Disharmony (17 page)

Luke dug shovelfuls of flour into the mixer while Clarkson sifted in the bread mix. Hooley slopped warm water in on top, occasionally stopping to impatiently punch the pulse button to churn the huge mixing blades.

Impatiently, Luke pushed the safety guards of the mixer to the side; they got in the way of his shower of flour. If Hooley or Clarkson were stupid enough to reach in, he figured their forearm deserved to be blended into the dough.

He looked around for Zac – they needed someone to scrape the sides of the mixer bowl. When he didn’t spot Nguyen with a quick glance, he turned back to the task, shovelling madly. Chef Nick better not catch Zac stuffing around with his ovens.

Suddenly Zac was at his side. How do you do that? Luke thought.

‘You’re a sneaky little bugger,’ he said, handing Zac a long spatula.

‘So you’ve told me,’ said Zac.

‘Start scraping. Get in there.’

The dry ingredients were now a sticky mess in the bowl. Luke leaned on the pulse button, willing the gloop to form into a dough. The mixer groaned its way through the sludge. He heard the other team’s machine stop and he glanced to his left. Kitkat lifted the heavy arm of their mixer and popped out the mixing blades. Barry held the dough hooks, ready to slot them in for the next stage of the kneading. Luke let go of the button on their machine.

‘What are you doing, Black?’ said Hooley. ‘It’s not ready.’

‘Just give me the dough hooks,’ he said. ‘It’ll be right.’

‘No, you’ll stuff it up,’ said Clarkson.

Luke ignored him and ejected the mixing blades from the mixer arm, smacking them on the side of the bowl. Unmixed flour and ribbons of sticky dough spattered from the beaters.

‘Watch it, Black,’ said Hooley, wiping a white splodge from his face.

‘Would you shut it, you girl,’ said Luke. ‘You want Chef Nick over here?’

He shoved the two long dough hooks into the slots where the blades had been, and pushed the arm back into place.

Kitkat glared at him from across the bench; their lead had suddenly evaporated.

‘Don’t look now, Chef Nick’s on the way over,’ said Zac at the same time that Luke stabbed his thumb down on the pulse button.

Luke thought it was probably the sound that shocked him the most. A deafening, screeching scream of metal on metal as one of the dough hooks freed itself from the mixer arm. The other hook smashed against it relentlessly, trying to turn it into dough. Everything else in the mixer jetted itself into the air as though shot from a high-pressure water cannon.

Luke let go of the pulse button, dripping.

For maybe two seconds, the kitchen was very still.

And then the shouting began.

Chef Nick was the loudest. His outstretched arm, fingers still gripping a cigarette, was cloaked in a battered glove. Even knowing how much hell he was going to cop didn’t stop Luke taking a moment to admire the number of swear words Nick managed to get out without taking a breath. The language of the rest of Section Six was pretty imaginative too. Everyone dripped batter and flour. Hong Lo’s glasses had been completely whited out and he stumbled about, shouting words in Chinese. The floor, the walls, everything surrounding the giant mixer oozed and seeped.

‘Told you I’d get us another kitchen shift, didn’t I?’ said Luke, two hours later, elbow-deep in suds at the kitchen sink.

‘You suck, Black,’ said Zac, on his knees on the tiles, scrubbing.

‘Oh, you don’t even know about hating me yet, Zac. Just wait until you’ve peeled a few hundred carrots with me. Actually, maybe you should make up your mind how much you hate me after the onions.’ Luke pulled the last batter-spattered pot from the sink and rinsed it. ‘We’re really going to know our vegetables after today, aren’t we, Nguyen? What with your roasted mushrooms and all?’

Zac looked up, red in the face. ‘Why don’t you go and roast your –’

Luke laughed. ‘Hold that thought, bullet boy. I’m off to fetch us a sack of carrots.’

He dried his hands on a tea towel and made his way towards the supersized walk-in fridge at the opposite end of the room. He figured that Chef Nick wouldn’t be back any time soon. Luke had never had more than five minutes alone in the fridges, but he knew today would be different. When Chef had lost his cool and given him a backhander across the mouth, in front of everyone, he’d figured that old Nick would’ve needed at least a couple of his special water bottles to stop his hands shaking. After he’d barked out orders to Luke and Zac and left the room, Luke was pretty sure that they wouldn’t see him again before dinner.

The coolroom. Luke’s favourite place.

He yanked on the solid door handle of the massive refrigerator and rocked backwards on his heels to pull it open. The triple-insulated stainless steel door was as big as a single-garage door, and when it yawned wide the cavernous cold waited; a frigid mist whorling out indolently, beckoning him inwards.

Luke smiled. He’d been in the coolroom five times, and each time he’d felt more at peace, more safe, more himself than anywhere, anytime else. He stepped inside.

The cold was first. Un-ignorable. Everywhere. And the dimness, the almost-dark dankness. And then the stillness registered.

He breathed in.

The sounds next. Quiet, but not silent. Always a hum, a presence, a ticking, something waiting. Ready. He’d felt the same way since birth, or at least since he’d been aware he’d been born. The cold. The quiet, the ticking, the hum.

He breathed out.

Luke walked across the slick concrete floor of the cool-room, at one with its frigid heart.

He traced a fingertip along the metal of the floor-to-ceiling shelves, marvelling again at the jumbo size of all the stores. The margarine in huge buckets; Vegemite jars as big as bread bins; blocks of cheese that took two people to lift them. He made his way right to the dimness of the back where the vegetables were stored and then he heard the door creak. Zac had never seen the coolroom; he probably wanted his turn to check it out, Luke figured. And today was his lucky day. Chef Nick usually sent one of his crabs in here to make sure no one stole too many packets of jam, scoffed too many pieces of cooking chocolate. Luke smiled.

Then stiffened.

He didn’t turn, but he knew. Zac was not in the coolroom, but someone was. And this person wasn’t interested in the cooking chocolate. Casually, he bent forward and prised up the lid of a tin that stood taller than his knees. He heard the person behind him move closer.

‘Checking up on me, Zac?’ he said, still facing the back wall of the huge fridge. ‘At least you can come back here and help me carry this bag.’

The other presence was a hot spot in his cold cave. Maybe eight steps behind him now. Almost lunging distance, especially for someone that tall. Abrafo. Why he’d be here, he had no idea, but Luke knew it was him.

He bent again to the tin at his feet and pulled, crashing it to the ground. At the same time that Luke sprang sideways, ten litres of canola oil glugged from the tin, sloshing a syrupy wave of grease across the floor.

Luke grabbed the frigid metal of the shelving unit and climbed quickly, feeling the whoosh as Abrafo’s hand grabbed for him and just missed. Abrafo’s hiss, and the shooshing sound of his feet as he tried to stay upright, mingled with the hum of the fridge fans. Luke allowed himself a glance across his shoulder. He wished he hadn’t. Angled inwards, pointing towards his wrist, in a position that looked entirely too comfortable for him, Abrafo held a silver blade.

Luke pulled himself frantically along the shelving, towards the door, but Abrafo was quickly regaining his balance. His long arms were outstretched, his feet still slip-sliding, but he had discovered a way to half-skate towards Luke’s wall and Luke knew he had no chance. Abrafo’s pink lips twisted into a grin as he slithered closer. Another slide would do it.

Scrambling, using all his strength to pull himself a little higher up the wall, Luke spotted something. Knowing he had only a second, he hooked his feet into the metal frames of the shelving and reached as far inwards as possible. Stretching, his chest crushed into the sharp shelving, he just managed to hook his fingertip through the string. He pulled as hard as he
could. The fat cylinder slid towards him, and he manoeuvred it sideways on the shelf to allow it to roll. From the corner of his eye, he saw it was too late. Abrafo would have a hand to his ankle in five seconds. Four. Luke clawed at the heavy tube, rolling it to the edge of the shelf, where it teetered. He held his breath and ducked. With just enough momentum, the fifteen-kilogram salami free-fell from the shelf and slammed straight into Abrafo’s chest and chin. Luke stared as Abrafo’s feet shot out from under him, and for a full second he was completely airborne. And then he fell. Luke heard the crack, but he didn’t stop to look, scrabbling along the shelving until he reached a clear patch of floor.

He dropped and ran.

‘Some bodyguard you are, bullet boy,’ said Luke, wrapped in his towel, waiting his turn on the bench in the shower block. He huddled as close as he could to the strip heater, but goosebumps stood at full attention up each of his arms. The steam from the showers offered no warmth.

‘Well, at least I warned you he would come,’ said Zac, his eyes on the tiles, skinny shoulders slumped.

‘How’d he get past you then?’ said Luke. ‘It seems as though you’re not the only sneaky one out there, hey?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Zac, shaking his head. ‘I’m sorry. I failed you.’

Luke laughed. ‘You really are a bit mental, you know that, Nguyen? You
failed
me? Come on. Get over it; I’m joking. As if it’s your fault that some freak doesn’t like me very much. It is weird that you picked him coming back, I’ll admit, but the bodyguard crap is really a bit over the top. I mean, I like you
and all, but you have seriously been reading too many comic books, bro.’

Zac just stared at him. Sighed hard.

‘Chef Nick is going to be in all sorts of hell right now,’ said Luke. He gave a laugh. ‘I swear to you, I don’t know what was worse, sprinting out of that kitchen straight into Holt, or seeing Abrafo in the fridge with the knife. Did you
see
Holt’s face when we told him we didn’t know where Nick was? I couldn’t believe how pissed off he was when he marched me back in there. How the hell do you think Abrafo got out of there without anyone spotting him?’

Zac chewed a thumbnail.

‘Anyway, Chef Nick’s gonna cop it,’ said Luke. ‘But I’m sure Holt will find some way to make it all our fault.’

‘Well, I don’t think we should hang around for that,’ said Zac.

Luke laughed. ‘Yeah. I’m with you there, bullet boy.’ He paused, wrapped his towel a little tighter and stared hard at Zac. ‘You’re serious?’ he said.

Zac stared back.

Luke forgot about the cold. He’d been planning on leaving this lovely establishment for a while now, but he hadn’t quite put everything into place. While it had been as good as anywhere else when he’d first arrived, Holt and Toad had taken the shine off things in recent weeks. When they’d first turned their attention to him he hadn’t been too bothered. Bullies and boofheads were standard fare where he came from, but he’d watched Toad gradually become so obsessed that he’d become the fat boy’s only prey. Toad looked at him as hungrily as he watched his dinner plate. And then there was Holt. Holt had a hatred for something. A cold, clinical
revulsion that Luke recognised, but couldn’t understand. He did know that Holt would always have that hate. And he also knew that right now he represented everything Holt could not abide. Holt was bent on trying to crush him, and Luke didn’t feel like hanging around to oblige.

He had a plan to get out, but it had a few holes. The first of which being that they were watched in here twenty-four-seven. Okay, so this arvo was a one-off thing – Chef Nick’s love for vodka had temporarily overcome his attention to the rules. By age eight, Luke knew that vodka, beer, Valium or whatever – choose your poison – could overcome any rule, law, moral, or common human decency known to man. But addiction among the officers was not predictable. At least, not predictable enough to plan an escape around.

He had an idea about how to get out the gates. But it was getting out of the dorm that was the problem.

He gave Zac an appraising glance. ‘What are you thinking?’ he said.

‘Abrafo will be back,’ Zac said. ‘We need to leave.’

‘Like now? Should we just walk out?’

‘Tomorrow,’ said Zac. ‘We can’t afford to wait.’

‘You do realise that we’re locked up, right, Zac?’

‘I know. We have a few things left to do, but I’ve already got things underway.’

Luke twisted uncomfortably in bed. His jeans had bunched up under his pyjama pants and the lock-picking set in his pocket jabbed into his hip. He just wished that something would happen. He couldn’t spend the whole night like this.

‘Do you think you used enough?’ he whispered to Zac.

‘We’ll know pretty soon,’ said Zac. ‘Shhh.’

Of all people to have on dorm duty tonight, they had to have Holt. He sat ramrod-straight at the front of the hall, watching over the forty-eight beds, six per Section, that made up Dorm Four. The trusted inmates made up Section One, up the back of the Dorm. They were first into the showers and first in line to march to the dining hall. Lucky Luke was in Section Six, up nice and close to Mr Holt. No one moved past their bed without Holt’s say-so. If you needed the toilet after lights out, you pretty much had to plan it in advance. There was no room for holding on and a quick dash off to the dunny at the last minute. You had to stand at attention by your bed, and when the Dorm Warden noticed you and nodded, you could proceed. But if someone had gone ahead of you, you had to wait until he returned.