Extinct Doesn't Mean Forever by Phoenix Sullivan (bill gates book recommendations TXT) 📗

“Better than being stuck at home with you, even if we have to put up with bloody tourists.”

Tourists are one thing that Em and I agree on, but that’s no big deal. It’s like the whole town’s programmed to roll its eyes and say that tourists whine about how cold the water is. If they want bath water, they shoulda gone to Queensland. They have no idea.

We’ve made a deal. For a cut of her pay, I’ll keep my mouth shut about her leaving me home alone. But she’s gotta take me when she goes to the beach, coz you can see halfway down the coast from Dad’s pub. It’s on the beachfront with a huge veranda. People sit on their asses all day and Dad brings ‘em drinks, and chats. He’d see in two seconds flat if Em was at the beach without me.

Over the cold months, we do heaps of surfing. Dad goes early in the morning before work and takes us along. Em’s embarrassed to be seen with an oldie on a long-board, and whines about how dumb I look surfing in a life-jacket. But with the waves and wind so loud, it’s easy to ignore her. We hardly go over summer, coz Dad works heaps of shifts — about twelve hours a day. That’s why he hasn’t found he’s got a baby dinosaur in his house. Or noticed that our shrubs have lost half their leaves.

If we hadn’t gone surfing few months ago, I wouldn’t have found Addy. His egg, I mean. It was a cloudy, windy day, so Dad says go sit on the beach. It was OK by me, coz the swell looked so scary, I woulda been kissing the rocks. So I hung out on the sand, kicking a ball around. Then I spotted it. It was just a small rock, colourful. Colder than the water, like it had been frozen and not properly thawed out.Took it to school, then home.

I kept it in my wardrobe. Took me a few weeks to figure it was a hatching egg, and a few more days to remember about a ship from Antarctica. It was on the news — sank off the coast. Fancy scientific equipment and ice samples, now fish food. I figured his egg had been frozen, so it was still good after millions of years. That made Addy the oldest living thing ever. Pretty cool, eh? My own secret dinosaur.

Addy’s been hatched for three weeks. His scales are brown and green. Got busy eyes, always looking for food. Once he chewed some coloured pencils and spat the middle. Tried nibbling the curtains. He makes little chipping sounds when he wants to go out, which is most of the time. I take him out back, let him run round when nobody’s home, but not near as often as he’d like. Dunno what’ll happen in two weeks when I go back to school. I could sneak back home during the day. Or pretend I’m sick again. No, stupid plan; I’d be back in hospital. Then who’d care for Addy?

Em makes a big deal of saying “Hi” to Dad when we go past the pub. He’s having a ciggy out back, so I stop. Em goes, hoping she won’t see me for the rest of the day.

When Dad goes on about life’s-too-short, I know that something’s about to happen. Maybe he’ll blow his cash on something really cool, like a motorbike. Or just take off in the Kombi with Em and me. A few years ago, he chucked in his job in the city to work here in the pub after whining about life’s-too-short. I always thought 42 years was a pretty long life, but I don’t tell him so. Just wonder what his next plan will be, and hope it means we get more time to surf.

Len shows up. He doesn’t seem mad with me.

“Hey, Lance!” He waves at my Dad. “How’s it goin’, cuz?”

He’s so skinny his pants are bunched up around his waist, tied with string. Dad asks him where he’s sleeping tonight, and he says he don’t know, so Dad says, “Our house, Len.”

Then Len says to me, “Blackfellas are lucky buggers. We can just go to any town in Australia — any town at all — and if you know where Blackfellas meet, you know you’ll find a cuz or a bro. You know you’ll get a bed or a porch to sleep on, or maybe they’ll share their place under the bridge with ya. That’s why you always hear Blackfellas yapping on about who was yer mum or yer dad or aunty. Whitefellas broke up families; tried to kill our culture. So just knowin’ who your people are is like a big ‘Up Yours’ to the Whitefella.”

“They reckon Blackfella culture’s extinct,” Dad adds, his accent changing like it does when he’s with Blackfellas. “But it’s not. Just not obvious, unless you know where to look.”

Makes me think of Addy, coz he’s not extinct either. Just not obvious. Like it’s not obvious that me and Dad are Blackfellas by looking at us, coz our faces go bright red in five minutes flat without sunscreen. We didn’t know we were Blackfellas till Dad’s mum told before she died. She said it like it was something bad.

“Well, Len.” Dad clears his throat. “I reckon I’d like to be a proper Blackfella soon, if yer’ll still have me. You asked if I wanted to be initiated — well, yeah, Len. Yes I do.”

Len shrugs and tells Dad he’s known all along. That was his own dad’s mob, why wouldn’t he want to? So why not do it next weekend? Dad’s rapt! That’s his next life’s-too-short move.

“How do you get initiated?” I ask, coz I’m thinking I’ll have a go in a few years.

“Gotta show how brave you are, and how well you can do traditional things. Spiritual things. We’ll go to Jamorjah Island, stay for a