by Ruth Thomas
‘Nah,’ said Nathan, ‘let’s stay here. I ain’t scared. It’s boring at Mrs Parsons’.’
‘We could watch telly.’
‘I rather here.’ Nathan had found himself near his beloved slot machines.
‘That boy might find us again,’ said Julia, fearfully.
‘Don’t matter, he can’t run,’ said Nathan spitting on to the pebbles in contempt. ‘He runs slow as a tortoise.’
They played the machines, and Julia nearly won. Every time she dropped a penny down the chute, it nearly tipped over all the rest. Nathan thought he could do it better, but Julia wouldn’t let him have a go. She wanted all the prize, and all the glory for herself. So Nathan watched, encouraging her. In this case, he didn’t much care who won, as long as one of them did.
For both children, the fright in the café was totally forgotten. They were easily caught off their guard.
‘How you doing, Nathan?’ came a voice from nowhere – and Nathan fell right into the trap! Without thinking he raised his head, looked around to see who was calling him – and too late realized his mistake when he found himself looking right at the face of the fat boy, leering fuzzily a couple of metres away.
Julia was oblivious of all this. Her coin had tipped the pile and the mountain of pennies rattled into the receptacle below. ‘I won, I won,’ she shouted triumphantly, scooping out the money with her hands. ‘Nathan – I won!’
‘Shut up,’ said Nathan.
But the damage was done. Julia had said his name. The fat boy, still leering, advanced on Nathan, who was still trying to collect his wits.
‘I know you, Nathan Browne,’ said the fat boy. ‘I caught you now, didn’t I!’
Julia stopped scooping out the money, and her mouth dropped open in bewilderment and dismay. As she watched, she saw Nathan dodge and try to run. But round the other side of the machine, barring his way, was the fat boy’s father! Nathan dodged back, swung round Julia nearly toppling her over, and was blocked again by the fat boy.
Desperate now, Nathan lashed out with his fists. The fat boy was taller, and much heavier, but Nathan was wiry and agile. Unsportingly, Nathan punched him hard in the stomach, and as the fat boy howled and doubled up, Nathan sped through the arcade and on to the wide open seafront, leaving Julia to her fate.
‘We’ve got you anyway, young lady,’ said the fat man grimly, ignoring for the moment the bellows of pain coming from his son, and stretching out his hands to grab Julia.
At that moment, Julia found her feet. She started to run, but the spiky heels of the ridiculous little sandals impeded her. Her ankle turned over, and she lurched painfully against the machine. The fat man caught her easily, and gripped both her arms in a vice. ‘Got you, got you,’ he repeated.
Julia writhed and struggled. ‘Let go, let go you’re hurting me,’ she screamed. She tried to stamp on his feet, and when that failed she bent her head to bite the hand that held her. She was frantic – beside herself with fear.
Everyone in the arcade was looking by now. Two tough-looking youths misunderstood the situation. ‘Leave her, Dad,’ one of them called.
‘It’s Julia Winter,’ said the fat man, gasping with the exertions of having to hold Julia.
But the name meant nothing to the youths, who loped menacingly towards the struggling pair. In spite of the chill, they wore only tee-shirts and jeans, and there were lurid tattoos on their arms. The hair of both stood up in spikes. ‘I said leave her, Dad,’ the one with the voice growled again.
The fat man had no more breath with which to explain. His face was already turning an ominous purple, and when the two strong lads grabbed his arms one on each side, he gave up the unequal fight. Released, Julia charged at the exit, and disappeared into the rain outside.
The fat man sucked ruefully at his hand, where Julia’s teeth marks clearly showed. ‘She bit me,’ he muttered.
‘Serve you right,’ said the youth with the voice, ‘molesting young girls!’
‘I wasn’t molesting her, you moron,’ gasped the fat man, angrily. ‘I was catching her. That’s Julia Winter, the kid who’s run away from home. And the other one’s Nathan Browne. They went off together, didn’t they – it was on telly and in the papers. Now they’ve both got away, thanks to you. . . . Come on, Stuart,’ he addressed his moaning son, ‘he can’t have hurt you that much. He’s only a little runt!’
The two youths looked at each other, feeling silly. ‘Better get after them hadn’t we?’ said the silent one, speaking now for the first time.
‘Ah leave it,’ said the one with the voice. ‘Let the Bill see to it. You want to tell the police, mate. They’ll get ’em all right.’
‘That’s exactly what I’m going to do,’ said the fat man. ‘Now.’
Meanwhile Julia blundered, sobbing wretchedly, along the seafront. Nathan – where was Nathan? She didn’t even know which way he’d gone. She felt horribly frightened and alone. She peered into various dives along the way, but Nathan didn’t seem to be in any of them. She even peeped into the Gents’ toilet, but he wasn’t there. He had deserted her. Trembling, her knees still like jelly, she looked over her shoulder to see if the fat man was following – but there was only sheeting rain. Julia herself was getting very wet, she realized. The blouse and skirt were drenched all down the front, where the plastic mac flapped open.
She would go back to Mrs Parsons’, she decided, and get dry. She would wait for Nathan there. Perhaps he was there already. Most likely he was there. Why hadn’t she thought of that before? The fright had made her all muddled, so she couldn’t think properly. She brushed the tears and the rain out of her eyes, and stumbled her way back to the boarding house.
Mrs Parsons hobbled from the kitchen, as Julia came through the front door.
‘Beverley – bless my soul, how wet you are! You’ll catch your death, dear.’ She hesitated, because it was not really polite to mention that she could see Julia had been crying. ‘Have you been to see your mother?’
Julia turned her head, too distraught still to trust herself to speak.
‘Charlie’s here,’ said Mrs Parsons. ‘He seemed a bit upset. It might help to talk about it.’
‘She’s worse,’ said Julia. ‘She’s worse all the time.’ She had an excuse now to let the tears flow.
‘You poor child,’ said Mrs Parsons, gently.
‘I’m not a child,’ Julia sobbed.
‘I know, you young girls think you’re very grown-up these days. But you know, Beverley, I daresay you won’t like me saying this but really, with all that stuff off your face, you really don’t look much more than eleven years old!’
8
On the run
‘You took your time, man,’ said Nathan, savagely. He was sitting on his bed, his knees hunched up to his chin, his eyes glaring fear. He was feeling bad about having abandoned Julia, so naturally he took it out on her.
‘You left me alone,’ wailed Julia. ‘What did you leave me alone for?’
‘I thought that man caught you, didn’t I?’
‘You still shouldn’t have left me alone! You shouldn’t have!’
‘So? What you going on and on about it for? It’s boring.’
Julia sat on the edge of the big bed, her feelings hurt, her back pointedly turned towards Nathan.
‘What happened then?’ said Nathan sullenly.
‘What you want to know for?’
‘All right, be like that.’
‘I got away, didn’t I.’
‘Good,’ said Nathan.
‘Why good? You don’t care.’
‘Yes I do.’
‘You don’t. You left me all by myself.’
‘Oh don’t start that again. . . . We got to go, you know.’
‘What do you mean? Go where?’
‘Away. Away from Brighton.’
‘What for?’ said Julia. ‘Oh yeah – that man. He’s going to tell the police about us, isn’t he.’
‘They’ll be looking all over.
Probably looking now.’
‘They won’t know to come to this house though. We’ll be all right if we just stay indoors. Can’t we just stay indoors?’
‘Don’t be stupid, man. What’s Mrs Parsons going to say?’
‘Oh yeah – I forgot. . . . Let’s stay though, Nathan. I don’t want to leave this house, I like it here.’
‘So do I, but we don’t want to get caught, do we?’
‘All right,’ said Julia, sadly. ‘What shall we tell Mrs Parsons?’
‘Tell her we’re going home. Tell her our mum’s better.’
‘I just this minute said she’s worse.’
‘Don’t tell her nothing then – let’s just go.’
‘Not say goodbye?’
‘Are you mad or something?’
‘All right.’
The children found their beach bags and started to pack. When Julia came to the torn school dress, mended with Sellotape, she paused. A vacant look came over her face, and she sat down heavily on the bed, staring into space.
‘Get on with it, Julia, don’t waste time.’
‘I’m thinking.’
‘You can think on the train. If we don’t hurry up, the police is going to be at the station, waiting to catch us.’
No answer.
‘Come on, Ju.’
‘Shut up. I told you, I’m thinking. . . . All right, listen. The police is going to catch us anyway if we go out looking the same.’
‘Same as what?’
‘Same as we look now. They know I got make-up now, and they know you don’t wear glasses no more. We got to change ourself.’
‘Oh yeah – we better do that.’
‘See. You didn’t think of that, did you, Nathan Browne!’
‘How are we going to change ourselves though?’
There was a long pause.
‘I could cut my hair,’ said Julia. ‘They think I got long hair, but I could cut it.’
‘Oh yeah, you could.’ Another idea struck Nathan, a strategy frequently used in books. ‘You could cut it really short. You could be a boy,’ he said.
‘Oh Nathan – I never could!’
‘Why couldn’t you? You could cut your hair short and have jeans and a tee-shirt like me.’
‘I’d look silly.’
‘No you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t. Come on, Ju, that’s a magnificent idea I had. You dress up like a boy. You’d make a brilliant boy!’
‘I don’t know though. . . .’
‘We need some scissors.’
‘We shall have to buy some,’ said Julia. Her mind was a turmoil of new thoughts, but she struggled to bring out one more idea, before it should get lost and forgotten. ‘Couldn’t we change you as well? A bit?’
‘How? I’m not going to be a girl.’
‘I didn’t mean that. I mean . . . they’re going to be looking for a white kid and a black kid, right?’
‘So?’
‘And there’s not all that many black people in Brighton anyway, not like at home, so you going to be easy to notice.’
‘So?’
‘But you ain’t really black.’
‘Yes I am.’
‘I mean you ain’t very black. I don’t think it notice much, only for your hair.’
‘I can’t change my hair.’
‘You could cover it over. You could get one of them seaside caps with the letters on it.’
‘They’d still see I’m black though.’
‘Yes, if they really look they’d see, but what I mean . . . what I mean . . . if they don’t specially look. . . .’
‘Oh I get it, I get it, you mean they won’t go past me in the street and think, “There’s a black boy, I wonder if he’s Nathan Browne”, they’ll only just notice I’m a boy.’
‘That’s what I mean. Especially for when they see us together.’
‘Let’s go and get the things now then,’ said Nathan.
‘Yeah but – I think we didn’t ought to both of us go out.’
‘Why not?’
‘We don’t want the police to see us together before we change ourselves. In case the fat man told them about us already.’
Pause.
‘I’ll go,’ said Nathan. ‘I can run faster than you.’
‘Yeah but – you got to get clothes for me, and you might not get them the right size.’
Nathan measured her up and down with his eye. ‘I’ll get them perfect,’ he promised.
‘I’ll give you the money.’
‘No, it’s all right.’
‘I will.’
‘It’s all right – I don’t mind.’
It was the first time either of them had offered to buy anything for the other.
Nathan slipped out of the house without being seen. Outside, the rain had stopped and a pale watery sun was trying to break through. There was little warmth in it, but the brightness was faintly cheering. Nathan splashed through the puddles, on his way to the shops.
The clothes were no trouble. Jeans and tee-shirts you could buy in lots of places, and no one bothered that they were not in Nathan’s size. He just had to say they were for his brother. That was even true in a way, since Julia was going to be his sort of brother.
The scissors were more difficult. Nathan had no idea where you could buy scissors. He studied the fronts of all the shops, and finally spotted some curved nail-scissors in a chemist’s window. He went inside and bought them, hoping they would be all right.
It was when he was coming out of the chemist’s that he felt the first breath of danger. There was a policeman on the other side of the road, and the policeman was looking at him – hard.
Nathan tried to keep his head. The policeman might not be looking at him really. He might be looking into the chemist’s shop. There might be a thief going to rob the chemist, and the policeman was looking to catch him. Nathan sauntered casually along the road, his purchases in the plastic bag they had given him in the shop where he bought the jeans.
The policeman kept pace with him, on the other side of the road, still looking.
Don’t panic, Nathan told himself. Good job he came and not Julia. Julia would panic for certain. The policeman couldn’t know it was him. He’d have given chase by now if he knew. Probably he’d been told to look out for any small black boys around. Probably he’d go away in a minute, when he saw Nathan wasn’t worried.
The policeman began to cross the road and come towards him.
Nathan ran. Fortunately for him, a sudden spate of traffic in both directions held up the policeman’s crossing. By the time the policeman had landed safely on the same pavement as Nathan, Nathan was already turning the corner into a side road. He heard the police whistle as he went.
He must hide. Wildly, as his feet pounded down the road, Nathan considered the possibilities. Shops and cafés were out of the question. Once inside, anyone could denounce him, and he would be trapped. He dodged around other users of the pavement and one or two told him to look where he was going. At any moment, one of them might grasp the fact that he was not just a small boy running, but a small boy running from the police.
He turned a corner, and another, and another. No one seemed to be following. Had he escaped? He was in a large square. His heart was pounding now, his breath coming in great gasps, and there was a stitch in his side. His knees were beginning to buckle – he knew he could not run much further. On the corner of the square was a telephone box. Not much cover, but he might just get away with it. The square seemed empty – not like the street with the cafés which was thronged with people. Nathan didn’t think there was anyone to see. Weakly, he stumbled into the telephone box and curled up on the floor into a tight little ball. If anyone looked, they would just think someone had left an old coat in the box. He hoped no one would want to use the telephone.
Nathan did not know how long he lay curled in the telephone box. He could neither see nor hear anything of what was going on outside. Were the police in the square? Would they think of look
ing in the telephone box? Time went by, and Nathan felt safer with the passing of every minute, but he wasn’t taking any chances. He wasn’t coming out yet.
He thought Julia would wonder why he was taking so long to do the shopping. He remembered that he hadn’t bought that cap yet. Where could he get one of those caps, he wondered? There were plenty of places on the seafront, and this square must be near the seafront, since he had run downhill to it all the way. But the seafront was disaster. Fat boys and their fathers, and other nosy parkers no doubt, lurked there ready to point the finger and say, ‘That’s Nathan Browne, that’s the boy who ran away. Catch him!’
After a bit, Nathan heard the rain once more, spattering on the telephone box. Lightly at first, and then lashing down in a fury. He was so cramped now, from crouching in one position, that he thought he could not bear the pain any longer. Surely it would be safe to come out. Surely even policemen would be sheltering from this weather.
Cautiously raising one arm, Nathan pushed open the door of the telephone box and crawled out into the square. His legs had gone to sleep so he could not stand up. He rubbed them, while the rain drenched him. He was soaked and shivering in a minute, but he didn’t mind that. The rain gave him an excuse to wear the hood of his anorak, so his hair was covered, and his face hardly visible anyway. He was just any small boy, running to get out of the rain, carrying his shopping in a plastic bag.
Muffled up like this, Nathan felt it was even safe to go on to the seafront.
The seafront shops were crowded with holiday-makers sheltering from the dismal weather. Nathan pushed his way through a barrier of jostling bodies, mostly clad in dripping plastic macs. He found the little caps and chose one – any one. He offered his money at the counter, and the woman standing next to him, buying two sticks of rock, jammed her elbow into his eye.
‘I was first,’ she claimed, still waving her hand with the money in it.
‘No you wasn’t,’ said Nathan, indignantly.
And then, to his horror, he saw who it was. It was the fat woman, wife of the fat man, and mother of the sticky baby!
Once more, Nathan ran. The cap and the plastic bag in one hand, the money for the cap still in the other, he clove through the press of wet bodies around him, ducking and squirming to get to the door.