Chapter 21: Oops

Shorn was waiting for us to my surprise.

He should have been at work, but he instead conned his boss into letting him start a bit later since Paul was coming home. He even let me drive home since Ryan had allowed him to drive Snow to come and get us. It took Shorn about thirty seconds after the car pulled up, to have Paul in their room and the door shut, making us chuckle.

I showed Mitch around our house and explained why my bed was on the back veranda. He spied my workbench and became fascinated with the items I’d brought home from the Island to tinker with. Beth and I were no longer the focus of his attention.

Beth said that since Mitch was entertained and I planned on going visiting, she’d go see her folks. I tossed her the keys to Snow and kissed her before she left. I then gave Mitch the password for my computer, and he asked if I had any engineering design programmes.

I showed him my little collection, and he was happy as I had one, he had used before and knew well. He also asked for Vernier Callipers and a Micrometer. I opened the cupboard, and he was delighted by my selection of tools for him to use. I could almost see the wheels turning in his head as his fascination to find out how my strange little motor worked took over.

Since my partners were happy, I packed my small daypack. I kissed Mitch goodbye and said I should be back by the following afternoon. He hugged me and told me to go do what I needed to as he and Beth would be fine. I headed into the small bedroom. I’d decided it would make a good return point as we didn’t really use it.

Set to go, I thought about the Servo we had stopped at that was on the north side of Rocky (Rockhampton). I had noticed a small shed on the property the last time I was there and had walked around it when stretching my legs. I took a punt, and I blinked to that location.

I was wrapped. It seemed to take only a little more effort to get here as it had for me to travel the short distances on the Island. Either that or in reality I’d been able to physically move myself a lot further for a lot longer than I had realised.

I walked into the Servo and used the pay phone to call Jacque and set up a meeting with him in his shop the next day. I purchased and then sculled a bottle of Coke to refuel a little and then went to the toilets. I closed the door to a cubicle, but I didn’t lock it. I then thought of my room at Mum’s house and blinked again.

I still felt physically energetic. I’d studded an armband with extra crystals and then wore it for a few days to make sure it was fully charged. It seemed to have helped me heaps, as I didn’t feel drained of magical energy. The band, however, was so I took it off and put it under my bedside lamp to recharge.

I walked out of my room to go find Mum and ran into Sarah. At first, she squealed in fright and then upon recognising me when I called her name, she leapt into my arms. We happily hugged each other. “You’re a naughty magician for scaring me,” she scowled me as she hugged my neck tightly.

I looked at her in surprise, and she grinned. “Mummy said you weren’t an angel but a magician. That was why you could do things other people couldn’t. I’m not to tell other people about our magic. I can do magic too, wanta see?”

I put her down, and she pulled a hankie from her pocket. She showed me the hankie. It had little pink flowers on it. Then she scrunched it up in her hand before she flicked it out and showed it to me again. It now had one big pink flower on it. “I can make the ink move. Cool, huh!” she said.

“You don’t do that trick for other people, do you?” I said horrified.

“Of course! Mummy got me a magician’s book, and the other kids think I’m swapping the hankies. But you and I know I’m not. I’m very careful Tris,” she told me with seriousness well beyond what one would expect from a six-year-old.

I touched where her medallion was and realised it had a spirit in it. Shit! Tommy’s would have one too. “You’re going to have to teach Tommy to be very careful,” I told Sarah with concern.

She giggled, “We know, he makes things lev ... et ... ate? You know, go up and down,” she said as she lifted the tissue up and down.

I groaned. What the hell had I done? In my distress and desire to protect the kids, I hadn’t realised I’d put them in more danger. I was sure the medallions hadn’t had spirits in them when I gave them to them.

Sarah turned around and ran to the kitchen, yelling out, “Mummy, Tris is here, Mummy...”

I went and kissed my Mum, and she hugged me firmly, so I hugged her back just as hard. I was going to miss my Mum a hell of a lot when we left. I wouldn’t call myself a Mummy’s boy, but we had always been close.

Dad walked in with Tommy, and the boy squealed to come to me. He was calling me ‘Tiss’. I hugged him, and he hugged me as tightly as he could. I couldn’t believe how much he had grown just a couple of weeks. Dad said, “Thanks, son, you could have warned us.”

I looked at him sheepishly. He chuckled and hugged me with a couple of back slaps. “Mind you, it has been fun. That boy is an amazingly quick learner. He seems to understand he has to be careful and watches and mimics what everyone around him does.”

I could feel his pride in Tommy and knew the kids had the best parents I could have found them. Even if they were my own.

“I’ve been careful to, Tris. Daddy says I need to watch how other little girls act, but I don’t have to be wussy like some of them are. Some girls are stupid,” Sarah said with indignity.

I laughed. With two strong role models like my parents, she was not going to be a girl to fuck with. I don’t think the medallion could be blamed for that. I had felt she was a strong-minded person when I had first met her.

She had handled her parent’s death a lot better than I think I would have if they had been mine. I looked at Mum and then looked at her breasts. I then looked back at her face, and she winked at me and smiled. I sighed in relief. At least I had got that right. Mind you, either she was wearing a push-up bra, or her tits were even perkier than I remembered. She did have great tits.

I heard her chuckle. Hey! All men look at breasts, mums are not excluded, and I did have a legitimate concern about hers. I didn’t like the idea of my Mum losing those perky titties or even worse, her life.

I then looked at my Dad. He had lost more weight off his tummy and other places. He’d not had a big potbelly to start with, but now he seemed as flat as a board. He lifted his shirt and sucked in his guts, what little there was to suck in. The man had abs as good as mine.

“Show off,” I heard Mum say and Dad’s grin broadened. He wiggled his fingers at me too, and I knew what he was telling me. It looked like the rings were working a treat. They both looked younger and healthy.

They still had the touches of grey in their hair, but they just seem to make them look more handsome than old. Fuck! My parents were both hotties. No wonder Ryan and I had never had much trouble. Maybe I wasn’t as average looking as I had always considered myself.

I had always thought Ryan outdid me in the looks department. I knew Mitch and Beth thought I was handsome, but then love is blind. As long as they loved me, I didn’t care what anyone else thought about my looks. Beth had said I was hotter than Mitch was, but I didn’t believe her. Mitch was smoking hot to me, anyway.

I enjoyed my night with my family and told them I wouldn’t be here in the morning. I told them about Mitch and Beth and promised to bring them next time. Mum was pleased I had found my partners, and I think my Dad was too.

I didn’t tell them about me having to go away.

In bed that night, I thought about where to blink to in Brisbane the next morning.

This was a bit trickier. Public toilets could be difficult, as they were frequented by many. Shopping centres were tricky as many of them had security cameras these days. I then remembered the Boarding House I had stayed in when I went to Brisbane to do some training a few years before.

I remembered going under the back stairs to puke one night after a binge drinking session with the boys. Not an auspicious memory, as I had to hose it down the next morning. However, there was an alleyway created by the two-story, masonry house and the tall brick security fence. I could walk out of there, as it was rarely used. If I popped in around daybreak, I should be safe.

So, the next morning with my recharged bling I went to Brisbane. I walked out down the side of the boarding house and out through the gate, unchallenged. I happily walked down to a café I knew of, and that opened early. I ordered their truckies breakfast.

It had taken me nearly an hour to get there but the morning sun had recharged me, so it was worth the walk. I had also changed to my Mark Sinclair persona, but I was dressed more casually in jeans and a work shirt so that I looked more like a blue-collar worker. There were a lot of warehouses and storage facilities in this area, so I fit right in.

After a short walk, I grabbed the train and headed over to the Fortitude Valley train station. As I walked down the main street, I noticed a lot of office buildings with space to let and got an idea. I saw one sign and the person was keying a code into a datapad. I said hello before I approached too close.

The middle-aged man turned to look at me. “Who do I need to talk to about renting space in this building?” I asked him.

“Me,” he said. “How big an area do you want?”

“I just need a small office, with an address and phone access,” I told him.

He looked at me suspiciously. I elaborated, “I work out of my truck, and the accountant said I needed a mailing address, but I’m staying in a Boarding House, and they don’t want my mail going there.”

“Yeah, I can see how that would be a bloody pain. Did the accountant tell you the office is good for writing tax off?” he asked as he let me in.

“He did mention that little fact yes,” I said and grinned at him.

He chuckled for a bit and then stopped. He looked at me shrewdly. “Come this way,” he told me. He walked me down a hall and then down a flight of stairs to a car parking area. “When the maintenance man died, they didn’t replace him. It’s all contract now. Anyway, old Wally had this little space, and it comes with a carpark.”

He showed me a small office area with a workbench at the back. It was spaced off by a row of cupboards. I noted the long couch and had a sneaky suspicion old Wally had spent a lot of time on it. There was even an old telly on the bench.

The place looked like they had shut the door, and no one had been in it since. I asked how much and if I could make automatic payments for the rent. My new bank boasted of such a service. I could get the bill sent to them, and they paid it for me out of my account.

We agreed to a monthly payment that was dirt cheap, and he had authorisation forms for my bank, so I signed one. He explained lots of tenants liked this method as it made doing their taxes and calculating their expenditures easier.

I asked about the phone and told him it was mostly required for receiving the calls on an answering machine and so I could ring in and get the messages. He looked thoughtful and then said, “Fuck it.”

He explained that the one I had in the office was on the central exchange and he made a note that the phone was included in the bill. He handed me a key to my new office and told me the pin-code for the front door’s datapad if I wanted to come in that way. I was delighted and thanked him. Then I went shopping.

I purchased a couple of off-the-rack suits, four spare shirts and a four pack of dress socks. I also found a beautiful briefcase and a few other handy items to go in it. I found an answering machine with all the bells and whistles. I just had to ring it and then punch in a code on the phone I was ringing from. I could set the code and I’d hear my messages and could even delete them.

I headed back to my new office, and once inside I noticed a side door the manager hadn’t pointed out. I was delighted to find that I had a full bathroom with a spacious shower. This made sense if Wally had to do a dirty job and he had to be able to clean up somewhere.