by Jack Heath
I do have studying to do, but not for school. I can’t get the freckled girl with the silky hair out of my head. Who is Becky? What’s her problem with me? And why didn’t Chloe think it was worth warning me?
Becky’s number isn’t in Chloe’s phone. I switch on Chloe’s laptop, and go to a social networking site. Becky is not on Chloe’s list of friends. But because I know her age and her school, it doesn’t take long to find her profile.
Her full name is Becky Lieu. Most of the activity on her page is cryptic status updates and in-jokes I don’t get, although there are a few conversations Chloe’s friends participated in:
Becky: Is it cool if I’m a little late to the party? I have basketball training after school, and I’m going to have to bus home to get my costume afterwards. The timing’s a bit tight.
Pete: Sure thing. You bringing anyone?
Becky: I was kind of assuming you’d provide the guests.
Fiona has left a comment on one of Becky’s older posts:
Becky: You told me grief came from things left unsaid. But I thanked you for everything you did. I apologized for everything I did. There was nothing left to say, and still it feels like you pulled my heart right out. It’s been two hundred days. I still miss you.
Fiona: I’m so sorry, Becky. We all think about him. Call me if you want to talk.
Henrietta said Becky took a month off when her brother got sick. I guess he didn’t recover.
A few people have posted photographs of Becky. She’s at a restaurant, pulling a face—googly-eyed, lips puckered—perhaps because the photographer told her to smile. Now she’s sitting under a tree at the school with her legs crossed at the ankles, feet bare, watching the girls’ soccer team as she eats a kiwi fruit with a spoon. There’s something about her face that makes her easy to spot, even in the background. Another picture has her in the foreground, grinning at the camera with her arm wrapped around Pete’s neck and a soft drink in her hand. Henrietta is standing nearby, agony in her eyes, although the embrace doesn’t strike me as romantic.
But what would I know about romance? I don’t have a heart.
A hundred photos later, I haven’t learned anything worth knowing. Becky is a mystery—a girl on the periphery of Chloe’s social life whose brother passed away recently, who plays basketball, eats fruit, makes cheesy faces in photographs and who never seemed to actually cross her path.
I almost don’t see what I’m looking for when it appears. It’s another photo from Pete’s birthday party. Becky doesn’t seem to be in it, so I click next—then my brain catches up with my eyes and I click back. In the foreground, a boy has lifted his Iron Man mask over his head to take a sip from his drink. In the background, people dance, laugh, dig in bowls of chips.
Outside the window, Becky and Chloe stand on the porch. Chloe is saying something, her brow furrowed, while Becky listens intently.
I zoom in, staring at the picture. But even the world’s best lip-reader couldn’t pluck a sentence from a photograph.
Besides the hostility Becky radiates every time she sees me, this is the only evidence I’ve found that they knew each other. So what did they talk about? And why did they have to do it out of everyone else’s earshot?
~
Most computers have a sleep mode. I don’t.
I lie on my back, the sheets bunched around my ankles, watching moonlight quiver on the walls as the curtains flutter. The bed doesn’t feel as cosy as it used to. My shoulders and calves are cold. My body doesn’t generate any heat to get trapped under the blanket.
Kylie taught Chloe a trick for when she couldn’t sleep. She would pick a three digit number at random and try to divide it by a two digit number. If she got to three decimal places, she’d start again with different figures. The task was boring, exhausting, and absorbing—the perfect combination to drain consciousness away.
It doesn’t work for me. The numbers come instantly. 127 divided by 31 equals 4.096774193548387 recurring. The precision of this computation freaks me out, so I stop.
But I’m human enough to hate doing nothing. Chloe never sat down to watch TV. She had it on in the background while she tidied the living room. On the bus to school, she annotated her study notes. Even while she was jogging, she would play the clarinet in her head. When she found herself doing a dull chore, she phoned Henrietta, put her on speaker phone, and listened to her while she did it. Unfortunately, neither Henrietta nor her parents would respond well to a call this late …
Phone calls.
Emails and text messages can be intercepted, so Graeme probably phoned the woman today, to tell her to visit the house. A cautious man would block his caller ID. A very cautious man would delete the call record afterwards.
Is Graeme quite that careful? Maybe not. By looking up recent calls, perhaps I can find the woman’s number.
I sit up. Graeme and Kylie have gone to bed. Our phone only stores the last fifteen calls, so I need to check the number before it’s erased.
I open Chloe’s bedroom door and stare into the darkness. Shapes become brighter, dimmer, blurrier, sharper, as my video processing unit automatically adjusts the contrast. Nothing moves in the shadows.
The carpet squishes under my bare feet as I slip into the living area. The luminous buttons on the telephone are reflected in the TV screen. I pick up the handset and scroll through the last-dialled numbers. Every beep seems deafening, but there are two walls between me and Chloe’s sleeping parents. If they open their door, I should have time to put the phone back in its slot before they see me. I can pretend I’m getting a glass of water—because that went so well last time.
Only two calls were made today, both after the woman came to visit. Maybe Graeme deleted the number after all.
Or maybe he called her from his mobile. He wasn’t here, after all. They arrived together.
Right now, his phone is as far away from him as it will ever get: on the charger beside his bed.
I creep back towards their bedroom. Put my hand on the door handle. Try to work up the courage to turn it, and fail.
What would be my excuse? If they wake up and find me in their room in the middle of the night, what could I possibly say?
Tomorrow morning. When he’s in the shower, making enough noise to cover me. That’s when I’ll get it.
I release the door handle, and tiptoe back to Chloe’s room, shutting the door behind me. I lie on the bed, stare at the ceiling, and wait for a sandman who will never visit again.
FRIDAY
The shuddering pipes interrupt my troubled thoughts. Graeme is in the shower.
I scramble out of bed and walk swiftly up the corridor to Chloe’s parents’ room. Their door is slightly ajar. Graeme must have left it that way when he went to the bathroom.
I peek through the gap. One of Kylie’s feet sticks out from under the blanket, cocooned in a woollen sock, toes pointed to the floor. She’s asleep, face down.
I drop into a crouch and push the door quickly to avoid squeaks. When the space is wide enough to slip through, I move towards Graeme’s bedside table on my hands and knees. A cable is attached to the power board under the bed. I follow it up to the phone, grab it, and tap the screen.
It’s locked, with a PIN. I try Kylie’s birthday. It works.
Kylie snuffles against the pillow, and the slats creak under the bed. I freeze. Listen.
No more sound. Not waking up—just rolling over.
According to the log, Graeme made four outbound calls yesterday. One was after the woman’s visit. Two were before the school was attacked. The remaining one was to a local landline and lasted only two minutes.
I memorize the number, and lock Graeme’s phone again.
The shower stops running.
He must be in a hurry. I don’t have time to escape from the bedroom before he comes back. So I jam the phone back into the charger and roll under the bed, where I lie perfectly still.
The door creaks open. Graeme’s bare feet—calloused heels
, hairy toes—thump across the floor towards the bedside table. Keys jangle. A wallet snaps closed. The phone is lifted out of sight.
A few seconds later, the feet thud over to the wardrobe. One of them disappears, and then reappears in a thin black sock. Alarmed, I turn my head.
Graeme’s shoes are under the bed with me.
The other foot disappears, and doesn’t return. Graeme must be having trouble with the sock.
I pinch the shoes between my fingers and lift them. Carry them over until the toes protrude slightly from under the edge of the bed. Gently lower them back down.
Graeme’s other foot returns, toes wiggling in the sock. Both feet turn to face the shoes.
I stare at them, willing his knees not to bend.
They don’t. He stoops rather than crouches, and I see a flash of clipped nails and a silver-plated wristwatch before the shoes are pulled out of sight.
Kylie mumbles something.
Graeme says, ‘What?’
‘Have a good day at work,’ Kylie says, her voice muffled by the pillow.
‘You too.’ A pause. ‘You should get up soon.’
‘Uhhmf.’
His shoes laced and tightened, Graeme leaves the room.
Kylie’s awake, but not yet up. It would be safer to wait until she’s left the room before I come out from under the bed. But I don’t know how long that will take.
I’m still deliberating when I hear a knocking from elsewhere in the house.
‘Chloe?’ Another knock. ‘Do you want a lift to school?’
Uh oh. He’s at my door.
‘Are you awake?’
I grit my teeth, willing him not to go in.
The handle squeaks. The hinges groan.
A pause.
Graeme’s feet pad back down the corridor, to the other end of the house.
‘Chloe?’
It’s not a big house. I might have time to slip out from under the bed before he comes back. I might not.
I don’t. Graeme’s rapid footsteps thump back up the corridor. The door swings open again.
‘I can’t find Chloe!’
Graeme sounds frantic, but Kylie barely sounds awake. ‘What?’
‘She’s not in her room. I’m calling the police.’
‘What? Hang on.’ Kylie shifts in the bed above me. ‘She’s probably just in the bathroom.’
‘I was just in there,’ Graeme cries. ‘She …’
‘Calm down. Is the car still out front?’
‘I’ll check.’ Graeme leaves again.
I wonder how long it’ll take them to look under the bed.
Kylie’s feet are already on the floor. She’s muttering under her breath, mostly panicked-sounding swear words. It would probably come as little consolation that her daughter is already dead, and can come to no further harm.
She stands, grabs a dressing gown and stumbles out of the room.
I crawl out from under the bed and stand behind the door, listening. This is an impossible situation. If they find me in the house, what’s my excuse for not responding to them? If they find me outside, what’s my excuse for leaving the house?
I could pretend to have slept through the yelling. But I don’t know how thoroughly Graeme searched Chloe’s bedroom. Can he be absolutely certain I’m not in bed?
‘Chloe?’ Kylie calls. Damn—it sounds like she’s in Chloe’s room now.
Graeme is shouting, ‘Chloe!’ His voice comes through the window. He’s in the back yard, leaving me with a clear path to the front door.
I crawl out from under the bed and poke my head out the door. Kylie is out of sight within Chloe’s room. I creep down the corridor, into the living area. Past the laundry and the basement. Towards the front door.
‘Chloe?’ Graeme is coming back in. The yard is small—it didn’t take him long to check it.
I grab the handle, yank the door open and step out onto the front porch. Trot down the stairs, hit the driveway, and then …
‘Chloe!’
I turn around. Graeme is on the porch, staring at me.
‘Hi Dad,’ I say. ‘Do you smell something burning?’
Kylie appears behind him. ‘What are you doing out here?’ she demands.
‘The smell woke me up. Smoke. Can’t you smell that?’
The lie tumbles from my mouth with sickening ease. Like dogs, Chloe’s parents turn their faces to the sky and sniff.
‘No,’ Kylie says.
I pretend to smell the air. ‘Oh. It’s gone now.’
Graeme hugs me fiercely. ‘You scared the heck out of me. Out of us.’
‘Sorry, Dad.’
He lets go of me and takes a deep breath. We all go inside together. The mystery woman’s phone number is branded on my electronic brain.
~
Swear words, clumsy drawings, accusations scratched into the paint. Like most bus stops, the bench is decorated like the walls of a lunatic asylum. Perhaps all human beings are one long wait away from madness.
The bus lumbers up the street towards me like a fat, herbivorous dinosaur. I hold out Chloe’s MyWay card. The brakes squawk.
The door hisses open and I climb on, nodding to the driver and tapping the sensor. The driver closes the door without looking at me. Her face is framed by knots of steel wool hair and enormous black glasses. I know from Chloe’s memories that some of the other students are often rude to her, and that she compensates by ignoring all of us. Perhaps she pretends she’s driving a completely empty bus around the town.
Only one seat is free—next to Becky.
My hands curl into fists in my pockets. What is more likely to expose me? Sitting next to a girl who has an unknown, unpleasant history with Chloe, or refusing to sit next to her in front of so many of my classmates?
I sit down, accidentally rubbing the skin of my arm against hers. ‘Hi,’ I say.
Becky shifts in her seat, turning to face the window.
The boys on the seats behind us are babbling about a game that’s just been released. The ones on the seats in front have headphones over their ears. Becky and I have some privacy. But what can I say? What will help me figure out what she and Chloe talked about at Pete’s party?
‘I’m sorry, OK?’ I say.
She turns to look at me. Her eyes are as still as those of a waxwork. ‘You’re sorry?’
‘Yeah. I wasn’t thinking.’
Lips pulling back over white teeth, she says, ‘You weren’t thinking?’
Whatever Chloe did, it was something really bad. ‘I’m sorry. What can I do to make it right?’
‘It’s six weeks too late to do anything.’ She looks out of the window again.
Six weeks. That’s how long it’s been since Pete’s party.
I had assumed this wasn’t personal. Looks like I was wrong. Could this be about Becky’s boyfriend, maybe? Did Chloe get too close to him?
Reflected in the grimy glass, I can see tears in her eyes. My instinct is to hug her, but she might push me away, which could catch the notice of some of the other passengers. So I do nothing. I sit in silence beside the crying girl, waiting for my stop to arrive.
When it does, I join the queue of students shuffling off the bus and step out into the daylight. Unable to convince myself that the sunshine doesn’t make me look fake, I head for the school at a fast jog. A boy in the entrance is raising money for diabetes research. Most people are dropping coins into his donation box, so I do too.
My first class is science. I have all the books I need, so I can skip the lockers—this gives me time to make a quick phone call.
I don’t want to use Chloe’s mobile, even withholding the number. The call is safest if it comes from someone who has nothing to do with Graeme. So I go to the pay phone in the school cafeteria, which gets used hundreds of times per day by kids who’ve had their mobiles confiscated.
I dial one-eight-three-one to block the caller ID, and then punch in the number from Graeme’s call log.
It rings twice.<
br />
‘Thanks for calling Ares Security. You’re speaking with Nadine.’
Her voice gives me chills. It’s definitely the woman who came to the house with Graeme.
‘Can I speak to Sam Fletcher?’ I ask, choosing the name at random.
‘I’m sorry, I don’t know anybody by that name.’
‘Have I called the wrong office?’ I repeat the woman’s number, with one digit changed.
Through the glass doors, I can see Becky passing the boy with the donation box. She takes all the cash out of her wallet—at least eighty dollars—and pushes it through the slot. He beams at her, but she walks away without smiling back.
‘Sorry,’ Nadine is saying. ‘This is five three double four.’
‘I see. Have a good day.’
I hang up. Nadine, from Ares Security. What’s her connection to Graeme? And what does Ares Security do?
Questions spin through my head as I walk to science class. I arrive without having found any answers.
‘Morning, Chloe,’ Mr Fresner says as I walk in.
‘Good morning, sir.’
I’m the first here. I flop down into my chair and wait for the others.
‘I hope you’ve recovered from yesterday’s excitement?’
‘Yes sir.’
‘Good. I’m very glad that Pete is OK but, next time, you should tell a teacher what’s going on.’
Henrietta had told a teacher Pete was missing, and they did nothing. But I can’t see any advantage in arguing about this. ‘Understood, sir.’
‘Good.’
The other students are filing in and taking their seats. Fresner says, ‘OK everybody, we pick up where we left off yesterday. Who can tell me where the world’s most powerful quantum mechanical processor was built?’
‘University of Bristol,’ someone says.
‘Correct. And how powerful was it?’
‘Not very,’ says the girl next to me.
A little laughter. Across the room from me, Becky is digging her fingernails into her desk.
‘Also correct,’ Fresner says. ‘It managed to find the prime factors of twenty-one, but that’s something you should all be able to do in your heads.’
