Chapter 49
People love talking about how “kids are different these days.” The inference, of course, is that kids were better off in the old days, a time before the internet, before fast food, a time when they read books, ate vegetables, and played outside from dawn till dusk.
I say fiddlesticks to that. Kids are the same surly, irrational, resilient, narcissistic beasts they’ve always been, forging their way in the world while being simultaneously pummeled and delighted by life.
The horrors and the delights were a little different, that’s all.
My horror, obviously, was the fear of being thrust into the care of my father. My delight? My little romance with Mr. Loukas, obviously. My “Gilbert Blythe.”
Unfortunately, in the end, that turned into a horror as well.
It fell apart the day we’d made a plan to meet in the school sports shed. The meetup was arranged in class—a handwritten note—and the cloak-and-dagger of it thrilled me and took my attention from the things I didn’t want to focus on—my father and whatever he was planning to get Rosehill back.
“There you are.”
It was after school. My instructions had been to let myself inside and then hop into the cupboard that held the hockey sticks.
That part had been a challenge. The cupboard, not dissimilar to a broom cupboard, was not only too short for me, but it was also filled with hockey sticks.
I tried contorting myself inside without much luck, but abandoned the exercise when he walked in.
“Did I overestimate the size of that cupboard?” he said, grinning. “Or did I underestimate the size of you?”
I shrugged. I felt girlish at the sight of him, and at how pleased he looked to see me.
He walked inside and the door closed, bringing complete darkness apart from the daylight that shone through the cracks.
Neither of us spoke, which was typical of our interactions.
We exchanged a few words here and there, but mostly we let our bodies do the talking.
After all, what would I say? I felt like I was playing a role but didn’t know the lines.
It was silent in the shed, apart from the sound of our lips smacking together, and the occasional satisfied noises from Mr. Loukas.
I liked it when he made those noises—it felt like getting an A on my history paper.
But when he tugged my shirt out of my skirt, and slid his hand underneath and over the top of my bra, I wasn’t so sure I did like it.
That had never happened at his house, or around the back of the church.
I should have stopped him. But strange as it sounds, I’m not sure I knew I was allowed to.
Stupidly, I made my own satisfied noise in the hopes it would wrap things up.
A mistake, because he responded by pressing himself against me, forcing my back against the metal cage of basketballs with an almighty clang.
He tugged up my skirt. Oh, the thoughts that went through my head!
Fear, obviously. Panic. But also resignation.
I had, I believed, signed an invisible contract by entering the shed.
The contract said I understood and agreed to whatever was going to happen.
If I didn’t understand—which I hadn’t—more fool me.
The train was going to leave the station with or without me.
As he slipped his hand into my underwear, my brain went in search of the pleasure I read about in my mother’s romance novels, but I didn’t find it.
“Who is in there?”
It was hard to know whether to be relieved or even more terrified. It was the voice of Brother Stanislaus—our principal. I pulled my skirt down and tucked myself around the side of the basketball cage in the couple of seconds it took for Brother Stanislaus to open the door.
“Oh,” he said. “Is it you making all that racket?”
“Yes, sir,” Mr. Loukas replied. “I was just trying to grab a basketball so I can shoot some hoops at home. But the cage is locked.”
It was quiet for long enough that I was worried. I pictured Brother Stanislaus’s disbelieving face. “The cage is always locked. If it wasn’t there’d be no balls left.” He chuckled. “Strictly speaking they’re for use on school grounds but I’ll make an exception.”
I heard Brother Stanislaus’s shoes on the concrete floor and I scrambled back as far as I could go.
I held my breath. I didn’t know that I could hold my breath for so long.
Truly. I thought I might explode by the time the key jangled in the cage.
A few moments later, the pair vacated the shed, and I finally let my breath out.
Then the keys jangled again and my heart ceased to beat. Brother Stanislaus had locked the door. With me inside.
I assumed Mr. Loukas would come back for me. I knew he didn’t have a key, but I thought he would return to see if he could help in some way or help me construct some kind of excuse to tell Cess as to why I was going to be so late.
It was dark outside before I accepted that once again, I was on my own.
The shed was old and cobwebbed and made from tin, the walls of which had seen better days.
I crawled the perimeter, kicking at the curled edges of the tin to see if it would bend.
It didn’t take long for me to bash a corner out.
The hockey sticks came in handy for that.
The noise of wood against metal wasn’t insignificant, but no one came to investigate it. I’m not sure why I was surprised.
I was covered in dirt and sweat when I finished crawling through the gap. I didn’t know the time, but it felt like early evening. I should have gone straight home. But my legs had another plan for me. I headed to his house.
I wasn’t going to chide him for leaving me there and not returning, I decided.
I was going to let him explain. There would be a reason he’d left me there, I was certain of it.
Once he saw me, he’d be relieved that I was okay and we could share in the scandal of almost being caught by Brother Stanislaus. Talk about crazy!
I must have looked a fright when I knocked at his front door. I made a rudimentary attempt to brush the dirt off my clothes and rake my hands through my hair. I was still trying to disentangle my fingers from my hair when the woman came to the door.
“Yes?”
She was a pretty woman. Mid-twenties, burgundy circle skirt, crisp white shirt. Dark brown hair cut into a pageboy. She wasn’t unfriendly so much as curious. As if she’d never seen a human girl before. But it only took a couple of seconds for her expression to morph from curious to suspicious.
“Are you looking for someone?”
“Yes,” I said uncertainly. “I was looking for …”
I hesitated. He’d told me never to tell anyone about what we did.
Her brown eyes pinned me in their stare. “Who are you looking for?”
Later I realized I should have made something up. But at the time I thought I had no choice.
“I’m looking for Mr. Loukas,” I said.