Les Grands Chantiers (Wattys 2022)

24. On The Beach (II)

Brendan awoke to the sight of Adrian sitting at the edge of his bed. "Let's go somewhere," he said, in a whisper. Even in the small sliver of moonlight from he shadows, he could make out the mischievous glint in his eye.

Brendan yawned, excising the sleep from his eyes. "At 2 in the morning?" Even in this situation, he couldn't help but admire the fact that the spare bedroom was almost bigger than his entire house in Corviston. Just the walk-in robe was the same size as his bedroom at home.

"You wanna go or not?"

"We have a big day tomorrow. Wouldn't it be better to get some sleep?"

"I'll buy you coffee. I promise. And anyway, we'll only be gone for a while. If things go smoothly." "If things go smoothly? What if they don't go smoothly?" Brendan thought of the things he had seen on the way here. He had no idea what Adrian meant but it didn't sound good.

"Well... then they don't go smoothly," Adrian shrugged.

"Okay." Brendan put on his clothes, trying to adjust to the harshness of the artificial light on his night-attuned senses. "They don't mind?"

"If they don't notice, it's fine." Adrian had that look in his eyes again."

"You've done this before, haven't you?"

"Years ago, yes."

"Did you ever get caught?"

"Only once."

Brendan was curious about that, but decided that it could wait till later. "Where are we even going?"

"You'll find out when we get there."

***

They tiptoed down the polished corridors to the garage. The house crouched supine around them like an animal in slumber. He imagined that brushing against a pillar or a misstep would rouse it from its reverie, snarling at his clumsiness. He paid close attention to the level changes. He did not want that to actually happen.

Brendan felt himself relax as Adrian switched on the light in the relatively austere garage. The dark shadows around them were transformed into cars.

"Wow," Brendan mumbled, mesmerised by the gleaming metal and glass surrounding him. He had never seen this many cars in a single garage. "This is impressive."

"It's not much. Compared to some of our neighbours."

"It's still more cars than I've ever seen in a garage, ever."

"That's their car." Adrian pointed at a silver Audi SUV parked in the leftmost corner. "The cousins, I mean."

"They can drive?" Brendan hadn't even thought about getting his license yet.

"Yeah? Why not?"

"I didn't know how the licensing system worked over here."

"It basically works the same as on the other side. You know a lot of our services are just piggybacked off of yours. It was all part of the agreement when the Industrial Zone was set up. Though there's basically no enforcement so lots of people just drive without a license."

"Didn't know that." Brendan looked at the rear of the car. "Those are some nice pipes." He peered closer. There was another, smaller exhaust tip hidden behind the tips. "If only they were real."

Adrian smirked. "Are you making fun of their car?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah, well I don't really like Audis either."

"It's proof that Germans have a sense of humour, I guess."

"That joke's going to be lost on us."

"It's true. werewolves have the worst sense of humour in the whole world. Or to put it another way, we're the only people who aren't as funny as Germans. Why do you think all of our comedians are German backpackers?"