Footprints (17 page)

She rises and dresses carefully – sneakers and loose canvas pants for speed, and because they won't snag on the undergrowth if she has to run. Jean jacket over her tee-shirt. Thin gloves in one of the pockets, so she doesn't leave fingerprints on the device. Hair tucked into her corduroy ball cap to keep it from her eyes. She looks at herself in the mirror. Sets the cap backwards. Better. Now – from a distance and moving fast – she might be girl or boy. She looks again and grins at herself. Her eyes glitter. She remembers one of the posters in Lully's study:
Dress like a bourgeois. Think like a revolutionary. – Thomas Mann
. She doesn't know whether she looks like a bourgeois – she's not sure what a bourgeois is – but if a revolutionary was someone who pursued profound social change that went against the order of the day, in true belief and without fear of the consequences, as Lully said, then she feels she's on her way to thinking like one. She hopes Lully will be proud of her when she recounts the exploit to him on his return. Although she knows Drumgold won't like it, she's determined she'll be the one to place the device under the barn. She wants to do it for Lully and for George.

She makes lunches for herself and her father. Writes a note for him:
Good morning! I've gone to the daycare early. Don't know what hours you're working today, but I've made you a lunch anyway. If you're home – you can picnic! I'll get supper. See you later
. She does a line of X's and O's.

She lets herself out of the house and goes next door. She
looks in the barbecue. The device is there. It's as Lully described, a short length of steel pipe, capped at both ends. Two wires protrude from one end and lead to a timer and a battery taped to the pipe. The timer's counter shows 6:00 hours. She picks up the device. The counter changes to 5:59. She has a moment of panic: Supposing it goes off early? How badly will she be burned? Then she remembers Lully's calm confidence when he told her and the boys about the device – indeed, his calm confidence about everything – and relaxes. She slips it into her backpack, beside her lunch and the clean tee-shirt she always carries in case one of the kids at daycare has an accident on her.

She swings the backpack over one shoulder, like Lully, and sets off through the trailer park, heading for the old logging road. Drumgold had said they were to meet there, rather than walk through town together, because that would draw attention to them. Harper had said, “But no-one's going to be suspicious of us. Are they?” and Isora had told him, “Relax, Harp. It's just a precaution.” She's preparing to run from the trailer park and across Main Street, on to the old logging road, when she notices the police car parked at the entrance to the trailer park. She slows. She could wait for the car to move on, or she could backtrack, slip between two of the trailers, and fight her way through the woods to the logging road. It would be a difficult route, and she'd have to cross the highway, which is busy at this time of the morning, when the aquaculture workers are on their way out to the cages. She decides to take the route through the woods and is choosing which trailers she can best slip between without risk of being seen, when she glances back at the police car. Someone is watching her. Camera Woman. It's too late – too suspicious – for her to turn around. She keeps going. She reaches Main Street and instead of crossing and heading for the logging road, turns towards the town centre. As she passes
the car, the door opens and Camera Woman confronts her.

“May I ask your name and where you're going?”

Isora says, “It's...I'm...”

Sgt. Chase hurries from the driver's side and says, “I know this young lady.” He smiles at Isora. “Is everything all right?”

Isora nods.

Camera Woman is eyeing Isora's backpack. She says, “You're out early.”

Sgt. Chase says, “My guess is Ms. Lee is on her way to the daycare.”

Isora lies, “I want to get in early because we didn't have time to finish clearing up yesterday after the kids left.”

“Good girl,” says Sgt Chase.

Camera Woman says, “It's only six o'clock.”

“I'm going to clear up, and then if there's time I'll go for a jog before the kids arrive. I always go for a jog before work. It's the only chance I get to stay in shape.”

Sgt. Chase smiles. “You look in good shape to me.”

Camera Woman says, “What's in the backpack?”

Sgt. Chase interrupts. “You can be sure this young lady is too busy running the house and bossing her father around, as well as doing her summer job, to get up to any mischief. Isn't that right, Ms. Lee?”

Isora nods.

“Is your dad getting much work?”

Isora nods again.

“That's good. It's a shame how he got laid off by the mill. A smart man like him should be doing more than janitoring. Let's hope Mr. Anderson gets the mill running and gives him his old job back.” Sgt. Chase smiles down at her. “You have a good day, my dear.”

Watching Isora walk away, he thinks, I still haven't got
around to talking to that young lady's father about the vandalism at the Anderson cottage, any more than I have the parents of her friends. But there's not much point talking to Mr. Lee. If it is those kids doing the vandalism – that cute little Isora and her strange buddy Drumgold and Doug Meating's boy – she's not the leader, any more than goofy old Harper is. I'll talk to Mrs. Drumgold, ask her how things are going, if she's heard from that worthless husband of hers, and just drop into the conversation we think her boy might be getting into a little mischief – nothing serious, just the usual teenage foolishness – and she might like to keep a careful eye on him.

He'd offer to have a little talk with the boy himself, if she wanted, seeing as how the poor kid didn't have a proper father. He thinks the kids were probably responsible for getting the load of fertilizer delivered to the Anderson cottage – he smiles to himself as he recollects the trick – and might also have been responsible for vandalizing Mr. Anderson's car. But he didn't think they were capable of shooting out the cottage windows and setting the trap with the broken glass. Even the Drumgold youngster, strange as he was, wouldn't go that far. It seemed more likely that was the work of someone seriously into intimidation, or of someone crazy, like poor old Garrett Needle, not of a bunch of kids pissed off, understandably, because suddenly they couldn't play on a beach where they'd gone for years. He'd get around to the vandalism business in his own sweet time. Right now, he had more serious things on his mind than being a social worker.

Isora strides up Main Street towards the daycare. She hears the police car start. She waits a few seconds and sneaks a glance behind her. Sgt. Chase is pulling into the trailer park. She waits another few seconds before glancing back to make sure the car is out of sight. She runs across Main Street and heads into the
logging road. As soon as she's sure she can't be seen from Main Street, she slows her pace. She shifts the backpack on her shoulder and feels Lully's incendiary device hard against her back. She wonders where he is now on his journey to his mother's. She hopes his mother will be all right. She realizes suddenly that she's afraid she's lost her special place in Lully's life, as the keeper of George when he's away. She feels diminished in his eyes, first because she let George get shot, and now because in doing so, she's rendered herself unnecessary to him. She wonders, in the future, will he even bother to tell her when he's going away?

It's nearly seven o'clock, and she's approaching the spot where the trail to the camp strikes through the woods. This is where they are to meet. Harper steps from behind a tree. He's wearing his long coat and his old hat. She remembers wondering whether she looked like a bourgeois, whatever a bourgeois was, and asks herself what Harper looks like, and decides he couldn't look like anyone except...Harper.

He says, “Where is it?”

“In my backpack.”

“Do you want me to carry it – in case it goes off?”

“It won't. I'm okay. How long have you been waiting here?”

Harper says sheepishly, “About half an hour. Perhaps a bit more. I couldn't sleep.”

“Poor Harp,” says Isora. “Are you still worrying?”

“'Course I am.”

“You're like our conscience, you know, the way you're always worrying. We need you, Drumgold and me, to stop us doing something really stupid.”

“You'd never do anything really stupid,” says Harper. He looks up and down the logging road. “Suppose we should wait in the woods, in case someone comes along?”

“Who's going to come along at this time of the morning?” says Isora. “We never see anyone out here, anyway.”

Harper shrugs.

Isora says, “Relax, Harp. Everything's going to be okay.”

“What did you tell your dad?”

“About what?”

“About going out early.”

“I didn't. He was asleep.”

“You and Drumgold have it easy with your folks,” Harper grumbles. “Mine were up before me. I told them I was meeting you and Drumgold for breakfast because we were going to plan a trip to Saint-Leonard for the weekend. It was the best story I could come up with. Suppose it was okay to say that? Should I tell Drumgold?”

“It'll be okay, Harp,” Isora says again. “Stop worrying.”

“I mean, we do meet for breakfast, don't we, sometimes? It's not a complete lie.”

Drumgold appears, sauntering towards them.

Isora contemplates him, his slight frame and drawn face and dark eyes, the jeans and the black tee-shirt, the old field jacket and the cap, and thinks, It could be Lully walking towards me.

He greets Isora with, “Have you got it?”

She nods.

“Shall I carry it?”

Isora shakes her head. “I'm okay.”

“Did anyone see you coming out here?”

Harper shakes his head.

Isora says, “Sgt. Chase and Camera Woman were snooping around. They were parked at the entrance to the trailer park. By the time I saw the car it was too late to avoid them.”

Drumgold says, “Shit.”

Harper says, “We better call it off.”

“It's okay,” says Isora. “I told them I was going to work early.”

“And they believed you?” says Drumgold.

“'Course they did,” says Isora. She smirked. “Sgt. Chase likes me. Anyway, why would they suspect anything?”

“Okay,” says Drumgold. “Let's do it.”

They walk on, warily crossing the Old Beach Road and plunging through the woods until they come to their hiding place opposite the cottage gates. Isora slips the backpack from her shoulder.

“Let's see it,” says Drumgold.

Isora slips on her gloves and takes the incendiary device from the backpack. The timer reads 4:31.

Drumgold says, “Is that all there is to it?”

He takes it, holding it with his handkerchief. The timer changes to 4:30.

Harper flinches. “Better be careful with it, eh?”

“It won't go off until noon,” says Isora. “Dex said he'd set the timer. We just have to put it under the barn.”

“I wonder how it'll go off,” says Harper. “I mean, will it be like an explosion, or like a sort of whoosh, like when you throw gas on a fire, or...or like a sort of flame thrower?”

“It'll be like a flare,” says Drumgold confidently. He looks across the Old Beach Road at the cottage gates and adds, “You guys wait here.”

Isora takes the device from him.

Drumgold frowns. “I'll set it.”

“I'll set it,” says Isora firmly.

“Too risky,” says Drumgold.

“You can't do it, Is,” says Harper. “Suppose you get caught, or suppose it goes off before you get clear. I'll...I'll do it.”

“That's sweet of you, Harp – you, too, Drumgold – but it's my job. I'm the one who was supposed to be looking after George, so I'm the one who's going to get revenge.” She goes on quickly, as Drumgold prepares to interrupt, “And I'm the one that got the code, and I'm the fastest. Remember, the gates only stay open for a few seconds after the code goes in. And if anyone sees me, like Diamond Head or Droopy, or even Anderson, they're not going to recognize me.”

“They've seen you,” says Drumgold.

“Not dressed like this, and not with my hair under the cap. But they'd recognize you – both of you – right away.”

Drumgold mutters, “What do you think, Harp?”

As he looks at Harper, Isora is gone, slipping through the trees and gliding silently across the road to the gates of the cottage.

Harper finishes Mrs. Vernon's lawn, his second of the morning. He has one more to do before noon. One more before the incendiary device sets fire to the barn. Drumgold said they were to be separate and visible through the day, going about their summer jobs as usual. Then at four o'clock they were to make their way, still separately, to the logging road, where they'd meet in the same place as earlier, before going on to enjoy the spectacle of the aftermath of the fire. Two or three times Harper has heard sirens above the clatter of his lawn mower, and each time has
pictured the timer malfunctioning and setting the fire early, sending fire trucks and police rushing to the cottage. He sprawls on the grass beside the road through the subdivision, with the lemonade Mrs. Vernon gave him. He wonders what BARF will do now. Will this mean the end of it? How could they top setting fire to the barn? He knows nothing they do will make Anderson change his mind about the beach and is resigned to its being off limits. In fact, he's looking forward to their use of it reverting to the old surreptitious enjoyment, when it was a sort of game with Droopy and Diamond Head, before things got serious.

He's hungry, and decides to walk downtown to the supermarket, where his mother is working at the checkout. He'll persuade her to let him get something for an early lunch. As he walks down Main Street, Sgt. Chase and Camera Woman speed past, the car's lights and siren going. In the supermarket car park, people are standing in little groups, talking urgently. He goes inside. People are clustered in the aisles, talking.