by Andrew Daddo
‘I did eleven. Come on.’
‘Hang on a sec. Madison has to tell me something.’ Madison raised her eyebrows and nodded, as if it was really important and she had to say it.
‘I’m going,’ Ronnie said and headed for the gate. Fat Buster had his head up and was looking from Ronnie to me and back to Ronnie. He got up and started to follow Ronnie before turning, looking back to me and plonking back on the turf.
‘Ronnie, wait.’
‘Going now.’
‘Fine, be careful crossing the road.’
‘Fine.’
‘Finer.’
‘Finest.’ It was a game we sometimes played in the car.
‘Just wait, will ya?’
‘Bye!’
‘I’ll catch up with ya.’
Madison did one of those smiles where the corners of her mouth pointed towards the ground. ‘She’s so funny. You’d better go.’
‘Ah, she’ll be right. We only live up the street. She knows how to get there. She walks home from school by herself some days, I’m pretty sure she’ll be able to make it home from here. Besides, Fat Buster needs the exercise.’ Our dog was now on his back, legs akimbo, in the full starfish position. ‘Fat Buster, get up,’ I said with mock anger.
‘C’mon, then,’ said Madison. ‘Quick lap.’ She let her dog off the lead, and that started the bucking-doodle routine all over again. Fat Buster rolled off his back and came along for the walk. ‘Tell me,’ she said with a smile, ‘what do I have to tell you?’
‘Huh?’
‘You told your sister I had something to tell you. What is it?’
‘I did, didn’t I?’
‘I did, didden eye?’ she mocked, her voice deep and her head forward. Is that what I looked and sounded like? Really?
‘I was just, you know.’
‘No.’
Awks. ‘Trying to get Ronnie to stay a bit longer.’
‘Why?’
‘I dunno. So I could. We could. I dunno.’
Madison Ansey was standing in front of me with her hands in the back pockets of her shorts, her elbows pointing behind her. The effect it had on her front was electric. She had her face raised slightly, her chin up, daring me, challenging for a response. Even if I’d had the words, I doubted I’d be able to set them free.
It was only tiny, but Madison’s chin came out further and higher, as if she was craning towards me. I swear I’ve seen that exact movement right before movie kisses. She puckered, I know she did, and I knew I should, too. This was the bit in the Taylor Swift video where the boy who’s known the girl for ages is finally recognised as the one she’s meant to be with. This was it. She was in front of me, her head angled towards mine, just slightly off kilter as if her tiny, perfect little nose was making room for mine when our lips met. Madison still had her hands in her back pockets, her breasts still straining against her T-shirt. Holy crap. In a matter of seconds she’d gone from talking to kissing. I hadn’t even seen it coming.
I was about to close my eyes and press my face forward, when her pucker turned into, ‘Soooooo, we could walk the dogs? I know, that’s what I was thinking, too.’
She turned then, magically, as if she’d stopped mid dance and remembered to get going again. Stay, follow? Stay, follow? This must be how the dog feels when the gate’s left open and he’s not sure what his next move should be.
I followed.
What a relief I hadn’t leant in to kiss her.
It was almost dark when I got home. Fat Buster was so rooted I thought I was going to have to carry him up the last part of the hill. I dumped the lead on the deck and came in the back door. Mum was at the kitchen bench with her head in her phone and didn’t look up at my arrival.
‘Big walk,’ she said. ‘Hungry?’
I was, like, ‘You know it!’ And now that food had been mentioned, I realised how hungry I really was and that if I didn’t get something into me, anything, I’d die. I hung off the pantry doors, looking for sustenance.
‘Dinner’s ready in half an hour, so just wait, okay.’ It wasn’t a question. ‘Same for your sister, tell her to come inside now. Did you have a nice time together?’
‘Yeah, it was fun. I think we’ve taught Fat Buster how to fetch a ball.’ I grabbed a packet of chips from the cupboard, but the stupid wrapper was so noisy Mum heard. She told me to put them down and wait for dinner. ‘Muuuuuum.’ I took them anyway and headed back outside, hoping the Madison effect would hang around for a while yet – I knew once I got inside it’d eek out of me the way water disappears down the plug hole.
‘Fine. But don’t share them with your sister. And tell her to come inside.’
‘Is Ronnie out the front?’
‘Ronnie’s with you,’ she said, still not looking up from her phone.
‘Yeah, right,’ I said. ‘Duh!’
Only, she wasn’t. Ronnie had left the park ages ago, which meant she was at home. Obviously. Mum mustn’t have heard her come in, or she was outside somewhere. She must be out the front on the trampoline. Or in the garage playing table tennis or supergluing her fingers together. She’d be in the bathroom dip-dying her hair. She’d better remember to clean it up before it stains the benchtop like last time.
She had to be out the front on the trampoline; that’s where she always was.
‘Hey, Ronnie?’ I said, walking up the side of the house towards the front yard. ‘Mum says you’ve got to go inside. Now.’ But when I rounded the corner, there was no one there. The tramp was empty. The front door was closed, she wasn’t down the other side of the house and she wasn’t under the trampoline. She wasn’t there. Which meant she was in the garage supergluing her fingers together.
Or she was in the bathroom.
The light wasn’t on in the garage, and Ronnie hates the dark, and she especially hates the garage when it’s dark. So that’d be a bust. That’s where Fat Buster’s food is, and she never feeds the dog at night-time.
I checked anyway. ‘Hey, Ronnie, you idiot. What are you doing in the garage?’ She might have had some new glow-in-the-dark stickers she was trying out. She was probably hiding. She’d be just inside the door and she’d come out and go ‘blaaaaaaah’ and wet herself laughing after I jumped. She’d be in there doing something.
But not this time.
There was a new feeling going viral through my body. I felt heavy, spewy. It’s the feeling of big trouble. I needed a crap. It’s like I’d been eating cement, not potato chips. Invisible weights clung to my legs, making them incredibly heavy. I was afraid to move, but afraid not to as well. Ronnie definitely wasn’t in the garage, and she definitely wasn’t on the trampoline or on either side of the house.
If Mum said she had to come inside, she was outside. But she wasn’t outside at our house. I checked the front yard again. Her bike was on the ground next to the tramp. Had that been there before?
Obviously, because I’d been asked about ten times to move it.
The corner shop – if I had a brain I wouldn’t be smart enough to switch it on. Ronnie had to be at the corner shop because she’s mad for the lollies. It’s the only store around us where she gets to choose them one by one from behind a glass counter – Dad says it’s how everyone used to sell lollies. When he was a kid he’d stand there with his ten cents and get a whole bag’s worth. Ronnie goes down there with one of Dad’s dollars and ends up with half a bag. I quietly closed the front gate behind me and headed for the shop, hoping to see her walking back with a gobful, pretending she had nothing to hide.
Ronnie wasn’t walking back. And she wasn’t in the corner store or hiding from me in the corner store. I asked Li, the shop owner. She said she hadn’t seen Ronnie for ages, not today, anyway. ‘Maybe yesserday, no today,’ she said, before putting a couple of cobbers into a white paper bag, saying, ‘Give them to her – as a present. She nice, your sister.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘If she comes down, tell her she’s got to go straight home.’
I was d
rowning in my own stupidity. This was epic dumbness. It was worse than leaving my bike at the park and having it stolen, worse than taunting our bird by opening and closing the cage door, only to see it fly off.
How do you explain losing your sister?
The first taste of vomit was in the back of my throat and nose. My heartbeat thumped angrily in my ears.
Ronnie definitely wasn’t under the trampoline – I checked again. And she wasn’t at the corner store or in the garage. My little, eight-year-old sister was not down either side of the house or in the jacaranda tree in the backyard and she wasn’t sitting up in the frangipani where she goes sometimes. Where the fuck was she?
I’d have to tell Mum she wasn’t outside.
Mum’d go mental if I told her I’d lost Ronnie. Ronnie’s the only one she actually likes in the whole house, including Dad. I mean, she loves us, I know that, but she likes Ronnie. She has fun with Ronnie, they laugh and get hot chocolates and croissants and do fun stuff together. Ronnie plaits Mum’s hair and sits on her lap every night after dinner. Every night. As soon as the plates are cleared, Ronnie climbs up there and sits like she’s on a battery charger and all of Mum’s love is getting sent straight into her.
I ran back to the shop, to check again, just one last time. If I could bring Ronnie home it’d be absolutely okay. We could pretend it never happened, she was just piss-farting around outside and I took a while to go and get her. And I’d never let her walk home by herself again. Ever.
Jesus. She’s eight, of course she can’t walk home alone. She should be able to, there shouldn’t be a problem with it because she’s a big eight, right? I could have walked home by myself when I was eight. It wasn’t even that dark. It’s not like the street lights were even on. But then, there are no street lights between our place and the dog park.
I ran back to the park. There were still dog-walkers there, but no Ronnie. I even asked a couple of people if they’d seen her. They asked what she was wearing but I couldn’t remember. ‘You know, she’s about this big, with blondie kind of hair and, um, a school uniform. I think. Yeah. Yellow checks, the local one. She’s eight. She’s little. She’s probably at home. She’s got no front teeth. Or one front tooth, yeah, definitely only one front tooth. She does cartwheels. Have you seen a little girl like that doing cartwheels?’ One woman said I should call the police. She got her phone out and everything.
Should I call the police? I’d get in so much trouble.
I knew how that’d go. They’d be, like, ‘You did what, son? You stayed at the park as the sun was setting and told your sister to find her own way home. Now, your sister, your alleged sister, the one who might be missing is how old? Eight? Under ten, that eight? The eight that’s just after seven? Okay. And she’s got one front tooth, she’s wearing her school uniform? She’s gorgeous and you sent her off to walk home along unlit streets.’ I’d have to say, yes, that’s correct. ‘And you stayed at the park because – someone was dying and you were the only person there who knew how to perform CPR? You were held captive by terrorists and your sister escaped? It must have been something like that for you to let your cute little eight-year-old sister walk home alone, particularly at this time of night and in a fairly sketchy neighborhood?’ And I’d have to say I stayed to talk to a girl I knew because she was talking to me like I was normal. I might not add I had a pretty decent view of her breasts every time she bent over, which seemed to be a lot.
‘You can use my phone, if you like. How long has she been missing? If it’s more than fifteen minutes, you should call now. Every second matters, you know?’ She thrust her phone into my face.
‘No, no, it’s okay, I’ll check at home first,’ I said. ‘If she’s not there, I’ll call. I’ll get Mum to.’ This woman was grandma-old and they worry about everything. Ronnie would be home by now, for sure. I ran home, calling her name the whole way. At first I did it kind of quiet, so I didn’t embarrass myself, but then I thought, stuff that, because if no one can hear me, Ronnie can’t either.
I even went around that block of flats on Augusta Street, the creepy one, but there was no sign of life there at all.
Again, I checked the shop.
She wasn’t on the trampoline, or under it. She wasn’t down either side of the house or up any of the trees. She definitely wasn’t in the garage. Ronnie was not at home. Through the back window I could see Mum, still at the kitchen bench doing something on her phone. She was looking up from time to time, either looking out the back doors or looking at herself in the reflection. She looked pissed. That was nothing, she would go thermo-nuclear.
It’s the first time I’ve ever seriously thought about running away, but that wouldn’t find Ronnie.
By the time I got my fingers around the back door handle, there were tears in my eyes, the words just fell out of me. ‘I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry. I can’t find Ronnie. I’ve looked everywhere. She’s not outside, she’s not at the shop, and she’s not in the garage. I’m sorry, Mum. I’m sorry.’ It was torrential. Mum was too shocked to move. She just stared at me, as if I was mad or possessed or both.
‘What are you talking about? You took her to the park, right? And you brought her home from the park. She’s with you. She’s eight years old. Of course she’s with you. Where else would she be? She’s eight. It’s dark.’
‘I. She. I know,’ I stammered as the panic blossomed. And now I was really crying because it was all so clearly my fault and there was no obvious way to fix it.
‘What are you talking about, Dylan?’ Mum was up and off the stool.
‘She left early, by herself. She came home ages ago,’ I yelled and pleaded and bawled.
Mum’s volume rose with mine. She looked around the room, as if frightened. ‘What? Are you saying she’s not with you? Ronnie didn’t come home with you?’
I shook my head. ‘I’ve looked everywhere. She’s not here, Mum. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. We have to call the police!’
Mum leant against the bench and ever so quietly said, ‘Ronnie? You’ve lost Ronnie?’ And then she yelled. ‘RONNIE! RONNIEEEE!’
I shouted, too. ‘Ronnie!’
‘Tadaaaaaaaaaaaah!’ went Ronnie, jumping out from behind the couch. She was laughing her head off, as if she’d been part of the world’s best game.
‘Oh my God,’ I said. ‘You’re okay. Jesus, Ronnie. Where were you?’
Ronnie kept laughing, but Mum didn’t. ‘The question is, where were you?’
‘She’s here, Mum. She’s safe,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry, Ronnie.’ I grabbed her and hugged her and hung on while she tried to squirm away. There wasn’t much more to say. I was sorry. ‘I didn’t think,’ I said, putting her down.
‘You didn’t think? Are you kidding me? You didn’t think? She’s eight years old, walking home by herself from a park along an unlit street and you didn’t think? Lucky for you I was here when she got home. And I was able to let her in and look after her. What if I wasn’t? What if I went out because I knew she was being looked after by you? What if your little sister was walking around the streets trying to get into the house, or sitting out the front stranded because her smart-arse older brother was too selfish to spend some time with her. We do everything for you, and you do nothing for anyone else.’
Mum had the tears now.
‘It’s okay, Mummy,’ said Ronnie, who’d lost the euphoria she’d had moments before. ‘I’m okay. I can walk home from the park.’
‘You shouldn’t have to,’ said Mum. ‘He should have been looking after you! It was his job. One job was all he had and he couldn’t even do that. He’s practically an adult and he should know better, shouldn’t he!’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. I’d managed to get on top of the tears, pushing them just below the surface, but they threatened like a summer storm.
Mum glared at me. ‘I know you’re supposed to be a challenge when you’re in Year Nine, Dylan, but I didn’t realise that meant being a selfish idiot. Apologise to your sist
er. Your behaviour is inexcusable. Go wash up for dinner. And while you’re there, have a good look at yourself. I’m so disappointed in you.’
‘I’m sorry, Mum,’ I said again. I moved to her, to give her a hug, to apologise properly, to try and make it right. She pushed me away and picked up Ronnie, balancing her on her hip. Ronnie wiped at Mum’s eyes.
I sat on the toilet and tried to think it through.
What if I had lost her, or something terrible had happened to Ronnie? And when did she get home?
Had Ronnie been here the whole time? Is that what happened? Had Mum told me to go outside and find her, even though she knew she was here at home?
Why would she do that? That’s messed up.
I did have a look at myself in the mirror, and what I saw wasn’t great. My eyes were red and puffy, my acne was flaring and I was pale as. Did I look like this when I’d been about to kiss Madison? My eyes would have been normal, but my zits and pale face would have been the same. She didn’t seem to notice, I hope she didn’t care. I wouldn’t care if she was pale and zitty.
I washed my face and had a good, close look. Shit. I think I’m getting a mono-brow as well.
Dad didn’t make it home for dinner, and I didn’t hang around for him before going to bed. He’d give it to me in the morning if he came home. He’d find out about what happened with Ronnie, for sure.
Mum tried to have a normal nothing-wrong-at-our-place kind of dinner but I wasn’t buying it. I was pissed at her. I was pissed at Ronnie for hiding away like that. But mostly at myself. I should never have let her walk off like that, whatever the reason.
I ate, cleared and left.
Mum came in to say goodnight. She was all soft and normal now. Apologetic, even. ‘Sometimes you’ve got to learn the lessons the hard way, Dylan. That’s just how it is. It’s not like you and your sister, Hayley, are listening to logic at the moment, so your dad and I have got to find other ways to get you to hear us, understand?’
‘Unnestand,’ I mumbled. It was meant to sound like I was asleep and she should leave me alone.
