Shimmer (13 page)

‘Where will she sleep?' His face was suspicious now.

‘Well, that's what I wanted to talk to you about,' said Marcia. ‘Your room is the only one in the house suitable for someone Tyra's age.' She nodded her head vigorously as she spoke, as if willing him to agree. ‘You can move to the sleep-out.'

‘The sleep-out?' A look of horror spread over David's face. ‘We don't have a sleep-out,' he yelled. ‘That's a verandah!'

Marcia's face became stern. ‘It's an enclosed verandah, David. It will be fine for you to sleep in for a couple of months. It's summertime. The nights are more than warm enough.'

‘But Mum, this is my room. Why can't Ty sleep in the sleep-out?'

‘Rodney and I talked last night and we feel it is best if Tyra sleeps in this room.'

He glared at his mother through his heavy fringe. ‘And who's going to look after her while you and Rodney are at work?'

His mother didn't need to reply, it was obvious. David was the only person at home during the day. ‘When is she moving in?'

‘Tonight. Her mother has to leave immediately. You'll need to move all your things into the sleep-out today.'

‘Today!'

‘You will do it today, David,' she ordered. ‘Make sure this room is empty and clean before I get home from work.'

David stared at her, speechless.

‘Tyra has enough to deal with,' said his mother. ‘The least we can do is to make her feel welcome. Especially over Christmas.' She turned to leave. ‘And David, get your hair cut!'

He lifted one shoulder in a half shrug.

‘That's an order.' She stared at his rebellious expression for a long moment. ‘If you don't get it cut today,' she continued, her voice soft but dangerous, ‘I'll cut it myself.'

Kora waited until she heard the front door bang shut, then shimmered down into David's room. Amurru appeared beside her a moment later.

David stared at them, his eyes sullen and angry.

‘I am sorry, David.' She took a step towards him. ‘But forget about your mother for the moment.' Her voice sped up in her eagerness to talk about their plans. ‘I have something much more important to discuss with you and Amurru.'

His thunderous expression lifted a little. ‘What is it?'

‘I have been up all night, thinking,' she replied. ‘And I have realised a few crucial things. The first is that we will need a safe place to time-travel from.'

‘Of course,' he agreed. ‘We can't open the viewing portal from here. That would only bring Vennum and his genies to our house.'

‘Yes. It needs to be as far from here as possible.'

Amurru nodded. ‘And it must be uninhabited.'

‘Of course,' said Kora. ‘There must be absolutely no chance of there being any people for miles around.' Her eyes shone with the strange mixture of fear, excitement and hope. ‘We do not want any innocent people killed just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.'

David's eyes lit up. ‘Get me an atlas, Kora. I think I know the perfect place.'

The last five days had been the most frustrating of Kora's life. Ty the Spy was forever snooping about. With Marcia and Rodney at work all day it meant the only person around for her to snoop on was David, and she was relentless. It felt like she had touched every item in David's sleep-out, including her globe, despite the fact that it was still camouflaged as a rock.

Her main spy tool was an electronic password journal. If she found anything of interest, or if anyone, mainly David, did anything she thought they shouldn't, she would whip out her journal and write it down for future reference. One night Kora had taken a peek while Ty slept, just to make sure she hadn't discovered anything that might expose her. The journal said things like,
Thursday, 10.04 am, heard a girl's voice coming from David's room. Friday, 12.52 pm, David used a swearword.

David's new room offered almost no privacy, so between Ty hanging about all day and everyone either walking through or looking out to the verandah, Kora and David were struggling to discuss their plans. Especially now they knew that Ty was eavesdropping on them and had already heard Kora's voice at least once.

Kora could hear raised voices again at the dinner table and knew it would only be a few more minutes until David would, like most other evenings, fling the verandah flyscreen door open and throw himself on his bed. She could hear David's mother going on again about his hair. She honestly couldn't fathom what all the fuss was about. She rather liked the way his long, messy hair fell across his face.

The raised voices grew even louder, and Kora opened a viewing portal to see what was going on.

‘I didn't feed it to Cuddles,' yelled David. ‘It just fell onto the floor.'

Ty slammed her voice recorder down next to her plate. ‘You did so. You always do and it makes him puke.'

‘You're such a dobber, Ty. And after I took the blame for you eating the whole packet of chocolate biscuits yesterday.'

Rodney's face turned bright red. ‘Is that true, Ty? Did you lie to me?'

Ty screwed her face up in anger. ‘So what? David lies all the time.' She poked her finger at him. ‘He had a girl in his room, and he's supposed to be grounded.'

‘I did not,' said David. ‘And you're the liar, not me.'

Ty gasped, and reached out to press a button on her voice recorder. The table fell silent as Kora's lilting, accented voice filled the air.

David lurched from his seat and grabbed Ty's recorder, flinging it against the kitchen wall, where it shattered and dropped to the floor in a million pieces. He stormed from the kitchen to the sound of Ty's wailing.

The crash of the flyscreen opening hard enough to hit the wall heralded David's return to the sleep-out. Marcia's angry voice followed. ‘Don't think there won't be any consequences for this behaviour, David!' she yelled.

Kora didn't dare go out to talk to him, it was too dangerous with everyone in the house and the verandah so open. They had agreed for her to wake him about 1.00 am so they could sneak out and finish making their plans. The middle of the night was the only time they could talk properly now. Usually they just went far enough away to not disturb the house, although one night they had taken a midnight trip to the desert in the middle of Australia — to the place David had determined that they should time-travel from.

She stretched out on her bed to wait. It seemed that wait was all she did these days. But maybe the waiting was nearly over. Tonight they would finalise their plans and tomorrow was her birthday and her father had promised to check in with her. She hoped it was a promise he would be able to keep, and she would finally have some news from home. How her heart ached for her family.

Time ticked away and she could hear that David had finally fallen asleep. Although her own thoughts began to drift she knew she would never be able to sleep with all the plans running through her head. The creak of the floorboards told her that Marcia was checking on her son, peering through the door like she did every night, before going to bed herself. She rolled over to look out of her globe and was surprised to see Marcia quietly push the door open and come into the room. This was unusual and Kora watched her lean over her son. She saw the glint of something metal in the moonlight as Marcia bent closer to David.

Kora bolted upright. Marcia was grabbing the long, messy strands of David's hair and jaggedly lopping them off with a pair of scissors.

David's arm knocked her away as he jerked awake. ‘What are you doing?'

Marcia dropped the cut-off hair onto David's bed. Her voice was tight when she spoke. ‘I warned you if you didn't cut it that I would do it myself.'

David bolted out of bed and flicked on the light. Large chunks of his hair were missing, and his fringe had been reduced to spiky, uneven little tufts.

David reached up to touch his hair. ‘I can't believe you did that!'

Marcia looked as horrified as her son but simply turned on her heel and left without another word.

Kora shimmered into the room. At first David didn't acknowledge her, but then with a face carved from stone he turned to her.

‘I wish,' he said, ‘for an electric clipper.'

With a heavy heart she waved her hand and did as he requested. Without a word he plugged it in and began shearing off his hair. It was fast and thorough and within a couple of minutes the floor was covered in soft clumps of his hair.

When he was done he turned to face her and handed her back the clippers. ‘It's just hair, Kora. No big deal.' He tried to smile but it didn't reach his eyes. ‘At least when we go to war I'll look like a soldier.'

She wasn't sure what to say to him so she waved her hand and the clippers and all the hair on the ground disappeared. It was so strange to think that a week ago she would have found the sight of Marcia chopping away at David's hair hilariously funny, yet now it just made her sad. It was amazing how much things could change in such a short time.

David flopped into a chair. ‘What time is it?'

‘Just after midnight.'

He leaned down and pulled out a huge parcel from under the bed. ‘Guess that means it's okay to give you this, then.' With a shy smile he handed her the parcel. ‘Happy birthday.'

She felt surprised and strangely happy that he had thought to get her a gift. When had he even had the chance to go shopping?

‘I had to bribe Ty to pick it up for me,' he said, as if reading her mind. ‘Three hours of Cluedo before she agreed.'

Kora took a deep breath before slowly unwrapping the parcel. Inside was a giant panda bear. ‘Oh, David, thank you. I love it!'

‘I know you could just magic one up but I wanted to get you one the human way.'

She hugged the soft panda to her. It reached from her head to her knees. ‘It is perfect.'

His face looked pleased and embarrassed at the same time. ‘How long until we can get going?' he asked, changing the subject.

She opened a portal on Ty's room. She was snuggled up in bed, her narrow face relaxed in sleep and her journal tucked securely under one arm like a teddy bear.

She then opened a portal on Marcia and Rodney. They were both awake. Marcia looked like she had been crying and Rodney was gently holding her. Then, while they watched, Rodney began to kiss her. David made a disgusted noise and she quickly closed the portal. ‘I guess we should wait a little longer,' she said.

David was running an agitated hand over his short, prickly hair. ‘Nah, stuff it,' he said. ‘Let's go now!'

Kora leaned back against the oversized cushions on the ground, her legs stretched out before her on a thick, woollen blanket. She gazed up at Panda Rock. The moon was only a thin sliver in the inky, black sky, but it was surrounded by a sea of glittering stars and there was just enough light to be able to make out the shape of the panda's smiling face. David settled down against his own cushions beside her, still licking the icing from her pink, gooey birthday cake off his fingers.

In spite of everything that she'd had to deal with lately — the worry about her father and brother, the looming confrontation with Vennum, and all the waiting and planning she had done over the past week — a contented smile found its way onto her face. She hadn't expected to enjoy her fourteenth birthday much, but David's gift and then the enormous midnight birthday feast he had wished for when they arrived at their little clearing in the forest had warmed her heart.

Beside her, David burped loudly. ‘That was good food, Kora,' he said, rubbing contentedly at his stomach. ‘Where did you learn to cook like that?'

She grinned. ‘Cooking looks much too complicated for me. But all food tastes good when you are hungry.'

He nodded and Kora laughed. David was always hungry, it seemed. Although it wasn't really surprising — ever since Rodney had moved in and taken over the cooking, there had been nothing but slimy lentils and spinach for dinner.

She drew in a long breath. The air was cooler now this late at night, but still heavy and fragrant. She listened to the myriad sounds coming from the forest, enjoying the soft sighing of the wind through the trees and the rustling of small creatures fossicking amongst the leaves on the forest floor. She especially liked the strange hooting calls of the night birds. But there was much to be discussed and they had to get back before Ty the Spy woke. The previous morning she had poked her head into David's sleep-out at just after 5.00 am!

Finally Kora sighed and pushed herself upright so she could sit cross-legged on the blanket. ‘I guess we should finalise our plan,' she said. ‘We'll need to get back soon.'

‘We've nutted out most of it,' he said. ‘We just need to iron out some of the smaller details.'

Her brow furrowed in concentration. ‘I was thinking that we should go at night.'

‘Good idea,' he replied. ‘That will make it harder for Vennum to see what we're doing.'

‘And your family will be less likely to notice your absence,' she added.

He nodded and Kora continued. ‘Then we wait there for at least half an hour, to make sure any trace of our magic trail has disappeared.'

‘And you're certain that will be long enough to ensure Vennum and his genies can't follow our trail back home to Panda Rock?'

‘Yes, David. I am certain.' She gave him a small smile. ‘No magic trail could last longer than that.' She reached out her hand to touch his arm. ‘I would not knowingly put your family in danger.'

He lifted his hand to shove at his long fringe, looking surprised when he found nothing but short stubble on top of his head. ‘And while we are waiting for the magic trail to disappear we can make sure we have everything we need for our attack on Vennum.'

‘Yes,' she replied.