NO BRIDGE, NO WAY!. Jan Murray
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camera rolling.’
‘And you see Zoran’s little brother over there?’ Angel pointed to little Lucien who was chasing a frog out of the bushes.
Jack swung the camera around, zooming in on a small boy with a mop of shiny brown hair, talking to a tiny critter.
‘That’s little Lucien,’ said Angel. ‘He’s too little to be one of the Fabs. He just hangs around while we’re doing things ... kind of like our mascot.’ She paused. Sighed. ‘Kind of like a real pain, actually!’
‘Cut!’
Angel jumped up and down then spun around. ‘I was terrible, wasn’t I?’ she squealed, eating two handful of fingernails. ‘Can I do it again, Jacko? Zanth? Can I? Please?’
‘Nope,’ said Xanthe. ‘It’s a wrap.’ Her Dad taught her that. He directed TV commercials.
‘You were okay, Angel. Except that bit about my ‘tiny boat’ stuff,’ said Jack.
‘Well, it is tiny.’
‘It’s a Vee-Jay. What do you expect? Duh.’
‘Quit it, you two. C’mon, it’s your turn, mate,’ Xanthe said as she came across to Jack. ‘Give it up!’ She tackled the camera from him.
He looked around at his friends. ‘I so don’t want to do this, you guys!’ he wailed. ‘Just let me be the cameraman?’
‘C’mon. Stop being a drama queen.’ Xanthe handed him his didgeridoo and gave him a shove in the direction of his marker. He carried on for a few more minutes before she bellowed through the megaphone. ‘Take your position!’
Jack sat down on the ground and crossed his legs. He ran a hand through his thick black curls. The didgeridoo, painted in yellow, red and black, the same as his t-shirt, stuck out about a meter and a half in front of his body. He put his lips to the bark and puffed out his cheeks.
And there it was! The first of those weird and wonderful sounds!
Jack Nolan’s didge was the real thing – a dried-up eucalyptus sapling, eaten out a long time ago by colonies of termites. The termites make crevices inside and that’s why the didge makes the strange noises it makes.
‘Primal,’ said Zoran.
‘Earthy,’ said Xanthe. 'Like it’s coming up from somewhere at the bottom of the world.'
When Jack blew hard down the tube, the dark rhythms started filling up the bush around them. It was as though the strange bass sounds were a natural part of the ancient land. It was not hard to imagine that the booming, throbbing noise was an echo from the Dreaming that Jacko had once told them about. Mysterious and as old as creation, almost. There are secrets in the sounds that only Bungaree could know about.
'And, by the way,' said Xanthe, looking around at her friends who were entranced by Jack’s playing. ’The didgeridoo was my idea.'
She zoomed in close on the player’s face to show his puffed-out cheeks. They’re going to love it, she reasoned, thinking about the finished video and all the people who would be seeing it when she posted it on the net.
Jack stood up and carefully leant his didge against the rock wall. Looking into the camera like a real professional, he began his piece. ‘G’day. My name’s Jack Nolan. My family call me Bungaree.
Our mob, the Cammeraygal, have lived around here and looked after these lands for over forty thousand years and Bungaree was the name of their leader. The Fabulous Island Film Unit is going to make a movie called A Gecko Needs Friends.
It’ll be set here, on Glencairn Island. This video’s going to be up on Youtube soon. We reckon it’ll work like a kind of trailer for the movie.'
Jack shrugged. ‘Anyway, it’s gonna show other kids how great it is living here. And why everyone should care for it.’ He paused and looked across to Xanthe who nodded for him to keep going.
‘A Gecko Needs Friends will take heaps of money to make because we’ll need more equipment and we’ll need posters and stamps and costumes and props and things. We’ll be asking everyone in the offshore community to help us because we’ll need donations and we hope they’ll pay us for jobs we can do around their houses. And their boats and boatsheds and things.’
Jack hesitated.
Xanthe cued him to keep talking. It was good stuff. Jacko was so professional
He looked straight into the camera as if he was talking personally to one of their neighbours. ‘We can do baby-sitting for you or do your gardens ... and collect your rubbish and kind of look after your boats ... scrape barnacles off your bottoms––'
There was an outbreak of giggles over by the spotted gum. The Director glared at the Identicals and nodded to Jack to ignore them.
‘And clean out your water tanks.’ He paused, thinking, then went on. ‘And we’re good at chasing diamond pythons back up the hill where they don’t frighten anyone. Or eat the chooks. Things like that.’ He shrugged. ‘Yeah, things like that you can pay us for. Anyway, we’re the Fabs. See you around.’ He signaled that he was definitely finished.
‘That was so excellent, Jacko!’ yelled Honey.
‘Bro!’ said Zoran, coming up to Jack and pressing fist to fist with him and doing a boys-only hand shake that seemed to go on for ages.
Like he’s some kind of L.A. rapper, thought Xanthe as she looked across at Zoran. 'You watch too many bad movies Zoran Radlic.' They devoured movies at Zoran’s place, she reflected as she packed away her father’s video camera and folded up her Director’s chair.
'Dat all, Zampy?' said little Lucien.
‘For today, little mon.’ She replied. ' But I suppose it’s up to me to edit this mess, now,’ she said, hoisting the camera bag over her shoulder and tucking the chair under her arm. ‘It’s gonna get so many hits! The media will use it when we’re famous.’
‘And on our way to saving the island,’ added Angel as if her Director’s green credentials needed a prod.
‘Jo gets good ideas, doesn’t she?’ Honey piped up, chirpy as a canary in summer sunshine. She was skipping backwards, along the beach and no one seemed about to tell her there was a huge piece of driftwood coming up.
‘Who said it was her idea?’ Xanthe called out. ‘I’d already thought of it, anyway. Who thought of YouTube, huh?’
At this, the Identicals exchange one of their classic glances, a glance that came with raised eyebrows, rolled eyes and theatrical sighs.
As if they shared this massive state secret and the rest of us haven’t yet cleared security, Xanthe thought. Ooops! There she goes – head over turkey for Honey Summertime.
Honey had just landed on her backside, to the laughter of all. Poor Honey, flat on her back. But they knew it was only soft sand. Jack, Xanthe and Zoran, with little Lucien on his shoulders, kept walking. The Identicals started hanging back, searching the rock pools for mini crabs.
‘Not exactly one to let someone else take the credit for a good idea, is she?’ Angel said in a loud whisper. ‘I am going to become a famous author and film director.’ Angel, gigging, impersonated her friend as she came up behind Xanthe and stuck a handful of tiny rock crabs down her back.
‘Yuk!’
‘Run for your life!’ yelled Honey to her sister as Xanthe took off after Angel.
But too late! Xanthe, older and faster, brought Angel down with a thud. They wrestled hard, jamming wet sand and slimy crabs in each other’s mouths until they got the giggles and then it was hopeless. They fell flat on their backs in the water and lay there, holding each other’s hand and letting the waves wash over them.
‘Wish I still had the camera running,’ said Jack, coming up