by John Larkin
The door swings open and there’s Aunt Serena and Creepo. Aunt Serena looks worried but Creepo just smiles, like a python at a cornered rat.
MY BUNS FROM THE BAKERY TASTED MUCH BETTER GOING IN THAN they do coming out. Dr Chen quickly grabs a container and shoves it under my mouth. The smell makes me throw up even more, although there can’t be anything much left in me.
‘Could you wait in the reception area, please?’
‘But we –’ begins Creepo but Dr Chen cuts him off.
‘Reception please! Can’t you see that she’s sick?’
‘We’re her parents,’ complains Creepo as Dr Chen ushers them both outside and locks the door behind them.
I’m about to say that they’re not my parents but Dr Chen seems to have a handle on it. I don’t know how but she seems to have sussed things out. Why else would she lock the door? Maybe they teach this sort of stuff at uni.
Although Creepo has probably got his gun tucked down the back of his pants – he so wants to be a real gangster – he obeys Dr Chen’s command. Maybe he respects her as a figure of authority. Maybe he’s worried that she’ll call security or the cops. Either way, I can hear them mumbling as they head back down the corridor to the reception area.
I spit bile into the container as Dr Chen tenderly rubs my back. It’s been a while since someone comforted me like that.
When I’ve finished, Dr Chen wipes my mouth with a tissue. Then she smiles at me.
‘You need to tell me what’s going on, otherwise I can’t help you.’
I look at her. I want to tell her everything.
‘Those people aren’t your parents, are they?’
‘No.’
‘Then who are they?’
‘My aunt and uncle.’
‘From Paraguay?’
‘No one’s from Paraguay. Except maybe Paraguayans,’ I add, just to clarify things.
She smiles, even though I didn’t mean it as a joke.
‘Where are you parents?’
‘They’ve gone back to live in Europe. It’s a long story.’
‘Hmmnn. I’m going to ask you a question now and I need you to tell me the truth. Okay?’
I nod, sensing what’s coming.
‘Are you being abused?’
I pause. That’s the thing. I’m not being abused. Yet. I got out before it started. ‘Not abused. But he was doing stuff. Getting ready. We saw a DVD about it at school.’
‘Grooming? That’s all I need to know.’
She picks up her phone. ‘And your arm? Did he do that?’
I’m sick of lying. I’m sick of hiding. I’ve been homeless, on the run, for less than a day and I hate it already.
‘Did he do that to your arm?’
‘Yes.’
‘There are people who can help you.’
She’s finished dialling her number, but I haven’t got any proof. Creepo will convince everyone that I’m lying and I’ll be handed back. Let’s face it, even Dr Chen knows that I’m a complete liar. If the police ask her she’ll tell the truth – I’m a bare-faced liar.
I reach over and hang up Dr Chen’s phone.
‘What are you doing? I need to report . . .’
‘If you do, I’m dead.’
‘You’ll be protected from him.’
‘Yeah? For how long? You don’t know what he’s like. What he’s capable of. Are the police going to guard me twenty-four seven?’
‘No, but . . .’
‘Then you’ve got to let me go. I can take care of myself.’
Dr Chen shakes her head. ‘I can’t do that. I have a legal obligation. It’s called mandatory reporting. I could lose my job.’
‘I could lose my life.’
We stare at each other.
‘How did you know?’ I ask.
‘What?’
‘How did you know that they weren’t my parents?’
‘I didn’t. But I knew something was seriously wrong.’
‘How?’
‘Well, the sleeping bag is a bit of a giveaway, for a start.’
I stare down at my sleeping bag, which is tucked into its pink carry bag and sitting next to my lime-green backpack. Oh duh!
‘And then when the door opened and you saw who was standing there, the look of terror in your eyes was not something you could fake. And then, you vomited, so . . .’
‘Sorry about that.’
‘Don’t be silly. I’m a doctor.’
‘You really have to report me?’
‘I don’t have a choice.’
‘Is there a back way out of here?’
‘There’s a fire escape.’
‘Let me escape down that and then you can still make your report and keep your job. You could just say that I ran off.’
‘I can’t do that.’
‘What if I didn’t give you a choice?’
‘And how are you going to do that?’
‘Easy.’ I reach across her and pick up a scalpel from a round canister of scalpels on her desk. ‘If you don’t let me go, I’ll stab you with this.’
She looks down at my scalpel and smiles. ‘That’s a paddle-pop stick.’
‘Can we pretend that it’s a scalpel?’
‘You’re that worried?’
‘If you hand me over to the authorities, they’ll hand me back to him and I’m dead.’
‘No they won’t.’
‘Can you guarantee me, one hundred per cent, that they won’t hand me back? That he’ll never get to see me again?’
She pauses for a moment and that’s enough. ‘Well no, I can’t.’
I’m up, scooping up my backpack and sleeping bag and racing for the door.
‘Wait!’ she says.
Something makes me turn back to her. ‘You can’t stop me. Not now.’
‘I can’t believe I’m saying this. I’ll give you twenty minutes but then I’m calling the police.’
‘Thank you, Dr Chen.’
‘And here –’ she jots something down on a card. ‘This is my mobile number. I want you to promise to call me as soon as you can. I’ll be worried sick until you do. Deal?’
I nod but it’s not enough. I want to hug her and kiss her and tell her that she’s the best person in the world, but I don’t have any practice in that kind of thing. ‘Thank you.’
I slip out into the corridor. You can see the reception desk from the corridor but not the reception area, which is around the corner. I follow the green ‘Emergency Exit’ signs to the fire escape door. I slowly turn the handle and push, expecting that it’ll either be locked or alarmed. It’s neither. Something is going for me. Even though I’m on tiptoe I can still hear the echo of my steps clattering back up the stairs to the medical centre, to Creepo and his gun. Amazingly I make it to the bottom of the stairs in one piece. I’m outside. I’m free. I’m gone. Racing down the hill to the train station.
I check my watch as the train pulls into the station. I check my pulse. It’s racing. By the time Dr Chen is calling the police, I’m heading north.
THAT WAS A CLOSE CALL.
Tell me about it. Too close. It was my first full day on the run and already I had vac lady and Dr Chen calling the police on me. I knew that if I was going to survive, I had to drop out of sight. But you need money to disappear and I hardly had any. A couple of dollars, if that. I had about two hundred dollars stuffed into a piggybank in my room, but I was so sure that I’d get my hands on Creepo’s buried treasure that I didn’t even think to take it with me.
I had to get away to think. You can’t think if you’re just trying to survive, jumping at shadows. So I got out of the city and headed north.
Did you keep your promise and phone Dr Chen?<
br />
Yeah. But it wasn’t until a couple of days later. That was the first chance I had to get to a phone. And even then, when I phoned I sort of hoped that my call would go through to voicemail, but she answered it.
Did she call the police?
Well, she had to, didn’t she? What’s that thing called?
Mandatory reporting. It’s the same for teachers.
That’s partly the reason I called her. To warn her about Creepo. I said that if she had to work late, make sure that a security guard walked her to her car.
Why would he want to hurt her?
Because she reported him. About my arm. About his grooming me.
Of course. Sorry. Do you think she was okay?
I know she was. She told me that he came up to the medical centre the following day and threatened her. But he did it in the reception area in front of about twenty witnesses, because no way was she going into a consulting room with him. And so, get this, she slaps a restraining order on him. He’s not permitted to go within two hundred metres of her. He can’t even go to the shops any more. Not that he did much shopping anyway, but still. Creepo finally met a woman who stood up to him. She didn’t go to uni for all those years to put up with his crap.
Didn’t the police pursue the matter? With you, I mean?
What’s to pursue? I was just a runaway as far as they’re concerned. Dr Chen says that Uncle Creepo broke my arm and that he’s grooming me, he denies it and says that I fell over. A report is filed, no one can prove anything. I’m on the missing persons database. Keep a look out for a thirteen-year-old girl, etc etc. I’ll doubtless end up a street kid. Drugs, prostitution, dead before I’m fifteen. Another sad statistic. End of story.
But you didn’t end up like that. A statistic.
That’s right. I had brains. I had plans. I had a to-do list.
You headed north.
To my weekender.
AFTER ABOUT HALF AN HOUR THE TRAIN LEAVES THE SUBURBS BEHIND and we’re snaking our way north. We weave through national parks, clackety-clack across old iron bridges before slipping down to the sea and following the contours along the coast.
When I arrived breathless and starving at the station earlier I had a simple choice. South to the city or north out of it. Although I suppose I am technically a street kid, there is no way I am going to let myself be chewed up and spat out by the red-light district and the leeches who lurk there. I know there are some nice parts to the city, some exciting parts, but whenever I went into town with Creepo and Serena, we always used to go to the dodgy parts for some reason, and they scared me. So it was north.
Now, with the remnants of my breakfast festering in Dr Chen’s bin, I am just about ready to faint with hunger. I don’t know how I’m going to get food. Or money. Could I fool anyone that I’m old enough for a job? I’m starting to panic at the thought, the bile rising up in my throat again. The only thing that matters right now, though, is getting through today. If I can take one step at a time to begin with, then maybe I can work towards getting my act together. No big picture stuff for now. Just get through each day. Each hour. Each minute. I need to get back to school, of course. Find a school that’ll have me. I can’t invent my eye-eating worm vaccine without an education. But that’s big picture stuff and right now I need food.
I dig into my pockets and the dusty corners of my wallet hoping to find some forgotten notes. Nothing. I’ve got about three dollars in coins. That’s it. I didn’t plan this very well. Then again, Creepo was trying to blow my head off, so I didn’t really have time to pass GO and collect the two hundred dollars from my piggybank.
Three dollars! Three stupid dollars. I don’t even have a train ticket. If an inspector comes through, I’m gone.
This is good. Worrying about the inspector hurling me off at the next station has taken my mind off my growling stomach. Or it did until now.
If I can find a fish and chip shop I’ve got enough money for a few potato scallops. They’re about eighty cents each and they usually throw in an extra one so you think you’re getting a bonus and come back for more. I’m literally salivating at the thought of those hot, salty scallops. The crispy, crunchy heat of the deep-fried batter and the soft, juicy potato inside. I would seriously consider trading a kidney for one right now. Just one.
I look out the window at the trees and sand dunes and the ocean just beyond them. There should be plenty of fish and chip shops along the coast. This is where fish hang out, after all.
Now that we’re well clear of the city, I decide to get out at the next stop, ticket inspector or not. Hunt down some scallops.
I pull out my notebook and look at my to-do list from earlier, crossing off my achievement(s):
1. Get something to eat
2. Go to doctor’s to get wrist fixed
3. Get some money
4. Find somewhere to sleep tonight
5. Develop bigger brain
Although I did get something to eat from the bakery earlier, I didn’t keep it down for very long, so it doesn’t really count.
Things aren’t going very well. I have to get better at this. It’s not so much a to-do list as a survival plan.
I’m trying to concentrate but there’s a kid in the seat in front who keeps staring at me in that annoying way that bored kids do. Like you’re supposed to entertain them or something. Play peekaboo for a few hours. The kid’s mother has big, peroxide blonde hair and OMG floral leggings. The kid looks like one of those obnoxious little brats who could benefit from a clip around the ear. Not that I condone violence or anything, but still. He’s definitely a snot eater, and probably not just his own. I know this because as he’s staring at me he’s got his finger wedged so far up his snout that he’s in serious danger of digging out brain matter.
‘Whad’cha do to your arm?’
‘Leave the lady alone, Zac,’ admonishes mother leggings.
Lady? Half a day on the streets and I’ve already hardened into an old lady.
He removes his finger and inspects the outcome. Nothing there, thankfully. I’m glad I didn’t have to watch where it went if his fishing expedition proved fruitful.
He looks up and realises I’ve been looking disgusted at him. ‘You’re ugly.’
I lean forward. ‘And you’re the reason some animals eat their young.’
Snotface stares at me for a second and then scowls. ‘Mum. She reckons you’re gonna eat me.’
‘Well, I will if you don’t leave her alone.’ Maybe old mother leggings has got a better handle on this parent/life thing than I gave her, or her fashion sense, credit for.
‘Do you live on the train?’ He obviously hasn’t swallowed our cannibalism threat.
‘No. Why would you think that?’
‘Your dumb pink sleeping bag, stupid!’ he says.
‘Zac!’
‘At least I don’t eat snot.’
Then it dawns on me that snotface might be onto something. It’s a real eureka moment. I could live on the trains. They travel all over the place. Some might even go all night; interstate or way out into the country. They might even have empty sleeper cabins. How cool would that be? And even the ones that don’t go all night have to stop somewhere. In a yard or something. They mightn’t have sleeper cabins or be all that warm once the heating’s been turned off, but I’ve got my sleeping bag and spare jumpers to stop me from freezing to death. It’d be dry inside and safe once the guard had locked up for the night. Homeboys might come along and tag the outside, but they wouldn’t be able to get in to tag me. They wouldn’t know I was inside. I’d just have to keep quiet. It’s definitely worth thinking about. I haven’t got a clue where I’m going to sleep tonight. I can’t go back to the church. It’s Sunday tomorrow, God’s big day in, so I definitely won’t be welcome. The trains might be an option.
&n
bsp; People start to stir as we approach the first of the towns dotted along the north coast. The whole region is just far enough from the city not to be commutable. On the weekend it’s swollen by the masses exodusing the city for some peace and quiet, ignoring the obvious irony of the choked freeways, bursting hotels, bulging caravan parks and entangled fishing lines. By Sunday evening, when the hordes have dispersed, its pulse drops and it becomes once again the domain of retirees, committed layabouts and those who have ditched the frenetic pace of the city for a lifestyle that is just shy of a coma.
The train slows as we begin our approach to Death Valley. It’s not really called Death Valley, of course. It’s not even a valley. It’s proper name is one of those made-up Mediterranean-sounding names like Bella Vista or Suburbia Sur Mer, as if the exotic name will make the place seem more interesting. It was nicknamed Death Valley when some journalist worked out that it had a higher death rate than Iraq or Afghanistan put together or something like that. It’s not that there are suicide bombers wandering around, it’s just that the average age of the residents is ninety-three or something. The Grim Reaper’s got a timeshare condo up on the headland.
The stationmaster is checking and taking tickets. But he’s doing it in such a half-arsed way that it’s easy to sweep past him.
It’s warm for this time of year. An off-shore breeze has pushed all trace of last night’s storm out to sea. Cottonwool clouds dab gently at the sky, while the glint from the stainless steel tables outside the cafés practically pierces my eyes. A sneak peak at what looks like being a stormy and steamy summer. I take off my jumper and stuff it into my bulging backpack.
By the time I’ve walked down the street to the beachfront and dragged myself into the fish and chip shop, the lunch frenzy has passed, the shadows are lengthening, and with the wind from the south picking up, people are starting to pack up and head home.
The fish shop guy glances at my sleeping bag and then the cast on my arm. It’s only quick but it’s enough for him to sum me up. I’ll have to do something about my sleeping bag. It’s a bit obvious. Maybe I could get hold of a serious backpack to hide it in. Whack a couple of stickers on the outside and pretend that I’m a proper tourist from Sweden or Paraguay. I don’t know what else I could do with it during the day. Maybe I could dig . . . I stop myself. A day on the run and I’m already burying stuff in holes like a hermit.