Chapter 5

At about ten in the morning, two policemen came and interrupted our lesson and asked Tiff to ‘step outside and have a word’ with them. Tiff urgently beckoned at Charlie, and then me, to follow. Instinctively, protectively, we did so, despite the protestations of an extremely concerned Ms Duncan and the reluctance of the policemen.

As soon as we’d all got out of the classroom, Tiff stopped and leaned back against the corridor wall and signed resignedly. “Is this about my parents?” she asked quietly.

“They have reported you missing.”

Tiff nodded.

“They are concerned about you.”

Tiff let out a false laugh, hunched her shoulders and tried to stop herself crying. “I’m staying with friends. I don’t want to be found.”

“Would these two be the friends?”

“No. I mean, they are my friends, but I’m not staying with them. I have other friends.” Tiff deflected.

Tiff was good at thinking under pressure, as all the meetings with Jim Graves had amply demonstrated. Tiff was a completely different person talking to grown-ups – and policemen – than she was around school with kids our age. And Tiff planned for every eventuality. Perhaps she had anticipated this situation? Perhaps she had rehearsed for this confrontation? My mind was reeling. I was glad they hadn’t asked Charlie or me anything, yet.

“You can’t choose not to be found,” one of the policemen said softly, trying to be sympathetic.

“Yes you can, I’ve heard the expression on TV. it’s been on CrimeTime and everything”

“Yes, that’s true,” the policemen reflected, “but I suppose those runaways would have been over eighteen.” He glanced down at his open notebook. “You’re still only sixteen, right, Tiffany? We’d double check, but I’m afraid we have a duty to inform your legal guardians. That is your parents, right?”

“But I can’t go home! They’re killing me!”

It sounded dramatic, but Tiff sounded frantic. It sounded convincing.

“Are you in danger?” the policeman who’d been speaking eased past me to stand beside Tiff, leaning back against the wall with her - beside her, rather than in front of her. It felt like the police were on our side. Tiff just nodded.

“Have they already hurt you? On any occasion in the past?”

“No, nothing like that,” Tiff sounded empty, hurt, unsure, lost, vulnerable.

“Well, Tiff, at sixteen you can leave home. If you were fifteen, it’d be go home or go into care.”

The last word, ‘care’, sounded like the worst word in the world.

The other policeman, who’d been watching Charlie and me as much as he’d been watching Tiff, stepped back. “I’ll radio in,” he said softly, and then he turned and walked quietly down the empty corridor, putting some distance between him and us. All we could hear was the fuzzy buzzing of static and distant distorted voices as he discussed the situation with the station.

He was back a minute later. “If we believe you to be in danger, we can withhold your location from your parents.”

Everyone looked really relieved as he paused to let the good news sink in. He continued, “But we really must know where you are. That’s so we can find you if we have to, and so we can protect you, and respond to any alarms at that address properly in the future,” he explained kindly.

They really were on our side. Charlie reached into the computer case which she habitually carried everywhere and pulled out a note with an address on it and handed it, mutely, over. The policeman studied it and thanked us, keeping it. “Swap,” he said with a little smile, handing us each a business card. Who knew that police constables had business cards? I studied it. “Tiff,” he said softly, “would you mind if we check up on where you’re staying? We’ll find time. That’s not the best neighbourhood. I’m afraid we’ll be able to drop in when we’re there on other business” he tried a weak smile. “Is there really nowhere else you can stay?”

“It’s deliberate; they’d never look for me there.” Tiff put on a brave face.

They left us just before the lesson ended. Charlie embraced Tiff and stroked her back until she recovered well enough to face our classmates and claim our bags and things.

Ms Duncan was waiting to get us alone to find out what that was all about. Tiff waved me off so I left her to explain after the lesson ended. Tiff was probably going to be economical with the truth.

The taxi was waiting for us just around the corner from school. Tiff looked up and down the street carefully, checking nobody was watching us as we got in. I had been looking at the mug shots of her parents she’d given me frequently, trying to make sure I’d recognise them if I saw them.

The three of us squeezed into the back seat, Tiff, the smallest, squeezing into the middle. Her bare leg pressed against me. She was rigid, staring straight ahead. Was she uncomfortable with the intimacy? I sensed that she’d noticed I was watching her; she blushed sweetly and the corners of her mouth curled up involuntarily as she tried to keep a straight, neutral face. Her eyes danced. No, she didn’t look angry to me. She looked sweet. Really sweet. I couldn’t help smiling too.

Charlie flicked off the projector. The white glow of the image against the blank wall lingered on my retina as my eyes adjusted to the sudden darkness. Tiff kicked out her feet, stretched back against the sofa and signed contently. “Well, I must say, that was really good!”

We’d been rehearsing our pitch for our first presentation to the owner of the BigMarket in the next town. Jim Graves had arranged for our introduction. Jim was as big a fan of our checkout system, as well of our BigSaver concept. The security cameras had found no further cases of blatant theft, although Jim attributed that to their effectiveness and reputation as a deterrent, rather than any technical shortcomings. To someone as paranoid as Jim, the assurance the cameras gave him was worth their weight in gold.

Jim hadn’t known that most of the other staff had known that that Derek-git was on the take. It had actually been Charlie’s prompting that had made me notice the theft happening and I’d then tweaked the software until it could detect it. In moments of doubt, I secretly reckoned the software might not actually be that good. But, in other moments, it seemed to be working perfectly. Go figure!

In fact, the whole venture made no sense from the Jim angle. I wanted to understand. I turned to Tiff. “So, you were planning BigSaver even before we approached BigMarket?”

Tiff nodded, as Charlie smiled. “Starting a budget retailer is a mug’s game. The cost of goods, transport, distribution, everything - complete barrier to entry. And then you see BigMarket, a wholesaler who has the storage and distribution all already sorted and basically free! It completely changes everything. It’s amazing BigMarket didn’t spot this ages ago when the big budget supermarkets started opening.”

“So, why did we mess around with the whole security camera thing?”

“Think about it. It’s like a carrot and a stick. We needed to build credibility and we needed to find out if we liked Jim. We had to convince Jim that he liked us, and we needed to make him believe that he needed us. If we’d just done him a school project business plan that said he should sell direct to consumers, we’d just get good marks and he’d just probably not actually do it. And if he did it, we wouldn’t get a sausage. This way, he thinks that your anti-theft system is so advanced he can’t possibly understand it is absolutely business critical, and he thinks he’s mentoring us and he takes pride in our success without thinking about how it’s at his expense. He really should have done something like BigSaver years ago. His whole branch should have, the moment the supermarkets started popping up on green-field sites.”

Tiff breathed out after her monologue. Charlie chimed in, “And now, we are going to repeat it all in the next town and the next, and think how little we actually do at BigSaver! All we do is count the money! The nearby BigMarket franchise even stocks our shelves and mans our tills! We’re printing money faster than we can make powerpoint presentations!”

We eased back in the sofa, euphoric as we reflected on our amazing success. We were each worth, individually, a lot of money already, and without us doing anything we were going to keep on getting richer. As Charlie kept saying, this time next year we’d all be millionaires!

Before I realised it, I noticed that I had arms stretched out along the sofa back and the girls were both snuggling up against me, one on each side. How had this suddenly happened? Now I felt doubly on top of the world.

The girls went quiet. They were looking past me, at each other, and having some kind of silent discussion. Had they each noticed that I was also embracing the other. Should I move? Should I go? Had I messed up?

“Charlie, can you put the kettle on?” Tiff’s eyes were narrow and she looked tense.

“It’s your turn!”

I was half expecting Tiff to respond with a giggly ‘Is not!’. Instead she turned to me and forced a smile and asked in a sweet, high-pitched, innocent voice, “Would you like a cuppa, Sam?”

My throat was dry. What was going on? Why were the two girls suddenly at each other’s throats? I shrugged.

“I’ll get you one!” Tiff said brightly.

“No, I’ve got it!” Charlie jumped up before Tiff could even move, and went into the kitchen.

Tiff sat still, stiff, her hands clasped to her knees and her cheeks blushing behind her curtain of muddy blonde hair.

For some inexplicable reason I had the urge to kiss her. Not a small peck on the cheek, but to really kiss her. Although she wasn’t looking at me, and her body was all shut off from me, at the same time it felt like she was completely open and wishing it. She was biting her lip nervously.

“Milk? Sugar?” Charlie asked loudly from the doorway, interrupting my fantasy and jerking me back to reality.

“Milk, please,” I said weakly, sitting straighter, feeling guilty for how close my arm was lying on the sofa back behind Tiff.

Tiff avoided my gaze as she looked over her shoulder and looked daggers at an aggressive Charlie.

Charlie came back in from the kitchen and sat down, placing a mug carefully in front of me. She hadn’t made one for Tiff. And I noticed Charlie had taken off her cardigan. It had been a nice tight cardigan that looked good on her, elegant and alluring in a posh way. But without it, Charlie was full-out sexy. Her bust pushed her intricately patterned bra out against her soft cotton designer t-shirt. She smoothed the wrinkles out, tugging the almost-see-thru material tauter and emphasising her assets even more. She looked up at me, catching me staring, and smiled her winning smile.

There was a long five minutes of silence, dragging out and punctuated only by my sips from my tea. We had no music on, no TV on, nothing. Even the traffic noise from outside was quiet. The girls said nothing. I dared say nothing.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. Welcoming the distraction, I fished it out of my pocket. It was a message from the taxi company saying my ride had arrived. It was already 9 pm.

“I have to go, my taxi’s here,” I explained, as I jumped up.

“I’ll go with you,” Charlie said, jumping up behind me.

“Your moped?”

“Will be fine.”

She hustled me out, pulling the door closed behind us. The moment the door was shut she pulled on my arm and swung me around and pinned me against the walkway wall and kissed me full on the lips.

It was like being hit by a freight train.

The kiss grew, our hands hurriedly clambered to hold us to each other, and we lost ourselves urgently in each other’s embrace.

A whimper jolted us back to the present. Tiff was standing, back-lit by her open door, just a metre from us. The look on her face was one of abject pain.

Charlie jumped apart from me as though stung. “Tiff, I’m sorry,” she pleaded as Tiff drew back in and slammed the door in our faces. “Tiff...”

“I’d better go,” I said weakly. Charlie wasn’t paying me any attention. She was pounding her fist franticly on the closed door. I backed away slowly, turned, and went down to the waiting taxi. Charlie didn’t even turn to watch me go. Charlie was fishing in her pockets for her key.

“Mum, I’ve got a problem” I cried desperately as I came straight through to the living room the moment I got home. And then I noticed mum’s friend, Sarah, sitting there with her. Mum jabbed at the remote to flick off the TV.

“I should probably go,” Sarah said softly and started to rise.

“No, no, it looks like Sam needs all the advisors he can get,” my mum rested her hand on Sarah’s arm, staying her. My mum looked a bit amused, not taking this nearly as seriously as I was. Mum turned her attention back to me. “So, honey, what’s the problem?”

“Charlie kissed me,” I wheezed as I sank into an armchair and stared at the blank television.