This is Shyness (11 page)

‘You sound like my dad.'

‘I think we should try to get it back.'

‘We don't even know for sure it's the Kidds.' Wolfboy avoids my eyes. He knows as well as I do who's responsible. ‘Yes, we do. And what's more, we know which ones. Aren't you furious?'

I give up on staying calm. I hope Wolfboy knows that I'm not angry at him. But I can tell by the way he scowls that he doesn't know this, not really.

‘We're going after them.'

‘No way.'

I have to make him see things my way, but I realise that I've got more chance of convincing him if I go easy. I force my voice down. ‘You can't let people walk all over you; sometimes you've got to fight back.'

‘It's just a lighter,' he says again.

Yeah, it's just a lighter, like, oh, that was just a photo. But I let him have that one. If he doesn't want to tell me about Gram then I won't force him. But it's my duty to stop him from being a doormat. I can see him shutting down right in front of my eyes, locking doors and pulling across curtains to keep me out of his business, but I won't let him.

‘Let's not live like we're scared. It's such a waste to be scared.'

‘You don't know what you're getting into.'

‘I'm going after them with or without you, so make up your mind.'

I pick up my bag and ukulele and push myself off the couch. But I've lost the exit in the dreamy mist and I take only a few confused steps before I stop. He might not want to kiss me, but I know for sure he doesn't want me wandering around Shyness on my own.

‘Wait.'

His hand is on my shoulder. He doesn't see the smile spread across my face. I don't know what I would have done if he hadn't followed me. When I have my face under control I turn around. Wolfboy looks genuinely worried, in a way that I don't understand. I can't believe he's that scared of the Kidds.

‘We'll live to regret this, you know that?' he says.

He's wrong. What I'd regret is not taking back a little control. I drag him out of the Land of Nod before he has a chance to change his mind.

Little Death is even more crowded than earlier. We fight against the tide of bodies in the narrow tunnel. I clutch Wolfboy's hand, trying to keep close, but he only grips my fingers for a few seconds before letting them go. He takes us to the steps in front of the bar and we look out onto the dancefloor. The Elf's fake blond head isn't among the dancers. We check every dark corner of every room in the club. Paul is gone. Thom is gone. Rick Markov is gone. And the Elf is nowhere to be seen.

Wolfboy's house is a two-storey cream building in what clearly used to be a nice area. The houses are all sprawling mansions on large blocks, their former luxury still visible through disrepair and grime. Double garages. Satellite dishes. Lap pools. I was expecting a warehouse squat, or a depressing bedsit, or maybe even just a sleeping bag under a bridge. Those ideas seem stupid now.

Wolfboy looks out of place on his own doorstep as he fumbles with his keys and waves me stiffly into the house. I feel a tickle of apprehension deep in my stomach as I squeeze past him. My mother always told me not to go back to a wolf's lair. Oh hang on, that was a strange man's house, wasn't it? Either way, I'm pretty sure she wouldn't approve.

The ground floor of the house is dark and quiet and empty. A long hallway runs through the middle, with rooms leading off either side. Wolfboy shows me in to the front room and lights an old-fashioned kerosene lamp. The room is spacious, with polished floorboards, lemon walls and heavy velvet curtains. Sheets are draped over some furniture in the far corner, and there are faded rectangles on the walls where paintings or photos must have once hung. Everything is deathly still; even the dust motes seem to hang in midair.

‘I'll get us something to drink.' Wolfboy dawdles at the doorway as if he has more to add, but then he leaves. I look around the room, trawling for details. There's not much to go on. No knick-knacks on the mantelpiece, no magazines on the coffee table, no cushions on the couch, but it's still obvious this used to be a family home.

I can hear Wolfboy opening and closing cupboards in what must be the kitchen, towards the rear of the house. He's talking to himself, or singing.

I circle the room, brushing my hands over the couch, and the smooth walls and the curtains, until I come to the ghost furniture. I lift one dusty corner of a sheet. There's a fancy cabinet underneath, made of polished wood with glass doors and brass handles. It's beautiful. I'd love to have things like this around me every day. Our furniture is St Vinnies all the way. On the top of the cabinet there's a crystal bowl full of shrivelled-up flowers, a pair of silver tongs, and a photo frame turned facedown.

I pick up the photo and bring it into the poor light. Three people pose under a large tree—a couple in their early fifties, leaning into each other, and, standing apart from them, a guy in his mid teens with crossed arms. At first I think it's Wolfboy—a younger, cleaner-cut version— but then I see a fourth person, a little boy perched in the tree.
That's
Wolfboy: freckly and impish and thoroughly adorable. The teenager is Gram. It was an easy mistake though; when I look closely at Gram there are shades of Wolfboy in his eyes, and in the tense way he holds himself. It's obvious now the photo is old: Wolfboy's mum wears a dated dress with puffy sleeves. Gram doesn't want to be there. His mum looks across at him, her expression anxious, but the older man stares straight ahead.

I hear Wolfboy in the hallway. I put the photo back, drop the sheet and race to the couch. Wolfboy brings a tray in and sits next to me. His hair has suspiciously neatened itself while he was in the kitchen. I wipe my dusty fingers clean on the couch.

‘I don't know how you take it.' Wolfboy pours thick brown liquid into miniature coffee cups. ‘I'm hoping it's black, because I don't have any milk or sugar.'

I take a sip and pull a shocked face, which should have made Wolfboy smile but doesn't.

‘Turkish,' he says.

I keep drinking despite the bitterness—it's hot and it'll keep me awake until sunrise. Or the time when the sun is supposed to rise.

I look around the room again. I can't stop thinking about how nice this street is, and how all the houses must have tennis courts and flat-screen TVs and god knows what else, and how, even empty, this house smacks of money and privilege.

‘Is it just you living here?'

‘Yeah.'

‘What's upstairs?'

‘Stuff.'

‘Stuff?' I pull a face. ‘You want to elaborate on that?' ‘My bedroom.'

He's being almost as monosyllabic as he was with Ortolan.

I finish my coffee and pour myself another. I sit back into the couch and stare at him. He's annoyed with me but I'm not going to call him on it. He can speak for himself. The pointed staring works because Wolfboy eventually leans forward.

‘Do you really want to do this?'

‘What's the worst that can happen?' I say.

Wolfboy just snorts and drinks his coffee. He really does look like Gram, especially around the eyes.

‘Look, it's easy. We find them and we ask for your lighter back. If they refuse, we fight them for it. Or we ambush them, grab the lighter before they even know what's happening.'

Listen to me. I've never been in a fight, and I barely even know what an ambush
is
. But one of us has to get fired up. Wolfboy might be a big guy now, but I get the feeling he's been letting people walk all over him for years. He shouldn't let the Kidds take away a piece of his brother so easily.

‘We need a better plan than that. I've called a friend. Someone who can help us.'

‘Every second that we're not out there will make it harder to find them,' I reply. At least he's talking to me again.

‘I don't think so. From what I know they usually take their loot straight to Orphanville.'

‘Where?'

‘Orphanville. It's where the Kidds live. A big high-rise housing complex. You can see it from my bedroom window.'

I'm halfway up the hallway before he gets a chance to call out. I pretend I haven't heard him. I pass several closed doors, an empty room and a toilet. At the end of the hallway there's a kitchen and a large living area. On the right-hand side, past the kitchen, are the stairs. Wolfboy overtakes me and blocks my way.

‘I don't want you messing with my stuff.'

I grab his shoulders. ‘For godsake, Wolfboy, I'm not interested in your
stuff
; I just want to see Orphanland.'

‘Orphan
ville
.' He sounds more than a little exasperated but he lets me past.

Upstairs is more like a loft than a full second floor. It's chock-full of amps and speakers and desks with twiddly knobs and those things you slide up and down, and the floor is a jumble of cables and power boards. A drum kit squats in one corner; a guitar is propped against a chair. On the ceiling, a thick black cable slides through an open skylight and into the night. There must be thousands of dollars' worth of gear in here.

It reeks of sweaty boys in here, the kind of smell you'd get if you boiled up twenty teenage boys for twenty hours and distilled their essence. Eau de BO. I have to step over empty beer cans and greasy paper bags and rolls of gaffer tape and scrunched-up tissues to get to the end of the room, where there's an open doorway that must lead to Wolfboy's bedroom.

The bedroom is not as bad as the band room, but it's still kind of a dump. The bed is a mattress and doona on the floor; there are clothes spilling out of garbage bags and a milk crate for a bedside table. Someone has started to paint the walls black and then given up halfway through. Tacked to the walls are hand-drawn and photocopied posters for The Long Blinks. There are wobbly stacks of books and CDs everywhere. I soak up every detail. This is where he spends his time; this is where he sleeps and dreams. These are the only ways I can find out who he is: from the things other people tell me, and from using my own two eyes.

‘I didn't want you to see this.'

I immediately pretend I wasn't looking around. It doesn't smell as bad in here, probably because the window has been pushed right open.

‘Don't worry; you should see my room,' I lie, and walk over to the window. The outside air is fresh against my face. Wolfboy stands next to me. He leans in close and points. ‘Follow that line of trees to the right. See there? That's Orphanville.'

It's not difficult to pick out the buildings in the darkness: four black rectangles speckled with yellow lights, poking above the Shyness skyline. They remind me a bit of Plexus Commons.

‘So that's where they've gone.'

‘Maybe. I'm not a hundred per cent sure.'

‘Why was the Elf in the club then?'

‘I don't know.' Wolfboy sighs.

‘Do you think he followed us to see when we noticed the lighter was missing?'

Because if that's true then they know that the lighter has sentimental value for Wolfboy, and that makes me so mad I wish that the Elf was right in front of me now so I could—words wouldn't be enough. I look at Wolfboy but he doesn't answer. I'm far angrier than he is. I bite my lip before I ask him how that could be, and look out at the towers instead.

Whenever I see my home from a distance at night I think it's so strange that each light represents one family living their life, watching telly or eating dinner or fighting, going about their business. From a distance each light is an insignificant thing, just one star in a whole galaxy.

Wolfboy's phone beeps. He's standing so close I can feel it vibrate in his shirt pocket.

‘Good,' he says, checking the message. He passes a hand quickly over his hair, even though it's still perfect. ‘She's here.'

15

It's difficult to say how old the girl is. Her shirt is at least three sizes too big and she refuses to meet my eyes. At a distance it would be hard to tell if she's a boy or a girl. I cringe when Wolfboy introduces me as Wildgirl. I might have been some kind of comic book character earlier, but the more Shyness throws curve balls at me, the less I'm able to keep up the act.

Her name is Blake. There's something Japanese in the way she stands with her arms clasped in front of her, each hand tucked inside the opposite sleeve. Head bowed, dishwater hair hanging straight. She's painfully thin under her oversized clothes. Either she doesn't like her body or she has to wear hand-me-downs.

I hold Wolfboy back in the hallway when Blake walks into the front room. ‘How much have you told her?'

‘I told her that the Kidds stole something from us and we have to get it back.'

‘I don't think we should tell her about the card.'

‘Why would I tell her about that? It's got nothing to do with my lighter.'

‘I don't know.' He's been friends with this girl far longer than he's known me, so how am I supposed to know what kinds of things they tell each other? ‘I just thought I'd check.'

Wolfboy gives me a look like I've gravely insulted his intelligence and walks into the room. Blake is sitting on the couch. Wolfboy uncovers some extra chairs and we sit around in a circle, waiting for her to say something. She twists her hands in her lap and I note her hunched shoulders, bitten-down fingernails and holey sneakers. She looks as helpless as a kitten dangling above a bucket of water.

Eventually Wolfboy figures out that Blake is not about to speak any time soon. ‘Blake used to be in a gang,' he tells me. ‘The Kidds. She left her unit, the Six-Sevens, five months ago and has been in hiding ever since. The leader of the Six-Sevens is the Elf.'

Wolfboy taps Blake, and she rolls up her jumper sleeves. She holds her arms out in front of her, palms up. There are thick welts on her arms, deep red valleys alternating with ridges of pale shiny scar tissue. Blake glances up at Wolfboy, but she still hasn't looked at me.