Taken By Surprise

by Jessica Frances

  Chapter Nine – The Chase

  Friday April 6th

  I wake to a dim and grey sky, feeling stiff and cold from being curled up all night on the hard ground. Sitting up too quickly, it takes a moment for the dizziness to settle. I feel the vibrations in the ground warning me that someone is approaching and jump to my feet, prepared for anything. Instead, it’s only Gavin walking towards me.

  “Just me, kid.”

  He leans against the wall and slides down it, as if exhausted. I wonder if he’s had a bad night. Usually, Gavin is more cheerful in the mornings. He’s never told me his age, but I’d estimate it at over forty. His face is dry and dirty, which is covered easier by his dark skin, and his hair is starting to thin badly on top.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Rough night. You eaten lately?” Gavin shrugs off my question like he always does.

  “A couple days.” I shrug back at him, trying to ignore the hunger pains I’m having.

  “Here…” Gavin pulls out two bread rolls from his pocket and hands them over to me.

  “Are you sure I can have both?”

  “Yeah, I ate plenty yesterday. I was spoiled.”

  I eagerly take both and start munching away. “Thanks.”

  “No worries, kid.”

  “Why was yesterday a rough day then?” I ask in-between bites, trying to eat slowly so the food fills me up more.

  “Saw the family.”

  Gavin had a gambling problem when he lived with his wife and two kids. He nearly made them bankrupt and left before he could do any more damage. He hasn’t had the guts to go back to them. It has been over seven years now.

  “Did you knock on the door this time?”

  Several times, I’ve been with Gavin while he walks up his old street where his family still lives and watched him try to knock on the front door. I’d hide in the bushes and watch as he approaches. It almost always goes down the same way. He makes it to the front door and then chickens out. Once, he built up the courage to actually knock, but no one was home. He said it was a sign that he wasn’t supposed to come back and it took another year for him to wander back over there.

  “I nearly did. I saw them eating dinner and I couldn’t bring myself to ruin their meal.”

  “I’m sure they want to know you’re all right.” I doubt Aunt Lesley wants to know if I’m all right.

  “One day, kid, one day.” Gavin has also been saying that to me since I met him.

  “Was he there?” I don’t need to say who I mean. Gavin knows I’m talking about the man that has moved in with his family. That happened about six months ago. At first, Gavin was furious. He never seemed to have a temper and I have now only seen it come out twice. Once, when a group of kids were hurting me a few months after I started living on the street, and the other time was when the new man moved in with his family.

  “He was there. I even saw him helping Veronica with her homework.” He looks sad and I realize why his night was so rough. It must be hard to know you’ve been replaced. Would I feel sad if I knew Aunt Lesley had a kid and they were playing happy families? Nah, I would feel sorry for it.

  “I’m glad Melanie is happy, though. She deserves someone who treats her right.”

  I don’t know what to say to that. Usually, when Gavin speaks about his family, I don’t say anything. It seems to work best as he’s simply trying to talk himself either into something or out of it. This time, though, he is trying to be happy for his wife and kids, there is no anger anymore.

  “There was a guy looking for you the other day.” Gavin comes back from wherever his mind had taken him to.

  “Social worker?” I ask him.

  There have been a few that came looking for me in the past, mostly caused by tips from the public of seeing a homeless kid alone in the area. I’m not the only homeless kid around, there are plenty of others. They all hang out in groups, though, so they’re less likely to be reported. Those kids never liked me. Said I’m a freak.

  When I first was on the street, I stumbled upon them all once. They were distrustful and angry at me. I had hoped we could be friends, but they said that to be part of their group, I had to pass a test. I was forced to fight one of them and if I won, I could stay with them. I wanted to have friends so badly. I was only fourteen and they told me I had to fight a kid twice my size. He was nearly seventeen and had never lost a fight.

  I had no training and, even to this day, I don’t know how I won. I got hit so many times, it reminded me of living with Uncle Sid, but I wouldn’t give up. I never had friends and wanted to have them more than anything. When a miracle happened and I managed to beat the boy, they called me a freak. That was when Gavin found me and he went off on the kids.

  They all left me alone after that, but no one wanted to be my friend.

  “He could have been a social worker. He was in nice clothes that looked warm, had a good watch on, too.”

  “Social worker then.” I nod, feeling sure of myself. Most of the social workers I’ve known don’t care what’s best for me, they just want me off the street and out of their hair.

  “He knew your name, though. Described you perfectly.” I shrug. They must have made the connection that I’ve been caught a couple times in this area. No big deal. “I told him you had left. Don’t think he believed me, but some of the older folks came around, scared him off.”

  Again, I shrug at him and finish off the last of the second roll I’ve been given. My stomach wants more, but I’ll be okay for another couple of days if I have to.

  “Be careful, kid, okay?”

  “Sure.” I look up and see Gavin slowly getting up.

  “I’m going to go to the shelter; it’s freezing out here.”

  “Thanks for the food, Gavin.”

  “Stay safe, kid.” I don’t think Gavin has ever called me by my real name. No one does, I am always ‘kid’ out here.

  I hide the sleeping bag in my usual hiding place, walk away from the lot and head back into the city. The buildings provide blockage from the wind and I know a few public areas I can stay warm in and not get bothered. Food courts are usually the best because people will, most of the time, leave something behind.

  I again notice the hole in my pants by my left knee and know I should try to find a new pair. There is no broken skin, which is weird because I can see the inside of my pants are red from dried blood. There is a small graze, but it looks more like a few days old rather than something that happened the previous day. It must have been an old wound, which explains the blood, too.

  It’s lucky my knee isn’t injured. Running is important when living on the street and with broken skin, comes infection. A lot of people die from something like scraping their arms and such. There’s not many ways to keep clean on the street. A lot of people I know are always sick. Gavin is sick a lot. However, apart from nearly starving, I’ve been lucky so far. Gavin puts it down to being young and having good genes, which he had to explain to me at the time what genes were. I suppose I should be grateful to my family for something.

  I pull my pant leg down and block my eyes from the glare of the cloudy sky. I squint around and all I see are suits and warm coats rushing past me since it is still early morning and time for work. I’ve never worked before at a job, but who wants to hire a kid that has no clean clothes and can barely get food regularly, let alone a shower?

  I start walking again towards the city center, crossing the road when I notice a man heading towards me. He’s wearing a nice suit and while I’d usually assume he’s just running late for work, he has his gaze set on me. A cold shiver runs over my body that has nothing to do with the weather. I wonder if this is the man from yesterday, the one whose briefcase papers had gone everywhere. I try to remember what he looked like, but no face comes to mind.

  This man is fast approaching now and I don’t know what I should do. Then the wind helps me make up my mind. A breeze hits us both and while hair goes flying, skirts and dresses i
nsist on flying upwards and people grab hold of their hats, the man’s suit jacket flies up until the button at the front stops it. It’s enough for me to see a gun sitting on his hip, attached to some form of belt.

  The man from yesterday definitely didn’t have a gun and this seems like rather an extreme reaction to accidentally knocking him over. Who else is it then? A cop? One without a uniform?

  The man’s face becomes more determined and his hand is moving towards his side. I know I have to get out of here. Whether this man is really reaching for his gun or not, I don’t want to hang around and find out.

  The plus side to living on the streets is that you know them really well. Short cuts, busy streets and where shops are that you can easily disappear into.

  I decide on running as fast as I can for as long as I can. I sprint around people for eight long blocks and slow down enough to turn my head back to see if I’m being followed.

  I am.

  Who is this guy and what does he want with me?

  I turn down one of the side alleys and realize too late there’s a wall that is high up at the end. It’s a dead end, definitely too high to jump over. Thankfully, there is a truck parked at the end just against the wall, so without slowing down, I use the step outside the driver’s side door to pull myself up and, with a jump, I’m able to get myself up on top of the truck’s cab. From there, I do another jump so I can grip the wall edge. I look back as I hang from the top of the wall, feeling like I’m losing my grip. I see the man chasing me is already at the truck’s edge and is attempting to also jump up on top of it.

  I use all the strength I can muster, lift myself up and quickly glance over the other side of the wall, hoping there is something there that can break my fall. While there’s a large bin, it unfortunately is shut closed. No bin bags to break my fall. There’s no time to think of an alternative though, the guy has gotten on top of the truck’s cab and looks to be reaching out to grab my still dangling legs.

  I use every ounce of upper body strength I have and fly over the top of the wall. A shot rings out and I’m horrified that he has fired his gun at me. I can’t check to see if he’s managed to shoot me since I’m falling. Falling for what feels like forever.

  I finally make contact with the bin on my side and I crush my right shoulder on the hard metal lid. The rest of my body then makes contact as it catches up and next my legs hit the bin hard. I feel like my body is vibrating with the shockwaves that go through it. Pain radiates from my head to my toes and I’m unsure if I can even move.

  I test my head and feel it ache badly when I lift it. I think it’s a good sign that I’m able to lift and move it. I try to sit up next and cry out in pain when my right shoulder moves up from the bin. I’ve definitely broken something. I look up to the wall and squint again when the now bright, overcast sky tries to burn my eyes. Two hands grip the edge of the wall, ready to boost the man over. Who is this guy and why is he going to so much trouble?

  I try moving my legs and find they reluctantly stir. By half pushing myself, half rolling off the bin, I collapse on the ground, my legs still in shock. Again, I don’t move for a few moments, trying to catch my breath and force myself to move through the pain. I have felt a lot worse after some of my time spent with Uncle Sid, but I got through that and I can get through this.

  In the haze of the pain, I wonder what my life might have been like if I still had Mom. I only have two memories of her. I remember being rocked to sleep one night while she sang me a lullaby, feeling safe and happy. The other memory is of the night she was killed. We were at a supermarket when a bomb went off in the building next to us. The structure was old and the walls started to collapse. Mom wrapped her arms around me and protected me from all the falling debris. She died saving my life. Aunt Lesley told me I shouldn’t have survived, that the newspaper dubbed me a miracle baby.

  I don’t have any memories of my Dad. Aunt Lesley only said that I was better off not knowing him. I asked her for more information, but she refused.

  I mentally shake myself out of my memories and look to the top of the wall again. There are no longer hands gripping the edge. Could he have given up? Or is he just trying to find where I am by going around?

  Not wanting to have to confront him again, I force myself to get up and test my legs to make sure they can, indeed, support my body. They do, although they shake under my weight. I glance back at the metal bin. I’ve dented the lid from my heavy fall.

  Pushing off it, no longer needing it for balance, I slowly stumble out of the alleyway and out into the busy street. My shoulder aches worse now that I’m moving, so I hug it to my chest. I’m slumped over, my side also hurting and my shaky legs not working the way I need them to. The best I can do is jog slowly down the street. I’m already getting strange looks and I don’t like it. I deal much better when I blend into the background, that’s what I like.

  I decide it’s best to cross the road and head east towards the park. When I reach it, I quickly make my way into the public bathroom and collapse on the ground by the sink, my legs aching from having to hold me up. I roll up my right pant leg and find that my entire leg, for as far as the pant leg will go up, is already bruising a nasty purple color. I extend my leg and then bring it close to me. It hurts, but I can tell that there are no broken bones at least. I roll up my long-sleeved shirt next and see that it looks a lot like my leg. I’m unable to move my shoulder, though, and have to hope it sorts itself out, since I’m not going to be visiting a doctor anytime soon.

  I slowly stand up and look at myself in the mirror. I rarely look at myself in the mirror and each time I do, I barely recognize myself from the last time. I look like crap. My face keeps changing as I get older and it’s hard to keep up. My hair is always getting longer.

  I found scissors a few months ago and attempted to cut my hair short. It had turned out uneven and looked awful. I got many weird looks from people I passed on the street. It’s such a pain to have it long, though, since it just gets dirty and knotty. It’s already past my chin again and I have to push it behind my ears to keep it out of my face.

  Apart from the dirt that is caking my face, I can tell I’m bruised on my right side. I don’t even remember my head hitting the bin.

  I lean against the wall beside the mirror and close my eyes, wishing my pain will go away soon. A few tears escape my eyes, but I quickly wipe them away with my good arm. I breathe deeply, trying to pull myself together. The shock of the situation is trying to suffocate me, yet I know I’ll survive. I have to get through this with a straight head. Not with tears. I need to have no fear.

  Once my breathing comes back to me, I move back over to the mirror again. I turn the water on and wash my hands, struggling with my shoulder and ending up having to bend right over it so my arm doesn’t really have to move from where I have it against my chest.

  I wash my face using just my left hand and feel the tenderness on the right side of my face. I take the opportunity to drink some of the water, too, since I’m feeling dehydrated. Maneuvering my head under the water, I try to wash my hair. It’s probably not the best idea since it’s freezing outside, but it’s dirty and people give me less looks when it’s cleaner. The cold water drips down my neck and my back so I quickly turn the water off.

  I walk as fast as my body will allow to the hand drier and turn it on, pressing it several times before my hair is dry. Walking back over to the mirror, I look at myself again. I’m always surprised by how blonde my hair looks once it’s been washed. I look strange with cleaner hair. It doesn’t match my dirty clothes and now bruised, malnourished body.

  I don’t know what to do or where to go now. Will that man still be looking for me? What does he want? Why is he trying to shoot me?

  I’ve never had someone shoot at me, never even seen a gun close up. A shiver runs down my body and again it has nothing to do with the cold that is biting at me. I want to go back under the hand drier to warm up, but it makes the cold worse. I
decide there is nothing to do except wait it out. The darkness will provide good cover for me and hopefully, if he’s still after me, he won’t know where I frequent.