Tigers on the Beach Read Free Page B

he’ll pay?’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜Well over a million dollars. That’s a lot of money. What do you say?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜Are you saying yes, you’ll sell?’
    â€˜No. I’m saying yes, a million dollars is a lot of money.’
    â€˜So that’s definitely no, you won’t sell?’
    â€˜Yes. It’s definitely no.’
    â€˜I could possibly make him go even higher.’
    â€˜Mr Krongold, who
is
this mysterious customer?’
    Mr Krongold scratches his moustache. ‘He’s a businessman . . . in Macau.’
    â€˜I thought you said he was in Singapore,’ says Mum.
    â€˜He was. Now he’s in Macau. He moves around quite a bit.’
    Stanley Krongold’s lies are as effortless to him as breathing.
    â€˜Mr Krongold, we will let you know if we intend to sell,’ says Mum.
    â€˜Thank you, Georgia.’ He flashes chemically bleached teeth that don’t suit an orange man. ‘And do please call me Stanley.’
    He remains for a moment longer, looking at his hand, perhaps waiting for Mum to call him Stanley.
    â€˜You don’t have a tissue, do you?’ he finally asks.
    Mum looks at the mess in his palm. ‘Good heavens,’ says Mum. ‘Did a possum go to the toilet in your hand?’
    Mr Krongold doesn’t answer.
    Mum fetches a tissue and Mr Krongold wipes away the mess.
    â€˜I shook hands with Adam,’ says Mr Krongold. ‘His hands were dirty but he obviously didn’t realise.’
    â€˜Adam, I hope you apologised,’ Mum calls to me. I look up. ‘I did.’
    â€˜It’s nothing,’ says Mr Krongold. ‘It really doesn’t matter. Well, good day.’
    He smiles and goes. We all know perfectly well that there is no mysterious customer. The person who desperately wants to buy The Ponderosa is, of course, Stanley Krongold himself. He wants to build a luxurious resort for the wealthy tourists that he is sure will one day come.
    â€˜That was childish, Adam,’ says Mum. I am a picture of innocence. ‘What?’
    â€˜Holding possum poo when you shook hands with Mr Krongold.’
    â€˜It was an accident.’
    â€˜No, it wasn’t.’
    I shrug.
    â€˜Well done,’ says Mum. ‘Now please wash your hands. You are in the hospitality business, after all.’
    After cleaning my hands I wander into the reception area. The messy family in cabin number seven has checked out. I want to know if they have written anything in the visitors’ book, about how welcoming and friendly we all are at The Ponderosa. Marika and I have cleaned out their cabin every morning for the last four days. Drunken monkeys would be tidier. But there are no new entries in the visitors’ book. We have worked so hard to please them, but they haven’t written a thing. A few pages back, one kind person has written,
‘
Staff helpful, very clean facilities’. A kid has written, ‘Greek lady has nice boobies’. At least, I assume it’s a kid. It might be Nathan – although a man with three university degrees should be able to come up with something better than ‘Greek lady has nice boobies’. On the office wall is a poster. It’s a picture of chimpanzees, grinning and showing their teeth. Beneath them is a caption:
    YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE CRAZY TO WORK HERE. BUT IT HELPS.
    That night, I’m at the computer, building a website for The Ponderosa. I’ve been doing it for ages. I’ll need to be good with a computer if I’m going to work in movie special effects, which is what I want to do if my career as a stand-up comedian doesn’t pan out.
    â€˜I can recite pi to one hundred decimal places,’ says Xander, lying the wrong way round on his bed, with his feet on the pillow.
    â€˜I don’t care,’ I say.
    â€˜3.141592653589793238,’ says Xander.
    â€˜Shut up.’ I’m irritated because