Matty and Bill for Keeps (13 page)

On the Monday after school, Bill walked home by himself. He hadn't seen Mat in the mob of kids heading home, so he supposed that she was helping Mrs Facey with the Extravaganza.

The first thing he did on walking into the house was put a small bunch of red geraniums in a vase on the kitchen table. Pam was still at work, but Bill knew she'd notice the flowers as soon as she walked in. When he was younger, he remembered his mum asking Troy why he never gave her flowers. He always came up with some excuse.

The geraniums had been growing through the wire of Mrs Mabel Flint's front fence. He had wanted to ask for permission to take some, but she wasn't there. But Mr Herbert Riley was standing in his driveway, leaning on his rake.

‘You reckon Mrs Flint would mind if I picked a few of these?' asked Bill.

‘Of course not,' said Mr Riley. ‘She's inside on the phone, talking to her sister. They do that most Monday afternoons. I'll tell her you asked.'

Bill started picking the best and brightest of the flowers.

‘Who are they for?' asked Mr Riley.

‘Mum,' said Bill.

‘Good lad,' said Mr Riley. ‘You'll only ever have one mum. Never take 'em for granted.'

After his flower arranging, Bill walked outside and climbed up a large tree growing next to the Grub–O'Connell boundary fence and onto the tree platform. He and Matty used to communicate via tin cans on a string as Mat sat in a tree on her side of the fence. Like their other games, it now seemed childish. After all, they could have just called out to each other. Bill felt sad and silly, both at once.

Until now, Bill had gone along with all the make-believe, but that seemed long ago and in another place. He couldn't make the journey back, even if he tried really hard. He sat cross-legged and looked down on the Grubs' jungley garden that he had come to know so well over the last year and a half.

Bill remembered the first time that Mat, dressed as a fairy – her see-through wings floating behind her – had led him along the path to the Grubs' front door. All over again, Bill experienced that lightest of light feelings when you're allowed to escape to a happy place. Until he became friends with Matty, he'd been lost and on his own – the new kid in the neighbourhood, without a dad, and having to start at yet another new school.

Matty had changed everything. Not just changed – transformed. Now it felt like he'd been given a beautifully wrapped gift that he'd opened, played with for a while and then chucked aside. Sure, he was entering a different stage of life. He was changing. Next year he'd be in high school. But none of that was Matty's fault.

Do you throw a good friend aside just because your own life is moving in another direction? Bill had already done that last year, when that nightmare called Isabelle had temporarily mesmerised him, and Bill had betrayed Matty by blurting out her most painful secret.

Bill realised with a shock that normal, everyday people do repeat mistakes. You tell yourself that you've learnt your lesson, but you haven't. That was scary. His dad had done the same thing when he'd almost become involved in criminal activity straight after getting out of jail. Bill now felt he understood his dad a bit more. Troy had been weak, but he had probably hoped that he'd change for good. Bill must not be like his dad. Just hoping wasn't enough. He must do things differently.

Bill sat there on his tree platform, thinking hard. He snapped off a gumnut hanging from a branch. It was small and round with a tiny, smooth cap. If he chucked it onto the Grubs' roof, it would roll into the gutter and rot. If it fell onto the soil below and had enough water and sunlight, it might grow into a tree. Inside the gumnut was all the information that told it how to grow upwards towards the light.

Bill wondered if, inside himself, he held the same essential information to grow into a decent man. He fought off a smothering cloud of guilt. The big question was: how do you really learn from your mistakes and then move on and up?

Bill thought again about his dad. He remembered hearing Troy giving Pam excuses about how he'd ended up living a life of crime. He'd blamed his rotten childhood, other people and ‘bad luck' for the troubles he'd got into. It was the easy way out, and it must have made Troy feel better about himself – at least, for a while.

So, Bill realised, you don't blame. You let yourself feel the heavy weight of having mucked things up. And instead of hurling that weight onto someone else's shoulders, you try to fix things or at least say sorry. That's when Bill realised he'd already had some practice at this. When he'd let the kids at school know the secret about his dad doing time in jail, he'd been trying to make it up to Matty for betraying her. She had told him he was brave. Bill realised that he could be brave again.

Bill looked down onto Matty's side of the garden. There in the front garden, Bill had passed one of his tests of courage and endurance – but it had ended with him stuck up a gum tree. He still felt embarrassed that the fire brigade had been called to get him down.

The memories crowded in, one on top of the other, jumping back and forth in time. Eating snakes. Facing up to Freckles McCann and bringing home a bag of lollies for Mat from the corner shop. Helping to paint the circus mural on the Grubs' family room wall, and decorating their combi van. Learning how to use firesticks on the Grubs' sitting room floor. Happy, cosy evenings around the Grubs' dining table or fireplace where he and Pam were accepted as part of the Grub extended family.

And the adventures! Matty came up with challenges that none of his mates from school could ever cook up. There was the survival camp in the national park where they might have died from exposure if it hadn't been for some supernatural being lighting a fire next to them during the night. Bill flicked the Girl Guides ordeal from his mind; that wasn't an adventure – it was torture. And then there was Mat backing him up with his plan to move his dad out of the state and away from getting trapped into further criminal activity. That was a dead-serious adventure, every bit as dangerous as the recent one when the club had dealt with Maggot – and, on both occasions, Mat had been with him all the way.

What was the matter with him? It was worse than throwing aside a gift; it was like he had helped to make a beautiful building, but he was now tearing it down – and he was taking his dear mum and Matty with it.

Three doors down, he saw Mrs Mabel Flint leaning across the fence, gossiping to Mr Herbert Riley. Over the Grubs' roof, Bill could see Tessa and Nan walking up the backyard from the vegetable garden, carrying freshly picked vegetables. Donald was on the back lawn, sanding down a table made from bush timber. Out the front, Tom had just arrived home from his job at the art gallery. Bill watched him park his car in the drive and walk through the front door. But Matty didn't seem to be about. Bill wondered whether she was still at school or if she'd got home before he had.

Then Bill caught a glimpse of Mat through the trees; she was wandering down the road towards home, taking Uncle Len for a walk. The Grubs' dog looked like an old washerwoman. Matty had adapted one of Nan's sunhats to fit him – there were holes in the hat so his hairy ears could stick out, and a wide red ribbon was tied under his doggy chin.

Bill felt a bubble of laughter rising up in him. But he couldn't let it out because Matty and Uncle Len were now walking through the gate. Bill ducked down. Fortunately, Matty didn't look up. She walked down the path with the bonneted Uncle Len plodding beside her until they disappeared into the house.

Bill's heart turned over. He felt so much for this curly-haired girl. It was what you feel when you deeply respect someone, love their company and want only the very best for them. Then Bill's head cleared even further. He saw that Matty's games weren't silly. They were the games you should play when you're a kid. It was part of having a happy childhood.

Now on the road to manhood, Bill knew it would be hard to lose himself in the wonderful world of imagination the way Matty could. Matty's make-believe world was still as real to her as the hard tree platform where Bill was sitting. The noble thing for Bill to do would be to pretend he still enjoyed her games. Maybe if he tried hard enough, he could recapture something of what he'd lost.

B
ill climbed down from the tree, clambered through the fence and knocked at the Grubs' front door. He was glad it was Matty who answered, because it didn't give him a chance to back down. She looked surprised and then cautious. Bill's heart twisted. He wondered if Mat was expecting another cold rejection.

‘I just popped across to say thank you for the time capsule, Mat,' said Bill. ‘I've got ideas for it.'

‘Like?' asked Mat.

‘Well, that time capsule has had a rough time. You and I buried it in the garden so that people in the future would understand something about us, but it's been dug up three times now.'

‘I gave it to you because one day maybe you will want to understand what our lives were like,' said Mat, bravely struggling to keep the sadness out of her voice.

‘I know, Mat. But truly I won't be forgetting. I think the future deserves it more than just me. And I have this theory about why that box keeps getting dug up.'

‘Theory?'

‘Your family plant their vegie garden by moon cycles, don't they? Surface vegies when the moon is on the rise. Root vegies when the moon is on the wane – all that sort of stuff.'

‘I think I'm getting you,' said Mat. ‘Go on.'

‘It seems to me that every single time that we've buried the time capsule, it's been in the wrong phase of the moon.'

‘Like when it's rising,' suggested Mat.

‘Exactly. We need to have a ceremony to bury it when the moon is waning,' said Bill. ‘Then it might stay in the ground for hundreds of years.'

‘It's a good idea,' said Mat politely. ‘I'll give it some thought.' Then she did the unthinkable. Mat started to shut the front door. Bill felt like a stranger – like a door-to-door salesman whose goods weren't wanted. He had never been shut out of Mat's life. Not like this. It was unbearably painful. Without another thought, Bill thrust his hand at the door to stop it shutting.

‘Wait!' he cried.

Mat gave Bill a puzzled look.

‘What else?' she asked.

Bill didn't know what else, but he had to think of something. There was an uncomfortably long silence, then the words tumbled out, ‘I'm not that great at leaping across a room like a gazelle and I hands down refuse to wear tights,' said Bill. ‘But I was wondering if the Queen of the Hills Inter-Primary Extravaganza might show me how to rap?'

Bill had not intended to say anything like this, but there it was, out of his mouth. There was no taking it back. He'd offered to take Crispin's place. He could have kicked himself. He didn't have to offer virtual social suicide. He could have just been friendlier to Mat, or offered to help with the Extravaganza by pulling the curtains or managing the costumes.

‘Are you saying you're going to stand in for Crispin?' asked Mat suspiciously. ‘You're going to
dance
in the Extravaganza?'

The words
Nunquam retrorsum
flashed through Bill's mind. No, he could not retreat. He had to be a man of his word.

‘If a bloke can dance by shuffling around a bit, I
am
saying that,' said Bill. ‘Yes.' His heart sank. All of the Hills community would be there. His cricket mates from school. The poisonous, cruel-tongued Isabelle. Maybe even Freckles McCann and his gang. To use Freckles' threatening words from Bill's first encounter with him, Bill was definitely ‘dead meat'.

‘You're kidding,' said Mat. ‘You're teasing me.'

Bill's heart twisted again. He looked down into Mat's eyes. They were filled with confusion and hope. Bill pressed her button of a nose. ‘I don't “do” teasing. You know that.'

There was a pause while Matty scrutinised Bill's face to see if he was being fair dinkum. Then, without warning, she threw her arms around Bill's neck. ‘You're my hero, Bill!' she cried. ‘And everyone at Dewey Creek Primary will say you're their hero, too!'

Bill laughed and picked her up into his arms.

‘What are you doing?' Mat screamed.

‘Giving you what you deserve,' he said as he staggered through the house past Tessa who was chopping carrots in the kitchen, and Nan who had just flopped into her rocking chair for a much-needed nap, and Donald who had finished his woodwork for the day and was having a cold drink with Tom at the kitchen table.

‘Help!' cried Mat, wriggling and kicking.

Tessa giggled. Nan shrugged and shut her eyes. Tom and Donald clapped and cheered. Uncle Len's sunhat slipped jauntily to one side as he started jumping about and yapping.

‘Where are you going?' cried Mat.

Bill didn't answer. Panting heavily, but still holding Mat in his arms and followed closely by Uncle Len, he managed to push through the verandah doors and stumble down the steps. Then he held her above the Think Tank. Mat squealed. Uncle Len was barking and racing in circles, but Bill was showing no mercy. He dropped Mat like a package into the water.

‘You've got a lot of thinking to do if you want my part in the Extravaganza to be a success,' grinned Bill.

But a moment later, Bill's joke didn't seem funny. Matty had sunk under the water and was lying still. Her face was ghostly pale and her hair floated around her head like a dark halo. Bill leant over the Think Tank.

‘Matty!' he cried.

He reached down to grab her arm and haul her up when suddenly he found his own two arms in a vice-like grip. Matty wouldn't let go. With a wiry strength that amazed Bill, Matty hauled him into the bath, shoes and all. He was totally drenched and half on top of her. She pulled his face close to hers.

‘Got you!' grinned Mat.

‘You'll always have me, Matty,' laughed Bill. ‘We're friends for keeps.'