Missing Abby

by Lee Weatherly

  ‘Thanks.’ She squinted sceptically at it. ‘I'm more into anime now. So's Gail … that's how we all met, in fact – the four of us. We have Art together.’

  ‘Ski's an artist?’

  She slid a sidelong glance at me. ‘Yeah, that's right. He's really into graphic comics. Design, that sort of thing. Why?’

  ‘Just wondering.’ I took a quick gulp of Coke to hide my reddening face.

  Sheila smiled knowingly, straightening out a paper clip. ‘That's funny; he was asking about you, too. On and on. Goth Girl and I were about to gag him to shut him up.’

  I froze. ‘Goth—’

  ‘Gail.’ Sheila gave me a strange look. ‘She's the original Goth Girl, or haven't you noticed?’

  ‘It's just that—’ I took a breath. ‘Well, that's what they call Abby at Balden. One of the things. Only they're not kidding.’

  The desk chair squeaked as Sheila pulled a knee up to her chest. ‘She never told me that. She told me enough, though. They sound like a bunch of stuck-up cows at that school.’

  ‘Some of them really are. Like Karen Stipp and them.’ Glancing down at my forest green uniform, I thought about how I had just skipped off and left Abby to fend for herself. My mouth tightened, thinking about it. I mean, she had always claimed not to care about Karen, but what if she really did? What if she'd been acting, too?

  I could feel Sheila's eyes on me, and knew that she was dying to ask what had happened. I rested the Coke on a pink beaded drink-mat that sat on her bedside table.

  ‘Look, the reason I came here … I saw this flier about a D&D convention, and it mentioned live action games. And it reminded me that that's what Abby was talking about on the bus.’

  There was a flash of blue as Sheila's eyes widened. ‘What exactly did she say?’

  ‘That – table gaming was starting to get boring, and the game she was going to run would be live action.’

  Sheila slumped back in her chair, gaping at me like I had just started chanting ancient Latin. ‘What, the game we were going to play that night ?’

  My heart racketed against my ribs. ‘That's what it sounded like. What does it mean, anyway?’

  ‘Um … well, it's when you play a game outside, in a real setting – like, if the game's set in the woods, then you actually go play it in the woods, acting it out. Emma, are you sure she said that?’

  ‘Yes, I'm sure! I just didn't know what it meant at first, so it didn't really sink in.’

  ‘But …’ Sheila's mouth pursed. ‘Did she say where we were supposed to go to play it?’

  ‘No, but she asked me if I wanted to play that night, and when I said no, she asked me along for that afternoon. She said it should be almost as much fun. Sheila, I thought she was inviting me to her house !’

  Sheila shook her head slowly. ‘No, I bet she was asking you along somewhere else, to help set up the game … and it wouldn't have been at her house, because we were supposed to all meet here that night.’ She stopped suddenly, pressing a fist against her mouth.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I just thought – she knows my mum does line dancing Saturday nights! She knew we could leave the house if we met here – so if she was talking about live action, then she definitely must have been setting up a game somewhere else for us to play, and I bet that's where she was going when you saw her on the bus!’

  Electricity shot through me, lifting the hair from my head. We stared at each other. I knew we were both thinking the same thing: Abby going to the woods or something. By herself.

  ‘And I bet that's what the tiger-eye necklace was for,’ I managed. ‘Like, for treasure … something real for you to find at the end of the game.’

  Sheila's pointed face had turned fish-belly pale. ‘Emma, we've got to go to the police. We've got to tell them all of this.’

  ‘Yeah, you're right.’ I fumbled to get my mobile out of my bag. ‘Do you reckon I should just dial 999, or—’

  ‘No, we have to go there!’ Exploding from her desk, Sheila snatched up a bus pass from her dresser and shoved it in her pocket.

  ‘Go there?’

  ‘Emma, this is urgent! We can't just ring – come on, they're going to want to talk to you in person anyway, aren't they? And the fastest way for that to happen is if we just go there, now.’

  She stood by her door with her hands on her hips, looking like an outraged blond ferret.

  I tried not to think about the fact that it was already after half four, and that I had told Jenny I was going to a Book Club meeting after school. I stood up and grabbed my things. ‘OK … you're right.’

  A few minutes later, we were running for the bus.

  The police department was in the Civic Building just beside the town centre – a tall, concrete office block that looked like a prison. All it needed were coils of barbed wire surrounding it.

  Even Sheila looked a bit daunted as we got closer. She took a breath and shoved open the door. ‘Come on.’

  I followed right behind her, my pulse drumming in my ears.

  PC Lavine was there when we asked for her, which was a complete relief. And she was as nice as I remembered. She took us into a private office, and sat with us on a small sofa as I repeated what Abby had said, and explained how I had remembered it the night before.

  ‘See, live action games are different from table games,’ Sheila broke in.

  PC Lavine had pulled out a small notebook, and was writing in it with a blue Biro. She glanced up. ‘Yes, I know … we've had a D&D expert in.’

  Goatee-guy from the Dungeon flashed into my mind.

  ‘Oh.’ Sheila looked a bit deflated. ‘Well, anyway, we don't think she was going home that day, since the game was going to be live action … she must have been going somewhere to set it up for that night.’

  ‘Right, I see.’ Frowning, PC Lavine went over it again with us, asking loads of questions. What were the exact words Abby had used, could I recall? Had Abby ever mentioned live action gaming before? Did we have any idea at all where she might have gone to set up a game?

  Sheila and I looked at each other on that last one, shaking our heads. I saw the same blankness on her face that I felt on mine.

  Finally PC Lavine nodded, and snapped the cap back on her Biro.

  ‘Right … wait here a moment, girls, I want to show you something.’ She came back a few seconds later with a bulging file, and handed us some stapled-together sheets of paper. ‘This is the game we think Abby wrote for you and your friends to play, Sheila. We found it on the hard drive of her family's computer; she printed a copy of it off the day she disappeared.’

  Sheila and I pressed together on the sagging sofa, looking down at the game.

  Esmerelda's Dungeon

  An adventure for a party of four, with experience level five.

  PC Lavine sat down and placed the heaving file on the desk. ‘Have a quick read of it, OK? See if it rings any bells as to where she might have been planning to play it.’

  I was still gawking at the title. How could she have made this into an Esmerelda game? Esmerelda was ours!

  Gripping the paper, I started to read. The Eye of Fire, a talisman of great power, has been stolen by the evil enchantress Esmerelda. A party of four adventurers have been hired to get the Eye back. After a long journey, and many hardships, they have managed to chase Esmerelda down into the dungeons under her castle. It is here that our story begins.

  So she hadn't used the stories we created together after all; she had just taken the name Esmerelda. But it still felt like a complete betrayal.

  I started to turn the page. Sheila's hand slapped it down again. ‘Do you mind? I'm not finished yet.’

  But when she turned the page, the story part had ended. There was some description, but mostly it was stuff like this:

  If the party advance without checking for/finding traps, poison spores will be released and they will lose one const. pt per round until antidote is found.

  If the party decide to explore Secret Ch
ambers 1 or 2, they find nothing. Secret Chamber 3 is open, and has 20 gp.

  Pages of that sort of thing, absolute pages of it. Sheila nodded seriously as she read, like it made perfect sense to her. I struggled on, trying to picture what the actual game might be like from all of this, but I couldn't begin to.

  Finally, Sheila handed the pages back. ‘Was there a map?’

  PC Lavine shook her head. Her skin looked paler in the harsh office lighting, more cappuccino than milk chocolate. ‘No, we haven't found one.’

  ‘I don't know, then.’ Sheila's eyebrows drew together anxiously. ‘I mean, it seems really complex … a place with rooms and passageways and stuff. Unless we were supposed to just pretend a lot of it.’

  My pulse quickened as I stared at her. Her words seemed to kick-start something in my brain; something that almost made sense, if I could just remember—

  ‘Emma, what about you?’

  It was gone. I shook my head in frustration. ‘No … no, I don't know either.’

  PC Lavine drew a little folder out of her pocket. ‘Girls, look – here's my card.’ She handed one to each of us. ‘Give me a ring if you think of anything else, OK? Either of you, anytime. And thanks so much for coming in with this information; it could really be invaluable.’

  Sheila clutched her card. ‘Um – could we have a copy of Abby's game?’

  The constable's sculpted eyebrows rose. ‘No, I'm afraid not. I can't give out copies of evidence.’

  ‘But – we could take it home and really study it, and—’

  ‘I'm sorry; it's out of the question—’ PC Lavine broke off as a constable with a grey moustache leaned in the doorway. From the busy office behind him, the sound of phones and conversation drifted in.

  ‘Beth, could I have a quick word? It's about the Javez case; I've got Mrs Javez on the phone.’

  PC Lavine was already starting out of the room, taking Abby's game with her. ‘Just a minute, girls – I'll be back in a second to show you out,’ she said over her shoulder.

  Sheila and I looked at each other. Her eyes were wide and urgent, asking a question. I swallowed, and nodded. And like we had planned it for years, I moved in front of the open doorway, blocking the view as I pretended to be checking a text on my mobile. Behind me, I heard Sheila lunge for the file on the desk.

  Flap, flap, flap as she rifled through it. I pressed some random buttons on my phone, trying to ignore the fact that there were police constables everywhere I looked. ‘Can't you hurry?’ I hissed.

  ‘Ah ha – another copy!’

  I glanced over my shoulder and saw Sheila turn her back to the door, folding up some pages and shoving them down her jeans. Thank god! I let out a breath and sank down onto the sofa.

  PC Lavine came back just as Sheila turned around again, looking completely relaxed. ‘Right, sorry about that. This way, girls.’

  The five of us sat crowded around a plastic yellow table in McDonald's, looking at the crumpled pages of Abby's game. Ski sat across from me. And even though I felt horrible for thinking about it just then, I kept stealing glances at him, remembering what Sheila had said. Once I caught him looking at me, and I flushed, taking a quick sip of Sprite to hide my face.

  Rob hunched over the table as he read. ‘God, all these tunnels and rooms … where could she have had in mind for this?’

  ‘Maybe someone's house?’ Ski's blond hair fell across his face as he leaned forward, straining to read upside down. At the next table, a little kid was bopping her balloon against the wall, keeping time with some sad old tune from the eighties that was blasting from the loudspeakers.

  ‘But it would have to be one of our houses, wouldn't it? And it wasn't,’ said Gail.

  Sheila had texted Gail when we left the police station, and arranged for them to meet us at the McDonald's in the town centre. And meanwhile, I had rung Jenny and told her that the Book Club meeting had been cancelled, and that I was at McDonald's with Jo and Debbie.

  She had not been pleased.

  ‘It looks like a really good scenario …’ Rob flipped the stapled pages back to page one. ‘I wish she had got the chance to run it for us.’

  I looked at the neatly typed lines of print, and the feeling of frustration swept me again. Why couldn't I think of whatever it was?

  ‘Could we … um, play it ourselves, maybe?’ I suggested.

  Instant silence as everyone stared at me.

  ‘Why would we want to do that?’ asked Sheila, wrinkling her upturned nose.

  Because something about it is driving me completely mad and I don't know what. I shrugged, squeaking my straw in and out of the plastic lid. ‘I don't know … I'd just like to play a game, and see what it's like.’

  ‘But this game?’ Gail's large face looked stricken, too pale under her crimson-red hair.

  I swallowed. ‘Yeah … because it's Abby's. And because … well, it deserves to be played. I mean, if we don't play it, who will?’

  Everyone sort of winced and looked down. Finally Ski cleared his throat, and picked up the scenario, glancing through it. ‘I guess I could run it as a table game. If you really want to play it, that is.’

  My hair moved on my shoulders as I nodded. ‘Yeah, I'd like to.’

  ‘I would too,’ said Sheila suddenly. Her earrings glinted as she glanced around at the others. ‘I mean – well, maybe we owe it to Abby, don't you think? To play her game? We could do it tomorrow night, at my house.’

  Everyone started talking excitedly then, even Gail, their words crashing and tumbling over each other. But then it all went completely pear-shaped, because the door opened and Dad walked in.

  Dad hardly said a word during the drive home. I hunched against the door, wishing that the car ride would just go on forever, that he'd suddenly take it into his head to drive to Athens or somewhere.

  But instead of heading off to sunnier climes he just drove to Larkwood, and pulled up in front of our terraced house. He turned off the car, and I flinched, knowing what was coming.

  ‘Right, Emma – what exactly is going on? Jenny said you were at McDonald's with Jo and Debbie.’

  ‘Well – I was, only they had to go, and then I met – um, ran into Sheila and the others. You know, Sheila – from the re-enactment?’

  Grim lines appeared around his mouth. ‘I'm having a hard time believing that that's the entire truth, actually. Was the Book Club meeting cancelled, or not?’

  I gazed down at the rough carpet on the car's floor.

  ‘You don't know, do you? Did you even plan to go to it?’

  ‘No,’ I whispered.

  ‘Well? Come on, out with it. What's going on?’

  ‘I – went to the police,’ I gulped out.

  His eyes bulged. ‘You what ?’

  So then I had to tell him the whole thing, except I didn't mention going to Sheila's house first, or that I had overheard him and Jenny talking the night before. Like I was really eager to listen to all the blustering excuses he'd come up with. Oh, no, love, I don't think you're odd. Just regressing a teensy bit, that's all!

  Besides, he looked gobsmacked enough as it was. He had collapsed back in his seat, staring at me. ‘Why on earth didn't you tell me? You didn't have to go off on your own!’

  I lifted a shoulder. ‘I don't know.’

  ‘Emma, that's not good enough. You have to come to me or Jenny with this sort of thing, not go dashing off by yourself, lying to us about where you're going! Do you understand?’

  I nodded, feeling miserable. Tomorrow night, what about that? I couldn't imagine asking him if I could go to Sheila's to play the game that Abby wrote.

  Dad let out a short breath, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. ‘Look, Emma, I know how upset you must be about Abby. I think it might help if—’

  ‘I'm not going to counselling!’ I burst out.

  His eyebrows arched. ‘Who said anything about counselling?’

  ‘I just thought—’

  ‘Jenny's suggested it, actually.�
� He grimaced and loosened his tie, like the very idea choked him. ‘Well, it's there as an option for us, but I think we can get through this without it, don't you? Just so long as we talk to each other.’ He squeezed my shoulder, shaking it slightly. ‘You have to trust us, Emma. OK? No more lying, no more going off on your own. Promise?’

  My throat clutched up as I nodded. Looking at him, sitting there so solid in his grey suit, suddenly I wanted to burst into tears and tell him everything that I had kept secret for so long. Karen, the changing rooms – every hideous bit of it.

  I licked my lips, and took a breath. ‘Dad—’

  He didn't hear me. He was reaching in the back seat for his briefcase. ‘So those were Abby's friends, were they? That gang at McDonald's?’

  I blinked. ‘Oh – yeah.’

  ‘Mm.’ Dad shook his head, and his mouth twisted ironically, like – yep, just as I thought. Weirdos.

  It felt like he had drenched me with a bucket of Arctic water. And I knew I couldn't tell him anything after all.

  Jenny was ‘caring and concerned’ all through tea, obviously trying to draw me out. I felt like informing her that I wasn't in the mood to be practised on for her future cases, thank you very much, but I shoved the words down and played along with it.

  ‘Yeah, I guess I should have told you both … I just sort of panicked, I guess.’ I concentrated on cutting up my chicken.

  Jenny shot Dad a pleased look. I could see them both relaxing, thinking that OK, they had had a bit of a blip on the odd-front, but now I was back to being normal and mature again.

  ‘Never mind, what's done is done,’ said Jenny. ‘And the really important thing is that the police have the new information you gave them.’

  I nodded. Swallowing a bit of chicken, I glanced across the table at Dad. ‘Um, listen … is it OK if I go to Debbie's tomorrow night?’

  He stopped eating to look at me, his eyebrows knotted together. ‘No, I don't think so, Emma. It's a school night, and I'm not happy about it after what happened today.’

  ‘But Dad, this is really important! Debbie's going to be making her outfit for the fashion contest over the weekend, so she wants Jo and me to go around for dinner tomorrow night, and then help her with the pattern and cutting out the material and all that … so can I go, please ?’ I held my breath.