Cache

There were (at least) ten rolls of banknotes, all held by elastic bands like belts round dressing gowns. There was also a tiny black drawstring bag, in which you might keep jewellery. It was a cache kept in a safe hidden behind a framed picture. And, in an instant, the Cowboy’s desperation to retrieve it made sense. This was nobody’s mother. This was someone’s secret stash.

Jennifer froze, mouth gaping. But with footsteps banging against the emergency steps, and loud enough to be heard over the plane, we needed to move.

‘Jennifer!’ I called.

Although she was standing next to me, she was lost somewhere else. Her mouth opened, but if she said anything I didn’t hear it.

I scooped everything from the tarmac into the plastic bag. I grabbed Jennifer’s good arm, and pulled us behind the staircase’s exterior wall, just as we heard the police crash out on to the runway. A classic first-person shooter movement.

We crouched with our backs to the wall, our hearts not daring to beat. From the other side of the breeze blocks came the Cowboy’s voice.

‘Jennifer! Don’t do this. We’re talking real-life danger, honey.’

Another voice. ‘There!’ it shouted. ‘Under the baggage truck! Let’s go!’

The plane began a slow taxi away. As its engines ramped up to a roar, the air shimmered. You could see the bright faces of passengers through circular windows like spotlights. I looked to Jennifer. She was staring blankly into the urn bag.

‘Okay?’ I called over the colliding noise of the engine’s continuing roar and the whine of the alarm. Jennifer lifted her head and focused past the silver perimeter fence and parking lot beyond. ‘Jennifer?’ Her head turned. Her eyes were smudged red. The plane had passed, the sound of its engines fading. ‘I’m sorry I dropped it.’

‘No,’ she said, the word alone in the sudden quiet.

She looked years younger, primary-school age. I wanted to hug her. Without the plane the alarm was more like the airport’s heartbeat, less urgent. She sucked at her bottom lip, like she always did, and then stood up, her back scraping against the wall.

I got up too. ‘Maybe with some superglue …’ I said.

‘It’s nothing but …’ She slid back down to the floor with a sigh, as if her legs were too upset to support her. ‘I thought I was doing the right thing.’

Any reply caught in my throat. I nodded.

Dropping, I shuffled towards her. As our shoulders touched, I stretched an arm up and across. Because it’s the right thing to do, you know, when someone’s upset. Even if they’re a girl and you’re a boy and you’ve just smashed their urn, which up until this point the girl had thought contained her mum’s ashes.

‘You see?’ said Jennifer, slowly shaking her head. ‘You can’t trust anybody.’

I cleared my throat. ‘You can trust me,’ I said.

America stretched out ahead, like the future, and all the way to the studios of Los Angeles. But that didn’t matter any more. Because I was here, in the now, next to my friend.

‘I know,’ said Jennifer.

‘Maybe …’ I began.

‘At least we’ve got cash. Bills, I mean,’ said Jennifer, speaking herself back to the present. Words tumbled. ‘And I’m going to be in so much trouble, by the way. Like if I wasn’t already.’ We looked at each other. Even in the runway’s half-light, I could see the dark shadows under her eyes. ‘So,’ she said and punched my shoulder playfully.

I should tell her to stop doing this. I didn’t flinch, even though it hurt again. Superhuman discipline.

‘There’ll be an army after us in thirty seconds. Are you good to go?’ I asked, sounding like someone else, my more decisive imaginary older brother maybe.

‘I’m good to go,’ said Jennifer. ‘With you.’

I made a sound like ‘gah’ but, luckily, she didn’t seem to hear.

‘What’s in the black bag, by the way?’

I pulled it out. I opened its neck. Gently I shook the contents into my palm. Diamonds. I think. Their sparkle was like the life returning to Jennifer’s eyes.

‘Savage,’ she said. ‘What did I say about Lex Luthor?’

‘Totally.’

In the shade under the airport gate we stood. Jennifer’s smile may have wobbled a bit. And maybe mine did too. But, and here’s the thing: we weren’t finished yet.

The stairwell was an elephant leg supporting the long tubular body of gates above. I led her beneath the structure and through the shadows to the next supporting leg. Here was another door, just like the one we’d tumbled from.

We stepped through into a stairwell and climbed the metal steps as silently as we could. We eventually came to another door, which we pushed through. Automatic lights flicked on.

A new alarm sounded, and, if you can believe it, louder than the last. Even if it hadn’t been blaring, the room rumbled with the rattle of machinery, the sort to shake your bones, enough to give you a migraine. The space was full of the kind of mad structure I used to make with Lego. Towers and racks and tracks all carrying speeding luggage.

‘I’ve got an idea,’ shouted Jennifer into my ear. ‘How about you help me grab a bag?’

I didn’t really have a choice. Jennifer had only the one fully functioning arm and, as you know, I’m, like, stupidly polite. So I helped and we thudded a suitcase to the floor.

Jennifer fell to her knees and unzipped the suitcase, flopping it open like she was turning a heavy page of a massive book. She studied its contents and then looked up. Her smile didn’t fill me with confidence.

‘Maybe not the disguise I was thinking.’

On top of a pile of brightly coloured clothes sat an oversized bow tie and a green wig. I thought back to the group in McDonald’s. This was their kit.

She tried another bag. More clown clothes.

‘There’s no time to go through every suitcase. And, thinking about it, it’s perfect.’

‘No way,’ I shouted. Like, pretty much, an actual shout. ‘I’m not doing it. I don’t want to look like an idiot. Here’s where I draw the line.’