Two Wolves Read Free Page B

didn’t even wear a bib. What did ‘stick your big bib in’ mean?
    Soon Dad emerged from the bathroom with close-cropped hair – another unhappy customer. Ben tried not to laugh.
    â€˜Go to sleep,’ Dad grunted, switching off the TV and lamp and flopping onto the big bed.
    Ben lay down on the couch in a rectangle of light from the bathroom. When Mum appeared half an hour later she was hardly recognisable. Her hair, usually halfway down her back, was now boyish and weird-looking.
    â€˜Why did you do that?’ Ben asked.
    â€˜Go to sleep. We leave early.’
    He watched her. She laid Olive down on a blanket on the floor and sat on the edge of the bed with her back to him for a long while.
    â€˜How early do we leave?’ Ben whispered into the darkness.
    â€˜Four.’
    â€˜Why?’
    â€˜Because your father says so . . . Go to sleep.’
    Ben lay there, eyes open, listening to rain beating the roof. The couch cushions smelt mouldy and felt itchy. He wondered if there were bedbugs. He imagined his body swarming with mini-beasts, hundreds of thousands of them eating him alive. He closed his eyes and saw it like a stop-motion movie with tiny bedbugs made of clay.
    Dad’s snoring filled the room.
    Ben tried not to think about the bites. He thought about Nan, his dad’s mum. She lived around the corner from them, right on the highway. She always had time for him and was interested in what he had to say. Nan was rake-thin, a tough old bird, one of those old people who sat on the front steps watching the world go by. She had probably seen their car leave town. Ben wondered if she had picked up Golden. Even though it was past midnight, he knew that Nan would be lying awake in bed, staring at the ceiling, listening to talk radio and world news. She only slept for a couple of hours just before dawn.
    Ben’s eyes closed. He thought about the four police officers. He had asked Mum about them again and she said that there was a break-in at the wreckers. That’s why the police showed up. But who would steal something from that place? It was a dump. An actual dump.
    Ben touched his spiky hair and scratched his skin. He felt hungry. He silently prayed for the holiday to be over soon.

Adrenaline streaked through him. He craned his neck to look out the back window.
    Mum looked, too.
    â€˜Don’t!’ Dad snapped.
    â€˜What do they want?’ Ben asked. ‘Are they after us? Were we speeding?’
    Dad drove on. He hadn’t taken a break in five hours.
    Olive kneeled and stared out the back window, sucking her thumb.
    â€˜Sit,’ Ben whispered, but she didn’t listen. This was not a surprise.
    â€˜Are you going to pull over?’ Mum asked.
    They rode on in silence. Ben wondered if Dad had heard her.
    There were two short, sharp blasts on the siren.
    Ben had never wanted anything more than to look out the back window. Adults were weird. If kids ran the world everybody would be allowed to look when the police were following them. Not just annoying little sisters.
    â€˜What are you doing?’ Mum asked. ‘Are you going to pull over?’
    Dad shrugged. ‘We haven’t done anything.’
    â€˜Ray, it’s the police .’
    Dad wiped his nose on the back of his hand and kept driving. ‘I haven’t done anything.’
    They drove on.
    â€˜If we haven’t done anything, won’t they let us go?’ Ben said helpfully. Surely that made sense to his father. When Ben became a police officer, if he pulled someone over and they hadn’t done anything, he would let them go, for sure.
    An engine roared and a car moved up quickly beside them. The vehicle was royal blue with a white-and-blue chequer print, dark-tinted windows and four antennas. Ben knew what all of the antennas were for. He had sat in a police car at the Royal Easter Show a few years ago and committed every detail to memory. One was an 800 MHz enhancer.