The next day, on my own, I arrived at the side gate at 4.30 pm. I waited for five minutes. No-one showed. I hadn’t seen the security guard for a week, so it was unlikely he’d show up. I debated whether to climb over the wire fence or go home.
If Cal and Masaru had been with me, I’d have scaled the fence and looked in the windows of the warehouse. But they weren’t; they were still annoyed that I’d volunteered them for unpaid work. They thought my idea that we must’ve discovered the hiding place of the stolen paintings was dumb.
They believed Robert when he said the warehouse was a food bank. They said they could tell he was telling the truth because he looked straight at us when he told us. Whereas they said it was obvious I was the one telling the lies because I kept glancing down at the ground. I was sure I’d never looked down.
I think they were too lazy to do voluntary work. They said they wanted to train for the cross-country because we still had a chance of beating Barton House for the house cup. They were obsessed with the house competition.
Cal and Masaru had laughed at my theory that the food bank was merely an elaborate cover and that the stolen paintings would be hidden in boxes just like the boxes containing food. I said, “Fine. I’ll keep the whole reward for myself.” That got them worried.
The man with the humungous shoulders suddenly appeared in front of me. “You’re here.” He sounded surprised.
“Yeah, I said I would be.”
“Got a name?”
“David Bennett, or DB is OK.”
He unlocked the gate and let me in. “So, David, where are your friends?”
“They’re training for the cross-country.”
“Two members of the team are here. They’ll show you what to do.” He gave me a funny look. “Do you really want to help?”
“Yeah. My dad got retrenched.”
He nodded as though he understood. “Well, sorry if I was harsh on you last night. I thought you kids might be checking out the place. Some kids think a new warehouse is a good place to practice artwork with spray cans. We’ve had problems with other warehouses. I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions. Sometimes my imagination goes into overdrive.”
I swallowed. Maybe this place was nothing more than a food bank. Maybe they had a security guard to ensure the building wasn’t wrecked by bored kids. Maybe there wasn’t a sign on the building because it wasn’t a business and it didn’t need to advertise. Maybe the men in the blue jeans and dark jackets in the white van weren’t actually thieves. Maybe they were just nice people who wanted to help out other people who had fallen on hard times. Maybe I was the biggest idiot of all time. Then I realised that if the stolen paintings weren’t hidden in the warehouse, then I had no hope of getting the reward. Did that matter? Maybe not. I knew Dad had a job interview next week. Maybe we wouldn’t even need the food bank. But other people would.
Robert took me into the warehouse and introduced me to Stan and Kim. Stan was dressed like Pop, so I guessed he was retired. And I recognised Kim because her kids went to my old primary school. They gushed over me and told me how grateful they were for the help. I took in everything I could see. Stacks and stacks of shelves with stacks and stacks of boxes. And the boxes weren’t huge. A painting would have to be small to fit inside. The truth really hit me. I’d been jumping to conclusions from the beginning. Inside I laughed at myself. Tomorrow it would be Cal and Masaru laughing at me.
For an hour and a half I opened box after box. I checked use-by dates. I sorted boxes into piles. Different piles were going to different charities. And food wasn’t shared equally, because the people at different places had different tastes. One place went through more bread than other places, and another place went through more muesli. At the end, I felt like I’d spent an hour and a half at the gym, lifting weights. I couldn’t wait to have a shower and crash on the couch.
Robert, Stan and Kim were so grateful for the help that I said I’d help out three afternoons after school until they got the workload under control. Kim called me an angel. Luckily for me she didn’t know the truth.
