A young surfer goes through a painful transformation that leaves him battered, bruised and changed. As he attempts to cope with those changes and the new life he must now live he also stumbles on a conspiracy that threatens his family, his friends and the township he lives in. As a young girl can she deal not only with a new body and new feelings but also overcome the evil that could destroy her.

CHAPTER 9 – Banana Pancakes

School dragged after that but finally the bell went at the end of last period and I rushed to get to Dave’s. I wondered if Tyler would be on the bus today and sure enough he climbed on board and spotted me. His face lit up and he ran to take his seat beside me.

“Hey Jade, how are you, I’m good, Mom said I was her little hero, whatever that is but I got some chocolate last night.”

“Hi Tyler, really that is awesomely wicked. Did you eat it all up?”

“Yup” he said his eyes wide as saucers as he recounted the tale.

We talked non-stop all the way to his house as he held my hand. At times he would jump up and tell a story and at others he sat quietly listening.

“Will you be here tomorrow?” he asked

“Sure will”

“Cooool see ya tomorrow”

“Say hello to your Mom”

“Okay” he said then it was his turn to plant a big sloppy kiss right on my lips.

As he disappeared I gently touched my lips with one finger and in some small way I began to understand how a mother loves her child. I wasn’t free of the self-pity quagmire yet but a little six year old boy was sure doing his best to dig me out. I waved to him out the window and he waved back his school bag swaying. His Mom saw me and waved too mouthing “Hi Jade”

I mouthed back “Hi” before the bus roared off in a cloud of diesel fumes.

Jumping off the bus at my stop I walked toward the store noticing a black car out the front and two guys in there talking to Dave. One was massive and moved slowly yet his eyes looked left and right quickly like a cat while his partner was thinner dressed in a pair of black pants with black fancy boots that came to a point with a silver tip. His shirt was white and open at the neck where two or three gold chains hung. He had a pointed face too, like his boots and a thin moustache and slicked back hair. His eyes were black as coal and he didn’t smile. They weren’t white guys but neither were they black, somewhere in between, Mexican or Puerto Rican maybe.

They were showing him a picture and he was shaking his head.

As I entered the store they were turning to leave and the thinner one grabbed me by my upper arm his hand completely encircling it. He wasn’t rough but he wasn’t gentle either.

“Hey girlie you seen this person?”

He held the photo up to my face and I instantly recognised who it was. I pretended to scrutinise it then shook my head.

“Nope never seen her in my life, why what’s wrong?”

“Aw she’s my boss’s daughter and she’s gone missing. He’s really upset about it so he’s got all us out looking for her”

He wasn’t a very good liar but I continued to pretend although inside I was scared to pieces.

He produced a card with the lettering ‘Melville Imports’ on it and a mobile number.

“If you see her give that number a ring okay. There’s a reward of a thousand bucks if she’s recovered”

“Yeah sure” I said taking the card and carefully putting it in a side pocket of my bag.

He didn’t say ‘found’ or even ‘located’ he said ‘recovered’ like a possession rather than a daughter.

As they left I knew Jacinta was in big trouble if she was found by these gorillas. When I got home I’d let my Mom know what had happened. Maybe it was time to involve the police.

“You okay” asked Dave looks like those guys really shook you up.

I decided not to tell him anything yet so just said “Oh yeah all good” but his look said he didn’t believe me. I obviously wasn’t a very good liar either but he let it drop.

“Go get changed” he said “and does that dress have to be so short?”

I laughed.

“You sound like a Dad”

He smiled sadly at that and I wondered what I’d said wrong.

Hustling off, I changed into a bikini and rash shirt. True to his word Dave put me through the workout from hell and by the end of it I lay panting on my back in the sand barely able to move.

“Well that was a good start but we have to get you doing more and faster. It looks like you’ve lost some of your speed and power Jay but you make up for it with better co-ordination and grace”

I looked over and poked my tongue out at him. He grinned at me and once again I saw that flicker of sadness. Getting up I wobbled over and just gave him a hug.

“Thanks for doing this for me, I really appreciate it”

“I’ll give you a ride home” he said gruffly.

Dave’s car was one of those old jalopies with more rust patches than paint and saggy seats that didn’t let you look out through the windscreen without craning your neck. It probably belonged in a museum somewhere but Dave loved it and everybody knew that for him the trappings of success didn’t come so much from what you owned but what you did for others and how hard you worked on a surfboard.

He did something no one had ever done for me before and opened the door for me to get in. I thanked him and jumped into the seat as he walked around to the driver’s side. I guess you could call Dave nuggety when you looked at him. He had a craggy face that had the wrinkles around his eyes of someone who spent hours in the sunshine while his body was all sinew and muscle from paddling his board through wave after wave. As soon as you met him you couldn’t help liking him and everyone within about a ten mile radius could hear him when he laughed. He was always straight up with everyone, never told a lie if he could help it and expected the truth too.

Which is why he looked directly at me before we drove off and said “You know who she is don’t you?”

“Yeah, sorry I lied before but I didn’t really think I should talk about it. Her name is Jacinta and she kind of fell into our lap. She’s been staying at our place for a few days now getting over her heroin addiction. She told us she’d been kidnapped from her home in Mexico and made to work as a prostitute here. I guess those guys were part of the gang that controlled her.”

“So she’s at your place with your Mom and the boys and you’re what, helping her get over heroin? Shit Jade do you know what could happen if she’s found, what they would do to you and your family?”

“Well what could we do no hospital was going to take her without any citizenship or insurance and the cops would probably have thrown her in a cell to dry out alone and in agony and then just thrown her out into the street again.”

“You could have left her where she was and just kept on walking, that’s what you could have done and not risked your lives for some strange girl.”

“Come on Dave, can you really see any one of our family ever walking past someone who needed our help and besides three of us found her so she had no chance she had to come with us”

He graunched the car into gear and moved slowly off toward home. The sky was turning that evening color of indigo mixed with oranges and yellows and blues far out on the horizon. I guess Dave conceded defeat at that and asked me another question.

“So how are you coping with all the changes, is it weird?”

It was a question I had a feeling he would ask in one form or another and I wanted to be truthful with him.

“Yeah of course it’s weird, it’s something I never ever in a million years thought would happen to me and I’d probably jump at the chance right now if someone told me I could go back to my old life.”

“It must be hard for you and your family coming to terms with it all, but I guess when all is said and done at least they still have you, your alive, they still get to be with you whenever they want and you can still do the things you want to do. Being a girl could be seen as a blessing.”

“That’s one way of looking at it Dave I suppose and yeah being a girl definitely has its advantages I mean breasts are cool, but it’s like every morning I wake up and it’s the first thing on my mind. I can’t get past this new body.”

“Jade that’s gonna happen day after day you’re going to wake up and it will be at the front of your mind but I can promise you one thing”

He looked over at me and I looked at him in the eyes.

“One day you’re going to get up and it will be the second thing you think about”

He reached over and rubbed my arm and smiled.

‘Another step out of the quagmire’ I thought.

We pulled into the driveway and I noticed a single bulb was turned on valiantly fighting the gloom lurking around it in the little carport that the boys kept their bikes in. I saw Tim crouched over his motorbike a spanner in his hand as he adjusted something. Dave swung out of the driver’s seat and walked over to him peering down at what Tim was doing.

I walked toward the door and thanked Dave for the ride. He waved his hand and said

“You working tomorrow?”

“Yup if you need me”

“See you there”

If I ever had to pick someone to be my Dad I knew who would be at the front of the line.

As I walked in Mom was working at the stove while Jacinta stood at the bench chopping something up. Although she was still pale she looked a whole lot better and I felt glad for her. She still looked thin and frail though.

“Hey Mom, I’m home and Dave’s out there just talking to Tim if you want to say hi.”

“That’s great honey, can you go out and tell him to come and see me when he’s finished with Tim?”

“Sure Mom”

As I wandered back out I ran straight into Jeff and just bounced off of him.

“Hey watch it ya big heffalump” I joked and he ruffled my hair.

“Careful boy” I said “takes me ages to style that” although it was a mess after my workout.

“Yeah right grommet, looks like it” he smiled as I skipped off to give Dave, Mom’s message.

“Hey Dave Mom wants to chat with you when you’re finished out here.”

He looked up and said sure thing so I went back to my room and quickly changed into some comfortable clothes. Brushing out my hair took a little more time as I worked to get the knots out. Girl’s hair sure took more effort especially when it was long.

When I got out to the kitchen Dave and Mom were sitting at the table laughing while Jeff and Jacinta were standing together putting the finishing touches to our dinner. Tim wandered in wiping grease off his hands so I plopped down beside Dave and put my head in my hands looking around with a big smile on my face. It felt warm and cosy all together and the atmosphere was like a big woolly blanket that wrapped us up securely. The windows in the kitchen were dewed up and little rivulets would run down every now and then. It meant it was cool outside but warm in and I felt the happiest I’d been for a long time. Dave stayed for dinner, he even made banana pancakes for dessert and we all enjoyed the banter and talked about surfing, school, more surfing and maybe a little bit more about surfing. I laughed till I cried as Dave regaled us with stories and Jeff or Tim would add their bits to what he said.

Jacinta leaned against Jeff and I could tell he was loving her closeness to him. It was a magic night and none of us wanted it to end while the spectre of Jacinta’s hunters was forgotten for a short while.

About 8.00pm Dave leaned back in his chair and excused himself saying he needed an early night at his advanced old age. We all laughed at that and Mom got up to walk him out to his car. We all said goodnight and I gave Dave a hug beaming at him.

“This has been the best night” I said

“Yeah it felt…..good” Dave replied

Jeff and Jacinta got up too announcing they planned on having a stroll around the block and did anyone else want to come.

“You should go too Jade, it’ll help work out the lactic acid from your muscles after this afternoon” said Dave as he left.

“Would that be okay guys” I asked

“Sure Jay, you know you’re always welcome” said Jeff so I rushed off to get my coat.

I heard Dave’s car clunk off and Mom walked back in her arms folded over her chest.

“Don’t be too long it’s cool out” she announced as we walked through the door.

“No worries Mom”

We got to the end of the driveway and turned left walking toward the ocean and the distant crashing of the surf. The closer we got to the beach the more expensive and modern the houses became. As we walked I asked Jacinta what it was like to be owned by the gang.

“It’s horrible Jade, you have no say about anything in your life you can’t go out to the mall shopping when you want, you can’t even pee without permission. They make you do things when they want you to do them and you have to sleep with the men they tell you to, sometimes up to four or five men in a night.”

“Really” my eyes were wide as she spoke.

“There was one guy who I thought was really weird he used to take me up to the edge of the airport runway over there” she said pointing “He’d want to fuck me while a plane was overhead and just as it went over us he would scream and come all over me.”

I gasped this was more than I had ever heard about sex and it both fascinated and sickened me.

As we rounded a corner and about to head home I noticed the glint of a car parked on the side of the road. Normally that wouldn’t be anything to worry about but I noticed that it was black under the street light and there were two guys sitting in the front. One was huge while the other guy seemed to be thinner. I wasn’t sure but the thinner guy might have had a moustache and coal black eyes.