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Running Scared

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Chapter 4

Previously...

I wanted us to get off, but we couldn’t; the train was now on the move and we had nowhere we could go. We couldn’t hide. If we got up and tried to move further down the train, we might draw attention to ourselves.

We were stuck between a rock and a hard place. I hadn’t understood that saying until now.

They got ever closer.

‘Who are they looking for I wonder?’ said a woman sitting opposite us.

I had no idea, but suddenly, one of the policemen looked up and straight at me.

And now, the story continues...

There was nowhere to go. We were like rabbits caught in the headlights.

I grabbed hold of Suzie’s hand and whispered, ‘Don’t say anything and look innocent.’

She actually giggled. How could she giggle at a time like this? Maybe it was nerves. I knew that mine were torn to shreds.

I looked away. I didn’t want to show how terrified I was. The policeman was coming nearer and nearer. He stopped and asked a question of a man sitting in the next row but one. After a few seconds, he had finally reached us.

‘Anything wrong officer?’ asked the lady. I could tell that she was dying to know what was going on.

The policeman looked at Suzie, who was fiddling with her purse and then me. His eyes seemed to see right through me, piercing my soul, or so I thought anyway. Then he looked at the lady.

‘Just looking for some people that might have got onto the train. Have you seen a boy and a girl alone?’

She looked at me and Suze, frowned slightly and then back at the policeman.

‘No officer, sorry I haven’t.’

‘Thanks anyway,’ replied the policeman. ‘Nice kids,’ he continued glancing at Suzie and me.

‘Yes,’ said the lady, sounding slightly puzzled.

I gave him a smile; I hoped that it wasn’t too sickly. Suzie just carried on looking in her purse, ignoring him completely. She was chewing bubble gum and made a big bubble that burst over her lips.

The policeman looked at her with obvious distaste and then carried on, shaking his head slightly. I breathed a quiet sigh of relief. The other policeman passed by, not even looking at us and they were soon at the other end of the carriage.

‘That was strange,’ said the lady, ‘what was all that about, I wonder?’

I shrugged.

‘Don’t know.’

‘By yourselves then?’ asked the lady.

‘Yes, our auntie is picking us up at the station.’

‘Which station?’

‘Paignton,’ I replied without thinking.

She frowned and then shook her head.

‘You shouldn’t be by yourselves on a long train journey,’

‘I’m a big girl!’ I replied indignantly.

‘Erm yes, of course,’ she replied, looking slightly flummoxed. ‘But still, you are a little young to be on a train like this without someone with you.’

‘It’s okay, Daddy and Mummy saw us onto the train and told the conductor or whatever he’s called to look out for us and Auntie is at the other end for us.’

She looked slightly mollified.

‘That’s all right then, you can’t be too careful.’

She smiled and then went back to reading her paper.

Suzie blew another bubble and I sympathised with the policeman; she was a bit disgusting sometimes!

Then I mentally kicked myself. I would have to be careful about what I said to people. I shouldn’t have said anything about our destination. I had a feeling that the policeman thought that the lady opposite was our mother or something, so we were lucky in that respect, as I was obviously dressed as a girl. He was looking for a boy and a girl, not too sweet, innocent girls. All right I wasn’t all that sweet and innocent nor was Suzie for that matter, but you know what I mean!

I hoped that our luck would continue to hold out!

The journey continued and the woman got out at the next station.

‘Look after yourselves girls,’ she said with a smile.

‘Oh we will,’ piped up Suzie with a slight smirk on her face.

I noticed the policemen got off at the same station as the woman and it was lucky that they didn’t seem to notice the fact that we weren’t with her.

That could have been awkward!

Eventually we arrived at Paignton station. That journey had seemed to take forever.

We got our things together and left the train. I was on the lookout for people on the lookout for us, if you know what I mean. No police or suspicious people that I could see. Was I being paranoid? Probably, but that was the way it was.

Then I stopped and Suzie, who was just behind, bumped into me.

‘Oof,’ she exclaimed.

At the exit gate, by the ticket collector stood a policewoman. She appeared to be scanning the crowd and it didn’t take a bright mind to work out that she was looking for someone – probably us or our father.

I grabbed Suzie by the hand.

‘Look Suze, a policewoman.’

‘Oh no.’ She groaned, ‘not again!’

Luckily, there were several people in front of us including a woman pushing a pram. I held on to Suzie and quickly walked up to the lady and followed close behind her to the barrier. I wanted to appear that we were part of her family. I got the idea from the train incident.

‘It might work.’ I thought desperately.

We were so close behind I could smell the lady’s perfume, quite nice but rather overpowering. Enough of that, I had to concentrate.

We got ever closer to the barrier. There were several small groups in front of us, including a man with a boy and girl, slightly older than us, I would say. I tried to appear unconcerned, looking at Suzie; she had zoned out and had that particular bored look on her face that Daddy always hated, especially when it was time to do the washing up or tidying her room. Of course, I never minded doing either of those chores...

Anyway, the policeman seemed rather interested in the man and his kids and he spoke to them as they walked through the barrier and then led them to the side.

Shortly after we were through and we didn’t have to use the “pretending to be with our mother” trick as the policeman was interrogating the man, who was getting a bit irate and loud. His kids looked scared and I wasn’t surprised at that as I knew how they felt!

We stood just outside the station, out of sight of prying eyes while I texted Claire with the agreed message, ‘see you soon’. She must have been waiting for my text as she answered 'ok' straight away.

A woman of few words, I thought as we left the station and looked for a taxi. Luckily, there were several in the road outside and I picked the fourth one as the driver in the third taxi looked slightly shifty.

‘Can you take us to Percival Road please?’ I asked the lady.

‘Yes, get in. Where’s is your parents?’

I don’t think that her English was very good, she appeared to be eastern European, not that that mattered.

‘At home, that’s where we’re going.’

I was getting good at this lying lark.

‘What number?’ asked the lady.

‘Sorry?’ I replied.

‘What number house at Percival Rd.’

‘Oh, Erm 7 please.’

It wasn’t 7 but I didn’t need to tell her that. Maybe the spy gene my Dad obviously had was rubbing off on me!

‘I’m hungry,’ complained Suzie.

‘We’ll eat when we get home,’ I replied.

‘What?’

‘Home, you know, where we live, Percival Rd.?’ I gave her some meaningful looks and pointed at the back of the driver.

She looked puzzled. I do wish that she paid more attention.

‘Oh right,’ she finally said, getting my meaning – at last.

The woman didn’t say much, which was good as I didn’t want to talk to her. The less said the better as far as I was concerned.

It was a bit grey and drizzly; seaside towns at that time of year were not exactly jolly in the bad weather. But, I didn’t mind as we weren’t there to holiday, but to hide.

‘I wonder what the house is like,’ whispered Suzie.

‘Don’t know, but that’s the least of our worries, now don’t say anything more. I don’t want to raise any suspicions.’

‘Her? She can hardly string two words together.’

‘Don’t be rude Suzie, I bet you couldn’t talk Latvian or whatever language her home tongue is.’

With that, Suzie went into huffy mode and just stuck her tongue out.

As we went along Suzie lapsed into silence and started playing with her Game Girl or whatever it was called. I stared out of the window, wondering how long the journey would take and thinking about Claire. Was she nice, was she pretty, what was her daughter like and finally, we were going into a trap?

Daddy trusted her, should I?

I sighed; too many questions and not enough answers.

I looked down at my skirt and smiled. At least I was able to look like a girl now. No one seemed to notice anything different about me. I had always wondered whether I would pass as a girl and it seemed that I did.

For years, I had had a recurring nightmare about me being in a crowd of people dressed as a girl and then everyone turned on me and accused me of being a boy in a dress. The ground opened up and I was swallowed up. I went down a long tube and ended up in a cellar without doors and windows. I couldn’t get out and all I could hear was the screams of my accusers echoing from above. I usually woke up sweating then, which was a good thing, considering...

Would Claire accept me as a girl and would her daughter too?

That got me thinking about how we found ourselves here in a taxi, being driven towards a house that we had never been to; to see people that we didn’t know and a future that was as uncertain as the latest boy band to hit the streets. Was I being paranoid about everybody being after us? Was the helicopter really looking for us? The policemen asking questions on the train and at the station; was that about us too or was it just a series of coincidences?

No, I didn’t believe that for a minute.

From the brief and hurried words that we exchanged in the car as we were being chased, I was convinced that our father had become involved in something rather nasty, something that meant that he was being chased and hounded. The knowledge that he had was dangerous to some rather highly placed individuals. They were using the power of the system to try to stop him and they would, I believed, stop at nothing to get their man and that included capturing us to use a lever to get him to give himself up. I had no idea whether the police force knew what was going on or if they were just following orders,

This was no good, I was going around in circles playing the “what if” game. I would know soon enough. I felt slightly nauseous, sick with worry if you like; and to cap it all I was desperate for a wee. Given the things that we were going through, it was hardly surprising.

As you can probably tell, Jennifer was not a happy bunny!

We were now in the outskirts of town and the houses were thinning out. A few moments later we pulled into a wide tree-lined road with rather large houses with long drives.

The driver pulled up outside a particularly large house and said, ‘£20.’

Looking in my purse, I gave her £20 and a £5 tip. I had no idea if that was right, but as she didn’t shout and scream at me, I assumed that she was happy with that.

We got out and grabbed our bags and seconds later we were on our own as the lady went off without a smile or goodbye.

‘She wasn’t very nice,’ remarked Suzie.

‘At least she got us here.’ I replied, ‘now we need number 16.’

We crossed the road and walked up it, looking for the right number. Whoever lived in this neighborhood was quite well off. The cars parked outside on the drives looked expensive and the houses themselves big and well looked after.

Luckily, due to the weather, we didn’t meet anyone as we walked along. I rather regretted wearing a skirt as my legs were cold, but it was a minor inconvenience that we girls had to suffer sometimes, so I put up with it without complaint. Not so, Suzie.

‘I’m cold and hungry.’

‘Not far now, look this is 14, the next one is ours.’

We went past some high hedging and then there were twin wooden gates on one was the number 16 and on the other the name “Faraway”.

We had arrived.

There was another smaller gate next to the big ones and we let ourselves in.

The gravel drive seemed like a hundred yards leading up to the house, but I think that that was because I was nervous; the drive was long, but not that long.

Was it a trap?

Were there policemen or enemy agents waiting to pounce on us and take us prisoner?

Had we made a terrible mistake?

My heart was pounding and my palms sweaty as we carried on down that ever so long drive.

Before we reached the house, the door opened and a woman stood there.

She was smiling and had her arms open.

Suddenly, everything seemed okay, as we hurried up and fell into her arms. She held us in an embrace so much like our mothers’ that I couldn’t help but cry. I wasn’t the only one crying as Suzie and Claire were at it too!

The hug seemed to go on for ages as all my worries seemed to evaporate. I felt safe for the first time since it all started.

‘Ahem.’

We detached ourselves and looking behind Claire. In the spacious hall stood a girl, one with crutches and a leg in plaster. About my age, I would say and looking very much like a younger version of her mother. She had a big frown on her face and didn’t seem too pleased to see us.

‘Oh sorry girls, this is my daughter Stephanie.’

‘Hello,’ she said in a frosty voice, ‘so, which one of you is the boy?’

‘Stephanie, don’t be so rude!’

Claire looked more than a little annoyed.

My heart sank and I was ready to cry.

‘We’re both girls, do you need glasses?’ replied Suzie indignantly.

Stephanie looked as if Suzie was something nasty that she found at the bottom of her shoe and then, she put her hand up to her mouth and suddenly giggled.

‘It’s no good, the look on your faces, it was to die for.’

‘Stephanie, that was not funny, say sorry to the girls.’

Her face fell as she mumbled, ‘sorry, just a joke. I didn’t mean to hurt you.’

Claire turned to us.

‘You’ll have to forgive my daughter; she has a rather weird sense of humour.’

‘That’s all right.’ I said, swallowing hard and trying not to blub like a kid.

I was getting very emotional at the slightest thing. It must be the girl in me.

Stephanie hobbled up on her crutches. I could tell that she wasn’t used to using them very much.

‘Look, I am sorry, I do have a strange sense of humour, I didn’t mean to upset you. I am pleased to see you both, Mummy has told me all about you and I do think that you are terribly brave to have gone through what you have and arrived here safely. I haven’t met your dad yet, but Mummy loves him, so he must be nice too.’

‘Steph, you are embarrassing me.’

‘Well you do love him, don’t you? You go all gooey eyed when you talk about him and all those long conversations you have on the phone, whispering sweet nothings. I’m surprised that you don’t have tooth decay!’

All thoughts of crying were forgotten as we all laughed at the description. Claire looked embarrassed, but I noted that she didn’t contradict her wayward daughter.

It looked like things between us were going to be ok.

Before I knew it, we were sitting down eating sandwiches and cups of tea in the rather large lounge. That is Steph, Suzie and I were snacking. Claire just sat by the window, reading a book. Evidentially, we would have a takeaway delivered in about an hour’s time, but being young, we were always hungry and never turned down food when it was offered to us!

It was strange, as no-one was talking about the situation we found ourselves in. It was as if everything was on hold until we had settled ourselves in. Even Stephanie, who looked as if she would burst if she didn’t say something, anything about what was going on, kept silent. Suzie was doing her usual impression of a Labrador, scoffing her food down as if there was no tomorrow.

After finishing our snack, I looked at Claire. She was staring out of the window. I had no idea what she was thinking about, but she looked a bit worried. She was so pretty; I could see why Daddy fell for her as she had brains as well as beauty. I hoped that we would all get on. Would Daddy marry her once we had all gotten out of this mess? I kind of hoped so I. I was desperate to be part of a whole family again.

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Please leave comments and let me know if you want this to continue. Oh, and if you can, please do the kudo-thingie...thanks! ~Sue