On the Jellicoe Road

by Melina Marchetta

  “Hannah and I will always be together in a way. It’s just hard, that’s all. By the time we lost Fitz…”

  Then there’s silence again. Always silence.

  “I know who he is, you know. But that’s all I know. And that Webb is dead and that Tate is dying. But there’s more.”

  “What else do you need to know, Taylor? I’m your guardian. So is Hannah. We brought you up every second that Tate let you out of her sight. If Hannah had you, she was happy.”

  “And if you had Hannah you were happy?”

  He takes his eyes off the road. “Without you she felt guilt and remorse and despair and she’d look at me and I knew what she was thinking. That she wished I was her brother or Fitz or Tate. We weren’t supposed to survive, Hannah and me. We had the least hope.”

  We drive onto the Jellicoe Road and I feel the presence of the five all around me but more than anything I want to tell Jude Scanlon that he is wrong about what’s going through Hannah’s head. I want to tell him that deep down each time Hannah looked at him she was grateful it was him because Jude did something that the others didn’t. He came back for her.

  “What happened to him?” Griggs asks quietly. “Fitz?”

  “He went a bit crazy, on and off,” the Brigadier says after a while. “Met a sweet girl, had a kid, and then the girl died. Cancer. And I think Fitz thought that everything he touched died, so he went into self-imposed exile, like he wanted to remove himself from his kid in case he cursed her in some way. But the thing about Fitz, and Tate, too, is that they loved their baby girls and they couldn’t let go. But one day when he couldn’t take the demons in his head any longer…”

  He doesn’t finish the sentence. He doesn’t have to.

  “What about his kid?” I ask. “We should find her.”

  But suddenly a fire truck whizzes past us and then another and then another.

  “What the hell was that?” I ask, straining my eyes to see. The Brigadier puts on his high beams but turns them off instantly. Coming our way are two more sets of headlights.

  “What’s happening?” Griggs says. “Why would people be on the road at this time of the night?”

  A third car drives by as we pass the only light on the Jellicoe Road. I see a face pressed up against one of the back windows, a face so small and frightened that it sends a wave of shock through me that almost paralyses me. It’s the face of one of my year sevens.

  “The school,” I whisper. “I think it’s burning down.”

  Chapter 25

  There is a sick feeling in my stomach when we reach the driveway of the school. I know my world is about to come apart and it renders me so weak I can barely breathe. At another time I would have marvelled at the colour. The blaze is spectacular; and there are slivers of light coming from trucks and cars and floodlights and spinning red sirens. But the worst thing about the slivers of light is that you get to catch people’s expressions for only a split second; then they disappear again, and in between you are forced to think about what it is that could make a person look so devastated.

  The Brigadier brings the car to a sudden halt. I yank open the door and hit the ground running. I have no idea who or what I’m heading for but I’m flying and I follow the light, closer and closer to the blaze. My House is burning down. My House. Fire trucks are parked on the lawn, pumping water into the bottom floor. Around me there is bedlam. People are everywhere, holding on to any pyjama-clad girl they can find. House leaders and teachers are keeping the students back, shouting orders for everyone to return to their Houses. The police are here, ambulance officers, fire fighters. I have never seen this many strangers at the school in my life. I want everyone to leave so that I can find my people. I get glimpses of them and I take in their faces, knowing that I need to tick off forty-nine names in my head. When the girls from Lachlan House see me, they call out or come racing over, some holding on to me with all their might. Over their heads I meet the eyes of one of the teachers, who looks shattered.

  I help the girls into any of the jackets or jumpers given to us by the other houses. Three of the year sevens don’t move and I kneel in front of them.

  “I want you to go with these people. They’ll take care of you. Tomorrow I’ll come and get you. Every one of you. I promise. I swear on the holy bible.”

  They look at me and nod, clutching my hand, their mouths quivering, tears spilling, sobs bursting out, like machine guns of grief, creating their own carnage of despair.

  “We couldn’t get to them,” one of them whispers. “They were in the back room where all our junk is. One of them ran there when everything started going up. But I saw them. I saw them both and they couldn’t get to us and we couldn’t get to them and then the whole thing just—”

  “Who?” I ask, trying to keep the horror out of my voice.

  “…and she was saying, ‘Don’t worry’…and then everything collapsed and she was repeating, ‘Don’t worry, my father…my father…my father…’ What did she always used to say about her father, Taylor? I can’t remember anymore.”

  I feel someone put a blanket around me but I don’t turn around to see who it is. I hold on to these three kids until one of the Townie parents comes to take them away. Then I see Raffy standing next to Ms. Morris, who is looking completely bewildered. For one moment my life goes back to the way it was half an hour ago. My heart beats at a regular pace. I make my way towards them, watching Raffy’s manic movements as she scribbles stuff down on a sheet of paper. When she looks up, I almost don’t recognise her. It’s like I’ve been away for one million years and the world has changed.

  “I’ve got all their names down,” she says to me and Ms. Morris in that practical tone of hers. “I’ve written down T if they’ve gone to the town or the House name if they’ve gone there. See. So we can keep count and we’ll know where to find them all later.”

  I can’t read the list because her hand is shaking so much. We look at each other and I nod because I can’t speak.

  “I’ve got all the phone numbers as well,” she says.

  “How many are missing?” I manage to ask.

  “Two.”

  I hear my gasping and I think, Not now, Taylor. Not everything is about your inability to breathe under pressure.

  “Show me the list.” I wheeze.

  But she shakes her head over and over again. “Wait until everyone’s here, Taylor. Just two more names and everyone will be here. Everyone.”

  I look over at the House as it continues to burn. I look at the fire fighters hovering outside.

  I take the list out of Raffy’s trembling hands and I see all the names of every person in my House, except for two. A wave of nausea comes over me. Please, not these two. Please, not any of them.

  “Let’s get you out of here,” I hear Ms. Morris say. “It won’t do your breathing any good with all this smoke.”

  But she’s just one of the voices and one of the faces I see.

  Raffy busies herself, chatting incessantly, ushering the year sevens and eights into the trail of cars that have come from the town. I see Santangelo’s mum arrive. I want to go back to two weeks ago when she was calling Santangelo a little shit and Jessa and I were giggling at the organised turmoil of their household, wishing we belonged to it but relieved that we were able to walk away.

  Raffy continues with her instructions. “Georgina’s a diabetic, no sugar, insulin first thing in the morning…. Sarah, put in your plate before you lose it….”

  I see Trini of Darling House. No hysterics from her. Just a practical business-like ordering around and then we look at each other and she touches me, but I pull away because I’m a block of ice. I don’t want to feel anything. I don’t want to think.

  “We’ll take the seniors and the tens. Hastings will take the year nines,” she tells me.

  I just nod at her and she nods back and gets down to business.

  Behind me Raffy is still giving instructions. “…she’s allergic to penicillin…and they’ve
got an assessment task. It’s about Me, Myself, and I, and they have to collect at least five examples of…”

  Everything is up close and then it swings away and the swaying of it plays with my stomach. Then Chaz is there, looking at me with such sadness, and then he sees Raffy.

  “…no peanuts. Peanuts will kill her so don’t even breathe peanuts on her….”

  “Raf,” he says in a tired voice. That’s all. Just “Raf.”

  Then he holds her and for a moment I hear silence—that totally silent part of a cry that announces that the most horrible grief is going to follow. And it does and he’s muffling it but I can hear and I want someone to come over and jab her with a sedative because its pitch pierces my soul.

  I sway, watching Santangelo’s father walk towards us. How come everyone looks a thousand years older in just a couple of hours?

  He kneels next to Raffy. “Are you sure you haven’t seen them?” he asks gently, trying to make himself heard over the noise. “They could have been taken by one of the parents into town.”

  She’s shaking her head over and over again. “Sal,” she whispers, horrified. “They’re in the House.”

  I begin walking towards it, the blanket falling off my shoulders.

  Jessa. Chloe P. Jessa. Chloe P. I’m walking towards the House. Jessa and Chloe P. are in the back room of the dorm. I’m running. Their names are in my mind then I realise that I’m not thinking them: I’m grunting their names and it hurts. Jessa and Chloe P. Then I’m there, next to the fire trucks a few metres away from the front verandah.

  “Jessa!” I yell so hoarsely that it’s like the sound rings through my ears and makes them pop. “Chloe!” Someone’s hands are holding me back. The Brigadier’s hands. Jude Scanlon’s hands. And then I see the fire fighters pour out of the house, racing towards us, just as a crashing sound deafens our ears. Everyone stands back, helplessly watching. Windows are smashing under the pressure and the fire roars at us, like some ogre refusing to let us in.

  I look around and the world becomes a hazy black blizzard. I sink lower and lower. I hear “someone grab her” and “get a bloody ambulance” and a claw-like hand finds its way into my mouth, down my throat, and into my lungs and it grabs my breath and squeezes the life out of it and I let it and let it and let it….

  I am with the boy in the tree in my dreams. I can breathe up here and I’m happy and I tell him that I had this dream where I went to a school off the Jellicoe Road and we fought a war with the Cadets and Townies and how I had lost because I had surrendered myself to the leader of the enemy years before.

  Then I hear the sobbing and we both look in the direction of the sound.

  “Where does he come from?” I ask.

  The boy looks at me, confused. “You brought him to me, Taylor. Weeks ago.”

  “Me?”

  “He won’t come out,” he tells me, “and I can’t find my way in.”

  I crawl towards the sound, closer and closer, and when I’m a breath away from it, I put my hand through the branches and I leave it there and although it seems to take ages, he takes hold of my hand and drags me in. Then I’m sitting face to face with the Hermit and he’s crying, “Forgive me, forgive me.”

  I realise that it’s not me he’s speaking to and I know what I have to do. I hold his hand firmly and convince him to come out with me onto the branch where the boy is waiting.

  We sit there, the boy, the Hermit, and I, for a while. Sometimes I think I can hear people calling my name but I block it out because at the moment there is no other place I want to be. The boy leans over and tells me to explain to the Hermit that there is nothing to forgive and I do, and the look on the Hermit’s face is one of pure joy.

  They reminisce about Tate and Narnie and Jude. They talk about the Prayer Tree and of the messages they wrote on the trunk. They tell me about the tunnel and how once they timed themselves getting from one end to the other and how Webb fainted because he had never seen the world that dark. “We saw the devil down there,” the Hermit tells me, and they laugh so hard that I’m jealous that I can’t join in.

  I stand up because from here everything looks fantastic and the boy smiles a smile that creases his cheeks and I will never see anything more beautiful. Then he takes my hand and walks me over to the edge.

  I look at Webb and I say, “It was me you were coming for all along.”

  But he shakes his head and throws me over the side….

  I open my eyes. The faces around me look shocked and ashen. The Brigadier, Santangelo’s dad, the fire chief. Raffaela is holding my inhaler to my lips. A second later, Griggs and Santangelo skid to a halt in front of me, staring. Griggs looks like he’s seen a ghost. Does he know something that I don’t know? He tries to talk to me, tries to take hold of me, but Santangelo’s dad pushes him away gently. “Give her room.”

  “We heard…” Santangelo begins, his breathing is so heavy he can hardly speak.

  I’m back in reality now and suddenly I remember everything. But there’s too much noise in my ears and too many people talking at the same time. I look beyond everyone to the House. Back there, everything seems to be under control but I know something is strange and I stare at the men in front of me. “You can’t find them, can you? You can’t find their bodies?”

  I can tell the guy from the rural fire brigade is surprised because he exchanges a look with Santangelo’s dad.

  “And there’s no other way out of that dorm.”

  “They wouldn’t have been able to get out,” Santangelo’s dad says, “They’re two little girls.”

  But I’m looking at the Brigadier and I see something in his eyes. “Except through the ground. ‘My father said there’s a tunnel somewhere down there,’” I whisper. “It’s what Jessa used to say and Fitz would know, wouldn’t he, Jude? You knew who she was, didn’t you?” I say, turning to Santangelo’s dad. “It’s why you guys took her in for the holidays. You knew she belonged to Fitz.”

  “Let’s get you to the hospital,” Santangelo’s dad says, standing up and whistling over some of the emergency crew.

  “She’s in the tunnel, Jude. It’s under Lachlan House, isn’t it? It begins in the storeroom. Isn’t that where they got stuck? Chloe P. ran to the storeroom when the fire started and Jessa went after her and that’s where they got trapped.”

  Jude stands up, staring back at the house and then at me and then he turns in the direction of Murrumbidgee House.

  “What’s going on?” Santangelo’s dad asks him quietly.

  Jude shakes his head, confused. “Let’s go,” he says, holding out his hand to me.

  The guy from the rural fire brigade looks irritated. “You’re trying to tell me that you believe there’s a tunnel that runs under those Houses?” he asks as Jude breaks into a run and everyone follows.

  “I should know,” Jude says as I try hard to keep up. “I helped build it.”

  We tear into Murrumbidgee House and Jude leads us straight through the dorms into the laundry. The kids in the dorm are shaken and still in a state of shock and I notice Richard with them, as if he hasn’t left their side all night. We throw everything out of the way and there, under five tiles in the corner of the laundry, is a hole in the ground.

  “Jesus Christ,” Santangelo’s dad says, shaking his head.

  There’s a shit fight about who goes under. The guy from the rural fire brigade volunteers but Santangelo’s dad tells him that he’s built like a brick shit house and can hardly get through the laundry door, let alone a hole in the floor, so he’s eliminated instantly. Even Mr. Palmer offers but he’s a heart attack waiting to happen, although no one says it to him in those words.

  “I’m going,” Jude says firmly.

  “Sir, you’ve been driving for almost thirteen hours straight,” Griggs says. “I’ll go.”

  “I’m the fittest,” Santangelo argues.

  “I’m in the Cadets, you dick. Do you know how many times I’ve had to crawl on my stomach?”

&nb
sp; “You’re not going down there,” Santangelo’s dad says forcefully. “Neither of you are.”

  “Are you?” Santangelo asks. “You’ve got high blood pressure and mum will kill me if I let you go down.”

  “I’m going,” Jude says. “I built it.”

  Griggs is already poking his head down the hole. He looks at Jude. “I’m presuming it’s head first because there doesn’t seem to be any room to move your body around.”

  “Jonah…”

  “Let me do this,” Griggs says. He looks at me. “I need to do this.”

  Jude knows he has no choice and reluctantly agrees. “You’ll be on your stomach for most of the time.”

  “Hold on a minute,” the rural brigade guy says, having watched the whole exchange. “Chances are they might…”

  …be dead. Jessa and Chloe P. could be dead. Worse still is the fact that Griggs might come across the bodies. That’s what the fire chief doesn’t want to say.

  I want to say one thousand things to Griggs but Jude has already taken hold of his boots, ready to hold him upside down.

  “We can’t waste any more time. If you find the girls, you won’t be able to turn around. There’s absolutely no room. You’ll have to travel backwards. We’ll try to get as much light as possible in there but for the time being you’ll have our torches. It’s darker than anyplace you’ve been in on drills, Jonah.”

  Griggs nods and he goes down before anyone says another word.

  Looking at Santangelo’s dad’s face makes me realise that he doesn’t believe that anything good is going to come of this. That’s the worst thing about cops. They see so many bad things and they rarely get a happy ending. Santangelo is the same. He spends the whole time with his head in the hole, shining the torch into the tunnel so Griggs can have a bit of light.

  “When I fainted,” I begin telling Jude, “I saw my father and I saw the Hermit but it was really Fitz. I always remember him looking old but it’s only perspective. Like that time I saw him when he had the gun and he kept saying, ‘Forgive me, Forgive me,’ but he was never speaking to me. It was Webb he was speaking to. All this time, I thought that Webb was bringing him along into my dream but now I realise that I was bringing him along to Webb’s. All he wanted was forgiveness and Webb said, ‘Tell him, nothing to forgive.’”