Disharmony

gym, mentally wishing it good riddance. He had no intention of ever again being the surrogate ball for No Rules Basketball. When they reached the silent dining hall, he glanced over at Zac, who looked as if he were merely strolling along, giving no sign that the sharpness of the incline had now increased dramatically. Luke breathed hard, trying to concentrate on negotiating the sucking mud and hidden rocks on this side of the complex.

His heart beat even faster when he spotted the workshop in the darkness ahead. He didn’t see any lights on, but that didn’t necessarily mean things would be okay. Everything hinged on whether Mad Mike and his fiancee were fighting tonight. Since he’d come up with this part of the plan a few weeks ago, he’d been working hard on getting to know the psycho groundskeeper. During Landscaping Lab, three days a week, he’d learned about Mike’s love-affair with his fiancee Narelle, her love-affair with rum, and how once every fortnight or so Mad Mike spent the night in the workshop at Dwight, when Narelle was too juiced up and had kicked him out of their caravan. When Mike had threatened to leave her altogether, declaring that he’d prefer to stay here in the shed until he could find a new place, Luke had gone to work, encouraging Mike to persevere with the love of his life. He knew Mad Mike was meant for Narelle, but hell, if he was wrong, Mike could figure that out on his own time; after Luke had left Dwight for good. Luke figured he wasn’t doing anything too terrible. He couldn’t imagine any other woman taking Mike in.

Exhausted, he slowed to a walk and motioned to Zac to do the same. Quiet now, they crept closer to the workshop. He couldn’t hear anything, but Mike could be in there, lights off, sleeping. If he was in there, he’d have no idea what was going on in the dorms, Luke reasoned. The screws wouldn’t have thought to call for assistance from the workshop; no one but Luke knew that Mike spent his Narelle-free nights there. He moved around the side of the building to where the moonlight hit the window; he figured if he could just get a glimpse inside he could be sure this plan would work. But if Mad Mike was in there, they’d have to find another way out.

Carefully, he tiptoed up to the window, but it was no good. He wasn’t tall enough to reach the ledge. He thought about jumping up and grabbing hold, but if Mike was in there he might hear the noise. He chewed his lip in frustration – all this was taking much too long.

‘Let me do it,’ whispered Zac by his side. ‘Tell me what you’re looking for.’

‘Mad Mike,’ whispered Luke.

‘Great,’ breathed Zac. ‘Move over there a bit.’

Zac took three steps backwards and suddenly, before Luke could even register what had happened, he had sprung forward and run up the side of the building. Luke didn’t catch it all, but somehow Zac managed to leap up onto the very side edge of the window ledge and flatten his back to the wall, his left hand gripping the top of the window frame and his left foot on the ledge. Impossibly, his other hand and foot hung free. He balanced there, silently. No part of his body could have been visible from inside the window unless someone was standing right up against the glass, looking for him.

Luke stared, his mouth open. Zac smiled down at him. Then slowly, Zac turned his head towards the window, angling his face to the glass.

He dropped noiselessly to the grass. ‘Nobody in there,’ he said.

Luke closed his mouth and shook his head. ‘Okay, come on.’

He raced around to the front of the workshop and there she was.

‘Oh. No. Way,’ said Zac.

The swamp rat. Parked exposed-engine forward and facing the steep incline, gaping holes where the doors should have been, the car hunkered down in the moonlight like some malformed beast. Luke jogged around to the driver’s side. ‘Get in,’ he grinned.

‘Oh, so this is the plan,’ said Zac. ‘The plan that was better than us running clear out the gates when we had the chance, running quietly into the bush until we could mingle in with others and get away. Could you just confirm for me that this is the plan?’

‘It’s the plan,’ said Luke. ‘But we have to go now, while everyone’s still in the dorms and they won’t see us. Get in.’

‘Oh, of course, now I get it,’ said Zac. ‘No one will see us. But they will freakin’ hear us a hundred kilometres away, you lunatic!’

‘I said, trust me,’ said Luke. ‘Get in, now. Or stay here. Decide.’

He took two steps to the front of the car and bent towards the tyre. Even in the near darkness he could tell that the steel belts of the tyre were protruding – the rubber was worn almost completely through. He hoped this thing could take the surface of the road. He shoved hard with his foot at the wooden wedge that stopped the car rolling forward. That was going to be the other problem, he thought. The swamp rat pretty much had no brakes. Mad Mike would stand up on them to slow down, and would finally stop her by rolling into something.

With the wedge gone, the vehicle started to move slightly. Luke jumped into the driver’s seat. He leaned over towards the passenger door.

‘Coming?’ he said to Zac, who was still standing out there.

Zac swung himself in and looked around for a seatbelt.

‘There aren’t any,’ said Luke.

He turned the key around to Accessories, but didn’t start the car.

‘The keys are just left in here?’ said Zac.

‘Someone would steal this?’ said Luke.

The swamp rat started to gather speed.

‘I have to ask,’ said Zac. ‘What are we going to do when you start this thing and they come running, Luke? They’ll see us driving and call the cops straight away. Even if we make it out of here, this is not the sort of car we can just slip into traffic with.’

‘By the time they hear us, we’ll have a good head start. You’ll see,’ said Luke.

He stuck his foot out of the car and pushed against the ground. The swamp rat rolled faster.

‘Push,’ he said to Zac.

He’d watched Mad Mike do this maybe twenty times. And Darnell Coffee, an older kid he lived with in a refuge when he was between foster families, had taken him out car ‘borrowing’ once or twice, and that was where he’d first learned to pop a clutch.

The extensive grounds of the Dwight Juvenile Justice Centre were built up along the broad flank of the steepest hill in Windsor, and aside from the out-of-bounds-never-used swimming pool and tennis courts, the workshop was perched at the highest point of that hill. From the workshop, straight down past the dorms, through the quadrangle, past Admin, and directly out the gates, ran a gravel road. Mad Mike used this hill every day to get the swamp rat going. The engine had long ago stopped turning over with the key, he’d told Luke, but just give her a roll with the ignition on, foot down on the clutch, and when she has a bit of speed – not too much, boy, or you’ll lose control – lift your foot off the clutch, and bang! Up she starts!

The bushes along the gravel road flicked by faster and faster now. Luke was thankful for the wan moonlight. He couldn’t have risked turning on the one remaining headlight, even if he’d needed to. He gripped the steering wheel with both hands, trying to stop himself from looking around for a seatbelt that he knew didn’t exist. He kept both feet stamped down on the pedals, one on the clutch and the other on the all-but-useless footbrake, trying to keep some sort of control. The swamp rat rattled and bounced as it gained momentum. From the corner of his eye, Luke saw that Zac had his feet up on the dash in crash position.

As they rolled with gathering speed towards the open expanse of the quadrangle, Luke allowed himself to really start to worry about the next bit of this scheme. Mad Mike had done his part of the job, keeping Narelle happy and staying out of the workshop, but Luke now had to hope that he and Zac had been fast enough to get back to the gates before they automatically closed.

The swamp rat skipped and bounded over the uneven gravel road, breaking clear of the bushed area and into the open quadrangle, and tension began to creep up Luke’s neck.

For the first time he began to doubt his plan. What if they had been too slow? What if the gates had already closed?

The swamp rat was now unstoppable. She hurdled and leapt along, sometimes hitting a rough patch and becoming airborne for a couple of seconds. Luke clenched his teeth to stop himself from biting his tongue, his foot jammed down on the brake, which was doing absolutely nothing as far as he could tell. He glanced to his right and there was Dorm Four, brightly lit from within, but still with not a soul to be seen. A flick of his eyes to the left showed Zac, white-faced, bouncing in his seat, his arms wrapped around his knees.