on the breakfast bar and began taking bobby pins out of her hair.

She didn’t say anything else. She just stared towards the plate spinning round inside the microwave until it dinged.
That seemed to wake her up.

‘What is it, darling?’ she asked.

‘Roast vegetable linguine.’ I placed the plate in front of her on the breakfast bar. ‘It’s another one of my namesake’s recipes.’ My namesake is Jamie Oliver. I wasn’t actually named after him — I was born a bit before he got famous — but he is my favourite TV chef.

‘Have you had enough to eat?’ Mum asked.

I nodded and handed her a fork.

‘Are these cherry tomatoes?’

I nodded again and she took a mouthful.

‘Hot,’ she said, and waved her hand in front of her mouth.

‘Sorry.’

‘It’s delicious, darling.’

‘You were good on TV tonight,’ I said.

She lifted one shoulder and continued winding pasta around her fork.

‘Isn’t it funny how different a male huia’s beak is from a female’s, but everything else is so similar?’

‘
Was
,’ she said.

‘Yeah, was. I’ve done all my homework. Is it okay if I go on the internet?’

She nodded and brought another forkful to her mouth.

On the internet I went to www.antisceptics.com. I had been visiting this site for the past three weeks, ever since they interviewed someone on the news and underneath their name it said the web address. The first page was a big green-and-white Dettol logo, except it said
Acceptall
instead of
Dettol
. I clicked the logo to get to the main page, then clicked the tab for the message board. I wanted to see what
people were saying about the huia and my mum.

I clicked on the newest thread, which was called ‘Shepherd Strikes Again’.

Can you believe
, someone called Felix82 had written,
that Diana Shepherd is still claiming ‘the burden of proof ’ has not been met
?
Still.

Carnyhands had replied:
But she is still a fox.

My username is Quagga2, which is an extinct animal with the head of a zebra and the body of a horse, or maybe a donkey. It reappeared in Africa three weeks ago, allegedly. I think ‘allegedly’ must be one of Mum’s favourite words.

I wrote:
Isn’t it strange how the only difference between a male and a female huia is their beaks?

I refreshed a couple of times, but no one responded, so I deleted the browser’s history for that day and got ready for bed.

I used to watch
A Taste of Tuscany
on FoodTV while I ate my breakfast, but with all the reappearances I had started watching the morning news instead. The day after the huia, the newest sightings were of golden toad in Costa Rica, Caspian tiger in Armenia, and the indefatigable Galapagos mouse in Ecuador. The last one was my favourite.

I went to the school library at lunchtime and looked up
indefatigable
in the dictionary.

Indefatigable
—
adj
.
[L
.
indefatigabilis]
Incapable of being fatigued; not readily exhausted; untiring; unwearying; not yielding to fatigue; as in, indefatigable exertions, perseverance, application.

‘Reading the dictionary again, Sceptic’s Kid?’

I looked up, even though I knew it was Matthew Morgan.

‘What are you doing in the library?’ I asked. ‘Are you lost?’

‘I’m allowed to use the internet again. It’s been a month.’

Matthew Morgan had been banned from using the library internet for a month because he did a Google search for:
Who has the biggest boobs in the world?

‘You and your indefatigable quest for the biggest boobs in the world,’ I said.

Matthew Morgan looked at me. I wasn’t sure if he was going to punch me or not the whole time he stood there. Then he finally said, ‘See ya, Sceptic’s Kid,’ though the way he said it sounded like
Sceptic Skid
.

The next day everyone at school was calling me Sceptic Skid. By lunchtime, I was being called Skid-mark Shepherd and ended up in Mrs Oe’s office again.

‘It’s not fair,’ I said.

‘What’s not fair?’ Mrs Oe asked.

‘Why I’m the one who always gets sent here and everyone else doesn’t.’

‘Everyone else doesn’t try to hit people with a cricket bat.’

‘I didn’t hit anyone.’

‘But you tried.’

She wove her thin fingers together and leant her chin on the platform they made.