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“Fighting!” Mari started the engine and gunned her old ute out of the school car park. The suspension clunked on the curb edge and groaned as the wheels hit the road. “Fighting!” she repeated, her voice holding an unfamiliar pitch induced by shock.
Leilah gazed through the window, grinding her teeth and watching the sun kiss the pavements. She experienced a flash of relief as though her suspension might be a lucky escape.
“What have you got to say for yourself?” Mari barked. Leilah hid a smirk. Angry-Mari’s speech degenerated into a plummy English accent which amused her. As Māori as the very earth on which they drove, it seemed incongruous and faintly ridiculous. “It’s not bloody funny!” Mari snapped. “What will I tell your father?”
Leilah’s expression darkened and the fire stoked again in her breast. “Ask him why he reported Horse to Tane’s father and got him arrested!” she snapped. “Ask him why he’d be so vengeful and why I’m not allowed to stay friends with Vaughan. Then tell him he can go screw himself.”
“Deleilah Dereham!” Mari screeched the truck to a halt outside her cafe and notched up the handbrake. Leilah cringed and wondered why she never pressed the button which would stop the awful ratcheting noise. The car about to reverse into the space she just stole drove away in defeat.
“Don’t lecture me.” Leilah pursed her lips. “Miriama has picked on me for months and once everyone finds out Hector reported his neighbour, I won’t be able to go back to school, anyway.”
Mari shook her head and tapped the steering wheel with fingers showing the early crookedness of arthritis. She’d dashed to Leilah’s aid still wearing her black work apron and batter stains streaked the front pocket. “Then blame me,” she said, lowering her voice and hanging her head. “It’s my fault.”
Leilah’s lips parted in surprise and she swallowed her next self-deprecating sentence. Mari ran a shaking hand over her face and released a sigh, turning to meet Leilah’s questioning gaze. “Ted’s been buying it from someone but won’t tell me who. It’s messing with his mind and I don’t like it. Then I overheard some customers talking about man traps and shotguns that go off by themselves. I told your dad and he said he’d sort it.”
“Who were the customers?” Leilah’s eyes narrowed in anger as Mari shook her head. “You might as well tell me, Mari.”
The other woman’s complexion paled. “Malcolm and a dude I’d never seen before.”
“Malcolm Donnelly?” Leilah’s brow furrowed. She licked her lips as her brain ticked over solutions. Her jaw tilted upward and she felt disturbed by the look of guilt on Mari’s olive face. “The Donnelly property lies behind Horse’s as the crow flies. I bet they created access to it through the bush, so they could make it look like someone else’s. But why did the cops go straight to Horse?”
“Malcolm mentioned Vaughan’s name.” Mari swallowed. “That’s what I told Hector.”
“But Vaughan didn’t know anything about the drugs. Why would he mention Vaughan?”
“I don’t know.” Mari fidgeted with her key fob. “I just know that I told Hector, he spoke to the sergeant and Malcolm died the next day.”
Leilah groaned and Mari continued to peel the sticker bearing the local garage’s name from her key fob. “Hector thinks Vaughan deals drugs? I suppose he thinks he killed Malcolm too.”
Mari shrugged. “You haven’t taken any, have you? Is that why you’re changing, Leilah? Is that why things are different with you?”
Leilah’s spine thudded back against the door in horror. She wanted to scream. Womanhood had brought more trouble than she could bear sometimes. Hormones, sex and secrecy. The thought it might have changed her attitude cut deeper than she wanted to admit. She worked to tamp down the flame burning in her breast and shook her head. “Everything leads back to Malcolm’s death. Maybe he was the drug dealer. The Donnellys had cash problems last year and Dad worked on the wife’s horse for free to help them out. And no. I’ve never taken drugs.”
“What about those other bad boys you hang around with?” Mari leaned across to stroke Leilah’s hand. “Do they?”
Leilah shook her head and tears budded in her eyes. She swallowed down the lump in her throat. Dante maybe, but not the others. The boy with the Italian roots possessed a dangerous and unpredictable streak which made him an exciting and risky prospect. Mari held out her arms to Leilah and she collapsed into the maternal embrace, knowing what love felt like in the kisses which rained onto her head. She released the bottled emotions of fear and violation in tears which soaked the front of Mari’s apron and left a dark patch on her blouse. “Everything will be okay, Leilah,” she whispered into her hair. “I promise.”
Leilah sniffed and tried to ignore the gear stick poking into her stomach. She wanted to believe her substitute mother but doubted the truth of her words. The fact that Mari believed it had to be enough for that moment. She sat up and wiped her eyes on her sleeve, accepting a wad of crumpled toilet roll which Mari produced from her glove box. “What’s my punishment?” she asked, steeling herself for a grounding or extra chores. Hector didn’t hit and for that she felt grateful, knowing she probably wouldn’t survive a slap from his giant hands. One blow of her nose disintegrated the rough tissue.
Mari leaned across and pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead. “You can work for me in the cafe for the rest of the week, Lei. Yer dad will be okay with that.”
Leilah nodded and accepted her fate, condemned to days of avoiding Ted’s wandering hands and the town’s gossip about her. Mari’s statement suggested Hector had washed his hands of her and the thought made her sad. It seemed fine for her to abandon him at the end of the year, but not the other way around. She sniffed into the soaked tissue and recognised the truth. He’d given up on her the day she was born, the day her mother drew her last breath. His latest revenge had poisoned her relationships with the only other people on the planet who cared for her. The fat kid, the foster kid and the foreigner.