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Westpoint Tales

by Kiwi

Entangled Tales - 64 - Tony

Mrs. Gibson took no notice of him as he slouched around and he carried on making plans and pinching stuff when she wasn't looking. He found a book of road maps in the living room - North Island only, but that'd do.

He took his new toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste, some soap and a towel. No, two towels! They'd do for a scarf as well. From the kitchen, he stole a carving knife, (she had plenty), and a small one too, for a spare. No bastard was going to mess with him again. He'd cut their nuts off!

What else? He took some fruit. The rest of the food was locked away, unfortunately. A water bottle - he found an empty bottle in the garage, cleaned it out and filled it.

Then he went out and checked out the neighbourhood. He found the route to sneak the bike out of the garage - out the back gate and across the park.

He went back to the garage and unlatched a window, just in case someone locked the door on him. He could climb in through the window and open the door from the inside - no worries.

He was trying to think of everything now. No mistakes this time. A cigarette lighter, for a fire - he pinched hers from the kitchen table. She searched around for a while, and then got a new one out, from the pantry. The key went back in her pocket. Bugger!

After lunch with just Mrs. Gibson and Tony there, he took his backpack and jacket out to the garage. He stuffed all the rest of his loot into double-thickness rubbish bags and took everything out and hid it in the bushes in the park. Then he went back inside to find a torch, but couldn't.

Apart from that, he was ready now, except for money. He had none, but Gibson would have a wallet-full when he came home. If he could get his hands on that, he'd be sweet. If not, well, the petrol in the bike and the container should get him to Hamilton, easily. He could maybe earn some money there, by busking, and then move on to the next town.

He could hop from town to town earning busking money all the way. Maybe. If not, he could friggin' hitch-hike or jump on a train or something. Whatever. He'd get there. Even if he had to walk, he'd get there.

"I'm going out West, where I belong."

"I wish Danny hadn't stolen our guitar. It'd make it easier to go busking if I had that. And if I could play it. Danny can - he's a natural. A natural-born guitar man. Oh, Danny! I'll see you soon - maybe - I hope.'

He'd ridden small motor-bikes plenty of times before. His cousins had bikes out on the farm and he and Danny had played around there. He'd never ridden out on the road, but how hard could it be? Like Superboy said, "Read the signs and do what you're told."

He'd push-biked on the roads often enough, it couldn't be that different.

He spent the rest of the time until the kids came home from school studying the Auckland City map on the wall in the games room. Working out and memorizing the best route out of the city from where they were. (That was highlighted with a large arrow. 'Do they want the kids to run away from here, or what?') He'd take the secondary roads - bugger the motorways on a tiny wee bike.

He went back to the garage again and pinched some garden twine. 'Might need to tie something up. Danny? No.' (Sigh.).

The kids came back , Gibson came home and he did have a big lump in his pocket. That had to be his wallet, didn't it? But, he didn't get changed or anything, just sat around in his overalls.

Mrs. Gibson left early - going out for tea with her old-biddy mates - and they had pizza for dinner. Which was cool, but he couldn't slip any into his pockets and there were no leftovers. This lot would give a plague of locusts a run for their money!

Gibson ordered them all off to bed at 8 o'clock. "Time we all had an early night. I'm having a shower and then I'll be hitting the sack too."

'Yeah, right! Sure you are. Stop looking at me, you Sleazy Creep.'

The kids all went off to bed. Tony went to his room, but he didn't get undressed, he just sat on his bed and waited.

Sure enough, he could soon hear the shower in the Gibson's en-suite bathroom. He tip-toed across and peeked in their door. Gibson's clothes lay in a heap on the floor and he could hear him singing in the shower.

Heart in his mouth, Tony gingerly snuck in there and gently lifted up the overalls. No wallet in there. He looked around and, there it was! It was sitting on the dresser. He picked it up and opened it. It was full of money! Heaps of it. Mostly $20 notes with a few $10's.

He quickly took out a fold of notes, and another, and counted out $340.

'That's all I'm taking - what was stolen from me.'

He put the wallet back in place and quickly left. Still really nervous, he went straight out the back-door and over to the garage. The security lights licked on, but, whatever.

He tried the door, and it opened! 'Well of course it did. The garage is not locked up, she's not home yet.'

He went in and wheeled the small bike out of the door, no trouble at all. "Thanks, security lights." Halfway down the back-yard, he remembered and went back for the helmet. Cody was there, holding it out to him.

"What are you doing, Tony?" he whispered.

"What does it look like?" He whispered back. "I'm escaping."

"Good for you then. Go for it and good luck. I'll try to delay him for you. I'll cover up the space so that they don't notice that the bike's gone. She never uses it anyway."

"Thanks, Cody. You're a mate."

He took the helmet and fled - out of the back-gate and across the park, collecting the three bags of stuff on the way. He tied the two rubbish bags to the back of the seat and the carrier and put the pack on his back.

He started the bike, and he was away! Wobbling across the wet grass, over the sidewalk and out on to the road, heading south at the massive speed of 40kph.

"Turn the lights on now, Doofus."

He stopped by the lights of a suburban shopping centre and restowed his gear. He found the gloves, wrapped a towel around his mouth and neck and put on the big raincoat. He put the small carving knife in the coat pocket and put the other one under the seat. He tied the bags back onto the bike with the stretchy thingies and hit the road again.

The traffic was not heavy now, but there was a bit about. Hopefully, there was enough so that no-one was going to notice a small motor-bike heading out of town.

It took forever to get out of Auckland and its surrounding suburbia, but he finally got there. He rode all through the night and continued on for an hour after dawn. There'd been a couple of showers of rain in the night, but nothing too serious. He stopped twice, to dance around and warm-up and to refill with petrol from the can.

He came to a small, deserted, roadside rest-area and pulled in there, hiding the bike, and himself, under a big overhanging tree. He was pleased that it had gone so well - too well really - but he was also bloody cold! He felt like a boy-shaped iceblock and he jumped up and down, slapping himself, to try to get some circulation going.

He got out one of the sleeping bags and climbed in to it, pulling it up underneath the big coat. He put the cold, wet, gloves into the bag with him to, hopefully, dry them out with his bodyheat.

"Should've got a spare pair of gloves. First town I come to, I'll buy another pair, and some plastic bags to keep them dry in the rain."

Then, he lay down under the tree to get some sleep. "Shouldn't be hard, I've never been so tired."

He slept until late afternoon.. When he woke up, he lay still for a minute. It always took a while to get his head together when he woke - 'Not like Danny, Danny just opens his eyes and away he goes - top gear instantly.'

He struggled to get his watch out and pushed his hand up in front of his face to have a look. "Whoah. After 4 o'clock! I'd better get moving." Then he flopped back down again. "No. I think I'll just stay here until the morning. It's too bloody cold traveling at night. Besides, I'll have to get some petrol, there can't be much left. Can't do that in the middle of the night - not in small towns anyway."

He fumbled around until he found the pieces of fruit and his latest water bottle. "Getting to be an old hand at this. This is the third water bottle that I've had, counting that OJ bottle. I stuck it in my bag but I never got to use it again, those bastards threw it in their fire, same as they did with my clothes. Bastards!

They never got my watch though, Stupid Pricks. They thought they'd cleaned me out and taken everything that I had, and they forgot my wristwatch. Hah!

So. What am I doing here? Going to Westpoint, of course. Have I got enough money? What will it cost to get the bike on the ferry? I dunno. It's about a hundred dollars for just a passenger, isn't it? No, can't be that much. I'll have to be careful with the money anyway. I'll need to buy petrol and food.

Why didn't I clean the bastard out? Should've made him pay what it's worth to play with my dick. Oh yes, expensive boy-whore, me. Ewww! Should've taken the money though, when I had the chance. I could have flown to Westpoint, I'd be there by now.

This is a stupid way to travel - cold and wet and slow. Think I'll light a fire now, because I can!"

In the morning, he refilled the water bottle in the creek and poured the last of the petrol into the bike. 'Not much there, but the oil's still full. Doesn't this thing use any oil at all?'

He moved on, parked the bike, out of sight, and walked back to the service station at the first town he came to. He filled the container with petrol and bought pies to fill himself up. He found a couple of empty plastic bread-bags to cover his hands and the still-wet gloves. He ate the pies, filled the bike, drank the water and moved on. He'd also bought a copy of the Woman's World magazine, for the photos of Danny. He shouldn't have, he knew that, but he couldn't resist it.

He rode on through the day, making good, if slow, progress - stopped once more for more petrol. ("Still no oil gone!") It was getting late and it was frigging raining again!

"Looks like I'm going to get a wet arse tonight. Better find some shelter - a bridge or something."

He went for miles without seeing anything. A tree would be no good - not in the rain which was getting heavy now. It was getting dark too.

Winding down a narrow country road, miles from anywhere, there were hardly any signs of civilization. He hoped he wasn't getting lost. He had read the map properly, hadn't he? He'd check when he'd found somewhere to stop.

Approaching a one-way bridge, ('Would this do for shelter? No, too small.'), he was about to ride across it when a truck came from the other way, around the corner and straight out on to the bridge. It was far too late to stop safely. All he could do was to jam on the brakes and head for the side of the road.

The bike was starting to topple as he skidded off the road, through the grass verge, and he sailed out into a ditch. A deep ditch. A very deep ditch, and full off blackberries and stuff!

"Oh, Shiiiit!"

The truck didn't even slow down. Maybe they hadn't even seen him. Who had the right of way, anyway? "Oh. I think that they did."

He lay there on his side, still astride the bike and clutching the hand-grips - in the ditch, and the rain. Always the bloody rain!

"I'm not dead! I'm not dead! Oh, don't we have fun though?"

He struggled to slide out from under the bike, but when he went to stand up, his left leg collapsed under him. And the pain! He'd never felt anything like it. Gasping and giddy from the pain, he lay there waiting for it to fade and thinking.

"What do I do? Gotta get out of here. This is the end of the road for the wee bike, no way am I getting it back up on the road. I'll take my stuff though, the bags. No way can I come Back for them."

He felt around and released the stretchy thingies to free the rubbish bags, heaved them up the bank a little way and dragged himself up. On his right side, fighting the brambles with his, thankfully, still gloved hands.

"Look at me. I'm gardening now."

He found the bags and pushed them ahead again. It took at least an hour to struggle back up to the roadside, and it seemed much longer.

"Could really do with a hand here, Danny."

Finally, with the last of his strength, he hauled himself out and slumped on the wet grass beside the road. He was lying there, asleep, when a smaller truck came down the road and pulled up next to him.

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