Playing Lady Gaga, Being Nan Pau. Steve Tolbert

Loving French at school. With plans to buy a beret and go to Paris, maybe study the language there, maybe teach English there, maybe this, maybe that, maybe everything.

      Doors opened and closed inside then the house noises fell away again.

      ‘Canberra rang while you were out walking,’ she said.

      Nick jerked his head around. ‘What did they say?’

      ‘He still hasn’t returned.’

      A crow glided over. He watched it until it disappeared. ‘You know, Mum, I even miss him going gorilla on me in the mornings, scratching his ribs, grabbing my ears and handing me a banana.’

      ‘No malice in it. Just big doses of brotherly love.’

      Not quite how he’d read it. But he wouldn’t be going on about it because an idea was forming – one that for the moment replaced his shame. ‘Ban Thai Guesthouse, isn’t it, Mum?’

      ‘Last we heard.’

      ‘Mae Sot, on the border with Burma?’ He said this from habit. They both knew where John had gone. It had been drilled into them.

      ‘Last we heard.’

      ‘I read in my social psychology book once that it’s normal for teenagers to get down on themselves, and when they do they often fantasise about being someone else, or living somewhere else, or both.’

      ‘While performing great heroic deeds no doubt.’

      ‘Yeah, that too.’

      She watched him. ‘Like who and where for instance?’

      He knew the place was super-hot, the dry season now; that there was a medical clinic for Burmese refugees and lots of refugee camps nearby. He answered quickly, ‘As a missing-brother finder in Mae Sot, Thailand.’

      No surprise she lost her smile, her reply almost instant. ‘You’re in fantasyland, Nicholas James Stanish, if you think that’s going to happen. You need to finish growing up first. A good thing school is starting again next week. It’ll get your mind squarely back on reality.’

      Nick thought of Basher Bates – self-proclaimed Derwent Valley Thug-of-the-Year – and his rat pack retards moving out from behind the demountable, chest-bumping and shoving each other, cracking up. They’d flicked away their smokes and headed his way, stooped, heads hooded, hands buried in bag-trouser pockets, their brains too small to go anywhere on their own. ‘Some butt ends for ya ta suck on back there, dickhead,’ one had shouted at him as he’d leant back against the fence trying hard to look relaxed.

      ‘Enjoy your breakfasts, did ya?’

      Basher’s second in command: ‘Fuck off.’

      The pack had chimed in – same words, same volume – front to back in order of rank. All except the Thug-of-the-Year striding out in front of everyone else, like he was leading a parade, pleased with how the morning was progressing. If thuggery were a school subject he’d have earned a scholarship to university by now.

      Hardly the reality Nick was looking forward to, another year of avoiding those drongo drop-kicks; along with the consequences of setting the Derwent Valley alight: coppers, fire investigation authorities, a magistrate, the Ashley Youth Detention Centre. ‘What about the reality of not having a place of our own anymore, of not hearing from John for … for how long?’

      ‘Four weeks, three days.’

      ‘Yeah, that long. Someone has to go up there and find out what’s happened to him, Mum.’ He looked beseechingly at her. ‘You and Dad can’t. You’ve got too much going on here. So that leaves me. This is what I want, Mum – not to go back to school just yet, but to go up and find John, or at least try to.’

      ‘Whoa.’ She raised her hands as if to stop him from leaving that moment. ‘Nicholas James, the last thing this family needs right now is another son gone missing.’

      ‘Hardly missing, Mum. There’re internet cafes up there and I’ll have my laptop, so I’ll keep in contact – promise. And it makes sense for me to go. And it’s not like the school will go into mourning over my absence. Geez, Mum, the teachers will celebrate. It’ll be like Christmas holidays all over again.’

      ‘Don’t exaggerate. You just weren’t at your best last term.’

      ‘But I will be this term after I get back. I’ll really slog, Mum, and catch up on all my missed schoolwork.’ In Ashley? ‘I will – promise.’

      ‘The answer’s no.’

      For reasons he obviously couldn’t explain to her, he was desperate to get away, either to Mae Sot or somewhere, anywhere. ‘What do you mean no?’ Despite saying this, he understood her stunned look. But why shouldn’t he go up there? He was old enough – just. ‘I’ve got the money, and it’s not like I’m asking you to let me climb Mount Everest or go sailing solo around the world. I’ve travelled. I’ve got a passport. I’ve been to Bali, Melbourne, the Gold Coast. I can do Thailand too, no worries – I know I can, I know it. Please let me go.’

      She jumped up as if bull-ant bitten. ‘No way,’ she answered, escaping back into the house.

      A minute or so later his dad came out and sat down, big hands gripping his knees. He scanned the trees, that drifty ‘You care for the land and it’ll care for you’ look on his face.

      ‘Your mother mentioned you’re keen to go find your brother,’ he said finally.

      ‘Yeah, Dad, I am.’

      ‘I read an article last weekend in The Mercury that pretty well summed up my view on travelling anywhere north of Hobart.’

      Nick prepared himself for the ‘Mum’s totally right’ lecture.

      ‘It went on about how travel is mostly about eating and drinking and waiting in great long lines worrying about being late somewhere or losing things or getting sick. I reckon I could’ve written the article. Point is, there’ll be nothing like a tropical paradise waiting for you up there in John-country. You know that, don’t ya?’

      Stunned, Nick stared at his father’s face. ‘Yeah, Dad, I do.’

      ‘Then we’d better work out what we’re going to say to your mother.’

      10

      Thailand.

      Sitting next to Jake ‘from Cronulla by way of Broken Hill’ made it near impossible for Nick to keep to himself. And he imagined what his family would say about the bloke if they were on the bus. His mum: ‘He’s like a car accident – you know you shouldn’t watch, but it’s hard to look away.’ Ella: ‘What a funny man.’ His dad: ‘Voice box the size of a silo.’ John: ‘Could talk underwater, like someone else we know.’ Strange how much Nick missed his family now; had done since leaving Hobart.

      ‘Grow a crop of Thailand’s best out there, don’tcha reckon, dude?’

      ‘Yeah, s’pose you could,’ Nick said, having no idea what ‘Thailand’s best’ was.

      Jake scrutinised him up and down as if calculating his weight and height.

      ‘What?’ Nick asked of the look.

      ‘Like, when I call ya “dude”, I’m not like referrin’ ta ya as a hundred per cent dude. Ya look a bit young and innocent to be that. I mean more a lesser dude. Maybe fifty per cent. Ya right with that?’

      A hundred per cent weirdo, Nick thought, before answering, ‘Yeah, fine.’

      ‘Good man.’ For bonding purposes, Nick presumed, Jake gave him a lesser-dude punch to the shoulder. ‘But I’ll say this, dude. I’m likin’ your company.’

      ‘Awesome.’ Awesome if they could get