Free From the Tracks

by K T Bowes

Chapter Five

  Dane turned up to school the next day, attending class and ignoring his former friendship group, much to their chagrin. In art, he pleased the teacher, deciding to produce a screen print to fit the concept of ‘pencil shavings.’ “That’s number four on the list of choices, Mrs Simpson told him. “You have to pull this off, for both our sakes. I can’t give you more time, Dane, I tried. Get it done.”

  He sketched from a still life shaving pulled from a pencil sharpener, bending the twisting coil of wood with its coloured tip into something beautiful on the paper. Transposing it onto the plastic template took little time, using tracing paper to copy the image.

  After an hour, it looked amazing. After two, it promised to be a winner. Mrs Simpson sounded excited. “You can do this, Dane. Now all you need to do is cut out the shape with a sharp knife on the stiff plastic template and screen print it. You know what you’re doing; it won’t take long.” She took a deep breath. “I need you, Libby and Soph to get top marks this year. The management are looking hard at my contract and I’m struggling to prove my classes have any benefit. I’m counting on you.”

  “No pressure then, miss,” Dane jibed back and the woman pursed her lips and walked away. Sophia listened from her desk, spreading paint onto her paper and blending it with delicate strokes laced with water.

  Dane glanced across to her and rolled his eyes at the teacher’s desperation. Sophia smirked. “This will work!” Mrs Simpson crowed from the other side of the room, injecting positivity into the silence. “You can all pull this off; I know you can.” She clapped her hands in anticipation and waddled off to interfere with someone else.

  But the next day Dane didn’t show and Sophia spent every class isolated and alone. Sandra made threats at every opportunity; the only contact Sophia had. Maddie and Heather ignored her and being singled out by The Plastics made her unsafe to be around. She kicked herself for not having gotten around to exchanging mobile phone numbers with Dane, concerned about his step-father’s imminent release and what might happen. Dane said he didn’t always go straight home from the prison, which might buy them a few more days of safety.

  When he still didn’t appear the next day, Sophia broke her moral code and entered into the realm of rule breaking and cheating. She used her hours in the art room to cut out the template for Dane’s art, signing in as herself and simplifying her own work to ensure she could finish it in time. She used her interval and lunch hour to complete her subterfuge, putting Dane’s work back how he left it. As she placed Dane’s template onto the middle shelf, she found Mrs Simpson watching her from across the room and felt relieved she’d taken the precaution of always getting her own out too. Sophia pointed towards her painting and lied. “I’m just moving this one out the way,” she said, hefting her own work from the table and aiming it at the shelf above. “Mine keeps ending up at the top and I can’t reach it.” Her heart pounded as she waited for Mrs Simpson to get angry, seeing her lie reflected in the disbelief on the woman’s face.

  “He’s running out of time,” the teacher said instead, watching Sophia wrestle her reluctant art board back onto the rack. “He’s my best student, Sophia; I need him to come in and finish this piece.”

  Sophia picked at a flake of paint residue on her hand and without turning around asked, “Would it be unethical if he had help with the printing?”

  She heard the teacher sigh out. “I guess if the helper helped and didn’t direct any of the actual printing process, it might be ok. And if that helper didn’t tell anyone they helped, then it would be appropriate.” Sophia nodded once, but as she turned to gather up her things, Mrs Simpson said to her in a voice that oozed seriousness, “Four hours, love. That’s all he’s got left. If he’d kept the old one as evidence, I could’ve got him more time but he didn’t. I’m trusting you to make it happen.”

  That night after school and her walk home alone, Sophia borrowed her mother’s car and drove down to the Fairview district in search of Dane. With no idea where he lived she felt aimless. Her mind replayed the snippets he told her about living next to the railway line and close to the derelict house he painted last year. She drove around, street by street, looking for his car or any sign of him. A three point turn in a dead end street brought her attention from a group of men wearing gang insignia. She fumbled the manoeuvre and turned it into a ninety-three point turn under their scrutiny and tore away with her heart pounding. Spending the next ten minutes looking in her mirror for them following almost drove her to heart failure.

  Deciding to check the very last road before quitting, Sophia made the turn and proceeded along the street with purpose, in case someone saw her idling. She struck lucky at the end of a row of state houses when she came across the building in Dane’s painting. She recognised it, gasping in wonder at the accuracy of his work which depicted the ripped and tatty weatherboards, the faded green corrugated roof and the desolate aura of the place.

  “He has to live here somewhere,” she muttered to herself. “He said he did; it’s just a matter of finding his car.” Sophia felt tired and prayed for divine help and guidance, knowing she’d never find him by herself.

  As if by way of an instant answer, the dirty net curtain in one of the downstairs rooms of the derelict house twitched and a dawning realisation hit Sophia like a truck as a tiny, white face peeked out through the glass. She raised her hand to her mouth in horror. “He painted his own house? The druggie house is where they live?” Certainty filled her breast as though a voice spoke the words; Dane’s family were the junkies.

  Sophia climbed out of her mum’s smart station wagon and locked it up on the roadside. The overgrown, unkempt front yard contained a rusted utility vehicle which slumped in front of the garage door like a cadaver, rigid and immovable. She stepped onto the scrubby front garden as the door opened and Dane appeared, rushing her up the driveway and dragging her into the house by her arm. He slammed the front door and pushed her against it, his hand across her chest. Dark stubble covered the bottom half of his face and his eyes looked bloodshot and exhausted. He smelled unwashed, his clothes tattered and faded. “What are you doing here?” he hissed. “You can’t be here!” His jaw moved and Sophia caught the scent of spearmint gum. He breathed in short gasps as though panicked and it filled her with fear. All hope that he’d be pleased to see her evaporated in a haze of delusion.

  “I’m sorry. It was a mistake. I didn’t mean to upset you. I’ll just go.”

  “No.” Dane looked at her face as though reading her and then his eyes strayed to her hair. He moved his arm from across her chest and smoothed her fringe away from her eyes. “I’m sorry.” His hand shook. “It’s not safe for you here.”

  Sophia felt a sudden warmth on either side of her legs and when she looked down, two little faces stared up at her with mute appeal. “Have you come to take us away, Soph?” William asked and it sounded pitiful in the bare, echoing hallway. Her breath caught in her chest as Maisie twisted the fabric of Sophia’s skirt between her fingers, her pretty face vacant and her mind far away from her awful circumstances. The little girl hummed a tuneless sound and raised the skirt to her nose to sniff Sophia’s scent.

  Dane let go of Sophia and took a step back. She avoided his gaze, seeing the pent-up fear and frustration in his movements as he ran his hand through his hair and over his face.

  “I’ve broken the rules,” she whispered. “I’ve finished your template on my time and it’s good to go. You only need to mix the ink and print it. Mrs Simpson got the material ready on the frame and she’s agreed I can help you. It’s ready for you to come back.”

  Dane looked at her, his eyes narrowed and his jaw dropping open. He shook his head from side to side in confusion. “Why would you do that? Why would you do that for me? You don’t owe me anything.” He ran his right hand across her cheek and up to rest next to her eye. He looked astounded, his blue eyes wide and uncomprehending.

  Sophia prayed for wisdom; for the words which wouldn�
�t come without divine help. “Because you’re gifted. And you matter. What happens to you matters to more people than just me.”

  William and Maisie clung to her skirt and sobbed as she left. The terrible sound made Sophia’s tender heart ache as she listened to Dane console them. Something broke in her chest and she didn’t know if it would ever heal. She opened the front door at Dane’s ragged command and let herself out of the decrepit, dreadful house. She made it to her vehicle and pulled away before the tears came, blurring her vision and screwing with her driving.

  At the end of the street as she struggled to turn left into the rush hour traffic, the ground underneath her began to rumble and twist as though responding to the birth pains of an earthquake. Sophia screamed in fright as the shape of a freight train flashed across her rear view mirror, a myriad of colours zipping past her vision and shaking the houses in the street behind her. It hit her afresh. Dane wasn’t just on the other side of the tracks; he lived at the mercy of them.

  “God, you have to help them,” she cried, wiping her nose on the back of her hand. “This is too much, he’s just a boy!” The sense of hopelessness remained with her, riding her shoulders like a heavy weight and driving her into herself.

  At home Sophia tried to speak to Edgar, horrified at his easy dismissal. “Child services will take care of them.” He pushed his uneaten dinner away and stood, abandoning the meal she cooked for him and the dirty dishes on the counter. “I can’t think about someone else’s problems right now, Soph. I’ve got enough of my own.”

  Dane didn’t show the next day either, much to the disappointment of Mrs Simpson. Then Sophia’s father dropped his bombshell as she got ready for school on Friday. “I’m sorry,” he stressed and he sounded flustered and upset. “If your mother was here, she’d have worked it out before now. I can’t help it, Soph; I need to work! I’m not covering the bills as it is on one wage.”

  “How long will you be gone?” Sophia asked, the sense of utter abandonment sinking deeper into her soul.

  “Just two nights,” he promised. “I’ll be back on Sunday morning.”

  “But how stupid is this? Making you leave on a Friday to spend the weekend away from your family. It’s not fair!”

  “It’s the twenty-fifth anniversary celebration for the company. The whole workforce is going. I’ve known about it for ages, Soph. Sal’s meant to be coming with me. It’s at a hotel and I accepted the invitation months ago. I forgot about it until yesterday when they started talking about it in the staff room. I’m so sorry. Can’t you stay with Maddie?”

  Sophia shook her head. “I’ll stay here. I’ll be fine. I’m old enough. Ask Jackie next door to keep an eye out for me. That way, if I hear a noise or get into difficulty I can text her and she’ll know I need help. Check she still has the same mobile number while you’re there. I think she has mine but make sure. Yeah?”

  Edgar rushed next door before leaving, seeming more settled when he returned. He kissed Sophia for the first time in months, holding her and making empty promises. “You feel so thin,” he breathed. “I’m sorry, Soph. When I come back, we’ll talk. I’ll try harder, I promise. From now on, I’m gonna take good care of my girl. It’s time I snapped out of my misery and started living again.”

  Sophia waved her father off and tried not to fret, grateful for the fact it was Friday and she could have two days free to collect herself again. School occupied a numb area in her mind, interspersed with the odd unbearable moment. Sandra’s bile rumbled in the background, but failed to penetrate the nothingness in Sophia’s brain. She operated on autopilot, the taunts and threats no longer touching her soul like they used to. Despite his disappearance, Dane did her a favour by staking his claim on her before he left. His influence felt no less potent in his absence and in some strange way, offered Sophia unspoken protection. Yet the flip side brought a terrible isolation; safe, but lonely.

  In a decisive move, she used her mother’s car to drive herself to school, parking in the student car park and getting a pass from reception. She completed another two hours of her own art time, plunging her painful feelings of abandonment and misery into the outside view of her picture. Dreary and grey, her art expressed her heartfelt pain and angst, blacks and monotones striking against the wood of the window frame and the dusting of stark, white snow on the sill.

  Mrs Simpson caught her eye and raised her eyebrows in question. Sophia nodded to indicate she’d seen Dane and the woman bustled over. “Is he coming back?” she whispered.

  “I don’t know. I told him we got everything ready,” she replied under her breath. The teacher huffed out her disappointment and waddled away in her floral skirt. Sophia waited to feel something, testing for emotion and finding nothing. Dane’s empty desk next to her seemed to mock her with his absence and she closed her eyes and prayed for him and for Sally Armitage; wherever they both ended up.