A Godawful Small Affair

by J. B. Morrison

  He fed Officer Dibble and poured himself a bowl of cereal and sat on the floor next to the cat listening to the saucer banging against the skirting board, and the snap, crackle and pop from his bowl of Rice Krispies. Otherwise the house was quiet. Just a boy with a smudged David Bowie face and glitter in his hair, a cat eating his breakfast, a man snoring upstairs and the hum of the fridge. Less than twenty-four hours later, there’d be a police helicopter hovering loudly above the house for so long that when it eventually ran out of fuel, Nathan would hear someone on the estate cheer.

  6

  Before Nathan’s dad called the police, he rang the two numbers he found in Zoe’s phone.

  “Where are all her friends, Nathan?” he said, while he waited for the second girl to answer. “And why didn’t she take her phone with her? That’s a good thing though, right?”

  Nathan told his dad he didn’t know. Both girls said Zoe hadn’t been at school that day.

  Nathan’s dad rang his sister Maureen next and she suggested phoning the hospital. He phoned three, asking if a Zoe Love had been admitted, describing her by age, height and hair colour, just in case she’d been admitted with amnesia or unconscious or in a coma. Every time he presumed that he’d imagined the worst, Nathan’s dad thought of something else that made him realise he hadn’t even come close. When his dad was on the phone to the third hospital, Nathan said, “Zoe’s hair colour’s called mousy.”

  Like his dad, until he’d seen it written on the mural wall, Nathan had thought his sister’s hair was light brown or dark blonde. And just like his dad on the phone to the hospital, Nathan wouldn’t have been able to say for sure what colour Zoe’s eyes were either.

  After ringing the hospitals Nathan’s dad phoned his friend Craig. Craig arrived almost immediately, his voice booming through the letterbox, like when he was advertising strawbreees a paarrnd, a paarrnd yer strawbreees on the market stall where he worked with Nathan’s dad.

  “It’s Craaig!”

  Nathan and his dad went with Craig to the main road at the front of the estate, where his van was parked with the hazards on. There was a card with ‘EMERGENCY BUILDING WORK’ propped under the windscreen.

  “She’s going to feel like a right Muppet when she sees all the fuss she’s caused,” Craig said.

  Nathan sat in the front of the van, between his dad and Craig. There was nothing to attach the frayed looking seatbelt to and he had to hold it across his belly. The van bounced in and out of potholes, jerking Nathan forward every time Craig forced the stubborn gearstick to change. The van smelled of potatoes.

  Craig drove into town, following the same route the bus had taken Nathan and Zoe the night before. When they reached the short pedestrian street leading to the mural, Craig mounted the kerb as though it wasn’t there. He switched his hazards on and waited while Nathan showed his dad where Zoe had left the candles and where she’d written on the wall. Until his dad saw the message for himself, Nathan could tell he hadn’t believed it was there and Nathan had made it up for some unknown reason. They got back in the van and Craig drove them around Brixton for half an hour, Nathan’s dad slapping the dashboard like a driving instructor to make Craig stop every time he thought he’d seen Zoe. Nathan had to grip the seat to stop himself from being thrown into the windscreen.

  “Did you go anywhere else apart from to the mural?” his dad asked him.

  “We went to the garage.”

  “Nowhere else after that?”

  Nathan said no. He’d promised Zoe he wouldn’t tell their dad they’d been to the park and he’d convinced himself it wouldn’t make any difference if he did. The last time Nathan had seen Zoe was just before they both went to bed. It was over an hour after they’d returned home from the park and so telling his dad about it would only get Zoe – and himself admittedly – in more trouble when she came home. And while they were driving around Brixton in Craig’s rusty old van, before the police had been called, before the helicopter and the dogs, before Zoe was even officially missing, Nathan was positive she would come home. Craig drove them back to the estate and Nathan’s dad called the police.

  “Do I ring 999? Or is it 101? Or is that the NHS helpline?” he said. “And what if she tries to ring while I’m on the phone?”

  Craig googled ‘Brixton police station’ on his phone. He dialled the number and gave the phone to Nathan’s dad. The police were there within half an hour. The older looking female officer introduced both herself and the other younger male officer.

  “My name’s PC Joanne Torres. And this is PC Joe Kari.” Nathan wondered if he was the only one who noticed they were both called Joe.

  PC Torres looked at Craig and said, “Hello Craig. Keeping out of mischief, I hope.”

  Craig smiled, “You know me, officer.”

  Nathan wondered what mischief the police hoped Craig was keeping out of and if mischief was even a crime. As far as he knew, mischief was the same as high jinks or monkey business, dropping a water bomb on a cat or putting a spoon in the microwave.

  Craig turned to Nathan’s dad and said, “I better get back to the stall. If you need me. Call. Twenty-four seven.” Craig took hold of Nathan’s dad’s hand as though they were about to arm wrestle.

  “I hope to Christ she wouldn’t be gone that long,” Nathan’s dad said and the two men shoulder-bumped each other like rappers.

  When Craig was gone, PC Torres asked if they could have a quick look around the house, as though Zoe was a mislaid door key or the remote control. They looked in the same easy-to-find places Nathan used to hide from his sister when they were younger, under tables and beds and behind the curtains. When PC Kari pulled the drawer out from under Nathan’s bed, Nathan half expected Zoe to be hiding there amongst all his old toys.

  The two police officers opened every single door in the house, including the small square mirrored door on the bathroom medicine cabinet, in case it was a TARDIS or a wormhole to another dimension. Nathan’s dad stood and stared at Zoe’s open wardrobe, trying to decide based on the clothes that weren’t there, what she might be wearing.

  “I know her green army jacket is gone,” he said at last. “She always wears that.”

  He asked Nathan if he thought the space between Zoe’s blue Converse and the cream pair meant she was wearing her red shoes. Nathan said he didn’t know. He’d already told his dad and the police that Zoe was wearing her black and white star onesie when he last saw her. But the onesie was there, lying on Zoe’s bed as though she’d been vaporised inside it or beamed up out of it. Seeing Zoe’s onesie on the bed was the first time Nathan wondered if aliens had abducted his sister again. His immediate reaction to that possibility was jealousy, that the aliens might have taken Zoe again and not him. PC Kari put the onesie in a plastic bag with Zoe’s toothbrush. He took the bag out to the police car and Nathan and his dad went back downstairs with PC Torres to find a photo of Zoe.

  “As recent a picture as possible, Mister Love,” PC Torres said. “One that shows her face clearly and preferably with her facing the camera, with a background that’s not too busy.”

  She reminded Nathan of his mum when he had to get his photo taken for his passport.

  “Face forward, Nathan,” his mum had said. “And look at the camera. Keep your eyes open and your mouth closed. Try not to fidget. I realise how difficult those things might be for you. Are you ready? Stop smiling. And don’t laugh. Stop making him laugh, Zoe.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Look at the camera, Nathan.”

  “I am.”

  “Try to look neutral.”

  “What’s neutral?”

  “Detached. Emotionless. Like your sister.”

  “Thanks, Mum.”

  “Right. Don’t laugh, Nathan. Seriously, don’t laugh.”

  “And don’t laugh seriously, Nath.”

  “Zoe.”

  “What time’s our flight?”

  “Shut up, Zoe. Ready, Nathan?”

  “We’ll have to
leave him behind.”

  “What? Mum?”

  “Ignore your sister. Maybe we’ll leave her behind instead.”

  “Suits me just fine.”

  “Ready, Nathan? Are you still facing the front? Stop laughing. I can hear you laughing in there. Zoe, for God’s sake, stop making your brother laugh.”

  Zoe said Nathan’s passport photo made him look like a terrorist and it would be his fault when they were stopped at French customs. But in the end their mum was too ill to travel and then she died from what Zoe called ‘Earth cancer’. A few weeks after her mum’s funeral Zoe was abducted by aliens. 2016 had been what their mum would have called ‘one thing after another’.

  Nathan sat at the living room table while his dad went through the photos on Zoe’s phone. He was reading a heavy hardback book he’d borrowed from the library, called Moonmen. Zoe had written (and Women) on a strip of paper and stuck it to the front cover. Nathan turned the pages slowly, looking at the pictures of astronauts and rockets. Through the living room window, he saw PC Kari walking back from the police car. Nathan thought the policeman was whistling. It seemed funny for a policeman to be whistling.

  “Where are all her friends, Nathan?”

  Nathan looked up from the library book. His dad showed him the photo of the plain blue sky on Zoe’s phone. He might have dismissed it as his daughter trying out the camera for the first time, if the second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth photos hadn’t also been pictures of the sky.

  Nathan said he didn’t know. His dad resumed his search for a picture of Zoe, finding more and more images of the sky. The sky in the daytime and the sky at night, taken outdoors and through windows, in sunshine and rainfall.

  “I think this one’s taken from the top deck of a bus,” Nathan’s dad said. He gave the phone to PC Torres. “There’s something scratched on the window. Can you work out what it says?”

  PC Torres looked at the photo for a second. “I think it’s just graffiti.”

  “Couldn’t you use it to find out which bus it is?” Nathan’s dad said.

  “There are a lot of buses in London, Mister Love.”

  PC Kari came back into the room and PC Torres gave him the phone. The policeman studied the photo, pinching and stretching it to zoom in, until he reached the same conclusion as his colleague. It was just graffiti. PC Kari gave the phone back to Nathan’s dad.

  “Is it unusual for a fifteen-year-old girl to have no selfies on her phone?” Nathan’s dad said, and PC Torres said it was as unusual as a fifteen-year-old girl leaving home without her phone.

  “Unless she left it behind because she doesn’t want to be found,” PC Kari said.

  PC Torres gave the younger officer a stern look.

  “It’s best not to jump to any conclusions. Maybe she didn’t need her phone where she was going. Or she left in a hurry. Perhaps she simply forgot it. Let’s concentrate on finding a suitable picture for now, Mister Love.”

  Nathan’s dad went through the rest of the photos, moving quickly from one to the next. His hopes raised slightly when he found a picture of a park bench or a phone box – at least they weren’t more photos of the sky. He also found pictures of road signs and drain covers, two bus shelters, and a dustbin with a pretty ‘21’ stencilled on the side. He found four pictures of a tree that Nathan knew was probably Zoe’s favourite tree, even though the tree was still standing. But apart from any passengers who might be looking out of the windows of faraway airplanes or from distant high-rise flats or offices, not a single person photo-bombed any of the pictures on Zoe’s phone. Some of the photos were too dark to be recognisable as anything at all. ‘It’s very difficult to photograph stars,’ Zoe had told Nathan in the park. ‘They’re like ghosts.’ The final picture was so black it looked like Nathan’s dad had accidentally switched the phone off. Nathan knew it was Venus. Zoe was right. It hadn’t come out.

  7

  Nathan’s dad went to the kitchen to get his laptop. He said there were definitely photos of Zoe on the laptop. Although, after looking at over two hundred pictures of sky and street furniture, he couldn’t have sounded any less certain. When Nathan’s dad was out of the room PC Torres asked Nathan if he knew why Zoe had taken so many pictures of the sky.

  Nathan looked at PC Torres and at the other officer standing in the doorway of the living room as though he was guarding it. Don’t tell the feds nothing. That’s what Nathan’s friend Arthur was always saying. Snitches get stitches. Arthur called the police the feds, five-o or the popo. His brother was in prison for shanking someone and Arthur hated the police. But it wasn’t Arthur’s sister who was missing.

  “She’s looking for shapes in the clouds,” Nathan said.

  PC Torres smiled. “What, like animals do you mean? Sheep or polar bears, or cotton wool? That sort of thing?”

  Nathan shook his head. “No. Spaceships. They can fly with the same density as clouds,” he was quoting Zoe. “Sometimes you can see them change into solid shapes. You have to look closely though, or you’ll miss it happening.”

  PC Torres nodded, as though it made perfect sense to her.

  “I noticed a lot of Zoe’s pictures were taken at night, though. I imagine it’s impossible to see any spaceships in the clouds in the dark. What would Zoe be taking pictures of when it’s dark, Nathan?”

  “Stars,” Nathan said. “And planets.”

  PC Torres got up and came over to sit on the chair at the table next to Nathan. He closed the Moonmen book. PC Torres looked at the piece of paper stuck to the cover with (and Women) written on it.

  “Zoe did that,” Nathan said, snitching on his sister. “It comes off, though,” he added, in case Zoe got into trouble for vandalising a library book.

  “Does your sister go out at night a lot to take pictures of stars?” PC Torres said.

  “She used to. She doesn’t anymore.”

  Nathan’s dad came back into the living room, carrying his laptop open in front of him like a tray of drinks. PC Torres turned to face him.

  “Nathan’s been telling me how Zoe likes to go out at night to photograph the stars, Mister Love,” she said. “Or that she used to. That’s right, isn’t it, Nathan? Zoe doesn’t go out at night to look at stars anymore?”

  Nathan nodded. The back of his neck felt hot.

  “She stopped all of that last year,” his dad agreed.

  PC Torres turned back to Nathan. “Did you know, Nathan, that every time you take a photo on your phone it sorts them into chronological order? Do you know what chronological order is?”

  Nathan shook his head.

  “It means we can tell what day and time each photo on Zoe’s phone was taken. If we look at the last pictures on Zoe’s phone will they tell us they were taken last night?”

  Nathan looked over at his dad. “Am I in trouble?”

  “Why would you be in trouble?” his dad said.

  Nathan felt sick.

  “It was only ten minutes,” he said. “Just to look at the stars.”

  “She went out last night?” his dad said. He almost dropped the laptop.

  “We just wanted to look at the stars.”

  “Wait,” his dad said. “You both went?”

  “Is that the big park behind where we are now, Nathan?” PC Torres said calmly.

  Nathan nodded.

  “What time would that have been?”

  “After we watched E.T. and then after we played a game.” Nathan was talking about the Post-it notes name game. The Luigi board wasn’t a game. It was an intergalactic communication device.

  “Why didn’t you just tell us this in the first place?” his dad said.

  “I thought I’d get into trouble for climbing over the fence.”

  His dad threw his hands in the air. He was still holding the laptop. PC Kari ducked. “You climbed over the fence?” Nathan’s dad said.

  “The gates were locked,” Nathan said.

  “And what did you do in the park, Nathan?” PC Torres said.
/>
  “We looked at the stars but there weren’t many, so we came home again.”

  “Did you see anyone else while you were there?”

  Nathan shook his head.

  “Not on the way to the park? Or on the way back home?”

  “No.”

  “Right, Nathan,” PC Torres said. “However unimportant it might seem to you now. Can you think of anything at all unusual? Either in the park or on the way there or back?”

  “We couldn’t see the planet Zoe went to. Because of light pollution.”

  Nathan’s dad put his hand up like he was at school. PC Torres ignored him.

  “When you say, the planet that Zoe went to,” PC Torres said. “Which planet is that? Which planet was it that Zoe went to?”

  “It hasn’t got a name yet.”

  “And when did Zoe go to this planet?” PC Torres said.

  Nathan’s dad put his hand up again.

  “One minute, Mister Love,” PC Torres said.

  “Just after my mum died last year,” Nathan said.

  “And how did your sister get to this planet?”

  “The aliens contact you in your dreams.”

  “Oh, mate,” his dad said, shaking his head.

  “When they wake you up, that’s when they take you.”

  “Is this really helping?” Nathan’s dad said. “My daughter had some bad dreams last year. It was after her mum had just passed away. And… well…I feel ridiculous even having to say this out loud, but, my daughter did not go to another planet.”