He pointed to a window beside the front door. ‘That was Grandma and Granddad’s room, before Granddad moved to the yellow house when Grandma went back to Perth. Mum and Uncle Dermott slept out the back. Their dog is buried right under that tree, Mum told me. I bet you could dig up the bones if you wanted to.’
We had a box of photos that Mum took from the yellow house after Les died. There’s a whole bunch of shots from Daley Street: Mum and Dermott when they were small, grinning at the camera in their baggy undies in the yard, and lots of pictures of greyhounds, people playing cards around kitchen tables. There are a few grainy photos of Les standing on the straw lawn in his ruggers, hands on his hips, staring straight at the camera. Behind him, a couch that had been dragged onto the patio, wickets and trolleys strewn across the yard.
Cassie got off his bike. ‘Stay here,’ he said. He crossed the lawn, walked up to the front of the house and peered into the window. He stepped off the patio and onto the grass. ‘I once found a real old watch in the backyard,’ he called back to me. ‘Kind of hidden in the dirt. Might have been Les’s.’
Next door, a very fat woman came out through her flyscreen. She was still in a nightie even though it was nearly afternoon. She was holding a bag of rubbish, but instead of going to the wheelie bin beside the house she stopped on the patio and stared over at us, like she was trying to shoo us away with her eyes. I could hear kids shrieking from inside the house, a television blasting. Cassie didn’t see her and kept walking towards the backyard, but when he noticed the woman he stopped beside the fence, crouched down.
‘Found it,’ he shouted to me, shaking his closed fist in the air. He turned towards the woman and smiled, gave her a wave with his other hand. When he got back to his bike he kept his head down and kicked up the stand. He opened his fist. Nothing fell out. His ears had gone pink, like flaps of ham. He didn’t look back at the woman, who was still watching us from the patio. We jumped on our bikes and pedalled fast down the street.
Ian came around for the first time the next week. Cassie had been gone all day, and in the afternoon he and Ian rode up the driveway. I watched from the verandah as they stood at the edge of the paddock, backpacks slung over their shoulders. Ian had a smoke between his fingers and handed it to Cassie.
When they came up the stairs Cassie gave me a look but I couldn’t tell what it meant. He’d never brought a friend over before. He tried to walk straight inside, but when Ian saw me he stopped on the verandah. Ian was skinny like a cat with hair shorn close to his skull. He’d taken a packet of corn chips from his backpack and there were cheesy stains around his lips.
‘Hey,’ Ian said. He nodded at me, raised his eyebrows.
‘This is my little sister,’ Cassie said.
‘Want a chip?’ Ian asked. I nodded, and he licked the flavouring off his fingertips, held the bag open towards me. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Her name’s Cub,’ Cassie said. ‘Let’s go to my room.’
‘Nice to meet you, Cub.’
I put the chip in my mouth.
‘How old are you?’ Ian asked.
I looked over at Cassie. I was suspicious. Cassie never talked about friends. He liked to do things alone; if I ever tried to play with him for too long he would get annoyed, tell me to rack off. Not like me. If I had someone to play with all the time I’d be happy forever.
‘Where’ve you been?’ I said to Cassie.
‘None of your business.’
‘Where’d you find him?’ I nodded towards Ian.
Cassie sighed, annoyed with me already. ‘He moved into the house on Daley Street.’ There was something different about the way he spoke, like there was someone talking behind him, making his mouth move. ‘Are you finished your interrogation?’
Ian spurted out a laugh.
I turned to Ian. ‘Do you have nits?’
Ian laughed again. ‘What?’
‘When Wally and me had nits Mum had to shave all our hair off.’
‘Holy shit,’ Ian said to Cassie. ‘Your sister is creepy.’
‘I’m not creepy.’
Ian beamed at Cassie. ‘I knew this place would be weird.’
‘Let’s go to my room,’ Cassie said, grabbing the corner of Ian’s t-shirt. It had a clown face on the front, and I couldn’t tell if the clown was screaming or laughing. As Cassie led him to the back door Ian turned around and smiled at me. There was a tooth missing from the side of his mouth. I felt something wriggle inside my stomach.
‘Don’t follow us,’ Cassie said.
‘You’re not supposed to smoke,’ I said. I don’t know why, but I didn’t want Ian to go inside, to see all our stuff. I didn’t want him to go off with Cassie alone. ‘It makes your lungs fill up with tar and explode.’
They both ignored me this time. I stood on the other side of the flyscreen as Cassie and Ian dumped their backpacks in the hallway. ‘Man,’ Ian said. ‘This whole place is creepy.’
When Dad came home from work Ian and Cassie were back on the verandah. They’d put the chip packet in the microwave until it had shrunk to the size of a playing card. Ian was jamming a hole into the top with a pocketknife. I’d tried to watch them in secret all afternoon. I was pretty sure this would be a one-day thing. Soon Cassie would realise that Ian was different to us, that he didn’t belong here, and we’d never see him again. But I wanted to keep an eye on things anyway.
I went outside as Dad got out of the truck, came up the stairs. Dad paused at the railing. Something almost invisible flashed across his face and I couldn’t quite catch it. ‘Who’s this then?’ Dad asked, pulling off his boots. There was white paint speckled in his arm hairs, like bird poo.
‘Ian,’ Cassie said.
‘School friend?’ Dad said.
‘I only just moved here,’ Ian said. ‘My dad reckons the public schools in the sticks are shithouse, though. He’s trying to get me into St Marks.’
‘That right?’ Dad said. ‘What’s he do, then?’
‘Dad,’ Cassie said, but both Dad and Ian ignored him.
‘He works in sales,’ Ian told Dad. ‘Electronics. He just took over the Clarks on Main Street. He owns about seven of them, all over the state.’
‘Well then,’ Dad said, picking at his nostril. ‘Dinner soon, Cassie. We don’t have enough for guests.’
When Ian went home, Cassie strung the chip packet onto a piece of fishing wire.
‘Here,’ he said, looping it over my head. ‘You can have this.’ I liked getting presents, and took it as a sign that Cassie had gone back to normal, that he realised Ian wasn’t for us.
We had chops for dinner. I wore the chip packet under my shirt, like a secret. The news was on the TV in the lounge room. Every night at six o’clock Dad had to watch the news, and usually he was the only one with his face towards the screen. Mum hated the news. Sometimes when Dad was cranky he said that the entire planet around us could combust and Mum wouldn’t care.
There was a news report about a man down south, a footy player who’d been missing for days, and the cops just found his car in the Rustvale National Park. There was no sign of the man, though. He was famous, that’s why he was on the news. I bet no one would care if he was a regular person.
Dad was born in Rustvale, and said that when he was a kid he’d hear about people going to the national park and not coming back.
‘He would’ve topped himself,’ Mum said, slicing pumpkin with her knife.