I stuff my wet handkerchief in my bag. ‘In a second.’ She disappears around the corner. I hang back, wanting to be by myself for a moment, only now realising how much I’d been bottling things up and holding back. As I’m taking several deep breaths, a group of year nine students come clattering towards me, chattering and laughing. I quickly follow Rana out into the sun.
‘Want some of my lunch?’ she asks, when I catch her up.
‘It depends,’ I say, feeling a bit more cheerful.
‘On what?’
‘On what you’ve got.’
Rana laughs and for her it’s like the last five minutes never happened.
After the final buzzer has rung for the day, I tell Rana I’m going to the school library. I can’t wait to go to the town one on Friday, I’m bursting to search out some information on pirates. There’s always a twenty-minute wait before the bus departs, so I know I’ve got plenty of time. When Rana tells me she’s got some unfinished business with Wendy Forrester and won’t come with me, I breath an inward sigh of relief. It’s better if I don’t have to tell her about my pirate ancestor yet.
The library is hushed. There are only two other girls besides me. I go to the computer and type in the word ‘pirate’. The screen tells me to wait. At that moment I feel someone standing close behind me. I swing round. It’s Miss McKenzie. She must be on library duty.
‘Cassie, could I have a minute?’
‘Umm … yes,’ I reply, glancing at the screen to see if my request has been answered. Miss McKenzie might wonder at a list of books about pirates. She might think I’m being childish. Of course, I could tell her they’re for Richard, but I know we’re not allowed to take out books for other members of the family.
‘It’s about Rana.’
Her words take me by complete surprise. I forget the screen. Why does she want to talk to me about Rana?
‘Perhaps it would be better over here,’ says Miss McKenzie, pointing to a couple of chairs, well away from the other two girls.
When we’re seated, she says, ‘I know you and Rana are the greatest of friends …’
The door flies open and three more girls rush in. Miss McKenzie waits until she is sure we are not going to be disturbed. ‘And I’m sorry to burden you. But I have to know if there’s anything troubling her.’
I flounder for words, my thoughts and feelings tangle and turn to woollen knots.
‘Did you know,’ continues Miss McKenzie in her quiet voice, ‘that she has not handed in a single piece of work this year?’
I shake my head in disbelief.
‘Not only for English, but every other subject.’
I’m stunned.
Miss McKenzie looks at me, her eyes full of concern. ‘I can see you had no idea.’
‘I …’ my mouth is dry. Oh Rana, what’s going on? ‘No, I didn’t know.’ I look away, stare at the side wall.
Miss McKenzie sighs. ‘I thought I would ask you first, before tackling her parents. You’ve known each other for so long. Friends confide, tell each other things.’
I remember Rana’s opening words in our conversation last night: ‘Mum’s thinking of sending me to boarding school.’ Has her mother already sensed something? ‘Would you like me to try to find out?’ I ask, dreading her answer, sensing it before she speaks.
‘Only if you want to.’
‘She is my best friend,’ I blurt, then stop. My best friend, who it seems I know nothing about.
‘Thank you, Cassie.’ She rises and goes over to the issuing desk, where a girl is waiting with an armful of books.
As I walk back to the computer, I hear Rana’s voice in my ear, again talking about her mother. ‘She’s a hypocrite and a liar.’ What on earth could her mother have done to make her say that?
I leave the library and while I’m walking towards the bus stop my mind is full of questions. Questions that won’t go away. Questions that are all to do with Rana.
Chapter Five
I’m lying on the floor at home, talking to Rana on the phone. I didn’t say anything to her on the bus about what Miss McKenzie told me; it was too recent, it had only just happened. Like when I fell down running across a gravel patch at primary school. I couldn’t look at the mess my knees were in. I couldn’t look as they picked out the grey bits of gravel, one stone after another. I couldn’t look at the bleeding, but I could feel everything they did.
It’s the same with Rana. I can’t talk about it yet. But I will. At the moment, she is still trying to persuade me to go to the movies.
Mum steps over me. ‘What do you two find to talk about all the time? You’ve only just left each other.’
I grin up at her.
‘Well,’ says Rana, her voice low and mysterious in my ear. ‘You’ll be sorry.’
‘Why?’ I tease.
She sucks in her breath, lets it all the way out before speaking. ‘You just will. That’s all.’
‘I’m still thinking about it,’ I say, stalling for time. Maybe if I did go to the movies, it might just be the right time to find out what’s going on with Rana. Surely I could put up with Denny and his pirating ways for one night? I giggle, wondering what made me think that. I must have pirates on the brain. But somehow Denny and Bevan do fit the picture of two rough buccaneers, with their loud voices and crass behaviour.
Before Rana can ask what’s so funny, I hear Mrs Winters calling.
‘Gotta go. Mum’s on the warpath.’
‘Okay. See you later. You know where.’
I put down the receiver and scramble up. Richard comes into the kitchen. ‘Don’t suppose you want to go to the island?’ he asks hopefully.
I hesitate, knowing I should be doing my homework, but it’s been ages since I’ve been out in the boat. ‘Okay.’
‘Great.’
‘You go and ask Mum.’ I know she is more likely to relent to Richard than me. He disappears, his face beaming.
The island isn’t really an island. It’s part of the mainland, but at high tide the semicircle of land is surrounded by water. Then it really does become an island.
It is shaped like a half-deflated balloon, starting small at the beginning of the inlet, then getting bigger until its round, bulging end finishes opposite our place. It doesn’t take long to get there by boat, usually five minutes, depending on the tide and the weather.
When Richard and I were little, Mum used to take us on expeditions over there. Sometimes we camped out all night. It felt like we were kilometres out to sea, even though we could see the lights of the houses on the hill.
Once we found a grave. It was in the middle of the thick grove of pine trees that half-cover the island. There was no name on the headstone and it was surrounded by a wire fence covered in ivy. Even though I’ve looked for it since, I’ve never been able to find it again.
Richard returns waving two sacks. ‘Mum says we can go if we get some cones.’
‘Don’t forget your life jackets,’ calls Mum from her workroom.
‘Got them already,’ I reply.
The dinghy is moored against the rock wall, which runs along in front of the cabins.
‘You get in first, Richard.’
He jumps in. The boat rocks, small waves slapping against its wooden belly. Richard’s skinny legs hold it steady. I hand him the oars. After untying the mooring rope, I clamber on board, then push the dinghy away from the wall with my foot.
‘You can row.’
‘Wish we had a motor,’ Richard says, dipping the oars into the water, the sea pushing hard against the stern.
‘Tide’s on the turn,’ I say. ‘We’d better not be long.’
‘The Simpsons are getting one,’ Richard carries on. ‘They’re lucky.’
‘Where would Mum get money for a motor?’ I ask, shaking my head. Then I close my eyes and listen to the gentle plug, plug as the oars plunge slow and steady into the water.
I must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide … Is a wild call and a cl
ear call that may not be denied.
The island is deserted when we arrive, except for a couple of squabbling seagulls racing up and down the wet sand, heads down, squawking at each other. After we’ve pulled the boat well up over the small bank of shells, tied it to one of the oars and dumped our life jackets inside, we start off towards the pine trees. Richard dawdles, peering into the rock pools that are scattered the length of the island.
‘Come on,’ I say, ‘otherwise there won’t be time for anything else.’ I’m not in the mood for peering into pockets of water; I want to go deep into the forest, deep into its quiet, like when I’m swimming underwater.
He takes no notice. ‘Look! Look at this.’ He holds up a baby crab, its little legs scrabbling about in the air.
‘Don’t be so mean. Put it back.’
‘It’ll be great for class tomorrow,’ he says, ignoring my plea and instead pulling a plastic bag out of his pocket and slipping the crab inside.
‘Are you coming or not?’
‘Yeah. In a minute.’
‘Well, don’t be long.’
I walk on my own through the clumps of marram grass and tussock, up the small sandhill, then down the other side to where the pine trees start.
The clouds are low and grey, hanging like a thick blanket over the bay. Even though it’s warm, I know the weather’s going to change. I can smell it in the air.
Under the trees it is green and dark. The smell is like Christmas, rich and secret. I scour the ground for cones. There’s hardly any. I dump one of the sacks to show Richard which way I’ve gone.
Soon trees surround me. They lean tall over me, until there’s hardly any light. The years of needles are soft under my feet, slippery. I drag my quarter-full sack behind me. Now I can’t even hear the sound of the sea, it no longer exists, I’m in another world. Then from high up, high above me in the tops of the trees, I hear a whispering.
‘Cassie.’
It sounds like my name. I stop, look up into the darkness. The trees are still. There is no wind. I shrug off the unreal feeling, kneel down and start to throw more cones into the sack.
‘Cassie.’
And once in the middle of a great forest there was a little princess who was lost … It’s only my imagination. There is no voice. There was no one in the water yesterday. My heart is wild within me, banging so loud. It must be Richard. ‘I’m here,’ I yell. There’s no reply. My voice wraps around me like a net.
‘Cassie. Oh, Cassie.’
The little princess is in a dream, drowning in a strange sound, a sweet singing, a faraway singing, a singing of the sea in the shells … Something brushes against the side of my face, not a breath, not a sigh, but something. I grab the sack and run back the way I’d come. Through the trees, my feet barely touch the ground, skimming faster than a shag following a fish, skimming through the waves of trees until I break out of the forest, out into the open. I sink down onto the ground and try to stop trembling.
When I’ve recovered I go and find Richard.
He’s still at the rock pool.
‘Richard,’ I say, hesitant to ask, ‘did you hear something?’
He looks up. ‘Hear what?’
I bite my lip. Now I am going to sound stupid. ‘A sort of singing?’
He shakes his head. ‘No.’
I must have imagined it. Mum has been telling me for years that one day my imagination would get the better of me. ‘That’s okay,’ I say. ‘Probably the wind.’
‘There isn’t any wind,’ says Richard, giving me a curious look. He puts two small pieces of seaweed into his plastic bag and stands up.
I laugh it off, but I know something happened a few minutes ago. Something that is beyond explanation. Trees don’t talk, don’t sing out my name. It’s crazy. What on earth could it have been? I try to put it out of my mind. But I can’t. Perhaps it was the sea, and with the closeness of the forest, my imagination got the better of me. Yes. That’s it.
But even as I argue with myself, I know it wasn’t the sea. It wasn’t the trees. Then the answer strikes me. Rana! It’s just the sort of thing she’d do. She must have seen us coming over to the island, then when she saw me going into the forest on my own, she thought she’d get me.
But the nagging voice in my head won’t leave it alone. If that’s the case, then where’s her boat? it asks. To which I have no answer.
Over dinner that night Mum tells me she has remembered something in the trunk that I might be interested in for my project. I pick up a forkful of mashed carrots. ‘What is it?’
‘You’ll see.’ She gives a mysterious smile. My mother has this habit of springing surprises, not quite letting them out, until the actual moment. Usually I like it, play along, but after the business with Miss McKenzie in the library and the ‘voice’ on the island, I’m not really in the mood. I want to be by myself so I can think about things, see if I can make any sense of what’s going on.
‘Can I see the thing as well?’ asks Richard, flooding his dinner with tomato sauce.
‘That’s enough,’ says Mum, removing the sauce bottle from the table.
‘Covers up the yucky taste,’ he says. ‘Why can’t we ever have a barbecue?’
‘We can have one on Saturday, if you like.’
Richard’s pixie face brightens. ‘With sausages?’
I have the feeling that Ted is going to be here on Saturday. Mum is playing her little surprise game again.
‘You and Ted can be chief cooks,’ she says to Richard.
It’s not that Ted’s awful. He’s just so ordinary and I think Mum deserves someone much more special. Mum and Ted met last Christmas at a grand party put on by Aunt Elenor. In the beginning Mum didn’t want to go, but gradually she let herself be talked into it. That meant Richard and I had to go as well. It was awful. Boring with a capital B. Richard sneaked upstairs and played games on Denise’s computer (she said he could), but Mum insisted I stay with the adults.
Ted Sutton arrived late, about ten o’clock. Aunt Elenor had met him when he had spoken at her travel club about his trip to Alaska. After Aunt Elenor had introduced him to my mother, any suggestion of leaving the party disappeared. For the next two hours Mum and Ted talked and danced. Later Mum told us he had only recently moved here. He had been transferred from the Queensbury Library in Newtown to the Stalworth Library in Bridgetown. The Stalworth Library is the one Rana and I go to on a Friday night.
‘Cassie,’ says Mum, breaking into my thoughts, ‘aren’t you interested in what I’ve got to show you?’
‘Sorry, I was far away.’
My mother smiles knowingly. ‘Well, come on then. Dishes first.’
As I help to clear the table, Richard slides towards the door.
‘It’s your turn to dry,’ I say.
‘No it isn’t. I did them yesterday.’ And before Mum can say anything, he zip-zaps out of sight.
A quarter of an hour later I follow Mum to her workroom.
‘I remembered about them this morning,’ she says, bending over the brown trunk that sits under the window. She clicks open the metal lock, pushes up the lid. The top compartment is filled with scraps of material, which smell like they have been there forever. ‘Help me, Cassie.’
Together we lift out the top container and put it on the floor. Underneath are all sorts of packets and boxes, neatly piled on top of one another. Old chocolate boxes, round and square tins, and bundles of papers tied up with string.
‘Now,’ says Mum, kneeling and lifting up the layers, ‘I’m sure it’s here somewhere.’
‘What is?’ I ask.
‘A small red box. About the size of a matchbox.’
‘What’s in it?’ I ask, a finger of excitement running down my back.
Without replying, my mother lifts up a tiny box. ‘Here it is.’
I press closer.
She wiggles the lid open and tips out a pair of earrings into the palm of her hand. ‘There. What do you think?’
I think the
y are the most exquisite, the most divine pieces of jewellery I have ever seen.
‘Now these really are a family heirloom.’
I reach forward. ‘Can I …’
My mother nods.
I pick one up. It’s as fine as a moth’s wing, pale pink and as long as my middle finger, narrow at the top and flaring into a fan at the bottom. It reminds me of Grandma’s pink shell. ‘Wow!’ I whisper.
‘I’m sure they were hers,’ says my mother.
‘Whose?’
‘Your ancestor. Sarah Cassandra Addison.’
Much later that night I am lying in bed listening to the rain pounding on the roof of my cabin, trying to make sense of what Rana had told me at the boat shed when I met her there, not long after Mum had shown me the earrings. But I can’t. It’s like it’s all part of a strange dream, one from which I can’t seem to waken from. In my mind I go back to the event.
It’s 9.30. The bay is utterly still. There is no sound from the water. The dark is warm and muggy, pressing against my face. Rana and I have been there for an hour already. It’s getting late, I know I’ll have to get back in case Mum discovers I’m not doing my homework. For the last half hour I’ve been trying to find out what’s been going on with Rana, probing her with different questions, but have got nothing.
Impatient with myself and her, I decide to leave. But before I can make a move Rana says, ‘Cassie.’ Her voice is halting, unsure. ‘What would you do, if you found out that your father wasn’t?’
My insides stop. What’s she trying to tell me? I swallow. ‘You mean, wasn’t my father?’
‘Yeah.’
The moment is dead. It’s so quiet the sound of the blood in my ears makes me dizzy. Is she saying that Mr Winters isn’t her father? No. She can’t be. Of course he is.
‘Well?’ says Rana.
‘I don’t know.’ I shake my head.
Rana hunches over like a broken puppet, her dark hair falling over her white face. I can’t believe what she is saying. Perhaps she’s got it wrong. I feel her struggling, soft and soundless, beside me.
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