Red (9 page)

‘How much longer to Wagga?' Peri was talking to Kate.

She glanced at her phone. ‘Half an hour. What are you going to do when you get there?'

‘We'll be OK.'

‘But you want to go to Melbourne, don't you?'

He nodded. ‘Are there buses?'

‘Yes, they go from the railway station but I don't know when they leave. Or you could get a ride with a truckie. There are lots that go to Melbourne. We aren't on the freeway but they join up with it pretty quickly.'

Peri nodded again.

‘I should give you my mum's number,' said Kate. ‘Then if you get into any hassles you could ring us and we might be able to help.'

‘Thanks, but we'll be all right.'

• • • • •

The train pulled into the station at Wagga. As they stood up and dragged their bags from overhead, Kate scribbled something on a piece of paper and pressed it into Red's hand.

‘You never know,' she whispered.

Crowds swarmed over the platform. People were calling out names, waving their arms and seizing those who came off the train. Kate disappeared, engulfed by a huge woman, her thick grey hair tamed into a plait that hung below her shoulders.

Red couldn't take her eyes off them.

‘Come on,' hissed Peri. He grabbed her arm and they moved with the crowd slowly towards the station exit.

They stood for a moment watching people climbing into cars and taking off in all directions. Peri headed off along the wide footpath.

‘Where are we going?' Jazz called.

‘To find somewhere we can sit and work out what to do,' said Peri.

Red said nothing.

After ten minutes they reached a park. In the centre was an oval with cricket nets and there was a team of kids practising their bowling. Peri crossed the grass to a band rotunda and they tossed their bags down and fell onto the wooden seats.

‘I don't think this was such a good idea,' said Jazz. She felt into the pocket of her backpack and took out the last of her sandwiches. ‘I mean, we could be stuck here for ages with just the odd bottle of water and a stale sandwich to stop us starving to death.'

‘Quit whingeing.' Peri was feeling in his own pockets. ‘We just need to think of ways to get to Melbourne. What did that woman Kate say – there are buses that go there.'

‘We've got no money.'

‘What about your mum's credit card?'

‘She probably stopped that after we got the train tickets.'

Red sat with her feet up on the seat, her chin resting on her knees. She felt the cool metal of the locket against her chest even as her face felt warm in the sun.

‘Pity we can't just email all that stuff to the judge,' said Jazz. ‘Then we could go home.'

‘I want to give it to him myself,' said Red. ‘And I have to ask him about my father.' Didn't Jazz care that there were people who wanted to kill him? That maybe the information on the USB stick might save him? That the judge would know who she was? She had to get to Melbourne.

She shook her head, stood up and leant against the upright pole at the entrance to the rotunda.

Jazz was chewing the last of her sandwich. ‘We will need more stuff to eat. And drink.'

‘Shut up. Food's the least of our worries. We can always nick food. It's getting to Melbourne we need to think about,' said Peri.

Jazz drew back from him. She turned and looked out through the bars of the building. ‘Look, there's a police car. Maybe it's looking for us.'

‘God.' Peri dropped to the floor of the rotunda. ‘Your father's probably got the cops all over the state out after us.'

Red joined him.

‘What will they do if they pick us up?'

‘Nothing much. They'll just send us back to Jazz's place.'

‘But if they know who I am … if they know about my dad and if they are the ones he was warning us about, on the USB …?'

‘You don't want to think about that.' Peri waited a few moments and then lifted his head. ‘No, they've gone now.' He stood up and pulled Red to her feet.

‘If you two are hungry,' he said, ‘we need to work out what we're going to do. We can find some shops or restaurants where they chuck out food. There's always plenty in the skips in the back lanes.'

‘Yuck,' said Jazz. ‘I'm not eating stuff someone's thrown away.'

‘Suit yourself. Then we go back to the station where the buses go from, or a service station or wherever it is that the trucks go from and we see if anyone will take us through.'

‘And if no one will?' Jazz was standing in front of him now, hands on her hips, challenging him.

‘Jazz,' he said slowly, ‘if you want to call your parents and go home, fine. Just give us time to get away first.'

‘No, no I don't want to do that.' She was crumbling, ‘I just don't want to be hungry, that's all. And I don't like the way you act as if my dad's some kind of crook.'

All this time, Red hadn't spoken. She looked from one to the other. ‘If you two don't quit arguing I'm going to go off on my own.'

‘OK. OK. We need to stick together,' said Peri.

‘We've got no money,' said Red. ‘If Kate was right, if there are trucks that go to Melbourne overnight we should try to find one. Ask some driver if he'll take us.'

‘That's pretty dangerous,' said Jazz. ‘A truck driver might attack us or something. My dad says people who hitch-hike are just asking for it.'

‘Maybe, but what choice do we have?' Red moved over to the seats and picked up her bag. ‘Anyway, no truckie's going to attack three at once. Let's go back to the station and try and find out where they go from.'

• • • • •

Peri was a few metres ahead of them. He stopped after three blocks and pointed to his right. ‘There are shops down there. Why don't we see if we can get some food?' They crossed the road and soon were in a strip with restaurants, delis and shops selling fruit and vegetables. ‘This is what we want.' Peri led them down an alleyway till they were in a lane that ran behind the shops. He passed his bag to Red. ‘Wait here.'

She and Jazz stopped. They watched Peri pull himself up onto the edge of a huge metal skip. He hovered there for a moment, then turned, grinned and gave them a thumbs-up signal before disappearing into the bin.

For a few moments nothing happened. Then his face appeared at the top of the bin and he passed out a loaf of sandwich bread. ‘It's a day or so old, but it's not green.'

Jazz screwed up her nose but reached to take it from him. A plastic bag with fruit came over next. ‘There's more here, too.' Peri disappeared.

The thud of boots sounded from the far end of the lane. Three boys, their heads shaven, their T-shirts torn, came racing towards them. ‘Git, you lot.' They kicked at the bin then grabbed the edge and began to shake it.

‘Git. This is our patch. Git out, you in there. Git out before we smack your head in.'

CHAPTER EIGHT

JAZZ GRABBED RED'SARM. THE METAL BIN SCRAPED
on the rough tarred surface of the road. Peri's face appeared. The biggest of the boys screamed at him, kicking hard with his heavy boots and then launching himself forward.

Peri disappeared, as the boy landed heavily inside. Screams. Thuds. Bodies smacked into the bin's sides. More screams. The other two boys kept rocking the bin, violently, one edge mounting the footpath, the whole thing looking as if it might tip over.

‘Stop it! Stop it!' Red launched herself at the boys. She tugged at their shirts. ‘Leave him alone! He's not hurting you.'

‘Piss off.' She was shoved roughly away.

She landed heavily on her back on the road. She pushed herself up. The bitumen tore at the scabs on her hands.

‘What can we do?' Jazz was beside her, almost crying.

Red's heart was pounding in her chest. ‘I don't know. I don't know.'

An upstairs window of the shop opened and a man leant out. ‘Get lost, you lot. Cut the noise.'

‘Cut it yourself, Grandpa,' yelled one of the boys rocking the bin.

Police sirens sounded. A van swung into the lane.

‘Run.' Red grabbed Jazz's hand and ran. She ducked into an open gateway. Jazz followed. Footsteps raced past them. The girls crouched against the paling fence. The van had stopped. Two policemen stepped out.

They were huge, their hips covered with a gun holster, a long, heavy baton and a radio with an aerial poking from it. They leaned over the edge of the bin, and Peri and the other boy climbed slowly out.

‘Is he OK?' whispered Jazz.

‘I can't tell.'

Peri's back was to them. His torn shirt hung in strips off his shoulders. A policeman stood tall over him. Red strained to hear what was being said but they were too far away. One of the policemen opened the rear door of the van. Peri and the other boy stepped around the vehicle and, as he did so, Peri turned and looked up the lane towards Jazz and Red. His face was streaked with blood.

• • • • •

Red watched as the van disappeared. She and Jazz came out of their hiding place into the empty lane.

‘What do we do now?' whispered Jazz.

Red shook her head and began walking after the van.

‘We can't go on without him,' said Red. She stopped in front of a waiter spreading cloths over his outdoor tables. ‘Excuse me, can you tell us where the police station is?'

He waved his arm. ‘This street, three blocks down.'

‘Are we going to the police?' said Jazz.

‘I don't know but we need to know where they've taken Peri. They might just let him go.' Red wanted to believe that. Her dad had said not to go to the police.
Trust no one. I repeat, no one
. Peri reckoned Jazz's dad would have put their names in databases for anyone to check. At least they didn't have photos. She stopped. There was a photo. Jazz's mum had taken that one at lunch. Red and Jazz on the verandah. That could be all over the country now.

They kept walking.

The rich tomato and herb smell of pizza rushed at them from the open door of the next restaurant. Then came Indian curry and Vietnamese and Thai spices. They breathed deeply, looked at each other but said nothing.

After five minutes they stood across the road from the police station. They were on a block of open ground where seats were scattered between flowerbeds and under tall trees. Jazz tossed her bag onto a seat and flopped down. ‘This is hopeless. What are we going to do, Ginger?'

‘I don't know.' Red sat down. After a few minutes she said, ‘I keep having this weird thought. When we were little, did we have a story or a book about a kid who's really sad when her dad dies and she puts her heart in a bottle and hangs it around her neck?'

‘I don't remember that,' said Jazz. ‘You're right, it's really weird.'

‘I remember it, though. I can see this picture of a girl wearing this bottle. It's happening to me. It's like I've got nothing inside me. It's empty. Everything's on the outside or it's gone. Like that kid. My brain is too. I can't think. I can't do anything.'

‘Are you all right?'

‘No.'

• • • • •

So they sat for a long time. The sky darkened. People came and went up the steps that led to the police station. Workers streamed out of the office blocks and headed for home. Red felt her emptiness overwhelming her. Shall I fade to nothing? Shall I just shrink and disappear? Be nothing? Nowhere? I have to do something. She stood up and began to pace the length of the block. One hundred and fifty steps. She turned and counted back. Her father said not to go to the police. Maybe police in a country town were different? Could she trust them? Did she have to stay away from them as well as anyone who might want to do harm, who might want what she had? She put her hand to her chest and pressed the locket against her skin. She walked the length of the block again. Peri was in there. She couldn't just leave him. She stood in front of Jazz and said, ‘We need to find out what's happening. We can't stay here all night. If they are going to keep Peri in there till the morning we should go somewhere else to sleep. But if he's going to come out tonight we should wait for him.'

‘Are you going to go and ask?'

‘We're both going.'

• • • • •

They stood at the desk and waited. A man looked up from his computer. ‘Be with you in a sec.'

They studied the faces of missing persons, girls like them pasted on the wall above a row of plastic seats. Black flyspots dotted some and others had edges that had come loose and were curling inwards. ‘Least we aren't there,' whispered Jazz.

‘Not yet,' said Red.

When the man came to them, Red took a deep breath and put on the most serious face she could. ‘I … we are checking about our cousin. He was in a fight earlier and a police van picked him up with this other boy and we want to know when he's going to come out.'

‘OK. Name?'

Whose name did he mean? What name would Peri have given?

‘Your name, young lady?'

What name should she give? It would go into his computer. Onto a database.

‘Rose.'

‘Rose who?'

She glanced at the faces of the missing. A woman, Mitsy Walker, with long blonde hair swept across her face and rings piercing her nose, lips and eyebrows stared out at her.

‘Rose Walker.'

‘And where do you live, Rose?'

‘We're from Sydney. Our house got destroyed in the cyclone. Our parents are still there working on the clean-up and they've sent us to friends of theirs who live down here. I can give you their name and phone number.' She pulled Kate's scrap of paper from her pocket. ‘It's Mrs Michaels and the number is 696 4001.'

‘Hang on a minute.' He left through a door at the back of the room.

‘How did you get that?' Jazz looked at Red, wideeyed.