The Party Line (10 page)

‘What if the Janssens ring up Dad tonight and check on my message?’

‘They won’t,’ said Gabrielle. ‘Why would they? Why would you make up a message like that?’

‘They still could.’

‘Okay, they could. Here’s what we do. After we finish the calves tonight, you go straight home. No matter what you do, stay near the phone. And if the phone rings, you answer it. It might be them. If it is, you say your dad’s out ’til late. Then you say you’ll check with your mum. Then you cover the mouthpiece and say nothing. Then you go back on the phone and say, yes, the message is correct.’

Nickie wobbled inside. So far the plan just seemed to be her telling lies to people. ‘Alright. So we put the calves into the pen at the end of feeding. Then what?’

‘The next bit is the best.’ Gabrielle was so excited, she grabbed Nickie’s arm, squeezing it hard. Her face was bursting with smiles and big eyes.

‘In the middle of the night — tonight — we sneak out of our houses, meet up, go to the pen, and take the calves out.’

‘What … just … set them free?’ She
was
nuts.

‘Of course not. We’re rescuing them. We’re going to hide them.’

‘Where? Under our beds?’

‘This is the best part of the best part,’ she said. She lowered her voice. They were getting close to the shed, Nickie could see Mrs Janssen walking around outside. Some days you could hear people talking miles away.

‘You know how Jack Gilbert’s fences are all broken down?’

‘Everyone knows about that. Mum says it’s a disgrace. She feels really sorry for your dad …’

‘Nickie, shut up and listen. With all those broken fences, Gilbert’s cows are all over the place, right? Escaping here, there and everywhere.’

‘Yep. He’s famous for it.’

‘So would it be right to say that no one is ever really sure how many cows Jack Gilbert has? And how many calves?’

‘Probably. Except Jack’s so stingy, he probably does know.’

‘So. We get the other calves out of the pen in the middle of the night. We walk them up the road … and we put them in Jack Gilbert’s paddocks. Our paddocks.’

‘You mean with Jack Gilbert’s calves? He’ll notice straight away,
four extra calves at feeding time. Your dad will notice for sure.’

Gabrielle whispered the next words.

‘No,’ she said. ‘We put them in with the milking herd. The cows that have just had their babies. I’ve looked at the fences where the herd is, and there’re still some broken-down parts. Don’t you get it?’

Nickie shook her head.

‘It will look like some of the cows had twins, or even triplets, and some of the new calves wandered off. Dad or Gilbert will find the hole in the fence and think these new calves have found their way back to their mothers. They’re little and scrawny, so they look like they’re just born. And the cows will have milk so the calves will get a drink.’

‘And then what? They go on the bobby calf truck at
your
place?’

‘We’ll work that bit out later. Though I do already have a good idea.’

Too many thoughts raced around Nickie’s brain. There had to be one really good reason why this couldn’t work. Nickie just had to think of it.

‘I’ve thought about it really hard,’ Gabrielle said. ‘I’ve tried to see how we’d get caught. The only big risk is someone seeing us doing it.’

‘What about when the Janssens see the empty pen, when they come to milk?’

‘They’ll just think the truck did come early. Like your father said.’

‘And what about Jack Gilbert, when he starts getting extra calves?’

‘It’s Dad’s job to look after the Gilberts’ stock. Every day he says he finds animals he didn’t know about. He’s always going on about how he can’t keep track of them, thanks to the holes in the fences. And you know what, Nickie?’

They both waved out to Mrs Janssen. They were close to her now. They had to be really careful.

‘Going on what Dad says, if Jack Gilbert finds extra calves on his land, he won’t be going looking for their owners. He’d say they were his. Jack Gilbert would say he was right there when those calves were born.’

The calves were at the gate, ramming at it with their heads, waiting to be let in the feeding pen. Larry wasn’t at the front of the stampede.
He wasn’t in the middle either. He was right at the back. He looked about the same as he did yesterday. Wobbly, lacking in motivation and determination, Mr Burgess would say. Vincent didn’t look much better.

‘Do it,’ Gabrielle whispered. ‘Give her the message from your dad.’

There’d been no rain for about two weeks. Nickie had listened to her mum and dad talking about the weather, saying it was a relief that the mud was finally drying out. Next thing, though, they’d started worrying about what would happen if no rain came, and there was a drought, and
Jesus Christ
did they not deserve one summer without dry conditions and losing sleep over peat fires and running out of feed? Nickie had the impression that the weather problems were the government’s fault. Eugene said things like
Carter better be keeping an eye on this.
Carter being the Minister of Agriculture.

The night of the rescue, Nickie lay in bed with her curtain open just enough to see the sky. She’d gone to bed at the usual time of nine. There was a full moon. It couldn’t have been a worse night for stealing calves.

She pushed her window open. Trucks hummed miles away on the highway. She wondered whether some of them might already be full of little sick calves, on their way to the works. Now and then a dog barked. Maybe at the moon, which was like a big white dinner plate with grubby finger marks smudged across it.

It wasn’t hot, but when she ran her hand over her skin, she found sweat everywhere.

The whole night sky lit up. A few seconds later, a rumble. A rumble, then a crack. Nickie leaned out the window, her elbows hanging right out into the night. There was another flash of light, another massive rumble, closer this time. The moon completely disappeared behind black clouds.

She felt the first drops of rain on her arms just as the wind blew the curtains against her face. She pushed the curtains around behind her.

Wind. Wind and rain, the noise of them together was crazy. She thought back to the story of Herod killing the baby boys. There’d been another baby, Moses. While Jesus was being smuggled to Egypt,
Moses’ mother had hidden him in the bulrushes in a basket. She’d always wondered how Moses knew not to cry. Maybe it had been raining when the Romans went stomping around looking for babies to murder. Maybe it had been raining, and the wind had been blowing, and Moses had been cold and frightened and missing his mother, screaming his lungs out, but the weather had saved his life.

Nickie heard Joy and Eugene go to bed. The storm carried on through the night. She’d set her alarm clock for two a.m. and hid it under her pillow, but she knew she wouldn’t fall asleep. Every few minutes the dogs howled, then there’d be another lightning and thunder show.

Two o’clock came. The sky brightened in the lightning and there she was, a little dark blur just past the gateway. There was a big macrocarpa tree by the letterbox and Gabrielle was standing behind it. Every few seconds her head poked out, then disappeared again. Nickie knew she’d show up. She dragged her raincoat and farm clothes and gumboots out from under her bed, quickly changed, then jumped out the window.

She was about halfway down the driveway when the next lightning came. She lay flat on the ground, her hands over her head, gumboots beside her.

They held hands as they walked silently down the road to the cowshed. The storm kept on, the rain smacking at their faces. At first they dived into the grass for the lightning but it turned out to be a waste of time — the flash came so quickly that by the time they were on the ground, it was over.

As they got closer to the cowshed gateway, and the bobby calf pen, they heard the calves crying. Gabrielle grabbed Nickie’s arm.

‘You walk behind them,’ she shouted. ‘I’ll lead the way.’

Nickie nodded. They hadn’t talked about how they’d get the calves to follow them down the road. Gabrielle slipped the latch on the calf pen and crawled into it. She put her hands in her raincoat pocket and pulled out something. She held her hands out open to the calves, offering whatever it was to each of them. There were four calves and one after the other they put their noses in her palms and licked.

Gabrielle backed slowly out of the pen on her hands and knees, then stood up and walked backwards onto the road, holding her hands out. The calves jammed themselves up in the doorway of the pen, but finally they were out and following her.

‘Change of plan,’ she shouted. ‘Hold your hands out.’

She poured white powder into both Nickie’s hands.

‘What is it?’

‘Taste it,’ she said, grinning.

‘Sugar.’

Gabrielle locked the door to the calf pen and they refilled their hands. She had a whole big bag of sugar in the inside pocket of her coat. ‘Walk beside me, holding your hands out behind you,’ she said. ‘Like this.’

They set off along the road, away from the cowshed, towards the Gilbert farm. The wet mouths of two calves tickled Nickie’s palms, their lips searching for sugar. When they couldn’t find any more, they started to lick. When they stopped licking, they pushed and nudged until the girls stopped and refilled their hands.

Nickie’s biggest fear was that someone would drive along the road and see them. If that happened, no story — not even a Gabrielle Baxter special — would save them. But they were lucky. At two in the morning, in the middle of a lightning storm, all the normal people in the world were safe and asleep in their houses.

They finally reached the turnoff to Gabrielle’s road. Gabrielle stopped. She took Nickie’s arm and pulled her close.

‘Look,’ Gabrielle said, her breath hot in Nickie’s ear. ‘Look at the Gilberts’ house.’

There was a light on halfway down the side of the house. There was no sign of any movement behind the curtains — not that Nickie could see.

‘Shall we go back?’

‘No way.’ Gabrielle pulled the bag of sugar out of her coat again. She didn’t even look up. ‘Here, hold your hands out. We’ll cross the road and walk in the long grass, down nearer to the drain.’

The calves were happy to follow the girls, who crouched to make
their silhouettes as small as possible. They crawled along until they were one paddock past the house, on the other side, then they walked the calves back up to the road.

Nickie turned and looked back at the house. No more lights had gone on. Gilbert’s dogs were barking, but there were dogs barking everywhere.

‘We made it,’ she shouted to Gabrielle. For the first time since Nickie had jumped out the window, she was more excited than scared. ‘Yay for the storm.’

‘Shit,’ said Gabrielle. She was still looking at the Gilberts’ house. ‘Look at that.’

Nickie looked again, but saw no light. ‘I don’t see anything …’

‘Look at the clothes line.’

Nickie stared hard at the house, at the clothes line. She could only just make it out — a silhouette against the side of the white house. Then she saw. Someone was standing at the line. Mrs Gilbert. It had to be her. Her arms reached up high and a big sheet flapped around her like a sail off a yacht.

‘She’s bringing in the washing,’ Nickie said. ‘It’s two o’clock in the morning and it’s a huge storm, and she’s bringing in the washing. Nuts.’

‘No,’ said Gabrielle. She was topping up their sugar, not even looking at what she was doing. Her eyes didn’t leave the distant figure of Mrs Gilbert. ‘That’s not what she’s doing, Nickie.’

Nickie looked again. Mrs Gilbert wasn’t bringing in the washing. The sheet was pegged to the line now, flapping high in the air. Nickie watched as Mrs Gilbert bent down, then stood. She had another armful of cloth, and she pegged that to the line too. Mrs Gilbert wasn’t bringing in the washing. She was hanging it out.

‘Fucking insane,’ said Gabrielle. ‘Come on. Let’s get going.’

It wasn’t far now. Gabrielle knew where the herd was. The girls marched silently along the tanker track, past the cowshed and down the race behind it. They got to the herd paddock and Gabrielle undid the gate. Nickie held it open while she tipped the last of the sugar into her hands and walked into the paddock. The four calves followed her.

They crouched and watched. The cows nearest the gate woke up when the calves came in. Or they might have been already awake in the storm. They came over slowly and lowered their heads down to check out the babies.

Nickie squeezed Gabrielle’s hand. ‘Success.’

‘Yep. They just needed proper milk. Their own milk. Not boiling hot disgusting milk powder.’

‘Makes sense.’

‘Let’s get out of here,’ Gabrielle said.

Gabrielle’s house was close, just a couple of minutes further on. Nickie would have to walk back home on her own. Past mad Mrs Gilbert.

‘I’ll come back with you,’ Gabrielle said.

‘You don’t need to. I’ll be okay on my own.’

‘I want to.’

They headed back past the cowshed to the road. Nickie figured Gabrielle knew she was scared. At least that’s what Nickie thought. But as they approached the Gilberts’ house again, Gabrielle slowed down.

‘Let’s take a look,’ she said.

The storm was still strong, though there was less thunder and lightning now. Mrs Gilbert was nowhere to be seen — nor was there any washing on the line.

‘Far out. She put all that stuff out, then took it straight off the line,’ Gabrielle said. ‘Come on, let’s get closer.’

‘What did you say?’

‘I’m going to see what’s going on. Come on.’

She grabbed Nickie’s hand. Nickie pulled away from her.

‘No way, Gabrielle.’

‘I’m going,’ she said. She was already heading towards the drain that went along the roadside in front of the Gilberts’ house.

‘Come
on
, the drain’s still empty. We can get right up to the house in the drains.’

She disappeared. Nickie slid down beside her.

‘You’re more nuts than her. Than Mrs Gilbert,’ Nickie said. This close, she could see Gabrielle’s wide smile.

‘This is so neat. We can go all the way home in the drains, now we don’t have the calves. We can live our whole secret lives down in the drains.’