It was a cold winter Wednesday morning on the street corner in Wattle Creek. Remnants of fog lurked around tree branches and shrouded the nearby park and footy field. It was the first week of school holidays and the three boys along with Shane and Woodford, discussed on their group chat the previous night to meet up early, hang out and stuff.

  The three boys had different priorities when it came to how they spent their youth allowance. Little Johnny popped a mono on his chromoly BMX Mongoose, before using his foot brake to skid and slide his bike to the kerb. The young lad was Filipino. He looked super cool with his denim jacket and black shoulder length hair, tied up in a ponytail.

  Himbo and Dave followed up on their bikes. Himbo rode a cheap, BMX style piece of junk bought from a K-Mart in Melbourne. Dave on the other hand, rode a metallic purple BMX with no stickers to indicate the brand.

  Dave looked ridiculous riding a kid’s push bike. The boy was 14 years old and was already six foot, three inches tall. He was built like a PVC portaloo with the upper back and shoulders of an adolescent powerlifter. He wore a Def Leppard t-shirt that was way too tight. Although it showed off the lad’s impressive rack and guns, it also gave glimpses of his gut. While most boys his age listened to whoop-whoop and doof-doof, big Dave preferred late 80’s/early 90’s rock. He also rocked a mullet that any decent bevan would worship and admire.

  Himbo on the other hand was only a third Dave’s size, frail and skinny. He had long and ginger hair. The boy wore a red turtleneck shirt and a blue denim jacket with jeans.

  “What do you guys think of that crazy stuff Shane posted last night?” asked Himbo.

  “Dunno,” replied Dave. His voice was unemotional, deep and monotone like a baritone drowned in barbiturates. “Just a boofhead being a boofhead, I guess. Here cometh the toad’s chode now,” he nodded his megalith of a forehead down the road.

  Shane approached on his BMX Haro. The bike was ill kept with a rusted chain and tyres flattened by lack of air and the boy’s impressive poundage. The fat freckled kid road slowly. He looked down at the footpath while he swayed his bike from left to right.

  “You alright Shane?” asked Johnny.

  “Awe, yeah, nah, yeah,” sighed Shane. The boy continued to look down at the footpath. He avoided eye contact.

  “So, what happened?” asked Himbo.

  “Not sure,” replied Shane. He looked like the love child between a British bulldog and a hamster. His fat cheeks dropped towards the footpath, tugged down by the weight of sadness.

  “Not sure about what?” asked Dave, “come on then, spit it out, yah sphincter.”

  Shane grimaced and squinted tears before he looked up at his friends, “Elmo died last night, something got him.”

  “It’s just a cat,” stated Dave.

  The words hit Shane like a bust in the chops. Tears flowed over his freckled cheeks of lard. The boy sobbed.

  Dave looked puzzled, “Like I said … just a cat … wake up to yourself.”

  “What do you mean by something got him?” asked Johnny. His elbows rested on his handlebars as he peered intently at Shane.

  “It happened so quick,” sobbed Shane, “something snatched Elmo from the top of the back fence … he hissed … and then a blur … maybe a green and grey hand … long fingers … black claws … it got him.”

  “Good,” agreed Dave.

  “Brutal Dave,” remarked Himbo, “too blunt mate.”

  “Don’t care Himmelberg,” snorted Dave, calling Himbo by his surname.

  “What do you think it was?” asked Johnny. There was something genuine in Shane’s sorrow that made the tall tale somehow seem real.

  “I dunno. It happened so quickly. A yowie? A bunyip? Maybe a monster, like the creature from the black lagoon or something?”

  “Crap.”

  “Shut up Dave,” rumbled Shane, “you don’t understand. How could you? A baby snake isn’t a real pet. It’s not like Elmo.”

  “Don’t talk about Leviathan,” Dave rebuked.

  Not much could rattle the big boy’s cage but when it came to the handful of reptiles he kept as pets, he was quite protective. There was something about snakes and lizards that appealed to him. They were simple creatures that saw the world as black and white. Devoid of intense emotion, they experienced reality with a clarity that was unclouded by pointless emotion and the drama it caused.

  “She’s a reticulated python,” said Dave, “I’m going to teach her to attack the Schwanz!” Dave barked the last word. “Her ‘Schwanzing!’ will be legendary and she’ll be able to eat anything. By the time I finish my Bachelor of Circus Arts, she’ll be capable of eating a stupid cat … maybe even you,” Dave took his time to extend his left arm and to point his index finger right between Shane’s eyes, causing the boy to go cross eyed.

  “You’re a butthead Dave.”

  “Ohhh you’re so mean, good come back, Butter Bean.”

  “Hey look,” said Himbo, “here comes Woodford.”

  A boy with an olive complexion and a drop of First Nation and Indian features, rode his mountain bike rapidly across the footy field.

  “Hey guys, guess what? You’re not going to believe this!” he shouted from a distance, “you’ve got to come see it!”

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “See what?” asked Dave, his eyes narrowed as his glorious mullet fluffed in the cold morning breeze.

  “It’s better if you all just see it for yourselves, otherwise, well … it won’t make any sense. Just follow me,” Woodford turned his bike around and started to ride off.

  The boys simply shrugged and nodded before following Woodford.

  “Where are we going?” huffed Shane.

  “Not far,” Woodford replied, “just up Bugger’s Hill for a bit.”

  “Not far my Casper bleached arse cheeks,” protested Shane, “that hill is too steep and it goes on for like, ages.”

  “Just keep riding, you bipedal bean bag,” said Dave, peddling past Shane, “besides, you need to lose about 300 kilograms anyway, so start peddling those flat as wheels you walrus.”

  The boys rode past closed shops and cafes. In an hour or so a few would open for the early coffee fiends and breakfast goers, mostly just tourists passing by on their way to the snow fields. They crossed the open lawn behind the town’s small hospital towards another clump of shops.

  As they road across the street, a blue Toyota HiLux Rogue sped around the corner before skidding to an abrupt halt in front of the boys. The young driver leaned his head out of the window.

  “Nice bike Hamley,” he said sarcastically to Dave.

  “Yeah,” laughed and snorted his passenger, “nice bike Hamley.”

  “Leave him alone!” shouted Shane.

  “I’d keep your fat trap shut fat boy,” said the driver, “before I shut it for you.”

  “Yeah,” said his passenger, “before he shuts it for you.”

  “I’m not scared of you buttheads,” replied Shane, scrunching his whoopee cushion of a face in defiance.

  “You hear that?” laughed the driver to his passenger, “he’s not scared of us … buttheads.”

  “Awe,” smiled the passenger before feinting fear and alarm, “maybe he should be scared, maybe we should make him scared.”

  “Awe rack off buttheads,” Shane reaffirmed.

  “Hey fat boy,” the driver said to Shane, “isn’t your mum that emo heifer with the pink and purple wigs?”

  “Don’t talk about my mum yah mega-butthead!” roared Shane, “you can’t talk, I saw your dad swimming at Purv’s swimming hole, and he’s got a superfluous nipple!”

  “What did you say about my dad, lard tard?”

  Dave interjected, “He said your dad has three breasts, like that chick from .”

  The driver smiled, “Wasn’t you Hamley and that red headed runt behind you abandoned as babies on the doorstep of Wattle Creek Hospital? I heard that it was like, poof, a flash of pink and purple light and there you both were, rugged up on the concrete, wa-wa-wa’ring away. Do you even have parents? I mean, the hospital just made up your names.”

  “Your point?” asked Dave.

  “You two live in foster care,” replied the driver, before gesturing at Johnny, “along with the Chinese kid over there.”

  “I’m Filipino,” said Johnny, he was not amused, “and not every Australian of Asian descent is from China.”

  “Fili-whatever,” smirked the driver, “you were adopted by some Australian couple, right?”

  “Yes,” said Johnny.

  “And didn’t they like, divorce and like, dump you off to the government instead of sending you back to where you came from?”

  “No,” replied Johnny, “they were killed in a car crash two years ago while I was at school.”

  “Aww yeah,” smirked and nodded the driver, “that’s right.”

  There was silence for a moment.

  Himbo stood frozen on the seat of his bike, trying not to panic. Woodford panned his head from left to right, looking for a direction to ride. Johnny just leaned over his handlebars with an icy cold expression. After spending his early childhood on the streets of Manila, he was hardly phased by a couple of tough guy wannabes.

  Meanwhile, Dave put both of his sneakers on the bitumen, straightened his back, puffed out his chest, and crossed his arms, his expression was cold and dull with a refined sense of inner rage, “Anyway butt wipe, what do you want?”

  “Nah, nah, nah, you’re avoiding my comments Hamley.”

  “Your point, butt wipe?”

  “My point is, you wanna say crap about my dad, when most of you lot, don’t even have a frigging family.”

  “Family is overrated,” replied Dave, “especially with a dad, showing off his three flabby man boobies to the rest of the world.”

  Dave’s inability to be affected by the taunts and his hurtful remarks, slapped the grin from the driver’s face, replacing it with a snarl, “You watch how you talk to me mate.”

  “Yeah,” said his passenger, “you watch how you talk to us.”

  “I’m not your mate,” Dave replied.

  “No, no you’re not,” agreed the driver.

  “Yeah,” added his passenger, “no, no you’re not.”

  “I dunno,” Dave said as he looked away with the slightest of smiles.

  “Dunno what?” asked the driver.

  Dave looked back at the driver, “Dunno whether your ranga scrub is the ventriloquist,” he extended his left arm slowly, pointing his index finger at the driver, “or you are,” he glared.

  The driver’s eyes narrowed, “Heard you bashed my younger brothers, Hamley.”

  “Yeah,” added his passenger, “heard you bashed his younger brothers.”

  “You a parrot or something?” Dave said, tilting his head to look at the passenger.

  “What?” asked the passenger.

  “Sorry,” Dave replied, “I could try to explain the insults to you, but without a little song and dance and some nursery rhymes, you’d still be dragging your Ginger Megs knuckles over your brow ridges, trying to understand.”

  The passenger scrunched up his face in some desperate attempt to compute what was happening. They were the big boys in the big car and this oversized brat should be scared, not mouthing off. His brain was a mess of crossed wires, misfiring in all directions. He blurted out a retort.

  “Yeah, well … well why just call me a ranga hey?” he smiled as he leaned over, pointing at Himbo, “your scrawny friend over there is a ranga as well.”

  “True,” Dave stared without a glimpse of body language or facial expression, “but he’s one of those Ed Sheeran looking rangas, not much freckles. While you, on the other hand, look like a nugget, riddled with carrots, that dropped from a dead and festering, zombie orangutan’s butthole.”

  The passenger scoffed in a confused and violent mixture of shock and outrage, “Awe man,” he said to the driver, “we really, really need to get the rest of the boys and give this kid an epic flogging.”

  The driver made a wavering gesture, signalling for his passenger to shut up, “Like I said,” he snarled as he looked at Dave, “I heard you bashed both of my younger brothers.”

  “You mean the captains of the footy and cricket teams?”

  “Yeah,” said the driver.

  “Yeah, I bashed that pair of wuthering bungholes,” Dave smiled, unfolding his arms, putting his hands on his waist, “and they cried like a couple of five year olds who dropped their ice creams … boo, hoo, hoo,” he feinted crying, rubbing his eye sockets with his big, bludgeoning knuckles.

  In a rage the driver threw open his door and started to climb out. It wasn’t right, this overgrown kid was too big for his boots, literally. Why, in a few years he’d be old enough to put everyone in their place. He’d be the big man. The top dog. The boss. It crushed the driver’s ego.

  “Oi Flanagan yah flamin’ galah!” shouted a shopkeeper, a man in his 70’s who looked fit for his age, “you leave these boys alone before I call Gilroy.”

  “Call that old copper,” replied Flanagan, the driver, “I don’t give a crap, I aint worried about that old fart,” he spat on the bitumen.

  “Don’t come the raw prawn with me yah flamin’ yahoo,” the shopkeeper took a few steps, shaking his broom, “now get back in your cashed up HiLux yah flamin’ mongrel and drive away!”

  Flanagan scoffed, rocking while looking back and forth between the shopkeeper and Dave.

  “Stone the flamin’ crows Flanagan, are yah deaf? Rack off!”

  Flanagan took a step towards Dave who remained motionless like the base of the Great Pyramid. His blank expression said it all. Dave didn’t flinch one bit. He was a passionate WWE fan and as soon as the blonde butthead came close enough, he was ready to leap off his bike with a running drop kick.

  Flanagan hesitated and scoffed before he turned around and hopped back into his HiLux, “Watch yourself Hamley,” he said as he spat on the bitumen, “I’m gunna get you.”

  “Yeah,” said his passenger, “he’s gunna get you, yah, yah overgrown nerd turd.”

  “You pair of brain cells couldn’t cash my cheque,” Dave replied, “bye Flanagan,” Dave flipped him the bird with his left hand, “and bye, you festering ranga nugget,” he said to the passenger while flipping him the bird with his right hand.

  Flanagan did a burn out as he drove off, the smoke from burnt tyres floated across the road towards the direction of the shopkeeper.

  “Streuth,” said the shopkeeper, “you young fellas stay clear of that galah Flanagan and his mates. Reckon they’re on that stuff that keeps them up all night and day.”

  Dave looked at the shopkeeper and simply nodded.

  The shopkeeper turned around and continued sweeping, mumbling under his breath, “This whole town’s plunging into a drugged-out hippy’s thunder box faster than a flamin’ galah shot out of a canon, reckon it’s time to sell and move back up north to the coast, flamin’ a lot less prawns up there I reckon.”