Checkers by John Marsden

we don’t have any, or we wouldn’t be in here. When people like Noel attack us, we’ve got no way of holding them off.
    It’s bad enough with Noel, who’s not much more than a stranger. It’s a lot worse when it’s someone close, like your own family for instance.
    I was never thick-skinned, but I was better than I am now. Somehow I’ve lost whatever skin I had.
    When things started going wrong with Dad and Rider Group it was bad, but it was still bearable. I almost got used to the front-page stories, the current affairs shows on TV. You could tell that most days they didn’t have anything new. I didn’t read many of the stories in the paper, and I got into the habit of taking Checkers for a walk when the current affairs shows came on at six-thirty. The worst part was that Dad and Mum and Mark, and yes, me too, stopped functioning as a family. Once Mum got over the first shock she became kind of housebound. She scrubbed harder, polished harder, cleaned more, but she hardly ever went anywhere. Dad couldn’t understand that, and it made him mad, but he didn’t seem able to do much about it. I couldn’t understand it myself, and it made me mad too.
    It was about eight o’clock on a Tuesday night when we reached the next stage of awfulness. A reporter had been hanging around for nearly two hours. He rang the bell and asked to talk to Dad.
    â€˜He’s not home yet.’
    â€˜Can I ask when you’re expecting him?’
    â€˜I don’t know. Probably quite late. But I don’t think he’ll give you an interview here.’
    I was getting more polite to them, I suppose because I had some vague idea that they’d be kinder to us. I guess that was a bit naive.
    I shut the door and the man wandered back to the street. I watched him through the window. He had a conference with his photographer, and they settled down on the front wall to wait. I didn’t look at them again. We were so used to them by now. I even knew this one’s name: Allan Watkins, from the Standard .
    When Dad finally drove in I was sitting at my desk, trying to do homework. I got up to put some hot water on, in case he wanted a coffee. On the way to the kitchen I heard loud voices, angry voices, from outside, and I stopped and looked through the window. There was Dad, yelling at the reporter. He was waving his arms around like an AFL goal umpire with his flags. The reporter was only a metre from him, standing with his arms folded, not moving. The photographer was about five metres to Dad’s right, out of his line of vision, snapping away non-stop, having a great time. I paused, not knowing what to do. If I went outside I might make things worse. If I stayed inside things might get worse anyway. Mum was home, but having a sleep in her bedroom. She slept a lot these days. Mark was out. There was no-one to tell me what to do. After a minute, as the voices got louder and Dad’s arms even more violent, I thought I’d better go out there. Dad looked like he might hit someone at any moment. I went to the front door, pulled it open and went out. And just as I stepped onto the lawn it all exploded.
    Dad pulled back his right arm and hit the reporter somewhere round the middle of his face. The reporter grabbed his nose and buckled at the knees. As he dropped, Dad pushed him backwards, so that he lost balance completely. The photographer didn’t do a thing to help his mate, just kept taking photos. Mr Watkins was lying on his back on the grass, holding his nose and moaning. I ran towards them, praying like mad that he wasn’t hurt. Not that I cared about him; I just didn’t want Dad to get in more trouble. But then I saw blood on Mr Watkins’ face. Dad was standing over him, not saying anything, just looking grim. For a moment the only sound was the ‘scarritch, scarritch’ of the camera. Then Mr Watkins yelled up at him, ‘You stupid bastard, what did