Riggs Crossing (2 page)

I’m going to take these books up to my room now and hide them. After all, I’m the one who went to the trouble of sorting them.

A few of the books are just so weird as to defy classification. There’s a very old blue paperback called
Memoirs of a Midget
by Walter de la Mare. There’s an even older blue hardback called
The Story of a Piece of Coal: What it is, Whence it Comes, Whither it Goes.
I open it – the paper lining the front cover has a pretty floral pattern. It was published in London in 1896, written by Edward A Martin, FGS. I wonder what FGS means. It doesn’t seem very interesting, but there are some nice illustrations of the prehistoric plants that became coal, and of the machines that cleaned and refined the coal.

Before I can stop myself, I’ve constructed one of those impossible dilemmas that I hate but can’t stop making up. What if I’d read every single book in the library and had nothing left except
Memoirs of a Midget, The Story of a Piece of Coal
, or
So Rich, So Famous
? And I wasn’t allowed to have any new books until I’d read at least one of them? Which one would I read?

Before I’ve solved that dilemma, I remember the time and glance at my watch. A quarter to four. I’d better get the books up to my room in a hurry. Only one problem: there are too many to carry in one trip. I put the OKAY and CRAP ones back into the boxes, hide half of the MINE pile behind the shelves, and sprint out of the library and up the stairs with the others, which I hide under my bed. I can get the rest of them tomorrow.

I make it to my room just in time. Five minutes later, Bindi and Cinnamon come back from school, slamming the front door behind them. At six we have dinner. Lyyssa or Sky cooks for us four nights a week; on the other three days it’s our own responsibility to look after our meals.

Lyyssa is a good cook, which is surprising, considering how bad she is at everything else. Tonight, she’s cooked a lamb roast so tender it falls off the bone, with mashed potatoes, roast vegetables and gravy. Despite the food always being nice, I don’t enjoy mealtimes. Lyyssa sits at the head of the table, trying to start a conversation that includes everyone. Cinnamon and Bindi ignore everyone else, talking to each other about how much they hate all the teachers at school. Karen pours tomato sauce on everything on her plate, takes huge mouthfuls, and makes disgusting smacking noises as she chews.

I sit at the table eating quietly, trying to tune out Karen’s chewing and Bindi and Cinnamon’s bitchy chattering. I wonder which of the books I’ll start to read first. Maybe I’ll start with one of the astrology books, then . . .

‘You haven’t said much this evening, Len,’ Lyyssa says, breaking my concentration.

I think for a moment. ‘The roast was really nice. You did a really good job cooking.’

Lyyssa beams. ‘Thank you, Len.’

When we’re finished eating, we carry our dishes to the kitchen. Bindi comes up behind me. ‘Suck-arse,’ she hisses into my ear.

Chapter 3

Today, a lady from the Salvation Army, Major Heath, took me to Kmart and let me pick out some underwear and stuff. Ten pairs of socks. Ten pairs of knickers. A couple of bras. And two sets of pyjamas: one pair in plain blue cotton flannelette, and the other with a flower design all over them.

It was kind of fun going to Kmart and having things bought for me, even if it was a little embarrassing. Everybody noticed Major Heath’s Salvation Army uniform and paid more attention to us than normal.

We didn’t go to the Kmart in Westgardens Metro – we went to the one in the city. Since I came to the Refuge, I’ve only been out a few times. I like taking short walks around the neighbourhood, and once I walked as far as University Road. I’ve also been to the Westgardens Metro with Lyyssa and everybody else.

On the way, we passed a million shops and restaurants and saw all sorts of people with weird hair and wearing weird clothes. The University. The University Regiment. And just before we got there, on the left, a big park with a swimming pool shimmering in the afternoon sun.

Before bed, I order all my clothes in the bureau. My underwear drawer is my favourite, because all my underwear is brand new. My other clothes are second-hand, mostly jeans and jumpers. Oh, my shoes and watch are new – the nursing staff bought me a pair of trainers and a digital Casio as a goodbye present when I left the hospital.

I feel bad that the people at the hospital seemed to have got more attached to me than I was to them. A few of the nurses even cried when I left. It bothers me that I didn’t feel like crying. It wasn’t that I didn’t feel grateful that they’d taken care of me, or that I didn’t appreciate being given a pair of shoes and a watch. But I couldn’t feel sad about leaving.

I knew there was something else that I should feel even sadder about. But I didn’t know what.

Chapter 4

Just when I’m really getting fed up with being the new kid in this crappy place, someone else shows up to distract everyone’s attention from me, which suits me just fine.

They bring him here one evening when we’re all in the TV room. Bindi and Cinnamon are on the couch, Karen is sprawled in an armchair, and I’m lying on the floor, propped up on one elbow. Lyyssa answers the door and speaks for a few minutes to someone with the front door wide open. A blast of winter air blows into the lounge room.

‘Close the effin’ door,’ Bindi says loudly, and Cinnamon giggles.

The front door shuts and Lyyssa, pretending she didn’t hear Bindi, brings a kid into the lounge room. ‘Everyone, we have a new member of our household. This is Shane.’ We look at Shane. He drops his eyes to the floor as Lyyssa introduces each one of us.

Shane is about eight, blond, and scared-looking. He’s wearing a ski cap, and he’s rugged up with so many jumpers that his ski jacket won’t close in the front.

‘Shane, would you like to take off your jacket?’ Lyyssa asks him. He doesn’t really want to, but he thinks that this is what Lyyssa wants him to do, so he takes off his jacket and holds it tightly to his chest.

‘Maybe you’d like to watch some TV with the rest of the house,’ Lyyssa suggests. ‘I’ll take your bag up to your room. You can get settled later.’ Lyyssa picks up Shane’s duffle bag and trudges up the stairs, not noticing that there isn’t any place for Shane to sit. Shane stands there frozen, paralysed.

‘Geez, if they’re gonna send a guy to the house, couldn’t they have sent one ten years older?’ Bindi says. Once again, Cinnamon giggles at Bindi’s stupid remark.

‘You can sit over here, Shane,’ I say, as much to piss off Bindi as for any other reason. Shane slowly walks over, puts his jacket on the floor next to me, and sits cross-legged on top of it.

In two minutes, I’m silently cursing Shane and bitterly regretting my attempt to be nice. Shane
smells
. As if Karen wasn’t bad enough, they’ve sent us another stink bomb. Shane smells like stale farts and sweat and socks that have been worn for weeks. Where the hell did he come from, anyway?

I’ve been breathing through my mouth for five minutes when Lyyssa reappears. I raise my hand. ‘Is it okay if I go to bed now, Lyyssa?’ I think my brain is deprived of oxygen, having to breathe Shane’s miasma. At the Refuge you don’t have to ask for permission to go to bed, nor do you raise your hand before you speak.

‘Sure, Len,’ Lyyssa says. I get up and run out of the room, not caring that Bindi and Cinnamon are sniggering at me. I dash up the stairs and into my bedroom, closing the door behind me and taking gasps of fresh air. When my head clears, I take a towel and my robe and go down to the girls’ showers and soap myself until every centimetre of my body that was contaminated by Shane is cleansed.

Purified, I return to my room and lie on my bed. I hear Lyyssa coming up the stairs with Shane, chattering to him about house rules, fumbling with the keys to the boys’ toilet and the boys’ showers, which have been locked because there haven’t been any boys at the Refuge for a while. Then Lyyssa unlocks the door to Shane’s room and they go inside. For a few minutes, I can hear them talking, but I can’t hear what they’re saying. Then Lyyssa’s voice rises. ‘Shane, you need to have a shower. Or at least a quick wash.’

‘NO!’ Shane yells.

‘Shane, this is not negotiable,’ Lyyssa says firmly. ‘You don’t have to spend an hour in the bathtub, but you must at least make an effort to be clean.’ Shane makes protesting, whimpering noises; probably Lyyssa has taken him by the arm and is trying to pull him toward the shower.

Then Shane lets out a scream that makes me hold my ears. It’s not the volume of the scream that makes me shudder; it’s the history behind that scream. You don’t even have to think very much about what it means. Why was Shane removed from whatever home he came from? Because he was abused. Sexually abused. Where was he abused? In the shower. Which is why he now wears three jumpers and a ski jacket like a protective exoskeleton and is terrified of taking his clothes off or going anywhere near a shower. Why doesn’t Lyyssa know this? Hasn’t she read Shane’s file yet?

Lyyssa must have let go of Shane, because he’s run back inside his room and slammed the door behind him.

‘Shane?’ Lyyssa says, her voice trembling. ‘Shane, I didn’t mean to scare you. If you want to lock your door, you can turn the lever right above the doorknob.’

A couple of seconds pass, then I hear the sound of Shane turning the deadbolt on his door. Of course, Lyyssa has a master key in case we try to commit suicide in our room and she has to get in, but Shane doesn’t know this. Lyyssa slowly walks back along the hall and down the stairs.

Chapter 5

I was wrong to say the Refuge is crappy. It’s a big old house with mouldings on the ceiling and marble counters and fireplaces that don’t get used anymore. Some rich widow left it to charity, along with some money, with the instruction that they be used to help needy children. For a while, there were more kids than rooms, so they built an ugly modern wing that doesn’t match the rest of the house. Now, only Lyyssa’s office and bedroom, the guest rooms, library and storage rooms are in that wing. There’s some fighting going on between the people from the Foundation and some people in the government over who’s in charge of the Refuge. I don’t really care about who’s in charge, but it makes me nervous. If someone decides to shut this place down, then where will I go? The next place wouldn’t be any better, and might be a lot worse.

Anyway, it really isn’t crappy. It’s just annoying sometimes. Like when Shane won’t shower and stinks up the place.

The lady from the Salvation Army who took me shopping, Major Heath, ends up coming to the shelter to make sure Shane has a bath at least twice a week. Major Heath is plump and has white hair, like a TV grandmother. Lyyssa thanks her effusively each time she shows up. They’re in the entryway, talking.

‘It’s my pleasure, Lyyssa. I seem to have a talent with children this age.’

‘We’ve got to get this hygiene issue addressed,’ Lyyssa says despairingly. ‘Otherwise he’ll have no chance of being placed with a family.’

I’m sitting at the kitchen table, having a glass of Milo. I’m pretending to read
Your Star Signs
, so Lyyssa and Major Heath assume I’m not listening.

A shadow falls over Major Heath’s normally cheerful features. ‘I don’t think we can pin our hopes on that,’ she says quietly. ‘That young boy’s faith in the family has been pretty thoroughly destroyed. Perhaps the best we can do is simply protect him from further harm.’

Major Heath sure isn’t wrong about Shane being completely mental. It’s not just showers he has a problem with. You should see him at the dinner table. I’ve never seen anyone so paranoid about the way he eats. Shane cuts his food into tiny pieces, makes absolutely no noise when he chews, takes a drink from his glass of milk after every fifth bite, then
very carefully
sets the glass back down on the table. Once, he knocked over his glass by accident and he sat there frozen in terror, like he thought someone was going to hit him. Lyyssa told him it was okay and cleaned up the mess, but she still couldn’t convince him to finish the rest of his meal.

Lyyssa mumbles something and follows Major Heath upstairs. ‘Where’s my handsome young friend?’ Major Heath calls out, and Shane comes out of his room to meet her. So as not to embarrass Shane when he takes his clothes off, Major Heath lets Shane go into the shower and throw his clothes out. She calls to him which body part to wash. ‘And have you taken Little Shane out and washed him, too?’ she says, without a trace of embarrassment, referring to Shane’s dick and foreskin. Shane mustn’t be circumcised. Shane even giggles when Major Heath says this.

This is the sort of thing that you would expect Bindi and Cinnamon to mercilessly make fun of, but they don’t. At worst, they just roll their eyes, as if to say, ‘What a big baby’.

Bindi is actually polite to Major Heath. She doesn’t overdo it, being a goody-two-shoes, but all her normal attitude is gone. It isn’t just that Major Heath is nice. Lyyssa is nice too, but she’s annoying and Bindi is as rude to her as she can get away with. It’s that there is never any hidden agenda with Major Heath. She accepts you as you are, and isn’t always trying to ‘improve’ you in sneaky little ways.

Of course, Major Heath wanted Shane to shower, in fact, she insisted that he shower. But Shane knew that Major Heath’s goodwill toward him wouldn’t change whether he stank or smelled like a daisy, so he figured why not make the lady happy and shower.

Shane has been packed off to bed, so Lyyssa and Major Heath come down the stairs. ‘Hello, Len,’ Major Heath says to me, pausing by the kitchen door.

I put my book down. ‘Hello, Major Heath.’

Major Heath takes a few steps into the kitchen. ‘
Your Star Signs
,’ she says, reading the cover of my book. ‘That’s pretty advanced for someone your age.’

‘I’m good at reading,’ I reply.

‘Will you be starting school soon?’

Lyyssa takes a step into the room. ‘Len’s meeting with an education officer next week. She’ll need to take a few more tests, and we’ll go from there.’

Major Heath pats me on the shoulder. ‘I’ll be visiting twice a week for the time being. Let me know if there are any books you’d like.’

I thank her and watch as Lyyssa escorts her out the door to her car.
School.
That’s something I hadn’t put much thought into.

Have I ever been to school? That night, I try to remember as I drift off to sleep.

I’m playing with Kevvie. Daddy went into town and left me at Kevvie’s place for a few hours. Kevvie is my school friend. We go to kindergarten together. We’re playing in front of the house. Kevvie has pulled up some grass and leaves.

‘This is mull,’ Kevvie says. ‘We’ve got to dry it and take out the kif.’

‘That’s Silly Stuff,’ I tell him. ‘We have Silly Stuff at home sometimes. My dad’s a farmer.’

Kevvie laughs. ‘It’s mull,’ he says. ‘Your dad’s a cropper, like my dad.’

Daddy doesn’t say anything when I tell him what Kevvie said about mull and croppers. But I don’t go to school anymore. Daddy sells our property, buys one further up the mountain, and starts teaching me at home.

I wake up feeling like the darkness is suffocating me. My chest hurts. I turn on the light and pick up
Your Star Signs.
I’m halfway through and I haven’t really found a sign that sounds like me yet. I don’t know when my birthday is, but if I can find the astrological sign that matches my personality, then I would at least know the month when I was born.

The Cancer chapter was pretty boring. I’m not placid, maternal, and home-loving, like Cancerians are supposed to be.

I turn the page to the next section. Leo.

Leos are expressive, spontaneous, and powerful. Leos are straightforward and uncomplicated people who know what they want and pursue it with determination and a creative spirit. Cities: Los Angeles, Chicago, Rome. Herbs: Saffron, Rosemary, Peppermint. Colours: Gold and Orange. Birthstone: Peridot.

There’s a picture of a peridot – it’s a pretty pale green stone. Leos possess a positive nature and don’t let any adverse circumstances get them down. Leos adore luxury and like to live on a grand scale. When it comes to travel, first class is the only way to go and only five-star will do.

This is me.

I’m going to decorate my room in orange and gold. Or at least get a peppermint-scented candle.

I shut the book, turn off the light, and fall asleep straight away.