Box Page 3

  ‘I rang them last night,’ Marti said at the top, looking towards St Clair with its bright houses stuck onto the hill above the beach. ‘Said I was still with a friend, working out what to do and I’d be back for dinner tonight.’

  I caught my breath. ‘Will you?’

  She looked sideways at me. ‘Just think, crispy-roast potatoes, chicken and gravy, chocolate cake and cold milk.’ She started down the steps, turned and flashed me a brief grin. ‘No, I won’t, but I told them if they try and force me to get endorsed, I’ll really disappear.’

  Marti paused on the third step from the bottom. ‘I’m going to disappear anyway. I’ll ring and tell them when I get up the nerve.’ She patted her pocket.

  I told her, ‘This guy Ryan at school said they can track people by satellite if they carry cell phones, just like they can track the wand because it’s got a microchip.’

  ‘Really? So I should hide the phone?’

  ‘But not too close to where we’re staying.’

  Marti took out her little silver phone and looked at it. Her thumb began to rap out text. ‘My best friend got endorsed. This is her last message from me.’ Marti stroked the phone down her cheek, then she walked back up the steps.

  I sat where I was, thinking back to last evening: me crossing the park with my backpack, seeing Marti for the first time — a grey flash — slipping behind the white mushroom of the observatory. We’d played a game of cat and mouse, round and round, until she doubled back on me. She planted her hands on her hips, slit her eyes and said, ‘So? Whaddya want?’

  We looked at each other for maybe a full twenty seconds, eyed each other’s packs, wrists (I had my sleeves up, she had the grubby bandage), glanced around the park, at the darkening sky.

  ‘I know a place,’ Marti spoke finally, before I’d said a thing.

  So I followed her, curious, over the end of the golf course, looking down onto the city where the lights were coming on, to the harbour where a ship was moving towards the heads, towards open sea and freedom. I’d planned to sleep in the bush; I had a ground sheet big enough to go under and over me, but Marti wanted to be near buildings. At the school, which backed onto the bush, we could go in the bike shed if it rained, we could use the drinking fountain. And there’d be no creatures rustling around, she said; it wouldn’t get completely dark with the street lights only fifty metres away.

  I gave in on that first night, happy not to be alone. We’d each brought food but made a pact not to touch it until we were desperate. We hoisted it into a pine tree five minutes’ walk from the school, so neither of us could sneak off easily in the night without the other knowing.

  Now something made me turn round, just in time to see Marti hurling the phone onto the chopped stones below. It bounced between the tracks and bits flew off it. I felt as if I’d just been slapped awake. Marti was tough. I didn’t know how tough I’d be when it came to the crunch. Right now, I knew hunger would be the first thing to break my resolve not to get endorsed.

  As we made our way back to the library, in my head I was climbing the tree and peeling back the lid of that little tin of tuna in basil sauce, feeling the red oil run over my tongue, cramming it into my mouth with my hand, like a baby.

  ‘What?’ said Marti.

  ‘I didn’t say anything.’

  ‘You groaned.’

  ‘Sorry. Food.’

  ‘Me too. Have some water. Where shall we go at four past two?’

  ‘Lowe Street, I think.’ I was kicking myself again that I’d left home without checking on the Internet for the first feeding station. ‘They’ll probably give us two-minute noodles.’ They might refuse to give us anything.

  ‘Chicken feet,’ Marti said. ‘Thousand year old eggs. I wouldn’t care. Even salt plums I’d scoff.’

  We were waiting outside when the man unbolted the library doors at ten.

  ‘We’re only open for reading this week,’ he said. ‘You been done already?’

  Marti and I did our head roll.

  ‘Hurt at all? I’m going over this afternoon.’

  Marti looked grim. ‘Hurts all kinds of ways.’

  I pulled my cuffs into my hands.

  At the computer corner we strolled around peering under the tables, into rubbish bins for a glimpse of discarded pink Internet card. ‘Empty of course,’ said Marti, kicking at a bin. ‘And vacuumed overnight.’

  My stomach growled and burned. I felt hollow, exhausted, tempted to crawl over to the sunny patch of carpet under the big windows, and sleep. I didn’t want to be awake in a world where every small act was so complicated. Maybe we should just go to my grandparents’ where there was food, free e-mail, soft beds and a toilet two doors from anywhere.

  I made for the exit then Marti whistled through her teeth. She jerked her head at the desk where the assistant was on the phone with her back to me. On the desk behind her was a stack of cards she’d been stamping. Pink.

  I hesitated, glanced at Marti. Her lips were saying, do it! I sidled over and snatched. I got two and walked nonchalantly back to the computers. I put them on the table by Marti, feeling weak and sick. ‘D’you reckon we should?’ Use stolen property. Four, no eight, dollars we didn’t have.

  ‘How come you suddenly got a bad conscience? When you’ve already committed civil disobedience?’

  ‘Civil what? Endorsement? But we know that’s wrong.’

  ‘And stealing’s wrong,’ Marti snapped. ‘Which wrong do you want to be? We’re in it deep now and we gotta do what we have to, to survive, eh?’

  I was confused. Did the fact we disagreed with our government suddenly make every other wrong thing right? Had we become so criminal it didn’t matter what we did now?

  ‘Don’t look so gloomy.’ Marti poked a card into the slot. ‘Your parents started this. Blame them, eh?’

  I sat down and tapped out the familiar sequence. Summoned my parents across the globe. I had to bite the insides of my mouth, I missed them so badly.

  But there were no incoming messages. I stabbed New.

  Hi Mum and Dad, I tapped out, glad when Marti wandered off, hope you’re having a great time. Telling about us, everything here is well with new skin all round at our house so I’m not wasting any time. There are good pies. At Frankie’s Dairy kids like me can get K-bars with S-cards. No longer can I use your fishing rod, Dad because it seems too long. Until you come home I am sleeping well. At Albert St school I found a girl running. Away from her home she is quite brave like me. And you would be. Proud Derik.

  I stared at the words and pictured my parents crowding Mum’s laptop to read my message, Mum twirling a strand of hair round her finger till it flicked up into a tight curl, the way she does when she’s worried.

  ‘Doesn’t make sense.’ Marti was back beside me. ‘Oh, S-cards no longer … too long until you come home … that’s clever.

  ‘What should I do, d’you think? My parents never check their e-mail or I’d send one. I don’t want them getting the police onto me when I’m perfectly safe.’

  ‘We could go and talk to them from your doorstep,’ I said. I wouldn’t mind setting eyes on some parents even if they weren’t mine.

  ‘I couldn’t. I might want to go home too badly. I would if Pipi came jumping round. My dog,’ she added. ‘Anyway, they might have people watching the house for me.’

  I shrugged. That seemed unlikely so early on but I didn’t want to take the adventure out of it for Marti. I didn’t want her to go and leave me either.

  ‘Phone,’ I said at last. ‘At my place. We’ll go over and wait till it’s empty.’

  ‘They might be looking for you, too.’ Marti leaned on the computer.

  ‘Uh-uh. I just told our house-sitters I was going to my grandparents’ after all. No questions asked.’

  ‘Okay, I could ring as long as you don’t listen, in case I crack up.’ Marti slid her hand over the mouse. ‘What’s the feeding network website? Let’s check it out.’

  I fingered the Internet
card — my lifeline to my parents, with only about forty-five minutes left on it. There was no knowing if we’d get hold of any more. ‘I reckon we should just go down to Lowe Street later, see how it goes.’

  ‘But didn’t you say the schedule’s all on the Internet?’

  I sighed. ‘But it’s not that simple. You’ve got to follow links. You need lots of time.’ Precious parent e-mail time.

  ‘Come on. We’ve got time. Another card after this.’ She pulled up a chair. ‘Gimme the first site.’

  ‘No.’ I snatched the spare card into my pocket. Marti’s hand was over the other.

  ‘What’s the problem? You know I don’t have any information. It’s not fair if you keep it all to yourself.’

  ‘I need to keep in touch with my parents.’ I stood up. ‘Get your own cards.’ I knocked Marti’s hand away and snatched the card.

  Marti had two red marks on her cheeks. ‘You agreed last night we’d share stuff. Food, whatever we found. I didn’t know I was joining up with a … a thug!’

  I stepped back from her clenching fists. ‘You don’t know how important it is to keep links with … them. The information they’re getting over there. It’s big, and we won’t hear a thing about it otherwise.’

  Marti wrenched hair back behind her ear. ‘You don’t know how important it is to survive. You think this is hungry. You wait and see how we feel tomorrow. How you feel, because I’ll be off finding someone who knows how to cooperate.’ She spun and marched out of the library. I watched her plaits flick, flick, flick as she joggled down the steps to the street.

  I followed her, fifty metres behind, feeling sluggish and hungry. It was predictable, where she’d go. Back to the school. Back to the tree where the food was hidden. If I was so uncooperative, she might as well take her share before I did.

  But I found her near the bike shed kneeling on the asphalt, folding up her things, the way I’d done that morning, smoothing a T-shirt over her knee, stroking it.

  I picked up a pottle of lip gloss that had rolled away. ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘We can use our computer at home if there’s no-one around.’ Even though it would make the trip that much more hazardous. I’d planned a quick snatch and grab, with Marti’s phone call a concession. Now I was making another one, just to keep this tetchy girl with me. Maybe we’d each be better off on our own.

  She looked at me and nodded. Her face had paled.

  ‘You okay?’

  ‘Tummy ache. Never had one like this.’

  ‘Hungry. We could go to my place now. We don’t have to wait till feeding time.’

  ‘It’s not that. Something else.’

  ‘I’ve got pills,’ I said. ‘Paradoleine. Strong.’

  Marti swallowed one down with a gulp of water. She wiped hair back off her face with the flat of her hand. There was a smudge of dirty tears across her cheek. ‘When this works we’ll go to your place, eh?’

  THE CURTAINS at the front of the house were all closed, the windows like sleeping eyes. I crept along the drive, from shrub to shrub looking for any flicker of movement, while Marti waited up on the street. But there was no-one in the kitchen and the back garden was empty, the windows there shut too.

  I didn’t know my housemates well enough to guess how they’d treat me, turning up at ‘their’ door — whether they’d try to trap and report me if they knew I was on the run. Whether they’d care if I’d been endorsed or not. It was hard to believe Mum and Dad had been so wrong about them. They’d talked tentatively about their anti-endorsement feelings and it had seemed that the students agreed. So far so wrong.

  Then I got angry. This was my house that my parents had entrusted to them. I tried the back door. Locked. The front door too.

  I knocked loudly and rang the bell, then stepped right back, out of the porch. Marti was hovering at the top of the drive. I knocked again and when there was no sound, went to find the spare key under the ivy. I beckoned Marti down.

  Inside the air was musty, the bench cluttered with dirty dishes. Two plates lay on the table, crusted with stew and smears of mashed potato. That didn’t take long; I’d left only yesterday. They were probably relieved to have me out of the house. They didn’t have to pretend to be tidy.

  ‘Don’t touch anything,’ I told Marti. ‘I don’t want them to know I’ve been here.’ I went through the house. Every bed — even mine — was ruckled and unmade, the air stale with night breath and bedding. I could hardly stop myself wrenching back the curtains, opening windows. In my parents’ room I pulled out my mother’s top drawer and inhaled — the lavender sachet my sister had made, Mum’s favourite Indian scent, the smell of her.

  I slammed it shut when Marti appeared in the doorway. ‘I’ll tell you my plan of action,’ I said hoarsely. ‘If you want to ring home, use the phone here by the bed,’ I flicked the curtain back a couple of centimetres, ‘and keep an eye on the drive, in case. ‘I’ll get fishing gear, toilet paper … anything else?’

  Marti wasn’t listening. She hadn’t said a thing since we came in. Now she picked the phone up like it was a live crab.

  I groped in Dad’s wardrobe for his fishing rod in its canvas wrap. He kept everything but clothes in there: squash racket, set of chisels, wetsuit. He wasn’t big on clothes and probably had his entire tiny collection with him in Germany. I picked up the lunch box of hooks and lures and sinkers and took out a couple of each. ‘Don’t forget to watch the drive,’ I told Marti as I went out to the kitchen for food.

  It was going to be tricky covering my tracks in here. I took bits and pieces: the end of a bag of raisins, a handful of bread slices (I stuffed one in my mouth, whole, and sucked on it as I went), three eggs wrapped in a tea-towel, four apples and a lemon, a half jar of pickles, slab of cheese, end of salami, two carrots, all thrown together into a plastic bag. From the freezer I added squid bait, sausages, a bag of blueberries.

  I could hear Marti’s voice, tight and high. ‘No, I know he’ll make me … no, not unless you both … I’m never … no … no-one can make me. Mum, I’d rather not … not live. I’m safe, I’ve met someone, we’ve got a good place to sleep … no, not like that, Mu-um … he’s about twelve but, you know, smart.

  ‘I threw it away but I will, promise, or e-mail … yeah, you talk to Dad. If he promises not to make me, I might … love you too, yeah … bye, Mum.’

  She tried to stifle a sob. I shut the door to the hallway.

  Twelve? How could she? Did Marti really see me as a squirt, like a pesky kid brother? I was as tall as she was, maybe taller. Okay, my voice hadn’t totally broken yet but if I yelled it definitely cracked. I could have yelled right now.

  I heard Marti run the bathroom tap then she came to the kitchen. ‘Can we check those websites now?’ Cool as. You’d never know she’d cried. She was looking around the kitchen.

  ‘I suppose. We’ll have to keep a watch though.’

  ‘I need the loo first.’

  ‘Through the laundry. You want a sandwich?’

  ‘You bet.’ She grinned at me and I stopped feeling twelve. More like almost eighteen, three years the other side of my actual age.

  I kept glancing up the drive as I spread butter on thick, with chutney, cheese and a slice of cucumber. It looked so good I had to make us two each, then because I’d taken almost the whole loaf I shoved the bag with its crusts in my back pocket.

  I started up the computer then stood at the window, on guard, until Marti finished. She came out looking flushed, pulling her shirt down, brushing off her baggy pants. ‘Seeing I was in the laundry it occurred to me we could use some rags. Have you got any? You know, for wiping up, whatever.’

  ‘I’ve got a tea-towel,’ I said but she looked so uncomfortable I told her about the rag bin in the laundry. She came back with her pockets stuffed.

  While the Internet dialled up I went to the toilet myself. I nearly choked when I saw the wet clump of bloody bog paper. I turned away and flushed. Was Marti sick or what? Had she hurt herself?

 
; I finished off and flushed again, then it struck me. Girls. This is what happened. They bled. We’d covered it at school every year and Mum left tampons all over the place like they were pens but it was the kind of thing you didn’t think about until … that’s why she wanted rags. I felt faint so I splashed my face before I joined Marti at the computer.

  ‘Find Google,’ I told her, ‘and put in “Street Pies”.’

  I ran for a dig around in Mum’s drawer among the lipsticks, tiny bottles and receipts.

  Marti was on-screen, half-eaten sandwich in one hand, whizzing the cursor round. I studied her face. Could you tell by looking? Did girls go pale from blood loss? Or were they brighter-coloured because they had extra to get rid of? To me she looked kind of normal except for the bulging pockets. She had three dark freckles just above her eyebrow.

  I dropped the tampons by the keyboard.

  Marti’s head jerked back like they were huhu beetles and she back-handed them onto the floor. She muttered, ‘If you ever tried cutting your hair in the mirror, you’d know some things aren’t as easy as they sound.’ She was blushing now but she forged on. ‘Do I follow the School Lunches link?’

  With my toe I nudged the tampons away under the desk. ‘Why would you?’ She had it but I wanted to know her logic.

  ‘Because there are about six schools in our part of town. The links for Sand-Witches or Valley Chickens sound like they’d be for beach suburbs, or K-Valley.’

  ‘Yeah, you’re right.’

  She clicked on the site and we watched the screen flick over.

  Then we heard the key scratch in the lock.

  Marti punched ‘escape’ and I shut down after her then I ran and snatched the bag of food from the kitchen. I closed the door to the living room where we were and we stood, hardly breathing, while someone went to the bedrooms, then back through the kitchen. The laundry door handle rattled.

  ‘Quick. They’re in the toilet.’ I handed Marti the fishing tackle, pushed her across the room and through the porch to the front door.

  There was a girl — almost a woman — about twenty, on the doorstep, looking through her handbag. I’d never seen her before.