This is Shyness

by Leanne Hall

  ‘I’m sorry,’ says the captain. ‘But this is how we make a living.’

  Wildgirl stares daggers at patch-girl. Peter Kouros is standing up now, his body half turned away from us as if he can’t wait to leave. I put my hand on his shoulder. I can feel the sharp edge of his shoulder blade just under the skin. ‘Peter,’ I say quietly, ‘do you remember me?’ I bend down and try to catch his eye but he’s stiff as a board. I wait a few moments and then I give up. I don’t know what I’m hoping for. We can’t take him with us to Orphanville anyway. I grab my bike and nod at Wildgirl.

  ‘Sorry,’ repeats the captain.

  Wildgirl goes to pick up her bike, but at the last minute she darts across to the captain and kisses her hard on the mouth. Wildgirl dips her backwards and the captain’s hat falls off. It’s a real Hollywood moment. I look away. When I look back the captain is picking her hat up and saluting Wildgirl with a big grin on her face.

  Wildgirl stalks to her bike without looking back. She wasn’t joking in that booth about stealing hearts. The captain clicks her heels together. ‘Snip, snap, snout, this tale is told out!’ She waves her arm theatrically at her troop, and they fall in behind her.

  I don’t say anything until we’re pushing our bikes up the steep hill that leads to Orphanville.

  ‘Why did you do that?’ I ask, like a stupid person.

  ‘Give me a break,’ Wildgirl says. ‘Why do I do anything?’ She’s puffing. I could put my hand on her back and help her up the steep incline, but I don’t.

  ‘You mean, why do you enjoy messing around with people’s feelings?’ I say.

  ‘You know what? She just met me. I think she’ll get over it. Are you jealous?’

  ‘No. Why would I be jealous of a crazy person? Because they were crazy, you know. All of them.’

  Including Peter. Who used to be one of the most normal people I know. Maybe I shouldn’t have left him behind. I might be the only person from before who knows where he is. I look back down the slope, but already the riverbank is deserted.

  ‘Well, those crazy people gave us an important piece of information that we wouldn’t have otherwise, so I don’t know what you’re so shitty about.’

  Wildgirl concentrates on getting her bike up the hill and freezing me out. I’m not sure if I should press on, or chase after Peter, or at least message Paul to let him know I saw him. In the end I keep moving forwards. At the top of the slope there’s a strip of ground that’s covered with a thin layer of dead, flattened grass. The chain-link fence is tall—over nine feet—but there’s no barbed wire on top. We should be able to climb it. I balance my bike against the fence and look through. We’re at the rear of Orphanville and there are fewer lights than if we were coming at it from the front. This is the closest I’ve ever been to the Kidds’ headquarters, and it looks surprisingly ordinary. The first buildings are a hundred metres away. I make out something else in the distance, before the buildings, something that obscures our view of the grounds.

  ‘There’s another fence,’ I say, surprised. ‘Blake didn’t put that on the map.’

  Blake didn’t mention anything about a safe room either, and I can’t believe she’d forget to tell us something that important. She’d have to know about them, spending a year with the Kidds. I think of her alone in my house. I do my best to swallow my suspicion. There’s no point getting paranoid. Blake is a good person.

  I drop my backpack on the ground and find the map in my jeans pocket. Wildgirl lies flat on her back with her arms stretched out like she’s making grass angels. The ukulele nestles into her side.

  So that’s it. Her official job is kissing strangers and lying around. My job apparently is making sense of all of this, and figuring out what to do next. Despite the fact this was all her idea. I sit down and unfold the map. There’s only one fence marked on the map. I hope this doesn’t mean there are other mistakes.

  Wildgirl’s voice rises from her bed. ‘Look. We forgot about the moon.’

  I follow her pointed finger. The moon sits high above us, smaller and further away now. Only a wisp of cloud remains. I hadn’t forgotten about the moon for a second. ‘It would be better for us if there’s no moon. Less light to be seen by.’ I turn back to the map with some effort, but Wildgirl tugs on my t-shirt. She pulls herself up and holds out her hand.

  ‘What?’ I’m trying to concentrate here. For someone who talked me into this, Wildgirl is showing a remarkable lack of interest in the details of our death-mission. She keeps her hand out until I realise she wants me to shake it.

  ‘Pleased to meet you, Jethro,’ she says, gripping my hand tightly with both of hers. ‘My name is Nia.’

  I stare at her, not really understanding.

  ‘Nia,’ she repeats. ‘Not Wildgirl. Nia. That’s my real name. N–I–A. It’s Gaelic. Or Swahili. Looks like I’m either half-Irish or half-African. Maybe both. Stop me talking any time soon, won’t you?’

  ‘Why are you telling me this now?’ I’m still staring. What is she playing at? ‘Look, this isn’t a game. If you’re doing this so you have something to tell your friends about when you get home, don’t. I don’t need your help. I can do without the stupid lighter.’

  ‘No, that’s where you’re wrong. You do need my help, only you can’t see it.’ Wildgirl’s eyes flash with annoyance. ‘I thought I should tell you my name before we go in there, because we have to be in this together. A team. No secrets and no bullshit.’

  I should be pleased she told me her name. It means she trusts me, at least a little. But I wouldn’t mind knowing what she means by team. Does she want me to be like her childhood friend, whatshisname?

  ‘I’m doing this for you,’ she says, even though she’s glaring still. But I didn’t ask you to, I want to say. I never asked for her help. Am I such a mess, such a charity case, that she has to step in?

  I see myself for a second through her eyes. A guy too lazy and too cowardly to take action when he should. I’m not worth the effort, I feel like telling her. A phantom-punch curls my fingers again, and I wouldn’t know who I’d choose to spend it on first. I’m so confused. If I sit here and keep thinking, something in my head is going to break. I get to my feet and squash the map in my pocket. The fence rises high above us.

  ‘Come on. I’ll give you a boost up.’

  18

  I finally feel fear taking hold, lying in the shadow of Orphanville. I should be relieved. It’s about time I took this seriously. Wolfboy’s on edge. I can see it in the way he’s holding himself: coiled and ready to spring into action at a moment’s notice. It isn’t that I think the Kidds aren’t dangerous; it’s just that I’ve felt charmed up until now. I felt charmed from the moment I first saw Wolfboy. What kept me riding at full speed into the black night, with only the sound of Wolfboy’s wheels for guidance and no real idea of what was ahead of me, was the feeling that magical things could happen tonight.

  But this is different. This is real. The pale, sickly grass is real under my fingertips and the fence and buildings in front of me are real and the pissed-off vibe I’m getting from Wolfboy is somehow more real than anything else. I take some deep breaths. We’re over the first fence and we’re lying close to the second, which is even taller and has coils of barbed wire along the top. On the other side are dark paddocks, wide seas of blackness, then the towers. Their outlines are fuzzy in this light, but I can fill in their shapes from the chequerboard of lights.

  I run through everything that Blake told us.

  Look for traps. Even the youngest Kidds can lay a good one.

  Avoid sugar-stoned Kidds: you don’t want to fight someone who isn’t feeling any pain.

  Don’t help little Kidds who appear helpless or injured. They use the youngest ones as bait.

  ‘Do you think Lupe’s circle kept us safe from the pirates?’ I’m looking for some reassurance. I’d like to think we’re still protected. I raise myself up on one elbow to check out what’s happening in the great beyond. I’ve got no idea w
hy I’m whispering because there’s no one in sight. I thought there might be guards, but, so far, nothing. Orphanville looks sleepy and still.

  Wolfboy’s reply is abrupt. ‘They weren’t pirates; they were children.’

  He’s still in a bad mood. I thought he’d appreciate knowing my real name, but apparently not. I’ve derailed my entire evening for his benefit. I get that he doesn’t want to rock the boat, and I get that these people really hurt a friend of his, but what I don’t get is that he’s angry at me and not the Kidds. I look back at the first fence, at the silhouettes of our bikes propped up against it. We should have laid them flat on the ground, or hidden them in some shrubs. If anyone walks past and sees them they’ll know someone has jumped the fence.

  ‘We need to offload some of this.’

  ‘Why did you bring so much?’ I ask, as Wolfboy empties the contents of his backpack onto the ground.

  ‘I didn’t know what we’d need.’ He doesn’t look at me. ‘We were in a rush so I brought everything.’

  ‘Don’t dump my stuff. It’s in the front pocket. I’m screwed without my phone or my house keys.’ I paid for the handbag with my first pay cheque from the call centre. I don’t want to lose anything else tonight.

  The only thing I’ve kept on me, apart from the ukulele, is the bankcard; I’ve stashed it safely in my bra. I take the map off Wolfboy while he sorts through his bag, and try to sync up the drawing with what’s in front of me. Maps are not my strong suit.

  ‘Blake didn’t say anything about the safe rooms, did she?’ I may as well be talking to myself. I really hope she hasn’t led us astray deliberately because if she has, this is about to get a whole lot more difficult. ‘How long have you known her?’

  Wolfboy’s look is sharp. ‘About six months. We met dumpster-diving. She probably forgot to mention it. You saw what Pete was like. I think the sugar binges mess with their memories.’

  Six months isn’t that long to know someone. Then again, neither is however many hours it’s been for us. I drop the subject. We’ll have to work with the information we’ve got.

  The first building beyond the second fence is a low-lying square. Some sort of shed, by the looks of it. I swivel the map, trying in vain to find the corresponding square. Maybe Blake only drew the towers in correctly and the rest is just to give us an idea of what else we might find. We learnt to read maps in Geography last year, but I think I dozed through most of it.

  Wolfboy holds up a pair of monster pliers. ‘I knew I brought these for a reason. We’ll cut through the fence.’

  ‘Good. I wasn’t looking forward to ripping myself open on the barbed wire.’

  So far the night has been like an especially cruel boot camp. Wolfboy’s barely raised a sweat. If you gave me a few hours I could probably even turn him into a half-decent dancer. But I’m stuffed. My chest aches, and my arms and legs have gone rag-doll floppy. Wolfboy’s jeans are too big for me, and the cuffs keep dragging under my heels. I have to remind myself that I may not be the fastest runner, but I have other skills. We could have easily gotten into a fight with the pirates; instead, they were practically eating out of our hands by the end. If only I could have managed to do that with the girls at school, but things with them went wrong from the start.

  ‘That’s it.’

  Wolfboy wraps the unwanted gear in a blue plastic sheet and stashes it close to the fence. ‘We can pick this up on the way out.’

  I’m glad he thinks that will happen. The way he’s been talking you’d think we’d booked a one-way ticket to Orphanland.

  ‘You start on the fence. I’ll pack your bag.’

  Wolfboy nods and begins cutting through the wire. I watch him for a few moments, staring at his hunched shoulders. He’s as distant as the stars above us. It’s like I imagined the closeness we had in the Dreamer room at Little Death.

  I turn to the bag. There’s still a lot to pack, even after the cull: a heavy length of rope, a spanner, a roll of tape. I find a knife and add it to the reject pile while Wolfboy isn’t looking. Mike told me to never carry a weapon around the Commons because it could just as easily be used against me. That’s a pretty weird thing for a twelve-year-old to say. Now that I think about it, those words must have come from his father: a scary ex-Army guy who never did anything but grunt at me, even though I was over at their place almost every day.

  For some reason Wolfboy has packed a plastic bag full of green leaves. I put my face close to it and smell. Herbs of some sort, oregano maybe, or thyme. I hold the plastic bag out.

  ‘Are you selling pot to the kiddies on the side?’

  In the darkness the pliers look like a natural extension of Wolfboy’s arm, as if he has pincers instead of hands. It’s too dark to see his eyes properly. He doesn’t reply so I put on my best narc voice. Mum really likes police procedural TV shows, so I do a pretty good job of it.

  ‘So you think it’s all right to peddle drugs to five-year-olds, scumbag?’

  Wolfboy replies lazily, ‘They’re at least seven and you know it.’

  I have to search for his smile in the darkness, which makes it all the better when I do find it. I convince myself that one smile means everything is all right between us. He wasn’t the world’s chattiest guy to begin with, and we’re probably both nervous as hell. We’ll be safe in there as long as we stick together.

  I put the mystery herbs in the backpack.

  Once we’re in the grounds of Orphanville there might not be any time to talk, and there’s a few things I have to know before we cross this final fence.

  ‘What else do you know about the Kidds?’

  ‘Not much more than what Blake told us.’

  ‘But you’ve lived like this for three years. You must know more.’

  ‘The Kidds haven’t been around that long. They only started getting organised about two years ago.’

  ‘Did they do something to your family? Is that why your parents left?’

  It’s only once the words are out of my mouth that I realise I could be skating way too close to the Gram issue. Maybe the Kidds had something to do with his death. Wolfboy stops snipping the fence for a moment but doesn’t look at me.

  ‘My family left—well, they left for lots of reasons. They said it was because all their friends were leaving, and businesses were shutting down, and property values were diving. But it wasn’t that. Do you know how places can turn bad? Like the things that happen there get so tangled up with the place itself, that you can’t…’ Wolfboy trails off, as if he’s not quite saying what he means.

  ‘I know what you mean.’ I knot my fingers together and try hard not to interrupt. Finally, he’s talking again. I do know what he means. They don’t have to be places with bad memories. Mike and I used to hide in this shed on the rooftop of our building. We turned it into a clubhouse, even though we didn’t actually have a club. But it was the place where we’d tell our secrets and smoke. Or Mike would smoke and I’d watch because I hated the taste. Mike’s secrets were always bigger than mine. Since Mike moved away, I don’t go there anymore. I can’t even go onto the roof without feeling a tightness in my chest.

  I haven’t thought about Mike for years, so it’s strange that I’ve thought about him twice in one hour. He left Plexus one day without leaving a phone number or a new address. When you’re twelve there’s not much you can do to track someone down. At the time I thought I’d never forgive him for abandoning me. But now I find myself wondering what happened to him. Would we become friends again if we ran into each other in the street?

  Wolfboy has gone so quiet I figure that’s the end of our conversation. Still, it was a start. He’s almost finished cutting a flap in the wire. His hair gathers in dark curls against the pale skin of his neck. A breeze hisses over us and the pliers go snip, snip, snip. I look up and the moon is there, full and round like a big eye.

  When Wolfboy’s voice creeps into the moment it’s barely a whisper above the rustling grass.

  ‘If you want to k
now the truth, something bad did happen to my family, but it was nothing to do with the

  Darkness. My brother. Gram. He was five years older than me. About four years ago, he killed himself.’

  Wolfboy has stopped working on the fence, but he’s still facing it, kneeling in a position of utter defeat. This is the truth that I’ve wanted him to tell, but now that I’ve heard it I wish I hadn’t.

  ‘Things had been bad for a while. With my family, with Gram. He hadn’t spoken to my dad in years and he only spoke to my mum on the phone every couple of months. He didn’t see eye to eye with them on anything. He broke up with his girlfriend and she moved away, overseas. They’d been together since they were sixteen and no one knew what they’d fought about, why she’d left.’

  Wolfboy turns towards me. There are no tears in his eyes; they look dark and bottomless and empty.

  The first question I want to ask is: how did he do it? That’s always the first thing people want to know, but it’s also the stupidest. I stop the words before they escape my mouth. ‘It’s Gram’s lighter, isn’t it?’ I ask instead, and Wolfboy nods.

  ‘Gram took the breakup hard. He wasn’t doing well. We knew he was drinking too much and kept to himself. He was angry all the time. But no one saw it coming. Things were bad, but they didn’t seem that bad.’

  It doesn’t sound like the end of the story, but Wolfboy looks spent. This is where I say something comforting, or wise, or even acknowledge how fucked up the whole thing is. But what can I say? I just sit there with him, the breeze fussing around us. I hope he feels my sympathy, even though I don’t touch him or say anything. I feel unbearably sad. Now I understand why he was holding the full story back.

  Wolfboy chose to live among the memories of his brother, and his parents chose to run away from them. I doubt they’ve left them behind, though. You could travel halfway across the world and the pain would still be inside you.