Jack West lay deep in the tall grass of a field devoid of anything but daisies and surrounded on all sides by tall trees.
He looked up at the clear blue sky and used his left hand to block out the sun as he enjoyed its warmth gently toasting his body.
Jack was supposed to be rowing, but lately, he just didn't feel like doing anything. In any case, he wouldn't be missed. Sometimes, he wondered why he bothered to engage at all - he was that invisible.
Jack reached into the deep pockets of his trackpants cut off at the knee, and removed a ham and cheese roll and a bottle of water. Doing nothing was hard work, and needed to be rewarded with sustenance.
After satisfying himself, he rolled himself a cigarette and sat up. The grass was just above his head even when he was sitting, and Jack wondered when the farmer would be cutting the grass, it being the end of May already.
Soon, it would be time to join his father in Geneva for Summer Vacation, although Jack's father was rarely ever there for more than a day or two at a time, since he was always away on business, and left Jack to his own devices and his Summer allowance, £5,000 and a supplementary credit card.
Most kids would take advantage of their Father's generosity to cause a riot, but Jack was not very sociable and didn't care for parties or people in fact, preferring his own company as much as possible, although he did exchange a few words with Tom (the Butler/Driver, Jack's father had assigned to keeping a tab on Jack whilst he was away) and Maria (Rosemary, the maid), whom Jack had had a crush on for the last couple of years, but had never had the courage to talk to properly.
Jack was careful with money. He knew his Father made money easily, but since he did not understand how it was made just yet, he did not feel comfortable with spending it. In any case, a boy of 16 didn't need a great deal. He had a decent laptop, camera and an iphone and some clothes and didn't understand why girls needed 20 pairs of shoes, 40 handbags, 60 dresses and 80 shades of lipstick, although he had to admit that seeing them wearing different things was interesting.
Jack had never known his mother, and he often thought what she'd look like, what she'd wear, what kind of hairstyle she'd have and how she'd walk and talk. The closest role model he had was Maria, who was Spanish and was always dressed in a typical black-and-white maid's outfit.
At the end of the previous summer, Jack had finished restoring a bent-out-of-shape black Norton Commando 750 Roadster and was looking forward to spending some time on the road with it this Summer. He had bought the bike from a man in Cardiff, and had Tom help him have it transported back to Geneva for him to work on.
Jack's father was not a practical man, opting to pay professionals to carry out the simplest of tasks, but Jack was different and would spend hours fixing things in the empty double garage of their 4-bedroom town house, and fancied himself as a bit of a mechanic.
Jack's badly-rolled cigarette kept going out, so he decided to toss it and get up. He popped his earphones in and continued listening to Björk's Play Dead as he headed back to the flat his Father had bought him that overlooked the school Cricket pitch.
Jack's father had been a boarder at school, and hated it, so when it became a necessity for him to send Jack to school in England, he opted to house Jack in a flat and assign him a Guardian, George Black. Jack thought of George as more of a groundskeeper, as he was always outside and aside from the occasional "Morning" or "Evening", they barely interacted with each other, although if Jack felt like calling in sick, he would ask George to do the honours, to which he would happily oblige.
Jack pushed the heavy oak door open with his right hand and back-kicked it shut with his right leg. He looked at the fresh tracks left by his neighbour's bike and sighed.
Although Jack didn't mind being up to his eyeballs in grease whilst he was working on his motorbike, he was a very clean person, and despised anyone that was untidy, or dirty - that included his careless neighbour who had trashed the new carpet in the communal area in little under a week.
Jack didn't worry himself about that as it was a futile exercise, and instead started to sort through the pile of post for letters addressed to him.
His monthly subscription to FHM (For Him magazine) had arrived, along with a book he had ordered on Amazon and finally there was a blue letter addressed to Jack W. Carter, Esq. in his father's handwriting.
Jack pulled the concertina lift gate open and stepped into the old-fashioned 4-person lift and took it to the top floor. The window on the landing looked over the modest communcal garden and Jack could see George sitting down with a mug of tea. George spotted Jack and he waved. Jack nodded before entering his flat and sitting down at the square breakfast table in the kitchen.
He tore open the Amazon package first and found a brand new copy of J.D. Salinger's 'The Catcher in the Rye' inside.
Next, he removed the polythene wrapping of his FHM (For Him Magazine) and had a quick flick through. He wasn't in the mood to read it now, and placed it on the side counter.
He stood up, and walked over to a drawer and withdrew a knife. He used the knife to slit open his father's letter and then he filled the kettle and set it to boil.
When he unfolded his father's letter, he noticed his father had enclosed a smaller envelope with a plastic card inside about the size of a credit card.
He flipped open the smaller envelope and removed a card that said 'Happy Birthday Son'. He turned the card over and there was a magnetic strip on the back with the words 'All my love, Dad' scribbled onto it using a Sharpie. The small print showed the address of a gift shop in New York.
"Jack,
I'm sorry son, but I've got some business in New York at the moment. I know you're dying to get back to Geneva to try out your Norton, but why don't you book a flight to New York after school's out, and stay with me for a couple of days?
We can see the Knicks, catch some shows and grab a steak or two. What do you think?
Must dash.
All my love,
Dad."
Basketball was off-Season, but it was a nice gesture. It would be nice to spend some time in New York with Dad. The possibilities started to race through Jack's head. He smiled as he saw an image of his father and him playing catch in Central Park.
It was then that Jack noticed something strange about the bigger envelope. It was sticky, as if his father had used glue to seal the envelope. Upon closer inspection, Jack discovered it was just Sellotape and thought nothing more of it.
Just then, he heard a familiar voice.
It was George.
"Jack! What do you fancy for dinner?"
George never ate with Jack so it was an odd request.
Before Jack could react, George added:
"Did you pick up your copy of GQ then?"
Jack looked at his latest copy of FHM on the counter. Something was wrong.
Jack rushed over to the window that overlooked the garden and scanned it for anything out of the ordinary. Nothing.
He pulled open the sash window and climbed onto the flat roof below via a drainpipe. From there, he used another drainpipe to bring himself down to ground level.
His bicycle was the first in the bike shed at the side of the house.
As he fiddled with the combination lock to release his bike, he saw two men walk around the side of the building towards him. They were dressed in suits and didn't look threatening, until one of them reached into his jacket and pulled out a gun.
Jack didn't wait around to see what the man would do with it. He rushed his bike head-on towards the men, who jumped out of his way instinctively, and Jack ducked down the alleyway next door to his property. The alleyway was barely wide enough for two people to pass by each other and after a turn or two, Jack was gone.
Copyright © Alice Malachard 2012
