Meanwhile I stood uselessly over to one side, my hat leaching water in warm trickles down my neck.
‘Run?’ he bellowed. ‘Run? You would run!’
The word sounded feebly small.
He, on the other hand, was so tall, so broad-shouldered. He loomed above us and caused an eclipse. His shadow slanted all the way across his zoysia grass and to the roots of the peppercorn tree.
Van Apfel. From the apple. From the tree of knowledge. Mr Van Apfel knew. He knew about the plan to try to run away, and all hell was about to break loose.
‘Where did you think you would run away to?’ His voice was dangerously low. ‘Or hadn’t you worked that part out yet? Go on. Tell me. Honestly, how far did you think you could get?’
For a moment no one spoke.
‘I didn’t think . . .’ Hannah started. ‘I mean, we didn’t want —’
He cut her off with the sweep of his hand. He wasn’t interested in what Hannah had to say. His eyes were fixed on Cordie, whose eyes were fixed on her mice. She placed them down onto the grass.
‘You’d never leave me,’ he appealed to her.
Cordie said nothing. Either she was too scared or she wasn’t sure what to say. Or maybe she never realised he was speaking to her because she never looked up from her pets.
‘You won’t leave,’ he said again, looking directly at her. Willing her to agree. ‘Say it. Say you won’t leave. Go on, say it now.’ He sounded hurt. Almost whiny. And the wounded tone that had crept into his voice was what frightened me most of all.
Between her legs, Cordie’s mice crawled and sniffed at the grass. She had trained them to stay when she let them out of their cage. Even for pets, they were incredibly tame. Maybe that’s what enraged Mr Van Apfel in the end.
The fact Cordie wouldn’t say what he was asking of her. The fact she had more control over her mice than he had over his daughters. And when Cordie finally turned her face to him, she saw Mr Van Apfel upturn the bottle he’d been carrying and empty it over her pets.
Cordie screamed and propelled herself backwards on her hands, away from the falling liquid. Drops of ammonia splattered onto her legs. Beside her, her sisters stood wild-eyed in terror. One mouth gaping, the other clamped shut. On the grass there was squealing. High-pitched mewling. Blind mice panicked in the bright daylight. Except for one mouse, which fell still in a matter of seconds, its tiny body rigid, its legs taut. It was full stride like a carousel animal.
Cordie moaned and shook her head: ‘No. No, no, no.’
She reached out and scooped up the remaining three mice. Tried to wipe them clean on her check dress. She cradled them to her chest, where the fabric started turning pink. Those mice weren’t even three check-squares long.
Mr Van Apfel looked worn down by Cordie now. A grim sheen appeared on his upper lip. As if he was exhausted by her constant failure to satisfy what it was he was asking of her. He turned his bottle the right way up.
‘Cordelia,’ he said, ‘I’ll deal with you later.’ Ammonia and disgust dripped from his red gloves.
‘They’re dead,’ Cordie said dully, ignoring her dad. She uncupped her shaking hands and the three last mice lay silent and stiff, their dead bodies cutting a path across Cordie’s open palms.
‘I think,’ Mr Van Apfel said in a voice that was at once recognisable as the one he normally used, and also shockingly calm, ‘that it might be time for Laura and Tikka to go home.’ Like it wasn’t too late to make a start on our homework, maybe catch some cartoons on TV. And I wondered if the Van Apfel girls might like to do the same thing. To walk up the side of the house and across the drive, head down the slope of Macedon Close as though none of this had just happened. To let themselves believe that everyone’s parents were violent like this and today was simply the day they’d grown bored of it.
Laura picked up her schoolbag and threw Hannah a look that said everything and nothing all at once. I was still carrying my bag – had never taken it off – and I went and took my place next to my sister.
‘I’ll walk you out, girls,’ Mr Van Apfel announced. ‘I’m headed for the garage myself.’
And nobody spoke as he retrieved his scrubbing brush from where he’d left it on the pavers. He carried it in the same hand as his bottle. And Laura and I followed him into the shade at the side of the house.
‘I’ll leave you here, girls,’ Mr Van Apfel said as we reached the roller door to the garage, and we nodded dumbly and walked up the drive. And there, at the top, Dad’s car swung into the cul-de-sac as if he’d been waiting around the corner for us all along.
‘Dad!’ I shouted with relief. I waved him over the curb. The car windows were wound down into their sills and the aluminum casting framed his face.
‘Tikka-Likka,’ he greeted me. He smiled at Laura. ‘Like a ride?’
We slid into the back of the car.
‘You two are quiet this afternoon. What’s going on?’ he joked. ‘Cat got your tongues?’
In the back seat Laura placed her hand over mine. ‘I won’t tell,’ I mouthed in defence. But Laura shook her head and I realised she wasn’t trying to silence me. Only that she wanted to hold my hand just as much as I needed her to.
Dad released the handbrake, ready to drive off, when Mr Van Apfel appeared at the top of the drive. He waved and for one moment I was worried he was going to come over.
‘Graham!’ he said to Dad, as if Dad was the very person he’d been hoping to see. His wide mouth broke into a comradely grin. Beside me, Laura shrank back in her seat.
‘Thanks for having the girls,’ Dad called out, then he paused and leaned further out of the car window. ‘I take it they’ve just come from your place?’
Mr Van Apfel smiled worse than before.
‘Impossible to keep track of, aren’t they?’ he commiserated.
Dad returned Mr Van Apfel’s smile awkwardly. Then he waved and steered our car down the slope using his free hand, while Mr Van Apfel walked over the crest of his drive like the sun setting on another God-given day.
* * *
Lor and I never told anyone what we witnessed that day, so no one could be blamed for not knowing. (Though Mrs Van Apfel must have wondered why the aquarium in her laundry sat empty, and where Cordie’s mice had got to.) I guess I figured if I never said the words out loud, then maybe the terrible things we saw never really happened. So we kept our mouths closed, like we squeezed our eyes shut.
Our family of four blind mice.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The day of the school Showstopper – like every other day – the sky was blue and clear. It had been windy in the night and the she-oaks had shaken off their needles. They lay on the ground like brown entrails we couldn’t read.
I waited for Ruth, like always, at the signpost to our street. Where the letters of ‘Macedon Close’ grew more faded by the day, and where Ruth would show up and ask what I had for recess. But Ruth never showed and neither did Cordie, even though I waited for longer than usual. Then Mr Van Apfel emerged from the house on his own, and anyone could see that spelled trouble.
Mr Van Apfel was carrying things out to his car and loading them into the back. The station wagon was nose in, but whoever had parked it hadn’t taken it flush up against the back wall of the garage, so its blue boot hung out onto the flagstone paving like a gut hanging over a belt.
‘Morning, Tikka!’ he waved to me. Then he leaned back against the car and swung one ankle over the other, folding his arms confidently across his chest. A sea of black bitumen floated between us.
‘Waiting for my two?’ he asked.
I was, I replied. For Cordie and Ruth (if Cordie was coming to school for a change).
‘They’re not feeling well, I’m afraid,’ he called across to me. ‘They’re both going to stay home with Mrs Van Apfel today.’
He motioned for me to come over to his car. I glanced down the street but there was no one around, and I figured I didn’t have much choice but to do what Mr Van Apfel said
.
‘Whatcha got in there?’ I asked him warily as I approached the open boot of his car. He had the rear seats folded down and the whole back section of the car was piled high with junk. There were ring-binder folders and bundled-up brochures. A box overflowing with papers. Plus three long black bags zipped securely to the top.
‘In here? You mean the bags?’ Mr Van Apfel laughed and patted the bags. They caved easily under the weight of his hand. ‘Those are Mrs Van Apfel’s. She’s donating old curtains for the concert so I’m dropping them off at the school.’
‘For the Showstopper?’
‘That’s the one. The Showstopper concert. I hope your parents are going to be there?’
‘Yeah,’ I replied, and I thought about my skit. We had a lot to get through at today’s rehearsal.
‘Then your parents are in luck, Tikka!’ He beamed at me. ‘Because Mrs Van Apfel and I are bringing along some brochures to hand out tonight. They’re for our upcoming Salvation! service at the Hope Revival Centre.’ He picked up a pamphlet and fingered the embossed words on the front. A golden sun rose out of the deep ‘v’ in Salvation!. The rest of the card sat in black, matte-finish sin.
‘Okay,’ I said uncertainly.
The girls were still going to the Showstopper then, if Mr and Mrs Van Apfel would both be there. They would hardly trust them to stay home on their own now, all things considered.
‘We’re holding the Salvation! service in the worship hall next week.’
‘Okay.’
‘You’ll make sure you tell your mum and dad, won’t you?’
‘Okay.’
‘Salvation! service. You got that, Tikka? Do you want to write it down so you don’t forget?’
I had it, I assured him. I was good at remembering. I never forgot when it was important.
‘Well then, have a good day, Tikka,’ he said. ‘Ruth and Cordie will be back at school on Monday.’
‘What about tonight? They going to the Showstopper, too?’
I shouldn’t have asked; I knew as soon as I said it. Laura was always telling me I gave things away. (That was probably why they didn’t tell me about the Showstopper Runaway Plan in the first place. That, and they were just being mean.)
But Mr Van Apfel didn’t flinch.
‘They’ll be there, Tikka. My girls have got some repenting to do,’ he said. ‘They can hand out pamphlets for me at the show.’
He smiled. Then he turned back to his boot and started rearranging his brochures, whistling contentedly to himself.
It was the only time during our conversation that Mr Van Apfel gave any sign yesterday afternoon had happened. The mice, the ammonia. The runaway plan.
I headed over the crest of the drive. I would walk to school on my own.
‘They’ll be walking out the door at the Showstopper tonight!’ he called to my back and for one awful instant I thought he was talking about his girls.
I turned.
‘The brochures,’ he said, and he held one up for my benefit. ‘The brochures will be walking out the door.’
‘Salvation! service,’ I promised. ‘I’ve got it, Mr Van Apfel.’
He nodded approvingly as I crossed the street.
* * *
We had a dress rehearsal the morning of the show and we paid our two-dollar toll to ride the bus to the pit of the valley. I sat behind Melanie Firth and watched her ponytail bounce. The road got rougher the closer we got to the river. I’d made a prop for my skit from cut-up cardboard boxes that I’d got out of Mrs McCausley’s recycling bin. It was supposed to represent The Australian Bush, where my tragedy would take place. So I’d painted it lime green and stuck crepe-paper leaves on it. Even then it looked more like seaweed. And the word Tupperware still floated persistently to the surface like something dead showing up in the river.
‘Going to a Tupperware party?’
Jason Kenny smirked as he walked past me down the aisle of the bus on his way to the back seat. He was in a group of boys, all ramming and shoving and trying to knock one other off course. I gripped my prop tighter when they went past.
‘It’s for my skit,’ I said to Jason’s back, but I don’t know why I bothered.
I shuffled closer to the window. When we got down onto the flat the road was straight and long and you could see the amphitheatre rear up in the distance. There it was: that slab of stage, those shallow concrete steps. The Gothic arch, where our bus pulled up now. That arch stood like flotsam marooned by the tide. Just looking at it gave me the shivers.
In the car park the wind was blowing the right way for a change, so the smell of the mangroves folded back on itself. It was high tide and the waves had swallowed most of the shore. In places the water threatened to spill over onto the grass and it lapped at the edge of the oval. But that didn’t stop the boys heading straight over with their football.
I was crossing the car park in the direction of the stage when Melanie Firth stepped in front of me with her friends and the three of them stood in a row, blocking my path.
‘Give us a hand, would you?’ I said, pushing my cardboard tree towards them.
Six eyeballs rolled slow. Four arms looped in chains.
‘We’re not here to give you a hand,’ Melanie said.
Melanie Firth stood in the middle of the three so that both of her arms were linked through an elbow belonging to someone else. The backs of her hands met again at a place high on her stomach and they were pale and smooth, the skin taut over her beautiful bones.
‘Then why are you here?’ I asked.
‘We heard a rumour,’ Melanie said. ‘And we want you to tell us if it’s true.’
‘How should I know?’ I picked up my prop and started to move towards the stage.
‘Because it’s about your friend Cordelia Van Apfel. So we reckon you will know, and we reckon that you’re going to tell us too.’
Had I heard that Cordie didn’t break her arm falling out of that tree? That she jumped – it was deliberate, Melanie said. Trent Rainer saw the whole thing when he was doing the edges of the garden next door. Trent saw Cordie jump and he saw how she landed. Any reason she might try and land on her stomach?
‘But she didn’t,’ I corrected. ‘She landed on her arm. That’s how she broke it.’
Didn’t Melanie know anything?
‘Yeah, but she only put her arm out at the very last second. She was trying to go belly-first. Trent said. He saw her do it.’
I hadn’t heard that rumour, I told Melanie.
‘You sure?’ She smiled meanly and she gave me several seconds to think it over.
‘And anyway, it’s hardly a rumour when there was a witness and everything, so why are you asking me?’ I said and I cursed her softly under my breath. But she heard it and it only made her smile even more.
‘Go to hell,’ she mimicked, and she laughed.
‘Mr Avery said there is no hell,’ Carly Sawtell told us. She was standing next to Melanie and she scratched the back of her calf with her other foot as she spoke, then wobbled and threatened to bring the chain down.
‘When?’ I challenged.
‘At softball training.’
‘As if.’
‘He did.’
‘What’s hell got to do with softball anyway?’
But Carly Sawtell didn’t know the answer to that. She’d been moved to the outfield by then, where Mr Avery’s blaspheming didn’t reach.
‘So is it true or not?’ Melanie said. She tapped her foot when she spoke and the girl on her left copied her, so then Carly Sawtell joined in, and all three of them tapped like the tapping was something catching.
I glanced around the oval for a teacher.
But after we’d arrived that morning a second busload had pulled up near the arch and more and more kids had been fed through its mouth and onto the oval and they’d spread out across the park until the oval was more movement than stillness, more blue uniforms than brown grass. I couldn’t see a teacher anywhere.
‘I dunno,’ I said darkly. ‘No one told me. Maybe you should ask Cordie yourself.’
‘Maybe I will,’ Melanie said loftily. ‘Maybe you should ask her too. Maybe you should ask her why she’d want to do a thing like that.’
* * *
We missed our chance for a dress rehearsal that morning because we were sent back to school, prematurely, on the bus. All because the Year Six boys tried to make a campfire with a Bic lighter and a homework stencil and they burned a small island of charred grass beside the oval before anyone could stop them. After that, we were ordered back onto the bus and dress rehearsals were abandoned.
‘You haven’t seen our skit yet,’ I pointed out to Miss Elith.
But Miss Elith knew that, thank you Tikka. And what’s more, she wasn’t happy about it. She didn’t like the idea of us going on stage cold.
‘I dunno, I reckon it’ll be hot, Miss Elith,’ I assured her, ‘it’s blazing out here today.’
But Miss Elith was cross that the dress rehearsal had been cancelled. And also she’d had enough talk of fires for one day, and it was time to get back on the bus.
* * *
After our failed dress rehearsal we went back to school and back to our classroom, where Mrs Laguna pulled the blinds down low. She turned on the fans and said we could do quiet reading, or quiet drawing, or quiet work with the Cuisenaire rods. Quiet seemed to be the operative word. We were too revved up about the Showstopper that evening to do any real work, Mrs Laguna said.
‘Can I do a job for you, Mrs Laguna?’ I stood by her desk and asked.
And Mrs Laguna sighed like she’d known the question was coming.
‘Follow me,’ she said. Mrs Laguna only had one job available for a sensible person that afternoon and that job was tidying up the storeroom where the art supplies were kept.
The storeroom was a small, airless annex tucked behind the blackboard at the front of our classroom. It stared out over the back fence of the school. And so that afternoon I sat happily in the storeroom, stacking pots and paints and brushes and tubes, and just generally being useful. There were half-a-dozen pigeonholes built into the wall of the storeroom, and each hole held a new mess for me to untangle. I arranged all the paints in ascending colour and sorted pelts of fuzzy fabric according to size and shade. There were Chinese takeaway containers filled with mismatched scraps of paper and tubs of fat-bottomed Perkins Paste with their insides oozing out. I even found a box of rosemary left over from Remembrance Day last month. Each piece was stabbed through with a safety pin so we could attach it to our uniforms. But the rosemary was brown and curled now, and the leaves looked like the claws of tiny dead birds sticking in the air. I left the rosemary and spent a long time separating the paddle-pop sticks from the pipe cleaners and bundling them up in rubber bands.
The Van Apfel Girls Are Gone Page 16