Care Factor Zero Page 11

  ‘Larceny,’ said Larceny suddenly.

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘My name.’

  ‘Oh. Right. Good, here’s the foccacia and your pizza.’

  Kaz started in on the foccacia bread. Larceny kept staring at her.

  ‘What? Have I got parsley in my teeth or something?’

  ‘No. It’s just that — when are you going to start in with the questions?’

  ‘What questions?’

  ‘Who are you? Where are you going? What do you want to do in five years’ time? Why are you doing this? All that sort of shit.’

  ‘Do you want me to ask those questions?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Okay. I won’t. Your pizza’s getting cold.’

  The room hummed with noisy conversation, washing over Larceny like a warm and soothing comforter. Normal people having normal conversations with each other as they ate normal food.

  ‘What is normal?’ she blurted out.

  ‘I dunno. You tell me.’

  ‘Normal people don’t hear voices in their heads,’ said Larceny, looking carefully at Kaz to see if she’d flinch, back away or look scared. Kaz didn’t move a muscle.

  ‘Who says?’

  ‘Everyone says.’

  ‘Who’s everyone?’

  ‘You know!’ Larceny scrunched up her paper serviette as the waitress brought the coffee and mineral water. ‘Doctors. Psychs. Shrinks. Cops. Youth workers!’

  She spat the last word defiantly. Kaz just gazed back at her, mild interest on her face.

  ‘Maybe no one’s normal,’ she said. ‘Maybe we’re all abnormal except for people who hear voices, and maybe they’re normal.’

  ‘You’re nuts!’ exclaimed Larceny.

  ‘See? Now you think I’m nuts. It’s all very subjective.’

  ‘I don’t get you at all.’

  ‘That’s okay. Most people don’t,’ said Kaz, dragging out a packet of cigarettes. She offered one to Larceny.

  ‘Excuse me, no smoking,’ said the waitress.

  ‘Whoops, sorry. I forgot.’ She looked at Larceny. ‘We’ll have to smoke outside.’

  ‘I’m fifteen,’ said Larceny. ‘Don’t you know it’s illegal to give smokes to under-age kids?’

  ‘Whoops, sorry. I forgot,’ said Kaz, with a gleam in her eyes. ‘Let’s pay the bill and go outside. Go you halves, Larceny.’

  ‘You can call me Larce. And what if I haven’t got any money?’

  ‘You have. But if you don’t want to spend it I can live with that.’

  Larceny dragged out a crumpled ten. The waitress gave her change from her share of the bill. A dollar.

  ‘One thing about Burgermania, you get more for your money,’ she said under her breath, as she collected her coat and tote bag. Kaz frowned but said nothing.

  They went outside. Kaz lit up a smoke without offering one, then dropped the packet on the ground. She started to walk away.

  ‘Your cigarettes.’

  Larceny bent and retrieved them.

  ‘Finders keepers,’ said Kaz, and kept walking. Larceny grinned. This Kaz was smart. Legally she couldn’t offer cigarettes, so she’d found a way round it. But it was unnecessary: Larceny had her own supply.

  ‘Here.’ She shoved the packet into Kaz’s hand and dragged out her own.

  ‘Where are we going?’ she asked.

  ‘I dunno. Where do you want to go?’

  Larceny shrugged. ‘I dunno. Take in a movie. Play some pool. Fill in time.’

  ‘Ah, yes. Filling in time. Not easy when there’s days, weeks, years of it.’

  Kaz stopped at a newsstand. She bought a paper. Tucking it under her arm she fell into step beside Larceny. ‘Game of pool, then?’

  ‘Yeah. Why not?’

  Kaz led the way down the street to a billiard parlour called The Pot Room and they went in. As usual it was dimly lit, and as usual there were people hanging round playing pool, talking, playing the machines and generally filling in time. She put her money on the corner of the table and they sat down. Larceny had a quick glance round as Kaz flipped through the paper. She couldn’t see anyone she knew. Good! Then several young people spotted Kaz and cruised over.

  ‘Ty’s gone. He found out his brother’s in Perth.’

  ‘Thanks for letting me know, Elise.’

  ‘I need money, Kaz.’

  ‘Have you tried the court? You’ll have to take this form down there.’ She scribbled down some details. ‘There could be some money: it’s after two, so they’ll have heard some cases.’ She looked at Larceny. ‘The poor box. People have to pay into it,’ she explained.

  ‘I know.’

  Not that Larceny had ever used it. It went against her values, ripping off the poor to pay the poor. A lot of the contributors were losers: she didn’t want money from losers, But the rich were fair game. The big stores, the homes of the rich and famous, though burgs weren’t really her line. Shoplifting was fair: they had stacks of gear in those stores, plenty of money. She was entitled to nick the stuff. Wasn’t she?

  The problem with living in foster care and residentials was that you got so many rules crammed into your head you couldn’t possibly obey them all. Easy rules to obey, like, “Don’t chew with your mouth open” and “Tidy your room”, Hard ones, like “The world doesn’t owe you anything”. As far as Larceny was concerned, the world owed her a lot.

  ‘No,’ Kaz was saying to a young guy with dreadlocks and a checked shirt about three sizes too big. ‘You know I can’t give out money. If you need food I can give you a voucher. Have you seen Gina lately?’

  ‘Nah.’

  ‘I thought you were going to join the Peer Ed group.’

  ‘Changed me mind, like.’

  ‘Okay. Oh, great, the pool table’s free. Come on Larce, let’s see if you can wield a mean cue.’

  ‘Hey, Kaz, is it the Peer Ed group today?’ The guy with the checked shirt tugged at her arm.

  ‘Yes. Three thirty till five,’

  ‘Got nothin’ else to do. Might as well go.’

  ‘Okay. Catch you later. Have a good one.’

  Kaz picked up her cue and chalked the end.

  ‘You can break.’

  Larceny liked pool. She was good at it, having played it in countless rec rooms. Bang. The balls rolled across the green baize of the table. Beautifully set up for some good shots. Kaz potted one then missed. Larceny grinned, and with ease potted ball after ball.

  ‘Okay, okay. What about a game of tennis or golf?’ said Kaz, shaking her head in despair.

  ‘It’s years since I played tennis,’ said Larceny, thinking of the Wilsons and how any Wilson worth anything to the community had to be able to play a good game of tennis. She’d never touched a racquet since!

  ‘Kaz, I think I’ve got scabies,’ said a skinny kid who looked about nine. ‘I reckon I got them off Kylie and Kris. They told me you said they had scabies.’

  ‘Where, Joey? Show me.’

  ‘Here.’

  Kaz peered at his arm. ‘Looks more like flea bites to me. Are you still living in that place with all the cats?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I’ll see if I can get you some spray to kill fleas, and some lotion for your bites Can you come to the office round, say, four?’

  Kaz kept getting besieged by kids wanting this and that. How she kept her cool Larceny wasn’t sure, but she treated each one with sincerity and respect, however dumb their requests sounded.

  ‘You’re too bloody good to be true, St Kaz of Pool,’ she said, when one girl had been bitching for ten minutes about another girl and Kaz had patiently listened.

  ‘Yeah? Were you in Burgermania last night?’

  Wham, right between the eyes, catching Larceny off guard so that her mouth dropped open in shock.

  ‘Who, me?’

  ‘Yes, you.’

  ‘What if I was?’ She was very defensive, muscles tensed, ready to run, the haunted look back in her eyes.

  ‘Just
asking, that’s all. It was on the radio this morning. And it’s in the paper.’

  Kaz passed it over. Larceny swiftly scanned the page. The press had pumped it up, making her sound like a total maniac! There was a full description down to the coat and tote bag, and a photo of Kevin standing next to Katie, both looking concerned, anxious and squeaky clean.

  ‘Nah, not me. Another chick with a bad attitude, man.’

  Kaz glanced at her watch. ‘It’s nearly four and I have to get back to the office. Do you want to come with me?’

  ‘Do I have a choice?’

  Kaz looked puzzled. ‘Of course you have a choice. You can do what you like.’

  ‘I thought you might get me there then call the cops.’

  Kaz smiled. ‘If I called the cops every time some young person in trouble or with a warrant out on them cruised in I’d have no young people and I’d be out of a job.’

  Larceny sighed. She was so tired. Life seemed to consist of a few warm baths, some food, then rain, cold and loneliness. She knew that she couldn’t keep running forever. But when she did stop and try to get it together, something always stuffed it up. Other people, other kids, being in the wrong place at the wrong time. And the voices. She wondered in a moment of mad panic if she shot herself in the head, shot them, would they still keep taunting her even after she was dead?

  ‘Coming?’ Kaz was putting on her coat.

  ‘Yeah. Right. Why not?’

  Kaz shared an office across from The Pot Room with several other youth workers. It was a typical youth worker office, old furniture and desks, a couple of sagging sofas, a Cafe Bar at one end with a sign “Sorry. Out of Hot Choc”, scraggy carpeting that had seen better days, and posters all over the walls saying “If it’s not on, it’s not on”, “Kids’ Assist”, “Magical Medicos — a free clinic for young people”, “Eat Healthy, Live to be Wealthy” and “Quit! While you’re Ahead!”. There were the usual pamphlets about youth services — accommodation, jobs, health clinics, legal services, studying out of school, adventure camps, hobbies …

  ‘Have you ever wondered why kids are on the street when there’s all this lovely stuff to do?’ said Larceny with mock innocence.

  One of the youth workers, an earnest-looking young guy who looked like he’d be more at home driving the community bus or shooting hoops, pressed his lips together. Kaz just laughed.

  ‘You know as well as I do, Larce, that we keep getting it wrong. But what else are we s’posed to do with not enough money, not enough time and not enough cooperation from parents, teachers, traders and the law?’

  There was a babble of voices from an adjoining room.

  ‘Peer Ed,’ said Kaz, raising her eyes to the roof. ‘You want to sit in for a while? I’ve got some serious paper work to do and phone calls to make.’

  Larceny sighed. Peer Ed sounded boringly educational. She hovered uncertainly near the doorway, unsure of whether to join the group or split. Five guys including Joey, the skinny kid in the too-big checked shirt and three girls were arguing the point with each other and one of the leaders.

  ‘We wanna do the horse-riding, Lisa,’ yelled Joey.

  ‘If you choose horse-riding and dolphin-watching I should be able to organise it fairly quickly,’ the leader said, raising her voice above the racket. She was a large girl with short dark hair, wearing what looked like a grey blanket tied with a piece of woven leather round her middle. ‘If you want to run a dance party, someone has to organise the venue, the band, the caterer and the tickets.’

  Larceny had heard it all before. The leaders would let the kids think that they were running the thing, but would have their own adult agendas. The kids would be made to do the organising, supposedly to teach them responsibility and decision-making. It was crap. This leader wanted horses and dolphins: she was going to lay the call and make it too hard for them to do a dance party.

  ‘Go for the dance party,’ Larceny said loudly from the doorway,

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Who cares? I’m saying the dance party.’ She pointed at the youth worker. ‘Make her work for her money!’

  She decided to bail out. This wasn’t her scene at all. She sauntered through the office towards the door. Kaz saw her, put down the phone and grabbed up her coat from the back of her chair.

  ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘I thought you had to make phone calls and do paper work.’

  ‘I can do the calls later on the mobile and the paper work can wait. Time to go home.’

  ‘But —’

  ‘You do want to go home, don’t you?’

  Home. It was so long ago that Larceny had a real home that for a moment she panicked. Home. Four walls that were not barred or guarded. Shit. Could she cope?

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Kaz lived in a tiny house in a side lane. It was old and pre-loved with a tangle of rose bushes crowding for space along the front fence and a sagging front verandah that needed some serious repair work. Kaz unlocked the door and they went in. It was like a little granny cottage with a passage straight down the middle and rooms to either side.

  ‘I hope you like cats,’ she said, as a grey Persian-cross stalked majestically up to Larceny and started winding himself around her legs.

  ‘I love cats. And dogs.’

  ‘Good. This is Sir Tom. And you have to meet Rueben the Rotty,’ Kaz said, leading the way down a short passage to the back door, opening it, and letting in this huge slobbering rottweiler.

  ‘Won’t he eat the cat?’

  ‘No. They were brought up together. Fur brothers. Now, I’ll show you your bedroom.’

  It was a tiny room at the back of the house with a single bed, wardrobe, chest of drawers and a wooden chair with spindly legs. The bed was covered in a bright blue doona, with pink and green scatter cushions thrown haphazardly across it. There were posters of silverchair on the wall. A bunch of roses in a chipped blue jar sat on the chest of drawers, sweetening the air with strong perfume. On a wooden chair was a pile of clothing, and shoes, socks and tights littered the floor. It looked and smelt like a happy, lived-in and loved room.

  ‘Diana’s usually in here, but she’s away at a conference,’ said Kaz, kicking the assortment of footwear and tights under the bed and tossing the clothes in a jumbled heap in a drawer.

  ‘I thought youth workers weren’t allowed to take in kids,’ said Larceny.

  ‘It’s not policy but it’s not encouraged either. Anyway, I do as I like. Sometimes I take in young people when they need a place for a night or two. Do you want to do some washing?’

  Larceny frowned. She had a plastic bag. Now where — Lynx’s place. It seemed like years ago.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Okay. Come in the kitchen and I’ll cook up something. I don’t suppose you are a Cordon Bleu chef in disguise by any chance? I hate cooking.’

  ‘I’m okay at fettucine.’

  ‘Great. Do what you will with fettucine, and I’ll do a salad.’

  Larceny felt peaceful for the first time in ages as she boiled the pasta, fried bacon pieces and diced onion, and grated some cheese for her masterpiece. There was something soothing about cooking. Kaz didn’t chatter; silently she went about washing lettuce leaves and slicing up tomato, cucumber and capsicum. It was a companionable silence, not an awkward, uneasy one. The kitchen was small but had a cheerful air about it. Some copper pans hung above the stove and there were some big pottery jars on a shelf. Other glass jars held various herbs and spices. Red tea towels were draped over a railing and two brightly patterned aprons hung on a hook. It was a comfortably cluttered mixture of old and new.

  ‘It’s ready,’ said Larceny, pouring the cheese sauce over the steaming fettucine she’d drained in a colander and put onto two warmed china plates.

  ‘Want to eat in front of the tv? Hang on, I’ll have to put Sir Tom and Rueben out or they’ll practically climb down your throat for the food.’

  The animals were put outside and they carried their plates
of fettucine, cutlery and the bowl of salad into the lounge room.

  ‘Oh! Cooool!’ said Larceny.

  A whole sideboard was devoted to crystals and rocks of all shapes and sizes. There were jars of feathers everywhere, dream catchers hanging from the ceiling and posters of wolves on the walls.

  ‘What’s with the wolves?’

  ‘They’re my guardians,’ said Kaz.

  Larceny wasn’t sure whether she was joking or not.

  ‘I’m sort of into oneness,’ explained Kaz, dumping the bowl of salad on the coffee table, sinking into a fat leather armchair and indicating that Larceny should sit in the other armchair.

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘We’re all one and the same.’

  ‘Yeah, right. I really feel like I’m a lump of pink crystal or a feather or a wolf!’

  ‘Maybe one day you will if you’re lucky.’

  Was Kaz joking or not? It was hard to tell. Maybe she was nuts. Nah, youth workers weren’t nuts, they were screened before they were trained and let loose on the general public. Balancing her plate on her knees, Larceny twirled some fettucine on her fork.

  ‘You wouldn’t want to be in oneness with me,’ she said. ‘I’m mad!’

  ‘Yeah? Who says?’

  ‘A million social workers, shrinks, doctors, teachers and cops, that’s who.’

  ‘Why should they think you’re mad?’

  ‘I hear voices. I want to kill people,’ said Larceny, keeping her eyes on her plate. She was too scared to see Kaz’s reaction, too scared to be rejected, ejected out of this nice warm house with the friendly vibes.

  ‘Is that what happened in Burgermania?’

  ‘It was this bloody Salvo,’ said Larceny, feeling her anger begin to rise at the thought of Kevin telling her she should give God a chance. ‘He said I was one of God’s children. What’s God ever done for me?’

  ‘How are you feeling right now?’

  ‘Angry!’

  Larceny put down her plate. She waited for the grey mists to come swirling, cowering back against the dark forces that took over her mind, the voices that took over her will. Nothing happened. She blinked.