But I have promises to keep
and miles to go before I sleep"

Robert Frost
(The American poet)

promises to keep

chapter 1

The Beginning...

"Someone's comin', someone's comin'!" the little boy hissed in terror.

"It's the ------- wind, ya drongo," Scott Phillips said impatiently. Jeez, would his kid bro ever stop being a sook?

Kane looked up at the tall dark trees with their leaves shining silver in the moonlight and at the moon watching them intently through the branches. There was a lull in the breeze and for a few moments the only sounds were the sea rushing to the shore and the shrill call of crickets and, loudest of all, his own shuddering breaths. He didn't know how they'd made it to the churchyard without being stopped. Scott seemed to know instinctively how to vanish into shadows and Kane had followed closely as Scotty instructed.

"We won't get caught 'cos I'm too smart," Scotty said.

But they were kids. Kids, out alone in the night, and in the jacket tucked under Kane's arm was a knife covered in blood. He was sure that at any minute a cop would clamp a hand on his shoulder, but Scotty acted like he hadn't a care in the world, nonchalantly swinging the leather rucksack as they walked.

Once two wrinklies had looked at them curiously and Scott had acted quickly to allay suspicion before awkward questions were asked, tugging Kane into following on behind a young couple and their two small kids into a cafe-bar near the beach.

All six trooped into the dining area in search of a table and all six looked unhappily at the only free table, still littered with its previous occupants' dishes. Then one kid knocked over a half filled, cold cup of coffee and, as Dad irritably went to look for a waitress, and Mum, tired and harassed, mopped up the spillage, the little girl who had already been lifted into a chair and who was the only one of the group to have noticed their uninvited dinner guests, sucked on her dummy and waited patiently for Kane to climb into the seat next to her, while Kane looked at the chair and wondered where to put the knife now that he and Scotty were apparently stopping to eat before they buried the evidence.

"C'mon, they've gone!" Scott whispered urgently, dragging him back outside as the kid to burst into tears at being abandoned again.

Somehow they made it to the old church without any more hassles, where, sick with fear, Kane unceremoniously chucked up on the stone steps that led to the first gravestone, commemorating a Samuel Edmund Coates, one of the co-founders of Summer Bay, then he chucked up again, twice, on the path nearby, shaking with terror, wiping his hot forehead with the back of his hand.

"You ------- animal!" Scott said in disgust, pushing him to where Samuel Edmund Coates hereth layeth sleeping in peace. Or trying to. "Get diggin', we haven't got all night!"

"Here...?" Kane gulped back tears, half expecting Samuel's skeleton to leap out of its coffin.

"Jeez, we haven't come here to take up ------- bodysnatchin' for a hobby, dork! Over there, by the fence."

They dug for an age into the soft muddy earth by the edge of the cemetery, stopping only when Kane's guilty conscience imagined footstep or to catch a breath or straighten stiff knees, scrabbling frantically with their bare hands till they were bloodied and sore.

"Deep enough," Scott declared at last, breathing hard.

The pale moon shone on his face and for the first time he looked afraid though he hesitated for only a second before dropping the bag into the hole and nodding for his younger brother to yield the knife and jacket.

"They can't pin nothin' on us 'cos only me and you know 'bout it," Scotty said, as they kicked over the last of the soil. "And I won't dob ya in s'long's ya keep ya mouth shut. But you gotta swear it's our secret and you gotta swear if I ever need ya help diggin' up the stash ya gotta do it."

"Swear, swear!" Kane promised, shaking his head emphatically.

He'd have agreed to anything as long as the knife was gone. He never wanted to see it again. Scotty could keep the fortune, that didn't matter. Kane looked down at his hands covered in the blood and dirt that Scotty said they could wash off easily in the sea. No matter how clean he got his hands, he didn't think it could ever be washed away.

"Blood brothers," Scotty grinned, as the moon slid behind a black cloud.

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Today

Jamie knew he was smart. Heaps smart. He'd been the only kid in kindy who could write his name without a single spelling mistake or back-to-front letter. The kindy teachers said it was a real hard name to write but Jamie could write it all, no worries, you could do things like that when you were smart.

"You know my name's James Daniel Phillips? I can write all my name all by myself."

He'd said it so proudly that day in big school and he waited for Mr Wilson to gasp in admiration (Mum and Dad said Jamie had tickets on himself though they always laughed when they said it).

Mr Wilson looked at him and he even smiled at him. But Jamie wasn't fooled. The guy hadn't liked his Dad. That was the trouble with being smart - you saw too much.

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Yesterday

The minutes ticked by sooo slooowwwly. Face down on the desk, forehead resting on the back of his hand (he was meant to be sleeping) Kane Phillips carefully carved his name with a sharp stone while stealing glances at the clock on the classroom wall.

They hadn't begun learning Time yet but he'd seen the pictures in big bro Scott's homework book. Scotty had used "What Time Does it Say?" to block the draught from their broken bedroom window and Kane had curiously pulled the book back out again and spent a pleasant moonlit night, listening to Mum and Dad's latest drunken blue downstairs, shivering in thin pyjamas while a cold wind whistled round outside and Scotty snored, sketching matchstick men who climbed clocks, played footie inside clocks, and fell to their deaths off clocks, earning himself a bashing from Scotty next day for his artistic endeavours.

But, through looking at the pictures while drawing, he'd figured out o'clocks for himself. Big hand on twelve, little hand on ten...okay, okay, had to be...yep, ten o'clock. Jeez, forever and ever yet till both hands hit twelve, when he could stuff himself full of ...

"Kane." Miss Murray spoke quietly as she gently slipped the stone out of the little boy's hand, but most of the kids hadn't gone to sleep during "ten minute nap" anyway and welcomed the distraction.

Kathy Murray sighed at the badly scraped desk. She loved kids and she'd always wanted to work with them but the Phillips boys were the toughest kids she'd ever had to teach.

"It's very, very naughty to be cutting your name into the desk and you know you should be sleeping," she said, keeping her voice low.

"I fell 'sleep soon as I got into school yesterday!" Kane said indignantly.

"Yes, and remember what we said then? We don't go to sleep when we come to school. We don't go to sleep when we're working. We only go to sleep when it's nap time."

"Yeh, well, I was workin' 'cos I'm gonna do Time like Scotty when I'm bigger."

The teacher blinked, wondering just what was going on inside his head. Some of the staff privately thought Kane and Scott were headed for a life of crime. It wasn't just the fighting, the stealing or the lying, there was a cold, hard edge to both kids. But Kathy Murray wasn't ready to give up on the youngster just yet, he was, after all, only five years old.

"No, Kane," she explained patiently. "You should have been sleeping."

Jeez, what exactly did these guys want? Kane looked heavenwards and kicked the bag under his desk for effect a la Scotty. And that was how Murraymints came to notice both the bag and the Easter eggs that toppled out.

"Oh, ------- hell," Kane said in mild resignation.

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"I found my Dad's name!" Jamie announced.

Soon as he said it, he knew he should've kept quiet. Well, okay, he was smart enough to know that before he spoke but, hey, when you had a Dad as cool as Jamie's you wanted to shout about it. His classmates looked suitably impressed, but Mr Wilson obviously wasn't.

It was tough for teachers, Jamie supposed, they never got to leave school and get a proper job like everyone else. And Mr Wilson was ancient - prob'ly 'bout a hundred - Jamie's Dad had told him he'd been principal here once when he went to school! He wasn't the boss anymore though. He'd gone to teach in another country for years, and now he was back in Summer Bay, he came in just coupla days a week, being too old to work all the time.

"Yes, James, unfortunately that's your father's handiwork alright," Ron Wilson shook his head disapprovingly at the words kane phillips carved clumsily and indelibly into the old desk.

"Nah, I get called Jamie..."

"But it was a long, long time ago when your Daddy did that...uh...Jamie...and I'm sure you're not as silly."

And Mr Wilson smiled again. You had to hand it to the dude, he was trying real hard here. He couldn't help it if the smile wasn't in his eyes.

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"For diggin'." Kane replied patiently, privately thinking it was a silly question. Wasn't it obvious?

He'd spent the whole of recreation using the small brown comb to dig up slugs, worms and snails that he'd carefully put into a box and poured out into the classroom, hoping for school to be cancelled.

"And the money, Kane," Ron Wilson sighed. "Why did you take the money out of my pocket too?"

Kane shrugged. Was the guy a total dill?

"Jeez, why d'ya think? To spend, 'course."

Ron shook his head in despair. The digging had been last week's problem. Today it was the chocolate. The principal had even begun locking his office because of the Phillips boys, but Kane had needed only thirty seconds, thirty seconds while he was in the corridor speaking with a colleague and his secretary was momentarily distracted by a phone call, to locate the Easter eggs purchased for the Easter raffle, pick them up and walk out carrying the whole bagful.

"Kane, we can't go on like this. You know you can't go on being caught stealing, don't you?"

" Yeh," Kane said, gravely nodding agreement, pleasantly surprised that Mr Wilson should understand. "I gotta stop gettin' caught."

"You know I'll have to speak with your Mum and Dad?" And Ron Wilson shivered because the "hell houses", where the Phillips lived, was known to be a neighbourhood ruled by terror.