Page 22 of Break Out the Girl

We’re coming.

8: LONDON

As we drive along, the smell of diesel, rotting wood, algae and salty air starts to creep under the tarp.

It makes memories peep out of hiding in my head. The nose-bouquet is almost identical to the damp fog-funk that used to roll off the River Thames.

Our estate was behind the Royal Victoria Dock. The least posh part of the docklands, despite the name.

The old wharf was mine. I’d watch the cargo ships and tug boats and dream about stowing away. Not that I didn’t like living with Nan, but she had this habit of saying, ‘as soon as you’re sixteen, you’re out, devil’s spawn’.

And I was about to turn sixteen.

A Chinese Freighter captain took me on, probably because I was so good at miming. We didn’t need words, me and the Cap.

But I learned a few in the month as a galley hand.

Gāisǐ de báichī.

That was me—the crew’s favorite, I never learned what it meant, but every day they called me ‘Gāisǐ de báichī’’[1].

After the excellent ocean crossing, we docked at the bottom of Havengard in a city called Southernhampton. Finally I’d got to the place where magic was supremo. I was here and I was going to get my spark, I just knew it.

But Cap somehow got muddled, I guess, then handed me straight to immigration. Who put me straight into Quo. Turds. Never did get a moment to find the magic.

My second escape from Quo has gone much better than the first.

I give Shane a quick mental squeeze. He’s forever going to be my hero.

Love him.

I don’t like thinking about the time in-between my two Quo visits, it makes the red tattoo on my chest throb. Happily the truck pulls to a stop so my brain can be occupied with other things.

“End of the line,” Rex’s voice calls out as Shane pulls back the tarp. The wet rotted smell gets stronger. Oooh-er, it’s trying to pull me down memory lane again. But my next lot of memories are onay ogay.

“London?”

A soft hand strokes my face. I focus on her Kitten-blue eyes as she leans closer. “You OK? You zoned out for a beat.”

No, no, no. No zoning out around my kitty-cat. I sit straight up and wiggle off the blues. As she gives me one of her special looks, I hop out and straighten my cardigan buttons. “I’m right as the rainiest rain, Kitten,” I tell her. “What’s next? Fishing? Kissing?”

I saw her and Burt snogging in the hallway which made me very happy. Burt needed that, but so do I.

And Shane. His vibrations got proper-twisty when he watched them.

Silly Billy.

No brainy, Shaney.

But maybe he doesn’t see the dance like I do.

Kitten is our maypole, and we are the ribbons that wrap around her.

“Thanks, Rex,” Burt grunts, his new baseball cap pulled so low I can only see the prickly line of his jaw. It makes me a bit jelly, I’ve yet to grow a beard, and I’d really like one. I put up a hand to stroke Burt's bristles but he slaps my hand away, focusing on his Tyrannosaurus Rex friend. “You should get out of here, establish an alibi somewhere. We’ve been lucky so far, but that can change.”

Rex nods. “Don’t I know it. Luck never holds for people like me.” He jumps into the cab, jams the truck into gear, then wheels out spraying mud all over my nice new jeggings.

Burt shoves the rusted sliding door of the nearest warehouse open. “Inside. Now,” he orders.