Still she wavered on the doorstep. Every maternal instinct inside her screamed that she should follow Sam and hug him better.
Only she wasn’t sure this could be hugged better. Not right now.
‘He will cool down, okay, Ella? You go. Sell this house.’
CHAPTER
11
The second last Sunday of the month again. Jeez, but it comes around fast.
Jake drove through Chalk Hill on his way to the fire shed for the once-a-month training session. That made it exactly a month since Percy had flown into Nanna Irma’s house and he’d first met Ella and Sam.
Perhaps because he had Ella and Sam in his head, when Jake saw a boy on a bike race across the highway a few hundred metres in front, he recognised Sam immediately. Sam was pedalling like he’d hurled a rock at a hive of bees and the bees got mad.
‘What have you gone and done now, Sam?’
He braked and turned right, following Sam past a row of white-weatherboard houses where roses and window boxes competed for best garden in the street. The road went straight up the hill, then dog-legged right into the bowling club, the old pool and recreation fields. Ahead, Sam stood on the pedals, feet churning, bronze helmet bobbing in the sun.
Jake didn’t want to frighten him by looming up alongside so he stayed well back, but he was curious why Sam would need to let off steam on a Sunday morning. Plus, a certain rock-throwing incident remained fresh in his mind. The kid had a single-minded purpose about him that spelled trouble.
Sam churned straight through the entrance to the Chalk Hill and Districts Bowling Club, flew along the bitumen road and skidded to a stop in the car parking space marked ‘President’, making blue-metal surf in a wave.
Nice skid, kid.
Jake parked outside the entrance gate and walked towards the clubrooms on foot in sun that was hot enough for him to wish he’d grabbed his hat. Sam and his bike disappeared around the side of the low-slung red-brick building and the bad feeling in Jake’s gut got the better of him. He started jogging.
Reaching the clubrooms, hurdling the corner of a garden bed and its nodding mix of pink and white pansies, Jake hunted for Sam but couldn’t see him, and his pace increased to more run and less jog. He loped along the short side of the building until he burst around to the front where the expanse of the bowling rink spread out from the main entrance like a flat green tongue.
And there was Sam. The kid was poised at the top of the cement ramp that let wheelchairs access the clubrooms, face full of an equation that went like this: how fast do I need to ride down the ramp to jump off the verge and land on the green?
Jeez. ‘Sam!’ Jake shouted.
The kid didn’t blink. Jake wasn’t even sure he heard.
If Sam replicated the skid he’d done in the President’s carpark on Chalk Hill’s precious bowling green, his mother would never sell a house to anyone within a hundred-mile radius of town.
Sam stood straight on his pedals and heaved his weight up against the handle bars. All the pressure of his right foot came to bear and he was off. Ten metres. Nine metres. Eight.
‘Sam!’ Jake roared.
Seven metres. Six metres. Five.
Jake put his fingers to his mouth and whistled.
It was the whistle he reserved for Jess, when the kelpie was 200 metres away in a corner of the paddock chasing sheep in the wrong direction. This was the whistle for when a roar wouldn’t cut it.
It split the air.
Sam’s head turned, the boy’s eyes wild and wide beneath the brim of his helmet.
Sam’s concentration wavered when he recognised Jake. The handlebars wobbled. The kid grazed the metal scoreboard at the head of Rink 12, making a dull thud clang around the green. He lost momentum, but his gaze ticked back to that tempting plush green tongue, and Jake could have sworn the kid licked his lips.
‘Don’t you dare,’ Jake thundered.
Sam slammed on his brakes. Boy and bike quivered to a stop, half a metre before the verge dropped a foot to the ditch, and the manicured green.
Jake let out a breath.
Sam dropped his left shoulder and turned his head to Jake. ‘I guess you’re gonna dob me in.’
You freaking bet I’m telling your mother. ‘Whaddaya think you’re doing, Sam?’
Sam’s gaze slid away. ‘Nothing.’
‘Doesn’t look like nothing to me.’
‘What’s it to you anyway?’
Jake was trying to stay cool, but this kid made cool difficult. ‘To me personally, kid, I don’t give a rat’s arse. I don’t play bowls. But what about thinking of the guys who’ve been coming to water and mow this lawn and look after it for about twenty years? Old Schoonsy, the greenkeeper here, he’s a volunteer. He’s retired now but he comes here three times a week to mow. He takes a lot of pride in what he does. How’d you think he might feel if a smart alec kid like you wrecked all his work?’
Sam shrugged. A slide of shoulders that said why should I care?
Which was a red rag to a bull as far as Jake was concerned. ‘What about the businesses in town who have those signs all along the fence there? They pay good money to sponsor the club. My business pays to sponsor the club. Half the people in town play bowls and the other half come along to watch. A kid like you thinks he’ll just cut it up for kicks and doesn’t give a shit about what that does to other people.’
Jake didn’t realise until Sam edged sideways on his bike, skinny little butt sliding off the seat, how much closer he’d got to the boy during this exchange. He leaned in from the hips, getting in the kid’s space, thumbs hooked through the pockets of his jeans.
‘Bout time you took a bloody good hard look at yourself, buddy. What were you thinking? What part of you thought
