The Worm King (22 page)

Āmiria desperately wished her father
would return.

‘The dog’s got to go, we can’t feed it,’ the
Mason insisted, his arms folded, determined. He’d strutted over with Sgt Kevin and
three others just as her father went outside with old Brownie. Tim and Sgt
Kevin didn’t look happy about the decision, but then again, they weren’t
disagreeing either. She felt deserted.

Surprisingly, feeding the dog hadn’t been
too much of a problem so far because on the bus trip they’d found enough
roadkill, and when they first arrived at the gym, Peanuts found two dead cats on
the back porch of an abandoned house less than a hundred meters from the school
gate. She was stretching these out, so he didn’t woof them all at once. One
tabby was now gone, and the second wrapped tightly in plastic which she’d
convinced Lord Brown to keep at the bottom of his bag, partly to keep it away
from the dog so he didn’t grab it, and partly because it was a bit stinky and
she thought it’d draw less attention in his stuff since there was already a
substantially wider gap around his sleeping area anyway.

Tim tapped his father on the arm. ‘I know
where a bag of dog biscuits are?’

‘Do you?’ Sgt Kevin looked surprised. ‘Where?’

‘One of the classrooms here. It’s my form
room. They gave them to us on a farm trip and Mr Swanson didn’t know what to do
with them, so they’re still sitting in a cupboard. At least I think they are.’

He nodded, pleased with his son, and turned
to the Mason. ‘I suppose there’s no reason she can’t keep it then, while the
dog food lasts?’

‘No. We might need that later anyhow.’

‘What? The dog food! You must be joking!’

‘What’s up?’ Wiremu said, stepping lightly
around the Mason and Sergeant, and was suddenly in front of her, tussling her
hair. Lord Brown appeared beside the Hat. She was surprised he remained upright
because he sure drank a lot. He looked sheepish rather than pissed, and Āmiria
guessed her father might’ve had words with him.

She began telling him about the dog but he
held up his hand, cutting her off, and turned to the Mason: ‘You don’t have to
worry about it. We’re leaving as soon as there’s any light in the sky. My blokes
and the other lot who arrived with me daughter.
And
the dog.’

‘Well, that’s no problem then,’ Sgt Kevin nodded,
glancing at the Mason who just scowled. ‘Of course. Where’ll you go?’ Āmiria
was of the understanding that neither knew the whereabouts of the stashed bus,
and she’d been given strict instructions not to say a word to Tim about it.

‘South. Anyone else who wants can come too.’

The Sergeant had a thought. ‘Reckon you can
wait till tomorrow lunchtime? I have to head out to the southern highway soon, and
I’m sure it’s still closed at the moment anyway. They’ve had a spot of trouble there
and the road’s been closed.’ He turned to the Mason for confirmation. ‘That’ll
be okay, won’t it?’

‘Not up to me,’ he shrugged.

‘Yeah, tomorrow’s fine,’ her father replied.

She knew he’d get it all fixed! Fixed almost
too
quickly, if truth be told, because she’d probably rather not leave that
soon. Maybe Dubbo had done that to her? She definitely didn’t want to go
through there again. They’d spent far too much time in Dubbo just sitting around
in the dark. It’d been depressing, and made her think of horrible things. It
used to be only when she was asleep, but now, often out of nowhere, she’d get this
terrifying image flash across of frigid waves crashing against the rocks in the
black of night on Murawai beach, and she’d be tumbling down and down and down into
the water. Āmiria shivered. Get a grip! No, it’s not just that: it was
better here with a few more kids her age too. Like Tim, who was staring at her . . . saying
something?

‘Shall we go and get them now?’ He swept his
long fringe back, frustrated that she didn’t even seem to be listening. ‘Can I
use a torch dad?’

He had to flick his hair back often, which
looked kind of cool. She wondered what the torch was about.

‘For the dog biscuits!’

Sgt Kevin frowned. ‘Hang on. I’ve got to
head south now?’

‘I’ll be right here, won’t I? Jimmy told me earlier
he was going with you?’

The sergeant eventually agreed, so Tim
stayed.

The classroom had a musty, rotting smell with
a distinctly different aroma from the gymnasium. The gym had plenty of musty,
and a degree of rotten, but the rotten in here was out of this world.

‘I thought we might have to eat them
ourselves too, that’s why I didn’t mention them to anyone earlier. Dad’s real
strict about what me and me sister eat, so even now he wouldn’t be keen on us
eating them probably. Now it’s getting light, I don’t suppose we need to save them
so much.’ He shone his father’s torch on the jumbo bag of Dingo Meaty
Chunkettes in the cupboard behind the teacher’s desk. Peanuts whined softly, nosing
the bag. Āmiria had him on a rope lead.

‘Where’s your sister?’

‘Sydney. Mum and dad got divorced last year
and Bridget lives with mum down there.’ Tim hauled the bag out. ‘Wait a minute,
I’ll just check the fish.’ He left the chunkettes leaning against the teacher’s
desk and walked towards the back of the classroom, between the neat rows. She
followed, pushing one of the desks as she passed and it moved slightly out of
line. How had they all stayed so orderly? Tim’s beam fell on the half-filled aquarium,
then the pile of dead weed on the carpet, then back on the aquarium. That’s
where the smell was coming from: someone had taken everything out. Even the
small plastic filter had been removed and dumped unceremoniously on the floor
alongside the weed. With no fish in the tank, the water had settled into a
translucent, greenish-yellow gunk.

‘Damn! The pump wasn’t working, obviously,
but goldfish are real hardy so they’d been strugglin’ on. I still gave them
some food every few days when we were here.’ He shone the torch around the
tank, bending in close to the glass and Āmiria could see he looked sad. ‘This
was our form room, and I’m supposed to be the class expert on goldfish. Did you
do class experts?’ She shook her head.

‘Mr Swanson made everyone pick a topic at
the start of the year, out of this giant box you had to put your hand in. Then
you had to do a project on it and presentation to the rest of the class and
that. Goldfish: that’s what I got.’ He nudged his foot into the dead oxygen
weed. ‘Better than Leo, who I play footy with, he got “caterpillars of Europe”.
Hey! There’s one left!’ Tim bent down and touched the dead fish, its eyes sunken
and mouth wide. ‘It’s dead.’ He prodded a finger into the pile of oxygen weed. ‘It’s
not dried out yet, so couldn’t have been here that long.

‘I wonder why . . . ’ He
suddenly spun the beam away, running it around the walls and probing all the
corners, and hidden spots. What was he looking for? The other goldfish? Maybe
they’re finally making good their escape and just taking a breather under a
desk before the big push to the nearest lake. Or is he looking for the
abductor
of the goldfish? The starving creature sitting in the dark gnawing
its prize. They’d warned her about
abductors
at her school, after a man
tried to lure a girl into his car last year. There’d been a big assembly about
it, and a policeman spoke to the whole school. The garish drawings around the
classroom wall came to life under Tim’s flashing beam: jumping and leaping; distorted,
misshapen faces bristling with purple vampire fangs, enormous eyes and horns,
and waves rising up at her, falling . . . she grabbed his
arm, breathing hard. The beam steadied, focused on the exit door. ‘Let’s get
the bag and go,’ he said quietly.

As dinnertime approached, the activity and
general hubbub in the gym increased. Āmiria figured four hours must’ve
passed since the drinking game, but already Lord Brown and the Hat seemed fully
sober. Geoff and Tamati were slumbering, half-asleep, while her father spoke
with two men she didn’t know, the three sitting cross-legged in a tight
triangle nearby. Peanuts lay contentedly on his back beside her, legs in the
air, digesting a ton of dingo chunkettes and shoulder of tabby.

Zelda, Ken and the Hat were discussing the
origins of Freemasonry. Āmiria didn’t know anything about the Masons, so listened
keenly. Tim sat between her and Lord Brown. The old man wasn’t taking part in
the discussion but kept darting glances around the room, and every so often
calling out numbers. She could’ve sworn he was counting everyone, although the
numbers were going up and down too much for the occasional departures and
arrivals.

‘If ol’ Bernie up there hears you saying
that,’ Tim warned the Hat, ‘he’s gunna be pretty septic.’

Zelda frowned. ‘I don’t think a skerrick of
it’s true anyway. No way did Freemasonry start out as an Olympic event.’

‘Yep, it did,’ maintained the Hat. ‘And if
it was a draw, the pigeon was—’

‘And they did all this on bikes?’ she cut in
sceptically.

‘Sure. Obviously.’

Tim shook his head in disbelief, then flicked
his fringe. He turned to Āmiria: ‘John Hat told me before, that you’re
part of some Girl Guide expedition?’

‘No,’ she replied defensively. ‘Well, sort
of.’ Astrid had been responsible for that misunderstanding on the day they met at
Katoomba:

“It’s only a two-minute slot darling. Mr
Snow won’t have time to go through the ins-and-outs of Rangers and Guides and
Wizards and what-have-you, so for the sake of this piece today, we better just
call you all Girl Guides, seem as though two of you actually are.”

Now she’d discarded her uniform in favor of an
old pair of grey trackpants and a blue zip-up ski jacket borrowed from Astrid’s
wardrobe in Griffith. ‘I’m in the Rangers. You move up from Guides to Rangers when
you’re fourteen, and I’m fifteen. The Rangers go from fourteen to eighteen and
we do much better stuff. I was with these twins who were Guides though. They’re
only twelve, and this dwarf we know has gone to find them in Canberra.’

‘Sounds loose,’ Tim nodded, pretending he
understood entirely.

‘Yeah. Āmiria Ruarangi: Ranger;
incognito by night.’

He laughed, flicked his fringe.

‘How old are you?’

‘Sixteen. Seventeen next April.’

‘Sorry I freaked out in the classroom
before. Dunno what come over me.’

‘Yeah, know what you mean. I thought there
was someone else in there too, for a minute.’ Tim paused, expression serious. ‘You
know, since all this happened, it’s almost like . . . like
sometimes there
is
this, animal I guess, out there stalking us or
something. I told dad, and thought he’d say it’s all just my imagination, but
he didn’t. He said we might leave Tamworth soon. I think he’s asked your dad if
we can go with you guys when you leave. Reckons there’s something wrong here,
with this whole place. Tamworth I mean. Don’t say anything about it though—it’s
supposed to be a secret till he decides.’

Āmiria knew it wasn’t just Tamworth:
Dubbo had been even worse, but she was pleased they might be coming along.

‘It be the devil,’ said Lord Brown, somewhat
ominously. She didn’t even know he’d been listening. Tim gulped, and glanced
around the gym but Āmiria realized he must be talking about that
blacksmith, from the bus when they were waiting for Ken. She saw a slim chance to
regain some manna.

‘Lord Brown knows the dude who invented
Satan,’ she declared, as though this were the most normal thing imaginable.

‘Yeah? Cool.’

The Hat interjected in a dull monotone: ‘The
name of the beast was Keith. Keith the Jew, they called him, and he was one bad
mo’far.’

‘What?’ said Tim, nervous again.

Zelda turned on Lord Brown. ‘I was thinking
about that, how’d they know he was Jewish again?’

Āmiria raised her hand. ‘And how did they
know he was a blacksmith?’

‘Who’s a blacksmith?’ Her father’s conversation
with the two strangers had finished, and he stood behind Lord Brown. Brownie
shuffled to one side giving him space to sit, which he did. Tamati and Geoff were
awake and Hemi and Rangi squeezed in next to David, who nuzzled behind Zelda.

‘This fūlla who invented Satan. He was
a blacksmith,’ she answered.

Lord Brown clarified. ‘He was almost
certainly a blacksmith, or a man who worked with iron, we know that much. He
must’ve been. Those with the ability to forge iron were the rocket scientists
of their day. They were the world’s first true industrial artists, in the days
when the Gods and Demons we know today were being formed. A blacksmith may not
be the most . . . regarded of professions now, but in days
of old, it was akin to a man being a brain surgeon, or an astronaut.’

‘A man!’ spat Zelda. ‘That’d be right.’

‘Of course, there must’ve been occasional lady
smithies. I stand corrected.’ Lord Brown bowed slightly.

‘What was his name?’ asked her father.

The Hat stepped in. ‘The blokes name was
Keith Goldberg. He got kicked out of the Masons.’ Her dad looked puzzled. ‘Oh, this
happened way, way back. Keith was out riding through the forest one day,
because he was in training for the Olympics, when he saw this pigeon and he was
feeling quite horny, so he—’