Burning for Revenge (23 page)

"Maybe they will And it'll be your responsibility."

Oh, thanks. So his whole fate depends on me? Not to mention his sex life."

Do you think they masturbate? Fi giggled.

"Of course they would. I'm sure I've nearly caught Homer a couple of times. And I heard some interesting noises from Kevin's tent one day, back in Hell, when he thought we were down at the creek."

"It seems so funny. It's disgusting really. I can't imagine them doing it"

I went a bit red and turned my face into the pillow. Sometimes Fi seemed like she'd been born a hundred years too late. She belonged in the nineteenth century. Talk about innocent. She'd been in a war and killed people, yet a garden gnome would know more about life.

"So how about you?" I asked, to change the subject. But Fi misunderstood me. Her head came up from her pillow and she asked: "Do you mean ... do I do that?"

"No! I don't want to know if you do or not. I mean, do you have any secret loves? Is it still Mike?"

Mike was a Maori soldier, or maybe a Samoan, I wasn't sure, but he'd come with us when we returned to Hell with the Kiwi guerillas.

Fi's head went back into the pillow and her voice changed, became sadder. "No. I don't think we're ever going to see them again."

This bloody war. There was no getting away from it. I tried to think of something to say, to change the subject a second time, but couldn't come up with anything.

To my surprise, Fi did it for me.

"I do have a secret love though," she said.

"You do? Who?"

"You know. The same one: it's always been him."

"Homer? You mean Homer?"

She didn't answer, which of course was all the answer I needed. I lay back, mentally shaking my head. One thing about Fi, she was unpredictable.

"You seriously still like Homer?"

"'We have only one rabbi and he has only one son.'"

Fi was quoting from
Fiddler on the Roof
, a musical we'd both had a craze on for a very short time, in Year 8.

"You're mad," I said. "I think you're one of those people with a genius for picking the worst possible boyfriends. Like Sally. I bet you get married and divorced about six times."

"So you don't think it'd work? You don't think he likes me?"

I should have picked up on the tone of Fi's voice, but like an idiot I rushed on with what I was saying.

"Well, what I think is that Homer doesn't notice anyone in that way ... he's just not into it at all. I think one day he'll turn around and marry someone but it won't be anyone he's known for a long time, it'll be someone totally new."

Fi didn't answer. There was silence for about two minutes. I still didn't realise I'd said anything wrong until I heard a half-cough, half-sob from her side of the bed. Finally, I figured what anyone with half a brain would have known right away—that she was crying.

I was horrified.

"Fi! Ohmigod, I'm sorry, I didn't realise ... Oh no, I can't believe how stupid I am sometimes. Oh Fi, do you really like him that much?"

She didn't answer.

"Oh Fi, don't take any notice of what I said. I don't know why you guys haven't thrown me off the back of a truck with a note around my neck for the Lost Dogs' Home. Honestly Fi, remember when I say anything you have to think: 'Oh that's only Ellie, good, I can ignore it.' You just have to train yourself. It's not that hard. I've learnt to do it. Anyone can. Honestly."

"But you're right, I know you're right. That's why I'm crying."

"No, I'm not. It's jealousy, that's what it is. I've been mates with Homer for so long, I don't like to think of him going off with anyone. Not with another girl. I mean I don't want him for myself, not in that way, but I don't want another girl to have him either."

"You're just saying that to make me feel better."

"Well, of course I want you to feel better but it's still true, what I said, I don't like seeing other girls crack onto Homer. It's like: 'He's mine, rack off.' Even with you I feel a bit that way."

"You are lucky, the way you two get on together. You're so ... comfortable with each other. It makes me wish I had a brother."

"But you know, if you want proof that what I said was totally untrue"—I was starting to get my arguments together now—"you only have to remember the way he got so rapt in you in the early days, when we were first camping down in Hell. God he just melted like ... well, you remember when we microwaved that Easter egg?"

At last I got a little hiccuppy half-giggle out of her. One year we'd had too many Easter eggs, so we started mucking around and getting stupid with them. The one in the microwave melted into the most disgusting black toxic-looking liquid. It filled the kitchen with smoke, and a smell that didn't go away for hours.

I told Fi again all the things Homer said about her when he worshipped the ground she floated across. How perfect she was, how he wasn't good enough for her, how he went red every time she came near. What I couldn't remember, I made up. I felt like a mother telling a kid a bedtime story.

"I wish he was like that now," Fi sighed when I finished.

"Fi, those feelings are still inside him, believe me. They haven't gone away. It wouldn't take much to reactivate them."

"Do you think so?"

"Of course. You're just what he needs. It'd be the best thing, for both of you."

Sometimes I think I'm wasted. I should have been a saleswoman. I'd make a fortune. To be honest, I wasn't all that sure Homer with Fi was a good idea—even leaving my jealousy out of it—but by the time Fi drifted off to sleep I think I'd got her believing they might have a future.

When I went out to do sentry, four hours later, I took over from Lee. After the conversation with Fi I was curious to see him, to find out what he was up to. But I got nowhere. All he wanted was to get to bed, and it didn't matter how many hints I dropped, he still kept yawning and edging away through the trees. Eventually I had to let him go. But I was more conscious of him again now, and over the next couple of days I watched him keenly. Fi was right. He did go missing for long periods of time, and when he came back he looked exhausted. Exhausted, yes, but there was something else. It took me ages to think what it was, but I began to realise, gradually. He was excited. He really was up to something. He was alert, almost quivering with life, like a collie that's been working sheep all day but thinks there's a big mob just around the corner.

I asked Homer: "Where do you think Lee goes when he slips away for hours at a time?"

Homer looked surprised but not very interested. "Is he going off on his own a lot? Yes, now that you mention it, I suppose he is. But you know what Lee's like. Once a loner, always a loner."

This was another of those un-Homer-like comments, the kind of thing he never would have said before the war.

"Well, I'm worried, that's all. If he's doing anything that might affect the rest of us ... I think he should let us know where he is."

I was horrified to hear myself say this: it sounded so like my mother. War sure changes your perspective.

"Why, what do you think he's doing?"

"I've got no idea. But he's obsessed with getting revenge for his parents. He could be sneaking off and blowing up factories for all I know."

"Doubt it. Why don't you ask him?"

That was easy for Homer to say but Lee was so difficult when you approached him directly. Maybe Homer talked to Lee that way, although I hadn't noticed it myself. Anyway, Homer didn't have the background I had with Lee. He certainly didn't. The conversation hadn't really helped at all.

But a day and a half later Lee seemed in a surprisingly relaxed mood and I thought I might as well try Homer's direct tactics. We were sitting on a garden seat watching Kevin dig over an old garden bed, spreading compost, and I said to Lee: "So where have you been flitting off to in your spare time?"

He didn't seem to mind my asking; he shrugged and shook the hair out of his eyes. "Just around."

"Around here? Or into the city? Or out of town?"

"Just around," he repeated.

"Any particular reason?"

"Yes and no."

I waited for him to say more. I was wondering if I'd been wrong: maybe he did mind my asking. I was tempted to start nagging, to say: "Don't you think we've done enough for a while? How do you know you're not putting us all at risk?" But I didn't think he'd take that too well. Instead I said: "So you're still going for it huh?"

"Why don't you say what you really think?" he said.

"Well why don't you tell me, if you're such an expert on my brain?"

He looked at me levelly. I was simmering already; he was as cool as a mouthful of Minties.

"I think you're burning up because you want to know exactly what I'm doing and I'm not going to tell you."

"I don't give a stuff what you do," I said. "You can swim to New Zealand for all care. But you shouldn't do things independently. It's not fair. It could affect us in all kinds of ways. What if you don't come back one day for instance, and we have to go looking for you? We wouldn't know where to start. What if you launch some action against the enemy and they come after you and suddenly we're on the run again, without having any say in it? What if..."

"Oh, what if this, what if that," he broke in impatiently. "You can go on all day with that stuff. What if the sun explodes? We're all dead then. I know what I'm doing. You ought to try minding your own business for once."

He jumped up, marched over to where Kevin was working, grabbed a mattock and started furiously attacking the hard dry clay at the end of the garden.

We were going along a quiet back street lined with old brick houses. They'd probably been neat and tidy a year ago but they were looking pretty sloppy now. One thing was interesting though, as I crouched in the shade of a rose bush with lots of little yellow roses: I could see so many insects! Bees and little native bees and dragon-flies and a couple of butterflies, European wasps and a hornet and a few other things that I couldn't identify. A daddy longlegs danced along a branch of the rose bush. I was fairly sure that a year ago there wouldn't have been all these insects. I thought it was quite good really. I don't mind the odd insect once in a while; it makes me feel that the world isn't in such bad shape when there's insects around. It's only when they get in plague proportions, like the locusts in our paddocks two years back, that I'don't like them so much.

Lee waved me on, and on the other side of the street Homer moved forwards too. Fi was checking the rear. We'd left Kevin at Grandma's. He seemed happy enough doing his gardening, and we had to hope he'd be safe. We were going out to the countryside to get a lamb, to satisfy Homer's cravings for meat.

It was still quite early, so we moved with maximum care.

We planned to try to call Colonel Finley again when we got back. We'd discussed bringing the radio with us but the trouble was those kids. We didn't have any rifles, and if they mugged us again and took our stuff—well, we couldn't afford to lose the radio.

It was infuriating and even embarrassing to be scared of little brats. But we had to take them seriously. God, did we ever have to take them seriously. The memory of those trembling fingers on the triggers of rifles, rifles with the safety catches off, the memory of those wild panicky eyes: there was plenty to be scared of in that.

They reminded me of some horror movie, where people were taken over by creatures from outer space. Or one of those stories about drug-crazed teenagers jumping off balconies because they thought purple monkeys were crawling up their legs. I wondered if these kids were on drugs, but I didn't think so. Not that I'd know. I've never seen anything heavier than dope.

I got to the next corner. There was another of these little lanes, like the one where they'd mugged us. I let my eyes travel along it carefully. I didn't know who I was more nervous of: the enemy soldiers or the kids.

My eyes turned back to the main street, but something on the ground caught my attention. I glanced down. Then stopped and stared. Then looked a little further and saw something else. I called Homer, with a low whistle.

Homer moved quickly and lightly when he wanted. He was surprising for such a big guy. He could have made a ballet dancer in another life.

On second thoughts, maybe not.

When he saw what I'd seen he reacted the same way. He raised his eyebrows and looked at me, then suddenly glanced across the street.

"Let's move on," he said. "One of them's watching."

"All right," I said. "But I'm coming back for my things."

"Yeah of course. So am I."

We left the stuff there and hurried after the others. We met in a carport in a house at the end of the street. "What were you looking at?" Lee asked.

"My photo of Mum and Dad," I said.

"My lucky rabbit's foot," Homer said.

"My hanky."

"You mean, the stuff those kids knocked off?"

"Yeah, exactly."

"So what happened, they dumped it there?"

Homer tried to reason it out. "They've either met in the laneway to divide up the goodies and dump the rubbish. Or they're trying to ambush us."

"Doubt it," I said. "It's not a very good place for an ambush."

"Why didn't you pick it up?" Fi asked.

"I saw one of them watching," Homer said to Lee and Fi. "I reckon their hiding place could be somewhere around here. I want to track them down."

"Why?" Fi asked.

I thought he'd say: "Because I want to beat the crap out of them and get my other stuff back," but Homer all my life has been surprising me and I guess he'll keep surprising me till the day I die.

He said: "I feel sorry for the poor little buggers."

Fi leaned against the wall of the carport and fanned herself.

"Homer," she said, "I swear I'll never understand you."

I was relieved it wasn't just me.

"So what are you suggesting?" Lee asked. "That we go in and convert them? Save their souls? Open an orphanage and look after them?"

Lee had been in a very aggressive mood lately.

"Nothing like that," Homer said. He didn't seem too fazed. "But I thought we could try and give them a hand."