Nano 2012 Day Ten

Well that was interesting. She was being friendly at the cafe but that's because she was his friend. And when they said goodnight she definitely didn't say anything about him coming round, they just went their separate ways. Of course, it's not like he was the master of working out what women were thinking about, so who knows? It could have been she went home and thought about him. Or it could just be that she's a little shaken up after seeing someone she knew getting hit by a car. He sighed. "You're an idiot" he thought to himself and started to text back, "sure" when he remembered he was waiting for the police. He looked up from his phone and the little girl was still in the same place, watching TV. He wondered how he was going to explain this to Tina, if indeed he should explain this. Well, why not, it's not like he was doing anything wrong he thought. He wrote in a message, "I'd love to. Right now though I've got a weird situation at my place."

"Weird how?" came the reply.

"A little girl turned up at my door with no parents in sight and I'm waiting for the police to turn up to take her."

"What, really? You're not just avoiding coming over?"

"Why would I be avoiding it?"

"I dunno. I just need company I think."

"You could come here?"

"I don't have a car and can't afford the taxi."

"OK no problem. I'll let you know when this is sorted out."

"OK good luck :)"

He signed and put down his phone. He found he sighed a lot lately. Maybe he always sighed? Am I seen as the "Wistful one" in my friends group, he wondered. When were the police going to turn up?

"Hey," he called out, "did you want a glass of water or anything?"

The girl on the couch shook her head once. No. He decided to fill in some time by getting on the internet on his laptop. Maybe he could find something to do. He checked his email and went through systematically binning all the different newsletters and spam he'd signed up to. He wondered what it meant when he'd reached that point that almost all of the actual spam that people normally thought of when the word was mentioned was finally not getting to his inbox but instead his inbox was filled with email that he asked for that he only ever briefly looked at and deleted? In fact, most days he just ticked half of it and deleted it immediately.

This time it wasn't too bad but there weren't any emails he actually wanted to read. He decided to see what was happening in a chat room he used to go into when he used to write a lot. He went through a phase a year or so back where he wrote a lot of short stories and was trying to hone his art. Well, he thought of it as his art. The people in the chat room were really helpful but he ended up deciding that he was just a terrible writer and should probably quit. He did sometimes wonder how they were going though and it would be interesting to talk to them. Plus he felt like he needed some sort of outlet right now, maybe he's even go back to writing again, see if it was as much of a dead end as it was last time.

He loaded up his chat program and saw it go through the usual connecting things. Crap, what was the name of the actual room? He went to the old writing website and looked around for it. He finally found it, "writerlyFrm" and went to it. He saw about six people he didn't recognise but the other 4 people in there he recognised from the last time he was in.

"Hey guys!" he wrote.

"Hey there, Laust!" FireDrake wrote in the channel, "You've been gone a while, we wondered what happened to you."

"Yeah I stopped writing for a while, got caught up in other stuff as well..."

"Ah fair enough" FireDrake said, "So you've started writing again?"

"Not yet, but I'm thinking about it."

"Hey there Laust." This time it was Calliope talking.

"Hey there Calliope."

"So have you started writing now?"

"Not yet, but I think I'm ready to try again."

"Well, good, you should go for it! Write something right now!"

"Hah maybe tomorrow, today and tonight have been a bit extreme."

"Oh, what happened?" This was Kusa talking now.

"Well, it was my birthday and I was having dinner with my friends and afterwards one of them got hit by a car. I saw him in the hospital and just got home a short while ago."

There was a chorus of "That's terrible!" and similar sentiments in the chat room.

"How old did you turn, anyway?" Kusa said

"28"

"I guess you won't forget it."

"Probably not." Menelaus typed.

"How did your friend look? Is it really bad?"

"He looked a lot better in the hospital than he did right after the car hit him. I had to hold my tshirt against a cut he had just under his ribs. while we were waiting for the ambulance."

"Did anyone get a statement from the guy who was driving?" Calliope this time. Menelaus thought about it, did anyone talk to him?

"I don't know, I was with my friend the whole time. I guess someone must have, or the police did when they turned up."

"Oh, when did the police turn up?"

"I don't remember. I think they turned up? It's been a really full on night."

"It definitely sounds like it."

There was a knock at the door. "Brb" Menelaus typed, in the internet slang for "Be Right Back".

He walked up to his door and opened it. There was a policeman at the door. "I heard you had a girl turn up earlier?"

"Yes, there she is." He pointed towards the little girl who was still wrapped up in the movie on the screen. "Alright then." The police officer pulled out a notepad and a pen. "Name?"

"My name is Menelaus Trigosi." He spelled it for the officer.

"Do you have a driver's license?"

"Yes" He pulled it out and handed it to him. The police officer wrote down the details on there.

"Obviously this is still the current address on here, being the address I have come to here?"

"Yes, that's right."

The officer walked over to where the girl was sitting and went down on his haunches next to her. “Hello there.”

The girl kept watching the cartoon. The police officer relocated himself so he was in front of her and repeated himself. “Hey there, what brings you here?”

The girl said, “I wanted to come in.”

“Why did you want to come in?” The girl didn’t answer. “Where are your parents?” Still nothing. “Is there an adult who takes care of you?”

“I don’t want to go back to them.”

“Did they do something to you?”

The girl lifted her head as if to nod then stopped and kept her eyes on the TV.

The police officer made a few more notes and said, “Ok, what’s your name princess?”

“Jessica.”

“That’s a pretty name, Jessica. Do you want to come with me and we’ll try to sort all of this out?”
“I like it here.”

“Well we have videos too, and we can try to work something out for you for a longer time. "

"Hmm."

The police officer stood up and and looked at Menelaus. "Alright I'm going to take her to the station. Have you ever seen her before or seen her around here?"

"No, never."

"Are you certain? Think about it for a second."

Menelaus thought about it. He knew there were several people living in the building but he barely saw any of them. If anything, he was more likely to see friends of theirs turning up to say hello. None of the friends had kids either, from what he could remember.

"No, sorry, I have no idea. I'm sure I've never seen her before."

"Alright then. Thank you for ringing it through, we'll take it from here."

"Thanks for coming down."

The police man nodded and walked back over to Jessica.

"Jessica?" The girl looked up at the officer, "I'm going to take you with me now, OK? We need to work out what's going on and give you some hot chocolate and talk to you a bit."

"Hmmm..."

The officer put out his hand to Jessica, "Let's go."

"Alright" she said and slid off the couch and took his hand. They walked to the door and the officer nodded to Menelaus as they left. Menelaus closed the door once they were out and shook his head once they were gone. How strange. He went back to his laptop and saw a few worried messages from his sudden disappearance. He took up his typing there.

"Hey there, sorry, had another weird occurrence. Seems to be the night for it."

He suddenly remembered: Tina. He scanned all the questions coming in and decided he'd just leave it for the night. "Sorry everyone, I'm fine, it wasn't anything serious I'm going to go for the night. Catch you all later." He closed the laptop and picked up his phone. There was no new message, he sent a text through to Tina, "Hey are you still up?"

"Yes, what happened?"

"The police came and took her."

"Was she upset?"

"Not really, the officer was nice to her."

"Oh good."

Hmm she wasn't mentioning his coming over. After a couple of minutes went by, he decided to send, "Do you still want some company?"

"Only if you don't mind coming by."

"You're not scared of my hugs?”

A couple of minutes went by. Menelaus started to worry that he’d said the wrong thing, then his phone beeped again. “I’m counting on them. Come over please.”

Menelaus found his keys and his jacket and went out the door. He felt his heart rate quicken. It had been a strange night.

Nano 2012 Day Nine

He took a big bite out of the apple that was left and strolled back over to his printer and watched it spit the pages into the tray as it printed them. This was still going to take a while. He thought about doing some more juggling but decided instead to lie back down on his chair and keep eating his apple. The apple tasted quite tart, but delicious. There was a good amount of moisture in it. The mime had access to a shopping service that specially picked out fresh fruit and vegetables for his enjoyment, going to the best suppliers and then checking the quality of the produce that was on offer. SO far he had not once been disappointed. He took another big bite and enjoyed slowly chewing it and feeling the juice of the apple flow over his tongue and down his throat. He was really going to enjoy the next two weeks, was really going to allow himself to bask in what he had done. A flash of the shadow illuminated by the fire hit his memory but he shunned it to the side yet again. The mere fact it was so much clearer this time told him that it was plain paranoia.

For lack of something else to do, he began to systematically crack his knuckles. He started on his left hand with the little finger. Gripping it tightly with his right fist, he gave it a sharp pull and a slight twist. CRACK! It gave a satisfying report and seemed to limber up slightly. Of course, the mime knew this was a myth, having merely dispensed on the liquid between his joints for a time and that it was actually more likely to cause him problems later on. However he found it an enjoyable distraction. He moved on the ring finger. CRACK! He smiled. Now the second finger. He tightened his fist around the finger and made to make the movement when a knock at the door made him jump. The piece of apple he was chewing bounced back in his mouth and lodged in his windpipe. He felt his air flow being taken away from him, reached his hands up to his throat and tried desperately to massage the offending piece of fruit up and out into his mouth. No luck. He rushed around his apartment looking for a way to get the piece out. All his chairs were quite modern in design and so did not have the solid back required to perform the heimlich on himself. Curses. He heard the bang at the door begin again, this time more insistent. Should he risk opening the door? Who even knew he lived here? If this was retribution he could be in a lot of trouble.

He could feel an immense pressure in his head building and the world around his began darkening. Surely it could be no more trouble than what he was in now. He rushed to the door and unlatched it. He opened it to see a huge, hairy man with a broken nose who immediately punched him in the stomach. The piece of apple dislodged and the mime by automatic reaction spat it out into the man's eye then allowed him a large gasp of breath to regain his composture.

"I'm....huuuuuuuuuu.... sorry..." The mime said, rushing to the kitchen and gettting some paper towel to bring back to the stranger, who was examining his fingers after wiping away the piece of apple. The man took it from him and wiped his face and hand. "Don't mention it." He growled.

The mime went back to the kitchen and got himself a glass of water, which he drank in slow measured gulps. Each swallow caused him pain. "Phew. I'm really sorry about that. I was eating an apple and I started choking."

He walked back over to the man. "Anyway, I don't believe we've met. My name is Fred. How did you know to do that when you saw me choking?"

"I didn't know you were choking." The man growled in return and his fist, a blur, pile-drove into the mime's eye-socket.

--

Menelaus was back home and in his comfortable track-pants and lounging on the couch. He normally liked lounging in his boxer shorts but this time felt that he needed the extra security of fabric. Plus the night was a little chilly but not enough to warrant a blanket. He looked over at the clock. Five to midnight. He was surprised it was so early with everything that had happened that night. He thought about Peter sitting in the hospital. He hadn't looked all that coherant even though he said he was OK. He wondered if he had suffered a major blow to the head. He remembered the cut in Peter's side and winced. He was glad that Tina had been there to go have a coffee with, she was a good friend. What had happened during the hug had been a little embarrassing to say the least, but she seemed to have taken it in her stride. He guessed that girls probably had to deal with that sort of stuff all the time.

He relaxed further into the couch and thought about the fact that it was his birthday. Somehow it didn't seem to mean as much now as it did at the start. A few of his more 'astrologically inclined' friends told him that the 28th birthday was meant to be one of 'rebirth', where you started getting your life together and realising what it was you were meant to do, or your purpose. He felt no such purpose now. He just felt worry. Worry, and tiredness. He closed his eyes and felt him self drift away... and then was snapped back to reality by his mobile phone beeping loudly. He jumped up and grabbed it. There was a text message from Tina saying "Can't sleep :( how are you?". He wrote back, "Same. how are you feeling?" He rubbed his eyes hard to try and wake himself up a little and looked at the clock again. 11:59. He saw the change turn to midnight and a tenth of a second later there was simultaneously a knock on the door and another message to his phone, presumably from Tina. He jumped up and looked at the door suspiciously. Who could be knocking now? Though considering the events of tonight it could be anyone, if they knew Peter. He sighed to himself and walked over to the door and opened it. On the other side was a small girl, no older than about nine years old. She was wearing a blue sun-dress (he assumed it was a sun-dress, though his brain kept nagging him that a sun dress bu definition should be yellow. He told his brain to shut up) and curly brown hair with a little red bow tying it together.

"Umm... hello? What are you doing out so late? Is your mum with you?"

The girl looked at him and shook her head.

"Your mum isn't with you?"

She shook her head again and kept her gaze focused on him. Well, this was odd.

"Where is she, can she come up here now?" A thought occurred to him, "Oh, what about your dad? Is he around?"

She shook her head again and kept staring. Well this was awkward.

"OK then, what can I do for you?"

She still said nothing.

"It's a bit late for you to be out isn't it? Isn't someone out there worried about you?"

She shook her head again and looked over her shoulder. Fear started to crack her still facade. Menelaus made a decision.

"Alright, come in. I'll work something out. This is very strange."

The little girl's expression didn't change but she ran inside and into the lounge room and immediately started examining Menelaus's DVD collection. Manelaus came up behind her. "Is there anything you want to watch there?" The girl pulled out a DVD that Menelaus was relieved to see was an animated movie. He put it into the DVD player and showed the girl where to sit on the lounge. She perched on the edge with her hands in her lap and watched attentively as Menelaus navigated the menus and started the movie playing.

He decided to ring the police and see what they said about this. He picked up the phone and dialed '000', then realised that this wasn't actually an emergency and hung up again. He needed to ring his local precinct, apparently. How did he do that? What even was his local precinct? He quickly looked over at the little girl who was still watching the cartoon. She seemed OK. He went into his room and grabbed his laptop and brought it back out into the kitchen and opened it up. Once it finished loading he looked up the police and found what looked like the closest suburb and dialed the number on his phone. He explained the situation to the person on the other end. They told him to wait there with her and they would dispatch an officer. He hung up. He thought about joining the little girl on the couch as she watched the cartoon while they waited for the police but decided that would be weird. He suddenly remembered about the text message that he got from Tina and went over to find his mobile phone. He picked it up and read, "I'm lonely." This was a surprise.

"Are you OK?" He wrote back.

"Can you come over?" She wrote.

Nano 2012 Day Eight

Four Two sniffed at the straw protuding from the cardboard box. He saw Ton's eyes slant slightly, there was a warning in them. He quickly took a long drink from the straw. It tasted like tropical flavour, though it had a chalky aftertaste. Ton's expression softened to the normal brick wall it was previously and he guided him out the door as the attendant handed a fruit box to the girl holding his hand. With the other kids with fruit box behind them, they were shepherded towards what looked like a school building. They were led through double-doors and into what looked like dorm rooms with bunk beds. As they got closer to the beds, Four Two felt his head go cloudy and his eyelids grow heavy. The aftertaste of the fruit box was extremely strong now, he couldn't finish his drink. Everything got very hazy and then a phone started ringing.

*RIIIIIING*

*RIIIING*

The mime awoke with a start and saw the red nose on his 'sad clown' phone was flashing as it rang it's annoying fire alarm ring. He wondered who it could possibly be as he reached towards it, surely it wasn't an acting job? Though maybe that would be a good idea.

*RIIIIIIIIING*

He punched the phone in its flashing red nose while simultaneously grabbing the receiver with his other hand. The phone went flying off the table and then bounced back and the mime had to dodge slightly back to avoid being hit in the chest by the  monstrosity.

"Hello? Hello?" There was an urgent voice on the line, sounded female but slightly disguised so may not have been.

He engaged his answering system on the table and saw the gently lit keyboard come into view. He typed in his reply and heard the robotic voice speak his words.

"Father Teddy Severas utilities. How can I help?"

"I heard you can act."

The mime smiled. If only they knew.

--

There was not much we could do at the hospital. After finding out that it was the hospital we first thought it was, a short taxi ride led us to finding Peter's room. He was semi-conscious and begged us to go home while he recovered. His parents were already there and said they could take over looking after him. Tina tried to insist but then the hospital staff came in and said that they had to respect the wishes of the parents and that he needed his rest anyway.

Tina was fuming as we walked down the corridor leading to the exit of the hospital.

"Hey, do you want to go get a coffee somewhere?" I said.

"Hmm" she said, "are you going to try and give me one of your special hugs?"

I felt my face go red, "Hey, can't I get a pass on my birthday? Technically I have the right to be naked."

"What?"

"You know, birthday suit."

She smiled slightly. "If you had been naked when that happened, I may not still be talking to you..."

Menhaus felt his face redden again. Tina punched him on the arm, "Don't worry about it, stupid. Let's go find a cafe." She walked up out of the hospital towards the street and Menhaus followed. He watched as her dress bounced around her, slightly riding up her hips and she sped-walked towards the cafe strip. Argh, stop doing this to yourself, he thought. "You didn't even have any thoughts like this about her before, is this a reaction to having seen something tragic together? Some sort of life impulse that makes me want to procreate as quickly as possible? Or was it just a 'male' thing of her having gotten him hard so now his brain kept producing those sexual thoughts every time he looked at her? It was probably the latter." And yet, as he kept watching her, he realised she *was* quite sexy. He did already know this, being a bit superficial in his choice of friends, but now it seemed to be abundant, practically overflowing his vision of her. She turned her head slightly towards him and winked. He felt a stir in his pants. Oh, crap. "Hey there's a place!" She yelled, pointing to a vaguely Italian-style place on the corner. Menhaus followed at a spritely limp, trying to think very cold thoughts.

--

The job the mime had been given was simple. He had to go to a gathering of people and pretend to be the person that he had talked to on the phone. It turned out that the people they were 'meeting' with were actually people that had only talked to his client within an internet chat room so did not know anything about them aside from what they had told them themselves. The mime himself did not know a lot about his client, aside from being reasonably sure that it was a female. Obviously they would be pretending to be male in the chat room. Obviously.

He loaded up his computer and went to his email, where he found the transcripts of all the chats his client had ever had in this chat room. He skimmed through the first couple. It appeared to be a place where people who were working on books gathered to swap ideas and encourage each other. Why would 'she' need to hide herself from them? In any case, it was not his place to question, only to perform the job, which he charged top dollar for. She called herself "Kusa" in the chat. It seemed that she was one of the people moderating the group, though on occasion there were privileges randomly handed out if the other moderators were feeling generous or silly.

When he was reading through the chats he noticed that not much of any consequence was actually discussed, it was mostly a random mix of general pop culture tidbits and passing on of youtube videos of things that were popular six or seven years before. Sometimes plots were brought up but not that often. He gathered that the person he would be 'playing' was a reasonably fast writer but not as fast as a couple of others in the group. He made a note of the particularly fast ones as it was sure to come up in conversation. Once he had done this, he resumed reading, this time making notes of any personality traits that came through strongly of the person he was meant to be 'playing'.

The main one appeared to be a general passive-aggressiveness. He wondered if his client was actually aware of this and whether he should downplay it in actual face to face event. Usually when people had that trait, they were surprised to have it pointed out to them. In fact, in his experience, they became quite hostile. He decided to have the very slightest twinge of it be there, but not so much that it would actually get on anyone's nerves. People were typically a bit different online to ho they were in real life regardless, and having only the printed word to express yourself with tended to leave a lot of things open to interpretation where otherwise body language would have smoothed over misunderstandings or unintended aggression.

Another thing he picked up was a slight patronising tone to those who were more than two years younger or who had not been writing for as long. This one he found interesting but not too hard to decide what to do about at the actual event. He would go completely the other way and be extra friendly to the young and new people. It was a subconscious predatory technique but one the client would be completely aware of and be happy to have replicated, though for totally different reasons in her head. He saw a fair amount of intelligence being displayed and also a hint of social awkwardness which likely would be ten-fold in actual company. Now he thought about it, it would probably be much more than that. Possibly enough anxiety to hire a professional 'place taker' to do the job? No, there must be a further motive than that. Nevertheless, not his place. As he continued to read through the chat transcripts a weird pattern seemed to be emerging that he couldn't quite put his finger on. He knew he would figure it out eventually so he put it aside before it drove him crazy and started noting down key phrases that were repeated a lot by his client. After that, he started making notes of anytime she... or rather, "Kusa" mentioned buying or wearing particular pieces or clothing and what level of affection they had for them.

He jumped ahead to recent chats where the people in the room were talking about the upcoming catch up to see if Kusa had said they were going to do anything specific. Sure enough they talked about baking cookies for the event. Cookies? He guessed he could go get a mix from the supermarket or something. It would be easy enough to just say he decided he couldn't be bothered or just didn't have enough time in the end but it didn't seem in the character of Kusa to do that. He would just have to work out what sort of cookies to arrange once he had his complete character profile. He opened his drawer and pulled out a lime green highlighter, a black pen, a red pen and a gold paint pen. He then told his computer to print out all the chat logs. He knew it would take a while, even on his laser printer so he went over to his kitchen and got himself an apple. By instinct, he flicked it up and over his wrist and caught it again in a deft motion. He then flicked it up onto the back of his hand and lifted him arm slightly so it rolled back. As it approached his elbow, he bent his arm and twisted it slightly so the apple was caught on the crook. He then smartly snapped his arm out and caught the apple on his shoulder, at the side of his head. He let it roll around to the other side much like a basketballer and then guided it down his other arm, caught it, threw it into the air and grabbed another apple from his fruit bowl and began juggling them with one hand. He grabbed a third and fourth apple with his other hand and threw them in the air to join his current play. He continued in this manner, occasionally passing an apple under a leg until he got bored and caught one in his mouth, then let the other three drop onto his right arm and roll back into the fruit bowl.

Nano 2012 Day Seven

The curtains covering the stage began to separate slowly after this guncrack of coordinated stomping. At first it appeared there was nothing to see on the stage behind but as the curtain widened further, a small tower came into evidence. On this table was a little clay flowerpot containing a yellow pansy that was drooping slightly under its own weight. Next to the table was a little wooden chair. The curtains kept opening and the children kept watching in rapt attention. Once the curtains were completely open, right at the edge of the right hand side of the stage a man could be seen in the sitting position. Except, on further examination he was not actually sitting on anything. He was just hovering in the air as if sitting on an imaginary chair. After a few seconds, seeming once he was sure all the children were watching him, he swung one of his legs up and onto the other in a relaxed crossed leg position whilst still maintaining his balance and the illusion of being seated. This was quite impressive considering that all of his weight was now being held by his left leg, which was keeping his balance as well.

The man was wearing white gloves and white face paint. On the face paint were painted black edging around his eyes and a single black tear painted under the left eye. His lips were also painted black, with the lip paint tightly adhering to the edges of hip lips, which were slightly drawn out, betraying no emotion. He was gazing at the floor in front of him as he balanced, a white rose in the lapel of a black vest, worn over a black and white striped long sleeved top. The look was vaguely familiar to Four, he had seen it on some tv program. The man slowly looked up. At first he appeared to be surveying all the children in the complex, and then it became clear he was looking over their heads, into the space around them, at something only he could see. He slowly stood from his sitting position and turned and seemed to see the stool and the table with the flower for the first time. His eyes widened, his face became the very description of joy, his eyes creasing at the edges, his lips pulling back over his teeth into a grimac of absolute amazement and happiness. He lengthened his arms out to the flower and then pulled his hands back in towards his breast, clasping them together in wonderment and allowing his knees to go loose and droop him towards the ground slightly. "He must want that flower" Four thought to himself.

The man put his hands out again and began walking towards the flower on the table. At once it appeared he was having some trouble. He put his head down and seemed to fight for every step towards the table, as if he was walking through water or a strong wind was blowing against him. A couple of times he grabbed at the hat on his head like it was about to be ripped away from him. One foot after another he stepped, and then stepped again. When he was finally within arm's reach of the chair, which seemed to take forever, he snatched at it, and grabbed the back of the chair tightly. He used his purchase on the chair to pull himself slowly and inexiorably towards the table and his prize. He made a great heaving motion and dragged his legs behind him, then quickly made up the distance with little steps of his feet. He repeated this and was able to get his whole body just above the chair and gratefully allowed himself to drop onto it. He took off his hat and wiped his forehead with it, then acted out wringing some great amount of sweat from it. He then reached out and grabbed the flower, , wrapped his fingers around it delicately and plucked it out of the vase. Or, rather, tried to. The vase came up with the flower when the man lifted it. He looked towards teh audience with an expression of extreme confusion, and made a huffing sound. He turned his head back to the flower and vase and shook it slightly. The vase still held on. He shook the flower a bit harder. No effect. This time he shook it violently, the vase flying this way and that, and i was sure it was going to be flung into the audience, knocking out one of the children around me or possibly myself. However, the vase held on with temerity. The man let loose a big, exagerrated sigh, pulled out the white rose already in his suit pocket and placed it on the table. Then he pulled his front pocket wide open, wider than the children would have thought possible to begin with, lifted the vase containing the flower, and dropped it into the pocket, where it lodged itself with about an inch of the rim poking out, and the yellow flower seeming to be looking over his shoulder.

The man stood up and started to bow, but appeared to hit his head on an invisible wall when he did. He wore an expression of confusion and tried to bow again, this time seemingly hitting his head with more violence, making him jump back. As he did, he seemed to hit an invisible wall behind him as well, which made him spin three hundred and sixty degrees on the spot and feel around at the place where he had 'hit'. His hands continued exploring the invisible wall to what appeared to be a corner, and then to a side and then finally to the wall that was facing us, the captive audience. His palms felt and groped, flat against this wall we could not see, felt reaching down to knee height and finding some solid substance then slowly creeping their way up to above his head. He strained his arms a little higher and his fingertips seemed to find an edge, which he wrapped his fingertips around, and then flung himself up by, seeking to look over it and succeeding. He then collapsed back in a pile on the ground and a few of the children clapped and laughed. I winced, expecting another guard to turn up and tell them off, or even to take them away. But no such punishment occurred. IN actuality, a couple of the guards around us seemed to be smiling as well, though they weren't going quite as far as to start clapping. I saw out of the corner of my eye one of the guards striding down the middle of the floor between the rows of the sitting children. The boy realised that this was Ton, the man who had brought him in here. He walked right up to the stage and offered his hand to the crumpled pile of the man in make up on the stage, who leapt up like a bolt of lightning and then, with a small bow, took the hand proferred him and climbed gracefully off the front of the stage. Ton patted him on the back, then turned towards the children.

"That," he said, "was a mime. The very pinnacle of the talent of a mime at work. I want you to remember that performance because once day you will be expected to re-enact it and add something of your own to it. You will be our soldiers and you march in a white faced army.”

The children were all struck with silence. A white faced army? Four Two Seven wondered if he meant like a clown but somehow he had the feeling this was something different, something that meant more.

"You will now be organised into groups and those groups will go their own living quarters. You will be expected to work for your stay here. Do not try to escape, it is not possible. This place is not of normal geography. Good night for now, remember what you saw. Take your drink on the way out."

The adults at the front began dispensing through the crowd of children and pointing out several at a time and herding them together and getting them to follow them. The boy could see that as they were going out the door they were given what looked like a fruit box to drink. He noticed that they were given the fruit box with the straw already puncturing the hole at the top and they would stand and wait until the child had taken a sip before they were lead outside. He saw Ton come over and point to him, then turn and start pointing to others. Strangely, he felt a slight relief at being in Ton's group. Better the devil you know, he figured. Once all the children had been picked, they were told to follow Ton. A small girl a couple of years younger than Four Two came up next to him silently and held his hand. She looked at him slightly scared. He gave her a half smile and squeezed her hand slightly. She didn't smile back but she did squeeze his hand as well, very tight, and kept it that tight as they walked together after Ton.

There was an acrid smell in the air, Four Two noticed. Urine? His nose automatically shrivelled in the wee onslaught. As he looked around he noticed quite a few wet pant fronts. He stopped himself from judging the children. If they had been taken out of their house in a manner such as he was... maybe worse? Maybe they actually saw their parents killed? Maybe they wouldn't be quiet when they were first told to be and they had to scare them more? He tried not to think about it. He knew he had to avoid thinking about his parents because whenever the thought crossed his mind now, the immediate instinct was to begin to sob. He saw the door approaching and Ton standing just before it taking a fruit box from an attendant there behind a table. "Here." he said and passed it to Four Two. "Drink Up."