Aussie Chomps : The Trolley Boys

CHAPTER 1

It wasn't fair. I didn't mean for it to happen. If Jacky Swan hadn't called me into the house to watch a replay of the cricket, I wouldn't have left the bike on the Street. Besides, how was I supposed to know they were having a new sofa delivered that day. And if the delivery guy had been looking where he was going instead of smoking a ciggie…

'Geez, flat as a pancake,' said Jacky, as we looked down at the wreck.

He's lucky I didn't make his nose flat as a pancake.

What are you going to tell Marcus?'

That was the problem. It wasn't my bike, it was my brother's. And he'd only had it since his birthday in October. It was the first day of the summer holidays. I had been looking forward to six weeks of carefree mucking around, and this had happened on the first morning.

'Forget Marcus. I'm more worried about what Dad will say,' I said to Jacky.

Later, at home, I found out. It wasn't pretty. My father didn't quite froth at the mouth, but there were definitely flecks of spit.

'You took his bike without asking! And then you left it where a furniture truck could back over it.'

Okay, so even I had to admit it wasn't sounding good. But the worst was yet to come.

'You'll have to buy him a new one.'

'How am I going to do that? I don't have any money,' I cried. This was not entirely true. I did have the forty bucks Gran gave me for my own birthday, but I wasn't going to mention that.

'There's the money Gran gave you,' said Dad.

Rats.

'That won't be enough, though,' continued Dad.

'That bike was special — a racing bike. Marcus paid for part of it with his own money'

Then he told me how much it cost. It just about knocked me flat!

'How am I going to get that kind of money?' I asked.

'You could sell him as a slave,' suggested Marcus. Despite the loss of his precious bike, he was enjoying seeing me squirm.

Dad scratched his chin for a minute. 'You'll have to get a job, Brenton.'

He had used my full name. This was serious.

And that's how six weeks of summer freedom disappeared down the gurgler.

The following Monday was a scorcher. It was the kind of day you want to spend on a beach down the Gold Coast with your friends. Instead, I started my new summer job: collecting shopping trolleys at Carringford Plaza.

It was a huge place. Even the car park had seven storeys. After an hour I was soaked from head to toe — not with cool, salty surf, but with my own sweat.

'You look ready to melt,' said a voice from behind me.

I turned to see a guy wearing a lime-green shirt like mine. I'd seen him around the car park a few times that morning but this was our first meeting. He was quite a bit older than me and a lot bigger — one of those tall, rangy types, like an orang-utan without the body hair, and his Adam's apple really did look like a Granny Smith had got caught in his throat. His thin, bony face was covered in pimples, but that didn't stop his easy smile.

'You just started this morning, eh? What's your name?'

'Brent,' I told him, sticking to the shorter version.

'I'm Nathan.' He shook my hand. 'Been watching you work. You're good. You don't smash the trolleys around like some guys. And you're not listening to an iPod either. A lot of guys have iPods and they don't do the job properly.'

Properly? It wasn't rocket science! And the only reason I wasn't listening to an iPod was because Dad made me give it to Marcus as down-payment on the bike.

'Well, better get back to work,' said Nathan.

What's the hurry? I thought. This guy should get a life.

The next day I saw exactly what Nathan's job was. Sure, he was a trolley boy, but he didn't just collect the strays like I did, he got to drive a tractor. It was a midget, really, not much more than four wheels and a seat for the driver, and its only job was to tow a long trailer with two rows of trolleys locked inside it. I bet any farmer who saw it would fall about laughing. But to Nathan that tractor was a Formula One racing car and he threw it around the car park like a world champion. He obviously loved his job.

Nathan had all sorts of useful tips. He really wanted me to enjoy the job and not wear myself out.

'Once you get five or six all shoved into one another, leave them for me,' he said. It saved me heaps of work because I didn't have to wheel them all the way back to the special corrals. He seemed to know where I'd be and when I'd need him. It was like a sixth sense. Just at the right moment, there he'd be, with the tractor. We'd load them into the trailer together and then Nathan would drive off to deliver the trolleys back to the discount stores and supermarkets inside the shopping centre.

Sometimes I helped him out, wheeling long lines of trolleys through a private corridor that led into the shopping centre. There was a sign saying Staff Only, Strictly No Admittance on the doors. I don't know why they made such a fuss when the only thing down there was the Electrical Control Room, but I liked going where no one else was allowed. Made me feel special.

By the end of my first week, I realised something I'd never thought about before: if you take a job seriously, it's not as boring and the time flies. Nathan wasn't such a try-hard after all. I was even starting to like him.

At lunch we'd head into the air-conditioning, but not by the regular route. Nathan knew every short cut, every forgotten passageway, every hiding place in the entire shopping complex. Hardly surprising, I suppose — he had been working there ever since he finished up with school.

'My enrolment was no longer in the best interests of the school community,' he told me one lunchtime, and laughed.

I guess that meant he was tossed out. Somehow, I just couldn't see Nathan fitting in at school.

By the end of the second week we'd started having lunch together every day. Normally we avoided the most crowded areas, but that Saturday Nathan said, 'Let's go watch the necklace draw'

By then I knew all about the necklace. Carringford Plaza had come up with a new promotion in the weeks before Christmas. Instead of putting on those boring song-and- dance acts on centre stage, they'd brought in a diamond necklace for everyone to gawk at. Not just any necklace, either — this one was worth a million dollars. That's right. Count the zeros! ,000,000!

The necklace was displayed in a special cabinet on stage and there was always a huge queue waiting to see it. At twelve-thirty every day a name was drawn out of a barrel and the winner got to wear the million-dollar necklace up on stage and have their photo taken.

Not exactly a guy thing, I guess. In fact, most of the audience gathered around the stage was female. I think Nathan just went to check out the girls.

'A million dollars,' he sighed, as we gazed at the crowds. 'If I had that kind of money, I wouldn't waste it on diamonds.'

'No, I'd buy a racing bike,' I said.

Nathan looked at me like I was nuts. 'There's better things than a racing bike,' he said. He took out his wallet and proudly showed me a photograph of a sleek red sports car.

'Better than my tractor, eh Brent? That's what I'd buy if I had a million dollars.'

Boy, did those words cause me grief.