Calli slept surprisingly well, despite the unusualness of her circumstances. The air was fresh and clear when she awoke and she lay for a few moments adjusting her mind to her location. Normally the girl would wake up to a numb right arm, where she spent the night lying on it and her face would be close to the back of Jase’s head, his hair tickling her nose. Calli lay in her sleeping bag, surprised she had automatically slept on her right side and her arm felt reassuring and familiarly numb. Her thoughts turned immediately to her little brother, wondering if he slept at all without her, or if he simply settled down as though she had never existed.
She asked Danny’s God to take care of Jase, to smooth the way for him, but not to forget her entirely and then she turned over onto her back as the feeling throbbed painfully back into her arm. It still seemed somewhat dark and Calli couldn’t work out what time it was.
“You awake?” came Declan’s voice and Calli replied she was. There was the metallic sound of the tent zip riding up in its housing and then the inner flap of the mosquito net opened. Declan’s dark shape crawled through the opening, still in his sleeping bag, traversing the sticking up layer of tent that joined the whole thing together like a giant fully-contained bag and ensured nothing live could get into the tent whilst it was occupied. Turning, the boy zipped up the net layer but left the outer flap open. He lay down on the other side of the tent from Calli and she saw the stupidity of him having slept outside, as the yawning space between them revealed enough room to have comfortably slept a third guest.
“What are you doing?” Calli asked curiously, hearing a swishing sound coming from him. As she spoke, she recognised the sound of nails raking skin.
“Itching,” he said, his voice miserable. “I think every gnat and mosquito in the area came for a feast.”
“I’m sorry,” Calli said genuinely. “It’s your tent, I should have slept outside.” The fact it never occurred to her made her feel ashamed and even more beholden to him.
“It’s fine,” his voice was soft and lyrical, “I’ve got some anti-histamine. I’ll take it when we get up.”
“Are you allergic to them?” she asked with concern. “Simon was bitten by a white-tailed spider a few years ago and his hand swelled and ulcerated horribly. Ever since then, he seems to have a reaction every time so much as a sand fly bites him. He has to carry tablets on him at all times, just in case. It’s become an allergy. Is yours?”
“I think it might be after last night,” Declan joked but Calli still felt sorry. She decided to make more of an effort with him from now on. She treated him more like an escape route than someone who had stuck his neck out for her. If Simon cared at all that his cuckoo daughter had run away, he would kill Declan for sure.
“What are you going to do today?” she asked companionably, hearing Declan shuffle onto his side to face her.
“Why don’t we move on as soon as it’s properly light?” he suggested and Calli felt a flicker of pleasure that he included her in his plans. “I want to be somewhere decent by Easter Sunday, somewhere high so we can watch the sunrise.”
Calli nodded in the half-light, happy to go along with whatever he planned. It wasn’t like she had anything else to do. “I haven’t bought any chocolate to give you,” she mused conversationally, happy to hear Declan’s soft laugh in the gloom.
“It’s ok,” he said kindly, “it’s not about chocolate.”
“Try telling Jase that!” Calli retorted, feeling the tightness grow in her chest at the thought of her brother. Would he dare help himself to the huge Easter bunny egg in her wardrobe she saved up for and they bought together? She wished she could telepathically tell him it was ok, he could take it. It was his. There was one for Sadie on the shelf too, a girl-bunny with a little dress. Calli bought it more as a concession. She felt she ought to buy the brat something, but the memory of Sadie’s concern for her in the bathroom yesterday and the realisation she was just a vulnerable little girl came home to Calli with force and she found she missed Sadie too.
She didn’t register for a moment that Declan was speaking; the timbre of his voice comforting and mellow inside the cocooned space. When she tuned in, exasperation burgeoned as he mentioned the name ‘Jesus.’ Fantastic, she was getting bible bashed in a confined space.
“This day must have been awful,” he mused, almost to himself. “To get to know someone so well and think you understand who they are, only to see them cut down and not defend themselves when you believed they were a warrior.”
“Oh yeah, that’s right. Jesus dies today doesn’t he?” Calli tried to sound intelligent despite understanding none of it. She wondered if she contributed if it would make him go on longer or shut up altogether. “Why is it called ‘Good’ Friday, if it was so terrible?”
There was a long silence, which Calli hadn’t expected. She began to worry Declan was cross with her for being so ignorant. He was part of the elite Christian group, the perfect kids who segregated themselves from the trash of their school community. They routinely smiled at everyone; an element of kindness shrouded in an aura of superiority for the ‘poor plebeians’ who couldn’t possibly understand why they were so smug and pleased with themselves...Declan broke into her reverie, his voice soft and low, “It is a terrible day, you’re right. It’s terrible because of what they did to him, when he didn’t deserve it. It’s also terrible because it should have been me. I should have been whipped and abused, stripped and forced to carry my own cross and then nailed to it and left to die, suffocating to death wearing a crown of thorns with the whole world mocking me. It was my punishment, but he took it instead.”
“No way have you ever been that bad,” Calli interjected, hearing the sadness in his voice. “You’re a decent person,” she concluded, truly believing she was helping. Wasn’t that what you did when someone was miserable? Plastered over the cracks and then patted them on the back, denying the existence of all the reasons for their depression. If you pretended it wasn’t true, then it couldn’t be. Could it?
“I am that bad,” Declan stated boldly. “We all are. It’s Good Friday because Jesus loved me enough to take my punishment on himself.”
To Calli’s surprise, he left it at that. He didn’t preach or labour his point, but shuffled around on his back getting comfy. It left her confused, all of her scoffing and derogatory comments about his faith left to burn in the back of her mind.
“Cal,” Declan’s tone was questioning, coming about five minutes after his last statement and Calli lay awkwardly trying not to dwell on her growing need to visit the long drop. She turned to face him and knew he had taken that as an answer when he spoke again. “If anyone finds out about this, about you being with me, I’m going to be in real trouble. I could get done for kidnapping. It would be your word against mine.”
“I won’t tell,” Calli replied, deciding there and then, she would guard this gentle boy’s involvement even against Simon. “But don’t worry. I don’t plan on coming back once I’m out of the Waikato.”
“You’re a missing teen, do you understand that? Your photo will be in the news and on social media. You won’t be able to disappear entirely. Maybe if you could have got to Wellington, you would have been able to cut your hair, make yourself look different somehow and caught the ferry to the South Island. But this way, you’ll walk out of the bush right when they start intensifying their searches. What if they decide to look here...?”
Calli lumbered across and positioned her hand fully over Declan’s mouth. She felt the beginnings of adolescent stubble pressing through the skin either side of his lips and on his chin, prickling and scratching at the palm of her hand. “Please,” she begged. “Can we not think about this now? I promise whatever happens, I will never betray you and I’ll think of a plan shortly. I don’t expect you to put up with me for the whole of your holiday. I’ll head off today if you want and you can pretend you never saw me.”
Declan gripped Calli’s wrist and pulled her hand away. He was tough and realisation stung her sense of security. The tension against her bone didn’t belong to a school boy. It was a man’s hand that immobilised her. “What’s so bad that you can’t ever go back?” he asked in a hushed voice. “Cal, what happened?”
The girl pulled away as hard as she could, wrenching her wrist from Declan’s grip with her reverse momentum, landing awkwardly on the other side of the tent and causing the material to bulge out on her side. “If you ever ask me again, I’m going to walk away from you. I don’t care where I end up, but I am never going to tell you, so stop!”
Calli fought her sleeping bag, trying to exit backwards and discovering her backside caught in the hood part. The zip head snagged at her thigh as she grappled. Declan was quicker. “Sorry, sorry, I won’t ask again.”
He kneeled up next to her and put his arms around her angry, shaking body. He felt robust and safe and a memory flicked into Calli’s mind of Simon, picking her up at a play park after a fall. He was by her side almost as her five year old body hit the ground, cuddling her miniature frame into his chest and rubbing at the skinned and bleeding knees to get the gravel off, whispering, “Poor Calli-Walli, Daddy’s here.”
Calli’s tears were hot and soundless, soaking Declan’s tee shirt and coursing down her cheeks. He held her firmly but kindly, scared for himself but also for her. If she wandered off into the bush alone, he was certain she would get lost. Calli had no intention of going backwards in her life and the teenagers silently acknowledged that. Declan’s knees ached against the hard ground poking through the ground sheet and Calli saw for the first time in a long time, she was not entirely alone in her troubles.
The huge sniff which emanated from her delicate nose made them both laugh, breaking the stalemate, which now turned to awkwardness. Calli’s hands strayed to Declan’s waist, more for balance than camaraderie and she dropped them by her sides. He gave her one last squeeze of solidarity and kissed her forehead, before letting her go and sinking back onto his legs. Their knees were touching as they sat in silence, the dark hair from Declan’s tickling Calli’s skin. The twisted zip from her sleeping bag bit into several parts of her legs, messed up underneath her, the warm shroud hastily discarded in her frenzy.
“Stay with me,” Declan said quietly. “I’m going up to the summit and then I’m just planning on walking some of the decommissioned tracks for a few days before going home. There’s this place I know on the south side of the mountain Dad took me to, often. He planted stuff for us to go back to...” Declan saw the horrified look on Calli’s face as the thought of a clearing full of marijuana crossed her mind. He laughed. “No, you egg! Potatoes and stuff. We were going to come back again next holiday and be self-sufficient, but he...got too sick...” Declan didn’t need to finish his sentence. “I’d just like to go back and see if it’s all still there.”
Calli nodded, slowly at first and then with enthusiasm. “I’ll have to check my schedule,” she said with a grin, “but I think I could be free.”