Dog Gone (5 page)

‘Ish! Answer the phone!'

I opened one eye. The sun was boring through my window like a laser.

‘Ish, are you awake? I'm in the shower. Molly?'

I'd slept in. I couldn't believe it! My opportunity to go fishing on my own and to give myself another chance of meeting up with the ghost had been gobbled up in dreams.

I threw back the covers and saw Lucky's bed. It was now the third day since he'd gone missing, and, for a short moment, I'd forgotten he wasn't there. I ran down the hall to the phone. The panic was still in my chest and even heavier at the thought of him gone. The polished boards under my feet felt like the slippery deck in my dream.

‘Hello?' My voice sounded like someone else's.

‘Ish, is that you?' It was Sylvia, Mum's friend. There was a lot of crackling on the line, and I could hardly hear her voice. ‘Ish, I need to talk to your grandmother. I can't talk for long.'

‘She's in the shower,' I said. Why was Sylvia ringing and not Mum?

The phone kept crackling. Underneath the crackling were words I could barely make out. ‘Ish, I'm afraid I've got some bad news.' More crackling.

My heart began to race.

‘Your mum …' A lot more crackling. ‘… but they think she'll be all right …' Crackle. ‘… hospital until she can …' Crackling again. ‘… can't come home for a few weeks. I can ring you again tonight.' Crackle.

Then silence.

I stood holding the receiver. I felt numb and suddenly alone. Hot tears streamed down my cheeks. I replaced the receiver into the cradle of Gran's old phone. What had happened to Mum? I suddenly wanted Dad. I wanted to talk to him, tell him about Mum. He'd know what to do.

I heard the shower turn off. I wiped my face on my pyjama sleeve and tried to think. Dad was miles away in Sydney and besides, he always changed the subject when I talked about Mum.

‘Who was that on the phone, love?' Gran stood at the end of the hallway in her dressing gown and a towel around her head. ‘Ish – are you okay?'

I thought I'd done a good job with my sleeve, but Gran has an in-built emotion detector. Some people are mind readers, but Gran is a heart reader. She can tell a well-hidden feeling a mile off.

She started down the hall towards me. When she was close enough for me to see the softness in her eyes, more tears came gushing. ‘What's the matter, love?' Gran put her arms around me. She smelt of baby powder. ‘Who was on the phone?'

‘Sylvia,' I blubbered. ‘Some … some … thing's happened to Mum.

Gran took my face in her hands. ‘What do you mean, love?'

‘Sh-she's in hospital.'

‘Heavens! Is she all right?' The towel had been gradually slipping off Gran's head and now suddenly fell to the floor.

I bent down to pick it up for her. ‘It was a bad line but I heard her say she'd ring back tonight.'

Gran took my hand and led me down the hall and into the kitchen. ‘I'm sure it won't be anything too serious,' she said, throwing the towel onto the back of a chair.

‘Can we ring Dad?' I blurted. ‘How will we find out about Mum?'

‘Let's wait and get all the news from Sylvia tonight, love. She said she'll ring. Pop the kettle on while I get dressed, then we'll have some breakfast.'

Dad had taken a job in Sydney at the end of last year. It was more money than his old job, he'd explained to me. It wouldn't be forever. I wanted to go with him, but Mum had said no. Sydney was only a phone call away from Melbourne, Dad had said. I desperately wanted to hear his voice now. ‘But, Gran, can't we ring Dad? Please.'

‘Maybe. I know you miss him, love, but he'll be busy at work. Let's get the news update tonight and then you can phone him.'

I sat at the kitchen table while Gran went off to dry her hair and get dressed. Poor Mum. Her and Dad were both so far away. I thought of what it was like when we all lived together. And I thought of how Lucky seemed to understand how I hated them fighting. I scribbled a poem on the back of Gran's shopping list. I'd write it in my poetry journal later.

Day 3 - A Fight

Mum and Dad are in the kitchen

shouting

I'm under the pear tree

I don't want to hear the words

neither does Lucky

he's got his head on my knee

his ears down

Gran is one of those people who makes you feel better just by coming into the room. When she came back and I'd sobbed out a few more concerns and she'd made us both a piece of toast, the whole situation didn't seem quite so bad. We decided the only thing we could do was wait for Sylvia's phone call that evening. Gran said it was no use worrying over milk we weren't even sure had been spilt. But I could tell she was worried. As she left the kitchen to go and get dressed, she put the empty milk carton in the fridge and tossed out the fresh one. She didn't even notice when it thumped to the bottom of the bin.

Yesterday dragged on
for so long, it felt like the sun had got stuck up in the sky. Another day without Lucky and waiting for the evening – the time Sylvia said she would ring with more news about Mum – was agony. I couldn't settle to do anything. Not even the book of jokes Mum gave me for Christmas could keep my mind off her. And Gran cooked one of my favourite meals – meatballs in tomato sauce – for dinner, but I hardly touched it.

Then Sylvia didn't even ring. All that agony for nothing. I went to bed at eleven o'clock. Gran wouldn't let me stay up any later, even though I begged her.

‘I'll let you know if we get any news,' she said. ‘Go to bed and get some sleep.'

Yeah, Gran – as if
.

I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep thinking about Mum. And it had been four whole days since Lucky went missing. I'd been back to the police station and the pound every day. At two o'clock in the morning my thoughts were darker than the night outside and my chest ached from loneliness. I tried to think of something funny to cheer myself up, and wrote a poem about
the Muffin Incident
.

Day 4 - Afternoon Tea

I arrive home from school

to a cinnamon smell –

Mum's in the kitchen

going nuts

Lucky's in the corner

ears flat

tail between his legs

Mum's best plate

is in pieces

on the floor

and there's no sign

of the muffins

The night seemed even longer than the day. I'm sure I was awake for most of it and, when I wasn't, I dreamt about telephones in all sorts of strange places, ringing so loudly I woke up a couple of times with my heart pounding.

And in the middle of the night, the silence in our hallway was unbearable.

That's why, when I heard the first bird chirp before dawn, I knew I had to get to the river. I needed to get away from the worry of waiting for the phone to ring.

The river, first thing in the morning, is like magic. The dewdrops on the grass and leaves remind me of mini-suns, with their white light glistening from rainbow centres. I love to breathe in the air that still has some of the night smell of river mud and eucalyptus left in it. When I'm at home in Melbourne, sometimes I lie in bed with my eyes closed and imagine this exact spot. I conjure up the morning river smell and it brings me here when I need to come.

When we came up for Grandpa's funeral I spent ages at the river, sitting on my favourite log – the one Grandpa and me used to fish off – thinking about him and Dad and watching the water.

I don't think Gran and Mum ever noticed how long I was away. Mum was too busy helping Gran organise Grandpa's funeral, and they spent a fair bit of time talking about Dad going. Gran's a good listener. Maybe she was like a river for Mum. Molly would just sit up in the peppercorn tree with her book.

This morning my favourite log was cold and damp under my legs. The weak winter sun was hardly up yet, and didn't have much warmth in it. When I sat here with my fishing rod, time seemed to stop. Sometimes I didn't think of anything, but strangely, when it was time to leave, I felt like all my thoughts were sorted.

I had to come fishing this morning. I should've told Gran, I know. But I didn't think she'd appreciate me waking her up so early, especially after waiting up for Sylvia to ring.

I needed some time on my own to think. So much had happened. How was Mum? Was she all right? Where was Lucky? It felt strange here without him. I tried to block a dreadful thought out of my mind, but it kept coming back. What if Nelly Arnott had done something to him and it was all my fault? What if she'd hired someone to kidnap him and drown him in the river because he'd dug up her lemon tree so many times he'd killed it? I was the one who had first introduced Lucky to her backyard when we started taking the short cut through her place to the river. Whatever was under that tree must have been really yummy.

It was awful without Lucky. He was always with me. Even if I wanted to go somewhere on my own, he'd find a way to scramble under the gate to follow me. Sometimes it was annoying, especially if I was late for school and I'd have to turn around and take him home again. He's such a scatterbrain, always getting under your feet in his excitement to be with you. I wished he was under my feet now.

Listening to the gurgle of the water as it passed over a submerged log, I heard the smallest of sounds behind me, like a twig breaking in two. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up like they did in the cemetery. But I knew it wasn't the ghost.

I swivelled around and found myself almost nose-to-nose with a fat boy around my own age. He was just about to step up onto my log. My sudden movement caught him off-balance. He slipped and fell backwards into the shallow water near the riverbank.

As I watched the boy struggle to his feet again, I noticed movement out of the corner of my eye. Two other boys were heading towards me from either side of my log. They were glaring at me. I guessed that, in their minds, I might as well have pushed their friend into the river with all my strength.

‘You okay, Brody?' called one of the boys. His eyes bored into me while he spoke to his friend.

‘We'll show this little no-brain what happens when he messes with Brody Callahan,' the other boy threatened. He was moving too fast for me to make a getaway.

By this time Brody was on his feet. He looked like a drowned Sumo wrestler. He shook himself and brushed the hair out of his face.

The other boys were at the water's edge and Brody was standing about a metre away from the log that I was still sitting on. Suddenly, he lunged towards me. By some miracle I managed to dodge his arm.

At that moment my fishing rod did the weirdest thing – it was as if it came alive. It started swinging around so wildly, I had a job to hold it. Incredibly, the rod telescoped out to its full length and caught Brody's shoulder. He lurched headfirst into the water again, cursing as he went. The fishing line twisted around his body as he fell, and the more he tried to free himself, the more tangled up he became.

‘Don't stand there gawking, you useless nerd-brains!
Do
something,' yelled Brody, thrashing about in the water.

The others hesitated. In that split second, I leapt to my feet, then off the log onto the riverbank, nearly losing my footing in the slippery mud. One of the boys grabbed my arm, but I spun around and kicked my leg out – a move I remembered watching on an old
Kung Fu
movie – and managed to yank it free, leaving him holding my rain jacket.

I ran like a frightened chook up through the bushes and along the track that led to the cemetery, cursing Gran's stupid gumboots with every step.

As I scrambled up to the back gate of the cemetery, I could still hear Brody screaming at his friends. I was so puffed it hurt to breathe.

I couldn't believe I'd escaped. But what about my fishing rod?