At My Door

by Deb Fitzpatrick

  for Pips

  No one would ever imagine a delivery like this.

  Deliveries usually come in a van. They’re brought by a guy who needs Mum or Dad to sign a digipad to show they’ve received them.

  Deliveries are often heavy boxes (Mum’s wine), cardboard envelopes (books – sometimes for us), or oddly shaped padded bags (filters for Dad’s wastewater system).

  Deliveries do not come late on a school night. They don’t come in a normal car, that then speeds away. And they don’t cry.

  The doorbell ding-dongs, waking me up. Pixie barks. I hear a rush of tyres, and then the front door bangs. Weird. It’s really late. But I can hear Mum and Dad talking softly so I relax and drop back to sleep.

  I hear crying. At least I think I do. Maybe I’m dreaming?

  I come back up through the layers of sleep like a massive bounce-up on the trampoline. It feels like I’m actually moving and I sit up as I wake.

  I turn on my bedside lamp – the orange one Dad bought me that clips to the headboard of my bed. I can still hear the crying and I’m definitely not dreaming now.

  I reverse-flip so my head is at the door-end of my bed, the door I have luckily left open a smidge. I can hear voices, and even catch a word here and there.

  But then Harry presses his intercom buzzer and I can’t hear anything else.

  The problem with the intercom is that Harry designed it and he has the master box – of course. In his room. And if he’s buzzing me, the buzzing will only stop if I hit my receive button, or if he stops pressing, which of course he never does. So I can’t ignore it. I can’t ignore him. And the sound’s so rude and … buzzy. Sometimes I press receive and don’t speak, just to stop the noise.

  To make it worse, Harry designed the intercom so I don’t have a buzzer function on my unit, just the poxy receive button. As usual, he has all the power. Older brothers deal in power.

  ‘Floppy, what’s going on?’ Harry’s voice crackles through the intercom.

  ‘Shhh. I don’t know. I’m trying to listen. And that’s not my name. Poppy starts with a P – or do you need help with your spelling?’

  Bzzzzzz, he presses.

  ‘Stop doing that and I’ll be able to hear!’

  Bzzz bzzz bzzz, he presses, and then shuts up for a bit.

  I hear more talking from the lounge room. Voices I don’t recognise.

  And all the while, and not in any dream, the really sad sound of a small child crying.

  I do the special knock on the wall I share with Harry. It means I want him to buzz me. Because, of course, I can’t buzz him.

  Bzzzzz.

  ‘I’m going out there to see what’s going on,’ I whisper into the box.

  ‘Okay,’ he says. ‘Report back pronto!’

  ‘Okay!’

  I swing open my door to just before The Squeak, and squeeze through the gap. I ghost across the corridor and stay low against the wall while I creep towards the lounge room.

  There’s Mum and Dad – and a policeman and policewoman! THE POLICE. IN OUR LOUNGE ROOM!! And a kid. A little kid, bawling its eyes out. Not a baby, but not a proper child, either. It has black wispy hair and looks like a chubby elf. Mum is sitting on the floor next to it, going shh shh shhhh, over and over. And I hear Dad say, ‘There was a knock on the screen door, about 9.45, then I heard a car drive off – really fast. It burnt rubber. I opened the door and there she was, just there on the doorstep, crying.’

  ‘Poor little thing,’ Mum croons, then goes back to her shh shh shhhhs.

  Dad keeps talking. ‘I was expecting to see old Mrs Mackay from next door – she often has trouble closing the blinds, you know, or turning off her oil heater, and she comes over to ask for help.

  ‘I certainly wasn’t expecting to find … well, she was … very distressed,’ he says, shaking his head.

  ‘And she had this green blanket,’ Mum says, holding it up. ‘And this note was pinned to it.’

  ‘And that was all that was with her?’ the policeman asks. ‘Nothing else? No bag of clothes or anything?’

  ‘No,’ Dad says, ‘just what she’s wearing – the Wondersuit thing – with the blanket around her, and the note pinned to it.’

  The policeman looks at the note again and reads it out loud, ‘Please look after … Hmmm, how do you pronounce this: M-E-I? Is it My? Mee?’

  ‘I think you’d pronounce it May,’ the policewoman says, and bends down to the child. ‘Hello,’ she smiles gently. ‘I’m Jan. What’s your name?’

  ‘Mei!’ the child wails, eyes wide, and then calls, ‘Mama, mama, mama!’

  ‘Okay, well that’s a start,’ the policewoman says, turning to the others.

  ‘Where do you live, Mei?’ she continues. ‘Where’s your house? Can you show us?’

  ‘Mama!’ Mei just cries even harder.

  I feel sick seeing this. How scary would it be to be in someone else’s lounge room at eleven o’clock on a Monday night without your mum anywhere nearby? I’d be scared, and I’m ten! Where is her mum?

  The policeman says, ‘We’ll have to call in Family Services.’

  The policewoman nods. ‘I’ll take a photo of her and email it over to Missing Persons, in case somebody’s already registered her as missing.’

  She swipes her phone into camera mode and squats down. She smiles again and says, ‘Mei?’ and the flash goes off, adding to the weirdness of this whole thing. Not exactly happy snaps time.

  Mei is clutching her green blanket and crying loudly.

  ‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ Mum says going out, and then she returns to the room, to Mei. ‘Would you like some milk, love? Some warm milk?’

  ‘Mama,’ comes the sobbing reply.

  ‘Milk?’ Mum says, holding up the milk carton and shaking it a little.

  Mei cries so hard it hurts to watch.

  I war-crawl back along the corridor, getting carpet burns on my elbows as I go. Notepad! I instruct my memory.

  Once safe inside my room again, I make sure the door stays wedged open a crack so I can hear what’s going on. I’m so glad Harry’s not buzzing, because I want a chance to write a few things down in my notebook. I have lots of notebooks. I love them. All stationery, I love.

  I go through a couple of karate moves while I’m thinking. It helps me focus. It’s sort of like concentrating through moving. I like karate a lot. After a moment I fall onto the bed to scribble down some thoughts.

  Then I lie still on my bed, straining to hear as much as possible.

  I can hear the sounds of teaspoons in mugs, like the ding ding ding of the triangle when we do music with Mrs Stone. She’s a hippie and the triangle is in everything we play, even in hip-hop.

  In the lounge, they’ve stopped talking.

  Harry buzzes rudely.

  ‘Shhhh!’ I hiss into the intercom. ‘They’ll hear you!’

  ‘What’s going on, Flop? Your reports are insufficiently frequent. I need an update – now!’

  I don’t reply.

  ‘Flops? It sounds like R2-D2 is in the lounge – what is that?

  He’s getting nothing. I let go of the button.

  ‘FLOPPY! I neeeeeed you,’ he whines, trying a different approach. ‘I can’t leave my room without being seen by everyone – I’m relying on you for intelligence!’

  Ha! I think in his direction.

  Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz, Harry buzzes.

  I press my receive button, but stay silent.

  ‘Okay, Pops, okay, I get it, it’s a P thing. P-PP-Pops. Popster. Poppy Pop Pop. Can you give me an update – please, little sis?’

  I take a breath. ‘The police are here.’

  ‘The cops?’

  ‘Yes, the cops! They’ve got those radio thingies – I think that
’s what sounds like R2-D2. Mum’s just made them tea.’

  ‘That’d be right. Have a cup of tea, even in the middle of a massive drama. So, hang on – why are the cops here?’

  ‘Some baby – a girl – really small – has been dropped off here, on her own. At the front door. Without her parents.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I guess she’s been … abandoned. Or maybe she ran away? I’m going back out there.’

  ‘Are you nuts? Mum will go ballistic if she sees you, you know that. Do you have any idea how late it is?’

  ‘I don’t care, Harry, I’m on a mission. There’s a lost kid in our lounge room!’

  I hear him say something else but by then I’ve got my notepad and pen and am commando-crawling back down the corridor.

  This time I position myself so that I can see more of what’s going on, though they can’t see me because I’m low down and in the shadow of the wall. Anyway, Mum and Dad only ever come to our rooms after lights-out when they’re on their way to bed themselves. And they’re nowhere near going to bed tonight.

  Mei is sitting on the old couch, a yellow plastic cup wobbling in her hand. Mum and Dad are on the new red couch and the police officers are on a couple of chairs brought in from the kitchen. The policeman has his notebook open on his knee. His notebook has a plain black cover. Kind of boring. No owls or anything.

  The policeman puts his mug down on the coffee table and says to the policewoman, ‘I’ll call Family Services now. They’ll have to arrange a place for her to stay.’

  Mum looks up and says, ‘But she can stay here tonight. Where she already is. It’s too late to move her, surely …’

  ‘Well, that’s very kind of you, Mrs Campbell, but there’s a protocol in these situations and we have to follow it —’

  ‘We have our own two children here, Harry and Poppy, and plenty of space. And she was left here …’

  ‘Yes, but —’

  Mum shifts forward on the couch. ‘And I have a Working With Children Check card.’

  Which is when the policewoman says, ‘Look,’ and tilts her head toward the old couch.

  ‘Would you look at that,’ Dad says quietly.

  I crane forward, and Mei’s asleep, crumpled into her blanket like a soft toy, the yellow cup leaning to one side.

  ‘Ohhh little one,’ Mum says, and goes to her. She slides the cup out of her hand and brings the blanket around her more comfortably. Then she reaches for a cushion and puts it on the open side of her body, so she’s snugged in.

  Dad gets up and dims the lights. ‘Surely she can stay here tonight, while you look for her family.’

  The policewoman looks at him, then at Mei, and says, ‘And it looks like she’s comfortable with that, too.’

  My eyes are golfballs. Far out, brussel sprout. We have a guest for the night.

  I scurry back to my room like a spider to its web, and rap on the wall. Harry buzzes.

  ‘She’s staying the night!’ I report.

  ‘No way. Are you serious?’

  ‘Yes! Deadly!’

  ‘Wow.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I wonder how long she’ll stay.’

  ‘Probably just tonight by the sound of it.’

  I wonder what they’re talking about now. I can’t bear what I might be missing – crucial information!

  ‘I need to get back out there, Harry.’

  ‘You only just got back!’

  ‘I know!’

  ‘One of these times they’re bound to catch you. And then there’ll be consequences.’

  ‘I don’t care. I’m going.’

  This time I wrap my stripey dressing-gown around me, and tie the belt tight to keep it close. I’m getting cold, spending this much time out of bed. As I creep out of my room I take a look at the clock: 11.30. Holy guacamole! And it’s a school night.

  As I approach the lounge room the policeman is saying, ‘We’ll have to get permission from the station for her to stay here.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Mum says. ‘We’ll do everything we can to help Mei feel comfortable and safe while this is sorted out.’

  ‘Thanks, Mrs Campbell.’ He pauses. ‘Do you think you’ve ever seen her before? Around the neighbourhood?’

  ‘I haven’t,’ said Dad, ‘but I’m at work every day.’

  ‘No, I don’t recall ever seeing her either,’ Mum says. ‘And I’m often out walking Pixie —’

  ‘Our dog,’ Dad explains, sounding embarrassed.

  ‘— yes, our dog, Pixie, I walk her twice a day, and I can’t recall seeing Mei at the park. Or being pushed in a stroller on the way to the shops.’

  Pixie, having heard her name, trots in and nudges Mum’s hand.

  ‘She might not be from around here,’ the policewoman says, smiling at Pixie. ‘The child, I mean. Mei.’

  ‘So why bring her to us? Why us?’ Dad says. ‘Isn’t this what the kids call random?’

  Mum snorts.

  The policeman says, ‘It might be completely random. Or, it might be that they’ve had their eye on you for a while – if it’s been planned, that is.’

  ‘Planned?’ Mum gasps. ‘Their eye on us?! How could you ever plan such a thing?’

  ‘Mrs Campbell, sometimes families in trouble do desperate things,’ the policewoman says. ‘Maybe they felt that Mei was safer with another family.’

  Desperate? In trouble?

  ‘There could be financial difficulties,’ the policeman says.

  ‘Or a physical threat. Abuse, perhaps. Or some sort of criminal activity that put the child in danger,’ the policewoman suggests.

  Abuse? Criminal activity? My mind is popping. I don’t think I want to hear this stuff. This poor little kid! I stand up in shock, and blow my cover.

  ‘Poppy?’ Mum leans around the corner. ‘Oh, Pops, how long have you been there?’

  I smile weakly, not sure if I’m about to get told off.

  ‘Oh, love, are you okay?’ She reaches out and gathers me in. ‘We have a very … surprising situation on our hands here.’

  ‘I know,’ I croak, looking at the green blanket baby ball on the couch. ‘Is that … her?’

  ‘Yes,’ says Dad. ‘Her name’s Mei. Do you recognise her?’

  I feel alarmed. Am I part of the investigation?

  Dad quickly says, ‘Mum and I don’t think we’ve seen her before, but perhaps you have?’

  I look at the police officers. They just look like normal people in police costumes. In other clothes they could be … teachers at our school, or people at the shops, or anyone. Their radios chirp in the background.

  I look at Mei. I’ve never seen her before, I think straight away. Then I look back at the police. ‘No, I don’t recognise her.’

  The policewoman smiles kindly at me. ‘Thanks, Poppy – it is Poppy, isn’t it? That’s really helpful. How old are you, love?’

  ‘Ten,’ I say.

  She looks at me and grins. ‘Double digits, hey?’

  I nod. Yes indeedy.

  ‘I wonder if she’s wearing a nappy,’ Mum says, her eyebrows furrowing. She leans over towards Mei, and pats her bottom gently. ‘Well, that answers that,’ she nods. ‘But we’re going to need more of those. There’s a late-night chemist up on Carrendon Street, I’ll whiz over there.’

  ‘No, I’ll go,’ says Dad.

  She nods, and takes a breath. ‘Thanks, love. What else will we need?’

  ‘What about a bottle, Mum?’ I say.

  ‘Yes, Poppy, yes, good thinking. Though she did drink from that cup earlier … but she might like a bottle if she wakes in the night. Oh, now, would she drink formula still? Hmm. She drank all the milk I gave her. Maybe just get a small tin of formula for toddlers too, love, okay?’

  Dad nods. ‘So that’s nappies – toddler size, a bottle, and formula for toddlers.’

  ‘How old do you think Mei is?’ asks the policewoman.

  ‘Two-ish?’ Dad suggests.

  ‘I think a lit
tle younger.’ Mum rubs her hand back and forth across her forehead. ‘It’s hard to tell. Possibly eighteen months. Far too young to be without her mother.’ She puts her arm around me and pulls me over.

  ‘Is your brother awake too, Pops?’ Dad asks.

  I look at him, not wanting to dob Harry in. ‘Uhh …’

  ‘Right. I get the picture.’

  ‘Sorry, Dad, but you can’t seriously expect us to sleep with all this —’ I look around at everyone in the room, ‘— going on.’

  Mei shifts then, and makes snuffling sounds as she gets comfortable. We all hold our breath. I get the feeling no one wants her to wake up, because she might start crying again when she realises she’s here with us rather than in her own home, in her own bed, with her own family around her.

  She must have a family – a mum, brothers and sisters maybe, and a dad and aunties and a nanna. But if she does have brothers and sisters, why would her parents have left only Mei here? Wouldn’t they have left all the kids? Or maybe they’ve delivered each child to a different house, dotted them about the neighbourhood … Or maybe Mei is an only child, and I’m getting way ahead of myself.

  Mei takes a big shuddery breath and snuggles back into the cushions. And we all relax back into our seats too.

  It must be after midnight when Mum and Dad finally tuck me back into bed, Mum straightening each of my blankets and doonas in the correct order, just as I like them. They kiss me at the same time, one cheek each, like my face is a burger.

  ‘Sleep now, love,’ Mum whispers. ‘And sleep in. I reckon we’ll have a day off school tomorrow.’

  My eyes fly open. ‘At home?’

  She nods. ‘A mental health day. A catch-up day.’

  I feel myself sinking deep into the mattress and pillow as they leave. I am so, so tired. And so, so warm.

  It sounds like a siren is going off in our lounge room. Really close. Really loud. As I come out of the heavy, warm, deep world of my sleep I hear the muffled thumping of adult feet on the floorboards and lights clicking on.

  It’s not a siren. It’s Mei. She’s wailing. Loudly. And sobbing. It sounds horrible.