Changeling's Island - eARC (12 page)

CHAPTER 12

Tim had been wondering about how he could get into town to e-mail his dad, when that became something he didn’t have to do. His father called. At eleven p.m. on Boxing Day, which was probably a reasonable time of day in Muscat. A half-asleep Tim got to the phone first. His father’s voice woke him like no cold water could have. “What’s wrong?” he demanded.

“Nothing. I was just calling to find out how you’re doing. You don’t sound pleased to hear from me.” His father’s voice was guarded. Wary, the way it had been when he’d come home late and there’d been one of those fights with his mother. Tim had not really understood what had been happening back then. Now, a couple of years later, he had a better idea. He loved his dad. But…well, in a way his mother was right. He was Mister Unreliable, especially if someone offered him a drink and company. His mother said he’d rather be with people he didn’t like than alone. But then she’d also said that if he ever wanted to come back to Australia he could either pay child support or go to jail when he did come back.

“It’s the middle of the night! You frightened me, Dad.”

“Oh. I messed up the time difference. Don’t bite my head off, you sound like your mother. So, how are things going there?”

What was he supposed to say, with Nan hanging over his shoulder? “Okay, I guess,” he said, trying to keep the resentment out of his voice.

“Good. Good. Glad to hear you’ve settled.”

“I haven’t!” Tim drew breath to tell his father what he thought about “settled.”

“Well, um, your mother said it would be best,” said his father, awkwardly. “Look, I’ve had a couple of deals fall through…”

Nan took the phone from Tim. “Tom. What do yer mean frightening the boy out of his wits like that?”

Tim couldn’t hear the other side of the conversation. He was too angry and still shocked by the fright he’d had. He just heard his nan say “Well, at least he’s got a caring home with me.” And then, “No. I told yer then, and I’m telling yer again now. It’s out of the question. It’s not happening, Tom.” And then: “I’ll look after him. I told you that.”

Eventually Tim got given the phone back. “Look. I won’t talk too long,” said his father.

Gee. Like he called every day. “You never do,” said Tim crossly.

“Well, you’ll understand one day,” said his father. “It’s…it’s complicated, son. I won’t be back in Oz for, well, probably a year. And your mother has custody. So, um, she thinks you need to stay there, for now.”

“You could have told her no!” But Tim knew he never would have.

“Yes. Well, I tried.” Tim knew by his voice that that wasn’t really true. “And your grandmother will take care of you.”

Tim swallowed, not really knowing what to say. “Why can’t you come home?”

“Um. The business really won’t allow for it,” said his father. “Look. You’ll be all right. I’ll…I’ll give Dicky a call. Ask him to keep an eye on you.”

When Tim worked out who that must be, he managed to say: “Don’t. I’ll be fine. Just…go and leave me alone.”

He put down the phone.

Nan put her hand his shoulder. “I need some tea. I reckon you do too,” she said with a rough kindness. “This is your home, Tim.”

The lump in his throat in his throat only let him nod. But Nan seemed to understand. She made tea. And started telling him a long story to distract him—about mutton-birding and the guy who found shipwreck loot in a hole—and somehow he got over being mad and disappointed, and dozed off. Nan sort of led him to his bedroom, he remembered. He had to ask about the end of the story in the morning.

She snorted. “He didn’t want to share the find. A silver teapot, candlesticks…he pushed it back down, thinking he’d come back alone later. But he never did find it again, or so the story goes.”

* * *

Christmas was over in the Symons household. The mince pies had all been eaten, the turkey had taken up its long, drying-out residence in the fridge. Molly had wondered about phoning Tim. She had a pile of books she thought he hadn’t read, and that seemed a good excuse, better than “I’m bored with no company but my parents, their guests, and Facebook.” She’d been down to the beach with Bunce several times, but he hadn’t been fishing.

Her father solved her problem, partially at least.

“About that spot you caught those big flathead with the boy next door.”

“He is
not
next door. There’s like, two properties between us.”

“They’re holiday places. Unoccupied most of the time, and it is actually four, but anyway, what I wanted to know is if you’d show me the place. I’ve got this afternoon free, and I thought I might do some fishing.”

“You’d have to ask Tim. I’m not sure I could find it, anyway,” she said, which was not strictly true. But it was Tim’s spot.

Her father grinned. “I thought you’d say that. I’ve got the rods on the ute. I’ll go over, unless you want to come with me. There’s a track down to the beach there.”

“Might be better to phone,” said Molly, thinking of what she’d heard of the grandmother.

“They were out with a mob of cows when I drove past. Tim gave me a wave.”

“I guess I could come along. I’ve got, like, a pile of books for him. And Bunce needs a run.”

Her father gave her his most annoying smile. “What a favor you’re doing me, coming along. But I did put a spare rod on, in case.”

“I don’t like fishing much.”

“I thought you said you had a lot of fun?” he said, grinning.

“Yeah, but that was catching fish, not fishing.”

He laughed. “Fair enough. That’s why I am going to consult an expert.”

“Okay. Can we take Bunce?”

“I suppose so. You just need to keep him in the van if there is any stock about. We can’t afford to pay for sheep he might play with.”

Molly knew that. She also knew they shot dogs that worried sheep here. Enough people had told her that. She collected Bunce and the pile of books, and they drove down the road to the unmarked gate.

They hadn’t gone very far down the track when they saw Tim and what must be his grandmother and a small mob of sheep on the far side of the field. Tim waved.

* * *

“Who is this now,” snapped Gran. “More blooming blow-ins wanting to use our place to get to the beach? I’m gonna…”

“It’s Molly. The girl I’m at school with, from down the road, and her dad,” said Tim, hastily.

“Oh.” That was a gentler tone, anyway. “What do they want?”

“Molly said they go into town to collect guests for their cottage. She said I could have a lift in to the library…”

“Huh. Always got yer nose in a book. Well, we got to catch and treat that fly-struck sheep, Tim. It’ll die on us otherwise.”

It probably wouldn’t—or not for a few days—but Tim couldn’t have left a fly-struck sheep, either. The maggots burrowed into the living flesh, eating their way into the poor animal. “I’ll go tell them, then see if I can come at it from the top corner.” The problem with this paddock was that there was too much bush and scrub. The farm was understocked, and the bush was growing faster than the sheep and cattle could keep it back. Tim had seen other farms where they had to fence the stock out of the shelter beds. Here, well, the fencing was too expensive and they wanted it kept down.

He jogged over to the track. “Hi.”

“Hi,” said Molly’s father, smiling and waving a hand. “I came to ask some advice on flathead fishing, and if you’d like to join us.”

“And I brought you some books,” said Molly.

“Thanks!” said Tim, delighted. “But I have to catch a fly-struck sheep. Maybe…maybe you could just leave the books for me at the corner post…I’ll take good care of them, I promise.”

“We could wait a bit. I’m in no hurry,” said Molly’s father.

“It might take a while. There’s too much bush in this paddock, and the stupid thing doesn’t know that we want to help it.”

“Can we help?” asked Molly.

Tim blinked.
Them
catch sheep? Well, it wasn’t that long ago he’d never caught one. And it could be quite funny, a part of his mind said. “Sure, I guess. See that mob of sheep there? Well, I need to catch one. Gran’s pushing them this way. If you can, like, help box them in? I’ve got to grab the one that’s got wool coming off its neck.”

“What?”

“You’ll recognize it when you see it,” said Tim, to avoid describing it. They would. He’d nearly been sick the first time.

* * *

“That
kid
can
run,” said Mike Symons, wishing he was wearing something besides thongs on his feet. His daughter could run, too. And so could the sheep, breaking away through a copse. He was the only one out of breath, as the old duck had plenty to yell at them and the sheep, and still move through the tussocks. “Get around them, boy!” she shouted.

Bunce responded to the yells and the running with a deep-throated bark. Thank heavens he was firmly shut in to the SUV, though heaven alone knew what he’d be doing to the upholstery.

And then…just as the sheep broke away again, he wasn’t. Bouncing and leaping through the scrub and tussocks, the wolfhound had joined in the chase, ignoring their yells…

Mike braced himself for trouble, his mouth dry as he yelled “Bunce!” again. In his mind he was already seeing killed sheep, furious people, and a weeping daughter.

Whether it was their yells or that they’d stopped running, the wolfhound bounded wide of the small group of sheep, sending them running back to the human chasers, straight at Tim. The boy sidestepped, and then ran into the midst of them, grabbing one by the hind leg. Bunce, either thinking he’d caught one, and now they’d all feast, or just wanting to be part of the action, bounced around him as the rest of the sheep ran off. In the fashion of sheep, they didn’t run terribly far before milling in a confused mob, going in circles.

Tim wrestled with a sheep that looked nearly as big as him. Mike ran up to try and grab the dog before it all turned into the disaster he’d foreseen. He was slower than the old lady, though. Her voice got there first. “Get in behind!” It was like a whip crack, that voice, and Bunce…stopped his cavort, put his tail down, and slunk away, behind her. Mike grabbed him by the collar as his daughter came running up and helped…to hold the sheep. “Oh, yuck!” she squalled, as the old woman arrived with a tin and a brush. “It’s all full of maggots!”

“Have it dosed in no time,” said young Tim, confidently. “Just hold her still for a minute.” And to Mike’s surprise, his daughter grabbed the sheep and held on.

Tim dabbed the liquid from the tin onto the place on the sheep’s neck where the wool was blackened and spinning off.

“You can let her go now,” he said.

The sheep gave a plaintive “baa,” stood up and limped her way toward the others—who had stopped running in circles now.

The old woman looked at Mike and Bunce, in a sideward fashion that Mike remembered all too well. So that was the issue! “Is that one o’ them New Zealand Huntaways? He needs a bit more training. Big dog, but good for some work, I reckon.”

She couldn’t see much, Mike knew then. “No. I’m afraid not. He’s a wolfhound. I thought he was going to savage the sheep. I don’t know how he got out, and I promise he won’t come here again.”

“Ach. The wee folk think he’s all right. I haven’t had a dog for years. They don’t usually like them much.”

Mike noticed she wasn’t looking at him anymore, but staring intently at his daughter, eyes wide. He wondered, briefly, if he’d been wrong. Then she turned her head sideways slightly, just as his mother had in her last years. She stood very still, and then shook herself, brushing her hand over her eyes. “Well. Thank yer. It would have taken us a while without yer and the dog,” she said.

She sounded quite mild and reasonable, and if it hadn’t been for the tone she’d used on Bunce, who was now lolling peacefully against his side, it might have fooled some people. Mike wasn’t easily fooled anyway, and he’d had some advance warning. His intelligencer had indeed said the old woman was a real tartar, and he wasn’t wrong. But it appeared she was disposed to be pleasant. Mike had to wonder why. “I was going fishing,” he said, “And I saw you with cows earlier, and it struck me I hadn’t said thank you for the fish.”

She nodded. “The boy said it was a good flathead.”

“Biggest I’ve ever seen! It must have been nearly two feet long. It weighed six pounds.” He guessed that, like his mother, she wouldn’t do kilograms and centimeters. “It was really good eating. Thank you.”

She gave a little snort of laughter. “Yer new here? I’ve seen a few of them rock flathead that’d reach the ground from a man’s waist. A big man, mind.”

“We’ve only been here two and a bit years, and the ones I’ve caught wouldn’t reach the ground from my knees. I’m afraid I don’t know much, but I love the place.”

“Yer do, do yer? Yer bought that block up Pine Scrub way?”

“Yes, the old Masterson place.” Mike had learned by now. That was thirty years and three owners back, but that was how islanders knew the place.

She looked at his daughter again. “Well. Yer like a cup of tea, after that? Yer can take the track down to the beach. Good fishing down there.”

Mike had heard enough from the friends he’d asked to know that was an almost unheard-of offer. Was the old girl looking on his daughter as a favorable catch for her grandson? Mike wasn’t ready to agree, but…his mother had had macular degeneration too. It was hard not to feel some sympathy. And the kids would do exactly what they pleased, anyway, if he’d been anything to go by. Tim was a good year or so younger and half a head shorter than his girl, not a likely candidate when they were that age. “That’d be really nice. Let me just put this menace of a dog back in the car, and I could give you a lift down.”

“We’ve got the old ute in the corner of the paddock. Brought some fencing up here. Yer can follow us down.”

So they did. They got into the vehicles. “I thought I was going to die when Bunce came running. I don’t know how he got out, Daddy,” said Molly, when the door closed.

“I think your Bunce just used up a lifetime’s luck, Molly. I thought it was going to end badly, myself.”

“Tim’s gran is strange. Like, why doesn’t she look at you when she’s talking to you?” she asked.