WHERE ARE YOU CHARLIE?

BEFORE III

"You need to learn how to defend yourself..." Charlie announced one day, after I finished hanging up the laundry.

He grabbed my hand and dragged me to the back yard where he had hung one of those brown bags of potatoes at the lowest branch of the old oak tree.

"Hit it." He demanded.

I looked at him incredulously but when his eyebrows furrowed indicating an imminent outburst, I clenched my right hand tightly and punched the bag.

OUCH! I closed my eyes when I realized that the bag was in fact, full of potatoes.

"Again!" He demanded.

I ignored the stinging pain and hit the bag again.

"Imagine it's a man who wants to hurt you, and you've got only one shot at hitting me..." He added.

It reminded me of the man that day on the seaside, so I pictured the skinny man who still occasionally haunted my nights and punched the bag with everything I had.

"Use both hands and your feet..." He growled. "You'll be done when the bag is down..." He added before sitting on a rock nearby.

I looked at my already bloodied knuckles, but knew better than argue so I blinked back the tears that threatened to escape, and punched, kicked, kneed, heck, I even head-butted the stupid bag at some point.

xxxx

The sun had set a few hours before so he'd brought torches outside which he'd planted all around the tree.

For the first time in my life, I wished Jim was home. I'd have been allowed to stop, to cook and clean if he had. But he was away for the week.

One potato fell on the floor as the first rays of sun appeared on the horizon.

I felt like a zombie, well a bloodied one, anyway. I couldn't feel anything anymore as I determinedly hit the stupid bag again and again.

It took me another hour for all the potatoes to fall on the floor.

"You'll be done when the bag is down..." He had said.

So I summoned the last tiny ounce of energy I had left in my seven-year-old body, jumped up and hung myself over the bag hoping that my weight would be enough to tear it down.

A few seconds later my bum landed painfully on the floor but I was too happy to care since I was now holding the empty bag tightly into my hands.

"You'll do it again every month until you improve..." Charlie said blankly from above me. "And starting next week, you'll go running everyday..."

I nodded, struggling to keep my eyes open.

xxxx

I let out a loud shriek when my body hit the freezing cold water. I opened my eyes widely and realized that Charlie had just put me in the bathtub.

I must have fainted.

When he came back to add more ice cubes in the tub, I worried he was actually trying to kill me or something.

Before, the pain had been so intense that my body didn't register it anymore, now, I was numb. It was like I was gradually turning into an ice cube, too.

CLACK – CLACK –CLACK – CLACK – CLACK –CLACK

What's that noise? I wondered.

CLACK – CLACK –CLACK – CLACK – CLACK –CLACK

"Ok," Charlie stated from my right. "Time to sleep it off." He added as he slid one arm under my knees and the other one around my shoulders, before wrapping me carefully in a towel. "You have the whole day off. Tomorrow is Monday, back to school..."

CLACK – CLACK –CLACK – CLACK

He helped me into my sleeping clothes and lay me down on the mattress.

CLACK – CLACK –CLACK

He then tucked my bruised body against his chest and pulled the old sleeping bag on the two of us.

"You did good, Zoe..." I heard him whisper as I dozed off.