My voice shook as I asked the question. “What’s his name, sweetheart?”
But Aiden looked down at my feet instead. “Did you wee, Mummy?”
I’d barely noticed the warm water spread over my jeans and down my legs. Now that I glanced down I saw that my waters had broken all over my shoes, leaving a puddle of murky fluid spreading across the floor.
44
AIDEN
He should be here by now. I check the clock. It’s 9pm. He said 7pm. Wednesday, champ. Seven on the dot. You can cope ’til then. You’ve got food in your fridge. The generator is all charged up. It’s only three days, mate, okay? You’ve managed that long before.
It’s worse when he doesn’t come. Then he comes and it’s worse again. But when I’m alone for days I’m scared. When I was little I just felt cold and lonely. I thought of Mum and Dad and Nana and all the kids in my class. Even annoying little Rosie, the one who used to steal my red crayon. I wished they were all here.
Then I got older and I started thinking other thoughts. What if the generator broke? What if the electricity goes out and I’m stuck in the dark? What if the ventilator clogs up and I suffocate to death? But the worst that had happened so far was the toilet flush breaking or the time I got a stomach bug. Both those times he threw the cleaning products into the cage and watched me clean up from the other side of the bunker, holding a scarf over his mouth and nose.
At least it gave me something to do. There’s never anything to do and that makes me crazy. Sometimes he brings me books. I ask for pens and pencils but one time I jabbed the pencil in my arm and he only brought me crayons after that. I draw pictures with them but I want to learn to get better. I can’t do that with wax crayons.
Sometimes he cuts my hair. Sometimes he brings down a tub and pours hot water into it so I can have a bath. He tells me he loves me and sometimes I believe it.
But I don’t want to stay here and I never have. That’s why he makes sure I’m locked in the cage every night. Then he locks me in from the main door. I hear him walk up the steps before there’s a clunk. I think there are two doors.
I’ll spend hours wondering where I am. I draw pictures of what I think it looks like. When he comes into the room, I see the mud on his boots and so I know we’re outside somewhere. Maybe it’s a field. Maybe I’m on a farm. I don’t remember much about the day I was taken. One minute I was looking at the river, the next I woke up on a bed surrounded by metal bars.
I didn’t understand anything.
I cried and cried for Mum but she never came. I guess she doesn’t know where I am because I think she’d come if she did.
I asked for a map once, but he didn’t bring it. I guess he forgot. I wanted him to show me where we were on the map. Mum used to show me maps all the time. She’d show me pictures on the computer of different places in the world and I always said that I wanted to go there.
I used to try and think of ways to get out. He used to let me out of the cage sometimes, but he was big and strong and if I tried anything I got a smack round the mouth. I’ve been trying stuff a lot recently. I dunno why. I’m changing, I guess. I’m getting bigger and I don’t like it down here anymore. I’m sick of it. I’m sick of him.
He keeps the keys in his pocket. Two weeks ago I tried to hit him with a plate, but he saw what I was going to do and pulled the plate from my hands. After that he gave me paper plates. I’m not allowed knives or anything sharp. I’m not allowed shoes with shoelaces. I have to eat cereal and bread and fruit all the time, nothing that needs knives and forks. Unless I’m supervised by him.
He’s changed too. He looks at me differently. He doesn’t do the stuff he used to. He says I’m getting big and that I look all wrong. He mumbles to himself about being tired when he thinks I’m not listening. He looks tired. I don’t think he likes keeping me a secret anymore. Sometimes I wonder if he’ll just never come back. Then I’ll run out of food, water, electricity, water… I’ll die.
There were times when I thought it might be nice to die. At least then I might get to go somewhere else. But I don’t know for sure, so I decided not to. I might one day get out of my cage, but I might not go anywhere when I die, so it seemed too risky.
It’s 9:15. This is it. He’s never coming back. I’ve almost run out of food and I’m cold. My shirts and jumpers are all too small for me. The nights are colder lately. Maybe that means winter. I remember winter outside the bunker. I remember making a snowman and throwing snowballs. Sometimes he shows me movies on his phone. I like the Christmas movies the best. I like watching the happy families making snowmen and snow angels. But they make me cold so I only watch them when it’s warm in the bunker.
I walk back and forth in my cage trying to keep warm. I press the button on my LED light. On. Off. On. Off.
Thu-thunk.
The first door.
A scrape.
The key.
The door opens.