The Tasmanian Babes Fiasco by John Birmingham

Author:John Birmingham [Birmingham, John]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
Tags: Contemporary Fiction, Humor, Humorous, General Humor, Humor & Entertainment, Humor & Satire, Literature & Fiction
ISBN: 9781875989294
Google: vfX4AAAACAAJ
Amazon: B00GWPTL2A
Publisher: Duffy & Snellgrove
Published: 1996-09-01T12:00:00+00:00

‘Hey Tone. Sorry, I gotta go. Trouble at the homestead.’

‘Coppers?’ he asked.

‘No. Bulldozers.’

Before I saw the bulldozers I saw the red Mustang. Turning the corner into York Street a painful starburst of white light stabbed into my eyes, the sun’s reflection caught on a brightly polished chrome fender. It was a big car. In the second that I stopped and squeezed my eyes shut against the tiny supernova, the car seemed to stretch for half the length of the street. I stood, blind, slightly dazed and dizzy, fearing a migraine from the intense flare which had just cooked my retina. But nothing happened, which was lucky, because I was due for one, what with all the stress and lack of sleep and artificial stimulants I’d been loading onto my system.

I breathed out, relieved. Opened my eyes and took in the scene I’d only barely caught before. A cluster of people on the footpath in front of the vacant house next door to our place. I immediately recognised Stacey, the Decoy and Missy. As I slowly walked towards the scene two other figures resolved themselves. That girl Jhelise from the Kremlin and …

(Oh no)

Red Mesh Singlet Guy.

I paused momentarily. He must have blended in with the finish of the Mustang when I first saw him. But there was no mistaking him now. An awkward figure, all jutting angles and wild straw blonde hair. Hands going everywhere. Incoherent rage rendering his speech meaningless.

Three strangers flinched away from his assault. The people from the Mustang, I guessed. Two men and one woman, all of them dressed in frightening suits, their eyes hidden behind sunglasses. I had started to walk again, down the hill towards the animated gathering, when another two men joined it from the yard of the empty place. They weren’t wearing suits. They were real workers, in King Gees, blue singlets, footy socks and battered boots. I noticed the ‘bulldozer’ then. Not a bulldozer but a crane of some sort beside the house, a futuristic thing on caterpillar tracks with a black bubble cabin and a long mechanical arm. The workmen emerged from behind it, ambled over to the little group and lightly pushed Red Mesh Singlet Guy in the chest. He staggered back a few inches and seemed about ready to explode but one of the men levelled a finger at him and everything went very still and quiet for a second, until the Singlet visibly deflated. I was only a few metres away by then, but nobody had noticed my approach, so tense was the stand-off.

‘What’s going on?’ I asked, and everyone’s heads jerked around in surprise.

‘They want to knock our house down!’ said Stace.

‘But we live there,’ I said, more to the suits than in reply to Stacey.

‘Well, I’ll file that under U for Useful,’ said the woman sarcastically. She was a looker, in an evil superbitch sort of way; long, expensively styled jet black hair, strong features, a distractingly short skirt, and shoulder pads you could land a helicopter on.

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