Extraordinary by David Gilmour Page A

already been lied to once that day by the vice-principal, wasn’t buying. He stuck to his story. He didn’t know what happened, didn’t know how they got the guitars out of the school, he was just there doing a favour.
    â€œConsulting a notebook, the fleshy cop said, ‘It says here a Hammond organ was stolen as well.’
    â€œâ€˜There was no organ,’ Kyle said.
    â€œâ€˜Are you sure?’
    â€œKyle didn’t see the trap. ‘Yes, I’m sure.’
    â€œâ€˜Well,’ the cop said, ‘if you weren’t there, how would you know that an organ wasn’t stolen too?’
    â€œHis partner stepped in. ‘Listen, fuckweed, if I don’t have the name of the thief on this piece of paper in thirty seconds, I will charge
you
with grand theft, possession of stolen property, intent to traffic, and you will, I promise, go to jail.’ He gave him a good poke in the chest with his finger just to show he meant business.
    â€œâ€˜Arrest me, then,’ Kyle said. ‘Arrest me and fuck you.’”
    â€œHe said that?”
    â€œThat’s what he said he said.”
    â€œBallsy little guy.”
    â€œThe police must have thought so too, because they let him go. For the moment. The fleshy cop said, ‘I’m going to give you twenty-four hours, Kyle. Then I’m going to come to your house, and I’m going to arrest you in front of your parents and your neighbours. I’m going to put you in handcuffs, and I’m going to take you to jail.’
    â€œHis partner said, ‘You ever hear of grand theft, you little fuck? That’s theft over a thousand dollars. You’re in the big leagues now. You can thank your buddies for letting you take it in the ass for them. Because that’s where you’re headed. You know how long a kid like you will last in jail?’”
    I’d forgotten what a skilful mimic Sally could be. She didn’t do it very often; it wasn’t her style, too attention-getting a number for her. But as a child, those times I saw her do it, saw her cut loose some night and “do” a neighbour talking to herself while gardening or our soused uncle saying good night but not leaving, I’d find myself staring at her as if I were watching a chair levitate.
    She went on. “Kyle went home. He didn’t tell his father, nor did he sleep that night, not a wink, just a tumble of awful imaginings. Exactly twenty-four hours later, he sat by the front door with his night kit packed—pyjamas, hairbrush, toothpaste, toothbrush—and waited to be taken to what he imagined was some kind of Russian gulag.
    â€œThe appointed hour arrived. Five o’clock. Then five-fifteen. Then six o’clock. Kyle walked down to the sidewalk and peered up and down the street. Nothing. No one. They never came.
    â€œBut after, he refused to go back to school. To
any
school. That’s what Bruce’s letter was about. He suggested that Kyle come down to Mexico and live with me. Asked me to take some time to think about it. I didn’t need time. But I pretended to, pretended that I had reservations: the wheelchair, not being up on crutches yet and so on. In fact, what I didn’t want was for Bruce to realize how
thrilled
I was to have
both
my children down there with me. I thought if he even smelt it, something would go tight in his chest and he’d snatch it away. But I don’t know. Maybe I was doing him a disservice. Now that he’s gone, he seems like less of an asshole and more a product of growing up in a small town.
    â€œA few weeks later, Kyle arrived on the afternoon bus. It was spring now, the days very hot. Freddie Steigman and Chloe went down to the depot to pick him up. On the way home, Freddie read him the riot act. He said, ‘You have no idea what trouble is like until you’ve been on the inside of a Mexican jail.’
    â€œIt must have been three or four nights later