Born Different by Faye Aitken-Smith Page B

a
radio inside and not much else.
    “Ok so this is
the plan. Frank goes up on to the walls overlooking the area and
Gabe, you just sit in the van with the ignition running ok. If you
hear from any of us, just drive ok?”
    “Drive
where?”
    “Erm, drive
where? Just come back here ok?”
    Gabe was
beginning to think that this master plan was not very well thought
out at all. He had an exam after lunch and he didn’t need this. But
it felt a bit too late to back out now. And Gabe also realised that
this van would be perfect for transporting his art works down to
the school. He did need one last favour.
    Johnny told
Dave and Frank to get in the back of the van and he jumped into the
passenger seat, leant over and opened the driver’s door from the
inside for Gabe. As he did so the interconnecting door to the
kitchen slammed shut with a loud bang that scared the shit out of
all of them. As one door opened, another one closed firmly
shut.
     
    Sitting in the
van in his required spot, with the engine running, Gabe opened the
car window and lit a cigarette from the packet Johnny had left in a
vain attempt to look a little less conspicuous and obvious. He
could see Frank in the distance, squatting up on the wall and
vaguely hidden behind the leaves of a tree. Gabe had no idea where
the others had disappeared to, somewhere down the back garages of
an old run down estate off the ring road.
    What the
hell am I doing here? The thought kept turning over in Gabe’s
head. He felt paranoid, he could see a CCTV camera and there were
quite a few odd looking people about. Gabe knew he shouldn’t be
here, he should have said, ‘No!’ Gabe just had a really bad feeling
on him, almost like a premonition that this was all going to end
badly. He felt sick to the gills and the tobacco smoke wasn’t
helping either. Everyone looked like a potential undercover cop or
worse. He had promised himself he was going to change but what if
it was all too late now, that this was it. Today would be the day
that they got caught or that today would be the start of the rest
of his life entrapped in the four walls of courts and prison cells.
Why was he still with these people? Gabe didn’t feel that great
being in his own skin today. How had it come to this?
    They had
surpassed anyone’s low hopes for them. For a second, Gabe had a
moment of clarity and realised that he was becoming, if he hadn’t
already, which he felt sitting here as a getaway driver to a
robbery that he undoubtedly already was, exactly what all others
had thought or said that he was. He was fulfilling all of their
doom filled prophecies and not fulfilling any of his own dreams.
Not one of them.
    Gabe tasted the
fear and had to get out and half thought about abandoning the van;
here and now was a good a time as any. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t
leave his friends in the lurch. But now the fear of taking
responsibility and running his own life was at a level that was
below this level of fear he had living this sort of life.
    After today he
would focus on the sculpture, The Exhibition and nothing else. Gabe
knew that the other art students would already be setting up their
art work, arguing over their little spaces, unlike Gabe who
wouldn’t set up until the last minute. He didn’t like the idea of
leaving his paintings in the school hall, showing off before the
big event. There was no need. Gabe also couldn’t bear the thought
of having to hang around with the others that were exhibiting,
banging on about some bullshit or other. Feigning praise that the
other exhibitors crap was good, buying into all that installation
nonsense. Gabe knew himself well enough to know that, under all the
pressure he was under at the moment, it would wind him up so much
that he would want to do something dramatic. Something totally out
of character, like throw the other artwork, (that was actually just
a brick labelled ‘mind’), through the other art work, (that was in
fact just a plate of glass