Angel Creek Page 4

  A smile spread over Jack’s face and he jumped off his bike. It clattered onto the footpath.

  ‘Who’s talking about locks? You weren’t thinking of getting in under the fence, were you? ’Cause that’s not allowed.’ He brought his sweaty, pimply face close to Jelly’s. ‘And they’re not school rules, they’re my rules. You hear?’

  The other two boys pulled up behind Jack. Jelly looked at Gino for support, but he was staring at the dirty marks on his sneakers like they were the most fascinating thing he’d ever seen.

  She stared right back at Jack—he sure was ugly up close—and said, ‘Why would I want to go to school on the holidays?’

  She was thinking this was a pretty good comeback considering the circumstances, and was thrilled to hear the new boy laugh.

  Jack glared at him. ‘What’s so funny, loser?’

  ‘She’s right, Jack.’ The boy shrugged. ‘Why would you want to hang around school on the holidays? Come on, Budgie, let’s go.’ He flicked his long black fringe out of his eyes and shot Jelly a grin before he and Budgie wheeled off down the street.

  Jack scrambled to follow them.

  Jelly watched them go. Mainly to make sure they were out of sight before she and Gino sneaked into the school, but also because that new kid made her curious.

  She turned to Gino. He had that scared, tight-mouthed face on him, like when his dad shouted at him. Jelly had no idea how he was going to survive high school in a year’s time.

  ‘Hey, Gino,’ she said, ‘who does this remind you of?’ She crossed her eyes and pushed her eyebrows down her forehead.

  Gino laughed. ‘How about this?’ He shoved his tongue into his bottom lip and pulled out his ears.

  ‘You just need the pimples,’ Jelly giggled, squashing a ripe mulberry onto his face.

  ‘Hey!’ Gino yelled, but Jelly had already slipped through the fence to the other side.

  8

  trapped

  The tin shed was as hot as an oven, and the angel didn’t get up when they walked in. It slid its eyes over to them, then down to the floor. It lay on the blanket, breathing fast, knees tucked up under its chin. It had become so pale it was almost translucent and its ribs were poking through its skin.

  ‘It doesn’t look so good,’ Jelly said, her stomach tightening.

  ‘It’s fine,’ said Gino. ‘Just hot, that’s all.’ But he looked as worried as she felt. Looking after an angel was turning out to be nothing like looking after a bird.

  She crouched by the angel and tipped some water into her hands. The water was warm, but the angel lapped at it. She dribbled the last of it on the back of the angel’s neck, where its fairy-floss hair was matted with sweat. ‘Can you fill this up?’ She held out the water bottle to Gino.

  ‘What did your last slave die of?’

  ‘Very funny,’ she said. But she didn’t want to get into another fight with him just when they were getting along again.

  Jelly left the door open to let some air in, though there wasn’t much of a breeze. A tin shed on a hot day was probably the worst place they could have chosen to keep the angel, but it was too dangerous to move it in the daylight. Especially with those boys hanging around.

  She filled up the bottle at the bubblers behind the school building. From where she stood she could see through the glass doors, down the main hallway. It reminded her of her own primary school. The long corridor, with the library at the end. Ms Stevenson-Brown had filled the library with beanbags and posters. It even had an old window display dummy, which they were allowed to dress in funny outfits that she kept in a box behind her desk.

  Jelly remembered the lunchtime that she and Stef had put every single item of clothing on the dummy, including thirteen hats and seven pairs of glasses. They had laughed so hard she thought her sides would split. Ms Stevenson-Brown had just smiled at them as she reshelved the books.

  High school teachers weren’t like that. Courtney Wilcox, whose brother went to Northbridge High, said that if you were late or brought the wrong book to class you got a detention. Just like that. Jelly could barely remember which books belonged to which subject let alone which day she needed to bring them. And Northbridge High was so big it was like a city. How was she ever going to find her way around?

  When she had picked up the brown paper packages full of shiny new textbooks and sharp pencils and strange mathematical plastic things and calculators with numbers she didn’t recognise, she felt sick. If only she had even just one friend starting with her. Everyone would already have their friends from primary school and all the groups would be as good as closed. Jelly would be the only one left over. Not for the first time she wished she was going to the same school as Stef, but she knew, even without asking her parents, that they would never have been able to afford a private school. Northbridge High had been the next best option.

  Jelly drank from the bubblers, washed her sticky hands and slicked back her hair. She prepared herself to make the dash across the searing courtyard when she saw something out of the corner of her eye. She paused. Someone was by the fence. She ducked behind the building but even before he called out she knew she had been spotted. Jack.

  ‘Oi, you!’ She could hear in his voice that he was half furious that she’d disobeyed him and half thrilled that he would now have an excuse to punish her.

  Jelly flattened herself against the bricks, heart racing, and cursed herself for confronting him under the bridge. She had now officially made her first enemy. Even before she had made a friend. Brilliant.

  Then, in the gentlest puff of breeze, Jelly saw the shed door sway. She’d left it open! There was no way she could let Jack into the school.

  She raced across the hot concrete. ‘Just getting some water from the bubblers, Jack,’ she called loudly so that Gino would figure out what was happening and stay hidden.

  When she got to him, she could see that he was deciding how to best manage her waywardness. She leaned down to peel back the fence but he pinned the wire to the ground with his big, boofy sneaker.

  ‘If you like school so much,’ he sneered, ‘you can stay there.’

  It was so hot and her head was so fried and she was feeling so sick about Jack discovering her angel coiled up in the shed that all Jelly could do was gawp at him like a mute fish.

  ‘Very funny, Jack.’ Her voice was more desperate than she would have liked. ‘Let me out. I told you I was just getting a drink.’

  ‘Why should I? You can stay in there all summer as far as I’m concerned.’

  She watched as he snapped a branch off the mulberry tree. Then he began to thread the stick through the fence, so that it would hold the wire in place.

  Budgie and the new boy rode up behind Jack onto the footpath and watched curiously. Jack didn’t look up from his work. All the same when Jelly saw the dark-haired boy she felt a glimmer of hope.

  ‘What are you doing?’ the new boy asked, speaking to Jack but looking at Jelly. The soles of Jelly’s feet were burning up and she knew they would blister in the days to come.

  ‘Trapping me in the school,’ she answered, rolling her eyes as if she didn’t care.

  ‘There,’ Jack said, standing back to admire his work. He smiled, pleased with himself. Jelly had to admit he’d done a good job. There was no way she could pull the stick out from her side.

  The heat on the soles of her feet forced her to the shade of the tree. ‘There you go,’ Jack chuckled. ‘You’ve got mulberry leaves and water. That should be plenty to keep a little worm like you going over summer.’ He turned to give Budgie a high five but his friend wasn’t ready so Jack dropped his hand awkwardly by his side. Budgie and the new boy watched Jelly but whatever happened she wouldn’t cry. She’d never give Jack the satisfaction. Besides, Gino was in the shed, so she wasn’t in it alone. And, most importantly, the angel was safe.

  ‘Let’s go,’ Jack said, swinging his gangly leg over his bike. Budgie followed, but the new boy hesitated. ‘I’m heading down to the creek for
a bit,’ he called out. ‘Catch you guys later.’ Then he glided off in the other direction. When Jack and Budgie were out of sight, he looped back.

  From her place in the shade, Jelly watched him untwist the wood from the wire fence. He had long brown fingers with grubby bitten nails. Around one wrist he wore a leather bracelet threaded with multicoloured beads. Jelly had never seen a boy wear a bracelet before.

  Once he had the wood out, the boy lifted up the wire. Jelly slid under, trying to avoid taking the scabs off her knees again.

  ‘What did you do that for?’ she said, when she was through. ‘If Jack finds out he’ll kill you.’

  The boy shrugged. ‘Maybe ’cause it’s Christmas?’ He smiled, then got back on his bike. ‘Where’d you leave your shoes?’

  ‘By the creek.’

  He looked at the white-hot pavement, then at Jelly crouching in the shade. ‘Wanna dink?’

  ‘Thanks,’ she said. Then loudly for Gino’s benefit, ‘A ride home’d be great.’

  Gino wasn’t necessarily school-smart, as his father liked to remind him, but he was smart in other ways and Jelly knew he would have been listening carefully. He would have understood what was going on.

  So she swung up behind the boy with the black hair and the brown arms, and he took her all the way back to the creek without saying a word. As they coasted down St Peter’s Road, Jelly couldn’t help wondering what Stef would think if she saw her now, on the back of a boy’s bike with the wind in her hair.

  They arrived at the creek and the boy pulled up in the shade of a peppercorn tree. Jelly clambered awkwardly off the bike. When she turned around to thank him he was gone.

  Jelly collected her shoes and Gino’s from the muddy creek bank. She could see Gino in the distance making his way home over the bridge. She climbed the apricot tree to watch out for him, and thought about that boy. How lucky they were he’d turned up from nowhere. And she realised she hadn’t even asked him his name.

  9

  keeping secrets

  Jelly and Gino peered though the back window. Only Jelly’s mum was in the kitchen. Gino’s dad wasn’t in sight. He breathed a sigh of relief and wiped the sweat from his top lip.

  ‘Mum won’t say anything,’ Jelly assured him. ‘She’s fine with me playing by the creek.’ She grabbed Gino’s hand and pulled him through the back door. They tried to slip past Jelly’s mother but she grabbed Jelly’s arm before they could get away. ‘Uh-uh. Straight up to the shower, you two.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Don’t think I don’t know where you’ve been. You’d better get cleaned up before your parents get home, Gino.’

  Jelly washed and changed into fresh clothes, then waited for Gino in her room. Her dad walked past and blew Jelly a kiss. ‘How’s Nonna?’ she asked.

  ‘All right.’ He smiled. ‘Making trouble as usual.’

  But Jelly saw the sadness flicker over his face. Her stomach clenched into a fist. Was anyone telling them the truth? Jelly was desperate to see Nonna for herself.

  ‘Can I visit her, Dad?’

  ‘Not just yet, sweetheart.’

  At last Gino came out of the bathroom. Jelly beckoned him into her room. ‘How was the angel?’ she whispered. ‘Did you get it to eat anything?’

  ‘I tried to feed it some apricots but it wouldn’t let me near it so I left them on the rug. I filled a tray of water for it, though.’

  ‘Good thinking. Imagine if Jack found it.’

  ‘Lunch,’ her mum called.

  Zio Mario was back and in a foul mood. You’d think it was his mum who was in the hospital from all the fuss that Zia Pia was making over him. He strode over to the table and waited to be waited on. Jelly and Gino sat as far away from him as possible and far from Sophia, who dribbled and threw her food around. Somebody had put Nonna’s special chair by the back window, as if it was watching out for her to come home.

  It wasn’t a real Christmas lunch; everything felt strange without Nonna around. They sat in silence. Partly because of Nonna and partly because no one felt like coaxing Zio Mario out of his dark mood. Jelly’s mum dished up the pasta left over from the night before and Jelly and Gino wolfed down two servings each without looking up from their plates. Pik, as usual, just picked at his food, which was partly how he got his name, and also because it was short for piccolo, which means small.

  All the kids had been given nicknames when they were little, but Pik’s and Jelly’s were the only ones that had stuck. Jelly was short for her full name, which was long and old-fashioned and had never felt like it belonged only to her.

  After moving his lasagne round his plate for a while, Pik suddenly announced to everyone at the table, ‘We found an angel.’

  Jelly looked up as Gino choked on his garlic bread. He coughed then gave Pik the greasiest look she’d seen in a long time. Jelly, her heart hammering in her chest, stared at her parents, waiting to see what they would say.

  ‘That’s nice,’ said Mum, helping herself to the zeppole.

  Jelly breathed out.

  ‘It’s true,’ Pik said, ignoring Gino and pushing away the forkful of lasagne Zia Pia was trying to sneak into his mouth. ‘We found it in the creek. Last night.’

  ‘You kids haven’t been taking Pik down to the creek, have you?’ Zia Pia said. ‘You know he can’t swim. And there was that boy who drowned—’ ‘Jelly’s not going to let them go near the water,’ Jelly’s mum interrupted. ‘They’re perfectly safe—’ ‘I’m not having my kids wandering down by the creek—’ ‘Pik’s just making up stories,’ said Gino. ‘Aren’t you, Pik?’ Then he hissed, ‘Just like a kid who wants to stay with his baby sister would.’

  Pik’s face crumpled and he looked down at his plate. ‘Anyway,’ he said quietly, to no one in particular. ‘I drew it a picture. Father Christmas and his goats.’

  Gino snorted. ‘Reindeer, dummy. They’re not goats. And anyway, there’s no such thing as Father Christmas.’

  ‘Gino,’ Zio Mario warned.

  ‘It’s true,’ Gino sulked. ‘And he knows it, too.’

  ‘If Pik wants to believe in Father Christmas or angels or anything else for that matter, you shouldn’t spoil it for him,’ Zia Pia scolded, wiping Sophia’s mouth with a cloth.

  ‘Some Christmas,’ Gino muttered under his breath.

  ‘Don’t think I didn’t hear that, Gino.’ His dad’s face darkened. ‘What, you think this is all about you? With your nonna in the hospital and your mum worried sick—’ ‘

  Hey,’ Jelly’s dad said gently. ‘It’s been a hard time for all of us. And Gino’s right. It’s not been much of a Christmas. Especially for the kids.’

  Jelly gave her dad a grateful smile but Gino just picked at the tablecloth, his face dark and brooding.

  10

  the broken wing

  After coffee, everyone vanished. The house was instantly quiet. Jelly, Gino and Pik slipped out the back door.

  ‘Are we going to see the angel?’ Pik said, bouncing alongside them. ‘Are we? Are we?’

  ‘Shut up, Pik,’ Gino snapped. ‘You’re lucky you’re even coming with us after what you said at lunch.’

  ‘Give him a break,’ Jelly said. ‘It’s not like they believed him.’

  Gino glared at them and marched ahead.

  On Ivy Street there was no one around. They heard the crack of a ball against a cricket bat then hoots of laughter coming from someone’s backyard. Other houses let out the steady drone of overworked air conditioners. Jelly pictured kids playing with their Christmas presents and parents stuffed like turkeys, snoozing on couches. That was what her family would usually be doing.

  They slipped under the fence and dashed across the blazing schoolyard. Gino pushed open the door and a blast of heat emptied from the shed.

  ‘Yuck,’ said Pik. ‘I’m not going in there.’

  ‘Oh, the poor angel,’ Jelly said.

  Gino and Jelly tiptoed into the stuffy darkness, to the corner where the angel was lying like a crumpled mat.

 
Jelly crouched beside it. The angel was panting shallowly. She placed her hand on its clammy forehead, but it didn’t open its eyes this time. A sour milky smell hovered around it. One wing was spread out across the floor, the other one, the bandaged one, was tucked in tight along the angel’s spine. A dirty yellow liquid was oozing from a dark patch of dried blood. The sour smell was coming from its wound. She pulled out a strawberry from her pocket and held it under the angel’s nose. It didn’t stir.

  ‘We have to do something. I think its wing might be infected.’

  Gino leaned in to look, but jerked back when the smell hit his nostrils.

  ‘Poor angel.’ Pik was still standing by the doorway and his voice was small and frightened. ‘We should take it to the creek to cool it down.’

  ‘We’re not taking it to the creek,’ Gino snapped.

  ‘It’s a good idea, Gino,’ Jelly said.

  ‘What? And let it go?’

  ‘No, just cool it down. Look at it. It’s too hot in here.’

  ‘We can tip water on it.’

  ‘That won’t be enough.’

  ‘You have to do what Jelly says, Gino.’ Pik was almost crying.

  ‘It’s none of your business, Pik.’ Gino turned to Jelly, lips tight. ‘How would we get it there, anyway? Without anyone seeing?’

  ‘Sophia’s pram,’ Pik suggested. ‘We could hide it in there.’

  ‘Good thinking, Pikster.’ Jelly grinned at him.

  Gino frowned. ‘Suppose you’re going to send me back to get it?’

  ‘No, we should stick together in case those boys are around.’ She touched the angel’s hair.

  ‘Don’t worry, little angel,’ Pik called as they backed out of the shed. ‘We’ll be back soon.’

  The house was still quiet when they got back, but even so Jelly tiptoed upstairs to see who was home. Her dad was in the study, eyes glued to the computer screen and his bird thesis spread out all around him. Sophia was sleeping in a cot next to him. Jelly tugged one of her sunhats off the back of the door, shoved it under her T-shirt, then tiptoed out of the room.