Between the Cracks She Fell

by Lisa de Nikolits

  I prodded and inspected and found the mattresses to be fairly new, which was confusing. Shayne had never found out exactly when the Muslim school had closed, and I thought I would do some online research at the library myself and see if I could discover more.

  What I could not figure out was why some of the rooms were in pristine condition while others were destroyed. None of it made any sense.

  Allah knows but you do not know, the wall told me.

  You’re right, I told the wall. I do not know.

  I hauled the best mattress back to my room, thinking that my sleeping bag would be covering it, so it wasn’t like my body was actually going to touch it. I gave it a thorough inspection and I couldn’t see any sign of bedbugs or stains.

  The mattress fitted neatly in my room. Exhausted, I looked at my watch. It was only half past three. I had only been at this for an hour and a half.

  I spread my sleeping bag on my new bed and sat down with my backpack close to my side. It was like I was waiting for a train or for someone to arrive.

  It was so quiet. It could have been creepy but it felt peaceful. Either the harsh wind had stopped its admonishments outside or perhaps I just couldn’t hear it from inside my secure home.

  I closed my door and locked it, and when I turned my flashlight off, it was as dark as a moonless night in the countryside. I couldn’t see a thing until, eventually, a very dim light glowed along the crack at the bottom of the door, but that was all.

  I should have unpacked. Instead, I lay down and fell asleep, and when I woke about an hour later, I felt disoriented and frightened. None of the sounds were familiar to me, what few sounds there were. No weed wackers, cars, kids calling out or playing ball hockey on the street, no birds or thunk thunk thunk as the squirrels ran along the power lines.

  Nothing smelled right either, and I sat up sniffing the air. It was musty and damp, like a pile of old newspapers you thought you would keep to read in the future but never got around to.

  I pressed my back against a cool wall and tried to get my bearings.

  That’s right. I was in the room inside the admin building. I reached for the flashlight, but I couldn’t remember where I had put it and I panicked for a moment, convinced it had been stolen while I slept. Then I reminded myself that my door was locked and that I had an alarm system of chairs and tin cans in the hallway.

  I patted the ground until I came across the rubbery flashlight, and I flicked it on with relief, vowing to put it the same accessible place each time. I checked my watch; it was early evening, and I decided to go outside and catch the last couple of hours of the sunset.

  I locked my door and eased out into the hallway, taking care to avoid my booby-traps. I stepped over the broken office equipment and saw that the front door, which I had left open, was shut, as were the doors to the secretary’s office and the strange front room that someone had lived in.

  All the doors were closed, doors that I had opened and that I knew I had left open.

  I felt a moment of terror. I was convinced that someone had come in and was hiding behind one of those closed doors waiting to attack me. I held my flashlight in front of me like a weapon, in both hands, and then figured out that it must have been the wind that closed the doors, because they had been shut when I arrived and probably just swung closed again behind me.

  I lowered my flashlight, feeling foolish.

  I went outside and looked around, admiring the pastel-and-gold sunset, the tissue-thin clouds, and a contrail ribbon like a kite string, with a few birds scattered up high. I took a deep breath of the clear fresh air and relaxed for a moment, only to be startled by the sound of a dog barking, and I shot back inside the building to hide behind the door. A woman ran past with her headphones plugged in, a large chocolate Labrador at her side.

  I pulled further back into the building just in case, but the woman and the dog ran past without noticing me.

  I decided to take a look at the rest of the building before the sun set.

  I walked past the dorm rooms with the mattresses, and the hallway ended in a staircase with a fancy bannister and hand railing topped by a large ornamental ball. The stairs were in good condition although graffiti covered the walls — owls, incomprehensible slogans, penises, pentagrams, and zigzags — all of which made no sense but seemed to point upwards.

  I shone my flashlight at my feet, and tested my weight carefully on each wooden step.

  The hall at the top of the stairs opened to a line of rooms on each side. Each room had been systematically defaced, destroyed, painted, overpainted, crashed, crushed, and ruined.

  Windows were gaping holes in the walls, cheap closet doors lay on the floor, broken and folded. A pink washroom was home to a smashed toilet, piles of sparkling glass, and violent blackened drawings.

  There were five rooms on each side of the hall and one of them was completely blackened. Clearly, a fire had been lit, but thankfully had not gained purchase to spread. Still, the room was a black hellhole over which white spray paint howled BUM CUM and KING OF GRIT and NUTS AND BALLS RULE.

  The hallway led to the rooftop asphalt. I was about to step out onto it when I heard shouts and cries and the sharp, whiny bark of a small dog. The sounds were coming from the building down on the far side of the field. I instantly pulled back and crouched down. Then I crawled out, ready to pull back quickly, should the need arise. I hoped that this lot, whoever they were, were simply passing through with a lot of clash and clamour, but what I saw filled me with dismay.

  The schoolgrounds were somebody else’s playground too, and this lot didn’t look to be leaving any time soon.

  11. THE RENDING ASUNDER

  THE NOISE CAME FROM A BUNCH OF KIDS near the school library. I could tell right off that they were a nasty lot, bored and restless, vandalizing just to pass the time. They were spray painting the walls, covering their former work with a new layer of yellow, green, and red.

  Most of the kids were too far away for me to see them clearly, but I made out one guy who seemed to be their leader. He was pointing this way and that, shouting and waving. He wore low-rise red jeans and a black T-shirt, and he had red hair.

  A girl fluttered around him, leggy, plump, and pale. She had a yappy little dog with her, and its leash tangled around her ankles. I thought she would trip and fall over at any moment, but she and the dog must have done this dance before.

  The boy with red hair took his time to emblazon THE LAST KING in tall black letters on the wall.

  Night was moving in and I wanted to go back to my room, but I also wanted to keep an eye on the kids.

  As soon as the boy put the finishing touches to his self-ordination, the tribe noisily bumped and bustled around to the far side of the library where I could no longer see them, but I still heard their shouts and hoots, then it all fell silent. No yappy dog, no calls, nothing.

  It was as if they had disappeared. I waited for a while to see if they would return, but they did not. I was relieved they had gone so I backtracked along the hall and down the stairs.

  I figured those kids were the ones who had destroyed the rooms above me and I hoped they had had their fill and would not be coming back to my building.

  But I told myself I would have to be very careful.

  I was hungry, and it was time to get settled in, in a more practical way.

  I found a small office cabinet from the secretary’s room to use as a bedside table and put it next to my new mattress. I dug into my backpack and unpacked a can opener, a knife, fork, spoon, and paper plates. A can of soup, a bagel in a paper bag, and a Diet Coke, a few bars of chocolate, and a packet of biscuits came next. I laughed to myself at the last item — you could take the girl out of England but you couldn’t take England out of the girl.

  I pulled out The Satanic Verses and stacked it next to my pile of T-shirts and underclothes on one of the metal shelv
es that I had cleaned with wet wipes.

  I put a bottle of water, toothpaste, my toothbrush, facial cleanser, standup mirror, and a small toiletry bag on the next shelf. Then I stood there, feeling inordinately proud of myself and quite content, when I was startled by a sudden cracking noise, as if a tree had snapped in two or someone had fired a rifle.

  I shot over to the door and locked it quickly, hardly able to breathe. I waited to hear if there were any other noises, but there was only the booming throb of my heart. My eyes were so wide, I feared I would never get them closed again.

  I stayed dead-still for a few minutes, not moving and wondering if it was another runner perhaps, another dog, or giant squirrels having a row? But not even the biggest squirrels in the world could have made that kind of racket.

  The noise could not have come from my careful booby-trap of paint cans and the like — the demise of that would have made an entirely different sound.

  I wondered if it was the rowdy kids up to no good, but I decided not to investigate further. There were no other noises after that and I forced myself not to think about it anymore. I was going to stay safe and sound in my room and pretend I was in a luxury hotel where I had just had a long luxurious bath, and room service dinner was waiting along with a good book to read. This was my vacation and no one would interrupt me.

  This play-acting pretence reassured me and I almost believed the scenario. I took my pyjamas off the shelf and was about to change into them when my bladder told me in no uncertain terms that it was in need of release.

  Bugger, bugger, bugger. I sighed.

  I picked up my roll of toilet paper and the flashlight, and I locked my door. I walked quickly to the front door. I pushed it open and peered outside.

  There was no one to be seen, and I could see no evidence of anything that could have caused the loud cracking noise earlier.

  There was a huge oak tree a few feet away from the building, and I squatted down at its base with my back to the tree trunk and my eye on the front door of the admin building. I told my bowels that any serious business would have to wait for public washrooms.

  I stood up, taking my soiled toilet paper with me and thinking that I was going to be the neatest squatter in the whole wide world, not to mention the most organized. Maybe I could write a Squatting for Dummies handbook. I would make millions and buy an island in the Bahamas next to Johnny Depp.

  Going back inside was unexpectedly tough. It had grown darker even in the short time I had been outside, and the smell of old concrete and rotting walls was stronger at night, particularly after breathing in the lovely fresh air of the woods.

  I tiptoed down the dark hallway, my ears pricked, but all was quiet.

  I let myself into my room and exhaled a long sigh of relief, amazed by the volume of air I had inside me.

  Before I got into bed, I unpacked the rest of my backpack, pulling out my pillow and a camping knife with a blade that folded neatly into the handle. On this last item I had spared no expense, nor on the illegal pepper spray I had secured from a military store downtown. I put these items next to my pillow that was still flattened from having been squashed in my backpack.

  Last but not least, I pulled out the final item: my pristine white dressing gown, still perfectly folded, with the swirly pearly pink “J” over the heart.

  I hoped Mum believed the last email I sent her.

  Mum, me and Shayne are going camping in the great outdoors for a couple of months. I lost my job, but don’t worry. It’s not just me. The whole company got shut down. A buddy of Shayne’s is lending us a cabin and we’re going to toast marshmallows until it all blows over. Don’t worry, money is fine. I’m going to rent out the house. And don’t worry if you don’t hear from me for a bit. There aren’t many computers out in the boonies. Love to Mr. Alright, and enjoy your cruises.

  Which reminded me there was one more item to add to my room. I undid a side pocket of the backpack and peeled bubblewrap off a small standing picture frame. The photograph was of Gran, Mum, and me, shortly before Gran’s death. Gran was wearing her special sapphire earrings, and Mum’s hair was sprayed and gelled into a proud helmet. The two Sparrow Women and Xena, Warrior Princess, I thought. Then I spoke directly to Gran: Look after me, Gran, from heaven above. I know you’re there, okay? So be my guardian angel and look out for me. Right now, all I want is a good night’s sleep, okay?

  I swear I heard Gran chuckle. Sleep away, dearie. Gran’s got your back.

  I thought of skipping supper and going straight to sleep, but I was too wired. I opened the can of soup and picked up The Satanic Verses.

  Once upon a time — it was and it was not so … it happened and it never did….

  No, I was not in the mood. I remembered the binder I had found in the room and I decided to see what Imran had to offer. The binder was thick, and I paged through it randomly, letting my eyes fall where they may.

  There was a king, with all kinds of bling, and the thing he wanted was a brand new king.

  Next came a list of vocabulary words and their usage in a sentence.

  Apathy: Imran has an apathy problem for Arabic.

  Apparition: Jibreel said, “Wallahi, I have seen an apparition!”

  Apt: It is an apt time to die!

  Arable: The Prophet took a crap in the arable land. Or, my brain is too fucking arable for this stupid fucking school.

  I was sensing some anger. Then:

  Muhammad chose fighting and deflowering to spread to the non-Islamic civilizations.

  I am from Pakistan. In Pakistan people have to choose Islam BY FORCE, and in Islam a person who changes his religion (from Islam to any other) must be executed. I think Islam is not based on love, but Blood.

  Jihad is the war for any Islamic rights. People who fight in jihad will go to the heaven!

  “Then fight in the cause of Allah, and know that Allah Heareth and knoweth all things” [The Holy Quran 2:244]. As to those who reject faith, I will punish them with terrible agony in this world and in the Hereafter, nor will they have anyone to help” [The Holy Quran 3:56].

  This fellow Imran was no happy camper. I finished the can of soup and got comfy with my back against the wall when something occurred to me, and I got up and shoved a towel along the bottom of the door. I didn’t want anybody seeing the narrow thread of light glowing like a beacon and pointing to my whereabouts.

  I settled down again and went back to the binder.

  Stupid me, I’m like a girl, writing in my diary here. So what? I don’t care. They think I care. Nimrod. They call me Nimrod. “Poor little Nimrod,” they say, and they think they’re so clever and that I don’t know what they mean. But I know and I don’t care. Listen to them out there, smoking their shisha with their hookahs, with all their expensive tobacco, their jeans around their arses, as if I care. Dear Diary, dear fucking diary, I don’t care, I wish I’d never come to this stupid school or this stupid country. Three years. Three years of hell. Mummy said it would get better, but it hasn’t. “Imran baby,” she said, “the other boys are just shy, just like you. If you try to make friends, they will like you, you’ll see, baby.” And then she spat in her hand and made my hair lie flat which lasted like a minute. “I have bad hair Mummy,” I wanted to tell her, “and I am a bad son to my father. He is ashamed of me.” He would be one of THEM, smoking. He would wear bad-arsed jeans that cost four hundred dollars and he

  The passage stopped there, leaving half a page blank. I was dying to know what happened next, what had become of Imran, but I was suddenly exhausted. It was time to sleep.

  I arranged the bottle of water next to my knife, in case I got thirsty during the night, and I was asleep before I knew it.

  12. THE CAVE

  HOW EASILY THE HUMAN SPIRIT ADAPTS. What was unimaginable only days before, so smoothly became the norm.

  I woke with the feeling I was on
some kind of camping trip. I wriggled inside my cosy new sleeping bag and scrunched my pillow under my face.

  I leaned over and grabbed my wristwatch, another camper’s special. I pushed the light button and a luminous green flashed over the watch face.

  Seven-fifteen a.m. I yawned. I was tempted to go back to sleep, but I needed to use the oak tree facilities with a sense of urgency. I climbed out of bed and got into the clothes from the day before, noting that finding a laundromat was definitely on my list of chores for the day.

  I grabbed a bottle of water and my toothbrush and made my way cautiously to the front door with the roll of toilet paper tucked under one arm and my flashlight poised, but I was surprised to see that the early morning light flooded the hallways and rooms in a way that had not seemed possible the previous night. The angle of the rising sun brought an illumination to the destroyed building that reassured me. With sunshine came the possibility of new hope.

  I pushed the front door open and heard a symphony of bird calls and the smell of the dew-covered grass made me stop for a moment. I could taste the air, and it was beautiful.

  I was in no great hurry to rush back inside, and I sat under the tree, enjoying the morning. The animal activity was entertaining and I lost track of how long I sat there in the clean morning air, simply watching the world.

  Too soon, I was aware of my hunger. It was time to head into town and treat myself to a dollar-fifty coffee and a toasted bagel.

  I had given thought to my appearance, as in I did not want to draw any attention to myself, but because of my height, people seemed to notice me no matter what I did. I braided my long black hair and tucked it under a large floppy cotton hat, and I had also purchased a pair of cheap oversize sunglasses, hoping this generic disguise would render me unmemorable.

  I secured my knife in a flat body belt against my belly, and my pepper spray was in my trouser pocket. No matter how accustomed to this vagrant life I might become, I would not let down my guard for a moment and end up a victim. I also grabbed The Satanic Verses to read while I ate my breakfast.