InSilva says I need more imagination. Just by the way. Am sulking.
Not what I was originally planning on writing next, but I realised that needed to have something written in this before I could write something in 'Adjusting'. Of course, when I had that thought I thought this was going to be a relatively short chapter of 'More Things Change'. Realised that probably wasn't the case when I was a sixth of the way in and twelve pages. So there we go. First part of a three part chapter.
Timeline
1. 'In the beginning' Parts 1 and 2 (Chapters 13 and 14) Rusty is seven, Danny is nine.
2. 'Neverending Conversation' Parts 1 and 2 (Chapters 15 and 16) Rusty is seven, Danny is nine.
3. 'Matilda and the Werewolf' (Chapter 23) Rusty is nine, Danny is eleven.
4. 'Something more than it should be' (Chapter 10) Rusty is ten, Danny is twelve
5. 'The humiliation of Norris Carrol' (Chapter 20) Rusty is ten, Danny is thirteen
6. 'Four Day Interlude' (Chapter 5) Rusty is ten, Danny is thirteen
7. 'Remember the first time' (Chapter 4) Rusty is ten, Danny is thirteen
8. 'Sunshine, smiles and sweet, sweet words' (Chapter 17) Rusty is ten, Danny is thirteen.
9. 'Lie, Cheat, Steal, Play' (Chapter 24) Rusty is ten, Danny is thirteen
10. 'View from the outside' (Chapter 12) Rusty is eleven, Danny is fourteen
11. 'When we were young' Part 1 (Chapter 25) Rusty is eleven, Danny is fourteen
12. 'Walk before you can crawl' (Chapter 2) Rusty is twelve, Danny is fifteen
13. 'Other Nightmares Parts 1 and 2 (Chapters 8 and 9) Rusty is twelve, Danny is fifteen
14. 'The more things change' (Chapter 1) Rusty is thirteen, Danny is fifteen
15. 'Words and Silence' (Chapter 22) Rusty is thirteen, Danny is sixteen
16. 'Six months of roses' (Chapter 18) Rusty is thirteen/fourteen, Danny is sixteen
17. 'Two stories with some understanding' (Chapter 21) Rusty is thirteen, Danny is sixteen. Falls within time of 'Six months of roses'
18. 'Life Lessons' (Chapter 7) Rusty is fourteen, Danny is sixteen - falls within time of 'Six months of roses'
19. 'The lies we live' (Chapter 3) Rusty is fourteen, Danny is sixteen
20. 'If the fates allow' (Chapter 19) Rusty is fourteen, Danny is seventeen
21. 'This is our decision (to live fast and die young)' (Chapter 6) Rusty is fourteen, Danny is seventeen
22. 'Such a perfect day' (Chapter 11) Rusty is fourteen, Danny is seventeen
And sequels after they move away!
'Adjusting' - two months after they leave town, Rusty is 15, Danny is 17
'Learning Curve' - eighteen months after they leave town, Rusty is 16, Danny is 19
It should have been simple. It was simple; at this stage they'd broken into the school at least half a dozen times in search of test papers, class lists, report cards, letters to parents or, as in this case, altering detention schedules. Gina didn't particularly want to have detention on her birthday and was willing to pay five dollars to get out of it and to make sure that her parents never got to hear about it in the first places. Simple enough. Or at least it should have been.
Unfortunately they'd maybe been a little complacent. Assumed that this time would be exactly the same as every other time. And then they discovered pretty rapidly that the school was full of people. Adults. Some parent teacher association fundraiser or something. The hall was full of music and people and food and for a second, seeing Rusty's eyes lingering on a plate of little chocolate brownies, Danny had been worried that they might yet end up abandoning Gina's detention in favour of passing themselves off as unlikely donors in search of food.
Rusty grinned at him. "Nah. But I think I'll pick up some chocolate on the way home."
Danny smiled slightly and vaguely wished, not for the first time that evening, that Rusty was coming home with him. But Mom had been insistent lately and Rusty's dad had been ignoring him, so they were lying low and saving their battles for later. "You think we should leave it?" he asked. "Come back another time?"
He watched the consideration. "They all seem to be in the hall," Rusty said at last. "Or the ground floor at least. Well away from the office. And if it's not tonight, they'll send the letter out."
Nodding slowly, Danny agreed. That was pretty much what he'd figured. "So we go?"
"We go," Rusty said seriously.
He'd found and removed the letter from a pile waiting to be signed, and Rusty had just finished carefully replacing a detention list minus Gina's name, when they heard someone coming down the corridor.
They didn't even need to look at each other; they snapped their flashlights off instantly and Danny slid the filing cabinet drawer shut before quickly joining Rusty, crouched under the desk furthest from the door. Sitting absolutely still, they listened to footsteps and voices coming nearer. Danny gripped Rusty's hand tightly and hoped that whoever it was wasn't coming in here.
Hope didn't work. The sound of the door handle turning, the light flickering on, voices laughing.
"I left my purse at my desk. Hang on a moment, would you Elaine?" Mrs Boyd. One of the secretaries. Danny couldn't remember which was her desk and, as the footsteps came closer, he desperately hoped it wasn't the one they were hiding under. Rusty have his hand a reassuring squeeze and Danny relaxed a little at the confidence. Not Mrs Boyd's desk, then, and she stopped at the other side of the room and reached down for her purse.
They weren't even breathing.
"Got it!" Mrs Boyd called out cheerfully.
"Great! Let's go before all the food's gone," Elaine replied.
Danny bit back the sigh of relief as she turned off the light and closed the door. He grinned quickly at Rusty, but Rusty was frowning. And after a fraction of a second's thought, Danny knew why. There was no sound of footsteps. The two women were still stood right outside the door.
"Don't you think you should lock it?" Elaine asked loudly.
Danny froze and listened for the answer. "We don't normally," Mrs Boyd said slowly. They didn't normally. In fact they never did, not for as long as he and Rusty had been breaking in. He hadn't even known there was a key. "But I suppose it might be an idea," Mrs Boyd went on. "Since there's so many people in the building, I guess I really should."
Transfixed, he listened to the sound of jangling keys. The sound of the lock clicking. The sound of unconcerned footsteps walking away.
They were locked in.
As soon as there was silence, Danny sprang to his feet and ran to the door. It was pointless, of course. He'd already known that. The lock on the inside of the door had a metal panel welded over it. Some security measure. Unlockable from this side. Unopenable from this side. They were locked in and they couldn't get out and still he swore and tried to prise the panel off.
"You shouldn't do that," Rusty said quietly.
Danny turned round, exasperated and fully prepared to tell Rusty that he knew it wasn't going to be possible but he had to try something.
The words died as soon as he saw Rusty. Standing against the desk, shoulders hunched, eyes blank in a way that frightened Danny more than he could ever say.
"You shouldn't do that," Rusty said again. "They'll get mad if we try to get out." He sounded so much younger than Danny had ever known him. Voice vacant and trembling.
With two steps he'd crossed the floor and he grasped Rusty's hands and spoke calmly. "They didn't lock us in on purpose, Rus'. It's all right. We're going to get out of here, okay? We're going to be fine."
He waited, a long moment, ignoring the way his heart was pounding, ignoring everything except Rusty. "I'm here," he promised. "I'm here and we're going to be fine." Gradually he saw the light, life, return to Rusty's eyes and there was a second of confusion, a second when Rusty looked around the room, looked at him like this wasn't what he'd been expecting.
Realisation dawned on Rusty's face, followed rapidly by a haze of embarrassment and apology. "Danny, I - " he began awkwardly, and some things Danny never wanted to listen to. Before Rusty could get any further, he leaned forwards and kissed him tenderly on the cheek. Not something that they often did. But sometimes there were things that Danny didn't know how to say with words. Things that he knew Rusty wouldn't understand even if he tried. A kiss, and Rusty smiled at him, innocence and wonder and his.
"Okay then," Danny said, clearing his throat. "How are we - "
" - window?" Rusty suggested quickly, and there was still a pressing need to escape.
Window. Seemed like a good idea. The climb would be difficult but not impossible, he thought. Until he tried to open the first window and realised it had been nailed shut. Wide-eyed, he watched Rusty try the second. Equally unopenable. They looked at the third for a long moment and, with trembling hands, he tried to pull it open. Nothing.
"We can't get out," Rusty stated and the fear was running under his voice.
"Not at the moment," Danny agreed, staying calm and ignoring the little part of his brain that was always going to be entirely convinced that if Rusty was afraid then fear was the rational response. "We'll need to wait till someone opens the door, that's all. Chances are Mrs Boyd will come back, okay? Odds are we'll just need to wait a few hours till the party's done, and then she'll open the door and we can sneak out once everyone's gone. Right?"
Rusty nodded slowly. "Right," he said, emotion locked up tight. Neither of them sounded convinced. Danny tried not to think about what would happen if they were caught here. Tried not to imagine how desperately bad things could get. How desperately bad things were.
He sat down beneath the window, his back resting on the wall and waited in an air of expectation. After a second Rusty joined him, and Danny moved closer as subtly as he could. Rusty noticed, of course, and smiled slightly and said nothing.
"Tomorrow," Danny began after a moment, talking for the sake of talking. "You want to head round to the pictures after school? See Jaws II again? Throw popcorn at Roy Scheider? I'll even let you tell people the shark drowns at the end if you - "
" - What happens if no one ever comes?" Rusty asked suddenly. "What happens if no one ever lets us out?"
Danny paused and looked round slowly. "That's never going to happen," he said gently. "It might take a while but one way or another, we're getting out of here." He reached out and placed his hand on Rusty's, but in a second Rusty had scrambled to his feet and was pacing edgily across the room, closer and closer to the door.
"I don't like being locked in, Danny!" Rusty said, agitation raging through him, frightened and miserable and not in control and he hated it. They hated it.
"I know," he said soothingly. He did. He knew what Rusty was afraid of, and it wasn't small spaces, exactly, not claustrophobia or whatever. He'd sat next to Rusty in the smallest of places, hidden in cupboards, under beds, and there had never been anything other than amusement and coolness and, more often than not, restless boredom. As long as they could get out whenever they wanted. The moment they were trapped; that was when things got bad.
Rusty was still pacing and Danny couldn't stand it anymore. He stood up and laid a hand flat against Rusty's chest. "You need to calm down, Rus'," he said firmly.
Rusty stared at him unseeingly. "My parents used to lock me in," he said abruptly. "When I was a kid. They'd lock me in and they'd go out and leave me. Not just for a few hours, you know? Overnight, or for a few days."
He fought down the immediate outrage and anger. Nothing he hadn't already suspected – known, if he was being honest. But to hear Rusty actually say it...
"One time it was almost two weeks," Rusty went on, his voice cracking. "I tried to make the food last, but...I got so hungry. So scared. So...I used to wonder, you know, Danny? What would happen if they just didn't come back? If I died? How long would I have to stay there before someone found me? No one would look for me. No one would come for me."
"I will," Danny whispered. "Rusty, I always will. I'll always look for you and I'll always find you. I - "
" - don't make promises you can't keep," Rusty interrupted with a bittersweet smile, but at least he was hearing what Danny was saying. Trouble was, he should be believing.
Danny looked Rusty straight in the eyes. "I will never leave you alone, Rusty. I can promise you that."
Rusty smiled at him again. "You can't," he said, but he let Danny take him by the hand and lead him back to the window and they sat down again, even closer than before. "I don't like being locked up," he said again and below them the music from the party blared, uncaring.
A distraction. That's what they needed right now. Something that would take them far away. Something that would mean that the very last thing Rusty was thinking about was being locked up. He sighed and drew his legs up close to his chest. "Did I ever tell you," he began, as casually as he could, and Rusty looked at him sharply. "About the time I ran away from home?"
Danny was eight years old and he was pretty sure his parents hated him.
It was the third day of the summer holidays and neither of them had said more than two words to him for days now. It had been a week since Mom had caught Daddy playing with his secretary and since then she'd spent all her time either shouting or crying and Daddy was hardly ever here, and when he was he was either fighting with Mom or he was working and being silent and Danny didn't know what to do, and sometimes, the way they looked at him, when they looked at him, he thought that maybe, somehow, it was his fault and he spent a lot of time hiding up in his room.
For the first couple of days he'd tried to spend as much time out of the house as possible. He'd gone over to Mike's house to play, and they'd spent hours playing space explorers in Mike's back yard, which had been fun even if Mike never did seem to see the same aliens he did, and then Mike's mom had called them in for dinner and there'd been ratatouille and he'd eaten it eagerly - delighted at anything that wasn't a sandwich – and later Mike's parents had given him pitying looks, and Mike's mom had taken him aside and explained that she knew he was going through a tough time at the moment, and he was always welcome to come over any time he wanted, and she'd always be ready to listen, anytime he cared to talk about it. He'd thanked her politely and he'd decided not to go back anytime soon. Mom hated people gossiping about them.
But the third day, and he'd got up bright and early and drawn them each a picture. He wasn't that great at art, and the whole idea was a little babyish, but Mrs Bryant said that the one thing that would always cheer parents up was a picture their children had drawn, and he knew that teachers lied about a lot of things, but he was kind of hoping this wasn't one of them. He was running out of other ideas.
He traipsed downstairs a little after nine. There was no sign of Daddy, but Mom was sitting in the study, working. He bit his lip; she really didn't like to be disturbed. But the door was open and it wasn't usually, so maybe it was okay. Compromising, he hovered in the doorway and spoke softly. "Mom? I drew you a picture."
She turned round sharply. "Daniel? Did you miss the school bus again?"
He blinked. "No, it's the summer holidays," he explained quietly. He didn't mention the open afternoon they'd had on Friday to celebrate. All the parents – almost all the parents – had come in, eager to see what their kids had been doing all year. There'd been cake and juice and much exclaiming over stupid papier mache models of shoes and giant paintings of trees, and when Mrs Bryant had asked where his parents were, he'd laughed scornfully and uncaringly and said that open days were for babies and he hadn't given them the stupid letter. He'd got in trouble for being rude, but not for lying. She'd never known he was lying. Of course he'd given them the letter, and he'd been excited and put lots of effort into everything, imagining Mom's proud smile, imagining Daddy tousling his hair, imagining all of them being happy. He should have known it would never happen.
"Bastards," Rusty said, quiet anger in his voice.
Danny shrugged and knew, maybe, he'd said or shown just a little bit more than he'd meant to. "They had a lot going on at the time. Just because they have more important things to think about than - "
" - you - " Rusty interjected.
" - open days," Danny corrected without missing a beat, "doesn't make them bad people."
Rusty sighed and dropped his head onto Danny's shoulder, and at least the very last thing he was thinking about right now was being trapped. "It makes them stupid," he said and Danny put an arm round his shoulders and drew him in close.
Mom looked decidedly put out. "The summer holidays?" she echoed, like he'd invented the idea just to inconvenience her. "I need to go in to work this morning. And your father is nowhere to be seen, of course." She sighed. "I don't have time to arrange a babysitter. You'll be all right by yourself for a couple of hours."
"Of course," he agreed, even though she hadn't asked the question, even though she'd turned away from him as soon as she'd finished speaking. "Mom?" he said again. "I drew you a picture." He held it out hopefully, but she didn't look round.
"Daniel, I don't have time," she said exasperatedly. "Go and find something to do, can't you?"
He nodded and went through to the kitchen, put the picture in the trash and poured himself a bowl of cereal, only spilling a little milk on the counter. Maybe Daddy would like his picture. Nothing wrong with hoping.
Breakfast finished, he wandered round in search of something to do. There didn't seem to be anything on TV except grown ups talking, and none of them seemed to be saying anything interesting. He turned the TV off and headed upstairs instead, deciding to play with Billy for a while.
Billy wasn't exactly real, but that didn't stop him from being fun. It was nice to have a friend who could be there all the time, who could know what he was thinking, who didn't need to run home when Mom and Daddy started arguing, and who would stay with him, listening to the shouting and would tell him it didn't matter and almost make it not matter. But Billy wasn't real, and sometimes that made everything hurt more, and besides, mostly, Danny thought he was far too old to play with Billy anyway.
Rusty was grinning at him. "You had an imaginary friend?"
"It's a perfectly normal phase," Danny told him, with dignity. "Lots of kids have them. Surprised you never did."
"The real world's enough for me," Rusty said dryly.
Danny smiled. "No it's not," he said quietly.
Billy and he played in his room for a while; imaginary swordfights, magic kingdoms, and fierce monsters. They fought side by side and sometimes Billy saved him and sometimes he saved Billy, and they never got hurt enough to die, and they shrugged off the pain, because they were the good guys and the good guys could do that.
It was when he was trying to rescue Billy from the tower on top of his wardrobe that it happened. His foot slipped off the top of the door, and he felt himself falling backwards, and with a startled yell – not a scream, he didn't scream – he landed painfully on the floor, somehow sweeping his lamp off his nightstand in the process. The crash seemed to echo around the room for sometime afterwards.
Silence for a few seconds and then he could hear the sound of footsteps running up the stairs.
Frantically, he tried to grab the pieces of broken glass from the floor, trying to make it at least look like he was tidying up his mess.
"Daniel Ocean, what have you done now?"
He cringed at the sound of Mom's voice, angry, exasperated and absolutely fed up.
Turning, he saw her standing in the doorway, her hands on her hips, her expression resigned and contemptuous.
"I'm sorry," he began. "I broke the lamp. It was an accident. I'll clean it up."
She glanced at the broken glass and sighed loudly. "Not with your hands, you stupid boy. I'll get a dustpan and brush. You stand absolutely still until I get back, you understand me?"
He nodded mutely and stood, statue-still, in the middle of the floor. Billy was standing in the bathroom doorway, looking like he couldn't care less what Mom thought. Danny wished he could think like that.
Mom was back after only a couple of minutes and she knelt down and started clearing up the mess. "Don't you have anything better to do than create more work for me?" she demanded. "What did you think you were doing, anyway? You can't have made that much noise just breaking the lamp."
"I was climbing on the wardrobe and I fell off," he explained meekly. Billy smiled encouragingly at him.
She looked up at him. "Why do you do these things?" she asked, anger and disappointment warring in her voice. "Why can't you just be normal? God, it's no wonder your father would rather spend time with his floozies." Danny didn't know what the word meant, but she spat it like it was the worst thing she could think of. "I wouldn't want to come home to deal with you either. I swear, if I didn't have you..." She shook her head bitterly and continued clearing up the broken lamp.
Danny stood in the middle of his room, his head bowed, heat rising in his cheeks. Billy had vanished. Mom never let him keep his dreams.
Eventually she stood up and walked out of the room. She paused in the doorway but didn't look back. "Not another sound out of you for the rest of the day, do you understand me, Daniel? I think you've disappointed me quite enough for one day. If you care at all about that."
The door closed behind her and he screwed his eyes shut tightly and reminded himself that he wasn't a baby and crying didn't help anything. After a moment, after he'd got himself under control he took a long look at his stinging hands. They were only bleeding a little. He hadn't cut himself really badly. And, when he rolled up his pants leg, the graze on his knee really wasn't that bad at all. There would have been no need for Mom to be worried, even if she had noticed. Or asked. Or cared.
He went through to his bathroom and carefully got himself cleaned up.
Rusty was staring at him. He shrugged defensively. "Not like it matters," he pointed out. It had all been a long time ago. And besides, in comparison -
" - That's not the point," Rusty said, his lips tight, his eyes bright with anger. "She shouldn't say those things to you. She should have noticed you were hurt. She should have asked."
"Not like I said anything," he pointed out. Because he'd been afraid of what she'd say. Or what she wouldn't say.
Rusty sighed and dropped his head back down on Danny's shoulder, and Danny felt the barest ghost of a kiss and there was freedom in that.
Even after he heard Mom leaving he stayed up in his room, stared at a comic book, and did his best to even turn the pages as quietly as he could. He didn't want them to hate him. He didn't want it to be all his fault.
Mom and Daddy came home hours later and seemingly within seconds of each other. The yelling started almost immediately and Danny hung back on the staircase, not so sure what the right thing to do was, not so sure if he wanted to go down.
"You don't seriously think I don't know what's going on? Everyone knows what's going on. You humiliate me every chance you get. Can you even imagine what the neighbours are saying right now?"
"Well, maybe if you thought a little less about what the neighbours thought and spent more time - "
" - Time? You think I have time? I have a career too, you know. And I keep this house nice for you. And there's Daniel. You remember him?"
"Oh, that's right. Bring him into it."
"Do you honestly think we'd be here if it wasn't for Daniel? He's the only reason..."
The argument moved into the living room. Danny fled upstairs and didn't hear anymore.
It was all his fault. It really was. All the arguing. The fact that his parents hated each other. The fact that they hated him. It was his fault.
"It wasn't," Rusty said, and Danny shrugged. "It isn't," Rusty said, and Danny said nothing.
He sat on his bed and blinked back tears resolutely.
Twenty minutes or so later and there was no more yelling, just the sound of someone moving in the hall. Carefully, quietly, he crept downstairs and looked. It was Daddy, and he was getting ready to go out again.
"Daddy?" he said quietly, and Daddy turned round, his jacket in his hands.
"Oh, Danny." He sounded surprised. As if he'd forgotten all about Danny. And Danny did his best to believe that wasn't possible. "What do you want? This isn't really the time."
"I drew you a picture," Danny offered, holding the piece of paper out. He hoped that maybe if he started with the picture, Daddy might let him talk about important things.
Daddy didn't even glance at it. "This isn't really a good time, Danny. Daddy needs to go out now. Later, okay?"
Danny nodded and watched Daddy leave. He might be only eight, but he knew that 'later' was the same thing as 'never'. Daddy said lots of things would happen later. None of them ever did.
Mom was in the study again so he wandered through to the living room and watched TV for a while. Some old movie, and he considered that there must be some grey area between kissing an annoying girl and kissing a tarantula. After all, kissing a tarantula probably wasn't even possible. There must be some other options. Frogs, maybe. Though kissing frogs had the potential of turning them into princes. Which would probably surprise Gene Kelly a little. He bit his lip and reminded himself that there were thoughts that he shouldn't share. Shouldn't have. Mom was always saying that he was far too old for nonsense and imagination.
Another way he disappointed her. Them. He thought of all the times they'd given him that look and wished he wasn't, well, Danny. And they were arguing more, and it seemed like it was his fault and maybe if they had a break from him – just for a little while – things would be better.
Feeling kind of hungry once the movie was done, he headed into the kitchen and inspected the contents of the fridge solemnly. Nothing to put on sandwiches. No milk for cereal. And he wasn't allowed to touch the stove.
With a feeling of trepidation, he knocked on the door to the study and went inside. Mom glared up at him. "What?" she snarled, and he was pretty sure she'd been crying.
"Nothing," he whispered, and made to leave.
"What?" she asked again, in a gentler tone.
"I was just wondering if there'd be any dinner?" he asked hopefully.
She closed her eyes for a long moment and sighed. "Yes," she said bitterly. "I'll make something in a minute."
Immediately he felt guilty. "You don't need to," he said quickly. "I can get some corn chips or something. I'm fine. I'm not even hungry."
"I said I'd make you something, Daniel!" she snapped and he shut up quickly and followed her through to the kitchen. "Must you always be between my feet?" she demanded and he bit his lip and went through to the living room and sat in silence on the sofa until she called him through.
He sat at the table and she slammed a bowl of risotto down in front of him. "There," she said fiercely. "Happy?"
"Yes, Mom," he said in a low voice. "Thank you." He stared down at the bowl and the mushrooms that were peppered through it. Carefully, he ate around them.
"Don't play with your food, Daniel," Mom snapped and he nodded tightly and did his best to swallow the mushrooms without tasting them.
As soon as he was finished, she snatched the bowl away and turned to wash it up, and this time he could see her crying, could see her shoulders shaking.
"Mom?" he said tentatively, placing a hand on her arm gingerly. "Mom, I'm sorry. It'll be okay."
She turned round as if surprised to see him there and the tears were streaming down his face, and she pushed him away lightly. "Go away, Daniel," she said.
He would.
Rusty's arms were tight around him and Danny took a moment, his face pressed into Rusty's hair. This hadn't been what he was intending. But talking got to be inevitable when they were scared and there was nothing else.
He set his alarm and got up early the next morning. Five o'clock in the morning kind of early. He was never awake at this time. It was kind of exciting. The sky was a strange colour.
The plan was simple enough. His parents were fighting because of him. If they had a break from him, maybe things would get better. So all he had to do was go away for a few days. He'd go stay with Uncle Ed. He stayed in Miami which was far away and always sunny and full of palm trees, and Uncle Ed always seemed almost pleased to see him. Certainly he always brought presents and candy and insisted on hugs. He even seemed to like Danny being Danny. Which made no sense but did make a nice change.
Carefully he packed his school bag with a change of clothes, a couple of Batman action figures, Sammo, his teddy bear that he absolutely did not need to sleep with, a pile of comic books, five dollars he had saved up and a bag of toffees. That should do nicely.
Mom didn't seem to be awake yet, and he didn't think Daddy was home, so sneaking out of the house was easy. With any luck it would be late tonight before they even realised he was gone. Maybe even tomorrow!
He didn't know what bus he was looking for, so he just walked into town. It took a long time, and he got a few curious looks, mostly from early risers out walking their dogs, or getting their newspapers, but no one went as far as to actually speak to him, or try and stop him. And he didn't see anyone he recognised, which hopefully meant that no one would tell Mom they'd seen him.
The station was getting busy when he arrived there, which was good. Easier to slip between different groups of people, pretend he was with someone else, smile and escape notice. He felt like a spy, or a fugitive or something. This was an adventure.
The only trouble was, reading the information boards, he couldn't see any trains that went to Miami. That made it difficult. If he wasn't going to Miami and Uncle Ed, where was he going? Considering thoughtfully, he glanced at the boards again. There was a train in ten minutes to Washington DC. That had to be a big place. The capital city. He'd be willing to bet he could get a train to anywhere from there, even Miami.
He found the train without that much trouble and quickly got on a deserted carriage. The train seemed nearly empty. Suited him fine and he found a seat with a table that seemed out of the way and inconspicuous. He'd barely sat down before the train started moving and – gripping the edge of the table tightly, staring out the window wide-eyed – he wondered if this was really the best thing to do? It had seemed like such a good plan. But now it was actually happening, he wasn't quite so sure of himself. He felt a little frightened. A lot frightened. Frightened and lonely. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes and imagined Billy sitting in the seat opposite, grinning conspiratorially at him. "No turning back now," Billy said, and Danny nodded tightly.
Rusty was frowning at him. "You went all the way to Washington by yourself?" he asked disapprovingly. "When you were eight?"
He shrugged. "Yeah."
"Anything could have happened." Rusty stressed, looking angry and frustrated. "Danny, anything."
"Yeah," he said again, more than a little uncomfortable. "Nothing did."
"You were eight, though. You should have been safe at home. You should never have been wandering around without your parents like that."
Oh, that was just... "When you were eight - "
" - when I was eight I was older than you were," Rusty cut in. And that was difficult to argue with. Certainly Rusty at eleven was a lot older than Danny remembered being at the same age.
He shrugged and conceded. "It happened, though. And until you invent a time machine there's no way to change that."
The train journey to Washington took a very long time. Hours and hours and hours, and Danny spent most of it staring excitedly out the window at the unfamiliar scenery rushing past – towns and hills and people and cows. It was all new and it was all interesting. He'd only ever been on a train a couple of times before. Mostly Mom and Daddy drove everywhere. Or, if they were going on holiday, they flew in an aeroplane. And that was fun too. Except for the metal stairs to get on the plane. That was high up and frightening and last time he'd been too scared to get on the top step, and Mom had sighed wearily and even Daddy had looked annoyed and disappointed and he'd picked Danny up and bodily dragged him on board, and Danny had sat hunched on his seat and drove his fists into his eyes, determined that they wouldn't see him crying.
Trains were better, he thought. Less high up. Less frightening.
The times when he wasn't staring out the window he was curled under the table, holding his breath, Billy crouched beside him, watching the conductor's legs going past, expecting every moment to hear an angry voice demanding to know exactly what he thought he was doing. But each time there was nothing. He wasn't found. And eventually the train drew into Union Station and he found the biggest crowd and lost himself in the press of people disembarking, and even if he drew a couple of concerned glances, no one wanted to take responsibility.
He exchanged a quick look with Rusty, dark amusement reflected and echoing. No one ever did.
Almost immediately he was overwhelmed. He hadn't been expecting so many people, and they were all in a hurry, pushing past him. Twice he was knocked into and almost fell. He clung to his backpack like grim death and wandered, looking for something that would tell him how to get to Miami.
Eventually he found a departures board and stared up at it for a long time, puzzling out the information. In the end he figured out that there was a train to Miami in less than an hour. Well, that was good. Now all he had to do was be on board it.
That proved to be a little more difficult than he would have imagined. Twenty minutes searching and not only had he not found the right platform, he seemed to have wandered into an almost-empty area of the station. Tired and hungry and nervous, he tried to retrace his steps. And failed. He was lost.
"You okay there, boy?" The man's quiet voice was sudden and it sounded friendly enough, but Danny wasn't exactly anxious to talk to anyone right now. He didn't want to risk being sent home. He started to run. "Hey!" the voice exclaimed. "Hey, it's okay. Wait up!"
Danny ran quickly down a corridor, and he could hear the man immediately behind him and his heart was pounding in his chest.
"Slow down, boy," the man called. "I just want to talk to you. You on your own?"
The corridor ended in a door marked 'Private'. Danny tried the door handle anyway. Locked. A hand fell on his shoulder and he felt the panic rising in him. Dropping his backpack he spun round quickly.
The man in front of him was tall and skinny, with greasy hair and a dirty trenchcoat, and he was smiling at Danny, nervous and ingratiating. "Easy there, boy," he said and his hand was still on Danny's shoulder, squeezing tightly. "My name's Stu. What's yours?"
Danny shook his head. He wasn't going to say.
Stu smiled a little more. "Not a big talker, huh? That's okay. You lost? What are you looking for? You parents? A train?"
He still seemed friendly enough. "A train," Danny admitted, slightly unwillingly.
"Well, that's easy enough," Stu nodded encouragingly. "Why don't we go and find it together?"
"No, thank you," Danny said politely. "I'm fine by myself."
The grip on his shoulder got a little more insistent and he shuddered deep inside. Oh, I'm sure you are," Stu murmured. "But you're such a little boy. And little boys shouldn't be running around on their own. Anything could happen. You're lucky you ran into me." Stu reached up with his other hand and gently caressed Danny's cheek.
Danny bit back his scream and struggled desperately to get free.
Stu laughed slightly. "Don't worry," he said. "You remind me of my son. He's waiting for me in the food court. Would you like to come meet him? I'm sure you'll be good friends. I'll buy you some ice cream and you can play together. Do you like playing, little boy?"
Danny stared past Stu, down the corridor. "Mom!" he exclaimed, forcing surprise and relief and delight into his voice.
Stu didn't let go of him. But he did turn reflexively and his grip loosened ever so slightly, and Danny shrugged out of his jacket, snatched up his backpack, charged past Stu and ran like hell.
Behind him he heard Stu say a couple of bad words and then he could hear Stu running after him, and more terrified than he could ever remember being, tears streaming down his face, he ran faster than he'd known he could and then there were people all around him and suddenly there was no sign of Stu and he was safe.
He didn't feel it.
By some miracle he stumbled upon the Miami train and he scrambled on board, found the nearest restroom, ran inside and locked the door tight shut and sobbed himself hoarse, clinging tightly to Sammo.
"Danny," Rusty was holding him tighter than Danny would have believed possible, his body pressed so close to Danny, as if he never wanted to let go, as if he was trying to erase horror and terror and memory with his sheer presence. And if anyone could... Gradually the trembling eased and he pulled back and looked Rusty in the face.
"Nothing happened," he said quietly and there was a catch in his voice.
Rusty leaned forwards quickly and pressed his lips to Danny's; the kiss, unexpected and wonderful and comforting and firsttime, and Danny relaxed in understanding and empathy. He'd never told anyone about Stu before. Certainly not Mom and Dad. But he'd told Rusty, and Rusty didn't think he was ridiculous and he didn't think that Danny was stupid and Danny closed his eyes and let unbounded love and understanding wash through him.
"You know," he said presently, opening his eyes. "I could be overreacting. Remembering it as worse than it was. There's a good chance he was just a guy trying to help a lost child."
"Am I gonna have to kiss you again?" Rusty demanded, vaguely threatening, and Danny smiled and dropped his head forwards onto Rusty's shoulder and tried not to listen to Rusty's unvoiced thoughts on what he'd do to Stu if he could.
He stayed in the restroom for a long time, long after the train started moving. Now and then, someone would try the door, even hammer on it, and each time he'd curl up a little bit tighter, afraid of who it could be, afraid of what they might want from him.
Eventually he calmed down enough to scrub his face clean and venture outside. The train was crowded, but he managed to find himself a corner seat and leaned against the window. At some point it had got dark, and staring out the window wasn't nearly as fun anymore. Nothing was as fun anymore. This wasn't so much of an adventure as he'd hoped. He quietly ate his toffees and, when the conductor came close, he slipped out of his seat and hid on the floor.
The toffees made him thirsty, and didn't even come close to stopping the hunger. He looked round cautiously; the woman in the seat across from him was asleep. And she had a bottle of Coke and a packet of cookies in the chair beside her. He bit his lip and told himself that she wouldn't miss them. Crawling across the floor, he grabbed the bottle and the cookies, ran to the next carriage and gulped them down as fast as possible. There. No one would ever know that he'd stolen.
This carriage was busier. There were a whole lot of families, with children running up and down the aisle. Feeling a little happier, he wandered up and introduced himself, and soon he was playing cowboys with Nicky and Buddy, and Al and his sister Carla.
The conductor came by again, and this time his eye passed right over Danny. One child among many. Easy enough to deal with.
Time passed pleasantly, and gradually fear faded. Better to be among people. Made him feel safe.
One by one, the other children were called away by their parents, told to go and sleep, and Danny found himself a seat near enough that everyone would assume he was with someone else, and curled up by himself. He tried not to stare at the other kids, being cuddled by their parents, tucked up in blankets.
The seat was uncomfortable and there was a draught coming in from somewhere. There was part of him that wished that he was at home, safe and warm in his own bed, knowing that Mom and Daddy were somewhere near by. He wondered if they knew he was gone yet. Wondered if things were better yet, now he was out of the way. Wondered if they were pleased that he'd taken the initiative. Done the right thing. Which he had and there was no point in regretting it now. Still. He wished he still had his jacket. Or he'd thought to bring a blanket. Or he wasn't alone.
Rusty looked at him, fierce determination in his eyes.
Danny grinned. "Now who's making promises he can't keep?" he demanded lightly, but he didn't really mean it. And he knew that in Rusty's head it was 'For as long as you want me around.' And he knew that Rusty didn't understand that that was forever and always.
He was woken by the sun shining directly into his eyes and the feeling of someone watching him. Nervous in a way he'd never have been before, he turned his head and looked round slowly. Al and Carla's parents were looking at him and whispering to each other, concern written all over their faces. He relaxed; that was a comforting sort of danger. Still, clearly time to move.
Grabbing his backpack, he stood up, stretched casually, and headed on to the next carriage, doing his best to project the image of a boy returning to his worried parents. No one made a move to stop him or follow him, thankfully.
There were no seats in the next carriage, but there was a little nook next to the luggage rack, and he hid himself down there comfortably and spent the next several hours – the rest of the journey – playing with his Batman toys.
Once again, when the train came to a stop, he found the largest crowd and followed it. Once again, no one noticed him, and this time he followed the mass of people all the way outside the station.
He stopped suddenly. Looked round slowly. He didn't recognise any of the buildings. He couldn't see Uncle Ed's house anywhere. Getting to Miami was supposed to be the difficult part; from now on it was supposed to be easy, but there were so many buildings, and nothing looked familiar, and how he was supposed to find Uncle Ed?
Troubled, he wandered back insides the station and walked around aimlessly for a while. Eventually he found himself watching a little booth opposite the ticket office. 'Information' he read slowly, off the sign, and shrugged. That was pretty much what he needed here. And there was a long queue and the woman behind the counter looked harassed and busy. There was a good chance she'd tell him what he needed to know just to get rid of him.
He joined the queue and waited for a long time until it was his turn. The woman frowned down at him. "Yes?" she asked cautiously.
"Hi there," Danny smiled. "I'm trying to find my Uncle Ed's house. It's a big white house with a blue roof and a pool and lots of palm trees. Do you know where it is?"
She blinked. "Where are your parents?"
He shrugged. "Around," he lied vaguely and he eyed the Twinkie lying on the counter. It had been a long time since those cookies.
She caught him looking, and, looking troubled, she passed the Twinkie down to him. "Why don't you eat this while I call a colleague to try and find your parents? Or your Uncle?"
"Okay," he agreed after a moment of consideration. It wasn't like he had a lot of other ideas. He sat, happily enough, and ate the Twinkie and it wasn't until two cops came round the corner that he finally understood that the adventure was over.
"So what happened after that?" Rusty asked intently.
Danny shrugged. "They took me off to the cop shop. Fed me. Gave me juice. They found out that my parents were on the other side of the country." He smiled slightly. "You wouldn't believe the look on their faces when they figured that out."
Rusty grinned. "You've always been unbelievable."
"Anyway," Danny went on. "Guess they phoned Mom and Dad after that. Not that I knew about it. Too busy being spoiled rotten by the cops."
"Making new friends?" Rusty smiled.
Danny nodded. "They kept giving me candy and ice cream. You'd have loved it. Got to try on their helmets. Got to sit in a cop car with lights and sirens too."
"Fun as long as you're not getting arrested," Rusty noted.
"Never gonna happen," he grinned. He paused. "For six months after that, I wanted to be a cop," he added.
Rusty blinked. "Really?"
"Yeah," he smiled. "Probably wouldn't have lasted so long if Mom and Dad hadn't both been so insistent that it wasn't a suitable career for me." His smile faded. "They arrived in the evening. Caught the first flight down."
The cops hadn't been pleased to see them, he remembered that. There'd been muttering and cold looks when Mom had swept into the room, Dad a couple of steps behind, and Danny had just stood, meek and quiet, while Mom railed at him and Dad looked disappointed, while they told him how reckless he was, how stupid and thoughtless and selfish and inconsiderate. After a couple of minutes the cop-in-charge had interrupted. "Your son's fine, by the way, Mrs. Ocean," he'd said, with a look that Danny didn't understand, and then he'd been bundled out of the room while the cops discussed things with his parents.
"They kept them talking for a long time," Danny remembered. "They'd noticed I'd gone that morning, but they'd figured I was just hiding somewhere, sulking. Hadn't reported me missing. Guess the cops just wanted to check I wasn't being ill-treated or anything." He laughed a little at the thought.
Rusty didn't.
Danny scowled. "Oh, come on," he complained gently. "They're not the best parents, I know, but they don't...I mean I'm not..." He hesitated, hovering over the words they didn't use. "No one else would have a problem with the way they treat me," he pointed out.
Rusty did have a problem with it, and Danny could see the arguments forming, could see Rusty's unbreakable conviction that everyone should see Danny the way he did, could see himself in Rusty's eyes, special, unique, extraordinary, loved, and he smiled and shook his head.
There was a sigh and Rusty looked away and frowned suddenly. "The music's stopped," he said tersely.
It had. He looked out of the window cautiously, Rusty beside him. The lights in the school were turned off, one by one. Finally everything was dark. Silent. And no one came anywhere near the office. No one let them out.
Rusty stared blankly. "We're trapped in here," he said, his voice wound tight with desperation.
Danny swallowed hard. "Yeah," he agreed, and he held Rusty's hand and wished he could promise that it was going to be all right.
To be continued...