‘It’s his actual name,’ said Samantha. ‘They don’t just call him that.’
‘For real?’ said Mirela.
‘Yep. He was dumped at the hospital on the day he was born. And he had no blanket, nothing. Some wise-arse at the hospital decided to memorialise the moment, I guess, and wrote down Birthday Jones as his name on his birth certificate.’
‘Nice,’ said Mirela, grinning.
‘It’s not funny.’ Samantha nudged Mirela’s foot with her shoe.
‘Hey! I know. It’s pretty mean.’ Mirela laughed. ‘It’s a cool name, though.’
Samantha glowered and turned back to watch the crew work the mall.
‘Maybe that’s why you like him so much,’ said Mirela. ‘On account of… you know… how you came to us and all.’
Samantha said nothing. She was sure that had to be part of it. When she’d first heard his story and the tales of some of the other kids out there, she’d felt guilty for having been so lucky as to have been left with Lala. Sure, there’d been some hard times growing up around Milosh, but it was nothing compared to life as a child in a Romanian orphanage. Even the streets were better than that, and that’s where most of them ended up.
‘Hey, get up,’ she said. ‘He’s coming this way.’
The restaurant strip was the most upmarket in Pantelimon, and a few of the restaurateurs did their best to warn their customers – mostly tourists – about the pickpockets and beggars. The kids would stay away from these cafes, concentrating their trade around the outdoor tables of the other venues, whose owners saved a fortune buying stolen goods from the street kids – often items thieved to order.
Right now, Birthday Jones was making his way through a cluster of people checking out the signposted menu of one of these establishments. Samantha watched him brush past a tall, slim woman in an expensive leather jacket. Waiting for a table with a shorter woman in a red sundress, she barely glanced at him, and didn’t notice that her handbag swayed slightly as he walked away.
From their concrete hideout, Samantha grinned. She gave their whistle. Birthday looked up, spotted her instantly. Other than a slight tilt of his trucker cap, his expression didn’t change at all.
‘Hey, hoodlum,’ she said when he reached the bins.
That got her the dimples.
‘Hey, yourself, superstar,’ he said, looking down at them. ‘Mirela,’ he added.
Mirela nodded. ‘What’s up?’ she said, blushing.
‘Well, you two should know. You’re the talk of the town.’
Samantha frowned. ‘Huh?’
‘Don’t get up,’ he said. ‘Cici will see you and then we’ll all have a very bad day. Just wait here a second. I’m gonna bail. You guys hungry?’
‘Always,’ said Mirela.
‘So you got any money?’ said Birthday Jones.
Samantha really was hungry now. The sights and smells of the food at the outdoor market always drove her crazy. They walked past a particularly fragrant stall. Mounds of deep-brown, sandy, red and golden-coloured ground spices filled the air with cinnamon, cloves, cumin, paprika. She took a deep breath. She felt like burying her face in one of the bowls.
‘You’ve always got money, Birthday,’ said Mirela, smiling up at him. ‘Can’t you buy us something to eat?’
She blinked lazily, her dark, thick lashes as long as Tamas’s. Samantha laughed. Mirela was only thirteen, but she could make most boys do exactly what she wanted.
‘Not right now, I don’t,’ he said.
‘But what about Mrs Leather Jacket?’ asked Sam.
She stopped in front of the glass cabinet of a stall selling fat, sticky chunks of chicken threaded onto skewers with sweet, charred onions.
‘I had to give that to Cici,’ he said. ‘But don’t worry about it. Wait here. I’ll be back in a sec.’
They watched him approach a table of backpackers, all laughing and speaking over one another in a language Samantha couldn’t identify. Under a red, striped umbrella, dressed in singlets and shorts, they drank beer and ate with their fingers and bread from plates and bowls covering almost every inch of the table.
Samantha watched Birthday, trying to predict his hustle. Backpackers were usually tricky. They kept their cash in their shoes, or strapped tightly around them in zipped belts. Birthday would have to get pretty close to one of them to lift a wallet.
In the end, he must have agreed – she watched him walk right past the group, his trucker cap low. He passed close to the next stall, selling boots, belts and other leather items.
‘Oh man,’ said Mirela. ‘What’s he doing now? Shopping for a key ring?’
‘Nope, a wallet,’ said Samantha, grinning, suddenly understanding. ‘Watch this.’
When he’d cleared the leather goods stall, Birthday Jones cut sharply left and ducked back around behind it. Before they knew it, he was standing at the rowdy table with the backpackers.
‘Hey man,’ they heard him say, leaning in over the loudest male in the group. ‘Did you drop this? It was right behind you.’
The big guy stood, swaying slightly. Blindingly blond in the bright sunshine, he towered over Birthday Jones, who, Samantha realised, had reached almost six foot this summer. The blond giant’s nose was sunburned and appeared to have been broken more than once. He wore a frown and half of his lunch down his white singlet, and he looked to have a good beer buzz going on.
‘What did you say?’ he asked with a heavy accent.
Birthday held something up.
‘It’s a wallet,’ whispered Mirela. ‘Why doesn’t he bring it over here?’
‘You don’t want that one,’ said Samantha. ‘It’s brand new, but empty.’
‘Uh ha,’ said Mirela, her smile igniting her ebony eyes.
‘I just wondered if one of you dropped this?’ said Birthday. ‘It was on the ground just here. But it’s cool, man. I can go. I don’t want any trouble.’
Samantha could almost see the man’s sun and beer-addled brain shifting gears. Clunk. Clunk. His friends at the table watched him.
‘Oh. My wallet!’ he said, taking it from Birthday. ‘Thank you, my friend! You must drink with us. Come on, sit. Sit.’
The big man put his arm around Birthday’s shoulders. For just a moment, Birthday turned his face in their direction and gave them a man-he-stinks grimace. Mirela laughed.
‘I can’t, I can’t,’ said Birthday, wrangling his body out from under the big blond bear. ‘I’m meeting friends. They’re waiting for me. Thanks though, man.’
He left the group toasting him and sauntered back to join them. He slipped Mirela a handful of cash.
‘Buy us some chicken,’ he said, smiling. ‘I’ll meet you girls over by the fruit stand.’
Samantha stretched her tanned legs out on the grass in the park adjacent to the markets. She rested her hands on her belly.
‘Oh man,’ she said. ‘I’m gonna die.’
She leaned back onto her elbows and squinted up through the branches above her. She’d never seen leaves on a tree so still. She searched, but could not spot a single leaf so much as swaying. The sky above the tree was a uniform powder blue, a single, flat stretch of colour that could have been a painted ceiling. No birds ruined the effect, and not a breath of wind blew. For a moment, everything felt unreal. What if she was in a room and the grass underneath her was carpet? She dug her fingers into the dry soil to check.
‘Well, you ate more than even I did, superstar,’ said Birthday. ‘No wonder your stomach hurts.’
‘Why do you keep calling me that?’ she said, flicking dirt from under her fingernails.
Birthday rolled over onto his side. He propped his chin in his hand and watched her. His trucker cap lay in the grass next to him, and his curls seemed alive, as though they grew like vines and might at any time reclaim his amber eyes.
‘Well, you’re the Gaje Princess, aren’t you?’ he said. ‘Favourite of the king?’