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‘I don’t see what’s patriotic about “Wogs Rule”,’ Fi interrupted again.
‘But I wrote other things too.’
‘You’re an idiot Homer,’ Kevin grumbled. ‘You never take anything seriously.’
But I remembered Homer’s hand on mine when I talked about the screams of the three soldiers who’d been hit by my home-made shrapnel. And I remembered what he’d said to comfort me. I smiled at him, and winked. I knew what he was trying to do.
‘Anyway, these guys kept getting closer. And when I say guys, I mean a mixture. Like your patrol, there were men and women. About six or seven altogether, we thought. Our biggest worry was that they would decide to use the toilets. I wanted to go into a cubicle and lock the door, so the “Occupied” sign was showing, and I’m sure they would have respected that. But Fi wasn’t so keen, so we got in the cleaner’s cubicle instead, by wriggling under the door. That was one place they still hadn’t looted. There was no room in there and the smell was terrible, but we felt more secure, although really, like I said before, we were crazy. The whole place was a deathtrap. And sure enough, two minutes later these boots came crunching in: three guys, we thought. Two of them used the urinal and the other one headed for the throne. So it was lucky we did hide, because I wouldn’t have liked Fi to be seeing things like that. The guy in the cubicle was right next to us, and geez, if the smell had been bad before, it was shocking now. I think they were trying to save ammunition by gassing us to death. And as for the sound effects ...’
Homer gave an imitation. The little dog, Flip, sitting on Kevin’s lap, pricked up her ears and barked. Even Fi laughed.
‘Lucky we didn’t have Flip with us,’ Homer commented. He continued his story. ‘We didn’t learn much, except that they eat a lot of eggs and cheese. They talked a lot, but no language that I recognised. Not that that means much. All I can say is that they weren’t Greek. But Fi’s the language student – she does about six, don’t you Fi? – and she couldn’t tell who they were.’
I reflected that the night they’d spent together had given Homer more confidence with Fi. He’d found the style, the tone, to use with her. And she seemed to enjoy it. She laughed at his jokes and there was more life and colour in her face when she looked at him. She was losing the coolness she’d had before.
‘Well,’ Homer continued. ‘At last they finished whatever it was they were doing, and we heard them shuffle off. We gave them five minutes and then slithered back out under the cleaner’s door. We could see the soldiers though, from the door, as they disappeared down Glover Street. They were a fu
‘I guess,’ said Corrie, ‘that to invade a country this size they would have had to call up everyone with four limbs.’
‘We didn’t have any ride-on mowers lying around,’ Homer went on, ‘so we tiptoed off in the opposite direction. Nothing much else happened till we got to Fi’s ...’
‘Yes it did,’ Fi cut in. ‘Remember the shadows?’
‘Oh yes,’ Homer said. ‘You tell them. I didn’t see them.’
‘About two blocks from my place,’ Fi began, ‘there’s a milk bar, with a little park behind it. The milk bar had been looted, like all the other shops. We were sneaking across the park when I thought I saw a couple of shadows coming out of the milk bar. Shadows of people, I mean. I don’t mean shadows either; that’s just what I called them, because it was so dark it’s what they looked like. At first I thought they would be soldiers, and I grabbed Homer and we hid behind a tree. When I looked out they were disappearing towards Sherlock Road, but I could see they weren’t soldiers, just from the way they were acting. I called out to them, and they stopped and looked around, then they talked to each other for a minute, then they ran off. That’s all.’
‘I never saw them,’ Homer explained. ‘I nearly died when Fi started yelling out. I thought she must have inhaled too much Dettol in the cleaner’s cupboard. But when you think about it, it’s logical that there’d still be people ru
‘Anyway, we kept plugging up the hill. We got to Fi’s place. It was locked but Fi knew where there was a spare key. And now I know too, which could be handy one day. Fi sent me inside with my orders: to open the curtains and pull up the blinds. The main windows are about a hundred metres from the front door, across this enormous hall, so Fi sat on the steps outside while I crept through this pitch-black room. I tell you, it was pretty spooky. You know how psychic I am, and I could feel a presence in there, a being. I knew I was not alone. I got about half way across and suddenly there was this unearthly scream from above, and the next thing, I was being attacked. Devilish claws were tearing at me and a ghostly voice was howling in my ear. And that’s how we found that Fi’s cat was alive and well and living in the rafters. Fi’s folks have been having the ceiling renovated.’
‘God you’re hopeless Homer.’ Kevin yawned. ‘Get on with it.’
‘Well, I won’t go into the depressing details, like we told you back at Robyn’s there was no one home. But everything was in good nick. I’m sure they’re OK, that everyone’s folks are going to be OK It sounds like they’re all bailed up at the Showground, and once these people have got themselves organised they might start letting them out again. Plenty of food there, anyway. They’ve got my mum’s decorated cake for a start, and that was a prize-wi
There was a bit of a pause, then Corrie asked, ‘Did you have any trouble on the trip back to Robyn’s?’
Homer became serious, and his voice softened ‘Do you know the Andersens?’
‘Is that Mr Andersen who coaches the footy team?’
‘Yes. You know their house? Well, we came back a different way, to avoid the shopping centre, and we passed the Andersens’ place. Or what’s left of it. My mum always says my room looks like a bomb hit it. I know what she means now. I think a bomb did hit the Andersens’ place. And two more houses between there and the railway. There’s been a bit of damage done round that part of town.’ He sat gazing at the table, as though he could still see the wrecked houses. Then he lifted his head and shoulders and kept talking. ‘That’s about it really. We got back to Robyn’s about a quarter to three. We’d been hoping we might see Lee and Robyn on the way, but there was no sign of them. That wait at Robyn’s sure seemed a long time. We were terrified that none of you would turn up, that you’d all been caught. Then we heard the shots from the Showground. Scared the buttons off my shirt. Then more shooting, and finally this explosion, in Racecourse Road. My God, it was like fire and brimstone shooting up in the sky. Would have cracked a five on the Richter scale. It was dramatic. You guys sure know how to put on a fireworks show. But of course, standing there and watching it, but not knowing, that wasn’t so good. I wouldn’t like to do that again.’
He yawned too. ‘I think we should have a sleep. It’s no use sitting here trying to guess what’s happened to Lee and Robyn. We’ll only depress the hell out of ourselves. And we can work out our tactics later. What we need is to keep our energy levels high. If we take it in turns to be on watch, we should be OK here for today. I don’t think these people would have the manpower to search the whole district in a day.’
‘That’s fair enough,’ I said. ‘But we should have an escape route, in case they do come. What you realised when you and Fi were in the cleaner’s cupboard applies here too.’
‘Those little yellow balls,’ Fi said, wrinkling her nose. ‘There must have been a thousand of them in there. Why do boys’ toilets always have those little yellow balls?’