Two Wolves Read Free Page A

stormed out of the bathroom, squeezing his ear to stop the blood flow. The room was dimly lit with brick walls, a double bed and a tired-looking couch. Dad was looking out the window through a gap in the faded pink curtains, speaking to someone on the motel phone. Olive was asleep on the bed with Bonzo, lit by the glow of a greyhound race on TV.
    â€˜Ben!’ Mum called.
    He headed for the front door and yanked it open but the security chain jarred it.
    â€˜Hey!’ Dad said, putting the phone down.
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜Has your mother finished with you?’
    Ben reached for his ear. He dabbed at it and showed Dad the blood seeping into the shallow channels of his fingerprints. If he was honest there wasn’t actually much blood. He would have liked there to be a bit more, but it was still blood. Mum came out of the bathroom.
    â€˜Yes,’ he said. ‘She’s finished.’
    Dad looked at Mum. Mum looked at Ben. Ben looked at Dad. And that is how his hair stayed. Short and spiky with sticky-uppy bits.
    Dad was in the butcher’s chair next. He swore a lot and Mum threatened to cut his ear off too if he didn’t stop complaining. He stopped.
    Ben sat on a green vinyl seat that had a dodgy leg, and stared into the car park through the rain-drizzled window. He grabbed his old brown leather notebook from his bag. Ben had found the notebook in the cramped office at the back of Nan’s house where she kept Caramello Koalas in the middle drawer of a roll-top desk. The notebook had been his grandfather’s. When Pop was alive he had jotted some numbers in the front. Sums written in smudgy blue ink. Ben could barely read the writing but he kept those pages in the book.
    At the back of the notebook, on the last page, there was another bit of Pop’s scrawly writing. These words: ‘An old man tells his grandson one evening that there is a battle raging inside him, inside all of us. A terrible battle between two wolves. One wolf is bad – pride, envy, jealousy, greed, guilt, self-pity. The other wolf is good – kindness, hope, love, service, truth, humility. The child asks, “Who will win?” The grandfather answers simply. “The one you feed.”’
    Ben liked the words. He liked that they were from Pop, who had died when Ben was two. Nan said that, up until then, the two of them had been inseparable. Pop had taken him everywhere, always repeating a rhyme that Ben had loved: ‘Ben Silver is no good. Chop him up for firewood. If he is no good for that, feed him to the old tomcat.’
    Ben chewed on the rubber end of his pencil for a moment before writing this list:
    Police
    Holiday
    Uncle Chris. Grey nylon bag. Black handles.
    The new old car
    Haircuts
    Holidays were rubbish, Ben decided. And the cabin would be even worse. Nature. Ben wondered how long it would be till they could go home and he could finish making his movie. He was going to miss ordering his lunch at school tomorrow. And soccer at lunchtime. Why couldn’t James or Gus have come on holidays with them?
    Cars pulled in and out of the car park, headlights shining on hundreds of little raindrop jewels racing down the window. Out the front, the sign for Rest Haven flickered to an uneven beat. The cranky lady from reception crossed the car park holding a red umbrella, a small carton of milk and some towels. She looked at Ben, quickly looked away but then glanced back. He wondered if she thought his hair was weird. Or his family.
    When they checked in, Dad had refused to show her his driver’s licence, saying that he’d lost his wallet. Ben had seen him with his wallet at a petrol station on the motorway half an hour earlier so he went out to the car, brought Dad’s wallet to him and said, ‘Here it is!’ But, rather than being thankful, Dad was angry.
    â€˜Don’t stick your big bib in!’ he shouted as they drove across to the car space in front of their room.
    Ben