Slated

Chapter 20

For your enjoyment
-Hollie. Song: slow dancing in the dark- joji
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He spreads white stuff – cement? – with a metal thing like a pie spatula across the top row, then, one at a time, plonks bricks on top. Wipes cement that oozes out between the bricks, smoothes it around between them. Then starts on another row.

I stare. He glances up a few times, keeps working, placing the bricks one after another.

I know I'm staring, and that you shouldn't stare at people: they generally don't like it. But I can't help myself.

Brick after brick. It is five rows off the ground now.

If I stand here much longer, there will be trouble. Mum is probably timing how long it should take me to mail the letter still clutched in my hand at the post box on the corner of the next street. The first time I've been allowed to go anywhere on my own. It will also be the last time if I don't get on with it, most likely.

He looks up again, sits back on his haunches. About thirty years old, in blue overalls covered in streaks of paint, cement, grime. Greasy hair. He spits on the ground.

"Well?" he says.

I jump.

"You want something, darling?" He grins as his eyes focus on my wrist, my Levo, then slide back up to my face.

"Sorry," I say, and dash across the street and around the corner, hearing him laugh behind me.

I post the letter and cross back again. There is a white van parked where he works, with Best Builders painted across it. He is still placing bricks one after another, building a garden wall.

He whistles when he sees me and I keep walking, cheeks burning, home.

"What took you so long?" Mum says, perched on the front step. Watching, she'd waved as soon as I turned the corner to our street.

"Nothing; just walking."

"Is everything all right?"

"Yes, fine." I head for the stairs.

"Where are you going?"

I turn. "To do some homework,"I lie.

"Well, all right. Diligent little student, aren't you? Dinner will be in an hour."

In my room I shut the door and grab my sketch pad, hands shaking. My Levo starts to drop: 4.4.... 4.2...

And I start drawing a wall. Brick after brick from the ground up. My pencil moves fast and then faster; my Levo stops falling, then creeps back up to 5. I must finish the wall, and I must draw it with my right hand for it to be correct. After everything today: Tori returned, Lorders in Assembly, Lorders in my dream. Somehow I know that as long as I build the wall, everything will be fine.

Green trees blue sky white clouds green trees blue sky white clouds...

"Not the most interesting subject."

I jump. Amy: somehow she must have opened the door, crossed the room and looked over my shoulder, all without me hearing a sound.

I snap my sketch pad shut, and shrug. Calmer, now that the drawing is finished: the bricks cover every space on the page. Somehow, this is very important.

Why?

I almost forget about the wall during dinner. The surprise announcement from Mum that she and Dad have decided, Slated or not, Amy is old enough to see Jazz if she wants. Washing up, which I am starting to hate now the novelty has worn off. Homework – real homework, this time.

But before I go to sleep I pull out the drawing, checking there are no gaps in the wall, no imperfections that can be got through. By what, I do not know. I shade in around the edges and finally put it down, close my eyes. Seeking blankness, nothingness, sleep.

But all I see are bricks being slapped in place, one after another.

Bricks...cement...

Wall.

Pain fills my legs, my chest. There is no going on, not for me. I collapse on the sand.

It doesn't matter how he shouts or threatens or pleads, nothing he can do to me will matter soon.

It's getting closer.

He kneels and holds me and looks in my eyes. "Never forget who you are. It's time. Quick, now! Put up the wall."

Closer.

So I build it, brick by brick; row by row. A high tower all around.

"Never forget who you are," he shouts, and shakes me, hard, as I put the last brick – clink – into place. It cuts out all light.

All there is now, is blackness, and sound.

Horrible screams split my skull. Terror and pain, like an animal backed in a corner. Facing death.

Or something worse.

It is a while before I realise.

It is me.

Then, it is as if I step through a kaleidoscope; everything shifts and changes. Grasses tickle my bare feet. Children's voices sound through trees, but I lay down, hidden in the long grass, and watch clouds drift across the sky. I don't want to play today.

Gradually the clouds and the grass drift away. I open my eyes, dreaming over for tonight. I won't shut them again.

It worked, once again – going to my Happy Place in the middle of a nightmare.

But this time, I hadn't wanted to leave it, no matter how horrible. I was sure I was about to find out something, something important. As if seeing bricks cemented into place today, one after another to form a wall, somehow triggered something deep inside. Some recognition, a trail that if followed may help me finally understand who or what I am, what is wrong with me.

What was chasing? Who was the man? Never forget who you are, he said.

But I have.

Most of all: why – and how – was I building a wall?