I know that voice, because it belongs to someone I love. I know every note and intonation.
It’s Naomi. I’m certain of it.
This list was created on 22 August. When Naomi was missing. And then at last I get it.
DarkM00n isn’t Naomi’s boyfriend. It’s Naomi.
Why the fake name?
Why not get in touch with us? Why not at least tell us where she is?
Unless . . . I reread the title of the song again.
‘Find Me, Before I’m Lost.’
Naomi’s fake internet ID makes no sense.
Unless she was trapped, and she knew she was being watched all the time. Unless she was doing all she could to get our attention, without attracting any.
Unless she was scared.
Reaching for my phone, I call Ash.
‘What?’ she answers on the first ring.
‘This is going to do your head in,’ I say.
Rose Carter Instagram
Posted at 11.03
‘Sometimes you just have to let go of what everyone else expects of you and be who you want to be, do what you want to do, because real love is too much of a great thing to missed.’ 64 likes
Kasha: Drunk?
Sarah: Lolz. What’s his name?
Leo: Does anything you ever say make sense?
Ben: Slut
Ava: Is that the hot AF guy from St Paul’s with the shoulders? I ship that!
Holly: You look so pretty, babe. Who is your new Boo?
Jade: Love that look!
Ben: I’ve fucked that
Leo: Shut the fuck up, Ben, or I’ll shut you up
Celeste: Dude, that hair is awesome. Product?
Beth: Rose, you think you are all that, but seriously, get over yourself, will you?
Ben: You are getting fat
Leo: Ben Akerman (tagged) you better stay out of my way tomorrow
Ben; What, is this post about you then, loser? No, didn’t think so. Have some pride, dickhead
Leo: I’ll see you tomorrow
Red: Rose (tagged) I’ve sent you a DM, did you see it?
18
Didn’t sleep. Couldn’t really, not with everything going on, like a big loud carnival band that keeps getting nearer and nearer and louder and louder.
I argued with Ash all night.
‘We have to tell the police,’ I said.
‘Why?’ she replied. ‘All they will see is a teenage runaway who uploaded some songs to a music site. Big deal. No, that’s not what we do. Not until I’ve had a look at DarkM00n. If it was Naomi, if she wanted help, she would have known that I’d look for her, she’ll have left other clues.’
‘If it was Naomi, and she wanted help, why wouldn’t she just have emailed, or texted. Or caught a bus? Why wouldn’t she just have come home?’
‘This is why we aren’t telling the cops,’ Ash says. ‘Because they are about as dumb as you are. I’ll catch up with you at school.’
And then she hung up.
It seems pointless going to school with all this happening, I want to go and see Nai and ask her what happened, that’s what I want to do. But I can’t.
That’s the other thing Ash told me, that Nai is out cold for another forty-eight hours at least, that the doctors took Max and Jackie aside last night and said, ‘normally we would have expected a faster recovery, we try not to keep a patient in an induced coma for longer than a few days. The longer she is under, the more likelihood there is of permanent brain damage or no recovery at all. We think you should prepare yourselves for the worst’.
Just like that, that’s how she told me, flat and monotone. Like it wasn’t really real, and that’s how I feel about it now, too.
So I’ll get up and go to school, because honestly? I don’t know what else to do.
‘Did you put on fresh clothes?’ I ask Gracie as I come into the kitchen, and find her sitting over a bowl of Coco Pops. She looks down at her crumpled uniform and shrugs.
‘Come on, squirt,’ I say, taking her hand and leading her back upstairs. ‘Let’s get you a clean sweatshirt at least.’ Luckily there is one, and a fresh polo shirt, so I help her unbutton yesterday’s uniform, telling her I’ll wait outside while she gets some fresh undies on. She’s out of her room very quickly, I’m not sure she bothered, but I don’t think that matters when you are seven.
‘Where were you last night?’ she asks me as I lead her into the bathroom to wash her face and brush her teeth.
‘What do you mean, where was I?’ I ask vaguely. I’d sort of assumed that no one had noticed I was out. I find one of Dad’s old combs at the back of the bathroom shelf, behind half-used bottles of various different moisturisers that Mum buys and gives up on week after week. It’s odd to find it there, dusty still with a little of his hair in it, like a relic. Like I really have forgotten that he lives here.
‘I came to find you,’ Gracie says. ‘Mummy was having a nap, so I had some cereal and came to find you to play drums, but you weren’t there. Or anywhere, I looked.’
‘Shit.’ I say the word out loud as I set to work, trying to make some kind of sense of her thick curly hair, a shade of red lighter than mine, which I think makes her a strawberry blonde.
‘Shit,’ Gracie agrees, and I stifle a laugh.
‘Kid, I’m sorry, I had a bad day and went out, I shouldn’t have left you on your own.’
‘Well, Mummy was here.’ Gracie points to the shelf where a pair of My Little Pony bobbles, entwined with yesterday’s hair, sit. ‘Do those,’ she says.
‘I’ll try,’ I say, ‘but you know hair-dos aren’t really my thing.’
‘Are you OK, Red?’ she asks me. I scrunch one half of her hair into a bun, twisting it into a fist and then wind the bobble round it to keep it in place.
‘Course I am,’ I say. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘Because you look sad, and tired.’
I stop for a moment, and look at my sister, one half of her crazy hair screwed into a ball on the side of her head, the other exploding out of her head like a fireball.
‘Of course I do, kid, I’m a teenager, it’s in my job description. When I get home from school today I’ll teach you how to have an existential crisis.’
‘Awesome!’ Gracie’s eyes widen.
‘There,’ I say, admiring my handiwork. ‘You look like a psycho Princess Leia.’
She stands on her tiptoes to look in the mirror.
‘I like it, but I want hair like yours.’ Gracie turns, reaching out to touch the shaved sides of my head.
‘Mum would have a fit,’ I tell her, pulling a face and she giggles.
‘Red, can I play on your drums when I get home from school?’
Mum’s bedroom door opens and I can see through the crack that the bed has been slept on, not in. No sign of Dad.
‘You all ready, love?’ Mum smiles at Gracie, warm eyes, soft voice and I know that she feels like shit because she doesn’t remember what happened last night. ‘Good girl.’
‘Red helped me.’ Gracie smiles at me proudly.
‘Thanks.’ Mum doesn’t look at me. By now I should be used to the fact that everything she says to me is some kind of dig, but even so, it hurts. Almost as much as it does that the only person who noticed that I didn’t come home last night until one in the morning, was Gracie.
‘Dad go to work early again?’ I ask, holding her gaze as she stands in the doorway, her hair going in all different directions, yesterday’s make-up halfway down her face. ‘Sometimes I wonder if he’s moved out and just not bothered to mention it.’
My reward is to see her face crumple, as much as she fights against it. To see her bloodshot eyes tear up and her mouth compress into a thin unhappy line. I will say this for my mum, at least she refuses to let Gracie see her unhappiness and fury. At least when she is sober.
‘Come on you,’ she says to Gracie. ‘Go and get your shoes on.’
I wait until Gracie is out of sight before I say something.
‘She was asleep in her uniform last night.’
‘I know,’ Mum snaps back at me. ‘She wanted to sleep in her uniform, and I thought what’s the harm, she’s only a little girl after all.’
‘Mum, you know that’s not true. You can’t keep pretending everything is OK, it’s not fair on her.’
‘And why do you think everything isn’t OK?’ she asks me, her eyes stretching wider with anger.
‘Because before Gracie had even eaten you were passed out on the sofa,’ I say. ‘Things are not OK, Mum, they’re . . .’ I can’t find a way to finish the sentence.
She pushes the door shut. ‘Don’t you think that my life is hard enough as it is, trying to keep this house going, while your father runs around with his bit on the side, only coming back to get his washing done. Trying to protect Gracie from all of this vile nonsense . . .’ She gestures at me. I am the vile nonsense. ‘Without you, you, trying to tell me I’m a bad mother? Like it or not, sweetheart, I’m the one you’ve got. And while you live under my roof, you better show me some respect.’
Her forefinger has found its way into my face, an angry jabbing weapon.
For maybe a millisecond I think about reaching out and taking her hand, and saying, Mum, please, I love you and I miss you and I am so worried about you, and what you are doing to yourself, and I’m lonely and I’m scared and I need you. Please, let me help you. Please help me. Because that’s what I want to say, that’s what was on the end of that sentence I started and couldn’t finish. But instead the sparks ignite, and fury takes hold and it’s not love I feel for her, but hate.
‘I don’t think you can call it your roof, when you don’t do a thing around the house except drink Dad’s money and neglect your kids,’ I say, elbowing past her. ‘You look disgusting, you smell like shit. Everyone knows that you drink, everyone on this street, everyone at my school, everyone at Gracie’s school, it’s no wonder Dad doesn’t want to come anywhere near you. I’ll take Gracie to school today. For Christ’s sake have a shower, and make sure you don’t stink from every pore when you pick her up.’
I run down the stairs, grabbing first my rucksack then Gracie’s, pulling her out onto the street and then slamming the door behind me. Somehow I know that at the top of the stairs behind a locked bathroom door, Mum is crying.
And I feel like shit, but that is how she makes me feel too.
Leo
Where you at?
Red
On way
Leo
Why late?
Red
Went out last night. Things got interesting
Leo
Went out where? With who? Player
Red
Camden. Met someone. Want to see a pic?
Tap to view
Leo
Fuck! Hot!
Red
Right? But that’s not the interesting part. We need to talk
Leo
What happened?
Red
Not on here. In person
Leo
What? Why?
Red
Reasons. You OK?
Leo
Dunno. Aaron back to it already. Shit is going down
Red
How?
Leo
Dunno but he wants me involved
Red
He can’t make you
Leo
Maybe he don’t have to
Red
I’ve got something that belongs to you
Leo
What?
19
‘Hey, Leo.’
I see him in the lunch queue at the front. Pushing in can get you punched, but I need to talk to him about the phone I found. About DarkM00n. I need to know he isn’t hiding anything about Naomi. Ash said not to tell anyone, in case it’s nothing, but I need to know. ‘Leo, are you coming to rehearsal?’
‘Yeah, I’ll be there in ten,’ Leo says, jerking his head at Kasha; popular, curvy, scary as all hell. ‘I’m a little bit busy right now, Red.’
But I don’t have time for Leo to set up his next conquest, especially when I know that Kasha isn’t the girl he wants to be next to. ‘Leo, I need to talk to you. It’s important. Seriously.’
‘Shit.’ Leo turns to Kasha, leaning in closer. ‘I’ll catch up with you later, baby, yeah?’
Kasha gives him a maybe, maybe not smirk.
‘Serious, Red,’ Leo looks at me as we walk out of the dining hall, ‘I was in there.’
‘This is more important.’
‘What now?’
I wait until we’re outside of the main building, a corner reserved for kids who want to kiss or smoke, or both.
Fishing the Nokia out of my pocket, I hold it out to him.
‘Shit.’ He shakes his head.
‘What’s it for? Leo?’ I ask him. ‘Because it’s weird, a kid your age carrying around a burner phone. And why do you have Nai’s number on it? Was there something going on between you two? Do you know where she’s been all this time?’
‘What? Shit, Red, no!’ Leo shakes his head. ‘I don’t even know what you’re talking about. You think I’ve been hiding Nai away and not mentioning it? That’s what you think of me?’
The look of hurt on his face catches me off guard, I’d never realised before that what I thought of him meant anything to him. It’s a shock to catch a glimpse of Leo being just as insecure as the rest of us.
‘No.’ My hands fall to my side, and I shrug. ‘Truth? I don’t know what I think. Everything is so weird and out of whack. I thought I knew Nai, but I had no idea that she was planning to run, or whatever it was that was going on in her life that meant she had to . . . ’
I stop myself. I’m still not ready to tell him everything about Nai’s song on Toonifie yet. ‘And Rose, she’s distant and weird, like she’s trying to shake me loose . . . ’
‘Not just you, me too,’ Leo says. That look of hurt again, and suddenly I see why the sudden interest in Kasha, he’s trying to forget the girl he’s secretly in love with. I know that feeling.
‘Something is going on with Rose,’ I say. ‘And you are carrying a burner phone with Nai’s number in it. So, I’m sorry, you’re my friend, but right now? Anything seems possible.’
‘OK,’ Leo concedes, pulling himself up onto a low brick wall that surrounds what was supposed to be a memorial garden for a girl who killed herself a few years ago, but is almost always overrun with weeds. ‘I get that, I guess. I get what you mean about Rose too. But that phone, I forgot I even had it. Aaron asked me to get it when he was inside. He’d get hold of a phone sometimes, and we could talk. Sometimes I’d take stuff in for him, stuff he needed to get by.’
‘You mean you smuggled stuff in?’ My eyes widen.
‘It’s rough in there, you need contraband to get respect.’
‘Contraband, like . . . drugs?’
Leo doesn’t answer and I can’t believe I had no idea that this was what he was doing. Maybe he’s right, maybe we are all just play-acting being friends. Real friends know everything about each other.
‘Fuck, Leo, if you’d been caught—’
‘I wasn’t even sixteen yet, it wouldn’t have been a big deal.’
There’s no way I can explain to him that the idea of doing something so dangerous makes me want to throw up, so I don’t even bother trying.
‘That still doesn’t explain why you had Nai’s number.’
‘Because the first night we were looking for her, before I knew that her phone was switched off and missing, I thought . . . I thought maybe she might pick up her phone if it was from a number she didn’t know. So I called her. But it went straight to voicemail. I tried a few times. I thought I’d try again in a couple of days, so I saved the number but by then we’d found out her phone was awol, so I didn’t bother.’
Everything he says makes sense, but still, Leo is one of my closest mates, and he had a secret phone. That doesn’t feel right.
‘Can I have it bac
k please?’ he asks, and I hand it over.
‘If Aaron’s out why do you need it?’
‘Because playing in a school band ain’t real, bro. It’s kid’s stuff. And I got to start getting real about shit.’ He rubs both his hands over his closely cropped hair. ‘Aaron needs me, and sometimes he needs me to be off the grid. Anyway, I’ll chuck it now. Get another one. Look, we had a good year, with the band. Maybe the best year of my life, and I’ll play the concert for sure, but at some point I got to own the fact that this isn’t my life, and I can’t pretend it is any more. Someone like me, having a career playing guitar? It’s just not gonna happen, Red. It just ain’t.’
‘This is Aaron talking, not you,’ I say. ‘Don’t let Aaron tell you who you are.’
Leo gives me a look that if I were anyone else would probably end in a punch, but it doesn’t.
‘All I’m saying is, don’t throw away what you are good at. You are a great musician, Leo. Really great. Don’t waste that talent.’
‘Fuck Red, I don’t really know any more. The guy Aaron hurt. He’s been taking over Aaron’s patch when he was away. And now Aaron’s got to do something about him, hurt him even worse than before, you know? Otherwise he says he’ll lose face and no one will deal with him. And he wants me with him when it goes down.’
‘Hurt him worse than before? He nearly killed him before so . . .’ It dawns on me what he’s trying to say. ‘Leo, fuck no. You can’t go anywhere near that.’
Leo shakes his head. ‘You say that like it’s easy, like it’s choose right or left, but it’s not like that, Red. It’s not like that at all. I don’t want to get into that shit, but he’s family, right? And he looks out for me, and I don’t know many other people that do.’
‘I do,’ I say. ‘Rose does, Naomi . . . Mr Smith . . . your mum, Leo! Please don’t do something stupid—’
‘I’m not fucking stupid,’ he growls at me. ‘I’m working it out.’
‘Well, before you decide can I tell you some stuff?’
‘Might as well, I’m not getting lucky with Kasha now.’
‘That’s her.’ Leo looks at me. ‘That’s Naomi singing. So Naomi is this DarkM00n?’
Mirror, Mirror Page 14
