Steel Pelicans Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  Part One

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Part Two

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Part Three

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Part One

  Wollongong

  Chapter 1

  As always, the view from Hill 60 was fantastic. Looking north I could see across Port Kembla to the centre of Wollongong and a little further up the coast until the haze merged sea and hills into one. Somewhere up there were the southern suburbs of Sydney, although most likely they were beyond the horizon.

  The view to the south was equally spectacular, with a long, curving golden beach backed by the near vertical hills of the Illawarra escarpment. In the foreground, a group of surfers floated, waiting for the swells that could be seen arcing across the bay.

  Back then, that was my world. The one I would not have swapped for anything. I lived close enough to the beach to be able to carry my surfboard down to the water whenever the swell was up. The sun shone lots of the time, and yet it still rained often enough to keep the desert on the other side of the escarpment. And of course it was also the place where my friends of that time lived.

  The best of those was Dean Steele and he was the reason I was standing on Hill 60 acting as lookout. I would have preferred to be out surfing, but Dean wanted to test a new firework that he’d made. That’s the first thing to know about Dean: he was obsessed with fireworks, especially the exploding kind. In Australia an obsession like that could be frustrating, because the sale of fireworks is banned. So Dean made his own. That didn’t make them any more legal; it just meant he had to be very careful when he let them off. Hence my job as lookout.

  Normally he’d explode them in a culvert down by the shore, but Dean claimed this was a new and better model, one that needed a special place. So, despite my disagreement, I was up on Hill 60 looking for spies, while Dean and the others were setting things up in the tunnels below. So far, the only spies I’d seen were the pelicans riding the updraft in the afternoon breeze.

  During World War Two, Hill 60 had been the home of the guns that had protected Port Kembla against attack from the Japanese or the Germans. Neither came, and the guns had long been removed, leaving a few concrete buildings and a honeycomb of tunnels. Dean reckoned it was the perfect place to test his latest explosive. Usually his fireworks were made from matches and scrapings from the sides of their boxes. This one, however, had a ‘special ingredient’. One that in Dean’s words would ‘make the explosion nuclear’.

  Mark and Leo from school were there to witness the event. That was another thing I’d disagreed with. Up until then, our fireworks had been a secret between the two of us. Now others were involved and it wouldn’t be long before the whole school knew, increasing the risk of it getting back to my family. I tried not to think of what would happen if Dad ever found out.

  ‘We’re ready!’

  I jumped and spun around. It was Mark.

  ‘Is it all clear?’ he asked.

  ‘Yeah,’ I replied, taking one last look around. ‘It’s clear.’

  Once we’d rejoined the others, Dean took charge, leading the way down a set of steps near the base of the lookout. At the bottom was a metal door that had been opened enough for us to squeeze through. Beyond was the tunnel.

  The graffiti on the walls indicated that others had been there before, although not recently: the paint was peeling and the broken bottles littering the floor were covered in dust. The air smelled of decay with a touch of death.

  ‘We found a dead rat,’ said Leo. ‘We’re going to blow it up.’

  The firework was sitting on a scooped-up pile of dirt twenty metres along the tunnel. It was a length of cardboard tubing wrapped with lots of duct tape. A fuse poked out of a hole at one end. Lying beside the tube was the dead rat.

  Dean’s plan was that we would light the fuse, retreat to the end of the tunnel, close the door so we were shut in, and then wait for the explosion. I didn’t like the plan, but Dean had called me a wuss every time I’d raised an objection, so in the end I’d kept quiet. Now that it was about to happen, my fears returned.

  ‘Anyone else want to light it?’ asked Dean, holding out a cigarette lighter. Nobody did.

  ‘OK, here goes.’

  The lighter flared and a moment later the fuse was hissing. Leo and Mark were already racing back to the door. I took my time, knowing that the fuse should last almost a minute. Dean stood watching it burn for a while before sauntering along the tunnel to join the others. He pulled the door closed.

  Now, the only light came from a thin crack in the door and the burning fuse. It was too dim for me to see the others, but I could tell from their breathing that they were scared. Except for Dean who was quietly counting down from twenty.

  When he got to seven, the glow from the fuse disappeared. It was now burning in the tube, which meant it would explode at any moment. I flattened myself against the concrete wall and tensed.

  Dean continued counting. ‘… five, four, three, two, and one — and now!’

  We waited.

  And waited.

  ‘What’s the problem?’ asked Mark, his voice showing signs of relief.

  ‘Just wait,’ hissed Dean.

  This time we waited until Dean himself had to admit that something was wrong.

  ‘The fuse must have gone out,’ he said.

  ‘Have you got another?’ asked Leo.

  ‘No! We’ll re-light this one.’ Dean flicked the lighter and turned to me. ‘Here, you do it.’

  I would have refused, except once again I’d be called a wuss. With a sigh I took the lighter and moved down the tunnel.

  The problem was obvious. The tube had rolled over and the fuse had petered out in the dust. Or that’s what I thought, until I uncovered it and found that it was still burning. There were only millimetres left. It flared brightly as the hissing moved into the tube.

  I jumped back, my fear now taking control. The lighter fell, plunging the tunnel into darkness. Instead of trying to find it, I ran. That was my first mistake. I’d only taken a few steps when my ankle twisted on a bottle and I fell.

  The second mistake?

  Instead of scrambling along on my hands and knees, I looked back at the tube — just a peek to see if I had enough time to get away.

  I didn’t.

  The bomb exploded as I was looking at it.

  First came the flash, but only by milliseconds before the explosion hit, blasting my head back against the floor. Then there seemed to be nothing except for the ringing in my ears and the light that continued to be blinding even though my eyes were tightly closed.

  ‘Pete!’ yelled Dean. ‘Are you all right?’

  Am I? I wondered. Am I all right?

  I sat up and raised my hands to my face. I felt flesh. Wet, dripping flesh, as if the skin had been stripped completely away to leave only the torn tissue beneath. Some of it dropped off into my hands. While I couldn’t see it, I knew what it was. The sm
ell gave it away. It was the stench of death. The stink of rotting rat’s gut. It had been blasted into my face with such force that it seemed to be part of my body.

  The stuff was revolting. But instead of screaming and running, I started moaning. I heard the door creak open. Now there was light. I sensed rather than saw the others creep towards me.

  ‘Pete,’ said Dean, urgently, ‘what’s the matter?’

  When I felt they were in the right place, I rose slowly to my feet. For a time I stood and stared, before staggering forward, grunting like a zombie, flailing my arms in the air. Their faces went white, their mouths and eyes wide with terror. Then they were gone, scrambling over each other to get away.

  By the time I got up the steps, they were at the bottom of the hill and still running. I watched them and laughed. At that moment, it almost seemed worth getting covered in rat’s guts just to see Dean truly scared. I didn’t often get one over Dean Steele, so when I did, it was all the sweeter.

  Chapter 2

  ‘You looked so real,’ said Dean. ‘Just like a zombie. All those guts hanging down out of your nose and mouth.’ He shook his head in disbelief. ‘Geez, Pelly, I almost filled my pants.’

  I smiled to myself. I was stripped down to my boxers, standing in the sea trying to get every last bit of rotten rat tissue off my body. Dean had reappeared as I was climbing down to the beach. There was no sign of Mark or Leo. Maybe they were still running.

  ‘At least we found out one thing,’ continued Dean.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Mark and Leo aren’t strong enough to be Steel Pelicans.’

  I nodded. Steel Pelicans is what we called ourselves. It came from our names: Dean Steele and Pete Kelly. I’ve been called Pelly since I first started at school. If a teacher asked a question that began with ‘Can anyone …?’ someone was sure to yell out, ‘Pelly can!’ Then the whole class would collapse into hysterics.

  Recently Dean — who called himself the leader of the Steel Pelicans — had decided that two people didn’t really make a crew. He wanted more members, and had selected Mark and Leo as candidates. Hence the explosion in the tunnel. In Dean’s mind you could be a Steel Pelican only if you did crazy things, and being shut in an exploding tunnel was considered a suitably crazy initiation. Clearly, by running away, Mark and Leo had failed the test. Secretly I was pleased, as it meant that the Steel Pelicans would remain a crew of two. Getting splattered with rat’s gut had some value after all.

  I dipped my head in the sea once again before standing and shaking off the water. ‘How do I look?’ I asked. ‘Has it all gone?’

  Dean studied me. ‘Your hair’s gone a bit funny.’ Then he laughed. ‘It’s been burnt. All the tips have gone. Even your eyebrows.’

  I frowned. ‘How bad is it? Will Mum and Dad notice?’

  ‘Nah! It’s just a different shade of ginger. You’ll be right.’

  ‘Has all the rat stuff gone?’

  He peered closer. ‘There’re a few spots still.’ He began poking at my face. ‘There, there, there and there.’ He dipped his finger in the sea and rubbed it against my cheek. ‘They don’t seem to want to come off,’ he said, seriously. ‘Maybe they’ll be there forever.’

  I smacked his hand away. He was making fun of my freckles.

  ‘Just as well you weren’t in the way of the explosion,’ I said, ‘or we’d have a much bigger mess to clean up.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It would have popped your zits. We’d all be covered in pus.’

  ‘Ha! Ha! Ha!’ he said, sarcastically. ‘Better than some of the rubbish that spews out of your mouth at times when you speak.’

  That’s the second thing to know about Dean Steele: he always wanted to have the last word, and sometimes it wasn’t all that pleasant.

  The Steeles lived at the top of Gloucester Heights, a hill close to the lookout and less than a kilometre from the beach. Dean’s mum was a real estate agent, and she regularly described the view as ‘Illawarra’s most stunning 360-degree panorama’. It was a good view, although half of it was of the heavy industrial area surrounding Port Kembla.

  We were in Dean’s room playing an Xbox game while machines in the laundry worked on my clothes. Dean had offered me some of his to wear home, but that would have been a dead giveaway. Not only were they more expensive than mine, they were several sizes bigger. I’m small for my age and Dean is big. Much bigger than most thirteen-year-olds. Big enough to get away with renting the restricted game we were playing.

  After my zombie performance in the tunnel, he had insisted that Knight of the Zombies was the perfect game. Now the blood and guts of zombie bodies covered the screen. There really were no strategies involved, and I soon tired of smashing creatures over and over. I pulled out after Dean won the third game in a row. Then I had to suffer his bragging for the next five minutes until my clothes were dry and I could escape.

  Our home was halfway down the hill — on the wrong side according to Dean’s mum. The only view us Kellys got was of the vast steelworks which were the main reason Wollongong existed. Both our fathers worked there: David Steele was in senior management, while Brendon Kelly — my dad — was a chemical engineer and much lower down the salary scale. Although Dean and I spent most of our spare time together, our parents didn’t mix much at all.

  My family was in the lounge when I arrived. They’d been waiting for me. Dad had just got back from New Zealand and we were going to the club for a reunion dinner. I was immediately shunted through to my room to get changed, which meant that no one had a chance to notice that my hairstyle had changed during the day. Hopefully, they never would.

  It was a Monday night and the club was at its quietest time: just a few people playing the pokies and some business men winding down for the day. There were no other family groups, which was a good thing so far as I was concerned, because it meant that there would be no crush to get food in the buffet.

  We moved through to the lounge for pre-dinner drinks. While Mum and Dad were up at the bar, Aimee, my older sister, leant over and asked, ‘What did you do to your hair, Pelly?’

  ‘Nothing!’

  ‘You have so. It’s changed colour.’ She reached across and yanked out a few strands.

  ‘Ouch,’ I complained. ‘How about I pull some of yours out?’

  Aimee examined the hairs. ‘They’re singed.’ She looked at me sternly: ‘Have you and Dean been messing about with fireworks again?’

  My eyes opened wide. How did she know?

  ‘No!’ I replied. ‘It happened when we lit Dean’s barbie.’

  She looked at me seriously. ‘Pete, half the school knows that Dean makes fireworks. Don’t get caught up in it. Somebody’s going to get hurt.’

  I was about to protest further when Mum and Dad arrived back with the drinks. Mum looked from me to Aimee. ‘You two been arguing?’

  ‘No,’ said Aimee, quickly. ‘We were discussing Nana, wondering how she is.’

  It was a good lie, for it gave Dad the chance to report on his trip, which had been to visit his ill mother.

  ‘She’s not good,’ he said. ‘It was quite a bad stroke. She’s paralysed all down one side. Her face is a bit lopsided and she can’t use one arm very well. She can walk, but only with the help of a stick.’

  ‘Will she get better?’ asked Aimee.

  Dad nodded. ‘The doctor said that with time she could get back to how she was before, so long as she doesn’t have another one.’

  ‘Are we going to go over and see her?’

  Dad glanced across to Mum. ‘We’ll discuss that later.’ He gave a false smile. ‘Now tell me, what’s been happening back here while I’ve been away?’

  There was little that either Aimee or I were willing to share, but Mum made up for our silence, and happily chatted away until it was time to go through to the restaurant.

  The all-you-can-eat buffet was my favourite dining-out experience. Nobody forced me to eat things I didn’t like, and I could go
back again and again if I wanted.

  ‘You really are a pelican, aren’t you?’ said Aimee when I returned to the table with a plate loaded with fried food.

  ‘Got to store up,’ I replied. ‘Just in case you serve salads for the rest of the week. I’m a carnivore, not a herbivore like you.’

  ‘Don’t criticize Aimee’s salads,’ said Dad. ‘They always have some meat in them. Aphids, slugs, caterpillars, snails …’

  ‘It happened once,’ complained Aimee, ‘and I’ve never been allowed to forget it. Anyway, what about those cockroaches you cooked up on the barbie with the prawns? People even ate them.’

  Dad chuckled. ‘Actually they tasted OK. Crunchy and slightly nutty with a hint of garlic.’

  The conversation continued in this manner until dessert, when all went quiet.

  ‘We’ve got something we need to tell you,’ said Mum when the silence became embarrassing.

  ‘About Nana?’ asked Aimee.

  ‘Partly,’ replied Mum. ‘It involves Nana, but it’s also about us.’ She looked at Dad, giving him the cue to continue.

  ‘My trip to Auckland wasn’t just about Mum’s stroke. I also had a job interview while I was there.’

  I froze. This was not good news.

  ‘It was with New Zealand Steel who have a mill not far from where Mum lives.’

  ‘And?’ asked Aimee.

  ‘I’ve been offered the job.’

  Before Aimee or I could react, Mum jumped in with, ‘It’s at almost double the salary that Brendon’s getting here, and there are lots of benefits thrown in as well.’

  ‘Plus,’ Dad added quickly, ‘we’ll be able to look after Nana properly. Otherwise she’d have to move into a home.’

  ‘Do we get any say in this?’ asked Aimee, pushing her chin forward.

  ‘That’s what we’re doing now,’ replied Mum.

  ‘And if I don’t want to go, I don’t have to?’

  Mum breathed deeply. ‘I didn’t say that. We’re a family and we should —’

  ‘I’m not going!’ said Aimee, shaking her head wildly. ‘I’m not going!’

  ‘Keep your voice down,’ hissed Mum.