Thirteen Pearls (11 page)

I folded my arms against my chest and looked at a corner of the kitchen floor where a blue M&M had rolled, refusing to meet Leon's earnest green-gold gaze. What would he know? He had it easy, working down at the plant all day. When did an oyster ever punch him in the gut?

He tried another tack. ‘You're the oyster; the kid's the grit. You gonna make a pearl, or are you gonna give up the opportunity and run back to mummy and daddy?'

That was seriously weird – it was as though he 'd been reading my thoughts. I bristled at the words ‘mummy and daddy', but the idea of making a pearl from grit, appealed to me. Now both Kaito and Leon had mentioned it. Maybe pearls made people wax philosophical or something. Leon was the last person I'd expect profound utterances from, but he was right. If I couldn't hack it here, in Australia, with my blood relative (though you'd never know it) with a
four-year-old
then I was going to be toast in the big bad wider world. I'd done my reading. I knew there were pirates out there – and not exciting ones with swashbuckling swords and parrots on their shoulders – but desperate men from poor countries who'd think nothing of invading a ship, shooting the crew (me) in the head, and setting the boat adrift.

‘Besides,' Leon said, ‘Kaito and I have decided you're cool. It's nice having a girl around. If you leave now the testosterone levels will get out of control again. We 'll all have to start wrestling sharks or something.' He winked. It was corny, but done in that charming laidback style.

Outside, Uncle Red bawled for Leon to hurry the eff up!

Leon ignored him. ‘You going to stay?' he asked.

I nodded.

Leon smiled – a full set of strong white teeth, made even whiter by his golden skin – before hurrying out.

That smile did something weird with my insides.

I finished filling the last of the plastic tubs and beat the water to froth up a pile of suds. Back inside, Aran had managed to kill twenty-three bad guys and had only taken one hit himself. Not bad for a four-year-old.

‘Hey Aran?'

He remained glued to the screen.

I pulled my hands from behind my back and dangled a wobbling stalactite of glistening soap bubbles in front of his face. ‘Do you want some?'

Outside, I let him go nuts with one of the tubs. He got soap and tiny bubbles everywhere – behind his ears, in the trees, all over the ground, on the feathers of a passing chook. I never thought I'd be so happy to see him make such a mess: the sort of mess where he got cleaned up in the process.

It was all going great until Aran stopped and ran back into the home–shed. I was about to follow him in when he came tearing out again, holding his elephant by the sticky-up trunk.

He marched the elephant to the side of the tub and then stepped him in. Suddenly, I knew exactly what he was doing. He'd remembered what I told him about my grandmother's zoo elephant taking itself for a swim in the harbour pool.

A thrill of triumph shot through my veins. He was having so much fun, making the elephant's trumpeting sounds and collapsing into fits of giggles.

I laughed too, even while I pounded and wrung out the revolting pile of festering urine-soaked sheets. Back in Cairns, I would have been totally grossed out. But somehow, right now, it didn't matter – seeing Aran happy, playing like I imagined a normal four-year-old should, filled me with simple pleasure.

By the time the men shuffled in for lunch, Aran was still outside playing with the last suds that hadn't been splashed to the ground. We 'd used up an entire box of washing powder and emptied a good few tubs of precious water. I didn't care. Uncle Red could growl all he liked. Aran was happy, even laughing, maybe for the first time since his mother left, and to me that was worth all the water in the world.

I'
M NOT SAYING IT WAS EASY.
That first week flew by with ups and downs the whole way. Sometimes I'd forget to make things fun or I'd be too bossy and Aran would arc up. He was having nightmares that made him toss and moan and climb into my bed. And each morning I was jackhammered awake before dawn by the rooster's crowing, and would find myself sticky with wee.

The most challenging moments were when I had to take my attention off Aran, who'd taken to clinging to me like a limpet, in order to cook or wash.

No one actually complained about my meals, but I suspected the boys were just being polite and Uncle Red didn't care as long as he got fed. Personally, I was getting mighty sick of pasta. And while I tried to balance the sugar with more nutritional foods, Aran's diet would make steam come out of a child-care worker's ears.

‘Aran. Time for breakfast,' I called.

Aran looked up blankly from his morning fix of mayhem, murder and destruction.

I'd given up on trying to get him to stop – frankly it let me get stuff done. I could understand why mothers nuked their kids out with a library of crappy DVDs and TV. There was something about a wee-stinking four-year-old threatening to topple a cupboard or rip up the curtains, or smash plates against the shed walls, that encouraged the path of least resistance.

I fished out a soggy box of cornflakes and shook out a small heap into a bowl. The milk was from a carton of UHT. I poured some into the bowl and plonked the carton back on the table. It had been so thoroughly zapped with preservatives that it didn't even need to go in the fridge.

‘Aran. Breakfast's ready. Come and eat.'

No response, if you didn't count the mechanical scream of a freshly blown up bad guy.

I placed the bowl on the table (which I had cleared the night before only to have Red dump a massive pile of papers on it), walked over to the television, turned it off and removed the plug from the wall.

Aran shrieked.

I ignored him and stood, waiting at a safe distance, until the unholy howls stopped. The last time I'd tried to wrestle him to eat, I'd ended up with bruised shins and a scratch under my eye that had puffed up and blistered like a burn.

When he was quiet, I said, ‘Right. Now you will eat your breakfast and when you've finished you can play your game again.' (
And kill a swag more swarthy guys who threaten modern
imperialism,
I added silently.)

Aran trudged to the table, with painstaking slowness, as if trying to infuriate me. And it worked. I took a deep breath and pulled out his chair, placing the remaining two unripped cushions on it to give him added height. Then, when he was finally seated, I returned to the sink to thaw fish for lunch.

I should have noticed that he was being too quiet, too obedient, or the simple fact that there was no rhythmic chink of the spoon scraping the bowl.

‘What in the name of . . . '

I spun round.

Uncle Red charged at Aran like an angry bull, his nostrils flaring and eyes rolling.

UHT milk puddled on a pile of papers, gluing them together in sodden clumps.

Red lifted Aran from this seat by the scruff of his T-shirt, marched him over to the filthy sofa and dumped him on it.

‘Stop!' I shouted. ‘He 's only a little kid. He didn't mean it. It was an accident.' Even as I said it, I doubted it. The papers were across the table from where I'd settled Aran, and the whole milk container had been emptied.

Red turned and thundered towards me. It was ridiculous – it was inconceivable that my uncle, a huge man and a family member, was going to hit me. But as Red's fists clenched and knuckles whitened, I shrank back against a cupboard.

‘You stupid little girl,' he bawled. ‘All you have to do is look after a four-year-old boy and you can't even keep him out of trouble long enough to . . . ' He gestured to the clump of milk-soaked paperwork.

Stung, I stretched to my full height (compared to him not very high) and shouted back, ‘If you touch me, or him, I'll report you. I'll have Dad get DOCs onto you and you'll go to gaol.' The tea towel slipped from my fingers to the floor. I was quaking. ‘It's not my fault he 's so out of control! He should be with his mother. Where is she anyway? What kind of mother leaves her kid in a place like this, with
you
?'

Uncle Red's eyes widened and he seemed to recoil. He retreated to the table and picked up a clump of glued-together papers. ‘That was my application for the wild harvesting licence. Now I have to start again.'

Um,
hello?
Did he even hear me? Why had Lowanna left without Aran? Had Red been hitting her? I wouldn't put it past him. But if that was the case, why would she leave her child with him?

Clutching his precious papers, Red stalked from the home– shed.

Aran had been as cowed as I was – Uncle Red was a far bigger, scarier bogeyman than I could ever be. He crept back into the kitchen and listened docilely to my explanations about needing to do what I told him to.

‘The thing is, Aran,' I said, after lecturing him about spilling the milk, ‘you need proper food to grow healthy and strong. All the junk you've been eating is bad for you. It's full of colours and flavours and preservatives. You can't just mainline sugar into your system, kid, and food should only have letters, not numbers in it. Do you understand?'

Aran nodded as he sidled past me to one of the cupboards, pulled out a packet of hundreds and thousands and tore it open with his teeth, sending another technicolour spray of tiny artificially enhanced balls all over the floor as he shoved a handful into his mouth.

When Uncle Red announced over lunch, without once meeting my eyes, that the new pump he 'd ordered had finally arrived at T.I., and that I could head over tomorrow to do the weekly shop, I was thrilled. I offered to take the tinny over myself and do the pick-up, but Red didn't think I was capable (probably because I was girl and it wasn't a pink job).

When Red asked who wanted to take me over to T.I., Leon and Kaito raced to get in first. I was flattered, until I realised that for them it was a paid excursion away from the isolation and constant work on Thirteen Pearls. They drew straws and Kaito won.