Cade came back. After 5 long, long years the Caldwell family packed-up again and flew home, back to where they'd started from, back to Brownsville.
There was no place on earth where he'd rather be, Brownsville was home and it was where he belonged. Brownsville was where Jayden was. At least, he hoped and prayed that he was still there.
He hadn't heard from him for years, so he didn't know.
The first of many shocks when they'd first arrived in the outback town where they were to live was that they had no internet access there. That sucked. It was like going back to the olden days where their mum was a girl. (She told them that the internet wasn't around when she was a kid. She'd survived, so would they.)
They had Sky TV, so it wasn't completely primitive, but no internet and no cellphones either!
At first he wrote letters to Jayden every day, telling him all about life in their new country, and he sent them by snail-mail. But the 'service' was slow and expensive. It took well over a week to send a letter and receive a reply, so he slowed down, then slowed some more, and as time went on their letters stopped altogether.
Jayden didn't reply to the last three letters he wrote and he didn't want to look too much of a try-hard, so he didn't write again. There were no more letters and eventually he stopped checking the mail. Jayden had obviously forgotten about him and was getting on with his own life.
Cade tried to forget about the past and get on with his life. He had his family, his home and his new friends, but he never wanted to be there, not forever.
He did make some good friends there. There were a lot of ex-pat Kiwis in the miner's families in the town. They knew what it was like to have to start again in a new country and they made him welcome.
The Greening twins soon became his best friends. They were his nearest neighbours and their bedroom window was opposite his. It wasn't far to go, but they walked to and from school together and they did everything together, including swimming naked in the dammed-up pool in the sluggish creek at the end of the street.
No-one thought anything of it, they were all just kids and everyone swam naked there when there were no adults around. However, they did all become a bit shy about their bodies as they grew older and the differences between them became more obvious.
Cade was happy, he was delighted to be going home at last, but he knew that he was going to miss the twins. They'd done a lot of their growing-up together and they were the best friends he'd ever had, apart from Jayden.
Jayden was his all-time best friend ever, no doubt about it, and even after 5 years he still missed him like hell. He SO hoped that they'd be best-friends again.
One thing bothered him, a bit, when he thought about it sometimes. He sort-of felt that he should like the twins more than Jayden – they were girls after all and Jayden wasn't, he was very much a boy. Or, used to be – he'd be a teenager now. But he couldn't help his feelings and Jayden was the one he liked best.
The twins were tomboys and they could run and fight as good as any boy, but they were also very good-looking girls with their sun-bleached hair and sun-tanned skin. They were different inside, but very similar to look at. People often confused which one was which, but never Cade, he always knew.
They were nice to look at but, even at 14 years old, Cade never felt any sexual attraction to either one. They were just his mates, that's all. Anyway, it would take a braver person than him to come between those two. Whichever one he chose, the other one would hate him. Better not to go there. He'd never have to choose anyway, he was going home and that's where he wanted to be.
It was weeks from the time they were told until they actually started moving. Most of their furniture and gear went on ahead of them. They were getting good at this moving countries business. They'd done it all before, but he hoped that this would be the last time.
Just about everyone in the town was at the farewell party. They were old-hands there now. The twins cried. Cade didn't, he was going to a better place.
Sitting in the Perth airport, waiting for a connecting flight, Angel asked what Cade wanted to know but was too timid to ask. “Dad, why are we going to New Zealand?”
“Why? Don't you want to go home, Angel?”
“It's not my home. I don't even remember living there.”
“You don't? That just proves it – it's time we went home.”
“But it's not my home. How can it be? My home is here where my friends are and that's where I want to stay.”
“Sorry, Honey, but you can't. We've had our time here and now we're going home. I've been offered the manager's job at the mine where I used to work, I want it and I'm taking it. We're all looking forward to going home.” He looked at Cade who smiled and nodded. “You'll love it there, Angel. You really will. There'll even be room for a pony if you still want one.”
“There will? Choice! I always want a pony!”
“Well now you can have one.” Ian smiled as he watched Angel run to tell her mother. He grinned at Cade, “She was easily bought. I don't suppose we'll have to bribe you with anything?”
“Not likely! We're going home, that's all I've ever wanted.”
“We know that, Son,” Mrs. Caldwell walked up. “You were just a kid and you had no choice, but you've been great about moving here, and patient too. I hope that home is all you want it to be. We've been away 5 years and you've grown a lot, everyone else will have too. You're going to find a lot of changes back there.”
“Gee, thanks, Mum.”
Damm. He hadn't thought of that. He hadn't thought much about it, but he sort-of expected everything and everyone to be the same as they were when he'd left. Angel had changed out of sight. She was still a pre-schooler when they came to Aus – look at her now – 10 years old and thinks she's a teenager already.
He looked around for Lance. He was down at the far-end of the big room, talking to 2 girls. Yeah, Lance had changed. Twelve years old and a Ladies' Man. He was a fine-looking boy too. He looked much older than 12.
What would Jayden look like now, he wondered. He was kind-of short and stocky when they'd left, wasn't he? Funny, he never thought much about what he looked like. He was just Jayden, he was his friend and he loved him.
Would he recognise him when he saw him? Yes, of course he would. But would Jayden recognise him? Great – something else to worry about.
It took them a long time to get home. They had a couple of days in Perth, looking around and catching up with friends, then they flew to Sydney and had a week's holiday there.
It'd be a long time before they had another chance to see Sydney, if ever, so they were making the most of the opportunity on the way home. Also, the delays would give their furniture and possessions time to get there before they did.
Sydney was great and, after 5 years in the WA desert, everything looked so green and fresh. Angel just wanted to ride the harbour ferries all day long, but there was so much more than that to see. Cade tried to be interested and enjoy it, but it was hard. He didn't want to be there, he had his heart set on home.
They moved on at last and boarded an Air NZ plane for the flight to Christchurch.
The plane was already coming down as they crossed over the South Island from west to east. They all looked but couldn't see the West Coast – it was under cloud. Again.
They landed in Christchurch, collected their baggage and walked out through Customs without being challenged. Ian hired a mini-van from the Avis Rentals counter. They all got in and he drove less than a kilometer to the Airport Hotel. There were groans from the back seats when he pulled in there.
“Dad, what're you doing?”
“We're checking in here. Didn't we tell you? We're staying two nights.”
“What for?” Cade was so disappointed he couldn't contain himself. “I wanna go home!”
“And we will,” his dad replied, “but not just yet. Look, Kids, I'm starting a new job back in Brownsville and who knows when I'll get time off again? Probably not for at least 12 months. We're here now and your mum and I want to have a look around before we leave.
We've never lived in Christchurch, but it's still our city – the nearest one to home and where we've visited, shopped and played many, many times. There's been some huge changes since the earthquakes – 8 out of 10 buildings in the central business area are either gone or coming down.
So, we're checking-in here, and then we'll go for a drive around and see what the Garden City looks like now.”
“Who cares? I want to see what Brownsville looks like now!”
“You will,” his mum nodded. “Two sleeps and we'll be there. Be patient just a little longer, Cade.”
“Can we go to MacDonalds?” Angel spoke up.
“Yes, we can go to Maccas, if you must. I thought you'd be sick of MacDonalds by now, we must've eaten at every one in Sydney in the last week and the food's the same wherever you go.”
“But I've never eaten at one in New Zealand.”
“You have you know. You don't remember it because you were only little. I think you were in a highchair last time we went to one here.”
They ate at Maccas. At least that was one constant in a changing world.
According to Lance, who knew such things, Christchurch was the biggest city, by area, in New Zealand, but not by population – that was Auckland, by far. Their two days there were interesting. It was a big, flat and spread-out place. There were areas, whole suburbs, where there was no visible earthquake damage and life was going on as always.
Other suburbs had been largely abandonded. Houses, near the river, sat at all sorts of crazy angles and were being overgrown and choked by weeds. The central city area, still largely cordonded off, was something else – like a huge building site in reverse. More buildings had gone than were still there and they were still coming down. Gravel-strewn empty sections were everywhere and even the parents couldn't remember what used to be there.
It was incredible how much damage had been done by just a couple of minutes of the earth moving. A nuclear explosion wouldn't have done much worse, except for the radiation stuff.
Anywho, all very interesting though it was, it was a relief when they finally left and headed west, to the Coast.
Even then, the father wasn't in any hurry. He kept stopping along the way and pointing out so-called interesting places. “That valley over there – that's where they filmed the battle scenes in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. Funny though, you can recognise the landscape by the big rocks, but in the movie the grass was green, not brown. They coloured it somehow. It probably wasn't pretty enough.”
No-one cared. They just wanted to go home, even the mother did, she'd had enough of sightseeing too. So, of course, they had to stop at Arthurs Pass for lunch.
Afterwards, outside in the carpark, Angel pointed out the little red-breasted birds bobbing around, scrounging for scraps of food. “Look at that! You see those birds on Christmas cards.”
“You do. Well-spotted, Angel,” Mrs. Caldwell said. “They are robins. They're English birds, I think.”
“Yeah, they are,” Ian said. “Look around, Kids and welcome to New Zealand – English birds, Japanese cars, Swiss chalet-style restaurant with American junk food and German tourists. It's a small world and getting smaller all the time.”
“Still takes forever to get anywhere,” Cade grumbled.
His dad grinned as he cuffed his head. “Get in the car then. You're holding us up!”
He didn't need telling twice.
It was mid afternoon when they arrived in Brownsville, at last. Cade recognised some landmarks as they drove in, but everything looked smaller than it used to. Towering trees were just overgrown shrubs really.
The parents conferred in the front seats and Ian turned into Buckley Street, drove along and stopped outside their old home.
It wasn't theirs anymore, they'd sold it when they left. It looked the same, but there were strange people there. Some kids were playing in the driveway and a lady was kneeling, weeding the flower gardens and looking suspiciously at them.
“What are those people doing in our house?” Lance objected.
“Living in it. It used to be ours, but it's not now. We sold it when we moved to Aus.”
“Where are we going to live then?”
“You'll see. We've got a nice property, by the beach, up the Coast Road.”
“We won't be living in town?” Cade worried.
“No. Not right in town, but close to it. We'll be just 10 minutes north of town.”
“Ten minutes walking?”
“No, Silly. Ten minutes in the car. It's 9 miles out.”
“But I haven't got a car!”
“Not yet, but it won't be long before you do.”
“It will be a couple of years, now they've put the age up to 16.”
Ian said, “Probably a good thing too.” He started the car.
Cade said, “Dad, seeing we're here, can we go around the corner to Marsh's Road?”
“To look at Jayden's family's house? Sure we can.”
They went around 2 corners and into the old familiar street. Cade had spent a lot of time there when he was younger and he knew it well. He used to know who lived in every house, but would he now?
Not much had changed. Not much except the most important thing – Jayden's house was gone! It was the right place, across the road from the small kids' playground and between Mr. Cutbush's and the Houston's family home, but there was no house there – just a bare section, empty except for the overgrown grass and weeds.
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