Jubilee Year: A Novel (Erelong Trilogy Book I) - An Extended Sample

Chapter 3: RED SUN

Ever since Pete had moved out of the family house, Storm found time spent with his dad was all about fixing things. If he was not helping to repair the rusty corrugated-iron roof of the old homestead Pete had moved into, he was passing a spanner to him under the hood of a car that would probably never run under its own power again.

To stand a chance of success, a visit with Penny would have to focus on fun, and Storm knew Pete could always be distracted by a ball game.

They had been playing in the street for almost an hour, hitting a tennis ball with Pete's cricket bat.

Pete was feeling his age and beginning to get a little cranky. But, true to his word, he had not cracked one joke at Penny's expense. He took a wild swing, clipping the ball and sending it straight up.

Penny dove forward and caught it cleanly.

"No one coulda hit that," Pete said unable to disguise his surprise that Penny caught him out.

"You may as well throw an underarm," he said, glaring at Storm. "What kind of spin did you put on it?"

"It's getting dark," Storm replied. "You would've slammed it if you'd been wearing your glasses."

"You're right," Pete said with a look of resignation. "Time to call it quits," he said and walked down the drive beside his house, the bat swinging loosely from his hand. "Let me put this in the garage. Come on around the back. There's something I want to show you both."

Penny sidled up against Storm. "He's been drinking, hasn't he? I smelled it on his breath."

Storm felt a wave of embarrassment. "Well, it's the end of the day, isn't it?" He muttered, suddenly feeling defensive.

"Don't get mad, poppet. It explains why he kept missing the ball. That's all I meant."

Pete took beer from the refrigerator. It was a can for himself. He made a pot of tea for Storm and Penny. The three of them settled on the front porch. Pete in his broken cane chair. Storm and Penny beside him on the bare boards.

Pete patted the head of the black and white dog lying beside him. Champ was a mongrel, but Pete preferred to use the word Pooch to describe its multi-breed heritage. Champ was a cattle dog, and always prone to run off when he forgot to include it on his walks into town. When his son and daughter weren't visiting him, Champ was Pete's only companion in the house. "Do you ever wonder why there's so much red light at this time of the day?"

"That would be the setting Sun," Storm told him as he gazed at his dad's vegetable garden.

"Don't be a smartass," Pete snapped. He consulted his watch. "Sunset isn't happening for more than a half an hour, yet we already have that intense red glow. And all that cloud lying across the horizon doesn't look right."

"What's wrong with the clouds?" Storm asked.

"They are almost always there. Don't you notice?"

"A red sky at night is the shepherd's delight, but a red sky in the morning is the shepherd's warning," Penny chanted.

Storm gave her a slow clap, but Pete turned to her and nodded his head.

"That old rhyme is handed down wisdom. It's a thumb guide. So the average bloke knows what weather to expect the next day. If all we ever got was a red sky every morning and every evening those words would never have made any damned sense."

"Guess not," Storm muttered with a shrug.

"You remember when we used to go to the beach in our old Holden Kingswood?" He asked Storm. "We did a trip to the coast for two summers in a row."