Fumble Story

by Karen Goldrick

“Hi ya Keeti.” Angela crouched down in the dry dirt and grass, hitching her school uniform as it caught her knees. She held out her right hand, knuckles first, towards the black cat, which sat below her, just in front of the entrance to the stormwater drain. Not fingers first, she knew enough to know that a nervous cat might strike at outstretched fingers. But knuckles extended slowly allowed time for introduction, and a place to rub its face on. Angela reckoned she knew how to talk to every cat she came across.

This was one strange keeti though. Long, tall and lean, with the rangy look of the not-yet-fully-grown. His coat was glossy and black. Short, like velvet. And she’d never seen a cat with eyes this dark. Brown or black, she wasn’t sure.The colour reminded her of something, but she couldn’t quite remember what.
The cat didn’t move. It stared at her eyes, and she stared back. Held her breath. Then it blinked.

Angela returned the greeting. She scrambled carefully down the grassy embankment, and crouched in front of the opening to the drain. The cat still hadn’t moved. She felt the fading warmth of the late afternoon sun on her neck, and imagined it competed with the cool damp she felt on her face, coming from the drain. She’d have to get going soon, or she’d be in trouble for coming home late.

It wanted something. She could tell that much. But what? Though lean, it didn’t seem hungry. Not did it prostrate itself at her feet for affection. It just stared. The sun dipped behind the trees, as if to remind her it was getting late. The cat blinked at her one last time, then disappeared into the hole.

“No Keeti,” thought Angela. Stormwater drains were dangerous. Cats could drown in there. Kids could drown in there. Once, when she was much younger, she had gone down the drain with the Burra Street kids. They’d taken torches and backpacks, and spent an entire Sunday afternoon having a wonderful adventure. Her backside still smarted from the memory of the wooden spoon her mum had applied when she’d found out.

Storm water drains were dangerous.

Angela shrugged. She swung her backpack over she shoulders, ducked down, and followed the cat in. Immediately she wished she had a torch. And a map. There was a map, she remembered. Painstakingly drawn by Michael, the eldest of the kids and self appointed leader, from months of solo exploits in the web of drains which criss crossed under the reserve.

Light from outside illuminated a mere ten meters or so in. After that, she was on her own. All sound seemed to have been cut off by the stone and cement walls which curved around her and above her head. She could stand at a semi crouch, but as she made her way further in, the drain pushed her down. She stopped before she had to drop to her hands an knees. Before the darkness swallowed her completely.

“Keeti” she called, not daring to use more than a whisper in the dark damp silence. Something brushed by her leg, too small to be the cat. Other girls would have screamed, Angela told herself as she tried to slow her racing heart. She stood, undecided, not wanting to leave the cat, but reluctant to go in further. It hadn’t rained for days, but that didn’t matter, her mother had said. Stormwater drains can flood at any time. It might be raining in Lismore, and the water would come hurtling down 500km to their reserve in the lower north shore of Sydney. Angela had even looked it up. Her mother was wrong. Lismore was some 633km north.

Something chimed in her pocket. Her phone. That’d be her mum, because it was probably after 5pm and she wasn’t home yet. Angela stared through her glasses down the tunnel as hard as she could, until her eyes played tricks on her and green and purple spots crowded her vision. No sign of the cat. So slowly she turned around, alarmed to see the light outside had almost completely gone.

Her mum was going to be pissed.

The next afternoon the cat was there again. This time Angela was prepared. For some reason, she’d popped a small penlight into her schoolbag that morning. And she’d saved the devon from her sandwich. Just in case.
The cat didn’t much like the devon. But he did ask her to follow him into the tunnel again.

Angela found she had to carry the penlight beween her teeth, and its wavering light made it difficult to follow the cat. She reached the low tunnel, discarded her bag ( she figured no-one was around to take at anyway). The tunnel had again swallowed all noise from outside,and she strained in the silence for any hint a flashflood was on its way.

The ceiling was now so low, Angela had to resort to her hands and knees, penlight between her teeth, mud and slime between her fingers. In the stillness she began the hear noises, real or otherwise. Was that a breeze gently whistling past her ears? A rat brushing past her foot? She crawled faster.

The cat had disappeared down one of two bifurcations up ahead. You’d have thought he would have at least left her some sort of sign. She felt something else brush past her neck, and stopped, reaching out into the darkness with her eyes, ears, even sniffing the air to try to figure out what it was.

She felt it again. It definitely was not a breeze. It felt like a more solid cold. Angela imagined a chilly dead hand reaching towards her out of the darkness. Abruptly she turned and crawled as quickly as she could. She dropped the penlight, and didn’t care enough to stop and find it. Something hard and sharp scraped her stockinged knees and snagged her skirt. She reached back to dislodge it, and found it to be metallic and triangular in shape. She tucked into her skirt pocket, and finally able to walk at a standing crouch, she stumbled towards the dull late afternoon light.

Once out of the tunnel, she despised her self for her cowardice. Late again, she thought, as she tried to disguise the holes in her new stockings, and shouldered her backpack to head home.

For Angela, the black cat now become something of an obsession. Something she had to find. Maybe to bring home and look after. But maybe not, because she really didn’t think this cat needed or wanted looking after. Besides, her mother would never agree.

She needed to be better prepared, however. She needed a decent torch, like the one her father used to use when they went camping, before he’d finally left for good.

And she needed a map.

So next morning, she found herself fidgeting nervously, and staring down at the doormat, while waiting for someone to answer the door at Michael’s house in Burra St. She had to ring twice before she finally heard the pounding of footsteps coming down the stairs.

Please be Michael, she thought. Please be Michael and please don’t be…
“Umm Hi Daisy.”

Daisy was Micheal’s sister. She’d never really been one of the Burra St kids. She was in Angela’s year at school. Not her home class, but they did share history and math 3. Daisy was one of the blonde ones, who wore dark eyeliner, and hitched their skirts up high in the waistbands to show off long lean legs. Angela was not.

“So er Hi Angela. What are you doing here?” Daisy managed to cleverly disguise any surprise she felt with obvious disdain.

“Is Michael in?” Angela asked.

“Michael, your girlfriend’s here,” Daisy shouted up the stairs. Angela , trying hard not to blush and wishing she’d never ever seen a black cat, hoped Daisy would at least now leave. But Daisy preferred to stand and stare.

“So, umm… have you finished the Pre War Primeministers essay?” she asked, unable to think of anything else they might have in common.

“Nope”

Angela started down at the highly polished floorboards, and tried to focus on how very shiny they were. On how she could almost see her reflection, the red flush of her cheeks, her glasses slipping down her nose.

“Maybe he doesn’t want to see you,” Daisy ventured. “Can I give him a message. A love letter or something. You probably can’t send him a text.”

“Actually, I’ll just leave,” Angela replied, unable to take Daisy any longer. She walked back down the porch steps, and tried her hardest not to hear the laughter as Daisy shut the door. She kept her eyes down on the path, the best way, she’d always found, to push any discomfort away. So she barrowed right into Michael before she ever saw him as he walked in the garden gate.

“Hi Ange,” he said. He looked dishevilled, his longish dark hair messed up, and shadows under his dark eyes, as if he’d been out all night. Angela wondered briefly if he did really have a girlfriend. Her tongue seemed stuck on the floor of her mouth. It occurred to her she hadn’t said a word to Michael in over five years. certainly not since she’d started High School, three years ago. He was a senior, she knew. Played soccer at lunch with a large group of boys and the more sporting of the girls. She found herself staring at his nose ring, which as far as she knew were banned in school.

“Umm Hi Michael. Do you still have a map of the tunnels?”

Shit! She’d blurted it out. Not how she’d intended. In her mind she’s rehearsed the cool small talk which would have gracefully lead up to the question, but in her anxiety it had all come out like so much spew.

“What?” It was as if he could barely make the effort to reply.

“Umm, the tunnels. You know, under the oval. Where we…where you used to go. I remember you had a map and I wondered if you still had it?”

“Well…no..I don’t.” he just stood and looked at her. She didn’t even want to contemplate what he thought, and assumed that at least it might be another five years before she had to speak with him again…if ever.

“OK,” she said, “Sorry to bother you,” she turned to go.

“You know it’s dangerous in the tunnels” he said.

“What”

“Dangerous. Flash flooding you know. I hope you’re not thinking of going down.”

“Nope,” she replied. “Not at all.”

She turned away again.

“What’s that in your pocket?”

“There’s nothing in my pocket” she said as she walked away, deliberately making her footsteps loud so she wouldn’t hear him laugh. As she reached the corner, her hand reached into her skirt pocket, and removed the metallic object she’d found in the tunnel. How did he know? It must have been sticking out like some sort of obscene foreign body.

It was actually quite heavy. Looked like it was made of brass, but it was difficult to know for sure, because it was covered in some sort of semi dried green slime. It had a heavy base, and a triangle sitting on top of it, not unlike a sail on a boat. There were were small lines and numbers, as well as other symbols she’d never seen, etched into the long side of the triangle. A bit like one of those shadow clock thingys. A sundial, she remembered. But who would need a sundial down a dark tunnel.

Maybe she could google it after school. find out what it really was. She imagined the search terms. Weird metal triangle thing, as she set off slowly down the path towards the bus stop.