Free The Happiest Refugee: A Memoir by Anh Do Page A

pocket torch into an alternator and save a planeload of Colombians. Dad would always sit back and treat the show like a challenge, commentating on what might realistically work and what would not. Sometimes he would predict what Mac was going to do next. ‘Wow!’ All us kids would be mesmerised as we watched Dad’s prediction unfold, but Mum was never surprised. She knew what her man was capable of and, in her mind, no MacGyver stunt was ever going to top how her young husband had single-handedly gotten her brothers out of a concentration camp.
    I also loved it when Dad taught me things. I felt so privileged to be learning the secrets only a chosen few would ever know. One time my uncle locked his car keys in his old Toyota and Dad went and fetched a coathanger. He bent it out of shape and then, within a few minutes, click , the car was unlocked. Everyone was impressed, smiling and relieved… for a few short seconds. Dad immediately locked it again and slammed the door shut.
    ‘Anh! Your turn.’
    He threw me the crooked coathanger and went back inside to finish his beer with my uncle.
    My brother and I worked hungrily on the lock. We had just seen Dad do it and here was our chance to perform a feat that felt like a magic trick, or at the very least part of a spy’s arsenal of skills. A couple of times I could see the lock ever… so… slowly… rising… then, before I could lift it all the way up, it’d slip and fall again.
    After an hour, just as I was about to give up…  click!
    Whoo-hoo!
    It’s hard to describe how satisfying it was. I once spent two hours with a mate throwing basketballs at the ring from the halfway line. After a few hundred attempts, thwip— straight through! That’s what it felt like.
    I ran inside, yelling, ‘I done it! I done it!’
    Picking a car lock is a bit like riding a bike, once you’ve done it, it kind of stays with you forever. As I got older it became very handy. At university I was the go-to man for girls who’d locked their keys in their car: ‘Yes, ma’am, I’m happy to help.’ I used to go to parties hoping someone would forget their keys in the car just so I could be the hero. On the school bus I’d daydream about everything from a hijacking to a thermonuclear war, all I’d have to do is reach into my schoolbag and pull out my trusty coathanger.

    Dad was always building a shed, mending a fence or making an enclosure.
    ‘Can we keep some budgies?’ we asked him one day.
    ‘Okay,’ he said, ‘but you’ve got to build the cage yourselves.’
    This was Dad’s way of training us to learn practical skills; he was very hands-on. He took all of us to town to buy the wire. The only car we had up at the farm was the work van which had a bench in the front and no seats in the back. The two youngest kids, my sister and Martin, sat next to Dad in the front; us five other boys sat on the floor of the van in the back. Every time it turned a corner, we’d all whoop with delight.
    ‘Turn again, Dad,’ I pleaded. ‘Come on, swoosh us around.’ It was totally illegal and totally fantastic. We would sit on the wheel hub on the floor and start hanging on to it as we wound our way around the country roads. For twenty minutes it was great fun, but after that the floor started getting hot because it was right above the engine. Soon our arses could stand the heat no longer and we would have to jockey around for a cooler position.
    After we bought the wire, Dad sat us down in front of his duck enclosure.
    ‘Right, have a look at this.’ We inspected it.
    ‘Based on that, work out how you might build a smaller cage for budgies.’
    So the six of us boys went to work with saws and pliers, and Tram had her busiest day ever with the bandaids. Eventually we finished a cage that was wonky, not quite square, but to us it looked like a bird Taj Mahal. It passed Dad’s inspection and we headed off to buy some budgies.

    I love auctions. I love the discovery part of them. Often