‘So, this is your school?’ He was looking around now, wide-eyed, like he’d never even seen a school before.
‘Yep!’ she said, her voice sounding weirdly enthusiastic.
‘It’s sick,’ he said. Was he making fun of her? Surely not, strange as it was that he’d think a library was so interesting. Although, she reminded herself, he was home-schooled. It would be like a whole different way of living, worlds apart from lockers and bells and a different classroom for each subject.
‘Did you sleep okay in the rain?’ Fabian asked. He was looking at Sam a little strangely. Like he was trying to extract some kind of information from his face.
‘It was kind of cool, although I was a bit worried my whole tent was going to fly away.’
‘Okay, guys,’ said Tessie, forever the killjoy, ‘so has anyone thought of a plan?’
‘A plan for what?’ asked Michael.
‘For more information, idiot. Or are you content just knowing your parents aren’t your parents? You don’t want to know anything more?’ Emma snapped, her words spilling out on top of one another. She still didn’t feel entirely comfortable with this new friendship arrangement with Michael, and she wanted that to be clear.
‘Oh, has someone been fantasising that they’re really a princess?’ he mocked.
She just rolled her eyes, although in truth the idea had briefly crossed her mind. He didn’t know; she could be anyone.
‘I know what you’re going to say. We should just ask them, right?’ he said.
‘No, actually I wasn’t going to say that!’ she said, louder than she had meant to.
‘Shh!’ said Tessie. They stopped talking for a moment and just listened to the hum of the heater and the mumble of hushed voices.
‘Guys, I thought we decided on no fighting?’ said Sam.
‘Sorry,’ said Michael, ‘force of habit.’
‘Me too,’ Emma said, although she wasn’t. Still, it had been big of Michael to apologise out of nowhere at the motel. It had surprised her.
‘It would be easier though, wouldn’t it?’ said Fabian, speaking for the first time in his quiet voice.
‘What would?’ asked Michael, and Emma was struck again by the awkwardness coming from him. The way he didn’t seem to meet Fabian’s eyes. Maybe, if it was affecting him this much, he really did feel bad.
‘They have all the answers we want. If somehow we could get them to tell us . . .’ he trailed off.
‘We could go through their phones?’ suggested Sam.
Emma almost laughed. ‘What do you mean? There’s no way they’d still have the same phones now as they did fifteen years ago, silly!’ she said.
‘Oh yeah,’ he said and laughed at himself. Emma liked that about him. She always found it hard to admit when she was wrong, perhaps because it was so rare.
‘What are you lot doing?’ a voice said, and they whirled around.
The librarian stood at the end of the aisle, looking suspiciously at them.
‘Nothing!’ Emma said. She looked up at the window, but it was empty.
‘This is a library. If you want to talk, go outside,’ the librarian said.
‘We have a reading group. We meet here every Monday, don’t you remember?’ replied Michael.
‘No, I don’t.’ The librarian resolutely crossed her arms.
‘Well, that’s because we always try to be very quiet and considerate,’ said Tessie. ‘You must not have ever even noticed we were here.’
The librarian narrowed her eyes. This was so annoying. The librarian was going to kick them out before they had a chance to think up a plan. It wasn’t like they could be seen together outside. It would look like Emma had chosen to deliberately sit with Tessie, Fabian and Michael. Everyone would notice that and it might get back to their parents. She would also never hear the end of it from her friends.
‘What kind of books do you read?’
‘Romance,’ said Michael, not even blinking.
The librarian scoffed. ‘Sure, like what?’
‘Well,’ Michael straightened, his face the picture of innocence, ‘my personal favourite is Jane Austen. Emma thinks we shouldn’t include anything pre-1900s, but I think that if you don’t know the classics, you don’t know anything, right?’
The librarian’s eyebrows shot up, but she didn’t seem to know how to respond. ‘I guess,’ she finally said, looking at each of them for a moment, as though expecting them to laugh. None of them did. But then her eyes flicked up to the window. ‘Hang on, why is that window open?’
‘I’m hot,’ said Michael instantly, flashing her a charming smile.
A simpering giggle escaped the librarian. She shook her head. ‘Okay, well, enjoy,’ and she walked away.
‘What was that?’ Emma hissed at him as soon as she was out of earshot. ‘Were you flirting with her?’
He wiggled his eyebrows and smiled. That was disgusting. The woman had to be like forty!
Sam’s face popped back into the window, laughing.
‘You crack me up, man,’ he said to Michael.
‘Great,’ said Michael coldly, the smile disappearing. ‘Okay, where were we up to? Oh yeah, we were going to somehow magically extract the information out of our parents’ brains without them knowing.’
They all ignored him. Why was it that every time he did something that made him remotely likeable, he had to ruin it by being a jerk almost straight away?
‘If only they were still friends.’ Tessie was sitting cross-legged, staring at her hands. ‘Then they’d probably talk about it all the time and we’d just have to listen in.’
‘Tessie, you’re a genius!’ exclaimed Sam.
‘Why?’ Tessie asked, her face colouring slightly.
‘We just have to figure out a way to get your parents talking about it to each other and then we just have to listen in.’
‘Our parents aren’t friends though. There’s no way they’d just hang out together for no reason,’ Emma told him.
‘Unless we give them a reason.’ Fabian shrugged and a mischievous smile rose on his lips.
They sat in silence for a moment, the idea swirling in their heads. It was even crazier than the hospital plan, but it could work.
‘Wow, Tessie,’ Michael muttered, ‘maybe you really are a genius.’
‘Shut up.’ She nudged him, but Emma noticed she had a small proud smile on her lips.
They spoke until lunchtime ended, bouncing ideas off each other, thinking up plans, whispering and trying their hardest not to argue. After a while, Emma made less and less suggestions. She could feel herself withdrawing from the whole conversation. She still wasn’t even sure if she wanted to do this. The whole thing just felt too exhausting. When the bell rang, Sam said goodbye and they all got up to go to class. Emma was glad it was over. The excitement she’d felt this morning had totally trickled away, and now she was unexpectedly upset. When they reached the library doors, Emma went in a different direction from the others. She wanted to be alone before the class began. She needed a few moments to think, to try to figure out why she didn’t feel excited like the rest of them seemed to be. This was what she wanted, after all; to find the truth was the whole point of all this.
Emma felt a presence rushing up behind her. For one heady moment, she thought it was Sam, but when she looked over her shoulder, her heart sank. It was actually Michael. Great.
‘God, you really don’t want to be seen with any of us, do you?’ he asked. ‘Afraid we’re going to cramp your style?’
She shook her head. ‘No! Isn’t the whole point to stay away from each other in public?’
‘Yeah, right, because otherwise you’d definitely love to walk around school with me.’
‘As if you’d want to be seen with me either.’
He shrugged and fell into step with her, calling her bluff. Together, they walked towards the main building. It felt bizarre. Wrong. But she wasn’t going to be the one to admit she didn’t want to be seen with him. She sn
uck a look at him out of the corner of her eye. Everything he did was annoying. The way he strolled along with that obnoxious gait to his walk, the way he had his backpack over just one shoulder like he was just too damn cool to wear it properly, the way he peered out at her from under his hair like he was thoroughly convinced it made him look handsome.
‘You’re staring at me,’ he said.
‘Yeah, you wish.’ She looked firmly back in front of her.
‘You’ve got no idea.’
She scoffed. It was like he just couldn’t resist messing with her. She stopped in her tracks. ‘What do you want, Michael?’
‘Why do I have to want something?’
‘There’s always something with you. Just spit it out.’
He sighed. ‘Fine. To be honest, I wanted to check you were alright. All this stuff is kind of full on and you looked sad when you left.’
She almost might have believed him, if it wasn’t for all the times he’d made fun of her. All the times he’d let doors swing back in her face or made her think, just for a moment, that underneath it all he might not be such a bad guy.
She shook her head at him and walked away. There was no point even answering.
It felt strange being picked up by her mum after school as though nothing had changed. She pulled her hair back into a bun as she walked and pulled out her nose ring. The red truck swung into the kerb and she climbed in, her mum already chattering on about her day at work. It was like everything was as normal when everything had changed. She flicked off her hearing aids and her mother’s voice became muffled.
She realised she’d felt like she’d been holding her breath all day. Finally she could exhale. Too much was changing too quickly and already they had a new crazy plan to put into motion. It had been okay when she’d been preoccupied by plans, and fantasising about a new family and how she could be anyone. Sitting here alone in the car with her mother, doing the trip they had done a million times, she couldn’t distract herself. All she could think of was that everything she thought she knew had been a lie. Her mother was a liar.
When they arrived at home, she followed her mum inside and went straight to her room. Just last year, she had spent barely any time in her room. She’d find it boring to be cooped up in there by herself. She’d always be in their narrow lounge room watching television with her mum and Ridha, or in the kitchen cooking, or even lying on her mum’s bed talking to her while she worked on her computer.
Now, she couldn’t be alone fast enough.
She lay down on her bed and stared up at the maps on her ceiling, imagining the cave-in. It was like looking back in time. She wondered if all these passages and tunnels were gone now, or if some of them hadn’t been destroyed. If maybe inside the mountain they still existed. If maybe her dad’s bones were still down there, inside one of the tunnels she was looking at now.
She sat up against the bed head. She had to snap out of it, her thoughts were getting too dark. Too upsetting. Really, she needed someone to talk to. Pulling out her phone, she checked the message board and, like it was destined, Sam was already online. It was like he knew, like he was waiting.
Without hesitating, she opened up a private message window.
PumpkinDreams: Hey, how are you going?
Immediately, the dots came up to show he was writing a message.
OhSammyBoy: So excited! I think we are super close to figuring it all out.
Emma almost winced. She didn’t really want to think about what they were planning. She let her cursor blink in the text box. She didn’t know what to say.
OhSammyBoy: How are you going?
PumpkinDreams: Yeah, I’m fine.
Emma desperately wanted to tell him everything, but she couldn’t just launch into it. She didn’t want him to think that she was whiny.
OhSammyBoy: Okay, but you should know you can tell me anything.
PumpkinDreams: Really?
OhSammyBoy: ’Course!
She hesitated, not sure if he really meant it.
PumpkinDreams: Even if it’s silly?
OhSammyBoy: Especially if it’s silly!
This made her laugh, and as she did, she felt it in her stomach. She was kind of into this guy. The ellipses on the screen showed that he was typing again.
OhSammyBoy: I already know you’re the coolest person I’ve met in this town. Nothing could make me think otherwise.
The coolest person he’d met! Sam was the coolest person she’d ever met, so if he thought she was cool, then that meant everything.
PumpkinDreams: Really?
OhSammyBoy: Duh! Now tell me.
She bit her lip, trying to put her feelings into words.
PumpkinDreams: Ha, I feel even sillier now! It’s just . . . I know my mum lied to me. In fact, everything kind of feels like a lie right now. But I still feel bad tricking them. It seems wrong.
She sent it and then instantly started typing again.
PumpkinDreams: It’s not that I don’t want to do it. It just feels like everything is spinning out of control too quickly. Everything is moving so fast.
OhSammyBoy: Fair enough. It’s been a pretty crazy couple of weeks!
PumpkinDreams: Exactly.
She couldn’t believe it had only been a few weeks since all this had started.
OhSammyBoy: I have an idea.
PumpkinDreams: Really?
OhSammyBoy: How about we have a secret code. If one of us is feeling like everything’s going too quickly, then we do the code and the other person makes sure it all slows down for a while.
Emma felt like she might be blushing. They would share a secret, just her and Sam.
PumpkinDreams: That’s a great idea!
OhSammyBoy: Okay so what should the code be?
PumpkinDreams: Umm . . . I don’t know!
OhSammyBoy: How about you cross your eyes and pat the top of your head.
PumpkinDreams: Ha-ha! Okay!
OhSammyBoy: Cool.
She hesitated, not sure what to say next.
OhSammyBoy: I gotta go. Just so you know, I think you’re awesome.
Grinning from ear to ear, Emma began typing that she thought he was awesome too when he went offline.
Instead, she typed into the group message board.
PumpkinDreams: Super excited about our plan — I think we’re really close to figuring this out!
CHAPTER 16
FABIAN
He was awoken the next morning in the usual way, by shouting. No one in his family seemed to know how to speak quietly. His sisters shouted to each other from their bedrooms, accusing one another of stealing clothes. His mother and father shouted at his sisters to hurry up, at their cat to move out of the way and at each other in Italian. Some mornings he found this a little grating. This morning, he lay in bed and enjoyed it. It was nice for everything to feel completely normal for a moment. They were well on their way to finding the truth and Fabian was afraid that somehow when he knew who he really was, he would lose his family forever.
He closed his eyes and the remnants of the dream he’d had last night rushed into his mind. There was darkness all around him. He’d tried to reach out a hand, but it had hit something hard. He couldn’t move. The walls had pressed in around him. He’d had that dream many times before.
‘Fabian?’ his mother called. ‘Are you ready?’
‘Nearly,’ he said, getting out of bed. He didn’t want to lie around any longer, for fear the dream might weasel its way back in.
‘Digli di fare in fretta!’ he heard his mum shout to his father.
‘I’m coming!’ Fabian called, pulling on a T-shirt and jeans. Before leaving his room, he looked back towards his window. He’d got into the habit of checking it regularly. He couldn’t help it. It wasn’t like he was expecting Sam to be there, or like he was disappointed when he wasn’t; he just couldn’t help but check. So far, it’d always been empty. In fact, Sam hadn’t mentioned the visit at all since then. He was trying himself to forget abou
t it too, to not think about how awkwardly he’d behaved or how embarrassing it’d been that he was shirtless or even why Sam had come at all. No. He wouldn’t think about it.
He sat down at the breakfast table and his father put a steaming pile of scrambled eggs in front of him.
‘That’s worth getting up for, isn’t it?’ his father asked, putting on a mock hurt face.
‘I suppose.’ Fabian shovelled in a mouthful. They were soft, fluffy and just the slightest bit salty.
‘You kill me, sonny boy.’ His dad went back into the kitchen to pour more eggs into the pan for his sisters. His mother was running around the room in her scrubs, tossing things into her handbag.
‘Was work alright?’ she asked. ‘I didn’t hear you come in last night.’
‘That’s because I fixed that bike of his — the bottom bracket was busted. How’d you even do that?’ his dad asked.
Fabian shrugged, choosing to answer his mum’s question instead. ‘Work was fine. Boring. I watched Scarface again.’
This wasn’t technically true. He’d ended up watching the rest of Twilight with Tessie. It felt different to watch the film with her. She’d made sarcastic jokes the whole way through, but had seemed genuinely devastated whenever something bad had happened. He was beginning to really like her; she was so different from his sisters or anyone else who he knew, really.
‘I remember when that film came out,’ his dad said, ‘before you were even born.’
‘Stop it, you’re making me feel old,’ his mum added, and they began talking in Italian and laughing.
Fabian ignored them, which was easy since he only knew a few words in Italian. Instead, he stared out the window at the bright white walls of Michael’s house. That’s where he would be this afternoon; he wasn’t looking forward to it. Part of him was still so angry with Michael, he doubted that would ever go away, but he was also angry with himself for still being a little bit afraid of him. It was so obvious that Michael saw him as weak; he’d only stopped picking on him so the rest of the group would like him. Then yesterday, when he’d chosen him first in PE. It was so humiliating. Really, he tried not to think of Michael at all. When he did, it was like he could still hear the sound of him laughing as he’d smashed painfully to the ground off his bike that day. His shoulder feeling like it had broken, his back numb with pain, his bike falling on top of him, the pedal cutting into the skin on his calf. Michael didn’t seem to be afraid of anything. He invited them around to use his father’s email like it meant nothing. Maybe he knew that Fabian would be too scared to do something like that, which was correct. He hated that it was true.
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