This is Shyness

by Leanne Hall

  I take a sip and pull a shocked face, which should have made Wolfboy smile but doesn’t.

  ‘Turkish,’ he says.

  I keep drinking despite the bitterness—it’s hot and it’ll keep me awake until sunrise. Or the time when the sun is supposed to rise.

  I look around the room again. I can’t stop thinking about how nice this street is, and how all the houses must have tennis courts and flat-screen TVs and god knows what else, and how, even empty, this house smacks of money and privilege.

  ‘Is it just you living here?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘What’s upstairs?’

  ‘Stuff.’

  ‘Stuff?’ I pull a face. ‘You want to elaborate on that?’ ‘My bedroom.’

  He’s being almost as monosyllabic as he was with Ortolan.

  I finish my coffee and pour myself another. I sit back into the couch and stare at him. He’s annoyed with me but I’m not going to call him on it. He can speak for himself. The pointed staring works because Wolfboy eventually leans forward.

  ‘Do you really want to do this?’

  ‘What’s the worst that can happen?’ I say.

  Wolfboy just snorts and drinks his coffee. He really does look like Gram, especially around the eyes.

  ‘Look, it’s easy. We find them and we ask for your lighter back. If they refuse, we fight them for it. Or we ambush them, grab the lighter before they even know what’s happening.’

  Listen to me. I’ve never been in a fight, and I barely even know what an ambush is. But one of us has to get fired up. Wolfboy might be a big guy now, but I get the feeling he’s been letting people walk all over him for years. He shouldn’t let the Kidds take away a piece of his brother so easily.

  ‘We need a better plan than that. I’ve called a friend. Someone who can help us.’

  ‘Every second that we’re not out there will make it harder to find them,’ I reply. At least he’s talking to me again.

  ‘I don’t think so. From what I know they usually take their loot straight to Orphanville.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Orphanville. It’s where the Kidds live. A big high-rise housing complex. You can see it from my bedroom window.’

  I’m halfway up the hallway before he gets a chance to call out. I pretend I haven’t heard him. I pass several closed doors, an empty room and a toilet. At the end of the hallway there’s a kitchen and a large living area. On the right-hand side, past the kitchen, are the stairs. Wolfboy overtakes me and blocks my way.

  ‘I don’t want you messing with my stuff.’

  I grab his shoulders. ‘For godsake, Wolfboy, I’m not interested in your stuff; I just want to see Orphanland.’

  ‘Orphanville.’ He sounds more than a little exasperated but he lets me past.

  Upstairs is more like a loft than a full second floor. It’s chock-full of amps and speakers and desks with twiddly knobs and those things you slide up and down, and the floor is a jumble of cables and power boards. A drum kit squats in one corner; a guitar is propped against a chair. On the ceiling, a thick black cable slides through an open skylight and into the night. There must be thousands of dollars’ worth of gear in here.

  It reeks of sweaty boys in here, the kind of smell you’d get if you boiled up twenty teenage boys for twenty hours and distilled their essence. Eau de BO. I have to step over empty beer cans and greasy paper bags and rolls of gaffer tape and scrunched-up tissues to get to the end of the room, where there’s an open doorway that must lead to Wolfboy’s bedroom.

  The bedroom is not as bad as the band room, but it’s still kind of a dump. The bed is a mattress and doona on the floor; there are clothes spilling out of garbage bags and a milk crate for a bedside table. Someone has started to paint the walls black and then given up halfway through. Tacked to the walls are hand-drawn and photocopied posters for The Long Blinks. There are wobbly stacks of books and CDs everywhere. I soak up every detail. This is where he spends his time; this is where he sleeps and dreams. These are the only ways I can find out who he is: from the things other people tell me, and from using my own two eyes.

  ‘I didn’t want you to see this.’

  I immediately pretend I wasn’t looking around. It doesn’t smell as bad in here, probably because the window has been pushed right open.

  ‘Don’t worry; you should see my room,’ I lie, and walk over to the window. The outside air is fresh against my face. Wolfboy stands next to me. He leans in close and points. ‘Follow that line of trees to the right. See there? That’s Orphanville.’

  It’s not difficult to pick out the buildings in the darkness: four black rectangles speckled with yellow lights, poking above the Shyness skyline. They remind me a bit of Plexus Commons.

  ‘So that’s where they’ve gone.’

  ‘Maybe. I’m not a hundred per cent sure.’

  ‘Why was the Elf in the club then?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Wolfboy sighs.

  ‘Do you think he followed us to see when we noticed the lighter was missing?’

  Because if that’s true then they know that the lighter has sentimental value for Wolfboy, and that makes me so mad I wish that the Elf was right in front of me now so I could—words wouldn’t be enough. I look at Wolfboy but he doesn’t answer. I’m far angrier than he is. I bite my lip before I ask him how that could be, and look out at the towers instead.

  Whenever I see my home from a distance at night I think it’s so strange that each light represents one family living their life, watching telly or eating dinner or fighting, going about their business. From a distance each light is an insignificant thing, just one star in a whole galaxy.

  Wolfboy’s phone beeps. He’s standing so close I can feel it vibrate in his shirt pocket.

  ‘Good,’ he says, checking the message. He passes a hand quickly over his hair, even though it’s still perfect. ‘She’s here.’

  15

  It’s difficult to say how old the girl is. Her shirt is at least three sizes too big and she refuses to meet my eyes. At a distance it would be hard to tell if she’s a boy or a girl. I cringe when Wolfboy introduces me as Wildgirl. I might have been some kind of comic book character earlier, but the more Shyness throws curve balls at me, the less I’m able to keep up the act.

  Her name is Blake. There’s something Japanese in the way she stands with her arms clasped in front of her, each hand tucked inside the opposite sleeve. Head bowed, dishwater hair hanging straight. She’s painfully thin under her oversized clothes. Either she doesn’t like her body or she has to wear hand-me-downs.

  I hold Wolfboy back in the hallway when Blake walks into the front room. ‘How much have you told her?’

  ‘I told her that the Kidds stole something from us and we have to get it back.’

  ‘I don’t think we should tell her about the card.’

  ‘Why would I tell her about that? It’s got nothing to do with my lighter.’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He’s been friends with this girl far longer than he’s known me, so how am I supposed to know what kinds of things they tell each other? ‘I just thought I’d check.’

  Wolfboy gives me a look like I’ve gravely insulted his intelligence and walks into the room. Blake is sitting on the couch. Wolfboy uncovers some extra chairs and we sit around in a circle, waiting for her to say something. She twists her hands in her lap and I note her hunched shoulders, bitten-down fingernails and holey sneakers. She looks as helpless as a kitten dangling above a bucket of water.

  Eventually Wolfboy figures out that Blake is not about to speak any time soon. ‘Blake used to be in a gang,’ he tells me. ‘The Kidds. She left her unit, the Six-Sevens, five months ago and has been in hiding ever since. The leader of the Six-Sevens is the Elf.’

  Wolfboy taps Blake, and she rolls up her jumper sleeves. She holds her arms out in front of her, palms up. There are thick welts on her arms, deep red valleys alternating with ridges of pale shiny scar tissue. Blake glances up at Wolfboy, but she
still hasn’t looked at me.

  No one needs to tell me who made those marks. They’re the reason why Wolfboy made me cooperate with the Kidds earlier. I force myself to look again, even though the sight makes me nauseous. This is what we’re up against. No wonder she’s so skittish.

  ‘He didn’t do this for discipline when Blake was still in his unit,’ explains Wolfboy. I notice he doesn’t look at Blake’s wounds even while he’s talking about them. ‘He did this after she’d left the gang. Tracked her down and made sure she was punished for leaving him.’

  Blake rolls her sleeves down. If someone did that to me or my mum, I would stop at nothing to pay them back. Maybe I would include Mike on the list as well if I knew where he lived now. And Nan if she was still alive. That’s a pretty short list of people I’d kill for.

  ‘What sort of bike did you ride?’

  It’s exactly the right question to ask. Blake finally looks at me. Her eyes are a surprising green. I wonder if she wants us to do something equally bad to the Elf when we catch up with him.

  ‘An old Mongoose that belonged to my uncle. I’ve still got it, but it’s not my everyday bike.’

  Blake is pretty when she smiles. I haven’t decided yet if she has the hots for Wolfboy.

  ‘I used to own a Villain,’ I tell her and she nods in appreciation.

  ‘That’s a good bike. But I prefer the older ones. Or putting them together myself from all different parts.’

  I’m only telling half a lie. I did ride a Villain when I was younger, but it belonged to my best friend, Mike. He’d never let me ride it out of his sight. The rest of the time I had to get around on this awful pink thing with a plastic basket strapped to the front.

  One of the first things I noticed when those Kidds jumped us was that their bikes were tricked out with three-spoke tuffs and bear-trap pedals. They were spending time and money on their rides. One of them even had playing cards woven between her spokes so the wheels would sing at top speed. Mike and I used to do that and pretend we were racing motorbikes.

  ‘Six-Sevens, what does that mean?’

  ‘It’s where the unit lives, in Orphanville. Building Six, Level Seven.’ Her voice is low for a girl, and it never rises or falls. I have to lean in to hear what she’s saying.

  ‘Wolfboy thinks they’ve taken his lighter straight to Orphanville.’

  ‘He’s probably right. The Elf collects everything and tallies it up. Then he reports to the people above him.

  When everyone’s taken their cut, the Elf gives his unit their share.’

  ‘Who are the people at the top?’

  ‘I don’t know. I didn’t think it was worth asking. I was just happy to have a place to live.’

  ‘The thing is, Blake, they didn’t go straight back to Orphanville after they mugged us. We saw them after at Little Death.’

  Wolfboy jumps in. ‘Not all of them. We only saw the Elf. We assumed that his unit was at the club with him, but they could have already gone to Orphanville.’

  ‘There were other Kidds there,’ I say. I’d forgotten. ‘This strange little guy tried to talk me into buying him a drink. But I’m sure he wasn’t one of the Six-Sevens. I would have recognised him.’

  ‘I don’t like it,’ Blake says. ‘It sounds weird. If I were you, I’d leave it.’

  At first glance I would have said Blake was about thirteen. Now that we’re talking I realise that she’s probably closer to fifteen. I can’t pick anyone’s age in Shyness.

  ‘I’m not scared,’ I tell Blake. That’s a lie. After seeing her scars, I’m a little bit scared. But I’m still going to do it. Blake must think we’re certifiable, chasing after something so small. Unless Wolfboy trusts her more than me and has already told her everything about the lighter and his brother. I wonder what else he could be holding back from me.

  ‘Well, you should be.’ Wolfboy crosses his arms. I realise he thought talking to Blake would put me off. Not so easy, buddy.

  ‘Well, I’m not. We’re going to Orphanville.’ I turn to Blake. ‘You’ll come with us at least part of the way, won’t you?’

  Wolfboy answers for her. ‘No. We’ll do it alone.’

  They must have worked this out earlier on the phone.

  Blake shrugs. ‘I can’t. If the Elf finds me near Orphan-ville he’ll kill me.’

  I suppose that’s a good enough reason.

  Blake pulls a folded-up piece of paper out of her pocket. Wolfboy drags the coffee table over and Blake lays the paper flat.

  ‘Where do you live now?’ I ask.

  ‘There’s this woman who runs a program for people who have left the Kidds. Sort of like Witness Protection,’ Wolfboy says. ‘Blake has to be careful who she talks to.’

  ‘Sharon would kill me if she knew I was here.’

  ‘What about your mum and dad? Can’t they protect you?’

  Blake looks up. ‘Both my mums don’t want anything to do with me. I did some bad things when I was with the Kidds. I lied and I stole and I did—other things.’

  ‘You haven’t called them to let them know you’re out though, have you? How do you know what they want?’

  Blake gives Wolfboy a look of pure irritation. They’ve had this conversation before.

  ‘I can’t,’ she says, and turns back to the piece of paper. On it is a map of Orphanville, sketched in blue biro.

  Orphanville is bigger than I expected. There are twelve numbered rectangles for the twelve towers of flats. I could only see a few towers from Wolfboy’s window. A handful of other buildings are marked with smaller squares, and there’s a dashed line around the edge of the paper: a fence. ‘The best way to get there is from the river side.’ Blake adds two parallel lines outside the fence. I bend my neck at an awkward angle, trying to see what she’s doing.

  ‘There’s a path along the eastern bank. You go past the power station, and at the next bridge you’re right behind Orphanville. You climb up a steep hill here, and find a way through the fence. Once you’re there you should go to Building Six.’

  Blake caps her pen and my mind races. What else do we need to know?

  ‘How many Kidds are in the Six-Sevens?’

  ‘Five. The Elf, Baby, Trisha, Shannon, and my replacement is a Kidd called Cassius. I don’t know much about him, but watch out for Trisha ’cause she carries a knife. Shannon can fight as well, but you need to watch out most for the Elf. He can climb anything, even walls that look like there’s nothing to grip on to.’

  They sound superhuman to me, not like children at all. Wolfboy folds up the map and puts it in the pocket of his jeans. I get my last few questions in.

  ‘If we wanted to bribe one of them what would we offer? What’s something they want that they can’t get?’

  ‘Bribes won’t work. They don’t need anything from outsiders.’

  ‘Then what matters most to them? What can we threaten them with?’

  ‘Honestly?’ says Blake. ‘They’re fearless. They don’t care about anyone but themselves. Threats won’t work. Bribes won’t work. I hope you get lucky and don’t even find them. But if you do run into them you’d better be ready to fight dirty.’

  sixteen

  We work fast, without thought. I swap my checked shirt for a black t-shirt, and find a pair of jeans, a black turtleneck and a navy beanie for Wildgirl. I pull my old bike out of the garage. It’s dusty and spotted with rust but it seems sound enough. While Wildgirl pumps up the tyres, oils the chain and rips off the reflectors, I put some things from the garage into my backpack: a coil of rope, a plastic sheet, octopus straps, pliers, gaffer tape, a shifter. I grab Dad’s old fishing knife and wrap it in a rag.

  I feel like I’m watching myself do these things. If I don’t think then I won’t lose it, at anyone or anything. Wildgirl was supposed to take one look at Blake’s scars sixteen and reverse at a hundred miles an hour, but she didn’t even flinch.

  From the kitchen I grab a packet of fun-size chocolate bars that I was given months ago for hel
ping a friend paint his new squat. I’ve lost my taste for sweet things. I put the chocolate into a plastic bag then shake in a jar of Italian herbs to mask the smell.

  Blake stays behind in the house—if things go badly with the Elf I don’t want her on the streets—and Wildgirl takes her bike. We have to put the seat up a bit but other than that it suits her fine. Blake is already asleep on the couch when we leave, her arms folded over her head.

  We ride around the driveway a few times to check the bikes and then pull out into the empty street. I haven’t ridden in years. I can’t remember exactly when Paul and Thom and I stopped, but it was around fifteen, when all of a sudden being seen on your bike became desperately uncool. I breathe easier now that Wildgirl isn’t rattling around inside my house, touching things and asking questions, but I’m not a hundred per cent happy that we’re going ahead with this. We haven’t thought it through well enough.

  ‘I feel like I’m twelve again,’ Wildgirl calls out. Her handbag swings off one handlebar. She flaps her arms like a bird, riding around a roundabout until I’m dizzy. I tried to talk her into leaving her handbag behind, but she looked at me like I’d asked her to cut one of her arms off. She went through it and took out a water bottle, dog-eared book, mp3 player and sunglasses as a compromise. No amount of arguing would convince her to abandon the ukulele though, especially once she realised she could fit it inside her bag.

  ‘Keep your voice down,’ I say. It’s like she’s trying to draw attention to herself.

  We should still be sitting in the chill-out room at Little Death with our faces nearly touching, the only two people in the world. Instead we’re playing bike bandits on the backstreets. Of course I want the lighter back but things aren’t as black and white as Wildgirl would have them. This isn’t a simple decision. I could be putting Blake in danger, or there might be other ways to get the lighter back that don’t involve breaking in to Orphanville. But we haven’t stopped to think about that. Wildgirl says I shouldn’t let people steamroll me, but that’s exactly what she’s done.