Wrath. Anne Davies

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      PROLOGUE

      I’ve never been in a courtroom before. There’s something creepy about it. I don’t know if it’s all that old wood everywhere with panelling on the walls, doors, benches, and rails—a bit like a coffin, really. It’s how I imagine it might be after you die, sitting and waiting to see if you’re going to be sent to Heaven or Hell. Not that I believe in any of that crap. When you’re dead, you’re dead. Kaputzki! That’s all, folks.

      Look at that old codger behind the bench up there. He’s the one who’s going to finally say what happens to me. What makes him God? He will decide whether I’m guilty or not. That shouldn’t be too hard. I rang the cops and said I’d killed him—them. Hardly rocket science.

      The panel comes in and sits down. I don’t get a real jury because of my age. I look at them one by one with my toughest face on, the one where I make my eyes go kind of dead.

      First there’s a man of about 50, I guess, and he doesn’t really want to be here. I can tell. He’s sneaking a look at the clock on the wall behind the judge’s head. His shirt and tie look cheap and tacky, like he’s dressed for a funeral. Maybe he is.

      My heart thumps, and I make it calm down. Don’t think. Just look. I can’t really see the rest of him from where I’m sitting. He sees me looking at him and looks away fast.

      There’s a woman next to him. She looks like someone’s kind grandmother, with hair like white fairy floss in a bun on top of her head and a powdery, lined face. She catches me looking at her too and swivels her head down quickly.

      One by one, I scan them, feeling like a robot or maybe one of those clown things at the Royal Show—the ones that turn their heads while you drop balls down their gaping mouths. I wish I were a machine too—no feelings—but as I think that, it happens: that horrible, deep, dark…what can I call it? Tingle? No, that’s not strong enough. It’s like a deep electrical shock running through my body—up my legs, down my arms. It’s bad, really bad. I feel like I’m going to fall.

      I’m not a machine! I want to shout. I’m a boy! I’m real, and I want to go home now! Make all this stop! But I have no home—no mother, no father, no sister…and no stepfather either. Can he really be gone forever? Thank God! Not that God wants to be thanked by me. Not after what I did. When I die, I’ll go to Hell… Oh, bullshit. Don’t fall for all that bullshit. But what if…? Just shut up! Shut up!

      I hear a voice. It’s Mr Bloom. “Are you all right, Luca? You’re twitching and mumbling. Keep calm!” he whispers. I nod and concentrate on breathing slower than slow so that everything fades and there’s nothing but the drone of voices…

      CHAPTER ONE

      Last night, I dreamed I was flying. I know heaps of kids who say they’ve dreamed that. Why is that? Maybe because we’re kind of chained to the earth. Think about it. Nearly every sport there is tries to free us from the dirt, if only for a moment. We try to jump higher, longer; we run so we can leap away; we swim so we can know weightlessness; we climb mountains, ice skate, paraglide. So if we’re supposed to have ‘come from dust’, why are we so desperate to get away from it?

      Anyway, my dream: I was flying. I can’t exactly remember how I got in the air, but I felt so good. The wind was warm in my face, and there was no sound except for the wind’s hiss in my ears as I swooped and glided. I looked down, and the earth below me—which had been so neatly drawn up into rectangles of emerald, lime and yellow—began changing, and I felt panic. I could see beneath the green, and it was not controlled by lines but by mouldy seething brown. I was falling towards it faster and faster.

      The wind was screaming in my ears now—or was that my screaming?—and I knew that if I hit the ground, I would be dead, but I did hit it and just passed straight through. Now there was no wind in my ears—only silence and darkness—but I kept on falling, and I knew it would never stop. Then I woke with a jump, shouting garbled, strangled sounds.

      I lay in the dark, panting and almost glad to have woken up in my bed, even if this cell is a type of grave, a type of earthless burrow where I’ll be stuck forever. I know I’m trapped here. I’m in here for 23 out of 24 hours at the moment, ‘under observation’. That may change, or maybe I’ll have no one to talk to—ever. No way I’m going to talk to that psych the court appointed. But there is somebody… There’s you. I can talk to you. I know you’ll never answer, but you’re out there. I’ll write everything down—not like those ‘Dear Diary’ things that girls write in and giggle over, all little plastic locks and pink butterflies—no, I’m writing to you. I know you’re out there; I can feel you there.

      I want to go over all of this in my mind to get it straight—no, not in my mind; I get all messed up and panicky when I think all the time. I want to write it down. It has to be orderly then—not one thought crowding another out. I just want to tell you everything that’s happened so you can help me make sense of it, help me understand. I need to know there’s someone out there who’s listening to me. I know it’s not possible, but unless I do this, I’m going to go nuts. I can feel insanity creeping up on me. I won’t even imagine you as a woman or a man, old or young—just someone who’ll hear me out and help me.

      Just listen to me. Please.

      I’ll start right at the beginning. We were born near Geraldton, a town on the coast of Western Australia, if you haven’t heard of it. I’ll just explain СКАЧАТЬ