“Yeah, well guess what?” My heart was beating like crazy, but no way was I going to show Nipper Will that I was anything but proud. “You already put the word out that nobody was to hire me, so what are they gonna do now I’m working for the copper? What exactly have I got to lose here?”
He looked at me like I was stupid. “How about your pride, Natty? Then again, you can’t have too much of that, can you, if you’re taking money off a government man?”
“Fuck you,” I said under my breath.
Will didn’t react, though he must’ve heard it. He swirled his jacket and bib and brace in the warm, soapy water of the tub, his jaw set.
“Fuck you,” I said again, louder this time, and stormed inside the house.
I woke up hungry the next morning, because I’d gone to bed without dinner. Stupid, because I bet Nipper Will hadn’t even noticed and, if he had, that he didn’t give a shit. It was still early when I woke up, dawn just beginning to lighten the sky and chase the darkness away, so I listened until I heard Will leaving, and then went downstairs for breakfast.
Mum was in the living room, sitting on the couch with a cup of tea and a plate of toast on the table in front of her. She was wearing her old dressing gown and the familiar distant expression on her face that warned me she wouldn’t know me today.
“Are you going to eat your breakfast, Mum?” I asked her, but she didn’t answer me. She just kept staring off into nothing like she hadn’t heard me at all.
I went into the kitchen to make my own breakfast.
It was shaping up to be a nice day outside. Clear and warm, with a brisk southerly breeze that would take the edge off the heat. Might be a bit rough out on the water though, if that breeze picked up into a decent wind later in the day.
I fried up some leftover bacon and an egg to have with my toast, then dumped the pan in the sink to worry about later. I checked in on Mum again, and saw she’d remembered to eat, and then I made sure her knitting basket was beside her so she could find it when she wanted it. I turned the TV on as well.
“I’m going out now, Mum,” I said. “Me and Button John are helping Young Harry Barnes for a bit, but I’ll come home and make you lunch. Then I’ll go work in the copper’s garden again.”
Mum’s gaze slid over me. I never knew how much she took in.
The day was still fresh and new when I set out across the island. There were no roads on Dauntless, only tracks, and most of them had been worn by feet instead of wheels. Robbie Finch had his milk cart, but most everyone else who moved stuff around the island moved it by boat, darting in and out of the coves and beaches like the waves. It didn’t take long to cross Dauntless, but I wished I had a dirt bike like the copper’s, and then it wouldn’t take any time at all.
Young Harry Barnes lived in a shack at Mayfair Bay. His place had been a shipping container once upon a time, but he’d added on to it with tin and tarps and sheets of plywood over the years. It looked a bit like a rubbish tip from the outside, but inside it was cool and dim and cosy, and decorated with bits of driftwood and shells and anything else that had washed up along the bay and had caught Young Harry’s eye.
Button John was already there when I arrived, digging into breakfast. Even though I’d already eaten, my stomach rumbled. Young Harry made a mean omelette, with scallops, prawns, crabs, and whatever else had turned up in that morning’s lucky dip. He kept a plastic barrel of seawater out the back of his place where he’d chuck whatever he caught, then sweep a net around it whenever he wanted a feed. Whatever didn’t get out of the way of the net quickly enough was on that day’s menu.
“Sit your arse down, Natty,” Young Harry said, and set a plate in front of me too. “Now tell me all about this copper.”
I sent Button John a questioning look, and he shook his head. I dug into my omelette. “What do you want to know?”
“Well, you’re living over the back from him,” Young Harry said. “What have you found out so far?”
“He’s got a dirt bike,” I said.
“I already said about the dirt bike,” Button John told me.
“Mavis isn’t going to like that,” Young Harry said, and looked pleased. Then he narrowed his eyes. “Is he getting milk delivered?”
Mutually assured destruction, Button John had called it when we’d seen Robbie Finch leaving the other day when we’d been arriving. I couldn’t give Robbie up, so I shrugged. “Not that I’ve seen.”
“Keep your eye out,” Young Harry said, tugging his beard thoughtfully. “You never know what these mainlanders are up to.”
I shovelled some omelette in my mouth so I didn’t have to answer.
“The last thing I need is a copper poking around in my business.”
He was right about that. We’d all be in the shit in that case.
I finished my omelette and scrubbed my plate clean in the sink, and then we headed out to check Young Harry’s crab pots.
Young Harry had a bunch of crab pots set up in Mayfair Bay and a couple of the surrounding bays. Yellow floats made of old plastic mustard bottles bobbed on the surface of the water, showing where the pots were located. Young Harry manned the outboard of the little tinnie while Button John and I hauled the crab pots up to check them. His bigger boat, the wooden cabin cruiser he did the run to the mainland with every week, was anchored in the bay. I wished I got to go on some of those runs to the mainland, but of course that was another thing Nipper Will was being a dickhead about.
“You’re wearing your cranky pants,” Button John said as we hauled a crab pot up, the wet rope biting into our hands.
