by Clare Kauter
“Who are you, James?”
I rolled my eyes. “Unfair comparison. It just seems… I don’t know. Like maybe this isn’t a great idea.”
“You were the one who made this possible, Charlie. You know, putting James in hospital this morning so there’s no one with morals to talk us out of it.”
I rolled my eyes again, climbing over the front passenger seat and into the back of the two-door car. “You’ll lose your police internship if you get caught.”
Toph, who had just climbed into the passenger seat, turned to me sharply.
“What?”
Oh, right, I hadn’t actually told him about that yet.
Will started up the car. “Where are we headed?” he asked.
“What are you talking about, Charlie? Has Harcourt been to see you?” Toph asked, concern written all over his face. This was weird. Toph was not, by nature, a worrier. He was laid-back, calm, carefree. He made Will look uptight. Why was he so concerned about this?
“He visited me at work yesterday,” I answered. “He said he wanted to catch up with you and James. Offer you an internship or something.” I paused. “He’s a bit of a creep, isn’t he?”
Topher hesitated. “You could say that.”
“Alright, let’s quit with all this Debbie Downer shit,” said Will. “If you’re just going to mope around you might as well have stayed in class. Why’d I even bother busting you out?”
I snorted. “We were in school, not prison.”
“Same diff,” Will replied. “The mall it is, since neither of you seem to have any strong feelings about where we end up.”
I wanted to ask Topher more questions, but I didn’t really have the opportunity while we were in the car. Will was chatting away loudly about nothing and Topher was laughing along with him. Maybe I’d been reading too much into the Harcourt thing. He didn’t seem stressed out now. I started to relax too.
When we reached the shopping strip, we headed for a coffee shop. I wasn’t a huge fan of coffee, so while Topher and Will sipped their long blacks I drank an orange juice. As we sat there I kind of zoned out. They were talking about shaving their faces or never having experienced sexism or some other male thing. I wasn’t really listening. I was gazing out the window at a car across the road.
The car was a fair distance away, but I could see that there was someone sitting behind the wheel. I squinted and leaned forward, trying to get a better look at them. I could have sworn the person was staring at us, watching…
“Charlie?”
I looked back at the others, who were watching me in concern.
“Hmm?” I said.
“Do you want to go to the movies?” Will asked.
I shook my head. “Not with you two. You always choose terrible movies.”
“We do not!” they said in unison.
“Um, need I remind you of the time you took me to see Twilight?”
“In our defence, when it said ‘vampires’, we were not expecting them to be teenage and sparkly,” said Will.
“I still maintain that it was a very successful comedy,” Toph added.
“Did you hear that they’re making a movie of When The Moon Hits Your Eye?” Will asked.
Neither of them knew about my fondness for that particular tome, so I decided to change the topic before they started making fun of it.
“No movies,” I said.
Will rolled his eyes. “Fine. What would you prefer to do?”
Book shop, said my mind.
“I don’t know,” said my mouth.
Traitor, said my mind.
“You shush,” said my mouth.
“What?” said Topher and Will.
“Bowling,” I said.
“That’s not what you just –” Will began.
“An excellent idea!” said Topher. “Let’s go watch Charlie fail miserably.”
We walked the two blocks to The Fish Bowl, so called because inside it was painted blue with an underwater theme. There were mermaids, dolphins, fish and sharks painted on the walls and the lighting was blue, which made everyone look like Smurfs but was kind of fun. Will paid for everyone’s games, being the most employed of the three of us.
I was first to bowl. Will had requested that the lady at the front desk put the bumpers up for me so that I didn’t gutter ball every shot. Topher fetched me the ramp thing they have for toddlers who want to pretend they can play. (Laugh if you will, but this was the only way I could be allowed to participate. Without the ramp, I couldn’t be sure that the bowling ball would stay in our lane. Safety first.)
Even with the ramp’s assistance I sucked and I only managed to knock down two of the pins. William and Topher, though, ever the supportive babysitters, cheered me on.
“Well done!” said Will, slapping me on the back. “You’ve really improved since last time.”
Will took his turn next, getting a spare, followed by Topher, who got a strike. Not for the first time, I wondered how we could be related. If we didn’t have such similar eyes, I would have sworn that one of us had been adopted. He was tall, around six foot, with tanned skin and straight, light brown hair. I, on the other hand, was short by anyone’s standards. My hair was a curly frizz-ball and naturally blonde, although it was currently dyed black and straightened. The dark colour suited my personality better.
Speaking of personalities, there was also the small matter of our dispositions being about as divergent as is possible. Topher was easy-going, laidback and well-liked, and I was… well, not. We were basically like that movie Twins – in case it’s not clear, I was Danny DeVito.
When the bowling match ended, we walked back out into the street. It was late afternoon now and the sun was hanging low in the sky. We made our way back to Will’s car. As we rounded the corner of the block where the car was parked, I could have sworn I saw a black vehicle following us. Was it the same car I’d seen near the café? I rolled my eyes. Of course it wasn’t. I was being paranoid. But I decided to memorise the numberplate just in case. FUQ-808, although from this distance it looked like ‘FUQ BOB’. Wow. I wondered what Bob had done to earn that. Someone clearly had strong feelings about him. I watched the car take a right at the end of the block.
Will stopped at an ATM to get some money out. Topher and I waited by the side of the road while Topher teased me about my bowling performance. “That last ball, though, Charlie…”
“Shut up,” I said.
“Really, though. I mean I know you’re competitive, but I don’t think you needed to knock over that five-year-old boy. He wasn’t even playing against you.”
“I didn’t knock him over on purpose! He walked into my legs.” Besides, he had evil eyes, though I thought it best to keep that last bit to myself.
“That’s like running over someone and saying they walked into your car.”
I rolled my eyes at him, but stopped when I noticed a black car coming around the corner behind him. Squinting, I checked the plate. FUQ BOB. Now I knew for sure. And it was hurtling down the road towards us way too fast.
Toph caught the look on my face. “What’s wrong?”
There wasn’t enough time to explain. He must have heard the car because he turned, but he still wasn’t going to have enough time to get out of the way. As the car jumped the curb, I pushed Topher sideways out of the car’s path. He barrelled into Will who was watching on in horror. I turned back to the car, which was still careening up the footpath towards me. Stepping sideways, I tried to get to safety, but it was too late.
I hoped for Bob’s sake the driver never spotted him while he was walking down the footpath.
The car hit me. Everything went black.
Nine
Finally I was free of Harcourt. He’d decided to question my brother’s friends again, apparently having decided he wasn’t going to get any more info out of me. Not that I had much information to give – he thought I knew far more than I actually did. I didn’t even know how much I didn’t know.
Ther
e was a room where we were supposed to stay while we ‘waited for news’ – or, really, waited to be interrogated. The police were being unusually thorough with this investigation. Topher was 16 – legally, he was allowed to leave home. Nothing we could do about it. It’s not like he was a child who’d wandered off and got lost.
From what I’d heard, missing persons cases tended to be low priority and unlikely to be solved. Harcourt hadn’t struck me as a particularly tenacious police officer when I’d reported that someone had hit me with a car. I didn’t think he’d even checked out that numberplate.
Why was he so interested in this?
Sarah Hollis, the constable who was waiting with us – chatting, keeping everyone calm – went to fetch tea. This was my opportunity. I excused myself, saying I was going to the bathroom. I wasn’t, of course. Harcourt’s office was just down the hall, and as long he was busy holding his inquisition, it remained unguarded.
It was time to find out what he really wanted.
Ten
The room was blurry. I blinked a couple of times, trying to figure out where I was. My glasses were gone, hence the soft focus. I thought hard. The room was white, which meant it was probably a hospital. I’d been in my fair share of accidents so I was pretty used to this scenario. If only hospitals had loyalty cards, I’d be due for a free bowel operation or something.
There were some memories floating around in my brain, but they were difficult to decipher. It was hard to sort out what was real and what was probably induced by my pain medication. I had a vague memory of an impossibly attractive doctor with dark skin and curly black hair, but I decided he was probably a hallucination. No one that beautiful could exist in real life. Maybe I’d seen him on TV sometime and I was just getting confused.
Squinting, I tried to sit up. My body, which had felt mostly numb, protested when I tried to move. Ouch. OK, this was a bad one. What had landed me in here? Come on, Charlie. You can do this. I remembered being at school, then Will had picked me up, then we went to the mall, then that car…
Ah, OK. I guess I’d figured out what had put me in here, then.
Seeing as no one had reacted when I’d moved, I guessed I was alone in the room. That’s what happens after you’ve been hospitalised a certain number of times. People stop showing up to wish you well. I’m sure some of my relatives wished I’d just hurry up and die in the inevitable fatal accident. I must have cost them a fortune in ‘Get Well Soon’ cards.
I moved around tentatively, trying to pinpoint what damage had been done. My arms were OK, though breathing was a little tricky and my right leg refused to cooperate with anything I threw at it. Leg and ribs, I guessed. Man, I must have been losing my edge. Last time a car had hit me I hadn’t even passed out, and I’d already had a broken arm before that accident. Old age was a bitch. (Although, to be fair, passing out and waking up on pain meds was probably a better option than staying awake through the whole thing. It just wasn’t very metal.)
I heard footsteps approaching, then a man spoke. “Now, this is our car accident victim. Who can remember what’s wrong with her?”
Right. A doctor with a group of med students.
“She’s awake,” said one voice, but he was drowned out by a number of others calling their answers.
“She got hit by a car, sir!” said one voice. Wow. Top of the class, there.
“OK, OK, now remember to look at her chart,” said the doctor. “Female, aged fourteen – one of our regulars, by the looks of it. Must be one of those goths. You can tell by the hair. They’re always ending up in here after trying to end it all. Spoiled brats, the lot of them. I just don’t understand kids who –”
“She’s awake, Doctor.” It was the same voice as before, but he spoke louder this time. Whoever it was did not sound impressed.
“Ah, so she is!” said the doctor. I couldn’t see him very clearly without my glasses, but I could see that he had thinning grey hair and a ruddy face that was growing redder by the second. I glared at him, watching him squirm under my gaze.
“Don’t let me stop you,” I said.
He opened his mouth, but no words came out. After a moment, out came a strangled: “Adam, would you mind taking over?” The doctor moved away from my bedside and the student approached. I got the distinct impression that Adam, whoever he was, was the most capable person in the room.
A blurry figure moved into my field of vision. I squinted up at the figure but I couldn’t make out much more than the fact that he had dark skin and hair. He must have seen me squinting because he handed me my glasses. I put them on and had to consciously keep my jaw from dropping.
It was hot doctor. The one I’d thought had been a pain-med-induced hallucination. He was here in the flesh, and he knew what he was doing, and since he was a student the age difference wasn’t even that insurmountable. He was so attractive that my brain started describing him as if he were the protagonist in a romance novel: His deep chocolate eyes were framed by luscious long lashes that would make any girl jealous. There was a depth to them that suggested he’d seen more than most people, yet his expression remained soft thanks to his ample lips. Those lips… Perfect for trailing kisses across my face, my neck, my chest, my –
“Charlotte?” he said.
Oops. I must have missed his questions while I was busy not gawking at him. “Uh, sorry?”
He looked concerned, like he was worried maybe I’d landed a little too hard on my head.
“Oh, don’t worry,” I said. “My brain’s working OK. I can answer your questions fine, I just wasn’t listening.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Right,” he said. Well, great. What a wonderful first impression I’d just made. “I’m sorry that this didn’t get off to the best of starts.”
“Not your fault,” I said. “You seem to be the only one who knows what they’re doing. And I know my doctors pretty well since I come in here so often, what with being a goth kid and all.”
I thought I saw a slight tip of his lips as the hint of a smile crossed his face. He asked me the standard questions and gave me the standard spiel. Everything was OK and it was done pretty quickly. My family showed up as the doctors were leaving.
“You wagged class?” Mum asked.
“It was only maths.”
Seeing as I wasn’t all that academic, I was pretty sure mum’s life plan for me involved me marrying well and living off someone else’s earnings. I couldn’t see her getting too upset by this development.
She shrugged. “Fair enough.”
A couple of police officers came to take my statement and I told them everything I remembered. They’d already spoken to Topher. When the cops were done, Mum and Dad went out to get me something to eat. (I was not a big fan of hospital food – I prefer to eat my greens when they’re, you know, green rather than grey.)
“What happened?” I asked Topher.
“Hit and run,” he said, not making eye contact.
“Yeah, I’d figured that out.”
“I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“You could tell me what it has to do with Harcourt,” I said.
Topher’s eyes snapped towards me and he shook his head. “I –you – you can’t say anything about that.”
“What’s going on?”
“I… He…”
“Toph?” I’d been right. There was something off about this. “What is it?”
He opened his mouth to respond, but was cut short by a knock at the door.
Harcourt poked his head around the corner. Topher’s eyes widened and he gulped. What was going on? Who had tried to run over Topher? Why were they after him? Had he done something stupid and got himself in trouble with a criminal? Is that why he had a cop chasing him? Did Harcourt know something?
“Afternoon, kids,” he said. “I’m here to take your statements.”
“We already gave statements.”
“And now you’re going to give them to me.”
I wondered where the u
niformed police officers had disappeared to. I didn’t think that this case really warranted help from a top detective. There wasn’t even a corpse. I’d barely broken anything – a leg, a couple of ribs – and it wouldn’t take them long to find the car.
“I told the other officers everything,” I said. “I gave them the numberplate and all.”
“Yes, they told me,” he said. “But I’m taking over now, so I’d like you to tell me exactly what you remember.”
“Not much,” I answered truthfully. “We were standing by the road. The car came out of nowhere. Toph didn’t really have time to react, but I saw it first and pushed him out of the way. It kind of clipped me.”
“You pushed your brother out of the way?”
“Yeah.”
“How noble.”
He over-pronounced ‘noble’, lingering on each syllable as if it were an insult. I guess it kind of was. When you think about it, ‘noble’ is just another word for ‘stupid’.
Deciding to proceed as if I hadn’t just been insulted, I shrugged. “Not really. It was a knee-jerk reaction, and besides, I’m pretty much indestructible.”
“That’s what all people your age think.”
He was probably right, but that didn’t mean that I wrong.
“So, Topher,” said Harcourt. “Your sister saved your life.”
“She did.”
“How lucky,” said Harcourt, staring at Topher unblinkingly.
Topher met his gaze. “If only the driver had been more careful. It was almost like they were trying to hit us.”
“Maybe they were just trying to hit you.” He paused, letting the message sink in. “At least, that’s what it sounds like.”
Eleven
I was 99% sure that I’d managed to slip into Harcourt’s office unseen. My heart was beating so hard and fast that I worried people would be able to hear it from the corridor. I realised that was ridiculous and tried to calm myself down with deep breathing, but I didn’t have time to stop and collect myself – I had to keep moving.
