“Declan Harris and Callister Rhodes, please can you go with Miss Brown to reception? Take your bags, you won’t be coming back.”
Calli felt the blood drain from her face. What did the teacher mean, they weren’t coming back? She glanced nervously across at Declan wondering if someone had found out about their foray into the bush together, but he looked as clueless as her. Stuffing her books carelessly into her bag, Calli bolted from the room, hoping to get it over with - whatever it was. The tall, Maori teacher turned his back and continued with his physics lesson.
Unfortunately for Calli, the agony was prolonged by Miss Brown’s insistence on waiting for Declan, who seemed slower and more distracted by the loud and vocal abuse of the class, alongside their overt and wholly inappropriate speculation. “Hurry dears,” the secretary encouraged them, as she trotted briskly along the wide corridor. Calli followed close on her heels to avoid having to walk next to Declan.
Miss Brown led them to the principal’s office and knocked on the door. At a muted invitation which filtered through, she pushed on the wood and urged the teenagers in. Calli was first over the threshold and stopped so sharply, Declan ran straight into the back of her with a loud exclamation. Calli didn’t have enough time to protect herself from the missile which aimed at the heart of her.
“Calli Walli,” Jase screeched and took off from the ground with enough energy to clear a six foot fence. He landed with his legs locked around his sister’s thighs and his arms firmly gripping her neck, pulling uncomfortably on the dark curls that tumbled around her shoulders. “I’ve missed you so much,” he sobbed, as his expectation turned into elation and then into emotions he couldn’t quite comprehend, grief, loss and childhood bafflement.
The principal, a smartly dressed, capable woman in her late forties rose up from a sofa on the far side of the room. She appeared to have been serving tea to guests. Calli turned as though to leave, still carrying Jase and was met by the wall of Declan’s confused body.
“Come in, Miss Rhodes,” the principal’s clipped voice issued from the interruption in her important task and Calli’s eyes strayed up to Declan’s. He glanced down at her once and gulped, confused and afraid of the formidable principal of fierce reputation, who had glued back the ragged fabric of the war-torn establishment in a very short time. Looking back at her, Calli turned her reluctant body once again and entered the room, albeit slowly.
“And you, Mr Harris,” Principal Stokes added, as Declan wondered if his inclusion was just a terrible mistake. Declan shuffled into the room as unenthusiastically as Calli, finding to his surprise the room contained another two people, previously hidden from view by the regulation fire door.
“Hi Callister,” Sadie said awkwardly, standing up from the sofa, a drink of orange juice in one hand and a hefty chocolate muffin in the other. The juice glass tipped dangerously and Calli resisted the natural instinct to hold her hand out in warning. Sadie had cake crumbs all around her mouth and down her school blouse, but the child who single handedly got Calli in more trouble in her short life than she could ever have imagined, looked exactly like the vulnerable little girl she really was. Calli bit back a latent pain, recognising an intelligent child who simply played on the prejudices of her mother, because she could. Sadie’s blonde pigtails were wonky, one of them higher than the other and wisps of hair escaped unevenly all over her head. She looked like a small frizzled angel.
Tears sprang to the teenager’s eyes and she was powerless to contain them. Her hands were busy with Jase, but her heart overflowed with love at the presence of the children she tried so hard not to miss.
Sadie watched the first of the fat tears plop on the back of Jase’s head from her sister’s uncharacteristically leaking eyes and her resolve cracked. Encouraged by the wobbling of her chin, Sadie’s bottom lip turned down as her face dropped its triumphant expression and she cried, cake revealed on her teeth and the inside of her mouth. Calli gripped Jase one handed and held the other out for her little sister, who fled into a safety net as natural as breathing in and out. “I’m sorry for all the mean things I did,” Sadie sobbed. “Please come home. I’ve got ya phone here with your experiment photos on. The plants is all massive and keep flopping in the washing up bowl and the photo of Jase’s tonsils isn’t my fault. We hate the childminder’s house and the childminder’s kids and the childminder’s doggie. Mum’s doing crying all the time and we wish for you every night.” Sadie wiped her face on Calli’s school skirt and stage whispered, “Jase cries for you at bedtime and the other night Mummy smacked his butt. He’s been making me sleep in his bed, but he wriggles and last night he peed himself...”
“Did not!” Jase exploded with obvious embarrassment, pulling his head away from Calli’s shoulder to issue a not guilty plea and then retreating back into the familiar folds of her hair.
“Did too!” Sadie replied crossly.
“It’s ok,” Calli soothed, eagerly trying to prevent the obviously rising spat. She glanced back at Declan for help, noticing suddenly he had problems of his own.
“We got a cake. Look,” Levi said happily, pointing at a plate of muffins, through which he capably munched. A tea plate in front of him bore three empty cases already. He sat on the sofa with his back towards the door, but staggered to his feet to deliver the bad news to his brother. “Look,” he said with regret in his voice, “my new clapper fell to bits on the way over.”
Declan sighed and his eyes rolled skywards as Levi limped around the side of the furniture, holding on to its cushioned surface for support. His calliper was only partially attached to his leg, lines of metal sticking out at weird angles and swinging oddly from the side. “Oops,” Levi announced as the sound of another bolt hitting the carpet broke his reverie. His cute face crumpled up as though he might also cry and the principal sensibly intervened, aware that three of the room’s occupants were already hiccoughing in misery and not wanting to make it five.
“Come in and sit down,” she urged, ushering the teenagers properly across the threshold and shutting the door behind them. Little children weren’t really her specialty and these three made her distinctly uncomfortable. That much was evident from her awkward body language, which oozed an unhealthy desire for escape. Principal Stokes moved Calli’s bag from off the girl’s shoulder and laid it near the door, pushing Declan further into the room with her hand in the small of his back. The woman was quietly surprised to notice the fingers of Declan’s right hand fingered a lock of Calli’s long hair without the girl knowing.
“I saved you this blue one,” Levi said, holding up a muffin towards his brother.
“Thanks mate,” Declan answered graciously, putting down his bag next to Calli’s and hoisting a dripping Sadie up onto his hip. The tearful child pursed her lips, pleasure and embarrassment coursing across her face in equal measure, resting her face on the big boy’s neck as though it was a usual occurrence to be swept off her feet by a handsome, older man.
Declan sat down and tucked Sadie expertly onto his knee. He worked not to focus on the broken calliper, whilst taking the offered cake and pretending to enjoy it. Calli came and sat down, finding the only space left was next to Declan. The threat of ending up sitting next to Principal Stokes with a child on her knee which currently leaked tears and bogies with apparent abandon, filled her with horror. She was squashed into a small space with her burden and when her thigh touched Declan’s and the electricity passed through them again, she hoped he would move up a little. He didn’t.
“I need to go and make a swift but essential phone call,” Principal Stokes announced, leaving the room. Sadie watched the woman’s high heels click across the carpet with interest.
“How did you get here?” Calli asked Sadie, leaning around Declan, forced to rest her wrist on his knee due to Jase’s uneven weight distribution across her upper body.
“I maked a map,” Sadie said proudly, producing a crumpled paper from the pocket of her school pinafore. It was spattered with coloured crayons, which depicted a caricature of each school, complete with smoking chimneys, a long winding green road and alarmingly a picture of both theirs and Levi’s houses.
“Did you go home first?” Calli squeaked, afraid of the answer.
“Just to the end of the road. Then we started again. We only knows the way from home to big school, so we had to go there first on our adventure.”
Declan swore under his breath, recognising the number of treacherous roads they must have needed to negotiate, not to mention they were at risk of being picked up by any passing weirdo. “Why did you come?” Declan asked his brother stupidly, kicking himself inwardly as he heard the exhale from Calli.
“I came to help my friend,” Levi said nobly. “He’s been missing his sister and I wanted to help him find her.”
“And me!” Sadie exclaimed rudely, “I missed her an’ all.”
“Couldn’t have done it wivout me though,” Levi muttered.
“Could too!” Sadie spat, covering Declan’s arm with chocolate cake.
“Nope,” Levi interjected, his face smug. “I had the special compass.
Declan looked alarmed as Levi drew an egg timer out of his shorts and proceeded to wind up the mechanism. The teenager exhaled through pursed lips and rested his forehead against Sadie’s back. With order restored, the little girl swung her legs happily and putting her hand behind her, ruffled Declan’s sleek dark hair with hands covered in cake icing. Calli stifled a snort and Declan turned his head to look at her. Sadie had matted his hair on one side with her action and a big dob of chocolate clung just above his right ear. Calli smiled at him and saw his heart skip through his eyes, the windows of his soul.
Sat with her small brother cuddling her in a stranglehold, she never looked so beautiful, nor exuded so much power. The essence of the children filled the room with something ethereal, their innocence and naked love acting as a balm for her wounded heart, beginning the healing process and plastering over the cracks in her psyche. “Do you want some cake, darling?” Calli asked Jase in a whisper, kissing his chubby cheek at the same time as pulling his head out of her neck.
He shook his head and whispered back, “Please come home Calli. It’s not the same wivout you.”
He gulped and another stream of tears slipped down the guileless face, breaking Calli afresh. “Sorry Jase,” she whispered into his hair as he clung to her again, his fear refreshed. Calli bit her lip and kissed his fluffy blonde hair, wishing her life was different, beginning right back at the start. Perhaps even before that.
Feeling something against her leg, Calli looked down to see Declan’s hand palm up, being offered to her. She stared at it for a moment, recognising the lifeline that rescued her from slips, mosquitoes, from the chill of the night, from herself. She considered the lined palm, the scratches evident still from bushman’s lawyer and fractures in his skin from fighting with the supplejack vine, healed like hers but still there. Without looking at his face, not wanting to see his perceptive eyes boring into her, she almost took it, nearly took the lifeline and accepted the rope and map back to sanity, to forgiveness and hope. His hand extended all those things and more, genuine friendship, shelter and an opportunity to discover who Callister Rhodes really was.
Jase shifted his body and Calli felt the snap of cold metal on her other wrist. She snatched her hand back from Declan in alarm, just as Jase tightened the handcuffs around her skin. It felt cold and painful, chaffing against her bone. Calli looked disbelievingly at the boy. “What are you doing? Take it off!”
She felt indignant. Tears still streaked the little lad’s cheeks, but his dismay was replaced by determination and a deeply seated stubbornness that made Calli’s heart sink. He took the other cuff and linked it over his own wrist. Finding it too large even on its tightest setting, he ran it up his arm almost to the elbow and held onto it comically, like a handbag. Declan peered around Calli’s body to see what was happening and was speechless. “Take it off, Jase. It’s your Dad’s. He’ll go mad!”
“No,” Jase gritted his baby teeth and narrowed his eyes. “You have to stay wiv me now.”
“Where’s the key, Jase?” Calli asked woodenly.
“What key?” he replied.
Principal Stokes chose that exact moment to reappear and Calli did her best to hide the clanking handcuffs from her. The woman had dealt with her equivalent principal at the primary school, who was just about to ring the police in a panic. The crisis was averted and the little group sent home early, dismissed after a hearty telling off for the small children and a warning that their own head teacher would be talking to them very soon. Outside the front gates, the children hung as a knot, awkwardly shifting from foot to foot as Calli realised she was now tied to her half-brother and couldn’t possibly go home.
“Can we see your new house, Calli?” Sadie piped up. She had chocolate cake all down her face and the front of her school shirt. Calli was filled with an unfamiliar rush of love for the little girl. Before she properly thought it through, she nodded in affirmation.
“Yey,” said Levi in excitement and staggered on his broken calliper, landing hard against Declan’s thigh. The older boy looked uncomfortable, knowing the invitation didn’t include them.
“Come on mate,” he said to his brother, “I’ll give you a piggy-back ride home.”
Calli sensed his difficulty and said softly, “It’s ok. You can all come.”