Disharmony

by Leah Giarratano

  ‘You don’t really look like you’re going to a Carnivale,’ said Mirela, standing back from the mirror, one hand on her hip.

  ‘What then?’ said Samantha.

  ‘Not enough colour,’ said Mirela.

  Samantha sighed. She scanned the caravan and spotted her tarot cards. Perfect. She grabbed the shiny black box and unravelled the golden rope wrapped around it. She tied the glinting, golden cord around her forehead and turned to face Mirela.

  ‘Yep. Okay. You’ll do. Let’s go,’ said her best friend.

  Samantha slipped into sneakers and grabbed her favourite bag on the way out the door. She dropped her lip gloss and tarot deck into it. Made of a soft, dark fabric, the satchel had a way-too-long shoulder strap and a faded transfer of a Harley Davidson motorcycle on the front. Underneath the bike, in faded words, it read: Ride it like you stole it.

  Dwight Juvenile Justice Detention Centre, Sydney, Australia

  June 30, 8.53 p.m.

  With a single click, Luke popped the small lock on the ancient metal filing cabinet. Zac shuffled from foot to foot by his side. Luke creaked open the drawer marked BL-BZ, and hurriedly flicked through the first few files. Close to the front he found BLACK, Aaron, then BLACK, John Peter, and then BLACK, Luke. He lifted the plastic-covered manila folder from the drawer and pushed it closed again.

  ‘Take your pjs off, Nguyen,’ he said. ‘You don’t look like a proper prison escapee in your jarmies.’

  He ripped open his own pyjama top and struggled out of the pants. Getting them over his jeans and runners was not easy and, reluctantly, he had to put his file down. He kept his eyes glued on it as he tried to get his pants leg over his shoe. He was dying to read what was in there. He’d never really been told anything about his parents – just that his mother had abandoned him. Because of the events of the past few days, he was beginning to feel he needed this information more than ever. It seemed that there were people out there who knew much more about him than he did. And for some reason, they didn’t like what they knew.

  Tossing the pjs into the wastepaper bin by the desk, Luke lifted his sweatshirt and flattened the file against his chest, tucking it into the waistband of his jeans. The plastic was ice-cold against his bare chest and he shivered.

  ‘You want your file or not, Zac?’ he said.

  ‘I want to get out of here,’ said Zac. ‘As in yesterday.’

  ‘We’ll take the front door,’ said Luke. ‘We can buzz the gates open from the inside.’

  He ran out of the office, Zac close behind. When they reached the heavy, ornate front doors, Luke paused with his hand on the buzzer and said, ‘We’re not going straight for the gates, Zac.’

  Zac groaned. ‘Why did I think you were going to say that?’

  ‘Listen, I’ve had time to plan this for a while,’ Luke said. ‘I know there’s a lot of bush around here and we can go to ground in there for a while, but -’

  ‘I know the bush,’ said Zac.

  ‘Yeah, well, the rest of Windsor is full of houses and they’re gonna have a full search out for us as soon as they know we’re missing. If we were closer to some form of public transport, I’d risk it, but we’re ten kilometres from the train station.’

  ‘So what are we gonna do?’

  ‘Just trust me,’ said Luke. ‘Turn left when we get out the door.’

  ‘Back into the complex?’

  ‘The screws won’t head-count for a while yet. There’s too much happening and they have no reason to think we’re not locked in there, pooing and spewing with the rest of them.’

  Zac sighed. ‘It’s not the screws I’m worried about,’ he said. ‘Abrafo’s on the grounds somewhere too.’

  Luke pulled the front door open and peered out into the night. All quiet. He took a deep breath and pressed the buzzer for the front gates and from the darkness heard them rumbling open. Now they really had to hurry.

  ‘Come on,’ he said.

  He and Zac bolted down the front stairs and into the garden bed. Hugging the walls of the building, they headed back into the main complex. This time, the quadrangle lay between them and the dormitories, and as they ran up the steeply sloping grounds, the quad fanned outwards and upwards, taking them further from the lights of the Houses.

  Luke warmed up quickly, sprinting up the hill behind the hospital building. His breath steaming, he ran past the gym, mentally wishing it good riddance. He had no intention of ever again being the surrogate ball for No Rules Basketball. When they reached the silent dining hall, he glanced over at Zac, who looked as if he were merely strolling along, giving no sign that the sharpness of the incline had now increased dramatically. Luke breathed hard, trying to concentrate on negotiating the sucking mud and hidden rocks on this side of the complex.

  His heart beat even faster when he spotted the workshop in the darkness ahead. He didn’t see any lights on, but that didn’t necessarily mean things would be okay. Everything hinged on whether Mad Mike and his fiancée were fighting tonight. Since he’d come up with this part of the plan a few weeks ago, he’d been working hard on getting to know the psycho groundskeeper. During Landscaping Lab, three days a week, he’d learned about Mike’s love-affair with his fiancée Narelle, her love-affair with rum, and how once every fortnight or so Mad Mike spent the night in the workshop at Dwight, when Narelle was too juiced up and had kicked him out of their caravan. When Mike had threatened to leave her altogether, declaring that he’d prefer to stay here in the shed until he could find a new place, Luke had gone to work, encouraging Mike to persevere with the love of his life. He knew Mad Mike was meant for Narelle, but hell, if he was wrong, Mike could figure that out on his own time; after Luke had left Dwight for good. Luke figured he wasn’t doing anything too terrible. He couldn’t imagine any other woman taking Mike in.

  Exhausted, he slowed to a walk and motioned to Zac to do the same. Quiet now, they crept closer to the workshop. He couldn’t hear anything, but Mike could be in there, lights off, sleeping. If he was in there, he’d have no idea what was going on in the dorms, Luke reasoned. The screws wouldn’t have thought to call for assistance from the workshop; no one but Luke knew that Mike spent his Narelle-free nights there. He moved around the side of the building to where the moonlight hit the window; he figured if he could just get a glimpse inside he could be sure this plan would work. But if Mad Mike was in there, they’d have to find another way out.

  Carefully, he tiptoed up to the window, but it was no good. He wasn’t tall enough to reach the ledge. He thought about jumping up and grabbing hold, but if Mike was in there he might hear the noise. He chewed his lip in frustration – all this was taking much too long.

  ‘Let me do it,’ whispered Zac by his side. ‘Tell me what you’re looking for.’

  ‘Mad Mike,’ whispered Luke.

  ‘Great,’ breathed Zac. ‘Move over there a bit.’

  Zac took three steps backwards and suddenly, before Luke could even register what had happened, he had sprung forward and run up the side of the building. Luke didn’t catch it all, but somehow Zac managed to leap up onto the very side edge of the window ledge and flatten his back to the wall, his left hand gripping the top of the window frame and his left foot on the ledge. Impossibly, his other hand and foot hung free. He balanced there, silently. No part of his body could have been visible from inside the window unless someone was standing right up against the glass, looking for him.

  Luke stared, his mouth open. Zac smiled down at him. Then slowly, Zac turned his head towards the window, angling his face to the glass.

  He dropped noiselessly to the grass. ‘Nobody in there,’ he said.

  Luke closed his mouth and shook his head. ‘Okay, come on.’

  He raced around to the front of the workshop and there she was.

  ‘Oh. No. Way,’ said Zac.

  The swamp rat. Parked exposed-engine forward and facing the steep incline, gaping holes where the doors should have been, the car hunkered down in the moonlight like
some malformed beast. Luke jogged around to the driver’s side. ‘Get in,’ he grinned.

  ‘Oh, so this is the plan,’ said Zac. ‘The plan that was better than us running clear out the gates when we had the chance, running quietly into the bush until we could mingle in with others and get away. Could you just confirm for me that this is the plan?’

  ‘It’s the plan,’ said Luke. ‘But we have to go now, while everyone’s still in the dorms and they won’t see us. Get in.’

  ‘Oh, of course, now I get it,’ said Zac. ‘No one will see us. But they will freakin’ hear us a hundred kilometres away, you lunatic!’

  ‘I said, trust me,’ said Luke. ‘Get in, now. Or stay here. Decide.’

  He took two steps to the front of the car and bent towards the tyre. Even in the near darkness he could tell that the steel belts of the tyre were protruding – the rubber was worn almost completely through. He hoped this thing could take the surface of the road. He shoved hard with his foot at the wooden wedge that stopped the car rolling forward. That was going to be the other problem, he thought. The swamp rat pretty much had no brakes. Mad Mike would stand up on them to slow down, and would finally stop her by rolling into something.

  With the wedge gone, the vehicle started to move slightly. Luke jumped into the driver’s seat. He leaned over towards the passenger door.

  ‘Coming?’ he said to Zac, who was still standing out there.

  Zac swung himself in and looked around for a seatbelt.

  ‘There aren’t any,’ said Luke.

  He turned the key around to Accessories, but didn’t start the car.

  ‘The keys are just left in here?’ said Zac.

  ‘Someone would steal this?’ said Luke.

  The swamp rat started to gather speed.

  ‘I have to ask,’ said Zac. ‘What are we going to do when you start this thing and they come running, Luke? They’ll see us driving and call the cops straight away. Even if we make it out of here, this is not the sort of car we can just slip into traffic with.’

  ‘By the time they hear us, we’ll have a good head start. You’ll see,’ said Luke.

  He stuck his foot out of the car and pushed against the ground. The swamp rat rolled faster.

  ‘Push,’ he said to Zac.

  He’d watched Mad Mike do this maybe twenty times. And Darnell Coffee, an older kid he lived with in a refuge when he was between foster families, had taken him out car ‘borrowing’ once or twice, and that was where he’d first learned to pop a clutch.

  The extensive grounds of the Dwight Juvenile Justice Centre were built up along the broad flank of the steepest hill in Windsor, and aside from the out-of-bounds-never-used swimming pool and tennis courts, the workshop was perched at the highest point of that hill. From the workshop, straight down past the dorms, through the quadrangle, past Admin, and directly out the gates, ran a gravel road. Mad Mike used this hill every day to get the swamp rat going. The engine had long ago stopped turning over with the key, he’d told Luke, but just give her a roll with the ignition on, foot down on the clutch, and when she has a bit of speed – not too much, boy, or you’ll lose control – lift your foot off the clutch, and bang! Up she starts!

  The bushes along the gravel road flicked by faster and faster now. Luke was thankful for the wan moonlight. He couldn’t have risked turning on the one remaining headlight, even if he’d needed to. He gripped the steering wheel with both hands, trying to stop himself from looking around for a seatbelt that he knew didn’t exist. He kept both feet stamped down on the pedals, one on the clutch and the other on the all-but-useless footbrake, trying to keep some sort of control. The swamp rat rattled and bounced as it gained momentum. From the corner of his eye, Luke saw that Zac had his feet up on the dash in crash position.

  As they rolled with gathering speed towards the open expanse of the quadrangle, Luke allowed himself to really start to worry about the next bit of this scheme. Mad Mike had done his part of the job, keeping Narelle happy and staying out of the workshop, but Luke now had to hope that he and Zac had been fast enough to get back to the gates before they automatically closed.

  The swamp rat skipped and bounded over the uneven gravel road, breaking clear of the bushed area and into the open quadrangle, and tension began to creep up Luke’s neck.

  For the first time he began to doubt his plan. What if they had been too slow? What if the gates had already closed?

  The swamp rat was now unstoppable. She hurdled and leapt along, sometimes hitting a rough patch and becoming airborne for a couple of seconds. Luke clenched his teeth to stop himself from biting his tongue, his foot jammed down on the brake, which was doing absolutely nothing as far as he could tell. He glanced to his right and there was Dorm Four, brightly lit from within, but still with not a soul to be seen. A flick of his eyes to the left showed Zac, white-faced, bouncing in his seat, his arms wrapped around his knees.

  Dorm Three flashed past.

  Dorm Two.

  The swamp rat clattered and jangled now, and Luke had a feeling that this crazy car was just waiting for her master, Mad Mike, to lean out the window, whirl his lasso and start whooping. They shuddered and skidded past Dorm One, gravel spitting and scattering away from the bald tyres. Admin was straight ahead, and beyond that the gates.

  Luke planned his next move. If the gates were open, he’d lift his foot and pop the clutch, then hang on to the steering wheel for dear life when the engine started. He would bet anything that not even Mad Mike had let the swamp rat roll this fast before engaging the engine. He knew that the road immediately outside the Dwight Complex was rarely used by locals, and he prayed that none of them were on the road tonight.

  If the gates weren’t open… Luke closed his eyes for a split second. He took a deep breath. If the gates weren’t open he’d pop the clutch and ram down on the accelerator. Maybe they’d make it through. But deep down he couldn’t imagine that the swamp rat, even at full speed, would take out the front gates of a secure complex like this.

  Even the swamp rat seemed to sense something big was about to happen. A worrying, whirring sound was building as they hurtled forward. No matter how positive he tried to be, Luke couldn’t believe they’d made it here in under five minutes. It was true he’d busted a gut getting up that hill, and that he had been running with bullet boy, but it just felt as though they’d left the Admin building later than that.

  As they flashed past Admin, Luke suddenly remembered his file. He could feel it jammed into his jeans, the plastic stuck to his chest. I hope you were worth it, he thought. He slapped his stomach, making sure it was secure, and put his hands back on the wheel. The gates were dead ahead now, maybe fifty metres to go – still too far to see whether they were open, but he squinted into the night anyway.

  Then he spotted them through the gloom ahead.

  Oh my God!

  ‘Luke, they’re closing!’ Zac yelled.

  Luke popped the clutch, dropping the car into third gear.

  The explosion from the rear of the swamp rat wrenched the wheel from his hands and rocketed the car to the left. Luke grabbed for the steering wheel and pulled with all his weight to the right. The car screamed in protest. Luke gunned the car full-pelt, straight ahead, as the gates closed. What else could he do?

  He looked to his left to meet Zac’s eye, in warning, in apology, for comfort.

  Zac was gone.

  Bucking and wailing, the swamp rat shrieked towards the gates and Luke squeezed his eyes shut, bracing for impact.

  It never came.

  The car kept hurtling forward, deafeningly loud. He opened his eyes just in time to see the gates flash by – and they were opening again. Mouth wide open in shock, he whipped his head to the left, and there sat Zac, knees up in crash position, grinning at him.

  ‘Ambulance, dead ahead!’ yelled Zac, over the noise of the swamp rat.

  Luke swerved the car to the left on the gravel road, out of the path of the oncoming ambulance. The swamp rat’s b
ald tyres skidded off the gravel and she bucked like a bull, trying to tear off into the bush. He held onto the steering wheel with everything he had and pulled it back in time to screech right out onto the street that led away from Dwight and into the suburb of Windsor.

  He straightened the car out on the road. Heart rapidly decelerating, Luke allowed the frozen muscles in his foot to ease off the accelerator a little as he tried to learn to drive this thing while the engine was running. He kept his eyes on the street ahead, pretty sure that the ambos would have something to say about the two kids in the busted-out vehicle who’d almost taken them out in the driveway.

  So there goes the head start, he thought.

  He decided to get as close to the train station as he dared and then find a place to dump the car. He figured they had another five to eight minutes before the cops could get mobilised; that is, unless they were already cruising. Oh well, nothing he could do about that if they were.

  He was more interested in what had happened back there.

  ‘What happened back there?’ he yelled.

  He could hardly hear his own words. Freezing wind rushed through the doors, adding to the noise from the uncovered engine.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Zac yelled back.

  ‘I mean, where did you go?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Zac yelled.

  Luke’s brow furrowed. I could have just imagined it, he thought. It was pretty stressful. But…

  ‘What about the gates? They were closing,’ he said, eyes streaming from the wind buffeting about his face.

  ‘Lucky, huh?’ said Zac. ‘Someone must have opened them again just in time for the ambulance.’

  ‘Yeah, lucky,’ Luke said. That’s me. Lucky.

  Still, he had to admit that so far tonight things could have been worse. They hadn’t yet passed a house or another car, and he was hoping that the first vehicle they met wasn’t going to have flashing blue and red lights.

  On the road up ahead he spotted a railway crossing.