WHERE ARE YOU CHARLIE?

BEFORE V

"I want her to deliver it this time." Jim's voice boomed. "Dress her up nicely, a dress and Sunday shoes or something, and put the stash in her school bag..."

My school bag?

I started worrying about what would happen to the awesome Minnie Mouse school bag that Charlie had bought for me two years before.

Some kids at school thought it was childish, but I couldn't care less, this was the closest thing to a toy I possessed and I really treasured it.

No matter what Jim wanted me to do, I really hoped it wouldn't imply losing it.

I knew better than to say a word, so I carried on stuffing the turkey we would eat that night.

"It's going to be ok..." Charlie whispered reassuringly a few minutes later.

Unsure of what he meant, I remained quiet, but his unusual reassurance had somehow had the opposite effect since I now wondered what would happen to me, so much so, that I struggled to fall asleep that night.

Since I hadn't been told to do any differently, I went on with my usual morning routine the day after.

I got up at four thirty, ran for an hour, prepared breakfast for everyone – coffee and bacon and eggs on toasts -, had a quick shower, got dressed with the clothes Charlie had left on my mattress, and finally cleaned the kitchen.

I was waiting on the porch with my school bag on my shoulders when Charlie joined me.

"Don't move." He demanded.

He then opened my bag, emptied its content in a plastic bag he'd brought out, and put another bag inside. He then slipped the plastic bag containing my books and pens in his own back pack and we walked to the bus stop, which was at the end of the long gravel road that isolated our house from the main road, ten minutes away.

The school bus showed up a few minutes after we got there, so we hopped on it. Charlie, was greeted by many girls and boys but ignored them and dragged me towards an empty seat near the middle door before sitting me on his lap.

"Your little sister is so cute, Charlie..." A tall red-haired girl praised, probably in a poor attempt at getting him to acknowledge her. When he didn't say a word, she went on, "What's her name?"

He ignored her but squeezed my hand, indicating that I was to answer her.

"Zoe..." I muttered shyly.

"Ohhhhh..." She started petting my hair like one would a cat or something. "How old are you Zoe?"

"I'm nine..." I replied, annoyed at her fake tone.

"And she still sits on her brother's lap?!" I heard one of her friends whisper behind her. "Isn't she too old to have a Minnie Mouse bag?" Another one whispered. Soon, many girls were giggling at my expense.

Charlie was eerily still under me. I knew he was two seconds away from snapping so I decided to intervene.

"I may only be nine, but my ears are not impaired." I told them hoping my voice wouldn't break and betray my fake confidence. "And I'd rather have a Minnie Mouse bag than ugly braces on my teeth..." I added, pointing to the girl who'd criticized my bag.

I knew I was being mean, but the girl had started it.

"Burnt!" Some boy shouted and many kids started clapping and congratulating me.

I wasn't sure why they were all so excited so I decided to focus my attention on the landscape.

Charlie pressed the STOP button one stop earlier than usual.

I followed him down the bus and was surprised when several kids shouted "Bye Zoe!"

"You did great..." Charlie murmured before squeezing my shoulder affectionately.

I couldn't help the huge smile that appeared on my face after his praise.

We walked to the town center and stopped at the entrance of a small building that looked like it had seen better days.

Charlie squatted in front of me and I instantly panicked when I saw how worried he looked.

My eyes grew wide when he gulped noisily and took a deep breath, his two hands holding my shoulders firmly.

"Listen carefully to what I'm going to tell you and do exactly what I say, ok?" He started and I nodded quickly. "You're going to take the stairs and walk up to the sixth floor. There, you're going to find room sixty four and knock on the door three times." He paused. "When the door opens, you don't get in, no matter what they tell you, you don't." It was the first time I saw my brother worry that much. "You simply hand them your bag and come back to me..."

I nodded and scared like never before, I pushed the heavy glass door open.

I went up the six flights of stairs on trembling legs and walked in the dark corridor until I found the door of apartment sixty four.

My arm was shaking as I lifted it to knock on the door, but I did it, three times, just like Charlie had instructed me to.

I slid the bag off my shoulders and held it in front of me with my two hands.

"Eyes to the floor!" A gravelly voice ordered from above me just as something round-shaped and cold landed on my forehead.

I froze when I understood it was the muzzle of a riffle, a much bigger one that those Charlie and Jim used when they shot bottles in the back yard.

I quickly cast my eyes downwards.

The man must have been satisfied because he snatched the bag from my hands and shouted, "Now get the hell out of here!" before hitting me violently in the head with his weapon.

I was too scared to register the pain or the fact that I had just handed him my most precious belonging.

In fact, my brain seemed to have temporarily shut down as I ran away from the scary man as fast as I could.

Charlie hugged me tightly when I finally reached him two minutes later.

"We need to get you some ice." He said when he pulled away.

We walked to a small coffee shop.

"Wait here." He ordered.

Still terrified by my earlier encounter, I was tempted to sit down on the floor and to hug my legs tightly the way I did when I wanted to escape a particularly traumatic situation but Jim would kill me if I damaged that dress, so I remained on my feet until Charlie came back with a small bag of ice.

"Put it on the bump." He said after handing me the bag.

That's when I first noticed the awful headache.

So I took the bag and gently pressed it on the throbbing spot.

"Tell your teacher you fell on your way to school..." Charlie told me once we got in front of the gates of my school. He then retrieved the plastic bag with all my books from his back pack and gave it to me before walking away wordlessly.

Have a nice day, Charlie.