Read Juba Good for Free Online Page B

understand the meaning.
    â€œGet up. Get up right now.” My heart was beating almost as fast as hers. This was no present. Not a goodbye gift from my buddies. I looked around. Her clothes were draped over the desk chair. I scooped them up and threw them at her. “Get dressed.”
    Tears welled up in her dark eyes. “You don’t like?” She tried to keep smiling. She pulled the duvet down, showing me a leg as thin as that of a stick insect. She cocked the leg. It wasn’t seductive in the least.
    â€œI most certainly don’t like. Get up. Get dressed.” I gestured to the clothes. “Now.”
    I turned and ran. I had the presence of mind to switch off the outdoor light as I fled.
    I had no doubt someone was crouching in the bushes. With a camera. Ready to get a shot of the girl leaving my room. Hoping she’d be adjusting her clothes and I’d be half-dressed and grinning. I darted around the side of the container. I stopped to get some breath and to think. Not about who had done this. That could wait.
    But about what I was going to do.
    I could not be seen leaving my room with that poor frightened child. Camera or not, anyone could pass by at any moment.
    Joyce lived two containers over. In off-hours she kept pretty much to herself. But she was friendly enough.
    I pounded on Joyce’s door.
    â€œKeep your shirt on,” she yelled.
    The door opened. She peered out, blinking sleep out of her eyes. Her red hair stuck up in all directions. “Robertson. What’s the matter?”
    â€œI need your help. Now.”
    â€œI’m in bed. Can’t it wait?”
    â€œNo.”
    She must have read something in my eyes. Pure panic, probably.
    â€œHold on.” The door shut in my face.
    It opened a minute later. She wore black track pants and was pulling a light jacket over her T-shirt.
    â€œI got home a couple of minutes ago. I found something in my room,” I said.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œYou’ll see.”
    She stopped dead. “It’s not a snake, is it? I can’t stand snakes. You’ll have to get someone else on this.”
    â€œNot a snake. No.”
    We went into my room. The girl was exactly where I’d left her. In my bed. Naked.
    â€œWell, stone the crows,” Joyce said in surprise. She turned to me. “You’d better not be having me on, mate.”
    â€œI swear. I walked through the door two minutes ago and found her. Right there. Like that.”
    â€œThis isn’t a joke,” she said. “Someone’s out to get you.”
    â€œI know.”
    She picked up the girl’s shirt.
    â€œRobertson, wait in the bathroom. You, time to get up.”
    I went into the bathroom. I heard Joyce ask the girl what her name was and where she lived. I couldn’t hear the replies.
    â€œYou can come out now,” Joyce called.
    Dressed, the girl looked even younger. She wore a short skirt that jutted across bony hips. A low-cut, sparkly blouse revealed the top of barely-there breasts. Joyce held the girl’s shoes in her hands. Gold sandals with thin straps and four-inch heels. I thought of my daughters. Dressing up as princesses for Halloween. Raiding their mother’s closet to play dress-up.
    This child was a travesty.
    â€œWe’ll walk out together,” Joyce said. “I’ll hold the girl’s arm, you come behind. Her name, by the way, is Olivia.”
    â€œAnd then what?”
    â€œI’m taking her to an NGO that runs a shelter for war-orphan girls living on the streets. You’re coming with us.”
    â€œYou don’t need me.”
    â€œI sure the hell do. Crikey, you think I don’t know what some of your mates have to say about my supposed sexual orientation? I won’t let them into my bed, so they figure I must be a lesbian.”
    I’d heard the talk. Figured it was none of my business.
    â€œI’ve been married three times. I’m off men for the