Rain May and Captain Daniel (5 page)

‘Have you got a watch?'

‘Yep.' Daniel drew up his jumper sleeve and showed me a large, impressive black watch. ‘Good to thirty metres underwater,' he said tapping it, ‘and there's a stopwatch and an alarm, too.'

Maggie and Diana were down on their knees in the lounge room, both of them filling holes and talking. I was pleased Maggie had wrapped a purple scarf, turban-like, around her head and that she was wearing lipstick, even though she was in the house. It made her look happier, I thought, and Daniel's mum, too, was wearing lipstick, a pale brownish pink colour that seemed to match her hair and her jumper perfectly. Next to Diana's soft colours, Mum's purple scarf and brightly-striped jumper looked almost too bold and it made me wonder if they'd ever really be friends. They looked happy, though, working together, and their voices buzzed along in that calm, friendly way, like when there's art at school and everyone's really into it, making masks, say, or clay figures.

I outlined Daniel's plan quickly to Maggie, explaining about the watch and how we'd back, that we were just exploring, and Maggie said, ‘Sure, sure', and if Diana started to say something about the river, I was out of the room too quickly to know whether she'd been about to say it to me or to my mother.

The Captain's Log, Stardate 150901

I took the new coloniser down to Waterway C. in order to acquaint her with the river fauna. Unfortunately the more elusive of these wasn't present, but we did see River Rodents, known commonly as water rats. I held my breath, actually, in case she thought these were disgusting — other colonisers have — but Rain thought they were pretty cute.

They are, too. They are quite cheeky, have a white tip on the end of their tail and they are frequently mistaken for platypuses, because they share the same environment. I must say, the number of water rats I have seen makes me doubt my original platypus sighting (see Captain's Log, Stardate 220400). It could be that it was rats all the time. It's not that I don't like the rats, and they are, as the Counsellor says, quite special in their own way, but they are not platypuses. This isn't what I told Rain, of course — I said we only had to wait long enough and we'd see a platypus.

I don't think this was wrong of me. I haven't much bargaining power, as the Ferengi would put it, and I need every bit I have. Otherwise she'll get to school and she'll never speak to me again.

I am the most unpopular kid in Clarkson P S and that's that. There is no one worse at sports and better at all other subjects, except for art. There is no one more likely to get tripped up, spat at, head butted, accidentally kicked, pushed and punched, or have their lunch end up in the dust. I spend my lunch time trailing around after the teacher on duty and playing two papers with the loneliest preppies.

I don't imagine Rain will be my friend at school. Or, really, that I even want her to. If she's my friend, they won't let her be anyone else's. And what have I got that they don't have?.

It doesn't look good on my side. She'll spend one day at Clarkson P S and be swept up by the tutu and jodphur girls and then Tom will be her boyfriend and she won't even want to learn chess.

Now I am descending into depression, as the Counsellor says.

Rain's First Weekend Away Fridge Poem

this girl
will miss you
my most
& only
my always
a fat kiss
& no sad
from me
your daughter

(Why do they have the word ‘father' in this poetry set but not the word ‘mother'. I should write to them and complain.)

The Captain's Log, Stardate 211001

The next-door colonisers set out early after lunch and the first female came back alone in her transport pod around dusk.

On Planet 9 we ate heartily and then the screen went on and I went to the bridge. All quiet. Read for a while —
The Hobbit
— but the television noise got me down so I opened the blinds and looked out into the night. Well, I should have, but the first female had her blinds open, too, so I saw straight into Planet 7's eating pod.

Honest, I was hoping for stars. And there was Maggie walking up and down the kitchen in her pyjamas already (and not even my bedtime), her face all funny.

I thought she may have had a stroke and nearly called the doctor, but I decided further investigation was necessary so got the star binoculars out and focussed on her.

Her face was all pulled in and she was crying, but her hands were moving as though she was dancing slowly to some music. She didn't bother to sweep the tears away, just kept on swaying and crying.

The Counsellor cries, of course, but she drops her face into her hands and snuffles quietly, and when she lifts her head again she smiles a watery, rivery smile and tells us that she loved that particular patient very much or was thinking of their children or their parents, depending on who has died or who has to be told they have cancer. Dad and I push the teapot over to her or massage her shoulders.

She cries at the television, too, but there's no television in Rain's kitchen.

Maggie could be missing Rain. Rain said she was staying with her dad this weekend.

This must be the first anthropological secret gathered by Planet 9 about Planet 7. The older coloniser cries until tears leave her eyes and spread across her face when the second coloniser leaves to stay with her paternal family.

I suppose that's natural. Would the Counsellor cry over me? Yes. Would the doctor? He'd do his loud throat-clearing noise that means he's very upset.

Should I tell anyone? And is she actually dancing while she's crying, which is what it looked like? Must investigate further.

The Captain's Log, Stardate 221001

Things I don't know about:

what it would be like to live on Mars

how to build a space rocket

how to go back in time

what sex is all about

how to fall in love

The Doctor said this morning that the Thomas girl had come in with a bad cold and it had turned out she was pregnant. Counsellor Diana gasped and said, ‘She was going to get engaged.'

‘Looks like they'll skip that and get married,' the Doctor said.

It would be pretty weird to go to the doctor for the flu and come out knowing you were going to have a baby.

The Counsellor packed her old people's bag — she's off to deliver her Saturday cake and comfort. And then, as the Doctor has the morning off, they were going to play golf. They invited me but I admit I find golf boring and frustrating.

I went to Maggie's. I wanted to make sure she wasn't still crying. I wanted to see if so much crying left lasting marks.

She looked absolutely normal except she was wearing a weird purple t-shirt and baggy black trousers and her hair was all over the place.

‘Rain's at her dad's,' she said when she opened the door.

‘I know,' I said. ‘I've come over to see how you are.'

‘Oh,' she said, ‘I'm fine, thank you. Would you like to come in?'

‘Thanks,' I said, and sat down at the kitchen table.

‘Tea?' she asked. ‘Or coffee?'

‘I'm too young for coffee,' I said. ‘Tea would be lovely, thanks.'

‘Raisin toast? I haven't had breakfast yet and was just about to make some.'

‘Just one piece, thanks. If it isn't too much trouble.'

‘Not at all.'

‘Well,' Maggie said, passing me the butter, ‘is this an official visit or just a pop-over and how's your morning?'

‘Were you dancing last night? When you were crying, I mean?'

‘You saw me?'

‘I couldn't help it,' I said. ‘You hadn't drawn the blinds.'

‘We took the blinds down,' Maggie said. ‘I don't like blinds. I'm going to make curtains.'

‘So were you? Dancing?'

‘nd crying.' Maggie nodded. ‘I miss Rain and I like to cry with music on.'

‘She'll be back, though,' I said. ‘It's only for the weekend, isn't it?'

‘Yes,' Maggie said, ‘but it was the first weekend and it's always hard to do new things for the first time, so you have to be a little gentle with yourself and if you feel like crying, you should.'

‘I cried the first day of school.'

‘There you are then, you know what I mean.'

‘I still cry, sometimes. You won't tell Rain, will you?'

‘Of course not. Why do you still cry?'

‘No one likes me much at school. I can't do the things they like.'

‘What things can't you do?'

‘Soccer, football and cricket — stuff like that. I can't play contact sports of any kind and I'm not much good at the physical stuff either. I have a cardiac condition.'

‘I didn't know that,' Maggie said. ‘More toast?'

‘Just one more, thanks. It's okay, it doesn't mean I'll have a heart attack or anything like that.'

‘Right,' Maggie said. ‘So do the other kids know that?'

‘I suppose so.'

‘Have you told Rain?'

‘Do I have to?'

‘It's up to you.'

‘I thought if she knew she might — she might think she had to be my friend because she felt sorry for me.'

‘I see,' Maggie said, ‘On the other hand, if she finds out from someone else, she might feel hurt that you didn't tell her yourself.'

‘I guess I'll tell her later, okay?'

I like Maggie. I like the fact that she didn't make too big a deal of my heart stuff or the fact that I'm unpopular at school. Even if she does stay up half the night crazily dancing and crying, she's a really calm person. It's like she's deeply calm. Whereas the Counsellor, who you'd think would be calm, just isn't. I can't tell
her
how unpopular I am. She'd just worry and worry.

Aren't people odd? I wonder if I'll be as strange when I grow up?

City Weekend

You would think there'd be more to do in the city than the country, but I missed the Dreamhouse and Mum all weekend. Maybe it was because Maggie and I are fixing up the house and maybe because everything's new there. Dad picked me up at Sunbury Maccas, but because he'd left work early to do that he had to work most of Saturday, so Julia and I spent the day together.

If I had to write an essay on what I did on the weekend I could do it in one word — SHOP! We started at the market, which was okay except that Julia had a list so she didn't browse around the way Maggie and I used to. If you have a list you just go bang, bang down the list and don't even stop for a coffee or a jam donut. Then you load the stuff in the car and walk down to a cafe where you sit for hours, much longer than it's taken you to do the shopping, drink two coffees and read the paper and there's nothing, absolutely nothing to look at except all the other cafe sitters. Julia wouldn't even play that game where you pick a person and imagine a life for them. She said, ‘No, Rain, please, I'm trying to read the paper', in a tone that made me wonder if I had given her a hard time over anything.

I hadn't. I hadn't complained when Dad went to work. I'd washed the breakfast dishes — not that she knew that, because she was still in bed when Dad and I had breakfast. I'd sat really quietly until she was ready to go out and I hadn't even asked if I could have the television on because I know she doesn't like it on first thing in the morning, although by then it was about nine thirty. All I had done was try to shop the way Maggie and I do.

‘Oh look,' I said, ‘fresh pasta, Julia — that would be good for dinner.'

‘We're going out for dinner,' she said. ‘I don't cook on the weekends if I can avoid it. A new Thai restaurant's opened up.'

‘There's a Thai restaurant in Clarkson,' I said. ‘Mum reckons that puts it on the map.'

‘I think it would take more than a Thai restaurant to put Clarkson on the map, Rain,' Julia said with a little laugh. ‘Still, if your mum's happy there.'

‘We're both very happy there,' I said.

You'd think you'd have a great big lunch after you'd been to the market, wouldn't you? Maggie and I would put packets of cheese, little containers of sundried tomatoes, olives, artichoke hearts, sometimes pickled octopus, ham or terrine and two loaves of bread on the table and we'd sit down to a feast. Dad would sit there rubbing his hands together.

Julia found some peanut butter scrapings in the cupboard, a few pale cherry tomatoes and some leftover pesto.

‘I'm not very domesticated,' she said. ‘Sorry, Rain. Your father and I don't eat at home much. You just tell me what you want in future and I'll try to make sure I have it. Are you sure you don't want some yoghurt? We seem to have plenty of that.'

I ate bread spread thinly with peanut butter while Julia whizzed up her beetroots and yoghurt into a pale pink drink which looked beautiful but smelt earthy.

‘Well,' she said when we'd finished, ‘up for some shopping?'

We mooched along Chapel Street where Julia tried on five dresses, three tops, three skirts, a pair of trousers and two coats. Not all at the same shop, of course. We went to nine different boutiques. She put a coat on lay-by — it was four hundred and fifty dollars, I couldn't help hearing. And it was plain black. You'd expect to get something special for that much money, like a bit of braid or a fluffy collar or something, but this was just black. It looked to me exactly like the coat she was wearing, but the sales assistant and Julia raised their eyebrows at each other and twittered together when I said that. And then Julia said, and I don't think she thought I'd hear her but I did, ‘She's my stepdaughter, from the country.'

And that's when I decided I hated her. She had no right to call me her stepdaughter when she and Dad weren't even married, and anyway, no one had asked me whether I wanted to be called that. I would certainly never in a million trillion years have called Julia my stepmother and I wasn't going to start, thank you very much. Little kids might have stepmothers, but not Rain May Carr-Davies. It made it sound as though Maggie had died. It was awful.

At the next shop she tried on a little jumper with lots of different coloured stripes.

‘Too young, do you think?' she asked the mirror.

‘Those colours are very popular,' I said and the sales assistant beamed at me. ‘All the teenagers where I live are wearing them.' Then, remembering what Mum and Fran said to each other whenever they went shopping, I said, ‘I think you'd get away with it, Julia. After all, you're still pretty young, aren't you? I mean, Dad's years older than you, isn't he?'

She didn't buy it, of course. Which was a shame, really, because I had to admit it had suited her. But I didn't care. By the time we got back to the flat, we were both grumpy and tired. Dad was cross, too.

‘I got home early so I could go out with my girls,' he said, ‘and the flat was empty. Where have you been?'

‘Just buying a few things,' Julia said. ‘Oh darling, I'm sorry you came home to a lonely old flat. Shall we have a spa together? I'm just exhausted and I'm sure you are, too. Rain can watch television.'

‘Fine with me,' I said, ‘Is there anything to eat? I'm starving.'

‘Oh heavens, I don't think we have any snacks,' Julia said. ‘Not very good for you, particularly after a big lunch.'

‘It wasn't a big lunch,' I said. ‘There's nothing to eat here, Dad. I had ancient peanut butter for lunch, I've been dragged from clothes shop to clothes shop all day and I'm hungry.' I didn't mean my voice to go up in a wail but it did and I felt perilously close to crying.

‘You run the spa bath, Julia darling. Rain and I will go out and have a quick snack. I'm a little hungry, too.'

‘Don't be long then. And don't eat anything silly, darling. Remember that cholesterol.'

We had baclavas at a Turkish cafe nearby.

‘I'm sorry you two aren't getting on well,' he said, stirring a heaped spoonful of sugar in his short black. ‘I thought you liked Julia.'

I shrugged. ‘She's okay,' I said, ‘it's just the shopping. And she called me her stepdaughter. Which I'm not. And it sounded as though Maggie had died.'

‘That's a bit extreme, Rain. She was probably just trying to explain the relationship.'

‘Get real, Dad. To a sales assistant? As if it mattered?'

Dad reached across the table and took my hand.

‘Give her some time, please,' he said. ‘She's not used to kids. She's a lovely person, Rain, honestly. She'll learn how to cope. We'll just have to teach her slowly. Okay, just for me?'

‘You haven't even asked how Maggie is,' I said. ‘You haven't asked after her at all. I want to ring her. I want to ring her when we get back. When you two are relaxing in your spa, I want to ring my mother.'

‘That's fine. Of course you can ring her, Rain. But I don't like this attitude. Of course I am concerned about your mother, but I can't make you the go-between to find out about her. This is grown-up stuff, Rain. You don't understand all of it.'

‘I'm sorry,' I said, and I was, even though I might not have sounded it. Dad knew I was, because he held my hand again and asked me just to try while they got this new situation sorted out and everyone was more used to everything and each other.

‘Tomorrow,' he said, ‘will be our day. We'll do something together, just the two of us, okay?'

I did ring Maggie but I didn't tell her how miserable I was. I said everything was okay and I was okay, just missing her a little bit, and how was she and had she read the poem on the fridge I'd left her? And she said she loved me and that she missed me and, yes, it was a wonderful poem and thank you very much and that Daniel had joined her for breakfast and they'd had raisin toast. When I hung up I felt kind of better on the one hand and slightly more miserable on the other.

I had thought that the weekend would be fantastic. I thought I'd drop enough hints about the Dream-house and the platypus and the mist in the mornings that Dad would want to come up and see it all.

Well, I tried. I talked about the Dreamhouse over dinner at the Thai restaurant, where we had to take our shoes off at the door and sit nearly on the floor on these big cushions, which was fun. Every time I mentioned something that we were doing, Julia talked about the food. She wasn't even interested in the possum, although Dad loved hearing that story.

‘How sweet,' he said. ‘So are they living in the possum house?'

‘We think so,' I said. ‘The food we put out disappears, which Mum says is a good sign.'

‘Did you hear that, Julia, the possums moved in to the house.'

‘Yes, that's lovely. Now, what are your plans for tomorrow?'

Really, the best thing I did all weekend was email my friend Emma in Sydney and tell her all about everything. Of course she knew Maggie and Dad were splitting up — that had started to happen before she left Melbourne, but she didn't know Mum and I had moved to the country, or that my bedroom was purple or about Daniel. So I had lots to tell her.

‘Daniel is this really cool boy,' I wrote to Em. ‘He's terribly smart and quite good-looking and knows all about all sorts of things. He's really into Star Trek and chess and computers.' That made him sound too nerdy.

‘He's good at basketball, too,' I lied, ‘and horse riding and he's nearly two years older than me and all the girls in Clarkson really like him so its pretty good luck that I ended up next door.' That sounded okay, so I thought I'd give Julia a make-over as well.

‘The flat where Julia and Dad are living is practically a mansion,' I wrote. ‘I have this huge room with a balcony and my own private bathroom.' Actually my room was the size of a cupboard and I had to use Julia and Dad's bathroom, which I think annoyed Julia, although she cleared me a space in the cupboard for my toothbrush and anything else I needed to put there.

‘Julia's great,' I wrote. ‘We went shopping together today and she bought me a new denim skirt and one of those striped ribbed jumpers everyone in Melbourne is wearing this winter.'

Sunday was Dad's and my day and I chose the zoo because it was a bright winter morning and I knew the animals would be out and busy in the cooler weather.

‘The zoo,' Julia said. ‘Oh can I come, too? I love the zoo.'

‘Well, it was to be my day with Rain,' Dad said, looking at me, ‘but I don't see why you couldn't come, do you, Rain?'

Actually I could think of a long list of reasons, but Julia said please very nicely and she even laughed when I said, ‘Well, only if you're good', and no one told me off for being cheeky so I thought maybe she'd just needed a good sleep.

And it was a great day. I was right about the animals — they were all out and about, even the ones you don't often see. The big bears looked happy for once. We'd seen them in summer and they'd looked really miserable wearing such heavy fur coats.

In the late afternoon Dad and I left the flat to drive back to Sunbury. He rang Maggie from his mobile and said that he might as well drive me all the way home, if that didn't interfere with her plans, because it meant that he and I could have a good talk. And I was delighted because he'd see the Dreamhouse and know that everything else was a big mistake.

I finally got to tell him everything — all the stuff I hadn't felt comfortable saying in front of Julia. I told him about Daniel and the platypus and how odd he is but I like him anyway. And how Diana is so vague and pretty but has this carpenter's apron, and aren't people funny, never quite who you think they are. And it was as though he hadn't ever started to work later and later hours, met Julia and then moved out entirely.

When we pulled up at the house Dad said, ‘Right, out you get, squirrel. Don't forget your bag.' And I realised that he wasn't even going to get out of the car, not even to come inside to look at my bedroom, let alone sit down and have a cup of tea with Maggie.

‘Aren't you going to come in?' I said.

‘No, love, no, I can't. Your mother wouldn't like it, and anyway I have to get back or Julia will be furious. We're seeing a show tonight, don't want to be late.'

‘But Dad — okay, I'll get my bag.'

‘Kiss?' he asked and I unbuckled my seat belt and leant across and kissed him.

‘I'm sorry squirrel, I know it's hard. Look, I'll ring you, okay? I've got some ideas for the next weekend. And I was thinking of getting a Playstation, for weekends when we didn't want to do anything. What do you think?'

‘That'd be great, Dad.'

‘I thought you really wanted one.'

‘Yeah. Sort of.'

‘Look, Rain, I'm trying here.'

‘It'd be great, Dad, okay?'

‘And if you're into
Star Trek
now, I know someone with the biggest collection of videos in the world, a real expert in the field.'

‘I'm not into
Star Trek,
Dad. That's Daniel.'

‘I love you,' he called out, but I had my bag and was heading for the front door. I didn't even turn around to wave.

Maggie opened the door for me so quickly it was as though she'd been waiting behind it.

‘You could have come out and said hello,' I said.

‘Well, I didn't,' Maggie said and hugged me. ‘Hey, I missed you.'

‘I missed you, too,' I said, ‘and I'm starving.'

‘Soup?' Maggie asked. ‘Maggie's super duper minestrone? With garlic bread?'

‘Oh Mum.' I hugged her, squeezing myself against her so she had to hold me hard or fall over. ‘I love your soup, I love this house and I specially really love you, a lot.'

‘I love you too, Rain. It will get easier, darling, you know that. Remember how you hated school camp the first year and thought you'd never go again? Remember how you cried on your first sleep-over and Em's poor mother had to bring you home at midnight?'