Ticket To The Sky Dance

by Cowley, Joy

  Ticket to the Sky Dance

  Joy Cowley

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

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  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London, WC2R 0RL, England

  Published in Puffin Books, 1997

  Copyright © Joy Cowley 1997

  The right of Joy Cowley to be identified as the author of this work in terms of section 96 of the Copyright Act 1994 is hereby asserted.

  Digital conversion by Pindar NZ

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of New Zealand.

  www.penguin.co.nz

  ISBN 9781742288451

  For Sharon and Judith, my wise and beautiful daughters who are my closest friends and who are also, at times, my mothers

  Chapter One

  They were still the width of the street away from the shop, yet already the smell was rising off Shog’s skin. Fear, it was. Plain old fear. Like his armpits sensed danger long before his head did. He hugged his elbows to his sides and stepped between Jancie and Banjo.

  Jancie knew what he was thinking. She always did. She moved from one foot to the other, bouncing back and forth, in the dance she reckoned was the Zulu in her from 200 years back.

  ‘Shog, you devil, you’re not backing out!’ She was getting good and mad at him.

  He rubbed his neck and grinned at her. Nah, it was not the Zulu but the Irish, the flaming temper of old Granny bashing the telephone with her walking stick because it wouldn’t spit out her pay card. He groaned with the remembering of the little old lady with her rosary beads, going berko in a phone booth and everyone watching. Well, his sister would grow old like that. Heck, she was like that now!

  From the photos they had seen, they both looked like their Jamaican mother, same high nose, same wide dark eyes, but Jancie really belonged to the other side, a Donoghue through and through, always whirling in excitement between love and hate.

  ‘This job smells real bad,’ he said.

  ‘Not it. You!’ she spat. ‘You stink!’

  He knew it. Oh, he knew it. Again, he looked across the road at the shoe shop. There was only the old man inside, crouched over the counter reading his newspaper, head like a dandelion gone to seed. It should be easy. But the smell told him otherwise and his sweat glands never lied. ‘I don’t need the boots,’ he said.

  Banjo, his true friend, fidgeted like an anxious spider at his side. ‘All right, let’s forget it, Shog.’

  ‘No!’ Ignoring Banjo, Jancie grabbed her twin’s T-shirt in two fists and pulled him towards her. ‘Shog, it’s as easy as spitting. You go in there and try on the boots. The moment you got a pair that fits you, Banjo and I knock over the racks of shoes and we all run. Five-finger discount.’ She bared her teeth at him. ‘Not five fingers! Ten toes!’

  ‘Jancie, I don’t want to do this!’

  ‘Ashoga Donoghue! You’ve been mouthing on about Zeus boots for a hundred shootin’ years! How else are you going to get them? In a Sacred Heart food parcel, you big dippy thing?’

  Banjo, who had no stomach for lifting anything except money from his father’s pockets, wiped his nose on his sleeve and said, ‘I got enough for a movie. For all of us.’

  Jancie turned on him full fury. ‘Well go, you chicken! Go on! Good riddance, we’ll do it without you!’ But in the next second she put her arm round Banjo’s skinny shoulders and laughed, bouncing on the balls of her feet. ‘Hey! I didn’t mean it! Nothing can happen, Banjo. Promise. That old guy is practically in a wheelchair.’

  Shog looked at her. ‘Just like Gran,’ he said.

  His sister’s laughter disappeared. Her face went slack as though he had slapped her, and a look of pain rose up, watering her eyes.

  Instantly, Ashoga hated himself. She was still Gran’s girl and he had no right to say a thing like that. She was not doing this for herself.

  At that moment, he knew he had the chance to walk away. She expected it now. He and Banjo could hike off down the street and she would not say another word. But he couldn’t do that. She was a heap of trouble, his twin sister, a violent creature he only half understood, but when she went helpless like this, he was filled with a feeling for her that made him want to surround her like a shield. He looked at her tear-filled eyes, saw the way she wiped her hand over her copper-coloured hair curled tight and short as lamb’s wool. She always did that when she was trying not to bawl. He shook his head and the fear smell rose on him like a fog in the bright noonday air.

  ‘Let’s do it,’ he said, and crossed the road.

  The old man grew watchful as they entered the shop. With the sharpness in his eyes, there was something else, almost a smile, although there was no reason for it, and a look like eagerness. Shog didn’t like that expression. Perhaps the old guy had a gun under the counter.

  ‘Can I help you, son?’

  Shog was so alert, he felt as though he were crackling with electricity. He moved lightly around the racks of shoes, ready for flight. Then he saw the store-owner’s hands on his newspaper, fingers swollen and twisted sideways with arthritis, worse even than Gran’s. The man couldn’t hold a pen, let alone a gun. It was going to be all right. He smiled at the man while, outside, Jancie and Banjo were pretending to look at shoes in the window.

  ‘I want some Zeus boots. Size eight.’

  The man hobbled out from behind the counter. ‘Zeus boots, eh? They’re all the go with you kids. Everyone’s got to have a pair of Zeus boots. In my day it was Reeboks.’ He said it with a straight look into Shog’s face as though he knew he was going to be robbed. But he still got the boots from the box and held them out. Shog blinked and sucked in his breath. Mario Vanelli had Zeus boots. So had McCready, before he had left the camp. But although Shog had admired their boots, he had never actually had them in his hands. He was surprised that they were almost weightless! They looked like metal, shining stainless steel, yet they were as soft and flexible as silk and so light they would hardly kiss his feet. Oh man, the boot of boots! El Supremo! Chief of Olympus!

  He took off his old frayed sneakers and put the boots on, did up the laces. Light struck the toes and flashed rainbows like the discs on Gran’s old CD player. They were perfect! He took several careful steps round the shop, looking from the edge of his vision at Jancie and Banjo who were now in the doorway. It was a triangle of focus, the boots, the old man, the two figures sliding into range. Outside of that focus he was vaguely aware of a sharp increase in the fear smell but he didn’t notice that the door
at the back of the shop was opening. Suddenly there was a giant standing in front of him, a guy who looked like an all-in wrestler.

  Ashoga stopped dead still.

  ‘You reckon on paying for those?’ the giant said. He was young, with a shaved head and a gold stud in his left ear. His voice was pleasant, but he was holding a long baton like a club, and was tapping it in the palm of his hand. Hell, he was big! Enormous arms, barrel of a chest. Between his shorts and his feet, his legs were like the trunks of trees.

  Now Shog knew the meaning of the shop-owner’s smile. He’d had a heavy hidden out the back!

  Shog stepped away, shrugged and held out his hands.

  ‘It’s okay, man! Cool it! They don’t fit me. I was just going to take them off.’

  He meant it. He was going to take the boots off in record time and get the hell out of there, but that was the moment when Jancie and Banjo decided to knock over the shoe racks. Sneakers and sandals went everywhere and the old man yelled. Then it was all happening. There was nothing to do but run.

  Shog would have been grabbed before he got out the shop door, if the giant had not fallen over the shoe racks. The man was powerful but clumsy and he went head first over the metal bars and heaps of sandals. By the time he got to his feet, Shog, Jancie and Banjo were well down the road.

  Shog understood why Zeus boots cost just about as much as a hologram video. Man, they were magic, as light as breath and with so much spring he felt like a kangaroo, boing, boing, boing, leaping past the shopping centre, his toes flashing rainbows in the sun. Jancie was running at his elbow, laughing, extra pleased with herself. But the heavy guy was coming after them, and Banjo was lagging behind.

  ‘Split!’ Shog called. ‘Three ways! Meet you back at camp!’

  Banjo had the sense to duck sideways into a department store. Jancie stayed with Shog until the next intersection, then she too dived away. Shog glanced back. The giant’s head turned towards Jancie but only for a second. The rest of him did not hesitate but came straight after Shog. The huge arms were pumping like pistons. The baton swung in the clenched hand. The tree-trunk legs were showing no signs of slowing down.

  Ashoga did not have that kind of mechanical strength but he knew all about running. For him and Jancie it had become a way of life since Gran had gone into the nursing home, running from a foster home, running from welfare officers and police and teachers, running from red-faced shop assistants, running, running, like the rest of the kids who lived at the camp.

  ‘Shoggy boy, get yourself some Zeus boots,’ McCready had said. Big McCready, boss of the place, who ate onions like apples and peeled his toenails with a flick knife. ‘These boots’ll give you wings, Shoggy.’ So said McCready, now gone, boots and all, and no one knew where.

  Shog looked back at the heavy. Some shop assistants gave chase with their mouths, yelling blue murder. When that happened, chance was someone ahead would try to grab you and the best thing to do was to get off the sidewalk and run in the traffic, between the lanes.

  The man behind him was different, didn’t say a word. No panic. No emotion at all. Just running like a machine, he was, like he was out for a morning jog.

  Boots or no boots, Shog’s legs were growing tired. He weaved round some people waiting at a bus stop, and felt the pull of muscles in his right calf. He glanced back again. Yeah. Still coming, cool as an ice cube. Anyone else would have given up by now. Shog had to think of something before his breath and his legs gave out. Where could he go? A slow anger had begun to burn inside him like a red pulsing light. Through it, he saw his grandmother in the nursing home, dribbling her food, her eyes like blue glass marbles. ‘She your grandmother?’ the nurse had said, taking in the colour of his skin as a lie. He saw the couple who had wanted to adopt him and Jancie, all that bio-whatsit farming and yoghurt and old-fashioned stuff with herbs and crystals. He saw the house he’d grown up in, with a For Sale sign on it. It was their house. His and Jancie’s. Gran had said that a hundred times. Now it was being sold to pay Gran’s nursing home costs. Could people really do that? How could you stop them? And, here was this big idiot ready to beat him to a pulp for taking a pair of boots. Well, he would show him.

  They had run past the shops and were in the industrial area, passing a printing works, engineering works, a place that sold spray-on swimming pools. Shog’s breath was drawing like a saw through his lungs and his legs were threatening to cramp up any minute. But it was not long now. He looked over his shoulder and saw the big man still there, running without as much as a sweat. Strong, strong. But clumsy and heavy. Yeah, real heavy. Shog was counting on that.

  This was it, the wrecked car depot, a whole graveyard of metal carcases. Shog knew it like he knew his own face. They came in often, he and Jancie. It was amazing the things people missed, down the backs of car seats. Money, earrings, even watches. Rich pickings in a car yard. He looked over his shoulder. The giant was coming right in after him. Now, where was the spot? Oh, Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Let his legs keep on working!

  As he zig-zagged round the wrecks, the new Zeus boots crunched glass and he wondered if he had cut them. No time to look. He was slowing and the giant was real close. Keep going, you stupid legs! Don’t give up on me!

  Through the redness of his pain, Shog found the strength to leap onto the body of an old Ford, sidestepping the broken back window. He climbed over it and then onto a Chevvy that was perched on top, and up again to the tray of a pick-up. He paused there and glanced down. Yeah, yeah, the giant was coming, too, pulling himself up the Ford to the Chevrolet and making the whole mountain of vehicles shake.

  Shog scrambled from one car to the next. Behind him was the sound of big feet denting thin metal. Boom, boom! Roofs of cars going in like ping pong balls. The guy was heavy, all right. And this now, was the place, the bull’s-eye. The car in front of him had once been a real nice Caddy, king of the road, but now it was gutted of everything but rust, and unsteady, oh yes, just teetering on top of a heap, ready to start an avalanche. Shog stepped onto it, like a skater on thin ice. It was all a matter of knowing where to put your feet.

  He stood still then, bent over and held his side, gasping for air, but watching and waiting. The giant thought he had him. He came up, his baton raised, like a hunter who had cornered a deer. He was actually grinning. Nice teeth, too. Hardly a shine of sweat on his bald head but breathing fast, Shog noticed.

  The man leaped onto the rusty Cadillac in the split second that the boy jumped off it.

  Ashoga didn’t look back. He slid down the heap of cars, hit the ground and was up and running before the screaming of metal started. It was like nails being drawn out of a tin roof but louder, cars sliding on cars, rust on rust, and then an almighty crashing as they came down. No, he didn’t dare stop to look back. There’d be people coming from everywhere, and all kinds of questions asked.

  He ran stiff-legged to the fence, squeezed through and limped back to town.

  Chapter Two

  Police Lieutenant Warren J Peachman bought a beer and a glass of dry white wine and took them back to the table behind the poker machines. There were a few people in the bar, but no one he knew. He looked around again, just to make sure, then sat down in the dark corner, opposite the woman in the green fur coat.

  Peachman considered himself to be an old-fashioned man with old-fashioned values. He had dreams of living in a clean town where people did not need burglar alarms in their cars and houses, where kids did their homework at night and went to church on Sundays, and where women wore aprons and beautiful smiles. His own wife Mandy wore an apron, and sure, while she wasn’t Miss Universe, she did have a sweet smile. He got a little embarrassed when she came into the station calling him Peaches but, really, he kind of liked that. Mandy with her perfume and her pretty red nails made up for a lot of the filth he had to contend with in this town. Lieutenant Peachman hated filth. He believed that he was born way out of his time. He belonged in the age of chivalry where there were no bleeding-heart
liberals to prevent a knight from slaying the evil dragons that threatened good-living people. He had definite ideas about good and evil.

  Which was why he felt so uncomfortable with the woman in the green fur coat. A young lady with her kind of beauty should be a princess with all the feminine sweetness that made a knight want to go out and slay dragons. She should be as sexy as a film star, as chaste as a nun and as giving as Mother Earth herself. But on Lieutenant Peachman’s one-to-ten scale of ideal womanhood, Dr Elizabeth Frey scored a mere one for beauty, and a cold beauty at that. Her eyes reminded him of the story of the Snow Queen. She had only to look at him and he went as cold as a morgue. If the money wasn’t so generous, and if she wasn’t doing such a good job of helping him clean up the streets, he would cross to the other side of town to get away from her shadow. She gave him the creeps, for all her knowledge and her fancy way of talking. She was a marble statue without a soul. Soul? That was a laugh. Souls, or whatever they called them these days, were Dr Frey’s currency of trade.

  She pushed her long black hair out of her eyes, looked at him over the top of her wine glass and said, ‘I hope this one is better than the McCready boy. I told you I needed a child of exceptional stamina and what did you give me? A specimen intellectually damaged beyond repair through substance abuse. You must have known that. He was absolutely hopeless for the job. We tried to use him for a lesser projection but even that hasn’t worked.’

  He ignored the complaint. ‘I’ve got you two, this time. Twins. Sharp as tacks.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I thought twins might be interesting,’ he said. ‘Special.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Well, you know, their minds working together like one?’