This is Shyness

by Leanne Hall

  After a while Wolfboy reaches forward and pushes the flap of wire upwards, using both hands to bend it as high as it will go.

  ‘It’s done,’ he says.

  nineteen

  Beyond the second fence there’s fifty metres of open ground to cover before the first building. I crawl commando-style, my bag an unwelcome bulge on my back. Wildgirl lags behind. I pause for a second to make sure she’s following me. She creeps forward, but rolls her eyes, letting me know she’s not happy with the situation. The ukulele keeps slipping around to her front, and she keeps pushing it back irritably.

  My feet drag. I feel disconnected from the task ahead of me. I want to kick myself for all the things I’ve told her. Adults always say: get it off your chest. Talk about it. You’ll feel much better afterwards. But in my experience that’s not true. I feel heavier than ever.

  It takes a few minutes to reach cover. Blake warned us about booby traps, so every time I move forward I examine the dirt ahead for anything out of the ordinary. I reach the first building and squat against its breezeblock walls. There are no windows or doors on this side. The nearest light is at the foot of the closest main tower, still a long way off. This building is a small shed, barely four metres long. I listen intently. Somewhere, far off, a dog barks. Closer to us a door or a gate swings back and forth in the wind.

  Wildgirl eventually makes it to where I’m sitting and crouches next to me, rubbing her elbows and grimacing. Pieces of dried grass cling to her jumper and hair. Her hands are filthy like mine.

  ‘Absolutely no more crawling tonight, and that’s a rule. I’m not a slug.’

  I want to tell Wildgirl her ukulele is a liability and has to go, but I’m pretty sure she’ll tell me where to get off. I creep to the corner of the building. There are four other shed-like structures around us, then a tarmac expanse that looks like a car park. We’ve done it. We’re in Orphanville. I don’t know anyone who’s been inside these fences. It’s time to concentrate, but— ‘I’m confused,’ I say. I’m confused by the way things turned bad between us. I’m confused by the fact I told her a bunch of personal information and she hasn’t said anything about it.

  ‘What about?’ Wildgirl presses her chin over my shoulder, trying to see what I’m seeing.

  ‘Do I call you Nia or Wildgirl?’

  ‘Wildgirl, of course. I’m not calling you Jethro, am I?’

  I glance back at her. Her lipstick is gone and her eyeshadow is smudged. There’s a little crease between her eyebrows that wasn’t there before. I did that to her. At the most she was hoping to go to some cool clubs tonight, and maybe see some night-time freaks. Instead I gave her my sob story.

  It hurts not having the familiar weight of Gram’s lighter in my pocket. It’s still a comfort for me to touch something that he so often held. Mum would be so upset if she knew I’d lost it.

  I can see the edge of one of the towers at the end of the car park, and beyond it the other towers rising straight in the night. The towers are striped across with windows, and down with a central pillar of light that must be a stairwell or elevator shaft. You can tell from the pattern of lights which buildings are more occupied and more dangerous. Less than a quarter of the lights are on in the closest tower.

  It must seem so cool to the Kidds, getting to live together with no parents and no adults and no one telling you what to do. If I’d been younger when the Darkness fell, I wonder if I would have joined them.

  ‘So what was the plan again?’ asks Wildgirl.

  It took guts to crawl through that fence. I search for my anger but it’s gone. She doesn’t have to do this, and she doesn’t have a gun to my head making me do this either. I owe it to her to make it as easy as possible. It’s a pity we haven’t thought past ‘break in to Orphanville’.

  I pull Blake’s map from my pocket. It’s already wearing thin along the folds. I try to match it up with what lies in front of us, but it morphs into a mess of random writing and scribbles. I sigh. ‘I suppose we find Building Six.’

  ‘That’s Building Ten, I think.’ Wildgirl points at the closest tower. ‘The buildings are laid out in two semicircles. One through to Five are on the inside, Six to Ten on the outside.’ She pauses, her brow crinkling, her mouth open as if she’s about to continue. She takes the map from my hands.

  ‘What is it?’ I ask.

  ‘Nothing,’ she replies. ‘I thought…the placement of the buildings. It’s hard to tell.’

  ‘Well, if that’s number Ten, the one diagonally behind it is One. Which means Six will be on the left-hand side, right at the end. I think we should go through the middle of the two rows. That way we can go either left or right for cover.’

  I stand up and take a few steps away from the shed, so I can see better. The closest towers are mostly dark. Wildgirl was right. We need to work together on this. Maybe it will be easier than we’ve anticipated. It won’t take us long to get to Building Six. We could be in and out in fifteen minutes. ‘Careful,’ says Wildgirl.

  ‘It’s fine,’ I say, just as a bright beam of light cuts across my arm and sweeps across my torso. I drop to the ground, half blinded, my vision full of sparkles.

  20

  Wolfboy ducks with lightning speed. I flatten myself against the wall, and hold my breath as if it will make a difference to my visibility.

  The light sweeps back across the same spot, above where Wolfboy is pressed to the ground, and is gone. I glimpse the tail end of a black car. A narrow driveway, almost invisible from this position, runs behind the car park and in front of the first row of towers. I squint after the car but all I can see is the reflective flash of the number plate. Across to the right is a set of automatic gates closing between two brick pillars. How come we didn’t see those before?

  When I look back to where Wolfboy was lying just seconds ago there’s nothing but fuzzy darkness. He’s gone. I’m on the verge of full-blown panic when I see him crouched even further away against Building Ten, waving for me to come over.

  Shit. To get there I have to cross the car park and the driveway. I have no idea how Wolfboy covered that distance so fast. The black car is beyond the car park now, but if the driver looks in his rear-vision mirror at the wrong moment he’ll see me for sure.

  I take a breath then I’m pounding over faded foursquare courts painted on the bitumen and dodging a broken soccer net lying on its side. I skid to my knees, scraping against tanbark as I reach Building Ten. It’s newer and flashier than the buildings in Plexus Commons, with reflective windows like an office block.

  ‘Do you think they saw us?’ I gasp. But we’re already away.

  Wolfboy drags me by the cuff of my jumper across the narrow gap to the next building. At first I try to resist, but then I just go with him, trying not to fall over or behind. My breath is ragged; white noise fills my ears. The world is a concrete blur. Another tower flashes by. We pass a scrapheap of firewood and mangled bikes. At Building Eight we stop and resume our creeping again.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I manage to say. I can’t draw enough air into my lungs.

  ‘Come on. I thought I saw something.’

  ‘What?’

  I grab his arm and try to hold him back, but he’s too strong and I’m forced to follow him to the far corner of the building.

  Wolfboy peeks around the corner and then motions for me to come forward. It’s not as dark here as I expected. The hazy orange light from the few lampposts dotted around softens the night.

  Behind Eight the ribbon of tarmac curves around to the right, running between buildings until it ends in the middle of four towers. A single metal dumpster, five metres away, stands between the road and us. The black car is parked in the dead end with its headlights still on. The doors open, one in the front and one behind, and two men get out. I squint at the buildings beyond the car. I’m not certain yet, but they look— Wolfboy sneaks even closer to the corner.

  ‘Stop!’ I whisper as loudly as I dare. ‘Where are you going?’

/>   He slips away, around the corner, where there’s barely anything between him and the car and being seen and us being busted and having god knows what done to us. Shit.

  I stick my head around the corner, expecting to see Wolfboy sheltering behind the dumpster. But he’s not there. Beyond the dumpster the two men circle to the front of the car. They wear suits and look like secret-service agents, not that I’ve ever seen one in the flesh.

  I take several steps backwards. There’s no way I’m following Wolfboy, and I’m not hanging around to see if he’s stupid enough to approach the car. I keep backing away until I’ve rounded another corner. It’s possible I’m about to hurl. My head is a messy ball of thoughts, with threads unravelling everywhere. I’m not sure I should have pushed Wolfboy so hard. His family has already lost someone, and let it blow them apart. What if something happens to Wolfboy tonight?

  On the other side of Building Eight I stumble across a shallow recess made for a fuse box. The metal box is bolted to the wall, leaving enough room to sit underneath it. It’s not the best hiding place but it will do for a few minutes.

  I slide into the gap and cuddle my knees to my chest, trying to still my breath and my heart and my hands. This is my punishment for wanting a night that would erase the day, a night with dark secrets and alley chases and passwords. Be careful what you wish for. I close my eyes.

  Orphanville feels too real, and at the same time completely unreal, like a dream. There are things going on in this place that I barely understand. Those men could have anything in their boot: guns, or blindfolds, or ropes or bricks. This is not a Kidds’ game anymore. We could die here in Orphanville and no one will know what happened to us.

  And then the least of my worries will be the girls at school.

  My eyes spring open as feet shuffle past. I shrink into the wall. The feet return. Wolfboy drops down next to me, panting and triumphant. ‘I knew there was something dodgy about that car!’ He looks at me, expecting some kind of pleased reaction, but I give him nothing. ‘These two guys got out and talked to some Kidds. The Kidds handed over something in a plastic bag, and then they all got into the car together. I thought they were gonna drive off, but they stayed there. I got closer but I couldn’t see anything else. As far as I know they’re still there. I bet they’ve got suitcases full of money.’

  He looks at me again, and I blank him.

  ‘Just like a movie…’ He stares at me. His head barely clears the fuse box above us. ‘What’s gotten into you?’

  I shrug. ‘Nothing.’ He doesn’t care about the danger he just put himself in.

  I do my trick: I go away, out of my head, out of my body, until nothing matters. I am worlds away and I’m not shaking anymore. The night air has frozen me solid; I’m cold and hard all over.

  ‘Don’t do this,’ Wolfboy says, his voice faint.

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘The cold shoulder. Tell me what I did wrong.’ He sounds small and beaten—nothing like the howling boy I met in the pub all those hours ago. It would be easier if he was angry. ‘If I knew what I did wrong then I probably wouldn’t have done it, would I?’

  I breathe out in a thin stream. ‘You’re not trying to get yourself killed, are you?’

  Wolfboy gapes.

  ‘What the hell were you doing running after the car like that? We don’t know who those people are. Are you trying to get yourself killed?’

  I thought I was upset, but my voice sounds angry. I chew my lower lip while Wolfboy looks at me like I’m a grenade with the pin pulled out.

  ‘I thought I recognised the car,’ he says, quietly. He doesn’t match my anger. ‘I went off without thinking, on instinct. I don’t have a death wish. Don’t think that.’

  My anger flows out of me as quickly as it came. I wish I could take my words back. I didn’t think about what I was suggesting.

  ‘Do you want me to say sorry?’

  I think for a few seconds. It wouldn’t hurt.

  ‘Yes,’ I decide, even though it wasn’t that long ago I told him to stop apologising. ‘I do.’

  ‘Sorry,’ he says genuinely, and for a fraction of a second I see the little boy in the tree. A warm glow enters my body.

  ‘But I thought this was what you wanted,’ Wolfboy says. ‘And we’ve already uncovered something. There’s more going on in Orphanville than we suspected.’

  I risk a look at him. ‘I feel stupid. This was my idea in the first place, but it’s much scarier than I thought it would be. At the first sign of danger I run around flapping my hands and you go into action-man mode.’

  ‘I wouldn’t worry. You’re just getting warmed up.’

  I remember suddenly what Blake said at Wolfboy’s house. You don’t know what these people are like. People, not Kidds. She knew there were adults involved.

  ‘It makes sense, doesn’t it, that there are adults here?’ I say. ‘If the Kidds are off their rockers all the time, then there has to be someone straight in charge. And it’s not going to be monkeys, is it?’

  Wolfboy grins, his incisors white and pointy.

  ‘Did you think we’d find tarsier in the penthouse suite, sitting on stacks of gold bars?’

  ‘Uh-huh. And they’d have giant calculators in their tiny little hands and cocaine on their whiskers.’

  We smile at the vision.

  Wolfboy puts his hand on my knee. ‘I can do this on my own. If you want to turn back, I won’t hold it against you. You’ve done enough already.’

  ‘No. I talked you into this. I’m not backing out now.’

  Wolfboy scrambles to his feet and offers me his hand. ‘On the positive side, we are now much closer to Building Six.’

  ‘About that,’ I say, letting him pull me out from under the fuse box and taking a deep breath. It’s time to find out if my suspicions are correct. ‘Have you noticed there’s something different about Building Seven?’

  twenty-one

  It’s not going to be straightforward getting to the other buildings. The car is still parked in the dead end with its lights off and we don’t know if the men and Kidds are still inside. The break-in has been worth it just to see the exchange between the men and the Kidds. It all means something, and I want to find out what.

  ‘If we double back a bit we’ll be out of sight,’ whispers Wildgirl.

  I was thinking the same thing.

  We go back the way we came until the road straightens out and the car is no longer visible. I point across the road to another shed, catch Wildgirl’s eye and sketch a path with my finger. There’s not much distance between Seven and Six. We should be able to keep out of view.

  The moon sits high above. The scene before us looks flat, as if it has been painted on a canvas with oil paints. The cube-shaped shed. Charcoal smudges of shadow. White highlights from the moon.

  We run, keeping low. My backpack bounces up and down. Our feet crunch on the road, then pad through dust to the shed. All other sounds seem to have been sucked from the night.

  We huddle behind the shed. I check in with Wildgirl. She smiles tensely in return. I think we’re good. It never occurred to me that she would freak out like that. My legs and arms prickle with adrenaline. It’s a good feeling. We’re really going to do this.

  ‘Ready?’ I touch Wildgirl’s shoulder, preparing for another burst of running to the back of Seven.

  But instead of nodding she clutches my arm. ‘What’s that sound?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Listen.’

  At first there’s only plain grey silence to match the plain grey scene before us, but then I hear it. A faint chattering and a rustle. The barest breath of a breeze floats past us, carrying a definite odour with it.

  ‘I think it’s coming from inside—’ I don’t have to add: this building. The one we’re leaning against.

  Wildgirl tightens her grip. I pause, my nostrils taking in the air around us in small puffs. The answer comes to me like a Dreamer in the night.

  ‘Come on,’ I whis
per. I inch forwards, forcing Wildgirl to loosen her hold. The front of the shed has a narrow verandah and a low wall topped with two chain-link doors. The chattering intensifies. I pull myself up over the edge of the wall to look through the doors. Wildgirl stays at the corner, refusing to come any closer.

  Furry lumps cluster in twos and threes on horizontal poles low to the ground and higher up. A heater against the back wall throws off a dull red glow. The air is thick with the musty smell of droppings and urine and fur.

  ‘It’s the penthouse suite!’ I say, beckoning.

  Wildgirl joins me at the ledge.

  A few tarsier blink at us, unperturbed. The rest are asleep, some leaning against each other, others sitting in the few scattered branches. I start to count them, but stop at fifty. Wildgirl clings to the mesh, her fingers pushing through the wire.

  ‘They’re so teeny. And so peaceful.’

  The tarsier seem smaller and more delicate up close. One could sit comfortably in my palm with room to spare. They don’t look like they could hurt anyone. A drowsy tarsier slumps on a low perch close to the front. The skin on his fingers is translucent, revealing a spidery network of veins. His paper-thin ears swivel like satellite dishes.

  ‘I’ve just noticed something,’ I say. ‘Their eyes don’t reflect the light.’

  ‘Are they supposed to?’

  ‘Well, think of dogs or possums or cats. Their eyes all shine at night.’

  ‘No wonder they’re so hard to spot in the dark.’

  More eyes are opening now; it’s as if word has gotten around that there are gawking humans in the neighbourhood.

  ‘How many do you think the Kidds have?’

  ‘No idea. There’re a lot here. Maybe they work them in shifts, keep some here to rest while the others do the rounds.’

  ‘Somehow I imagined it differently than that.’ Wild-girl watches the tarsier closest to us. She has a tender look on her face, a soft look I haven’t seen before. ‘I guess I thought they were pets. Like every Kidd has their own little monkey buddy that sits on their shoulders and sleeps on their pillows.’