Leo and Ralph, page 4
‘The ships on Ralphora look like giant soccer balls,’ said Ralph.
‘Can they fly anywhere?’
‘Almost. They don’t come all the way to the ground. If you want to catch a Ralphora ship, you have to climb up high first.’
‘How high?’ Leo looked around for tall things. ‘The roof of the house?’
Ralph gave a thoughtful frown. ‘Much higher. You’d have to climb to the top of a building, then a ship could pick you up.’
Leo thought of the buildings he had seen in the city, so tall they made him dizzy. What would it be like to stand on top as an enormous soccer ball rolled down from above? ‘I’d love to see one.’
‘A ship from Ralphora?’
‘Yeah.’
Ralph’s horns drooped. ‘No you wouldn’t.’
‘Why?’
‘Because if you ever see a Ralphora ship—’ He paused, then shook his head. ‘Never mind.’
He talked about ships from other parts of space. Some looked like Frisbees, others like pumpkins, and one looked like a pencil, with a pointy tip and a rubber on the end.
Leo spent more and more time with the telescope. Daytime or nighttime, at school and at home, he stared through the eyepiece at blank patches of sky, hoping a strange shape would fly into view. Ralph stuck by his side, but the other students kept well away. Leo didn’t mind. He liked looking up and the kids were just blurry shapes on the ground. Now and then, Mum and Dad tried to steer him towards other children, dragging him to a birthday party or inviting people over. Peg sometimes lured him to a board game or a TV show. He would be polite, but he never lasted long. So everyone left him to the things that made him happy: Ralph, the telescope and the endless world above.
One Saturday morning, Leo and Peg were in the kitchen. Leo was stirring a cup of chocolate milk while Peg smeared jam onto a piece of bread. Mum and Dad were talking in the next room.
‘We have to do something,’ Mum said. ‘Can you do any more yards?’
‘Maybe.’ Dad was quiet, like he didn’t want his voice to go very far. ‘I could do more on the weekends. But I can’t make the grass grow any faster.’
Leo added more chocolate powder and Peg folded her bread in half.
Mum sighed. ‘There’s not much more I can do. The only way I could get a promotion is to move to a smaller school, away from the city.’
Peg was about to bite into her sandwich. ‘What’s a promotion?’
Leo kept his voice quieter than Dad’s. ‘Bigger job, I think. More money.’
She took a bite and chewed slowly.
Dad’s whispery voice wandered from the other room. ‘Do you think we could move? I mean, the kids—’
‘Peg would be okay, but …’
Peg held her sandwich still and Leo stopped stirring. The rest of Mum’s sentence never came. Maybe she had realised they were listening. Or she might have given Dad one of her looks, so they didn’t need to use words. Leo gulped his drink down, dropped the cup in the sink and ran to his room to find Ralph.
He was sitting on top of the cupboard, swinging his legs.
Leo pulled a packet of balloons from his desk. ‘Bounce the Moon?’
Ralph jumped down and landed on the carpet with a clumsy roll. Leo blew up a balloon and they started tapping it around the room. They leapt off the bed, climbed on the desk chair and Ralph swung from the ceiling fan. Leo hit the balloon harder and harder, trying to swat Mum and Dad’s conversation out of his head.
They took the game into the hallway and then the lounge room, smacking the balloon all the way. Hurtled across the couch, dived into the beanbag and tumbled along the floor to keep the moon from touching the ground. Then Leo hurled himself off an armchair, lunged at the balloon and knocked a framed picture off its hook. It skidded down the wall and hit the floor with a crack.
Mum rushed in. ‘Are you okay?’
He was lying on the carpet. His chest heaved up and down. ‘Yeah. But the picture …’
She picked it up and sat in the armchair. He got to his feet and squeezed in next to her. It was a drawing of a black-and-white dog. A corner of the frame had come apart and the glass was cracked into three pieces.
‘Sorry. Ralph and I were playing.’ He was still puffed. ‘That’s one of Dad’s pictures.’
She put her arm around him. ‘As long as you’re not hurt.’
‘Only this.’ He showed her a patch of carpet burn on his elbow. ‘He’s gonna be mad, isn’t he.’
‘He might be worried. Ralph’s a good friend, love. He’s made you so happy. But we don’t want you getting hurt or getting yourself into trouble.’
Leo pushed himself out of the armchair. Now Mum had thrown another worry into the air. He picked up the balloon and slouched back to his room. Ralph followed, dishwater-grey. They lay on the bed with the telescope between them and waited for night to come.
For the next few weeks, Leo fell deeper into his alien daydreams, chatting to Ralph and searching the skies. He found a small mound of dirt near the back of the school, away from tall trees, and set up his telescope there most lunchtimes. One day, he was looking at an empty piece of the sky when someone tapped his shoulder.
‘Hey.’
He turned. A girl stood with her hands on her hips. She had short dark hair and her cheeks were red as if she’d been running.
‘What?’
‘Mrs Lavender told me to get you.’
He blinked. He couldn’t remember this girl. ‘Why?’
She rolled her eyes. ‘Because you’re late. Lunchtime is over.’
He hadn’t heard the bell. Didn’t notice the oval and playground had emptied. He packed the telescope and tripod into its sleeve and followed the girl back to class.
It happened a few times each week after that. He lost himself in the sky and missed the bell. Every time, a kid would tap him on the shoulder and lead him back to Mrs Lavender. Mum and Dad found out and he promised to stay closer to the classroom and listen for the bell. Then something terrible happened near the end of Year 3.
The students were learning about life cycles and Mrs Lavender took them to a farm outside the city. As they stepped off the bus, the sun lit up the fields and the stench of manure filled the air. The class wandered from paddock to pen, and the teacher talked about the stages of life, but her voice was lost in the babble of children gushing at the baby animals. Grubby piglets that grunted, fluffy chicks that skittered and squeaked, and clumsy foals with knobbly knees that tried to keep up with their mothers.
Leo and Ralph fell behind the group. From the moment they arrived, Leo was lost in the sky. It appeared so big, away from the buildings and trees and power poles of the city. All these years he had been looking up, he had never seen this much of that empty blue above the world. He found an open square of dirt, unzipped his telescope and aimed it at the sky. Wished more than anything to spot a UFO.
When nothing appeared, he packed the telescope away and looked for his class. But there was no one around. He had lost track of them, had missed one of Mrs Lavender’s quiet instructions. He couldn’t even hear kids’ voices. Now he was stranded in a square pen, bordered by a rough wooden fence. No idea how he got there and no idea where to go. A bird squawked from the roof of a shed. Flies buzzed at some brown sludge near his foot. Then a deep rumbly snort shook the ground and Leo’s body quivered and quaked.
He turned around. Ralph grabbed his finger.
Inside the pen was a pig. Enormous and hairy, as tall as Ralph and as wide as a wheelbarrow. It was so huge it looked like it had been made by mushing all the other pigs together. It grunted again, stomped the dirt and tracked Leo with its wet black eyes. A thick line of drool swung from its snout.
‘On the count of three,’ Leo whispered, ‘we run.’
Ralph nodded and his ears twitched. His fur was murky purple.
‘One.’
The pig stepped closer.
‘Two.’
It took another step and snorted a spray of snot.
‘Three.’
Leo and Ralph turned and bolted for the fence. The pig let out an ear-splitting squeal and barrelled after them, like a cement truck on legs, kicking up a cloud of dust. Leo’s shoes thumped on the dirt as he sprinted. Ralph spurted ahead, like a big furry basketball hurtling across the pen. The pig was closer now, ploughing towards Leo, and the earth shuddered under its trotters. They were nearly at the fence. Ralph got there first, sprang up and tumbled over. Leo strained to reach it. The pig was right behind him. A metre from the fence, Leo jumped, clung to a splintered post and scrambled to the top. But the pig didn’t stop. It smashed into the wooden rails and Leo was bucked off. He flipped through the air like a stuffed toy flung from a bridge and landed – WHACK! – on the ground. Something snuffled nearby – the pig? Ralph crying? – and the world was a slow-moving blur. A smudged purple shape came into view, and he guessed it was Ralph. The last thing he remembered was a sharp throbbing pain that flooded his right side, then he closed his eyes and couldn’t feel anything at all.
Hospital wasn’t much fun. Leo had his own room with a TV suspended from the ceiling, but there was too much noise. Trolleys rattled down hallways. Machines beeped from other rooms. Patients coughed and nurses talked. Mum was snoring softly in a small bed next to him, but he was never going to get to sleep. Of course, Mum didn’t have a twisted knee, a body full of bruises and an arm in plaster like he did. At least Ralph was there with him, sharing his pillow in the strange hospital bed.
He was still awake when a bowl of cereal was plonked in front of him. A nurse arrived with a loud voice, scribbled notes on a clipboard, then Leo and Mum were allowed to go home. He slept in the car, sleepwalked into the house and collapsed onto the bed.
A few days later, he sat in his room, turning the telescope in his hands. It was injured from the farm too: a dent in the side, rattly eyepiece and a thin crack on the lens. When Mum and Dad came in, he wanted to ask if someone could fix it, but they sat either side of him with tight looks on their faces. Ralph flushed a nervous green.
‘Can we talk,’ said Mum, ‘about what happened?’
Dad scratched the back of his head. ‘It was Ralph, wasn’t it.’ His words shot out faster than Mum’s. ‘That’s why you got stuck in that pen. He led you astray.’
Leo felt hot. His eyes stung. ‘It wasn’t Ralph’s fault. I was looking for—’
‘Leo, love. You’re not in trouble.’ Mum looked at Dad, as if to remind him too. ‘We know how special Ralph is. We’re just worried that he might be causing some problems.’
‘Nothing like this has happened before,’ he said.
‘Not quite.’ Mum rubbed her palms together. The crease appeared between her eyes. ‘There was the picture frame. And you’ve been forgetting to go back to class. Whenever someone finds you, you’re in your own world, talking to Ralph.’
‘And he’s stopped you from making friends,’ said Dad.
Leo sat up and kicked off the blankets. ‘He is my friend!’
‘Imaginary,’ said Dad.
‘Still my friend.’
‘We know,’ said Mum. ‘But you’re getting older. You’ve nearly finished Year 3. And there’ll be a few changes next year and, well, we’ve been thinking …’
Leo wriggled his fingers sticking out the bottom of the plaster cast. ‘What changes?’
Dad took over. He said something about money. He couldn’t fit in any more lawns, Mum had been trying for bigger jobs in the city, but now they didn’t have much choice.
Leo picked at the plaster. ‘What about your pictures? Can’t you sell some?’
‘No one wants those, bud.’
Leo wondered what was coming. He’d have to sell his telescope. They’d have to live in a tent.
Then Mum locked her hands together and told him her news. She had taken a new job as a deputy principal. It was a small high school in a small town, a place called Dundle.
‘Never heard of Dundle,’ said Leo.
‘None of us have,’ laughed Dad.
‘But it looks sweet – a little country town.’ Mum held Leo’s unplastered hand. ‘You and Peg will be at the primary school, and I’ll be at the high school. It’ll mean more money and it’s a cheaper place to live, so Dad can take a break from mowing yards. It’s pretty dry out there, so there won’t be much grass anyway.’
Leo nodded, but a small weight of worry, the size of a pumpkin seed, sprouted in his chest. It grew like a vine and snaked inside him as Mum spoke again.
‘You’ll be in Year 4. New school, new kids.’ She smiled with wet eyes. ‘It might be time to say goodbye to Ralph.’
The worry vine exploded into a tangled knot of tendrils and thorns, prickling his insides. This was the real reason they wanted to move – not money or jobs or country towns. They wanted him to leave Ralph behind and start all over again, just because he’d been chased by a pig.
‘I can’t.’ It came out like an angry whisper. ‘I can’t say goodbye.’
‘I know you don’t want to, but we’ll help,’ Mum said. ‘We’ll make a plan so it all works out. I promise.’
He wiped a tear with his sleeve. Mum and Dad hugged him and said a few more things, but he wasn’t really listening. Peg came in to show him where Dundle lay on a map, but he didn’t pay attention to that, either. He just sat in bed, nursing his cast, with Mum’s words echoing in his head. For so long she had wished for him to find a friend. Now he had to say goodbye.
Leo had to make a plan. Some things couldn’t be stopped: they were definitely moving and he had to say goodbye to Ralph. But if the two friends thought hard enough, they’d find a way to lessen the hurt. The whole thing scared him and his fear came out in silly ideas.
‘I could squash you into my suitcase,’ he said. ‘Or you could hide in the boot under all the bags.’
It was the last week of Year 3. Leo sat in his spot under the office stairs, chewing a crumbly biscuit. Ralph lay on one of the steps with his head poking through a gap, so the two of them could still see each other.
‘Squash me into a suitcase? Hide me in the boot? That’s how you treat your best friend?’ He closed his eyes and sniffed.
Leo giggled. ‘I’ve got it! You could catch a balloon or a spaceship – your big soccer ball spaceship – and follow us to Dundle. Then you could disguise yourself as a new kid at school, like me.’ He cracked up at the thought of Ralph in a collared shirt and bucket hat. Crumbs flew out of his mouth.
Ralph slid through the gap in the steps, flipped upside down and landed, right way up, next to him. ‘This isn’t a joke.’
Leo wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘Yeah, sorry.’
It happened like this sometimes. One of them was serious while the other messed around.
‘And you really don’t get how those spaceships work.’
Leo fished for something else in his lunchbox. ‘What do you mean?’
Ralph took a deep breath. ‘I can’t just grab a balloon and fly away. I can’t call the UFO pilots and ask them to pick me up. I’m not in charge of any of those things.’
Leo left his lunchbox alone.
Ralph’s fur turned deep blue, like the bottom of the ocean. ‘Remember when I said I hope you never see a ship from Ralphora?’
‘Yeah.’
‘It’s because … if one of my ships comes to get me, you’ll never see me again. It’ll be goodbye forever, and not because your parents said so. I’ll be gone because you won’t need me anymore.’
Leo scuffed the concrete with his shoe. ‘That won’t ever happen. I’ll always need you.’
Ralph didn’t say anything. He looked down and swung his legs. The school bell rang and the buzz of the playground died away as everyone ran into classrooms. Leo had to join them. He didn’t want the school to call his parents again. But he had to work this out.
He climbed out of his hiding spot. ‘What will happen to you when I go to Dundle?’
‘Doesn’t matter,’ said Ralph. ‘Your parents told you to say goodbye, so that’s what we’ll do.’
‘But you won’t disappear in a big soccer ball just yet?’
He shook his furry head.
‘Good,’ said Leo. ‘I’ve got an idea.’
He told Ralph the plan. Ralph wasn’t sure at first, but Leo talked him around. They made their secret promise, gathered Leo’s lunch things, then raced back to the classroom before they got into trouble.
The big goodbye happened about a month later. They played Other Worlds for the last time. Pointed the cracked telescope at the spaces between stars and laughed about the Grimbles from Flumblebot. Then they hugged, said their backwards goodbyes and Leo dropped the telescope in the bin. He had never felt so sad. But deep in his heart, he carried the promise he had made with Ralph. It glowed softly in the dark, like a distant star.
Leo stared out the car window as they drove to their new home. Mum and Dad said it would take ten hours, maybe eleven. He hadn’t seen even a photo of the house. He only knew that Dundle was a small town, a tiny black dot on the orangey-brown part of Peg’s map. They’d always lived in the green corner of the map, close to the city, not far from the beach. Now they sped along a bumpy highway towards the orangey-brown, away from everything he knew and away from Ralph.
Peg sat across from him on the back seat. She caught him looking at her. ‘What?’
‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Whatcha thinking about?’
She stared out the window. ‘Clouds. See that big fluffy one?’ She pointed to the sky. ‘What do you think it looks like?’
He stretched across the seat and looked out her window. Any other day he would have said it was something from space. A Gronk or a Grimble. A marshmallow planet. But not today. ‘It looks like a turtle.’
