‘So? Get ready! We have to go.’
‘Oh, okay, sure,’ said Samantha. ‘I’ll just pop out and let your mum know that we’ll need a ride into town then, shall I?’
‘Ha ha. You’re hilarious. Believe me, we don’t need to worry about my mother. And Lala’s already asleep because you guys were out until dawn this morning.’
‘Yes, I remember,’ said Samantha, stretching.
She was curled up on the lounge in the caravan, reading.
Sooking is what you’re doing, Mirela had told her when she’d found her.
‘And you know that my mother has Fifika over for cards
tonight,’ said Mirela. ‘Can’t you hear them from here?’
‘I can hear them from here,’ said Samantha.
‘Well! They’re drunk as lords already. Fifika is sleeping over and in another hour they won’t know which country they’re in.’
‘Doesn’t mean they won’t notice we’re missing.’
‘Puh-lease,’ said Mirela. ‘Last time Fifika was over, you, me and the boys cooked up a midnight feast. We roasted half a pig!’
Samantha laughed. Esmeralda was a tyrant with the food. She always knew exactly how much she had of every little thing.
‘And then in the morning you convinced her that she and Fifika had cooked it and eaten it!’ she laughed.
Mirela snorted. ‘She still thinks they did. She talks about it sometimes, promises never to get so drunk when Fifika visits. But they only see each other once or twice a year, and tonight’s the night. And they’re already blotto.
Come on
, Sam!’
‘How would we even get there?’ said Samantha, a flutter of excitement growing.
‘The boys are waiting.’
Samantha threw her clothes on super-fast, Mirela making comments the whole time.
‘Jeans! You can’t wear jeans! It’s summer.’
Mirela flitted about the cramped caravan, wearing Samantha’s favourite top: a frilly white bodice that was laced with pink ribbon up the front. Her crimson skirt, ringed at the hem in tiny mirrors, fell past her ankles and sat low on her hips, leaving her flat, brown midriff bare. The filmy fabric jangled with bells each time she moved.
‘I don’t feel like wearing a skirt,’ said Samantha.
‘I told you Tamas was coming, didn’t I?’
Samantha poked out her tongue.
‘Move over,’ she said, as Mirela pulled clothes from the chest under the dining table. Sam hopped about the room, struggling into her super-skinny black jeans.
‘And Birthday Jones will definitely be there,’ said Mirela.
Samantha pulled on an aqua T-shirt. Her nails were mandarin orange today. She thought it worked quite well.
Mirela dangled a white sundress between two fingers. Samantha sighed. That’s exactly what she would have chosen for tonight, with gold gladiator sandals – if it had been two days ago.
‘I’m not wearing a skirt,’ she said. ‘What if we have to run?’
‘Oh, are you still thinking about that?’ said Mirela, pushing her down into the chair by the mirror. She used a comb to tease Samantha’s curls into even more of a tangle. ‘I’m over it. Those ninjas will be long gone. I agree with Birthday – they had nothing to do with the king. Luca reckons they would have moved into Croatia or somewhere by now, trying to snatch kids who are easier than us to take down.’ She laughed. ‘I reckon they’ll give Roma kids a miss from now on.’
Samantha thought about it while Mirela brushed. She’d read on the net that street kids were being abducted from all over Europe. Some said they were used as slave labour in homes of the almost-wealthy – people with plenty of money, but not so much that they wanted to spend it on hired help who required holiday pay and sickness benefits. And then there were the terrible sex-industry stories. Samantha shuddered. Was that the reason they were trying to push her into that car? And she’d read one article on Yahoo claiming that kids
were being stolen to use in private armies – like child soldiers.
I hope you’re right, Mirela, she thought. They’d better be out of Bucharest, and out of Romania altogether.
She made cat’s eyes using her darkest kohl liner and smudged charcoal eye shadow across her lids. The darkness hid the bruises still developing, and besides, she didn’t feel like more colour tonight. She dabbed clear gloss on her swollen lips. Her green eyes popped and fizzled from beneath their hooded frames.
‘You don’t really look like you’re going to a Carnivale,’ said Mirela, standing back from the mirror, one hand on her hip.
‘What then?’ said Samantha.
‘Not enough colour,’ said Mirela.
Samantha sighed. She scanned the caravan and spotted her tarot cards. Perfect. She grabbed the shiny black box and unravelled the golden rope wrapped around it. She tied the glinting, golden cord around her forehead and turned to face Mirela.
‘Yep. Okay. You’ll do. Let’s go,’ said her best friend.
Samantha slipped into sneakers and grabbed her favourite bag on the way out the door. She dropped her lip gloss and tarot deck into it. Made of a soft, dark fabric, the satchel had a way-too-long shoulder strap and a faded transfer of a Harley Davidson motorcycle on the front. Underneath the bike, in faded words, it read:
Ride it like you stole it.
With a single click, Luke popped the small lock on the ancient metal filing cabinet. Zac shuffled from foot to foot by his side. Luke creaked open the drawer marked BL–BZ, and hurriedly flicked through the first few files. Close to the front he found BLACK, Aaron, then BLACK, John Peter, and then BLACK, Luke. He lifted the plastic-covered manila folder from the drawer and pushed it closed again.
‘Take your pjs off, Nguyen,’ he said. ‘You don’t look like a proper prison escapee in your jarmies.’
He ripped open his own pyjama top and struggled out of the pants. Getting them over his jeans and runners was not easy and, reluctantly, he had to put his file down. He kept his eyes glued on it as he tried to get his pants leg over his shoe. He was dying to read what was in there. He’d never really been told anything about his parents – just that his mother had abandoned him. Because of the events of the past few days, he was beginning to feel he needed this information more than ever. It seemed that there were people out there who knew much more about him than he did. And for some reason, they didn’t like what they knew.
Tossing the pjs into the wastepaper bin by the desk, Luke lifted his sweatshirt and flattened the file against his chest, tucking it into the waistband of his jeans. The plastic was ice-cold against his bare chest and he shivered.
‘You want your file or not, Zac?’ he said.
‘I want to get out of here,’ said Zac. ‘As in yesterday.’
‘We’ll take the front door,’ said Luke. ‘We can buzz the gates open from the inside.’
He ran out of the office, Zac close behind. When they reached the heavy, ornate front doors, Luke paused with his hand on the buzzer and said, ‘We’re not going straight for the gates, Zac.’
Zac groaned. ‘Why did I think you were going to say that?’
‘Listen, I’ve had time to plan this for a while,’ Luke said. ‘I know there’s a lot of bush around here and we can go to ground in there for a while, but –’
‘I
know
the bush,’ said Zac.
‘Yeah, well, the rest of Windsor is full of houses and they’re gonna have a full search out for us as soon as they know we’re missing. If we were closer to some form of public transport, I’d risk it, but we’re ten kilometres from the train station.’
‘So what are we gonna do?’
‘Just trust me,’ said Luke. ‘Turn left when we get out the door.’
‘Back into the complex?’
‘The screws won’t head-count for a while yet. There’s too much happening and they have no reason to think we’re not locked in there, pooing and spewing with the rest of them.’
Zac sighed. ‘It’s not the screws I’m worried about,’ he said. ‘Abrafo’s on the grounds somewhere too.’
Luke pulled the front door open and peered out into the night. All quiet. He took a deep breath and pressed the buzzer for the front gates and from the darkness heard them rumbling open. Now they really had to hurry.
‘Come on,’ he said.
He and Zac bolted down the front stairs and into the garden bed. Hugging the walls of the building, they headed back into the main complex. This time, the quadrangle lay between them and the dormitories, and as they ran up the steeply sloping grounds, the quad fanned outwards and upwards, taking them further from the lights of the Houses.
Luke warmed up quickly, sprinting up the hill behind the hospital building. His breath steaming, he ran past the gym, mentally wishing it good riddance. He had no intention of ever again being the surrogate ball for No Rules Basketball. When they reached the silent dining hall, he glanced over at Zac, who looked as if he were merely strolling along, giving no sign that the sharpness of the incline had now increased dramatically. Luke breathed hard, trying to concentrate on negotiating the sucking mud and hidden rocks on this side of the complex.
His heart beat even faster when he spotted the workshop in the darkness ahead. He didn’t see any lights on, but that didn’t necessarily mean things would be okay. Everything hinged on whether Mad Mike and his fiancée were fighting tonight. Since he’d come up with this part of the plan a few weeks ago, he’d been working hard on getting to know the psycho groundskeeper. During Landscaping Lab, three days a week, he’d learned about Mike’s love-affair with his fiancée Narelle, her love-affair with rum, and how once every fortnight or so Mad Mike spent the night in the workshop
at Dwight, when Narelle was too juiced up and had kicked him out of their caravan. When Mike had threatened to leave her altogether, declaring that he’d prefer to stay here in the shed until he could find a new place, Luke had gone to work, encouraging Mike to persevere with the love of his life. He knew Mad Mike was meant for Narelle, but hell, if he was wrong, Mike could figure that out on his own time;
after
Luke had left Dwight for good. Luke figured he wasn’t doing anything too terrible. He couldn’t imagine any other woman taking Mike in.
Exhausted, he slowed to a walk and motioned to Zac to do the same. Quiet now, they crept closer to the workshop. He couldn’t hear anything, but Mike could be in there, lights off, sleeping. If he was in there, he’d have no idea what was going on in the dorms, Luke reasoned. The screws wouldn’t have thought to call for assistance from the workshop; no one but Luke knew that Mike spent his Narelle-free nights there. He moved around the side of the building to where the moonlight hit the window; he figured if he could just get a glimpse inside he could be sure this plan would work. But if Mad Mike was in there, they’d have to find another way out.
Carefully, he tiptoed up to the window, but it was no good. He wasn’t tall enough to reach the ledge. He thought about jumping up and grabbing hold, but if Mike was in there he might hear the noise. He chewed his lip in frustration – all this was taking much too long.
‘Let me do it,’ whispered Zac by his side. ‘Tell me what you’re looking for.’
‘Mad Mike,’ whispered Luke.
‘Great,’ breathed Zac. ‘Move over there a bit.’
Zac took three steps backwards and suddenly, before
Luke could even register what had happened, he had sprung forward and run up the side of the building. Luke didn’t catch it all, but somehow Zac managed to leap up onto the very side edge of the window ledge and flatten his back to the wall, his left hand gripping the top of the window frame and his left foot on the ledge. Impossibly, his other hand and foot hung free. He balanced there, silently. No part of his body could have been visible from inside the window unless someone was standing right up against the glass, looking for him.
Luke stared, his mouth open. Zac smiled down at him. Then slowly, Zac turned his head towards the window, angling his face to the glass.
He dropped noiselessly to the grass. ‘Nobody in there,’ he said.
Luke closed his mouth and shook his head. ‘Okay, come on.’
He raced around to the front of the workshop and there she was.
‘Oh. No. Way,’ said Zac.
The swamp rat. Parked exposed-engine forward and facing the steep incline, gaping holes where the doors should have been, the car hunkered down in the moonlight like some malformed beast. Luke jogged around to the driver’s side. ‘Get in,’ he grinned.
‘Oh, so this is the plan,’ said Zac. ‘The plan that was better than us running clear out the gates when we had the chance, running
quietly
into the bush until we could mingle in with others and get away. Could you just confirm for me that this is the plan?’
‘It’s the plan,’ said Luke. ‘But we have to go now, while everyone’s still in the dorms and they won’t see us. Get in.’
‘Oh, of course, now I get it,’ said Zac. ‘No one will see us. But they will freakin’
hear
us a hundred kilometres away, you lunatic!’
‘I said, trust me,’ said Luke. ‘Get in, now. Or stay here. Decide.’
He took two steps to the front of the car and bent towards the tyre. Even in the near darkness he could tell that the steel belts of the tyre were protruding – the rubber was worn almost completely through. He hoped this thing could take the surface of the road. He shoved hard with his foot at the wooden wedge that stopped the car rolling forward. That was going to be the other problem, he thought. The swamp rat pretty much had no brakes. Mad Mike would stand up on them to slow down, and would finally stop her by rolling into something.
With the wedge gone, the vehicle started to move slightly. Luke jumped into the driver’s seat. He leaned over towards the passenger door.
‘Coming?’ he said to Zac, who was still standing out there.
Zac swung himself in and looked around for a seatbelt.
‘There aren’t any,’ said Luke.
He turned the key around to Accessories, but didn’t start the car.
‘The keys are just left in here?’ said Zac.
‘Someone would steal this?’ said Luke.
The swamp rat started to gather speed.
‘I have to ask,’ said Zac. ‘What are we going to do when you start this thing and they come running, Luke? They’ll see us driving and call the cops straight away. Even if we make it out of here, this is not the sort of car we can just slip into traffic with.’