Stolen by Lucy Christopher Page A

think that pipe goes?” You gestured to the long pipe leading out from the house. “I laid that.”
    “I don’t believe you.”
    “You never believe me.”
    You slid off the arm and onto the couch properly, nearer to me. I recoiled instantly, more from habit than anything. You laughed a little at that. You leaned back on the couch, but didn’t try to get any closer. After a while, you started talking quietly again.
    “Once Dad found the city, and all the rest of it, that was it…. The farm didn’t recover. He forgot about the land, forgot about me, too, laid off the stockmen and Mrs. Gee. I saw him sometimes, on the nights when I slept in my bed, but I’m not sure he really saw me, what with the drink and drugs flowing through him. We stayed like that for a while. Then one day Dad just didn’t come back from the city.” You glanced quickly at my glass of water. “Do you want that?” you asked.
    I looked down at the brownish water with the black bits floating on top. I shook my head. You leaned across me to grab it. I watched you drink it down, your Adam’s apple working like a piston.
    “What do you mean he didn’t come back?”
    You rubbed your lips together, making them both wet. “Never returned. Disappeared. Fucked off!”
    “How old were you?”
    “Dunno, really,” you said. “I didn’t have birthdays much. ‘Bout eleven or so, maybe. Everyone else had long left the farm; it was just me on it then. It was about a year, though, before anyone else figured it out and came to catch me.”
    “Catch you?” I repeated. You shrugged sheepishly. “Didn’t you want someone to look after you?”
    “Nah, why would I? Did it better myself.” Your eyes narrowed. “I kept them trying for ages, too. They tried everything: tracking me, bribery, the priest. In the end they caught me with a net, just like an animal. They were making all these soothing noises at me, too. They thought I couldn’t speak at first, or speak English at least. Maybe they thought I was an oldfella … I was pretty dark from the sun.” You smiled a little from the memory.
    “What did they do with you?”
    Your eyes clouded quickly and your mouth went tight, as though you were angry with me for asking. “They took me to the city, shoved me in the back of a truck … you know, one of those ones they carry criminals in? They took me to this kids’ home place. They gave me a room without a window, bursting with other kids. They wanted my name but I wouldn’t tell them; I wouldn’t tell them anything. So they called me Tom.”
    “Tom?”
    “Yeah, for a few months. They decided how old I was, what I was going to wear. Because I didn’t speak to them, they tried to make me a different person…. Wish they’d never caught me.”
    I wondered what would have happened if they hadn’t. Would you be running around your dad’s farm still, wilder than anything? Would you have lost your language eventually? But maybe that wouldn’t have mattered to you.
    “When did you start speaking again?”
    “When they tried to get one of them shrinks on me. I set ‘em straight pretty fast then.” You shrugged. “I learned to fight pretty good in that place.”
    “But they found you out anyway?”
    “They found out my name,” you snapped. “After a while, they figured Mum had gone overseas and Dad had died in a pub. By then the farm had been carved up for his debts.” You were still glaring at me, gripping the couch until it started to creak. “Nobody knew who I was,” you added. “Not really. When I went to the city, my whole life started again, from the dirt up.”
    A deep crease had formed in the middle of your forehead. Your shoulders were drawn up, too, tense around your neck. I realized I was beginning to read you, to understand when you were tense or angry, or upset. You ran your hand across your brow, smoothing your crease marks. I leaned a little toward you.
    “So, they kind of stole you, too,” I said softly. I kept my nerve