Aaron hadn’t really turned out to be much of a scholar even from his earliest attempts at school.
“Pretend you’re using the letters g, j, p, q and y like a fishing rod and the tails are sinking beneath the water,” said Mrs Rimple who had tried every trick she could think of to interest the eight-year-old. Seen as weak, his older brother Shaun would take every opportunity to pick a fight with him and unable to retaliate successfully, Aaron would take his frustrations to school. Simon Carver went crying to the headmaster after a stray fist landed beneath the waist and sent Simon doubling over.
“For chris’sake boy, next time when you hit somebody, keep your head down and your fists above the waist. Unless the guy has run off with your girl, scratched your paintwork, bad-mouthed your friend or all three, you never go for the meat and two veg,” was all his father said on the drive home after being called to the principal’s office.
Eventually Aaron and Crest Valley High parted ways without any further drama but strangely enough his relationship with Shaun had improved about the time that he continued past the pencil mark their father had scratched in the kitchen doorframe when Shaun was seventeen. At fifteen, Aaron had surpassed this by seven centimetres but by now he was more interested in being at opposite sides of an engine bay than sparring across a dinner table. The older sibling could do most engine repairs and Aaron was given greater access to his brother’s sacred world as his knowledge increased. On four days of the week Aaron would be found on the forecourt of the local Caltex, washing windscreens, filling petrol tanks and checking the dipstick under the hood when asked. Now and again a customer would double-check the mark on the dipstick and claim he was trying to overfill the oil and increase the revenue for the garage. A little oil on the door handle for the customer to transfer to their clothing was his subtle reply to these suggestions.
By the time he was twenty, Aaron had enough to buy his own Honda Civic and he would cruise endlessly. Months of following Shaun to district rugby games had uncovered many of the best roads around. Today, Kyeburn straight laid out before him, five kilometres of one-in-nineteen gradient and distant pine trees that shimmered in the late summer heat. The right foot planted the accelerator throwing him back against the velour. The white centre line flickered like old-fashioned kids' cartoon beneath the wheels as the engine yielded to his right foot. The needle gathered momentum and crept toward the red and beyond before the cheap import tyre gave way.
The farmer struggled to make sense of what he had seen to the police arriving on the scene.
“You see those poles there? Well, I’m sure that I saw an object fly higher than the power lines strung across them.” The officer drew a simple illustration and the witnesses name - ‘Young’- alongside. The ‘g’ sat beneath the line.
Andrew Hawkey
“Pretend you’re using the letters g, j, p, q and y like a fishing rod and the tails are sinking beneath the water,” said Mrs Rimple who had tried every trick she could think of to interest the eight-year-old. Seen as weak, his older brother Shaun would take every opportunity to pick a fight with him and unable to retaliate successfully, Aaron would take his frustrations to school. Simon Carver went crying to the headmaster after a stray fist landed beneath the waist and sent Simon doubling over.
“For chris’sake boy, next time when you hit somebody, keep your head down and your fists above the waist. Unless the guy has run off with your girl, scratched your paintwork, bad-mouthed your friend or all three, you never go for the meat and two veg,” was all his father said on the drive home after being called to the principal’s office.
Eventually Aaron and Crest Valley High parted ways without any further drama but strangely enough his relationship with Shaun had improved about the time that he continued past the pencil mark their father had scratched in the kitchen doorframe when Shaun was seventeen. At fifteen, Aaron had surpassed this by seven centimetres but by now he was more interested in being at opposite sides of an engine bay than sparring across a dinner table. The older sibling could do most engine repairs and Aaron was given greater access to his brother’s sacred world as his knowledge increased. On four days of the week Aaron would be found on the forecourt of the local Caltex, washing windscreens, filling petrol tanks and checking the dipstick under the hood when asked. Now and again a customer would double-check the mark on the dipstick and claim he was trying to overfill the oil and increase the revenue for the garage. A little oil on the door handle for the customer to transfer to their clothing was his subtle reply to these suggestions.
By the time he was twenty, Aaron had enough to buy his own Honda Civic and he would cruise endlessly. Months of following Shaun to district rugby games had uncovered many of the best roads around. Today, Kyeburn straight laid out before him, five kilometres of one-in-nineteen gradient and distant pine trees that shimmered in the late summer heat. The right foot planted the accelerator throwing him back against the velour. The white centre line flickered like old-fashioned kids' cartoon beneath the wheels as the engine yielded to his right foot. The needle gathered momentum and crept toward the red and beyond before the cheap import tyre gave way.
The farmer struggled to make sense of what he had seen to the police arriving on the scene.
“You see those poles there? Well, I’m sure that I saw an object fly higher than the power lines strung across them.” The officer drew a simple illustration and the witnesses name - ‘Young’- alongside. The ‘g’ sat beneath the line.
Andrew Hawkey
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