Louis Beside Himself (5 page)

‘Uh oh,' said Miles, in
F
UNEREAL
tones. ‘We're cursed. Breaking a mirror means seven years of bad luck.'

‘Ouch!' cried Rosie, nursing a reddening finger.

‘See?' said Miles. ‘Oh god, what have I done?'

‘Don't anyone touch it,' said Dad. ‘We'll need gloves. Just wait a minute till I get my breath.'

Hassan made a choking noise. I glanced at him. His jaw was clenched hard against the sob in his mouth. I guess he was thinking he really didn't need any more bad luck. When he was stuck in the detention centre, he thought he'd landed in hell. No one told him when he'd be released.
If
he'd be released. A curse has that in it – a foreverness. Like a dead end. No way out.

I didn't need bad luck, either. None of us did. Singo's face was pale yellow, like the hand towel Rosie was wearing around her bottom.

What we needed now was words. Comforting words. Words with no bad luck or magic mirrors or curses in them. Just words that would do a good job, like a sturdy broom that sweeps up and clears away.

‘Luck – who believes in it?' I said boldly, spreading my hands. ‘Mirrors and bad luck, that's just superstition, which is, as we all know, not true. People only believed in curses back in the Dark Ages. Now we have
reasonable
and
rational
explanations for practically everything.'

Dad looked at me and smiled. So did Rosie. ‘That's right, Lou,' she said.

‘Yeah,' said Singo, putting a hand on Hassan's shoulder. ‘Absolutely no scientific evidence for curses. Think of disease. Only awful funguses or bacteria or viruses cause illness. There is always an explanation we can see, festering away under a microscope. Little horrible wiggly germs multiplying to— '

‘So,' I said quickly, ‘it's
A
BSURD
, as in
ridiculous
, to even entertain the idea of a curse. It's just someone's pessimistic, paranoid imagination. Agreed?'

We all nodded furiously. Hassan and Singo smiled at each other in a watery way. Rosie hopped up to make tea for everyone. As I beetled off to the laundry to look for gloves and a broom, I was trying to
A
NALYSE
what it was I was feeling. I mean, I agreed with Singo and all the rational world that curses were absurd. I agreed deep down in the truest, inside part of me. It was just the top layer, where there was a thin shiver under my hair, that prickled with doubt.

C
URSE
. Only whisper the word, I told myself.
Curse
was powerful, purple like a bruise. There are some words you shouldn't even write down, at least not in your own personal notebook with your name on it.

5
THE CURSE

It was all Dad's fault, really. As I swept and found a bandage for Rosie and tried to stop Miles from worrying, I was thinking that none of this would have happened if Dad wasn't so obsessed with wrestling.

Of course it was Miles who technically caused the problem – he's pretty obsessed himself, what with building up his guns and his Low Impulse Control, which means he doesn't think things through, as Rosie is always telling him.

But really, things would have worked out differently if my father wasn't always imagining dangers that might befall us. I mean, if, instead of wrestling, he'd taken the big
Macquarie Dictionary
that Miles was lifting to build up his biceps and actually used the book to look up the definition of Mallee bull, we might have got onto bullfighting, a really
interesting
topic, and the mirror wouldn't have shattered. Do you see what I'm saying? I don't really believe that stuff about broken mirrors and curses, but at least we wouldn't have had such a horrible fright and Rosie wouldn't have
L
ACERATED
her finger or Dad end up with a huge bruise the colour of a curse on his hip (which he didn't show anyone, I only glimpsed it when he was getting into his pyjamas the next night).

However, the next week began well, so for a little while we forgot about the phenomenon and its curse. Rosie was ecstatic because Dad fixed a new long mirror in her bedroom. This meant she didn't nag me about putting the bins out that night, but left the chore to Miles, who was busy trying to do anything to make up for Dad's bruise.

And I had an English test and came first, and a maths test and came last, so everything seemed in balance in the universe. (Plus I found out what a Mallee bull was.)

I did my homework, fiddled with the faulty latch on the gate, and put up the three-man tent in the back yard in under nine minutes. Dad congratulated me on my timing and pointed out what an essential skill tent-putting-up would prove to be in the case of war, house fire, or general natural disaster.

Luckily it was summer, and pretty nice out there in the garden. Singo and Hassan and I decided to camp in the tent over the weekend. Oh, and another good thing was that Hassan's Uncle Mady got a job as chef in a new Afghan restaurant! So the curse obviously hadn't started yet, or maybe it was just getting ready . . .

ON
Friday afternoon, seven days after the broken mirror phenomenon, Mady brought Hassan over to our place together with the most delicious dinner he'd cooked for his lucky customers at the restaurant. Meatballs and chickpeas, lamb and yellow rice, vegie turnovers.

‘This looks yummy and also
E
XQUISITE
!' I told Mady, taking a deep sniff at each separate package. ‘Can you stay and eat it with us?'

Mady smiled and laid his hand on the top of Hassan's head. I liked the way he did that. He just rested it there, as if there was no better place for a hand to be. Hassan always went still and peaceful under his hand.

‘Thank you, Louis, but tonight is big night. Food critic is coming, my friend tells me.'

‘Well, I wish
I
could write about your restaurant – I could use the word
exquisite
and maybe even
tantalising
.'

Mady laughed. People often laugh at me when I don't even mean to be funny, but with Mady, I never get annoyed. His whole presence is like that hand of his – warm and still and accepting. I guess when you've seen so many bad things, maybe you enjoy each good thing as if it's Christmas.

When he'd gone, we went out outside into the garden. The lawn had become a jungle, I noticed. Mowing was my chore. Dad gave me all the outside jobs, like hauling bricks and fixing the garden gate, so my precious muscles would get a work-out.

I didn't like looking at the jungle so I looked instead at the pot plants, which didn't need mowing, standing so neat and self-contained on our concrete porch.
Jungle
is a more interesting word than lawn, anyway. Lawn rhymes with yawn.

‘What do you want to do?' I asked the guys.

Even with my best friends I get nervous sometimes at my place – that they'll get bored or something. What I'd have liked to do right then was to go and see what other synonyms there were for
exquisite
, which I reckon is an amazingly excellent word, and maybe after dinner I could write a food-critic review about Mady's restaurant, using
exquisite
and other new words that were just waiting to be discovered.

But somehow I knew the others wouldn't want to do that. It's not as if I just live inside my own world like a fish in a tank, as Rosie says.

‘Let's shoot some hoops,' said Singo, who I now noticed had a basketball under his arm. He jumped over the gardenia bush onto the concrete porch and started bouncing the ball with the palm of his hand, up and down, between his legs, up and under the left foot then the right. He was getting quite good at that. Now he was running and bouncing around the pot plants, skirting the wooden table, dodging in between the chairs. I remembered he called this
dribbling
, which is a word I don't have many feelings about except maybe a bit of nausea.

‘I brought my skateboard,' said Hassan, bouncing the ball back to Singo.

Mady had given him the skateboard for his birthday, and it was pretty cool. Hassan had spray-painted ‘Jericho' on the wooden part underneath, which in my opinion makes it even cooler. A word is always good for creating some atmosphere. Although I would probably have written the word
exquisite
.

‘My ollie is getting better,' Hassan went on. ‘Do you want to see?'

‘Yeah,' said Singo. ‘Can you do a kickflip yet?'

‘No, but I am working towards it,' Hassan grinned, using old Mainprize's favourite phrase. ‘Maybe later we can go to that school up the road – there are great gutters and rails. Good for grinding.'

‘Exquisite.'

‘What?'

I'd said it out loud. I didn't mean to. Now it was out though, I couldn't help saying it again. ‘Ex-quis-ite.'

Hassan and Singo stared at me for a moment. I waited to see if anybody wanted to know what it meant, but no one did.

‘So,' Singo turned to Hassan, ‘let's see your ollie.'

Hassan sprinted back into the house to get his board. In a flick he was out again, coming at us like a one-man army from the top of the path, riding down towards the porch and pot plants at our feet. I was hoping he knew how to stop when he did a sudden turn only centimetres from my big toe.

His ollie was pretty impressive. Singo had a go too and then we got thirsty. I fetched us some juice, and we sat around the garden table, picking off the dried bird poo.

‘Don't do that,' said Singo. ‘Birds carry bacteria and viruses. Imagine what their
poo
carries. And now you've got it under your fingernails.'

‘Errk.' Hassan wiped his hand on his shorts.

‘That won't do any good,' said Singo, shaking his head. ‘Germs are microscopic— '

‘Which means unable to be seen with the human eye,' I put in.

‘So you have to wash it with soap,' Singo finished. ‘Preferably antiseptic soap.'

Hassan sighed. He looked
C
RESTFALLEN
.

‘Well,' I said brightly, ‘we can shoot those hoolas now!'

‘Hoops,' said Singo, grinning.

‘I know that, I just said hoolas to make you laugh,' I said quickly.

But no one got up. Maybe they were remembering my craze on hoola hoops last year when Rosie bought one for exercising – she'd put on ‘Saturday Night Fever' really loud and faced the speakers out towards the garden. We'd taken turns, dancing and hoolering to the music. It was the best fun until my friends turned up unexpectedly and found me inside the hoop, gyrating my hips the way Rosie did.

‘You know what, we could ask Elena over tonight as well!' I said to Hassan, to take his mind off that
E
XCRUCIATING
memory.

Hassan went tomato-red at the idea.

We sat looking at him for a while, unable to wrench our eyes away. It really was extraordinary the way Hassan's whole face changed at the contemplation of Elena. Sweat formed a dewy moustache on his upper lip as the red of his cheeks faded to white, leaving his face pinched and drained as if he was being
D
EVOURED
by a
T
ERMINAL
illness.

Singo's leg jigged under the table. ‘But aren't we gunna play Smack Down later? Elena won't want to do a wrestling game.'

I sighed. Since I'd got the new Play Station, World Wrestling Entertainment was the only game my friends wanted to play. I didn't mind it – now and then – but what I really enjoyed was my pirate game. Those guys call each other
S
CABROUS
and
B
LACKGUARD
and
M
ANGY
D
OG
. Elena might prefer pirates to wrestling. She might admire those good-looking, moustachioed types with their well developed vocabularies.

‘Why not invite her for dinner, Hassan?' I said. ‘You won't have to be alone with her, or think up topics of conversation or anything. We'll be here!'

Hassan's face relaxed. A bit of colour seeped back in, like sunrise. ‘Okay.' He grinned. ‘You ring her. It is your house. And ask her to bring the
bugie
for dessert.' He leapt up off the seat and raced out into the garden, up and down the lawn and to the letterbox and back.

Elena's mother makes these fabulous cakes called
bugie
, which means lies. They look fat and solid but are actually full of air and sugar.

Hassan loves going to Elena's place because of the Italian food – at least that's what he says. But his face shines when she turns her head to talk just to him. She has this way of focussing her attention so that you feel you are the only person in the room. Whenever I'm with her I usually forget to whip out my notebook, even though she has a whole second language as well as a fast pair of legs. She won every running race with those legs of hers, all through primary school. Singo's pretty fast too and he almost beat her once when she had the flu.