Winter of Grace (2 page)

A group behind us tried to start a chorus of ‘All we are saying, is give peace a chance,' but they couldn't compete with our mighty one-two-three-four. We stamped and chanted and whooped and cheered – a surging tide of people. Banners waved and placards bobbed all around us, all kinds of groups and clubs and communities, some I'd never even heard of: Rotarians and socialists, greenies and church groups, Asian students and Italian soccer clubs, Muslims for Peace, West Hill Buddhists, Jews Against War, Uniting Church Says No More Missiles, Quaker Prayer for Peace Vigil. People from every suburb and all over the state were jumbled together to make a massive
peace-beast
that roared and swelled along the city streets.

We were mightier than politicians and dictators, mightier than an army, and Stella and I were part of it, lifted up and buoyed along, joyous and powerful, all of us united. We'd taken over the streets, forced out the traffic. For the next few hours,
we
owned the road. It felt like we owned the whole world.

And people looked at each other, really looked each other in the eye and smiled. I'd never realised how rare that is. Usually in crowds, I kept my head down; I didn't look at people properly. They were just anonymous bodies blocking my path, and I guess I was the same to them.

But today was different. We were all shouting together, all swept up in the same huge emotion, the same huge purpose. Stella and I chanted till our throats were raw, but our voices were lost, drowned in the communal roar. It was
awesome
.

That was the best part. After we reached the park, the marching and the chanting ground to a halt, and we all stood round and fidgeted, waiting for something else to happen. The speeches began, but we couldn't hear. There was a muffled sound of passionate voices, and whines from the microphones, and then wild cheers – obviously some people could hear all right – but Stella and I couldn't.

‘This is pointless,' said Stella. ‘Let's go.'

‘We can't
go
!'

‘Sure we can. There're two hundred thousand people here, think anyone's going to notice if we leave?'

I hesitated. Even if no one was watching, it still felt wrong to sneak away. But Stella was restless, so we squeezed through the crowd,
sorry
,
excuse me
, for what seemed like hours, until at last we popped out at the edge of the rally, right up at the top of the hill.

‘Wow,' said Stella again, gazing down at the clogged park and the streets with as much satisfaction as if she'd conjured up the whole teeming crowd herself. ‘There's no
way
they can ignore this—' ‘Ssh! Is that Zita Mariposa?'

The acoustics were heaps better now we were out of the crush, and Zita Mariposa's ethereal voice, fine and strong as a silver wire, soared up from the park.

‘I love this song,' breathed Stella, and I blinked away tears. There was a heavy, wonderful ache in my heart. Suddenly everything seemed so pure and so clear: the beauty of the music, the power of ordinary people who cared about the world. Nothing was impossible, there didn't have to be wars, or hatred, or destruction; the world could be saved. It was so simple, so clear; all the answers were right here, within our grasp.

Stella grabbed my arm. ‘What's going on there?'

There was a shout, footsteps pounded. I swung round and saw a blur of movement on the other side of the road. Three guys were racing along the footpath. One of them yelled, ‘Get him!'

Further down the street a young guy with his arms up round his head was stumbling along like a wounded animal. They were gaining on him. One of the pursuers grabbed for his jacket, he tore himself free for a second – then he was down. In an instant they were on him, baying like a pack of wolves. He disappeared into a flurry of punching piston elbows and kicking boots.

Stella screamed, ‘
Stop that
, you pigs!' and before I knew what was happening, she was sprinting across the road. She'd wrenched her phone from her pocket and she brandished it like a weapon. ‘I'm filming you!' she shouted. ‘You're going on YouTube!'

Feeling sick, I took off after her. A minute ago there had been police everywhere, now there wasn't a single uniform in sight. I shouted, ‘Help! Help!', shrugged off my backpack and swung it by its straps in what I hoped was a threatening manner. It was just instinct. For all we knew, the young guy could have been a mugger and we were barging in on a citizens' arrest. And if he wasn't – they were three big burly thugs. We were two sixteen-year-old girls. What were we going to do, poke them in the stomach with Stella's mobile phone?

All this flashed through my head in the half-second it took to cross the road. One of the guys looked round when he heard Stella screaming, and luckily for us, he grabbed his mates and they all took off down a laneway as if tigers were after them.

Which left me and Stella. And a half-dead guy lying on the footpath.

THE ATTACKERS HAD already vanished round a corner, but Stella shrieked after them, ‘I've got you on video, suckers!' She took a deeper breath. ‘My dad's a policeman!'

‘
Stella!
' Paul isn't a policeman; he works for an insurance company.

The poor boy was curled on the ground like a dead slater. I dropped down beside him and said stupidly, ‘Are you okay?'

Clearly he was a long way from okay; but he moaned and stirred and unscrunched himself. I put my arm under him and helped him sit up.

‘Oh my God,' I said. They must have kicked him in the eye, because blood was pouring down his face and his eye was completely swollen.

Stella knelt beside us. ‘There must be St John's Ambulance people somewhere; they're always at big events.'

I stared around frantically but I couldn't see anyone useful, no first aid people and still no police. A couple of people stared at us as they walked past, but no one stopped to help, and most people pretended they couldn't see us. So much for all that global love and understanding.

‘I'm fine,' said the boy faintly.

‘No, you're not,' said Stella. She looked at me. ‘Have you got anything to put on his eye?'

‘Um …' I fished around helplessly in my backpack and then I remembered I had a couple of emergency sanitary pads. Could anything be more embarrassing? But this was definitely an emergency. Besides, what was worse, bleeding to death or holding a pad to your face?

‘Here …' I hoped that in his dazed state he wouldn't notice what I'd handed him, and he didn't seem to. He pressed the pad to his eye and winced. But Stella noticed.

‘Is that all you've got?' she hissed.

I grimaced at her. ‘It's sterile and it soaks up blood. It's perfect.' In fact I could dimly remember a first-aid class at school where they'd told us exactly this; of course everyone had groaned
eew
, but who knew it would actually be useful in real life?

‘We'll have to take him to hospital,' said Stella. ‘It's only a few blocks. Can you walk?' she asked the boy. He was about our age, with a mop of thick tawny hair, and a dusting of freckles. The non-swollen eye seemed to be green-gold, presumably they both were. It was hard to tell, what with all the blood and scrapes and swelling bruises, but I thought he might be quite good-looking.

‘I think I can,' he said, like the little engine, and obediently unfolded himself from the footpath, revealing himself to be about seven feet tall – well, pretty tall, anyway, in that gangly teenage boy way. Stella and I rushed to wedge ourselves under his armpits to stop him toppling over again.

‘It's not far,' said Stella encouragingly.

‘Okay,' the boy said faintly, and we began to half-lead, half-carry him along the street toward the hospital. He was heavy.

‘What's your name?' panted Stella.

He had to think about it. ‘Jay – Jay Ridley.' His voice was wobbly.

‘I'm Stella Kincaid and this is Bridie Vandenberg.'

‘Hi.' After a minute he added, ‘Thanks.'

I said, ‘Is there anyone you want to call?'

There was a long pause, then he said, ‘My brother, Elliot … He's at uni.'

‘Wait … till we get … to the hospital,' panted Stella.

We didn't talk any more after that. Jay pressed the pad to his face but the blood still seeped out between his fingers, and every time his foot struck the footpath he let out a faint involuntary groan.

‘We should have called an ambulance,' I said across Jay's back to Stella. ‘We shouldn't have moved him. What if he's got internal injuries?'

‘Who are you, Nurse Nancy?' growled Stella, so I knew she was worried too.

‘'S okay,' panted Jay valiantly. ‘Nearly there.'

We managed to stagger along the last few hundred metres and as soon as we got inside the emergency department I'm ashamed to say we pretty much dropped him on the floor, he was just so heavy. Any further and I reckon one of us would have had a heart attack, not to mention a broken back.

Stella took charge, as usual. She was fabulous. As soon as she'd caught her breath, she left me to guide Jay to a seat while she marched up and demanded immediate attention. The nurse on duty was a bit dismissive at first; they must get guys in there all the time, hurt in fights. But Stella insisted that he was an innocent bashing victim who needed urgent help, and surprisingly quickly they whisked him away and left us in the waiting room, unsure what to do next.

‘We didn't call his brother,' said Stella.

‘They'll probably do that, and we don't know his number,' I said. ‘Maybe we should go.'

‘We can't just
go
.' Stella echoed my words from half an hour before. ‘Jay might want to say thanks. Anyway,' she thought of a much better reason, ‘we're witnesses. The police will want to talk to us.'

‘Oh, yeah, you're right.' We sat down in the waiting room, pleased to have a legitimate reason to hang around. I didn't get caught up in a real-life drama like this one every day, and I did genuinely want to see if Jay was all right. Stella – Stella just wanted Jay. I'd known her long enough to recognise the signs, and though she'd only just met him, it was clear she'd already developed a major crush. Who knows, if Stella hadn't got in first, I might have felt the same. It's pretty romantic to actually save a guy's life.

‘Jay might feel weird about all this,' I warned Stella before she got too dreamy-eyed. ‘Men have a lot of pride, you know. He might be embarrassed about being rescued by a girl.'

‘Two girls,' said Stella.

‘I didn't do anything. You're the one who scared them off.'

‘You stuck his eyeball back in with a pad,' said Stella seriously, and this sent us both into a fit of giggles.

A nurse bustled out and gave us a disapproving look, which made us giggle even harder. ‘You can see your friend now,' she said, and led us through the double doors and into a ward lined with beds with curtains round them. There was a strong smell of disinfectant.

Jay was sitting up in one of the beds with a huge bandage over his eye and round half his head, like an exaggerated cartoon victim. The sight of him did nothing to quench our giggles. But when he saw us, a happy, relieved smile spread over his face, and he reached out his hand. And funnily enough, that was what sobered us up; he was so glad we were there, it almost made me cry.

‘Thanks so much,' he croaked. ‘Thank you.'

Stella grabbed his hand and squeezed it – any excuse. ‘Don't worry about it.' She plopped herself on the chair beside his bed as if she were already his girlfriend.

He gave her a dazed, dreamy grin, lopsided under the bandage. It occurred to me afterwards that he was probably drugged out on painkillers. ‘Would you guys mind … would you be able to … could you stay till my brother gets here?'

‘Of
course
we'll stay,' choked Stella.

‘And the police are coming,' Jay added. He closed his good eye and leaned back on the pillows. Stella hung onto his hand and sighed with pleasure, and I looked round for another place to sit. There were no more chairs, so I perched on the end of the bed with my feet dangling. Jay drifted into sleep – either that or a coma – so we just sat there for ages, watching him. It was peaceful, though not very comfortable, and it was nice to feel that he needed us.

Eventually I remembered that I should call Mum, who was expecting us back. Since Stella was fully occupied with her hand-holding duties, and you're not allowed to use mobile phones in hospitals, I went outside to make the call.

It took forever to explain to Mum what was going on; she was much more concerned about what
might
have happened to me and Stella than what actually had happened to Jay.

‘
Bridie!
It's all very well to play the Good Samaritan, but next time, just use your brains! They could have had knives; they could have raped you—'