‘Anyway, we decided to go down that little lane beside Tozers’. It was all dark and shadowy, which suited us. Funny how quickly you adapt to being a night creature. So we moseyed along there, across the carpark, and into Glover Street. Then Fi, who’s got hearing like a bat, thought she heard voices, so we ducked into the public dunnies. Into the men’s of course: I wasn’t going to risk being caught in a ladies’ toilet. Actually it wasn’t that smart a move. You guys seem to have got into the right kind of thinking pretty quickly, but we’ve still got to retrain our minds. If anyone had seen us going in there, or if they’d caught us inside it, we’d have been dead meat – the place was a perfect trap. And there was someone coming – I could hear the voices by then too. I’d been thinking of taking a leak, but when you’re scared – well, I don’t know what it’s like for girls but a guy can stand there for half an hour, and not a drip ...’
‘Come on Homer, get on with it. I want to go to bed soon.’
‘OK, OK. Well, we waited and waited. Whoever they were, they were sure taking their time.’
‘Homer kept himself busy graffitiing the walls,’ Fi interrupted.
‘Yes, that’s true,’ Homer admitted shamelessly. ‘I figured it was one time in my life when I could get away with it. When this is all over they’ll have more important things to worry about than my messages on the lavatory walls. And they were patriotic messages that I wrote.’
‘I don’t see what’s patriotic about “Wogs Rule”,’ Fi interrupted again.
‘But I wrote other things too.’
‘You’re an idiot Homer,’ Kevin grumbled. ‘You never take anything seriously.’
But I remembered Homer’s hand on mine when I talked about the screams of the three soldiers who’d been hit by my home-made shrapnel. And I remembered what he’d said to comfort me. I smiled at him, and winked. I knew what he was trying to do.
‘Anyway, these guys kept getting closer. And when I say guys, I mean a mixture. Like your patrol, there were men and women. About six or seven altogether, we thought. Our biggest worry was that they would decide to use the toilets. I wanted to go into a cubicle and lock the door, so the “Occupied” sign was showing, and I’m sure they would have respected that. But Fi wasn’t so keen, so we got in the cleaner’s cubicle instead, by wriggling under the door. That was one place they still hadn’t looted. There was no room in there and the smell was terrible, but we felt more secure, although really, like I said before, we were crazy. The whole place was a deathtrap. And sure enough, two minutes later these boots came crunching in: three guys, we thought. Two of them used the urinal and the other one headed for the throne. So it was lucky we did hide, because I wouldn’t have liked Fi to be seeing things like that. The guy in the cubicle was right next to us, and geez, if the smell had been bad before, it was shocking now. I think they were trying to save ammunition by gassing us to death. And as for the sound effects ...’
Homer gave an imitation. The little dog, Flip, sitting on Kevin’s lap, pricked up her ears and barked. Even Fi laughed.
‘Lucky we didn’t have Flip with us,’ Homer commented. He continued his story. ‘We didn’t learn much, except that they eat a lot of eggs and cheese. They talked a lot, but no language that I recognised. Not that that means much. All I can say is that they weren’t Greek. But Fi’s the language student – she does about six, don’t you Fi? – and she couldn’t tell who they were.’
I reflected that the night they’d spent together had given Homer more confidence with Fi. He’d found the style, the tone, to use with her. And she seemed to enjoy it. She laughed at his jokes and there was more life and colour in her face when she looked at him. She was losing the coolness she’d had before.
‘Well,’ Homer continued. ‘At last they finished whatever it was they were doing, and we heard them shuffle off. We gave them five minutes and then slithered back out under the cleaner’s door. We could see the soldiers though, from the door, as they disappeared down Glover Street. They were a funny looking bunch. There were eight altogether, and I think three were women. But of the men, two looked pretty old, and two looked quite young, about our age or even younger. And they were dressed in rough old uniforms.’
‘I guess,’ said Corrie, ‘that to invade a country this size they would have had to call up everyone with four limbs.’
‘We didn’t have any ride-on mowers lying around,’ Homer went on, ‘so we tiptoed off in the opposite direction. Nothing much else happened till we got to Fi’s ...’
‘Yes it did,’ Fi cut in. ‘Remember the shadows?’
‘Oh yes,’ Homer said. ‘You tell them. I didn’t see them.’
‘About two blocks from my place,’ Fi began, ‘there’s a milk bar, with a little park behind it. The milk bar had been looted, like all the other shops. We were sneaking across the park when I thought I saw a couple of shadows coming out of the milk bar. Shadows of people, I mean. I don’t mean shadows either; that’s just what I called them, because it was so dark it’s what they looked like. At first I thought they would be soldiers, and I grabbed Homer and we hid behind a tree. When I looked out they were disappearing towards Sherlock Road, but I could see they weren’t soldiers, just from the way they were acting. I called out to them, and they stopped and looked around, then they talked to each other for a minute, then they ran off. That’s all.’
‘I never saw them,’ Homer explained. ‘I nearly died when Fi started yelling out. I thought she must have inhaled too much Dettol in the cleaner’s cupboard. But when you think about it, it’s logical that there’d still be people running around loose. They can’t have caught everyone in the district in this short a time.
‘Anyway, we kept plugging up the hill. We got to Fi’s place. It was locked but Fi knew where there was a spare key. And now I know too, which could be handy one day. Fi sent me inside with my orders: to open the curtains and pull up the blinds. The main windows are about a hundred metres from the front door, across this enormous hall, so Fi sat on the steps outside while I crept through this pitch-black room. I tell you, it was pretty spooky. You know how psychic I am, and I could feel a presence in there, a being. I knew I was not alone. I got about half way across and suddenly there was this unearthly scream from above, and the next thing, I was being attacked. Devilish claws were tearing at me and a ghostly voice was howling in my ear. And that’s how we found that Fi’s cat was alive and well and living in the rafters. Fi’s folks have been having the ceiling renovated.’
‘God you’re hopeless Homer.’ Kevin yawned. ‘Get on with it.’
‘Well, I won’t go into the depressing details, like we told you back at Robyn’s there was no one home. But everything was in good nick. I’m sure they’re OK, that everyone’s folks are going to be OK It sounds like they’re all bailed up at the Showground, and once these people have got themselves organised they might start letting them out again. Plenty of food there, anyway. They’ve got my mum’s decorated cake for a start, and that was a prize-winner if ever I saw one.’
There was a bit of a pause, then Corrie asked, ‘Did you have any trouble on the trip back to Robyn’s?’
Homer became serious, and his voice softened ‘Do you know the Andersens?’
‘Is that Mr Andersen who coaches the footy team?’
‘Yes. You know their house? Well, we came back a different way, to avoid the shopping centre, and we passed the Andersens’ place. Or what’s left of it. My mum always says my room looks like a bomb hit it. I know what she means now. I think a bomb did hit the Andersens’ place. And two more houses between there and the railway. There’s been a bit of damage done round that part of town.’ He sat gazing at the table, as though he could still see the wrecked houses. Then he lifted his head and shoulders and kept talking. ‘That’s about it really. We got back to Robyn’s about a quarter to three. We’d been hoping we might see Lee and Robyn on the way, but there was no sign of them. That wait at Robyn’s sure seemed a long time. We were terrified that none of you would turn up, that you’d all been caught. Then we heard the shots from the Showground. Scared the buttons off my shirt. Then more shooting, and finally this explosion, in Racecourse Road. My God, it was like fire and brimstone shooting up in the sky. Would have cracked a five on the Richter scale. It was dramatic. You guys sure know how to put on a fireworks show. But of course, standing there and watching it, but not knowing, that wasn’t so good. I wouldn’t like to do that again.’