The boys shuffled along the joists, spitting and gasping for air as they lowered themselves onto the wardrobe. They dropped onto the rubble that covered the floor.
She didn’t wait for them. By the time they shuffled into the day room, she was already back sitting at the kitchen servery. She sat awkwardly, as if her neck and shoulders were hurting. The left side of her face was swollen. The skin around one eye was puffy and yellow.
George leaned against a stool, still coughing and spitting. ‘What happened to you?’ he eventually said.
Her bag was on the servery. She began to unpack it. One tin of food after another. ‘House’s a bit of a mess,’ she said.
Beeper didn’t look at the food. ‘Why is your face all bulgy?’ he asked.
‘The cost of living, Beeps. Happened last night.’ She shifted her weight on the stool with a scowl of pain. ‘By the way, remember how your brother was saying I couldn’t protect you?’
‘They wouldn’t have found us up there,’ George said. Lamely.
‘Yes, they would have, kiddo. There’s big money in it.’
George had to cross his arms to stop his hands shaking. ‘I thought you’d put us in …’
She pushed the dirt from the servery with her forearm and put George’s open backpack to one side. She lined up her food. Tins of tomatoes. Potatoes. Lychees. Creamed corn. Two blue tins with a picture of a big red fish on the label and writing in a script George had never seen before. Tinned peanuts. The tin she had snatched back from the Welfare Officer: Braised Steak with Farm Fresh Vegetables.
Beeper climbed onto a stool and stared.
‘What will you be eating?’ she asked.
‘Wait, Beeper. How do we know she didn’t put us in … or that she didn’t just tell them to come back later when she’s gone … or something?’ As the words came out of his mouth, George grasped just how confused his thinking was, how little sense he was making.
‘You’ll have to be taking my word for it.’ She leaned across the servery to where the boys’ plates and mugs were lying next to George’s upturned backpack. ‘But I’m the last person who’d be helping Welfare.’
‘They pay a reward,’ George said.
‘Doesn’t matter. I hate what they do. It’s just a business.’ She banged three plastic plates together to clean the dust off them. ‘Make their money selling kids to the wet countries … to couples who don’t have them, or’ — her voice filled with menace — ‘to people who need children to work. Come on, George, you must know that.’
George glanced at Beeper and back at her. ‘Those men,’ he said, changing the subject as quickly as possible, ‘nearly arrested you for talking to them like that.’
She popped open a small tin of New Potatoes. ‘I’ve become pretty smart about what to be saying, and who to be saying it to. Getting tough’s been the only way to survive.’
‘I’m hungry,’ said Beeper.
‘I don’t understand,’ George said. ‘Do you steal the food?’
‘I don’t understand,’ she said, mimicking George. She smiled but her lips were crooked because of her swollen cheek. ‘Let’s just say some people are doing very well out of this mess. For the rest of us, there’s no shame in doing whatever it takes to get by.’
George went to the kitchen and spat in the sink. His head was spiralling. ‘Why did you come back? To have another go at making a team?’
She paused, lifted one of the tins of fish and popped the lid. ‘No. I came back so I could be saying goodbye properly, before moving on to try my luck somewhere else. Mainly to Beeper. But to you too, George. Just as well I did.’
George poured the clearest water he could find into his and Beeper’s white mugs as she divided the fish and potatoes onto plates. She was bruised and filthy. Exhausted. George looked down at the two mugs. Then he went to the cupboard, fetched Dad’s blue mug and filled it as well.
‘When I saw the van sitting out front,’ she said as she pushed two plates along the servery, ‘I ran all the way up the hill.’
George passed around the water, giving Emily a white mug. He drank from the blue one. He still felt jittery. ‘I don’t know why you … how you … I just don’t know what to believe about anything.’
‘Don’t know what to believe?’ she replied. ‘Secret agents, Drought Barons … Try listening to yourself some time, George.’
‘I tried to talk to Beeper about that.’
‘About what?’ Beeper said, with his mouth full of potatoes. ‘Talk so I can understand.’
Emily sipped her water. ‘I’m not saying I blame you for telling stories, George. You never know what might turn out to be true.’ She paused to swallow some fish. ‘And if you don’t have dreams, well, it’s just the same as giving in.’
‘Our dad wouldn’t give in,’ Beeper said, shovelling in more food.
Emily chewed slowly. ‘My latest dream was that things would be getting better. And guess what? In the past few days I thought they were.’ She shrugged. ‘Then I found I didn’t fit in.’
‘You never tried to fit in,’ said George. He had his spoon in his hand but hadn’t touched any food. ‘You wouldn’t even tell us your real name.’
‘I wasn’t sure who I could trust. But I’m glad Beeper’s safe. You too, George. I guess I’ll be saying goodbye as soon as we’ve finished eating.’
Beeper shook his head, chewed and swallowed hard. ‘No! You should stay with us. Please Torgie, let Emily stay. She saved us.’
George dropped his spoon on his plate. ‘She said she wants to go.’ His voice fell away as he was saying it. He wasn’t nearly so sure now that he wanted her to go. He didn’t know how they could last six or twelve months on their own. But every decision he made seemed to be the wrong one.
‘We’ll talk about it later, Beeps,’ he finally announced.
‘I’ll be gone later,’ she said.
‘Listen, Emily …’ George began. He paused, having no idea how he was going to finish the sentence, and heard a noise outside. The other two stopped eating and listened. Voices were coming from the street. A man and a woman talked and laughed loudly.
‘The front …’ George yelped. He stood and looked down the hall. The door was standing ajar. How stupid of him! The Welfare men had smashed the lock and steel security bar with their machines. There was no barrier to the outside world.
The voices were coming towards the house.