My Story (Rua), 11

I’m back!! Still no applause? Dammit!

Anywho. So far we spoken of the first year of our sojourn in Tiroroa. ( Know a lot of fancy words don’t I? I read a lot. Still have to check the spelling though.) Now, here’s the second half.

At the end of the year, school finished for the holidays. I didn’t get any awards at the break-up ceremony. I should’ve. Maybe I would’ve, but the competition was too tough. Denise took 3 of the 4 ‘Best in Class’ awards. They could’ve, at least, given me the other one, but – no.

We had Christmas in Tiroroa, just my mum and me. That was exciting. Then, we went on holiday; to Christchurch first – Yay!

It was disappointing really. I did try to catch-up with some of my old friends from Shirley Intermediate, but things had changed and it was not the same. Some of them were away on holiday, of course. Those that weren’t might as well have been. We just didn’t connect like we used to, everyone had changed. I guess I had too.

Mum couldn’t understand it. She had a great old time catching up with her old friends and couldn’t see why I didn’t. I think that kids change faster than old people do.

I was glad that we weren’t spending our whole time in Christchurch. Much more of this and I’d be happy to go back to Tiroroa. Never thought I’d be saying that!

I spent New Year’s Eve alone, in front of the tele. Sat up until midnight, watching other people celebrating, and went to bed 5 minutes later. Pathetic, eh?

At least I wasn’t sick the next day. To say that Mum and Gran were, would be the understatement of the year. Why did they do that to themselves?

My New Year’s resolution was that something had to be done about my life. I didn’t know how I was going to do it, but things had to change. I was lonely and I didn’t like it.

I was getting on all right at school, no-one hassled me any more, but I had no close friends, not a one. I had acquaintances, but not friends. No-one but Denise wanted to get close to Lizzy in case people thought that they were gay as well. The campy queen act had served a purpose, but now I was regretting it and, kind of, wished we’d never started it.

Because of the ‘brewer’s asthma’, (hangovers), we were a day later leaving Christchurch than planned. But, that was okay, we were travelling in the housetruck anyway, so it didn’t matter.

We headed down through South Canterbury, passing through town after town. Some of them were sizable, but most were no more than a pub, a shop or two and some houses. Whoop-de-do.

I couldn’t believe the cost of running the housetruck. The fuel costs were horrendous, and there’s road-user taxes on top of that! Pity they couldn’t make bio-fuel out of marijuana, Gran’d be sweet.

We arrived, at last, in Timaru. It wasn’t really that far, but it seemed like it in the truck. It takes about 20 minutes by plane, in the housetruck, it took all day.

Coming into the town, by way of the heavy-traffic by-pass, we passed Caroline Bay, where the carnival was still going on. It’s an annual New Year’s thing there. That looked great. I’d decided that I’d have to check it out, but we didn’t stop, just carried on through to the south end of town – bloody miles away. Dammit!

We stopped, at last, at Gran’s sister’s place. Great!

Gran’s sister, my Great-Aunt Iris was as straight and conservative as Gran was not. It was always good staying there, she spoiled me rotten, I think that she felt sorry for me. Aunt Iris was a great cook. She was always baking cakes and stuff and she sewed too. Maybe I could get some of my jeans fixed? Her gardens were all vegetables and flowers, no marijuana anywhere. She grew huge strawberries too.

Funny though, I always got bored after a day or two staying there. I think that my Gran was more fun really.

However, this time, things looked good – there was a very interesting development. Uncle Bert’s nephew, Graeme, was staying there with them for the holidays.

Graeme was the same age as me, 14. I’d met him a few times, when we were younger. I was never really that keen on him, we didn’t have a lot in common, but – whoah! Things had changed!

Graeme was growing up and he was developing nicely. Let’s not muck around here, he was freaking gorgeous and he was hot! I wished that I was nicer to him when we were kids.

Don’t go thinking that every boy I met was picture-perfect, they weren’t. To a starving man, even a common old meat pie looks like a banquet, and I was hungry. Lots of boys looked good to me, however, in Graeme’s case, he really was a looker – very nice to look at.

His blond hair was darker, and longer, than it used to be, but his soft, smooth skin was still flawless. His eyes were huge, blue pools and his lips! They were like two red cushions stuck on his mouth. He was tall and so skinny that he seemed taller. He was still at that gangly stage where all his joints seemed loose. It was like a beautiful boy’s head on the framework of what would soon be a man.

The prospects of this holiday suddenly seemed a lot better. Better yet – when Aunt Iris said, “Well Boys. Aren’t you going to say hello to each other?” He grinned a shit-kicking grin as he stuck out his hand. I smiled back as I took it.

What? You think I swear too much? Stick around. Wait ‘til I’m really upset, you ain’t seen nothing yet! They don’t call me Mr. Potty-Mouth for no reason.

“Hey Virgil. Nice to see you.”

“Hey Graeme. Nice to see you too – really nice. Staying here on your own, are you?”

“Sure I am. I’m a big boy now.”

(‘You certainly are! Big and beautiful.’)

“So, you’ve been travelling all day? Do you fancy a swim?”

(‘A swim, with you? Whoah – endless possibilities!’) I couldn’t help thinking of the last time someone, Joel, had asked me if I wanted to swim with him.

“Sounds good. But where? The sea’s miles away from here.”

“It is, but there’s a pool in the back-yard. Uncle Bert bought himself one for Christmas.”

“He did? Great idea! Can we use the pool, Aunty?”

“Of course you can, Lovey. Use it all you like. Go and have fun, Boys.”

“Coo. Come out the back, Virgil.”

Graeme already had his swimming trunks on, but I was in my jeans and I wasn’t going to swim in them. I wasn’t swimming naked either – not in Aunty’s backyard.

“I’ll be there in a minute. I’ll just get changed in the truck.”

“’Kay. See you in the pool.”

He went one way and I went the other. I was only a couple of minutes and, when I went back through the house to the backyard, Graeme was already in the water. The pool was one of those above-ground plastic things. It was round, waist-deep and about 4 meters across. It wasn’t huge, but it was big enough for two.

I ran over, climbed the steps and cannon-balled into the water. When I surfaced, he was standing there grinning at me.

“Gee thanks. I’m all wet now!” He splashed some water at me and got some back. We splashed and played around a bit, but I was careful where I put my hands. However, I’ve gotta say, I did enjoy it when I flung my arms around that glorious, long, body and bulldozed him underwater. It was almost as much fun when he did it back to me.

Mum, Gran, Uncle Bert and Aunt Iris were all sitting around the patio table, sampling Bert’s home-brew. I hoped that they were going to behave themselves.

The play-fighting came to an abrupt end when I swallowed a load of water and it went down the wrong way! I fended him off, made my way over to the side and hung over the wall of the pool, coughing my guts out and gasping for air. My eyes were streaming too. Not fun.

“Oh shit, Virgil. Are you okay?” Graeme asked, worriedly.

“Do I look okay? No, I’ll be fine. Just give me a minute. I think I swallowed half the bloody pool.”

“Virgil?” Aunt Iris stood up. “Are you all right, Lovey?

Well, at least someone cared.

“I’m fine, Aunty.”

“All right then. I think that’s enough of the rough playing. Settle down now, Boys. You don’t want to go drowning your cousin.”

I sat on the bottom step with my head and shoulders out of the water. Graeme sat down next to me.

“We’re not, are we?” He asked.

“We’re not what?”

“You know, what she said. We’re not really cousins, are we?”

“Cousins? I dunno. Cousins by marriage, or something, maybe. It’d be really distant cousins anyway.”

“Yeah, I guess so. That’s a shame.”

“What’s a shame? Don’t you want to be my cousin?”

“Well, yeah, I do. But it’s a shame if we’re distant. I was hoping that we could get closer.”

He WHAT? Closer? What did he mean by that? I hoped he meant what I thought he meant.

“Yeah, so do I, Graeme. I hope that we get closer too.”

“Cool.” (There was that grin again. He could melt ice with that grin.)

“Way cool.” I leant sideways so that our shoulders were touching. “Close enough?”

“Well, it’s a start.” He pushed back against me.

Damm! I was certain of it – this boy was as ready to play as I was!

“So,” Graeme said. “Where are you sleeping tonight? In the housetruck?”

“Not likely! I only do that when I have to. I’ve got a tent, I’ll sleep in there. I’ll put it up in the backyard here.”

“You’re sleeping in the backyard? Cool. Is there room in the tent for two?”

“Yeah, there’s plenty of room, if you want to sleep with me.”

“I’d love to sleep with you, Virgil,” he whispered and grinned.

Hot Damm! I was sure of it. We were on a one-way street here!

“Yeah,” I grinned back. “I’d like to sleep with you too.”

We got out of the pool, dried off and cleared it with the groan-ups that we could camp out in the backyard.