Revving Up

THIS SHORT STORY IS NOW AVAILABLE  IN STORM CLOUD PUBLISHING’S ANTHOLOGY 4

AUTHOR CAROLE LANDER

‘Mum, can I take Grandad’s book to school? We’ve got to show the class something that’s special to us,’ I asked. I was new at the school and I wanted to look important so I could make some friends.

Grandad’s book has black pages and smells of old newspapers. The words ‘First Australian Motorcars’ are on the cover and it has pictures of cars going back years with stories about people who made them. He worked in the Holden factory in Adelaide and collected model cars that he kept in a cupboard with a glass door.

‘Funny thing to keep in a glass cabinet,’ Mum used to say. ‘Supposed to be for your best crystal.’

Grandad had wrinkled skin and black oil under his fingernails. Sometimes when I was at his house, he’d say, ‘Come and look at my old car museum, Jimmy.’ He’d carefully take out one or two of them to show me. They looked pretty tough with their strong bodies and rubber wheels but whenever I asked to play with them, he’d say, ‘They’re too special, boy. Come on, let’s have a look at my scrap book of memories.’

Grandad died when I was eight and my Uncle John took the cars to his place in Sydney. We got the scrap book. Mum kept it safe in a cupboard.

Right now I needed that book more than anything. In the last few months my life had turned upside down. This is what happened.

My Dad worked in the factory with Grandad but his hands were clean because his job was testing the new cars. It was on a track and not a real road so he got to drive really fast like a racing car driver. He loved his job and talked about it all the time.

One day when the factory siren wailed at the end of the day, he came home and said it was going to close. Mum burst into tears and sent me and my sisters outside. Dad was banging his fist on the table and yelling about how unfair it was and how many people were going to lose their jobs. When he went quiet, I snuck back to the kitchen door and looked in. He was slumped over the table, sobbing. I went to my room to think about what might happen to our family. I wanted to ask Mum: ‘Will we have enough money for food and toys and stuff?’

Later, Mum made toast and jam instead of dinner but I wasn’t hungry. Dad had gone to the pub.

At school, all the kids were talking about the factory. It sounded like the whole town was going to close down.

‘This is a big city and there are plenty of other jobs,’ my teacher told us.

That wasn’t true. Dad tried hard to find something but one day he and a mate left for Perth to get work in the mines. I looked on a map of Australia to see how far away Perth was.

‘Pretty long drive, eh?’ Dad said. ‘Through the desert and all.’

Mum was in a good mood while he was away. ‘Won’t be long before we join him, kids,’ she’d say. But one night after he phoned her, she wiped her eyes with a tissue and told us: ‘Dad’s coming back ’cos he couldn’t find work.’

Then one day there was beer and chips on the table. ‘Listen up, kids. Dad’s got a job at last,’ Mum told us.

‘Yep, driving a rubbish truck,’ Dad said. I tried to figure out if he was OK with that but he didn’t give it away on his face. I was happy for him even though it meant we had to move to Alice Springs in the middle of Australia.

Dad hitched a trailer to the car and filled it with suitcases and boxes.

‘We’ve got everything but the kitchen sink in this car,’ Mum laughed. I groaned because another thing we didn’t have was my bike.

I sat in the back seat with my sisters Jane and Trish. Our legs stretched out over sheets and blankets that were packed tight between the front and back seats.

When we drove out of our street I waved at some of my schoolmates sitting on their bikes. I reckoned their families would soon be doing the same thing as us.

The drive north took a few days. Trish wriggled all the time and Jane moaned about being uncomfortable. At night, we stopped at campsites and put up our tent. Mum couldn’t cook proper meals but I didn’t care. We ate a lot of pizza and fish and chips. When we got to Alice Springs I thought we’d have a house but Dad drove into a caravan park. ‘Just till we get settled,’ Mum said.

The caravan was too small for five people. We were always bumping into each other so my sisters and me played outside with other kids. They had bikes and scooters but we had to sell ours before we left Adelaide.

One stinking hot day in February, when Dad was out picking up people’s garbage, Mum took my sisters and me to our new school. We didn’t have the right uniform so we stood out in the crowd. I looked around at the kids staring and wished I was back in Adelaide with my friends.

‘You talk funny,’ one kid whispered when the teacher made me stand up and introduce myself.

‘No, I don’t.’

‘Jimmy’s come a long way to be at our school and I’m sure he’ll have lots of interesting things to tell us about living down south,’ the teacher said. She winked at me so I reckoned she was nice.

In the lunch break on that first day, I sat with Jane and Trish. That wasn’t very cool. The next day, I stood next to a group of boys hoping one of them might talk to me. They were discussing a car race that everyone goes crazy about in Alice Springs.

‘My dad’s got a new bike for the Tatts Finke desert race,’ one boy yelled.

‘Yeah, well, mine’s got a buggy and that’s bigger so he could beat your dad,’ another said. They started arguing until one of the older boys butted in.

‘A car’s the only way to win that race and my dad’s been hotting his up so it’ll fly across the sand. He’ll come first for sure!’

I tried to imagine bikes and buggies flying through the desert sand. It was good to know these kids were into cars and when the teacher asked us to bring in something special for ‘grandparents’ week’, I knew right away what I wanted – Grandad’s special book.

‘Sorry, mate, we left it in Adelaide,’ Mum said.

‘What? Where?’ I asked.

‘In storage with our furniture ’cos we hope to go back someday,’ she said.

‘How could you? We’re supposed to take care of it for Grandad!’

I was gobsmacked. Not just because I wouldn’t have anything to take to class but also I hated to think of that book getting dusty in some old box.

I lay awake working out what to do. Next day, I packed some t-shirts in my schoolbag, stuffed my lunch on top and told my sisters I was going to a friend’s house on the way to class. But I was really heading for the bus station.

The lady in the ticket office told me there was a bus to Adelaide in an hour. I didn’t have any money but I stupidly hoped the driver would take pity on me.

‘No way, son,’ he said when I asked for a ride. ‘Get yourself back to school or I’ll call the principal myself.’

I hatched another plan. Dad had made a new friend in the caravan park – Jock. He drove a food van between Adelaide and Alice Springs so I hung around when he and Dad were sharing a beer to find out when Jock was leaving for the south. Then I woke up really early, like five AM, and waited till Dad left for work. I snuck out of the caravan with my packed schoolbag and ran to Jock’s van, climbed up on the tow-bar and levered open the door. Creak, creak! it went just as Jock come out of his place. I jumped into the back of the van, leaving the door open. Just before he slammed it shut I managed to hide between the boxes.

The van stank of mouldy vegies and there were cabbage leaves and squashed tomatoes on the floor. I cleared a spot in the back corner with my foot and crouched down. Jock started the engine and off we went, lurching out of the caravan park. Not that I could see the road. It was pitch black in the van and I slid from side to side as he swerved around corners. We didn’t go far before he pulled up in a service station.

‘Filler ’er up, mate,’ I heard him say. Then – oh no – he came round and opened the back door, got in and started rummaging in the boxes.

‘Jimmy!’ he yelled when he saw me. ‘What the––?’

Even though Jock felt sorry for me when I told him why I’d stowed away, he wouldn’t take me to Adelaide. Instead, he called my dad who had to come and get me in his garbage truck.

‘What on earth were you thinking of, boy?’ Dad thundered.

‘I just wanted to get Grandad’s special book.’ I answered.

‘We’ll talk about it later with your mother,’ he said and dropped me off at home, ordering my mum to take me to school and make sure I stayed there. I felt pretty stupid and pretty fed up at the same time.

Every day at school a student brought in something special and talked about it. There were war medals, photos and old clothes. It was useless me trying to get that book because it was hidden in some box back in Adelaide and I couldn’t get there.

Then one night when my dad was talking to Uncle John on the phone, I got a real brainwave.

‘Dad, can I talk to Uncle John?’ I interrupted.

‘What for?’ he asked.

‘About the cars for my school project.’

Dad grinned at me. He got it. He passed me the phone.

I asked my teacher if I could have a few more days and when Uncle John’s package arrived by express post, I stood up proudly to show my class a model Holden FX from the 1950s. It was bright yellow. I said, ‘My grandfather drove one of the very first FX cars and he helped to make them too.’

I held up a red 1961 EK and then a blue ute and I told them Grandad’s favourite story: how a farmer’s wife wrote to Holden asking them to make something that could go to church on Sundays and carry pigs to market on Mondays. ‘That was the first time the name “ute” was used and here’s a 1951 model ute just like the one in Grandad’s book.’

‘Wow, mate, that’s so cool,’ the boy whose dad has a desert buggy said. Everyone wanted to have a go with the cars. I was a bit worried they might damage them but I let them have a look because I was pretty sure I’d be making new friends soon.