by Sharon Sant
Twenty-Seven: The Mystery Boy
‘Let me out!’ Xavier hammered on the door again. The darkness was absolute in the cold, concrete-walled room. Xavier found it disorientating in a way that made him feel nauseous. Up, down, left, right, it was all the same. The air was stale and damp. All sounds from outside were muffled and distant; it was impossible to make out what was going on. He could easily imagine that this was what it was like to be buried alive. Rare as it was, Xavier was almost overwhelmed by the urge to sit and cry himself to sleep. He raged alone in his cell, knowing that nobody was going to take any notice of him. It was the only way to keep the despair at bay.
A slit opened in the bottom of the heavy door and, in the tiny oblong of light, Xavier could see a tray pushed in containing some unidentifiable meal. He lunged and kicked it against the wall. The clatter of steel echoed around him.
‘He’s got a nerve, telling me to behave then he goes and gets himself chucked in the cooler.’ Francois was pacing the tiny caravan floor in tight circles. ‘Bloody idiot. How are we supposed to sort anything out now?’
Nobody answered. Jimmy sat on a threadbare seat and stared miserably at him. The first days had been tiring. If the long hours and paltry diet were designed to knock the spirit from them, it was a highly successful campaign. Only the Bettencourt brothers remained as rebellious as ever.
‘I’m sorry, Francois, but I can’t stay awake any longer. I have to go to bed.’ Jimmy pushed himself up from the seat.
‘What about Xav?’
‘There’s nothing we can do. I know it’s hard for you to think of him sitting in there, but it’s up to him now. He knows that as well as we do, he’s not stupid. Best if we all get some sleep. Another five hours and we’ll be starting again.’
Sadie, Rosa and Raj appeared at the door of the caravan.
‘What’s up?’ Jimmy greeted.
‘We came to see if you were ok. Raj told us about Xavier,’ Rosa said as they stepped in.
‘He’ll be alright,’ Francois nodded.
‘I kinda feel it’s my fault,’ Rosa added. ‘If I hadn’t told him to meet me…’
‘Don’t be stupid.’ Francois gave her a weak smile. ‘You know Xav, it was only a matter of time before the cooler got a visit from him.’ He put a hand on Rosa’s arm.
Sadie cut in. ‘Raj and me looked in the hospital wing earlier to see someone who got the flu. The kid we visited told us about a boy who had been brought in after a prodding.’
‘You went together? I thought boys and girls couldn’t mix?’ Jimmy asked.
‘There are adults there, dimwit. You can be together when there are adults around.’ Sadie shot him a withering look.
‘So? How does that help Xavier?’ Francois asked.
‘It doesn’t. But then we overheard the guard say to one of the doctors he was trying to break in. We couldn’t hang around but we’re going back tomorrow.’
Francois shrugged. ‘Still can’t see what this has to do with us.’
‘I dunno, maybe he’s like you. Maybe he’ll be a useful person to know.’ She flicked her hair back, unflustered by Francois’ attitude. ‘I can’t wait to get a good look at him. I hope he gets assigned to your van.’
‘Why?’ Jimmy’s bottom lip jutted slightly.
‘Because,’ Sadie continued, ‘he’s either a proper nutter or extremely cool. Either way he’ll be interesting.’
‘Probably some stupid kid doing it for a bet.’ Jimmy frowned. ‘His own fault he got caught, I don’t care about seeing him.’
‘Well, you don’t have to come, do you? Raj and me are going before breakfast tomorrow.’
‘I can’t think that anyone is worth that.’ Rosa yawned. ‘We get up early enough as it is without going somewhere before breakfast.’
‘That’s what I said,’ Raj agreed. ‘But you know Sadie when she gets an idea in her head.’
‘We’ve got more important things to think about,’ put in Francois.
Raj sat down and kicked off his shoes.
‘Raj! Your shoes stink!’ Sadie wrinkled her face and picked up the offending articles by her fingertips. She put them out onto the caravan steps.
Raj grinned and wriggled his toes in her direction.
‘How long do you stay in the cooler?’ Francois asked.
Sadie shrugged. ‘It depends.’
Francois didn’t need to ask what that meant. He could only hope that Xavier would have enough sense to keep his temper in check.
‘I’m going to head back. Coming Rosa?’ Sadie yawned.
‘Go on. I’ll be there in a minute.’
‘See ya.’ Sadie gave an airy wave and left the caravan.
‘She’s mental that one,’ Rosa said in a low voice as she watched through the window.
‘Who?’ Jimmy asked.
‘Sadie.’
‘Oh, she’s not so bad.’
Rosa gave a wry smile. ‘We know you think she’s alright, Jim.’
‘Well, what’s wrong with her?’ Jimmy replied defensively.
‘Nothing really, just… I don’t know. Reckless. Her mouth is in gear before her brain. Remind you of someone?’
‘Who?’
‘Elijah.’
Jimmy grinned. ‘Oh yeah. It has been dull without him around to cock everything up.’
‘I don’t think we can be any more cocked up than we are now.’ Francois gazed out of the window. ‘I wonder what they’re doing.’
Rosa nodded. ‘I’ve been wondering about the others too. I hope they’re together. Sky will have enough sense for all of them.’
‘Wherever they are, they’ve got to be doing better than us.’
‘You reckon?’
At breakfast, Jimmy and Francois spotted Sadie, Raj and Rosa sitting near the end of a long table and Jimmy, reminded of the previous night’s conversation, made his way straight over to sit with them.
‘Budge up.’ Jimmy squeezed onto the end of the bench as Sadie slid over to make room. ‘Bit more. Need room for big bum, here.’
‘Hey!’ Francois grinned. ‘My bum is perfectly formed.’ His grin turned to a grimace as a dish of grey porridge came his way. ‘What about your mysterious boy, then? What did you find out?’
‘Thought you weren’t bothered,’ Sadie replied.
Francois shrugged. ‘Tell me anyway. I’m in a better mood today.’
Sadie, needing no further invitation, shook her head. ‘Nothing. He was gone when we got there this morning.’
‘Waste of a lie-in.’ Raj looked irked as he shot a glance at his friend.
‘Oh stop moaning. How was I to know? Anyway, it all adds to the mystery, doesn’t it? I’m more desperate than ever to find out who he is.’
‘He sounds like an idiot,’ Jimmy said through a mouthful of porridge.
Rosa reached over and patted him on the cheek. ‘There’s no need to be jealous, Jimbo.’
‘Shut up.’ Jimmy shoved another spoonful of mush into his mouth.
‘Glad to see you haven’t missed me.’
The laughter stopped. They all looked up to see Xavier standing at the end of the table. He looked tired and grubby but was grinning.
‘Xavier! Rosa jumped up and flung her arms around him. A guard from across the room made a move towards them. Xavier spotted it and pulled Rosa’s arms from around his neck.
‘Sit down. You’re drawing attention to us and I’ve had enough of that for one week.’ He perched on the end of the row.
‘Alright, bruv?’ Francois gave Xavier a nod.
‘I’ve been better.’
‘What was the cooler like?’ Sadie asked with wide eyes.
‘It wasn’t so bad. Bit dark. At least I didn’t have Francois snoring next to me, though, so every cloud and all that.’
‘I think you’ll find it’s you who snores.’
‘Actually, it’s both of you,’ Rosa interrupted.
‘I’m not even going to say what you do in your sleep.’ Jimmy gave Rosa one of h
is special, disarming grins. He turned to Xavier. ‘Not that I’m not glad, but I didn’t expect you to be out so quick.’
‘Me neither. I think they needed the cell for someone who was a bit more trouble than me. Let me out just before breakfast and I heard them send for someone from the hospital wing.’
‘I knew it! The mystery boy!’ Sadie squealed. ‘Now I’ve got to know who it is.’
Twenty-Eight: A Chance Discovery
Three days passed and the mystery inmate was gradually forgotten as the everyday routine took over again. That week, a huge batch of circuit boards arrived and all hands were occupied. The work wasn’t hard, but the hours were long and their fingers were sore at the ends from fiddling with small, sharp components. There was different work every week. Sometimes it was more physical labour, like apple picking or potato digging or manual pest control, which involved picking bugs off crops by hand. Quite often, the better behaved groups were taken out for cleaning jobs in nearby government departments or office buildings. There was little time for fun and games, but the banter and drama between factions and gangs kept the place buzzing. Perhaps most surprisingly, though most of the inmates hated the camp, not all did.
‘Have you seen anything today?’ Xavier whispered to Francois at supper one evening.
Francois shook his head. ‘Not a thing. I think we’re going to have to abandon ideas of getting out for now. They seem to have everything covered.’
‘There’s got to be some way. There’s always a way.’
Francois raised his eyebrows. ‘Not in real life there isn’t.’
‘What are you two whispering about?’ Jimmy leaned over towards the brothers.
‘Tell you later.’ Francois winked.
‘Oh. Not that again,’ Jimmy groaned. ‘Tell me when you’ve got something interesting to say.’
‘So you won’t want to come then?’
‘To be honest, I’m not sure I’m that bothered.’
‘Not bothered!’ Xavier almost choked on his drink.
‘What’s the point? We’ll just end up wandering round for a few months and then back here again.’ Jimmy pushed a hand through his fringe. ‘Might as well sit it out.’
‘You wouldn’t say that if you knew what I know.’ Xavier slammed down his cup.
Jimmy turned to Francois with a look of puzzlement. ‘What’s the matter with him?’
He would have to wait to find out, as a guard circuiting the room began coming their way.
‘Drug testing?’ Rosa looked doubtful as she curled up on a corner seat in the girls’ caravan. ‘I can’t see it somehow. I know they get away with a lot here, but surely there’d be some law against that.’
‘That’s just it.’ Xavier paced the tiny caravan floor. ‘There are laws and Dad’s always mentioning ethics papers, isn’t he?’ Xavier turned to Francois who nodded. ‘But they’re doing it illegally. Someone is paying the staff to keep quiet. That’s what’s going on in the mystery building we saw when we first came. Kids go in there and they don’t come out.’
‘How did you find all this out?’ Rosa laid her head on the crook of her arm as she listened.
‘I’ve been piecing it together for days. Bits of conversations I’ve overheard, things I’ve seen snooping around… and I read some paperwork when I sneaked into the office.’
‘You went into the office? You moron! You could have got caught.’ Rosa shot upright. ‘What did you go into the office for?’
Xavier shrugged. ‘Just did. Don’t worry. I’m not that stupid.’
‘Don’t go in there again, Xavier. Promise me you won’t.’
‘Rosa, there’s nothing to worry about, I won’t get caught.’
‘You’ve already been in trouble once and ended up in the cooler. You’ve got to keep your head down for a bit. In fact, you shouldn’t even be here now.’
‘She’s right,’ Sadie agreed. ‘Lights out in five minutes. You should get going before miss prissy-knickers in the other room tells on us.’
‘I heard that!’ A voice came from the bedroom.
‘Shut up, Verity,’ Sadie shouted back and screwed up her face in an imitation of Verity complaining.
Francois looked at Xavier, who nodded. ‘Ok. We’ll see you in the morning.’ Xavier added, ‘Think about what I’ve said, though, won’t you?’
They all glanced at each other and nodded doubtfully. Drug testing on humans? They had all heard stories of how low the authorities could sink, but this was unbelievable, even by their standards. But you didn’t argue with Xavier when he had the bit between his teeth.
‘See you later.’ Jimmy winked at Sadie and caught Rosa smirking at them. ‘Knock it off, Rosa.’ He followed the others down the steps and disappeared into the night.
The three boys strode silently, taking care to stay in the shadows as they made their way back to the male side of the camp. They were almost at their van when the quiet was shattered by a shout from feet away. From nowhere, a skinny shadow flew past them, close enough to touch.
‘Back behind here,’ Xavier hissed. They ducked out of sight as men with torches came in close pursuit of the first figure. They watched events unfold from their hiding place. The chase was over in seconds and the men dragged a squirming boy between them. For a brief moment a flashlight illuminated the thin face of a boy with a head of unruly black curls. He was writhing like a caged cat. There was a shout and the boy crumpled under the shock of an electrified prod.
‘My God! Did you see who that was?’ Xavier whispered as they watched the men carry away their unconscious prisoner.
Twenty-Nine: Behavioural Therapy
Elijah opened his eyes. His skin tingled as though someone had rubbed a nail brush all over him. He was in a hard, steel-framed bed. From the dim light of the office at the end of the dormitory, it looked as though he was back in the hospital wing where he had spent his first night on the camp recovering from the electric shock of the guard’s prod. This time he recognised the after-effects. He cursed himself; he couldn’t believe he had got caught again. He propped himself up on one arm and listened to the slow breathing of sleepers around him, wondering what time it was. The dormitory looked different; the furniture wasn’t arranged how he remembered. It was dirtier, if that was possible. There seemed to be a lack of medical equipment, at least, what was there didn’t look particularly medicinal. Maybe it wasn’t the hospital wing.
The staff were different too. In the hospital wing there had been people in green scrubs buzzing around. Here, a corpulent man whose oily forehead could be seen glistening in the lamps, even from a distance of a few feet, sat bent over paperwork at a desk in the office. He grunted and coughed almost constantly. At another desk, a man with a sparse covering of white hair, almost translucent in the lamplight, was also engaged in paperwork. A nervy-looking woman brought in two mugs, setting them down in front of each man before scurrying away. All three of them wore white lab coats. They were the only members of staff he could see.
Elijah’s gaze darted past the regimented beds toward the outside door. His muscles tensed as he licked his dry lips. Surely, that would be too easy. There had to be more security outside. There had been last time. Desperate as he was to bolt, reason told him to stay put and wait for the next opportunity; he had no desire to spend any more time in the cooler.
Since his capture, days before, he hadn’t once been outside the hospital wing or the cooler, apart from the spectacular but unsuccessful dash for freedom the night before that had brought him here. It was a testament to how much resistance he had shown. But it wasn’t helping him to find the others and he was beginning to realise that more subtlety and less temper was needed if he was going to be any use to them. He dropped to the pillow quickly and closed his eyes as the oily man looked up from his paperwork. Something told him not to draw attention to himself; there was weirdness to the place that made him feel cold. He pulled the thin, itchy blanket up over his shoulders and, though he would feign sleep, he was convinced tha
t he needed to stay alert. He drifted, wondering how Sky and Rowan were getting on with Ishmael, and wishing he was tucked up in a sleeping bag beside them.
White daylight flooded in through the bare windows. Elijah screwed up his eyes to shut it out, then suddenly realised with annoyance that he had fallen asleep at some point. The clatter of tin trays and low voices made him open his eyes again. The dormitory was buzzing with breakfast and shift-swapping. Some of the occupants of the surrounding beds didn’t bother to sit up. Some sat, but looked deathly ill. The boy next to Elijah appeared reasonably healthy. Elijah leaned over and whispered.
‘Where is this?’
‘Hospital wing.’
‘What you in for?’
The boy scratched his head. ‘I don’t know really. I suppose I’m ill but I don’t know what I’ve got.’
‘What do you mean? How can you not know what you’ve got?’
‘Just don’t. After I’d done three visits to the cooler, they brought me here. Said I needed Behavioural Therapy.’
‘So there was nothing wrong with you before?’
‘No.’
‘Didn’t you think that was weird?’
‘I was just glad to get out of the cooler.’
‘What have they done with you?’
‘Nothing yet. I only came in yesterday. I suppose they’ll give me something for my behaviour.’
‘Aren’t you bothered?’
‘Don’t know.’
Elijah fell silent for a moment as he gazed around the room. ‘Look at some of the kids in here. They look awful.’
‘It’s a hospital wing, Dumbo. They’re bound to look awful.’
‘I was in the hospital wing the first night I was in the camp. It didn’t look like this.’ Elijah sat back on his pillow as he spied a dumpy woman with a steel trolley approaching them.
‘Breakfast, boys. You need to keep your strength up in here.’
Elijah didn’t like the way she smiled as she said it.