Risk

by Fleur Ferris

  I feel shaky thinking about Sierra’s killer still free to do that. He could be online doing it right now.

  ‘It’s a good name.’ Callum’s voice is rough. He’s riding a wave of grief. They come and go. It ebbs for a while and then it hits. A memory, a smell, a sound, a song; anything can trigger a wave.

  ‘I want the website to go live while everyone’s still talking about it. Everyone at school will share it. It will get more hits if we post it now. She’ll reach more people.’ My voice starts to waver. ‘Even if we save one person, it’s worth it. Not that we’ll ever know … I guess we’d only know if someone died … But just by reading this website … Well, you never know. It could save someone.’

  Callum breaks. He turns into the couch and cries silently. I place my hand on his back and massage his neck. I want to take him in my arms and hug him tight.

  ‘It’s okay to cry,’ I say – because I’ve never seen him cry before.

  When Callum’s sobs have stopped and his breathing calms, I stand. He keeps his face hidden. I know he’s uncomfortable so I leave him and walk outside to see what Mum’s doing. She’s sitting on a bench seat under a tree at the back of the garden, staring at nothing. I sit beside her. She’s doesn’t mind the intrusion. The process of grief – it’s not easy or nice, but it is a process we know we’ll survive. We learnt to go along with it when Dad died. Before that, even, when we knew he was going to die. Nothing could sugar-coat that fact.

  SIXTEEN

  The weekend drags on and I have loads of schoolwork interrupting my website hours. I haven’t been to school since Sierra was found but Mum’s been a few times to collect notes and assignment sheets from my teachers. I trudge through the school notes as quickly as I can.

  I haven’t heard from Callum since he went home on Saturday afternoon, not long after he broke down.

  I call him on Monday morning and ask if I can go to school with him. His mum picks me up half an hour later and drops us at the front of the school grounds. We walk across the football oval to the canteen. Riley and Joel are sitting alone. It’s like an invisible force field hangs over them, warning others to stay away.

  ‘Hi, Riles,’ I say. Her face is pasty. Pimples have broken out on her chin and forehead and other parts of her skin are covered in red and angry patches. I divert my gaze away from her forehead and focus on her eyes. I haven’t called her since Sierra was found and now I feel awkward about it. There’s tension between her and Joel. Another fight perhaps?

  ‘Everything okay?’ I ask her.

  ‘What have you been up to?’ she asks. But it’s not a friendly question, it’s an accusation. My face flushes red.

  ‘I’ve been working on a website … for Sierra.’ She blinks a few times. It wasn’t what she expected me to say.

  Callum picks up his bag, shrugs it onto his shoulder, glares at Riley.

  ‘I’m outta here,’ he says, and he leaves the canteen.

  Joel looks at Riley and shakes his head as a warning. He stands up, grabs his bag and leaves, too.

  Riley waits until he’s gone. ‘I know about you and Callum.’ She spits the words at me.

  I blush.

  ‘You’ve been keeping secrets.’ Her eyes narrow. I’m not sure what to say. ‘There’s nothing to tell … We hooked up just before Sierra went missing. Then it … it sort of faded into the background on the importance scale.’

  ‘Hmmf,’ she puffs.

  ‘Nothing’s happened since.’

  ‘Do you think I’m going to believe that? He’s practically been living at your place.’

  I’m not sure why she thinks I’m lying to her – or why she’s being so aggressive – but it irritates me. ‘It’s not like that!’ I don’t have the time or the energy for this. ‘And I don’t care what you believe.’ I grab my bag and walk out of the canteen.

  We have maths first up. I sit with Izzy and ignore Riley. She pretends not to notice. I’m now self-conscious when I speak to Callum. He hasn’t said anything but I can see he’s keeping away from Riley, too. I’m surprised he told her about us. I’m not sure what to make of that. I try not to think about it.

  I find a seat in the canteen at lunchtime. Riley sits next to me.

  ‘Do you mind if I sit here?’ She’s sheepish.

  I shake my head. Joel and Callum are nowhere in sight.

  ‘So, what have you guys been up to?’ She means me and Callum. ‘You know, with the website.’

  ‘We’re working on something for Sierra. It started off small – with a blog – but then it got bigger.’

  ‘A website? Like a tribute to her life?’ She’s trying not to sound repulsed but it comes through anyway.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s a bit morbid, isn’t it?’

  ‘There are photos of her, a blog page, a chat room and a gallery. I’m going to put on the photos Jacob Jones sent to me.’ I stare off into the distance for a moment, searching for the right words. ‘It might help … stop it from happening to someone else.’ A lump forms in my throat.

  She eyes me for a moment and then stares out the window.

  ‘So is it just you and Callum doing it?’

  ‘So far.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  God, is she jealous? I know she doesn’t have the hots for Callum so it must be possessiveness of me. She’s used to me being single and available to her all the time.

  ‘What is it, Riley?’ My face flushes.

  ‘I was just wondering if you need help.’

  I let go a mean laugh. ‘From you? You hated Sierra.’ I regret it instantly. What a nasty cow I am. Tears fill my eyes. ‘I’m sorry.’

  Riley stares back out the window for a moment and then leaves. I sit on my own. Izzy catches my eye. Her group was probably listening in. I glance away and watch another group of girls, chatting and laughing. The school has gone on without Sierra; kids are doing what they’ve always done, as if nothing ever happened.

  I’d normally be self-conscious about sitting by myself, but I’m not now. Who cares? I worried about such trivial rubbish before. What a waste of time. I pull out my exercise book, find where I’d written ‘Are you online-invisible or risk?’ and start writing my first blog. By the end of lunch it’s finished. In English I sketch out a design for the gallery page. Home eco. is hands-on so I can’t work on it. Besides, for some reason, today handling food is making me want to puke and I have to concentrate on not spewing. Sick reaches the back of my throat. I can taste and smell stomach acid. I grab gum from my bag. I work it enough to get the peppermint taste and smell and then bin it. Gum’s banned at school. One of the cleaners cracked it one day when he found chewy under every table in a classroom.

  Last class is computer studies. It’s my least favourite subject with my least favourite teacher, but today I listen. I ask heaps of questions, irrelevant to the session. I’m slowing things down and some of the kids get jack of it and tell me to shut up. Mr Samalot asks to see me after class. Callum says nothing. I’ve hardly seen him all day, even though we’ve shared a few classes. Riley’s skipped this one. Pretty extreme if it’s because she’s avoiding me.

  The bell goes. The school day is over. Thank god. Everyone files out. I stay in my seat.

  ‘Taylor, your interest in class today was most impressive.’

  Mr Samalot is a computer genius, but this sarcasm is why kids don’t like him.

  ‘It was charming, in fact. But did you actually listen to anything you were supposed to? Perhaps I should email you my discussion notes since you didn’t take any of your own?’

  His tone is always condescending and he’s constantly emailing students with extra info – which is how he got his nickname ‘Mr Spamsalot’.

  ‘Look, Taylor. Would you like to tell me what it is that you’re trying to do? I may be able to put you out of your misery. And alleviate the pain of your fellow students.’ He rolls his eyes.

  I know he doesn’t really want to help, but I’m going to tell him anyw
ay.

  ‘I’m building a website. It’s called Risk. It’s dedicated to Sierra.’

  He smiles and nods. He actually looks interested. ‘That has a nice sentiment,’ he replies.

  If he’s being patronising, I can’t tell.

  ‘What exactly do you hope for this website to achieve?’ he asks.

  ‘It’s to honour the memory of Sierra. The first page is a photo page. I have a photo for each year of her life. I want the world to see her, to know her. I want them to see she was a real person, and that she just made a mistake. It could have been anyone. I want a chat room where people can discuss any issues they may have. I want a gallery where I can upload photos. I want to put up the photos that Sierra’s killer sent to me.’

  I stop when I see the look on Mr Samalot’s face after I mention uploading the photo of that poor guy.

  ‘Of course I’ll block out the face of the guy Jacob Jones pretended was him,’ I continue, ‘but I want the photo up there, to show others how easy it was for him to create a false identity. He was so clever and calculating and we had no idea. And I want an email address where people can send me private messages – others might like to write blog posts, they might like to share their experiences.’ I know I’m rambling – and that last bit just came to me then – but I can’t stop purging. ‘My first blog will be called, “Are you online-invisible or risk?” It’s going to include a quick survey. Your results classify you one or the other. I want to explain what a proxy box is and how you can use one. Sierra had no idea they existed.’

  I take a breath. Mr Samalot is sitting up straight, leaning in.

  ‘Right,’ he says. He nods as he speaks and has lost the I’m-so-superior body language. ‘I can see this website is something you are very passionate about. You’ve clearly put a lot of thought into what you want your site to achieve, and I think your intentions are fantastic. Would you like my help?’

  I blink about fifty times in three seconds and blush. I thought I was going to get a detention.

  ‘Yes. I mean, Callum is already helping.’ Mr Samalot raises an eyebrow. ‘I know he’s no computer genius or anything but we did some research on the weekend and he’s done heaps of work on the site already. But it would be good to have someone who really knows about computers helping, too.’

  Mr Samalot cranes his neck to look past me. ‘You may as well join us, Callum,’ he calls towards the corridor.

  I look behind me and Callum steps into view. I didn’t know he was there. I’m glad I didn’t bag his computer skills. Mr Samalot is surprising me. He seems pretty normal … even nice.

  ‘Meet me here at lunchtime tomorrow. Bring everything you’ve prepared and we’ll get your website up and running. But I want you to promise me that if I help you with this, you will not peruse, prepare or respond to anything that concerns this site during class time – my class or any other. You’ve already been mentioned in the staffroom twice today, about you not concentrating in class. Do we have a deal?’

  My smile is wide and genuine for the first time since Sierra was taken. The tension in my chest eases slightly.

  ‘Yes, Mr Samalot. We have a deal.’

  He puts his hand out. We shake on our agreement.

  SEVENTEEN

  After school, Callum and I go home and work on the website. We call each other six times throughout the night, running things past one another. When I’ve done as much as I can, I spend some time looking up cases of missing people – looking up Vapour Cases. There’re so many unsolved disappearances. All I can hope is that Risk can help, that it will show others what can happen.

  The next morning Riley is absent from school.

  ‘Where’s Riley?’ I ask Joel.

  ‘Not sure,’ he says. He pushes his hands through his Bieber cut. ‘We had a fight yesterday and I haven’t spoken to her since. She was foul.’ He makes a face.

  ‘Hmm … I had a fight with her, too. That wouldn’t have helped.’

  I still feel annoyed that she got angry with me, but guilty as well, now, that I might have added to her bad day. I don’t want her to feel down. She was so mean about Sierra before she went missing, she’d be feeling terrible. I grab my phone and write:

  Hey Riles, hope all’s ok xx

  I press ‘Send’.

  Lunchtime can’t come quickly enough. When it does, I’m bursting at the seams. I lay my laptop and folder on the table and show Mr Samalot what Callum and I have been working on. Mr Samalot starts tapping away at a keyboard.

  ‘It looks like Callum has already done most of the work, so my part’s going to be easy. You’re sharing information, as opposed to selling products, so it’s going to be pretty simple.’

  He shows us how to upload data, how to edit information and how to add pages.

  I show him my introductory page. He uploads it into the web frame. He does the same for my blog page and shows me how to announce a topic of discussion on the chat room and how to censor comments. Next is the gallery. I only have two photos to upload. We put them up – I’ve made sure to black out the guy’s face from the first photo that Jacob Jones sent me.

  I look at Callum. He isn’t saying much but he looks pleased with what Mr Samalot’s done.

  ‘I want to follow Sierra’s case by adding links to relevant newspaper reports. I want a page I can keep adding to as stuff comes out in the media. I thought about following other cases too, but there are too many. There are heaps of missing people when you go looking.’ I show him some articles. ‘So maybe instead of information, this page could have some links to other sites that talk about missing people.’

  They don’t object, but Callum knits his eyebrows together. ‘What if you find out something the police haven’t thought of and some crazy guy comes after you?’

  We both look to Mr Samalot for his opinion. He rubs his pointy chin and purses his lips. ‘It should be all right. Police investigations would be far more thorough than what’s reported. I don’t believe that Taylor is going to find herself in any great trouble by compiling newspaper reports. It’s public information.’

  ‘Yeah, I guess Taylor won’t read anything police don’t know about already,’ Callum agrees.

  ‘Okay guys,’ says Mr Samalot. ‘I’ll work on this later this afternoon. You’ll most likely be able to go live with the first photo page and the blog today after school. The other pages will take more time, but we can work on those and add them as we go.’

  Excitement grips my stomach. Sierra would love this. I burst into tears, unexpectedly even to me.

  ‘Thank you.’ I hug Mr Samalot. His back stiffens and his arms hang limp by his sides. It makes me laugh.

  After school, Callum and I meet Mr Samalot back at the computer room. He is still working on our project. I’m humbled by his effort and swear to myself I’ll try extra hard in his class from now on and will never call him ‘Mr Spamsalot’ ever again. I realise his contempt for individual students in the class is because of certain students’ lack of interest. He’s actually nice to students who bother to try.

  ‘I’m just adding some final touches. I’ve made it so that people can share via their Facebook or Twitter accounts.’ He turns and smiles at us. ‘Okay – it’s ready. You’re now the proud owners of your very own website. Well, two pages of it, anyway.’ He jumps up. ‘Take a look and tell me what you think.’

  I sit down. Emotions surge. Callum brings a chair in, sits down next to me, squeezes my hand and waits for me to start. I click on the home page.

  Autumn leaves fall from the top of the screen, bright yellow, red and orange. Just before each one reaches the bottom of the screen, they do a final twist and land as a square photo of Sierra. The photos are arranged from youngest to oldest. The words swirl in like a soft breeze and take their place underneath. Then the largest photo lands, burns bright, and fades into the colour I photoshopped it to be. She looks beautiful in every photo. She’d love it.

  I move through the pages. I can’t believe how professional it l
ooks. Each page looks exactly how I wanted it to. I flick to the blog page. I love it. I’m speechless.

  I turn to Mr Samalot. I nod my approval because I can’t speak. He smiles.

  Callum turns to him.

  ‘Thanks, Mr Samalot. It’s awesome.’

  ‘As I said, Callum, you already had the right template. My job was easy.’

  ‘How do we make it live?’ I ask.

  Mr Samalot edges in. We give him room. With the push of a few buttons it’s done. Our website is officially up and running. Mr Samalot says he will work on the other pages and make them live as he finishes them. He also tells us about words and search engines and directing traffic flow towards the site, but I’m so thrilled I have trouble listening.

  I quickly go to Facebook and Twitter and post a link to the site. Callum does the same. We thank Mr Samalot another five hundred times and leave.

  At home, I try to settle down and concentrate – I have heaps of homework and I promised Mr Samalot I’d do it – but I can’t stop viewing my website. The link on Facebook has thirty likes and just about as many shares. The numbers keep growing throughout the night and comments are rushing in. People have a mixed response. Some say they’re crying, some say it’s beautiful, others say they miss Sierra like crazy. The first blog is getting lots of views, and comments start appearing beneath it. Most of them tell me they are ‘Risk’ and then express their shock and outrage. I read through my first blog post.

  I’d like to introduce to you my friend, Sierra. She is fifteen years old. One Thursday afternoon in January, just before the school year started, Sierra met a guy online. She stumbled across him on Mysterychat and they started chatting. At first we thought it was a bit of a joke, but he surprised us. He was cool and funny. Sierra instantly liked him and spent the following days online with him in private chat rooms. They exchanged photos and talked for hours at a time. By Monday, Sierra was totally into him and planned to meet him on Friday, after school.