This is Shyness (16 page)

My eyes spring open as feet shuffle past. I shrink into the wall. The feet return. Wolfboy drops down next to me, panting and triumphant. ‘I knew there was something dodgy about that car!' He looks at me, expecting some kind of pleased reaction, but I give him nothing. ‘These two guys got out and talked to some Kidds. The Kidds handed over something in a plastic bag, and then they all got into the car together. I thought they were gonna drive off, but they stayed there. I got closer but I couldn't see anything else. As far as I know they're still there. I bet they've got suitcases full of money.'

He looks at me again, and I blank him.

‘Just like a movie…' He stares at me. His head barely clears the fuse box above us. ‘What's gotten into you?'

I shrug. ‘Nothing.' He doesn't care about the danger he just put himself in.

I do my trick: I go away, out of my head, out of my body, until nothing matters. I am worlds away and I'm not shaking anymore. The night air has frozen me solid; I'm cold and hard all over.

‘Don't do this,' Wolfboy says, his voice faint.

‘Do what?'

‘The cold shoulder. Tell me what I did wrong.' He sounds small and beaten—nothing like the howling boy I met in the pub all those hours ago. It would be easier if he was angry. ‘If I knew what I did wrong then I probably wouldn't have done it, would I?'

I breathe out in a thin stream. ‘You're not
trying
to get yourself killed, are you?'

Wolfboy gapes.

‘What the hell were you doing running after the car like that? We don't know who those people are. Are you trying to get yourself killed?'

I thought I was upset, but my voice sounds angry. I chew my lower lip while Wolfboy looks at me like I'm a grenade with the pin pulled out.

‘I thought I recognised the car,' he says, quietly. He doesn't match my anger. ‘I went off without thinking, on instinct. I don't have a death wish. Don't think
that
.'

My anger flows out of me as quickly as it came. I wish I could take my words back. I didn't think about what I was suggesting.

‘Do you want me to say sorry?'

I think for a few seconds. It wouldn't hurt.

‘Yes,' I decide, even though it wasn't that long ago I told him to stop apologising. ‘I do.'

‘Sorry,' he says genuinely, and for a fraction of a second I see the little boy in the tree. A warm glow enters my body.

‘But I thought this was what you wanted,' Wolfboy says. ‘And we've already uncovered something. There's more going on in Orphanville than we suspected.'

I risk a look at him. ‘I feel stupid. This was my idea in the first place, but it's much scarier than I thought it would be. At the first sign of danger I run around flapping my hands and you go into action-man mode.'

‘I wouldn't worry. You're just getting warmed up.'

I remember suddenly what Blake said at Wolfboy's house.
You don't know what these people are like.
People, not Kidds. She knew there were adults involved.

‘It makes sense, doesn't it, that there are adults here?' I say. ‘If the Kidds are off their rockers all the time, then there has to be someone straight in charge. And it's not going to be monkeys, is it?'

Wolfboy grins, his incisors white and pointy.

‘Did you think we'd find tarsier in the penthouse suite, sitting on stacks of gold bars?'

‘Uh-huh. And they'd have giant calculators in their tiny little hands and cocaine on their whiskers.'

We smile at the vision.

Wolfboy puts his hand on my knee. ‘I can do this on my own. If you want to turn back, I won't hold it against you. You've done enough already.'

‘No. I talked you into this. I'm not backing out now.'

Wolfboy scrambles to his feet and offers me his hand. ‘On the positive side, we are now much closer to Building Six.'

‘About that,' I say, letting him pull me out from under the fuse box and taking a deep breath. It's time to find out if my suspicions are correct. ‘Have you noticed there's something different about Building Seven?'

twenty-one

It's not going to be straightforward getting to the other buildings. The car is still parked in the dead end with its lights off and we don't know if the men and Kidds are still inside. The break-in has been worth it just to see the exchange between the men and the Kidds. It all means something, and I want to find out what.

‘If we double back a bit we'll be out of sight,' whispers Wildgirl.

I was thinking the same thing.

We go back the way we came until the road straightens out and the car is no longer visible. I point across the road to another shed, catch Wildgirl's eye and sketch a path with my finger. There's not much distance between Seven and Six. We should be able to keep out of view.

The moon sits high above. The scene before us looks flat, as if it has been painted on a canvas with oil paints. The cube-shaped shed. Charcoal smudges of shadow. White highlights from the moon.

We run, keeping low. My backpack bounces up and down. Our feet crunch on the road, then pad through dust to the shed. All other sounds seem to have been sucked from the night.

We huddle behind the shed. I check in with Wildgirl. She smiles tensely in return. I think we're good. It never occurred to me that she would freak out like that. My legs and arms prickle with adrenaline. It's a good feeling. We're really going to do this.

‘Ready?' I touch Wildgirl's shoulder, preparing for another burst of running to the back of Seven.

But instead of nodding she clutches my arm. ‘What's that sound?'

‘What?'

‘Listen.'

At first there's only plain grey silence to match the plain grey scene before us, but then I hear it. A faint chattering and a rustle. The barest breath of a breeze floats past us, carrying a definite odour with it.

‘I think it's coming from inside—' I don't have to add: this building. The one we're leaning against.

Wildgirl tightens her grip. I pause, my nostrils taking in the air around us in small puffs. The answer comes to me like a Dreamer in the night.

‘Come on,' I whisper. I inch forwards, forcing Wildgirl to loosen her hold. The front of the shed has a narrow verandah and a low wall topped with two chain-link doors. The chattering intensifies. I pull myself up over the edge of the wall to look through the doors. Wildgirl stays at the corner, refusing to come any closer.

Furry lumps cluster in twos and threes on horizontal poles low to the ground and higher up. A heater against the back wall throws off a dull red glow. The air is thick with the musty smell of droppings and urine and fur.

‘It's the penthouse suite!' I say, beckoning.

Wildgirl joins me at the ledge.

A few tarsier blink at us, unperturbed. The rest are asleep, some leaning against each other, others sitting in the few scattered branches. I start to count them, but stop at fifty. Wildgirl clings to the mesh, her fingers pushing through the wire.

‘They're so teeny. And so peaceful.'

The tarsier seem smaller and more delicate up close. One could sit comfortably in my palm with room to spare. They don't look like they could hurt anyone. A drowsy tarsier slumps on a low perch close to the front. The skin on his fingers is translucent, revealing a spidery network of veins. His paper-thin ears swivel like satellite dishes.

‘I've just noticed something,' I say. ‘Their eyes don't reflect the light.'

‘Are they supposed to?'

‘Well, think of dogs or possums or cats. Their eyes all shine at night.'

‘No wonder they're so hard to spot in the dark.'

More eyes are opening now; it's as if word has gotten around that there are gawking humans in the neighbourhood.

‘How many do you think the Kidds have?'

‘No idea. There're a lot here. Maybe they work them in shifts, keep some here to rest while the others do the rounds.'

‘Somehow I imagined it differently than that.' Wild-girl watches the tarsier closest to us. She has a tender look on her face, a soft look I haven't seen before. ‘I guess I thought they were pets. Like every Kidd has their own little monkey buddy that sits on their shoulders and sleeps on their pillows.'

It's a nice thought. But not a realistic one. ‘I've seen some Kidds be pretty horrible to the tarsier. I've seen them get kicked, and thrown, and set alight, you name it,' I say. ‘But maybe it's not all one way. Paul has a theory that the tarsier are forming their own army to overthrow the Kidds.'

‘I like Paul. When this is all over can we meet up with him again so I can hear all his crackpot theories?'

I look at her, surprised. I don't think a girl has ever willingly spent time with my friends before. ‘Sure. But it's not close to over yet, is it?'

‘I have an idea.'

Wildgirl examines the doors. A thick chain with a padlock circles the handles. She rattles the chain. Several pairs of eyes open sharply. Dozens of tarsier wriggle, settle down, then wriggle once more.

I think I know what her brilliant idea might be.

‘You're not—' I say, and she turns to me.

‘It's not locked! They've got this big-arse chain and padlock, and look—' She rattles it again to show it's only looped through the doors and not through the bolt that secures them.

‘No. No, you're not.'

‘I am.'

‘The Kidds will know someone's let them out. They'll know someone's inside Orphanville.'

‘If the tarsier get out, they'll be too busy trying to get them back in their cage to worry about where we are. Besides which—ark!'

A tarsier leaps across the enclosure and slams up against the doors, its googly eyes centimetres from Wildgirl's face.

She topples backwards, onto her bum.

I don't know whether to laugh or tell her to be quiet. She gives me a look that could strip paint, but I can tell even she sees the funny side of it.

‘Are you going to help me up or what?'

I help her to her feet. The tarsier is still pressed up against the barricade with a pleading look on his face. His fingers clutch the wire. Several more animals drop to the ground and crawl forward.

‘I think he wants to get out,' says Wildgirl, and the tarsier tips his head to the side. ‘He does. Poor little fella.' She extends her index finger, puckering her lips and making kissing sounds. Who would've figured she'd be such a softie? ‘It's disgusting what they do to them.'

‘You want to lose a finger?' I knock her hand out of the way.

There are dozens of tarsier creeping towards the door now, with love swimming in their eyes. They assemble along the front wall. I swear some of them have their bony hands extended, begging.

‘They need us to give them their freedom.'

‘How about this? We let them out, and then instead of running away they attack us.'

‘Look at them, all cooped up and miserable. It would be really wrong for us to leave them locked up when it's no big deal for us to let them out.'

Wildgirl, moving very deliberately, as if daring me to stop her, sticks her hand through the gate and draws the bolt across. The tarsier move backwards to make room for the gate's inward swing.

There's a lull for a second, a beat, and then the tarsier swarm as one towards the door. They gush out of the narrow opening and head straight for open ground in every direction, across the car park, up the walls of the nearest building, towards the perimeter fence. They look like ball bearings rolling across the oil-painting landscape. ‘Run, little guys!' Wildgirl claps her hands.

I pull her away. We might as well run too.

It's obvious as soon as we make it to Building Seven that Wildgirl is right about it being different: it's at least ten years older than the other towers we've seen. Seven sits on chunky legs painted a faded orange, and has a labyrinthine underbelly of stairs and banisters. A real-life Escher drawing. I preferred the smooth walls of the other buildings. There were fewer places for us to hide, but at least we could see clearly what lay ahead.

Wildgirl seems to have no such qualms. She takes the lead, dragging me along with one woolly hand. She's stuck her thumbs through holes in the sleeves of my jumper, creating makeshift gloves. She's certainly bounced back for someone who was too scared to go any further not ten minutes ago. The building with the bonfire must be close by because I taste smoke in the air.

We go up a short flight of stairs and follow the building around to the left. The walls are made from thousands of glittering rocks glued together with concrete. We're going in the wrong direction, away from Six. I rack my brains for a nice way to say this to Wildgirl.

‘This is perfect,' Wildgirl says.

‘What is?'

‘These buildings are built on the same plan as Plexus Commons.'

We pass a stairwell with a locked cage full of bikes underneath it. Plexus Commons? I must look confused because she says, ‘I told you. I live in a housing project. There are eight buildings in the Commons, where I live, and they're all exactly the same, inside and out. Well, Orphanville must have been built on the same plan, 'cause I know my way around here like it's the back of my hand. The buildings up this end must have been built before the others.'

‘Are you sure? Maybe they just look the same on the outside.'

Wildgirl strides out in her cowboy boots like the footpath is a catwalk. Two lit-up windows on the first level watch us like a pair of yellow eyes. Other windows are propped open to let air in, and sound. Unlike the others, this building feels lived in. Wildgirl stops and faces me. At least she has the good sense to keep her voice down.

‘Ask me how many floors this building has.'

‘We don't have time for this.'

‘There are twelve. Did you see me look up and count them at any point?'