Kipp The Kid (3 page)

Kipp was tempted to tease Jane but thought better of
it. “Yes, it is…morning, I mean.” Jane shot him a curious glance
and then smiled much more warmly than he had anticipated. He
returned a weak, uncomfortable smile. I hope she didn’t notice I
was perving, Kipp thought and wondered whether she could read his
mind. He must have turned red, because Jane started giggling.

“Do you have a girlfriend?” Kipp’s grumps had asked
out of nowhere one afternoon as he sat rocking on his chair on the
porch.

“Not for another twenty years Grandpa”, Kipp answered
politely and then rolled his eyes when grumps wasn’t looking.

“Well, there’s plenty of time for that.” As he said
it Kipp’s gran could be heard calling out to him from the
kitchen.

“Stan, you have to get the chickens in…and get me
some eggs while you’re at it or we’ll be eaten stale bread with
nothing on it for tea.”

“Do you have a girlfriend?” asked Jane suddenly and
the image of his grumps rocking on the porch replayed in his mind.
He thought about giving the same reply, but decided to lie
instead.

“Yes. Yes I do as a matter of fact. Though, she’s
older than you and taller too.”

In his short years on this planet, Kipp has struggled
to understand the women in his life. The only exception was his
mother. He had understood her perfectly well. But the twins who
walked their dogs were like aliens and his gran was a whole other
beast. His girl cousins (Jack’s sisters) only ever complained about
how hot it was whenever they visited for Summer. So he hadn’t yet
learnt there were certain things you should never do. One is
complain about a woman’s mood and two is that the heart of a girl
is fragile and easily broken.

The warm smile which had so easily formed on Jane’s
face was just as soon gone. It left as easily as the water
squelching down the drain when you empty the sink, only faster.
Jane got up and pretended to play with the smoking sticks in the
fire pit. He could tell her mood had changed, but hadn’t quite put
his finger on why.

“Does she have a name?”

“Umm…no…I mean, Noelene.”

“Noelene? That’s an odd name. How old is she?”

“How old?”

“Yes, you said she is older, so how old?”

“Um…ahhh…sixteen.” Kipp gulped when he realized how
stupid it sounded. But he was committed.

“Sixteen? But you’re only twelve.”

“Thirteen,” he stated proudly. “Just last month.”

“Wow, you are almost old enough to be her…her baby
brother,” she said, teasing him. Then a weak smile returned as she
was beginning to realize he was fibbing.

Kipp said nothing in reply. He was busy packing up
the camp and clearing away the rubbish. By now he’d usually be down
one of the shafts or scaling the engine house to see the view of
the ocean. Not many kids he knew could climb the five story engine
houses dotting the district. He only knew of one other kid that
claimed to have, but nobody ever saw him do it. But Kipp could,
though he had to scale the broken corner, which had bits of brick
and stone protruding in a kind of jagged ladder for part of the way
up. Then there was some steel reinforcing mesh someone had attached
to keep the stone from falling out.

“What do you do here…when no one else’s around, I
mean?” She asked as she waited for him to finish. Kipp rolled his
eyes and then turned to face her. He couldn’t make up his mind
whether she was always this chatty. At home, next door, she always
seemed preoccupied with her little area in the back yard, out by
the Aleppo Pines. Someone, he assumed her father, had built a cubby
house consisting of several staggered platforms and half walls. It
looked like it had been there for a while. He sometimes watched her
climb the rope ladder gracefully, her hair dangling down behind her
like Rapunzel in the old fairy tale.

“I climb,” he said, boasting.

“I can climb,” she answered quickly.

“This aint no cubby house.”

“Aint it?” she answered, mimicking him and then
giggled. “You don’t normally talk like that. Much more proper,
like…like an adult.”

He wanted to end this game, but didn’t know how. “Did
you bring decent shoes?”

“Only these.” She pointed to her sandals.

“I figured. Well, that’s it then, you can’t
come.”

“Why not? It’s because I’m a girl, isn’t it.”

“No, it’s because you don’t have climbing boots.”

“I can get some.”

It was getting tedious and Kipp decided he had had
enough. “Look. You just can’t come. Now, I let you stay the night.
I let you camp. I gave you food. But that’s it.” Seeing the sulky
look on Jane’s face he decided to soften his tone a little. “Won’t
your parents be worried?”

“It’s just dad and me now.” She was scowling, as if
it was information Kipp should have known. He did know, he had just
forgotten.

“Won’t your dad be worried then?”

“Yeah, I wish. He’s probably crashed on the living
room floor—” She stopped herself short of a complete thought. She
had already said too much. Kipp saw a different expression now,
much more troubling. He didn’t know what to make of it. Suddenly
her whole mood changed, as if she had just remembered she had to be
somewhere else. “You’re right. I better be off. I have to go.” She
made to turn around and then swung back to face him. “Which way is
it again?”

She found her way here, but can’t find her way home,
Kipp thought. Oh brother. He had no choice now. His day was ruined.
He would have to take her home. Gran and grumps would see him and
give him a list of jobs he had to do and by the time he would be
finished there was no way he’d be able to get away again. Camping
would have to wait. The girl had done it. She had spoiled his
plans. She was the only one who ever had.

To say that he was annoyed is to say the sky is blue.
As he escorted his stowaway companion, he barely spoke to her the
whole way back. It didn’t stop Jane talking though, almost the
entire way. Not that Kipp remembered much of what she said. He just
wanted to be rid of her, as much as anyone wanted to be rid of
someone.

Chapter 4: Kipp’s contract

A few nights later, as Kipp was getting ready for
bed, he heard yelling next door. That was not so strange. He knew
Jane’s father often came home drunk and there was usually some loud
noises, the clanging of the gate, the slamming of the front door,
the loud thumping as he stumbled through the house, some orders
barked at his daughter and that was about it. But lately, these
incidences had been more common and this night Kipp was alarmed to
hear what sounded like Jane screaming at someone, then something
smashed and was followed by loud sobbing. He peered out through his
upstairs bedroom window. Across a small paddock he could just see
the silhouette of Jane as she entered her room. She went to her
window, held his gaze for the briefest of moments, shoved the
window hard shut and ripped the curtains across with such violence
that she almost tore them.

Kipp was worried. He had never seen her angry before.
She always struck him as a quiet, unassuming, sensible little girl.
Now, for the first time, he saw something quite different, someone
he was beginning to care about—much to his own surprise—was
hurting. He felt suddenly ashamed at ignoring her and being
annoyed. She only wanted his company, after all. She was the only
friend apart from Nip he had in his entire world. Spending the
night with her had been difficult, but thinking back, he had
secretly welcomed the company.

After a very restless sleep, Kipp got up early,
before the sun rose and had all his chores done before his gran
woke. When she saw him she began barking a list at him.

“Have you fed the h-”

“Done.”

“What about the ch-”

“Done.”

“And the g-”

“Also done.”

His gran stood there, her hands on her hips, looking
at him. “And what about your h-”

“Also done,” he said grinning. Before his gran could
ask too many more questions, he was out the door, bag and swag with
him. But as he passed by next door, he happened to look up at
Jane’s window to see her quickly disappear behind her curtains.
Before she did though, he thought he saw something on her face. Not
chocolate, too early, he reasoned. Not mud, it hasn’t rained. Not
makeup, she never wore it. Then a thought came to him that stopped
him dead in his tracks.

Kipp had seen bruises many times. He was always
hurting himself, whether it was when helping around the farm,
playing in the yard or down at the mines. Once he had a bruise so
long it resembled a snake. He was so proud of it he showed it off
at school and told the other boys it was a tattoo. They had laughed
at him because it clearly wasn’t and he cursed himself for being so
stupid. But the only time he ever saw a bruise on a face was when
Jack go hit by a cricket ball when they went out for a hit one day.
It had hit him so hard it caused an egg to appear on his cheek and
the next day he had a bruise the size of a tennis ball.

Kipp knew Jane had gone straight home. It wasn’t even
lunch time when she let him in to her house. The two of them had
crept slowly past her sleeping dad. Kipp had seen the mess on the
floor. Bottles carelessly discarded, leftover food from the night
before. He hadn’t been inside very often, but he did not remember
it ever being like this. She had led him to her bedroom and pleaded
for him to stay. But, in his frame of mind, he was in no mood and
really didn’t want to see any more of her.

But now, waltzing along the well-worn track through
the pines, out over the floodway, then the pans, past the tailings
and then to the ruins, something in the back of his mind was
nagging him. A voice that sounded somewhat familiar, the voice of
his mother. Not loud, but stern, Not harsh, but pointed. Not
unwelcome, but concerning.

“Go back!”

He tried to ignore it. But some things cannot be
ignored. If it was his mother, he never ignored it. She had such a
way about her. Impossible to ignore.

So, when he was almost there, at the mines, he swung
around on his heels and headed right back again. He went in through
the back door and peered around the kitchen doorway. Her father
wasn’t there. He crept up the stairs and looked carefully down the
passageway. No signs of him. He quietly stepped towards her room
and opened the door slowly. Jane was lying on her bed, her face
away from the doorway towards the window. She had not heard him
enter.

“Jane?” He saw her body grimace, like someone had
slapped their hands together hard right next to her. He was now
worried. He moved towards her bed and said much more softly,
“Jane?”

She pulled her left hand up to cover her face. “Go
away.” When she said this, her voice sounded broken, like she had
been crying.

“Are you ok?” He was reminded again of the times
people had stated the obvious and almost expected her to sit up and
yell “No genius. Of course I’m not ok.” But she said nothing. He
sat on her bed and placed one hand gently on her shoulder and
pulled her over. She did not resist, allowing her hand to fall away
from her face. What he saw them shocked him not because of the
injury, but because of who he imagined might have caused it.

He sat there on her bed, gently rubbing her shoulder
as he listened to her tell him what happened. Every now and then
she couldn’t talk, sobbing quietly instead. Her father had come
home drunk. Nothing unusual about that. She was supposed to have
his dinner ready, this, an eleven year old girl. He had become
angry and had whacked the dishes away from the table. A ceramic mug
had flung up and hit her in the face. “He had not meant to hurt
me”, she had told Kipp, but the pain, the injury was deeper than a
mere bruise. Kipp could tell she was hurting inside. She made it
clear she did not blame her father, though Kipp had a different
opinion. “He just misses her, that’s all.”

Kipp did not know much of the details about what
happened to her mother. He knew she had died a few years back, when
she was little, after her family had moved in. But they were so
secretive and Jane had not been allowed out much. Her father kept
her home a lot. Maybe he was too protective, maybe he needed her.
But that was no excuse to yell at her and certainly no excuse to be
responsible for her current state.

Sensing Kipp’s anger, Jane grabbed his arm and made
him promise not to do anything. Kipp sat very quiet for some time,
until Jane stopped crying. Before he left she made him promise
again. He only nodded.

It was late before Kipp finally got up and went to
her door. Then he turned to her and smiled warmly. “Do you want to
come with me tomorrow?” She smiled back weakly and then nodded.
“You will need some more stuff though. Do you have a swag?”

“Dad does, in the garage.”

“Good. Leave the rest to me. Be ready early. We’re
going to be gone for a couple of days.” He left her then and crept
back down stairs. In the time he had been in her room, Jane’s
father had come down stairs and was fast asleep in the lounge
chair, a bottle of beer still in his hand, tilted over, with beer
dribbling onto the floor. Kipp thought about tying him to the chair
and calling the police, but remembered his promise. As he stood
there, staring, he promised that one day he would do something
about it, when he was big enough. But Jane’s father would have to
wait. Instead, he would take her to his camp, as often as he could.
He would put up with her childish jabbering. He would overlook her
girlish ways. He would look after her. He would be, he thought, her
brother, her friend.