This is Shyness (17 page)

‘All right, all right.' I hold my hands up in defeat. ‘But what's wrong with running across to Six? We can make it there in seconds.'

‘Because that's not the plan. Just trust me.'

I can't help myself. ‘Sure. If you trust me, that is.'

Her eyes flare like struck matches.

‘Oh, are we going to have this conversation now?' she says.

I take her woolly hand in mine again. I could jog her memory about her death-wish comment, but I keep it to myself. It's too good having her by my side. We should save our fury for when we need it.

‘Later. Tell me how we're getting into Six.'

22

What Wolfboy doesn't know is that the way into Six is through Seven. And the way into Seven is straight through the front door as if we are sherbet-snorting, lollypop-sucking Kidds. I won't lie; the sunken entrance looks like a hellmouth, but I force myself down the stairs.

The glass doors are smeared with the prints of a thousand Kiddy fingers. The foyer is deserted and no warmer than outside. Harsh fluorescent lights bounce off the worn lino floor and fake wood panels. The decor is different, but I'm almost a hundred per cent certain the layout of these buildings will match that of the Commons.

I march straight to the elevator and press the up button. I know what our next few moves should be, and I want Wolfboy to regain his confidence in me. No more hysteria. Letting the tarsier out wasn't the smartest thing to do, but it also meant I'm not scared anymore to do the right thing. I don't think it's harmed our chances. Not yet anyway.

The elevator doesn't arrive. I cross my arms and fiddle with the ragged ends of my sleeves. I may know where we're going but I still don't know what we're going to find there. I notice Wolfboy is looking on edge again, so I force myself to stop fidgeting. I don't blame him. We're sitting ducks here, highlighted in sickly fluorescent.

‘What do we do when we see someone?' asks Wolfboy. ‘They're gonna know straightaway that we don't belong here. We need a story. Or are we going to shoot first, ask questions later?'

I press the up button again and focus on the row of floor numbers above the elevator doors, pretending I can make it arrive quicker by staring at them. Come on. Why can't I even hear it moving?

‘We need to play it by ear. I recommend we don't come out with all guns blazing. We should try to talk our way out of things first.'

The elevator finally begins its descent. The floor numbers light up in turn: 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

‘It was just sitting on the fifth floor,' I point out. ‘That's a good sign.'

The lift hits the ground floor with a clunk. Wolfboy's boots squeak on the lino as he crouches in a defensive stance. I fix my eyes on the steel doors, preparing for whatever is behind them. The doors open.

The lift is empty.

It's lit by one weak bulb and smells seriously nasty, of urine or something worse. There's a beaten-up old stool in one corner and every wall is tagged in red texta. It's gross, but empty.

The doors close loudly behind us. The elevator is rickety and draughty and I'm pretty sure I can see gaps where the walls join the floor. I press the top button, marked ‘R'. The cables and weights that operate the deathtrap clunk around us. These walls are as flimsy as cardboard.

‘R?'

‘Roof.'

‘Are we going to abseil to Six?'

‘We need to look at the lie of the land before we rush in. We'll be able to see everything from the roof. See any traps. Plot some escape routes.'

Wolfboy goes quiet so I guess he thinks my plan isn't completely insane. There's one thing I can't accuse him of, and that's being all alpha and macho. He was listening when I said we had to be a team. And right now this team member needs to go up to the roof to clear her mind. When we crossed the fence into Orphanville we didn't leave our problems behind us, but once we're in Building Six, with a chance to get the lighter, I don't want to be thinking about anything else.

I turn my attention to the numbers above the door.

2.

3.

The passage of the elevator is far from smooth and several times it lurches and halts, only to jerk upwards a second later.

4.

5.

‘It's a bit like Russian roulette, isn't it?' I say, without losing sight of the floor numbers as they light up.

‘Losing your nerve?' he says, but I suspect he's scared rigid. I'm probably only seconds away from totally losing it myself. Please don't let the elevator stop. Please let it go straight to the roof.

And then it happens.

8.

The elevator stops.

DING!

I only have time to swear once before the doors open.

The eighth floor is pitch-black and it's impossible to see anything beyond the elevator mouth. A figure shuffles out of the dark. Wolfboy moves into the back corner of the lift. I guess he took on board the whole no-guns-blazing thing.

A short Kidd enters, carrying a mini TV with a cracked screen. His windcheater hood obscures almost his entire face, and his bare feet are scratched and filthy. A stench like wet wool and chicken manure fills the elevator.

He shuffles in without looking at us, turns to face the doors and presses number 11. He wears a plank of wood strapped diagonally across his back like a sword. My eyes widen. Shards of glass have been glued to the wood with their points facing up. If anyone was unlucky enough to get hit with it, they'd bleed in about fifty different places. The doors slam shut and the elevator creaks into action once more.

9.

I don't breathe. Keep calm. I wriggle my shoulders so I can feel the ukulele shift. If necessary I will sacrifice it on any Kidd that needs a ukulele to the head.

Hoodie can't stand still; he tap-dances on the lino. Chances are he can't see us clearly under his hood, or he's too high to care. The stool legs bang on the floor as the elevator moves. Hoodie turns towards us in response to the sound, and grunts a greeting. He holds the TV forward. ‘Losht my power privilegesh,' he says with a killer lisp. ‘Gordie took my stash sho I knife him.'

Neither of us speaks.

It's obviously not the pleasant elevator conversation Hoodie is looking for because he tenses up and swings around to face us. His face could be half melted away under that hood and we wouldn't know. A hand lets go of the TV and sneaks over his shoulder to touch the tip of his makeshift weapon.

I glance over at Wolfboy and he's frozen against the corner.

It's up to me.

I curl in on myself and think short thoughts. I fold my shoulders forwards and rock back and forth on my heels. I make my eyes wondrous and bite on my lip.

‘Sounds like Gordie got what he deserved,' I say in a voice that's more than half-Chipmunk. I think I've overdone it, but Hoodie grins, exposing nothing but mottled pink gums. No wonder he talks like he's got a mouth full of fairy floss. His twitching hand drops and he grapples with the TV for a few seconds, trying not to drop it.

‘Haven't finish wiv him yet though, have I?'

11.

The elevator jerks and Hoodie shifts his hands on the TV to get a better grip.

‘What'sh wiv the'—he gestures with the TV— ‘What'sh wiv the bow-wow-wow?'

Oh, Wolfboy's going to love that.

‘Oh him?' I twirl a piece of hair around my finger, and try to sound clueless. ‘Dunno. Boss says I gotta take care of him. He's a freelancer or something.'

The doors open. Hoodie nods sagely. I catch a flash of his shiny eyes as his hood slips.

‘Bit of dat going on these daysh. Dey caught a no name out tonight, sho there might be bit of ackshon. I hope.'

No name. That's what the barman said at Little Death when I was using the card.

The eleventh floor reeks of smoke and pulses with red light. As Hoodie crosses the threshold he stumbles and drops to his knees. The TV falls from his hands and crashes to the floor. A shard of black plastic flies off into the darkness. Wolfboy rushes forward to help as Hoodie rolls onto his side and curls into a protective ball.

Something makes me throw my arm out, stopping Wolfboy from leaving the elevator. I have just enough time to glimpse a second figure lying in wait, in the hallway, before the doors slam shut.

23

My heart still isn't back to its normal rhythm when the elevator spits us out at the last floor. The steel doors open onto a vestibule, and I half-run up the narrow flight of steps towards the roof. The stairs end at a hospital-green door. Everything is exactly where it should be.

‘Slowly,' Wolfboy warns me as I press down on the handle. I push the door open gradually, peering into the biting night air.

The rooftop is empty. I take Wolfboy's hand, more for my comfort than his. The rooftop is a flat concrete rectangle; maybe thirty metres by twenty. A waist-high wall encloses it. At the Commons this isn't high enough to discourage the occasional jumper; I wonder if they have the same problem in Orphanville.

My nostrils twitch with the acrid smell of burnt wood. Someone has been engaging in some serious pyromania up here. The rooftop is littered with charred wood; the concrete is scarred with scorch marks and smears of charcoal. A stack of burnt furniture is in the centre. It could be my imagination, but the concrete feels warm under my feet.

Everyone that lives in the Commons has the right to use the rooftop of their own building, but in reality there's always a group of people in each building that controls it. Mine is lorded over by a gang of card-playing, gin-drinking grandmas who don't mind me. So I could go up there if I wanted to, but I haven't in years.

I drop Wolfboy's hand and go to the edge to see this strange dark suburb from up high. I need to be alone for a moment. I lean on the concrete barricade and fill my lungs with fresh air. My foggy breath gets carried away on the breeze. I look down at the frill of trees around Orphanville and the snaking river, and then I lift my eyes to the velvet sky. The city beneath me could easily be the sky's reflection: an endless blackness scattered with pinpricks of light.

There it is.

That familiar feeling, like a sunburst might explode from my chest, like a wave might splash over me and wash me clean. When I used to look from the roof of my building in the Commons, my whole body would tingle as I saw my world from above. Not because of what was directly below me, but what was beyond the edges of my vision. The world. A whole world out there, bigger and better than I could imagine.

Here, on this rooftop, the world around me is foreign. I imagine tarsier specks racing away in the darkness, spreading out to the river and the streets and the backyards. I drink the view in until I'm dizzy and could sail away with the wonder of it all. Trying to hold on to this feeling is like trying to keep water cupped in your hands. All you can do is preserve it for as long as possible.

‘I'm not afraid.' I speak out loud without meaning to. Wolfboy is still standing where I dropped his hand. ‘Come have a look.'

‘I'm not good with heights.'

‘Neither am I, but it doesn't even look real from up this high.'

We stand together, his arm pressing against mine.

‘What do you think is down there?' I ask.

‘Pete and Thom somewhere, drinking and talking shit.

People getting into fights, Kidds causing trouble. Lupe asleep at her table.' He falls quiet for a few seconds and then he makes a slow whistling sound.

‘No howling?' If I could howl then that's what standing on this roof would do to me.

‘That would give us away, don't you think?'

Right. Excellent point.

‘You can see Panwood from here.' He points to where the lights are gathered in orderly rows. They grow thicker at the edges of the view.

‘And other parts of the City.' I point to the skyscraper with its top floors encased in gold. ‘The Golden Finger.' ‘Is that what it's called?'

‘That's what I call it. It's probably got some corporate name. I see it on my way to school. Sometimes it flashes beams of light if the sun's right. I've always thought the people who built it are secretly flipping the bird to the whole city.'

‘It's been so long since I've thought about what happens outside Shyness.'

‘My life would bore you to tears.'

‘I don't think so. I get the feeling you don't live your life in an ordinary way. Like you could be doing your homework at your desk and it would be an adventure for you.'

‘I don't have a desk. There's no room. I do my homework at the kitchen table.'

‘Well, you know what I mean anyway.'

I smile at him. There's admiration in his voice. I don't know if I deserve it. But when all I usually hear is that I'm too loud, too argumentative, too opinionated, too impulsive, too tactless, too talkative,
too much
of anything, then I'll take whatever compliments I can get.

‘You're different, aren't you?'

He barks out a laugh. ‘You only realised that now?'

‘I mean you're different now from when we first met. You know, when I first saw you at the pub, I thought you were some wannabe rock star: way too cool for your own good. I didn't want to be impressed by you, but I was. But you're not at all. Cool, that is.'

‘Thanks…I think.'

‘You're different from the boys at home. I don't think I've met anyone like you before.'

I should think of something specific to say here, but I don't want to be corny. And then I surprise myself with what comes out of my mouth next.

‘I'm glad you told me about your brother.'

Wolfboy looks at me, confused, and I don't blame him for failing to see the connection. I didn't mean to bring his brother up again.

‘I can't really imagine what that would be like,' I add, as if it will clear things up.

‘I wouldn't want you to know what it was like.'