A Child In Need

Two years as country magistrate… Two years of purgatory! He rounded the headland, still groaning. Bay Beach lay before him, its whitewashed stone cottages glistening in the morning sun. The fishing fleet was coming in-at least, it must be the fishing fleet. There were six boats heading into harbour, and surely there couldn’t be many more boats than six in this ends-of-the-earth place?

‘I’ll go stark, staring crazy,’ he told himself. The sea air was blowing warmly on his face but he hardly noticed. His skin was so tanned he didn’t fuss about protection, and his deep black hair was combed into submission so firmly the sea air didn’t shift it. He sniffed-and wrinkled his aquiline nose in disgust. Salt! And cow dung! Ugh! Give him petrol fumes and city pollution any day!

Another bend in the road and the town limits came into view. There was a petrol station on this side of the town boundary and, on impulse, Nick pulled in. He had to fill the car with petrol, and he might as well do it now-give him a few more minutes before he entered this dump!

He pulled up to the bowser, looked idly over at the youth pulling petrol at the pump beside him-and his life changed for ever.

‘I need to go to the bathroom.’

Shanni sighed and rolled her eyes as three-year-old Hugh made his life or death announcement. It was Friday morning-thank heaven-the end of a week which seemed to have gone on for ever.

‘Marg, can you take Hugh?’ Her assistant at Bay Beach Kindergarten was preparing milk and fruit. This would be Marg’s fourth trip to the toilet during reading, and the way they were going milk and fruit wouldn’t be ready until lunch-time. But needs must.

Calm and unflappable, Marg grinned good-naturedly, shrugged, and took Hugh’s hand. ‘Okay, Hugh, let’s go. But we’d best hurry. This is a very exciting story.’

‘Miss McDonald always tells exciting stories,’ Hugh announced. ‘I tell them to my dad, and my dad says, “Why can’t exciting things like that happen around here?”’

‘I guess pirates wouldn’t be a very peaceful thing to have around in real life,’ Shanni said thoughtfully. ‘What do you think, boys and girls? Would we like it if a real live pirate climbed through the window?’

‘Oh-h-h no…’

But as Shanni went back to reading she couldn’t stop a vague feeling of regret. Oh-h-h, no. But…

Maybe not a pirate-but something! Sometimes Bay Beach was just too quiet for words.

I wouldn’t mind one very small pirate, she thought as she went back to reading of Dirty Dick’s Dastardly Deeds. An image of her John rose before her-kind and placid and as immovable as the Friesian cows he ran on his property. They’d be married soon, Shanni knew. All in good time. When he’d paid off the new dairy and had enough to put a decent size down payment on a new home. He had it all planned out.

‘Just a very small pirate,’ she whispered to herself, and then went back to her book-which was the only place around here that things happened.

It was Len Harris.

Nick stared at the youth beside him and the name was burned into his brain. They were all of two feet apart. No!

Two weeks back, Nick’s junior, Elsbeth, had taken Len on as a duty solicitor case, and she’d asked Nick’s advice. ‘He’s on his ninth conviction but he’s only sixteen. How do I keep him out of remand home?’

‘You don’t,’ Nick said, skimming through the file and closing it with a snap of finality. ‘Hopeless. Save your talent for something worthwhile.’

‘He probably won’t even get to court,’ Elsbeth said morosely. ‘I’ll spend days on this and then he’ll skip bail.’

Which was exactly what must have happened. Nick had seen him in his pre-court briefing. Len had been dragged into chambers by his social worker and, like Elsbeth, Nick had thought the kid’s chances of making court were somewhere between zero and none. Len had looked surly, defiant and fearless.

Which was just the look he gave Nick now. The youth stared at him for a long minute-enough to recognise Nick as surely as Nick recognised him-and then he swore. He threw the fuel hose aside so it snaked away still spurting petrol, he leaped into the Mercedes he was driving-that had to be stolen-and he spun out of the petrol station leaving a trail of burned rubber behind him.

‘Harry, don’t you want to hear about the pirates?’ Before she returned to reading, Shanni tried one more time to attract Harry’s attention. Harry was three years old-almost four-like the rest of her class-but Harry was different. Abused and battered, he’d only just joined the kindergarten after being moved from an uncaring family situation into one of the five homes that made up the local orphanage.

‘You don’t need to take him on if you don’t think you can cope,’ Shanni had been told by the welfare authorities. But of course she’d taken him. How could she not? Harry was enough to wrench the most hardened of hearts.

Harry’s leg was recovering now from a break which had been poorly tended in the past. It had needed resetting, and because the healing was taking so long it was bound in a fibreglass cast with an inbuilt heel. The whole structure seemed much too heavy for such a little body.

The child was so small-little more than a baby, really-and he was permanently withdrawn from the world. He spent his kindergarten time underneath the furthest table, and if Shanni or anyone else tried to drag him out he kicked and screamed until he was allowed to return. After a month in kindergarten, Shanni was no closer to reaching him than the day he’d arrived.

But still she tried.

‘This is a really exciting book,’ she told Harry, but the huge eyes peering out distrustfully at the world edged further back into the shadows.

The rest of her children were waiting. Shanni sighed and kept on reading. Pirates. Pirates and problems…

‘Police? It’s Nick Daniels here, the new magistrate.’ Nick was back behind the wheel of his car and was barking into his mobile phone. ‘There’s a youth driving south into town in a grey Mercedes. He’s sixteen, a bail absconder and erratic as hell. He’s seen me and thinks I’m after him. The way he’s driving he’s heading for trouble. I’m driving behind him, but I’ve backed off so he doesn’t think I’m chasing him. He’s turning left toward the coast. He’s… No!’

Shanni read on.

‘He took his cutlass in his hand and waved it fiercely over his head. “Give me all your treasure,” the pirate yelled, and Miss Mary frowned.

“You’re not a very polite pirate. Hasn’t your mummy ever taught you to say please?”

Dirty Dick glowered and waved his cutlass some more. “All your treasure, I said-”’

There was an almighty smash, and a huge grey car came crashing through the kindergarten fence. Shanni’s book dropped to the floor as the car ended up with its nose pressed hard against the kindergarten windows.

‘It’s crashed.’ Nick was still connected to the police, his hands-free phone letting him concentrate on driving as he talked. ‘Dear God, it’s a kindergarten. I’m pulling up. Back off. Don’t let any police near. He’s capable of doing something really stupid…’

But even as he said it he heard sirens in the distance and knew it was too late. Len, sitting dazed and scared witless in his smashed car, would hear the sirens too. If he was capable of getting out of the car, what would he do now?

And suddenly Nick knew. He swerved into the kerb, got out, left his car where it was and started to run.

‘Children, don’t move. Marg, stay with them.’ Marg had burst back into the room at the sound of the crash and was staring out through the cracked windows at the mess outside. Her jaw was sagging almost to her waist. ‘Call the ambulance and the police.’ Shanni could see smoke drifting up from the engine. If the driver was trapped…