Bear in the woods, p.12
Bear in the Woods, page 12
‘But my community service?’ said Fin.
‘Forget it,’ said the Cat Lady. ‘I’ll tell Constable Nitwit you did it.’
Then she turned on her heel and lumbered off to the back of the house.
‘Come on,’ said Joe, ‘let’s go.’
April and Fin followed him to the door. But Fin turned back to Neil. ‘Do you want to come with us? She’s obviously in a mood.’
‘Better stay here,’ said Neil. ‘The sheep won’t crutch themselves.’
Fin joined Joe and April by their bicycles.
‘That was w-weird,’ said Joe.
April shrugged. ‘I thought it was pretty normal for Currawong. When you think about it, all old ladies are nuts. So in a nutty town, the old ladies are bound to be extra-especially crackers.’
‘Maybe,’ said Fin. He glanced back at the house. Neil was watching them from the window. He quickly pulled the curtain closed so they couldn’t see him. ‘I like her though. In a grumpy, sadistic way, she’s all right.’
‘Let’s see how Dad’s getting on with Loretta,’ said Joe.
Joe, Fin and April were slumped around a booth at the Good Times Cafe, where they were supposed to be meeting up with Dad and Loretta. Joy, the black-clad, perpetually miserable waitress, brought them their milkshakes. The Peski kids looked almost as glum as her.
‘I can’t believe how stupid people in this town are,’ said April. ‘We should send away some tap water for testing. If there are toxic heavy metals in the ground-water, that would explain a lot.’
Joy glowered even more miserably as she slammed a strawberry milkshake in front of April.
‘Or maybe the waitress at the local cafe has purposefully been poisoning people,’ said April, glaring back at her.
‘I heard that,’ said Joy, taking one earbud out of her ear.
‘I know,’ said April, ‘because I said it really loudly with my mouth pointed towards your face.’
‘I’m amazed no one has poisoned you,’ said Joy.
‘I’ve got the constitution of an ox,’ said April. ‘If I can survive a bear attack, I can survive anything.’
They could tell Joy was starting to get agitated because she pulled the second earbud out.
‘If patrons behave in an objectionable manner, the management reserves the right to ask them to leave,’ said Joy, clearly quoting something she had been forced to learn.
‘Are you saying you’re the management here?’ asked April. ‘Because from the general level of grime, I would have guessed no one was managing this rat-infested dump.’
‘April, please don’t get us banned,’ begged Joe. ‘They make really good bacon and egg rolls here.’
‘The chef’s in charge,’ said Joy. ‘I’ll get him if you don’t behave.’
‘Is that a challenge?’ asked April.
‘No, no, no,’ said Joe. ‘We’re v-v-very happy here.’
‘Are you still saying you saw that bear?’ Matilda Voss-Nevers called over from the next booth, where she was having lunch with her grandmother. ‘I thought the shrink had given you therapy to cure you of that.’
‘You can’t cure someone of a memory,’ said April.
‘Yes, you could,’ said Fin pedantically. ‘If you hit them about the head hard enough and gave them amnesia.’
Mercifully April was distracted at that point because Loretta arrived with a tall, suave businessman.
‘Who’s that?’ asked Matilda’s grandmother, instinctively preening her hair. ‘He’s very attractive.’
‘He’s too young for you, Nan,’ said Matilda.
April turned to see for herself. It took her a moment to figure out who it was. ‘Ew!’ exclaimed April. ‘She’s talking about Dad.’
The tall, suave businessman was, in fact, just Dad. He was nearly unrecognisable in a pressed suit and neatly ironed shirt. His hair and beard had been trimmed into something almost stylish.
‘What have you done to our father?’ demanded April.
‘Improved him,’ said Loretta proudly.
‘Dad, sit down and have some milkshake,’ urged Joe. He knew he always found food comforting when he’d been through something traumatic, and from the haunted look in Dad’s eyes, he was pretty sure getting a makeover from Loretta had been traumatic for Dad.
‘Mr Peski needs to look his best,’ said Loretta. ‘He’ll be on stage in front of thousands of people tomorrow.’
‘Thousands?!’ panicked Dad.
‘There were five thousand people at the festival last year,’ said Loretta. ‘And it’s going to be even bigger this year. They’ve brought in extra honey cake from Bilgong so we don’t run out.’
‘Thousands?’ said April. ‘I’ve got to do something before it’s too late.’ She started to clamber up on the table.
‘What are you doing?’ asked Fin.
‘Staging an intervention,’ said April. She clapped her hands to get the attention of everyone in the cafe. ‘People of Currawong and blow-in tourists just here for the weekend, I call upon you to help me.’
‘Aaagghh!’ cried Dad. April had inadvertently kicked her strawberry milkshake into Dad’s lap.
‘Don’t worry, Mr Peski,’ said Loretta, handing him the entire napkin dispenser. ‘I’m sure Armani is milkshake resistant.’
‘Get off the table!’ said Joy. ‘You can’t stand up there, it’s unhygienic.’
April looked down at the relentlessly glum waitress. ‘I assure you that the soles of my shoes are more hygienic than any surface in this restaurant. I can’t imagine how you pass any health inspections. I’m guessing you either pay an enormous bribe, or the health inspector is too lazy to travel out to this backwater town.
Joy sighed. ‘I warned you.’ She stropped over behind the counter.
‘People of Currawong …’ continued April, addressing the patrons again.
‘And tourists,’ added Fin.
‘Yes, you too,’ said April. ‘You should be most concerned. You drove all the way out here thinking you’d have a nice day looking at daffodils in a quaint country town, but little did you realise you would be in mortal peril by coming here.’
‘What’s she on about?’ asked Matilda’s grandmother.
‘You don’t want to know, Nan,’ said Matilda.
‘I do wish she’d get on with it,’ Matilda’s grandmother grumbled. ‘My bacon and egg roll’s getting cold.’
‘All of you are in danger!’ said April dramatically.
Pumpkin barked in agreement.
‘We know,’ called out Kieran from the other side of the restaurant. ‘We’re in danger of having our ankles bitten by your dog.’
Everyone in the restaurant sniggered or laughed.
April hated being laughed at. Now she was getting really angry.
‘I’m serious,’ said April.
‘So are we,’ said Kieran. ‘Hands up anyone in here who’s already been bitten, chased or peed on by that deranged little dog.’
Kieran held up his hand. Other hands started going up around the restaurant. Soon well over half the locals and even some of the tourist were holding their hands in the air. Joe and Fin looked at each other. Then they put their hands up too.
‘Traitors!’ accused April.
Joe shrugged.
‘It’s only the truth,’ defended Fin. ‘Dad, put your hand up.’
‘Why?’ asked Dad. He hadn’t been paying attention. It was taking a lot of napkins to absorb the milkshake all over his pants.
‘You have to put your hand up if you’ve been bitten by Pumpkin,’ said Fin.
‘But he didn’t bite my hand,’ said Dad. ‘He bit my bottom.’
‘D-d-don’t stick that in the air,’ said Joe in alarm.
‘Well, if you’re such sooky-lah-lahs about being nipped by a tiny dog, you’re not going to like it when the big black bear I’ve seen in the woods rips your head off!’ declared April passionately.
There was a moment’s pause. Then the entire restaurant erupted into raucous laughter. People were slapping each other on the back and dabbing away tears of hilarity, repeating April’s words like they were the punchline to the funniest joke ever.
‘Why are you laughing?’ April tried to yell over all the noise. ‘One of you could die! One of your children could die! Or worse still, one of your pets could die!’
‘I’m asking you politely to leave,’ said a gravelly voice.
April looked down at the largest, scariest man she had ever seen. He was dressed in a white T-shirt, apron, cap and check pants, so clearly he was a chef. But he also had enormous bulging muscles. Most noticeably, the swollen trapezoid muscles in his neck, which were covered in tattoos.
‘Is that a tattoo of a jar of pickles?’ asked April, staring at the chef’s neck.
‘I like pickles,’ growled the chef. ‘Now are you going to get down from there and get out, or am I going to have to throw you out?’
‘I think we’d better leave,’ said Dad, still fussing over his trousers and oblivious to what was going on, ‘before the protein in this milk congeals.’
The chef was holding a rolling pin in his hand that twitched back and forth as he reflexively clenched and unclenched his hand.
‘Come on, April,’ said Joe, getting up and ushering Fin out of the booth. ‘We’d better go.’
‘I’m not intimidated by him,’ said April. ‘Although that’s probably how he passed the health inspection. He threatened the inspector with physical violence.’
The chef made a move towards April, but Joe beat him to it. He grabbed April around the waist and lifted her off the table, quickly carrying her towards the door.
April was facing back towards the restaurant, so she used the opportunity to give the patrons one last piece of her mind. ‘When you’re all being savaged to death by the bear, you’ll be able to look back on this moment and remember – I told you …’
THUD!
April’s dramatic exit had been ruined by Joe pulling open the door and stepping outside, which meant April was hit in the back of the head by the top of the doorframe. Luckily, this third blow to her head caused April to black out for a few seconds, so she didn’t hear the restaurant erupt into laughter again.
When April woke up she was startled to discover Ingrid standing over her and strapping something to her head.
‘Have I been kidnapped by the Swedish Secret Service?’ asked April.
‘Tja, hon är inte död,’ said Ingrid. ‘Men hon är fortfarande dum.’
April reached up and held her hand to her head. It was a bandage.
‘Ingrid was just changing your dressing,’ explained Dad, coming to sit on a footstool next to April.
April looked about. She was at home in the living room, lying on the couch, but someone had brought down her doona and laid it over her. Joe and Fin hovered nearby, nervous to come any closer when she was so unwell and potentially so angry. She could hear heavy rain falling outside.
‘Who hit me on the head?’ asked April.
‘Joe ganged up on you with a doorframe,’ said Fin.
‘S-sorry,’ apologised Joe.
‘Why won’t anyone believe me?’ asked April.
Dad reached out and took April’s hand. ‘Sweetheart, I believe you. I believe that you believe you saw a bear. I know I haven’t been a great dad for all these years, mainly because I was in hiding and you didn’t know where I was. But I am your dad and I am one hundred per cent behind you. One thing all this … this stuff with your mother has taught me is that sometimes we can be mistaken in what we believe. Sometimes there are forces, powerful forces we can’t even imagine going out of their way, using all their resources to make you mistaken in your beliefs.’
‘Are you saying the Kolektiv staged my bear sighting?’ asked April.
Dad shrugged. ‘I’m saying I know how easy it is to be misled, even by your own brain. When you saw the bear it was raining, there was a flood, you hit your head … You’ve been through so much this last month – perhaps what you saw wasn’t quite what you saw.’
April closed her eyes and tried to summon her anger. Usually it was always bubbling inside her. All she had to do was reach down and let it flow out. But this time, she reached down into her emotions and all she felt was tired. Perhaps Dad was right, perhaps everyone was right. Perhaps she had made a dreadful mistake. Her head really hurt. She couldn’t figure it out now. She just wanted to sleep. Sleep until the pain went away, then she would think about it.
‘Okay,’ said April, closing her eyes and wiggling a bit to make herself comfortable on the couch. ‘We’ll argue about it in the morning.’
Joe and Fin watched their sister settle back. It was almost sad to behold. Fin couldn’t remember ever having seen her give up before.
Suddenly, there was a BANG BANG BANG on the glass of the French doors. A flash of lightning lit up the whole back garden. Loretta was standing there, banging her fist on the pane, wanting to be let in, when a mighty thunderclap sounded.
‘What does she want?’ asked Dad. ‘She doesn’t usually ask when she comes to wreck my flowers with her horse.’
Joe strode over and opened the doors.
Loretta burst into the room. She was excited. ‘I just had a phone call from Daddy’s friend at the pathology lab,’ said Loretta. ‘I sent him the fur we found in the woods. They’ve genetically identified it. It comes from a black bear!’
‘I knew it!’ cried April.
‘Well, I’ll be,’ said Dad.
‘That’s just c-c-crazy,’ said Joe.
‘Reality is crazy,’ said April smugly.
There was another flash of lightning and a clap of thunder so loud it shook the whole house. The lights flickered, then went out. The house was cast in darkness.
‘I feel like I should let out a bloodcurdling scream,’ said Loretta. ‘I know the moment calls for it, and I know it would be super dramatic, but I don’t want to hurt my voice.’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Fin. ‘We can just pretend you let out a bloodcurdling scream.’
‘Thank you,’ said Loretta.
‘We should call the police,’ said Dad.
‘I tried already,’ said Loretta. ‘The phones aren’t working.’
‘But we’ve all got mobile phones,’ said April. ‘They shouldn’t be affected by the powerlines being down.’
‘This is Currawong,’ said Loretta. ‘We were without internet access for six months last year because a wombat ate through the main cable. Our infrastructure always collapses in the first gust of wind or drop of rain.’
‘We could drive into town,’ said Dad.
‘You can’t drive,’ Fin reminded him.
‘And we d-d-don’t have a car,’ added Joe.
Everyone looked at Loretta. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I gave Nigel the night off. He wanted to do some last-minute tending to his daffodils. He’s determined to beat Constable Pike in the biggest bloom category.’
‘What about Ingrid?’ asked Joe.
‘Her car is at the mechanic’s,’ said Loretta. She leaned in and whispered as though this would affect Ingrid’s ability to understand English. ‘Ingrid is not a terribly responsible motorist. She drives very aggressively sometimes. I don’t know why. But it’s hard on the engine.’
‘It can wait until morning,’ said Dad. ‘Everyone will be inside. It’s very unlikely that a bear would cause trouble in this weather.’
‘Unless the bear was afraid of thunder,’ said April.
There was another flash of lightning and an even louder crack of thunder. Fin flinched and grabbed Loretta’s hand before he realised what he had done.
‘Sorry,’ said Fin, quickly letting go. ‘It was a reflex response. My brain can’t be held responsible for decisions made by the nerves in my spinal cord.’
Loretta winked. ‘Freud might disagree.’
Ingrid drove Dad into town first thing the next day. Dad had not been alone with Ingrid since they found the secret database in his wife’s email inbox. This may seem odd, but Dad had learned the hard way that curiosity could be dangerous. When he had a problem, it was Dad’s go-to strategy to try not to think about it and hope it would go away. It sounds childish, but at heart a surprising number of adults are childish. Dad hadn’t always been like this, but life had made him regress.
‘I shared the file with Professor Maynard,’ said Ingrid.
Dad flinched. He still flinched every time Ingrid spoke to him in English. He preferred their conversations when he had no idea what she was saying. All their conversations in English were about very grim matters. ‘She’s not coming here, is she?’ worried Dad.
‘I don’t know,’ said Ingrid. ‘She didn’t tell me how she would proceed. She just told me to stay close until further notice.’
‘So she’s doing something?’ said Dad. ‘That’s good, isn’t it? It means we don’t have to.’
Ingrid shrugged.
‘Who would want a list of people in Currawong? said Dad. He didn’t want to know, but he couldn’t stop the question from bubbling up in his mind.
‘It wasn’t a list of everyone,’ said Ingrid.
‘Just most people,’ said Dad.
‘Maynard will take care of it,’ said Ingrid. ‘We should concentrate on our own mission.’
Not letting the kids get kidnapped by the Kolektiv,’ said Dad.
‘And not getting kidnapped yourself,’ said Ingrid ominously.
When they got to town Dad couldn’t find Constable Pike anywhere, so he decided to tell the mayor instead. He was supposed to meet her at 8 am to go over his Great Green Thumb responsibilities, but when he did she wouldn’t listen to his explanations about bear fur and DNA evidence.
‘This is Daffodil Day, Mr Peski. I absolutely refuse to allow my focus to be drawn into any wild-goose chases,’ said the mayor.
‘Bear,’ said Dad. ‘It would be a wild-bear chase.’
‘It could be a wild-flying-unicorn chase for all I care,’ said the mayor. ‘I wouldn’t blink an eye. My focus is purely on the Daffodil Festival. It’s the third biggest tourist attraction on the Currawong events calendar. I refuse to allow tourists to be put off by talk of an imaginary bear.’
‘But that’s just it. It’s not imaginary, it’s real,’ argued Dad.
