She tugged her jeans further down her hips and hoisted her boob tube up to expose her tummy. The belly button ring sparkled in the sun like a real jewel. She must remember to keep her belly sucked in. Not that Daniel would mind that she wasn’t size zero, he wasn’t that kind of guy. He always said it was the person inside that counts.
The cuffs of her jeans scooped up dirt as she walked. Her mum would chuck a psycho when she saw half the playground dragged into the kitchen. What should she tell her if she asked her where she’d been? What if the school rangs to say she’d wagged again? She did have a cold, she decided, so she could say she was sick. Her mum was on double shift anyway, so with any luck she’d miss the call.
She stopped again. A shadow from behind the kiosk made the breath catch in her chest. A man stepped into the sunlight. He wore shorts and one of those T-shirts with a collar and a tiny crocodile on them and his nose was small and red. She giggled, it was just like the fake noses you buy at the deli for the dead babies.
He wasn’t what Bianca had expected, and he certainly wasn’t Daniel. She took a step back.
‘Hi,’ the man said, not moving any closer. ‘You come to meet Daniel?’
She nodded and nibbled at her bottom lip. The sun was hot and bright and she had to screw up her eyes to see him properly. Sweat ran like tears down the sides of his face and sparkled on his round red nose.
‘Well, he’s kinda shy, y’know? He’s waiting for you in the car. I’m his dad.’
‘Uh huh.’ Daniel said he was shy with girls. He lived alone with his dad, just like she lived alone with her mum. He said that’s what made them soul mates.
‘You got your laptop in there?’ The man asked. He talked a bit funny, some kind of accent, Bianca noticed.
She nodded, the computer bag suddenly feeling like a sack of bricks on her back.
‘Good, Dan’ll be pleased. He’s got a heap of really cool games to show you. And he’s just downloaded another Katy Enigma story, he said you like them.’ He put his hand out as if he wanted to hold hers, but she didn’t take it. She was remembering Zoe’s horrible words at schooclass="underline" You’re ugly, you’re stupid and you’ll never get a boyfriend. And then she thought of Katy Enigma, girl detective, always ready for adventure, flying golden hair, long legs—would Katy go with this man?
‘Look, if you’re not okay with this,’ the man said, ‘Dan’ll understand. To be honest, he’s scared about meeting you.’
The man smiled. He had soft brown eyes and despite the strange nose and his peculiar voice, his face looked kind.
Bianca placed her hand in his and felt him shiver.
She didn’t know why, it wasn’t cold at all.
3
Wednesday
EXCERPT FROM CHAT ROOM TRANSCRIPT 020207
TIMTAM: send me pic?
ANGEL12: ok
TIMTAM: do u have webcam?
ANGEL12: no ... I wish
TIMTAM: tdtm
‘Only on Monday,’ Stevie spoke to the gathered year sixes and sevens in the classroom. ‘My partner and I caught a man who had tricked a young girl into meeting him in Kings Park.’
A girl with pigtails put up her hand. ‘But why would the girl want to meet him in the park anyway?’
‘He knew she was a big fan of a local rock band,’ Stevie said. ‘The man had been talking to her in an Internet chat room, pretending to be a boy her own age. He promised to give her CDs and posters; even a hat like one of the band members wears. You see, these people pretend to be whatever the child wants them to be in order to entrap them.’
Entrap, was that too big a word for these kids? Stevie looked at the faces before her, searching for signs of confusion. She detected boredom in some, giggles in a few, but on the whole most of the children gazed back at her in rapt attention.
At first she’d been slightly anxious when she’d learned that one of her roles in the newly formed Cyber Predator Team was public speaking, but to her surprise she found she was beginning to enjoy it. In fact, educating children about the dangers of the Internet was the most rewarding experience she’d had in her fifteen years with the police.
A girl with round glasses and a thick mane of dark messy hair put up her hand. Her face seemed vaguely familiar. ‘But how did you know the man was planning on doing this?’
‘Our operations room in Central Police headquarters is filled with computers. We take it in turns to watch the kinds of Internet websites we think Perth children might be interested in. I logged into a chat room devoted to a local rock band and called myself Angel12. Pretty soon I began talking to a boy who began asking me all sorts of personal questions.’ Stevie didn’t go into the lurid details. ‘And I got the feeling he wasn’t the boy he was pretending to be. We arranged to meet and it was then that I discovered that he was an older man.’
One of the boys laughed and whispered to the boy sitting next to him. Donna, the school councillor, wagged her finger and shut him up.
The girl with the glasses put up her hand again. She had a pixie face, the tips of her ears visible through her hair. ‘Anyone who gives themselves a name like Angel12 is looking for trouble. The name just calls out, “Hey, I’m a cute girl and I’m only twelve.” No one should give themselves a nickname like that, a predator would know straight away how easily someone like that could be manipulated.’
The boy sitting next to her rolled his eyes, but Stevie was impressed with the girl’s command of language, her confidence and her insight. She nodded. ‘Yes, very good.’ Where the hell had she seen that girl before?
Another boy put up his hand. ‘Yeah, but it’s only girls they’re interested in, yeah?’
‘No, not at all, quite a lot of these men go for boys.’
There was a chorus of gross, yuck and pervert from the group of boys in the back row.
‘But all this doesn’t mean you can’t have fun on the Internet too or use it as a valuable learning tool.’ Stevie nodded to Donna who turned to face the whiteboard. ‘I’m going to give you a list of do’s and don’ts and Miss French is going to write them down for you to copy.’ She had leaflets she could give them, but if they wrote it themselves there was a better chance they’d remember it.
The children rippled like the sea as they sought their writing equipment.
‘First, when you’re on the Internet, don’t ever think you know who you are talking to, no matter what someone might tell you about themselves—people will often lie. Never give out personal information, and never agree to meet anyone unless you can bring a trusted adult with you.
‘Often the predator will try to build up to a trusting relationship with you. He might start in chat rooms, then private chat rooms. Instant messaging and emails would be next because it gives both of you the freedom of not having to be always logged onto the Internet. The more confident predator might even attempt to telephone you. When you hear a voice on the end of the phone, it’s easy for you to think you’re talking to a friend...’
Stevie knew the talk by heart and had to remind herself to slow down. Heads bobbed up and down as the children copied the notes and Donna’s careful printing squeaked upon the whiteboard.