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This is a longer version of a story that I posted a few weeks ago. Several readers suggested it would be better if it was expanded so I’m taking their advice. It also incorporates suggestions from two of BC’s finest writers, Angela Rasch (Jill MI) and Emma Anne Tate, who have both really helped me to improve it.

I had meandered through the aisles of one of our local malls looking for inspiration for Christmas gifts a couple of weeks before the big day. My wife had passed away over two years earlier and the hole in my heart hadn’t yet mended and wasn’t going to be patched by buying towels for my daughter-in-law. My heart just wasn’t in it any more.

I had given up on finding anything that would elicit an “Awww! You shouldn’t have!” and was heading back to my car. I stopped when I noticed a girl sitting in a corner on one of their hard plastic seats -- sobbing her heart out.

Her sandals, short shorts, and a sloppy T-shirt were in disarray -- as was her hair. A faint odor suggested the lack of a recent shower. The white-knuckle death grip she had on the sports bag at her knees indicated it might be her only worldly possession. She oozed desperation.

Normally, I wouldn’t have interfered or intervened in the plight of a teenage girl sitting in a mall. I’m not one of those people who spend my energy wiping other peoples’ noses. In fact, given my profession, the exact opposite. Yet, there was something that told me that this wasn’t a normal situation. Sometimes your gut rules your head and I sat down nearby. Maybe I was getting old and sentimental.

I sat close to her but with some distance between us so that I would not appear threatening.

“You OK, love?” I asked and passed her a tissue from an unopened packet in my jacket pocket.

She took the Kleenex without looking at me, and then blew her red nose. Red eyed but without fear she accosted me. “I’m not a whore, if that’s what you think!”

What? “Of course, you’re not a whore.”

“He thought I was.” She pointed to a man in his early thirties, standing next to the entrances to the toilets looking much like a security guard.

“He offered me a fifty for sex. I told him that if he didn’t stop bothering me that I would have my father beat him up. I suppose he thinks you’re my father.”

I’m about twenty years too old for that! Grand-dad maybe.

I quickly sized up the situation and got up. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.” I walked over to the oaf and got up close.

“Hi! I’m Reverend Ike,” I lied. I had lots of experience at lying. In a world of liars you have to be the best. “First Church of Calathumpia. I hear you’ve been making unsolicited advances.”

His face turned the color of the mall Santa’s suit and his eyes grew to twice their normal size.

“I. . .ahhh. . ..”

“Don’t worry.” I extended my hand in an after-the-service/pre-counting-the-collection gesture of Christian fellowship. “I know you were only doing your job. You don’t appear to be the kind of total creep that would proposition a little girl. That would take an all-out fuckwit. Please excuse my profanity but sometimes The Lord needs to talk plainly to get His message across.”

“Uhmmm. . ..” If there had been a hole for him to scurry off to, he would have.

“I’ll take it from here. Her parents have sent me to gather our lamb and take her back to their loving arms.”

By that time he had already slunk away.

I returned to the still upset girl – confident the security guard would stay far away from us.

“Now, where were we. Oh yeah -- I just saw you crying and wondered if I could help.”

“Why would you care? Nobody can help me.” Big sniffle.

“What about your family?” Careful. You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into.

She shook her head ruefully.

“You sound pretty sure of that.” I said, maybe a bit skeptically.

“No-one can help me,” had the ring of teenage drama, after all. She shrugged. Only the young can convey that much despair.

Just then a family came bounding along the mall, kids over the moon about Christmas. As they passed us the girl’s eyes squeezed shut in what looked like pain.

“Not a fan of Christmas?” I asked.

“You can shove Christmas,” eyes still shut.

I’d seen the look on her face a hundred times from my son when he’d go catatonic and refuse to communicate (when he was small; he’ s over that now).

Do you have a choice? Why do I want to help you? What am I getting myself into?

Maybe I could calm her down a bit by distracting her from her own misery.

I looked around me wondering where to start.

“I’m not Scrooge, and I don’t get bent out of shape with other people enjoying it, but all this Holly Jolly doesn’t do anything for me either, not anymore. Many years ago, when my son was little, we used to do all those Christmassy things: trees and fairy lights and decorations -- presents under the tree on Christmas morning and a visit from Santa during the night. You do those things when you have a little kid.”

A tiny nod encouraged me to continue.

“Neither my wife nor I were religiously inclined, so we didn’t do the midnight masses or the carols. Maybe we should have for the sake of the boy. But we did try to make it into something shared with family. I was an only child, so my seasonal experiences weren’t particularly festive.

“Yeah, I got prezzies and we had a tree but mainly I remember our traditional Christmas lunch and then my parents went for an afternoon nap, leaving me to read a book or whatever. Sometimes they gave me a small glass of port, maybe thinking it would make me sleep. I don’t think it ever worked.”

“Your parents gave you alcohol?” She asked skeptically, eyes finally opening as she gave me a look.

Good! This seems to be working. “A very small glass and they mixed it with a lot of water.” I smiled at her while I lied.

“Good job they weren’t locked up,” it was the most animated thing she’d said so far.

“Different times,” with a shrug of my own, wondering when society had become so puritanical.

“Look, wherever you’ve been it hasn’t been the best place for you. I guess you’ve been sleeping rough. Wouldn’t you feel better if you could freshen up? Do you have anywhere to stay?”

Suspicion flared in her eyes. “I’m fine.”

“I never doubted it, but….do you have a place to stay?”

“I don’t have anywhere to go,” she admitted after a few seconds. “but what’s it to you?”

Fair question, I guess.

“What do you mean? I’m trying to help,” I replied.

“I’ve been chucked out of my home and I don’t have anywhere to go.”

How can anyone throw a youngster out of her home, unless she’s done something dreadful. This girl doesn’t appear to be the “dreadful” kind.

“Did you do something that made them think you could no longer live there?”

Her face winced, as if she had bitten into something vile. “Nothing.” She vowed. She thought for a moment, “It’s just who I am.”

“Nothing?” I persisted. I didn’t want to lose her but I have to know.

She shook her head. “You wouldn’t want to know.”

“Try me.”

Two giant tears fell from her eyes.

I handed her another tissue.

“I’m trans,” she whispered. “Do you know what “trans” is?”

Yes, I most certainly know what “trans” is. For that moment I dodged the question. Why couldn’t it have been anything else. I don’t need to ask any more questions. I know THAT problem.

“Look, I’ll take you to my place; we’ll get you settled down and cleaned up and you can decide what you want to do.”

“So I’m supposed to get into a car with a man whose name I don’t even know and let him take me to his place, which could be anywhere?”

“Point taken. You can call me Mac. Here’s my phone.” I handed it to her. “It’s switched on and you can call anybody you like, including the cops, if you think I’m being nasty or threatening. My place is in South Brisbane so I won’t take you too far from here”

She took the phone and looked at me a little less suspiciously.

“OK, here’s what we’ll do. The car park is two floors down, so we go down in the lift (elevator). You stand at the front where the doors open and I stand at the back. You can bolt if you don’t like anything. When we hit the carpark you stand aside and I’ll go to my car. I’ll open a back door and get in the driver’s seat and put on my seat-belt, so you get in the back and I can’t do anything. If that’s OK we go to my place in South Brisbane. Oh, and you can take pictures on the phone.”

She must have agreed because she got up and followed me to the lifts, not saying anything more though.

That went as planned. We got into the car and the trip took about ten minutes, mostly in silence, while I concentrated on driving and what she had just revealed.

What are you getting yourself into?

When we arrived, I stopped the car in the small carpark adjacent to my entrance, about fifteen metres from the front door. I escorted her into the building, a block of units, called the lift from wherever it was, shepherded her inside, pressed for my floor, stood back, and told her, “The door to Number 62 is open. Just go in and wait while I park the car. If you don’t like it, get back in the lift, press one and the green button by the front door. You’re away. I’ll be about two minutes.”

A couple of minutes later, car parked and, in the garage, I entered my apartment. She was still there, sitting on the sofa, looking calmer, no longer weeping. She hadn’t run, at least.

“Well, did you have a stickybeak while I was downstairs?”

She actually gave a small smile and nodded. It wouldn’t have taken her long to do that. I have two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a laundry, a living room, kitchen and a balcony with a table and four chairs.

“Can I really stay? Just for a little while?”

“Yes, I won’t throw you out. You can tell me when you’re ready to leave. By the way, what’s your name? And how old are you?”

“Ali, and I’m 16.”

“Short for Alison?” I knew it probably wasn’t but it was important for her to give me whatever information she was comfortable with. “What about school?”

“No, Alistair. I just finished a couple of weeks ago, Year 10.”

The puberty fairy hadn’t hit her hard yet.

“Well, if you’re happy with Ali, then Ali it is. If you want to be called something different just let me know. What do you want to do now?”

She got a pleading look on her face, as young girls do when they really want something. She could do those puppy-dog eyes.

“Please can I have a shower? I feel so grubby.”

“Yeah, of course. Hang on and I’ll get you some towels and some soap. Use the second bathroom and the second bedroom to change. What’ve you got to wear?”

“I’ve got some undies in my bag, but only these shorts and this top.”

I went and got some towels, a dressing gown and some soap, shampoo and conditioner.

She looked at them and looked at me sideways when I handed them to her. The soap was Dove and I used it when I was able to dress properly. The shampoo and conditioner were scented Palmolive, and the dressing gown was obviously feminine. She obviously wanted to ask me about those but I was not ready.

“OK, shower first, talk after.”

She disappeared into the bedroom and then into the bathroom, while I went back onto the balcony and wondered what the hell I was doing. She was going to be curious as to why I had unused feminine toiletries in mint condition and the dressing gown was a dead give-away too. I had some choices. I could lie and say they belonged to my wife, but soap, shampoo and conditioner don’t last for over two years. The robe I could certainly explain away as being hers and unused since she died.

I went and sat on one of the veranda chairs and wondered what to do next.

Confession time? Not yet. I wasn’t quite ready to bare my soul.

Half an hour later she came out of the bathroom, wearing the robe and looking fresh and clean, hair washed and combed.

How could anybody not see that she was a girl.

She came and joined me on the patio. Even the way she sat was feminine.

“Well, now are we going to talk?”

“Yes, but you may not like it. When were you thrown out of your home?”

“Two days ago.”

“So where did you sleep last night?”

“I hid in the toilets in the shopping mall and pulled my legs up so the security guard didn’t see me when he checked. He didn’t look very hard.”

I shook my head. “OK, are your parents here in Brisbane? They need to know you are safe.”

“Yes, they’re here, but they won’t want to know.”

“I think they will, and I should tell them. Do you have their phone number?”

“They’ll only want to hear from their “son”, and I’m not him.”

Silently, I agreed. I asked myself again. How could anybody not see that she was a girl?

“Look, this is my house phone. I can ring them and put you on loudspeaker, so you can just let them know you’re all right, or you can just keep your mouth shut, but we need to let them know or they may get the cops involved. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”

“No.”

“So give me the number and I’ll call them.”

She gave me a number and I keyed it in. A woman answered, just a “Yes”.

“Hello, your child is with me and she just wants you to know she’s OK.”

“What do you mean, “she”, I have a son, not a daughter. Is Alistair with you?”

“I don’t want to get into a fight, ma’am. I have a young person who goes by the name of Ali sitting next to me. We just want you to know she’s all right.”

“Let me speak to him. Have you abducted him?”

“No, she’s free to leave at any time. Here, talk to your child.”

Ali tried to shoo me away but I pushed the phone into her hands.

“Hello, Mum.”

“Alistair, you come home at once and stop this “girl” nonsense.”

“No, Mum. You threw me out, remember? I’m not coming back.”

“Tell that man to let you go and come home at once.”

“He’s not stopping me, Mum, but I’m not coming home. I’m safe here, safe from you and Dad.”

She pressed the “Close” button. “What if she rings back?”

“We don’t answer. Any call will go to “Message”. Then we can reply or not, as we choose. Even if we accept the message we don’t have to talk to them. We can listen to what they say and ignore it if we want. Anyway, that’s done, wasn’t so bad, was it?”

“Now let’s get back to the real business. You don’t have anything to wear, right?”

“Only the undies.”

“All right, tomorrow we go shopping and get you some fresh clothes. Can’t have you looking like a tramp, can we?”

“I thought we were gunna talk about you and why you’re helping me.”

“Plenty of time for that. Are you hungry?”

Her stomach gave a loud growl.

“I haven’t had anything since yesterday.”

“Pizza OK?”

“Yes please.”

So I rang Domino’s and they were true to their advertised promise and delivered an extra- large Hawaiian within half an hour.

We sat and ate in relative silence. She had a glass of orange juice to wash hers down and I had a much-needed glass of chardonnay. This good-Samaritan bit takes it out of you.

I’m definitely getting too old for this. I hadn’t even got to the confession part of our conversation yet. I didn’t really want to, but I knew I would have to. In the meantime I procrastinated, as you do.

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To be continued