Are You Seeing Me? (10 page)

I unzip our big suitcase and check my clothes—they’re squashed but not wrecked. I consider putting them in the chest of drawers near the mirror, then decide against it. There’s a framed photograph on top of the chest: a lady with purple hair, wearing lots of makeup and jewelry, is holding a fluffy dog up close to her face. The writing in the corner of the photo says
Janet Beedle 2008
. Is the lady Janet Beedle? Or is it the dog? Maybe the lady is Janet and the dog is Beedle. Or perhaps Janet Beedle is the photographer and the lady’s name is Esmeralda and the dog is called Butch. Whatever the story, I know there will be other clothes in the drawers. And putting my T-shirts and shorts and boardies and socks and especially my underwear (or Reg Grundies, as Dad called them) on top of someone else’s possessions makes me uncomfortable.

Opening the luggage, I have an idea. If I can’t show responsibility, maybe I can show maturity and sophistication by doing something outside my comfort zone. I hunt through the carry-on and pull out the diary Dad wrote for Justine and the book titled
Robinson Crusoe
. Which one to read? It’s an easy decision. I would never read the diary Dad wrote for my sister without her permission—that is being a stickybeak and not respecting others’ private property. It would be different if it were a diary Dad wrote for me. As Jus has told me many times, the photo book was Dad’s gift to me because I was always a visual learner. In any case, I am familiar with the diary already. Justine sometimes reads bits of it to me, mostly before bed or if I’ve had a bad turn at home. One time, she read it when the power had gone out because of an evening thunderstorm. She also reads it to me when I ask a question about Dad, or if I’ve been looking in an old photo album from our Rainbow Beach holidays. She says only the “good time” parts of the diary are for my ears. She’s never read the same part twice, so I think there must be more good times than bad.

I put the diary on the bed and return to the living room with
Robinson Crusoe.
The cover is okay—it has the title and a picture of footprints on a patch of sand. It’s completely flat though. I like covers with raised bits, when the lettering is bumpy. Running my hand over them, I can pretend I have a different disability—blindness—and I am using braille language.

I open
Robinson Crusoe
to page one and begin to read. It’s not easy; the sentences are strange and don’t make much sense. A feeling of frustration rises up through my body, like when I tried the monkey bars in second grade and the bars were too far apart and slippery for me to make it all the way across. I don’t want to give up though. Justine needs to see that I can show maturity and sophistication by doing something outside my comfort zone. I turn to page 128 and the chapter named “A Cave Retreat.” It’s better than the earlier chapters—not great but better. There is a part about cannibals and another where Mr. Crusoe discovers a collection of human bones on the beach. It also mentions a human footprint on the sand. I like this because it is an unsolved mystery similar to Ogopogo. And it makes the cover meaningful and not just a dumb picture like some of Jus’s other books have on the front.

I reach page 133—the part where Mr. Crusoe is making plans to hide in the trees and shoot the cannibals. I glance out the window. There’s a mushroom-shaped tree in the front yard.

“Hide there,” I tell him.

Mr. Crusoe follows my advice. He tiptoes across the brown-and-green grass, ducks under the low branches and then crouches down on one knee behind the trunk. Instead of an ancient gun, he’s holding a set of nunchuks in his right hand. I’d like to ask him where he found them on his island, but there’s no time. The cannibals are coming up the driveway. There are seven of them. Six carry a picnic item—basket, umbrella, tablecloth, fold-up chairs. The seventh has a human body slumped over his shoulder. It’s difficult to be absolutely sure who it is, but the overalls and the wristbands and the backward cap and the fact we’re in Canada are pretty strong clues.

Justin Bieber.

No lie. The cannibals are planning a Justin Bieber barbecue. A Biebercue.

“He makes bad music,” I say to Mr. Crusoe. “But that doesn’t mean he should be eaten.” I nod my head, and Crusoe jumps out from behind the tree, nunchuks flying. He knocks the front two cannibals down, spilling blood and teeth and plastic cutlery all over the ground. Then he wraps the nunchuks around the neck of cannibal number three and uses him as a shield while roundhouse kicking the remaining trio. Within ten seconds the fight is over. The only cannibal left standing is the Bieber carrier. He is not prepared to go down as easily as his friends. He shifts Bieber off his shoulder and to the front. Then he lifts the teen’s forearm up to his smiling, drooling mouth, ready to munch on its meager meat. Mr. Crusoe slowly spins the nunchuks around his waist. Seconds tick. The air is still. The battle has reached a standoff. Castaway and cannibal turn to me, waiting for instructions on what happens next.

I tuck
Robinson Crusoe
under my arm and applaud so they will—

“Having another go at reading a classic, Pez?” says Justine.

I lower my hands, pivot away from the window and face my sister. I perform three big nods to let her know I have been reading and not just creating ridiculous martial arts movies out of classic books. She places two bags of shopping on the counter.

“What do you think so far?”

“It’s difficult. It’s better than
Moby Dick
.”

I’m not joking, but Justine laughs hard. She wipes her eye with her pinkie and begins stacking groceries in the cupboard and the fridge. “If you’re into it, keep it for a bit,” she says. “I’ve got my dreams to fill out the blanks in the story.”

That last sentence about dreams—I don’t understand what that’s about. Anyway, I am happy. I did something outside my comfort zone and showed Jus I can be mature and sophisticated. And because I read
Robinson Crusoe
instead of doing chores, my sister showed me something much better than her pleased face—her proud face.

I like that one a lot.

AT 7:47 PM, THE PHONE RINGS.

“I got it,” says Justine, jumping up from the couch. She doesn’t answer straight away. She takes the cordless phone from its cradle and jogs into the bedroom, shutting the door behind her. I hear a beep and then she begins to speak. Her voice is low and her conversation is murmurs rather than clear words and sentences. I could probably hear what she was saying if I moved closer, if I maybe held a drinking glass between my ear and the door like I’ve seen in movies. Eavesdropping is rude, though. So I stare at the TV and try to concentrate on the show we were watching about an entire Canadian town that goes on a diet together.

The waiting hurts. My heart is knocking against the front of my rib cage. I feel hair standing on the back of my neck. Is it Marc phoning again? Must be. Who else would call? I suppose it could be Janet Beedle or maybe a friend of Janet Beedle. But Justine would have got off the phone quickly if it was a stranger. It must be Marc. And that’s a problem because Justine said in the Cobalt that his previous call was only a little rumble. Is this a big rumble?

After leaving the toilet on Highway 5, I was prepared for the rest of the drive because the seismometer was with me; I could sense difficulties on the ground and maybe be warned before they started. But when we got here, everything was calm and easy and Jus seemed like she’d forgotten about Marc acting like a hero instead of being a boyfriend. So I left the seismometer in the bedroom. I wish I hadn’t been so stupid.

The conversation has reached four minutes. I’m still worried, but the situation hasn’t gotten worse. In fact, there are good thoughts starting to enter my head now. Justine continues to speak low. If things weren’t going well, she would be raising her voice and saying bad words. She might even cry. I am very, very thankful she is not crying—my sister’s tears are torture. It’s been that way from the time we were kids. It might’ve been the same when we were babies, too, but I can’t remember back that far. When Jus cries, it’s like I’ve been tied down to a stretching rack. But instead of being stretched up and down by my arms and legs, I’m pulled in all directions with every part of my body—hips, knees, face, fingernails…even my hair. Everything pulls and screams and burns like molten magma, and it doesn’t end when Jus stops crying. It stings for a long time after she’s settled down and her eyes are dry.

Six minutes. The diet people in the Canadian town are all doing exercises and giving each other high fives that make the skin on their flabby arms wobble. I hope someone on the show knows CPR. In the bedroom, nothing has changed. The conversation continues and the atmosphere is still calm.

Perhaps Marc is acting like a boyfriend now. It is right that Justine falls in love and has an excellent boyfriend—one that she will move in with and marry and call her soul mate (which means the one person in the world you are meant to be together with, sharing interests, having sex and arguing about things). Is Marc my sister’s soul mate? Maybe. She says he is very sweet and romantic and quite handsome and an excellent kisser. She has called him a “great guy” and a “good catch.” I’ve also heard her call him names like “doofus” and “try-hard.” She’s said three times he
could do with a little less Bingley and a little more Darcy
, which I don’t understand, but I know it has something to do with the books she likes to read. I think Marc is a good guy, even though he talks too loud and he knows nothing about earthquakes and his aftershave sometimes makes me throw up a little in my mouth. I think he could be Justine’s soulmate. But what I think is not important. It’s only important what Justine thinks.

A beep sounds in the bedroom, followed by footsteps on the carpet. I stare ahead at the TV, where an obese woman with a mullet is crying on a treadmill, but I’m really watching the bedroom door open, out of the corner of my eye. Justine emerges, tapping the phone against the palm of her left hand and looking spaced out. She replaces the phone, then sits in the armchair opposite the couch where I am seated. Onscreen, the woman has stopped blubbering and is saying, “I need to do this for my kids.”

“That was Marc, yes?” I ask.

Justine looks at me. The focus is back in her eyes. Her brows have jumped up high on her forehead. “What? No, it wasn’t Marc, Perry. For his sake, I’m glad it wasn’t.”

Not Marc?

Not Marc.

Not.

Marc.

The answer is slippery, difficult to grasp, like a soapy sponge at Troy’s.

“Are you sure?” I ask.

“Quite sure.”

“Okay. Was it someone else from Australia, then?”

“No.”

“Was it someone from Canada?”

“Perry—”

“Do you have friends in Canada?”

“Is this Twenty Questions, mate?”

I bow my head and start reading the names of the buttons on the remote control. She takes a deep breath, then swallows the saliva in her mouth.

“I was having a conversation with…my pen pal. I have a Canadian pen pal. You know what that is, don’t you?”

I nod. In eighth grade my class wrote to pen pals in Japan. The name of my pen pal was Akiko Suzuki. In my letter, I wrote that the city of Kobe had experienced the Great Hanshin earthquake on Tuesday, January 17, 1995. It was a 6.8 on the moment magnitude scale and the tremors lasted for twenty seconds. Approximately 6,434 people died, and more than three-quarters of them were from Kobe. I also mentioned that it was not as bad as the Great Kantō earthquake in 1923, which killed 140,000 people. I never received a reply.

“She lives in Vancouver—”

“A ‘she’! She’s a woman!”

“Yes, Perry, she’s a woman. She would like to meet up with us when we come back from Seattle.”

“What’s her name?”

“That’s not something you need to know.”

“I do need to know. I get nervous being introduced to strangers. If I know her name, she won’t be as much of a stranger and I won’t be as nervous.”

“It’s not something you need to know
right now
.”

“Later?”

“Yes, later.”

“When?”

Justine takes a deep breath. “When the time is right, Pez.”

“I get nervous being introduced to strangers. If I know her name, she won’t be as much of a stranger and I won’t be as nerv—”

“Okay, okay. Let’s say on the drive back from Seattle. How’s that?”

I think it over for eleven seconds. “Okay.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“You’re not going to ask me about it every half hour for the next few days?”

“No.”

“You can handle the suspense?”

“I’ve got Ogopogo to keep my mind busy,” I say. “And I can think about the visit to Bruce Lee’s grave in Seattle too.”

“Okay. Good.”

I can see Justine feels calmer now. The muscles in her jaw are soft again. The flush in her cheeks is changing from red to pink. She walks to the breakfast counter and pulls a bottle out of a brown paper bag.

“Speaking of your sea monster, I managed to find where he lives.”

I am confused until she places the bottle in my hands and points to the label. There’s a small painting of some land with trees and surrounding water and a mountain in the background. The text in the center says: