Frog Whistle Mine Read Free

Who are you?’
    ‘Tony. My mother has just started working here.’
    ‘That would be Christine, I suppose. But nobody mentioned a son.’
    No, thought Tony, they never do. ‘Well, there is one,’ he said with a smile, ‘and I’m it. I’ll be living in the caravan. Betty said I could use your shower and toilet.’
    ‘No problem,’ said Fred. ‘The shower probably needs a clean, because I never use it.’
    ‘Don’t you wash, Fred?’ asked the girl.
    Fred looked at her: ‘I shower at home.’ He turned to Tony. ‘My house is just down the road a bit.’
    ‘It’s the one with all the junk out the front,’ said the girl.
    ‘That so-called junk is going to be valuable one day,’ said Fred, indignantly. ‘Just you wait and see.’ Then to Tony: ‘This is Rose. She’s Lofty and Betty’s granddaughter. She’s here for the summer as well.’
    ‘Hi,’ said Rose. Tony nodded a response, giving her the once-over. He thought she could be quite attractive if she ever lost the scowl from her face. She, too, looked Tony up and down, before sniffing and turning away—plainly he had failed whatever test she had just given him.
    ‘Rose is not in the best of moods,’ said Fred. ‘We’re trying to fix her mobile phone. She dropped it in the shower.’
    ‘You were using a phone in the shower?’ blurted Tony.
    ‘Yes!’ she said, crossly. ‘What’s wrong with that? Me and my friends do it all the time.’
    ‘So you can talk about the bare facts, I suppose,’ sniggered Tony.
    Rose rolled her eyes.
    Tony looked at the table where the pieces of the telephone lay exposed beneath a heat lamp. ‘How long’s that going to take?’
    ‘All night,’ replied Fred.
    ‘All night!’ shouted Rose. ‘I can’t wait that long.’
    ‘You’re going to have to. Even then I can’t guarantee it will work.’
    ‘What will my friends think if I don’t answer their messages?’
    ‘They’ll probably think you’re busy.’
    ‘No they won’t. They’ll think I don’t like them anymore. They’ll stop being my friends.’
    Tony looked at her to see if she was joking. She wasn’t: she looked both angry and distressed. He was puzzled. What sort of friends would leave you if you didn’t reply for just a few hours? He only had a couple of friends, and they were lucky if they communicated once a year.
    She turned to Tony. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve got a phone I can borrow?’
    He shook his head. ‘Sorry.’
    She stood up. ‘Oh, this place is such a dump. Everybody is so boring. There’s absolutely nothing to do. And now, I’m going to lose all my friends.’ She burst out crying and ran off, towards the door.
    ‘Rose,’ called Fred. ‘Don’t get upset about it.’ But the only reply was the door being slammed.
    ‘Why does she come here if she doesn’t like it?’ asked Tony.
    ‘She has no choice. Her parents are university professors, or something, in Christchurch. They’re overseas for a couple of months, so Rose has been sent here for the summer.’ He laughed. ‘She hates it. She thinks any place that doesn’t have shopping malls and picture theatres has to be the end of the universe.’ He laughed again. ‘Anyway, what do you think of the place?’
    Tony shrugged. ‘I haven’t seen much of it yet. But it looks like it would be an OK place to explore.’
    ‘Yeah, it is. But you need to know what you’re doing or you’ll soon get into trouble.’
    ‘Betty showed me the watercourses.’
    ‘Good! But there’re other things as well.’ He paused fora moment, thinking. ‘Tell you what. After dinner tonight I’ll take you into an old mine. How would you like that?’
    ‘Yes, please.’
    ‘Good. Now, did you come in here for something or was it just to say hello?’
    ‘I was hoping you might have a bolt that I could put on the caravan door so I can lock it at nights.’
    Fred chuckled. ‘I don’t think anybody’s going to worry you out there, Tony. But if it’ll make you feel safer, I’m sure