The Fearless Five

by Bannie McPartlin

  They were laughing at something when I swam up to them. ‘What’s so funny?’

  ‘Ah nothing,’ Charlie said, and she laughed again and then Johnny J laughed.

  ‘Nothing is never funny,’ I said.

  ‘You had to be here,’ Charlie said.

  ‘I am here.’

  ‘A few minutes ago,’ Johnny J said, so I let it go.

  ‘Right,’ I said, and I was hurt. Less than a few weeks ago it would have been Johnny J and me in a little huddle together enjoying a private joke, and now Charlie was in and I was out. I swam on. Neither of them tried to call me back. They just stayed treading water and whispering into one another’s ears. It was easy to see that I wasn’t wanted, so I just swam away from them and talked to myself in my head. So that’s the way you want it. Fine. We can all be like that. I can go off with … But that was the thing. I couldn’t go off with anyone. I could see Walker on Sumo’s shoulders in the near distance. They weren’t missing me either; they had their own thing going. Johnny J and Charlie definitely weren’t missing me. I was alone. Worse than that, I was a lone fugitive. I wanted to cry but I didn’t. Instead I just treaded water and repeated the words Don’t do it. Do not cry in my head. Then I thought about things and it made me mad. After all I’ve done for him! This is the thanks I get. Ah, ah, ah, I can feel a tear. Stop! Stop it! Too late. Tears raced down my wet face, so I splashed myself and dunked my head underwater and stayed there stewing for as long as my lungs would allow.

  When I finally surfaced it was in time to see Johnny J walk onto the beach. Charlie was still treading water where I’d left them. Johnny J foraged in a bag and took out some cans and munched into a bar of chocolate. Sumo and Walker soon joined him. Charlie lay on her back and floated silently.

  I thought about joining the lads, but I was still too angry with Johnny J to share a bar of chocolate with him or drink from the same can. Instead I just bobbed up and down, my eyes darting from the boys eating to Charlie floating. They all seemed so happy. I wanted to scream, It’s just not fair.

  I don’t know for how long I was looking away, maybe it was thirty seconds, maybe it was a whole minute, but when I looked back in Charlie’s direction, she was gone.

  40

  The Hero

  I started to swim toward where Charlie had last been floating, and then I saw her. She was barely visible and thrashing. I called out to her but she didn’t respond. She was in trouble. She disappeared under again. My heart twisted in my chest.

  ‘It’s OK, Charlie,’ I shouted, ‘I’m coming. Don’t panic, OK?’ I moved as quickly as I could. She was wild in the water. I inched closer and I remembered my water-safety trainer’s advice. ‘Don’t climb on me. OK?’fn1

  I wasn’t sure that she could hear me, she was really struggling. I was nearly beside her now. I didn’t have a buoy, but I was still wearing my T-shirt. I ripped it off and twisted it into a sort of rope. She was struggling, gurgling and slipping under. I threw it to her.

  ‘Charlie, grab on.’ She flailed around and I moved closer and she grabbed it. I pulled her toward me. ‘I’ve got you,’ I said. ‘Just hold on.’

  I moved in a straight line back to shore, just like my trainer had taught me. I looked back every few strokes to make sure she was still holding on but always keeping a safe distance. We were nearly back to shore before the boys realised that something was wrong.

  Johnny J was the first to reach us. He helped me carry Charlie onto the sand. She dropped to the ground. Her lips were a mix of purple and blue. I thought robbing was terrifying, but that was the most scared I’d ever been. My heart raced in my chest and my hands shook.

  ‘Call an ambulance,’ I said, and I rolled her onto her side. Johnny J’s mam had forced him to do the same course as me, so he was busy checking her airway, breathing and circulation. She coughed and spluttered and raised her hands.

  ‘Don’t call an ambulance,’ she said, but it was in a hoarse whisper that worried me.

  ‘I think we should,’ I said.

  Johnny J looked worried too, but then she sat up and breathed in and out slowly and steadily.

  ‘If I go to hospital, we’re done for,’ she said. ‘I’m fine, really I am.’ Then she looked at me and she smiled with her purple-blue lips. ‘Thanks, Jeremy, you’re my hero,’ she said, and even though I was wearing Papa Smurf shorts on a crowded beach in front of everyone, it felt really good to be called a hero.

  ‘You’re welcome,’ I said, and we just looked at one another for a few seconds. I blushed and I looked away first, but it felt nice. Then she started crying, I mean really crying. I didn’t even know Charlie was capable of that kind of loud, snotty, full-on ugly-face crying.

  Johnny J hugged her and told her everything would be fine, and when she got up to walk back to the caravan, she walked away with him. I’d saved her but she left with him. As I watched them go, my chest tightened a little. Walker couldn’t believe what had just happened.

  ‘This is all mad,’ he said, ‘totally mad.’ He boxed Sumo on the arm. ‘Chips?’ Walker said.

  ‘Oh yeah,’ Sumo said.

  They didn’t ask me; I don’t know if they just expected me to go with them or if they even noticed I was there. They just walked off and I was left alone on the beach in my Papa Smurf jocks. It was depressing.

  I didn’t feel like going back to the caravan. I lay on the beach and let my T-shirt and jocks dry. Even though it was hot it took a long time and my T-shirt was stuck together with sand. I brushed it down, and when I finally got my wet jeans on, I walked up and down the beach for a long time, watching people come and go, scratching and shaking sand from my back, front, sides and armpits and thinking about my family at home in Dublin. My mam was probably going insane. I missed her. I missed her cooking and I missed her washing my clothes. How am I supposed to get sand out of my T-shirt?

  I missed her smile and laugh and even the way she shouted. I missed my dad too. He’d be upset because my mam was upset. He couldn’t bear to see her sad. In my head I could see him pacing up and down the hall corridor the way he always did when he was worried, sad, frustrated or scared.

  I wondered what Rich was thinking. I thought about how I’d feel if Rich robbed garages. I’d be worried. Maybe he was worried too. It was a pity Johnny J would probably be incarcerated somewhere. That would mess up the band. I missed Rich. Weird. I hoped Rachel wouldn’t stay home with the family to mind my parents, because she needed to go back to nursing school. It was important to her.

  I thought about my friends and the trouble we were in. Charlie could have died. If she had, it would have been my fault because she wouldn’t have been in that water if she hadn’t robbed a garage and a security van and run away with us. I was supposed to be going into secondary school in September, but now my friends and I would be heading into some kids’ detention centre. I was angry at the world and God and myself, Auntie Alison and Johnny J and even poor Mrs Tulsi. I thought about running away for good, from everything and everyone – my friends, family, jail, life. But I couldn’t. There was nowhere to go and nothing to do but wait. So I walked back to the caravan with a head full of sand and a heavy heart.

  41

  The Fight

  It was nearly dark when I made it back to the caravan. The boys were sitting around the table playing a game of snap. Charlie was wrapped up in some of Betty Bloomers’ blankets on the bed, with the door open so that she could see the boys and they could see her. She was still pretty shaken up after nearly drowning. I walked up to the door of her little bleach-and-lemon-smelling room.

  ‘You OK?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘Thanks.’ She sniffed. Her eyes were raw. It looked like she was still on the verge of tears. It made me sad as well as angry. It wasn’t a good mix of emotions.

  ‘Where were you?’ Johnny J asked.

  ‘Like you’d care,’ I said.

  ‘What?’ he said, and he laughed. That really hurt. ‘What’s wrong with you?’ he
asked.

  What’s wrong with me? Oh, I don’t know. Maybe I’m frightened and lonely and upset and sick and lost and tired and … I couldn’t think of anything else.

  ‘What’s wrong with you?’ I shouted.

  Walker shoved his glasses to the bridge of his swollen nose and sat up straight. Sumo stared at me blankly through his Wookie mask. They weren’t that sure what was happening. I wasn’t sure myself. I just felt all this rage deep down in the pit of my sick stomach.

  Johnny J stood up from the table to face me. ‘Nothing, I’m fine,’ he said.

  ‘Yeah, well, good, because you’re the only one,’ I said.

  Sumo raised his purple hand in the air. ‘I’m fine too,’ he said.

  ‘No, you’re not, Sumo. You, me, Walker and Charlie are in big trouble. We’ve done a terrible thing.’ It was the first time I’d said it out loud. It was the first time I’d admitted it to myself. WE’D DONE A TERRIBLE THING.

  Walker and Sumo dropped their heads. Charlie said nothing. I had my back to her so I couldn’t see her reaction.

  ‘I did what you did,’ Johnny J said, and he wasn’t so cocky-sounding any more.

  ‘Your mam is sick, so everyone will feel sorry for you. It’s the rest of us that have really taken a chance here.’

  Walker squeezed his head between his hands. ‘Why didn’t I think of that? He’s right, you know,’ he said to Sumo. ‘We’re dead. I’ll never be a Young Scientist in my own right. Thanks a lot, Johnny J.’ He lay his head on the table and banged it gently against it three times for dramatic effect. ‘My life is over.’ He was careful not to inflict further damage to his nose.

  ‘It’s your fault too, Walker! If you hadn’t insisted on robbing the security van! WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?’ I screamed.

  ‘YOU STARTED THIS!’ He was shouting now too. It was a good point.

  ‘Jeremy, why are you saying all this?’ Charlie said, and I turned to face her.

  Charlie sat up in the bed, but she kept the blankets wrapped around her, hugging them close. Her wild red hair was a mess, but at least her lips weren’t purple and blue, even though they weren’t a normal colour either.

  ‘YOU COULD HAVE DIED TODAY,’ I shouted ‘YOU NEARLY DROWNED, AND YOUR MAM, DAD AND BROTHERS DON’T EVEN KNOW WHERE YOU ARE.’

  She recoiled in the bed and started crying again.

  If they wanted to, Charlie’s brothers could kick the colours of the rainbow out of any of us, even Sumo, and if she had died they would be right to. I wouldn’t blame them.

  Charlie was lucky to be alive. I was lucky not to have drowned myself. I wasn’t a hero or even a gung-ho gangster. I was just a stupid kid, a really very stupid kid. We all were! And I felt sick that it was my fault. I was angry at them for listening to me and at the world for making Mrs Tulsi sick and at Auntie Alison for threatening to take away my best friend.

  Johnny J’s face had changed colour from his usual cool caramel colour to a beetroot red. Walker stopped banging his head against the table and he was just still, eyes wide and like a dead fish. I couldn’t tell what Sumo was thinking under the Wookie mask.

  ‘He’s right, we’re all stupid,’ Walker said.

  Sumo had his hand on Walker’s back and every now and then he’d pat it.

  ‘We shouldn’t have done any of this,’ Johnny J shouted.

  ‘No, we shouldn’t,’ I shouted back.

  Johnny J stormed out of the caravan. Charlie scrambled to disentangle herself from the blankets. I was just standing there in the middle of the tiny caravan in shock. It was the first fight Johnny J and I had ever had and it was horrible.

  ‘He’s your best friend,’ Charlie said to me as she squeezed past me. Then she ran out the door to find Johnny J. I turned to face the two boys.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said.

  ‘We’re dead,’ Walker mumbled.

  ‘It’s still worth it if we save Johnny J’s mam, right?’ Sumo said.

  ‘What if we don’t, Sumo?’ I said. She was so sick and I wondered what if it was too late? I worried it would be for nothing.

  ‘Ah no, she’ll be grand,’ Sumo said. ‘Everything will be grand.’

  Walker started banging his head gently on the table again. When I knew the coast was clear and Johnny J and Charlie were nowhere to be seen, I left the caravan. I walked toward the village. It was dark by the time I reached it. I’d missed dinner back at the farmhouse; I was starving. I walked into the chipper.

  ‘I’ll have a burger and chips, please,’ I said, and I handed him all the money I had in my pocket. He handed me a pound back. I made a mental note of how much the burger and chips cost so Walker could note it in his notebook. We needed to keep an eye on money if it was going to last the full two weeks.

  The chipper had big orange plastic seats and white plastic tables lining one wall. Over the seating area was a clock. It read 10.30 p.m. I sat below the clock waiting for my food. I noticed a newspaper on the seat opposite. It was crumpled and slightly torn, but I grabbed it because the spotty teenager behind the counter wasn’t talkative and I was bored listening to my own angry thoughts. One minute I was still shouting at Johnny J in my head and the next I was begging him to forgive me. It was exhausting. The front page was all about the Irish team and the big game against Romania they had in front of them. It was the match that would determine whether or not they’d get into the World Cup quarter-finals and it was a huge deal. Not to me though. I had much bigger things to worry about, like losing my best friend and destroying my entire future. There was something about the brilliant weather on page 2 and then boring politics stuff on pages 3 and 4. Something terrible had happened in a country I’d never even heard of on page 5, and then I turned to page 6 and my heart skipped a beat. I was looking at the photo that Sumo’s mam took of us standing in Sumo’s garden wearing our football-supporter disguises, and the headline above it read ‘Have you seen the Fearless Five?’ Oh, it’s us!

  With trembling heart, hands, feet, legs, body and mind I read on. It mentioned our names, ages, where we lived, our parents, our school, everything about us!fn1 And then it told the world, or at least the whole of Ireland, what we’d done in a lot of detail. The article asked people to keep an eye out for us and then it gave the number of a police station to contact.

  The spotty teen handed me my burger. I hid my face.

  ‘Thanks,’ I mumbled.

  ‘Whatever,’ he said.

  The article ended with a plea from our parents for all of us to come home. My guts twisted. I had a lot to think about. Our faces were in the paper! We had an outlaw name! The Fearless Five. The whole country was looking for us. It wouldn’t be long before they found us. Jimbo being blind was in our favour. At least he couldn’t identify us. Betty Bloomers could see though. Maybe she didn’t read the newspaper. I hoped not. My mam didn’t. She said all news was bad news so she only did crosswords. I didn’t know what to do. If I told the others it would probably only make things worse. I decided to sleep on it.

  I tore the article out of the paper, folded it and put it in the back pocket of my jeans. I pushed my burger and chips away. I stood up, brushed myself down and walked toward the door.

  The spotty teen shouted at me, ‘Hey, you didn’t even touch that food!’

  ‘Whatever,’ I said, pushing the swinging door open and swaggering down the road. I was one of the Fearless Five!

  When I reached the caravan it was quiet. Everyone was sleeping. I just grabbed one of Betty Bloomers’ blankets and went outside. I liked sleeping under the stars, even though it was a little cold. I hugged the blankets close and counted as many stars as I could. After a lot of counting I realised that for the first time since I’d started this whole thing I wasn’t afraid. I wasn’t scared at all. I know it sounds crazy, but seeing our photo in the paper was a relief. It reminded me that all the madness would soon be over. Whatever was going to happen would happen and there was nothing I could do about it. My mam used to sing me a song when I was a kid. It was c
alled ‘Que Sera Sera’. It was supposed to be French or Italian or Spanish, although Dad said it wasn’t any of those languages (he’d got the answer wrong in a pub quiz), but anyway the song said ‘What will be will be’. That’s what I went to sleep singing in my head. What will be will be.

  42

  The Secret

  I woke up outside to the sounds of birds squawking. I wasn’t sure if they were happy, sad, friendly or fighting, but it hurt my ears.

  ‘They’re loud, aren’t they?’ Charlie said, and suddenly she was looming over me and it gave me a start. It was still really early. Yellow sun burst from what appeared to be a silver crack between the blue sky and the white clouds.

  I jumped up into a sitting position, fixed my messy hair into a tight ponytail and popped the pen and pencil that lay on the ground back into it, then I wiped sleep from my eyes and sniffed to clear my stuffy head. She sat down beside me and crossed her legs the way my mam did when she was doing her yoga poses.

  ‘It beautiful here, isn’t it?’ she said, looking at the sky.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said.

  ‘Are you OK?’ she said.

  I hunched. ‘I’m grand,’ I said.

  ‘You’re not acting like you’re grand.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter anyway,’ I said. ‘We’ll be going home soon.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  I pulled the piece of newspaper from my back pocket and handed it to her. ‘We’re done for,’ I said.

  She looked at it and her eyes widened. ‘The Fearless Five?!’ she gasped, and then she smiled a little. ‘That’s so cool.’

  ‘I know, but it means they are looking for us outside Dublin,’ I said solemnly.

  ‘Wow, we’re like real gangsters.’

  ‘I was thinking outlaws.’

  ‘Yeah, outlaws is better.’