February Read online

  I was determined to somehow sneak into the intensive care ward and see her.

  ‘And Mum?’ I asked.

  ‘She called into our place again last night. I told her that I still didn’t know where you were. That was the truth–I didn’t know. You could have been anywhere.’

  ‘Did she look all right?’

  ‘She’s really thin, and still kinda unfocused.

  She’s not great, dude, but she’s just about moved out of your place now. Rafe’s around there most of the time, helping her pack up the house.’

  My reaction to hearing about Rafe was so different from just a couple of weeks ago. At least now I knew he had good intentions, and would take care of Mum. I’d hoped that having the house in her name might have cheered her up.

  ‘There’s been a tough-looking guy hanging round my place,’ continued Boges. ‘Wears a red singlet. He’s tried to follow me a couple of times, too.’

  ‘Red singlet? With a Chinese symbol on it?’

  ‘You know him too?’

  ‘Boges, you’re gonna have to be even more careful than ever—he’s one of Sligo’s gorillas. Please make sure you’re never followed by him. If he gets hold of me, I’m a goner. Last time he had me he was shoving me into the oil tank.’

  ‘See? I told you that Winter Frey couldn’t be trusted,’ said Boges.

  ‘Huh? What’s she got to do with it?’

  ‘She’s part of the Sligo attempted murder club, dude. None of them have a conscience.’

  ‘If she’d betrayed me,’ I said, ‘Red Singlet would already know where I was and not be hanging round your place trying to get a lead.’

  Boges grunted. He knew I had a point.

  313 days to go …

  Boges was already at the cenotaph when I arrived. He was standing there, staring up at the Angel, completely blown away.

  ‘That is an awesome angel!’ he said without taking his eyes off it. ‘It’s just like your dad drew.’

  We stood together in the cool interior of the cenotaph. The bright sun shone brilliantly through the stained glass angel lighting the cement floor below with patches of colour—yellow and blue, red and green. We squinted our eyes and read the dedication to the fallen soldier.

  Boges put his sunglasses on. ‘There’s something small beneath the gas mask. Something green and gold. Remember we thought that there was some sort of medal in your dad’s drawing?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, pulling the angel drawing out of the folder. ‘You can just make out an oval shape beneath the gas mask in the drawings as well.’

  ‘This guy was really unlucky,’ said Boges, ‘to be killed in the last year of the Great War.’

  ‘Unlucky seems to be something my family does well.’

  ‘If we follow the clues your dad left for us,’ Boges tapped the drawings, ‘the luck of the Ormonds will change for the better.’

  ‘I hope so, Boges.’ An astounding discovery, my dad had said. Surely that would mean change for the better.

  ‘Thanks for keeping an eye on my family,’ I said as Boges was leaving.

  ‘Aw, it’s nothing. Your mum says she likes me visiting. She says that seeing me makes things feel more normal. You know, sometimes she is almost like her old self. You kind of see that knowing sparkle in her eye, but just as quickly as it appears it disappears.’

  Boges started scratching his head. ‘I got here today by sneaking over Mrs Sadler’s back fence instead of walking out the front door. Don’t know how long it will take for them to wake up to me.’

  Boges gave me his lunch and his money for the school excursion that day—a repeat visit to the observatory. Boges didn’t need an excursion as an excuse to go there.

  ‘Today I’d rather go to the library for free,’ he said, ‘and start digging around for information about Piers Ormond.’

  ‘Why did they call it the great war?’

  ‘There’d never been anything like it.’

  Boges jumped back suddenly from the rusty gates.

  ‘What is it?’

  He grabbed me and dragged me back inside. ‘Don’t look now but see that guy near the entrance to the park? I’m sure he’s the guy from the car that’s been scoping my place.’

  ‘Who? Red Singlet?’

  ‘No, another guy. I wasn’t sure if I was just being paranoid about this guy when I spotted him outside my house, but I think it’d be a little too much of a coincidence to run into him here in the park. He must have followed me,’ Boges started scratching his head again. ‘I thought I was careful. I’m so sorry, dude.’

  ‘Forget it. We’ll figure a way around this.’

  I took a quick look and sure enough, there was a big guy lurking outside wearing a dark suit jacket over a T-shirt, black jeans, sneakers and sunglasses.

  ‘If he comes over this way, he’ll see you,’ I said, looking round the edge of the cenotaph entrance. ‘And he’s got the place stitched up—there’s no other way out of here.’

  A tall iron fence with seriously sharp-looking, spear-like tops surrounded the park. There was no way anyone’d be able to get over that, let alone Boges.

  I thought fast. ‘It’s you he’s been told to follow,’ I said. ‘Chances are that even though he thinks he knows what I look like, I’m very different from how I look in the photos on TV and the papers.’

  I pictured the clean-cut schoolboy photo on the police poster I’d seen while waiting for Winter the other night. I sure didn’t look like that anymore.

  ‘I’ll go straight up to him. That would be the last thing he’d expect a fugitive to do. I’ll distract him while you go round behind him. By the time he works out he’s lost you, it’ll be too late.’

  ‘Got a light, Mister?’ I asked, sidling up to the big man. ‘

  Disappear, kid,’ he snarled from behind his wraparound sunglasses.

  ‘How about a dollar then, Mister?’

  I was dimly aware of Boges making a wide arc around the park and heading for the entrance behind the big stooge who was scowling and trying to pretend I wasn’t there.

  ‘Come on,’ I said, ‘just one dollar. That’s not much to ask from a guy like you, is it?’

  ‘Get away from me!’ He lunged at me but I was ready for him, and ducked out of his reach.

  He tried to grab me again and this time I started running. I could see Boges slipping past behind him and out of the park, quickly vanishing up the lane and around the corner onto the main road.

  The big stooge stopped coming after me and swore from a distance before turning around and heading towards the cenotaph building.

  He had disappointment coming his way.

  But then I saw him stop, turn back and look at me. He pointed at me, pulled out his mobile and then began walking away.

  I tried to control my puffed-out breath before I stepped into an internet café. I wondered what the big man in the suit jacket was doing now. He’d recognised me, I was pretty sure, and now he was probably letting Sligo know that I was in the area. I took a quick look around. The place was crowded but I found a free desk and chair and I logged on, all the time keeping a watch out the window to the street. I’d have to move on quickly.

  I knew there was a back door where the toilets were, so if anyone came in here after me, I could be out the door and over the fence at the back in triple-quick time.

  I pulled out one of Boges’s sandwiches. Mrs Michalko had used some kind of sausage stuff I’d never eaten before, and I wolfed it down without thinking too much about it. As I had a look around the desk for a piece of scrap paper to make notes on, I found something that set my heart racing yet again … a sticker on the hard drive next to me with my face on it! It was like a smaller version of the poster I’d seen a few days ago, only it had some internet café alert, and something about my blog address, and a more recent picture of me from a security camera! I instantly shut my computer down and prepared for a hasty exit.

  As I stood up from my chair and glanced around me I saw that the sticke
rs were everywhere! On every computer! On the desks! On the walls! In front of every single person in there!

  I was out the back door and over the fence like a blur.

  How would I get information now? My picture was probably in every internet café in the city and the state! I didn’t even get a chance to check my page.

  boges. my pic is all over internet café! NEW pic. must have taken it from security camera. just got out in time. didn’t get any info. u?

  dude! that sucks. in library now. nothing 2 exciting on blog. let u know if anything changes. found the riddle the sphinx used on her victims … what goes on 4 legs, then 2 legs, then 3 legs?

  i give up.

  … a human being. first as a baby we crawl on 4 legs, then as adults we walk on 2. finally as old people we walk with a walking stick. 3 legs!’

  u reckon those numbers 4, 2 & 3 are clues to dad’s puzzle?

  could be. don’t forget the number 5 in the drawing of the old cupboard or door or whatever it is. that gives us 2, 3, 4 & 5. meaning?

  once I caught a fish alive.

  cal, ur hilarious. (i’m being sarcastic, in case u can’t detect my tone by sms.)

  I’d been slowly making my way back towards St Johns Street, hoping that the place was empty. I’d have to wait until it was dark before actually trying to get in there. I wasn’t looking forward to it, but was so happy to be heading away from the drain and the railway yards.

  I kept my head down but occasionally I’d scan the people around me, wondering if I’d ever see that kid again—the one who looked exactly like me. Then I’d start to wonder whether I’d imagined the whole thing—seeing double, or something.

  I listened again on the verandah. All was still and quiet. Whoever had moved in had moved out again.

  I crawled up through the hole in the floor and collapsed. It was strange to feel such relief from being in this dump. Almost anything’d have been better than the drain.

  I had more room, a soft glow of candlelight, my little radio playing softly and I’d found a tin of beans I’d forgotten I’d hidden away.

  boges. i’m back at the mansion. b round any time soon?

  i’ll see what i can do in the next couple of nights. hang tight.

  309 days to go …

  ‘Sorry, dude, but I’ve only got a few minutes,’ said Boges. ‘I think Mum’s getting suspicious. I don’t think she would say anything to the police, but … she could slip up without meaning to. I don’t want my charm to fade with the teachers at school, either. My grades are still up so they’re pretty cool when I rock up to class late, or … not at all, but they could start seeing it as arrogance if I do it too much.’

  He unloaded his backpack, tossed me a black cap, a charged phone battery, and then my new supplies: a bunch of bananas, a bag of bread rolls and more canned beans. He started laughing as he made a tower with the cans.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked, pulling the hat on.

  ‘This diet of yours. It’s primitive. Much more of this,’ he said as he added the last can to his tower, ‘and you’ll be swinging through the trees, jet propelled by natural gas!’

  It was so good to laugh.

  ‘You heard from that Sligo chick?’ Boges asked.

  ‘Winter. No.’

  ‘Probably a good thing. Anyway I gotta go, but I’ll keep you updated on your blog and let you know if I have any DMO strokes of genius—it’s bound to happen, let’s face it. And here,’ he said, handing me two twenty-dollar notes, ‘I fixed Mr Addicot’s laptop for him. He gave me sixty bucks!’

  ‘Thanks heaps.’ If it wasn’t for Boges I’d have been forced into handing myself in long ago.

  ‘I know you’d do the same for me,’ said Boges. ‘Forget about it.’

  308 days to go …

  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.

  307 days to go …

  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 b
ehind 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.