Charlie's Key (4 page)
“What’s a reading?” says Ribs.
“From the Bible,” says the big kid. “I’ll be the priest, and you—new kid—you be the sinner. Get down on yer knees.”
I let out a big sigh and look at the door. A couple more kids are standing there, poking one another, looking like they’re gonna laugh.
“I don’t want trouble,” I say. All I can think about is that brass key bouncing on the tiles after it falls outta the cover. “I just want you to put the book down. Okay?”
“There’s no trouble,” says the big kid. He’s all smiley now and steps closer. “You just needs to get down on yer knees to say a prayer, Charlie. That’s all.”
He puts a hand on my shoulder. He’s strong—I can tell right away when he presses me down without even trying. Then all of a sudden he kicks at my leg, right behind my knee, and I fall.
“Jesus,” I say.
“Ah, ah, Charlie—mustn’t take the Lord’s name in vain. You’ll get a beating if ya keeps that up.”
He looks over at Ribs, his hand still pressed on my shoulder.
“We got a priest. We got a sinner. We need a nun,” he says. “You, Ribs, that shirt yer wearing is half a dress anyways. Ya just need a thing to put round yer head.”
He reaches onto the bed and grabs my dad’s Oilers T-shirt.
“Wrap that round yer head—like one a them Eye-Rack towel-heads…”
It’s too much, seeing that shirt getting tossed. I scrinch out from under the big kid’s hand and grab the shirt from Ribs.
“Piss off,” I shout. “Leave my stuff alone.”
“Piss off?” the big kid laughs. “Your stuff?”
He looks around the room.
“What the hell do you think belongs to you in this room, little Charlie?”
He takes a swipe at the lamp on the desk and knocks it over. “The light?”
He grabs the bed covers and yanks them off with one pull, chucking them on the floor. “The sheets?”
He walks right on top of them and goes to the closet where he yanks my stuff off the hangers and drops it on the floor, slamming the door shut so hard that it shakes a big cloud of dust loose from the ceiling tiles. The dust floats down through a patch of sun coming through the window, all sparkly.
“What do you think belongs to you?” he shouts again. “Nuddin’, b’y—it all belongs to the Department of Youth Corrections. And what don’t belong to them belongs to me.”
He’s got me by the front of my shirt now, both his paws pulling on it, stretching it out in front of my face.
“Do you got it?”
“It doesn’t,” I manage to say. My legs are trembling so bad I can barely stand.
“What?” yells Big Kid. “Say that again, b’y—go on.”
“It doesn’t belong to you,” I say, yelling myself now. “That’s my stuff—that’s my shirt and that’s my Bible!”
Big Kid throws me back, banging me against the closet door.
“You little shit,” he says. There’s spit bubbling on his lips. He pulls his hand back, light from the window catching the hairs on it, black as wires. Then another fist, a different one, flies straight into Big Kid’s face, and right behind it comes Walsh, Frankie, falling on top of Big Kid as hard as he can. Walsh, Frankie pulls his elbow all the way back and hits Big Kid once, twice, three, four, five times—
bam, bam, bam, bam, bam
—as fast and hard as he can. The bubbles from Big Kid’s mouth are bright red now, and I feel sick—so sick I gotta sit down.
“More?” shouts Walsh, Frankie. “Ya big, stupid git. Want some more?”
Before Big Kid can say anything, two guys fly into the room—grown-ups, their shirt backs spread tight across their shoulders as they both grab on to Walsh, Frankie and throw him across the room.
“Enough, Walsh!” one shouts while the other bends over Big Kid. His white shirt has red streaks all down the front when he stands up.
“Call the infirmary,” he says to his partner as he helps Big Kid to his knees. “It’ll be stitches, for sure. And you,” he says to Walsh, Frankie, “you stay right where you’re to till I get back.”
Then, just like that, everything goes quiet. I’m still on the floor, and Walsh, Frankie is sitting on the bed, wiping blood from his knuckles onto his jeans. He sees me looking at him.
“Wha?”
I don’t say anything, so he asks again, “Wha?”
“Thanks. I guess.”
He laughs. “My pleasure. I been waiting six months for a reason to give that Baywop a smack.”
“Baywop?”
“You really are from Alberta, aren’t ya, Cowboy?” he says. “Baywop—somebody from around the Bay, outside St. John’s. A hick.”
He stops for a minute to shake his hand.
“Ah, Jesus, that stings,” he says. “This particular stunned arsehole comes from back a beyond down the South Coast. The outskirts of Burgeo. Flarehead, we calls him—’cause ya never know what’s going to set him off. He’s a bad piece of work—leastways, when he’s in a racket with someone smaller than him—which is most of the time.”
“You’re smaller,” I say.
“I’m shorter,” says Walsh, Frankie. “But I’m bigger here,” he says, pointing to his arm. “Older too—almost eighteen.”
He gives his hand a last wipe and puts it out for me to shake.
“I’m Frankie, Frankie Walsh.”
I shake it. It’s strong and hard, like it should be attached to somebody older.
“Some of the crowd here calls me Present,” he says.
“Present?”
“Because I’m always here,” says Frankie. “And I’ll be here a while longer, after this little racket.”
He rubs his hand.
“It’s worth an extra few days inside to give that Flarehead a bit a what he’s always handing out. The prick.”
A man comes to the door—the one who took Flarehead to the infirmary.
“All right, Walsh,” he says. “Let’s go.”
Frankie gets to his feet and heads for the door but stops before he steps out.
“Cowboy,” he says, turning back to me. “Ya owes me one now.”
I nod, and then he’s gone.
Supper’s all right—fish sticks and French fries. That’s better than the hospital, which always ended with Jell-O, which is just ground-up cows. It’s true. Robert says they make it at the same exact factory where they make Elmer’s glue, except the conveyor belt goes off in two directions: one way the stuff gets turned into glue for schools, the other way the stuff gets dumped full of sugar and food coloring and goes to grocery stores. And to hospitals.
Anyways, supper’s over at six and after that it’s free time— that’s what the counselor called it, which seems stupid to me since all you’re free to do is watch some crappy
TV
channel or bat around a Ping-Pong ball with a big dent in it that makes it bounce all crazy.
“Used to be a pool table,” Pillsbury tells me, “till they busted up all the cues.”
Finally I get so bored I go back to my room and start reading the Bible, after I check to make sure the key’s okay for about the twentieth time that day. I look for that Revelation stuff, about how the world gets blown up, but once I start reading, it’s mostly about Alphas and Omegas, which is pretty boring. I turn back to the start, about God creating the world and making light outta the void. I don’t even really know what a void is, except it’s something empty and dark and scary— kinda like where I was right after the accident.
I guess I fall asleep reading, because when I open my eyes all the lights are out and the Bible’s sitting open on my chest. I put it under my pillow, then lay back, looking at the window. It’s like all the other windows, long and skinny—too skinny for even a kid like Ribs to crawl through. And it’s sparkly too, I see in the moonlight, getting up to have a better look. Up close I see it’s got tiny silver wires running through it—little, tiny bars. While I’m looking I hear a noise so soft it’s not like a real noise at first, more like a change in the quiet. Even so, I know it right away: it’s somebody crying, trying hard to make sure nobody else hears.
I step into the hallway to listen at the room next door. Just snores. Same in the next. Then three doors down I hear the crying stop just when I stand in the doorway. I listen hard; there’s a snort—somebody snuffling back the snot.
“You okay?” I whisper.
Nothing.
“You all right?” I whisper again.
There’s another snuffle, then I see a bit of dark sit up in the bed. “Who’s that?” it asks.
“Me. The new kid. Charlie.”
“Whaddaya want?”
“Nothing. Just thought maybe somebody was crying.”
“I ain’t crying,” says the voice.
My eyes are getting used to the dim, and I can see the kid better. It’s gotta be Ribs—I see a skinny arm shoot under the covers, hiding something.
“You should mind your own business,” he says. “Mind your business and go back to bed.”
“’Kay. Just thought maybe I could help.”
“You can help by getting outta here.”
“’Kay,” I say again and head back to my room.
It takes me a long time to get to sleep, looking at the moon shining off those tiny bars in that skinny window.
Flarehead isn’t at breakfast next morning, which is good. But neither is Frankie Walsh, which I figure is not so good. For him at least. Ribs is, though, and he’s sitting alone. I sit down across from him.
“Hey,” I say. “Where’d ya get the Fruit Loops?”
“They ain’t Fruit Loops,” says Ribs. “They’re No Name Rainbow Circles, and they suck.”
I nod.
“Tough to sleep in here, isn’t it? Lots of noise,” I say.
“I don’t hear nothing at night,” says Ribs, giving me a stare. “And you don’t neither.”
He stands up to move to another table.
“And don’t be talking to me,” he says in a whisper. “You’re a dead man when Flarehead gets outta the stitch shop.”
“I never touched him. He’s the one—”
“Yeah, yeah,” Ribs says. “Tell it to him when he’s twisting yer neck off, New Kid. I mean it—you’re dead.”
I don’t get a chance to say anything to that, because all of a sudden Mr. Delaney walks up.
“Charlie,” he says. “You and I have got a meeting with Child Services in about two minutes. Finish up and c’mon. It won’t take long, and you can join up with a class after.”
“’Kay. Where should I put the tray?”
“Just leave it,” says Delaney. “I’ll get Simon to take it up.”
Pillsbury’s shoving my toast into his face before me and Delaney even leave the cafeteria.
“The board room’s right here,” says Delaney, opening a door after we go round a corner or two. I step inside, and there’s Miz, her big bag on the table and a couple of binders open beside it. I look for Tubby, but he’s not here. Some other guy is, though, ’bout as old as my dad, wearing jeans and a stripy shirt. His hair is all messy like they wear it on
TV
, so you can’t tell if it’s messy on purpose or messy because they just got outta bed. But this guy smells like soap and shampoo, not old bedsheets, so I figure it’s messy on purpose.
“You must be Charlie,” he says, holding out his hand for me to shake. It’s soft and sweaty but cold, like a dishcloth sitting by the sink.
“My name is Desmond—Desmond Fitzpatrick. You can call me Dez. I’ve been assigned—actually I’ve asked to be assigned—to your case. My job is to be your advocate at Child Services.”
I have to give my hand a bit of a pull to get it loose.
“Do you know what an advocate is, Charlie?” he asks.
I give him my blank look.
“It means I look out for your interests.”
I keep it blank.
“I’m on your side,” he says, giving me a little point with his finger when he says
your
. “Looking out for what’s best for Charlie Sykes.”
“Okay,” I say, sitting down in a chair beside him.
“Charlie,” he says, pulling a folder out of a briefcase, “you know we’ve been looking for family members of yours in Alberta. Well, we haven’t found any.”
“How’d you do something like that?” I ask.
“Sorry,” says Dez. “Something like…?”
“Look for ’em,” I say. “You use computers and stuff?”
Dez nods. “Government records, on computer.”
“So,” I say, then stop. I don’t know if I really want to ask what I sorta want to ask.
“It’s okay, Charlie,” says Dez. “You can ask about anything.”
I still don’t know if I want to ask about this thing—this little hope I have…not a hope, exactly. I don’t know what to call it. A little thing I think about when I feel lonely. Do you know what I mean, lonely? Like at
5
:
30
on a Friday, at suppertime, when I’m waiting for my dad, and he isn’t coming home. And there’s no one around to call because they’re all home eating their suppers or out bowling with their moms and dads or getting into their minivans to go out to see a movie. That’s when I feel that kind of lonely—a deep lonely right inside my chest, so that it’s a kind of a hurt. I don’t have a word for it exactly, but
void
comes pretty close. And the only thing that makes me feel a bit better is this little hope I have. It’s a thought I have about my mom—that she might be out there, somehow, somewhere, and that she might be looking for me. Which is stupid, I know, because my dad told me she’s dead. But as long as I don’t know for sure, then
maybe
it could be true. And I need a little something like that bit of hope right now, if you know what I mean.
“Nothing,” I say.
“You sure?” asks Dez. “Because we can discuss anything you’re concerned about…Nothing? Okay. So, nobody in Alberta. But you do have some family here in Newfoundland, which I guess you didn’t know about.”
I shake my head. “My dad never told me about anybody else, except my mom, and how she died when I was just born.”
“Well,” Dez says, “your dad did have a family. He had a mom and a dad, Dick and Doreen, who are both dead now. There is a cousin, who we’re having discussions with, but she’s elderly—in her seventies—and it’s unlikely she’d be able to care for a twelve-year-old on her own.”
“I’m not twelve,” I say. “I’m thirteen. I been thirteen for over half a year, so I’m really closer to fourteen than thirteen.”
“Sorry,” says Dez. “Thirteen. Anyway, there’s also a brother.”
“A brother? I got a brother?”
“Sorry,” he says. “I mean your dad had a brother. Nick. You never heard of him?”
“No. Is he around? Could I…?”