After they all left, Lucas and I started going to St. Arnaud to visit my grandparents, Howie and Craig.
Mandy was with Craig at this point and they had a house in town.
Lucy was pregnant with 8 pups when we started going around to Howies place to hang out.
After she had them, we would take all the pups plus Lucy over there still. 1 pup died and it was the only female. All the other pups were male.
Back when Leana lived with me, we had over 20 cats. 2 were mine, Allie and Pippin. Allie I've had since we had her as a kitten when I was 17. Pippin I got when I met a lady through Leana who was a cat foster carer.
The lady had over 25 ish cats that she foster. For those who don't know, when you foster a cat, you're not allowed to let them outside in case the person who adopts the cats, wants them to be inside only. The lady had made an outdoor enclosure though, so they weren't technically outside. The cats al lived inside most of the time though.
Pippin was a kitten still and he basically adopted me. He would come up to me every time I visited, so I couldn't not adopt him.
Since Leana was foster carer as well, that's how we ended up with so many cats. Most of them were mothers with kittens and nobody wanted to foster families; because of this, I got these connections as well.
When the pups grew a little more, I managed to rehome a few and then give them over to rescue members to rehome. I decided to rehome Lucy since she had way more energy than I could handle. I told the rescue people to rehome her to a family with young kids, because she would thrive so well with them. The other pups and Lucy were rehomed very quickly apparently and Lucy was rehomed with a young family from what I was told.
I kept one of the pups, Belz, because he was so chill.
I would stay with Craig and Mandy sometimes, and they had a jack russell cross named Spartan. He didn't really like people too much and he would bite people. Lucas encouraged it by kicking him every time he saw Spartan. I'm surprised neither Craig or Mandy punched him in the face for that. They also had a chuiahua cross named Missy Moo.
Once when I stayed at their house, it was just me staying there, and Spartan had become comfortable enough with me that he would sleep on my made up bed in the loungeroom and let me pat him. He is a genuine sook who loves cuddles.
Craig came and went to walk passed but smacked my butt and lay down next to me to talk to me about Spartan. I can't remember exactly, but I think it was something to the effect of Spartan finally let me touch him or something.
As for the smacking my butt part...Look man, I don't know. It made me jump, but as far as I'm aware, he didn't mean anything weird by it. Stuff like that was normal in my family; even Chris would make comments about my body, particularly my butt, so it didn't really cross my mind too think too much about it until later on.
At one point, Rob started living with Howie again, which I told him was a terrible idea. Howies place was a 2 bedroom flat, but it still wouldn't given them space from each other.
I remember 5 of us going to Bendigo to get a caravan to put in the driveway so they would have their own space. Me, Rob, Mandy, Howie and Lucas. Mandy, Rob and Howie were all drinking of course.
When we got to the place that was selling the caravan, the cops turned up just as we pulled up, and they searched the caravan, finding bags of weed.
We didn't really get questioned because we were there just for the caravan. Needless to say, we left without the caravan.
Mandy and Craig used to fight a lot when they would drink and it would be physical on both sides from what I was told, so Mandy would stay with us sometimes. Sometimes it was for the night and at one point she was staying with us for about 3 weeks.
One day, it was a couple of days before Howies birthday and Mandy was staying. She asked me if she could go to his house to have a couple of drinks with him.
I told her that she was an adult and could do what she wanted, but she wanted to use my car since hers was unreliable. She'd only had 1 or 2 cans and she was on her full licence which here means she can legally drive. I said she could as long as she told me when she'd be back since my door was a deadlock door; it would only open if the keys were in it.
She agreed and she left. She never messaged me or called, so I just closed the door and went to bed.
3am the next morning I get a call from Bruce saying: Your brother and your dad have had a blue, so I'm bringing Rob to you.
That was it and he hung up. About 5 or so minutes later, Rob called me crying and apologizing. I asked why. His exact words were: Dad tried to kill me.
I asked him what happened, and it's unclear what started it, but they ended up outside on the driveway, hitting and punching each other. Some how, Howie had pulled the mailbox out of the ground and hit Rob over the head with it, got him on the ground and tried to gouge his eyes out. Mandy was there the whole time egging Howie on from what I was told.
The neighbour, Nez, had come out at one point and yelled at Howie to get off Rob so he chased her inside and dragged her around by her hair, in her own house.
Somehow, Rob knocked Howie out but kept kicking him thinking it keep him, but he got back up and went inside to get his machete. He once bragged about making it years ago; he also had shown us a handgun that he somehow got, and put it in his freezer.
Howie chased Rob from his house to into town, but Rob wasn't sure when he stopped chasing him. That's when he called Bruce, then called me, I'm assuming.
I told him to hang up and wait for Bruce, but stand in the trees in case Howie goes looking for him.
After that, I called the cops straight away. I was so angry that I wish I had been there (only for a second) just so I could hit my own father.
I remember going into the kitchen to sit at the table while I was on the phone. I can't remember when, but Lucas came in and I had to explain to him what was happening, then some time after that Bruce got there with Rob. I walked out the front and watched as Rob got out of the car and walk off down the road. Bruce came and sat on the verandah, saying: He should have known better than to provoke Howie.
I turned around and looked at Bruce, saying: Rob is 18. You expect shit like that from him. Howie is 40; he should know better.
That comment shut Bruce up.
Somehow I ended up in the kitchen again, and that's when Mandy rocked up, maggoted. Bruce left, leaving us to deal with the shit. I didn't even see him leave.
Obviously, I called the cops again.
I stayed in the kitchen, on the phone so I didn't see most of what happened and only heard parts. I mostly just heard yelling.
Rob asked if I wanted Mandy inside because she wanted her stuff but I said no. Not until she calmed down, so Rob told her that. She didn't like it and made more commotion.
At some point, Rob came running into the kitchen yelling that he was going to kill Mandy and even tried to get a knife. I stood in front of the sink, blocking both the dish rack and the drawer, while Lucas tried pulling him away.
The phone was still up to my ear and the operator could hear everything.
Rob eventually went back out to the lounge room and not long after I heard a smash.
All I remember doing is closing my eyes and instantly knowing what happened.
I walked out to the lounge room doorway and seeing the front window smashed. Mandy had put her fist through it.
All I did was sigh and told the operator to send an ambulance as well.
At about 5 or 6am, that's when the cop finally arrived. Yup, only one turned up. After 3 hours.
He definitely didn't want to be there and he wasn't shy about showing it. He even told Rob off for swearing too much, and they nearly got into an argument over it until I called him out saying that considering the situation we should all be acting like adults.
The ambo turned up 5 minutes later. They would have been there earlier, but they're not supposed to go to dangerous situations before the cops get there.
They were also a lot nicer than the cop. We forgot that the ambulance was coming, so Rob ended up using them instead. Lucas went to work at some point, and I was stuck with the cop. I even had to point out the broken glass and blood to him because he wasn't even going to take a sample.
Rob was only at the hospital for a few hours, and I had to ask the neighbour to drive me to pick him up.
I found out later Rob took my car for a joyride, that Howie or Mandy tried to light my car on fire, and Howie put some of Robs stuff in his driveway and tried to make a bonfire out of it.
Nobody was charged with anything, and nothing was done about that whole thing. Howie had to go to court for attempted murder or assault and arson. Rob never went, thinking that it'd "show him" and "not give him the satisfaction" but it was dropped because he didn't go.
Side story: I can't remember if I wrote it earlier. Once me, Rob, Lucas and Mandy were at Howies (before all that happened) and Mandy was, once again, drunk. She got upset over something and tried to leave but the boys tried to stop her. I stayed inside, away from the drama.
Howie came back in and sat down, saying: Mandys dead.
I said: What?
He just kept repeating that Mandys dead.
I got up and went outside and Mandy was stuck between her car and the side of the house.
Lucas and Rob were trying get the car off her but it was a 2 ton 4wd. I got my phone out and called 000, then went to the end of the driveway to flag down the CFA or SES. Whichever got there first.
Almost the whole street came out of their houses to see what was happening because they could hear Mandy screaming.
One person I asked to go down to the corner to watch for flashing lights, saying I'll stay in the driveway so they know where to go.
There was a cop car that came around the corner, no flashing lights, and pulled up to ask what was going on but all I could do was point down the driveway.
I watched them trot down the driveway and barely registered them reaching for their guns, but I think the CFA turned up not long after. I can't remember how long.
I think both CFA and SES turned up because they had to remove part of the fence to be able to take the car out safely.
The ambulance took Mandy and made sure she was ok. They made her stay overnight I think, but she came back to Howies the next day and we all had a laugh about it. Especially the part where the cops were going to take out their guns because they thought Howie stabbed someone. Again.
That's not even a joke. His nickname was Stabby to some people and one of his mates even made him a facebook years ago, and made the password: Stabby Stabbington
After that whole incident with Rob and Howie, Rob came to live with us and I stopped talking to Howie. At some point, Howies best mate, Bobby Knoll, messaged me on facebook basically having a go at me for "taking Robs side".
I told him I wasn't even there, and he basically blamed me and threatened me, but I told him I wasn't scared of him. He wasn't happy when I said that. There was a whole argument that I can't remember that I think ended in me blocking him.
And side note, I'm still barely 20 at this point...I think I turned 20 literally 2 weeks prior.