‘Not so fast.’ That was pure Mum.
She tried to flinch away but I had a firm grip. ‘What the—’ She dropped the f-bomb. ‘Let go of me!’
‘Hey,’ I said, feigning sudden recognition. ‘I know who you are.’ My drama skills were getting a full workout. I felt like a complete idiot, but it was too late to turn back. ‘You’re that kid who’s been missing. Have you been staying here, in my house?’
‘Let go of me,’ Vogue said again. She smacked at my hand and scrabbled to prise my fingers off.
‘You were trespassing in my property.’
‘You grabbed me. That’s assault.’
‘You’re an intruder. I have a right to defend myself.’
‘Bullshit. You can use equal force, not greater. My dad’s a lawyer, I know my rights. I haven’t touched you. So right now you’re assaulting me. And I’m a minor.’
I stared at her, then made a show of opening my grip to release her. She pulled her arm away from me quickly, rubbing at her wrist. ‘Your kid is screaming.’
‘You need to go home,’ I told her, wondering how I’d got myself into this ridiculous situation in the first place. Why had I decided this was my business? Why hadn’t I just called the police like any sane person would have?
‘I’m going home,’ Vogue shot back. She pushed past me on the path.
‘Yeah, right,’ I said sarcastically.
‘Yeah,’ she mocked me. ‘Right.’
I didn’t believe her for a second. ‘I don’t think so. I think you’re just going to find someone else’s empty house to move into.’
‘It’s not like you were living in it.’ She shrugged. I couldn’t believe she was still arguing with me. Who was this kid? She pointed to Josey, who continued yelling and screaming in the stroller. ‘Aren’t you going to do something about his snotty nose? Seriously, what sort of parent are you?’
I didn’t have a plan for this scenario. The one I’d imagined involved her very contritely letting me walk her home. Maybe a little sulky, but not this full-on, fearless anger.
I jumped over the hedges and grabbed the stroller, flipped the brake off with my foot and spun it around. Cut across the lawn to catch up with Vogue, who had pulled on her shoes and started to stride along the side of the road.
‘You should go home.’
‘I’m trying, but some crazy lady keeps stopping me.’
‘Okay. I’ll follow to make sure you get there safely.’
She looked at me, scathing. ‘Uh, no.’
‘Uh, yes. Like you said, you’re a minor. Wouldn’t want anything to happen to you, right?’
‘What, like being assaulted by a crazy lady? Yeah, wouldn’t want that to happen.’
‘You’ve got a big mouth for an eleven-year-old.’ That was pure bite-back—I’d let myself be drawn into a pissing contest with a tween. But it stopped her dead in her tracks. ‘How do you know how old I am?’
‘I…’ It struck me suddenly that she didn’t realise. ‘Everyone knows how old you are. Your name, the suburb you live in. Your face has been on the news. On newspapers. Everyone’s looking for you.’
‘Why?’
Yeah, good question. ‘Um…maybe because they’re worried?’
She exhaled. ‘OMG. People are so lame. I mean seriously.’
She took off again, walking fast, apparently oblivious to the muggy heat. The stroller wasn’t one of those fancy jogging ones, and it wasn’t designed to be pushed over grass and bumpy footpaths. It was heavy and so was Josey and I was nearly out of breath just with the effort of trying to keep up with her. Josey was yelling again, the sort of high-pitched squeal he does when he wants something but can’t communicate it.
‘Here’s the deal,’ I managed to puff out. ‘You let me walk you home and I won’t call the police.’
‘No, here’s the deal,’ she shot back at me. ‘I walk home by myself. You get lost.’
‘You’re not going to go home if I do that.’
‘How would you know that?’
‘Well, firstly, you’re walking in the wrong direction.’
She didn’t break her stride. ‘Shut up.’
I made a show of reaching into my pocket, hoping she’d see the action in her peripheral vision. ‘I’ll do it. I’ll call the cops right now and tell them exactly where you are. And they’ll take you home anyway. You realise that, right? So basically, we can do this the hard way or the easy way.’
She stopped. Turned on me with what I can best describe as a growl. ‘Why? Why can’t you just leave me alone?’
I didn’t answer the question. I had a feeling that the longer we kept arguing the better the chance she’d come out ahead. Instead, I waved my phone at her. Which was a big fat bluff because I was completely out of credit.
She pressed her lips together. Then she threw up her hands. ‘Fine.’
‘Fine what?’
‘Fine, I’ll go home. My parents can’t be any worse than you.’
‘I’m still going to follow you to check.’
‘Do whatever you want.’
‘Fine.’
I’d won, but I didn’t feel like it. I shoved the phone back in my pocket and dug out the rest of the Tiny Teddies, and Josey’s howling finally stopped. I followed Vogue as she took a right at the next cross-street and started walking in the right direction. It was another fifteen minutes of walking in the blistering sun. I was sweating like mad inside my hoodie but figured at least that part of me wasn’t getting burnt. I could tell my face and legs were. Josey’s legs, hanging over the front of the stroller, were the colour of bacon. Mum was going to kill me.
We got to her house. She stopped at the edge of the driveway. ‘Ta da. We’re here. You can go now.’
‘I’ll wait until you get inside.’
‘What if they’re not home?’
‘We’ll wait.’
She rolled her eyes at me again. ‘You’re so bothered.’
Everything about her was irritating. The way she spoke, the fact that she thought I was an adult and she still didn’t care about a word I said. All that attitude, I was kind of surprised her parents hadn’t kicked her out.
But no.
Her mum opened the door—I recognised her from the news—and it was all surprise turning into sheer relief. Hugging, tears. Then her dad was at the door and I saw him brush away some tears too. Vogue was in the middle of it but when she pulled back I saw that she was still dry-eyed. She threw me a look, like: Seriously? Why did you make me do this?
Her parents finally looked past her and noticed me. Said something to Vogue, who just flapped a hand and pushed past them into the house. Her dad watched her go in, then came down the front path towards me, hand outstretched. I felt awkward about it because I knew my hand was hot and sticky with sweat, but he didn’t seem to mind. He drew a deep breath, then released it. ‘Thank you,’ he said.
‘It’s okay.’
I’d seen him on the news. He had sounded pretty together—clear, concise in his appeals for information. The tear or two he’d shed at the door had disappeared and he looked calm again, like he was relieved but mostly unsurprised. He studied me. ‘Where was she?’
I knew the sorts of things he’d been wondering. I’d wondered all those same things myself, after Frankie. Knowing that she’d voluntarily run away was probably going to be hurtful, but in the end it meant that she’d come to no harm.
I gave him the abridged version. ‘I think she was staying in an empty house. I saw her this morning and I recognised her from the news.’
He nodded. Thought about it. ‘She didn’t want to come home, did she?’
I didn’t know what to say to that. I sort of shrugged a little bit.
He exhaled again. ‘Right. Good to know, I suppose.’ For the first time, he looked at the stroller. ‘And who’s this little guy?’
‘This is my little brother. Josey.’
He crouched down to Josey’s level and offered him a hand to shake. Josey stared at h
im suspiciously and Vogue’s dad smiled at him, then straightened back up again. He looked at me. ‘And I don’t know your name.’
I didn’t really want to tell him the truth but I couldn’t come up with a lie on the spot. ‘Lindsay Evans.’
He shook my hand again. ‘Thank you, Lindsay Evans. I hope we won’t be needing your services again.’
He seemed like a decent guy. I mean, he didn’t look like a child abuser but how can you tell? I had no idea why Vogue had run away. But it really wasn’t any of my business, was it?
It took us nearly an hour to get home, because I kept crossing the road to find the shade. Josey started whingeing again and in desperation I started singing songs from Play School, self-consciously leaning over the stroller canopy so I wouldn’t have to sing too loudly. We were on the third round of Five Little Ducks when I finally got him through the front door.
I let him out of the stroller and then peeled off my awful sweaty hoodie and flopped down on the carpeted floor, fanning myself with my hands. I looked at Josey, with his pink legs and crumb-covered face. I felt like I should be feeling at least some sense of satisfaction at taking Vogue home, but I felt deflated somehow, like I’d reached the end of the rainbow to find there wasn’t any pot of gold, or something like that. We were both hot and sweaty and sunburnt. No way Mum wouldn’t notice.
‘If Mum asks,’ I said to Josey, ‘I took you to the park. Can you say that? Park.’
‘Park,’ he echoed me. He rubbed his nose against mine, Inuit style, then rolled off me and trotted away to his toys.
5
I’ll be honest, I’m not exactly popular at school. I wouldn’t say I’m hated, necessarily, but I have a reputation as a bit of a bitch.
Jazmin Sargeant, on the other hand, is one of the alphas of my grade. If our school had cheerleaders, she’d be one of them. I can objectively understand why she’s popular—she’s pretty; good hair and makeup; she’s moderately capable and talented but not annoyingly so, and she knows how to play by the social rules. I have none of that, or anything else in common with her. So to say I was surprised when she approached me at lunch would be an understatement.
‘Hi, Lindsay. Can I sit with you?’
‘I don’t know. It’s a little crowded around here.’
Jazmin hesitated and looked around at the empty space in my particular corner of the quadrangle. I rolled my eyes. ‘Sit.’
‘I read about you in the newspaper. It’s awesome how you found that girl.’
The day after I found Vogue we started getting phone calls at the house. Journalists must have got my name from Vogue’s parents and somehow tracked me down. Mum and Dad were typically close-lipped about it, possibly annoyed that I hadn’t told them anything about it until the calls started. I had to fudge an explanation about how I’d stumbled across Vogue on our way home from the park, and pretend I’d kept quiet out of modesty. It was all just awkward.
The press wanted to know how I’d found Vogue. They wanted a story and a photo of me to go with it. No way, Jose. I knew nobody could make me talk to them, so I didn’t. But I still got a mention, and then somehow the school realised I was the Lindsay Evans being talked about in the papers. Jazmin wasn’t the first person who had tried to talk to me about it. They’d mentioned it during assembly and everyone stared but at least they’d known better than to drag me up onto the stage. I was fully prepared to fight that one to the death.
‘She wasn’t exactly difficult to find,’ I said. ‘The real mystery is why nobody else managed to do it sooner.’
She shook her head. ‘No, you’ve always been good at finding things. You found the missing key to the drama storeroom. And Moey’s EpiPen, that time? When he lost it at the aquarium in Year 8. You’re like…the finder.’
‘I’m really not.’ She was right: I had found those things. But I didn’t need a stupid nickname.
She smiled. Opened a paper bag she’d been holding. ‘Sushi?’
‘I’m good.’
She nodded. Took a tiny bite and swallowed it delicately. ‘So. I have a friend. His name is Elias.’
My God, really? Sigh. So not interested in becoming friends. ‘Good for you.’
‘That’s not—I’m not—’ She was still smiling but it was starting to get strained. ‘Can you let me finish?’
‘Can you get to the point?’
She looked even more strained. ‘I want you to meet with him.’
‘Why?’
‘He needs help finding somebody. I told him about you. I thought maybe you could help.’
‘What do you think I am, a sniffer dog? And what do you mean, find someone?’
‘It’s complicated.’
I had no idea why she’d come to me or why she thought I cared.
‘No.’
‘No what?’
‘I’m not interested in whatever it is that you’re trying to talk me into. I have my own stuff to do.’
‘He’ll pay you. For your time. Even if you don’t find her.’
That was where she got me.
I don’t get fifty bucks pocket money every week like most of the kids in my grade seem to. I wasn’t born into a culture where relatives lavish cash on you every birthday. I guess I could get a job, but what are the options? Sixteen hours a week dumping frozen fries into vats of hot oil?
So I make money other ways: I find things.
It started with a lost dog when I was about eight. Or actually, it started with the poster taped around a telegraph pole announcing a two-hundred-dollar reward. I mean, I felt bad that the people had lost their dog but it was the money that got me motivated. For three days straight I dragged my very pregnant mother all around the neighbourhood, checking creek beds, bike paths and empty lots. No luck. Mum bailed eventually, but I didn’t stop looking whenever I was out.
The next week the school bus passed the golf course on its way home, as it always did, and there, bolting across the tenth fairway, was a black and white streak that I knew without a doubt was Steve the Missing Mutt. This time Mum delegated the search to Dad, and we went armed with the offcuts from Mum’s Wednesday casserole. Steve came sniffing and Dad grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and tossed him in the back seat, a big, grinning, slobbery mess of tangled fur. Half an hour later he was happily reunited with his family and I was two hundred dollars richer.
Dad eyed me as I carefully fanned out the fifties. ‘Don’t expect to make a habit of this.’
I didn’t really intend to, but it just happened. Not exactly a regular income, but better than nothing. Anyway, I was always watchful—it wasn’t too difficult to add a lost dog or cat or set of keys to the general scanning. A missing eleven-year-old had just seemed like another thing to keep an eye out for. But that didn’t make me a freaking private detective.
On the other hand…
‘How much?’
‘Depends how long it takes, I guess. He really wants to find her. Can I at least introduce you to him and you can talk to him about it?’
‘Fine.’ Even as I agreed, I wondered what the hell I was doing. I had no real skills; no quals or licence or whatever. It seemed deceptive to start hiring myself out as if I was some sort of expert. Simultaneously, I was wondering what precise dollar value we were talking about. I needed phone credit. And it would be nice to buy lunch at the canteen instead of bringing warm peanut butter sandwiches from home every single day. I could even buy sushi. The sushi looked pretty good.
‘Really?’ Jazmin looked relieved.
‘Yeah. But I reserve the right to quit at any time.’
‘You won’t, though. It’s a full-on mystery. It’s gonna be awesome.’
6
I never told Mum that school finishes earlier on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. If she knew, she’d pencil it into her calendar and expect me home earlier. It’s not like she’d put me to work cleaning the house or anything—no more than usual, anyway—but she’d expect me to be home. She likes to know where we are all the time, which I can�
��t really blame her for, but it’s still hard not to feel a bit suffocated. So this is my compromise position. I get home at my usual time, she thinks I was still at school, and everybody’s happy. Four years in now and she’s none the wiser.
I don’t do anything crazy. It’s only an extra half-hour. Usually I just wander around the place, maybe stop at the servo and get an icecream, if I happen to miraculously have some cash. It’s less about what I do with the time than the fact that I can do it without Mum freaking out.
So it was a Tuesday when Jazmin organised to introduce me to Elias outside the school gates. He wasn’t at all what I expected, at least at first. He was dressed kind of geeky. Then I realised it was a fashion thing, which made a lot more sense.
He was tall and lanky, wearing skinny jeans that were loose on even skinnier legs. Black combat boots. A fitted short-sleeved shirt buttoned up all the way, black-framed glasses. His black hair was shiny with some sort of product and combed back in what looked like an homage to Elvis, and he was—seriously?—wearing eyeliner.
Right.
They say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but maybe that’s because a book doesn’t get to choose its own cover. A person does get to choose what they look like. There’s a thought process behind gelling your hair up like Elvis or choosing to wear combat boots. It says something about a person, just like any other action they might do—and why would anybody act like a tool unless that’s exactly what they are?
Jazmin did the introductions. She was all smiley, excited. Elias seemed keen too. Maybe that’s an understatement.
‘OMG. I can’t believe it’s really you.’
I don’t know why, but I wasn’t expecting him to know about the famous girl whose sister went missing. Maybe because I figured he’d be my age, and most seven-yearolds wouldn’t have been watching the news when it all happened. I know I wouldn’t have paid any attention to it if it hadn’t been happening to me.
‘When Jaz told me about you I just thought—wow, how perfect. I mean, seriously, you must have this depth of personal experience…I honestly can’t think of anyone who would be better qualified. I always knew you lived somewhere around here but I never thought I’d actually ever meet you. Look at this—I’ve got goosebumps!’ He thrust his arm out to prove it.
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