Ballad for a Mad Girl Read online

  PRAISE FOR VIKKI WAKEFIELD BALLAD FOR A MAD GIRL

  ‘Everything you already love about Vikki Wakefield—plus a spine-tingling supernatural mystery. Ballad for a Mad Girl is brilliantly creepy and thrilling.’ Fiona Wood

  ‘There’s a dark side to being the funny one in the group. This is a piercing, creepy tale about a wild girl who could lose herself to a ghost. Vikki Wakefield’s writing never fails to give me chills.’ Emily Gale

  ‘A ghost thriller with a literary feel from an Australian author we love.’ Readings

  ‘Ballad for a Mad Girl is brilliant, edgy and unsettling. Grace is a tough and sympathetic anti-heroine. I felt her grief and, even when I cursed her curiosity, was compelled to follow her to the story’s satisfying, cinematic end.’ Simmone Howell

  ‘I’m obsessed with Vikki Wakefield’s words. Seriously—I’d be happy reading her grocery list.’ Danielle Binks, Alpha Reader

  ‘Fans of intelligent, unflinching, spine-crawling thrillers will love this book.’ Books+Publishing

  ‘Vikki Wakefield is one of Australia’s best YA writers. I couldn’t put down Ballad for a Mad Girl.’ Cath Crowley

  FRIDAY BROWN

  ‘When I finish a Vikki Wakefield novel I get a tiny ache in my heart because I’m already missing her gutsy characters.’ Melina Marchetta

  ‘Friday Brown will haunt you long after you’ve turned the last page…It will break your heart then put the pieces back together in a new way. I absolutely loved this book.’ Libba Bray

  ‘Friday Brown is every superlative you can throw at it. It’s a masterpiece…There are no words to describe this novel adequately. There is only humbled, awestruck, heartbroken silence.’ Mostly Reading YA

  ‘Vikki Wakefield writes the tough stuff…Her characters are so vivid and endearing, or vicious and infuriating that she makes you feel everything down to your bones.’ Alpha Reader

  ‘The gripping story and rich characters took me to places where I didn’t expect to venture… I devoured each page.’ Australian Book Review

  ‘This is a pull-no-punches story about learning the truth and growing up, full of the preciousness of friendship and love.’ Herald Sun

  ‘This novel is Australian young adult fiction at its best. Friday Brown will blow your mind.’ Viewpoint

  ‘A tense, multilayered tale about loyalty, memory and survival…Lyrical, suspenseful and haunting.’ Kirkus

  INBETWEEN DAYS

  ‘An utterly gripping read with authentic, complicated and relatable characters.’ Sydney Morning Herald

  ‘Memorable, intriguing, perceptive and often very funny, this is an unforgettable YA novel and a most unusual love story.’ Magpies

  ‘Vikki Wakefield writes stories that will break your heart…A gritty, heartfelt read for teens and adult readers alike.’ Readings

  ‘I just adored Inbetween Days—really complex, raw, beautiful characters.’ Melissa Keil

  ‘Wakefield has never sounded more like Harper Lee… Inbetween Days is Australian YA gothic. It’s at times bleak and tender, with touches of romance threaded with heartache… Another “must-read” from one of Australia’s best young adult authors writing today…I adored this book.’ Alpha Reader

  ‘Vikki Wakefield has done it again. She’s gone and taken my breath away with another exquisite book… Without a doubt, Wakefield is one of Australia’s best writers.’ Unfinished Bookshelf

  ‘Vikki Wakefield…proves again that she’s the mistress of YA twisted relationships and disturbed characters, all memorable, all sketched with compassion, wit and insight, the adults as well as teens.’ Australian Book Review, Books of the Year 2015

  ‘Wakefield gives her fictional landscape the same haunting quality that she achieved with her first novel, Friday Brown, and her writing is full of insight and feeling.’ Age

  Vikki Wakefield’s first YA novel, All I Ever Wanted, won the 2012 Adelaide Festival Literary Award for YA Fiction, as did her second novel, Friday Brown, in 2014. Friday Brown was also a CBCA Honour Book in 2013, and was shortlisted for the prestigious Prime Minister’s Literary Awards. Vikki’s third novel, Inbetween Days, was Highly Commended in the 2016 Barbara Jefferis Award, and was a 2016 CBCA Honour Book. Vikki lives in the Adelaide foothills with her family.

  vikkiwakefield.com

  CONTENTS

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  For my mum, Jules

  and for biscuits

  (because I can’t say no to a dare)

  I’ve been having hateful thoughts again.

  I wish I could cast them out like an airborne curse or summon a superpower through sheer will. I’d choose telekinesis over flying any day—slam some saucepans, smash a few ornaments, shatter a window. I’d drag my dad across the floor, slide him up a wall, pin him to the ceiling, and laugh like a maniac as I stroll out the front door.

  It’s this house. Over a year and I still can’t get used to it. It’s everything we’re not: sweet, tidy, suburban—a two-storey shoebox with a homemade plaque on the toilet door and the puke-worthy scent of potpourri in every room. It stinks of happy families. We were once a long, low farmhouse with whispering walls; we were junk and brawling dogs and sprawling yard. Our sun didn’t set behind a row of cardboard houses and we never had to play musical cars to get out of the driveway. That was before. Now I can spit from the back doorstep and hit the fence; now I sleep so close to strangers I hear them breathe.

  They’re the polite thoughts. The hateful ones I mostly keep to myself.

  My room is the only thing I like. When we moved in, I claimed the master bedroom, upstairs, far away from everyone—it has a window seat and an ensuite bathroom, shiny fake floorboards and a view down the street over the cloned roofs of the other houses in the estate. The bed was a bribe. I traded my rickety single and hundreds of acres for a king-sized bed that’s bigger than our new backyard.

  It’s balmy tonight. Filthy black outside. The footpath beneath my window is spotted with old chewing-gum; the lace curtains twitch to a faint breeze. I’m sitting on my bed—watching She’s the Man, painting my toenails, killing time—trying not to think about the things I’m missing. For the past hour, cars full of teenagers have been coming and going. Going, mostly, with the music up and the windows down.

  My friends are out there, somewhere. I grip the brush so tightly it slips, leaving a bright red streak on the sheet, and my thoughts go from bad to worse: right this minute, if I had three seconds to make a wish, I’d swap the family I’ve got for the one I’ve lost. And I’d erase the last two years while I’m at it—or maybe that counts as two wishes.

  At nine o’clock, Pete texts. I lunge for my phone, and knock over the bottle of nail polish. The streak turns into a puddle.

  Grace? Pick you up?

  I sigh and pause the movie. Grounded. Again. You know that.

  Straight back: Pipe challenge!

  I wait until I’ve finished the toenails on my left foot. Who?

  Downstairs, Dad bellows at the television. The outside sensor light goes on,
which means he’s let Diesel out for the night and he’ll be in bed soon. Diesel is the inside dog, the only one we could keep.

  We’re all here. Gummer Mitchell Amber Kenzie Me. You. Come on, it’s Saturday.

  Kenzie. I didn’t really expect her to stay home in sympathy just because I got caught and she didn’t. Wait, no. I did.

  Dad never gives me a parole date—he keeps me hanging. If I ask when I’ll be allowed out, he adds another week, and if I’m more than five minutes late home after school, he adds two. My brother Cody is twenty—three years older than me—and apparently a grown-up. Dad couldn’t save the farm, couldn’t stop Cody from dropping out of school, couldn’t stop Mum from dying—pulling on my reins is his favourite thing. I’m the one person he still thinks he can control.

  Grounded, on a Saturday, the only night anything ever happens in Swanston—Swamptown, if you’re a local, and you don’t get much more local than fifth-generation Swampy, like me. It was twenty kilometres to town when we lived at the farm, but living in the estate makes it harder to pretend I’m not missing out on anything.

  Pete takes my silence as a yes. Pick you up at the end of your street in 15.

  He knows getting out isn’t high-risk—I mastered the roof-to-tree trapeze act a week after we moved in—but getting caught is a problem. Dad’s antennae will be twitching. I’ve never missed a pipe challenge. The last two years I’ve been the first to cross. I hold the record time, and the only way to keep it is to turn up, go first, and psych out the challengers.

  Make it 30 minutes.

  I wander downstairs in my pyjamas. This house is open-plan, so I can’t sneak into the kitchen or raid the fridge anymore without running into whoever’s in the lounge or dining-room. Dad is sitting on the couch, watching the late news. I open the fridge and stand in the square of light, letting the air chill my skin.

  Dad lowers the volume. He stretches his arms behind his head and shoots me a glance. ‘You get your homework done?’

  I nod and grab a can of Coke.

  If Dad was any sterner his face would crack. He’s got a long line running through the middle of his forehead, as if somebody ironed a perfect crease there. He wasn’t always like this: slow to forgive, quick to anger. It used to be the other way around.

  ‘No caffeine before bed,’ he says.

  ‘Fine.’ I put the can of Coke back and swig from the milk carton.

  He switches the television off and stands. ‘I’m working tomorrow. I’ll be gone early, mending fences all day, so I won’t be home until late. Can you cook dinner?’

  ‘On Sunday?’

  ‘So cook a Sunday dinner.’

  ‘I meant that you’re working all weekend.’

  ‘I take what I can get,’ he says, frowning. ‘And make sure you stay in. Don’t give me something else to worry about, okay? Cody will check.’

  I hide a smile. Cody won’t check. ‘Night.’

  My record will fall tonight if I’m not at the quarry. I can’t live with that. Dad makes me feel bad for things I haven’t done, so I might as well do them and deserve the punishment.

  Back upstairs, I brush my hair and teeth, climb into bed, and lie facing the wall. Ten minutes later Dad knocks, opens the door and says goodnight again to make sure I’m there. I wait another five, then slip out of bed. I put on shorts and a tank, tie my hair in a ponytail, grab my tote bag and slide my feet into a pair of Skechers.

  Good grip, no slip, out the window.

  Diesel waits below, a bark in his throat. It’s a familiar game. He keeps my secrets in exchange for liver treats.

  I sneak along the fence next to the neighbour’s rosebushes and step out into the street. Three houses along a man sits in darkness on his porch, cigarette glowing. He barely glances at me as I tiptoe past. In my other life, the man on the porch would have a name; he would have called out to me and I would have waved back. All of these people living in the same street and nobody seems to know each other.

  I jog the hundred metres to the corner. Gummer’s black Ford 250 is there, tinted windows, engine running, headlights off. Pete’s green station wagon is parked behind it.

  I open the back door of the wagon, clamber over Mitchell’s long legs, and land in Kenzie’s lap.

  ‘Hey, you,’ she says, smiling. Reluctantly, she lets go of Mitchell’s hand and makes space for me in the middle. ‘There’s more room in Gummer’s truck.’

  ‘Nuh-uh.’ I fumble for the lap sash and snap the buckle as Pete revs the engine. ‘I like it right here.’

  Gummer’s always wasted. He drives like an old man. Pete’s a lunatic but at least we’ll arrive this century.

  Pete laughs and mumbles something crude about leaving Amber and Gummer alone together.

  I flick the back of his head. ‘Don’t even think about it. If they get together, that leaves me and you, and that’s taking this cross-pollination thing too far.’

  Kenzie nudges my elbow. ‘Stop it.’

  ‘So how come you’re allowed out?’ I ask her. ‘That’s hardly fair.’

  ‘You know I could set fire to our lounge room and my folks would only ask me to move out of the way so they could see the TV.’

  Kenzie is fifth-generation Swampy too, but her parents are close to sixty. She’s the youngest of seven. It’s like they’ve run out of patience and don’t really want her around, so they let her run wild. She has a tongue piercing and a belly-button ring, an infinity tattoo behind her right ear and nine studs in her left. I’m a shorter, skinnier, cleanskin version of her: same long, dark hair, hazel eyes, narrow face, high cheekbones. We’re so alike people take her for my older, more rebellious sister. But Kenzie only looks like trouble.

  Mitchell reaches across me and grabs her hand. They’re new at this. We all are. Sometimes I think it would be better if we just stayed friends. We’ve been a tight group since primary school, but when it comes to Kenzie and me, Mitch is an extra—he has to know that. It is and will always be Grace and Kenzie, Kenzie and Grace.

  I wriggle myself a bit more room.

  Mitch drops Kenzie’s hand and shifts closer to the window.

  ‘Why are you all in the back? What am I, a taxi?’ Pete mutters, taking a corner on what feels like two wheels.

  I check the back window. Gummer’s way behind.

  ‘You scared, Grace?’ he adds, catching my eye in the rear-vision mirror. ‘High stakes tonight. Gummer’s got a hundred on you beating your own time. Me and Amber put fifty down, each.’

  ‘Double your money, Doughboy, you faithless cheapskate,’ I hiss, and he laughs.

  ‘Grace isn’t afraid of anything,’ Kenzie says, linking her arm with mine. ‘But it’s your own stupid fault if you lose. She doesn’t have anything left to prove.’

  There isn’t a corner of Swanston we haven’t explored in our boredom. It feels like a big town—four schools, six pubs and over ten thousand people—the heartbeat of surrounding hectares of farmland. Everything comes in shades of brown, beige and grey, with a fine layer of dirt, as if the town was flung to the ground by a passing tornado. During a heatwave it shimmers like a mirage. Swanston smells like old boots, mouldy hay or wet dog, depending on which way the wind blows, and there is a swamp, but it’s a joke—a mosquito-infested bog behind the Colonial Museum; it stinks like a sewer during the cooler months and dries to a foul crust in summer.

  We pass through the middle of town with its wide streets and heritage-listed buildings. The main shopping strip, Centennial Park and Swanston Cemetery are all in a row. Don’t ask me why the first settlers decided it was a good idea to bury the dead right where most people go about the business of living—maybe back then they kept them close because cars weren’t invented. Maybe they visited every day.

  I don’t visit. Dead is dust; only the living care if you leave flowers.

  ‘So what’s the plan?’ Kenzie says.

  ‘I’m making it up as I go.’ I wink and she smiles—Kenzie knows better than anyone that Grace Foley is always goo
d for a laugh.

  Pete takes the shortest route, zigzagging through the backstreets past the overland train station. He turns onto the freeway. The quarry is about three kilometres out of town—disused now, but it would take a thousand years to fill a hole that big. As we’re turning off the freeway onto Yeoman’s Track, a sheet of lightning illuminates the endlessly flat landscape.

  ‘Yes!’ Pete slaps the steering wheel and snakes the car.

  I slam sideways into Mitch. Dust swarms through the air vents, and I whisper a prayer, thinking a wasted Gummer is looking pretty good right now.

  Another flash and the crater shows itself to our left: vast, black, deep. At the western end, the quarry narrows into a steep gully that peters out several kilometres away; where the gully begins, a massive underground bore-water pipe connects one side to the other. Every year they fix the barricades at the entrance to the quarry; every year someone with a bull bar simply drives through the fence.

  Pete finds a parking space between two other cars at the edge of the quarry. He licks his finger and holds it up through the open window, testing the breeze. ‘Perfect weather,’ he says. ‘And a decent crowd, but there are more of them than us. They called it late on purpose.’

  There are fifty or sixty Year Elevens and Twelves. I’m guessing at least fifteen or so, including us, are from Swampie Public; the majority are Sacred Heart Private students. Pete’s right: they’ve deliberately called the challenge late so we wouldn’t have time to rally our troops. Our schools are next to each other. We have to share their library and their gym, and we’re fiercely competitive—in sport, in ethos, in extracurricular everything, right down to who hangs out in which car parks and cafes, and who turns up to which party.

  Kenzie and Mitch get out. I stay in the back seat.

  Pete opens the boot and passes around a few beers. He won’t offer one to me. I don’t drink.

  He hands me a can of raspberry lemonade. ‘You ready to put the scaredy Hearts back in their box?’

  ‘Omm.’ I cross my legs and pinch my fingers.

  ‘Right. Psych.’