Nowhere Boys (8 page)
Jake reached deeper into the dumpster. This was why they must call it diving. To get the really good stuff you had to dig deep. He pulled out a packet of unopened biscuits, some yellowing broccoli and a bunch of black bananas. Over the side they went. He dug even deeper and emerged with some bread and squashed jam rolls. He tossed them over the side and could hear Andy, Sam and Felix cheering.
Suddenly the laughing stopped and Jake heard a voice.
‘What the hell’s going on here?’
Jake peered over the side of the dumpster. A man was standing at the back door of the Mini Mart.
‘Holy crap, it’s Dad,’ said Felix.
‘This is private property,’ shouted Felix’s dad, moving towards them.
Felix hesitated for a second, then yelled, ‘Run!’
With a quick pull-up, Jake was out of the dumpster and taking a flying leap from the top. The others grabbed as much loot as they could carry and all four of them bolted off down the street.
They sped down the back streets of Bremin. Felix’s dad soon gave up the chase and they found themselves running down the street behind Bremin High.
‘The oval,’ panted Jake. ‘No-one will be around on a Sunday.’
They ducked under the fence and, dumping their stash of food, collapsed laughing onto the grass.
Jake looked at all the food they’d salvaged. It wasn’t a bad spread. Especially when you hadn’t eaten properly for two days.
Sam gave Jake a friendly shove. ‘Good diving, man.’ He ripped open the pack of doughnuts and offered them around. He took a bite and chewed thoughtfully, as if he were a judge on a cooking show. ‘It has a distinct aroma, with a certain intense rubbishiness.’
The others laughed and Andy picked up a bread roll. He took a small bite, considered it. ‘Mmm, full of surprises. Chewy interior, slightly mouldy aftertaste, with a hint of cigarette butt.’ He pulled a cigarette butt off the bottom. ‘Oh, that explains it.’
Jake smiled. The nerd was actually quite funny when you got to know him.
Sam gulped his second doughnut down and reached for a third. ‘I’m giving these three out of ten.’
Jake peeled a sloppy-looking banana. ‘Definitely two for me.’
Felix picked up a doughnut and held it up. ‘A big fat zero.’
The boys laughed. With their stomachs full for the first time in days, they lay back in the grass. The sun was shining and Jake felt the warmth spread through him.
‘You know what really freaks me out?’ said Sam.
‘Felix’s BO?’
‘How everything is exactly the same,’ Sam went on. ‘Like, my parents are still fitness freaks, and Felix’s dad still runs the supermarket and Andy’s family still have the same restaurant.’
Jake felt the warmth disappear from his body. He sat up. Maybe things were the same for the others. But for him, everything had changed. His mum was married to Bates and his dad was a cop.
‘Exactly the same. Except they don’t know who we are,’ said Andy.
‘Yeah,’ said Sam. ‘It does my head in.’
‘It’s like we don’t exist,’ said Jake angrily.
Felix looked at him. ‘We do exist.’
‘Really?’ sniped Jake. ‘Then how come no-one knows us?’
Sam reached over and pinched Jake’s arm. Hard.
‘Oww!’
‘See? Proof of your existence.’
‘Very funny.’ Jake slumped over, putting his head on his knees.
‘You know,’ said Andy, sitting up, ‘Jake’s right. No-one knows us. But if we had concrete evidence that we exist in this world, maybe our families would believe us. It could be the trigger to cure their amnesia.’
‘Yeah, good one. And where are we going to get that from?’ asked Sam.
Everyone was quiet for a minute or two as they thought.
That’s it!
Jake got to his feet. Andy had given him an idea. He pointed at the school buildings. ‘There.’
Sam shook his head. ‘Seriously? You want to go back to school? The only good thing about this is not –’
‘There must be proof at school!’
Andy looked at him. ‘That’s not such a bad idea.’
‘There must be records of us on file,’ said Jake.
‘And how are we supposed to get in there?’ asked Sam.
‘I know the door codes. At least I used to,’ volunteered Felix.
Jake felt a surge of excitement. If he could get hold of his school record then he could show it to his mum. She couldn’t argue with that. Her name would be on it as an emergency contact.
Relationship to student: Mother
. Surely if she saw that she’d have to believe he was her son.
‘The only person here on a Sunday is the janitor, and he does his rounds first thing and then again around five,’ said Felix.
Everyone turned to look at him.
‘I had a month of weekend detentions in year eight.’ He shrugged. ‘You pick up stuff.’
The boys approached the front entrance of the school. Felix punched some numbers into the security pad.
To everyone’s surprise, it buzzed open. Jake clapped him on the back. ‘Nice one, freak.’
Felix sighed. ‘Do you think you could stop calling me that?’
He considered it for a moment, then shook his head. ‘Nah.’
Jake made his way down the corridor, followed by the others. He knew what he had to check first: the photos in the gym. If he existed, he would still be there. They entered the gym and Jake looked at the photos along the wall.
SPORTS HOUSE CAPTAIN: TRENT LONG.
FOOTBALL CAPTAIN: TRENT LONG.
BEST AND FAIREST: TRENT LONG.
Jake turned away. That wasn’t right. Trent was a deputy, a wingman. He was never a captain. He didn’t have the leadership skills. That was Jake’s domain.
Andy put his hand on Jake’s shoulder sympathetically. ‘It’s okay. It doesn’t prove anything except that Trent’s a better player.’
Jake shrugged him off. ‘And that’s supposed to be comforting?’
‘Come on,’ called Felix. ‘I know the code to the staff offices. We can check the student records there.’
When they got to the staff room, Felix punched in the codes and Andy quickly booted up the computer.
Jake watched over his shoulder. Part of him wanted to stop Andy. If he didn’t actually check, then they could keep believing …
SAM CONTE,
Andy typed in.
A window came up:
NO RECORD FOUND
.
FELIX FERNE,
Andy typed.
Another window:
NO RECORD FOUND.
ANDY LAU.
NO RECORD FOUND.
There was silence. Andy looked nervously at Jake.
JAKE RILES,
he typed in.
NO RECORD FOUND.
The boys stared at the blinking cursor.
‘We officially don’t exist,’ whispered Andy.
Jake turned and ran out of the staff room. He belted down the stairs. He burst into the gym, grabbed a basketball and hurled it at the hoop. This he knew: you pick up a ball, you bounce it, you throw it through a metal ring and then you pick it up again. Simple. Maybe if he could just keep bouncing the ball he wouldn’t have to face the fact that he was officially a nobody.
He bounced the ball harder and threw it through the hoop. A perfect shot. He imagined the crowd roaring for him. The way they used to when he shot the winning hoop at the District Championships. How his team would pick him up on their shoulders, their captain, their hero.
He caught sight of Trent grinning from a photo on the wall.
BASKETBALL CAPTAIN: TRENT LONG.
Jake picked up the ball and threw it hard at the picture. It fell to the ground, the glass smashing into shards. The ball bounced back and he picked it up again. He aimed it at the next picture of Trent and –
Crash!
It fell to the floor.
Sam, Andy and Felix burst through the doors as Jake picked up the ball again. He aimed it for the third time at Trent’s smug face.
Smash!
To the floor.
‘Jake, stop!’ yelled Sam.
Jake picked up the ball again and was about to throw it when Sam wrestled him to the ground.
‘Come on, man. You can’t do that.’
Jake fought him back hard. ‘Why not?’
‘Yeah, why not?’ Felix said from the doorway. ‘Who’s going to get us in trouble? Our parents don’t even know who we are.’ He opened a cage full of basketballs and they rolled across the gym floor.
‘This is a real X-factor in my theory,’ said Andy. ‘It can’t be amnesia if there’s no record of us.’ He clicked his fingers. ‘I know. It’s identity theft.’
Jake threw a ball at his head. ‘Why would anyone want to steal your identity?’
Andy threw the ball back, hard. ‘I object to that.’ He launched himself at Jake and they wrestled.
Andy fought like he’d never done it before. Jake quickly pinned him to the floor.
Felix threw a volleyball net over them.
Sam grabbed the cleaner’s trolley from the hallway and rolled into the gym. He jumped up on it like it was a huge skateboard. Then Jake and Andy freed themselves from the net and they took turns riding it around, yelling and whooping at the top of their voices, while Felix let off the fire extinguishers. Soon the whole gym was covered in a sheer white mist.
Jake perched himself on top of the gym wall ladder and looked down through the haze at the chaos below. Andy was being swung around in the cleaning trolley by Sam. Felix was throwing rolls of toilet paper around. The whole gym had been totally ransacked. What had once been Jake’s inner sanctum, the place he trained every day, now meant nothing.
Jake felt glad it was trashed, glad that Trent wouldn’t be able to train there on Monday, wouldn’t be able to win a game. If he didn’t have
his
life anymore then it sure as hell wasn’t fair that everyone else could keep theirs.
He was about to swing down onto a pile of gym mats when something caught his eye. A security camera bolted into the corner of the ceiling. He stared at its insistent flashing light. It was recording everything. He felt an instinctive wave of fear, but brushed it aside and, with a huge roar, he leapt off the ladder. Felix was right. Who would the school report it to, anyway?
You can’t get in trouble if you don’t exist, right?
Sam’s dad sat at the head of the table, a lopsided party hat on his head and a big grin on his face. In front of him was a table laden with food. Barbequed lamb. Italian pork sausages, a fattoush salad. There were homemade dips,
batata harra
, pita bread, and Sam’s mum’s
kibbeh
. Vince and Pete were shoving food in their mouths while simultaneously yelling at the World Cup on the TV. Sam wasn’t watching. He was savouring every mouthful. He dipped his
kibbeh
in yoghurt sauce and felt the creamy garlicky taste spread across his tongue, followed by the moist tenderness of the spicy meat. He bit into a tomato drenched in olive oil, the sweetness exploding in his mouth. His brother Pete was yelling at him, ‘Sam, Italy scored a goal, Sam!’ But Sam didn’t care. He took another bite of the tomato.
‘Sam!’
Sam opened one eye. Andy was sitting beside him waving a bunch of weeds in his face. ‘Sam, wake up. I’ve got breakfast.’
Sam rubbed his eyes and sat up.
Andy grinned at him triumphantly. ‘I found these dandelions, which are very high in potassium, and I got some pigweed as well.’ He held up a handful of dirty, fleshy-looking leaves. ‘Very high in omega-3.’
Sam fell back to the ground. ‘Please let
this
be a dream. Please.’
Andy took a bite of the dandelion leaves. ‘Delicious,’ he said, grimacing.
‘You’re not selling me, dude.’ Sam got up and walked out of the shack. His stomach rumbled. He wasn’t sure which was the worse torture: being permanently hungry, or being permanently forgotten. He walked across a small clearing to the river.
Andy followed him, chewing on his leaves.
Sam pushed through the eucalypts by the bank. Jake was swimming and Felix was sitting on a rock with his head in his weird black book.
‘Come in, guys,’ Jake called to Sam and Andy.
Andy shook his head. ‘Mum says it’s not natural to go in beyond waist level.’
Sam gave him a friendly shove. ‘Come on. Your mum’s not here now, is she?’
Sam ripped his shirt off and, after a moment of hesitation, Andy followed him.
The freezing water was strangely exhilarating. Sam splashed at Jake, who splashed back harder. They both turned to Andy, who had only managed to go in up to his ankles. They reached their hands up to splash him but Andy took a huge breath and dived under.
Sam and Jake laughed. ‘Woo hoo!’
Andy surfaced, spluttering. ‘I’ve never swum in non-chlorinated water before.’
‘Come on, Felix,’ Sam called.
Felix shook his head. ‘I’m fine.’
‘What’s that book you’re always writing in?’ asked Sam
‘Just my diary.’
‘Seriously, you’re writing a diary?’ said Jake.
‘What’s the point of writing a diary?’ asked Sam. ‘
Got up. Got hungry. Stayed hungry. Went to bed. Still hungry
. That pretty much sums it up.’ Sam didn’t really get why anyone would keep a journal, but he secretly wished he had a sketchpad so he could draw.
