Ring Around Rosie (3 page)

Ted stumbled back up the cliff muttering
and swearing at his sister’s stupidity. He had no idea what he was going to
tell their parents; he should have gone with her, why did he let her go alone?
The growing guilt was slowing his walk home; he didn’t want to face his mum and
dad with the news that he’d deserted his headstrong little sister in a moment
of weakness.

Ted reached the top of the cliff and sat
looking out over the black sea. The moon played Peepo with him in an attempt to
cheer him up, but Ted was sinking deeper into despair. The reality of what he
had done was gripping his throat like a livid crab, making it difficult to
breathe.

He decided he had three options: he could
go after Rosie; go in and confess all to his parents; or do nothing until the
morning and hope Rosie showed up. The last of the three was the most appealing
and Ted began to talk himself into that being the best option on account of
Rosie getting cross with him if he did either of the other two. Ted was
surprised by how easy it was to convince himself that not doing anything was
the best for everyone, and he enjoyed the feeling of relief that came with
utter denial.

Ted sat around on the cliff top until he
was sure his parents would have gone to bed, and then crept quietly back to the
house and in through the front door. The old stairs creaked as he climbed them
and he flinched with every step.

“Rosie? Is that you?” Ted froze at the
sound of his mum’s voice calling from her room.

“It’s both of us mum, sorry, we had a long
swim and forgot the time,” he called upstairs, cringing at his hideous lie.

“Ok, as long as you’re both safe. I
couldn’t go to sleep without knowing. Mum’s prerogative and all that! Night
darlings.”

“Yeah, night mum, night dad,” answered Ted.

Ted went into his room and shut the door.
He felt sick for lying to his parents and sick for the reason he’d had to.
Where the hell was Rosie?

He lay down on his bed and stared at the
ceiling. Some big brother he was, no wonder she was always getting into
trouble. Everyone knows younger siblings always try to mimic their older
brothers and sisters, and he had definitely not set a good example, what with
his partying and staying out all hours. But now he was realising the error of
his ways it was too late, the damage had been done. And she was calling him
boring
,
accusing him of bailing when things got tough.
Run home to mummy and daddy
,
indeed. He definitely hadn’t run; in fact he’d practically crawled.

Ted stared at his bedroom door, willing it
to open. All the worse case scenarios flicked through his mind like a badly
edited movie. He tried to get an image in his mind of where Rosie might be, on
the off chance he had psychic potential; it was unlikely but anything was worth
a shot. He did begin to get a vision, but hoped it wasn’t real, because he
pictured her being dragged from the forest by a ten-foot-tall pirate with
seaweed for hair. He had her under his arm and was running towards the water,
giant strides eating up the beach and leaving craters where his feet had been.
As the man reached the breaking waves he flung Rosie onto his back and broke
the water’s surface with a huge splash, taking Rosie down with him into the
murky depths.

Ted awoke to the sun streaming through his
window. For a brief moment all was well with the world, then he noticed he was
fully clothed and reality hit him like a herd of galloping mustangs. He flew
out of his room and along the corridor towards Rosie’s room, his heart
pounding, a prayer on his lips.
Please let her be there. I’ll be a good
brother from now on if you just let her be there this time
. He flung her
bedroom door open so hard that it slammed against the wall.

“What are you doing?” asked his mum,
appearing from her room, her arms laden with clothes.

Ted just stared at the empty bed in front
of him.

“Ted?” came his mum’s voice, more urgently.
“What’s going on?”

Ted couldn’t turn around; he couldn’t look
his mum in the eye and tell her he’d let them all down.

“Ted!” said his mum again with more
aggression.

He turned around slowly, knowing his mum
would read his expression in an instant.

“Oh my god, where’s Rosie?” she shrieked,
dropping the clothes and shaking him by the shoulders. Ted’s eyes fell to the
floor.

“What’s wrong with you? Speak to me, goddam
it!” His mum was reaching hysteria as Ted searched desperately for the right
words. He knew his silence was creating its own horror in his mum’s mind, but
he just didn’t know where to begin.

“What’s going on?” asked his dad, appearing
from downstairs.

“Something’s happened to Rosie, and Ted
won’t speak,” she shrieked in frustration.

“Ted,” came his dad’s rational voice from
amidst the screaming, “where’s your sister?”

Ted looked into his dad’s eyes and saw the
calm that he needed. He started from the beginning and told them what had
happened.

His mum started crying as Ted relayed the
events of the day before.

“Everyone just keep your cool. We don’t
know that anything has happened to her. There’s no need to jump to the worst
conclusions, there are a thousand explanations for why she didn’t come home
last night and we’re not going to assume that the right one is the most
sinister, not yet.”

Ted was grateful for his dad’s calm
reasoning but there was no escaping the underlying panic that they all felt.

“Bella,” Sam said, taking her in his arms.
“You will stay here in case Rosie calls or comes back, and phone the police,
they’re unlikely to do anything yet but at least they’ll have been alerted. Ted
and I will retrace their steps from last night. We will find her, whatever it
takes, so you mustn’t worry.”

Bella nodded at Sam and then glanced at
Ted. Ted couldn’t read her eyes but they weren’t forgiving, and he knew that if
he didn’t make amends for his failings as a brother and son then he would never
find forgiveness in them again.

“Raven!” his dad shouted. “Here boy.”

Raven bounded up, rubbing himself against
his legs. Everyone always teased him about being so like a cat, the way he
leant into people’s legs, weaving in and out of them just like a cat would.

They half ran, half stumbled down the cliff
towards the beach. Great dust clouds plumed behind them as they slipped and
slid on the loose surface. They reached the bottom in a few minutes and then
turned right and ran along the shingle.

Raven ran in and out of the breakers,
seemingly grinning from ear to ear with sheer pleasure. Occasionally his head
would disappear under the water, his tail waving in the air, then he would lift
his dripping head and carry a huge stone up the beach and place it purposefully
out of the reach of the waves like he was on a mini rescue mission of his own.

Ted and his dad reached the mouth of the
wood and stopped.

“Do you think this is where she went?” The
question came out as a hoarse whisper and Ted could hear his dad’s shaking
breath as he panted next to him.

“Well, she mentioned a wooded area when she
told me about the bunker she found, so I’m guessing this is it,” replied Ted,
taking the lead into the darkness.

Even in the daylight the wood was heavy
with green shadows. Ted pictured his little sister walking through it at night,
groping her way in the dark, alone. It seemed so long ago that he’d watched her
disappear along the beach, filled only with thoughts of her selfishness and how
he’d
get into trouble. What had he been thinking? She was fourteen! A
mature fourteen year-old, granted, but still his
little
sister. And she
was
little: petite in every way. She had big determination and stubbornness, but
Ted knew that was just a disguise; she was trying to appear larger to
intimidate others and mask her vulnerability. Like how you scare off bears in
the wild.

“Rosie!” his dad’s voice broke through
Ted’s thoughts and slammed him back into reality.

Ted flinched. “Dad! I don’t think we should
shout; we have no idea if those men are still here,” he hissed.

“But what if she fell and is lying injured
somewhere in this wood?”

“Let’s at least suss out the area first and
make sure there’s no one else here, then we can shout, ok?”

Ted could hear Raven coming up behind them.
He shot past and ran out through the other end of the wood; nose to the ground,
tail wagging with delight.

“That must be the bunker thing Rosie talked
about,” said Ted as they caught up with Raven.

“It definitely is a bunker, it looks like
an old communication centre or a look-out that would have been used in the
Second World War,” said his dad walking around it. 

“Is there a way in? This path seems to lead
back towards the house. Although where it widens here, it could lead to a road in
the other direction.”

“There’s a way in here,” shouted his dad
from the other side.

Ted followed the voice around to the left
end of the bunker. There was a metal barred gate set into two sloping concrete
walls that created a porch. His dad was struggling with the gate.

“It won’t open, there’s a padlock,” he
said, rattling it as though that would loosen it.

“Well she can’t be in there then,” said
Ted. “ROSIE!” he shouted.

“ROSIE! ROSIE!”

Their shouting whipped Raven into a frenzy,
he jumped around them barking.

“Where’s Rosie, boy?” encouraged Ted. “Find
her, find her. Seek, seek.”

Raven circled the bunker, his nose to the
ground. Ted wasn’t sure he understood the commands as he ran up over the top
and down the other side. He came round to where they were standing by the gate
and stuck his nose through the bars, sniffing madly. Then he started barking.
He stood on his hind legs, growling and barking into the darkness.

“Look,” said Ted suddenly. Someone has been
here; there are fag butts everywhere. And these nettles look well trampled.”

Ted looked around for a rock. He found a
rusty metal bar.

“Here, let me try.”

Ted banged it against the padlock as hard
as he could. It felt good to be hitting something hard. It took a few blows but
the padlock gave way to the savagery of Ted’s intent.

Ted swung open the gate and stepped
cautiously inside. There was a wall directly in front of the gate so he turned
left and then immediately right and entered a room. It was a concrete box,
really; four walls, a floor and a ceiling, all grey, with some graffiti, and
bits crumbling away. It reminded Ted of a public toilet, but without the
cubicles and wash basins. The only light was coming from the ceiling where a
chimney-like structure led out of the top, crossed at the opening by two metal
bars.

Ted looked around, desperately searching
for signs of Rosie. All he could see were a few bits of rubbish, an old paper
cup, and a few nails. It smelt of people, though, a mixture of urine, sweat,
breath, stale food and alcohol. It was as if he could still feel their
presence; their lingering past, slow to catch up with their future.

“Were you here, Rosie?” he whispered. He
squatted down, head in his hands, despair in his heart.

“Nothing in there,” said his dad walking
in. “Just another concrete room like this but smaller. A few old cigarette
butts scattered around but nothing else. You found anything in here?”

“No,” said Ted looking up. “Are there any
other rooms?”

“No, just these two. I don’t think she was
here, Ted.  Come on, let’s head back up the path, see if we can find anything
else.”

“Ok, dad, just give me a minute.”

He knew his dad was trying to be strong and
positive for him, but they’d been here before, many times, and the
disappointment that nothing had changed, even way out here, was evident in his
voice.

Ted glanced around the room once more. If
Rosie had been here there was no sign of her now. As much as he’d hated the
idea of finding evidence of her being in the bunker, it was the only place he
thought he might find her. Where else could she be? He looked down as a spider
crawled past his foot, its long legs searching out the safest route. And then
he saw it. Something etched into the concrete. He changed his position so the
light was shining fully onto it. It was a picture of a cigarette lighter;
roughly done but definitely a lighter, Ted was sure of it. He stared at it.
Where had he seen a lighter like that before? It wasn’t unusual by any means, a
common Clipper lighter, he’d used one the same many times, but it sparked a
memory in his mind. He traced the image with his finger; there was still dust
around it from the engraving. Could that mean it had been done recently?

Suddenly Ted jumped up. He knew where he’d
seen that lighter before, but he had to be sure. He ran out of the bunker,
shouting as he passed his dad, “I have to go home, I’ll meet you there.”