Read Online Carousel by Brendan Ritchie - Free Book Online

in centres like Carousel with a desk in front selling tickets for a chance to win. But, for whatever reason, there was no car there when we arrived. I often wondered what we might do if there was. Whether one of the windows could be smashed through instead of rebounding whatever we threw at it. Or just how quickly we could get around the place. I’m sure Rocky had thought about this too. He seemed to like cars. Or maybe just anything with wheels. The idea of him racing around the narrow corridors in a new Commodore was pretty frightening.
    We had taken a rubberised beach net from Sports Power and set it up at the back of the rectangle, whichwas walled in to give any stage that was erected a single frontage. The walls kept the ball from straying off into David Jones too often and we had a few pretty intense half-court games of one on one.
    At around lunchtime on a Friday I found myself open with the ball rebounding nicely off the side wall for a shot on goal.
    I hit it flush, but offline. The ball smashed through the glass of the Sussan store adjacent. A crunching noise rang through the centre.
    Rocky and I stood still and stared at the glass. Both fighting down the heavy dose of guilt that would come with this type of thing outside of Carousel. A few seconds later our radios chimed.
    â€˜Are you guys okay? asked Taylor.
    â€˜Yeah, sorry,’ I radioed back.
    â€˜Is Rocky with you?’ asked Lizzy.
    I looked at Rocky and nodded to his radio.
    â€˜Nox smashed the window at Sussan,’ he said, ratting me out.
    â€˜Nice one, Nox,’ said Lizzy.
    â€˜Sorry. I know it’s your favourite,’ I replied.
    â€˜Are you cleaning up the glass?’ asked Taylor.
    â€˜We’re talking to you,’ replied Rocky, deadpan.
    I smiled.
    â€˜Thanks, Rocky,’ said Taylor. ‘Maybe you can once we’ve finished, yeah.’
    â€˜We’ll do it now,’ I said.
    â€˜Hey, when you’ve quit screwing around come down to Kitchen Warehouse. We’re making soup,’ said Lizzy.
    â€˜Okay, cool,’ I replied.
    The ball had made a jagged hole halfway up the front window. I didn’t know if this was unusual, but it looked pretty fragile. We gathered the glass on the floor into a messy pile and I left to find some gaffer tape to run in a cross over the window like I’d seen on TV. The Two-Dollar Shop only had cheap looking masking tape so I trudged down the hall and around the corner to Dick Smith.
    When I arrived back Rocky was standing still, looking at his hand. A steady flow of blood was streaming from his palm onto the floor.
    â€˜Shit, Rocky. You cut yourself?’ I asked, putting the tape on the floor.
    He nodded and kept focused on the blood. I took his wrist and gently turned it over to look at the wound. A coin size chunk of glass was sticking out of the fleshy part of his hand.
    â€˜Fuck,’ I said.
    I looked at his face. It seemed calm, as per usual. Ikept a hold of his wrist and reached over to grab a thin scarf from a rack nearby.
    â€˜I’m going to take it out, okay? When I do, can you put this scarf in your hand and clench it into a fist?’
    Rocky glanced at the scarf for a moment.
    â€˜Can I have a blue one?’ he asked.
    I looked at him, then at the beige scarf in my hand.
    â€˜Mum has that one,’ he said.
    â€˜Yeah, of course,’ I replied and reached back for a blue version.
    I put the scarf in Rocky’s good hand and took a firm grip on the glass. I hesitated for a second, then pulled upward. Rocky gave a small shudder as the glass slid slowly out of his flesh.
    It was a fucking iceberg. The glass inside him more than double the size of that outside. I stared at it, slightly astounded, until I realised that Rocky hadn’t clenched the scarf in his hand. Instead he was watching the increased flow of blood run down his pale fingers.
    â€˜Rocky! The scarf,’ I said.
    He came to and limply clenched the scarf. It