The Girl Who Wasn't There

by Karen McCombie

  “But it wouldn’t be any trouble, and it’s starting to get properly dark now,” Dad persists.

  “Dad – leave her alone. You’re freaking her out,” Clem tells him.

  Dad looks confused; frowns at Clem for more of an explanation. In the meantime, Kat fades away in the gloom of the hall, towards the still-open front door.

  “Maisie’s friend doesn’t know you yet, does she?” Clem clarifies, giving Dad a lecture on adult/new friend etiquette. “She’s not going to jump into a car with a total stranger!”

  “Oh! But I was just… I’m sorry, Kat – I didn’t mean to make you feel pressured or uncomfortable!” Dad apologizes, flustered now and rubbing a hand over his head.

  “No, really, you didn’t – it’s OK,” says Kat, backing out on to the path. “I live really close.”

  I follow after her, and let her out of the locked gate in the railings.

  “That was scary!” I whisper to her through the bars once the gate closes behind her, the two of us talking like prisoners in neighbouring cells.

  “It was kind of exciting, though, wasn’t it?” Kat whispers back. “I haven’t had that much fun in years…”

  And with one of her little-kid waves, the night swallows Kat up, her blazered figure darting in and out of the diffused yellow streetlamps that have just flickered on, till I can’t see her any more.

  Ambling back to the house, I feel a sudden rush of happiness. Kat really is my new best friend. Those shared, secretive conversations about families and friends … they will happen, and soon. The thought of that makes me a little scared but thrilled, thrilled that the weight of it all will lift off my shoulders at last. And Kat’s too, hopefully…

  And then I walk in on one last lie of the evening.

  “How come you’re back so early anyway, Dad?” Clem is asking, while digging a spoon into a small bowl piled high with raspberry ripple. “What went wrong with your date?”

  “Nothing went wrong, Clem,” Dad says defensively, which isn’t like him. “It just wasn’t quite a date tonight, just a quick chat.”

  “Ooh, a chat! That sounds ominous…” says Clem, waggling her spoon at Dad.

  “It’s not ominous … it’s fine, really fine.”

  “Honest?” I ask, venturing into the kitchen.

  “Honest,” he says, passing me a bowl of ice cream. “Now scoot, you two; go find something for us to watch on telly. I’ll just get myself some ice cream and be right out.”

  At the living-room door I glance back and see him rubbing his face with his hands.

  Looks like Dad’s just as good at lying as me and Clem.

  We’re a family of fibbers.

  Sorry, Mum…

  “You look lost, Maisie Mills!” says a cheerful voice.

  It’s Mrs Watson, trotting out of the double doors with an important-looking folder under her arm.

  “I’m not lost; just trying to find someone,” I tell her, moving out of the way as yet more girls lazily stream out of school, not in a particular rush to leave, even though the end-of-day bell went more than five minutes ago.

  “Oh, yes? Got yourself a friend now?” she asks, interested and pleased for me. “Is it Patience? I thought you two would get on!”

  Er, not quite. Now that they’re relieved of their first-week-minder duties, Patience and the other girls in my form class have stepped away from me, just giving me the odd wave, a non-committal hello, an occasional sideways stare.

  I really don’t like the sideways stares.

  It makes me think they definitely do know about what happened at my last school…

  “Er, it’s not anyone in my form class,” I set Mrs Watson straight. “Her name’s Kat. With a ‘K’.”

  “Kat? You mean short for Katie Ross? Or Katherine Thomson? Or Kate-Lynne O’Malley?”

  She fires those three names at me, plus a couple more, and I’m embarrassed to realize something.

  “I don’t know her last name,” I say, pinking up.

  “Oh, don’t worry. It’s early days! Lots to find out about each other, and plenty of time to do it in,” says Mrs Watson, as she saunters off.

  Well, Katie, Katherine or Kate-Lynne (or whichever she actually is) doesn’t seem to have been at school today, or at least I didn’t see her – and I certainly looked.

  I looked for her on the lawn at break time, in the dinner hall at lunchtime. I hung out in the library, hoping she’d show, but only ended up leaving with a laminated library card, thanks to Mrs Gupta.

  And call me impatient, but I want to find out everything about my new friend as soon as I can, even if Mrs Watson was waffling on there about having lots of time. (The thing is, I wasted too much time at my old school being miserable; I want to make up for it by being happy soon, now.)

  I want to ask Kat a ton of questions, and I want to share lots of stuff with her too; stuff that’s been sitting on my shoulders for months, crushing me.

  The reason I feel so sure about it all today is because I went to bed early last night, with Mum.

  Not with her tucking me in or reading me a story or asking if I’d brushed my teeth, of course.

  Just me and her notebook, her words.

  I’d been in such a blue mood, shocked at myself for going behind Dad’s back and sneaking into the school, hating lying to him, that I lay there, letting my fingers trail back and forth across the rainbow, wishing I could take it all back, rewind a few hours.

  But then guilt twanged in my chest, as I remembered what a buzz it had been to wander around the school all by ourselves, how Kat said she hadn’t had so much fun in years…

  Why hadn’t she had so much fun in years, I found myself wondering.

  It’s corny but true: a trouble shared is a trouble halved, Mum had written on a page I’d kept coming back to last night.

  I’d put down the notebook and walked over to the window, moving the curtain to one side. Softly, softly, I’d breathed on the spot where Kat had earlier – and a soft outline of a stick person in a star materialized. A stick baby, maybe, since it had a big head and tiny stick arms and legs.

  “Let’s halve our troubles,” I’d whispered to Kat, wishing she could hear me, wherever she was.

  And so I’d hoped to make a start today. To secure our friendship with a shared splurge of problems, of pasts.

  But if Kat’s off sick, I’ll have to wait, frustrating as that is…

  Hey, maybe I could at least find out which Kat she is? Didn’t Mahalia from the office say she and June were the people to ask if I had any questions?

  If they could look up today’s registers for Year 8 and see which Kat (or Katie, or Katherine or Kate-Lynne) was ill today, I’d at least know my new friend’s surname.

  I walk back into the main entrance hall and join a queue of girls and parents at the desk of the reception, my hand covering the smile sneaking up on me when I catch sight of the “burglar alarm”, i.e., wooden postbox.

  What would people in the queue think if they knew I’d been in here on Friday night? Would they reckon it was funny? Scary? A bit wild? Maybe some of the parents would be outraged, think it was bad enough to be called to the attention of the head teacher, for the head teacher to rumble on about possible exclusions.

  My smile slithers away at the thought, and memories of a different school, a different head teacher, different threats of exclusion creep unhappily into my mind…

  “Hey, Maisie!” I suddenly hear Dad call to me, and see him struggling up the stairs with a stepladder and full bucket of soapy water. “Grab that for me, will you?”

  I see a fat yellow sponge plopped down the stairs, an escapee from the bucket.

  “Sure,” I call back to him, suddenly glad to ditch the queue and my plan, since those dark, cloudy thoughts have drifted in.

  “Thanks, honey,” says Dad, pausin
g long enough for me to drop the sponge back in the bucket. “Miss Carrera’s asked me to clean the windows in the art room – she says they haven’t been done in months. Fancy keeping me company?”

  “Sure,” I say, biting my lip, and hoping Dad doesn’t become instantly psychic. I don’t want him picking up on my guilty vibes, or picturing me lurking in here on Friday, with Kat samba-ing and singing her funny Spanish-sounding song.

  I grab the bucket from Dad, hoping to be helpful, trying not to grumble when the water splooshes down my leg, and follow him to my favourite room in the school.

  “Oh, lovely!” says Miss Carrera, clapping her hands as we come in. “We’ll have proper daylight in here at last. Oh, and hello, Maisie!”

  “Hello,” I say shyly, and hurry behind Dad like a duckling who doesn’t want to stray too far from its mother.

  As it’s the end of the day, there are no students in here; just the art teacher in her long white cotton apron and the lilting sounds of classical music coming from her old, well-worn CD player.

  “No problem. I’ll get going on the outside straightaway,” says Dad, opening the middle window wide and manoeuvring his ladder out on to the terrace.

  “Can I come out there with you?” I ask him, intrigued by the outside space.

  “Hmm … as the site manager, I have to say that’s against health and safety regulations,” he answers, as he props the ladder upright against the red-brick wall. “And as your father, I have to say no way; have you seen how low the wall is round this thing?”

  The edge of the terrace is exactly like you’d imagine a castle wall to be: large, rectangular stones that go up and down, up and down, the lower ones reaching my mid-calf, by the looks of them, the higher ones not much taller than my knee.

  “You can sit right there on the sill and chat to me, though, if you like,” he says, reaching for the bucket and the sudsy sponge.

  I perch on the ledge of the open middle window – one leg in the art room, one leg on the terrace – and watch as Dad climbs to the top of the ladder and begins cleaning the window where I saw, or didn’t see, the ghost…

  “So, Maisie, are we all good?” Dad asks, trotting out his usual remark, as he transforms the panes from dusty to damply clean in speedy sweeps of his arm.

  It makes me think for a moment. I’d wanted to share my troubles with Kat today, and hear hers too.

  But if she isn’t around, I could still make use of Mum’s advice, couldn’t I?

  “Yeah, I’m good, Dad,” I answer him as casually as I can. “How about you?”

  “Can’t complain, he says, stepping down and down as the panes of glass gleam clear.

  Here goes, I think, feeling strangely shy of asking my dad such a personal question.

  “Uh-huh. But what’s going on with you and Donna?” I say, straight out, sitting on my hands to hide the fact that they’re shaking.

  “There’s nothing—”

  “And please, please don’t say nothing, Dad,” I cut him off, “’cause I know there is…”

  Dad pauses, and stares down at me in surprise.

  He’s still thinking of ways to brush off my words with some cheery, meaningless comment or other, isn’t he? But luckily, Dad’s so floored by my unexpected bluntness that he comes right on out with the truth.

  “Uh, the thing is, I don’t really know what’s going on, Maisie,” he admits, stepping on to the relative solid ground of the terrace and scratching his tanned forehead.

  “How come?” I ask, sorry that he’s not sounding more positive but quietly thrilled that he’s opening up to me.

  “Well, when I saw Donna on Friday, she told me that … that she doesn’t think it’s going to work out – doesn’t think we’re going to work out,” he says, now rubbing his face with the hand that (luckily) isn’t holding the sponge.

  “Why?” I ask.

  “Don’t know. She wouldn’t – or couldn’t – give me a reason.”

  That sounded strange. And unfair.

  “Yeah, but what did you say to that, Dad?”

  “I – I just asked her not to rush into any decision, and that’s … well, that’s how we’ve left it.”

  “But what do you think changed?” I say, as he turns and shuffles the ladder across to the window on the far side to me.

  He storms to the top, carrying on the cleaning, only now going at twice the speed.

  “I just don’t know, honey,” he says, not noticing that his frantic sponging is sending sprinkles of water and soapy bubbles cascading down. “For a while there, everything was going great. Then I got offered this job, and thought I’d lucked out. But it was around then that Donna went cool on me. Ha! How’s that for timing, eh?”

  You know, the other day, when me and Clem were teasing him, I joked that Dad hadn’t told her he had children. At the time I didn’t believe for a second that was true. But it’s worrying me now that maybe me and Clem are the issue, just by our very existence.

  I mean, who in their right mind, however kind and friendly, would really want to take on two teenagers?

  Hey, maybe I’ve just got to carry on being brave and ask Dad that too.

  “Is it … us? Me and Clem, I mean?” I ask, clutching my knees to my chest, blinking as the warm drops shower down on me.

  “No! I’m sure it’s not, Maisie,” says Dad, shaking his head. “Donna’s always so interested when I talk about you and your sister.”

  Maybe she’s just pretending, I think. Or maybe she’s just scared, now her and Dad are getting more serious, and we’re getting more real.

  “So why don’t you just ask her, straight out?” I suggest.

  “I don’t know…” Dad answers, shrugging, dripping. “I guess I’m worried that I won’t like her answer.”

  Oh – so it’s not just shy thirteen-year-olds who are scared to ask deep and meaningful questions out loud?

  “Well, if it was me, Dad, I’d rather know the truth than carry on wondering what was wrong,” I tell him.

  I did that with Lilah and Jasneet. The answer was awful, but the not-knowing was awful and frightening.

  “But what if the problem is that she just isn’t into me any more?” he asks, as if I’m an equal, a friend, and not his teenage daughter.

  “Then it’ll hurt, but it’ll be her loss,” I tell him.

  “Well, I guess you’re right, Maisie,” says Dad, stopping suddenly and gazing down at me from the top of the ladder. “I’m just going to have to tell Donna I need the truth, even if I don’t want to hear it. Thanks for helping me sort that one out in my head, honey.”

  “That’s OK, Dad. A trouble shared is a trouble halved,” I say, wondering if he’ll recognize it as something Mum would’ve said. He doesn’t seem to. “Do you want me to get you more water?”

  “Yes, please,” says Dad, and so I grab the bucket and slip inside the art room.

  Fleetingly glancing back, I can see him looking at me strangely, as if I just turned blue or grew an antler – or grew up in front of his very eyes.

  I smile to myself for a second, then feel that instant, familiar flurry of shyness when I try to talk to the teacher.

  “Miss Carrera, can I use the sink, please?” I ask timidly.

  “Of course you can! And hey, Maisie, what do you say we perhaps play some music that’s a little more upbeat now, while we tidy and clean, yes?”

  “Um, yes, I guess…” I reply, trying not to spray water all over myself from the overenthusiastic taps.

  A chirpy song bursts out as soon as Miss Carrera presses play on her tatty, paint-sploshed CD player.

  “Don’t you love it? It’s called ‘La Bamba’. It’s kind of corny but it’s one of those songs where you can’t stand still when you hear it!” she laughs, dancing around as she carries on tidying away after the day’s lessons.

  “H
ey, I know this one!” I exclaim, recognizing it from Friday, from the secret skulk around school. It was what Kat sang as she jigged around with the junk sculpture.

  Miss Carrera spots me looking over at the artwork.

  “Shh … don’t tell anyone, but I’ve recycled this CD from that thing. One day, I just got the urge for something different to listen to, and there it was!”

  “I won’t tell,” I assure her, suddenly giggling at the idea of the off-duty teacher sneaking up on the junk sculpture and snipping bits off.

  “Now this I like! A little enthusiasm, Maisie Mills!” Miss Carrera says, laughter in her voice, salsa in her steps. “I don’t want anyone to be shy around here. I think of this room as a sanctuary for all.”

  At her words, I forget about the song and wonder if I’m brave enough to ask her a question.

  Go on, the brave part of me whispers in my ear. It worked with Dad just now…

  “Miss Carrera,” I begin, hiding my nerves by staring at the tap as I yank it anticlockwise, shutting the water off. “Do you know the story of the ghost that haunts Nightingale School?”

  “Really? This place is supposed to be haunted? I only started here in January, so I don’t know all the school stories yet,” says Miss Carrera, amused rather than intrigued by what I’ve just said. “What’s it supposed to look like?”

  “It’s a schoolgirl, from Victorian times, when the school was first built,” I tell her. “In fact, it’s mostly been spotted in here…”

  By me, I don’t add.

  “In here? My, my!” says Miss Carrera, most definitely delighted rather than terrified at the news. “But wait; actually, now you mention it, Maisie, I think I did hear something in the staffroom once about a tragedy of some kind…”

  She blinks hard, as if she’s flicking quickly through a box of files in her memory.

  I hold my breath – as well as the sloshing bucket of water – hoping against hope that she can remember, that she can give me some sort of clue that Kat and I can work with.

  “Hold on, now I remember … it wasn’t a student,” she finally says.

  “What do you mean?”

  “It was some kind of an incident… I don’t know what it was exactly, but something bad happened to the previous site manager. The older man who was here before your father.”