The Detachable Boy (13 page)
I rolled my eyes then turned away. As soon as I heard her head complaining from the pipe, I turned and guided her fumbling body through the hole. She was so thin that two of her would have fitted in the pipe and so long that her hands were through to the central vent before her feet had left the lift shaft.
I pulled out the cigarette lighter from my pocket again and lit the tinder-dry rats’ nest at my feet.
‘Sorry, rats,’ I said. ‘It’s time for everybody to get out of here.’
The lift was on the move again and the air surging into the shaft fanned the fire. I hurriedly bailed through the pipe and reassembled in the smoky vent.
‘Fantastic!’ Ravi said, and coughed. ‘We’re free, aren’t we, John?’
‘Not quite,’ I said. ‘We still have a bit of a climb.’
Crystal moaned. ‘There’s no way I’m climbing up there. It’s just not possible. My body wasn’t built for that sort of . . .’
A squeaking sound made her stop and listen.
‘What’s that? A rat?’ Crystal climbed. By the count of ten she was already three floors above us, climbing like a monkey on fast-forward.
We managed to stay a floor or two above the escaping rats but the smoke gnawed at our lungs and I had to carry Ravi on my back the last ten floors. In her rat-powered panic, Crystal had found the strength to pop the concrete lid off the top of the vent by herself. She ran a way off into the desert and collapsed onto her back. She was still puffing when we slumped beside her.
‘Now we’ve made it, haven’t we, John?’ Ravi asked.
‘Yes, Ravi, we’re out.’
Rats and smoke poured from the vent shaft in the distance.
Crystal sat up, suddenly alert. ‘I’m hungry,’ she said.
‘I could really go one of those burgers from that . . .’
Smoke and people were tumbling out of the shed behind the diner. There wasn’t much to burn inside the Hive, I realised, but lighting a fire in the vent had effectively smoked everybody out. All the rats. All the prisoners, all the guards and all the bodies that had made up Titania. I hoped those poor souls who’d had their limbs sold off found them again. That could be a life-long search. As we watched, fire trucks and police cars arrived with their sirens blaring.
‘I don’t think we should go back there,’ I said.
Crystal agreed. ‘Those burgers were the best, but yeah, I think I want to go home now.’
Ravi stood. ‘Home is a good idea,’ he said. ‘Which way, best buddy?’
I pointed towards the highway, then towards Maricopa, then I twisted and pointed to the diner and finally, towards the desert.
‘Make up your mind, for goodness sake, or my more than ample brain will short-circuit and you’ll be forced to spoon-feed me for the rest of your days.’
Beyond the smoking diner, I spied an old farmhouse with a rusty ute parked out front and for the second time that hour I was struck by an idea. Another good idea. They were becoming a habit.
‘Come on,’ I said, standing and dusting off my singed jeans. ‘I’d like you to meet a friend of mine.’
‘But I want to go home,’ Crystal said. ‘My mum and dad will be going mental with worry.’
‘It’s on the way home.’
‘But I want to go home now!’
‘There’s food.’
Crystal was suddenly on her feet and striding through the desert.
I
FOUND
the huge metal pretzel and I found Bobby Robertson under the bonnet of his rusty ute. He didn’t recognise me at first, with my toasted clothes and singed hair, but when he finally saw through the muck on my face, he shook my hand and slapped my shoulder. He invited us all inside and cooked us a big breakfast of sausages, eggs, crispy bacon and toast. And pretzels. Straight ones.
We took it in turns to clean ourselves up in his bathroom and he showed us his impressive collection of abnormal pretzels. When we’d been introduced to Elvis pretzel and the Eiffel pretzel, when we’d marvelled at his Great Barrier pretzel and checked the time on his Rolex pretzel, he offered to drive us to Maricopa.
We rode in the back of the ute. With food in our bellies and the wind in our hair, we were tired but smiling. We bundled ourselves together and hid under a tarp as we rumbled past the diner. There were people and police cars everywhere.
Bobby squinted at me when I jumped to the ground in the carpark at Maricopa station.
‘Your uncle never owned that greasepit, did he?’ he asked, with a wry smile.
I stared at my shoes and shook my head.
‘Doggone! I knew that! There’s been something fishy going on out there for years. Don’t tell me, don’t tell me . . . it was an illegal casino!’
‘Not quite,’ Ravi said. ‘It was . . .’
I slapped my hand over Ravi’s mouth, and nodded to Bobby. ‘More than a casino,’ I said, and winked.
‘You mean they had a distillery there too?’
I was nodding like crazy.
Crystal raised her eyebrows. ‘Gosh, can’t slip anything by Bobby Robertson, can you, John?’
‘You should be a detective,’ I suggested.
He blushed. ‘Shoot, no. Pretzels are my life. Ain’t no room for detectiving.’
Crystal dragged the protesting Ravi to the ticket counter.
I shook the big man’s hand. ‘Thank you for everything.’
He touched the front of his hat. ‘That’s been my pleasure.’
It was Ravi who got us back to Australia.
The attendant at the airport ticket counter had one of those sickly-sweet sing-song voices. ‘Could I see your passport please sir?’
‘Of course,’ Ravi said.
‘Any luggage?’
‘Just these two cases,’ Ravi said. ‘I might need a hand. They’re heavy.’
I collected my bag of clothes from Ravi’s house and almost fell asleep walking home.
‘Here he is!’ Mum sang, as she hugged me. She recoiled. ‘Poo! You stink! How was camp? You look exhausted.’
‘Flubble wubble schwebbit,’ I said. I was so tired my mouth couldn’t form the words.
‘Oh you poor love. Go on, into the shower with you. I’ll make you something to eat, then off you go to bed.’
I
BROKE MY RECORD.
I slept for seventeen hours and thirty-six minutes. On the Monday when I met up with Crystal and Ravi at school we shared a knowing smile.
We’d done it. Ravi and I hadn’t even been missed. The police had been scouring the countryside (in the wrong country) for Crystal, her parents had been going crazy with worry and then she just walked through the front door.
‘What did you tell them?’ I asked.
‘I told them the truth – that I’d been kidnapped.’
‘You told them
everything
?’
‘Well, not everything. I told them the kidnappers couldn’t afford to feed me so they let me go.’
We chuckled.
‘Let me be the first to say it,’ Ravi said. ‘You are my hero, John Johnson.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ I scoffed. ‘You’re my hero.’
‘Well, you’re my hero too, John,’ Crystal said, and slapped my back. ‘Two out of three people say it, so it must be true. I was kidnapped, don’t you know.’
My face grew hotter than a desert noon and I squirmed but my foot didn’t detach. I composed myself and turned to Crystal.
‘About your foot,’ I whispered.
‘Shhhh!’ she hissed. ‘I don’t want to hear about it again. It’s your foot. Always has been, I bet.’
‘How did . . .?’
Crystal shrugged. ‘Mix-up at the hospital?’
‘I’m glad it was only a foot.’
Crystal shivered. ‘Me too.’
‘Ahem,’ Ravi interrupted. ‘I don’t want to seem like the crybaby, but I don’t like being left out. Would either of you like to swap feet with me?’
I bent and pushed my sock down over my ankle.
‘No! No, John, it was a joke. A funny. You can keep your smelly feet, both of you. And you can keep your freaky, pull-apart, amateur super-hero business to yourselves, too. How come nobody gets my jokes?’
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