Yellow by Megan Jacobson Page A

often than not, Lark will come out on top.
    I chew over the options.
    â€˜One Moment, for sure,’ I call back. It makes me think of a line from a play by T. S. Eliot.
    â€˜Huh, I woulda gone for It’s My Lucky Day.’ Lark’s still engrossed by the TAB listings.
    I shake my head at him. ‘Too obvious.’
    Lark shrugs and looks up at me. ‘You’re the charm, Yellow. Twenty bucks on One Moment.’
    His arms suddenly jolt and he glances down at the paper, a look of annoyance making a small dent in his laid-back mask.
    â€˜Oi, stop it. Oi you!’
    Another jolt and the sheet is tugged from his hands and cascades down the stairs towards me, flapping and dragging across the ground. A lump marches underneath it, as though something small is pretending to be a Halloween ghost. It pauses at my feet and with a wriggle the creature shrugs off his costume and . . .
    It’s Mitzy.
    It can’t be.
    And yet.
    Black dots swim a jagged butterfly stroke in front of my eyes, and everything sounds echoed and whooshed, like I have a large conch shell pressed to my ear. I think I’m about to faint. If this is Mitzy, if he somehow survived, then who is Boogie? Did I make it all up? Has everything awful in my life sent me completely over the edge?
    Please let me not be mad . . . I think.
    Please let me not be mad.
    The dog nips at my ankle and flops onto his back, snapping at the grass and sneezing when he swallows a mouthful. The next thing I know I’m swallowed up by Lark’s arms, and my legs dangle uselessly below me. Lark’s usually goofy face looks concerned, and he bends down so close to me his hair is tickling my forehead.
    â€˜Hey . . . are you okay?’
    The black dots swim away and everything comes back into focus.
    â€˜Mitzy . . .?’ I ask.
    My legs wake up and I can stand again.
    â€˜What? No, Mitzy ran away, little bugger. Just when I thought my shoes’d be safe from now on, Desiree goes and brings this one home. Say hello, Tinkerbell.’
    Lark lets me stand by myself and he crouches down to lift up a paw and wave it at me. My father’s like a small child, I think, as I watch his tongue peek-a-boo from his mouth, the way it always does when he’s concentrating hard. He mock wrestles the dog, taunting it by blowing on its nose, and he’s rewarded with small puncture wounds to his hands.
    Now that I look closer, now that the shock’s worn off, I can see that this dog is different. This one has a small diamond patch of grey on its chest, and it’s bigger than Mitzy, younger too, although I can bet the wooden furniture won’t be any safer.
    I still can’t bring myself to pet it, the shock’s too raw, but I pull my mouth up into a small smile to appease Lark, and I remember what I came over for. I need to get out past the breakers at South Beach to find Boogie.
    Mitzy is still dead.
    Boogie’s real.
    â€˜Can I borrow a surfboard?’ I ask when my words return. Lark’s got a couple – he always has spares in case he snaps one, and that’s not such an uncommon occurrence, the way he surfs, chasing the monsters out to where it isn’t safe.
    He cracks out a smile that almost breaks his face.
    â€˜We’re gonna make a little surfer chick outta you yet.’
    He scampers into the shed and comes back with a dinged-up Coolite – one that’s been relegated to a shed for years because Lark might be poor, but he wouldn’t be seen dead on a board like that. He might stand for hours in the Centrelink line every fortnight and he might cut his own hair, hacking at the ends so they fall onto the front lawn in uneven clumps, which the magpies and kookaburras will later snatch for their nests. He might consider baked beans a full, nutritious meal, but to ride a Coolite? Lark would shake his head scornfully. He has standards.
    For me, though, it’ll do.