Number 809

I don’t want to go home. Softball practice finished twenty minutes ago, and I stayed behind to help my coach pack up the drills and put away the equipment. He locked the little shed behind the school and asked if I had someone coming to get me, like he always does. I said no, that I was going to walk home, like I always do. He is a very nice man, my softball coach. Both of his daughters play netball at my school, but he always teases them and says netball is for sissies. I think it must be a lot of fun to live at their house.

I jump off the fence and pick up my sports bag. My mum will be mad if I’m too late home. Jeremy will be even more mad. The days I have softball practice are the best because I don’t have to make up an excuse as to why I’m not home straight away after school. I don’t like being at my house. Jeremy has two children, Shannyn and Tyson. They are both nice to me, but they are only seven and eight so they’re still practically babies. They always get to pick what we have for dinner once each a week and my mum tucks them in to bed every night. Some days Jeremy doesn’t even talk to me except to ask why I’m late or why the dishes haven’t been done yet. Some days I think my mum only talks to me because she has to. But my dad left when I was a baby, so for now they’re all I’ve got.

When I make it across the sports oval, I take a right down Lenny Avenue and head towards the quarry. The train tracks run past the gorge and if I watch out for trains, I like walking this way because there are always a lot of little birds. I like how happy they always are. Sometimes I save a bit of my sandwich from lunchtime and I give them some crumbs when I walk past, and I think maybe sometimes they wait for me especially. Jeremy would tell me not to be stupid. He tells me I’m stupid a lot. I don’t think I’m stupid though. I get good grades and my teachers always tell me what a great job I do. I guess Jeremy doesn’t think that’s good enough. I climb up onto the train track and start balancing along the railing because you can see straight ahead for miles, so I know it’s safe. My softball shoes are slippery because the bottoms are all worn away and I need some new ones. I slip off once but catch myself and pause as my bag falls forward off my shoulder. I bend down slightly and swing it around onto my back. I look up and I notice something a bit up ahead. I hold my hand up to shield my face from the late afternoon sun and squint to make out what it is. It looks like something crouched under a blanket. I think maybe it’s a poor dog that someone has abandoned, so I jump off the track and start to walk slowly towards it. As I start nearing the figure, I realise suddenly it's a person wearing an oversized coat, sitting cross legged with their back against the hard earth mound that supports the train track. I look down and quicken my pace to get past him, thinking he must be a homeless person or maybe even a gypsy.

“Hello.”

I stop but I don’t answer back. I stomach flutters. I know I shouldn’t talk to him. But even though I can’t properly see his face or what he has hidden under his coat, there is something that almost subconsciously urges me to reply.

“Hi,” I say timidly.

He pulls the coat back from his face. He doesn’t look particularly skinny, but disturbingly hungry, like he hasn’t eaten properly in a while.

“How are you?” He asks. He smiles. A kind small that doesn’t look altogether unfamiliar.

“I’m good,” I say, “How are you?”

He chuckles, “I’ll be honest with you my girl, I’ve been better.”

“What’s wrong?” I ask. He seems exhausted. Not just tired, but that kind of exhaustion I’ve started to see in a lot of adults lately. Not like they need to sleep, but like they need to quit their job, move to a new house and change their entire lives kind of tired. Like they need a really long break and for everything to be different. But his looks different. Almost more peaceful, like he's accepted the exhaustion might never go away.

“Do you want to sit down?” He asks.

I knew the answer I should give him was no. No thank you sir, my parents are expecting me home. But I look at his dark eyes, and the weary creases which duck and weave around them. And I felt that he needed me to stay.

I dump my bag on the ground and sit on top of it, a few feet away from the man.

“Are you in trouble?” I ask slowly. I look down at my shoes, and then steal a glance at him to see if he is watching me. He is, with a strange twinkle in his eye. As if there is no where else in the world he would rather be, and no one else he would rather be with.

“I am.” He says quietly.

“What’s wrong?”

He doesn’t answer me. Just pulls his coat slightly tighter around his stomach. Everything he is wearing is black from head to toe. With his black hair and dark features, as the light continues to fade, I feel that I will soon lose him in the dusk.

“Do you live around here, sir?” I play with my fingers in my lap, pretending to scratch dirt from underneath my fingernails. I feel like I know this man. Like perhaps I have seen him before.

“I used to, a very long time ago.”

“Did you move away?”

“Yes. I made some very bad decisions when I was younger and got mixed up with some bad people. They forced me away for a very long time.”

“Oh.”

“How old are you?”

“I’m twelve,” I say, “How old are you?”

The man chuckles again, but then wheezes like laughing is causing him pain.

“Are you sore?”

“Yes.”

“Can I see?”

He considers this for a moment. Then, slowly, he pulls back his coat and I can see that his waistcoat is soaked in blood. I've never seen that much blood before I don’t think. It shocks me for a moment, but not for long.

“Are you going to be okay?” I ask him.

“I don’t know. It hurts a lot. But I think after seeing you, perhaps this is the most okay I have been in the last ten years.”

“Oh, okay,” I say. I pause for a second.

“Why did you go away?” I ask after a moment.

He thinks for a second. I can tell he is in a lot of pain. He seems to be growing weaker by the second, and I wonder how long he has been sitting here and why. It’s too far away from the town for him to have parked a car and walked this far along the track by himself. Not if he is that hurt.

“I made a choice. To stay with my family, or to go on a wild and dangerous adventure.”

“Sometimes having a family can be an adventure,” I say. Not mine. But I think some people’s is a lot better.

“That’s what I’ve learned,” He says. His voice catches. “I hope you never forget that.”

“I’ll try my best,” I say.

“Are you happy? Here, where you are?” He asks. He looks at me with a strange look, like he has been waiting to ask me this question for a long time. Or perhaps like he is afraid to hear the answer. “I just need to know that-”

He is interrupted by a loud bang. It sounds far away but also close. I whip my head around towards the log yard, which is barely visible in the distance, where the bang seemed to come from. I hear a dog barking and look back to where the man is sitting. Agitated, he pushes himself into a crouching position, wincing as he does so. He reaches into his jacket pocket, and tugs out a little black book, bound tightly in leather. He hands it to me.

“What is-”

He looks at me dead in the eyes. With a vicious gaze that locks my whole soul.

“Darcy,” He says, “I need you to promise me something.”

“Um, okay,” I say, clutching the book in my small hands as they start to sweat.

“Take this. Inside the cover is a cheque for $20,000. It’s all I have. It’s all I have to show for all of this. Destroy this book, do not read it, do not open it except to take out the cheque. Destroy it, I don’t care how. But do it now.” His voice is getting quieter but somehow more urgent. He grabs my hands in his with a tender desperation, as if letting go will break his heart.

“But what-”

Another loud bang rings across the quarry, the sound bouncing off the walls of the ravine like a huge hammer.

“They’re coming! Darcy, go! Go!” He pushes me up, and I scramble to grab my bag and begin to run in the direction home. He stands up and begins to stagger away into the trees. I trip as I run up the train tracks and drop the book. As I bend to pick it up, I notice the number 808 printed in the leather cover. I stumble forwards and kick the book with the toe of my shoe, and two polaroid pictures scatter out onto the tracks. I snatch them up and hold them up to the last shred of light given by the evening sun. The first polaroid is of a tiny baby. A baby girl with big brown eyes and dark hair. ‘My girl’ was scrawled across the bottom of the image in messy handwriting. I flip to the next image. It takes me a while for my eyes to adjust to what I am seeing. It’s a girl playing softball, with a large black X drawn across her face. 809 is written in bold permanent marker across the bottom of the photo. I hear another loud bang and a man screams. And it dawns on me all at once.

I fumble to snatch the photos and the cheque out of the front of the book and run to the edge of the ravine. With all my might I pitch the book into the murky water below. And I drop my sports bag and run as fast as I can. Because I never told the man my name. And the girl in the photo is me.