They Told Me I Had to Write This (13 page)

They looked at it and thought about that million dollars. And they started talking about how people died from being sick or accidents or getting old and they asked each other, ‘What if it is someone who is going to die anyway?’

They didn’t know what to do.

So the doorbell button sat there all week and soon the stranger would be back. Eventually they couldn’t take it any more so they jumped in together and pressed the button and at that very moment their doorbell rang. There stood the stranger with a briefcase. He counted out one million dollars.

‘Does this mean that someone died?’ they asked.

‘It was someone you didn’t know,’ said the stranger as he picked up the doorbell.

‘What are you going to do now?’ they said as he walked out the door.

‘Oh, don’t worry. I’ll be sure to give this to someone who doesn’t know you.’

Suddenly it was a Values for Life class, which was very tricky of Mike to do at the campfire. We were very quiet and just looked into the fire.

Brian almost whispered, ‘That is what happened to Hamish.’

I tell you Gram you could have heard the birds snoring in the trees when he said that.

Someone said, ‘But Bundy and Hamish knew each other so that doesn’t count.’

Then Mike said to Brian, ‘You can see it, Brian, can’t you?’

And Brian was real quiet and said, ‘Yes, I can see it.’

But the rest of us couldn’t see it, whatever it was. And to top it off there was Mike telling us all that Brian had got it right for once and we didn’t even know what the question was. I don’t like it when it turns out like that.

I spent the night dreaming about a doorbell sitting on a table the day I was born. And wondering who pressed the button.

Clem.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 3
THE IDEA AT THE END OF THE UNIVERSE

Dear Gram

I had an idea about how to talk to Dad. We were sitting around the campfire and one of the kids told us about how his aunty has a campfire in her backyard. That sounded pretty odd but he said they sit out there instead of inside so they can look at the stars. His aunty says the stars are like family. The bright stars are for relatives who have recently died and the dimmer stars are for ancestors who died long ago.

I wondered if there is a star up there for my mum. I didn’t realise that I said it out loud until somebody said, ‘A star for your mum?’ And I said kind of quiet, ‘My mum died when I was being born.’

This kid said, ‘My mum died, too.’ I could see his eyes in the firelight and they were kind of glistening. We knew that we were like brothers, which is something the campfire does. And that is what gave me the idea about talking to Dad.

When I got home there was a note from Dad saying that he had to go for a work thing because of new products in his company, which makes the super-tuff Kevlar they put in bullet-proof army jackets and chainsaw trousers and even bomb-disposal clothes. I wish I was wearing some Kevlar when Nick did that bruise on my ribs I can tell you.

Dad said he would be away until Friday to get customers for these new products. And now it is Thursday night and I am writing this instead of talking to Dad and that is OK by me coz I have an idea for tomorrow night and Dad will freak out, but in a good way I hope.

Love Clem.

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 6

Dear Gram

I got home in a good mood about what I was going to say to Dad. And Dad was glad to see me in such a good mood and I was glad to see him.

This was the first time I had seen Dad since I told Nick the truth on Monday. And I said to Dad, ‘Can we do something that I have an idea about?’ And he said, ‘What is that?’ And I said, ‘It would be good to have a talk around a campfire, but we need to build a campfire in the backyard first.’ He grinned a bit and said, ‘OK.’ So we got some branches and stuff that he had pruned off a tree ages ago and did it.

I told Dad how I got angry at Nick, but really I was angry at the whole world. I told Dad that I had taken that anger out on him forever. I told him that I got a real buzz from being suspended from school because it made him take notice of me. And I told him that for a long time there I reckoned he didn’t want to stick to me like a father should stick to his son.

This was the first time in my life I ever told him the straight-up honest truth and how sorry I was for making life so hard for him. I could see his eyes in the firelight and they were glistening and I knew then that we could really be Dad and Son.

So that’s how the campfire did its thing in our own backyard. Dad said it took strength to say that and that he respected me for everything I said sitting there. He could see that we did love each other and he agreed that it’s not easy sometimes. We were quiet again until he said we should get some sleep and I was up with that. I was tired out from walking in the bush and the campfire and the thing with Nick, which was still putting me in shock from it having happened.

Violet rang on Saturday morning but I was still asleep. She asked if I was OK coz my voice sounded different and I told her that I had some serious stuff happening with Dad and I would tell her later at the smoothie bar. And suddenly I was hungry for toast.

Dad appeared and said he’d thought a lot about last night and it was good to remember what I had said. Then he said he’s got something he wanted to do down the street with me. We headed off in the car and he pulled up at the bike shop and asked if I minded having to ride the bike home. And I got ultra-excited but said it’s not my birthday yet, and he said he wanted me to have the bike early.

Ted got the bike out of the back and I was like, ‘Totally awesome!’ when I saw him take that tag off it that had my name in big letters. And Ted gave me a lock and cable so I could lock the bike up before going into the plaza to meet Violet at the smoothie bar and then he loaned me a stack hat so I could ride it out of the shop.

When the bike got into the sun there was another shock waiting for me. That purple bike suddenly turned red on one side when the sun hit sideways on it. That was straight-up steroidacious and I didn’t see that trick of the paint inside the shop. This bike is from both ends of the spectrum and fully wicked I can tell you. I got to the smoothie bar very quick to see Violet and tell her about this new surprise.

I couldn’t stay in the plaza, though, for being fidgety and we went out to the bike and to the park and I rode that Screamin’ Demon all over and I was doing bunny hops and wheelies and even stoppies just in front of Violet and she laughed all the time I was fooling around.

She got a bit quiet when I told her what had happened with me and Dad the night before, and her eyes got glistening and I had to stop talking for a while there. And Violet reached out and she held on to my hand and she said I was totally awesome but she already knew that on our first day in the smoothie bar. That is the solid truth of what she said.

I had a happy heart that day I can tell you but I hope I never have another week that is so busy for my head. Mostly I am glad Dad and I look like getting along as we should, coz it has taken a long time.

Love from Clem.

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 9
INTO FREEFALL

Dear Gram

School sure has taken it out of me this week and that is the truth. We didn’t have a camp this week but we had races and I had my new bike at school and it was totally awesome.

Most of the week was very normal and I was glad that not very much happened because I was so tired in my head. When I had session with the Rev it was a quiet time and I told him about what happened with Nick and with Mr Sykes and Mr O’Neill and he was normal about that and he didn’t try any slippery sentences on me and I was surprised about that and relaxed that day.

Then I remembered that Mr O’Neill probably told him already about Nick and me but he wouldn’t have heard about Dad and me on the Friday night. I liked telling the Rev about Friday night and how I told Dad that once I thought he was like a motorbike without room for a passenger but I didn’t think that any more. The Rev smiled and I relaxed. I must have been pretty relaxed and dropped my guard, coz suddenly I was saying stuff that just came from somewhere underneath.

‘When I was in primary school my teacher did things that no teacher should ever do to any kid. I’d hardly started in year five and he wanted to take my clothes off and I knew I was in big trouble.’

And when I said that the whole thing bust out of me.

‘That teacher even got my dad to believe that I was bad and could not be trusted to tell the truth. Nobody believed me about anything and it was that man who did that to me.’

I was up on my feet and charging around in the Rev’s office like in the old days. I wanted to pick things up off his desk and throw them through the window.

‘That teacher was a full-on peddo with the things he used to do. And then he made me repeat and he did those things to me for another whole year.’

And I blasted the Rev’s office like nobody’s business.

The Rev said straight up, ‘Clem, what you have just told me would make anybody very angry and I respect your rage. Is there any more you want to tell me?’

I was still blasting and I said, ‘I reckon that teacher set me up against my dad and that was part of it, and he set me up with having to repeat and that was another part of it, and he did both those set-up tricks coz he wanted to do nasty things to me. And that teacher tracked me on my front wheel two whole years in a row.’

And that sounds like it is only a metaphor but it was like a bomb going off in me coz suddenly I knew what he had been doing in that set-up and I was radioactive about that.

The Rev waited for a while as the explosion cleared and he said, ‘Clem is there anything else you want to say about this?’ And that was it for me, to have someone listening like that, and that bomb blast in my head must have shaken some brain cells into action coz I stood there and I yelled out loud about how that teacher followed me in his mind.

That teacher was following me coz he could see I was feeling bad about not having a mum and I was feeling bad about how she died and he took a boy who was feeling bad and he made that boy actual bad until he was industrial strength dangerous on everyone and that boy was me.

‘And another thing that teacher did,’ I yelled at the Rev, ‘was that he could see the boy’s father was feeling bad and he made that father feel bad on the boy and that boy was his own son and it was me.

And about that teacher I would like to have his head in one hand and a blunt instrument in the other hand but there aren’t enough blunt instruments in this crappy world and that’s the truth.’

I was fit to blister but I had not lost it on myself to cry coz I was so angry. And I said to the Rev, ‘If I was a visual I could just close my eyes on all this but a kinesthetic can’t do that and here I am.’ And that was when I ran out of batteries.

The Rev was not slippery on this one and he said, ‘Clem, we can do some specific things about what you have told me and I am prepared to do whatever it takes for the police to deal with that teacher.’

When he said that something in me let go. The first time in my life I ever felt like that. Relieved, afraid, all good. I don’t know how we finished the session.

Clem.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 17
GOING TO THE COPPERS

Dear Gram

I will tell you about going to the police and I hope the DVD of it stops in my mind but this is hard and that is the truth. It was Dad and me at the police station and two policemen and a youth support officer. And it was very serious in there.

The first thing they asked was my name and birthday. They said I was there for a very serious interview about things that had been done to me and they asked me that teacher’s name and that is when the terrible thing happened.

I tried to say that name but nothing happened except that my eyes turned to stones like Nick’s that day.

Then instead of saying his name my stomach turned upside down and I got up and tried to run but it exploded all over the floor in front of me. And there was no warning and the spew went everywhere and even down my shirt.

But something else had happened and I could feel it and I just sort of crumpled over and hid behind the chair coz I have not messed in my pants like that since I was a baby and it was full-on shame to me. And Dad got down there beside me and held my shoulders together and I could smell the sick and also the stinking mess that I made of my pants. And we sat like that for a long while.

Then the support worker told us that they had a bathroom with a shower and they could fix me up with some clean clothes. And she said that sometimes a person wants so bad to get rid of someone from his life that this happens.

So the interview finished without me saying anything and especially not that teacher’s name and the support person took Dad and me for a milkshake. Dad told me that I had what it takes to get through this and I didn’t come this far just to keep my shirt clean. That messed up interview is the DVD that keeps playing in my mind.

I am feeling not fully OK if the truth be told.

Love from Clem.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 19
AWESOME WEEKEND