by James Harden
They even had a small shooting range where they would practice firing the bow and arrow and even guns. I asked Kenji once why they had a shooting range in their basement and if it was even legal. He told me he wasn’t sure of it was legal but the reason they had built one was because the bow and arrow was a big part of Samurai culture. And the rifle was just a new and improved version of that. The principles were the same. The breathing, the concentration. It was like an active form of meditation if you did it right.
He even taught me how to shoot a gun. I wasn’t strong enough to use the bow and arrow properly but I was a decent shot with the rifle. His father didn’t approve of me at all. But Kenji would always convince him to let me stay. I think he would tell his father that teaching me helped him remember all the stuff that he had been taught over the years. His father would always reluctantly agree.
The best part about learning all this stuff and hanging out with Kenji was that it helped me take my mind of the possibility that my father was never coming home. It really was like an active form of meditation.
The more we hung out, the more I started to fall for Kenji. I didn’t think I could ever get close to another person after I’d been hurt so badly. But Kenji was just so amazing.
And then he left. He just vanished.
Shortly after that, my mother and I moved out to Australia to start a new life. She told me it would be good for us both, that it would be an adventure. I knew it was painful for her as well.
Now my old life was coming back to haunt me, opening old wounds, digging up long buried feelings.
I picked myself up off the floor and wiped the tears off my face. I walked into my room and unfolded the origami horse. Sure enough there was a note written inside.
Dear Rebecca,
I’m sorry for what I did. I know you don't trust me anymore but you must believe me when I say everyone is in danger right now. I will come for you.
-Kenji
Chapter 4
Five minutes later, Jack arrived to pick me up. He tried talking to me on the drive to Maria’s house but I was miles away.
"Are you all right?" he asked.
"Huh?"
"Are you all right? You’re pretty quiet over there, Bec."
"Please don't call me Bec." I hated when anyone called me Bec because that’s what my dad used to call me. And Kenji.
"Sorry, Re-bec-ca," he said emphasizing my name.
"Well don't say it like that. Sounds like I'm in trouble."
"How about I just say 'you there’."
"Sounds good to me."
"So, you there, what's wrong? Why are you so quiet?"
I wasn’t sure what to tell him.
"I’m just tired." I said instead of telling him the truth. "I’ve been up all night watching the latest ‘Oz Virus’ developments."
"It’s all just a bunch of hype. It’ll blow over soon. This time next week we’ll all be back in school wishing we weren’t."
When we got to the party it was already well under way. To my surprise there was a whole bunch of people that showed up. It felt like the entire school year was at this party. I guess their parents were sick of their kids being stuck in the house for the entire week. I can imagine what they said. "Go to the party. Have fun. Just be back by 10pm, OK?"
Maria had a few rules for the party. She said everyone had to remain inside and keep the music as low as possible. She didn't want the neighbors complaining about the noise to the cops. If the cops showed up after 10pm everyone would be in serious trouble.
Nobody wanted that.
But by eight o'clock everyone sort of forgot the rules. Everyone was drunk or well on their way and so the music got louder. The house was full on every level. Everyone was cutting loose, hyper active. Like some how everyone knew the world was about to end so they better make the most of their time.
My favorite part of that whole party was when a Nirvana song came on over the stereo. Someone turned the volume way up and Kurt Cobain was blaring over the speakers. "Come as you are, as you were, as a friend..." Everyone joined in and sang along. Unfortunately this may have caused one of the neighbors to call the cops.
The house phone rang and Maria immediately knew something was wrong.
"Oh no," she said with a look of horror on her face.
"What is it?"
"No one ever calls the house phone. Except for Mrs. Gordon next door. And she only ever calls when she’s upset about something."
A second later, one of the girls in our year, Christine I think her name was came running inside. "Someone called the cops!" she yelled.
Kids screamed.
"Oh crap. What time is it?" Maria asked.
Everyone freaked out and made a run for it. This left just Maria, Jack and I. Just the three of us. We could hear the sirens of the police cars not far off.
I don’t know what we were thinking. Maybe we weren’t thinking. But we decided to make a run for it. Our reasoning was that if we turned all the lights off and got the hell out of there it would look like no one was home. We could hide out at my house because my mother was at work and Mrs. Gordon would look like a crazy old woman who was hearing noises. It was the perfect plan.
The only problem was Jack’s car didn’t start.
He tried a couple of times, turning the key in the ignition but nothing happened. He hit the steering wheel a couple of times before Maria suggested we try her dad’s car.
"His new BMW?" Jack asked. "No freakin way! He'd kill me!"
"Just do it! He’ll never know."
We ran back over to the garage. Maria had to punch in a code to open the roller door. Inside was a black shiny car. Definitely not the kind of car that a father would let his daughter’s boyfriend drive.
"Do you even have the key?" Jack asked.
"Yeah it should be here somewhere," Maria said as she moved over to the wall where a whole row of keys were hanging up.
I jumped in the back seat and buckled myself in. Jack slid in behind the driver’s seat and Maria was in the front passenger.
"Do you have it?" Jack asked.
"It has a keyless ignition. Just press the start button."
Jack pressed the button and the car miraculously started. He turned the head lights on and accelerated out of the garage and down the long driveway.
Just when it looked like we were going to make a clean getaway, someone leapt out of the bushes directly in front of the car causing Jack to slam on the brakes. It was Kenji.
Maria screamed and Jack swore. I was completely mortified. I jumped out of the back seat and yelled at Kenji. "What are you doing here? Did you follow me? I told you I didn't want anything to do with you!"
Kenji had his hands up, trying to shield his eyes from the headlights. "I'm sorry. I had to. You're all in danger. If we leave now we can still make it."
But there was no chance of us going anywhere. The police had arrived, blocking off the driveway. They played a message through a loudspeaker that said we had broken curfew and there was a zero tolerance policy. The messaged told us to lie on the ground with our hands behind our back.
Chapter 5
North Sydney Police Station,
Holding Cell 1A
So the party turned out to be the worst idea ever, so did our getaway plan. I don’t know how Jack and Maria were feeling but as I sat in that tiny concrete holding cell, I was at an all time low.
Thankfully Kenji had been taken to a separate cell. I didn’t want to talk to him at that point because I was still angry. And I didn’t want to explain to Jack and Maria who he was because I wasn’t ready. Although I was getting the feeling that they both wanted to ask me a whole bunch of questions about him. Like how I knew him and why the hell was he hanging out in the bushes in Maria’s front yard? But since we were sharing our holding cell with a woman who was mostly likely an alcoholic and most definitely insane, they were both silent.
And I know you shouldn't judge a book by its cover but this lady sitting across fro
m me, making red-hot, intense eye contact, was without a doubt bat crap insane.
I could tell Jack and Maria were just as scared of this woman as I was. They were both doing their best to ignore her. Jack was sitting on the floor, leaning against the back wall. Maria and I were sitting on the opposite bench to the crazy lady.
She started to plead her innocence to us, well to me. "It wasn't my liquor they found in my car," she blurted out.
She swore she was being honest.
"I'm being honest with you, I'm looking right at you and I'm being honest. I swear."
I smiled politely and nodded my head.
"That was Tommy's bottle. I swear. I was just holding it for him."
I cringed. Why was she talking to me? There’s two other people here, why me?
"I'm being honest with you," she said again.
Yeah right. I knew she wasn’t being honest with me. But I continued to smile and nod because this wasn’t the kind of place where you wanted to make enemies. It was the kind of place where you wanted to agree with whatever anyone was saying, even if that someone was a complete lunatic.
"And," she continued, "He left his bottle of whiskey under the front seat. So now it looks like I was driving drunk. But I'd only had like, five or six beers. I was fine to drive. I've driven after way more beers than that before and nothing bad ever happened."
"So where did Tommy go?" I asked in a tone that said I'm totally on her side and that driving after five or six beers is cool.
"He ran off when the cops pulled us over. The car was still moving and he just jumped out and ran for it. The cop pulling us over didn't see him jump. But I'm being honest with you. I'm looking right at you and I'm swearing on my mother's grave."
I nodded my head again and smiled again. I tried not to look at this woman directly but I couldn’t help myself. Her skin looked like wet leather and her teeth were all yellow and cracked. She kept tapping her feet and running her hands through her hair, unable to sit still.
Thankfully, she didn’t notice me staring back at her. She was way too buzzed. She kept scratching her arms and her neck. It also looked like her ear was bleeding.
"What happened to you ear," I asked because I couldn’t help myself.
"Tommy bit me. He bit me right before he jumped out of the car. I'm so mad with him right now."
The life of an alcoholic. Suddenly our predicament didn’t look so bad. Not that it was. It's not like we'd done anything majorly wrong. So what if we broke curfew? The hardest part of this whole thing would be telling my mother that I’d been arrested. She worked so hard to put me in a good school, to put a roof over my head. How could I tell her that I had been arrested? What could I say?
"Hi Mother, dearest. You'll never guess what! I was at a party, right? And I know there was a curfew and all but I thought if I was home by 10pm it would be all right. And at the very worst I could just sleep over at Maria’s house but then I guess we had stayed out a little late and someone called the cops. And to cut a long story short I'm at the police station right now. No, I'm not sure what bail is set at. Yes, they take credit cards. Yes they take American Express."
The crazy lady asked me if I was hot. "Are you hot? It’s hot in here isn’t? I bet this is all part of their mind games. They turn the heat up so they can try and get a confession out of me."
"I guess it’s a little warm."
I said it was a little warm even though the metal bench I was sitting on was ice cold.
"You know, none of this would've happened if it wasn't for the damn quarantine and the 10pm curfew," she said, slurring her words. "How are people supposed to have fun around here? I reckon it's all a bunch of scare tactics."
She went on and on about the quarantine and the military. She was convinced it was all a conspiracy by the government to cover up an alien landing in the outback.
I tuned out but she kept right on talking.
Maria leant over so she could whisper in my ear. "Why is she still talking?"
I shrugged my shoulders. "I don't know. Hey, Jack's sister will get us out of this right?"
"I hope so." She turned to Jack. "Pssst, Jack. You're sister will get us out of this right?"
Jack was sitting with his knees up to his chest. He did not look optimistic. "I don’t know. She's been out on call for like two days straight. Apparently it's getting pretty wild out in the western suburbs."
That is not what we wanted to hear.
"Oh great. We are so screwed." Maria said.
"Relax; worst case scenario is we'll get a warning and a slap on the wrist. I'm the one who is screwed. You're dad is going to kill me when he finds out I tried to drive his car."
"Come on, he won’t find out." Maria said unconvincingly. "Daddy will understand."
"Won’t find out? The cops wrote it in their report!"
"I'll just tell him the cops got it wrong and I was the one who tried to drive it away. I’ll tell him the place was being ransacked by looters or something and we were trying to save the car. He’ll buy it. Then it’ll look we’re the good guys."
Jack smiled at this suggestion, like he thought that might actually work.
Meanwhile, the crazy lady was still talking. I think she was telling me about the time she accidentally stole a bottle of bourbon from a bar and was wrongly accused of being a thief.
"Are we going to have a permanent record?" I asked Jack and Maria while still making eye contact with the crazy lady and nodding my head.
"God, I hope not," Maria said. "That will seriously affect my ability to get into university. Did you know you can’t apply for medicine if you have a record? Or law, or teaching for that matter."
"Why would you want to be a teacher?" Jack asked. "You just spent the best years of your life at school. Why on earth would you want to go back and be a teacher?"
"I didn’t say that I wanted to be a teacher. I’m just saying you can’t apply to do that course if you have a criminal record. It’s not a good look for a school to have ex-crims teaching the kids. But I think I would make a good teacher. Plus you get at least two months worth of holidays a year. More for private schools. Tell me another profession that gets that kind of benefits."
Jack was silent for a moment. "Paid holidays?"
"You better believe it."
"Wow. I never thought of that. Not that I’d ever be able to be a teacher. I wouldn’t be able to deal with the all the smart ass kids."
"You mean, kids like you?"
"Hey, I know I'm not the easiest student to deal with. But I’m not that bad."
"Guys, can we focus here?" I said to get them back on track. "When they let us use the phone, who should we call? My mother has been working some crazy hours at the hospital. I’m not sure if we’d be able to get in contact with her. Should we call your parents, Jack?"
"Yeah we can probably call my parents. But they are not going to be happy."
"It would be weird if they were." I replied.
"Speaking of weird, who was that guy we nearly ran over in my driveway?" Maria asked. "And why did you jump out of the car and start yelling at him? Do you know him?"
Maria had been dying to ask me about Kenji. I guess there was no real point in trying to hide the fact that I knew him.
"Ah yeah, I kinda know him," I said. "He’s just some loser from back home. I don’t know what he was doing. I told him not to follow me."
"He followed you? You mean like, he stalked you?"
"No. He didn't stalk me. Well, not really. He used to be my next door neighbor. We used to be close. But were not anymore."
"Yeah, you've got an international stalker," Jack said. "You must feel so popular right now. He’s come across international waters for you."
"Shut up."
It was weird how they could still joke around at a time like this. I guess that’s why they were such great friends.
An hour or two later we heard the jingle jangle of keys and approaching footsteps. We all turned our heads to the side and
listened, like dogs.
"Finally!" Maria said. "It’s about time."
Amazingly, the crazy lady was still talking. "But enough about me," she said. What about you? What did they get you for?"
"We were out past curfew." I said as I listened to the approaching footsteps.
"Typical. They can’t just give you a warning can they? Oh no, they need to make an example out of honest, hard working citizens like you and me and your friends."
The footsteps were close now. A second later three police officers appeared at the entrance to the cell. One of them had the keys; another one was carrying a baton in his hand and a look on his face that said he was ready and willing to use it. And the last one was escorting this guy who had obviously had way too much to drink. I wondered if the drunk guy was Tommy, the crazy lady's friend.
The cop with the keys cleared his throat. "Everyone remain seated. Keep away from the door."
"Come on, Miss Stephanie," the cop with the baton said to the crazy lady. "It’s time to answer a few questions about what we found in your car."
The crazy lady lifted her head slowly. Her bloodshot eyes focused on the drunken man. "Tommy! Tommy, you coward! I can’t believe you ran off on me like that! I can’t believe you bit me! We’re supposed to be friends. Friends don’t bite each other and run off."
Tommy didn’t seem to acknowledge that he was being yelled at or if he even knew this lady, which just made her look even crazier.
She screamed and kicked and flailed her arms. The officer with the baton threatened to use it. He then handcuffed her and took her away. She screamed all the way down the corridor.
