Girl Next Door - Alyssa Brugman [43]
Now they're going to stab him. I can see it in my head in slow motion, as if it's a movie.
I think about that lady and the man fighting before, and how we didn't do anything. We just listened and played our stupid game. People out there are turning up their televisions to drown out the sound of those boys killing my brother.
Then torchlight swings over the boys. They drop Will and run. He lands flat on his back, and then curls up, like a dead spider. After we're sure they're gone we run out and drag Will inside.
The security guard with the torch knocks on our door.
'Everything all right in there?' He eyes us with suspicion.
Mum wants to call an ambulance, but Will insists that he's okay. Next she wants to call the police.
'Did they steal something?' the security guard asks.
My mother glares at him. 'They assaulted my son!'
The security guard suggests that we can go down to the station and report the incident in the morning, if we still want to by then. Or maybe (he doesn't say exactly, but we get the message) we will have gained some perspective by then.
We lie in the dark. I can hear Will grunting and sniffing as he tries to hide the fact that he's crying. I want to call an ambulance, but I don't want to walk down the road in the dark to the phone booth next to reception.
None of us even goes out to plug the power back in.
I lie there thinking about the time we were in Hanoi, when I was about eight. One minute we were all together in a market, looking at shoes and wooden toys, and then the next minute I was by myself in this grungy little alleyway. I looked up into the face of an old woman. She opened her mouth and it was all red in there with little maroon stumps for teeth. I knew the red was betel nut stain, but her mouth looked like a wound. Further ahead, men gathered around, staring at something. When I looked closely I could see two roosters in the middle of the circle, fighting. The men weren't even cheering, or trying to stop them, or anything, they were just standing there watching, and it made me feel sick in my guts. I was frozen in the spot. Then suddenly Mum and Dad were there and we continued on our way through the market. The whole thing probably lasted less than fifteen seconds, but I had this sense of infinite isolation.
I'm not used to people being mean to me, or to being alone. It's this weird feeling; I got it from Jasmina and Tanner when they said 'vintage', I got it from those boys and the security guard too, and even from Dad a little bit.
I've never felt like that before – as though the things that are important to me don't matter to anyone else. It's like I'm one of those roosters in the circle, fighting for my life – as though I've been set up for this fight, and nobody cares.
In the morning Will has dried blood on his face. He heads off to the shower block with a towel over his shoulder. He comes back ten minutes later wrapped just in his towel and crying again. I can see a faint bruise on his ribs.
There were two of them. They took his clothes. Will's voice cracks as he tells us. He had to fight them for the towel. They were laughing. He had to fight them in the nude.
I walk to the phone booth outside reception. Every step I'm looking around, but I pretend to be casual. It looks peaceful. The kids are on the lawn playing with a hose. One squirts the others and they squeal and laugh. The old people watch from their porches. But now I notice the big metal shutters they have over their windows and spotlights tucked under their eaves.
I hear footsteps behind me, and I look over my shoulder. It's one of the boys. He grins at me. Suddenly he darts forward. I scream and hold my hands over my head.
He pantses me, and laughs.
'You're an arsehole!' I shout at him as I pull my pants up from around my ankles. I'm furious.
'Oh, come on! It's just a joke,' he says. 'Nice booty, by the way. Kind of like . . .' He licks his lips. 'Two peaches.'
My lip curls and I stomp past him. I'm really scared, but I'm angry too, and I hope he sees