‘It’s not kidnapping when the person wants to come with you.’
‘Sp-sp-sp,’ agreed Pa.
‘Wait! Wait!’ called the person thumping heavily along the footpath toward them.
‘It’s one of the nurses,’ said Clancy. ‘The smiley one. Neneh.’
Neneh thudded up beside them, gasping for breath, but still smiling. ‘Hoo! You go fast!’ She clutched at her side. ‘Hoo!’
‘Sp-sp-sp,’ said Pa firmly.
Tash folded her arms. ‘We’re not going back there.’
‘No, no, you have some – time out, yeah?’ Neneh beamed at them. ‘Okay, Goffrey? Let Belinda calm down?’
‘Sp-sp-sp!’ said Pa indignantly.
Neneh laid a soothing hand on his shoulder. ‘I know, I know. You have little quiet time, yeah? Stay tonight with Polly, maybe?’ She thrust a folded string of small plastic packets into Tash’s hands. ‘Goffrey’s pills. Tonight, next day, you come back. No rush, yeah?’
Tash pushed the pills into her pocket. ‘Maybe.’
‘When you ready.’ Neneh stood with her hands on her hips, still huffing for breath. ‘Maybe Belinda not let you come back at all!’ She wagged her finger at Pa, kissed him on the cheek, gave them a cheery wave, and strolled back down the street toward The Elms.
‘Huh.’ Tash gripped the wheelchair handles and pushed, more slowly than before. Clancy wondered if she should offer to help, but wheeling Pa was hard work. He wasn’t a big man, but he was surprisingly heavy. Tash was better at that kind of thing.
Clancy trotted behind them. ‘That Neneh seems pretty nice,’ she ventured.
Tash snorted. Clancy heard a strange, strangled sound coming from their grandfather.
‘Pa? Are you okay?’
But it was all right. He was laughing.
‘It’s not funny,’ warned Tash. But the scary, murderous expression had faded from her face, and Clancy felt safe to walk beside her.
Pa’s hand shot out toward a little bird perched on a twig in someone’s front garden. ‘Sp-sp-sp!’
‘What’s that?’ asked Clancy politely. ‘A sparrow?’
Pa clapped his hand to his forehead in disbelief at her ignorance. ‘No!’
‘A willie wagtail?’ guessed Tash.
‘Ha! Sp-sp-sp!’
‘I’ll Google it when we get back,’ promised Clancy.
‘Birds are everywhere, you know,’ said Tash. ‘Every part of the world.’
‘What about Antarctica?’
‘Penguins?’ said Tash scornfully.
‘Oh, yeah, of course.’ Clancy flushed. ‘But penguins don’t count. They can’t fly.’
‘What?’ said Pa.
‘What’s the point of a bird that can’t fly?’ Clancy protested.
‘Emus say hi. Ostriches. Kiwis.’
‘Yeah, well, they’re pointless, too.’
‘Really? All of them?’
‘Okay, okay.’ Why did Tash always have to be right about everything?
When they reached Polly’s house, they remembered the front steps, which of course the wheelchair couldn’t go up. The passage at the side of the house was too narrow to wheel Pa around to the back door.
‘Bugger!’ said Pa.
‘We’ll have to stay out here,’ said Tash. She pushed the chair into the shade on the tiny square of artificial grass that was Polly’s low-maintenance, perfect front lawn, and spread out the doona from Clancy’s bed for the girls to sit on. They brought out rice crackers and orange juice and jam and bananas and instant noodles, and had a weird but satisfying picnic. Pa needed a little help peeling bananas and spreading jam, but he coped pretty well with one hand. Clancy was impressed, but she thought if she’d had four years of practice, she’d probably have learned to manage all right, too.
‘Mrs Christie next door is watching us,’ she whispered.
Tash spun round and poked out her tongue.
‘Tash! Rude!’
‘I don’t care. She should mind her own business.’
Clancy borrowed Tash’s phone to look up the mystery bird. Tim and Harriet had promised Clancy a phone of her own when she started high school. If her parents hadn’t gone to New Zealand, maybe Tim would have bought it this week. Clancy did want a phone, but she wasn’t looking forward to what a phone of her own represented: responsibility, independence. Danger.
‘Don’t get jam on my phone,’ warned Tash.
Clancy hastily licked her fingers, and wiped Tash’s garish yellow phone cover on the doona. ‘It was a fantail,’ she announced in triumph, and held up the screen to show Pa.
‘It could have been anything,’ said Tash.
‘Sp-sp-sp!’
‘No, I’m right. See, Pa agrees with me.’
‘No, he agrees with me!’
The sisters glared at each other.
‘I’m right,’ muttered Clancy, determined not to let Tash have the last word this time. ‘I saw its tail.’
‘Pfft!’ Tash rolled onto her stomach and plucked out blades of fake grass. ‘This would be a nice day for birdwatching if there were any interesting birds round here.’
Mine was interesting! Clancy wanted to say; but she knew Tash would scoff, so instead she pointed to a grey bird sidling at the edge of the lawn, eyeing their spilled crumbs. ‘There’s one.’
‘A pigeon,’ said Tash with deep scorn. ‘I’m talking about birdwatching with real birds, like the ones that live at Rosella.’
Clancy said, ‘There were a ton of birds at Rosella, weren’t there, Pa? Do you miss it?’
Pa let out a long breath, tapped his chest, waved his hand into the distance and laid his hand on his heart.
‘Of course he misses it, peabrain.’ Tash sat up. ‘Would you like to go back and see your house, Pa?’
‘Yes!’ Pa cried, then whispered under his breath, ‘Yes, yes.’
‘It’s a long way to push him,’ said Clancy.
‘I could call one of those, you know, maxi-taxis.’ Tash scrambled to her feet, eyes gleaming. ‘We’ve got the emergency money.’
Polly had left them fifty dollars, just in case.
Clancy looked at Tash. ‘We couldn’t go inside. The house is rented out. People live there.’
‘I know. But we could look at the garden, we could walk around the streets. It would be something to do. Do you want to, Pa?’
Pa sat bolt upright in his chair. ‘Yes!’ he roared, and let out a stream of word-ish noises, which was the closest he could come to talking in sentences since his stroke. ‘Sp-sp-sp!’ he finished vehemently.
Clancy gave Tash a worried look. ‘Are we allowed to? Do you have to be over eighteen to order a taxi?’
Tash was already searching for a number on her phone. ‘Anyone can order a taxi, if you can pay for it.’ She held the phone to her ear. ‘Hello? Can I book a taxi, please?’
Clancy gasped. Pa was smiling. Tash gave Polly’s address, and the address of Pa’s old house in Rosella. ‘Okay, thanks.’ She hung up. ‘It’ll be here in an hour.’
‘We’re really going? Seriously?’