The Day the Lightning Struck

Strange things happened the day the lightning struck.

Kiri Johnston started acting like a girl. I guess she’d always been a girl under the copper tan, close-cropped hair and short sleeve tee shirts. She never used to squeal when we put frogs down the back of her bathers, she could tackle as hard as the Sonicman and whack a cricket ball out of the paddock.

I was sitting in my tree house perving on Anna Sorenson, who had always acted like a girl, when the Sonicman broke the spell. I guess he could because he was keen on Anna.

‘Hey Spence, we need you.’ We call him Sonicman because he has a voice and body like a runaway locomotive.

Anna heard, looked up. She smiled at him and scowled at me. Sprung again.

‘It might rain,’ I said, hoping, as I joined him on the ground. So much for a quite Saturday arvo’ watching Anna sunbathing by the creek on her folk’s orchard.

‘I don’t think so,’ Sonicman thundered as we both looked up to the cloudless sky.

I went inside to put on what whites I had.

At first, it was just a soft rumble in the distance. Fred and Barney bowling in Bedrock.

Crash, boom and kapow.

Stree–ike.

‘Yabba, dabba doo,’ Fred boomed in celebration.

The daylight went out, flickered and came back on. All was still, except Sonicman who was dancing around feeling the back of his pants.

‘What was that?’ he whispered.

‘Dunno. Lightning?’ I squeaked in my usual voice, not DEEP DOWN and LOUD like Sonicman’s. I did a quick check of my own. The guys in slips would fall over laughing if I bent over to bat with an accident sitting in the back of my pants.

‘Come on.’ Sonicman started shuffling down the gravel edging of the main drag of Thommo’s Find. ‘Let’s check out the wicket, make sure it’s not under water.’

I shuffled behind; the usually dry path stuck to my sneakers like lumps of glue. Strange, I don’t remember mentioning anything about it raining.

‘Look at that.’ Sonicman pointed to the railway station as we shuffled past. Steam rose straight up from the clock tower. I knew we are going to catch the steam train when we start high school at the end of summer, but I had never heard of a steam clock. The hands were moving backwards; perfect time in reverse. Someone said later it was the first time ever a train ran on time into Thommo’s Find.

Overhead a flock of cockatoos flew past in perfect V formation. Backwards, wings swing past outstretched necks pushing tail feathers forward just like the oar-some foursome at the Olympics. Go Australia.

We shuffled through the village that is Thommo’s Find. It’s named after some bloke who found gold here yonks ago, before I was even born. The gold didn’t last but some of the diggers stayed to grow fruit along the banks of a creek that meanders all through the place. That’s what my granddad told me.

Anna Sorensen had been sitting by part of the creek before Sonicman ruined the view. I could see now the creek was frozen even though it must have been 40 plus in the water bag. Some ducks were figure skating with foxes on the ice, fraternizing with the enemy.

Kiri Johnston stood outside the general store wearing a light blue dress and ochre sandals. Her hair hung down to her shoulders, tied in a ponytail with a bright blue ribbon. I could see she had painted her fingernails and the soft scent of apple blossom and peach blew into my nostrils as we walked past. She looked at me and giggled before going inside. Funny, she'd never done that before.

Sonicman and I kept walking. We passed the Co-op where all the packing cases were stacked neatly waiting to for delivery to the city. The whole town had spent days with the picking and the packing, but now the cases were empty.

‘Weird,’ I said.
‘Even weirder.’ Sonicman pointed to some of the fruit trees. Yesterday they were bare and now they were full of fruit. However, the mangoes were on the cumquat trees, the cumquats on the lemons, and you get the picture.

Across the road, we could see the public swimming pool was empty, not just of water but people too. Bare as a baby’s bum. Most of the oldies had been doing bombies and stuff last nigh after we’d finished with the picking and the packing but I don’t remember them all jumping in at the same time.

Sonicman and I were the last two to arrive at the cricket ground.

‘We’re bowling,’ Captain Jason said throwing me the ball.

I looked at Sonicman; he just shrugged his shoulders. Sonicman always opens the bowling. Only last weekend he took two hat tricks in his first over.

‘Play.’ The umpire called from the behind the cows grazing at square leg. I took two steps and tossed the ball high, a real pie floater, towards the waiting batsman. Please, land on the wicket. The batsman’s eyes lit, he took a huge windy woof and whack. The ball smashed into a million moths that flew off in a frenzy chased by dozens of willy wagtails eager for the feast.

However the batsman was out, stepped on wicket; frightened out.

One for one.

The kookaburras laughed and the umpire threw me a new ball from behind the cows at fine leg.

Whack again. The ball went into orbit and a soaring magpie grabbed it in its beak, turned, dived and dropped it on my head. It bounced off and hit the stumps while the batsmen stood in the middle of the wicket laughing.

Out, run out. Two for none.

I took ten wickets and scored a hundred runs the day the lightning struck.

That really was weird, because I had never played cricket before.