by Clare Kauter
Jeez, they were oddly specific selection criteria. What kind of audience participation was this?
Even from my seat four rows in front, I could see that Topher was visibly paling. Harcourt had just described him perfectly. James was not going to let him out of that one.
“Toph,” said James, standing to make his way to the front of the room.
“I’m not –” Topher said, trying to concoct some sort of lie to get out of it. James grabbed his arm and hauled Topher towards the stage.
When he saw James and Topher making their way to the front (James practically dragging Topher behind him), Harcourt smiled maliciously. OK, so I could have been projecting that, but really any speaker who asks for volunteers is kind of sadistic, right?
“Excellent,” said Harcourt. “Just what I was looking for.”
Five
“The investigation into your accident is a little complicated.”
It occurred to me that ‘accident’ was a strange choice of word to describe a hit and run.
“Besides,” he continued, “You couldn’t even tell us the make of the car.”
I sighed. Of course I couldn’t. Thanks to Top Gear I was like Rain Man with the expensive cars, but I had no idea what the piece of crap that had hit me was. Not that it should have mattered.
“I literally told you the numberplate.”
His facial expression did not change, except for maybe some tightening around his eyes.
“It was fake.”
My eyebrows headed skyward. I didn’t even try to hide my doubt. “Seems like a lot of effort to go to.”
“Hitting someone with your car is a serious crime.”
“You’re saying the driver left the house with the intention of running someone over? That they got fake plates made up especially?”
Harcourt’s lower jaw twitched. I think he was trying not to grind his teeth.
“It seems that way.”
“Wow,” I said. “That makes me feel special.”
Six
Two days a week, I worked from half past three to nine o’clock after school. While school finished at 3.20, I could never make the trip to work in the allotted 10 minutes on foot, so my friend Will came to pick me up. William McKenzie, unlike his brother James, was a near-perfect specimen of a human being. He’d finished school a year earlier and was currently working part-time in a sports equipment shop, leaving him plenty of time to act as my personal chauffeur. It was like having another big brother, except this one had his full licence.
Will was waiting for me in the usual place – lurking by the back fence in his beat-up Hyundai Excel. It was old and the paint was peeling off, but it was comfortable and more importantly it was a car.
“Hey,” I said, climbing into the car.
“Hey yourself,” Will said, but his smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. He pulled out onto the road and began to drive towards Gregory’s.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“Nothing,” he said. When he caught me watching him, he rolled his eyes. “Nothing. Just… a misunderstanding with mum. I’ll sort it out. Nothing to worry about.”
“A misunderstanding with Violet? This has the potential for disaster.”
“I know.”
“Is it going to be OK?”
He paused. “Yeah, sure.”
“Oh god.”
“I’ll sort it out,” he repeated, though I don’t think even he believed that. “Anyway, how was school?”
“You sound like an adult.”
“I am one, remember?”
I snorted. “Yeah, right.”
He smiled, and this time it was a real one. “Want to ditch work and hang out?”
“Um, yes, but how can I give up that five-dollar-an-hour pay?”
“Five dollars an hour?” Will asked, shocked. I didn’t tell him that I’d been rounding up. I didn’t want him to have a stroke.
“I know. I’m basically a billionaire.”
“If we hang out for an hour and I buy you a juice then you will have made more of a profit than you do from work.”
I smiled. “I wish, Will, but I’m not quite ready to quit yet. I’m planning something much more dramatic than just not showing up. I’m going to go out in a blaze of glory.”
He sighed. “Fine. Go to your crappy retail job instead. See if I care.”
Will let me out of the car in front of Gregory’s and I walked in slowly, hit by waves of hatred at the mere sight of the place. I signed in and took my place at the register, the customary checkout-chick scowl affixed to my face. The hours slunk by with mind-numbing monotony, and I could feel more brain cells dying with every new utterance of ‘That’s a bit expensive, isn’t it?’ and ‘If it doesn’t scan, it must be free!’ and ‘You’re looking lovely, girlie’ from customers who thought I had some interest in what they had to say.
Five minutes before close, just before nine, a customer entered. I groaned loudly. Why do people insist on walking into shops just as they know they’re closing? When I caught sight of the customer, I groaned again. Even louder.
“Evening, officer,” I said. “Just so you know, we’re closing in five minutes, so you’d better do your shopping at a run.”
Harcourt smiled at me, although there was no humour in it.
“That’s OK,” he said. “I only need a couple of things.”
“That’s what they all say.”
The fake smile faded. “I know exactly what I want.”
“Well, that was an oddly intense and slightly creepy thing to say to a 14-year-old.”
He looked distinctly unimpressed. “I’m just here for milk.”
That was a risky move at Gregory’s, since it was almost always off (the fridges weren’t set at a low enough temperature, since that would mean a higher power bill), but I didn’t bother warning him. “Off you trot, then.”
To his credit, he returned with milk in hand in under a minute.
“Fast enough?” he asked.
I just shrugged.
“So,” he said as I swiped and bagged the milk. “Topher…”
He stopped and I stared at him. When he remained silent, I lost my patience. “What about him?”
“Does he work here?”
“No, he doesn’t.”
I was suddenly uncomfortable, especially as I was alone in the shop apart from Harcourt. Why was he asking about my brother? Topher hadn’t done anything illegal as far as I was aware. (Well, like, he sampled the odd joint, but weed was legal in plenty of other countries so it wasn’t like that was a real crime, right?)
“I was hoping to catch up with him.”
I frowned. “Why?”
Hadn’t he only met my brother today? They couldn’t have gotten to know each other that well during the presentation, surely.
Harcourt’s face twitched slightly. “I wanted to offer him an internship.”
Maybe Harcourt had James and Topher mixed up.
“Topher? Really? Isn’t James a better fit?”
“They both really impressed me today. I’m keen to catch up with your brother and discuss career options with him.”
I frowned. He hadn’t really done anything impressive, other than draw a picture of a car on the whiteboard while Harcourt told us horror stories about hit and runs. (At least I think that was what he was talking about – I wasn’t paying close attention.) I wasn’t really sure what the point of the volunteers was, to be honest, though James seemed to enjoy it. Still, neither of them had done anything remarkable. I hardly thought being able to draw a car qualified you for a police internship. In fact, I didn’t even know that the police did internships.
“You take high school kids for internships?”
He paused, looking even more annoyed. “It’s something I’ve been looking into,” he said shortly. “Where can I find your brother?”
Something about this wasn’t sitting right with me. I didn’t trust this guy, even if he was police chief sheriff general or whatever. If h
e wanted Topher for an internship, wouldn’t he just email our school or something? Quizzing his little sister seemed like a bit of an odd way to go about it. Actually, come to think of it, how did he know who I was? Did he come here looking for me specifically?
“You can usually find him in a crack den, getting it on with his harem of prostitutes,” I said.
Harcourt’s eye twitched again.
“It’s a dollar for that milk, and then I’m closing the till.”
He set his jaw, but didn’t argue. I guess he could see in my face that I was too stubborn to give in to his questions. He handed me the dollar and I printed his receipt, putting it in the bag with the milk. I sat the bag on the counter rather than handing it to him. He picked it up, all façade of pleasantness gone.
“I’m sure I’ll see you again,” he said.
My upper lip curled at the thought.
Seven
“We’re not here to talk about that, Charlie,” said Harcourt.
“Well, no, of course we aren’t.”
He ignored me. “We need to know about your brother. Can’t you see how worried your parents are? How worried Topher’s friends are?”
“Well, no I can’t,” I said, “because you’ve kept me locked up in this room for, like, an hour now. You know I’m only fourteen, right? Aren’t my parents supposed to be with me or something?”
“I’m not accusing you of any crimes,” Harcourt said dismissively. “You have nothing to be worried about.”
“Except my broken leg and cracked ribs.”
He ignored me.
“Besides,” he said, “from what I’ve seen, you’re perfectly capable of answering for yourself.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I just thought in a place like this you might be concerned about following the law.”
That was a lie, though. I was fairly sure Harcourt didn’t care about following the law at all.
Eight
The scene that confronted me when I arrived home from my evening shift at Gregory’s was not what I had expected.
Will had picked me up from work that night, since I hadn’t much felt like walking home after my weird conversation with Harcourt. I couldn’t quite put my finger on what was bothering me about him, but something felt off. Although I lived close and the walk home was well lit, tonight calling Will to come and get me seemed like the best option. He came (of course – he was the most reliable person I knew) and I was going to tell him about Harcourt, but he still seemed distracted so I kept quiet.
When I arrived home I slunk in the door, all will to live having been sapped out of me by retail life. I was keen to shower and get back to reading my book, but it was not to be. I stepped into the foyer.
James McKenzie. Huge suitcase. Chaos.
“Why are you in my home?” I demanded. Gesturing to the suitcase, I continued: “And what is that? Are you moving in or something?”
“Yes,” James snapped.
That threw me. It hadn’t been the response I’d expected.
“What? Why?”
“Because.”
“Right, well, that’s cleared that up.”
James ignored me, choosing instead to focus on hauling his huge bag up the stairs. I looked at Topher. He put a finger to his lips and nodded towards the staircase, indicating that we could talk upstairs. I followed him to his room, where we found James lying on the bed, looking pissed.
“What’s up?”
Topher spoke hesitantly. “Um, well…”
“Yes?”
James sighed a big, dramatic sigh, and said, “My mother kicked me out for doing drugs.”
I laughed. Loudly. “Are you serious?”
“Yes.”
“That’s ridiculous! You’re the only person I know who doesn’t –”
I stopped, realising that Topher was furiously trying to shush me without James seeing. Ah, keeping his little habit secret from his best buddy, it would seem. That’s what you get for wanting to be a cop in the future, James. All your friends lie to you.
“I mean, you just really want to be a cop,” I said. “I can’t believe your mum would think that.”
“Well, apparently she found drugs in my room. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?” he asked, turning his head to look at me.
I didn’t, but it would have been a decent windup. I wondered who had done it.
“No,” I said. “I wouldn’t even know how to get drugs. Plus, that’s a really expensive prank.”
James raised his eyebrows at me.
“Probably. From what I’ve heard. On TV.”
Good save, Charlie.
I returned to my own room and picked up my book. I’d been planning on talking to Topher about the Harcourt thing, but with James there it looked like he had enough on his plate.
If given the choice between sitting through last period maths and having my ear hacked off with a rusty razor, I’m not 100% sure which I’d choose. (Well done, education system. You’re doing something right.) Sure, the razor option would hurt, but at least it would be over quicker. My maths teacher, Miss Lucas – who we called Mucus for short – had the kind of piercing voice complete with broad Australian accent that made you wish you didn’t have ears in the first place.
Celia and I were seated in the back left corner of the small classroom, both resting our elbows on our desks with our chins in our hands, staring blankly at the whiteboard and pretending to listen to Mucus as she whined away at the front of the classroom. Today’s lesson was about triangles, as roughly 90% of maths classes seemed to be. (See? I used a percentage. I can do maths.) Seriously, how often do triangles come up in the real world? Do I really need to know the length of their sides or how many degrees each corner is? I can’t really see that being a big part of my life. Besides, these are all theoretical triangles. If it was a real triangle I could just measure it. And while we’re on the topic, why, if I already know how long two sides of a triangle are, would I not just have measured the other side, given that it’s the one I really wanted to know about in the first place?
OK, so I have a lot of repressed anger about triangles. Don’t get me started on five-sided shapes – they’re pent-agony. Anyone? Anyone? No? OK.
Anyway, Mucus was droning on about some new angle on triangles – ha – and I was daydreaming about turning into a werewolf and mauling her to death when there was a knock on the door of the classroom.
“Come in!” Mucus shrieked.
Will McKenzie popped his head around the corner. At the sight of him, Mucus crossed her legs, adjusted her hair and gave him a smile (which was far more terrifying than her usual scowl). Gross. He’d only graduated last year. Inappropriate, Mucus.
“Hi, Miss Lucas,” Will began.
“Oh, call me Prudence,” she said with another smile. To his credit, he didn’t look even slightly freaked out by it. One of those McKenzie traits, I guess – everyone liked them, even the psychopaths. They were used to this kind of weirdness.
“Is this about the baseball bat incident?”
“What…?” Will glanced at me, frowning. “No. It’s a family emergency.”
Everyone knew how close my family was with the McKenzie family, and everyone just seemed to accept that a ‘family emergency’ included both the McKenzie and Davies clans.
“Oh, no,” said Mucus. “You’d better go then, Charlie.”
No way would Mucus have let me leave school early if any other eighteen year old had shown up and said there was an emergency, but William had a kind of superpower of exuding trustworthiness. Totally unwarranted, but effective.
I packed up my stuff, said goodbye to Celia and left.
“Baseball bat incident?” Will asked as we walked down the corridor, his eyebrows raised.
“James is in hospital. I thought you would have heard,” I said with a frown.
“I – no, I hadn’t heard. Is he OK?”
“He’s fine.”
“What happened?”
“It wa
s an accident. It flew out of my hands.” For once, I wasn’t lying. I hadn’t actually been trying to hit James. We’d had a substitute teacher that morning who’d decided that he didn’t think my sitting out of PE was a good idea. He’d learned his lesson when he asked me to bat in a game of softball. Miraculously I’d managed to hit the ball – which sailed right into said teacher’s groin at full-speed. Bullseye. (That’s a baseball thing, right?) Served him right, really. Unfortunately, the bat had sailed out of my hands at the same time and into a group of unsuspecting Year Elevens lounging on the oval for their free period. The bat hit James McKenzie right on the forehead.
Will sighed. “What’s the damage?”
“There was a bit of blood, so probably stitches, but I doubt he’ll have to spend the night in hospital. Pity, actually, because this means he’ll be back at my house again tonight.” Will nodded. “You know, because he got kicked out of your parents’ house.” Will still didn’t say anything. “You don’t happen to know anything about the weed Violet found in his bedroom, do you?”
Finally Will cracked. With an exasperated sigh he said, “I didn’t mean to get him kicked out.”
I tried to fight back my smile. Nice one. I couldn’t have planned a better prank if I’d tried. Knowing Will, he’d have already apologised to his parents and explained the situation. James wouldn’t be at my house for too much longer. Just until he stopped being angry with Will, which was only going to take about five seconds. They were pretty much inseparable.
By this stage, we’d made it to the school gate. I could see Topher standing across the road next to Will’s car. We made our way over to him.
“What is the ‘family emergency’?” I asked. If there had been a real emergency, Will would have told me the second he picked me up. As it was, this was definitely just a ploy to get out of class, and I was more than OK with that.
“I don’t know,” Will said. “Ask your brother.”
“Toph?”
“I wanted to ditch school so I called Will to come and get us.”
I tutted and shook my head. “You don’t think we might get in trouble for this?”
