As the Earth Turns Silver by Alison Wong Page B

‘dirty slums.’ The houses didn’t seem much different from any of the others in Te Aro. They had the same red roofs and sash windows. No sign of the rats and open sewers he’d been warned about.
    Outside one of the houses, two boys were crouched, bending over something.
    â€˜You ready?’ said Wally. ‘Get set . . . GO!’
    And they were off, running as fast as they could, straight down the middle of the empty road, hardly daring to look around. The boys on the footpath looked up, and Robbie realised they were playing marbles. He could feel their eyes on the back of his head, their yellow faces watching. And he was running, running, leaving Wally further and further behind. He could smell something strange. Food cooking, meat and vegetables, sour and sweet and salty smells. It made him feel hungry and sick and hungry all at the same time. But he kept on running, dust pounding up from the road, his eyes straight ahead, running.
    At the end of the street, he waited, panting, watching Wally huffing towards him.
    â€˜Did you ( huff ) smell the ( huff ) opium?’ Wally asked, as he came to a stop.
    â€˜Yeah,’ Robbie lied.
    â€˜It was coming from those houses with no windows. Did you see them? They were all boarded up.’
    â€˜Sure,’ he said, looking back down the street. He wasn’t sure whether he could see them or not. ‘But did you have any dreams?’ he asked.
    â€˜No, did you?’
    â€˜Nah, ran too fast. But you were in there longer. You might have them tonight.’
    â€˜That’s what purlieus means.’ Wally smiled. ‘That’s them dreams you get from all that opium.’
    *
    As they walked up Adelaide Road on the way home, Robbie took the purple mass of gum out of his mouth. It had lost all flavour – now it was only good for leaving on Edie’s chair or for sticking things to or making into bullets. Wong Chung Bros was coming up on the right. He took the slingshot out of his pocket and aimed it at the window. There. A purple blob on the glass. From a distance, it looked like a piece of bruised plum, staring from the window amongst the shiny red apples, oranges, bananas.
    Wally laughed. ‘Shot.’ He picked up a stone. ‘Here,’ he said.
    Robbie hesitated.
    â€˜Come on, Robbie. Show ’em how it’s done.’
    Robbie looked at the gum stuck to the window. This was the shop his mother went to. He hadn’t been inside, didn’t know what the Chinks looked like, but he’d seen her go in and out. Sometimes as a treat, instead of parsnips or potatoes or spotty pears, she brought back a banana without a mark on it, or a glossy red apple that looked like it had been polished with Brasso. She would cut the good fruit, the beautiful, sweet fruit, in half, and give one half to him and the other to Edie, while she cut the rottenness out of the bad fruit for herself. Edie protested, saying the good fruit should be cut into three, and when their mother ignored her, neither of them would finish their share, each leaving half for their mother. ‘We’re full,’ they would say, trying to hide their craving, until at last she started cutting everything into three.
    â€˜Robbie?’
    Robbie looked into Wally’s eager face. His outstretched hand. He took the stone – it felt heavy, too heavy – pulled back the sling.
    â€˜Bull’s eye!’ yelled Wally, laughing, whooping.
    Robbie heard the crack, the tinkle of glass, a jagged, stone-sized, amplified hole in the window.
    A Chinaman ran out of the shop, still wearing his white apron, looking up, then down the street. Shouting ugly words that see-sawed and rang in the air, swearing, shaking his fist. And they were running, past Fraser’s milk cart, through the horse shit, past Sutcliffe’s grocery, running. Just running.
    *
    Outside the house Wally bent, hands on knees, his laughter ragged from the effort of breathing.