1
Kellyanne opened the car door and crawled into my bedroom. Her face was puffy and pale and fuzzed-over. She just came in and said: “Ashmol, Pobby and Dingan are maybe-dead.” That’s how she said it.
“Good,” I said. “Perhaps you’ll grow up now and stop being such a fruit loop.”
Tears started sliding down her face. But I wasn’t feeling any sympathy, and neither would you if you’d grown up with Pobby and Dingan.
“Pobby and Dingan aren’t dead,” I said, hiding my anger in a swig from my can of Mello Yello. “They never existed. Things that never existed can’t be dead. Right?”
Kellyanne glared at me through tears the way she did the time I slammed the door of the ute in Dingan’s face or the time I walked over to where Pobby was supposed to be sitting and punched the air and kicked the air in the head to show Kellyanne that Pobby was a figment of her imaginings. I don’t know how many times I had sat at the dinner table saying: “Mum, why do you have to set places for Pobby and Dingan? They aren’t even real.” She put food out for them too. She said they were quieter and better behaved than me and deserved the grub.
“They ain’t exactly good conversationists, but,” I would say.
And at other times when Kellyanne held out Pobby and Dingan were real I would just sit there saying, “Are not. Are not. Are not,” until she got bored of saying, “Are. Are. Are,” and went running out screaming with her hands over her ears.
And many times I’ve wanted to kill Pobby and Dingan, I don’t mind saying it.
My dad would come back from the opal mines covered in dust, his beard like the back end of a dog that’s shat all over its tail. He would be saying: “Ashmol, I sensed it today! Tomorrow we’ll be on opal, son, and we’ll be bloody millionaires! I can feel those bewdies sitting there in the drives, staring back at me. Checking me out. Waiting. They’re red-on-blacks, Ashmol, I’ll bet you anything! There’s rumours going that Lucky Jes has taken out a million-dollar stone and a fossilized mammoth tooth with sun-flash in it. We’re close, boy. Close. There’s definitely something in that earth with the name Williamson on it!”
“Fairdinkum?”
His excitement always caught ahold of me. I would get a tingle down my neck and I would sit there with my ears pricking up like a hound’s, my tongue hanging out, watching my dad’s eyes darting around in his head. They were strange eyes—blue and green and with a flicker of gold in them. “Eyes like opals,” my mum once said with a sigh, “only a little easier to find.”
Well, while Dad was pacing around the yard brushing himself off a bit and swigging from a stubby of V.B., Kellyanne would say, “Dad, be careful! You almost trod on Pobby with your fat feet! Watch what you’re doing!” But Dad would be too excited to do anything but say: “Aw, sorry, princess. Did I tread on your fairy-friends?” That was Dad. Me and him never took Pobby and Dingan seriously one bit.
But there were others who did. The older, softer sort of folks in Lightning Ridge had sort of taken to Pobby and Dingan. They had totally given up throwing Kellyanne funny looks and teasing her about them. Now when she walked down Opal Street, some of the old-timers would stop and shout: “G-day, Kellyanne, g-day, Pobby, and how’s Miss Dingan doin’ today?” It made you want to be sick all over the place. Lightning Ridge was full of flaming crackpots as far as I could see. It was like the sun had burnt out their brains. Now, I was as much a rockhound as the next kid, but I wasn’t crazy enough to talk to imaginary friends, I’ll tell you that for nothing. But one time Ernie Finch let Kellyanne enter Dingan in for the Opal Princess competition because Kellyanne had a cold. I’m not kidding. And the judges voted Dingan third place, and Nils O’Reiordan from the newspaper came and took photographs of Kellyanne with her arm around Dingan’s invisible
Kellyanne opened the car door and crawled into my bedroom. Her face was puffy and pale and fuzzed-over. She just came in and said: “Ashmol, Pobby and Dingan are maybe-dead.” That’s how she said it.
“Good,” I said. “Perhaps you’ll grow up now and stop being such a fruit loop.”
Tears started sliding down her face. But I wasn’t feeling any sympathy, and neither would you if you’d grown up with Pobby and Dingan.
“Pobby and Dingan aren’t dead,” I said, hiding my anger in a swig from my can of Mello Yello. “They never existed. Things that never existed can’t be dead. Right?”
Kellyanne glared at me through tears the way she did the time I slammed the door of the ute in Dingan’s face or the time I walked over to where Pobby was supposed to be sitting and punched the air and kicked the air in the head to show Kellyanne that Pobby was a figment of her imaginings. I don’t know how many times I had sat at the dinner table saying: “Mum, why do you have to set places for Pobby and Dingan? They aren’t even real.” She put food out for them too. She said they were quieter and better behaved than me and deserved the grub.
“They ain’t exactly good conversationists, but,” I would say.
And at other times when Kellyanne held out Pobby and Dingan were real I would just sit there saying, “Are not. Are not. Are not,” until she got bored of saying, “Are. Are. Are,” and went running out screaming with her hands over her ears.
And many times I’ve wanted to kill Pobby and Dingan, I don’t mind saying it.
My dad would come back from the opal mines covered in dust, his beard like the back end of a dog that’s shat all over its tail. He would be saying: “Ashmol, I sensed it today! Tomorrow we’ll be on opal, son, and we’ll be bloody millionaires! I can feel those bewdies sitting there in the drives, staring back at me. Checking me out. Waiting. They’re red-on-blacks, Ashmol, I’ll bet you anything! There’s rumours going that Lucky Jes has taken out a million-dollar stone and a fossilized mammoth tooth with sun-flash in it. We’re close, boy. Close. There’s definitely something in that earth with the name Williamson on it!”
“Fairdinkum?”
His excitement always caught ahold of me. I would get a tingle down my neck and I would sit there with my ears pricking up like a hound’s, my tongue hanging out, watching my dad’s eyes darting around in his head. They were strange eyes—blue and green and with a flicker of gold in them. “Eyes like opals,” my mum once said with a sigh, “only a little easier to find.”
Well, while Dad was pacing around the yard brushing himself off a bit and swigging from a stubby of V.B., Kellyanne would say, “Dad, be careful! You almost trod on Pobby with your fat feet! Watch what you’re doing!” But Dad would be too excited to do anything but say: “Aw, sorry, princess. Did I tread on your fairy-friends?” That was Dad. Me and him never took Pobby and Dingan seriously one bit.
But there were others who did. The older, softer sort of folks in Lightning Ridge had sort of taken to Pobby and Dingan. They had totally given up throwing Kellyanne funny looks and teasing her about them. Now when she walked down Opal Street, some of the old-timers would stop and shout: “G-day, Kellyanne, g-day, Pobby, and how’s Miss Dingan doin’ today?” It made you want to be sick all over the place. Lightning Ridge was full of flaming crackpots as far as I could see. It was like the sun had burnt out their brains. Now, I was as much a rockhound as the next kid, but I wasn’t crazy enough to talk to imaginary friends, I’ll tell you that for nothing. But one time Ernie Finch let Kellyanne enter Dingan in for the Opal Princess competition because Kellyanne had a cold. I’m not kidding. And the judges voted Dingan third place, and Nils O’Reiordan from the newspaper came and took photographs of Kellyanne with her arm around Dingan’s invisible
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