In Living Memory

4 - Robyn and Elektra

And suddenly I know where I am. Suddenly I know why I recognise the brickwork and why there are two smoking teenage girls trying to get out of a gate which is three times my height.

It's the youth detention centre.

"Shame Cash isn't here. He could give us both a leg up."

A sigh from the hopeless girl. Lektra.

"He's out with Marcus."

"People are fuckin' mad here! It's half four in the morning - going out at this hour . . . And who the hell are you, keeping tabs on people? What do you have, like, a tracker device?"

"No, just good intuition and memory." Lektra sounds bored.

I'm feeling far from bored though. Suddenly I need the toilet and I can feel last night's dinner resurfacing because I know that if I move from this awkward, aching, crouching position behind this bin I will be seen by two dangerous youths who have committed God only knows what offences. And I'm absolutely terrified. The colour left my face long ago.

"We should try and climb, Lektra."

"It's not even worth it, Robyn. Just ... No."

Robyn and Lektra. I know two young crimminal's names.

But not their story.

But there's no more speaking after that and I have no chance of getting away. If these two girls have had the bravery and madness to commit punishable crimes before, they can climb a fifteen foot gate made of metal. And one of them - most likely the more hopeful of the two, Robyn - begins to do just that.

I can hear it.

"Get down!" Lektra hisses. It's funny how I know their names but not what they look like. "You know what - I'm going inside."

"It's fun."

I don't dare look up. I don't want to even breathe. I hold my breath and I'm sure that any minute now she is going to be high enough to be able to see over everything in this alleyway - including the bin I am hiding behind.

After a few more minutes of clanking, rattling, and banging, it all stops. The silence doesn't sound good, doesn't sound healthy. I clench my hands together in a silent prayer and close my eyes, but it's too late.

"Oi!" The girl - Robyn's - voice is sharp and rough and booming and cutting as it makes it way to my ears.

"I don't believe it - Lektra! Look!"

A sigh. Then, "What . . . ?"

"Stand up!" Robyn barks, and when I look up I see a whirl of blue and red before it's gone. Flew down. Robyn didn't get her name for nothing. And there is the sound of clattering footsteps, and suddenly I am not on the ground anymore and I am hanging by my collar against the wall, staring into a pair of mean, greyish-brown eyes which are piercing and make my blood turn to ice.

I can smell the stench of cigarette smoke and dirt and sweat, mixed in with Hubba Bubba strawberry chewing gum and as a thin pair of lips with a steel ball pierced right above them on the left side form the words, "Who are you?" I feel spit fly into my face.

The girl has thick eyebrows and a pale scar across her right cheek which sort of curves, clear against her chestnut, shiny skin. Her nose is long and perfectly straight, and browny-red hair curls in line with the line of her jaw and chin, in a wavy sort of pixie cut.

But this girl is no pixie. She's everyone and everything I was ever scared of at school - times by a million.

As I try to take all of this in, I fail to answer the question on time. My legs hang from me, not touching any floor or anything as my back and my neck is pressed painfully into the cold, rough bricked wall. And I am vaguely aware of more clanking and footsteps but this girl still has her face pressed up right close to mine as she screams, "I asked you who the bloody hell you were! Listening in on our conversation like that!"