Being jimmy baxter, p.1
Being Jimmy Baxter, page 1
About the Book
It’s not eggsactly easy being Jimmy Baxter ’cause:
The real Jimmy’s hiding inside
Ned Kelly’s giving him the evil eye
Mum’s stopped going to work and stays in bed
There’s no eggs in the fridge — or anything else.
AND there’s new jobs, bad-at-school brains and a whole lot of trouble called Duke. But then . . . there’s Mac.
A gently funny yet powerful coming-of-age middle-grade novel about surviving the odds, unlikely friendships and the magical music of Elvis.
‘This is one of the most beautiful, uplifting stories I’ve read in a long time. Everyone who reads it will fall in love with Jimmy Baxter.’
Katrina Nannestad, author of We Are Wolves and Rabbit, Soldier, Angel, Thief
Contents
Cover
About the Book
Title Page
Dedication
Omen
Yellow Curtains
Smashed Potato
A Right Golden Gaytime
Alien
Soldiers
Nowhere Man
Mungo Creek
Me, But Not Me
Ms Anna Smith
Spelling Be-easy
Jam
Ned Kelly Goes to School
Trapped
Rabbiting On
King of Rock ’n’ Roll
Fool’s Gold
Vampire Batty
Pea Soup
Alfoil and Eggs
Runaway Angel
A Wing and a Prayer
Rain
Silent Night
Doughn’t Tell
Two Bricks Short of a Haystack
Dr Bill
Circles
The Jesus Cup
Shiny
Saints and Angels
Messages and Moonbeams
Married Seat
Six O’Clock News
Ute
Whole Lotta Shakin’ Going On
Tree-son
Sparrow
Freddos
Return to Sender
Sunny Side Down
Jimmy Baxter is Dead
White Christmas
Turkey Hug
Crackers
Peas Be With You
Fancy Pants
Brain Puzzle
News
Summer Storm Sky
Cadillac
Amazing Grace
Proper Explanashuns of Werds Used in this Book (by Ms Anna)
Acknowledgements
Author’s Note
Imprint
Read More at Penguin Books Australia
For anyone who ever needed shiny. FL
‘A heartbreaking story told with sensitivity, warmth and humour. Jimmy Baxter has settled in my thoughts and heart and doesn’t look like leaving any time soon.’
KATRINA NANNESTAD
author of We Are Wolves and Rabbit, Soldier, Angel, Thief
Omen
Our car’s dark as a bug in a wood heap. We’re humming along wide, straight roads.
‘Alright back there, Jimmy?’ Mrs Jessop calls. ‘Got enough blankets?’
‘Yes, Mrs Jessop, got enough blankets.’
It’s an understatement. Mum and I’ve got enough blankets to open a flamin’ blanket shop. Maybe there aren’t any blankets where we’re going.
Mrs J turns sharp left. ‘Good lad, head down, nice and quiet, that’s the way.’
I lay my head down and stare at yesterday’s newspaper scrumpled on the floor. A photo stares back at me; some bloke called Barry with a spider bite.
Mum’s curled along the back seat with me. It’s nice back here, just her and me.
Her sore arm’s tucked in, a tight little wing. Her face peeks out from the blanket, pale and oval like a duck egg. Mum says 1991’s going to be a better year for us. That’s good for me and Mum. Looks like 1991’s not going so well for Barry.
‘This secret camping’s fun, eh, Jimmy?’ Mum whispers.
She’s pretending, like when I was little. Mum thinks real camping’s hard work.
Mrs J says we’re not allowed a torch like real camping though.
‘You can’t see the stars properly when there’s a torch, Jimmy. Besides, it might distract the other drivers.’
The car rocks gently. Street lamps flash past as we go. I count them, twenty-two in all until the sky stays black. The moon is a crescent shape, same as the tip of Mum’s nails, when they’re not all polished how Dad wants them.
Mum breathes quick and heavy. The only other sounds are the engine and Mrs J sniffing now and then. One bright star twinkles way up high. My eyes grow warm and heavy in my blanket tent. Maybe that star knows exactly where we’re going. And maybe it’s showing us the way. I follow that star until night-time clouds swallow it up.
There’s a sudden jolt. My body smacks off the front seats.
Mum and Mrs J clamp their hands to their mouths like they’ve swallowed a burning hot snag.
And now I’m busting for a pee.
Steam rises in the headlights. The bonnet makes a hissing noise. The car fills with a hot rubbery stink.
Mrs J and Mum lean forward at the same time.
‘Poor bugger,’ says Mrs J.
‘Poor thing,’ says Mum.
‘Don’t look, Jimmy,’ they say together.
Don’t look, Jimmy’s one thing, but I’m busting for a pee more than ever. The busting and the blankets have got me sweating up, and suddenly that cool July air’s looking real good.
‘Sorry, I’ve got to go.’ I shove at the door, throw off my blanket tent and run for the bush flat-chat.
By the time I’ve finished, Mrs J’s out of the car. She’s got one hand on a stick pointing towards the road and the other on a torch that shines onto the engine. ‘Get in the car, Jimmy,’ she says.
That’s not fair. How come Mrs J said a torch’s no good for secret camping but she’s got that one pointing right in there? She doesn’t even need it, because the headlights of that car coming the other way are shining right onto the engine for her.
And on the dead kangaroo in front of our passenger wheel.
The other car slows down.
Mrs J hisses, ‘Stay in the bush, Jimmy.’
I duck, hoping my socks won’t find that patch of pee. Geez, Mrs J’s really taking this secret camping game seriously.
The door opens. A man gets out of the car. He shakes his head at the kangaroo and fiddles around in our engine. Twigs prickle, itchy under my socks. I need to scratch my foot real bad, and there’s something rustling behind me.
All that hot from my blankets turns to cold. Please let it just be a lizard, me and lizards go okay. The hairs on my arms prick up like mini echidna spines. What if it’s not a lizard? What if it’s got no legs? I hold my breath, stay completely still ’til the rustling moves away.
Just when the cold’s proper bothering my socks, the man shuts off our torch. The bonnet goes down with a bang and he gives a thumbs up. I wait ’til the pins of his headlights disappear over the ridge. At last, I give my foot a good scratching.
Back at the car, there’s a ding in the fender. Mrs J’s forgotten that I shouldn’t be looking. While she’s yakking to Mum in her blanket tent, I take a good long eyeful of the roo.
A dark stain’s spreading on the skin of his grey back leg. He’s peaceful lying there, like our dog Betsy when she died on a Sunday. Do kangaroos go to heaven? If they do, maybe he’ll see Betsy.
‘Jimmy!’
Mrs J catches me reaching out to touch that soft grey fur. She pokes me with her stick. ‘Leave it, nothing we can do. Back in the car now, there’s a boy. We’ve a way to go yet.’
I pile my blankets back on.
‘Let’s get our heads down again, eh, Jim?’ Mum says.
Mrs J grinds the gear stick backwards. We reverse slowly away from the kangaroo, then the car stops suddenly again. Mrs J laughs, a real deep belly laugh that rumbles through the back of her seat into my knees.
‘Crikey, Kate, look at that. I thought he’d carked it!’
Mum and me push blankets away from our faces. We stare out the window. The kangaroo’s moving, getting up slowly, small and thin, same as me. His skinny arms flap and he blinks. Red eyes reflect our headlights.
‘It’s an omen, Kate,’ Mrs J laughs. ‘It’s a flamin’ great thumbs up omen.’
She turns the wheel and drives right around that roo. We drive slowly on the wrong side of the road until he’s hopped safely back in the bush.
Mum strokes her finger down my cheek. ‘It’s all going to be okay,’ she murmurs softly. ‘It’s all going to be okay, Jimmy Branthwaite.’
Yellow Curtains
It’s still dark when we roll down a driveway and park at the side of a small fibro house.
‘The back door’s the front door as far as you’re concerned,’ says Mrs J.
A cricket chirps away until I crunch my feet on the gravel, finding the key under a plant pot.
Inside, the house is as neat as the outside. It’s got all the usual things a house has, but this one’s got a dunny in the laundry as well as the usual place. How good’s a house with two dunnies! Both bedrooms have the same wooden furniture: a bed, a chest of drawers and one chair. There are blue curtains in one room and yellow curtains in the other. I run my fingers down those smooth, happy curtains. Yellow Curtains is the room I want to have.
My chair’s missing a bit of its leg. It wobbles when I sit on it but I d
Mrs J calls from the kitchen, ‘Come and get something to eat.’
Water rolls in the kettle.
Bang, bang, bang, Mrs J opens and closes cupboard doors, figuring out where everything goes. She makes tea in a proper teapot, not like the bags we dunk in at home. When it’s ready, Mum yawns, as if her entire head’s cranking open. I reckon she’ll be so stoked with her holiday bedroom, she’ll sleep in it right away. The beaut thing about holidays is sleeping whenever you want.
‘Here, Jimmy, take one of these. I saved us some from the Country Women’s Association meeting.’ Mrs J shoves a blue china plate across the table with six scones on it. ‘Jam’s there and mind the cream. It might be on the turn after that car trip.’
I stir two sugars into my tea, heap a pile of strawberry jam onto my plate and stir my finger round in the cream. I lick it off. It’s not gone sour.
Mrs J’s been so good at saving us scones, I decide not to tell her she’s forgotten to heat them up. Especially now that she’s staring into her tea with a frown on her face as if there’s a fly in there.
‘Want a scone, Mum?’
‘Sure, Jimmy, why not?’
Mum’s skinny, same as me and that roo, so I know she won’t mind how much cream she has. I pile it on thick.
‘There you go, Mum, first treat of the holiday.’
Mum and Mrs J give each other a funny look. Then Mrs J says, ‘You enjoy that scone, Jimmy. There’s enough for two more each. Save them for tomorrow, eh?’
I chew away and count the scones. There’s four left on the plate, which means Mrs J’s got her sums wrong. Even I know that two scones each, times three people, means six scones. It’s a good job Mrs J isn’t a teacher. Mum’s always telling me you can’t be good at everything; being a driver must be Mrs J’s ‘good at’ thing.
Mum pours the last dribble of tea from the pot. Black leaves slip through the catcher and spin near the top of her cup. She fishes them out with one red polished fingernail, then dries her finger on her dress.
‘Time for a little lie down I think, eh, Jimmy?’
I show her the room with the blue curtains. When I get back to the kitchen where Mrs J’s drying the dishes, I realise I haven’t done my sums right either. There are three of us, and only two bedrooms.
‘You going to rest too, Mrs Jessop?’
‘Reckon I will, Jimmy. That was a long drive. You should get your head down too, then we’ll all be fresh later.’
Poof.
My buttery yellow curtains disappear in imagination smoke. If Mum’s in Blue Curtains already, and Mrs J’s resting, I guess I’m sleeping on the couch.
While Mrs J sorts through her bag, I crack open the kitchen door and watch the morning wake up the garden. When warbling magpies have chased lorikeets from my tree, there’s snoring snaking out the doorway.
I lock the back door behind me like they said and head for the couch, only the couch’s already full of Mrs J and her snores. She’s got a blanket from the car tucked up to her chin and her mouth is open like a flytrap.
Poof!
Ripper! Yellow Curtains come popping back from the smoke.
Lying on my bed, I think of the jam and cream, rainbow birds and happy curtains fun on our first holiday ever. When we get back, I’m telling my mate Milky. He’ll be green as a Townsville tree frog when he hears about this.
Smashed Potato
Dust floats like snow in beams of sunlight. In the lounge, our curtains are drawn tight.
‘Keeping afternoon sun off the furniture, Jimmy,’ Mum says. ‘Can’t be too careful bleaching other people’s furniture.’
She pulls them open, just a crack. An engine shudders and stops.
‘Just Mrs Jessop,’ she says.
Mrs J brings bags of shopping to the back-front door.
‘Need a hand, Mrs Jessop?’ I ask.
‘You’re all right, love, I need my exercise,’ she says. ‘Put the kettle on, there’s a lad.’ She brings in four more bags.
Mum doesn’t mind letting sun in the kitchen at the back of the house, probably because it’s just wooden furniture and not nice couches. Net curtains make lacy shadow patterns on the laminate bench. I fill the kettle. The tap burps with air bubbles.
Mum unpacks the shopping. ‘Frozen peas, there’s your eggs and, look, Jimmy – Tim Tams!’
When the shopping’s away in the cupboards and tea’s brewed in the pot again, we sit on the back step in the sunshine.
‘Can I crack those Tim Tams now, Mum?’
‘Sure, Jim,’ she says.
I rip the packet, ’cos I have a plan. Crunching biscuits is one thing, but sucking tea through them’s a whole different kettle of kookaburras. When we get back, I’m going to save up and buy Milky a Tim Tam all of his own, so’s he can taste it just the way I am right now, tea soaking up chocolatey biscuit.
After my Tim Tam, I leave Mum and Mrs J to talk women’s business and head to the bottom of the garden where ants go about their day. They trickle over the lawn. Milky and me find ants everywhere. We muddle them up, laying twigs down and watching them figure their way round again.
Me and Milky go way back, since bashing each other at preschool with yellow plastic trucks. Pretty much bashed our way through primary school together too, one way or another.
With my tea and Tim Tam belly stretched out on the sunshine grass, I’m too lazy to bother getting twigs today. I stick my finger out instead. When they’ve finished being confused, the ants climb over it one by one in a row.
Later on, Mum’s crying on the step.
‘You’ll be fine, Kate,’ Mrs J says. She rubs Mum’s sore arm, right on the bruise from when she tripped on a shoe again. ‘There’ll be no more of this going on. It’s the right thing to do for Jimmy.’
That’s nice; Mrs J’s making Mum feel better about bringing me on holiday by herself. I wonder if Mum’s sad, though, that Dad’s not here yet.
‘When’s Dad coming?’ I say.
‘Your dad’s busy, Jimmy,’ Mrs J interrupts. Her voice has gone pointy as a pin. ‘He’s got a new job hasn’t he, Kate?’ She’s catching Mum’s eye and nodding the whole time, even though she’s speaking to me. ‘It’ll take up all his time learning the ropes.’
Mum wipes her eyes on her skirt. ‘That’s exactly it. A new job, yes. Just you and me now, mate.’
My stomach’s light and fizzy. It’s a good thing Dad has a new job. Mum’s been telling him to get one for ages, ever since he got kicked off the bins. Dad reckoned the cops had it all wrong when they said he’d had one drink too many to drive the truck. He reckoned that the bin manager didn’t know his head from a hole in the ground. Then Dad got lost, just like the bin manager told him to, and didn’t come home ’til Sunday. I’m happy we’ll have fun now he’s busy.
Mrs J says to Mum, ‘You’ll be right, love. Best get on with it.’ She gathers up the cups and comes out of the kitchen, holding her handbag and car keys.
‘Are we going somewhere, Mrs J?’ I ask.
‘No, love, but come here.’
She pulls me in for a hug. My face goes red with the embarrassment of where it’s buried. Two big marshmallows clap around my ears.
‘I’ve got to head back now, Jimmy. Be a good lad for your mother, won’t you?’
