Mum looks at me and her lips start to tremble. ‘Oh, Paige,’ she says. ‘You’re all grown up. Our baby’s off to high school.’
I don’t know if it’s the thought of going off to high school that makes my eyes fill with tears or the fact that she said ‘our baby’. I tug the curtain back across so Mum can’t see me cry. Dad is meant to be there on my first day of high school. He’s meant to wish me well and give me advice and kiss me on the forehead. He’s meant to make me feel okay that no one cared enough to write in my Passport. He’s meant to be standing beside Mum and waving as I walk off down the front path on the next part of my journey.
But where will Dad be on that day at the end of January? Where is he now?
Mum pays for the skirt and three white blouses. I had planned to suggest going to the cafe next door for morning tea, but all I want to do now is go home. And judging from the speed with which Mum hightails it out of the shop and up the street, she feels the same way. So much for my attempt to cheer her up and take her mind off Dad. All I’ve done is make myself more miserable.
Early in the morning two days later, Mum comes out of the spare room.
‘It’s time we all got out of the house, girls,’ she announces.
‘Are we going to see Dad?’ I ask. The thought excites me and scares me at the same time. He hasn’t rung, and I haven’t tried to phone him again. I’ve been too nervous. Although I miss him terribly, I don’t think I can face him at the moment.
‘No,’ Mum says. ‘I’ve consulted the rune stones and they said we all need a holiday.’
‘A holiday!’ Felicity squeals and leaps out of bed. She starts packing her clothes into a bag.
‘But we always spend our holidays in Juniper Bay, and Dad is coming over on Christmas Day,’ I remind Mum. ‘Tomorrow.’
‘And that’s exactly why we’re not going to be here,’ Mum says.
9
I want to leave a note for Dad, or phone him, but Mum says there’s no time, we have to go now.
I feel bad about leaving so close to Christmas, but I’m also relieved. Part of me would love to see Dad, but I’m dreading seeing his face when I explain the fight at the pool party was my fault. I get a pain in my stomach every time I remember that I’m the reason he went away.
And maybe a change of scene will take my mind off my empty Passport and my lack of friends for a while.
We pile into the hearse (that’s what Mum’s car is—one of Dad’s old funeral vehicles) and head north on the highway out of town. The traffic is awful. Cars are bumper to bumper, stuffed with families and Christmas presents. Everyone in the state must be on their way to see their loved ones for Christmas. I bet we’re the only ones running away from ours.
Mum is concentrating on driving and Felicity is sprawled across the back seat with her magazines, so I stare out the window. As the traffic thins out we pass dairy farms and I think about Rochelle at her grandparents’ place. Then we drive through tall conifer forests and I imagine Jed skiing through snow-covered trees. I think about Elfi when we drive past empty beach after empty beach. She’d told us that her German relatives were looking forward to hitting the surf.
After a while I doze. I only wake up when we stop for food, or petrol, or new magazines for Felicity. Mum closes her eyes and sniffs the air at each place, almost as though she is choosing our destination based on its aroma. She won’t tell us where we’re going. Perhaps the rune stones didn’t tell her. ‘You’ll know when we get there,’ she says.
At last we pull into a camping ground on a headland overlooking a wide beach. Caravans and tents and camper trailers dot the field. Mum pulls the hearse up to one of the on-site vans and goes to the office to check in. I expect people to be staring at us and the hearse. They always do. But nobody even turns their head. Then I realise why. The caravans and tents here are all brightly coloured and painted with stars and moons and fires and gypsies. Our weird car fits in perfectly.
‘What is this place, Mum?’ Felicity asks as we unlock the door of our caravan.
‘It’s a psychic fair,’ Mum announces. ‘You’re going to love it here.’
After we unpack, I walk around the caravan park. It’s a bit like a carnival. There are some seriously strange people here.
For example, there is Claire, the Queen of Clairvoyance. Claire has wild green hair and long fingernails. Her caravan is across from ours on the way to the toilet block and I’ve walked past it twice now. Both times she has called out to me. The first time she said, ‘The night moves across the sun during the spring of the crows.’ And the second time, ‘Take heed, little one, the wolf cries for blood.’
Back at the van Felicity is chucking a wobbly. ‘There’s no internet. No mobile phone reception. There’s not even a normal shop. This place is like juvenile detention!’ She points out the van’s tiny window at the camping ground. ‘The only reason we’re not locked up is because we’re in the middle of nowhere. We’d die of starvation and exposure before we got anywhere. Thanks a lot, Mum.’
I approach Mum cautiously. I know she is doing her best to make us happy. ‘Um, Mum. There’s a strange lady up there called Claire and she——’
‘Claire, the Queen of Clairvoyance?’ Mum’s eyes glow. ‘I didn’t know she was going to be here!’ She runs out of the van.
‘That crystal ball of hers isn’t working too well,’ Felicity sneers. She stomps across the van and lies on her bed. She tosses and turns and then sits up, banging her head on the bunk above. ‘God, this is juvie! Bunk beds and a wardrobe the size of a pencil case. There’s not even a mirror for putting on make-up!’
‘It’s not so bad,’ I say, trying to think of the pluses of being here. ‘The beach is nicer than at home, and it’s just down a little track——’
‘I’m not walking down a snake track to go for a swim in shark-infested waters.’
I leave Felicity to her whining. I want to phone Dad. Even though I feel anxious about talking to him, tomorrow is Christmas Day and he needs to know where we are. So I walk back to the public telephone booth. I dig through the pocket of my shorts and find some coins. I go to put them in the slot, but then I notice there is a small handwritten sign taped to the receiver.
PHONE BROKEN, it reads.
‘Great!’ I say. I walk back to our caravan. Mum has put her sign out the front: Nicole Knows: Psychic readings. Tarot cards, crystal ball, palm readings. Your future is in my hands.
For the first time I wonder if she knew that Dad was going to leave.
I ask her.
‘Of course I knew,’ she says as she fluffs out a lace cloth and places it over the plastic table in the annexe attached to the caravan.
‘Then why didn’t you do something to stop him? Why didn’t you cancel Felicity’s party?’
‘What are you talking about, Paige?’ Mum puts her crystal ball in the centre of the table and starts laying out her tarot cards.
Perhaps I shouldn’t have mentioned the party. If Mum doesn’t know it’s my fault that Dad left, I don’t want to explain it to her right now. ‘You just let him go,’ I say instead.
‘I can see things, Paige. I can’t control things. Especially another person’s destiny.’
‘But Dad’s destiny is part of our destiny.’
Mum stops laying out the tarot deck and looks at me. ‘Your father will always be in your life, Paige. Don’t worry about that.’
‘Can you drive me to the next town so I can call him?’
‘The next town? It’s miles away, Paige.’
‘Where are we, Mum? How do people manage to get in touch with the outside world from here?’
‘It’s juvie,’ Felicity calls out. ‘You only get one phone call and that’s to your lawyer!’
‘Maybe you could climb that hill over there,’ Mum says. ‘Take your mobile and see if there is any reception.’
‘I haven’t got any credit,’ I say. With all my friends unreachable over the holidays I hadn’t bothered to buy more.
/> ‘Take my phone, then,’ Mum says.
I look out to where she is pointing. The headland curves up and around, and beyond it is a steep hill. It doesn’t look too far away. I take Mum’s phone from her beaded string bag and switch it on. The signal flashes then disappears. I slip the phone into my pocket.
‘Do you want to come, Fliss?’
‘Out to the exercise yard?’ she grumps. ‘No, thanks. I’ll just sit here and dig a tunnel under my bunk with my toothbrush. I might make it out before I turn eighteen.’
‘Take some water,’ Mum calls out as I leave the annexe.
I walk and walk in the late afternoon sun. I’ve forgotten my hat and I’ve forgotten my sunscreen. Sweat is soon streaming down my face. The hill has not got any closer. Every so often, I wipe the sweat off my face with my t-shirt and check the signal on Mum’s phone. Nothing.
After about an hour, the tufty heath grass ends and the hill looms up before me. It is like a jungle. It reminds me of Felicity’s pool party.
I don’t want to be reminded of Felicity’s pool party. I shake my head to clear the image of Dad standing there with his fists clenched and a lost look on his face. I take a deep breath and force myself to concentrate on what is right in front of me. Long vines are wrapped around trees. Birds flitter through the shadows. Lizards scuttle under the leaf litter. The path winds up through the trees. It is steep, and I need to hang onto the trees in places and pull myself up. Some vines are stretched across the path, and I wish I had a knife, like a real explorer, to cut my way through them. I have to scramble under them instead. My t-shirt is dripping with sweat.
Towards the top of the path, the trees begin to thin out and I can see blue sky. I am tempted to check the signal on the phone, but now the rocky hilltop is in sight, I want to keep going.
I walk with my head down against the scorching sun, lifting it every few steps to see if I have reached the top. One more minute of climbing, I figure. I begin to count silently to sixty, focusing on the numbers and trying to forget about my burning face, my rasping breath and my aching legs.
‘Fifty-eight, fifty-nine, sixty!’ I round a corner between boulders, look up and nearly fall backward. A girl is sitting on the highest rock at the top of the hill.
‘Who are you?’ she says.
I’m panting too heavily, from fright and exhaustion, to answer. She stares at me with aquamarine eyes, a sun-tanned face and wavy, sandy-blonde hair.
‘Where did you come from?’ she demands.
‘I’m … staying at the … camping ground … back there,’ I pant. I turn around and point down the hill. The view is amazing. I can see the entire coastline. The tiny dots of colour in the camping ground look like the freckles on fairy bread.
‘So you’re with them,’ the girl says.
‘Them? Who?’
‘The freaks,’ she says. ‘The wailing, chanting, belly-dancing, incense-burning fortune tellers.’
I am too exhausted to be offended. I smile instead. ‘Yeah.’
‘So what do you do?’
‘Do?’
‘Yes. Tea-leaves? Jewellery? Palms? Or have you got a crystal ball?’
‘I don’t do anything. My mum reads palms and tarot cards. And she has a crystal ball.’
The girl rolls her eyes.
‘Do you live here?’ I ask.
‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘My mum runs the caravan park and my dad makes jewellery.’
‘Are they into all this psychic stuff, too?’
‘No way,’ the girl says. ‘Although Mum does get a reading every year and they always say the same thing:“You are going to have a very profitable summer.”’ She waves her fingers beside her face, spookily.
I smile again.
She jumps down off the rock and lands beside me. ‘So what’s your name?’
‘Paige.’
‘Paige!’ she scoffs. ‘Read It and Weep! What sort of a name is Paige for a psychic’s daughter? Aren’t all you lot called Moonstone or Amethyst or something?’
‘My middle name is Crystal.’
The girl laughs.
‘What’s your name, then?’ I ask. I don’t really care about the answer. This girl is starting to annoy me.
‘Shelly.’
I can’t help myself and I burst out laughing. Now it is her turn to be offended.
‘Yeah, I know, I look like something that washed up on the beach.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘That was mean of me.’
She shrugs. ‘I get it a lot. Just like you must get “Read It and Weep” a lot.’
‘First time,’ I reply.
‘To your face,’ she answers, grinning.
I laugh again. It feels good to laugh. Maybe this Shelly is not so bad after all.
‘So,’ Shelly says, ‘do you want me to show you the easy way back down?’
I pull out Mum’s phone. ‘Give me a few minutes. I want to make a call.’
Shelly walks down to a rock on the ocean side of the mountain. I check the signal and jump for joy when two bars flicker. I scroll through Mum’s contacts until I find Dad’s work number.
I hit the call button and stand on the rock looking out at the brilliant-blue sea. Dad answers after six rings. ‘Hello?’ he says.
Suddenly I don’t know what to say.
‘Hello?’ Dad repeats.
‘Um … hi, Dad. It’s me, Paige.’
‘Paige! It’s so good to hear from you. How are you?’ His voice sounds echoey.
‘I’m … I’m …’I don’t know how I am. ‘I’m standing on a rock on top of a hill looking across the ocean.’
‘What?’
‘Mum’s taken us on holiday.’
‘Where?’
‘Um …’ I don’t know. I’d been asleep for most of the trip. ‘Shelly,’ I call out, ‘where are we?’
Shelly turns around, squinting into the sun. ‘On top of the world.’
‘But what’s the name of your caravan park?’ I ask.
‘Bloodstone Beach. It’s just north of Sugar Harbour.’
I relay the information to Dad.
‘Sugar Harbour!’ he says. ‘That’s six hours away!’
Six hours? I didn’t realise we’d travelled so far. ‘So you’ll come tomorrow for Christmas?’ I ask. I suddenly can’t wait to see him, even though I am dreading explaining about the pool party.
Dad hesitates. ‘I don’t know, Poss. It’s a long drive. As soon as I get up there I’ll have to turn around and come back again. I have to work on Boxing Day.’
‘But you promised.’ I try to keep the desperation out of my voice.
‘But that was when I thought you would be at home for Christmas. Why didn’t you tell me you were going away?’
‘We didn’t know, Dad. It was one of Mum’s snap decisions. I guess she heard that there was a psychic fair on …’
‘A psychic fair?’ My father sounds angry. ‘Oh, now I understand.’
‘So will you come, Dad? Please.’ But before he can answer there is a long beep and the signal goes dead.
‘Dad? Dad?’ I shout into the phone. I hit the redial button, but the little bars that show the level of reception have disappeared. I switch the phone off and then turn it on again. Still nothing.
‘Trouble at home?’ Shelly says.
‘Are you psychic or just an eavesdropper?’ I grumble.
‘Neither,’ she says. ‘But people often come to Bloodstone Beach when they’re going through a rough time.’
‘Bloodstone Beach sounds like the place a serial killer would go for a holiday,’ I say.
Shelly laughs. ‘You’re funny, Paige. No, bloodstone is a healing stone and the beach down there used to be full of them. If you find one, it’s meant to sort out all sorts of problems with friendships, relationships, everything. Hey, you might find a boyfriend here.’
‘I don’t want a boyfriend.’
Shelly shrugs. ‘Me neither. Come on.’
I follow her down the grassy hill unt
il we come to some huge rocks. Waves crash below the rocks and the spray soon drenches us. Shelly leads me along the rocks, leaping from ledge to ledge. The churning ocean heaves beneath us.
‘I thought you said this was the easy way back,’ I shout.
‘Did I say easy?’ Shelly laughs. ‘I meant scary.’
A huge wave erupts and I swear the rock I’m standing on is going to crumble into the sea. ‘Thanks a lot,’ I shout over the roar of the surf.
‘This will be something for you to write home about, Paige,’ Shelly says.
‘The only thing people will be reading is Paige’s obituary,’ I scream as another wave crashes beneath us. ‘And yes, they’ll read it and weep.’I had to say it before she did, even if I don’t think many people really would weep if I just disappeared.
Shelly laughs. ‘You’re not going to die.’ She reaches out her hand to help me across the last ledge. My feet hit dry, level rock. ‘There. The worst of it is over.’
A path springs up between the rocks and leads down to the sand. I trail behind Shelly and collapse on the beach. I’m exhausted and my legs are trembling.
‘Come on,’ she says. ‘We’ve still got the length of this beach to go before we get back to Bloodstone Beach.’
I lift my head and groan. The beach stretches south for as far as my weary eyes can see. Shelly helps me to my feet.
‘I’ll race you,’ she challenges. She sprints off across the sand, and I follow.
The sun is setting behind the hill when we get back to the camping ground. ‘My mum will be worried,’I say.
‘Wouldn’t she have looked in her crystal ball and seen that you were okay?’ Shelly says. ‘Well, Dad’s cooking up a Christmas Eve barbecue, so I’d better go. See ya.’
‘Yeah, see ya,’ I reply. But I doubt that Shelly will see me again. She’s probably got loads of friends. Why would she hang around with someone boring like me?
Mum has not looked in her crystal ball to see where I am, but she’s not worried, either. When I get back to our van she is sitting on a sun lounger outside, talking to a man with a balding head and a long ponytail. They are drinking red wine.
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