Brownsville Tales - Robin, 5

(Could be called 'Robin's End' - last one for now).

They all soon settled into a new and comfortable routine. Robin and Darren were constantly together at home, both day and night. At first, they stuck with their own separate lives when at school and around town. Robin was much more into team sports than Darren was and he wasn't at all interested in his more geeky pursuits – Drama Society, Chess Club, etc.

However, as time went on and they helped and trained with each other, they both began to take more of an interest in the other's world, and they were together even more.

When the time came and Debbie had to stop working at the Pre-school, she was at home all day and everyday. Robin's domestic dreams came true then – the house was always warm when they arrived home and usually full of delicious smell's from Deb's baking and cooking. He liked having an at-home mother. They both did.

A few too few months after the wedding, their baby sister was born and the very proud big brothers were delighted. It was love at first sight, and they both doted on her. The baby was named 'Eloise', after the old song, but she was soon dubbed, 'Else' and was never called anything else.

A couple of years went by. The adults didn't change much, but the kids did – a lot. They all grew and the boys developed into strong, happy and healthy teenagers. They were ever more comfortable with each other, both in bed and out of it. (They had a LOT of practice).

They were both doing better in school than they ever had before.

The boys were delighted, once again, when the parents told them that another baby was on the way.

Robin and Darren talked it over, and then they told their parents that they thought that they should invest in an old caravan. Parked-up close to the back-door and plugged in to the house power supply, it would make a good new bedroom for them.

Else could move into their old room and the new baby could take her place in the parents' bedroom. Deb said that that was a great idea and very unselfish of them too. (It wasn't really. They'd have more privacy in a caravan and they could still share the same bed – they'd thought of that).

Bryan said, “Well, it's not a bad idea really. There's not much point in adding more rooms to this old place. That would cost a fortune and you two won't be here for that many more years.

A caravan sounds good. We'll think about it.”

“Think hard, Dad,” Robin replied.

“Yeah, Dad. Think real hard,” Darren agreed.

However, the caravan never happened. Bryan arrived home one day and announced that there'd been a change of plans. He was going to sell the Ranch and they were moving. Once again, he was going to ruin Robin's comfortable life. Darren's too. They were horrified, but they had no say and no choice – they were only 14, almost 15, years old. Dammit.

“Where are we moving to?”

“To Brownsville. I've been offered a job in the mine there and I'm taking it.”

“What's wrong with the job you've got now? You like working for Rick, don't you?”

“I do, but the job is not going to be there for much longer. Rick is retiring and shutting the mine down. It's all-but worked out anyway.”

“So your job won't be there any more. But why Brownsville? It's a horrible place, a crap town. If we've got to move, there must be somewhere better than Brownsville. Anywhere would be better than there.”

“I've got to work, Rob. We need the income to live and coalmining is what I know. I'm good at it and it pays well too. There aren't many underground mines still operating and Brownsville has one of the few. So that's where we are going.”

Darren had to object as well, this affected him too. “Dad, we can't live in Brownsville, it's an awful place. In the winter, it's even colder there than it is here – and that's saying a lot! Everytime we go there and get out of the car, that wind cuts through you like a knife.”

“Can't argue with that. But the wind is only around the business area near the river. When you get back away from there, it's a different climate altogether. It's quite mild really, they don't have frosts because they're near the sea.”

“If you say so. Still a horrible town though.”

Debbie said, “It's nice to see that the old West Coast parochialism is alive and well in the younger generation. Any place is what you make it, Boys. Once you make some new friends there, you'll like it too. Wait and see.”

“I'd rather not. I like the friends we've got now,” Robin grumbled. “Anyhow, how are you ever going to sell this place? We like it because it's the Ranch and it's our home, but it's rubbishy land really and a little old house. Who'd want it?”

“The Morris Mining Company want it. They've made several offers before, but I've always turned them down They guarantee that they'll buy it anytime we want to sell, and now we do. They want to put a gold-dredging operation through here. It's one of the few bits of land that has never been properly worked over before.”

“If there's gold out there, Dad, couldn't you do it yourself? They'll only be wanting to mine it to make a profit from it.”

“Of course they do. Fair enough too. Rob, I can't do it. It's not my sort of mining and we don't have the equipment or the money to buy it.”

“Oh. So we have to move to Brownsville?”

“Yes.”

Darren said, “If they just want to dig up the land, could we take the house with us?”

“This old place?” Bryan smiled. “It'd fall to bits before we got there. Don't worry. With the money we get from selling the Ranch, we'll buy a house in Brownsville – somewhere a lot bigger and better than what we've got now.”

“It might be bigger but it won't be better. This is our home!”

“Was our home. People move all the time, Rob. You'll get over it.”

“Doubt it. Anyway, I don't care how big the house you get is, Darren and I are still going to share a room. You're NOT taking that away from us.”

“Let's wait and see what house we get,” Debbie said. “Don't you boys think you're getting a bit big to be sleeping together?”

“No, Mum, we do not!” Darren stressed. “We're sharing a room or we're not coming – it's that simple.”

Bryan said, “And how would you do that? You're not adults yet and you're not in a position to support yourselves.”

“Oh, we've got a plan.”

“Now come on!” Debbie objected. “You're all starting to get a bit silly and it's time it stopped. No-one wants to see our family broken-up. Boys, we are all moving to Brownsville. Bryan, they will be sharing a room, like they've always done. As long as they're happy doing that, they can keep on doing it. No more arguments! Let's talk about something else.”

Robin said, “I just want to say one more thing.”

Bryan said, “Your mother said no more arguments.”

“I'm not arguing. I want to say – when Dad told me that he was getting married and I was getting a new mother and brother, I was not impressed and I didn't want him to do it. Now, I'm glad he didn't listen to me. Debbie, you're a brilliant mother!”

“Oh, Sweetheart! Thank you. You're not so bad yourself you know.”

“Yeah, well. Well, maybe this shifting won't be so bad – maybe. We'll see.”

“We will,” said Bryan. “Now what's for dinner?”

The move happened quickly. Robin and Darren suspected that it was like that so they have no time to object. The agreement to purchase was signed by Jack Morris of Morris Mining, the day after Bryan had dropped the news on them.

That night, they all sat around the computer and checked-out houses for sale, in and around Brownsville. With the money from the Ranch, they could afford to buy the best of them, but what they really wanted was a house that suited everybody – and definitely not by the river in the middle of the town!

They tagged several of the ones they liked the look of and, on Saturday, they went down to Brownsville to have a proper look at them. The first one they went to was the last one.

Perched up on a hilltop, at the south end of the town, well away from the cold winds by the river, It didn't look very promising at first. The long and narrow, steep, rough and gravelled, wound up through dense native bush above Weimar Road. It was like being out in the country, far away from any towns.

When they came to the top, there was a rough, overgrown, paddock on one side of the road – 2 hectares according to the website. They drove down the concrete driveway on the right, to park next to and below the house.

The house was up two short flights of wooden stairs and there were garages and other spaces on the ground floor which was, basically, built of concrete blocks, badly in need of cleaning and painting. One of the garage doors was crumpled and hanging off the rollers. It would obviously never close again.

The house up top was clad with rough-stained timber walls with a lot of big windows and it was surrounded on 2 sides by a wide wooden deck. It was not an old house, it was a reasonably modern style, but it was all a bit rough. It hadn't been well looked-after and there was a lot of rubbish lying around. It didn't look at all promising, until they went up the stairs and on to the deck at the front.

“Wow! What a view – it's glorious!”

They all stood looking down. Even Else, who was sitting on Robin's shoulders, was entranced. There wasn't much of the town visible, apart from the main road south, most of it was hidden behind the treetops which framed the view. There was the sea, the rivermouth and port and the bush-clad coastline all the way up to the headland in the distance, all shining in the sunshine.

“All right,” said Bryan. “So far, so good. Now let's see what else there is.” He knocked on the ranch-slider, glass door and the little old lady in there came out to show them around.

They all went inside, into the huge open-plan kitchen/dining/living-room area, which took up half of the entire floor area of the house. The laundry – washing machine and dryer – was incorporated into the kitchen and 4 bedrooms all opened off the hallway on the right.

The Master bedroom was at the front, with its own en-suite bathroom and a ranch slider out to the front deck. The two bedrooms behind that shared another en-suite and the 4th one, at the back, had none, (but it had a nice view).

All of the carpet would need replacing, it was old, stained, faded and worn. The ceilings were low, the windows were big and there was plenty of them. It was all a bit old and rough, but it was a well-designed house and full of sunshine.

“Not too bad,” was Bryan's verdict. “It needs work, but it could be a really nice home.”

“It IS a nice home,” said Debbie. “I like it.”

“I like it too,” said the old lady. “We lived here for years. It was a good place to raise our family, but they've all grown and moved away now. Since my husband died it has all got a bit too much for me.”

“I don't know,” said Darren. “Which bedroom would we have?”

The old lady smiled. “Go down the stairs in the hallway and you'll find another bedroom down there. I think you might like that one. My boys did.”

“Let's check it out, Bro.” Robin went down the stairs and Darren followed.

They were back, all excited, in a couple of minutes.

“Dad, Mum, This is the house! This is where we want to live. Nowhere else.”

“You've got to buy it, Dad. Please!”

“You have to, Dad. You have to buy this one.”

“What on earth did you two find down there? A diamond mine?” Debbie smiled at their excitement.

“Even better!”

“Come and see.”

They ran back down and the parents followed them At the bottom of the stairs, there was another short hallway which led to an outside door. To the left, doors opened into the garages at the end by the drive. To the right, there were several storage rooms, the back of which must've been dug into the hillside.

Around and behind the stairs, there was another door and there was a huge room through there. More than just a room, it was a whole self-contained apartment with its own kitchen, bathroom and shower as well as the huge bed/living room area along the front wall.

A breakfast bar divided off the kitchen area and another bar/counter along the back wall had a big entertainment area behind it – two big television screens, an old and large stereo set-up and shelves full of CD's, DVD's, books and room for anything else they wanted.

“Wow!” said Debbie. “This is great. What a gorgeous room.”

“It is,” Bryan said. “A very nice room. I think we should have it ourselves, Deb.”

“Dad, no!”

“You can't, Dad. You can have the master bedroom up top, that's near the babies'. This is perfect for us.”

“For you? Nah, it's be wasted on you.”

“No it wouldn't! It's what we need, exactly what we need. Dad, Pleeeease!” Robin, with a big cheesy grin, knelt and lifted his hands like he was praying.

Debbie said, “Bryan, you can't take this away from them. This'd be the ideal place for growing boys. They'd still be living with us, but they'd have their own space too, so we're not all falling over each other.”

“You might be right,” Bryan replied. He grinned at the boys and said, “Just kidding, Boys. This will be your room.”

He turned to the old lady and said, “Mrs. Minehan, we'll take it. You've just sold your house and we've got a new home for our family.”

“What a relief!” she smiled. “That's wonderful. But, don't you want to dicker? The Real-Estate Agent said that people would try to get a lower price because there is a lot of work to be done.”

“We don't want a lower price, Mrs. Minehan. We want this house, just as it is, and we want it now. We'll go down to the Estate Agent's office and we'll buy your house – now. Today.”

“Thank you, Mr. Hedges. Thank you very much! I hope you will be as happy here as we were with our family.”

Bryan looked at the smiling faces surrounding him, grinned himself and said, “I think we will be. In fact, I'm sure we will.”

They smiled all the way home and, as soon as they arrived, the boys started packing.

It didn't happen overnight, there was a lot to be done and it took 2 weeks. But, by then the school holidays had started, which was very handy. The truck arrived and was loaded.

They left, with just a brief, wistful, look back, and they moved to Brownsville, to their new home on the hill.

Bryan had a couple of weeks before he started his new job and the boys had no school to go to, but they weren't exactly on holiday. He had them busy, all day every day. They didn't even get a chance to look around the town, except when passing through on trips to the rubbish dump or to get supplies.

They cleared up all the rubbish lying around, both inside and out, and took load after load of it away. The next priority was to rebuild the fence around the outside of the decks and to put a gate at the top of the stairs, so that Else could go outside to play there.

Using long-handled rollers, they painted all of the ceilings throughout the house and stripped off the wallpaper ready for repapering. Carpet-Layers arrived to replace the carpets, and they had to help them too.

Their physical fitness program was on hold, but they figured they didn't need it anyway, they were working hard. They didn't even get a break when Bryan went off to work. He left them lists of things to be done, mostly painting preparation, which was a bugger of a job.

It was all work and no play, but there were some compensations. They were working together, they were getting paid for it and it was going to be a grouse house by the time they were finished.

On the Friday before school started, there was a registration day at the Highschool, and their mum took them down there to sign up.

The office lady signed them up and gave them books of instructions and maps of the school etc. She told them to report to Room 4, for Geography on the first period on Monday, and gave them an introductory note for the teacher.

They then went downtown and purchased books, stationary and uniforms. Darren had grown a lot in the last two years, but he was still smaller than Robin and probably always would be.

Monday morning, they were dropped off at school and they joined the mob waiting outside Room 4. Well, stood near them and endured their suspicious stares really. No-one spoke to them – snobby lot!

The teacher arrived, long after every other class had gone in. Everyone rushed inside after him and Robin and Darren followed them all.

They decided not to bother the teacher, it was already late, he didn't look happy, and they didn't want to get yelled at on the first day. So, they sat together in seats in the back row.

Mr. Erickson stood up, the kids settled down and shut up and their new life in their new school began.