by Fleur Ferris
Sierra rang me that Friday while she was on her date. She told me that he was amazing, and that she wanted to stay the night. She promised to be back Saturday morning. She sounded happy and excited; she was in love.
That was the last time I spoke to Sierra. She didn’t turn up on Saturday morning. Police were notified of her disappearance on Sunday afternoon.
A week later, Sierra was found in a shallow grave near Ballarat.
Police are still searching for her killer. They say it will be hard to find him because the guy Sierra met had made himself online-invisible. He used a proxy box, which allowed him to move around the internet without leaving any trace. He was able to meet Sierra and spin all his lies so that she would fall for him, knowing that his online self would never be able to be found.
Sierra had no idea about proxies and never knew she was in danger. This made her easy prey. This made her at risk.
By answering a few questions in the survey below, you can find out where you sit on the online-invisible/risk scale.
A notification pops up on my screen. I have my first email.
Dear Taylor,
I’m so sorry to hear about your friend, Sierra. Your website is so beautiful it made me cry. Then I read your blog. OMG. Reading that stuff about proxy boxes made me sick. I’ve met a few guys online and everything has always turned out fine. But there was this one time when the guy I met was really weird. He was much older than he said he was and there was something about him that spooked me. I told him I was going to the toilet in the train station and did a runner. When I got home I looked for him online and I couldn’t find him ANYWHERE. I figured he used a false name. The name he used was Jack Palmer. I’ve attached the photo of him. The photo was definitely him, but I think he photoshopped it to make himself look younger.
I hope they find Sierra’s guy soon.
Buffy
As I read Buffy’s words, goosebumps rise on my arms. I open the JPEG, half-expecting to see the stolen photo Jacob Jones sent Sierra. It’s not. I let go of the breath I didn’t know I was holding. The photo is of a guy wearing sunglasses. Behind him is a white wall, so the photo must have been taken inside. It’s hard to tell his age. His hair is sandy blond, long enough to be pulled back into a ponytail. His eye colour is hidden. There’s nothing scary about him and Buffy says it was definitely him who she met. At least he sent a photo of himself. He lied about his age, but, hey, so did Sierra. I save the photo to my hard drive and type his name underneath. I then write a quick reply to Buffy and thank her for her email.
I still can’t get my head around doing my homework. I begin and then flick back to my website. I inbox Callum with updates. He writes straight back every time.
EIGHTEEN
The next morning Callum and I walk across the oval. As we walk, a few kids come up to us and tell us how good they think the website is. There’s a buzz when we walk into the canteen, and lots of people turn to look at me. A few smile and wave.
I look for Joel and Riley. Joel’s sitting with a group of guys; Riley’s nowhere in sight. I check my phone. Still no messages from her. I scan the faces again. I see Izzy and walk over.
‘Hey, Izzy. Have you seen Riley?’
‘She’s here,’ she says, looking around. ‘I saw her about twenty minutes ago.’
‘Did she look … okay?’ I ask.
‘Yeah … Not really,’ she said. ‘She and Joel split last night. Again.’
‘Oh,’ I say. ‘I didn’t know.’
I feel really bad. I check my phone and Facebook. There’s nothing from her, but I see an email from Mr Samalot sent only a few minutes earlier, letting me know that the chat room is live.
At lunchtime I advertise on Facebook and Twitter the first real-time discussion, at eight o’clock, tonight. The topic is ‘Are you open to meeting someone online?’
When I get home from school, I all but count the minutes until eight o’clock arrives. I have about twelve people discussing the issue. None of the twelve people uses their own name and it’s obvious by their comments they had read everything on the site about Sierra. Controversy and different opinions jump onto the screen but almost everyone is courteous – I only have to warn one person for being disrespectful.
Mum comes into my room and stands behind me.
‘Do you mind if I sit with you and watch?’ It’s the first time in a long while I’ve heard energy in her voice.
‘Sure,’ I say. ‘You can join in if you like.’
‘Oh, no, I think I’ll just be an observer.’
Mum has no confidence when it comes to talking to people online. Mostly she hates it, says that it’s antisocial and that young people don’t know how to communicate properly. I’m sure that once she sees it’s just a different way of talking, she’ll understand that we do communicate. We just communicate face to face and online. She might even realise she’s the one who’s lacking.
She’s reading each comment as it comes up. I hang back and let others contribute. Username Rabbit believes that it is fine to meet guys who you’ve connected with on the internet as long as you meet in a public place in daylight hours. Spinach Smile thinks Rabbit is totally at risk of danger. Every scenario Rabbit puts forward, Spinach Smile rebuts.
‘I kind of agree with Spinach Smile,’ I say to Mum.
‘Well, I can see why Rabbit feels it’s safe. You could meet someone on the train and exchange names and numbers. People do that. I met your father in a pub –’
‘I forgot you picked him up in a pub!’
‘I didn’t “pick him up”. I said I met him in a pub.’ She fakes coyness.
‘Oh, Mum. You got married, it doesn’t matter if you picked him up or not!’
‘But seriously,’ she continues, ‘is meeting up with someone you came across online any more dangerous than that?’
‘Probably not …’
‘I guess it’s calculated risk,’ she says. ‘You could hide a lot more online than when you meet in person. Your age, for instance.’
‘Do you want to join the conversation? You could write that.’
She shakes her head and looks horrified at the thought. She stands up.
‘I’m so proud of you. Look at what you’re doing. This is really something.’ She squeezes my shoulder as she leaves.
The chat goes for three hours. The most people we have online at once is twenty-six, although more than double that number contributed a comment at some point. I post my last comment for the night and then leave the conversation open so anyone can have a final say.
I wish to thank everyone for your thoughtful and respectful contributions this evening. I’m signing off. I will leave the topic open so that if you would like to continue the discussion, you may. I will respond tomorrow. Thanks again for spending time with me on Risk.
I open Twitter.
Are you online-invisible or risk?
I add the link to my blog and tweet it.
I sit up late and try to do part of an assignment. I’m falling behind in everything, but schoolwork just doesn’t feel as important as Risk.
I wake late and feel exhausted from lack of sleep and stodgy from no exercise. I haven’t got time to go jogging now – I’ll go after school. Mum has snuck off to work. Callum’s mum is waiting in the driveway before I’m ready. I grab my bag and a hair band and rush out the door without breakfast.
‘Sorry, I slept in,’ I say as I get in the car.
‘Were you up monitoring?’ Callum’s mum asks.
‘Monitoring?’ I’m tired and can’t work it out. I pull my hair back into a pigtail. I must look a mess.
‘Your website went viral overnight.’
I sit up straight. ‘What?’
‘Mum, not viral,’ Callum interjects. ‘Sorry, Mum doesn’t actually know what “viral” means.’
‘I do so.’
‘Yeah, well, in the scheme of the world wide web, five hundred shares is not viral.’
‘Five hundred?’ I almost yell. ‘Are yo
u serious? Oh my god! Five hundred?’
Callum swivels in his seat to look at me.
‘You didn’t know?’
‘No. I slept in. I didn’t have time to check.’
‘Oh.’ His grin is huge. ‘Just over five hundred. But that isn’t viral.’ He glances at his mum.
I can’t see her face, but by the toss of her head, I think she’s rolling her eyes.
‘It was mainly Facebook and Twitter,’ says Callum. ‘Facebook doesn’t really count cos it’ll mostly be kids from school, but the Twitter ones do.’
‘Isn’t getting the message across to schoolkids the main point of it?’ Callum’s mum puts in. She’s annoyed. ‘Wouldn’t they count the most?’
‘They would have shared it because they know us. The retweets were from people we don’t know.’
We’re dropped off at the gate. The canteen is buzzing with talk of the website and its overnight success. We’re swamped with kids congratulating and hugging us. Some of the girls are completely focused on Callum. They even tell him how gorgeous he looks with his new teeth, even though he got his braces off ages ago now. He half-smiles, half-laughs, and keeps glancing towards the floor. That new-found confidence he had before Sierra disappeared is gone. He clears his throat every few seconds. I place a firm smile on my face and blink and blush through it, hoping he doesn’t see me noticing all the attention he’s getting.
Mr Samalot strides towards us. He smiles wide.
‘Congratulations.’ He chuckles and shakes our hands. ‘An impressive result for only two days live. Very impressive. You have to be happy with that.’
We thank him and he stalks off towards the staffroom.
I look around for Riley. She’s nowhere to be seen. She’s done this before during a break-up. Here, but not here. She hides away, goodness knows where. But normally she texts me at some stage with something. She must still be angry at me. First there was the Callum thing, then I was pretty mean to her when she offered to help with the website.
English is first. Riley is already sitting with Izzy before Callum and I arrive. I try to catch her eye but she doesn’t allow me in. I think about things from her point of view. She hears – not from me – that Callum and I made out. She tells me everything, but I didn’t tell her. Well, usually I have nothing to tell. Nothing happens in my life. Ever. And if it does, I do tell her.
But a huge wedge in the middle of all this was Sierra’s disappearance, and then her being found. Anger clouds my view. How can Riley have these stupid little jealousies right now? How can she find this anything but trivial? Sierra is dead. She’s fucking dead. What is wrong with Riley? I can’t look at her for the rest of the class, or concentrate on what the teacher’s saying. I can’t hear anything. I can’t read anything. All that is inside my head is the chant ‘Sierra is dead, Sierra is dead.’
All morning, my anger at Riley builds and builds. I think of nothing else but the website and Sierra; conversations Sierra and I had, her funny expressions, her beautiful clothes from all over the world, songs she sang … god, Sierra was always singing. And laughing. Riley was always so nasty to her. Always. I can’t believe I listened to her when she told me that Sierra had disappeared on purpose. Why didn’t I defend Sierra more? Why didn’t I believe in the Sierra I knew? Why wasn’t I more loyal?
Callum puts his hand on my shoulder. I could bite it off. He adds to my frustration.
‘Are you okay?’ he asks.
I stare at him. How dare he start something with me and then go cold.
‘I don’t feel right,’ I say.
His eyebrows knit together. ‘What does that mean?’
‘I dunno. I just don’t feel right.’
I can’t describe it any other way. It feels wrong to be happy about the website taking off. It feels wrong to be thinking about Callum all the time, wishing I was with him. It feels wrong to be shitty with Riley. Emotions keep flooding me but my head keeps telling me how unimportant things are compared to what happened to Sierra.
I’m not sure what I’m allowed to feel.
I realise I want to go and see Rachel. I’m not sure what reception I might get from her, but I need to see her. I want her to know the website is live. I want her to look at it, to see what impact Sierra is having on people. I think it’s helping me, and maybe seeing it might help Rachel, too. And I desperately want her approval.
The bell goes for lunch. Everyone files out of the classroom and heads for their lockers. Everyone except for Riley. I watch where she goes. She walks towards the staffroom. I follow. She cuts through an exit. She’s almost running. I follow her outside. She’s moving towards the library but swings left along the garden path and heads for the … counsellor’s office? The only other door along that pathway is the art room, and I know she’s not going in there.
Riley’s thoughts on counselling have always been skeptical. Whenever I used to talk about the counselling I had after Dad died, her eyes would glaze over. And if I pulled out lines she thought were straight from the counsellor’s mouth, she’d call me on it.
‘Stop pulling your wise-old-owl tricks on me,’ she’d say, and then pretend I was trying to hypnotise her. Then she’d play out both parts – the crazy psycho hypnotist and the patient who’s hypnotised into acting like a chicken. I’d laugh my head off.
I leave her and head for the canteen. If she’s hiding it, she wants privacy.
I see Joel as I walk in. When Riley and Joel split up, he hangs out with a different group.
‘Hey, Joel, have you spoken to Riley?’
‘Nup.’ He sounds angry. ‘She’s cut me off, totally.’ He starts walking away.
Sierra dancing around my bedroom singing Taylor Wolfe’s ‘Once it’s over, let it go’ floods my memory.
‘Do you think she’s okay?’ I call after him.
He stops walking.
‘She’s cut me off too,’ I continue.
‘She’s a jealous bitch,’ he says. He turns and walks on.
‘Yeah, but is she okay?’ I say it too quietly for him to hear. It’s not the right time for this conversation.
Riley’s behaviour in the next class makes me more concerned. She keeps her eyes low, and fiddles with her hands. Her eyes are red, as if she’s been crying. When the bell goes, I walk up to her.
‘Hey, Riley, you want to talk?’
She stiffens and her eyes dart all over the place.
‘Not really,’ she says. Her words are clipped, her tone brisk. She struts off.
At the end of the day, Callum and I walk across the oval. His mum’s waiting.
‘I have somewhere to go,’ I say to him.
‘I’ll make my own way home today.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘I just have to meet someone,’ I say.
Callum stops. Colour drains from his face. ‘Who?’
‘What?’
‘Who are you meeting?’
‘Callum, you’re acting weird. What does it matter who I’m meeting?’ But then it dawns on me that Callum may think I’m meeting a random guy, like Sierra did. We’re all on edge. ‘It’s Rachel. I’m going to see Rachel.’
He nods.
‘Okay,’ he whispers. He starts breathing.
I wave to his mum, who’s across the road, then head for Rachel’s.
NINETEEN
Standing at Rachel’s front door, my throat suddenly restricts. I’m about to knock when the door swings open. Dave storms out, almost bowling me over. I startle him and he pauses, staring at me for a moment. He’s about to say something to me, I can tell, but he walks past me to his car, which is parked in the drive. He places an overnight bag in the boot. Rachel comes to the door.
‘It was us!’ she yells at him. Her face is hard.
I have stepped to the side and she hasn’t seen me. She goes to close the door. I know I’ve landed in the middle of something so I feel more awkward than I already did. Perhaps I should stay out of sight and sneak away after she closes the
door. But Dave might tell her I was there. I step into view and she jumps.
‘Oh, Taylor.’ She recovers her composure. ‘I didn’t see you there.’ She looks past me, confused for a moment. She then stands in the doorway and crosses her arms to show me I’m not welcome.
‘Hi, Rachel, sorry, um … er … I see it’s a bad time, but I just wanted to let you know that the website about Sierra is live.’ I blurt it out in a nervous rush and pull a piece of paper from my pocket. ‘This is the web address.’
She looks down at the paper, takes it, holds it up to my face and screws it up. I take a step back.
‘You were supposed to be her friend, Taylor. You were supposed to be looking out for her, not helping her get killed.’
She slams the door. I hear her lean against it, then slide down. Her sobs are muffled.
I leave. I should have snuck away when I had the chance. Coming was a mistake.
When I get home, I lie on my bed and stare at the ceiling. I hear Mum come in. She’s later than usual – she must have been to Rachel’s. Mum sits on my bed and lies back.
‘Are you okay?’
‘No.’ I turn onto my side.
‘You did the right thing, Taylor. I know nothing feels like the right thing to do, but what you did today definitely was. I’m proud of you.’
‘Rachel is never going to forgive me,’ I say.
‘I think she has to forgive herself before she can forgive anyone else.’
I feel so flat. That spark of energy the website gave me is gone.
‘How was your day at school?’
‘So-so. I’m behind in my work. I promised Mr Samalot I’d catch up.’
‘You need help with anything?’
‘No. I don’t know. I haven’t even read what I have to do.’
‘Well, you’d better get to it. I’ll start dinner.’
‘Mum?’
She stops in the doorway and turns around.
‘How was Rachel when you saw her?’
‘Alone. She kicked David out today.’