The Long Game

Riding the surf around the reef, Abbie came up very quickly upon the beach. As she arrived in the shallows, she jumped off the board and took the board onto the shore. Abbie loved to go surfing as it only needed a one off payment and it was something she could do almost any time she wanted. This time, she had gone to the beach straight after school, she needed something to calm her down before she went back to the Centre. One of the boys had used her only mascara which had been given to her on her birthday last year to paint the fur of the dog in his picture and she had almost throttled him. She knew at that point that she needed a surf. Now, she walked along the sandy beach with her surf board under her arm and the wind whipping through her long dark brown hair. She walked past the rich white people sitting in their deck chairs and reading, not books, but slabs of technology. As she walked back to the centre, Abbie wondered what it would be like to be one of those people, who have the time to take holidays, or more to the point, the money to do so. This thought lingered on her mind until she came upon a small girl dressed in designer beachwear complaining to her mother. Abbie heard the words,
“It’s not fair!” come from the little girl’s mouth. Abbie almost went livid, which would not have been difficult considering her current mood. There was this child standing their with 2 parents, food, cloths and everything she could ever want or need, and she was saying how unfair her life was. Just as Abbie saw this, the little girl pointed in her direction.
“I want a go on that!” The girl started running towards her. As the girl got closer, Abbie could see that she was about 11 years old, not the 3 or 4 she would have expected from the sound of her voice from halfway up the coast. She ran to Abbie and tried to grab the surfboard out of her hands without even acknowledging Abbie’s existence. Abbie, however, stood her ground and held onto the surfboard with all she had.
“What are you doing?” Abbie addressed the girl. She still ignored Abbie and tried to get the surfboard out of her hands.
“I said, WHAT are you doing little girl?!” This time Abbie was practically shouting at the spoilt girl. That got her attention.
“I am not a little girl!” She still clung onto the surfboard, but was now shooting daggers at Abbie now through her eyes.
“Well you’re acting like one!” Abbie watched as the little girl’s expression recoiled. The girl seemed to recover.
“It doesn’t matter, give me my surfboard.” It was Abbie’s turn to recoil.
“I’m sorry, YOUR surfboard?”
“Yes, mine.”
“Well, you see sunshine, you have to pay for something before it is yours.” Abbie tried to explain to the girl, she seemed to be slightly understanding her, before she slipped again.
“No, but Mummy says that anything I want I can have.” For a moment she had looked like a nice little girl, but then she slipped back into brat mode.
“And who is your Mummy?”
“Catherine Brown.” Abbie stood back aghast. She was talking to the richest child in the whole of Australia!
“Holly!” The blonde women part way down the beach was calling for the child, who was evidently called Holly, as she turned round and looked in that general direction. She waved at her mum and turned back to Abbie. Catherine Brown walked up to the pair of girls and looked Abbie up and down, observing with intense scrutiny, the prices of her beach clothes.
“Holly, why are you talking to her?” The way Catherine said ‘her’ it sound as if she was talking about a compost heap.
“Mummy, I want the surfboard, but she won’t give it to me.”
“And why not?” This question was addressed at Abbie and the woman was acting as if everything in the universe belonged to her. Like mother like daughter.
“Because it belongs to me, and I am not confident that letting your daughter borrow the board would be a wise move.”
“Why not?” The woman actually looked quizzical.
“Well, because she seems to actually believe that it belongs to her, and also because it is my most precious possession.” The woman looked at her in a different light, her eyes showed confusion.
“That thing? Your most precious possession?”
“Yes, it’s the most expensive thing I have ever owned.” Abbie was going red in the face now, as she was telling the richest women in the country how poor she was. The woman’s expression changed again, to one of almost compassion.
“Come on Holly, you can’t have that surfboard.” Mrs Brown lead her spoilt daughter away from Abbie and the surfboard.
“But Mummy, you said I could have anything I wanted!”
“Yes but not that one, you see, you have to pay for something…” Abbie only heard the tail end of the conversation, but it seemed that the woman may actually be explaining social values to the little girl. Well, at least something good came out of humiliating herself in front of the whole beach.

“Abbie! Oh my goodness, where the hell have you been?” Miss August came up and hugged her and picked her up off the ground. “I needed you here like half and hour ago! The generator’s broken…again! Could you please…?” Abbie smiled and nodded at her while leaning her surfboard up against the white washed walls of the Centre for the sun to dry it.
“Why get an electrician in when one of the children can do it for you hey?!” Abbie shouted at Miss August over her shoulder as she walked across the compound to the shed where the generator was kept. Miss August chuckled.
“So right Abbie, just make sure you don’t electrocute yourself while your doing it this time!”
“I didn’t last time! Charlie pretended I did!”
“Sure thing Abbie, just be careful okay!”
Grabbing the tool box on the floor by the door of the shed, Abbie grabbed the skateboard and slide underneath the generator, which was raised off the floor to allow for these types of repairs. Abbie immediately found the problem, an oil leak. Grabbing a spanner, Abbie tightened a few bolts and the leak stopped. Finished, thank goodness for that, last time there was a problem, Abbie had to take the whole thing apart to change the fan belt (the engine was a composite of different engines, including cars). Abbie switched it on and it ran as it always had, which was bad, but you just live with it. She walked back to the main house and found that the lights had turned on once again, and just in time for nightfall. All the younger children looked upon her as a big sister figure, and they all ran up to her and hugged her when she came in through the door. But once they had all disappeared and Miss August was putting them into bed, Abbie snuck out of the dinner hall where she had been eating her late dinner, and crept into the office. She went to the filing cabinet and looked for her file. She knew this was her only chance as it was normally locked, but one of the boys had been taken to hospital that evening after he broke his arm falling off a bike, so his file had been accessed in a hurry from the cabinet. She found her name under ‘Daniels‘, which had apparently been her mothers maiden name and she hid it up her shirt and made her way to her room. Once there she took out her medical records including her birth certificate, then her Centre paperwork and then an envelope marked with her name. It was still sealed, so she carefully tore it open. Inside was a picture of a man and women sitting on a bench, the women had long brown hair and was black, while the man was white and blond haired, and was, she found herself thinking, quite handsome. She turned the photo over to find it inscribed with names: Kari Daniels and James Brown (parents of Abigail Daniels). Abbie sat for a few moments taking this in, this was the first time she had ever seen what her parents had looked like. Gosh, they looked so happy in the photo, she wished she could have been part of that family so badly. As her eyes began to prick with tears, she noticed a slip of paper fall out of the file. She picked it up off the floor and found it to show a web address, but in the Centre they weren’t allowed to use the computer after 9 PM. Looking at the clock and finding it was 9:45PM, Abbie wondered whether she would be able to get away with it.
“Ahhh!! There’s a spider in the bathroom! ABBIE!!”
Abbie recognised the voice of 8 year old Jackie and sighed. Looks like she didn’t have a choice. Placing all the items back in the envelope and hiding the envelope between the sheet on the bed and the mattress, Abbie slipped on her slippers and headed down the hall to the younger children’s area of the Centre, only once glancing back to where the file containing her whole life’s story lay as well as a mystery which she had yet to solve. Why would anyone place a web address called ’Thunderstorm’ in her file?