CHERUB: People's Republic (10 page)

‘Did you hear this?’ Sal shouted, as he looked back at his pals. ‘Running us all down?’

‘Racist,’ someone hissed. ‘Saying we all poor.’

‘I didn’t say anything,’ Yannis protested. ‘Just … it’s an old phone, so why would Ethan steal it?’

Sal raised his hand again, getting a kick out of the way Yannis was squeezing himself into the corner.

‘I bet you taste like KFC, don’t you, fatty?’

Ethan could have backed out at this point, because Sal and Guillermo were focused on Yannis. But he stuck up for his friend, even though Yannis had abandoned him a few moments earlier.

‘I’ve got lunch tickets,’ Ethan stuttered. ‘Have as many as you like. Just leave us be.’

Sal turned furiously towards Ethan, ‘You think I’m a charity case, punk? You think your friend can insult me, then buy me off with a two-dollar lunch ticket?’

Besides Sal and Guillermo, there was now a posse of four Latino boys blocking Ethan and Yannis’ exit from the row of lockers. Ryan didn’t fancy his chances against a gang of six and he felt guilty as Sal slugged Ethan in the guts.

‘Nice shot!’ one of the posse shouted, as Ethan doubled over in pain. ‘Mess him up, Sal!’

The lunchtime bell saved Ethan and Yannis. A good spot in the lunch queue was one of the few things kids valued more than a good view of a fight and there was a rowdy pile-up as bodies and backpacks squeezed through the door.

‘Sensible,’ Mr Orchard shouted, as he came out of his office to deal with the mob. ‘Mr Lowell, stop pushing.’

As Orchard turned back towards his office, he spotted the situation with Ethan and Yannis.

‘What’s going on?’ Orchard shouted. ‘It’s lunchtime. Out of my locker room, now.’

As the kids dispersed, Sal hissed at Ethan, ‘Be seeing you boys after school.’

‘Hey,’ Mr Orchard said, as he grabbed Sal. ‘You’ve been suspended twice this year already. Would you care to tell me what’s going on?’

Sal shrugged. ‘Friendly discussion, sir.’

‘I’ve got my eye on you,’ Mr Orchard warned. ‘Get outta here.’

There were only five kids left in the locker room and Ryan couldn’t stick around any longer without looking suspicious. He waited by the exit, pretending to look for something inside his pack while feeling queasy about the situation he’d engineered: it was meant to be over in a minute with a quick flash of his Karate skills saving Ethan from Guillermo, but now it had the potential to be way more serious.

Mr Orchard held Ethan and Yannis back, but Ryan couldn’t hear what was said. Yannis came out of the locker room first. Ethan was behind, holding his stomach and with rings around his eyes, like he was close to crying.

Most other kids had raced off to get lunch in the cafeteria at the opposite end of the building, so the corridors were empty enough for Ryan to stay a few metres back and hear what Ethan and Yannis said.

‘Should have kept your stupid mouth zipped,’ Ethan told Yannis in an angry whisper. ‘It was over. They were walking away.’

‘Well you offered lunch tickets. That didn’t help,’ Yannis said.

‘I was on the spot. It was all I could come up with to save you.’

‘I could have handled them,’ Yannis said.

‘I saw how you handled them, Yannis. You were like Jell-O.’

‘You think they’ll really get us after school?’

Ethan shrugged. ‘Sal’s fierce, but they might just be trying to scare us. I say we go to the chess room now and stay all lunchtime. After last lesson, we run flat out and get straight on the bus, sitting up the front near the driver. With any luck they’ll forget by Monday.’

‘My dad’s got a gun,’ Yannis bragged. ‘If they do anything to us, I’ll bring it to school and shoot them dead.’

‘Aww, don’t start being a dick. You’re
so
full of crap.’

‘I’d do it,’ Yannis said defensively.

‘Yeah,’ Ethan scoffed. ‘You’re going to bring a gun to school. You’re going to solve all our problems with a good old killing spree.’

‘Don’t believe me then,’ Yannis said, sounding even more pathetic than usual as Ethan turned towards a staircase.

‘Have you even fired a gun before?’ Ethan asked. ‘And your dad’s not a US citizen, so he
can’t
own a gun.’

‘Where are you going?’ Yannis asked, deliberately ignoring Ethan’s attack on his revenge fantasy.

‘First floor, chess room.’

‘I’ve got to eat,’ Yannis said.

‘I’ve got a packed lunch,’ Ethan replied. ‘Sal and all those guys will be in the cafeteria. If you want to risk that, you’re on your own.’

‘I’m
starving
,’ Yannis protested. ‘They do burgers and fries on Fridays.’

‘Your blubber will tide you over ’til three-thirty,’ Ethan said, still holding his stomach as he started up the stairs. ‘You can have one of my sandwiches if you like.’

Ryan didn’t belong to chess club so he couldn’t follow Ethan and Yannis upstairs. As their voices faded out, he felt almost as bad as he’d done after the meeting on the beach the night before.

12. NEWS

As Ryan ate lunch, the first light of Saturday morning was breaking over Dandong. Ning had barely slept. She woke on a double bed in the Pink Bird Motel. It was after five and she rushed to the bathroom with a bout of nervous diarrhoea. It wasn’t cold, but she kept shivering and had to clench her fists under her arms to keep her hands from shaking.

Everything felt wrong. Ingrid promised an explanation, but had said little more about what her stepfather had done, or why they had to leave the country. She’d passed out after draining a litre of vodka and had been snoring ever since.

Ning kept seeing the two dead cops. When her eyes closed she imagined her stepfather under interrogation, or knelt against a wall facing execution. Much as Ning hated her lessons and exam-obsessed classmates, she now craved the certainty of her old life. She felt like she was falling into a bottomless well, grasping at the sides but unable to grab hold.

The Pink Bird was newly built by an unopened highway. The rooms were large but bland, with framed pictures of Cadillacs on the wall. It was a budget place, made for travelling salesmen, visiting relatives and amorous types who could pay by the hour. Each room faced a large parking lot, with a line of flat-roofed convenience stores on the far side.

Ning was sick of Ingrid’s snoring and eau de booze. She slipped on trainers, grabbed the room key and crept out. After going down the stairs at the end of the balcony, Ning cut into the parking lot. There were less than thirty cars in a lot designed for hundreds, and it would stay that way until the highway opened.

Something about the silent grey space and the orange sky helped Ning relax. It could get hot at this time of year, but right now the sun wasn’t up and a breeze freshened the air. She found herself at the shops without knowing it. The only place open was a twenty-four-hour convenience store.

This part of town probably would have been fields two years earlier. The little shop hadn’t had time to decay. The glass in the automatic doors shone. There were no sticky residues in the bottom of the fridges, or dead flies inside the light fittings.

Ning couldn’t remember picking up money, but she found coins and a couple of notes in her pocket. Nostalgia drew her towards the instant snacks at the back. She remembered being four or five years old, stopping at a newly opened petrol station on a rare orphanage outing and seeing Pepsi machines, microwaves and fridges filled with bright yellow boxes.

Ning was now old enough to know that great cuisine didn’t emerge from microwaves in the back of convenience stores. But her inner five-year-old still loved the yellow boxes: fish in sauce, sweet dumplings, American burger and crispy duck with rice.

Ning dropped an American Burger box into a shiny microwave. As it rotated, she put ice in a cardboard cup and filled it with Sprite.

The burger came out of the microwave spitting hot, with grease soaked through the cardboard clamshell. She opened it, sniffed and defied her nausea with a scalding bite. The meat was dry, the bun soggy, but when you chewed it up with the ketchup it wasn’t too bad.

A couple of construction workers in fluorescent bibs were paying for cigarettes as Ning took the Sprite and burger to the service desk. She took another bite of the burger and was reminded of Ingrid as she saw the bottles of spirits lined up behind the counter.

‘See you tomorrow,’ the assistant told the construction workers, with a strong Korean accent. Then to Ning, ‘Just the American Burger and medium drink?’

Ning had been distracted by all the bottles. ‘Sorry,’ she said as she reached into her jeans. ‘Still half asleep.’

‘Don’t bite until you’ve paid,’ the woman said, though her tone was motherly rather than cross.

Ning peeled out a pair of twenty-yuan notes, but almost died of shock as she looked at the counter. The construction workers had blocked her view of the morning newspapers, but now she saw a fresh stack of the
Dandong Daily
with a huge photo of her stepdad on the front page and the headline:
Party officials congratulate police as human smuggling ring is smashed
.

Ning’s neck snapped back, as if a gutting knife had been thrust between her shoulder blades. The
Dandong Daily
was an official communist party newspaper, filled with dreary articles about party meetings and official appointments. A common joke was that people only bought it because the government-subsidised cover price made it cheaper than toilet paper.

The privately owned
North East China Star
cost ten times the price and had a livelier appearance. The front page showed two pictures of Ning’s stepfather. One had him at a function, dressed in black tie and holding a glass of Champagne. The second had been taken after his arrest, and showed him looking scared, holding a sign that read
Fu Chaoxiang J051654
. The headline simply said,
The Slave Master
.

‘My dad likes a newspaper,’ Ning said, smiling weakly as she grabbed a copy of both.

‘Your change,’ the woman yelled, as Ning headed for the automatic doors.

Ning stuffed the coins in her pockets and ran out. The construction workers stood nearby, enjoying their cigarettes and drinking tea from thermal mugs. She thought one of them gave her an odd look, but it was just paranoia.

There was a line of deserted picnic tables alongside the store. Ning ignored the drink and burger and began with the front page of the
Star
.

‘Businessman’ Fu Chaoxiang arrested in police crackdown.

Twenty-eight arrests, including business associates, provincial customs head and six communist party officials. Women’s groups petition for death penalty.

An investigation led by the
North East China Star
has led to the arrest of businessman Fu Chaoxiang. A well-known figure in the Dandong business community, Fu was known locally for his popular chain of discount stores and sponsorship of Dandong Knights soccer team.

But while Fu masqueraded as an honest character, his fabulous lifestyle was underpinned by a brutal smuggling racket. According to official documents and evidence gathered by the Star’s investigative team, Fu’s organization was responsible for smuggling over eighty women and girls per week across the Yalu River from North Korea. These included children as young as seven years old.

Officials believe that fifty thousand females were smuggled over the past eighteen years, and some evidence suggests that the actual number could even reach six figures. Smuggling on this scale was only possible with the support from corrupt officials on both sides of the border.

Police say further arrests are possible in the coming days and have published a list of Fu’s associates who are wanted for questioning.

Fu’s victims were desperate to leave North Korea, where jobs are scarce and food in short supply. Many paid hundreds of yuan to be smuggled into China, where they were promised jobs in factories, but Fu’s organization targeted only females who were youthful and physically attractive.

Some of Fu’s victims were passed on to gangsters and forced to work as prostitutes in brothels all over China. Women who refused to submit were beaten, sexually abused or injected with drugs to make them subservient.

But most victims of the evil slave master were taken far from China and forced to sell their bodies for sex with Western men, or even Africans. In cities such as London, Paris or Los Angeles, Fu’s associates were able to sell North Korean women to brothel owners for up to one million yuan.

In the most depraved cases of all, it is believed that wealthy paedophiles in the United States purchased North Korean boys and girls in return for half a million dollars (3.5 million yuan). Authorities in the United States have begun an investigation into several individuals, based upon a dossier of evidence given to them by the
North East China Star.