chapter 4
"Well, I never would have had Kane Phillips down as the sensitive type," Janice Drummond commented drily, memories of her last encounter with the little boy, when he had a fist pressed against the chin of another kid while Scott Phillips was advising him to "bash him to ------- pulp" and Kane looked happy to oblige, fresh in her mind.
Kathy Murray dunked a Tim Tam into her tea (the choccie would melt, but she never could get out of the habit of dunking biccies) and smiled back at her colleague.
"Me neither. But Kane more or less owned up to playing chase yesterday arvo and accidentally trampling the flower garden. Then he blamed his imaginary friend Milko for the damage and - get this! - he claimed Milko was too shy to front up and admit it. I always did wonder why Kane had so very little to do with the other kids in the class." (Kathy was blissfully unaware that the real reason was that Kane regarded the other kids in his class as silly bubs that he and old Murraymints tolerated with a remarkable, saint-like patience.)
Janice shook her head and sighed. She was almost twice Kathy's age and a great deal more cynical. Phillips. Sensitive. Shy. Somehow the words didn't fit.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I'm tellin' ya!"
"Jeez!" Kane said.
"So she thinks ya this cute little kid..."
"Dead set?"
"Dead set."
"Jeez!" Kane said again, highly impressed with his ability to be a cute little kid, grinning at his momentarily fire-framed reflection in the dirt-smeared windows (the old locker rooms, reputed to be haunted, were no longer cleaned, being disused and scheduled for demolition) as Scotty lit up a cigarette.
"So you gotta milk it..." Scott puffed, spluttered and coughed, and cuffed him across the ear to regain his attention. He didn't spent his valuable time listening outside staff rooms for nothing.
"No worries!" Kane said confidently. "How?"
"How'd'ya ------- think, drongo? First, ya gotta act like this imaginary mate Milko's with ya all the time..."
"Oh, no probs, Scotty. I swear I've never let the guy outta my sight."
Scotty blinked. It was difficult at times. Really difficult. No wonder he smoked.
"Yeh. Well. So ya act like he's there and ya gotta pretend to sob ya cute little heart out if anyone upsets ya...like 'cos the newbie dork keeps pickin' on ya."
It was Kane's turn to blink. Back a sudden sting of tears. At the injustice of being a victim and not even knowing he was. "She's been pickin' on me?"
"Nooo, ya ------- jerk, ya just make like she has!" Scott stomped down hard on Kane's foot, marvelling at the patience he had with his kid brother. "Sshhh!" He added suddenly, clamping a hand over Kane's mouth as Kane gave a (muffled) yell of pain, quickly stubbing out his cigarette and pushing it out of the tiny hole in the dirt-smeared window, where it disappeared forever into the long grass, then popping a mint into his own mouth, all in one swift, graceful movement. Scotty was pretty much expert at this kind of thing.
He had his story all ready now that they were about to be sprung by a stickybeak teacher or the janitor or workies. His kid bro had been curious about the old locker rooms and Scott, being the responsible big brother he was, had gone there to get him out. He opened his mouth and drew breath to speak as the shuffling stopped and the door slowly opened. And then he grinned broadly.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steven felt quite proud of himself. Well, no, proud wasn't quite the right word. Smug maybe. But not proud. Because a tiny fluttering of guilt briefly surfaced and quickly dissipated. The remnants of another life, when he was a nice guy. Oh, but he died a long time ago, burnt to death along with his parents. Steven was a different person now. He could look Pippa in the face and lie through his teeth and even offer sympathy. Anything to hide the fear inside. Because the memory was always there.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The flames were leaping furiously into the warm summer night's velvet sky. Now and again a shower of golden sparks would break loose in a series of small explosions and they would whistle and cheer and bet each other on how many sparks would pop next time.
It had an almost hypnotic effect on all four of them. Steven remembered looking at the moonlit glow on the faces of his three best mates and thinking it was like party time. The sleepover at Gazza's had been ace (they were in the back garden, sleeping outside "like in the outback", with a stereo powered radio blasting, the kitchen light on and the kitchen door wide open, just in case they got too cold or too scared or both, telling a mixture of serial killer, ghost and UFO abduction stories and doing their utmost to terrorize one another) but this unexpected fire show was the highlight.
They had scrambled out of the tent immediately on hearing the first blast, stumbling past the empty pizza delivery boxes, managing to knock over the rest of the coke (Aw, it was nearly finished and it's all gone on the grass anyway, Andy claimed (falsely) his foot having been the one that kicked the bottle) and forgetting to hide the four large cans of lager that Jonno had nicked from his Dad's drinks cabinet.
The fire was somewhere down in the town, and it was a beaut! Even Gazza's folks were out watching.
"It's not a footie game, Gary," Gazza's Mum frowned disapprovingly as the fourteen-year-olds noisily greeted another round of firework-like sparks. "Someone could have been hurt."
Steven and Gazza pulled amused faces at each other. It was just a fire. Huge maybe, but the fire rescue services always got there in time, didn't they? Nobody would be hurt. They wouldn't have been fooling around like they were if someone had been hurt.
Gazza had been born over fifteen years after his two older sisters (it was they who often had to persuade them to let Gazza do stuff like sleepovers and camping out) and his olds were worriers, strait-laced, middle-aged people, the total opposites of Steven's parents. Gazza's Mum always called everyone by their full name, which Steven hated then because he was Ste or Stevo to everyone else.
But, after the fire, he never shortened his name again. Trying to distance himself from the terrible knowledge that he had watched, laughing and joking and cheering, while his Mum and Dad were burnt to death.
Because one minute you don't have a care in the world, apart from whether the tingling on your mouth is the start of another coldsore and if you stood a chance with the new chick at school (and the odds are good seeing you're one of the populars and you've got looks and personality). Then the phone's shrill ringing suddenly shrieks through the night and you don't think anything of it till Gazza's Mum comes out again, a strange expression on her face, and whispers something to Gazza's Dad that you're sure has something to do with you but you can't figure why it should. Not till she turns and says, "Steven, the fire..."
The first night after the fire he slept for twelve hours, knocked out by the calming drug the doctor administered, plunging quickly into a black pool of dreamless sleep as if a light had suddenly been switched off in his mind,. But calming drugs can't be given every night and that's when the nightmares will come instead.
They were always the same. He would be strolling along by a narrow stretch of water on a perfect, calm summer's day when he would hear his parents calling to him from over the other side, and when he looked up it was to see a line of uneven fire crawling nearer and higher through the grass behind them. But his feet were like lead and he didn't move. He only stood, listening to their screams, and watching through the grey, curling smoke while sparks fired through the sky like shooting stars and somewhere in the distance a phone rang unanswered. And their cries to him to help would grow fainter and more desperate as the red hot fire grew and engulfed them, melting them like plastic until they were no more.
Steven didn't cry. Crying wasn't a guy thing. Neither was being afraid. But he was. In the dreams, afraid to go near the fire in case he too was swallowed forever. In his waking life, afraid of the tiniest flame. And most afraid of anyone discovering his terror.
But Sally could cry. Sally could invent a stupid story of an imaginary friend to cope with her loss. And everyone said poor little Sally and remarked on how brave Steven had been. Steven, who couldn't cry and couldn't tell anyone about the nightmares.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Maybe she just had a hissy fit. You know how weird she is," Steven shrugged, surveying the trashed bedroom with a grim satisfaction. It had taken him no more than ten minutes. Easy enough to slip home during the arvo when you have a free study period and a key to the house and easy enough to "happen to be passing" later when Pippa was collecting the laundry.
"Steven!" Pippa reprimanded. "You know what Sally's been through. I thought you of all people would understand."
Secretly however Pippa was puzzled and hurt. Until Lynn refused to leave her friend, the Fletchers had never intended to foster a child as young as Sally and their preparations had been very last minute. Nevertheless, she and Tom had gone to a great deal of trouble to make Sally's bedroom exactly how they thought a small girl would like it.
Bright and airy, with posters of kittens and puppies, with a pretty pink bedset and matching lampshade, Sally's own little dressing table and her own brush, comb and mirror set, all initialled with a silver 'S', a dolls' house with torch bulbs for lights that Tom had made himself from a wooden box, complete with four tiny dolls and doll's furniture, some children's books (Alice in Wonderland; Matilda; The Enchanted Wood) that Pippa chose specially and planned to read with her; half a dozen cuddly toys and Pippa's own childhood doll "Mrs Martha"(a long-legged, long-yellow-haired rag doll knitted by her grandmother) left there for Sally to play with.
Now the pretty pink bedset and the toys were scattered on the floor, the posters torn down and the books ripped, but, worst of all, Mrs Martha's floppy hat had been tugged at so fiercely that she lay, looking dejected and pitiful, with stuffing oozing grotesquely from the back of her head.
Pippa sadly put down the laundry basket and picked up the rag doll. Sally had seemed such a sweet kid and Pippa had truly believed she would cherish Mrs Martha as much as she once had herself, being so sure that a little bit of Milko's friendship and a lot of her foster family's unconditional love was all that the little girl needed.
"Yeh. Sorry. Didn't really mean it like that." Steven's words brought her back to the present as he dropped his gaze to fake suitable remorse, then glanced up at Pippa with a flash of his dark, handsome eyes. Funny how easily he could still switch on the charm.
"The poor kid," he added, managing to inject a convincing note of hoarseness into his voice. "Who knows what's going on inside her head, what with this always having to count stuff and Milko and all?"
"Sally's had a tough time of it," Pippa reminded him. "She needs us all to help her through."
"Well, don't you worry, Pip, I'll look out for her. Here, I'll help you tidy up." Steven smiled one of his disarming smiles, flicking back his mop of dark, unruly hair. Bye, bye, Sally, 'cos this is just the start.
"Thanks, Steven," Pippa said gratefully.
He was a good kid. She couldn't tell him how she and Tom had sat up late last night, after they'd finally settled Sally who'd been convinced the branches of the old garden tree was a monster tapping on her window, discussing if they'd bitten off more than they could chew when they'd agreed to foster someone so young. They both loved fostering, but they had only ever fostered older kids before and, no matter what their problems, older kids could understand much, much more than an eight-year-old could. Tom and Pippa had a rapport with teenagers, there was no denying that, but how did they even begin to mend a child's broken heart and a heart as bruised as Sally's?
If the little girl was upset enough to destroy her own bedroom, it might be they were unwittingly making her emotional damage worse. Perhaps Sally missed the stability and her friends at the Home. It hadn't been fair of the Fletchers to take her away from all that she knew simply because Lynn, albeit with the best of intentions, had wanted them to. How many times in Sally's young life had she already had everything that was familiar and the people she loved snatched away from her?
Pippa sighed deeply as she picked up torn pages and deposited them in the bin. She hated to give up on a kid, but if Sally was this unhappy, they might have to grant her wish and let her go back.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"...three, four, make it once more..."
Sally paused to peer round the old, dusty locker room door with its broken lock and caught a breath. The Phillips brothers. And Milko. Milko leaning against the filthy window pane, looking just as mean as Scott Phillips was looking right now.
"Jeez, ya ------- loon!" Scott guffawed. He had obviously overheard the muttered counting.
Sally looked at Milko but he only glared at her.
"What ya starin' at, dork?" Scotty demanded.
"Milko," Sally whispered. "He should be with me. He's my friend."
Kane looked too. "Well, tough, 'cos he ain't now, are ya, mate?"
Scott swung quickly round to the window, but only a large grey cobweb fluttered in its corner. These two were gonna have him going nuts. The sooner he put his plans in action the better.
"We just might let ya have him back," he said. "But first ya gotta do some things."
"What?" Sally's heart thudded like a hammer against her chest. She'd do anything to get Milko back. Anything. She was pretty sure Milko looked hopeful for a minute too, even though he still had his arms folded, glaring at her.
"The Fletchers must have heaps of money to foster all you bloody kids. All ya gotta do is get me twenty dollars."
"I can't..."
"Then Milko's a goner," Scott said coolly, pretending to blow smoke from a gun.
Kane blanched and so did Milko, which made him even whiter than usual. He wasn't glaring at Sally now. He just looked sad. Poor Milko. It wasn't his fault he'd been kidnapped and had to hang round with Kane and Scott Phillips.
Sally bit her lip. "Alright," she agreed reluctantly, clenching her fists with anxiety and feeling she was going to be sick. Pippa was nice. She didn't want to steal from her, but she needed Milko back so badly. She closed her eyes. If I can count backwards from twenty I won't have to do it, have to say it three times, if I can count backwards from twenty I won't have to do it, if I can count backwards from twenty I won't have to do it...twenty, nineteen, eighteen..."
Sally felt her fingers being suddenly unclenched and something rattled strangely as it was pressed into her hand. She looked down. It was a box of matches.
"What the hell do you kids think you're doing here? How many times do you have to be told it's DAAANGERRROUS? I'm gonna have to take you to see Mrs Bryant."
Sally had been too busy counting to hear Billy Jackson, the janitor, but Scott hadn't. And Billy was in a foul mood. Penny Bryant, the principal, had pulled him up over Toby damaging the flower garden. Some idiot had moved the Danger - Keep Out sign from outside the disused locker rooms again. And it was raining, which meant the reception area was full of muddy footprints that needed to be mopped up so he hadn't had time for his usual scalding hot cuppa and thick wedge of toast. Like his cat, Billy had always hated rain.
Scott shrugged innocently. "Some kids come down here to smoke. Me and my bro just came to check there weren't none here."
Sally gasped and swiftly placed her hands behind her back. She had told Pippa yesterday she wanted to go back to the Home. But when the monster had tapped on the window last night, Pippa had sat on Sally's bed and held her and dried her tears and stroked Sally's hair, and whispered her a story of how she too had been scared of shadows when she was a little girl.
And Sally had felt warm and safe. She didn't remember her mother but she remembered when she used to sit Sally on her lap and how her breath would gently tickle her neck. Where Pippa's breath had tickled.
Sally felt she wanted to stay with Pippa forever. But what if Pippa wouldn't have her back? What if Pippa believed she'd been smoking and had her sent her back to the Home and she never saw Pippa or Milko or Summer Bay ever again...?
