He put his fingers under his nose again and breathed in, went back over to the sink. He picked up the bar of yellow soap in the dish on the bench and started rubbing the soap into his hands and wrists until they were slippery.
I kept catching Wally sniffing his hands. When we watched TV they’d rise to his face, magnets getting pulled towards his nose. He went through a whole bottle of detergent, and his hands were pink and wrinkled as prawns for days. He said they smelled like chicken, and no matter how hard he scrubbed them, he couldn’t get the meat smell off his skin. He said the longer he left it the worse the smell got, like he was rotting away from the inside.
Tilly didn’t come over again after Christmas. I watched the yellow house; she barely left it. I wondered what she was doing inside all day. They didn’t even have a TV. Whenever I saw Tilly in the yard I’d wave, but she wouldn’t wave back. She must’ve been angry with me still for telling her to rack off, for saying all those mean things. I started to feel strange, as though something else had changed without me realising. Like a stone the size of a pinhead was grinding a hole at the bottom of my stomach.
It had been dry for most of the holidays but then it started to rain. It sounded like pellets falling on the tin roof. Most afternoons ended with a storm, lavender streaks across the sky that left branches scattered along the lawn, slick black leaves covering the verandah floorboards like slugs. I’d go to the dam when the rain cleared, when the air was still thick as soup. I didn’t bother asking Wally if he wanted to come with me. He was still sulking, so I trudged into the paddock alone. The ground around the dam was all mud, sucked me in up to my ankles. I’d float on my back and watch the sky, the clouds that turned heavy and dark as they slurped up water. When I came out of the dam I’d be streaked with silt and my legs would itch as though there were bugs in the water, burrowed under my skin.
Cassie didn’t work much after Christmas. He lounged around at home, sleeping for most of the day and then coming out of his room to pick over the fridge in the afternoon. When he did work it was mostly night shifts, and some nights after he finished he and Ian would go out together, to the pub or to someone’s house for a party, and Cassie would come home the next morning with a greasy bag of takeaway, slick paper carry bag like a special parcel. He’d be in a cranky mood for the entire day, his skin filmy, fluey.
On New Year’s Eve Cassie got dressed to go out. I watched from the bathroom door as he got ready. He’d had a shower and his shirt was crisp, the white collar stiff. He’d ironed it especially.
‘Whose party is it?’ I said to Cassie. He’d nicked Dad’s gel and was slicking back his hair. The mirror was fogged and he’d rubbed a face-sized circle in the middle of it.
‘Dunno,’ Cassie said. ‘Someone Ian knows.’
‘So you’re going with Ian then?’
‘Yeah. So what?’
‘You were mad at Ian at Christmas.’
‘No, I wasn’t.’
I picked up the tub of gel and dipped my finger into the goo. ‘Did Ian do something bad?’ I asked.
‘What do you mean?’
I shrugged, wiped the gel under my nose to make a moustache. ‘I dunno.’
‘Stop acting like a five-year-old,’ Cassie said, snatching the gel off me. ‘Tell me what you’re talking about or piss off.’
‘He did something to Tilly,’ I said, ‘out in the paddock.’
Cassie paused, looked at me in the mirror. ‘Did she say something to you?’
‘No.’
‘Did Wally say something to you?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘But he’s being weird. He’s been acting strange since Christmas.’
Cassie ran his fingers through his hair. ‘Wally’s always weird.’
‘But Tilly doesn’t come over anymore. She doesn’t like us. Because of what Ian did.’ I left out the part about her being mad at me as well.
‘I know Ian can be a bit of a boofhead sometimes,’ Cassie said, ‘but you can’t just make up lies about people because you don’t like them.’
‘I’m not lying,’ I said. ‘You’re the one who was angry with him.’
‘You’re just imagining things,’ Cassie said. ‘You’re just making things up ’cause you’re bored.’
‘I’m not bored,’ I said.
‘You’re a little kid, Cub,’ Cassie said. ‘Nothing happened. I asked Ian and he said nothing happened. Just leave us alone, alright?’
He turned back to the mirror, smoothed down a clump of hair near his ear. He’d used too much gel. The smell of it was like medicine.
I decided to confront Ian about Christmas night, ask him what had happened when he and Tilly and Wally were out in the paddock. I knew he’d lie at first, but I also knew I could crack him. I could be the one to solve the mystery. The truth would come out and Cassie would tell Ian he didn’t want to be friends anymore, and Tilly would start coming round again, would want to be friends with me instead of Ian and Cassie. She’d choose me. Everything would be as it should.
Ian was coming to pick up Cassie. I waited for him in the kitchen, planned what I was going to say to him in my head. When he arrived Cassie went outside to meet him on the verandah. I waited a few minutes, and then looked around for a reason to go out to them. I took a packet of peanuts from the cupboard, opened the flyscreen. ‘Mum said you might want some food,’ I said. ‘She told me to bring this out to you.’
Ian turned on his chair to face me. He was as dressed up as Cassie; ironed shirt, silver chain wired around his neck, hair gelled to spikes. I couldn’t see his eyes; he was wearing sunglasses even though the sun had nearly set: gleaming lenses the same shape as the blackened, slanted eyes of a cartoon Martian.
Ian put down his beer, took the peanuts off me. I felt myself freeze, forgot what I was going to say. Ian kept talking. He was telling Cassie his dad had given the assistant manager job to some girl who was dumb as bricks, could barely even work a cash register and knew next to nothing about electronics. They didn’t even seem to care that I was right there listening.
‘It’s all bullshit,’ Ian said. ‘I bet he just wanted me out of the way so he could root the dumb slut.’
‘What’s she look like?’ Cassie asked.
‘Face like a dog,’ Ian said. ‘Acts like she’s hot shit but she’s ugly as.’
‘Yeah, right,’ Cassie said, taking a sip.
‘I don’t give a crap,’ Ian said. ‘I never wanted the job anyway.’
‘What are you gonna do?’
‘I dunno,’ Ian said, turning the rum bottle around and reading the label. ‘Anything going at the pub?’
‘Might be,’ Cassie said.
Ian took a big sip. I could see his knuckles tighten around the glass. ‘It’s all bullshit,’ he said.
I told myself it wasn’t important; maybe it was all in my head. Wally and Tilly were fine, and Cassie was happy again. Mum was okay now that Cassie was home, and even Dad just let Cassie go about his business, wasn’t on his back all the time. Didn’t even mind that Ian was coming over again, as long as he stayed outside. I left Cassie and Ian on the verandah, went into the lounge room. Mum had made cobloaf and she and Dad drank Irish cream from tiny green glasses as we waited for the fireworks on telly. I’d never stayed up until midnight before.
I could hear Ian and Cassie from the couch. They didn’t make any move to go to the party, just stayed there yelling and cackling until midnight. After the fireworks I went to the verandah, stood in the doorway. ‘Nothing happened,’ I said.
Cassie snorted a laughed, his eyelids droopy. ‘What?’