Sing Fox to Me (5 page)

The island might be a barnyard, or an endless field of ice. It might be a jungle. Shere Khan ruled that island. Neverland was also an island, along with The Wild, where all monsters lived, and any boy could be King.

Samson saw
The Jungle Book
sticking out of the top of Jonah's port, next to his bed, and immediately knew how to bring his brother out of hiding. He tiptoed over, reached into the port and gingerly removed the book. The bed creaked again. He paused and waited, but Jonah didn't move. Quietly, Samson opened the book and started to read. He went slow at first, so he didn't muck up any of the words. Jonah hated it when he made mistakes, especially with his reading.

‘
What of the hunting, hunter bold?
' Samson looked over the top of the book to check, but his brother didn't stir, so he read the line again. ‘
What of the hunting, hunter bold?
'

This time, from under the blankets, Jonah answered, ‘
Brother, the watch was long and cold.
'
Jonah didn't need to see the words to remember them. They were already inside.

Samson smiled and kept reading. He got louder and felt more confident. ‘
What of the quarry you went to kill?
'
He said ‘you' instead of ‘ye', because ‘ye' made him laugh, and their dad said it was an older version of the same word.

‘
Brother, he crops in the jungle still
,' said Jonah.

‘
Where is the power that made your pride?
'

‘
Brother, it ebbs from my flank and side
.'

‘
Where is the haste that you hurry by?
'
Samson read. He waited, but this time Jonah didn't answer. ‘… Jonah?'

All of a sudden, the blankets spun up into the air. Jonah leapt out from underneath.

He laughed. ‘
I will not go to my lair to die
.'

The bed changed. Sheets turned to rolling hills, bedposts into tall fir trees. Each pillow became a fat, soft stepping stone. The bed creaked, and the room filled up with screeching jungle birds and screaming monkeys. They were on their own island. The story island where White Fang and Shere Khan and Peter Pan came to play, and Jonah was jumping, growling and baring his teeth like a Wild Thing. ‘I will not. I will not. I'm a
TIGER
!'

It had worked again. Samson's brother was out of hiding, and maybe everything was going to be different, better. They would spend more and more time together on their island, and Jonah would get happier every day. Maybe their dad would even learn where to find them.

The sound of the twins bickering rattled down the hall, like tin cans tied to the back of a runaway truck. ‘Knock it off, ' shouted David, cutting the racket off. The bedroom door clicked shut in response.

‘We'll all be out of your hair as soon as I find something more permanent,' said David, as he cleared the table of newspapers, unwashed plates and Clancy's half-finished cuppa.

‘Not likely to find much in your line down here,' Clancy replied, even though he wasn't exactly sure what David's line was these days.

David shrugged. ‘I haven't had much luck with university teaching. I'm looking into TAFE now.'

Transferring the weight from his crook leg, Clancy pushed his body against the frame of the door like a bear scratching against a tree.

David reached around the back of his neck with both hands, laced his fingers together and squeezed. ‘I just can't manage,' he said uneasily. ‘Not without Alice. She had the boys most of the time. She was good with them, I think. Now the entire world is bearing down on me, and I can't breathe.'

Clancy wanted to remind his son that they'd both seen someone really stop breathing, but he didn't.

David kept on. ‘Jonah's a good reader. And Samson's teacher says his sign language is pretty advanced … We're still working on keeping his tongue in his mouth, but the speech pathologist says it's just a matter of strengthening the muscles.' He laughed nervously. ‘Nothing just happens with Samson. Everything takes practice.' Finally, David stopped talking and gazed out the window to the bush beyond the fence. ‘They're good boys, Dad. You'll see. No matter how they look from the outside.'

‘I can't do much with them.' Clancy tapped his leg.

David nodded. ‘Anything is fine. I just need a break –'

David's old bedroom exploded with an almighty racket. A creaking and yelling, screaming and thumping. Something hit the ground. ‘Tiger! Tiger!' the boys screamed together. ‘Tiger!'

Clancy pushed himself off the doorframe.

‘I will not, I will not!' shouted the twins.

David held both hands out for Clancy to stop. ‘It's not what you think,' he said, but Clancy pushed past him.

‘Tiger! Tiger!'

‘Dad, don't.'

Clancy was already halfway down the hall.

‘They do this sort of thing all the time –'

Jonah jumped up and down on the bed like Mowgli dancing on the newly skinned Shere Khan. ‘Tiger, tiger,' he shouted, and the jungle island danced with him.

Samson dropped the book and leapt into the middle of the island with his brother. ‘Tiger!' he bellowed as he beat his chest like Tarzan.

The flung door and Clancy's angry, bearish voice filled the room. ‘Where?' he yelled. ‘Where are they?'

Their dad was behind him, red-faced and shaking his head.

They both stopped jumping. Jonah fell back into the bed, and Samson sat down as fast as he could. It wasn't easy with his long legs and knobby knees. He held his hands to his ears to soften the storm of Clancy's voice.

‘Where are they?'

‘I'm sorry,' said Samson, mostly because he didn't know what else to say.

Instead of apologising, Jonah pointed into Samson's face. ‘It was
him
. He started it.'

The island broke apart from Samson, like a boat slipping its mooring. He uncovered his ears and turned around. Out the window, and over the mountain, he saw the story island in a vast sea of blue. Floating far, far away. He waved.

‘Who is he waving at?' Clancy asked their dad, his voice still booming. ‘Who'd he see?'

The mountains toppled back into bedsheets again. The stepping stones softened into pillows, and the sounds of the jungle birds dissolved back into the coiled creaks of the mattress. One last roar from the Shere Khan, and the island was gone.

Jonah sat on the edge of his bed and crossed his arms. Less than a day in their new home, and already his brother had got them both in trouble.

‘I'm sorry,' said Samson.

‘Dad said no talking for twenty minutes.'

Samson mimed zipping his lips and throwing away the key, but then opened his mouth slightly to smile.

‘They didn't know,' their dad told their granddad loudly, probably in the kitchen. Jonah's parents always argued in the kitchen. The twins weren't allowed to close the door until after their punishment, so Jonah could hear almost everything.

‘There's nothing to know,' said Clancy.

Jonah left his bed and darted across the room to the door.

‘What's wr–?' started Samson, but Jonah shushed him.

Their dad was talking. ‘I'm not going to freak them out with your stories, Dad.'

‘
My
stories,' said Clancy.

David sighed. ‘They haven't even seen my book. So don't start.'

‘What's your bloody book got to do with it –?'

‘Hooroo,' called a woman's voice from somewhere outside. ‘Clancy?'

Jonah darted back across the room and sat on his bed. Samson signed something, but Jonah ignored him.

‘Clancy?' called the woman again.

‘Yeah …' said Clancy, his voice going back to normal. ‘Murray. Tilda. Come in.'

‘Boys,' called David, sounding sour and tense. ‘Come out here, please.'

Jonah was out the door before his brother had even moved off his bed. He heard the springs creak as he reached the kitchen. The table was already set. That was usually his job.

A man came through the back door first. He was about Jonah's dad's age, but different-looking to his dad. David always wore jackets with tight shirts and loafers with no socks, but Murray was dressed in loose dark blue jeans and a t-shirt with a picture of a black man and the name
Jimi Hendrix
. Murray's hair was matted into long, thick tendrils that hung over his shoulders and was covered by a hat like the ones Jonah had seen in photos of swagmen – except this one was turned up at the sides and had a black feather stuck into a colourful woven band. Jonah had seen those colours before. At school, the teachers taught them about Mabo and corroborees and native title, but Jonah had never seen an actual Aborigine before. The man was carrying a big orange casserole dish with a tea towel over the top.

‘This is Murray Bishop,' said Clancy, and Murray nodded. Jonah felt his cheeks blush. Something about the Aboriginal man made him feel nervous. He nodded back, and Murray smiled like he was enjoying a joke Jonah didn't mean to make.

‘Hello,' said David awkwardly, holding his hand out for Murray to shake. ‘Good to see you again.'

Murray shook his hand, almost reluctantly. ‘You too, mate.'

Jonah's dad had told him a bit about Murray. They'd grown up together on the mountain, only Murray had lived with his own dad in a shack, and David had lived with his mum and Clancy in the main house.

Next through the door was the woman Jonah had heard from his bedroom. She had a pregnant belly. Jonah looked away, embarrassed.

‘This is Tilda,' said Murray.

Samson copied their dad and held out his hand to shake. Murray smiled. ‘What's your name, mate?'

‘Samson, and this is Jonah,' said Samson, putting his arm around Jonah's shoulders.

‘These are my twin sons,' interrupted David.

Jonah shrugged his brother off.

Tilda took the casserole dish out of Murray's hands and squeezed past him into the kitchen. Murray tipped his hat from his forehead and wiped a slick of sweat away with the back of his hand, moving his hair just enough to reveal a black ball sitting on his right shoulder. The ball lifted its head from inside the fold of its dark feathers, ruffled itself and stared right at Jonah. It was all black like a crow, but its beak was long and sharp.

‘What's that?' Jonah asked.

‘He's a kookaburra,' said Murray.

‘Better bloody not be,' said Clancy. ‘Not in this house, Murray.'

‘I thought kookaburras were brown,' said Jonah.

‘Most of them are.'

‘Is it safe?'

Tilda laughed as she closed the oven door. ‘King's gentle as a baby.'

Murray turned his shoulder until the kookaburra was within Jonah's reach. ‘You can give him a scratch if you like.'

Jonah stretched his hand out towards the fluffy body of the bird. King's feathers were soft and warm. He shuffled back behind Murray's neck, lifted his wing and started cleaning the feathers down his left-hand side. A shiny blue stripe was hidden in among the black.

‘King loves everyone,' said Murray. ‘Don't ya, old boy?'

The bird ruffled his feathers as if to say ‘thanks', and tucked his head away again.

‘You know the rules,' said Clancy. ‘No kookas in this house.'

Murray walked back outside to the edge of the verandah. He lifted King down from his shoulder and placed him on the rail. The bird opened his beak in protest, but Murray left him there and came back inside.

‘Why's he black?' Jonah asked.

Murray smiled slowly. ‘Reckon for the same reason I am.'

Clancy laughed, but Jonah didn't understand.

‘It's a joke, son,' said David, in his most patronising voice.

Jonah's cheeks went hot.

‘Dinner won't be long,' said Tilda.

It couldn't have been easy cooking anything complicated in Murray's tiny yurt kitchen, let alone at seven months pregnant, which was why Clancy thanked Tilda so much for her vegetable lasagne. He would have preferred a meal with meat, but he didn't say so. He'd fry up a few chops after they were gone if he was still hungry.

‘How's everything with the baby?' he asked, as Tilda slid a second piece of lasagna onto his plate.

‘Heavy,' she said.

‘My wife, Alice,' said David, ‘used to say it was like having a soccer team playing finals on her bladder.' He laughed. No one joined him.

‘He's gonna be a Christmas baby,' said Murray.

‘So, it's a boy?' asked David.

Clancy dug into the lasagna with the side of his splade. He wished his son would just dry up.

‘Murray has decided it is,' said Tilda.

Samson was saying something with his mouth full, and his hands wove through the air with a strange sort of delicacy. Jonah prodded his brother in the arm. ‘What?' Some lasagna fell from Samson's mouth and landed back on his plate.

‘It's okay,' said Tilda, and she answered him in sign while translating for the rest of them, ‘We like “George”.' There must have been a sign for each letter, because her voice was finished long before her hands.

‘What about girls' names?' asked David, looking back and forth between the prospective parents.

Clancy could hear the coiled snake buried deep within his son's voice.

Murray didn't answer.

‘If you like family names,' David continued, ‘
River
, maybe …?'

Clancy brought his fist down onto the table, water sloshing over the side of his glass. David raised both hands in the air like Clancy had pulled a gun.

Samson plunged his hands into the soapy dishwater. It was probably pretty hot, but his skin didn't feel it. He never felt heat or cold right away. His dad said it was a symptom of his Down's Syndrome.

‘You don't have to do that, sweetheart,' said Tilda. She took him by the wrists, lifted his hands from the water and wiped them dry with a tea towel.