by Nicci Cloke
I closed my laptop and hit the light switch too. I wanted to sleep. I didn’t want to think about any of this.
But it took a long time for sleep to come. Hearing that a girl had gone missing that night just made me feel even worse about us leaving Hope behind, and that kept spiralling into other things I could feel bad about – everything from the fact I didn’t have any money to me not reading Daisy’s novel yet. I just lay there, mentally kicking myself for hours.
I knew I needed to force myself out of the house. So the next day, when Zack messaged to ask all of us if we wanted to play five-a-side, I said yes.
When I turned up at the outdoor centre I was feeling pretty good. It was a warm day and it was nice to be outside, now that I’d made it past my front door. By the time I hit the road leading to the centre, I felt like the fog was lifting – just a little bit. And I knew it’d be good to be with the boys. I felt like I hadn’t said a word out loud for days. They were sitting in my chest, this big heavy tangle of them.
But when I rounded the corner to the pitch, Zack was there with his rugby mate, Marcus, and Nate and Dev were standing there looking awkward.
‘Where’s JB?’ I asked.
Zack shrugged. ‘Marcus wanted to play.’
Nate chucked a ball at me. ‘Come on, let’s just get in there.’
So we played a match against a team from Abbots Grey, but the mood was subdued and I fumbled the ball a couple of times. One of their players was some kid who’d been scouted by Norwich and he ran rings round the rest of us – by the time the whistle went for full-time, we’d lost 7–1.
‘What’s with you?’ Zack asked me as we were getting our stuff. ‘You’re not on your game at all.’
I shrugged. ‘Just think it’s out of order you didn’t invite JB.’
‘Oh, boo-hoo,’ Zack said. ‘It’s no big deal, get over it.’
‘You guys want to go get a burger or something?’ I noticed Dev looking at me hopefully, even though he was asking all of us.
‘Yeah, all right,’ Nate said.
‘We’re in,’ Zack said, clapping Marcus on the back. ‘Gotta keep the protein levels up.’
But I shook my head. ‘I’ve gotta get back. Promised Mum I’d help her with something.’
I walked home slowly, my kit bag heavy in my hand. The word-lump was still in my chest – if anything it was knotted tighter.
ONE AFTERNOON I was playing Xbox, a half-eaten extra-large pizza in its box on the bed beside me. I’d only been awake for an hour or so, and the pizza was from the night before. All in all, it wasn’t a particularly eventful day.
I was just considering whether I wanted to go for a fourth slice when my phone vibrated on the bedside table.
It was a new message on WhatsApp. Zack Conway added you to the group Laaaaaaads. I clicked on it.
All right boys. thinkin’ we should start planning Ibiza for next summer? Will be bants
Jeez, we’d only been back for a fortnight. And Ibiza sounded pricey. I refreshed my email on the off-chance someone had decided to offer me a job in the last three hours. No such luck.
I opened the group again. Someone had replied.
Yes braaaaah. Sounds awesome
It had come up with a number I didn’t recognise instead of a name. I frowned. Had one of the others changed their number? I tapped on the group info and scrolled down to the member details. Zack, me, Dev, Nate and the random number. That random number’s icon was a scrum, and its status was That’s King Marcus to you, peasant.
Marcus. Zack had added Marcus and not JB.
I shook my head, scrolling through to see if I could add him. But Zack was the only admin for the group.
I tapped the phone against my head, thinking. I should just call Zack up and ask him outright what he thought he was doing.
Before I could, my phone starting vibrating in my hand. I glanced at the screen.
Steph wants to FaceTime with you.
I stared at it for a second. I loved my cousin, but I wasn’t sure I was ready for her enthusiasm. On the other hand – I glanced around my room, at the piles of clothes on the floor, the closed curtains – maybe that was exactly what I needed.
I sat up properly and swiped to answer the call.
My phone blinked and then switched to Steph’s face, pressed as close to the phone as she could get it, so that a large proportion of the screen was the view up her nose. I burst out laughing.
‘Lovely.’
‘Hey, cuz,’ she said, pulling back and propping the phone up so I could see her properly. ‘How’s it going?’
‘Yeah, all right. How are you?’
‘Well, you know. Fighting off adulthood with every available limb. So how was Malia? So glad you didn’t drown in a fishbowl or whatever.’
‘Yeah, it was good.’ I changed the subject as quickly as possible. ‘How’s work?’
Steph had just started working at a shoe shop in the Arndale Centre. She was hoping to be a teacher eventually, but she couldn’t decide whether to save up for uni now or try to get a job as a teaching assistant. She was only a year older than me but somehow that gap was starting to feel bigger and bigger. She was making decisions about her actual life – talking about one day moving into her own place with her boyfriend, Deano, and where they wanted to live and where she might go to study. The only decisions I seemed to be making were which toppings to have on my pizza; whether to go for wedges or curly fries.
‘Oh my God, Logan, I swear – if I have to measure one more screaming toddler’s foot I will actually pull my ovaries right out on the shop floor and stamp on them.’
‘Again, lovely.’
‘Sorry.’ Steph looked away from the phone and started fluffing her hair up in the mirror. ‘How’s Daisy?’
‘Yeah, she’s good. She’s writing a novel.’
‘Oh my God, amazing! I love her.’
I rolled my eyes. ‘You love everyone.’
‘Not true. I’m very selective. I’m not that keen on you, if I’m honest.’
I laughed. ‘Charming.’
Steph picked up her phone. ‘Oh my God, you have to see Dad’s new toy.’ She was walking through their house, which I knew as well as my own flat – better, in fact, since I’d been going to theirs since I was three years old. I got a glimpse of a painting my Auntie Yvonne had done when we were kids. It was of a row of beach huts in Brighton, where me and Mum and Leon had gone on holiday with Uncle Darius, Auntie Yvonne and Steph. I remembered running across the pebble beach and huddling into a carriage on the waltzers on the pier. It was a good holiday – we had a framed photo of all six of us on the windowsill in the lounge.
Steph passed through the kitchen, which was painted lime green and peach, packed full of cookbooks and paella pans and tagine dishes and woks – Uncle Darius loved cooking.
‘Say hi to Mum!’ she said, flicking the phone in the direction of the fridge, where Auntie Yvonne was taking the milk out of the door.
‘Hiya!’ I yelled.
‘Hi, darling! Did you have a good holiday?’
Steph had already whipped the phone back round to her own face, but I called, ‘Yes, thank you,’ anyway. Steph danced me through the lounge, flipping the phone round to show me Dougal, the ancient family dog, flopped out on the sofa.
‘Hey, Doogs,’ I said.
And then Steph was out of the back door and into their narrow garden. ‘Look!’
I squinted at the screen. ‘What … is that?’
‘That, my friend, is a potter’s wheel.’
‘A what now?’
The image blurred into a swirl of bricks, and then my uncle Darius’s face appeared. ‘You make pottery on it, Logan. I thought you were meant to be the smart one of the family.’
‘Hey, Uncle D. You taking up pottery now, then?’
‘Yep. Can I interest you in a vase of some kind? Decorative plate?’
‘Dad, you’re getting clay alllll over my phone,’ Steph said in the background.
Darius had a habit of picking up new hobbies. He was kind of an overachiever, and not particularly good at ‘downtime’. He drove Auntie Yvonne mad.
‘Everything good with you?’ he asked me. ‘You taking care of your mother?’
‘Trying to.’
Uncle Darius’s face crinkled in a smile. ‘Good man.’
‘Anyway, got to go,’ Steph said, grabbing the phone back. ‘Big love, Logey.’
‘Bye,’ I said, and she blew me a kiss and then hung up.
I looked at my phone for a second and then I opened the browser. The article about the girl going missing had been playing on my mind a lot, and I knew I needed to find out more about her. I typed ‘girl missing malia’ and limited the dates again.
This time the first entry was exactly what I was looking for.
Student, 18, missing after holiday in Malia
Friends raised the alarm when Emily Simpson, from Sussex, didn’t return to her hotel room after a night out.
I clicked on it without paying much attention to the name – but when the article loaded, I almost dropped my phone. There was a photo alongside it, and it was Emily, the Emily Hope had made friends with on the island. The one we’d all spent half the day with.
And now she was missing.
I read the rest of the article, my mouth dry.
The friends and family of Emily Simpson are appealing for anyone to come forward if they saw her on the night of 17th July. Emily was last seen leaving the beach at just after midnight, having been on an organised boat party that afternoon. She told friends that she was planning to visit a bar they had previously been to, and would meet them back at their apartment later that evening.
Her friends alerted local police the following lunchtime, after Emily failed to return.
A police spokesperson said that they were currently exploring the possibility that Emily had left voluntarily or whether another party had been involved.
Emily’s parents were not available for comment, but a friend of the family said, ‘Emily is a responsible, caring girl, who wouldn’t disappear without letting anyone know where she was going. This is very worrying indeed.’
I copied and pasted the link and sent it to the group, and then opened a message to Hope. I hadn’t seen her since the night at Nate’s – and I’d ended up hardly talking to her even then. But I knew she’d want to know about this.
Or would she? It wasn’t exactly like she wanted to be reminded of that night, especially now it turned out something had happened to a girl she’d been hanging out with.
A new message slid down from the top of my screen – JB replying on the group.
omg that’s awful
does Hope know?
I was just messaging her
I stared at the screen for a second. I sort of wanted to ask JB what I should say, but that felt pathetic. Hope used to be my girlfriend after all. But before I had time to write anything else, JB messaged again.
maybe I should call her
Think she’ll be quite upset
yeah ok
I felt a bit useless. But I knew he was right.
good plan
None of the others wrote anything at all.
THE NIGHT BEFORE results day, I stayed up until 4 a.m., working my way through a six-pack of beer and reading sports news online. I couldn’t stop thinking about Emily and I didn’t know why. I’d only met her for a couple of hours; why was it bothering me so much? I couldn’t tell if thinking about her disappearing was causing my sleepless night, or if me not being able to sleep was just giving me plenty of space to think endlessly about things. Either way, all night the sinking feeling in my stomach from the day before wouldn’t go away.
I kept running over that night, thinking about what happened after we all got off the boat. Zack and I had run after the guy in the vest top, and after that we’d walked back up the beach to the hotel. I’d gone to bed, head spinning, and fallen asleep, and when I woke up, the others were already up and about in the living room.
JB claimed he’d gone to the strip with people he’d met on the beach, and I’d seen Nate stagger off in that direction too. But it had always seemed weird to me that he couldn’t remember anything at all – Nate hardly ever suffered from blackouts; he was usually the person who filled in the blanks for everyone else the next day.
Then again, maybe Dev had spiked his drink too. Dev, who claimed to have spent the night with Lucy but hadn’t. What else was he lying about?
I knew I was being crazy. But, like I say, I had a lot of time on my hands. And I’d never been able to shake the feeling that the others were trying to keep me in the dark about that night.
So I drank my beer. I read my articles. I tried not to think.
When I woke up, I had a headache and the heavy feeling was worse.
I lived on one side of the college and Daisy lived in the opposite direction, so we’d arranged to meet outside the gates. She was already there when I arrived, wearing vintage Aviators and her favourite jeans. When she saw me coming, she slid her phone back into her satchel.
‘Hey,’ she said, stretching up to give me a kiss. ‘How you doing, stranger?’
I smiled. ‘I’m OK. I missed you.’
‘You’ve been pretty busy lately.’
I felt sick. I was lying to my girlfriend – and what kind of guy didn’t want to see his girlfriend anyway? In some ways, I wanted to talk to her so badly. My head felt like a swamp where I was slowly drowning, and I knew Daisy might actually be the one person who could help me make sense of it – but the idea of putting together the words to try to explain how I was feeling, the things I was thinking, seemed insane.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I’ll make it up to you.’
She shrugged. ‘Hey, guess what? I hit twenty thousand reads!’
‘Whoa, Daisy, that’s huge!’
She grinned. ‘The website put me on the ‘Featured’ page last week and it just went crazy. I’m so happy.’
‘I’m really proud of you.’
‘Thanks.’ She held out her hand. ‘C’mon, let’s go do this.’
We walked through the front doors and headed for the common room, which had been set up for results day. They’d cleared out all the ratty sofas and the table football and then set up desks at either end of the space – one for AS results and one for A2s. I saw Dev standing to one side with Charlotte, and they both spotted us and waved. We made our way over.
Dev was already clutching his envelope. ‘Two Cs, a D and a B,’ he said. ‘Guess I’m not off to join Dhruv at med school, right?’
He was kidding. Dev had no interest in studying medicine. He was only sticking with A levels to get his parents off his back, same as Nate.
‘That’s pretty good, mate,’ I said. ‘What was your D in?’ It surprised me, hearing my voice. It sounded so normal, but I felt like it was taking me twice the usual effort to heave each word out. At least here, in daylight and in the all too familiar surroundings of school, I realised how completely ridiculous it was to suspect my friends of having anything to do with Emily Simpson going missing.
‘Biology,’ he said. ‘I’m dropping it anyway. Turns out I know less about the body than I thought, eh, ladies?’ He waggled his eyebrows and Charlotte groaned and turned away.
‘How’d you do, hun?’ Daisy asked her.
‘Two As, two Bs,’ Charlotte said, and Daisy squealed and hugged her.
‘That’s brilliant!’
‘Well in, Char,’ Nate said, coming up behind us.
‘Thanks.’ She smiled, looking down at her envelope. ‘I’d better get going. My mum’s waiting outside in the car.’
‘See ya, Char,’ I said, and then Daisy tugged on my arm.
‘Guess we may as well get it over with,’ Nate said, patting me on the back. ‘I already know I’m resitting history.�
�
I nodded. I could tell from the way Nate was looking at me that he could see something was up, but he just gave me another pat and then turned away. We headed over to join the queue, where Zack was already at the front, his phone in his hand. He turned as they handed him the envelope and noticed us.
‘Hey!’ He came over. ‘Loges, you all right?’
He seemed genuinely happy to see me, which just made the churning guilt in my stomach that extra bit worse. ‘Yeah, I’m good, man. How’d you get on?’
Zack shrugged. ‘Haven’t checked yet, hang on.’ He tore the top off his envelope and pulled out the sheet of paper inside. ‘Four Bs,’ he said, sounding surprised. He looked up at me, a grin spreading across his face. ‘Four Bs!’
I couldn’t help smiling back at him. ‘That’s great, mate. Well done.’
‘I’ve gotta go call my dad!’ he said. ‘Can’t bloody believe it!’
He disappeared off down the steps and I glanced at Daisy, who grinned at me.
‘Bless him,’ she said. ‘That’ll be you in a second.’
‘Ha. Maybe.’ If I was honest, I was hoping for a couple of As. I’d always done pretty well at school – not, like, top of every class, but always up there, always getting decent marks. I’d found exams a bit harder than I was expecting, but I felt like I knew enough to get me through.
The queue moved forward again so that there were only a couple of people ahead of us. Someone tapped my shoulder, and I turned round and saw JB.
‘All right, dude,’ he said. ‘How’s it going?’
‘Good, yeah. How are you? Nervous?’
JB shrugged. ‘Kinda. Pretty sure I flunked chem.’
‘Nah. Come on, you studied so hard.’
‘Yeah. Well, too late to worry now, eh? Hey, Dais.’
‘Hi.’ She gave him a hug. ‘Really happy for you, by the way.’
‘Thanks.’ He gave me an uncertain look. ‘Guess I kind of dropped a bombshell on everyone, huh?’
