Brianna’s Story….
The teacher was whispering something to the principal. Brianna lifted her head and watched, then looked back down at her paper. As long as it gave her some extra time on her math test, she was unconcerned about whatever they might be discussing. She hated math and subtraction was the worst!
Trying to focus on the subtraction problems and not doodle in the margins any more, she took a deep breath and forced her mind to figure out the next answer. Six minus….ugh! Six minus eight, so she had to regroup, carry over the one…she went through the process in her mind, aware that the others in the classroom were already finished. She was one of the last to finish her math. As usual!
Writing – now that was a whole different story! Brianna even chuckled in her mind at the bad pun. She loved to write! She loved to create happy stories that continuously floated through her mind. She wasn’t too fond of the book reports the teacher assigned, but when they had to think up a story about one subject or another, she was always the first one finished. Not only that, her stories were usually the ones that the teacher read out loud to the class.
But math…nope, she still hated math. Surely there were careers in the world where one didn’t need to add or subtract anything! Whatever it was, that’s what she would do with her life. Anything so she didn’t have to do math.
“Brianna?” her teacher called out.
Brianna looked up, her stomach clenching when she took in the strange looks on her teacher’s face as well as that of the principal.
She stood up and walked slowly to the front of the room. Her father was probably sick again, she thought with misery. He’d been sick a lot lately. Which terrified her since her mother had just died from her own sickness about a year ago.
Brianna missed her mother terribly. As she made her way forward, she wished she could hide behind her mother’s legs, feel her mother’s arms wrap around her one more time. All the other kids had mothers. Why was hers the only one who had to die? It didn’t seem fair.
If her mom were still around, she would know what to do about her dad. He always seemed like he was either crying or sick these days.
Looking around, Brianna noticed that even the other kids knew something was terribly wrong. They were looking at her as if she were in trouble, but Brianna honestly couldn’t think of anything she’d done wrong lately. She’d stopped misbehaving when her mother had gotten sick, trying to bargain with God to make her mother better if she behaved.
Obviously, that hadn’t worked. Brianna was still angry with God, not sure if he was listening to her deal-making, or just trying to teach her a lesson.
“Let’s go talk in my office, dear,” the principal said and took Brianna’s hand.
Brianna didn’t understand this at all. The principal only spoke to the bad kids! Brianna wasn’t bad! She was always good! She was too afraid to be bad, thinking someone was going to die if she was bad. She couldn’t figure out what was wrong, or why the principal might need to talk to her.
Once in the principal’s office, she sat down carefully in the chair, not allowing her back to touch for fear that she would have to run. But where she would run to, she had no idea.
And then the police officer stepped into the office. Brianna felt like she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t talk. She just stared at the two people who were looking at her strangely.
“Dear, I have some bad news for you,” the principal started out.
“Am I in trouble because I didn’t finish my math in time?” Brianna asked.
The principal glanced at the police officer, shaking her head. “No dear. This doesn’t have anything to do with school and you’re not in trouble. We’re all going to help you any way we can.”
Brianna couldn’t figure this out. It was the principal. Why was she being nice? “Okay. Thank you very much,” Brianna replied.
The officer bent down, looking into Brianna’s eyes. “Honey, I know you don’t know who I am, but…” he looked at Brianna’s eyes and choked up. “Well, the thing is…”
The principal cleared her throat. “Your father had a bit of an accident,” she finally said.
Brianna’s eyes widened. “Is he in trouble?” she asked, still trying to make sense of this conversation.
“No dear. He…died earlier today.”
Brianna heard the words, but couldn’t process them. Her mother had died. Her mother had been sick for months. Her mother had been throwing up, losing her hair, her skin turning yellow and pale. Her father only cried a lot. He wasn’t sick. He wasn’t throwing up and he had all of his hair.
“He wasn’t sick,” she countered, arguing with what they were saying. It simply wasn’t possible.
The principal came around her desk and took Brianna’s hand in hers. “He was sick, just not sick in his body. He was sick in his heart.”
That still didn’t make any sense. “Did he go see a doctor?”
The principal shook her head. “No, dear. But I don’t want you to worry, okay? There are lots of people who are going to help you. A woman called Betsy Jones is on her way. She’s going to take you to a home where you’ll be safe. Where you’ll have a warm, comfortable bed, good food and we’re all going to help you through this situation.”
Brianna nodded her head, still not sure what was going on. She had a bed. She didn’t necessarily have warm food, but she knew how to make herself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. And her dad ordered pizza for them most nights.
Several hours later, she still didn’t have any understanding of what had happened to her, but she was tucked into a bed for the night while a strange girl with short, curly hair stared at her. Brianna wanted to talk, wanted to ask questions, but everything was simply too confusing.
“You’re going to be okay,” the other girl whispered in the darkness. “My name’s Nikki,” she said. “What’s yours?”
Brianna hugged the rough pillow, wishing she were back in her pink room with her stuffed animals surrounding her. “Brianna,” she replied, not sure if she were breaking the rules about talking after bedtime.
There was a long silence, but then the other girl said, “I lost my parents too.”
Brianna wanted to cry, but she was still too confused, not sure what to say or do. “Did your parents get sick too?”
Another long silence, and then she heard the sniffle. “No. A drunk driver crashed into them.”
Brianna heard the wobble in Nikki’s voice and, somehow, her confusion over her own father’s death seemed to slip away. Brianna slipped out of her bed, unconcerned about the rules for the first time in a long time. She ignored the cold floorboards under her bare feet and snuck onto the other girl’s bed. “I’m sorry,” Brianna said and took the girl’s hand. “It hurts, doesn’t it?” she whispered, her own voice wobbling now.
There was a slight movement and Brianna suspected that Nikki had nodded her head. “A lot,” she finally replied.
Together, the two of them cried out their sorrow and confusion, trying to keep it as quiet as possible. And somehow, in the dark, strange room, Brianna felt like her world wasn’t falling apart. That things might, just might, be okay. After all, she had a friend.
Rocco’s Story…
Rocco hefted the bag of pig feed onto his shoulder and carried it onto the truck, moving around the other, larger, men on his way back. He was only twelve years old, not the youngest to ever work at the feed warehouse, but definitely not within the median age range of forty to fifty years old. The older workers grumbled about his presence, but since he got paid about half of what they earned while still doing the same amount of work, they didn’t care too much.
“Hey Dracius!” a voice called from an area to his right. Rocco ignored the call, knowing it was one of the suppliers calling to his boss. “You haven’t paid me in two months!” the man called out.
Rocco, along with several of the others hauling the bags of feed to the truck, glanced over with those words. The line boss looked at the enormous man approaching their work area and frowned. Rocco tried not to listen to the conversation, but his mind just kept going over the numbers that were being discussed. When it appeared as if his manager was about to lose the argument, Rocco knew that he had to step in and let him know that the other guy was cheating.
“You don’t owe him that much,” Rocco said, standing behind the two men.
The stranger looked down at Rocco, his face turning red while he drew in a deep breath. “Who are you?” the man asked with contempt.
Rocco’s line manager glanced down, but shook his head. “Get back to work, kid. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Rocco thought about just getting back in line. But something inside of him rebelled at anyone getting away with cheating. “You’re about to pay this guy double what he’s owed, sir.” Rocco waited, unaware that everyone else who had been hauling the bags of feed had stopped to watch the confrontation.
The stranger turned around and, before Rocco knew what was happening, he was back handed, his body literally flying through the air to land with a hard thud against the pile of feed bags.
The stranger then turned back to the line manager, poking the smaller man in the chest. “Get me my money, or I’ll start taking your equipment,” he threatened.
Rocco sat up, shaking his head to regain his focus, then stood up. With a swipe of his arm against his nose, he wiped the blood away and approached again. His manager looked down at Rocco warily. “You a glutton for punishment kid?” the guy asked.
Rocco shook his head but held out his hand, indicating he wanted to look at the invoice the stranger had demanded payment on. “If you let me take a look, I’ll confirm my calculations.”
The stranger raised his hand again but Rocco ducked this time, avoiding the hand. And just to make sure, he moved behind the truck. Instantly, the bigger workers formed a human barricade, protecting Rocco from further assault. Rocco was fast and he didn’t even need a pencil. As he went through the invoice, he noticed exactly where the inaccuracy came into play. He even saw where the stranger had doctored up the figures. He laid a hand on two of the workers’ shoulders, indicating that he needed to step out again. The workers surrounded him and Rocco was grateful. It wasn’t that he couldn’t take the abuse. It was just nice to know that he wouldn’t have to.
“Here,” he said, pointing to the invoice. “If you look at this number and multiply it by the price, you get this amount,” and he took his manager’s pencil to write down the number. “What this guy did is change these two numbers so they look like the invoice is right, but the end result is more than double what you should be paying him.” He looked towards the stranger. “If you want, I’ll look at this guy’s invoices for the past several months and see if he’s been doing it to you all along.”
The manager took the invoice back from Rocco and looked at the stranger. “Is this right, Bruno? Have you been cheating me all along?”
The stranger, obviously named Bruno, started to shift uncomfortably. “You know I’d never do that Dracius. We go way back,” he commented. He looked down at Rocco. “You’re not going to listen to this kid, are you?”
Dracius ground his teeth. “See all these men behind me?” he pointed to the ten or twelve men standing silently, some with their arms crossed over their chest, others with their hands fisted at their sides. “They haven’t had a pay raise in over two years because I couldn’t afford to give them anything. Why? Because your prices have been going up so dramatically!” He moved in further. “So yes. I’m going to ask this kid to look at all of your invoices. And if I find out that you’ve been cheating me, then you can damn well count on the fact that I’m coming after you. And I’ll bring every one of these guys to make sure you pay them two years’ worth of back pay.”
Bruno held up his hands, trying to placate the manager. “Look, I’ll have my staff go back and take a look. If we’ve made a mistake, of course we’re going to refund any money. But I can assure you, we’ve never cheated you!”
The man then stormed off and Rocco watched, understanding the body language that told him more than the spoken words.
His manager put a heavy hand on Rocco’s shoulder. “Okay kid. You’d better take a look at those figures. If there’s a problem, we need to find it before Bruno comes back with something heavier than his fist.”
Rocco nodded and followed the manager into the office. He worked through the night, fighting off the cold as the sun set and the heater in the building refused to pump out adequate heat to ward off the below freezing temperatures. Russia wasn’t exactly known for its balmy temperatures in the winter. By the early morning hours, he’d finally figured out all the overages the warehouse had been charged, and promptly fell asleep in the corner.
By the time his boss came into the office several hours later, Rocco was sound asleep, unconcerned about the cold as he slept off his fatigue.
He didn’t hear his manager come in and take a look at the figures, nor did he hear the conversations flowing around him about the same subject. But when he woke up a couple of hours later, obviously late for his shift on the line, he knew that something drastic had changed.
His mother and father were standing in the big boss’ office, holding hands and Rocco felt his stomach drop out of his body. Had he done something wrong? He couldn’t imagine, not sure what he’d done besides the invoices. And he was sure about those.
When his mom and dad came out, he saw the tears in his mom’s eyes as she rushed over to hug him. “I’m so proud of you,” she whispered in his ear.
His dad, normally not very demonstrative, also gave him a hug. “You did good, son.”
The owner of the warehouse came out of the office, huffing and puffing his chest with self-importance. “I can’t believe you figured out how much that man was stealing from us, just from overhearing a conversation. You’re very smart,” he said, looking down his nose at Rocco.
Rocco didn’t feel smart. He felt exhausted. And he knew that he needed to get out onto the line and start working again. His dad was a farmer and his mother a seamstress. They didn’t have a lot of money and they were excited when he’d gotten this job, adding precious money to the family’s meager income. “I gotta get to work, Mom,” he said, trying to pull out of her arms. Being twelve, he was embarrassed by her show of affection even though he still liked feeling her arms around him. She was always soft and smelled like cookies.
“You don’t have to,” she laughed. “Not anymore.”
“You’re going to school, boy,” the owner said. “There’s a private school in town that should challenge you more than the public schools.”
Rocco shifted angrily. “We can’t afford that.”
The owner smiled, his whole face softening. “I’m going to pay for it,” he told Rocco, as he’d obviously told his parents.
Rocco was completely opposed to that. He had pride and didn’t want to accept charity. “We’re fine on our own.”
The owner laughed, but shook his head. “No son. You’re not doing fine. With a mind like yours, you’ve got a lot to contribute to this world.” He cleared his throat. “Besides, I’m paying your tuition with the money you’ve saved me, with even a lot left over. I can now give all the workers a raise. Not much, mind you. But over the next few months, I might be able to expand the business, hire more people and give them all a better wage.” The owner put a firm hand on Rocco’s shoulder. “This is all because of you. I hadn’t noticed those errors in my supplier’s invoices. And because it was so consistent, there’s no way the errors could be accidental.” He paused for a moment. “You’ve saved my business. Sending you to school so you can work that mind of yours is the least I can do.”
Rocco was humbled, but he learned a lot that day. Not only did the headmaster of his new school stop by their house to give him some information on classes and get him registered, but the families of the other warehouse workers stopped by, a loaf of warm, homemade bread, cookies, casseroles, anything they could think of to thank Rocco and his parents for what he’d discovered.
It was the first time he’d been confronted by blatant criminal behavior. His mind pondered the issue during school. Even as he fought the other students’ prejudices regarding a poor kid in their elite school, he contemplated the inequities of life. At that point, he decided that he would fix as many of those as possible.
Learn more about The Russian’s Dangerous Game, book two of The Friendship Series
