So I was pleased when Mum told Fergus that I couldn’t speak to him. I was too tired, she said. Naturally, Fergus tried to call me on my mobile, but I turned it off. For the rest of the afternoon I played a really fast computer game, which called for lightning response times and didn’t give me enough headspace to think about anything else.
Meanwhile, the calls kept coming. There were calls from Mum’s friends, asking how I was. There was a call from the hospital to say that I could have an outpatient’s appointment the next morning, because someone else had cancelled. There was even a call from a journalist – or at least, that was what Mum thought. When she answered the phone, a voice said, ‘Mrs Vandevelde?’ And after Mum confirmed that she was Mrs Vandevelde, the voice asked, ‘Are you Toby’s mother?’
Mum’s immediate response was, ‘No comment.’ She told me later that hanging up was a kind of reflex. It was only after she’d done it that she began to wish she hadn’t. ‘What if it was someone who saw you the other night?’ she fretted. ‘What if they were ringing to tell me what happened to you?’
I wondered about that myself. ‘Was it a kid?’ I inquired.
‘No. I don’t think so.’
‘Was it a man or a woman?’
‘A man.’
‘Oh well.’ I shrugged. She was interrupting my computer game. ‘If they saw something weird, and they want to report it, they’ll probably ring the police.’ In an effort to change the subject, I added, ‘What’s for dinner, Mum?’
Dinner was my favourite: Chinese takeaway. Afterwards I stayed up as long as I could, putting off the moment when I would finally have to climb under the sheets and stare at the revolving fan above my bed. When Mum caught me locking my bedroom window, she offered to bunk down beside me on an inflatable mattress. ‘Or you could sleep on the mattress yourself, in my room,’ she said.
I turned her down. I didn’t want her to know how scared I was. I didn’t want to face up to it myself; in fact I was so determined not to look like a wimp that I refused to leave my bedroom door open, even a crack. When she suggested a nightlight, I scoffed at the idea. And when she started talking about homemade alarm systems – things like wind chimes, squeaky toys or crunchy gravel arranged in front of every access point – I poured scorn on the whole concept.
‘Are you crazy?’ I said. ‘Do you want this place to look like the Miscallefs’? Because I don’t.’
I should probably explain that the Miscallefs, unlike most of the families on our street, live knee-deep in crap. There are always bikes, blades, shoes, car parts, dog bowls, fluffy toys and old barbecue grills scattered around their front yard. Now, don’t get me wrong; I know that my own room is a real mess. And I also know that when you have a lot of kids, it’s hard to keep things clean. But every time I pass that house in someone else’s company, it always gets the same reaction. Mum’s friends always say something like, ‘What are the unemployment figures in this area?’ And my friends say something like, ‘There’s a kid who lives around here, and he’s got four different fathers, and they’re all fighting over which one’s his real dad.’
It’s not fair, because the Miscallefs are okay. I like them. They’re friendly. But that whole junkyard look is the kiss of death in this part of town. You should hear Mr Grisdale talk about the Miscallefs! Grisdale is a grumpy old bastard who lives three doors down from us. He yells at every kid who even pauses outside his front gate, so it’s not as if anybody pays much attention when he calls the Miscallefs ‘trash’ and ‘scum’ and ‘bludgers’. The thing is, though, he isn’t the only one. I’ve heard Mrs Savvides badmouthing the Miscallefs, too. And Mrs Savvides is a nice person; she feeds the birds and sends us a card at Christmas. But she’s really mean about the Miscallefs. She says they live like pigs, let their kids run wild, and stink up the whole street because they’re always forgetting to put out their rubbish for collection. ‘People like that,’ she says, ‘shouldn’t be allowed to have kids.’
I swear to God, I must have heard this a million times – and not just from Mrs Savvides. The guy on the corner, the retired couple across the street, and the new people at the end of the block have all said the same thing. There’s only one poor soul who cops it even worse than the Miscallefs, and that’s the alcoholic living behind us. I don’t know her name. I’ve never actually seen her, since she hardly ever goes out. But her house is messy too. So even though she’s as quiet as a mouse, the whole neighbourhood is constantly moaning about her. Just because she doesn’t tidy up.
Is it any wonder that I didn’t want to leave squeaky toys scattered around? If you do something like that where I live, your neighbours will start telling each other that you’re growing marijuana in the garage.
Maybe Mum realised this, because she soon shut up about the homemade security system. She didn’t leave any lights on, either. But she did shut all the windows, even though it was a really warm night. Maybe that’s why she didn’t sleep very well. In fact it was lucky that I had a clinic appointment the next day, otherwise poor Mum might have had to go to work feeling totally trashed.
However, I’m getting ahead of myself. First I should tell you about my night, which was much better than I’d anticipated. I was scared that I’d lie awake for hours, jumping at every noise, and that when I finally did fall asleep I would be tormented by horrible nightmares. The funny thing is, though, that I was fine. Having dropped off the instant my head hit the pillow, I plunged into a dreamless stupor, hardly stirring until Mum shook me into consciousness at around 9.00 am.
Then I climbed out of bed, ate breakfast, cleaned my teeth, and went to the neurological outpatient’s clinic.
I’ll spare you the details of my visit. Let’s just say I spent a long time sitting on a hard chair in a lemon-scented waiting room, playing with my Nintendo and trying not to look at some of the other patients, who were . . . well, in a bad way, quite frankly. You don’t want to know what some poor people have to live with. I didn’t want to know, that’s for sure. So I kept my head down until the doctors decided that they were ready to stick electrodes all over it.
Actually, the eeg was pretty cool. I was hooked up to a computer and given things to look at, so that the doctors could map my brain’s electrical activity. It was like being a lab rat or a science-fiction hero. (‘You think you can outsmart us, Consumer Unit 2792, but we are able to see what you are thinking . . .’) Fergus would have loved it. So would Amin. I guess I would have loved it too, if I hadn’t been so worried about the results. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t forget that all this whiz-bang technology was being used to search for a nasty, lurking, terrible thing – like sniffer dogs tracking down a corpse. I was so worried, in fact, that I kept expecting someone to notice. I was sure that my worry would show up on the brain scans.
But nobody said a single word about my eeg. Not then, anyway. I was supposed to wait for the results, which Dr Passlow would explain to me during my next appointment with him. So after all that fuss, I emerged from the clinic still not knowing if I had epilepsy or not.
It was a real bummer. I was so pissed off that I spent the whole trip home in a sulk, with my arms folded and a scowl on my face. And my mood didn’t exactly improve when I spotted Fergus sitting on our front steps. Fergus was the last person I wanted to see just then. Mum couldn’t have been too happy, either; she didn’t have much food in the fridge, and Fergus eats like a swarm of locusts.
‘Oh, God,’ she said with a sigh, as she pulled into the driveway, ‘I don’t have a thing for lunch. Why on earth does he always turn up at mealtimes?’
Because his brothers eat everything at his house, I thought. But I didn’t say it. Instead I climbed out of the car and slammed the door shut behind me.
Before I could even open my mouth, Fergus jumped up.
‘Man, where have you been?’ he cried. ‘What’s happened to your phone? Did you lose it, or something?’
He had nicked one of Liam’s T-shirts, which was much too big for him. Not that I’
m saying big is bad. I always wear baggy clothes myself, because when you’re as skinny as I am, you have to bulk up with extra layers. Fergus, however, is a lot shorter than me. And though he seems to like dressing in his brothers’ T-shirts, with the hems hanging down past his knees and the shoulders flopping around his elbows, I think oversized gear makes him look like a performing dog.
Of course, this wouldn’t worry Fergus. He honestly couldn’t care less about his hand-me-downs, or his chipped front tooth, or his lousy haircuts. He doesn’t even mind that he’s short. Some people might, but not Fergus.
I wish I was like that.
‘Maybe you left your phone in the dingo pen,’ he gabbled, without waiting for a reply. ‘Maybe we should go back and see if it’s there!’
‘Don’t be stupid,’ I snapped. And Mum said, very calmly, ‘We’ve just been at the hospital, Fergus. There are some parts of the hospital where you’re not supposed to leave your phone on.’
Fergus grunted. He dodged Mum as she moved past him to unlock the front door, never once meeting her gaze. She’s used to that, though. He hardly ever catches her eye or answers her questions. I don’t know if he’s afraid or embarrassed or what.
‘I suppose you’re staying for lunch, are you, Fergus?’ Mum queried. As usual, he squirmed and glanced at me for input, as if he didn’t understand English.
I couldn’t help feeling impatient.
‘Well?’ I demanded. ‘Are you staying or not? Make up your mind.’
‘Yeah, sure,’ he said, happy to be addressing me instead of Mum. ‘I’ll stay.’
‘Because if you come in,’ I warned, ‘we’re not talking about Monday night. No way.’
‘But—’
‘Forget it. Don’t even go there. It’s none of your business.’
Fergus blinked. He stared at me for a moment, drop-jawed and goggle-eyed, before shuffling into the house.
‘Jeez,’ he moaned. ‘What’s got up your bum?’
‘You have,’ I told him.
‘Why?’
‘I dunno.’ It occurred to me suddenly that I was being unfair. ‘I just don’t want to talk about any of this.’
‘So you don’t want to know what happened?’
‘Of course I do!’
‘Well, how are you going to find out if you don’t talk to people?’
He had a point. He was also extremely unsquashable. The thing about Fergus is, whatever he wants to do, he does it. Without a second thought. That’s why he gets into so much trouble at school.
‘I was thinking, if someone’s to blame for what happened, we can pay ’em back,’ he suggested, following me into my bedroom. ‘We can work out what they did, and then do the same to them.’
‘Don’t be such an idiot.’ I could hear Mum banging kitchen drawers in her search for something edible. ‘This isn’t funny. This isn’t a joke. It’s really serious.’
‘I know! That’s what I’m saying! Whoever’s responsible should be made to suffer!’
‘Just drop it.’ I scanned my possessions, eager to distract him. ‘Do you wanna play that computer game you got off Liam, or what?’
Fergus seemed taken aback. He eyed me in a perplexed sort of way, then pulled a face and scratched his chin.
‘Did some pervert get hold of you?’ he asked quietly.
‘No!’ I was stung. ‘Jesus!’
‘Well, why are you acting so weird?’
‘Because you’re really bugging me, that’s why!’
‘Were you with a girl?’
‘Of course not! Why the hell would I take a girl to a dingo pen?’
Fergus shrugged. ‘Some people are really strange when it comes to sex,’ he announced.
I laughed: a short, sharp honk.
‘Like you’d even know,’ I said witheringly.
‘Was it a boy?’ he inquired, as if struck by a sudden thought. ‘Are you gay?’
‘Don’t be stupid.’
‘Was it a dare?’
‘Just leave me alone, will you?’
‘Why? What’s the big deal?’ He wouldn’t stop pestering me – and at last I blew my top.
‘The big deal is that I might be epileptic! Okay?’ I barked. ‘Are you satisfied? Huh? Will you shut up, now?’
Of course not. Dumb question.
‘What do you mean?’ He was frowning. ‘How can you be epileptic?’
‘I dunno, Fergus! Go figure!’
‘But—’
‘I might have had a seizure on Monday night. I might have lost it. And now I can’t remember what happened.’
I braced as Fergus caught his breath.
‘But that’s fantastic!’ he exclaimed.
I gawped at him. ‘What?’
‘Don’t you see?’ He grabbed a handful of my T-shirt. ‘You’ve got a free pass, you lucky bastard!’
I still didn’t get it, though. He had to spell it out.
‘You can do anything you want,’ he said, ‘and you’ll never get in trouble. Because you can always blame the epilepsy. Man, you’ve got it made.’
He was right. The truth slowly dawned on me as I gazed at his widening grin. I now had the perfect excuse. For everything. There was no end to what I could get away with, providing I didn’t push my luck.
‘You know what?’ I said slowly. ‘Yesterday the doctor was talking about these things called absence seizures, where you just sit there and stare into space.’ Lowering my voice so that Mum couldn’t hear, I hissed, ‘What if I pretended to have one of those during an exam?’
‘You wouldn’t have to answer any questions!’
‘I know!’
‘You could do it in class!’
‘Exactly!’
‘You could say you didn’t do your homework because you had a seizure . . .’
That’s what I like about Fergus: he’s a real silver-lining kind of guy. We soon worked out a whole bunch of tricks that we could play, thanks to my dreaded ‘condition’. He put an entirely new spin on something that I’d been viewing as a total disaster. Thanks to Fergus, I was no longer scared to talk about what had happened. On the contrary, we discussed it at length. We laughed. We made plans. We tried to imitate the various kinds of epileptic seizures. Looking back, I guess it sounds pretty gross, but we did have a lot of fun. And by the time Fergus went home, I wasn’t worried anymore. I was in a terrific mood. The world seemed to be full of exciting possibilities.
It didn’t last, though. When Father Ramon Alvarez turned up, everything went pear-shaped.
The doorbell rang after dinner. It was about seven o’clock, and the light was only just beginning to fade. Mum and I were in the kitchen, cleaning up.
‘I bet that’s the Mormons,’ Mum said with a sigh. ‘I saw a couple in Blacktown the other day.’
‘What if they’re looking for donations?’ I asked, as I headed out of the room.
‘Tell them we donate online,’ Mum called after me. I was still in a pretty good mood, thanks to Fergus. In fact I was in such a good mood that I practised my dance moves all the way to the front door – which I yanked open without checking through the peephole.
Imagine my surprise when I found myself staring at a Catholic priest.
I knew he was a priest because I’d recently watched The Exorcist. There are Catholic priests in that movie, and they all wear black robes and clerical collars like the guy who was standing on our welcome mat. I figured that he must be collecting for charity, so I was about to tell him that we always donate online when he murmured, ‘Are you Toby Vandevelde?’
My heart seemed to do a backflip.
‘I’m Father Ramon Alvarez,’ he continued, before gesturing at the man just behind him. ‘This is my friend Reuben Schneider. We were wondering if we could have a word with your mum?’
I raised my voice. ‘Mum!’
‘It’s very important or we wouldn’t have come here like this. We don’t want to annoy or frighten you.’ The priest certainly didn’t look frightening, with his soft brown
eyes and worried expression. He had one of those creased, pouchy, unthreatening faces, topped by a dense thatch of silver-grey hair. He smelled faintly of flowers.
Reuben Schneider, on the other hand, had trouble written all over him. It wasn’t just his age (early twenties, by the look of it), or the fact that he was dressed in clothes that must have been borrowed from someone else (like his grey tweed jacket, for instance, which was too tight across the shoulders). No; what freaked me out was the way he stood with every muscle tensed, as if he wanted to lunge forward. There were other disturbing things about him too: the jagged scars on his neck and hands; his split lip and bandaged fingers; the fact that he’d smoothed back all his thick, wild, curly brown hair to make his appearance less alarming.
It didn’t work, though. I was alarmed.
‘Mum!’ I yelled again, retreating a step or two.
‘We’re really sorry to bother you at such a late hour,’ the priest murmured. He was already gazing over my shoulder at Mum, who was hurrying down the hallway towards us.
‘It’s that priest,’ I said, turning to address her. ‘The one from the hospital.’
‘Oh, I’m not from the hospital—’ Father Ramon began. Mum, however, wouldn’t let him finish.
‘What are you doing here?’ she shrilled. ‘How did you find us?’
‘Mrs Vandevelde.’ The priest spread his hands, as if to show her that he was unarmed. ‘Forgive me for intruding. I realise how irregular this must seem. But I didn’t know what else to do.’
‘How did you find us?’ she repeated.
After a moment’s hesitation, the priest replied, ‘To be honest, you’re the only Vandevelde in the phone book who lives anywhere near Featherdale Wildlife Park.’ He spoke so quietly and humbly that I almost felt sorry for him. ‘And when I called to ask about your son, you said ‘no comment’. Which made me think that you’d been dealing with the media at some point—’
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