Frankie (12 page)

My alarm call Monday morning is Vinnie slamming every door in the apartment, vacuuming, rearranging the lounge room, turning up AC/DC way too loud and renovating the bathroom. At least that's how it sounds to me; I'm operating on a couple of hours sleep.

I groan and unwrap the sheets twisted round my body. I want desperately to get back to dreamland but I can't switch my brain to Zen-setting. I try counting sheep but the sheep are giving me filthy looks as I force them to jump the fence again and again.

About five past nine, Vinnie slams the front door and heads downstairs to the Emporium, and peace and quiet finally descends. I wrap the doona over my head and close my eyes.

Sleep. Please? Sleeeeeeep.

I toss and turn and wrestle with the doona. No sleep for Frankie.

So I get up and make breakfast. I chomp on each mouthful like it's cat food and glare at the kitchen. Everything is offensive to me today: the chrome toaster is too perky. The fridge is humming: arsehole. Even though it's winter there's actual sunlight streaming in through the kitchen window. Great, who knew weather could be sarcastic?

Buttons is staring at me from his perch on top of the kitchen table, his mushed-in Persian face judging my every move.

‘What?' I say.

He flicks his tail.

‘Same to you, Smoosh-face.'

I pull out my phone and check the news. Nothing. I mean, plenty on Harrison Finnik-Hyde but less than zero on Xavier. I pull up my gallery and look at the picture I took of us. Awkward poses, neither of us grinning, too dark, blurry. Wouldn't look great on the front page of a newspaper, I guess.

For some reason I decide calling Marzoli is a good idea. I grab his business card from beside the microwave where Vinnie shoved it with the stuff to go out for recycling.

He answers on the fourth ring with a bark. ‘Yeah?' he says.

‘It's Frankie Vega.'

‘You going to retract your statement from last night?' His voice goes high-pitched with hope.

I'm about two seconds away from saying, ‘Why, have you found Xavier already?' when I realise he's talking about Nate.

‘Sure,' I say. ‘I mean, if you want me to lie.'

Sigh. ‘Then why call?' Less hope, more suspicion.

‘Missing brother, worried sister. What's happening?'

‘I'm looking into it.'

I wait for him to elaborate on account of that being a crappy answer. He doesn't. ‘What does “looking into it” mean?'

‘It means I do my job, you do yours. Whatever that is. I'll call when I know something.'

Soon as I hang up I dump his business card in the rubbish. I scoop my unfinished soggy cereal on top of it and I only just stop short of cleaning out Buttons' kitty litter tray to scoop that on top, because . . . well, that's rank.

I tidy, shower, dress, grab a block of chocolate (yay, Vinnie went shopping) and head downstairs to the Emporium. I have a plan. It has nothing to do with stressing about Xavier or school or anything else. And it doesn't involve blue-eyed burglars who can't decide if they want to hit on me or piss me off. I'm going to comfort eat, suck up to Vinnie and watch mind-numbing TV.

I tell myself Xavier is okay because what else can I do? I've told the cops, and I've called all the hospitals and his school and left a billion messages on his phone. I've faced up to Bill Green. I've been brushed off outside a crack den.

I've done all I can.

But I can't forget that stupid angel on the fence. In my head she's no longer grinning, she's glaring at me, wings folded, accusation in her brown eyes.

When I get downstairs to the shop there's an old guy shoving a kebab down his throat. He looks like an off-duty Santa with a permanent red sheen lacquering his nose and cheeks. He waves at me like he knows me and I guess maybe he does look a little familiar, but all these old men look the same to me.

At least there's a witness so Vinnie can't kill me.

She emerges from behind the counter, slinging her dishcloth over her shoulder. ‘Looky looky what the cat dragged in.'

It's not so much what she says but how she says it that makes me certain I'm in way bigger trouble than I first thought. It's not even The Nonna Sofia she's giving me. It's her original creation: The Vinnie.

‘Before you say anything . . .' I whip out the chocolate from under my jumper and plonk myself on a stool. I slide the block along the counter until it's directly under Vinnie's nose.

‘No good,' she says. ‘Not going to work.'

She hoists herself onto the stool beside me. I breathe in stale smoke, White Diamonds and Cedel hairspray.

‘I'm going to eat it, of course.' She breaks off a square of chocolate and hands it to me. ‘But it's your last meal.'

I grab the TV remote and turn it up. It's some kind of game show. I try answering ‘pineapple' to every question the slick-haired host poses.

‘What's the capital of Romania?'

‘Pineapple.'

‘What was the name of Henry VIII's second wife?'

‘Pineapple.'

‘Finish this famous line from Martin Luther King's speech: I have a . . .?'

‘Pineapple.'

I laugh. Vinnie frowns. ‘I think it's high time we had that talk,' she says. The Vinnie is getting worked overtime.

‘Cara's mum gave her this picture book,' I say. ‘
Where Did I Come From?
So I already know that babies sort of magically come along nine months after a man and woman get married but that doesn't explain Eden Kyles-Tewolde.'

‘Eden Kyles-Tewolde?'

‘Smartest girl in school. She has two mums. It also doesn't explain Cara, who has no dad. Or me, who had too many dads. Ouch.'

I get an elbow to my stomach.

‘You know full well that's not the talk we need to have.'

I say ‘pineapple' (‘The chemical composition of water is one part oxygen to two parts what?') before turning to face Vinnie. ‘If it's about me coming home so late last night I already explained that.' I break off a line of chocolate and shove the whole thing in my mouth. ‘Pineapple.' (‘How many players make up a netball side?')

‘No, you went on some tirade about people who can raise one eyebrow and then something about your brother not calling back. I know you think I'm nagging you for no reason but I don't think you're taking this seriously. You could be expelled.'

‘A famous landmark in Woombye, Queensland,' says the TV host, ‘is called the Big what . . .?

We look at each other before bursting into pant-peeing laughter.

‘Better get a lottery ticket,' says Vinnie, wiping her eyes. ‘Apparently you're a lucky lady. It'll help pay for that kid's nose.' I can't help rolling my eyes so she grabs my chin between her thumb and forefinger. ‘I say this with the utmost love for you, Frankie. Pull your finger out. Who do you think is going to give a job – a good job – to a high-school drop out? What are you going to do while Cara's flitting about uni and you're still here stinking of garlic? Sleeping in, disappearing half the night, talking back when you should be grovelling – it's got to stop. Or I stop it for you.'

Man. Happiness is like sugar, isn't it? The ride up is totally awesome but then you have to watch for the crash on the other side. And we were having so much pineapple.

Vinnie doesn't do subtle. Not in the sheer blouses and tight skirts she wears, not in the burning of her ex-husbands' things, not in her screaming matches with Nonna Sofia. So I know full well that when she says she'll ‘stop it for me' she means she'll bury me six feet under in the back garden. With the worm I killed and my stupid time capsule.

‘Okay?' she says, squeezing my chin.

I nod and it wins me a smile. Not a big one, an I'm-thinking-about-forgiving-you-give-me-a-minute smile. It's a massive win.

I get to lollop in my happiness bubble for all of three seconds – the exact time it takes the game show to make way for the news and a stern-faced newsreader to introduce the lead story: the missing kid from Malvern.

Am I to assume that the report on Xavier will be up next? Can I expect to see Bill weeping and Marzoli pleading for information?

I reach for the remote but Vinnie wrenches it from my hand. ‘I'm watching this.'

The old guy shuffles up behind us, dumping his dirty wrapper on the counter. ‘Isn't that just horrible,' he wheezes. He's a loud breather and he stinks of pee, mustiness and wet knitwear.

The newsreader throws to a reporter standing in some leafy street, reminding us where Harrison was last seen. They've got some kind of police caravan on the street corner, with officers handing out posters plastered with Harrison's face and information. There's even a dummy dressed in identical clothes to what the kid was wearing last time he was seen. They're offering a $100,000 reward for information. And here's me with ten dollars and seventy cents in my pocket. Maybe I could talk Vinnie into stumping up a year's worth of free kebabs as a reward for information on Xavier.

Actually . . .

I stand, mind buzzing. ‘I got to go.'

‘Hold up,' says Vinnie. ‘We haven't finished our talk.'

I don't stop. I can't. I've just had the brainwave of the century. ‘I'm late. I've got to meet Cara.'

‘What did I just tell you? Pull. Your. Finger. Out. Not go hang out with Cara.'

‘Exactly! She's going to tutor me. In Maths. You know I suck at number things. Ask me what five plus five equals.'

‘Frankie –'

‘Eleven.'

‘It's the middle of the day, Frankie. Cara's in school.'

‘She's got a free.' I stumble as my foot catches the leg of a chair. Can't believe I didn't already think of this. Who says you never learn anything from TV?

‘Really?' says Vinnie. ‘So if I call the school –?'

‘I wouldn't trust Square-Tits; she's high on white-out.'

Vinnie jabs her cigarette at me. ‘Keep away from that school, Frankie. You're on suspension.'

‘I'm not meeting Cara there. I'm not stupid.'

I blow her a kiss. She catches it.

‘I'm not so sure about that,' she mutters, stuffing my kiss into her fake Chanel handbag. ‘You're a Vega, after all.'

I arrive while classes are running so I don't have to dodge teachers in the yard, but it also means the computer labs are in use so I have to wait for lunchtime to put phase one of Operation Find Xavier into place. We've got a computer at the Emporium but no printer. Besides, like everything in that place, it was cutting edge around the time Jesus was marvelling at the technology behind sandal making.

I check my phone but Cara hasn't returned my text. I guess she obeys the stupid no phones in class rule.

I loiter near the bike racks. From there I only have to duck between the garden shed and the art block before I'm at the back entrance to the computer labs where Cara can sneak me in. It also means that when the bell rings, the only students I'll have to dodge are the smokers – most of whom are too cool, too stupid, or too preoccupied with gang warfare to notice me.

Everything's coming up Frankie.

I sit on the damp concrete and press my back against the shed.

My coat is still wet from the weekend's rain. It wraps around me, heavy and damp like Nonna Sofia's hugs. Vinnie always warns me not to say anything about the wet spots on Nonna's trousers when we go to sit with her at Peaceful Pines. ‘That'll be you one day,' she says. You first, Vinnie.

I send a text telling Cara where I am and sit back to enjoy the little bit of sun that's poking through the clouds. My eyes get all droopy and my head keeps rolling forward – I guess that whole only getting a few hours sleep thing is about to catch up with me. With no other choice than to wait, there's not much I can do but sit, daydream and . . .

__________

‘– think she's doing here?'

‘I heard she got kicked out cos she killed Vukovic's cat in a Satanic ritual.'

‘Didn't she head-butt Steve?'

‘Yeah, but it was the cat thing that got her expelled.'

Crap. How did I fall asleep?

I keep my eyes closed and wait as my mind slowly claws its way back to consciousness. The cold pricks my skin; the sun has buggered off completely. I can hear laughter, screams, conversations about who did what to whom and when, but most of all I can hear the voices of the two worst people ever. And they sound like they're standing on top of me.

The first voice is the unmistakable twang of Ava Devar, Queen Bitch. ‘Where
is
Mark? He told me he'd be here straight after class.'

‘Ew, she drooled.' And that, with its breathless splutter, is the voice of Elizabeth Something. Her surname isn't ‘Something'; it's just I have no idea what it is. She's a sidekick – like anyone needs to know that level of detail about her.

‘I can't believe she'd show her face here,' says Ava, and I can visualise her signature hair flick as she says it.

‘I kind of feel sorry for her,' says Elizabeth. ‘Her mum's a total deadbeat.'

It's funny how you hear things better when your eyes are closed. Like the nervous shiver in Elizabeth's voice, as if every sentence is a question waiting to be approved.

Ava clicks her tongue. ‘Please. My dad's got shingles but you don't see me using that as an excuse to beat people up.'

‘Screw this.' I open my eyes and scurry to standing.

Elizabeth slams against the bike shed with a squeal. Ava flicks her hair over her shoulder and scowls at me.

‘I tried to sit it out but your lack of imagination is making me want to slit my wrists. I mean come on, Satanic rituals? Can't you come up with anything new? You've been running with that since Year Seven.'

‘What are you even doing here, Freakie?' says Ava. ‘Didn't they kick you out?'

‘I'd love to stop and chat but I –'

‘Frankie!' Cara comes running to my side. She swings me round, hanging off my arm. ‘Sorry, babe, I got held back for talking in class. I didn't even say anything. Oh.' She spots Ava and Elizabeth and looks down her nose at them, which is an impressive thing for a girl her height to do. ‘Hope we're not interrupting your trade here, ladies.'

Ava smiles. ‘It's totally cool. Freakie was just about to give us some tips. She picked up a lot from her mum, you know.'

Cara pushes in front of me before I can even open my mouth. ‘Please,' she says. ‘What you don't know about being a slut could be written on Mark's puny cock.' She wiggles her pinkie for emphasis.

Ava looks about ready to tear Cara's face off but then her gaze shifts over our shoulders and she smiles wickedly. Whatever she sees there has to be bad. Like Vukovic bad.

Cara and I slowly turn around.

Shit. It's worse.

‘Frankie?' Mark's step falters. He's too shocked for the laser eyes. Or maybe it's just because he's stumbled upon his ex talking to his current girlfriend.

‘She was just leaving.' Ava pushes past me to grab Mark. Her hand clamps around his forearm in the international sign for ‘back off bitch, he's mine'.

Mark frowns at the claw. ‘Did Vukovic let you back, Frankie?'

‘I'm not even here.' I grab Cara and yank her toward the computer block. ‘Got a Satanic orgy to plan. You still up for it, Mark?'

Mark's caught between a smile and some serious blushing. I'm surprised he isn't grimacing; Ava's nails are digging in. ‘Maybe next time,' he says, but the corner of his mouth lifts.

‘Pity,' I say. ‘Satan loves meeting new people.' He watches me pass, a full head turn.

Cara wiggles her pinkie under his nose.

‘That supposed to mean something?' says Mark.

‘Bye, Freakie,' says Ava. She's got both claws attached to his arm now. ‘Thanks for the tips.'

I give Ava my best weather-girl smile. ‘No probs. Only don't bother trying them out on Mark. I've been there, done that.'

The look on her face is a small victory.

Course, the joke's really on me since my apparently loving boyfriend cheated on me with the biggest bitch in the entire school behind the science block in Year Eleven.

Cara drags me toward the computer labs. ‘Weren't we supposed to be sneaking you in? Keeping a low profile?'

I throw a glance over my shoulder at Mark; he's still grinning at me. I ignore the heat that brings to my cheeks and link an arm through Cara's. ‘You can't expect me to go anywhere without causing a riot, can you?'

__________

For the entire first day of Year Seven, Ava Devar and I were best friends. Neither of us had been to primary school with any of the other girls in the grade so we sat next to each other in the first class because all the other chairs were taken. The other girls whispered and giggled and turned their backs on us.

At recess she cried behind the bike shed.

‘I hate this place,' she said. ‘I want to go back to my old school. My old friends. I was popular.'

I put my arm around her because I didn't know what else to do. She left wet patches on my shirt from her tears – a little mask of dripping wet despair. She clung to my side for the rest of the day.

The next morning at home room, Ava was huddled in the corner with Elizabeth What's-her-face. I walked in and the two girls looked at me and then caved into each other, laughing.

That's all it took.

I sat on the other side of the room and stared at the board so I didn't have to see them whispering and pointing and laughing.

‘She doesn't even have any friends,' said Ava.

‘What a loser,' said Elizabeth.

A couple of days later I met Cara in the office and she saved me from five years of hell. But Ava never stopped trying to destroy me. Spreading rumours, riling up Steve to say things in class, stealing my boyfriend, tagging my locker with ‘freak', ‘slut' and ‘witch', orchestrating an online hate campaign to outdo them all. I guess she hates me because I'm the only one who knows she's as fucked-up and lonely as the rest of us.

So what I'm asking myself is: is it worth it? Fighting to stay at this school? This school where Ava Devar reigns supreme and Steve Sparrow is the comic relief? I used to lie in bed at night and make-believe I had to move schools. Like Vinnie and I suddenly had to up and leave – to Queensland maybe – and I could start over again. I'd walk into that new classroom for the first time like a Victoria's Secret model. Confidence, grace, the hint of a smile – but aloof, like I didn't care whether anybody liked me. And no one would know a thing about me.

Nothing.

__________

Before Cara and I put my awesome brainwave into action, we google. Which is a good idea in principle but turns out to be a total waste of time. The problem is we just don't have any information to begin with. Turns out googling ‘half-brothers-called-Xavier-who-show-up-out-of-the-blue-and-then-vanish' gives up nothing but useless blogs and, strangely enough, a Korean porn site.

‘Give me his dad's address again.' Cara holds out her hand, her fingernails chewed to the quick. She flicks her fingers. ‘Gimme, gimme, gimme.'

I hand her Bill Green's address. ‘I think he's a mechanic,' I say and she enters ‘Bill Green' and ‘mechanic', but nothing helpful pops up. ‘Maybe he's an electrician.'

‘It's too generic,' says Cara. ‘There's hundreds of Bill Greens. That guy there is a professor of basket weaving.' She points to a photo of a small, rat-faced man with John Lennon glasses; so not the Bill Green I met.

‘There's no such thing as a professor of basket weaving.'

‘Tell that to Professor Bill Green of New Mexico.'

‘So why don't we google Nate?'

Cara looks at me. For a second I think I must have farted.

‘
You
google your boyfriend,' she says. She puckers her lips and makes kissing noises at me. ‘And then tell me again how blue his eyes were.'

‘Gross,' I say. ‘I wouldn't touch that with a disinfected barge pole.'

There's no way I'm telling her about the other night outside the house now. Besides, there's no point. I probably won't ever see Nate again.

‘I only told you about his eyes because they're freakishly blue. Other than that, he's a lying arsehole.'

‘Just your type.'

‘Not my boyfriend.'

‘Mark will be devastated.'

‘Not my boyfriend either. I'm just saying, finding out stuff about him might . . . oh, forget it.'

She laughs. Maniacally. But then Cara doesn't know how to laugh any other way.

I fold my arms across my chest. ‘Are we making missing posters or what?'

That's my genius idea: ‘Have you seen my missing brother?' posters.

As much as I hate to admit it, the police probably know a thing or two about finding a missing person, so why don't I do what they're doing for Harrison Finnik-Hyde?

I don't have a spare dummy lying around or a caravan, but how hard can a missing persons poster be?

‘I'm not saying we shouldn't, but remind me why we're going to all this trouble for your drop-kick brother?' asks Cara.

She watches me while I think about it. I'm not exactly sure what the answer is but I think it might have something to do with a grinning angel.

‘You know how you look at Pete Doherty and it's like, ew gross, take a bath and quit smoking crack, you crusty punk, but then you listen to his music and you're all, oh my god this man is a lyrical genius, I'm all melted joy right now and I totally love him and forgive him for being so icky? It's like that.'

Cara gives a less than perfect brow raise. ‘If I knew who Pete Doherty was I'm sure I'd understand you perfectly.'

‘How are we even friends?'

Some little shit in oversized shorts taps on the clear panelling in the classroom door. When I look up he's cupping his testicles and licking the glass.

Yet another reason to fight tooth and nail to come back to this glorious place.

Cara doesn't even look. She's completely immune to the grossness of Year Seven boys because she lives with two of them – twins. She enters ‘burglar' and ‘Nate' into the search engine.

I push her hands out of the way and type ‘Wishaw' for his surname.

‘You didn't really tell me what happened between you two last night,' she says, as I scan the results – random news stories, crime stats and ‘hilarious' videos of ‘world's dumbest criminals' but no Nate Wishaw.

She pokes my knee. ‘You were alone with him. On a dark street, late at night . . .' She lets her sentence hang. For all I care she can let it hang until its neck is broken. ‘Well?'

The kid at the door has a few mates with him now, all pushing each other out of the way to press themselves up against the glass. I'd forgotten just how annoying boys are. Like Nate. He's annoying. And confusing. Contradictory. Impossible to work out.

I glance at the clock above the teacher's desk. I've got fifteen minutes before I need to get my arse out of here.