There were three straights and two corners. He made us recite the distance she had to walk once she got off the bus: one hundred and sixty-one metres. Adam knew that today Roger was meeting with his accountant in the city.Īdam knew everything. Roger normally waved, and the girl waved back. Their neighbour, Roger, was out in the paddock most days feeding the calves on his farm. That’s how he knew that today, and every Wednesday over summer, the girl’s grandfather had a tournament at the bowls club that didn’t finish until three-thirty, so he wouldn’t be home for another twenty minutes. Someone out there studying the movements of the people around the child. Even if the rest of the bus was empty, she would always be there on the left side, looking out at the trees whirling by.Īdam knew that most days she had a ponytail swinging down over her pink backpack. He knew exactly where the girl sat, up towards the front.

Adam folded his blade away and picked up the stopwatch. It was longer, with windows all along the sides. Twenty metres from the bus shelter we waited under the shade of the big eucalyptus until we heard the school bus groaning along the road. It’s about an inch long and when he punches it between your ribs it sucks all the air out of you and replaces it with a burning. Adam, sitting up front with Susan, was opening and closing his blade. Riding in the jolting van, I was so giddy that I couldn’t keep my hands still. It sounded so simple all we had to do was stop the van by the edge of the road, pull her into the back, then fly away with her to the Clearing. People can be kind and mean at the same time.Īdam shared the plan with us this morning. I don’t know why, but I wanted the girl to feel pain–I wanted to see her vulnerable but only so I could comfort and soothe her. That’s how I imagine it, as a growth you could cut out. I have a meanness in me, something black and rotten that swells like a lymph node. My brothers and sisters were all saved from the world outside.Ģ.

In the Clearing by J.P. Pomare