Rigby Taylor
1 Fidel Fidel was scared. Shit scared. He felt like throwing up and probably would have if he'd had any breakfast. He had to stop thinking about it or he’d chicken out. His whole life had been one long worry that he’d done something wrong and would be punished…but this was sharper, more urgent, more exciting too if he could only stop thinking about all the possible consequences. Taking a deep breath he shouldered the backpack that had been hidden in a corner for weeks, let himself out of the shed, crossed the back lawn and tapped on his brother’s open window. Hylas appeared, rubbing at sleepy eyes. ‘Fidel! What’s the matter?’ ‘I’m off.’ ‘Now? But you…’ ‘Shhh! You'll wake Mum. I just wanted to say goodbye and tell you I love you.’ ‘Where are you going? I love you too! Will you write?’ ‘Brisbane. Of course I’ll write. Don’t tell Mum anything. Pretend to be surprised I've gone.’ With a cheery wave that even Hylas knew was fake, Fidel adjusted his pack and ran off before his courage ran out. Twenty minutes later he was sticking out his thumb on the David Low Way. Almost immediately an elderly couple in a battered Toyota stopped and demanded to know his age, where he was going and why. He said he was sixteen and was going to visit his grandmother in Mooloolaba. Shaking their heads in suspicious concern they remarked tersely that he was small for his age and didn’t look much more than fourteen. Fidel’s sad eyes pleaded. ‘Get in then. If we don’t take you some monster will.’ Vistas of twinkling blue sea, sand hills and sunny skies flashed by unseen during thirty minutes of well-meaning but dire prophesies about the abduction, rape and murder that awaited Fidel if he persisted in trusting strangers in this day and age. It was different when they were young—everyone was honest and reliable and young people were safe and… Predictably perhaps, their predictions of impending doom calmed Fidel’s nerves. Old people were always exaggerating—it couldn’t be that bad. When they let h
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