90 Packets of Instant Noodles (4 page)

‘Can you smell anything?'

Bella was moving around the room.

I could smell something, but I wasn't sure what. ‘Mm ... something lemony—citronella or something? Mozzie coils?'

‘Mozzie coils!' she laughed. ‘What is this, a barbie with your olds?'

‘Well, sorry, but it's bloody hard with your
sarong
wound around my head. I feel like I've got a turban on my face.'

‘You were close. With the lemon.'

The bed gave slightly as she sat down next to me. ‘Sandalwood and lemongrass,' she said, close to my ear, and I smelled only one thing then, her smell, the smell of her body as she untied the sarong and let me see.

Candles everywhere. Tealights. Around the perimeter of the room. It was amazing. Pretty. Really, really pretty.

It was our last night together. Dad had given me special permission to go out, for this only.

I looked at her. Her reds were soft, or was that just the light? She seemed to let them fall across her cheeks.

Beautiful,
I wanted to say.

Sitting there, I began to feel very weird, very ... disconnected, as if I was looking at this scene from a distance, somehow. What the fuck had I been
doing
the last couple of years? I went dizzy, then clammy: woozy-headed.

Bella's face was intense, close to me. ‘It's okay,' she said, but it sounded like she was talking to me from another room. I couldn't figure out where she was.

When the feeling lifted, when I could, I tried hard to shake it away.

She rubbed a hand up and down my back. ‘You okay?'

No! No, I'm not,
I wanted to say, as desperate as I felt, but I reeled it in, right back in tight.

‘Yeah,' I breathed out. ‘Yes.'

It was our last night together.

When I could, I kissed her, as gently as I knew how. And that was the last time I saw her.

I almost thought I was gunna have to camp overnight in the forest on the way back this arvo, but I had no tent or sleeping-bag with me so I slogged on until I finally got in just on dark. It would have been a lot later but I realised I didn't have a torch or any warm clothes, so I cranked up the pace in the last few k's till I was nearly running. Then I thought I was lost cos I couldn't see the path and kept on thinking,
The shack should be around here—right here somewhere.
It wasn't, not for ages. Anyway, I am absolutely buggered, 100 per cent rooted, utterly knackered. I must have bought 10 kilos of instant noodles at that crappy little shop—cleaned em out. Hope they order more for next week, otherwise I'm up shit creek. I got some bread, too, but how you put that in a backpack without it turning into something else is beyond me right now. So I'm carrying it by its neck, in my hand. I swap hands a lot. It's fucking annoying. And it cost $3.50. A Pepsi Max—
one can
—set me back two bucks! You can buy a whole carton for about ten bucks, for god's sake. It's such a total rip-off but there's no way I can haul a whole carton back to the shack. If I want a hit of Pepsi from time to time, I'm just going to have to suck up the cost and not think about it.

‘That's $34.50, thank you,' the woman behind the counter said after she'd rung it all up. There was no scanner or anything, just one of those old-style tills and I had to stand there while she keyed in all the prices.

‘How are you paying, love?' she said when I didn't pull out any money.

‘Uhh ... I think my dad has set up an, an account here?'

I could see the recognition straight away, even though she tried not to show it. ‘Oh, yes,' she took a breath. ‘Okay.' She put both her hands down flat on the counter and gave me a kind look. ‘Yes, I have the account details here,' she said, shuffling through some papers in a drawer.

I waited in the awkward silence.

‘You just need to sign here,' she pointed, and then stapled the till docket to the paper. ‘Your dad will sort it out with me later on.'

‘Thanks,' I mumbled.

My shoulders are red where the backpack straps cut in and my legs are like jelly. The joke is, I'm too buggered to cook myself any of the food I lugged back. That walk is too far to do both ways in one day! One way, maybe, okay, you can do that, but both—with a load to haul on the way back? It's too much. I can just hear Dad giving me heaps about being young and fit, blah blah blah. Shove it up your datehole, Dad, is all I can say. You need
training
to be able to do this sort of stuff. You don't just stand up one day and crank out a marathon, do you? Jesus fucking Christ, he has no idea. I'd like to see him do what I've just done. I need a bit of humour in my day.

One good thing, though.
One
good thing. That shitty town does have a post office. Well, kind of. The shitty little shop is a shitty little postal agent, so they collect shitty mail. The woman explained it to me when I asked her if there was a postbox anywhere—there wasn't even one of
them,
can you believe that? She just collects it all in an old Australia Post canvas bag. Talk about a two-bit town. There's a phone box out the front of the shop. How very high-tech. Bet the phone doesn't work. So, anyway, I could send my old man his stupid letter, and there was some mail waiting for me. I've got it in my bag, saved it for when I got home as a sort of reward, seeing as there's jack shit else to do and I feel like I just survived the Kokoda Track. I got three things: one from the old man, one from Craggs, and one from—joy!—Bella. All that should provide hours of entertainment once I've slept off this pain. I've never been so tired or sore in all my life. My legs feel like they've been invaded by small men with hammers.

I might not even make it to bed. This old couch is actually quite comfortable, even if it does smell of twenty-year-old mushrooms...

A small package falls out as I open her letter. It's wrapped in soft purple paper and
for Joel
is written on the outside. I look at it and my heart expands stupidly for a minute. I put it over to one side. Calm down, Joel. Calm. I straighten out the pages.

Oh I am gunna curl up with this and go to sleep with a sunbeam smile on my face. I wanna be in that warm place of hers. She is one gorgeous, smart, amazing girl. She's right, she's
so
right. This is my chance, this is my time—this is no fucking joke, for Christ's sake! Dad saved my lucky arse, he's given me this major opportunity to sort out my shit. And Bella's giving me one too. I reckon ... this is my last chance with her. I've gotta go for it and be strong and smart. I can do this, and I will.

I
will.

She's worth it, man, she is so worth it.

After I wind down a bit I turn to the little purple present. I pull away the tissue carefully along one end. A stone the size of a twenty-cent coin rolls out, and a tiny gift card. It's the smoothest pebble, like a river stone. On it is painted the yin–yang symbol in black and white.

There's a square of paper with it, which says:

I read that over before turning to Bella's card.

I lean back and look at all this stuff in front of me. It all makes sense. It comes down to one thing, really.

Bella. Bella makes sense to me.

It was never like I was going around snatching old grannies' handbags or the coin cups out of streetside amputees or anything. No, I only ever did it where it couldn't touch anyone directly—well, initially that's how it was—like knock off a bunch of stuff at Coles, or Kmart. It's not like anyone in particular
suffers
in gigs like that. These joints are all insured by big companies whose bosses earn a few million a year plus bonuses, so it's no skin off their noses to lose a few CDs or some fishing gear every now and then. Kmart and places like that are making a rude amount of money, anyway, they're always boasting about huge profits, so I think they can afford it. Dad spends a couple of hundred bucks a week on groceries and stuff at those places. I reckon Coles and Kmart (probably the same company with different names, anyway) owe me some gear after all that loyal custom. That's how I rationalised it when things were still relatively simple. It made me feel okay about it.

The lifting's so easy it's laughable. All those scanning thingos at the front of the store don't make any difference if you know how to handle them. The bottle shop gig was a different story, though.

It all changed that night with Craggs and Sull—and it was scary, maybe because we did it at night. Late at night, when most people are sleeping. Maybe I should have listened to the fear.

Things started out okay, but it was the tequila that fucked us up in the end. That stuff wires you. It was like Craggs was on speed or something—hyper, like nothing could ever touch him. I tried to get him to cool down but it was all happening before my eyes. It was like I was on a crazy long conveyer belt that wouldn't stop; it just kept moving forward, onwards until it had gone too far, until we had crossed a line I had never imagined we'd cross and then it was done. It was done.

When the grog shop alarms go off after about thirty seconds, Craggs feels himself go cold all over, realising how way over their heads they are this time. It had seemed so easy: just go in, get the gear, get out. But it's chaos, fucking mayhem—the three of them running around grabbing bottles of tequila and cartons of fags like bad guys in a cartoon, but, shit, Craggs thinks, looking at these guys, it's hardly meant to be an episode of
Road Runner
. They need to get out of here but he wants to make the whole thing worth the effort. He looks over just as Joel sees the CCTV camera. It's too late: the kid is staring right at it like a total moron. A stunned mullet. Craggs registers then that this is his last blast. The end of a beautiful thing. He slows down a bit, remembers to grab a bottle of Stoli.

Finally they load up and split. They drive around the southern suburbs, but it doesn't matter how far away they go, the alarms are with them all the way. Craggs glances at the back: Joel is lying down.
Toughen up, mate
, Craggs wants to say, but shakes his head and keeps his eyes on the road instead. They're in his old man's car, and he doesn't want to stack it. A prang is the last thing they need.

Sull pats the dash. ‘Your old man let you have his wheels for once, eh?'

‘Well, he told me to fuck off,' Craggs says. ‘So I did. Thought he'd appreciate me doing what he wanted for a change. And I can't help that he taught me to drive when I was twelve, now, can I?'

When they laugh Craggs knows it's more from the relief of being out of danger, if only for a little while. He washes down with tequila the thought of getting sprung by the cops.

After a while he parks opposite a servo and the three of them pass around the bottle. In the rear-view, Craggs sees Joel holding it up, peering at it—and listens to him crapping on for a bit about the worm. Craggs gets out of the car. When he sticks his head in the window a few minutes later, he's holding up a crowbar. Now look at their faces!

‘What the fuck is that for?'

‘It's for Sull,' he says, grinning.

As usual, Joel hasn't got a clue; he turns to Sull. ‘What are you gunna do with that?'

Sull is frowning. ‘No idea, mate. What are you on about, Craggs, you crazy bastard?'

Time to lay it down for them. ‘You see that servo?'

‘The petrol station?'

‘Yeah. They've got cash in there. A shitload of cash.'

‘Oh, Craggs, don't be fucken insane,' Joel says.

‘I'm not.'

There's silence then.

Joel pipes up again. ‘Just get back in the car and chill out, all right? There's about ten cartons in the boot we've gotta get through yet.'

Craggs keeps looking at Sull. ‘Whaddya reckon, mate?'

‘Don't be a stupid fucker,' Joel croaks in Sull's direction. ‘There's someone in there, for fuck's sake.'

‘Whaddya reckon, mate?' Craggs demands.

‘Well ... how much cash is in there?'

Craggs looks over at the joint. ‘Maybe a thou, maybe more.'

Sull drains the bottle of its last yellow mouthful. ‘You're on. Let's go.'

Sull gets out of the car. They piss on the sand. Craggs looks back at Joel. ‘You coming?'

‘Nah, mate, I'm not.'

Weak as. He shakes his head like a disappointed teacher.

He and Sull head towards the fluoro-bright building. He passes Sull the crowbar. Jesus. Sull holds it like he doesn't know how. There's no one else there apart from the person in the shop, no cars fuelling up. You can see the figure behind the counter. A chick. Shit. Hope she's cool. Craggs looks back at the car, at Joel, his eyes tiny and shining in the blackness. Frozen.

Once they're in, it happens in fast-forward.

The sliding doors shut. The fluoros are so harsh. Sull half raises his arm. The girl behind the counter is opening the till. Then a moan goes up, the moan of yet another alarm, and there's a sudden blur of movement—and Craggs is leaping the counter, half climbing over it—and then the girl is dropping back, and he is grabbing Sull by the shirt, shouting
Get up!
and they are running to the car, the crowbar dangling from Sull's hand.

Craggs shoves him into the car and sees Joel staring at Sull's T-shirt. At the blood on it. Fine sprayed spots, even a couple on his face, like little zits.

They drive away in silence.

Sull begins to vomit in the footwell.