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Chapter 2

Muscle Bound

‘Is this your first visit to Cairns?’ asked Amy politely. He was so big that both his legs stuck out into the aisle. His track pants were tight across his legs.

‘Yes. A working holiday. Mixing business and pleasure. I’m a body builder.’ Mr Muscles moved his legs restlessly.

‘What sort of bodies?’ Amy pictured a panel beating shop where they fixed car bodies. Perhaps he was a mechanic?

‘Car bodies?’

‘Human,’ laughed Mr Muscles.

Amy fiddled in her bum-bag for her stickers. Amy collected stickers, coins and clues. She found the BODYWORKS sticker.’ The Mouth gave it to me on the flight to Singapore.’

Mr Muscles looked at the sticker. ‘He’s the pop singer, isn’t he?’

Amy nodded. ‘If you’re a body builder, are you a doctor? Or a designer?’

Mr Muscles shook his head. His thin hair was going bald from the front. But his skull was tight underneath.

‘Just build my own body. And the bodies of the people who come into my gym.’

Amy noticed he had eaten everything during the flight meals.

Bread roll. Chicken Mysterious, as Christopher called it. Broccoli.

Mashed potatoes. And especially the creme caramel. Mrs Silver and Gold offered their sweets and he ate them, too! He woke up for every meal. He also had a bottle of vitamins on the flight table which was still folded down. Perhaps it was a brand name, thought Amy. It was wrongly spelled as VITTAMINS.

‘How do you build your body?’ she asked. ‘With exercise?’

‘Plenty of good food. I run and lift weights and ...’ Mr Muscles paused. ‘Get a little bit of help.’

‘What sort of help?’ Amy was firing questions again. Her favourite hobby when she wasn’t collecting phone cards, stickers or stamps, was collecting answers. ‘A coach? Or a trainer?’

‘Er...’ Mr Muscles looked a little uncomfortable. ‘Stacking.’

He had a rolled up newspaper sticking out of his hand luggage.

Christopher wondered why he bothered. Often the airline supplied newspapers for passengers to read.

Before Amy had a chance to ask about ‘stacking’, he showed them his photographs.

‘I’ve been Mr World, you know.’ His wallet was stuffed with photographs. They were all of him. Usually he was bare chested with tiny bathers. Amy pushed her rainbow glasses back on her nose. His muscles looked like giant bubbles.

‘You look like Arnold Schwarzenegger,’ said Christopher.

Mr Muscles looked pleased.

‘Are you here for the International Games?’ asked Christopher.

‘Yes. There’s going to be a body-builders’ contest, too.’

Christopher looked around the plane. Judging by the shoulders, there were a few body-builders on board.

‘Sports teams on board, too,’ added Amy who often knew what her twin was thinking.

The flight attendant collected empty juice glasses from several seats of team track suits.

‘I’m on the juice,’ said Mr Muscles. His skin had bumps and purple patches of acne. He also had a squarish jaw.

‘Have my orange juice then,’ offered Amy. ‘I’m not thirsty.’

That’s not exactly what he meant. Amy didn’t understand until much later.

At home, Amy was called Jet Jaws. She talked a lot but she also listened. That’s one reason she liked flying. Passengers loved talking about themselves. Since leaving Singapore, she’d learnt about antique jewellery from Mrs Gold and Mrs Silver and body building from Mr Muscles.

Amy wondered if Cairns had any Talking Games this week. She pictured the team of Mrs Gold and Mrs Silver talking against Mr Muscles. With Aunty Viv as the compere. That would be a noisy event.

Amy flicked the pages of the inflight magazine. She’d read ‘This Sporting Week in Cairns’ by Tom Savvas and ‘Sporting Drug Dangers’.

She’d done the crossword. She had already finished her book and all the magazines. Being a super fast reader was a problem on long flights.

‘Excuse me.’ She leaned across the aisle. ‘Could I read your newspaper please?’

But that’s when Mr Muscles went all strange. Until then, he’d been chatting to them in a friendly way.

‘Haven’t read it yet myself,’ he grumped rolling it more tightly and cramming it deeper in the bag at his feet.

Amy watched him later. From the time she asked to borrow the paper until touch down, Mr Muscles did NOT read his newspaper. The flight attendant did ask him to put up his table when the seat belt sign went on again. Maybe he liked to spread his paper out on a table?

Perhaps he was just one of those grumps who didn’t like lending things?

Or maybe there was another reason?