by Steve Tasane
I had it all planned out. Citizen Digit could finally begin to make a proper life for himself. In London. I had Grace’s details. All I had to do was track her down on Seven Sisters Road, see if she could help me out for a day or two until I settled into my brand-new life.
But.
Alfi Spar. He had no one watching out for him, did he? If he wouldn’t see how much danger he was in, I’d have to open his eyes for him, so he could get to grips with the situation and sort himself out. I’d do just this one thing for him, and then I’d be off, out of Tenderness House for good and for ever.
So Citizen Digit, for better or worse, adapted his perfectly laid plan.
I waited for nightfall. Then, the first thing I did was pick the lock of Alfi’s room, while he slept, and steal his iPod.
iPods have a video function, see? Not sure Call-Me Norman totally twigged that when he gifted it to Alfi. He pictured young Spar-Boy foot-tapping away to endless hours of dub-step. As if.
Boy was sleeping like an angel, not that that mattered because the Master Crim Didge was as light on his feet as a ghost. So the ghost took the angel’s iPod and then floated away through the corridors of Tenderness. Sure enoughski, the corridors had more security cams than corners, but I’d studiously studied the blind spots. No nightshift Carers were going to spot the Citizen making his way out of the accommodation block and into the driveway. I was Mr Invisible himself, the Floating Shadow, Sir Citizen Digit esq. I was Night-time Plus. If the Digit wants to stay unspotified, it is a hundred and fifty per cent guaranteed that he will stay unspotified.
And so it was. I planted myself like a shrub in the driveway outside Call-Me Norman’s office-come-dirty-den, between a rose bush and a hedge, and as the visitors came, I watched, and filmed.
First up, a Jaguar. Poshness itself. I filmed the number plate and the boat race of a man who oozed out the passenger door. He must have been full of influentia to have his own driver, and by the look of his threads he’d come straight from work. What kind of man wears a suit and works these kind of hours?
The chauffeur drove off and a few minutes later another car pulled up and, I kid you not, a Sherlock got out, in full uniform too. I almost jumped up in excitement, thinking for a moment the law’s long arms had stretched all the way over to Tenderness to nick Call-Me Norman and his cronies. But the Digit knew better, and I kept filming.
A third car pulled up and a bald, fat man in a suit belly-huffed out.
Next thing, I see Barry Gorilla-Hands leading one of the WhyPettes by the wrist. She was a fairly new girl. I figured by the pale look on her face, and the way Ape-Face was dragging her, that this was her first time. They went in, and Barry came out a minute later, on his own.
Maybe I’d filmed enough already. All I needed was to convince Alfi of the need to get out of this place. But it made me angry, seeing the way Barry had rough-handled the girl.
“No way,” says I. “I’m going to paparazz the lot of them.”
Then Barry came back with one of the boys. Moses. I knew Moses had done this before, ’cos his room was practically overflowing with rewards. He was marching ahead of Barry, full of grimful determination.
Barry was away again, and returned a few minutes later with another girl. She was smoking a cigarette, trying to look cocky, and failing. I’d seen her in the games room the day before, practising a hand-clapping routine with one of her mates.
This time, Barry didn’t come back out.
I should have left it at that, but I couldn’t, could I? I’d caught the Squealer-Boy’s righteousness.
And before I could instruct them otherwise, my very own legs were skedaddling towards Call-Me’s doorway.
Dimwit legs.
I get to the door, ease my way through it and make my way down the corridor towards the back lounge.
Where’s the Citizen’s brains gone? Only gone and fallen out into the mud by the rose bush, ain’t they? ’Cos at the end of the corridor, I slide the door open, just a tad, and keep on filming.
Never-been-seen, never-to-be-seen, that’s me, yeah?
Classical music is flowing out of the speakers and you-don’t-want-to-know-what is playing on the Widescreen. On a sofa, the flabby Groan and the girl with the cigarette, together. I really do not want to look at what’s happening in the room. I turn my head away and just point the iPod.
I close my eyes. Try not to imagine what it is I’m not watching.
But I can hear it, can’t I? Going right through my brain. Those two girls, and Moses, and the Groans.
I clap my hands to my ears. Block it all out.
Stupidity itself. The iPod clatters to the floor.
“Hush!” Barry hisses to the others.
I grab the iPod, run to Call-Me’s office and leap into a hidey hole.
Barry comes through a moment later. Stands there, assessing the room. I left Call-Me’s door open, and I can see him thinking about that, trying to remember whether he left it open himself or whether some fool WhyPee has just fled through it. Then he turns round, scans the room. He bends down by Call-Me’s desk, to look under it. He pulls open the curtains, checks nobody’s hiding behind them, pulls out some cabinets, checks no one squeezed between their gaps. Then he walks towards Call-Me’s closet.
My heart is pounding like it wants to give me away. My breath whooshing like waves on a stormy beach. I can see him, listening. And I’m so loud!
He tugs open the closet door and straight away starts punching and kicking into the space.
Hush, boy.
Then he sticks his whole body in and starts rummaging, pushing aside coats and jackets and wholesale boxes of Bourbons and piles of confiscated WhyPee smokes. He pulls out a bag of golf clubs, which Call-Me probably uses to play rounds with the fat Sherlock. He pulls one out, measures the weight of it.
“Come out now,” he says, turning to address the room. “It’ll be better for you.”
As if.
He whacks the club down on Call-Me’s desk. All the stationery on it jumps. So do I.
Barry starts viciously jabbing the golf club at every space he can find. With each jab he goes Hunh! like he’s stabbing as hard as he possibly can. Hunh! he goes, Hunh! Each time, I flinch like I’ve been stabbed in the gut. Then he stops. He waits.
He drops the club and he chuckles. He goes back to the closet and comes out carrying a baseball bat. A baseball bat is exactly the thing that would make Barry chuckle.
He strides out of the office, a hungry look in his eyes.
From behind the ajoining door, opened wide against a corner of Call-Me’s office, I step out.
From the inner sanctum, I can hear the men, enjoying themselves.
I wait, for as long as I can stand it, then follow Barry out into the courtyard.
Having filmed the evidence and shown it to Alfi, the Didge was getting the hell out of Dodge, preferably with Squealer-Boy riding side-saddle. I’d hotwire Norman Newton’s car, which he always parked in the same spot in the driveway, pick the lock on the main gate and burn rubber all the way back to civilization. That was the plan.
But with Mad Baz on the warpath, the sensible option would be to Take My Leave by the nearest exit; aka leg it for all my life was worth.
Somehow, though, my feet weren’t fitting into Citizen Digit’s shoes. My toes defied all great expectations, like they were in shock. I was in shock from the toes upwards. As I zombie-walked back to the Tenderness House accommodation block, Barry was still in the driveway, literally beating about the bush. It gave me time. I sneaked straight past the night-keeper, who was half asleep on duty. He missed me in front of his very eyes, because – on the outside at least – I was smooth, sure and silent. Inside, my heart was bashing madly against my ribs, like a rat in a trap.
At Alfi’s doorway, I momentarily lost the ability to pick the lock. I started pushing against the door while it was still locked. Byron sweat was dripping down my forehead.
I forced my senses to come back and, a half a
mo later, the door creaked open. Over on the bed, I could see Alfi sleeping soundly, like a baby. I was jealous. I didn’t think I could ever sleep again. My eyes kept repeating, over and over, what the iPod had recorded.
No way I was going to be able to take Alfi with me now. Once I showed him the evidence, he’d freak big time. And the two of us would never be able to sneak away without Barry spotting us, even when Alfi wasn’t freaking out. Alfi carried a big flag around with him that said, “Hey, here I am! I’m Alfi Spar!”
I had to think triple quick. Soon as the Jimmys copped hold of me, they’d take the iPod and obliterize it. Then they’d obliterize me. Barry would grapple my ass to the ground and grind my brains into gravel.
But the evidence was going to do Alfi more good than me. When he saw it, he’d finally get the danger he was in. Blabber-Boy could use it better than me. I didn’t want it. It was sick. I was getting out of there. The Squealer could pass the film on to the Sherlocks, sell it to the Daily Mirror, whatevs. Once I’d delivered it, it weren’t my busyness no more. I’d done my bit. Thanks kindly and goodbye to bad rubbish.
I tossed the iPod across the room, onto the foot of his bed. He sighed in his sleep. I wished I was where he was. I wanted to lie down on the floor next to the bed, clutching my arms round myself. I couldn’t stop shivering.
Citizen Digit doesn’t shiver. He doesn’t tremble. This wasn’t in the plan. I could still hear the violin music wailing away, see the scene on the sofa, the WhyPette with the cigarette, and through the smoke, her shivering just like me.
I was going to get caught. I was going to get hurt. They would put a stop to me.
Mooooove!
I scribbled a note telling Alfi to brace himself and take a look at the iPod’s video function, screwed it into a ball and tossed it onto the bed next to the iPod. I shut the door gently behind me. I invisibilized myself all the way back to Norman Newton’s car. OK, slight Citizen Fib – I panicked and ran as fast as I could to Call-Me’s car. There was no sign of Barry. He must have been searching around the other side of the grounds. I picked the lock with shamefully shaky fingers, slid behind the wheel, hot-wired it and slammed my foot down on the accelerator.
The car jerked forward and smashed straight into the security fence. It stalled.
The smash made the in-built ashtray pop open, stale stubs scattering over the passenger seat, so the car smelled like Norman Newton had his tobacco-breath face right against you. The glove compartment fell open too, a grubby pair of boy’s boxers dropping onto the seat.
I looked up, and in the wing mirror there was Barry’s face, snarling at me.
I turned round and saw him charging towards me.
I hot-wired it again, reversed a bit, and slammed the car forwards again. The seatbelt cut against my chest.
The fence held.
Barry’s baseball bat smashed against the driver’s seat window and glass shattered all over me. Cold evening air rushed in at me like rage. I rammed the fence again. There was a crack and a crash, and the bonnet of the car rose up like I was going to be tipped out, as the wheels revved over the collapsing fence. Then a jolt as the tyres smashed back down on the ground on the other side. Another crash, as Barry’s bat smashed uselessly against the car boot.
He yelled my name. Byron. He saw my face.
But I was gone, pedal to the metal in Call-Me’s car, screeching and beeping across the fields behind Tenderness; smackeroo through the farmer’s fence at the back of it, scattering sheep; across a few more fields and tracks and then zoomerang – straight down the fast lane of the M1.
It should have been an absconding act of the highest style – but I felt as smashed up as the car. As I drove down the motorway, all I could see was that girl, the cigarette smoke curling around her, like Norman Newton’s greedy yellow fingers.
I hit London in the early hours. I drove to a gloomy industrial estate, burned the car out, grotty boxers and all, and Citizen Digit’s been under the radar ever since.
The End. Happy Ever After. Goodbye.
12. THE RELAXATION ROOM
I’d never been as happy as when I went to bed that night. For the first time ever, I had some kind of idea who I was. I know it were only a name, Katariina, but up ’til then, I’d had nowt. It gave us some hope. Maybe I could find out about me mam after all. She must have had family, somewhere or other. I probably had grandparents, an’t I? Uncles and aunties, maybe. If I could find out more, if I could track any of ’em down, I could find meself a home. A family.
It were a grand feeling, going to sleep wi’ that rolling round in me head.
In the morning, o’ course, it were all different. Summat had happened. Lessons were cancelled and Barry and t’other Carers were going round in a right strop. Turned out someone had nicked the Governor’s car and actually smashed down the fence that keeps us in. Someone: Byron. He’d really gone and done it, then; done his Citizen Digit trick, and broken out of Tenderness.
After breakfast we were all sent back to our rooms and locked in. It were then that I saw his note, on the floor by the end o’ me bed. And me iPod in the folds o’ me bedding. So I watched it, din’t I?
I’d heard about videos like this, o’ course, on t’internet, but I wan’t prepared for seeing it.
I paced the room, desperate for fresh air. But o’ course the windows didn’t open. I were trapped. And I had to watch the film again, ’cos I cudn’t believe it were as bad as it was. But the second time it were worse, and I started shaking wi’ it.
Byron were right.
But now we were locked in. He’d exploded the whole thing, done a runner to London, and left me to face the consequences. I should o’ gone with him when I had the chance.
Outside the room, it all sounded horribly quiet. It were like the whole of Tenderness had shut down. No one came. No one shouted. The whole morning ticked by, minute by minute, endless.
I needed someone to come and open the door, let us out. But I knew that when they came, they might just as easy drag me over to the Governor’s den, and do all that stuff to us like they done to the other WhyPees on the video.
Dinnertime came and went. Normally, I hate missing me dinner, but this were the first time for as long as I could remember that I cudn’t stomach any grub anyway.
Half the afternoon went by, and I began to wonder whether they were ever going to let us out again. I were thinking maybe the police had turned up and arrested Call-Me and Barry. Maybe Digit had gone straight to Social Services and told ’em everything that were going on. Maybe the police ’ud turn up any minute and unlock me door and tell us we could all go home; that Tenderness were shut down.
Except none of us could go home, could we? We ha’nt got no homes to go to. And Digit wun’t o’ gone to Social Services anyways; he hates them. There’s no way he’d have gone to the authorities at all. He’d o’ gone straight off down to London, looking for that lass whose picture he printed.
So eventually, when Barry came and unlocked the door, and me and the other WhyPees were all called into the dining hall for an important announcement from Call-Me hisself, I knew it were up to me.
I had to say summat, din’t I? If I din’t, no one else would.
We were all crowded together in the dining room, full o’ whisper and rumour about the Jimmys and Byron, but no one were saying it out loud, ’cos no one wanted to really admit how bad it were. Everyone were just sort o’ muttering stuff to their mates, and you cudn’t hear owt proper.
Barry kept throwing us thundering looks, and he even threatened one or two o’ the lads, like he cudn’t wait to give ’em a good smacking.
Then Call-Me Norman came into the room and went and stood at the front, so’s we all had a good view of him. I could tell he were gathering hisself together to make a speech.
A hush fell across the room.
“You’re all here,” he said, “because you broke the rules. Many of you broke the law. Some of you are a danger to yourselves, or to society. That
is why you are here.”
That were a joke. Me head kept replaying the film. The only dangerous ones were Norman Newton and his pals.
“One of you—” he paused, for effect. “One of you has, over the last night, proved – yet again – what a dangerous, destructive and downright criminal bunch you can be.”
Character assassination, in’t it? I could see why Byron wanted to create a new persona when the ones we had at the moment were supposed to be so rotten.
I had to say sommat, din’t I? But I wondered how it might be, if it were just my word against the Jimmys. For a moment I thought that might be OK – ’cos it’d be me who were telling the truth. But Call-Me’s speech reminded us what happened wi’ the Barrowcloughs, how nobody had believed us then, and I were telling the truth then, wan’t I?
“Some of you have been in cahoots with this individual. This is not acceptable.”
All of us knew, all of us in the room. None of us were in cahoots wi’ anyone. It were them – the adults – who were up to no good. The whole room were full of our muttering. They cudn’t ignore us all. So I stood up, meself.
I pointed at Call-Me. Straight at his head. And I yelled out, “Everybody knows.”
Then Barry punches us in the belly. All the wind goes out o’ us, and I’m hearing a big intake o’ breath from all t’others, still sitting round, but saying nowt. I’m bent down, holding me belly, trying to get me breath back, and Barry gets us in a headlock and marches us out o’ the room.
Once we’re out, he punches us in the head. I fall over. Then he kicks us in me belly. I’m all winded and seeing stars, curling up wi’ it all, and Barry kicks us again. It hurts too much for me to even yell out. Then he’s kicking me arms, which are trying to protect me belly.
“Not his face!” I hear the Governor yelling. “Don’t kick his face!”
Then I’m getting carried through, back into the main Unit, and I’m thrown down into a room, in the dark. I lie there sobbing and hurting, feeling sorry for meself. Through me pain, I’m feeling round, and I can’t find owt to lie down on, so I curl meself up on the floor and have a right old cry. Ages go by and I can’t hear no sounds ’cept me own sobbing, and no one comes at all, and in the end I cry meself to sleep, right there on the floor.