After Summer

by S R Silcox

  Jason pauses. “You know this will all blow over, right?”

  “Yeah. I know.”

  Brooks comes back from the shed where she’s organising things for the protest. “We should get started.”

  Jason turns to go. “I’ll leave you guys to it.”

  “You’re not going to help us out?” I ask.

  Jason screws up his nose. “I really would, but I’m kind of on a good behaviour thing, so I’ve been trying to stay out of it.” He walks a few steps and then he turns back. “I hope everything goes well. And I hope Scott doesn’t come down too hard on you.”

  “Thanks,” I say, and watch him ride away on his bike. I’m amazed that for someone I hardly knew before I moved up here, he’s turning out to be a great little brother.

  I follow Brooks inside and she leads me straight to her room. We sit on the bed, and Brooks starts pacing around making a list of things we’re going to need. “Locks, chains, probably something to stop our wrists from getting sore. Food and water.” She looks up. “Hey, can you pass me that notepad and pen?” She points to her bedside table. As I pick up the notebook and pen, I knock an envelope onto the floor. When I pick it up, I notice the logo in the corner. It’s from the high school. “What’s this?” I ask.

  Brooks takes the notebook and pen, and when she goes to take the envelope I pull it out of her reach. “Not important,” she says. “Can I have it?”

  “Is that about your expulsion?”

  Brooks shrugs. “I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t know?”

  “I haven’t opened it yet.”

  “Don’t you want to know what you’re doing next year?”

  She folds her arms and looks at the floor.

  I try a different tack. “You know, whatever’s in this envelope could affect our relationship.”

  The corner of her mouth twitches. “How?”

  “This envelope determines whether we get to spend every single day together at school. Or not, depending on what it says. I think I have a right to know.”

  She sits down on the end of the bed and stares at the envelope.

  “I can open it, if you don’t want to,” I say. I drop the envelope on to my lap and Brooks sees her chance. She snatches it off me and leaps off the bed. “Come on, Brooks. You have to look at it sooner or later.”

  She doesn’t answer.

  “Don’t you want to know whether I’ll have to pine over you five days a week and only see you after three pm?”

  Brooks snorts. “Fine. I’ll look. But only because I know you’ll annoy me until I do.”

  I smile. She takes a breath and unsticks the tab on the back of the envelope, and pulls out a white piece of paper. Her expression doesn’t change at all as she reads, so I have no idea what the verdict is.

  “Well?”

  She tosses the letter onto the bed. I scoop it up and start reading. “Wait a minute,” I say. “This says it’s up to you. Is that right?” Brooks nods. “So, after all this, you get to choose whether you want to repeat or not?”

  Brooks nods again, and then a smile slowly spreads across her face.

  “What are you going to do?” I ask.

  She raises her eyebrow. “What do you think?”

  Before I can answer, Brooks’ phone beeps. She glances at it and says, “Jo’s just sent us a list of stuff we need. We should get down to the shed to see what we’ve got so we can let Jo know. Come on,” she says, pulling me up off the bed. “We’ve got heaps of stuff to do before tomorrow.”

  A three-thirty wakeup isn’t very nice, no matter who’s doing the waking up. Brooks shakes me again. “Come on, Riles. We’ll be late.”

  “Just five more minutes,” I mumble, and roll back over.

  Brooks grabs me and rolls me back towards her. “If you think I’m going to carry you, you have another thing coming.”

  I squeeze my eyes shut, and Brooks reaches under the sheet and jabs me in the side with her finger. I giggle and she jabs me again. She leans in, her mouth so close to my ear I can feel her warm breath. “Come on, sleepy head. We don’t want to be late for the party.”

  “Okay, okay.” I sit up and rub my eyes.

  “I’ll go make us some coffee to take with us while you get dressed. Meet me out in the kitchen when you’re ready.”

  “Okay,” I reply.

  “And don’t you go back to sleep,” she warns.

  I sit up in bed. “I’m up, okay?”

  She kisses me on the cheek. “I’ll see you in a minute.”

  I literally get dressed with my eyes closed I’m so tired and as I head out to the kitchen, I walk into the bedroom door frame. Brooks stifles a laugh. She’s already half way through a bowl of cereal and she’s got a bowl out ready for me.

  “Make sure you have something to eat,” she whispers. “We’ll throw some snacks in for when we get over there, but we don’t know how long we’ll be chained up. I don’t want you fainting on me.”

  I pull up a seat at the bench and pour myself a bowl of cereal. I don’t even care what it is. I’ll eat anything at this point. Brooks pours the milk. I guess she doesn’t trust me to know when to stop. I don’t blame her. I’ve never been a morning person.

  “Are you always this slow in the morning?” Brooks asks.

  “My brain doesn’t function until after ten am,” I reply. I shovel in a mouthful of cereal and I am fully aware that Brooks has ants in her pants, and wants me to hurry up. “Just go do whatever else you have to do and come get me when you’re ready,” I say. “I won’t be any help until I wake up.”

  Brooks bounces off out the back door and in the time it takes me to finish my cereal and get my shoes on, she’s pulled the scooter around to the front, packed both our backpacks, made up two flasks of coffee and is waiting for me by the front door. “Ready?” she asks.

  “As I’ll ever be,” I reply.

  Brooks opens the front door and then shuts it again. “Shit,” she says. “Shit, shit, shit.” She leans back against the door.

  “What?” I ask.

  “Freaking Donaldson’s out there.”

  “What? Who’s Donaldson?” I go to open the door but she grabs my hand.

  “Local copper,” Brooks replies. “If you open it he’ll see us and then he’ll know we’re up to something.”

  “You don’t think he saw you though?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I walk over to the front window and peer around the blinds. Across the road and two houses up is a police car.

  “What’s he doing out there?”

  “Someone must have tipped him off. Damnit!” She throws herself onto the lounge. “How are we going to sneak out without him seeing us?”

  I peer back around the blinds and try to come up with something. The car lights turn on. “Wait. Brooks, come look. I think he’s leaving.”

  Brooks pulls back the blinds in time to see the police car pull out and take off. “Wonder where he’s going in a hurry?” I ask.

  Brooks grabs me by the arm and pulls me to the front door. “Who cares? We need to go right now.”

  I’ve had my eyes closed the entire ride, and I jolt awake when we get to the meeting point thanks to Brooks slamming on the brakes. I still feel half asleep, but I’m not nearly as tired as I was when I woke up earlier. I help Brooks get the canoe into the water, and jump in. If everything is going to plan, all up along the beach, people will be getting into canoes and kayaks and heading over to the island as well. Even though he said he didn’t want to be involved, Jason did some digging and confirmed what we thought - Scott had ramped up security at the site in preparation for the Minister’s visit this morning. Having said that, there are only three guards on the island instead of just one, and theoretically, no dogs.

  Brooks checks her watch and then pushes us off. As we glide silently across the water, I pull out one of the flasks and have a couple of sips of the coffee to try to wake myself up. When we reach the island, we pull t
he canoe up onto the sand and head off to meet the others. Our group (me, Brooks, Sam, Albie and a couple of Rosie’s volunteers) are all accounted for, so we move as close to the work site as we can without getting spotted and wait for the signal. Brooks checks her watch again. I can tell she’s getting antsy. It was a big call to use a few people as decoys, because we’re hoping it distracts all of the guards and not just one of them. We do have a contingency though. We’re all going to hit the site from different sides and at slightly different times, so that we can split their focus. We’re the second team to go in, so hopefully, the guards should all be so distracted by either the decoys in the water, or the first team to go in, which is Jo’s team, that we should at least be able to get some of us chained up before they realise what’s happening.

  A few more minutes pass, and then all of a sudden, there’s a commotion in the water. An air horn goes off, piercing the night and sure enough, a couple of torches flash through the site. Sam goes to jump up, but Brooks holds him back. “Not yet,” she says. “Two more minutes.” She turns to me. “Ready to go, Riles?”

  I nod.

  She looks down at her watch and counts down the seconds in a nervous whisper. “Five, four, three, two, one, go!”

  Thirty

  Brooks

  The single best part so far is the confusion on the faces of the security guards. When dawn breaks, they’re standing in front of us all, hands on their hips, with no idea what to do about us. They’ve called it in on their radios, but they’ll have to wait at least an hour before anyone can get across to the island on the barge because of the tide. I called out for a head count earlier, and we’ve managed to get twenty of us chained to trees and machinery. Eight of us ended up locked in the site office after being caught and the guards haven’t spotted them yet, but Sam and Albie are up in the trees, ready to unfurl a banner they made yesterday. Riley and I are chained to trees next to each other, and the rest of us are chained in a ring right around the site.

  The mood among us is surprisingly upbeat. We decided against chants and slogans, mainly because we couldn’t come up with anything good at short notice. I think the silence between us all speaks loads more than if we were yelling random stuff out, because really, no-one’s even here to hear it yet except the guards.

  “When do you think they’ll get here?” Riley asks.

  “Who knows. I doubt they’ll bring the Minister over at all, but at least the media will get a sniff of something happening if they’re stopped from coming over here.”

  “God, Dad’s going to be so angry with me.”

  “You can’t think about that, Riles. You helped come up with this idea, remember? No regrets now.”

  Riley smiles at me. “No regrets,” she says. “Except one.”

  “What’s that?”

  “That our trees are too far apart for me to kiss you.”

  I laugh. “We have more important things to think about than kissing. But if you hold that thought, you might get to visit me in jail later.”

  Riley laughs and then leans her head against the tree. “What if they leave us here?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, what if Dad turns up and he goes ‘Well, I don’t want to cut those trees down anyway, so the girls can stay there and starve.’ What if that happens?”

  “You think way too much.”

  Riley does bring up a good point though. The absolute worst thing that could happen is if Scott totally ignores us and just decides to postpone everything and leave us here to teach us a lesson. There are storms forecast for tonight and tomorrow and it would be a pretty miserable time if we had to wait it out in the rain. Riley would freak out for sure, and I’m betting Sam would break and come down straight away. I don’t know how many others would just give up and beg to be cut free, because I doubt their level of commitment would extend to riding out a bit of thunder and lightning and a whole heap of rain. Before I can think any more about it, two of the guards rush off, leaving one to watch all of us.

  “Something’s happening,” Riley says. She’s closer to where the guards were than me and she cranes her neck to see if she can see anything. A few minutes later, Scott Fisher comes striding into view, Sergeant Donaldson beside him and a couple of other police officers behind them. Scott stops in the middle of the clearing and has a quick look around and when he spots Riley, his face sets in an angry grimace.

  Following close behind the police is a camera crew. The guards try to muscle them out of the way but they manage to hold their ground. Sam and Albie see their moment and let go of the banner.

  ‘Scott Fisher Turtle Killer’ scrawled in bright red paint flutters in the morning breeze. The boys have also drawn what I’m guessing is supposed to be a green turtle with red blood coming out of it, with black crosses for eyes. It’s pretty basic but it has the desired effect. I look back to Scott, whose face has drained of colour. He says something to Sergeant Donaldson, who in turn calls out, “Get them all out of here and take them all in to the station.”

  Riley turns to me and I can see she’s a bit scared. She takes a deep breath. “This is it,” she says.

  I nod. “Everything’s going to be fine, Riles. Trust me. They won’t do anything to hurt you.”

  “You say that like you’ve done this before,” Riley replies, smirking.

  I smile back at her. “Just let them do their job. Don’t fight them, okay?”

  “That’s it?” she asks. “Aren’t we going to make a scene or anything?”

  “We’ve made our point. That’s all we wanted to do.” A police officer bends down in front of me with bolt cutters and I have to stretch my head around him to see Riley, who’s just been cut free and is being escorted away. “I’ll see you down at the station,” I call to her and she waves her hand to let me know she’s heard me.

  Thirty One

  Riley

  A police officer leads me through an open office where people from the protest are starting to pile up, sitting on chairs and leaning against the walls. When I asked him what I was being charged with, he told me I wasn’t being arrested. I was just being ‘detained’ until my father gets here. He takes me to a small office and opens the door. “Wait in there,” he says. I step in and the officer shuts the door behind me. I turn to my right and there, sitting on a chair in the corner, is Jason.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask. He jumps up and gives me a hug.

  “No need to ask why you’re here,” he replies. “It’s all over town.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. From what I heard, Scott’s really pissed. He had to delay the Minister in Townsville to sort out your protest.”

  “So is he going ahead with the ceremony then?”

  Jason shrugs and looks at his feet. “I don’t know. I’ve been here all morning too.”

  “Wait. Why have you been here?”

  “Long story short, I rescued Damo from the water tower.”

  “You what? What was he doing up there?”

  “He climbed up there and couldn’t get back down,” Jason says. “He gets these hare-brained ideas when he gets…” He pauses and looks up at the ceiling, searching for the right words. He looks back at me. “When he has too much red cordial,” he finishes, emphasising ‘red cordial’ with air quotes. The way he looks at me, I get the feeling there’s more to the story, but he’s probably not going to tell me in a police station.

  “Why wouldn’t he get down?” I ask.

  “He’s scared of heights,” Jason shrugs.

  I laugh. “You’re kidding? Is he okay?”

  “Yeah. He’s fine. His mum picked him up earlier.”

  “So what are you still doing here then?”

  “Well, Scott was supposed to come and pick me up, but he got distracted for some reason.” He raises one eyebrow. We both laugh.

  The door opens and Julie comes in. She shuts the door behind her and she just stands there, looking at us both and not saying anything.

&nbs
p; “Mum, I—”

  Julie puts up her hand. “Save it, Jason. I don’t want to hear it.”

  Again, she stands there and looks at us both. I can’t stand the silence either. “Julie, I—”

  “Don’t want to hear it,” Julie says, cutting me off too.

  “Can’t we explain?” Jason asks.

  “I don’t care what you have to say. Either of you.”

  I’m not entirely sure why she’s just standing there and not saying anything or doing anything. She closes her eyes and takes a couple of deep breaths. “What’s she doing?” I whisper to Jason.

  “She’s centring herself,” Jason whispers back. “Some new meditation thing.”

  Julie takes one last deep breath and then opens her eyes. “Right,” she says. “Let’s go home.” She turns and opens the door.

  “Wait,” I say. “That’s it?”

  “What did you expect? That you’d be thrown in jail?” Julie asks.

  “I don’t know,” I reply.

  “You think your father would really have you charged with anything?”

  I think back to Saturday when I told him he wasn’t my father. When I don’t answer, Julie steps over to me and puts her hands on my shoulders. “Riley, your father is so angry with you right now, but he’s still your father. And yours,” she looks up at Jason. “I have no idea what he’s going to do when I get you two home, but I do know that he wouldn’t leave either of you sitting in a police station, just to punish you.”

  She opens the door, and Jason and I follow her out. As we head through the open office, I hear someone call my name. I look up to see Brooks being taken out towards the back door. I know she’s being taken out to the cells because I came past them earlier. “Brooks!” I call back.

  Julie takes my arm and pulls me to the front door. “Probably best if you don’t see her for a few days,” she says. I turn and watch as Brooks disappears behind the door.

  Jason and I have both been under ‘house arrest’ (my father’s words) for two days. When we got home from the police station, he was surprisingly calm. All he said was that he was extremely disappointed in me for aligning myself with a group whose sole purpose was to make his life a misery. Funny though, he never forbade me from seeing Brooks again, but by grounding me, he effectively stopped me from being able to see her anyway. And there’s no way she would risk sneaking in to my house to try to see me. He also confiscated my phone, so I have no contact with the outside world until he decides I’ve suffered enough.