Fifteen Love (16 page)

Ken and Lyn and I sit up talking about tennis, and how fame and happiness don't necessarily go together. We talk about how being fifteen is weird because you're not a child anymore but you're not an adult, either. We talk about how it's important to think about the future, but more important to take each day as it comes. It sounds like a conversation where the adults do most of the talking, but for most of the time Ken and Lyn just sit there, holding hands and listening. It's strange when you suddenly realise that your parents value your opinion. Even stranger when you see that they're proud of you.

The only time Lyn and Ken look worried is when I tell them about Dave wanting to come to the party.

‘He thinks you don't care about him,' says Lyn.

‘He feels as if you're grown up but he's still a baby,' says Ken.

‘Tomorrow,' I say, ‘we'll go into town.'

I get up and say goodnight, then wander off down the hall to bed. Dave's bedroom is opposite mine, and for the first time his door is shut.

MIA

I lie in my bed imagining a rainforest. There are leafy ferns and jungle vines, exotic birds and monkeys swinging from the trees. My bedroom is a tree house, high up in the canopy where no one can reach me and no one else can see. Tomorrow Will is coming to the concert – he's coming to hear me play! The rainforest is alive with noise. The screeches of birds and the howls of monkeys fill the warm, moist air. Far below me on the forest floor, there are poisonous frogs, crawling insects and giant pythons. Will is coming to the concert, and after the concert – what then? My rainforest is a wild place where no one has ever been before. It's a Garden of Eden – a place where a girl can be who she wants to be. All I need to do is grab a vine and swing down into it.

Six

WILL

At eleven o'clock the next morning, Lyn pokes her head around my bedroom door.

‘How are you feeling?' she asks.

‘Pretty ordinary.'

‘Ken and I are going shopping. Can you look after Dave?'

‘Sure.'

I don't know if it's a hangover or the bump on my head or a combination, but my brain feels like an old computer that's been taken to the tip – busted and rusted beyond repair. I gather up the energy to get myself out of bed. I have a shower, fix myself a flotilla of Weet-Bix, then sit back to watch the Sunday morning cartoons. When Duck Dodgers gets disintegrated, I know exactly how he feels.

I think about Mia inviting me to the concert and whether or not it's a date. After all, we won't be sitting together. We may not even get a chance to speak. But the fact is, Mia asked me to come, so headache or no headache, I'll be there.

When the cartoons finish it's midday and still there's no sign of Dave.

I knock quietly on his bedroom door but there's no answer.

‘Dave?' When I turn the handle and try to open the door, it's jammed.

‘Dave? Are you in there?'

‘Go away, Will!'

‘Are you still mad with me?'

‘I'm not talking to you, Will. You can't make me.'

‘I'm supposed to be looking after you, Dave. I thought we could go and see Mia. We could take Harriet for a walk, if you want to.'

It's an excellent offer – easily good enough, I would have thought, to lure Dave out of his room.

‘You can't make me, Will.'

‘Okay, Dave,' I say. ‘You wait here while I go and get Harriet.'

MIA

I slop on the wallpaper-remover and, like magic, the wallpaper peels away in long thin strips. The walls beneath are smooth and bare – as vulnerable as trees that have lost their bark. Should I paint them green, to go with the indoor ferns? Or should I paint bright butterflies, dancing in the sunlight?

The doorbell rings and Mum answers it. I hear footsteps coming down the hall and when I look up
there he is
, inside my house! Standing in my doorway, looking into my unfinished bedroom! Staring at my stripped walls before they're even ready!

‘Will!'

He nods at the borrowed viola on my bed.

‘Shouldn't you be practising for the concert tonight?'

‘Are you still coming?'

‘Of course I'm still coming.'

‘You don't have to, if you don't want to.'

‘I'll be there, he grins. 'Even if I have to come on crutches.'

‘Even if I'm not the star of the show?'

‘Even if they don't give out trophies.'

‘What are you doing here, anyway?' I say. ‘Shouldn't you be at home, resting?'

Will lowers his head to show me how the swelling has gone down. I am seriously tempted to run my fingers through his hair. I don't, of course.

‘Actually . . . ' he says. ‘Can I borrow Harriet?'

WILL

Dogs are smart. There's no doubt about it. No animal has adapted better to a world dominated by humans. Instead of being put on the menu or hunted to extinction, dogs have worked out what people want. They know how to sit up and beg for food, how to bark at strangers or fetch a stick, and how to look knowing enough for people to think that their dog is their friend. But a dog is a dog. It's an animal, trying to survive. It does what it can to get a bowl of meat and a safe place to sleep. I never wanted one as a pet, and I'm not about to be suddenly swept away by a cute little beagle.

After walking a couple of blocks together, Harriet and I have an understanding. We walk fast, with Harriet a step ahead and to the side. Yes, Harriet is excited to be out on the lead. No, we don't stop to smell the lampposts or to annoy the barking dogs behind fences. Harriet walks with her head down and tail up, turning now and then to give me a reassuring glance:
I'm Harriet, the sniffer dog
, she says,
off
on another great adventure.

‘You don't fool me, Harriet. But if you can get Dave out of his bedroom, I'll buy you a nice big bone.'

Not a problem,
says Harriet, with her doggy smile.

When we get home, I knock loudly on Dave's door, but he doesn't answer.

‘Dave! Come and see who's here!'

Harriet barks in excitement, but there is still no answer. This time, when I try the door, it opens. But the room is empty and on the bed there's a note in Dave's big, neat handwriting:

MIA

The wallpaper is gone. I have pulled down the curtains. The bedspread is packed away, ready for the op shop. Next on my list is the hideous chandelier.

I get a stepladder from the laundry and climb up it for a closer look. If it is possible to unscrew the crystal monstrosity, I will be happy enough with just a dim light bulb for now. I'm up on the stepladder, deciding how
not
to electrocute myself, when there's another knock at the front door.

‘I'll get it, Mum!' I call out, assuming it must be Will, returning Harriet after her walk. I take off my glasses and neaten my hair, but when I open the door I get a shock.

‘Dad?'

Last night, as a doctor, my father was comfortable and relaxed. Now, as a father, he looks nervous and uncertain. When I go to kiss him, he doesn't know whether to hug me or not. I don't know if Mum wants me to invite him in or not. I don't think I want him to see my room in such a mess, either.

‘It's the big day!' he says.

‘Yep.' I nod. ‘The big day.'

‘I'm looking forward to it,' he says.

‘Me, too.'

‘I got you something,' he says.

‘You didn't have to.'

My father goes to his car and comes back with my present. It's in a long, rectangular box, wrapped up in plain brown paper. The card simply says:
Sorry, love Dad.

I sit down on the doorstep and fumble with the wrapping paper, while my father watches nervously. Inside the box is a beautiful new viola.

WILL

‘You're a bloodhound, Harriet! That's what bloodhounds do – they pick up the scent and run with it. They hunt foxes and rabbits. They catch drug smugglers. They track down escaped prisoners. Now, help me find Dave!'

Harriet sniffs at Dave's T-shirt then leaps into action. She tears down the hallway and disappears under the kitchen table, looking for food scraps.

I knew it was a dumb idea.

Dave has run away. He might be just around the corner, or he might be on the train to Alice Springs. Surely, because of his wheelchair, he can't have gone too far. How can someone run away from home when they can't even walk?

MIA

Mum invites Dad in and together they watch me tune my new viola and play a few arpeggios. My new viola is
splendido e
magnifico
! The wood is darker than the old viola, with a finer, less distinctive grain. The bridge is cut differently and the f-holes are longer, but the feel of the neck and the tone of the two instruments are remarkably similar. My dad has gone to a lot of trouble in choosing it.

I close my eyes and pretend I am playing my old instrument. I pretend that nothing bad has happened – that my mum and dad still love each other and that the three of us are a normal, happy family. I play the arpeggios with more feeling and the tone of the instrument changes, becoming richer and more resonant. I realise, with tears streaming down my cheeks, that no two violas can ever be the same.

WILL

Harriet's nose is a heavy-duty, industrial vacuum cleaner – a super-sniffer, sucking up smells, searching for clues. The first place we look is the tennis court. The Sunday lessons are on, and while I ask around, Harriet lets the kids play with her. By the time I am done, a tennis ball has been mauled, a toddler is crying and a four-year-old is throwing a tantrum: ‘
I want a dog, Mummy! Tell Santa I WANT one!
' There has been no sign of Dave, though, so with no time to waste, we leave to continue our search. Harriet has no idea where we are going, but she's dragging me there anyway.

At the shopping centre there is a sign on the automatic glass door. It shows an outline of a dog's body inside a red circle with a red diagonal line crossing it out. It might mean
NO DOGS
, but it doesn't actually say so. And the more I look at the dog in the picture, the less it looks like Harriet. Some breeds of dog are obviously banned from the shopping centre, but surely not tracker dogs here on urgent business.

Harriet and I sneak into SportsWorld and begin sniffing around for traces of Dave. We snoop around Swimwear and creep through Cricket. We slink past Skiing and tiptoe through Tennis. There are racquets on special so
surely
Dave must be here, hiding in a change room or eyeing off a new pair of trainers. SportsWorld is a big, busy store, but when Harriet starts making new friends, it's not long before we're noticed by the staff.

‘Excuse me,' says the girl. ‘Your dog is not allowed in here.'

‘She's not my dog,' I say, hoping to buy some time.

The girl gets the section manager, the section manager gets the store manager, then the store manager gets the security guard. By the time the guard arrives, I have staked out the entire store and Harriet is tearing around the astroturf with a gang of squealing children.

‘Let's go, Harriet. We're done here.'

Outside the sports store, the food court is thundering with noise as people clatter their cutlery and slurp their cappuccinos. Out of desperation, I buy a two-dollar pair of sunglasses, hoping that people will think Harriet is my seeing eye dog. The trouble is, seeing eye dogs are known to stay cool in a tense situation, whereas Harriet is a dead giveaway – jumping up on tables, trying to lick kids' ice-creams. There are too many different smells here for an innocent young bloodhound. Harriet's nose is in danger of being overloaded. She could rupture her sinuses or blow a nose-gasket.

Instead, I tie her up outside the door and wander among the tables, searching without much hope for a sign of my runaway brother. How ridiculous am I, to be taking Dave's note so seriously? But time is slipping away and I am starting to panic now. What if Dave really means it? What if he
really
has
run away? Dave might have even
made plans
– a refuge for the disabled, a motorised wheelchair, a getaway van with a ramp up the back. Or worse, Dave might be in trouble. He might have done something stupid.

When I return, Harriet has wound her leash round the pole, until she can't move her head. As a prisoner of her own stupidity, she is paying the price – a boy and his sister are mercilessly tickling her tummy and Harriet's hind leg is scratching the air in ecstasy.

I unwind her leash and we're away again, with Harriet relentlessly dragging me on.

At the swimming pool she makes her grand entrance, barking madly at the startled swimmers and wanting to leap into the water to join them. Surely Dave will be here, arguing with the lifeguards or wrestling with the vending machine? As I survey the lap-swimmers, the rowdy kids doing bombs or the soakers in the spa, I can hardly bear to look. At any moment I expect to see Dave, floating lifelessly in the water.