Calypso Summer by Jared Thomas Read Free Book Online Page B

we’re generally bigger and therefore need to pump more blood through our veins to our appendages.’ Gary slowly swivelled the piece of corn so that it pointed vertically to the roof.
    â€˜Do you have many customers buying it?’
    â€˜Yeah, especially this one bloke. He had quite the paunch when he first came in.’
    â€˜He was fat?’
    â€˜Yes, huge. The bloke wanted a boost to help him stay on track with his exercise program.’
    â€˜Did it work?’
    â€˜Every time he comes back into the shop he brags about how many more push-ups he can do.’
    â€˜Really?’
    â€˜He’s bloody fit these days I tell ya.’
    â€˜I’ll take a dozen packets,’ said the woman without hesitation.
    Gary walked over to the counter with a dozen packets of the ground corn, winking at me again.
    â€˜You know, I just work down the street, I own the hair salon.’
    â€˜Oh yeah, I know it. What’s it called again?’
    â€˜Cleopatra’s Mirror and I’m Steph,’ the woman said holding out her hand for Gary to shake.
    â€˜Nice to meet you,’ Gary said as he shook her hand with a nod of his head and a smile on his face. ‘I’m Gary and this is Calypso.’ I gave Steph a little wave.
    â€˜When the corn works, make sure to come back again and tell your friends about our store’.

9
    I jumped on the Greyhound bus at seven o’clock on Saturday morning to get to Aunty Janet’s place. I didn’t take much with me, just a small bag with a few bananas, a bottle of water, some garbage bags for collecting the herbs, a jumper and a sleeping bag, just in case. I threw in some shorts too.
    Watching everything whiz by as I cruised through the suburbs on that bus was pretty deadly. All the secondhand car lots along Main North Road got me thinking about saving up for a car. If I got Run to move out and someone else to move in I could afford it. If things with Gary paid off, I could do it easily.
    When I reached the fringes of the city, there were small market gardens everywhere and the greenhouses made me think about Run. People reckon market gardeners grow ganja too but I wondered about that because why would you risk a steady profit for a quick buck? Then again, there were some pretty flash houses among all the fields.
    The horses and sheep in the paddocks reminded me of travelling out of town as a little fella. I wished I’d jumped on a bus and headed out bush earlier. The last time was on a year ten school trip.
    Craning my neck to look up at the big blue sky through the window I felt glad that I wasn’t smoking ganja. Little things like just looking around at the environment seemed much better when I wasn’t stoned. Not being so paranoid was the best thing though. Sure, I still stressed about Run and paying the rent and things, but being straight, I felt like I could handle it all.
    The whole landscape changed as the bus moved along. There were paddocks full of saltbush and malley shrubs and when I saw the Flinders Ranges in the distance, the soil started changing from brown to red. Approaching the Flinders Ranges is deadly. At first you just notice a few small rolling hills in the north-east and they gradually grow until they become like a giant swelling wave that stretches for hundreds of kilometres. The mountains look purple with bits of red and pink through them.
    Mum was always telling me about her country when I was a little fella. She told me about going fishing, deadly snakes she had to watch out for, the lizards she played with, the roos cruising through the valleys and the emus on the plains. Most of all she liked telling me about going hunting with her family and how she and Aunty Elsie would swim and play in the creeks. The sun was shining on the ranges and I started to understand why Mum loved this place and how much she missed it.
    I grabbed the notes I had scribbled down with directions to Aunty Janet’s from my bag.