Chapter 4
Just when I’m really getting fed up with being the new kid in this crappy place, someone else shows up to distract everyone’s attention from me, which suits me just fine.
They bring him here one evening when we’re all in the TV room. Bindi and Cinnamon are on the couch, Karen is sprawled in an armchair, and I’m lying on the floor, propped up on one elbow. Lyyssa answers the door and speaks for a few minutes to someone with the front door wide open. A blast of winter air blows into the lounge room.
‘Close the effin’ door,’ Bindi says loudly, and Cinnamon giggles.
The front door shuts and Lyyssa, pretending she didn’t hear Bindi, brings a kid into the lounge room. ‘Everyone, we have a new member of our household. This is Shane.’ We look at Shane. He drops his eyes to the floor as Lyyssa introduces each one of us.
Shane is about eight, blond, and scared-looking. He’s wearing a ski cap, and he’s rugged up with so many jumpers that his ski jacket won’t close in the front.
‘Shane, would you like to take off your jacket?’ Lyyssa asks him. He doesn’t really want to, but he thinks that this is what Lyyssa wants him to do, so he takes off his jacket and holds it tightly to his chest.
‘Maybe you’d like to watch some TV with the rest of the house,’ Lyyssa suggests. ‘I’ll take your bag up to your room. You can get settled later.’ Lyyssa picks up Shane’s duffle bag and trudges up the stairs, not noticing that there isn’t any place for Shane to sit. Shane stands there frozen, paralysed.
‘Geez, if they’re gonna send a guy to the house, couldn’t they have sent one ten years older?’ Bindi says. Once again, Cinnamon giggles at Bindi’s stupid remark.
‘You can sit over here, Shane,’ I say, as much to piss off Bindi as for any other reason. Shane slowly walks over, puts his jacket on the floor next to me, and sits cross-legged on top of it.
In two minutes, I’m silently cursing Shane and bitterly regretting my attempt to be nice. Shane smells. As if Karen wasn’t bad enough, they’ve sent us another stink bomb. Shane smells like stale farts and sweat and socks that have been worn for weeks. Where the hell did he come from, anyway?
I’ve been breathing through my mouth for five minutes when Lyyssa reappears. I raise my hand. ‘Is it okay if I go to bed now, Lyyssa?’ I think my brain is deprived of oxygen, having to breathe Shane’s miasma. At the Refuge you don’t have to ask for permission to go to bed, nor do you raise your hand before you speak.
‘Sure, Len,’ Lyyssa says. I get up and run out of the room, not caring that Bindi and Cinnamon are sniggering at me. I dash up the stairs and into my bedroom, closing the door behind me and taking gasps of fresh air. When my head clears, I take a towel and my robe and go down to the girls’ showers and soap myself until every centimetre of my body that was contaminated by Shane is cleansed.
Purified, I return to my room and lie on my bed. I hear Lyyssa coming up the stairs with Shane, chattering to him about house rules, fumbling with the keys to the boys’ toilet and the boys’ showers, which have been locked because there haven’t been any boys at the Refuge for a while. Then Lyyssa unlocks the door to Shane’s room and they go inside. For a few minutes, I can hear them talking, but I can’t hear what they’re saying. Then Lyyssa’s voice rises. ‘Shane, you need to have a shower. Or at least a quick wash.’
‘NO!’ Shane yells.
‘Shane, this is not negotiable,’ Lyyssa says firmly. ‘You don’t have to spend an hour in the bathtub, but you must at least make an effort to be clean.’ Shane makes protesting, whimpering noises; probably Lyyssa has taken him by the arm and is trying to pull him toward the shower.
Then Shane lets out a scream that makes me hold my ears. It’s not the volume of the scream that makes me shudder; it’s the history behind that scream. You don’t even have to think very much about what it means. Why was Shane removed from whatever home he came from? Because he was abused. Sexually abused. Where was he abused? In the shower. Which is why he now wears three jumpers and a ski jacket like a protective exoskeleton and is terrified of taking his clothes off or going anywhere near a shower. Why doesn’t Lyyssa know this? Hasn’t she read Shane’s file yet?
Lyyssa must have let go of Shane, because he’s run back inside his room and slammed the door behind him.
‘Shane?’ Lyyssa says, her voice trembling. ‘Shane, I didn’t mean to scare you. If you want to lock your door, you can turn the lever right above the doorknob.’
A couple of seconds pass, then I hear the sound of Shane turning the deadbolt on his door. Of course, Lyyssa has a master key in case we try to commit suicide in our room and she has to get in, but Shane doesn’t know this. Lyyssa slowly walks back along the hall and down the stairs.