“Dad – are you talking about Donna?” I ask him, feeling pretty certain it’s what he means. He’s taken my advice; he’s asked her to be honest with him about what’s going on. And he’s smiling, which means it has to be good news, doesn’t it?
“I called her up, Maisie, like you told me to,” Dad acknowledges, as he pours the hot water into his flask mug.
“And what did she say?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Clem’s gaze dart from me to Dad to me again. Not knowing what’s going on must be absolutely infuriating for her.
Great!
“She apologized. She said she’s sorry if she’s been a bit distant; she said things had been getting on top of her.”
“So it’s definitely nothing to do with me and Clem?” I check.
“Wait a minute, what do you mea—”
“Definitely not,” says Dad, cutting across Clem’s protests. “And hey, if she had a problem with you and your sister, she wouldn’t be coming here for tea with us tomorrow night, would she?”
So, that’s what Dad’s big beaming smile is all about!
“Here?” says Clem, her voice sounding sarky, as usual. Can’t she ditch it for once? Hasn’t she been hoping, same as me, that we’d meet Dad’s mystery woman one day? If she keeps this up tomorrow, Donna really might go off the idea of us pretty quickly…
“Yes, here!” says Dad, screwing the lid on his flask mug. “Got a problem with that, Miss Clementine Mills?”
He’s still grinning, skating over the top of Clem’s negativity, which I can never manage to do (it sinks me).
“Well, I haven’t got a problem living in this dump, surrounded by unpacked boxes, but your lovely girlfriend might.”
Clem fans out her arms, looking like one of those perma-smiling models on some shopping channel, displaying the goods for sale.
Only Clem isn’t smiling and what she’s drawing our attention to isn’t anything anyone would want to pay money for.
I hate to say it, but she’s right.
Apart from a few favourite things propped on the shelves, the rest of the kitchen still looks like we moved in twenty minutes ago.
“It’s only been a week and a half, and you’ve had your new job to concentrate on,” I say to Dad, seeing him wince at the clutter we’ve been too busy living with to notice.
But Dad doesn’t seem to register my comforting words, and begins rubbing his face with his hands.
“Maybe I should book us into a restaurant,” he mumbles.
“No, you won’t,” says Clem.
“What’s going on with you?” I find myself snapping at her. “One minute you’re making out this place is too scuzzy to bring Donna back to, then the next, you’re telling Dad he shouldn’t cancel.”
“Look, if Donna is coming, it’s serious. I mean they’re serious; in a good way, right?” she says, talking to me as if I have the brain of a small, dim slug.
“Right,” I reply.
I notice that now it’s Dad’s turn to stare from one to the other of us, confused.
“So Donna needs to meet us. She needs to see the hovel,” says Clem, doing her shopping-channel-hostess act again and fanning her arms out. “If she still likes Dad after she’s seen this place and we’ve grilled her—”
“Clem!” Dad gasps in alarm.
“Joking!” she sighs, rolling her eyes. “As I was saying, if Donna can handle the sight of me and Maisie and our dismal home, then she is bound to be a good person.”
“Er … OK,” Dad says dubiously, staring at Clem, then staring at the teetering mountain of brown boxes cluttering up one side of the kitchen.
“And me and Maisie will help you blitz this place tonight. Right, Maisie?”
“Right,” I say again, as if I’m answering a sergeant major.
But if it helps Dad and Donna be happy, I’m happy – just this once – to be ordered about.
“What can I say? Thanks, girls; that’s great,” Dad laughs happily, stunned at Clem’s kind offer. “Well, till tonight, then. I better go and shoo away parents trying to park outside the entrance, as usual…”
“Not so fast,” says Clem, putting an arm out to stop him passing. “What are you making for tea?”
“Oh! I, uh, I’m not really sure…”
“Your Italian stuff’s really nice. Do that,” says Clem, sounding like a bossy head chef now. “And there’s that new deli in town – they do real sun-dried tomatoes and posh fresh pesto and everything. Write a list and leave it for us. Maisie will go after school.”
“Will I?” I say, startled at the rate these orders are coming.
“Well, duh!” says Clem. “I can’t go ’cause I’m dip-dying the ends of Bea’s hair blue, aren’t I?”
There’s no arguing with that, I guess.
And I don’t have the energy to argue with Clem anyway, not when I’m more concerned with problems I’ve got to solve, like how exactly I can help Kat. I mean, where do I begin?
“What new deli?” Dad asks Clem, at the same time as checking his watch and knowing he needs to get a move on.
“It’s right by that café that opened a couple of years ago. The one with all the vintage plates and cups and cake stands in the window. What’s it called again?”
I frown. I think. I do know it; Lilah’s mum took her, me and Jasneet there when it first opened. We had scones and jam and cream and all felt wonderfully full and slightly sick after.
Oh, why can’t I remember?
Maybe it’s because my mind is too fixated on finding clues to unlock Kat’s story.
Not that I’m likely to stumble on one here, in our messy kitchen, surrounded by boxes and clutter and breakfast plates.
“Oh!” gasps Clem, suddenly looking like she’s been slapped around the face. “I remember now; the name of the café … it’s Butterfield’s!”
“No way!” Dad says with a grin. “The name of the old site manager of the school? That’s a bit of a coincidence, isn’t it?”
I’d say it’s much more than a bit of a coincidence.
Mum’s advice is right; I just needed to give my smartness some time. ’Cause it occurs to me that the first piece of Katherine Mary Jessop’s puzzle has something to do with the box we – she – found in the summerhouse. And now I have a fuzzy but somehow sure feeling that the second piece of the puzzle has just dropped into place, and I can’t wait to tell Kat all about it…
*
Buddhists have mantras.
And anyone who’s into meditating has mantras too, words or phrases they repeat over and over again.
I’m repeating my own mantra now.
“Where are you, Kat? Where are you, Kat? Where are you, Kat?” in a voice so low that no one can hear, though they may see my lips moving, I guess. (Patience gave me a quizzical look in maths class, but thankfully she didn’t nudge anyone else so they could gawp at me too.)
I’m desperate to see Kat, but I’m desperately worried too. The more she appears, the more exhausted she gets. Was helping me through the shock yesterday too much for her? I haven’t seen her anywhere so far today. The corridors buzz with girls who aren’t Kat, the packed dinner hall felt empty without her at lunch, the sprawling green lawn with its blossom-laden trees seems a khaki shade of grey without the presence of my best friend.
“Where are you, Kat? Where are you, Kat? Where are you, Kat?” I mumble almost silently as I let myself be bustled along the first-floor corridor, past the art room on the way to French.
And then I spot something out of the corner of my eye.
A shift.
A stutter of a movement that doesn’t match the bustle and amble of students going on around me.
It’s like a now-you-see-it, now-you-don’t image.
A girl with huge blue eyes and a floppy hair bow.
; “Sorry – oops! My fault. Sorry,” I say, turning against the tide and making my way over to Kat. She’s leaning against the wall of the art room, her head resting on the frosted glass panels that run the length of it.
“Where’ve you been?” I ask her.
“Just the usual – nowhere-land,” says Kat, giving me one of her wry, apologetic smiles. “Getting my energy back, I guess.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re here now, ’cause I’ve found out something…”
With that, I rifle in my bag, pulling out the shortbread tin from the summerhouse.
“Look,” I say, popping it open and pulling out the class photo of Kat and her classmates. “This – this is Lindsey Butterfield, right?”
“Mmm,” mutters Kat, nodding.
“Well, I know who she is!” I announce.
“The old site manager’s daughter,” says Kat. “She used to live in your house. She was maybe my friend.”
Kat’s just repeating what we’ve already figured out.
She doesn’t know that I know more.
“I’ve seen her, Kat! Grown up, I mean. She runs a café in town.”
It came back to me in the shower, when I gave myself a bit of thinking time (just like Mum said). I remembered this cheery, slightly plump blonde woman who served us the time we went in with Lilah’s mother. The café was newly opened back then, and Lilah’s mum spent ages talking to the friendly owner about how it was going. The friendly owner who I absolutely recognized from the 1987 photo as being an older version of Lindsey, even if the Butterfield’s name hadn’t been a ginormous giveaway.
“Is that good?” asks Kat, trying hard to understand my excitement.
“Maybe!” I say hurriedly, noticing that the crowds are thinning out, that I’m going to be late for class if I’m not careful. “I think we need to go and see Lindsey … she’s got to be able to tell us about your –”
I stumble, only just avoiding using the word “death”. It’s such a harsh, heavy word.
“– of what happened to you, I mean,” I quickly correct myself.
“Maisie? What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be in class now?” a friendly but teacherly voice suddenly asks. It’s Miss Carrera, swooping out of the art room in one of her long white aprons. The hem of it brushes Kat’s leg, but she seems unaware. I guess it’s just me who can see Kat right now.
“I’m going, I’m going,” I assure Miss Carrera.
Then I notice Kat waver like some mirage, a hovering, vibrating image of my friend. She’s there and then she’s not, in split-second rotations.
“Maisie? What’s wrong?” I hear Miss Carrera’s voice ask, full of concern. “Why are you staring at the wall?”
But I’m not staring at the wall – I’m looking at my friend, wondering what’s happening to her, what’s wrong with her.
She’s sinking down, down, fainting away.
“No!” I call out, crouching to catch her, to cradle her in my arms.
Her eyes are fluttering, as if she’s slipping into unconsciousness…
And then she’s gone.
“Maisie! Maisie!” I vaguely hear Miss Carrera say, only half-aware of her arms around my shoulders.
And here I am, crouching on the ground.
As far as Miss Carrera and any last-minute, late-running students can see, I’m holding nothing but thin air…
“The bottom line is, I’m worried about you.”
I don’t look at Mrs Watson – I just stare down at the selection of biscuits she’s placed on a rose-patterned plate in front of me. I haven’t touched one.
“Please don’t be,” I say, shuffling on her squelchy leatherette visitors’ chair.
“Well, I am. Students don’t go crumpling to the floor in corridors for no reason.”
She’s saying it kindly, with a bit of humour in her voice, hoping I’ll respond with a smile, open up to her.
But it’s not going to happen.
I have to protect myself – and Kat.
“I felt a bit dizzy for a second, that’s all.”
“Yes, but is it because you haven’t eaten enough today?”
“I had lunch.”
“Which was…?”
“Macaroni cheese,” I tell her.
I don’t tell her I ate about a mouthful of it and it tasted like boiled rubber tubing. No offence to the school cooks, but when you’re consumed with finding your fading dead friend, you kind of lose your appetite.
“Dehydration, then. What have you drunk so far today?”
“Orange juice at breakfast time, squash at lunch, and here –” I take a practically empty water bottle from my bag “– I’ve had most of this.”
“Well, it’s something else, then. Having you been feeling unwell recently, Maisie?”
“No, Mrs Watson,” I say, both to her question and the plate of biscuits she’s waggling under my nose.
With everything that’s happening at the moment, I’ve been feeling the opposite of unwell. I’m brimming full of spangles and excitement and wonder.
“Been feeling headachey? Migraines? Is it that time of the month? Are you feverish?” she tries, giving up on the biscuits and plopping them back down on her table.
When Miss Carrera phoned down to the office, and Mahalia and her first-aid skills rushed to my rescue, I thought that was it. I didn’t expect to get this cheery but determined grilling from my form teacher.
“No, Mrs Watson.”
“You know, it might be that you’re anaemic … lacking in iron, that is. It’s quite common in your early teens. Tell you what, I’ll mention to your dad that he should take you to your doctor – have you tested.”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to jump in and tell her no, please don’t mention anything to Dad, but if I panic and get flustered it’ll look bad, as if I’m hiding something (a ghost, actually).
Luckily a sentence flashes into my head – fluttering from the well-worn pages of Mum’s notebook – which shows me how I have to play this.
“Actually, I have to go for a check-up next week, for an … ear thing I have,” I say nicely (It’s always nice to be nice). “I could ask the doctor about the anaemia thing then?”
Yes, I am saying this nicely.
Yes, I am also lying.
But it is getting Mrs Watson off my back for now, I hope, and stopping her from involving Dad.
“Good! Good thinking, Maisie,” she replies positively. “And ear problems often cause balance issues, you know, so do tell your doctor about what happened in the art room corridor just now.”
“I will,” I say.
I won’t, I think.
“Good, good,” says Mrs Watson, with an approving nod.
Can I go now, can I go now, can I go now, I mutter silently to myself, putting my hands on the armrests of the chair, hoping I can say thank you (nicely) and get back to class.
“And there’s nothing at all troubling you, is there, Maisie?”
Ah, it’s not over yet.
“No, Mrs Watson.”
“Nothing’s making you unhappy?”
It’s the opposite. I haven’t felt so happy in a long time.
“The girls here are being nice to you? You’re making friends?”
“Yes, miss.”
The girls here are steering clear of me, but I don’t care, ’cause I do have a friend. The most special, amazing, out-of-this-world friend. Who I really need to find and check that she’s all right…
“It’s just that you do seem to be on your own rather a lot. Miss Carrera and Mrs Gupta in the library mentioned it, and the office staff have noticed too…”
For their information, I’m not on my own. But I’m not about to say that, of course.
“I sometimes like to be by myself,” I answer as pleasantly as possible.
“Hmm. You know, I’m hoping you haven’t got some, say … deep, dark secret on your mind, Maisie,” says Mrs Watson, her eyes boring into mine, as if she’s trying to see what’s going on inside my head.
Well, I do happen to have a secret in there, of course, but it’s not deep or dark; it’s shiny and amazing. And there’s no way I’m going to let Mrs Watson know about it, so I drop my eyes to the plate of biscuits.
“Honestly, I’m fine. Can I have one of those after all?”
“Yes, yes! Please do. Take two,” Mrs Watson says enthusiastically, taking this sudden interest in snacks as a sure sign of returning good health and spirits, just as I hoped.
I nibble my way through the first one (though it’s like eating crunchy cardboard coated in chocolate) and shuffle slightly, readying myself for goodbyes.
“The thing is, Maisie, without raking up the past, you obviously know that I have your records from your last school and I am aware of the … the incident that happened there.”
Oh.
That.
All the spangles and excitement and wonder fade away from me and I’m plunged into a moment of gloom.
“Right, so it is that. I see.”
Mrs Watson – spotting my expression – thinks she found the source of my woes, the reason for my crumple in the corridor.
I say nothing.
“But I want you to know something, Maisie,” Mrs Watson carries on, craning forward in her seat so she can be more in-my-face earnest. “Coming here to Nightingale School, it’s a new start, a clean slate.”
“I didn’t hurt the other girl deliberately, Mrs Watson – I really didn’t,” I say hurriedly, hating this unexpected wave of old pain. “But no one believed me!”
“Maisie, your father talked me through what happened,” she surprises me by saying. “And although it’s probably unprofessional of me to say so, I think the situation wasn’t handled very well by the head at Park View…”
Mrs Watson doesn’t go so far as to say she sides with me, but the way her voice trails off, I know she does. And that suddenly feels so, so good.
“Look, Maisie, the bottom line is, no one here knows about the accident – apart from me, of course. Do you understand?”
The Girl Who Wasn't There Page 11
