Chapter 19

I suppose you have been wondering what happened to Sad when he went away with the Police Foster Parents?

As you can imagine, he was very, very scared.  As he looked out the window in the speeding car he examined every man walking by who looked like a criminal.  He recalled the attacker was quite short, with greasy long black hair and a scruffy, badly trimmed beard.  On his arms were tattoos of dragons, a heart with an arrow through it and several grisly skulls.

Sad was sure he would know him again because on his left hand his little finger was partly missing at the knuckle. That and a damaged nose with a bend to the right made him quite memorable.

Forcing himself to think back to that dreadful day when his life changed, he remembered visiting his Aunt Gladys and Uncle Ted.  His parents were going on a holiday and his aunt and uncle had enthusiastically offered to babysit Sad for a whole week while they were away.  He liked his aunt and uncle.  They had no children of their own and loved to spoil him, giving him lots of ice-cream and lollies to eat and taking him to parks and beaches whenever he wanted to go.

They were eating lunch one day and Sad was looking forward to his ice-cream, when there was a knock at the door.

“See who that is, will you?” said Aunt Gladys to Uncle Ted.  He lumbered to the door and the next thing Sad heard was a Bang! and a Thud!

“Goodness, what was that?” cried Aunt Gladys.  She raced into the hallway and Sad heard another Bang! and a Thud!

Sad knew that if he ventured into the hallway there would be another Bang! followed by the sound of himself hitting the floor so he quickly hid under the table, which had an oversized cloth reaching almost to the floor. 

He could hear heavy boots approaching the kitchen.  He could see them stop just short of his face.  They were old and brown with loose laces.  He held his breath.  The boots moved away to another room so he made the most of the opportunity to run to the back door.

“Hey!” called a rough voice.  Sad turned and saw the man front on, with his long greasy black hair, his funny bent nose, the tattoos on his arms, and the hand with the short little finger pointing towards him.  In the other hand was a gun, but Sad didn’t wait to see if it had any bullets in it.  He scampered out the back door and ran through the yard, squeezing through a hole in the fence.  On the other side was a bushy hillside where he knew he could hide and not be found. 

Crouched in a burnt-out tree trunk he waited until dark.  Carefully creeping back towards the house he saw there were no lights.  Too scared to go inside he decided to get as far away as possible.  Walking toward the town he kept in the shadows until he reached the railway station.  A train puffed into the station and several people climbed on board.  He followed a family of two grown-ups and two children, pretending to be the little brother.  As soon as they were on the train, he hid in the toilet for at least an hour until he felt safe.  A few people banged on the door but he kept it locked.  Eventually he opened the door and saw that they were pulling into Central Railway Station.  Again, he attached himself to the back of a family and the man at the gate didn’t seem to notice he didn’t have a ticket.

Wandering aimlessly along city streets in the middle of the night, Sad was unsure of what to do except he knew he must stay hidden.  Thoughts of contacting his mother and father were put to one side.  The awful man might shoot them as well.  He just had to become someone else for as long as it took.

That is when he chanced upon the Opera Orphanage for Unwanted Children.  What a perfect place to hide!  If he couldn’t speak, they couldn’t find out who his parents were and so they would be safe.

His plan had worked well until the fire.  As the only person who knew of the danger all the children were in, Sad had to warn them and speak.  However, he still refused to tell Matron or Nurse Smiley anything about his past.

Until now, that is.  He didn’t know the man had been picked up near the crime scene and put in gaol after a court case based on circumstantial evidence.  Then two years later his sister, who lived nearby, said he had been at her house all day and night and only went outside to take out the garbage. Why she didn’t say anything during the court case the police couldn’t determine but the judge decided the prisoner deserved the benefit of the doubt and should be freed.

Sad was a great asset to the police as a witness.  The man was picked up the same day and put back into prison pending a court case.  Sad should have felt safe but he didn’t.  What if the man escaped and came after him?  

The thing that cheered Sad up immensely was the reunion with his parents.  They had kept hoping all this time that he was still alive and their joy was overwhelming.  They kept looking at his face and exclaiming how much he’d grown and then hugging him so tightly he could hardly breathe.  He was allowed to go with them to his old home as the gunman was safely locked up. The other good news was that his aunt and uncle were alive and had made a remarkable recovery from their wounds.

The day of the court case arrived.  Sad was nervous but glad that the time had come to keep this man in jail for a long time.  He hoped he wouldn’t have to look at him but the first thing he was shown was a police lineup of six men.  He was asked to identify the gunman and had no hesitation in naming him, even though his hair was now short and his facial hair removed. He was 100% certain this was the man who shot his aunt and uncle and threatened him with a gun in their home.

The defence counsel tried to say that Sad didn’t actually see the shooting take place and that someone else could have done it.  The man with the gun may have been an accomplice and not been involved in the attack.

However the Crown Prosecutor argued that the bullets found at the crime scene belonged to the gun found in his hand when he was apprehended by police that afternoon so the judge thought that was a good enough reason to lock him up.  

Sad’s life was back to normal but he longed to see Step and Tear.  It was almost the end of the school year, so Sad didn’t have to start at his new school until after the holidays. At last his parents agreed to take him back to the orphanage for one day to see his friends and to inform Matron of all that had happened.  He would have so much to tell them.

END OF CHAPTER 19