Something Somewhere, page 1
Richard Yaxley is a Brisbane-based author. His novels include This Is My Song (winner of the 2018 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for YA Literature; winner of the 2019 ACU Book of the Year Award; finalist in the 2017 Queensland Literary Awards), The Happiness Quest (2019 CBCA Notable for Older Readers), A New Kind of Everything (2020), Harmony (2021; longlisted for the CYA section of the ARA Historical Novel Prize), and most recently, Leonardo Forever (2023).
Richard is also a past winner of the Queensland Premier’s Literary Award (Drink the Air, 2010), a Fellowship from the May Gibbs Literature Trust, and in 2022, the inaugural QWC-Varuna Fellowship for Established Writers. He is a regular presenter of writing workshops and was a judge for the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards in 2021.
Richard has two Masters Degrees, in Cultural Studies and Human Rights, and has written or co-written over twenty-five textbooks for classrooms across Australia. In 2011, he was awarded a Medal in the Order of Australia (OAM).
For further information, go to: https://richardwyaxley.com.
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First edition published by Scholastic Australia Pty Ltd in 2024.
This electronic edition published by Scholastic Australia Pty Limited, 2024.
E-PUB/MOBI eISBN: 9781761522963.
Text copyright © Richard Yaxley, 2024.
Illustration and design copyright © Scholastic Australia, 2024.
Book design by Grace Felstead.
The moral rights of Richard Yaxley have been asserted.
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For my mother
‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers—
That perches in the soul—
And sings the tune without the words—
And never stops—at all—
Emily Dickinson, ‘Hope’ Is the Thing with Feathers
Contents
Before
Leaving
No-man’s-land
Something Somewhere
The Owl and the Orchard
The Man with the Sad Blue Eyes
A Soldier’s Return
The Girl in the Trees
Pembrooke
A New Friend
The Girl Who Loved Flowers
Run to the Moon
Go Your Own Way
The Palladium
Death of a Bird
The Lie
The Truth
Save Malteser Day
Cherry Picking
Lost
Into the Valley
The Campfire
Puppets
The Black Below
In Between
Time to Tell
The One Who Made Her Lie
Secrets
For Emily
Before
‘No,’ said her father.
The girl lowered her eyes and gazed at her new sandals. They were silver and sparkly, not her preferred style, but she’d worn them anyway.
Because friendship mattered. Loyalty mattered.
She leaned against the kitchen bench, shifting her sandals back and forth across the polished floor. She didn’t want to lie—hated to lie!—but a sentence that she’d once read in a book had leaped out and stayed.
There are times when you have to do what’s right, even if it’s not right.
‘But it’s important,’ she said.
‘Why?’ he asked. ‘Why is it important?’
‘It just is,’ said the girl. She knew what he’d be thinking. An answer like that, a blocking answer, was out of character for his open, honest, loving daughter. Nevertheless, she had to persist. Her wrongdoing was right.
The girl’s father sighed. He looked out the kitchen window to the broken line where the hills met the paddocks and beyond. A purple gloom was beginning to stain the sky.
‘There’s going to be rain,’ he said. ‘Heavy rain.’
‘Dad,’ she said, ‘the bus goes straight to the shopping centre. I’ll be inside—’
‘Another storm, most likely. Last night—’
‘Stop worrying. I’ll be back before any storm, okay?’
‘No, not okay,’ he countered. That feeling of uncertainty, his decisions, his words—It’s times like this, he thought, when I really miss her mother.
When we really miss her.
He took a deep breath. ‘I’ve already told you. No means no.’
In the silence, he heard the familiar clicking of the house as it settled into the humid afternoon, and the buzzing of a fly, trapped between a window and its screen. He looked at his daughter. No tears—it wasn’t her style—but he could see her distress, and he knew that he’d sliced a tiny cut into the solid skin of their togetherness.
‘Look,’ he said, relenting a little, ‘think of this as a lesson in life. You can’t save everything—’
She was staring at him, bright-eyed.
‘—and you certainly can’t save everyone.’
She pushed off the bench and stood tall. ‘Why do you think that?’ she retorted, then before he could respond or challenge her further, she cried, ‘Why can’t people be saved?’
The conviction in her tone reminded him of those many times his daughter had brought home strays. She’d insisted on caring for these animals until he’d found the time to take them to the vet. There’d been a host of cats, a lizard that had been attacked by a dog, a skink that had seemed quite unfazed by the loss of both its back legs, a galah with a torn wing, a deeply scratched and frightened possum, a fat, mournful frog that had refused to be relocated and taken up residence in a downpipe, and a cockatoo, plainly very sick.
‘Darling, you need to understand,’ he’d told her at the time. ‘The bird is dying.’
‘Mr Beebles.’
‘Pardon?’
‘Not the bird. His name is Mr Beebles. And yes, he might be dying, but at least we can make it better for him by keeping him comfortable and giving him some love, so that when it does happen—’
‘Okay! Sorry. Put it—put him—’
‘Mr Beebles.’
‘—in that box. And give, um, Mr Beebles some water.’
Over the years, there had been so many animals. He admired his daughter’s natural desire to care. It was heart-warming, and reminded him of her mother. Heather had been a nurse, loving the idea of becoming a midwife until—
The lump. The diagnosis. The understanding that she was terribly sick, and there was no cure.
It was natural that his daughter would care, and equally natural that she’d want to save. But this was different. This time the subject was not some mute, helpless creature that had been wounded in the bush.
It was Her. That girl.
He’d given his daughter one piece of advice: stay away from Her. She was Trouble with a capital T. Bad news, bad influence. Oh, the parents seemed to be decent people, and no doubt they tried to tame her behaviour, but with people like Her, trying wasn’t enough. Sometimes you had to force change, no matter how strong the hurt.
His daughter stood before him in her favourite going-out dress and bright new sandals. She was a blessing, filled with goodness and grace, and he was certain that, in the future, the whole world would love her as completely as he did.
‘You don’t trust me,’ she said. ‘Do you?’
It’s not you, he thought. Never you. It’s Her. I don’t trust Her. She’s a tearaway, does as she likes and drags others along for the ride. He had lots of words for Her.
Selfish.
Impulsive.
Reckless.
More than once, he’d seen the truth on the girl’s face. No fears lay within her hard little heart.
But now, his job was to look after his own daughter. And to do that, he had to be firm. Like his father had said, many times, children needed direction. Clear boundaries.
You had to be firm.
He set his jaw. His daughter was waiting, her mouth trembling, her arms crossed.
‘Look,’ he told her, ‘I’ve said no. That’s it, end of discussion.’
‘But you haven’t given me a proper reason!’
‘I don’t need to give you a reason, proper or otherwise. I’m your father and saying no is enough!’
‘But I have to go! It’s important!’
‘Shopping—if that’s what you’re doing—is not important.’
‘It is this time! Please—’
‘I’ve said no! Look, if you are going to keep on complaining, then you can spend the rest of the day in your room.’
‘You’re being unfair!’ shouted the girl. ‘It’ll be your—’
She stopped. Her cheeks were flushed, and her neck, too.
‘My what?’ he said. ‘Go on, tell me. My what?’
But she had begun to retreat. Watching him, all the way.
‘To your room,’ said her f
She continued to retreat. Boundaries, he repeated to himself. Firmness.
But the uncertainty was still there.
The girl reached her bedroom. She looked one last time at her father, then turned to the door, wincing as she grasped the handle. Once inside, she pushed away the clothes that needed folding and sat on her bed.
In her glistening eyes, had her father been there to see them, something had emerged.
Defiance, he might have called it.
Conviction, she would have said, adding that her wrongdoing was right.
Leaving
‘You’ll make friends,’ said his mother.
Malt nodded.
‘There’ll be someone,’ she insisted.
‘Yes,’ he agreed, although he knew there would not be anyone. He didn’t make proper friends. Mostly, it was just Banjo and him.
His mother pressed the accelerator in order to pass a slow car. As always, she drove as if other vehicles were pests that had invaded her personal space. Malt remembered the day when they’d been driving away from the caravan park and she’d passed another slow car, but on the inside of the road, not the outside. Their car had bumped and skidded on the loose gravel, and the other driver had tooted angrily, but Malt’s mother hadn’t cared.
‘Just get out of the way,’ she’d muttered.
Malt stroked Banjo’s fluffy black ears. He and the dog watched out the window as the city folded away, piece by piece. Malt thought that it was like turning the pages of a picture book, where all the pictures looked grey and cold. The first page to go was their suburb, squashed so low into the hollow it was nearly subterranean. Next page was the neighbouring suburb, older and paler with faded houses that looked either ready to break, or were already broken. Page three included glimpses of the wide, colourless river and its three bridges. This was the best page—sun splashes on the oily water—and Malt enjoyed looking at it until his mother sped into the tunnel beneath the river. The tunnel made him feel uneasy because he could sense the great weight of the water pressing down and the presence of fish, maybe even sharks. Sunken things, like boats with holes in their hulls.
And bodies. Stevie had said the river was full of dead people, all rotting and skeletal. Bones floating with the currents like lost, hopeless fish.
Feeling shivery, Malt hugged Banjo close to his chest. When they came out of the tunnel, the daylight was blinding.
His mother pushed their car across multiple lanes, into a freeway that was heading south. Other cars beeped and buzzed and droned around them. From a high point of the freeway, through the railings, Malt could see the hub of the city: tall buildings lining the harbour, cranes that never seemed to move, patches of dark and patches of grey. A pair of giant antennae, a building with a statue on top, and those huge silvery bridges that swallowed every reflection.
He and his mother had only lived there for a short time, so he hadn’t really looked at the whole city before. It was a strange sight, ugly and scary, but still impressive. Like a spider with its bulging centre and long, spindly legs.
His mother said, ‘You’re quiet.’
Malt didn’t answer. She shook her head and said, ‘Don’t sulk. You know I hate it when you sulk.’
‘I’m not sulking,’ he told her.
‘You are. I can tell.’
No need to answer that, either. He watched her glance at the rear-vision mirror like she was about to do something daring, then she flicked the indicator and switched to the fast, outside lane, earning a beep from a swerving truck.
‘It’s time to move on.’
‘I know,’ he said, ‘you told me.’ A hundred, thousand, gazillion times.
‘Well, I’m telling you again. Mothers can do that, you know.’ She took one hand off the steering wheel, reached across and ruffled his hair. ‘There’s someone I need to see. It’s really important. This could—’
She hesitated then said, ‘Anyway, like I also told you, the work’s dried up. There’s no work, and no money left, and nowhere else to go. So, that’s that.’
‘That’s that,’ Malt echoed, but not rudely, making it sound like he was agreeing.
His mother pressed her lips into a single line and lowered her window a little.
‘Might as well listen to the radio,’ she said, pushing her voice over the whip of the wind.
The radio station was playing a song about love. She turned up the volume and hummed the tune. As usual, when she hummed or sang, each note was clear and perfect.
The city dropped further into the background as they sped down the freeway. Despite the music, Malt’s mother stayed impatient, shifting their car from one lane to another, only occasionally pressing the horn. Our car is like an insect, Malt thought. It’s like a crazy bee, diving in and around flowers.
He closed his eyes and relived a conversation with Stevie, his neighbour. Stevie hadn’t been a proper friend, but he had been a kid to talk to.
‘So, they’re secret wars? Is that what your mum said?’
‘Yes.’
‘And he’s a secret soldier? What, like a freedom fighter?’
Malt didn’t know about freedom fighting, but he’d agreed anyway. Stevie was one of those people who liked it when that happened.
‘Wow. Do you reckon he ever killed anyone?’
‘Maybe,’ he’d said. He didn’t want to think about his father killing someone, so maybe was a good word, easy to say, without the commitment of a yes or a no.
Maybe floated along like a bone in the river.
‘I’ll bet he did. I’ll bet he used a machine gun.’ Stevie had mimicked the action. He’d said, ‘It must be ultra-cool, having a dad who kills enemies with a machine gun,’ and Malt had agreed, saying yeah, it was ultra-cool, even if he hadn’t ever lived with or even met his father. He was the man in the picture that he kept in his room, who didn’t really look like a soldier but who did secret, soldierly things . . .
Anyway, that was an old photo, small and faded. In it, Malt’s mother had a girlish grin and pink ribbons in her hair.
He must’ve slept because when he opened his eyes, the freeway was gone and they were driving into the countryside. The shadows on the hills were softened by having no lines, a contrast to the crisp city shadows. Small houses sat quietly in olive-coloured pockets like animals in their burrows. The open spaces and bigger sky reminded him of some of the places where he’d lived: the town with the boy called Johnno who could do upside-down BMX tricks; the one where Malt had fallen off the top of the swings and broken his arm; the other one with the gang of older kids who’d tried to make him go into that haunted house.
‘He’s scared. He’s wetting himself.’
‘Am not.’
‘Go in, then. Go on!’
‘Don’t want to.’
‘Scared, that’s why. Peed your pants, haven’t you?’
Malt remembered the gang jeering at him as he ran away.
‘Not long now,’ said his mother in her getting-edgy voice. ‘Remember what I said?’
‘Yes.’
She repeated it anyway, the mantra. ‘Keep yourself to yourself. Don’t bother people.’
‘Okay.’ Malt patted the dog, warmly asleep on his lap. His mother glanced sideways, out the window. ‘It hasn’t changed a bit,’ she said grimly.
She sighed one more time, then turned the steering wheel and bunted the car along a thin, bumpy track that split the grey paddocks. Malt saw trees standing alone, and beyond them he saw darkness.
When his mother drove through an opened gate, he knew they’d arrived. He peered ahead and saw the house first, then a woman standing on the verandah. She was small and she looked sharp, like a bird.
The car stopped. Malt’s mother was silent as the woman left the verandah and walked towards them. Her face was full of questions and Malt felt nervous, his stomach rising and falling. The woman was his grandmother, and he was about to meet her for the first time.
No-man’s-land
‘Malt,’ his mother said stiffly, ‘this is Zelda.’
The older woman seemed unsure whether to hold out her arms or do something else, like wave. Instead, she just smiled.
‘Hello, Malt. Why don’t you call me Grandma?’ she suggested. ‘Or Nan, or Nana. Whatever you prefer. I don’t mind.’
