by Robin Jarvis
The girl looked over the top of his beanie and realised they were quite alone. It was a situation she had been careful to avoid till now. She was instantly wary.
“Best be getting back then,” she said. “Don’t want ’em finkin’ I run off or got lost.”
She began retracing her steps, but the Punchinello caught hold of her hand.
“No go yet,” he gurgled. “Stay.”
“I gotta put these ’ere minchets in the truck,” she explained, trying to ease herself free.
The guard’s strong grip held firm.
“Stay,” he repeated, breathing heavily.
Charm was anxious to get away, but she didn’t dare show how scared she was. “Just for a minute then.”
Bezuel lifted her hand and caressed it. “You no need wipe,” he said.
“Yes, I do,” she answered with a forced light laugh. “That stuff’s ’orrible sticky and attracts all the flies.”
“No need wipe,” the Punchinello said again. Then, before she could stop him, the squat creature put her fingers in his wide mouth and started sucking them.
Charm almost gagged and tried to pull away. The Punchinello refused to release her. She felt his cold, fat tongue squeeze and probe between her fingers and his lips moved over and under her knuckles like twin slugs. Behind those mirror shades his beady eyes rolled back in his head.
Eventually he grinned and loosened his grasp. The girl tore her hand out and thrust it under her arm.
“I’m goin’ back!” she said, anger mixed with revulsion and alarm.
“No go!” the guard commanded, blocking her way. “Bezuel want speak. Bezuel like. You pretty.”
“Fanks, but I…”
The Punchinello lifted the sunglasses and the intent in those eyes was unmistakable. Charm began to back away.
“You like Bezuel new threads?” he asked. “Is good, yes? Bezuel see on tellyscreen. Bezuel learn much from tellyscreen. He know skanks crawl over bling bling like maggots on minchet. You hoes like shiny gold and ice, yes? Bezuel let you touch gold – you let Bezuel touch you.”
“Not wiv a bargepole, mate and you can stick your bling! I ain’t interested.”
The ringed fingers lunged at her. Charm yelled and ran. The guard caught her pink Bvlgari belt and snatched her back, pushing her against the thicket.
Charm cried out, but the Punchinello pulled the gun and thrust it against her stomach.
“You no make noise,” Bezuel growled. “You no scream. If other abrants come to help, me shoot them in head, then me shoot you. You want feel lead, or gold? Bezuel want your booty, Bezuel get – before you go.”
“Go?” she said. “Where’m I goin’?”
The guard sniggered at her. “You near birthday. You too old for stay in camp. No good. You must go.”
The words hit her like a slap in the face. “My birthday?” she murmured. “Is it July already? Oh, my God. Where… where they sending me?”
Bezuel shrugged. “Me no care. Me want taste, before you go.”
Charm trembled and twisted her face away as the guard lifted her T-shirt with the gun barrel and the pale tongue came lolling out of his mouth. She squeezed her eyes shut and Bezuel reached for the dropped shopping basket. It took one of the gathered fruits, to smear over her exposed skin.
Suddenly a dark blur sprang from the prickly branches behind her. It pounced on the minchet in the guard’s hand and sank its teeth in deeply.
Bezuel screeched in shock and pain. He waved the arm about, trying to shake the Doggy-Long-Legs off. But it wrapped its spindly limbs around the fist, chewing and gnawing greedily.
As Bezuel shrieked and whirled about, Charm ran. Not looking back, she pelted through the trees, heading for the road and the others.
The Beetle was just moving off when she rejoined them. Yikker was swigging from a bottle of Merlot the driver had handed over and Alasdair was picking himself up from the ground. The imprint of a shoe was stamped on one shoulder. The other children were standing around him. Charm’s girls helped him to his feet and he mumbled a thank you whilst glaring at the cassocked Punchinello.
Three gunshots rang out. Yikker lowered the bottle and stared at Charm questioningly.
“Spider fing,” she explained, trying not to let the horror of what she had escaped sound in her voice.
Yikker’s hooked nose sniffed the air and when Bezuel emerged through the trees, nursing a bleeding hand, he hooted with mocking laughter.
Bezuel snatched the Merlot and guzzled it down. Although the mirror shades were once again over those eyes, Charm could feel the Punchinello’s lecherous stare boring into her.
She spent the remainder of the afternoon dodging the guard’s advances, making certain they were never alone together. Foremost in her thoughts though was the bombshell he had dropped. She desperately wished Maggie and Lee were here. What was she going to do? She didn’t want to be moved from the camp. Her girls sensed something was the matter, but she didn’t want to upset them and pretended it was merely a headache, but inside she was absolutely devastated and horribly afraid.
Somehow she got through the shift and the long march back. After the evening soup, she quietly invited Maggie, Lee and Spencer outside. The graves and Marcus’s headstone had become a favoured spot to sit and talk. The other kids usually respected your privacy if you went there to discuss serious or personal stuff, or needed time on your own. Charm led her friends there and sat down.
“Now,” Lee began. “You gonna tell us what’s eating you tonight?”
Charm had made up her mind not to tell them what Bezuel had tried to do. She feared Lee would attempt some form of retaliation and wind up getting himself shot. She’d cope with Bezuel in her own way. She’d managed so far. She’d just have to be extra vigilant from now on. At least she wouldn’t have to put up with the creature’s disgusting attentions for much longer.
“It’s me birthday soon,” she told them.
“Aw, babes,” Maggie said. “I’d stick a candle in your soup if I had one – and if the soup was thick enough.”
Lee’s face fell. “Hell, no!” he said. “When?”
Charm fanned her eyes. “On the seventh. I dunno what today is, but that Bez said it were near.”
Lee scowled. He hadn’t been keeping track of the date either and his watch didn’t display it. He looked at Spencer. The other boy shook his head apologetically. Lee turned around and stared at the camp. Some girls were playing a clapping game in the middle of the lawn, others were washing clothes in buckets, one or two more were sitting on their own. Would any of them know?
At that moment, a shrill scream sounded in one of the cabins and Christina came running out, followed by Alasdair. The Scot caught up with her and gave her a hug. Jody’s ranting voice was still calling after them. She was getting worse.
“Dinnae be upset,” Alasdair said soothingly. “Jody’s no well. You ken that? She doesnae mean it. She wouldnae be nasty to you for the world.”
Christina wiped her eyes. “I miss her,” she said.
“Aye, me too.”
“Will she get better? Will my old Jody come back?”
“I cannae say. But we’ll keep our fingers crossed, yeah?”
“You can only cross them on one hand!”
“Ah, but I can cross my toes too! You didnae know that, did ye?”
The girl laughed.
“Hey, Alasdair!” Lee called, waving him over.
The Scottish lad looked across in surprise. That clique didn’t go out of their way to speak to him these days. He didn’t blame them. He had behaved like a titanic jerk and some things were impossible to forgive.
Holding Christina’s hand, he wandered over.
“What you guys doin’?” he asked uncertainly.
“You know what the date is?”
It was the last question Alasdair expected. It took him a few moments to think about it.
“Sit down, man,” Lee invited.
Alasdair and Christina
sat. Christina glanced at Maggie shyly. Since the attack on her with the ripped pages, she had kept out of her way. The seven-year-old teased a daisy from the ground and concentrated on trying to fashion it into a ring for her finger.
“Is it no July?” Alasdair asked after some minutes’ pondering.
The others groaned. Alasdair thought again.
“How many days since the last delivery of leftovers?” he asked. “No this present lot, the one before.”
Maggie counted back. They were on their fourth day of this batch; the previous one had been a very long eight days prior to that.
“That’s it then,” he said. “That were when I gave up keepin’ score. That were the day after midsummer, the last time the guards had one of their boozy blowouts. Remember, they lit another fire and sang dirty songs round it, then shot at empty bottles late into the night. So that makes today July the third. Why do ye want to know?”
“It’s Charm’s birthday on the seventh,” Spencer told him.
“I’m real sorry,” he said.
“I don’t get it,” Maggie butted in. “What is so wrong about having a birthday?”
“I’ll be sixteen!” Charm answered.
Only then did Maggie realise. “They… they’re going to ship you out of here?” she stammered. “Oh, no! They can’t!”
Alasdair held up his useless hand. “They do whatever they want,” he said bitterly. “Dinnae kid yourself otherwise.”
“Didn’t Jangler say something about an adult camp?” Spencer asked. “You’ll be sent there. Might not be so bad as here.”
“Aye an’ it might be a ton load worse. If oor lot can kill wee kids and torture lasses till they crack, what do ye reckon they’ll be doin’ to them folk?”
“Coat it with sugar why don’t you?” Lee muttered.
“He’s only sayin’ what I’ve already been finking,” Charm said. “I ain’t fick.”
The stress and pain began to show on her face. Turning away, she gazed at the trees in the distance – beyond the wire. Perched on top of a high fence post, a blackbird was singing. It was a pure, liquid sound, filled with hope, freedom and praise for the late sunshine. Charm’s eyes began to swim.
“Sixteen,” she murmured. “Me sixteenf. That were gonna be like so crucial to The Plan. The day before, Uncle Frank were gonna sort a studio session an’ I’d have some real tasteful glamour shots done. They’d be published in the red tops on me birthday. That were gonna be the start of it proper. It were all gonna kick off huge after that. The Charm brand were gonna get mega. By the time I were twenty I was gonna have me own fashion range an’ perfume… so many fings…”
The others didn’t know what to say. It was Alasdair who broke the silence and voiced what they were thinking.
“Glamour shots? Is that no topless and such? So, technically, the papers would’ve printed photos of a fifteen-year-old girl for blokes to slobber over? That’s no right.”
“But I’d be sixteen, innit?”
“Not when the photos were taken, you wouldnae be.”
“When they was printed I would be though. What’s the difference?”
“A lot,” Lee said softly.
Charm couldn’t understand what the big deal was. “I’ve done loads of modellin’ before. Pukkah professional. Uncle Frank got me plenty of jobs – he had contacts all over – always sending me photos and CV to people on the Web he was.”
“I wouldn’t get my kit off for the camera,” Maggie said. “Mind you, it’d need a wide-angle lens!”
Charm gave her a prod. “You ain’t that big no more. And I didn’t mind, honest. I just wish I had bigger boobs. It’s not like I’d be scared or nervous nor nofink, Uncle Frank’s been coaching me for years and got me well used to sessions like that, so I’d be ready and relaxed when the proper time came.”
“He what?”
“Well, I’d be no use otherwise, would I? A model what’s jumpy and shy ain’t no good to no one. It’s what they all do in this game, so he said.”
Lee lowered his eyes. Maggie put her arm round her.
Charm was confused by their reaction. Was it pity, shock, disappointment, unhappiness? To an outsider, someone who wasn’t in the business, she supposed it must sound quite odd, but she had been grateful to her manager. He had done a lot for her career. She trusted his judgement entirely. After he first met her mother and took an interest in her daughter’s ambitions, things had really started to happen.
For some reason the image of Bezuel’s eyes that afternoon flashed into her mind again and she shuddered. Why did it suddenly remind her of Uncle Frank? She stared across at Christina who was admiring the daisy on her finger. The first glimmer of doubt flickered in her mind. Charm shook herself.
“Well, The Plan’s been truly flushed down the bog now,” she said, hurrying to fill the silence and chase that unpleasant memory from her head. “On me sixteenf I’ll be out of ’ere. I just wanted to say a whoppin’ fank you, from the bottom of my heart, to you guys, for making this place survivable. Wivout you, it’d have been millions times worse. I never had no proper friends before – mad, innit? I reckon you’re the best mates I’ll ever ’ave and I’m gonna miss you summink fierce when I have to go. Just promise you’ll look after my girls, yeah? They’re a blindin’ bunch.”
She paused to catch her breath and gulp back the impending tears.
“What about us?” Maggie murmured. “What am I going to do without you? You’ve been brilliant. Always there when I was rock-bottom. You’ve been such a good friend to me – to all of us. You never let us down.”
“Shut up or me waterworks’ll start!”
Maggie was determined to be upbeat. It would have been so easy to give in and cry, but that could wait until the day Charm went through those gates for the final time.
“Hey,” she said. “Remember that picnic? The day we all had to wear Mooncaster clobber?”
Charm laughed. That was the first time she had spoken to Lee. “He didn’t wear none of it,” she said, pointing at him.
“And I spouted a load of garbage about Dancing Jax not being such a bad thing,” Maggie continued. “And Lee ripped my head off for it. Well, I’m saying the same right now and he can go off on one again if he likes cos, without that book, I’d never have met you lot and I’d never have met Marcus, and the thought of that never happening scares me.”
“Likewise,” Lee said quietly.
“You’re closer to me than my real family ever was,” Maggie rattled on. “I’ve finally stopped hating on my stepmother. Why did I ever let her get to me the way she did?”
“Cos you weren’t happy,” Charm said.
“That’s bonkers, that is; must mean I’m happy here. That makes no sense.”
“It’s other people what make you happy,” Charm told her. “Not being famous, not having loads of money and a mountain of flash stuff. Never thought I’d hear meself sayin’ that. I am so gutted I’m goin’.”
“You won’t be on your own in that new place for long,” Maggie said brightly. “We’re all going to turn sixteen one day. When’s your birthday, Lee?”
“November.”
“Oh… well – that’ll be here before you know it!”
He dragged his fingers through his hair. “You think there’s a unisex camp for adults? Cos, you know, that’d be a first.”
“Hope they’ll send a car,” Charm said, not wanting to think about it, but trying to be practical. “Don’t fancy walking all the way to wherever the new place is. I’ll never make it wiv them two humungous cases I got.”
Alasdair had felt uncomfortable during this mutual appreciation. None of those nice words were meant for him and he felt he was intruding on their special time together. They had been incarcerated here for two months and he hardly knew these people at all. He found himself envying their closeness. Most of his spare hours had been spent with Jody and Christina, and now Jody had retreated into herself. He wished it could have been different, but Jody had been
a ‘them or me’ type of person. He didn’t regret any of the time he had spent with her, but it had been at the expense of other friendships.
Lee raised his eyes and studied Charm’s face, trying to capture every detail. The spray tan had worn off long ago and real sunburn had replaced it. She looked better to him now, less artificial and factory-made. She wore hardly any make-up, preferring to save it for the pampering nights in her cabin. Her blonde hair hung loose over her shoulders and the honey-coloured light of the summer evening made each strand glow golden. He had never felt so close to anyone outside his family before. He wanted to protect her, but he couldn’t even do that here. He felt angry and useless. There were so many things he wanted to say to her and now there wasn’t time.
This was how he always remembered her, bathed in that gilding light. When the agony and horror of what was to come had passed, he conjured this precious time and saw her smiling at him.
“What you finkin’?” she asked. “You’ll wear your eyes out, ogglin’ at me like that.”
Lee blinked and realised the others were sniggering.
“Just wishin’ I could take you out on a date, is all,” he mumbled, suddenly awkward.
Maggie looked away. That was what Marcus had said to her. She glanced at the wooden marker that bore his name and gave it a wobbly smile.
“A date?” Charm chuckled. “Ooh, so many flash places round ’ere. Was you finkin’ about the dinin’ hall, or maybe over by the gates or the tower? I dunno if I got the right gear to wear. I’ll have to melt some plastic an’ get summink brand-new.”
Lee’s grin froze. The most fantastic idea hit him. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of it before. His face lit up and he almost blurted it out in excitement. He checked himself just in time.
“Hey, Alasdair,” he said bluntly. “Could you take Christina back? Must be getting on, be eight soon.”
The Scot didn’t reply. He knew exactly what this was. Lee wanted to get rid of him. He wasn’t part of the group and couldn’t be trusted with whatever he was going to say. He stared at the other lad a moment, just so Lee knew he was fully aware what was going on here. It hurt to be sent away on such a flimsy pretext, in fact it was insulting, but Alasdair had built that wall of suspicion himself and couldn’t expect any other treatment. Grudgingly he rose and told Christina to come with him.