Trash Read online

  A DAVID FICKLING BOOK

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2010 by Andrew Mulligan

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by David Fickling Books, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  David Fickling Books and the colophon are trademarks of David Fickling.

  Visit us on the Web! www.randomhouse.com/teens

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at www.randomhouse.com/teachers

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Mulligan, Andy.

  Trash / Andy Mulligan. — 1st American ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Fourteen-year-olds Raphael and Gardo team up with a younger boy, Rat, to figure out the mysteries surrounding a bag Raphael finds during their daily life of sorting through trash in a third-world country’s dump.

  eISBN: 978-0-375-89843-3

  [1. Mystery and detective stories. 2. Poverty—Fiction. 3. Refuse and refuse disposal—Fiction. 4. Developing countries—Fiction. 5. Political corruption—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.M918454Tr 2010

  [Fic]—dc22

  2010015940

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

  v3.1

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Part One

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Part Two

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Part Three

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Part Four

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Part Five

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Appendix

  A Note from the Author: What is a book-code?

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  PART ONE

  1

  My name is Raphael Fernández and I am a dumpsite boy.

  People say to me, ‘I guess you just never know what you’ll find, sifting through rubbish! Today could be your lucky day.’ I say to them, ‘Friend, I think I know what I find.’ And I know what everyone finds, because I know what we’ve been finding for all the years I’ve been working, which is eleven years. It’s the one word: stuppa, which means – and I’m sorry if I offend – it’s our word for human muck. I don’t want to upset anyone, that’s not my business here. But there’s a lot of things hard to come by in our sweet city, and one of the things too many people don’t have is toilets and running water. So when they have to go, they do it where they can. Most of those people live in boxes, and the boxes are stacked up tall and high. So, when you use the toilet, you do it on a piece of paper, and you wrap it up and put it in the trash. The trash bags come together. All over the city, trash bags get loaded onto carts, and from carts onto trucks or even trains – you’d be amazed at how much trash this city makes. Piles and piles of it, and it all ends up here with us. The trucks and trains never stop, and nor do we. Crawl and crawl, and sort and sort.

  It’s a place they call Behala, and it’s rubbish-town. Three years ago it was Smoky Mountain, but Smoky Mountain got so bad they closed it down and shifted us along the road. The piles stack up – and I mean Himalayas: you could climb for ever, and many people do … up and down, into the valleys. The mountains go right from the docks to the marshes, one whole long world of steaming trash. I am one of the rubbish boys, picking through the stuff this city throws away.

  ‘But you must find interesting things?’ someone said to me. ‘Sometimes, no?’

  We get visitors, you see. It’s mainly foreigners visiting the Mission School, which they set up years ago and just about stays open. I always smile, and I say, ‘Sometimes, sir! Sometimes, ma’am!’

  What I really mean is, No, never – because what we mainly find is stupp.

  ‘What you got there?’ I say to Gardo.

  ‘What d’you think, boy?’ says Gardo.

  And I know. The interesting parcel that looked like something nice wrapped up? What a surprise! It’s stupp, and Gardo’s picking his way on, wiping his hands on his shirt and hoping to find something we can sell. All day, sun or rain, over the hills we go.

  You want to come see? Well, you can smell Behala long before you see it. It must be about two hundred football pitches big, or maybe a thousand basketball courts – I don’t know: it seems to go on for ever. Nor do I know how much of it is stupp, but on a bad day it seems like most of it, and to spend your life wading through it, breathing it, sleeping beside it – well … maybe one day you’ll find ‘something nice’. Oh yes.

  Then one day I did.

  I was a trash boy since I was old enough to move without help and pick things up. That was what? – three years old, and I was sorting.

  Let me tell you what we’re looking for.

  Plastic, because plastic can be turned into cash, fast – by the kilo. White plastic is best, and that goes in one pile; blue in the next.

  Paper, if it’s white and clean – that means if we can clean it and dry it. Cardboard also.

  Tin cans – anything metal. Glass, if it’s a bottle. Cloth or rags of any kind – that means the occasional T-shirt, a pair of pants, a bit of sack that wrapped something up. The kids round here, half the stuff we wear is what we found, but most we pile up, weigh and sell. You should see me, dressed to kill. I wear a pair of hacked-off jeans and a too-big T-shirt that I can roll up onto my head when the sun gets bad. I don’t wear shoes – one, because I don’t have any, and two, because you need to feel with your feet. The Mission School had a big push on getting us boots, but most of the kids sold them on. The trash is soft, and our feet are hard as hooves.

  Rubber is good. Just last week we got a freak delivery of old tyres from somewhere. Snapped up in minutes, they were, the men getting in first and driving us off. A half-good tyre can fetch half a dollar, and a dead tyre holds down the roof of your house. We get the fast food too, and that’s a little business in itself. It doesn’t come near me and Gardo, it goes down the far end, and about a hundred kids sort out the straws, the cups and the chicken bones. Everything turned, cleaned and bagged up – cycled down to the weighers, weighed and sold. Onto the trucks that take it back to the city, round it goes. On a good day I’ll make two hundred pesos. On a bad, maybe fifty? So you live day to day and hope you don’t get sick. Your life is the hook you carry, there in your hand, turning the trash.

  ‘What’s that you got, Gardo?’

  ‘Stupp. What about you?’

  Turn over the paper. ‘Stupp.’

  I have to say, though: I’m a trash boy with style. I work with Gardo most of the time, and between us we move fast. Some of the little kids and the old people just poke and poke, like everything’s got to be turned over – but among the stupp, I can pull out the paper and plastic fast, so I don’t do so bad. G
ardo’s my partner, and we always work together. He looks after me.

  2

  So where do we start?

  My unlucky-lucky day, the day the world turned upside down? That was a Thursday. Me and Gardo were up by one of the crane-belts. These things are huge, on twelve big wheels that go up and down the hills. They take in the trash and push it up so high you can hardly see it, then tip it out again. They handle the new stuff, and you’re not supposed to work there because it’s dangerous. You’re working under the trash as it’s raining down, and the guards try to get you away. But if you want to be first in line – if you can’t get right inside the truck, and that is very dangerous: I knew a boy lost an arm that way – then it’s worth going up by the belt. The trucks unload, the bulldozers roll it all to the belts, and up it comes to you, sitting at the top of the mountain.

  That’s where we are, with a view of the sea.

  Gardo’s fourteen, same as me. He’s thin as a whip, with long arms. He was born seven hours ahead of me, onto the same sheet, so people say. He’s not my brother but he might as well be, because he always knows what I’m thinking, feeling – even what I’m about to say. The fact that he’s older means he pushes me around now and then, tells me what to do, and most of the time I let him. People say he’s too serious, a boy without a smile, and he says, ‘So show me something to smile at.’ He can be mean, it’s true – but then again he’s taken more beatings than me so maybe he’s grown up faster. One thing I know is I’d want him on my side, always.

  We were working together, and the bags were coming down – some of them already torn, some of them not – and that’s when I found a ‘special’. A special is a bag of trash, unsplit, from a rich area, and you always keep your eyes wide for one of them. I can remember even now what we got. Cigarette carton, with a cigarette inside – that’s a bonus. A zucchini that was fresh enough for stew, and then a load of beaten-up tin cans. A pen, probably no good, and pens are easy to come by, and some dry papers I could stick straight in my sack – then trash and trash, like old food and a broken mirror or something, and then, falling into my hand … I know I said you don’t find interesting things, but, OK – once in your life …

  It fell into my hand: a small leather bag, zipped up tight and covered in coffee-grounds. Unzipping it, I found a wallet. Next to that, a folded-up map – and inside the map, a key. Gardo came right over, and we squatted there together, up on the hill. My fingers were trembling, because the wallet was fat. There were eleven hundred pesos inside, and that – let me tell you – is good money. A chicken costs one-eighty, a beer is fifteen. One hour in the video hall, twenty-five.

  I sat there laughing and saying a prayer. Gardo was punching me, and I don’t mind telling you, we almost danced. I gave him five hundred, which was fair because I was the one who found it. Six hundred left for me. We looked to see what else there was, but it was just a few old papers, photos, and – interesting … an ID card. A little battered and creased, but you could make him out easy enough. A man, staring up at us, right into the camera, with those frightened eyes you always have when the camera flashes. Name? José Angelico. Age? Thirty-three years old, employed as a houseboy. Unmarried and living out somewhere called Green Hills – not a rich man, and that makes you sad. But what do you do? Find him in the city and say, ‘Mr Angelico, sir – we’d like to return your property’?

  Two little photos of a girl in school dress. Hard to say how old, but I reckoned seven or eight, with long dark hair and beautiful eyes. Serious face, like Gardo’s – as if no one had told her to smile.

  We looked at the key then. It had a little tag made of yellow plastic. There was a number on both sides: 101.

  The map was just a map of the city.

  I took it all away and slipped it down my shorts – then we kept on sorting. You don’t want to draw attention to yourself, or you can lose what you find. But I was excited. We were both excited, and we were right to be, because that bag changed everything. A long time later I would think to myself: Everyone needs a key.

  With the right key, you can bust the door wide open. Because nobody’s going to open it for you.

  3

  Raphael still!

  I’ll hand on to Gardo after this – after the evening.

  You see, just after dark I realized I had something very, very, very important, because the police arrived and asked for it back.

  You don’t see many police in Behala, because in a shanty you sort out your own problems. There’s not a lot to steal, and we don’t usually steal from each other – though it happens. We had a murder a few months ago, and the police came then. An old man killed his wife – slit her throat and left her bleeding down the walls to the shack underneath. By the time they came he’d run and we never heard whether they got him. We had four police cars come on an election visit, surrounding a man who wanted to be mayor – lights flashing and radios crackling away, because they all love a show, these police. Otherwise, they have better things to do.

  This time it was five men, one of them looking very important, like a senior officer – older man, fatter man. More of a boxer, with a smashed-up nose, no hair, and a mean look.

  The sun had gone down. There was a cooking fire, where my auntie was boiling up the rice, and tonight – on account of the money I’d found – we were having that precious one-eighty chicken. About thirty of us were gathered – not all to eat one chicken! That was just for the family. But it’s hot in the evenings, so people are out squatting, standing, roaming.

  I think Gardo had a ball and we’d been fooling around under the hoop. Now we all stood still in the headlights of this big black four-wheel-drive, and the men got out.

  The boxer cop had a quick chat with Thomas, who’s the main man in our little patch, and then he was talking to all of us.

  ‘A friend of ours has a problem,’ he said. Voice like a megaphone. ‘It’s a pretty big problem, and we’re hoping you can help. Fact is, he’s lost something important. We’re giving good money to anyone who finds it. Another fact is, if anyone here finds it, we’re going to give a thousand pesos to every family in Behala, you understand? That is how important it is to our friend. And we’re giving ten thou to you – to the one who actually puts it in my hand.’

  ‘What have you lost?’ said a man.

  ‘We’ve lost … a bag,’ said the policeman, and my skin went dry and cold, but I managed not to show it. He turned and took something from the man behind him, and held it up. It was a handbag made of black plastic, big as my hand. ‘It probably looks like this,’ he said. ‘Bit bigger, bit smaller – not exactly the same, but similar. We think this bag might have something important in it that’s going to help us solve a crime.’

  ‘When did you lose it?’ said someone.

  ‘Last night,’ said the policeman. ‘It was put in the trash by mistake. Out on McKinley Hill, somewhere round there. And the truck picked up all the McKinley trash this morning. That means it’s either here right now, or coming in tomorrow.’ He watched us, and we watched him.

  ‘Has anyone found a bag?’

  I could feel Gardo’s eyes fixed on me.

  I so nearly raised my hand. I so nearly spoke up then and there, because ten thousand is good money. And a thousand to every family? That’s what they were promising, and if they gave it, oh my! I’d be the most popular boy in the neighbourhood. But I didn’t, because I was also thinking fast, thinking that I could as well give it up in the morning as now. I better be clear: I’d never had any trouble with the police before then, so it wasn’t that I didn’t like them or didn’t want to be helpful. But everyone knows not to trust too far. What if they just took it and drove off laughing? What was I going to do to stop them? I needed time to think, so I stood there, dumb. Maybe there was a bit of calculation going on as well. If they had money to give away, then they could be raised up over ten, and we could get it all up front. If it was precious enough for them to come all this way out to see us, then perhaps ten thousand w
ould turn into twenty?

  My auntie said, ‘Raphael found something, sir.’

  She nodded, and all the police were looking straight at me.

  ‘What did you find?’ said the boss.

  ‘I didn’t find a bag, sir,’ I said.

  ‘What did you find?’

  ‘I found a … shoe.’

  Somebody laughed.

  ‘What kind of shoe? One shoe? When was this?’

  ‘One shoe, sir – just a lady’s shoe. I can get it – it’s in my house.’

  ‘What makes you think we’re going to be interested in that? You playing games?’

  He was looking back at my auntie, and her eyes were back on the rice, then on me, then on the rice.

  ‘He said he found something,’ she said. ‘He never said what he found. Just trying to be helpful, sir.’

  The cop in charge spoke loudly. ‘Listen. We’re going to be back here in the morning,’ he said. ‘We are going to pay anyone who wants work. One day, one week – however long it takes. We need to find that bag, and we’ll pay to find it.’