Ballad for a Mad Girl Read online

  ‘There’s nothing you can say to make this go away,’ she says. ‘You went too far this time and I can’t get it out of my head.’

  ‘Where are you? Is Mitch with you?’ She sighs and I know I’ve wasted time and words. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just…’

  ‘I can’t do this anymore. You’re making me crazy.’

  ‘Please. I think I’m being haunted. Or possessed.’

  She sighs again.

  ‘You don’t believe me?’

  ‘I think you must have hit your head. And I think you need help.’

  I know Mitchell is with her. I know he’s squeezing her leg or her hand and he’s got that stupid intense expression on his face that makes him look as if he’s trying to read her mind. ‘If you don’t believe me, nobody will.’

  ‘Grace, you’re like the girl who cried wolf. You can’t blame people if they think you’re full of shit. You’ve built your whole reputation on that.’

  ‘The missing girl,’ I say. ‘I saw her that night at the pipe when Pete was driving home. She was crawling in a ditch by the side of the road. She’s dead—and she’s in my head.’ Kenzie swears under her breath and I hear Mitch’s voice, echoing the sentiment. ‘Have you got me on speaker?’ I hear a click. Her voice becomes louder and clearer.

  ‘And what does she want from you?’ she says flatly.

  ‘I think she wants me to find her.’

  ‘You’re not yourself.’

  ‘No shit.’

  ‘I meant you’re not acting like yourself.’

  ‘I’m not acting at all, Kenzie. I need you.’

  She barks a laugh. ‘This is the first time you’ve ever really left me out of one of your jokes. I’m not sure how I feel about it. I’m going now.’ There’s a pause before she goes on. ‘Actually, I do. I know how I feel. I’m fed up. It was fun, once—it isn’t anymore. Grow up, Grace.’

  She hangs up—or she thinks she hangs up. She’s talking fast, making plans for the holiday break and asking Mitch whether she should cut her hair. I rest my phone in the soap dish and listen to them not talking about me. Outside, moths flutter against the window; downstairs, Cody lumbers around in the kitchen, making the walls shudder. Diesel barks a greeting as Gina pulls into the driveway. I lie down in the bathtub and make myself as small and still as I can be, and Kenzie’s voice drones on and on, like if she just keeps talking she won’t have to say something that means anything at all.

  I acknowledge her presence now—the missing girl, Hannah—but that’s not the end. She won’t go away. I listen, but that doesn’t mean she’s able to speak, or I’m able to hear. I accept the proof of something other—other than this life—but that doesn’t make me any less afraid.

  There’s a spot in my room that feels different. It’s just an empty corner that’s thrown into shadow when the lamp is switched on, but I know the corner is occupied. I keep the lamp switched on all night and all day. I can’t sleep without it. When I do sleep, she’s in my dreams. I can’t tell the true shape of her, but I sense her crouching, or maybe she’s squatting with her arms curled around her knees. She never stands. She has no face and she’s never still. Sometimes she’s the darting smudge I saw in the bathroom; other times she’s just with me, like an unfamiliar emotion that doesn’t belong.

  I say she, her, but she’s an it. Whatever once made her a girl is not a part of her anymore. I don’t think she likes me when I think like that—that’s when my brain fizzes and things go pop. For no reason, the picture on my TV jams between stations, and the numbers on my digital clock radio have disappeared. Some nights, when my dreams are close to the surface, I can wake in another room not knowing how I got there or what I’ve been doing.

  It’s safer to stay awake.

  In the evenings, I sit downstairs with Dad and Cody for as long as they’re up. I go to school. I laugh and joke and breeze through my schoolwork, but Dad has noticed I have purple smudges under my eyes and my eating habits are weird. Cody says I’m going through delayed puberty. They’re both kind and concerned but I think they just want the melancholy to go away—none of us is equipped for tragedy. I arrange my face to show Grace-like expressions and somehow manage to convince my friends that I’m still the same, but Kenzie is lost to me. She can’t forgive me for the birds.

  The only time I feel it—her—gone is when I’m actively thinking about her, searching for fragments of her life, her history. But I’m not fooled. The weightlessness is not her leaving—it’s because she’s carrying me.

  It’s Tuesday, lunchtime. Pete and I are sitting under the row of plane trees on the northern boundary of school. Nobody else has shown up here for days—it seems our group is officially disbanded. With the end of first-term holidays looming, I think Pete feels sorry for me, on my own, with escalating rumours of a Sacred Heart retaliation for The Deadpool Incident.

  ‘What have you got?’ he asks, peering at my lunchbox. ‘Anything worth trading?’

  I have a squashed, half-unwrapped cheese sandwich and a bruised apple. I whip out the sandwich and catch a glimpse of something bloody and twisted as it falls into my lap.

  Pete spits out a piece of salami rind and launches to his feet. ‘What the hell is that?’

  I fling the sandwich away and freeze, eyes averted, hands in the air. ‘I can’t look. Get it off me.’

  ‘Stand up.’

  ‘No. Get it off me, Pete!’

  He snaps a small branch from one of the plane trees, strips the leaves from the end and starts prodding between my crossed legs.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Open your legs more.’ He gags. ‘Shit, that’s juvenile. You can look now.’ He’s dangling the thing from the stick—a chicken’s foot with shrunken skin, curled claws, and a blood-caked bone protruding from the end. ‘You got punked.’

  ‘Gross. It stinks.’ I look around, shuddering. Pranked by one of our own, too. No one from Heart would have been able to get near my locker without help. ‘Get rid of it.’

  He flicks it over the fence and onto the street.

  I gather my scattered lunch and move to another spot. I laugh, making sure the sound carries, and unwrap my sandwich. If I show they’ve got to me, it’s a point to them—the trick is to be good-natured when karma comes your way.

  I’m about to take a bite when Pete clubs the sandwich out of my hands.

  ‘Hey!’

  ‘You got double-punked,’ he says, pointing with the stick. ‘Chickens typically have two feet.’

  I get up, leaving the chicken foot sandwich lying on the ground.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘I’m not hungry.’

  ‘I’m not surprised.’ He’s trying not to laugh.

  ‘I’m going for a walk.’ I stomp off.

  He follows. ‘Wait! Cundalini the chicken wants his foot back.’ He cracks himself up. ‘Gracie. Gracie, Gracie, you’ve not got a sense of humour!’ he shouts in a terrible Scottish accent.

  Great. Now he’s quoting Mad Max at me. I stick up my middle finger behind my back and lose him halfway across the oval.

  I’ve been walking a lot these past few days, to keep from sinking. It’s exhausting, both the walking and the effort it takes to appear as if I’m not constantly looking over my shoulder.

  Yesterday I had a mandatory six-monthly session with the school counsellor. Mrs Renfrey always says, ‘Call me Connie’, but I don’t call her that and I don’t tell her anything. She only acts as if she’s interested because it’s her job, and this time she seemed relieved to mark me off for good behaviour and better marks. Resilience is knowing that YOU are the one with the power to save yourself says the poster behind her desk. And the one next to it: Your biggest fears are completely dependent upon YOU for survival.

  You, you, YOU. It’s all bullshit.

  I’ve been watching the birds—you can hardly tell the sick ones from the rest. But look closely and you’ll see they pretend—to strut, to sing, to eat—so the other birds don’t know they’re
sick. That’s how YOU survive. I want to write some real quotes for Call Me Connie and rip the lies from her walls.

  Fear is not an unwanted pet you reluctantly feed; it doesn’t come with reins and a bit. Fear feeds on YOU. It comes and goes as it pleases.

  Three things I’m starting to know about the new me: I don’t think like anyone else, I don’t dream like anyone else, and I can’t juggle. The last one is important. I used to be able to juggle five balls like a pro, but now I can’t. Seems to me it’s not the kind of thing you just forget—sure, I might be out of practice, but that’s not it. It has something to do with the way I keep reaching for light switches that aren’t there and having to take a moment to think about things that should be second nature—how to put on make-up, what my favourite foods are, how I take my coffee. It’s like I have a faulty circuit, or I’m forgetting who I am.

  My desk is covered with pencil shavings and coffee rings. It’s six o’clock already and I’m only halfway through a sheet of algebraic equations. I still have four pages of notes to type up for Health and several quiz corrections, but I can’t concentrate.

  ‘What is it that you want?’

  She’s shifting, restless, in her corner.

  The pencil shavings scurry and settle—it’s only the breeze drifting through my open window. The days are getting cooler and the nights are getting longer. I dread going to sleep.

  ‘Who are you talking to?’ Cody sticks his head around the door.

  ‘I didn’t hear you come up,’ I say. ‘I’m not talking to anyone.’

  ‘Dad says we’re going out for dinner, so you need to put some real clothes on.’ He nods at my tank top and boxer shorts.

  ‘Out? Out where?’ We never go out.

  ‘Ruby’s.’

  Mum’s favourite. ‘Oh, no.’ No, no, no.

  ‘It’s been two years, Grace. It’s time.’

  I throw down my pencil and swing back on the chair. ‘Why is he trying to go back? It’s not ever going to be the same.’

  ‘It’s only dinner. Get dressed.’ He turns to leave and stops. ‘What’s wrong with your fish?’ He nods towards the tank.

  ‘They’re amphibians, not fish.’ I glance at the tank. Statler is floating. Sometimes they come up for air or they get bloated, but Statler is upside down. ‘Oh, no,’ I say again. I cross the room, lift the lid, reach into the tank and stroke his belly. His legs kick feebly. I brush his tail with my finger—if I give him a fright he might submerge. But he just floats. ‘Waldorf is gone.’ I lift the sunken ship and look behind the aeration rock.

  ‘Maybe he climbed out.’

  ‘He didn’t climb, Cody. There’s a lid.’ I check the temperature gauge. It’s twenty-five degrees. That’s way too high.

  ‘He’s a walking fish, right? So why can’t he climb?’

  ‘You’re not helping. Is it hot in here? It feels hot. Get me some ice?’

  I switch off the tank heater and Cody goes downstairs. Waldorf has to be here; he can’t just disappear. Maybe he did climb out. I look underneath the desk, bed and side tables. There’s a wet track on the floorboards, but it could be drips from my hand.

  ‘Here.’ Cody comes back. He hands me a tall glass full of ice cubes.

  I submerge the glass and let the cubes melt gradually. The temperature begins to drop and Statler flips over, slowly sinking. ‘We can’t leave until I find Waldorf.’

  ‘Stop making…’

  ‘It’s not an excuse!’

  ‘You weren’t so worried about Rex when you swapped him for these two.’

  I stare at my brother. ‘How’d you know about that?’

  He snorts. ‘Gummer plus beer. I know about the pool prank, too, and the pipe.’

  ‘Did you tell…?’

  He shakes his head. ‘No, I haven’t told Dad. But I will if you don’t stop giving him such a hard time. He worries about you.’

  I sit on the edge of my bed. ‘If you tell, you’ll just worry him more.’

  Cody points a finger at me. ‘Forget this whole stupid war with Sacred Heart,’ he says. ‘It’s been going on for generations, Grace, and people get hurt. You might get hurt. It’d be too much for Dad.’

  ‘It’s just a bit of fun. And I’m good at it.’ I peer into the shadowy corner. She’s not here right now. Where does she go?

  ‘What?’ Cody’s looking at me strangely.

  Just then I see Waldorf, lying near the door like a flung toy. He wasn’t there just a second ago, yet it would have taken him forever to move a few metres.

  I pick him up. He’s limp, but alive. Axolotls have been known to leap from a tank, but mine has a lid and Waldorf has never been in a hurry to go anywhere.

  Cody watches as I gently hold him underwater until his gills flare and turn pink. He slides gracefully from my palm and joins Statler on the substrate floor, as if two minutes ago he wasn’t close to death.

  ‘Lucky,’ Cody says.

  Ruby’s is exactly as I remember it: eighties decor with faded plates and scratched cutlery, but filled with warm light and amazing smells. Dad’s wearing a dress shirt. It’s as creased as his face, but it’s a revelation to see him wearing something other than hi-vis workwear.

  The waiter leads us towards a table for four near the front window—the table Mum always booked for its view of the fairy lights in the reserve across the street. As we approach, I watch Dad change. In the car he wore an expression of grim determination, but now his face looks the same as the day the police came: hopeful, with a pained smile—hopeful that it won’t be as bad as he thinks.

  Me—I just know the location might change and the food might be good, but we’ll never get used to a table with only three settings.

  I sit in the seat Mum would have taken, facing the reserve. I rearrange the cutlery and fold my hands in my lap. We order drinks. Dad and Cody spread their knees and elbows, taking up enough space for three.

  ‘Well,’ Dad says.

  Cody picks up the menu. I know we’re all thinking we used to order without looking, but if we read the menu we’re spared the small talk, at least for a few minutes. The waiter brings our drinks to the table—beer for the boys, lime and bitters for me—and we’re relieved to have something else to do.

  ‘Hmmm.’

  ‘Well.’

  Cody asks Dad about an engine part they ordered, both of them spinning their beer bottles in unison. I can’t stand to see the defeat in Dad’s expression as he tries to keep up an ordinary conversation. I look around the restaurant, at the cute couples and happy families—and the needle scratches off the record.

  Amber and Noah Wentz are sitting close together at the back of the restaurant. With Noah’s parents. Sharing a plate of pappadums and raita. Talking and laughing.

  I sneak glances at them, watching the way Noah’s parents interact with Amber as if they know her well and like her a lot. Amber is so completely focused on Noah; she hasn’t noticed I’m here.

  Dad taps my arm. ‘Grace.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Your order. What are you having?’

  I order a steamed rice and side of vegetable bhaji. Dad and Cody go back to spinning their beer bottles; I go back to staring at Amber. I know we’ve grown apart lately, but now the distance is too great. She has a whole other life, like Kenzie.

  Amber leaves the table and heads for the shared corridor between Ruby’s and the cafe next door. I follow her into the ladies’ toilet. She’s leaning into the mirror, putting on a fresh ring of pink lipstick.

  ‘Grashe Oley,’ she says without moving her lips.

  I turn the cold tap, rinse my hands and shake them, flicking droplets onto her flawless foundation. There are freckles under there, somewhere.

  ‘I don’t know, Amber. You never call, you don’t write.’ I grab her hand and stare into her brown eyes. ‘You don’t bring me flowers anymore.’

  Smacking her lips, she says, ‘It’s not you, babe. It’s me.’ She flashes her teeth. She has lipstick on them.
/>   ‘Well, shit, I know that.’ I drop her hand and hoist myself onto the vanity unit. ‘I vote to bring back the freckles.’

  Silence. She takes a long time reapplying wings of eyeliner. ‘You’ve just got to make room for Mitch. Move over. It’s that simple. Kenzie’s not ditching you because you’ve changed—you’re ditching her because she has enough room for both of you, but you don’t.’

  I pull a face. ‘We weren’t talking about Kenzie.’

  She twists her body to look at herself in the mirror again. ‘Okay, let’s talk about me. See, we’ve known each other since we were eight years old, and you still see freckles. I haven’t had freckles since I was eleven.’

  ‘Are you sure? Did you bleach them? Does that really work?’

  She gets up beside me, swinging her bare legs. ‘They disappeared. They can do that, you know. I no longer have the largest collection of shoplifted nail polish in the Southern Hemisphere either, but that’s still the first thing you tell everyone about me.’

  ‘That’s because it’s funny.’

  ‘Funny has a use-by date,’ she says, and lifts a foot to show me her pink toenails. ‘See? Bought and paid for. Shoplifting isn’t on my CV anymore.’

  ‘So what are you saying? I’m stuck in some sort of eternal childhood, is that it? Wow, Amber. How does a canoe like Noah Wentz navigate your depths?’

  She gives me a black look. ‘Grace, our friendship group came with a set of rules and those rules haven’t changed in almost ten years. Same with the whole Swampie versus Heart thing. I’m over it. It doesn’t mean we’re not friends, it just means the rules don’t fit.’ She spots the lipstick on her teeth and scrubs it away with her finger. ‘Did you think we’d all be leftovers forever? Did you honestly believe we told each other everything?’

  I nod. ‘Yeah. I suppose I did. I always told you guys everything.’ Every secret, every dastardly deed. Exclusion brought us together and made us exclusive.

  ‘Did you? Do you?’ Amber says. ‘You’re such an idealist. You think because we all have a history it means we automatically have a future.’

  ‘Like I suppose you see a future with Noah Wentz?’