CHAPTER 16

"What the hell d'ya think ya doin'?"

Kane steeled himself. Scott, inevitably noticing the lessening of the hail of missiles and the absence of his second in command running alongside him and, having established that his younger brother had not suddenly carked it, broken a leg, been carried off by a giant seagull or found himself abducted by aliens, sought immediate answers.

"I ain't throwin' no more, Scotty," Kane replied, blowing up a long slow breath like he was suddenly hot, and gazing evenly back though he was trembling inside, aware it was never a good idea to cross Scotty.

It was the stone that cut into the freak's cheek that did it. At first it had been an overwhelming relief to feel all the anger and fear of what happened at home leaving him when he hurled the pebbles. But then one of the stones, one that he threw, hit its target so perfectly that Scotty breathlessly roared "Ripper!" and punched the air. It had struck her square on the face, and a crooked red line appeared as though somebody had suddenly painted it across her cheek, and she was looking back at them both with the same frightened look in her eyes like he'd seen his Ma look at his Dad heaps of times. And when he stopped dead, Milko, Deefa and Fred, they'd all already stopped dead too, and they were staring at him like they didn't like him very much.

"Oh, so you ain't, ain'cha?"

He shook his head, backing away, half glad, half sad, that the weirdo was escaping. If she got away, good on her, but if she got away that meant Kane got Scott's undivided attention.

"We had a deal, Scotty. We drowned Milko if she lagged..." Milko shot him a filthy look. "Well, it was what we said, mate." He shrugged to Milko. "But she didn't lag, Scotty and...I'm goin' home!" He added abruptly, seizing his chance, as did Milko, Deefa and Fred.

But, to his amazement, Scotty didn't follow. Even more strangely, when, panting from running over the sand dunes - though it was a longer route home it was a safer one because Scott, having lately taken up smoking, got out of breath running uphill - Kane chanced looking downwards, he could've sworn Scotty was grinning. In fact, Scott raised one arm and, after first making a rude gesture, leisurely waved as though in brotherly love.

"He's weird," Milko remarked, busy swapping hats just as Sally the freak had told the other kids he liked to do. Fred the dragon was now sporting a green hat that matched his colouring while Deefa the dog was wearing Milko's recently abandoned red hat and Milko himself was pulling a fetching blue number down on his head.

"Ye-eh," Kane agreed, vaguely wondering where Milko had got all the hats from. Alarm bells were ringing in his head at Scotty's strange behaviour. But he shut them out. He was tired. Hungry and thirsty. All he wanted was to get home and curl up and rest.

"Drongo!" Scott muttered.
Well, he'd done his bit. He'd got his sooky bro out the house where Dad was tanked up and in a bashing mood and if Kane insisted on going back there, well, ---- him, let him get bashed. And something else had taken his interest anyway. The loony freak may have gotten away, but in her rush she'd dropped the freaky-looking doll that she'd been talking to. Scott grinned. She was bound to come back looking for the ugly thing. And she was going to find it, he decided, torn limb from limb and scattered far and wide across the beach...

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"Lynn! Lynn, wake up! Sally's gone! We have to go look for her!" Carly gulped back a sob as she desperately shook the limp, white figure and yet again tried to get her to stand. She was hoarse from shouting for Sally and her hair, so carefully styled that morning, had tumbled all over her face as she ran frantically back and forth. "Oh, God, Lynn, I need someone! How do I do this praying business? God, Buddha, Muhammad, are any of you ------- bigwig guys listening? Do you ever ------- listen?"

She knew she was rambling drunkenly as she shouted up at the cloud-streaked skies, but she couldn't help it. It was all God's fault anyway for allowing Lynn to lead the sheltered existence she had. If Lynn hadn't been into all that stupid God stuff, Carly wouldn't have had to wind her up about it and Lynn wouldn't have been so upset she drank so much when, all because of God and going to church, she had never done any of the normal teenage stuff like trying out alcohol.

"Hey, it'll be okay." A shadow suddenly fell across the sand.

The guy who stooped down beside her was vaguely familiar and seriously hot. Floppy fair hair, beautiful grey eyes, a voice that sent tingles down Carly's spine when it brushed against her ear. But for once she had more important things on her mind than making good impressions with seriously hot guys.

"It's not God's fault. It's my fault," she said, falling drunkenly against his chest, staining his shirt with lipstick, mascara and tears, but not caring. "And it's worse. It's heaps, heaps worse. Sally's run off and that's my fault too."

"Sally...?"

"My kid sister. I yelled at her and she ran off." Carly clung to him and wept uncontrollably now.

The strangely familiar guy with the beautiful eyes and the voice that sent tingles down her spine gently disentangled her hands from his neck so that he could better push the unconscious Lynn on to her side. "Look, I've done first aid. Don't try and walk her round. It's the wrong thing to do. You have to keep her in the recovery position in case she's sick again so's she doesn't choke, okay? I'm going for help. And, don't worry, Carly," he added as he scrambled up. "It'll all be okay, I promise. I'll tell them about Sally too."

Carly jumped. "How come you know my name?"
"I asked someone first time I saw you!" He was already on his way and he had to shout back over the sea breezes so she could hear. "Don't you remember? I'm Zammo!"

"But I don't know any Zammo," Carly hiccuped to herself and Lynn, the tears steadily trickling down her face and falling off the end of her chin. "And I want Sally back. Please, God, Buddha, Mohammed, I don't care which of you guys does the magic spell, I promise I'll never drink again if you make Lynn better and bring little Sally back."

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"No way! You for real? What a...!" Marcus grinned. "No, I ain't gonna say it again, man. Jerk, maybe. But I ain't gonna say drongo!"

Like he'd told Steven, he couldn't get his head round how anyone could give up a ready-made family to come back to the Home. Having lived in three different continents, Marcus yearned to belong somewhere, anywhere. His folks had emigrated from the UK to the States when he was six and a few months ago his Dad's high-powered job brought the family to Australia. Then tragedy had struck with a double whammy when his father died of unexpected complications during a routine operation and weeks later his mother suffered a massive stroke that had left her semi-paralysed. She was making good progress in therapy, learning to walk and talk again, but the insurance money was being eaten up by medical bills and it would be a while yet before she was ready to come out of hospital.

Steven laughed at his friend's comment, unoffended. Marcus had said drongo in disbelief at least three times already, in the peculiar mix of Northern English slang he'd picked up from his parents, and the American and Australian idioms he'd picked up himself. The same age as Steven, he was however broader and a good head taller.

Feeling the heat, he'd tied his sweatshirt around his waist while they took a break from the random footie game they and a few mates had begun on the beach and, whether he realised it or not, his black skin was glistening in the evening sunlight. But the chicks they were chatting with had definitely noticed and they looked suitably impressed. And a pang of jealousy suddenly shot through Steven.

In the old days, it had been Steven who captained footie and rugby teams, Steven who everyone wanted to hang with, Steven who got all the chicks' attention. But things had changed. Moved on. Okay, yeh, he was still a good looking, popular enough guy and the chicks were still interested, but...

He searched for how things were now and suddenly the words rushed at him. Second best. He'd never been second best in his life before. Second best was a whole new experience for Steven Matheson.

And, though there were still often times when he could lose himself with a gang of mates like he always used to, there were equally times now too when he would go off into a world of his own. When he looked in the mirror these days, a stranger stared back at him. Haunted eyes that had seen, and cheered, the fire that burnt his parents to death. The image of those leaping flames rarely left his mind. And, even when it did, there was always something to pull him back. Like now.

Out across the sea the red globe of the sun was bedding down for the night and the echoes of his and his mates' drunken cheers and the sparks that lit the sky like fireworks filtered mockingly back into his memory.

"You okay?" A frown creased Marcus's brow as he picked up the football again. "I was just goofing around, man. Ya know?"

"Yeh, yeh, I know. I'm cool." Steven shook himself and untwisted the top off the plastic bottle to take a swig of apple-and-blackberry flavoured mineral water.

"Sound!" Marcus thumped Steven's arm and grinned again. "Megan has the hots for you, mate!"

"You reckon?" Steven grinned back and glanced hopefully across at the pretty red-head, who immediately blushed and giggled at her friends.

But, try as he might, Steven didn't fit in at the Home anymore either. Only ten days later, to Tom and Pippa's delight, he returned to the Fletchers. Where everyone belonged but Steven.

Frank, the eldest and most responsible. With his mind for intricate detail, Steven could understand complicated DIY leaflets and follow them slowly, step by step, but Frank, though he could barely even spell some of the words, would simply ignore instructions, throw the papers in the garbo and have things assembled in minutes. Frank was Tom's right hand man, sharing the same love of joinery as his foster father and each was never happier than when building or repairing something or other, whistling away while surrounded by wood chippings, dust-sheets, hammers and nails.

Then there was Carly. Strikingly beautiful, dramatic and impulsive, eldest sister, boy mad, bang up to date with the latest fashions and music, adored by Lynn and Sally, especially Lynn, who was always borrowing Carly's clothes and make-up; Pippa's confidant when she needed advice about the two younger girls. And Lynn, middle sister, Sally's protector, known for always coming up with mad ideas she really thought could happen (Frank, it says here Kylie Minogue can't make The Saturday Night Show. You could write and tell them your band'll sing on it instead!/ Pippa, you know we need more money? Why don't we keep sheep?) often getting in everyone's way (Well, it's raining so why can't I practice my dance steps in the kitchen?) and often teased about her terrible singing and incredible naivety, but taking it all in her good-natured stride.

And Sally. Youngest and most timid, the one everybody wanted to spoil and look after and who, as the youngest and most spoilt, should have been staking her claim too as the bossiest and generally making a nuisance of herself like, in any family, the youngest was traditionally supposed to do. Except Sally was far, far too lost in Sally's world of Milko and counting and hand-washing rituals. But still the youngest for all that. Her place in the family secured.

And then Steven. Expected to blitz his way through exams, destined for Uni and a glittering career as a doctor or scientist or lawyer. Nobody else, occasionally not even his maths tutor, could understand some of the mathematical theories that Steven found so easy. But nobody understood Steven. Not even Steven himself.

Nobody knew the guilt he carried over the death of his Mum and Dad, nobody knew of his terror of fire. Because he smiled and everyone believed Steven was fine and Steven couldn't let anyone see him cry. In many ways he was as distant as little Sally.

The tune that had been playing in his heart for so long, not content till it transferred itself to guitar and set itself free on the summer air...he'd never know what that came from. All he knew was that it reached some deep, hidden part of himself, scalded his heart and stole away his tears.

He swung the strap of the guitar case over his shoulder and jumped back over the rock-pool, kicking up a cloud of sand and hail of pebbles, scattering the gulls, who squawked in noisy protest. Suddenly realising he'd been gone much longer than he intended and was meant to have met Lance at Summer Bay Town Hall half an hour ago, he picked up speed across the rough terrain and down through a large mass of slippery stones. Regaining his balance, he stopped dead in his tracks when he saw someone was standing there waiting there for him.

"I gave you enough warnings about taking my guitar, Einstein..." Frank's hostility was so fierce that it almost crackled with heat.

Like his Dad Frankie, when red hot anger burned through Frank it clouded all reason. He clenched a fist and hit his palm hard. Ready to kill...

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Just in case anyone was wondering why Zammo didn't have a mobile phone to call for help, this is set in 1988 when H&A began and, as far as I can remember, when mobiles weren't generally around.