Secrets

Chapter 5: Rico

Chapter 5: Rico

Rico woke up the next morning sprawled on the floor with his share of the blanket flopping over the bed, with his pencil and pad of paper still in his hand. Marko must've shoved him over while he slept. His eyelids were heavy. Luckily, it was Sunday, the only day he started work after breakfast. Most days his employer provided him with a nectarine or a plum. If his employer was having a good day, there was a quarter of a biscuit. And on the rarest of occasions, like Christmas and Easter, there was a sandwich, meat and onions and cold chunks of butter. Rico licked his lips. Then, he was shook to his proper senses by the plastic cup full of water they kept at the 'bedside table'. (A slab of wood thirty centimetres above the ground, level with the bodies on the mattress on the floor) It wobbled dangerously at the edge of the wood, as if deciding whether to stay up or go down. It chose the latter, unfortunately for Rico. The glass fell majestically, and since the cup was full to the brim with cold water....

Well, you can guess what happened.

The water drenched Rico's face and hair. It fell towards his eyes, and even though he shut them close, the droplets trickled in anyway. The front of his shirt was dripping, and the back was sopping wet. It was at this moment that all of Rico's five senses reawakened from slumbering, and also the time the blanket chose to fall from the bed.

Marko's right arm flopped over the side of the bed.

Rico felt sick. Wonderfully sick. Gloriously sick. Marvellously, brilliantly, sick. He got up and ran to the cracked sink in the corner. He was going to be sick, and it was the scone's fault. The scones with the clotted cream and the strawberries. And the fullness. The fullness, Rico thought as his stomach heaved it's contents up his throat and out into the sink, was worth it.

When he arrived at the dining room- actually, it was more like a small table in one of the rooms of the four adjoining ones that made up the apartment- Mama was up and cooking. Eggs. Mama always believed that eggs were one of the best foods for breakfast you could have. Rico wasn't sure if she was right, but an omelette with a possible chance of topping was marginally more appealing than a lone slice of bread with a smear of jam/butter/honey and a few sips worth of milk. And the thing that was even better than the proper breakfast was the fact that Mama was up and walking. She had been terrible for the last few months, slipping in and out of sickness. Rico was working extra, delivering newspapers to the places outside Venice, to buy the medicine that would cure her for good. Today, he remembered, he had t pay the rent. There was a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. Drat. That means that we'll have enough money for some cloth for Juliet to make us new coats....and a loaf of bread. Which wasn't much. Juliet walked into the kitchen. She turned on the crackly radio, hoping that it was having a good day......but it wasn't. The sound of static reverberated softly across the room.

Rico sighed, and he was about to head out of the door when something small and colourful caught his eye. There was something outside the window, perched on the windowsill. Luckily, the window opened inwards, because if it opened outwards, the thing would probably have been knocked off.

It was a bird.

That's what Rico thought for a few seconds. It looked like a Goldcrest, but it struck him as a little unusual. The bird sat still, very still, not flapping it's wings or moving in general. Rico tried to scare it. He flapped his hand. The bird remained motionless. Then Rico realised it was made of clay. And he realised who had put the bird there.

Reagan.

But how would she have got it up here, with the wall at least two metres taller than Rico himself? His eyes strayed to the ground. There was the family down one floor's trampoline, straight under. The trampoline had a high platform. The eldest child, Rico's age, had to use a two-step ladder to get onto it, but it was still very bouncy nonetheless.

Xa had made this bird. Reagan used this to tell Rico messages, though she did so very rarely. The message depended on the tail feather. Red meant Urgent: Come to the orphanage NOW. Blue meant I have something to tell you, meet me at the park at.... and there would be a time underneath the bird. This time it was blue. The time to meet her at the park was in five minutes time. There was half an hour left until he was due for work, and he was nearly finished breakfast.

He decided to go.

In the park, Reagan was already there, leaning against the oak tree. She looked mildly surprised to see him, but she didn't say anything. This was strange, Rico thought, but then again she must've just not expected him to see the bird. Reagan offered Rico a slice of apple. Then she paused and bit her bottom lip. She looked around. Something was going on. Reagan was never this cautious. That was Xa's job. Sometimes it was Rico's.

Twenty five minutes left until he had to go to work.

"Well, after you left the park....." Reagan explained quietly while Rico simply stared, dumbfounded.

"Wow." That's all he could say.

"I agreed to Skype Xa."

"Again, WOW."

"I told her everything, she adapted the story to tell her parents, and at this very minute they are on a plane coming to Venice. They arrive this afternoon."

Rico let out a long, low whistle.

"You've found out some gems of information, Reagan. Who's going to use it? I mean, seriously-" Rico dropped his voice to a murmur, "Someone could use this information to stop The Dark...and your parents might've been involved in it too."

Reagan looked taken aback, as if the thought had never occurred to her.

"You might be on to something there.....maybe the car crash was a lie, a cover up.." she trailed off, staring into the distance as if she was contemplating something important. Actually, Rico thought to himself, she probably was contemplating something important.

Four minutes until he had to arrive at work...

"Sorry, I've got to go. Work." he grinned apologetically and stood up from the park bench he had been sitting on. He jumped onto his bicycle and started cycling, his mind distracted from his legs.

As he walked into his workplace, his boss threw him a peach, a bundle of newspapers and a greeting.

"Where've you been, young man? I 'ave some good biscuits 'ere!" he exclaimed, then threw Rico a quarter of a biscuit.

"Though," his boss said, lowering his voice, "don't expect one for a while. Martha, the girl captured by The Dark, was daughter of the best grocer in town. It ruined 'im, that's what it did. Ruined!" he whispered, shaking his head.

"Sometimes," he continued under his breath, very quietly, (Though this time he didn't intend for Rico to hear) "I wonder if anyone is going to stop The Dark..."

Rico smiled to himself as he started to deliver his newspapers.

I don't know if it'll stop them for good, but I'm certainly going to try to defeat The Dark. That was the thought that resounded through Rico's mind as he went around that morning.