Beyond the Knock Knock Door (2 page)

His sister was under attack. A young man thrust his bamboo sword at her stomach then her face. But Samantha Bowman knocked it aside and retaliated with her own weapon. She slashed, parried and yelled; overwhelming him with speed and precision. She blocked a swinging blow near her wrist, swept away his sword and flung him off balance. The threat of being beaten by a twelve-year-old girl rattled him. However, Samantha grew excited. She could win this fight. She could be the best. With a loud cry, she charged forward and chopped her sword at his skull. But rather than striking his helmet, it
thwack
ed against the floor of the basketball court, allowing him to easily slice at her hip. It hammered her padded blue armour before their sensei ended the match.

Red-faced, Samantha tore off her own helmet and threw away her bamboo sword before marching barefoot towards the change rooms. The other kendo students sniggered until the sensei ordered silence and
everyone to kneel. That included her. But she wasn't going to meditate. She wasn't going to follow orders. She wasn't even going to practise stupid kendo anymore. She snatched her school bag and palmed open the exit when a younger sensei grabbed her sleeve and pulled her back.

‘You should have waited for him to attack you,' he said. ‘You need to learn patience.'

‘I know! But patience doesn't come quick enough!'

Tossing her armour and gloves into a bin, she slammed the outer door, which swung inwards again and almost hit Michael.

‘I suppose you saw?' she said, striding into the rain.

‘Don't give up,' he said, hopping into his water-logged shoes. ‘You were starting to get good.'

‘Good at looking like a jerk!'

‘You're not a jerk.'

‘
Hello.
Twenty people inside are laughing at me!'

He kept quiet and hurried beside her, barely keeping pace with her long legs. He wanted to talk about the homeless man's wallet, but she was in a foul mood – one he'd grown accustomed to during the past six months.

Her temper worsened when a car sped through an amber light and splashed them with a great wing of water. ‘Arghhh!' she yelled. Double ‘Arghhh!' when a pair of teenage boys laughed behind her. She grabbed Michael by the wrist and yanked him towards a cluster of high-rise apartments. He struggled free and rubbed away the pain. ‘Fine!' she said. ‘Walk home by yourself! See if I care!'

His shoulders sank as she disappeared among the black umbrellas. Men and women in suits shunted him out of the way as they fought for taxis or knocked on bus doors. Standing under a thin awning, he added another reason why he hated this city: it was easy for a kid to be forgotten.

He moped in the streets a while longer. He didn't feel like going home. He stared into the shop windows he passed: internet gamers blasted each other with little emotion; roast ducks hung by their long necks at a Chinese barbecue kitchen. His final stop was accidental. Following his feet, he passed a department store, only to be cornered by a spruiker dressed as a giant baby chicken.

‘Cheap! Cheap! Cheap!' the baby chicken said into a scratchy microphone. ‘Twenty-five per cent off. That's right. Twenty-five per cent off all children's shoes, clothes, underwear and
skateboards
.'

Michael was hooked.

He drifted among the rows of sleek rides plastered with logos of skeletons, aliens, Tahitian surfers and roaring flames. They were the brands owned by cool kids at school. He tested one and imagined himself cruising along the streets, sliding down railings and hanging out with the popular boys. He'd be able to find a replacement for his second-hand termite biscuit now in pieces.

Turning over the price tag, he sighed. Even ‘Cheap! Cheap! Cheap!' was too expensive. Unless –

He opened the homeless man's wallet. Twenty, thirty, fifty, eighty, two hundred dollars! It contained a fortune! There was enough for a new board – plus shoes!

A light flickered above and a security guard frowned at him. Moving on, Michael closed the wallet. A new skateboard could wait. The money wasn't his. He'd hand it into the police and give a description of the homeless man. Olive coat, chequered hat, one aluminium crutch –

That crutch. What kind of person faked an injury to sponge spare change from twelve-year-olds? And judging by the thickness of the wallet, he wasn't the only sucker. Maybe he should buy the skateboard anyway. Yeah, teach the homeless man – if indeed he was homeless – about stealing.

Minutes later, he walked through the sliding doors with a skateboard – the remains of his old one. He couldn't bring himself to buy a new ride. That would be stealing too. His termite biscuit was only good for firewood now, but he'd earn the money picking blueberries at his dad's farm.

Angling into the rain, he detoured east. Since moving to the city, his mum had drilled the location of all the city's police stations into him, his sister and brother. ‘Just in case there's trouble,' she said, after asking them to recite the addresses for the fourth time. The closest was near a giant movie complex, flashing with the latest blockbusters. He slowed at the first smell of popcorn. All those films wanting to be seen! All that chocolate waiting to be eaten! Again, he felt the weight of the
homeless man's wallet. It would only be twenty bucks this time – small change compared to the price of a new skateboard. C'mon. Finders keepers, right?

No. He pushed back his wet fringe then walked down the final street.

Passing a TV store, he glanced into its docking bay when he saw, rummaging through flattened cardboard boxes, the homeless man.

‘Where's your crutch?' Michael asked, spitting out rain.

The homeless man grabbed the bin and hobbled round to face him. ‘Get away from me. They're mine!' He reached for his crutch leaning against the wall and jabbed it into his armpit.

‘Remembered to take it with you this time, eh?'

Ignoring him, the beggar collected three damp boxes then
cl-lick
ed,
cl-lick
ed,
cl-lick
ed into the street.

‘I should report you to the police. It's not right to rip off people, y'know.'

‘Get lost, kid. I don't talk to strangers.' Then, with a change of mind, he turned on Michael and demanded, ‘Unless you know where I could find bigger boxes.'

Michael reeled at the smell. ‘Why would I?'

‘Then stop bothering me. I've got houses to build.'

Michael followed him. He wanted answers. But for a man on a crutch, the beggar sure moved fast. He hurried past the cinema, weaved through the crowd, stepped into peak-hour traffic and – ‘Watch out!' – almost walked slap-bang into a cement mixer! It braked hard and –
UUURRRNNNTTT!
– missed him by an arm's length.

‘Are you all right?' Michael asked, letting go of the homeless man's greasy jacket, feeling his own pulse race as if he'd just avoided being killed. Further down the wet street, truck tyres smoked as the driver struggled not to jackknife.

‘Of course I'm all right! That was until you yanked me back on the footpath! You've probably given me whiplash or a slipped disc. I need a lawyer! Somebody!'

‘But I just saved you. That truck was going to –'

‘They're
my
boxes, okay. Find your own.'

Michael stared at him, speechless. The beggar did likewise, bugging out his eyes in disdain.

‘Hey! You!' a man shouted. He was squat and bulldoggish: all chest and teeth. His cement mixer blocked two lanes of traffic behind him. ‘Pick my truck to walk in front of, hey?'

‘Are you shouting at me?' the homeless man answered.

‘So you're deaf
and
blind?'

‘Only when listening to rude little men like you.'

‘Why you!' The crowd of onlookers restrained the driver before he swung a punch. ‘You were in the middle of my lane!'

‘And you are in my face!' The homeless man jabbed his nose at the driver, whose face couldn't get any redder, then slicked back his orange hair. With a huff, he switched his crutch to the other armpit, turned on his heels and
cl-lick
ed away. This infuriated the driver more, who kept yelling until his insults were washed away.

‘And why are you still following me?' the homeless man asked as Michael pushed through the pedestrians.

‘I –'

‘Go on then. Take one. Take a box if you must.'

He handed over the flattened cardboard, only for a brown tail to pop from his sleeve. It whipped back inside his coat instantly. Michael gawped. There was that creature again. Was it a rat?

The homeless man snatched back his box. ‘
Well?
Oxygen's everywhere, y'know. Find another corner to breathe.'

Remembering why he was even chasing this man, Michael strode after him and fished out his wallet. ‘I came to return this.'

Without even knowing what Michael held out, the homeless man suddenly paused, craned his neck then slowly turned round, ignoring his money to lock his gaze on the boy. For a long moment, all they shared was the rain. The homeless man's right eye tightened with suspicion while his left curled with curiosity. Readjusting his aluminium crutch, he dropped the boxes against his legs, scanned the streets then snatched away the wallet with the same force he'd shown at the turnstiles. He flicked through the notes, counted them twice then secreted them among his several pockets.

Michael wanted to ask the beggar how he had so much money but was suddenly dismissed with a sniff. ‘Now if you don't mind, I need to find a foreman to build my house, thank you very much.'

He hobbled into traffic once again, forcing cars to swerve or brake. Drenched, Michael watched him scare people out of his path until he vanished among the crowd.

Wrapping a jacket around his pyjama top, Michael dashed across the roof of his apartment building as the high, wet winds frightened his long hair into ghastly shapes. He dropped a handful of turkey meat into a nest then returned to the doorway. The mother hawk shrieked and he half-smiled. This was his favourite hiding place in the city too. There were no Thornleigh sisters to dodge or school kids calling him a murderer after learning that ‘country boy' once beheaded a chicken for a Christmas dinner. It also proved to be the perfect escape from his parents' arguments, which were becoming more blistering on the phone closer to the divorce.

It was his square of freedom. Here, he could read books, sketch superheroes or launch toy paratroopers into the thermals blown upwards by the loud air vents. Sure, he heard the saxophonist in the next building honk like a walrus and Mr Duncan's own tooting on the toilet below, but it beat being crushed among the faceless pedestrians far beneath him. Once he'd thought
only rich people lived in high-rise apartments, but now he realised it was just one human box stacked on another, on another, on another –

Boxes. He never wanted to hear that word again.

‘Where are you, you creep!' His sister's screaming echoed up the stairwell from their apartment, which again was a war zone. ‘Luke! I'm talking to you!'

Michael entered without anyone noticing.

Samantha charged into the living room, where the third of the Bowman triplets sat wriggling on the threadbare carpet, avoiding missiles and cluster bombs. He was too busy blasting aliens to listen. Bad luck. She pulled the power cord from the game console.

‘Hey! I'm saving the universe here!' Luke said.

‘What did I warn you about if I found you reading my diary again?'

‘Who says it was me? It could've been Mikey.'

‘There are biscuit crumbs all the way through it. And tomorrow's entry says: “
I'm an ugly, skinny freak who's in love with Rajan Sudhakar!
”'

‘You didn't write that?'

‘
Of course not!
'

‘Sorry, I didn't hear you. You were too busy
screeching
into my ear!'

‘Mum! Luke's been reading my diary again!'

‘Then you should hide it in a better place,' she answered, walking down the hallway and zipping up her paramedic's jacket.

‘I want my own room!'

SLAM!

‘And stop banging that door.'

‘You tell her, Mum.'

‘As for you, Mister, stay out of her things.'

‘Me? I'm innocent.'

‘Like the boy who keeps ringing the elevator phone and telling people they're overweight?'

‘Heart disease is a leading cause of death in this country.'

‘So are angry mothers who have smart-mouthed sons.'

Luke buttoned it, but with a wry smile. Rarely did he outfox her. Instead, he replugged the game console into the power socket.

‘I hope you're not planning on sitting in front of the TV all day,' she called from the kitchen.

‘There's nothing else to do.'

‘You could clean up your bedroom for a start. Some of the fleas in there need dog collars of their own.'

He howled.

‘Now c'mon. Turn that off and get into the shower. I'm taking these controllers to work with me –'

‘
Oh, Mum.
'

‘– to make sure you and your brother don't waste a perfectly good Saturday. You've got to find a costume for tonight's party anyway.'

He dragged his feet along the hallway and thumped their bedroom door. ‘Giraffe!'

‘Dog breath!' Samantha yelled back.

Their mother grabbed clothes off the sagging couch, threw them after him and buckled up her backpack.

‘Save a life, Mum,' Michael said, hiding the phone behind him.

‘No one dies on my shift, kiddo,' she answered with a kiss. ‘I'll be home at six to take you to your party, okay? Here. Take this money. There should be enough to hire some costumes.'

‘Do I have to go? The party invitation only said Samantha –'

‘I rang Mrs Sudhakar. She said everyone in your class is invited, including you and Luke.'

‘But I don't feel too well.'

‘Sorry, but you look fine.'

‘Then I don't want to go. The other kids hate me.'

She checked her watch. Her partner would be waiting downstairs in the ambulance. ‘Mikey, remember our talk?'

‘
Yes.
'

‘I know moving here has been tough on you – it's been tough on all of us. But this is our life now. That means making new friends, okay? This party will be good for you.'

She hugged him then caught the door shutting on herself. ‘Love you. Oh, and try to keep your brother and sister from killing each other. We can't keep putting aside two spare beds at the emergency ward.'

Ten minutes later, the hostilities resumed. Freshly washed, Luke again saved the universe using the spare controller that he secretly kept stashed under his trading cards, and Samantha returned to share her sulking. She deliberately stood in front of the TV as she ate muesli mixed with yoghurt and bananas.

‘Get out of the way!'

Having trouble listening, Michael pressed the phone harder against his ear. ‘I just want to go back to the farm. I hate living in this city.'

‘I know,' his dad answered, his voice mixed with frustration and helplessness. ‘But you've got to stay there for now. Your mother and I agreed it's best we keep you and your brother and sister together until the divorce is over. That way you can look out for each other.'

Michael trembled.

‘Son, it's going to be all right. I'll drive down in a fortnight to see you. And I want you back home for the holidays, okay?'

‘Okay.'

‘Love you.'

Michael hung up.

Samantha yelped when Luke pushed her out of the way but retaliated by blocking his view of the TV again.

‘Michael, did Mum leave any money for the costumes?' she asked.

‘I don't think so,' he answered.

‘Thanks!' Luke said, throwing away the controller. ‘Are you happy now? You made me crash into that starship.'

‘She couldn't have forgotten,' she added, searching the kitchen. ‘She knows it's a fancy dress party. We can't go looking like this.'

‘Cover yourself with some dirt,' Luke said. ‘Everyone knows you're a weed.'

A pillow biffed him in the face.

Luke got his revenge downstairs when they were dragged outside to search for a costume shop. Samantha was marching ahead under her own umbrella when he raced forward and stomped on a dropped carton of strawberry milk. The splash was as big as her scream. She chased him three blocks before nabbing him.

‘That's it!' she said, pinning him against the window of an Egyptian restaurant. ‘Push me one more time today – just once – and I'm going to tell the principal it was you who put jelly crystals in the teachers' toilets.'

‘But that wasn't me!'

‘She doesn't know that, does she?'

Shrugging off his crazy sister, Luke snatched the other umbrella from Michael and barged ahead.

‘Pity we can't divorce
him
, hey?' she said.

For triplets, the Bowman children were remarkably different. Samantha was the first-born, by far the tallest and hence the natural leader. She had green eyes, long black hair, a silver hoop earring in each lobe and a ‘cute' nose her grandpa was fond of ringing like a Christmas bell. She'd been practising kendo for two years after seeing a documentary on TV about world sports and previously discovering the hard way how uncoordinated she was at playing basketball. She loved music, burritos, roller-coasters, peppermint, watching football with her dad and dancing in the bedroom when no one was around. And despite what her brain-dead brother might say, she was under no circumstances in love with Rajan Sudhakar. Boys – vomit!

Blond-haired Luke disagreed, of course. His sister's diary was full of hearts, smileys, lovey-dovey dreams and all that other mushy stuff that reminded him of soap operas. If that's how girls lived, then it was yet another reason he was glad to be a boy. Born second, he wasn't the oldest, the bossiest or the baby. However, what he lacked in attention, he made up for in noise. He was the class clown and terror of the teachers – the one most likely to be ordered to stand outside – and that was why he enjoyed school, even if he was bad at it. He loved TV comedies, science fiction movies, computer games, comic books and eating chocolate ice-cream for breakfast when everyone was still asleep. His only goal was to command an intergalactic battle cruiser. Oh, and to make his sister's life miserable.

That left the youngest, Michael. Born on the day
after
his siblings, a few ticks past midnight, he wasn't brave or strong like Samantha. He wasn't even funny or popular like Luke. He couldn't catch a football without it first hitting him in the face, and he couldn't play a musical instrument without it sounding like a strangled duck. He was so plain he wondered why his parents hadn't named him Vanilla. He had stick-brown hair, blue eyes and several scars from skateboarding that should've made him look tough but only highlighted his clumsiness. His single goal in life was to leave this horrible city.

‘Why are we looking for a costume shop anyway?' Michael asked. ‘Mum didn't leave us any money.'

She pulled an envelope of cash from her jacket. ‘Nice try, Squirt. I found it hidden under the lounge.'

Despondent again, he was repeatedly told to catch up as they worked their way through a list of costume shops. However, each store presented the same problem: the outfits were too expensive.

‘Let's go home,' Luke said. ‘My feet hurt.'

‘Then walk on your hands,' Samantha said. ‘This is the biggest party of the year and we're all going – no arguments. If you don't want to pick a costume – fine. We can always go to a baby store and buy you a couple of nappies.'

But even she felt exasperated when they found the last shop on their list. A CLOSED sign hung in the door.

‘Pull out the old bedspreads,' Luke said. ‘We're going as ghosts.'

‘I'm not wearing pink,' Michael said.

‘Or Sam's old horsey quilt!'

The boys neighed and laughed, while their sister soldiered through the rain, the umbrella dark over her eyes.

Michael perked up, knowing another ten minutes of pestering would wear her down. She'd snap and announce that she was going to the party – alone. But a sideways look down an alleyway turned disastrous. Under a sign engraved with looping lettering was a dull bay window with a sparse and miserable collection of costumes. The door said OPEN. He strolled by, hoping she wouldn't notice.

‘
Finally.
'

She did.

‘
Mr Deed's Curious Curios
,' Luke read. ‘I've never seen this here before.'

‘I don't think I've seen this alleyway before,' Michael added.

The lane ended abruptly. Apart from the bay window, the only other notable feature was a cluster of black garbage bags that spread out like a fat man's belly. It was strange that a shop would be in such a deserted spot.

Samantha entered first. From the outside, Mr Deed's Curious Curios appeared no wider than a cereal box, but inside, it was enormous – eleven-storeys tall with circular walls and a domed roof. From its middle towered an enormous fig tree, trickling with a waterfall and sheltering a dozen exotic birds, including toucans, macaws, kingfishers, motmots and birds of paradise. Moss dangled from its branches, and a marble staircase spiralled around its thick trunk. Intermittingly, the steps levelled at ornately carved bridges, which led to the different floors that were racked, stacked and packed with thousands of costumes from all nations and timelines. Statues of Chinese terracotta warriors guarded each row. At the base of the fig tree were two arcing display cabinets. They showcased the normal array of face paint, beards and fake blood, but they also held other treasures. There was a petrified dog from Pompeii, painted Aboriginal emu eggs from Australia, napkins from the
Titanic
, Russian belly scratchers, a poster of the Fiji Mermaid, moon rocks and a pharaoh's golden death mask. Above them dangled a canoe from
Irian Jaya and a strange wooden flying machine straight out of a Leonardo da Vinci sketchbook.

‘What is this place?' she asked.

‘It's some sort of strange museum,' Michael said.

He inspected a red wooden wagon topped by a glass tank. It was a vending machine similar to a claw crane, but decades older. Instead of plush toys, it contained hundreds of round plastic capsules, half-clear and half-orange. In the clear half was candy and in the bottom half a hidden gift. Scratched gold lettering trumpeted it as a Now-Or-Never Wagon.

‘Cool!' Luke said, rushing upstairs after spotting a star ranger uniform. Its stiff, cracked, green leather jacket and pants came with frayed, yellow trimmings and badges; a jetpack fit across his shoulders; a crash helmet was too big for his head; and a laser blaster hung from a utility belt of pouches. ‘Zap! Zap! Zap!'

‘Where's the owner then?'

‘Yes, where is he?' a voice with a thick Belgian accent asked behind them.

A light globe popped and, doubly startled, the children jumped. In the doorway stood a gentleman who looked like he'd just stepped out of the 1920s. He had short brown hair, hazel eyes, round glasses and a handsome face. He wore a blue pinstripe suit with matching gloves and a derby hat, from which he flicked off – not rain – but sand? He sported a crisp white shirt, yellow tie and a pair of immaculately polished pointed black shoes. Strangely, he also carried a rosewood walking stick topped with a ram's horn.

‘Oh, waitaminute. That owner would be me!' the gentleman said, shaking hands as he swept past them. ‘Hello! Visitors! And visiting
me
. What a wonderful pleasure. I hope I haven't caught you on your way out, because that would make you leavers and not visitors, am I right? Hmmm?'