Ultimate Justice (6 page)

The following day, Papa Pero joined the Smiths at the breakfast table in the hotel breakfast room. The growing light from the window illuminated brass fittings and glass tops; potted plants were tastefully placed around the walls and against the pillars. At the windows hung light, patterned drapes that reached the floor.

“This is lovely,” observed Jalli. “I like the little touches, like the posy centre pieces on each table.”

“We (I mean ‘they'!) try to make people feel special,” explained Pero.

Just then they noticed a little boy gazing through the window. He was dirty and roughly dressed and his appearance was in shocking contrast with the ambiance of the breakfast suite.

“Ah, my little man!” Pero waved at him and indicated to the attendant who took the child a pile of pastries from behind the bar. The little face glowed with a grateful smile. He raised his grubby hand and zoomed off down the hotel steps clutching his prize.

“The staff used to chase them away but I said to myself, ‘Pero these children are hungry. The only difference between the people inside and the people outside is that the ones inside can pay.' So I told them to let the children come to the kitchen door. Then I thought, ‘Why should they come round the back? Let them come to the front like other people.' But the staff, they refused to allow them to come inside. They are worried they haven't washed. Pero had to concede they have a point.”

“Where do they come from?” asked Kakko. “Don't they have homes to go to? Why are they dirty?”

“They have no homes. They are dirty because they live on the street where there are no showers.”

“Children without adults, living wild!” exclaimed Kakko. “Why?”

“There always have been children living on the street around here,” explained Pero. “I ask myself the same question, where are all these kids coming from? I went to one of the older ones who seemed to look after the others. He told us that most of them had been thrown out of their homes by the adults supposed to look after them. Many had parents who had died and their relatives were too poor to have more children to support. Some had run away from home because their guardians abused them.”

“Unbelievable!” exclaimed Kakko. “How can anyone abuse a small child?”

“Those who were abused are the most damaged,” Mr Pero continued, “it is easier for those who have some good memories of their parents. If you've been loved at all, there is hope. But if you've never been loved – never known love – then you can grow up hating everyone, including yourself. These children needed somewhere to go where people would love them. So I found a warehouse on an industrial estate that was up for sale and bought it.”

“I bet everyone's really proud of you for doing this,” said Bandi, the first thing he had said that morning.

“Maybe some. But it also makes many feel uncomfortable. They think I am telling them they should give their money away too.”

“And do you?” asked Jalli.

“No. They know what I believe and… and think I sit in judgement on them. I can see how they feel.”

“Bet it makes them feel really guilty,” broke in Kakko.

“In a way. But it isn't as simple as that. To feel guilty you have to have a conscience and many of them have never been brought up to have one – at least not in regard to poor people. They believe that they are rich because the Creator made them that way, and each of us should be content in our own situation in life. That's what they believe…

“But I was not brought up in a rich home. A comfortable one, yes, but not wealthy. And my parents were always sharing things. So for me it is more natural to want to help these children. It is easier for me.”

“I think you are being very gracious Mr Pero,” said Jalli, “that is just like you. But I think, at the bottom of their hearts, they
do
know what is right and wrong.”

“Maybe you are right, but there is so much stuff that has been piled on top, generations of prejudice that smothers a sense of justice in them for these children. Some of them have inherited positions of privilege that go back centuries. They fear change, not just for their own lives, but for the whole of society.”

“And you are challenging that,” said Jack.

“I am a subversive influence,” he laughed. “Now, I must get going. We have an outing organised for twenty of the younger ones. There are some free places for helpers. Would you three youngsters like to go along?”

“Where are they going?” asked Jalli.

“Oh. They're only going up the coast a bit. It's to get them out of town. There'll be a picnic and some swimming.”

“Count me in,” said Shaun.

“Me too,” said Bandi.

Kakko was a bit disappointed. She had reckoned on persuading her parents to let them go on the boat with the rich kids. But she realised that there was no way she was going to be allowed to go on her own. The thought of going on a picnic with a load of little kids sounded cool, though. “And me,” she said.

***

They all piled into Mr Pero's van.

“It's not far. It's just behind the harbour,” he explained.

As they drove the short distance, Pero continued his story. “I didn't tell anyone what I was planning to do. The warehouse was just surrounded by industrial units and other warehouses. I couldn't buy ordinary houses or anything because no-one would want a place for street children near them.”

“Why ever not?” asked Kakko, incensed at the idea that people didn't want children around.

“All sorts of reasons, I guess,” answered her father. “These children are survivors. They have to beg, and steal too, no doubt. And they will be dirty and smelly, and half-starved kids without anyone to love them are not cute. I bet they can be pretty revolting at times.”

“You are right. Some people see them as no better than vermin,” agreed Mr Pero. “They cannot see the potential, nor do they feel any obligation to care for them. They do not believe they have, or should have, any responsibility for them. You see my friends here today, but I have many enemies; and many others think I am mad.”

Mr Pero turned off the sea-front and away from the big buildings and houses with their trees and pots filled with flowers. In a couple of streets they were alongside the harbour.

“I've always wondered why people try to ignore street children. It doesn't take much imagination to see that they are going to grow up to pose huge and expensive problems. But if you rescue these children, society will be stronger,” said Jalli.

“The true strength of a community,” reflected Jack, “can be seen in the way that it looks after its most disadvantaged members. That is the thinking behind my school for blind children.”

“Basically, it's about love, isn't it?” said Bandi. He was thinking hard.

“Absolutely,” agreed Mr Pero. “If you have love, you have everything. And the more you give love, the more you receive. Take Vadma. I claim her as my daughter and she gives me love as if I were her father. And she is only one. I have the biggest family of anyone in the city. I get love all the time. Last year I fell sick. I thought to myself, ‘Pero stay in your flat until you get better'. But I had to tell people I wasn't coming into work. Then I had more nursing and tending than I could want…” He rounded a series of warehouses associated with the port. The smell of fish was strong. “But Mr Zookas up in his villa – up there on the headland…”

“The big house with the red roof?” asked Kakko.

“That's the one. He was sick too. His children and their friends took his yacht somewhere to have fun and left him in the care of paid nurses. Not one of his supposed friends went to see him. When I was better, I thought, ‘Pero, go and visit Zookas. He was sick like you and his family have left him on his own.' When I was there he said that being sick helps you find your real friends. I was the only person who had gone to see him that hadn't been paid to. ‘All they want from me is my money,' he told me, ‘but you, Pero, they want you!' Ever since then he has given me money for the centre.”

“A convert,” smiled Jalli. “You are winning!” Kakko thought about the trio she had met the previous day but didn't say anything.

“We're here,” announced Mr Pero.

The Paradise Centre looked exactly like he had described. It was a warehouse surrounded by other warehouses. A couple of men outside one of them waved as Mr Pero drove his van into the space between the units.

“They keep an eye out for the children,” he said.

Inside they were greeted by dozens of excited children. Their house-mother welcomed the guests and introduced them to the children and soon each of the family were engaged in doing something with one or other of the little ones with books and crayons. The house-mother spoke quietly to Mr Pero.

Mr Pero called his guests together. “Apparently the bus has broken down. The house-mother is about to call off the picnic.”

“Oh! That's sad,” said Shaun. “I was quite looking forward to a picnic with these kids.”

“They're going to be very disappointed. This was the first outing for weeks. They've been looking forward to it for days. This morning they all got up early and got themselves ready and the volunteers have got the picnic ready and everything.”

“So sorry,” said Jalli feeling the disappointment too. “Is there nowhere else you can take them… on foot?”

“Mr Pero,” said Kakko. She had got an idea. “You know you were telling us about the man that owns the big villa on the headland.”

“Mr Zookas, yes.”

“Well yesterday we met three of his children, and the oldest one – ”

“A lad of about nineteen?”

“Yeah. And another boy and a girl.”

“His younger three. He has four altogether. Go on…”

“Well the nineteen-year-old, invited me and Shaun and Bandi to go on his boat today. They're going to the island out there,” she said, pointing in the direction of the sea. “He said we could bring any of our friends. I saw the boat in the harbour as we passed. It's huge. There'll be more than enough room for twenty kids and their volunteers.”

“And you get to go on the boat and to the island after all,” said Jalli. “I don't think this is on, Kakko.”

“But Mum!”

“Wait,” said Pero. “It might work. The kids would love it. But Zookas' children did not have my kids in mind I expect.”

“I'm sure they didn't,” said Jalli.

“But let me call Zookas. He might like to hear that his children are doing something useful with their time. If he says, yes, then his children will have to agree.”

“But…” said Jalli. But Pero was already on the phone.

“Hello, my friend. How're you feeling today…? Good. Look, Zookas I've a problem…” and he explained about the bus. “But I've got some young people with me who were invited yesterday by your Adnak to go on your boat to Lona Island… yes, and his brother and sister. They're with the children here and I was wondering… yes… really. Well, they have their own picnic… well, OK. Wonderful. That's more than I could ask… thank you Zookas… yes, I'd like that but I have some guests with me… You would? My dear Zookas… good! I will. Thank you. Good-bye.” Pero smiled broadly.

“Mr Zookas says that not only can all the children and their helpers go on the boat, but he will lay on food for them. He's going to have a word with his children who were just about to leave. Then he'll contact his friend in the port and get him to bring more food to the boat. He says to be there in forty minutes. Can we do that?” he asked the house-mother.

“No problem. All they have to do is go to the toilet and we can walk them to the harbour.”

“And we, you and I,” said Mr Pero smiling at Jack and Jalli, “have been invited to the Zookas' villa.”

“Cool,” said Kakko. “See what knowing the right people can do for you!”

“Kakko!” thundered Jack.

“But I really am grateful to you,” the house-mother said. “This young lady has saved the day!”

Kakko smiled, but rather sheepishly. She knew her father was right. She had spoken out rather too arrogantly. But Shaun ensured the humilty didn't last.

“The power of the female,” he whispered in her ear, “put on a bikini and change the world!” and then ducked as Kakko went to whack him. The children laughed at their clowning.

***

Forty minutes later Kakko, Shaun and Bandi, together with the children and their young volunteers, arrived in a crocodile line down at the harbour. The children were so high. This was going to be the most brilliant day of their lives! They had never ever dreamt that one day they were going to be allowed onto this boat, let alone go out of the harbour on it.

However, Adnak and his friends were a mixture of confused, disapproving and scared. They were not, however, in charge of the cruiser which boasted a captain, two crew members and a chef, all of whom had been fully briefed.
They
were very welcoming. Jalli got the impression that they were pleased not to be at the beck and call of spoilt rich kids who, they suspected, were going to get drunk and lewd.

The children were carefully conducted up the gangway. The house-mother gave final instructions to the volunteers and she, Pero, Jack, and Jalli watched as the engines came to life with a throaty roar. The children waved frantically as the boat slid out of the harbour entrance and headed for the open sea.

“That was wonderful!” exclaimed Pero.

“I must get back to the centre,” stated the house-mother. “The others will be coming up to their mid-morning break. Would you like to share refreshments with us?” she asked Jack and Jalli, who were feeling rather strange watching their children head for the horizon.

“They'll be OK,” said Jack squeezing his wife's hand.

“I know,” said Jalli. “It's just that they're all growing up so fast!”