February (17 page)
Authors: Gabrielle Lord
I’d spent the whole morning in the library, but no-one had seemed to take much notice of me. Boges and I had both been trying to connect the numbers 2, 3, 4 and 5 to the range of clues we already had, but even his brain couldn’t come up with anything. I went over all the connections we’d made in the drawings so far, but I couldn’t get anything new. The Ormond Singularity remained as unfathomable as ever.
As I walked back from the library, I was starting to feel like I was just another face in the crowd. All I had to do was stay low and quiet and keep on the track of the dangerous mystery of the Ormonds. Maybe tomorrow Jennifer Smith would give me the break I needed. It sounded easy. Somehow, I knew it wasn’t going to be.
It was hot and I was starting to get paranoid again about my appearance. I pulled my hat down low.
I was threading my way through the lines of people for the 3:30 bus to the zoo when I saw something that made me jump with fright. Red Singlet! What the hell was he doing here?
I immediately ducked into a doorway, peering around the edge of the corner to watch him.
He was showing a photo to people as they passed. I was sure that it was me he was asking about, and, after seeing the picture in the internet café, I was pretty sure he’d have something fairly up-to-date.
People walked on by, shaking their heads. They hadn’t seen the psycho kid. It was clear Sligo had him there searching for me. Worse still,
he was standing right next to the door of the zoo bus. I’d have to walk past him to get on board. I could hear the announcement saying the bus was about to depart. If I missed this one, I’d miss my meeting, and maybe my last chance.
Desperate, I searched for a way around him. I had to get on that bus. Something I’d thought about the other day flashed into my mind—a technique I’d read about called ‘hiding in plain sight’. It required a lot of boldness and a simple prop, to make you practically invisible.
Now was my chance to see if it was actually true. Would it work? If it didn’t, I was in big trouble. I knew what Sligo would do to me if he got hold of me again.
Keeping one eye firmly on Red Singlet, I edged over towards a very full rubbish bin. Beside it someone had dumped several cartons. I grabbed one of the cartons, quickly folded its lid down, put it on my shoulder as if it contained something, and with the cardboard hiding most of my face, I joined the queue getting on the bus, my heart thudding.
I could hear Red Singlet’s voice from behind the cover.
‘… considered very dangerous,’ I heard him saying as I stepped past, so close he could have
touched
me.
‘… I’ve been hired by the family to find him …’ he continued as I stepped up to the bus, keeping the carton on my shoulder. The liar!
I glimpsed him turning away from my direction with the photo, so I quickly dropped the carton and edged into the bus as the driver was busy giving change to one of the passengers. I darted unnoticed into a seat at the back.
I slunk down as the bus pulled away from the curb, and my hunter.
I waited at the end of a small queue of people at the admission window, worried about the passing time. We’d arranged to meet at the sundial at 4:30. I still had fifteen minutes.
When it was my turn at the admission window I was shocked at how expensive the entry fee was. I felt so stupid, but I’d guessed it was only going to be a few dollars. Like a kid, I showed the woman all the money I had—small change plus a ten-dollar note left over from the cash Boges had given me. I didn’t have enough.
‘Please,’ I tried to explain, ‘I’m only going to
meet someone at the sundial. I’m not going in to look at any animals. If you’d just let me in for this much?’
‘You got a student card?’
‘Um, no, not on me.’
Sure, here’s my student card
, I thought.
I’m Callum Ormond. 15 years old. Armed and dangerous. Let me into your damn zoo.
‘Look, I can’t let you in unless you pay the full price. If I were to give discounts to everyone, the zoo would go broke. And then who would look after the animals?’
‘Please,’ I begged, ‘I’m not asking you to do it for everyone, just for me. Just this once,’ I argued, noticing the time on the wall clock behind her. If I hurried, I’d make it, but there was little time for delay. ‘Please. It’s almost the end of the day.’
Her face reddened. ‘I don’t make the rules! You should have arranged to meet somewhere else! That’s the entry price!’ She pointed to the amount on the sign above her window. ‘And you don’t have it. End of story.’
She peered around me and gestured to the couple behind me in the line. I gathered up my money, shoved it back in my pocket and walked towards the gateway. Security guards were there taking people’s tickets, one on each
side of the gate. There was no way I could sneak through.
If I failed to turn up a second time, no matter what excuse I came up with, it could have meant the end of my chance to speak to Jennifer Smith—the last link to my dad. I couldn’t bear to lose her. There
had
to be a way in.
I walked away from the entrance area and turned down the road that ran alongside the zoo. There was no way I could climb over the tall metal fence that separated the grounds of the zoo from the road. I kept walking until I came to a turn in the street where a big tree grew hard against the fence. This was my last shot.
Hoisting myself up and trying to avoid the barbed wire running along the top of the wall was hard. I grabbed at the tree’s branches with one hand and carefully placed my other hand underneath the barbed wire strands on top of the wall. I had to throw my hoodie across the barbs to give me some protection as I hauled myself over. I felt lucky that I’d done a lot of junior athletics—so many skills I never thought I’d need again were really coming in handy in this life on the run.
I threw my backpack into the bushes below,
near a few rocks and a small pool. I estimated the drop to be about four metres. I slowly let myself down the wall so that I didn’t have quite as far to fall. I landed hard and broke my fall as best I could, remembering to keep my legs relaxed and soft. I rolled over a few times before picking myself up and grabbing my backpack.
I took a quick look around and saw nothing but more bushes and the pool. It looked like I’d landed in one of the old, abandoned enclosures.
Now all I had to do was find my way out of this enclosure, make it to the sundial, meet Jennifer and find out what she had for me.
I was late, but hopefully not too late.
Apart from a small grilled door in the wall behind me—and I didn’t want to go in there in case I ran into a keeper—I couldn’t see any way out unless I climbed up the rocky wall opposite me and pulled myself onto the wide footpath of the zoo above. There were people walking back and forth along there, but I was too busy making my way through the scrub to pay much attention to them.