Trash by Andy Mulligan Page B

his thin fingers – with the rats going crazy all around us – he removed a small metal box, not much bigger than a cigarette carton, and closed up tight. He set it between his feet and opened it.
    He grinned up at me. ‘Not much to rob, huh? You want to see what I’ve got? I’ve got more than you think.’
    ‘What’s in there?’
    ‘Buried treasure, boy. Two thousand, three hundred and twenty-six pesos. My going-away fund.’
    Sure enough, he showed it to me, counting it out. I think the amazement must have shown in my face, because he started laughing again, and rocking on his heels. ‘I got one more box for just day-to-day stuff,’ he said. ‘One more tin box, that is, so the rats don’t eat it. Two hundred and sixty in that one. I figure, today we’re on a kind of holiday – so I’m gonna borrow out of this one, the travelling box.’
    ‘But how do you get so much?’ I said. I was totally amazed. Two thousand was a fortune for boys like us.
    ‘I get it slow, and I keep it. Everyone gives me a little. The little piles up, and I don’t eat much, or I get given food. Sister Olivia, for instance – she gave me fifty just yesterday, and then I went back for a sandwich.’
    ‘And what are you saving for?’
    Rat put his head down and seemed to be thinking hard. Then he crept to the steps and took a long look up them, like he really thought there might be someone listening. He came back and squatted – put a banknote in his pocket and closed the lid of the box. Then he put his hands up on my shoulders and looked right in my eyes.
    ‘You and me are friends now,’ he said, ‘right?’
    I nodded.
    ‘Real friends?’ he said.
    ‘Of course,’ I said.
    ‘OK, I’m going to tell you something I never told any other boy. I told Olivia, made her promise to tell no one, just because I was so tired of never telling.’ He dropped his voice to a whisper. A rat ran over his foot in the darkness, right between us; I had to force myself to keep still. ‘I’m not from round here,’ he said. ‘You know that, don’t you? Like, most of you are Behala boys, but I come from the south. I was at Central Station for nearly a year, and I heard about the Mission School, so this is where I came.’
    I nodded again, and he was quiet. Like the secret inside was so big he couldn’t say it.
    ‘I want to go home, Raphael,’ he said. He was so quiet Icould hardly hear. ‘I came off the islands when I had to. I want to go back.’
    ‘Where’s your home?’
    ‘Sampalo. That’s where I was born.’
    ‘Go home then,’ I said. ‘You can go home with two thousand, can’t you? The ferries cost … I don’t know—’
    He snorted, and I shut up.
    ‘I can go home on the ferry, sure – go tomorrow if I want. And then what, when I get there? It’s cost a thou just for the ticket. What happens then? You think people in Sampalo live on sand? That’s why everybody comes
here
, man – that’s why I came here. That’s why I got sent here! I’ve gotta make a stake. Fifty thousand is what I need. Then I buy a boat, and I go home and fish for ever.’
    ‘You can fish?’ I said.
    ‘Course I can fish! I was fishing before I could talk! I could swim before I could crawl! I will buy a boat, and I’m going to fish and fish and fish.’
    I looked at Rat then, because he sounded so fierce – and that wide-eyed, old little face looked back at me. I tried to imagine him back on his island, Sampalo, steering his fishing boat, throwing out the lines. I’d heard of the place, of course – and never known it was Rat’s home. It was a place people talked about, and I knew it was a long, long way away. Tourists went there, and it was supposed to be beautiful as paradise. You cried when you got there, you cried when you left – that’s what people said.
    ‘With a boat I can fish,’ he said. ‘That’s got to be betterthan what we do here, hasn’t it? Huh? Little house on the beach?’ He was looking at me hard. ‘Fishing boat