Cassie and Ian’s junk was squished into one corner, as though they didn’t want to take up space. There was a foam mattress against the wall, yellow and fingerpicked like honeycomb. Empty beer cans lined the wall like trophies and matches littered the cement, scorched almost up to their ends like tiny burnt branches. A magazine was splayed open on the mattress. I picked it up and on the cover was a woman up on her knees. She was wearing a tiny red bikini, holding her hands up around her chest, mouth wet-looking. I didn’t need to open it to know what would be inside. I’d once found a magazine like this in Dad’s cupboard, the pages crinkled, folded over to fit in a wedge between the ledger books he’d kept from school.
There was a shoebox at the end of the mattress. I crouched down and lifted the lid. The bottom was lined with newspaper, and there were three skulls in the corner of the box; birds, or maybe foxes, small as baby fists, the tops crushed open to make holes. Cassie’s nubby ponytail poked out of one of the cracked tops. I stroked it with my fingers, felt one of the dreadlocks hidden in the scruff of hair. It was as soft as a silkworm egg and felt strange, like I was touching the hair of something dead. I pulled the ponytail out through the hole and brushed it against my face. The hair was cool and smelled nothing like Cassie. It was as though the knackery had sucked away the good human smell, left it with nothing but cement and smoke and the feeling of cold.
I put the ponytail back into the skull and closed the lid, made sure everything was where they’d left it. I backed out of the knackery slowly. I felt like I was intruding, like I’d seen the inside of something I wasn’t supposed to see. I knew that Cassie coming out here wasn’t right. It was bad that he wanted to be here, bad that this felt like his own special space. I’d thought I knew everything about Cassie, but it was like I’d seen some part of him that was supposed to stay hidden, like seeing the negative of a photo, a sausage out of its casing.
6.
THE NEXT SATURDAY I WAS hanging out washing when Ian rode up the driveway. I hadn’t said anything to Cassie about what I’d seen in the knackery. I decided to wait, to think of some way of keeping Cassie from going out there again.
‘Hey,’ Ian said, circling around the clothesline. Only Dad was awake, reading the paper in the kitchen. I knew he could see us from the window.
‘Cassie’s not here,’ I said.
Ian pulled up next to me, looked towards the house. ‘’Course he’s here,’ he said. ‘Where else would he be?’
I shrugged, reached for a peg.
‘I’ll just go wait inside for him then,’ he said, climbing off his bike.
‘No,’ I said, seeing Dad through the window. ‘I’ll go wake him up.’
‘You said he wasn’t here.’
‘Well, he might be back by now.’
I left Ian on the grass, made sure he wasn’t following me inside, and then went into Cassie’s room, grabbed his toes through the quilt. ‘Ian’s here,’ I said. ‘Do you want me to tell him to rack off?’
Cassie pressed his palms to his eyes and propped himself up on his elbows. He opened the drawer next to him, stood up to pull on his jeans. His spine looked like a line of Tic Tacs as he bent over.
I couldn’t hold it in anymore. ‘Why do you and Ian go out there?’ I asked.
‘Where?’ Cassie said, pulling up his fly, acting dumb.
‘The knackery. It’s horrible out there. All those awful things that Les did. What do you do there?’
‘What are you talking about?’ He opened another drawer, grabbed a flanno from the top of the pile.
‘You and Ian. You always go out there. To the knackery.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I’ve seen you.’
‘Then you’re seeing things. You might need to get your head checked.’
I didn’t understand why he was lying. I’d seen them go out there every afternoon, seen all their weird stuff: the ponytail and the skulls and the magazine. I stood in the doorway while he fished out some socks from the drawer, laying a matching pair on the bed. ‘Do you mind?’ he asked, pulling on his flanno.
‘What?’ I replied.
‘It’s weird to watch people getting changed.’
‘You’re weird.’
When Cassie was dressed he came out of his room with his backpack over his shoulders and tried to sneak over to the door.
‘Where are you off to?’ Dad put down the paper.
Cassie stopped, turned around. ‘It’s the weekend,’ he said.
‘I didn’t ask you what day it is.’
‘I’m going for a swim.’
‘With who?’ Dad asked.
‘Just me,’ Cassie said.
‘Bit cold, isn’t it?’
‘Not really.’
Dad looked out the window, nodded towards the clothesline. ‘Well, look who’s here.’
I glanced out the window. Ian was holding on to a line of wire, pulling down so the clothesline tilted. ‘He’s not coming in to say hello, then?’
Cassie looked as though Dad was playing a trick on him. ‘You said Ian couldn’t come over anymore.’
‘So what’s he doing here then?’
‘I told you,’ Cassie said. ‘We’re going for a swim. He’s not coming inside.’
‘I want to go for a swim,’ I said. Cassie hated swimming; I knew they weren’t going to the dam. I wanted to see what they did out there, what weird boy things went on in the knackery.
‘You can go later,’ Dad said. ‘With Wally.’
‘I don’t want to go with Wally,’ I said. ‘Please, can I come, Cassie?’
‘I don’t want to babysit you.’
‘I’m not going to drown,’ I said. ‘I just want a swim.’
The flyscreen opened and Ian appeared in the hallway. ‘What’s taking you so long?’
‘Nothing,’ said Cassie. ‘Let’s go.’
Dad stared at Ian, and then at Cassie. ‘Take Cub with you,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘Take your sister for a swim.’
‘No way,’ Cassie said.
‘You can’t stop me,’ I said to Cassie. ‘It’s a free country.’
Ian smiled, rubbed his hands together. ‘Let’s go then,’ he said.
‘What?’ Cassie said. ‘No way is she coming with us.’
Dad picked up his paper. ‘Cub goes, or you don’t go at all.’ He turned to me. ‘Make sure you keep your singlet on.’
I followed Ian and Cassie down the stairs. ‘Where’s your bathing suit?’ Ian asked, looking back at me, smirk on his face.
‘I left them in a plastic bag and they got mouldy. Dad said I can’t get a new pair until my birthday.’
‘What then?’ Ian said. ‘You’re going to skinny-dip?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘That’s gross.’
‘We can ditch her,’ Cassie said to Ian. ‘After a while.’
‘No, you can’t,’ I said. ‘And don’t talk about me like I’m not here.’
Ian turned around again and winked at me. ‘It’ll be fun,’ he said.
Cassie and Ian started walking so fast I gave up on jogging to keep up, let myself fall behind. I knew the way to the knackery, but that’s not where they went. When I came over the hill Cassie and Ian had stopped at the dam, were sitting on the scabby grass a few yards back from the water.
‘What are you doing?’ I asked.
‘What does it look like?’ Cassie said.
‘Why have you stopped here?’
‘You wanted to go for a swim,’ Cassie said. ‘So swim.’
I felt stupid. Of course they wouldn’t take me to the knackery. I looked back towards the house. I didn’t even feel like a swim, but it was a long way back and I was hot from the walk, so I pulled off my boots and my shirt and leggings, until I was down to my undies and singlet. I thought about what Mum had said before dinner the other night about my bits. I could feel eyes on me, but when I looked up Cassie and Ian weren’t looking. I slid into the water quickly anyway.