Read Online Graffiti Moon by Cath Crowley - Free Book Online Page A

says.
    ‘Yes, it is,’ I tell him. And then after a while of more girl watching I say, ‘Don’t do the job. It’s not worth the risk.’
    ‘It is,’ he says, eyes spotlighting Daisy.
    Take your own advice, Bert’d say. His voice is loud even here in the screaming music and floating smoke. There’s nothing you can do for me now, Bert. You’re dead and I’m buried.
    I did a piece for him the day he died. Not on the side of his shop because he would have hated that. I did it somewhere legal. Down on Edward Street near the docks where they fence off a place for people to make art. It was nothing clever, just a picture of him with that look he wore while he was having a beer or teaching me something new. I made him big, though, so no one on the trains passing would miss him.
    I took Valerie to see it one afternoon. We stayed with Bert’s old eyes for a long time that day. She ran her hand across his face and shaggy eyebrows while I looked at the river. The water was lower than it had been for a while because rain was starting to feel like a story people told.
    ‘I have to sell the business, Ed,’ she told me, and I felt sorrier for her than I did for me. ‘There’s a hardware place in the next suburb that’s been trying to buy us out for years. Bert kept saying no. He wanted you to have it.’
    ‘I couldn’t have run it anyway.’ I kept my eyes on the river.
    ‘Oh yes you could have,’ she said. ‘But I need the money. It’ll be a quick sale and they can take over almost straight away.’
    I pictured the store without Bert in it and I had this thought, this feeling that there was a drought in me, like there was no water for my insides to float on.
    Up until a couple of weeks ago I visited that picture of Bert. Most afternoons I sat there with a beer and told him about the jobs I’d applied for, about the art I’d seen.
    But it seems pretty clear I’m not getting another job any time soon so I’ve stopped going. Some things those old eyes don’t need to see.
     

     
    ‘Right,’ Leo says, turning around from Jake. ‘At one I pick up a van from Montague Street. At three we go to the school. Security checks are at two and four-thirty. Dylan left the window open today so all we have to do is load the van with computers and anything else that’s valuable from the Media block and then take the stuff back to Jake.’
    ‘No alarm?’ I ask.
    Leo pulls a piece of paper from his pocket. ‘All under control.’
    ‘How’d Jake get that?’
    ‘I don’t ask questions.’
    If I asked questions I’d ask how come we’re stealing from the Media block where the only teacher who was ever nice to me works. Good question, Bert says.
    ‘I need air,’ I tell Leo, and slide my way through the cracks of the crowd till I get to the back door. It’s blocked by a bin full of drinks so I push my way through to the front but a guy and a girl are getting right into it and I can’t get past. I tap the guy on the shoulder but he’s not moving unless there’s a fire and even then he’s probably not moving.
    There’s always a window, I think, and head back to the lounge room and look around. I see it close to the couch where Lucy’s taking a break from dancing. She’s sitting next to Gorilla, a guy who got his name because he’s hairy and because some of his body parts are rumoured to be extendable. He’s grinning and moving closer and she’s blocked in on all sides by a mass of bodies. I look at her and him. I look at the window. I think back to our date. She can always break his nose if he gets too friendly. I jump through, land on the grass and turn around. Who am I kidding? I want to see it if she breaks his nose.
    I rest my arms on the window ledge and watch her fighting the good fight. ‘So how old are you, baby?’ Gorilla asks her.
    ‘Old enough to know better,’ she says, looking at his extendable arms.
    ‘You like what you see?’ he asks, and touches her leg. ‘You and me should do it,