by Naomi Fraser
Dr. Farrow flicks her gaze over my face, as if assessing my determination. “Yes, you do.” She presses her lips together, and a silence stretches. “It’s against procedure, but . . .” she puffs out a huge breath, “in your case, it’s worth it. There have been similar deaths to yours. The police are investigating all of them. Three teenagers were found like you were on the beach, two before and one after your admittance to hospital. All of them are from the same neighbourhood and school, but none of them survived.”
4
THE DOCTOR’S WORDS echo in my mind.
It’s things like this that drive my nightmares. I groan, rolling onto my back to hate-greet the bright sunlight streaming through the open window. Warm rays hone in on my eyelids. The terror of darkness and deep water slips away, and I breathe in the ocean’s wonderful, salty tang.
My new bedroom is on the other side of the house, and the morning sun is hot enough here so that I can’t go back to sleep. Grumbling, I stumble disorientated from the room and then dive under a hot shower. It takes longer than I anticipate, mostly because when I bend over to wash and shave my legs, my chest makes a horrible wheezing sound. So I just stand there, panting and brushing the hair from my face, trying to control my utter panic. Suck in small amounts of air. Nurses helped me with this back in the hospital. But I need to hang on to the glass until my breath returns.
Mum must be at work; otherwise she’d be helping me.
The steam helps loosen the tightness in my lungs, but the act of getting dressed drains me—it’s exhausting. When I finish, I wander into the kitchen dressed in tracksuit pants and a shirt and then open the fridge door. Stare at the contents, grab a bottle of chocolate milk and then switch on the desktop computer in the study. My gaze lands on the date at the bottom of the browser, and I yank the open bottle away from my mouth. Snap. I’ve missed three weeks of school.
Poof.
So this is what people mean by the saying, ‘Don’t blink or you’ll miss it’.
With a grimace, I rub the tender spots on my chest, and breathe shallow, but my stomach rumbles so I set about making breakfast, anticipating eating food from home for once, rather than hospital meals. Toast done, I power on the TV in the dining room and relax at the kitchen table. Yum, strawberry jam. Sugar free, lots of butter. The real stuff too, not margarine. I slather on that stuff.
After the ads play out, channel eight news comes on, and two reporters smile behind a wide desk in a media room.
“Wynnum College has had to cope with the news of yet another student’s death,” the anchor says, and then she briefly turns to her co-host before looking back at the camera. “A twelfth grader passed away in hospital, and he is the third Wynnum College student to pass away in a particular set of circumstances that have shocked the entire community. Rachel Thompson, how are the staff and students coping?”
My stomach drops, and I stare at the screen in horror. I want to turn up the volume, but I’m frozen on my seat.
Another reporter appears on screen with some editorial magic, and she gives the low down on how the parents and students are devastated by the loss of yet another young life. “Each time this happens, the news becomes harder to bear.”
Wynnum College’s entrance appears on the screen, and a reporter talks in a voiceover while footage rolls. “Tragedy has struck four times at this school in South East Queensland. Only one student has survived the ordeal. Students and staff have spent the day grieving over a boy whose name has not yet been released.”
The principal, Mr. Hardin, explains how hard it is for the students while he chokes back tears. He talks about counselling and the methods the school will utilise to help the students cope with their feelings.
Picture after picture emerges of the dead students. One is in a gold-plated photo frame—I swallow hard at the obvious cherished memory—another is a boy with wild red hair and freckles, and the last wears goggles and a swim cap, ready to race.
“The seventeen-year old was on the fast track for competing in the Districts until his body was found washed up on shore in Manly.”
The front screen door bangs shut against the jamb, and then Mum hurries in from the hallway, her heels click-clacking across the floor. “Oh, turn that off! You shouldn’t be watching it,” she says, clamping her handbag tight over her shoulder. A frown ripples her brow as she flicks off the set.
The piece of toast still hangs from my hand, halfway to my mouth. My stomach flip flops, and I feel dreadful. I want to tell her everything the psychiatrist told me, because I need to have someone else to talk to about why the other teenagers died and I survived.
She sighs and hooks her bag over a chair and then smiles so wide, tears pool in her blue eyes. “Honey, oh, it’s so good to see your face.” She leans down and then wraps her arms around my shoulders. She feels so soft and familiar. So real. “You’ve been sick with the ‘flu. Slept for days. The doctor came by to check you over. He said you had pneumonia and needed to rest,” she mutters into my shoulder.
I squeeze her back. “I figured.” She hugs me tighter, and I fight back a moan of pain. Her gesture is full of love, I know, so I hang on until she lets me go. She’s obviously been scared to death about me.
She smells of the days I would hunt through her dresser drawers looking for makeup. I smile, and she lets go and then asks me how I’m feeling.
Everything comes at a strange distance, and although my body hurts, all I can concentrate on is the fact that teenagers are dying, but nobody knows why. Nobody knows if I will end up on that cliff again.
All right, I eventually mumble around my breakfast, because I can’t talk loudly anyway. My rib isn’t as sore, my shoulder a bit stiff, my back tender, but I don’t even want to mention my lungs. If this is what pneumonia feels like, then I have sympathy for all those who have ever suffered from the illness. I want to separate myself from the pain.
Not being able to breathe is terrifying. To have the one basic act of life snatched away from you. Think about it. Imagine not breathing.
Just. Stop.
You may last minutes.
Your throat closes up, and then you totally freak out. It’s like sucking air through a blocked tube. I suck and I suck. Harder and harder, until I feel like I’m going to breathe my ribs up into my mouth. But I will not dwell on that or how I strolled over the grass in my nightie, stood on top of the cliff and then leaped off.
The jam on my toast looks like blood.
5
I’VE BEEN A student of Wynnum College, which is a preparatory to grade twelve high school, for six weeks before the start of the school holidays. And I feel like I’m an alien who got shot straight down from outer space where I crash landed in a ditch on an extremely hostile planet. There are backstabbing girls who giggle and gossip about boys, relationships, jobs, parties and money. It’s handy if you have no idea what you’re in for with a boy. Us girls, we gotta stick together, except when we backstab each other to death. Don’t ever turn your back.
Mum says I’m all set for school, and I nod, knowing I may as well get it over with. I’ve been away for over three weeks.
The next morning = FAIL.
My hair sticks up in puffy tufts, the straightening iron can’t do zip, and the bottom of my shoe peels off, flopping around on the pavement like a giant black tongue. I hobble off to school since I miss the bus and then climb over a few fences to take a shortcut. But a loose bit of steel rips the butt of my tartan skirt.
R-i-i-i-p.
I really can’t win.
Terrific. Ms. Wrendel, the headmistress, will turn my liver into pate, especially since I’m wearing hot pink underwear. I giggle and hunch over, panting for breath. Flash here, flash there. At least my bra is neutral. I’m not crazy enough to have pink show through my white blouse.
Can things get any worse? Maybe I better not tempt fate to think such a thing.
Ms. Wrendel’s strict policy of beige and white underwear is feral. She keeps a stash in her office for
those who prefer bright colours. Is there anything as gross as a teacher giving students underwear? Talk about the stuff of nightmares, never mind what happened to me at the cliff.
The woman wastes her talents at Wynnum College. She should have been a president of some war-torn country or a general in the army. In no time at all, she’d have the people conquered, beaten and loving their slavery.
I drop my school bag right there on the pavement, open up my pencil case, twist my skirt around to get to the back and then staple up the rip from the inside. I have to stick my hand down the front of my skirt to do it, but I don’t care who sees me. Thankfully afterwards, I make it to school with no other mishaps.
Form room starts out with everyone gawking. Maybe the staples haven’t held, and I’ve been walking around like a total idiot with my underwear on show. It’s similar to that horrible moment when you notice your zipper is undone and you’re meeting an insanely gorgeous guy. I want to look down at my skirt to check, but I can’t, that will make it obvious.
My best friend, Bethany, isn’t even in my home class so I don’t have her to talk to. Everyone knows something happened to me. I’ve been away for so long, how could they not? The news on the TV will fill in most gaps.
My chest squeezes, so I breathe shallow and slow and then slide into a vacant seat.
I want to say, “Yeah, I’m the new girl who fell from the cliff. Ha, ha, ha. Stare all you want.” Heat climbs up my cheeks, and I smile at the teacher, Mr. Whicky. Everyone calls him Wacky behind his back. He’s asking me a question about . . . life.
His face jumps into focus. Round. Pudgy.
He asks, what’s the meaning of life, Eloise? Why are we here?
“For the ride,” I say.
He studies me with eyes that look like a cat’s before it sinks its claws into a mouse.
My lungs tighten and throb. Surely, I will die on the spot. Maybe fall right out of my chair. I can’t breathe. The cold linoleum will feel like a kiss against my skin.
“Not everyone feels that way,” he says. “People have been trying to figure out the answer since time began. You might not know the answer now, or want to know, but when you’re older you will.”
“Great.” I turn to face the collection of snide looks. “Take a picture, it’ll last longer.”
Wacky frowns at me and then tells everyone to open their diaries.
Maribel Barker shifts in her chair across from me and says, “We have Bible studies in the library at afternoon lunch if you’re interested.”
She’s sweet, really. Never a bad word for anyone. Maybe my salvation? My comeback hadn’t been directed at her, but I politely decline her offer as I intend to find out what others know, so then maybe I’ll figure out what happened to me.
6
AT MORNING TEA, I spot Bethany hurrying at her usual insane pace down the concrete footpath. Quick steps, a flurry of movement. Her brow furrows, mouth drawn at the edges, but people twist to get out of her way. She’s lost in her own little world again. On a mission.
I stand in front of her and cop a face full of heavy backpack, almost tripping over my loose sole. “Damn girl.” If she let go of her bag, no doubt it would put me back in hospital. It weighs a ton. “How many books do you have in there?” I croak.
She shifts from side to side with her bag slung over her shoulder, trying to redistribute the weight. Her curly black hair frizzes from the heat, escaping her high ponytail. Obviously, she forgot to straighten her hair, because I’ve never seen her with curls. She pushes her glasses higher up her nose to study me through the lenses.
“Ellie, so sorry. Did I hurt you? I’ve been looking for you everywhere. Is it true? Did you . . . really . . .” she looks around and then grabs my blouse to drag me off to one side of the walkway, “jump off that cliff to kill yourself?” she hisses.
I roll my eyes. “No. Don’t believe everything you’re told. Wait. Is that what everyone’s saying I did?”
“Yes. Don’t believe everything I’m told?” Obvious confusion flickers in her green eyes. “I had the funniest sensation in my stomach when you said that. What happened?”
“Once you figure it out, will let me know?” I lean against one of the steel supports on the undercover walkway and munch on my jam sandwich. “The only thing I do know is that I didn’t want to kill myself. I wouldn’t.”
She inches toward me with a slow nod. I can tell by the rapid blinking of her lashes her brain is in hyper-drive. “Once I know? Funny. I thought you could tell me, but with what they were saying on the TV this morning about that boy’s death along the coastline, it reminded me of a report I heard a while back. I’ll see if I can find it on my iPad. I’m sure I saved the page.” She rummages inside her bag, cursing at the thick textbooks. “Wait a sec.”
The sandwich in my mouth tastes like petrol, and I dry retch, but swallow the mouthful, then throw the rest in the trash. I grab a hank of my hair, twisting the rope around my fist. My stomach aches and heart races. The tightness in my chest is enough that I have to rub at the spot to ease the pain. “You heard about him? About the deaths?”
Bethany peers up at me. “Sure. All three of them were on the news. But he was in grade twelve, parents are suspects. They found his body near an inlet, up on the sand at Manly. They’re not giving out his name yet though.” She plants herself down on the far edge of the concrete and brings up newspaper articles on her iPad. After she scrolls down the information, she enlarges an article and then turns the device toward me. “This is what I wanted to show you. Another girl died. But they haven’t reported it.”
“What? When?” Oh, God. No more, please.
“Last year. Her name was Melanie. The same thing that happened to . . . you also happened to her. But, you . . . well . . . you didn’t die. She did.”
No. That’s a lie. I did die. Briefly.
“Look here.” Bethany taps a link on the screen and brings up another window. “The first one was Melanie, but then there’s this other girl. Sarah Jenkins was found dead on the beach, two kilometres from her house that overlooks a cliff in Manly. The cops found Sarah two weeks after Melanie’s Watt’s death. Seaweed wrapped around her feet. Unsolved, apparently. They figure she jumped.”
“Why?” My heart thumps, and bile rises in my throat. “Did you say seaweed was around her feet?”
“Yeah, your mum told mine that’s how you were found. It’s the kind of creepy detail you don’t forget.”
“No matter how hard you try,” I murmur. The office grapevine. My mum works with Bethany’s mum at the local real estate agents, and Bethany and I met at one of Mum’s work barbeques for families.
“You were found a few kilometres away from your house on the beach. Seaweed on your feet. Right?”
My fingers tingle so badly, I unclench my fist and then rub my hands down my skirt to encourage blood flow. I shake out my hands and then clear my throat. “So I was told. What else do you have on Melanie?”
Bethany taps, swipes the screen again and then pulls up the original story. “Melanie Watts, fourteen years old. Dead, four kilometres away from her house at Oyster Point. All injuries indicate she jumped from the cliff near her home. Police couldn’t find any other clues. She was dead when they found her on the beach, naked, with seaweed twisted around her ankles.”
A cold finger of terror trails down my spine. I shiver, heart beating double-time. I pivot and then bolt toward the trees in the sun-baked garden, hiding behind a plant’s spindly branches to puke. Seconds tick by in silence. I can’t move from the spot, and the sunlight is a hot paw on my back. My stomach clenches tight, and my ribs and chest sharply contract.
“What the hell, Bethany?” A thousand things appear with razor-sharp focus. My breathing picks up, and it hurts like hell. “So it’s three boys from this school and two girls from the Redlands area? How did you find out so much? The Internet?”
Bethany’s a super computer all on her own. Girl reads newspapers and current events as if she’s t
he CEO of a corporation evading taxes. She’ll be a millionaire before she hits twenty-five, I’m sure. But how could she get information the reporters hadn’t discovered yet? She struts over, palms her iPhone out of her skirt’s side pocket, taps a few buttons and then brings up a photo.
“Not exactly. I’ve got relatives over that way. A cousin. He sent me a picture of the girl at the time. I never got rid of it.” She holds up her phone. “Check it out.”
I blink. Then blink again. Against my better judgment, I wipe the back of my trembling hand against my mouth, step into the shade and take a closer look.
Melanie lies face down on the grainy sand. Little shells sparkle around her limp form while murky water laps the edge of her bloated stomach. Seaweed snarls around her waist, but tightly binds her ankles and feet. Her straggly, long, brown hair is sand-logged and pushed off to one side. She has a dolphin tattoo on her left shoulder. Her arms are spread out, fingers clenched into claws on the sand.
I hiccup and moan, my hand still over my mouth.
“Sorry.” Bethany frowns and shuts off her phone, then tucks it back into her skirt pocket. “I should’ve given you some warning, I guess.”
My lungs protest at the intake of oxygen. Something tears up and then pulls apart inside my chest. I cough, trying to slow my breathing.
“What do you remember?” she asks.
“Not much. Less than that.” But I’m shaking so hard I’m not sure she hears me. “I remember a song and my dad’s face. I woke up in the hospital. People think I jumped. My mum thinks so too because of the evidence, even though those other boys have died.”
“Yeah, no one knows what happened. But all the authorities believe they jumped. If you remember nothing . . .” Bethany exhales loudly and looks up to the treetops swaying in the breeze. “That’s super troubling, Ellie. I don’t ever want to read about you like I have those girls. I don’t think that guy’s parents killed him, no matter that they’ve hired a lawyer.”
