September (9 page)

‘I landed it!’ I said, proudly, recalling my flight in the glider. ‘Didn’t think I was going to, but I made it!’

‘Incredible. Incredible,’ Repro said, washing his hands in his small sink.

‘What’s with the thick glasses?’ I said,
pulling
out our sandwiches and placing them on the table. Repro dragged an ancient armchair over, removed the cartons and boxes from it, then sat down.

‘It’s an image thing,’ he replied. ‘I read a very informative article in a magazine.’ He pointed to a towering pile of magazines and lifted his glasses off before repositioning them, blinking through the lenses. ‘I think they give me gravitas,’ he said solemnly.

‘Gravit-ass?’ I repeated. ‘Sounds like it might be uncomfortable to sit down.’

‘No, no.
Gravitas
,’ he repeated slowly. ‘Dignity, nobility, grave seriousness, that sort of thing.’ He paused for a moment, posing, looking over the tops of the glass. ‘The problem is,’ he added, slowly sitting down, ‘they lend gravitas, but I can’t see through them all that well.’

Regardless, his vision seemed to be spot on when it came to the sandwiches. His long, bony fingers whisked one off the table and down his throat with great speed.

‘The other problem,’ he said, taking a pause from munching on his sandwich, ‘is that no-one’s ever around to see just how dignified, noble and gravely serious I look!’

All the food was well and truly finished by the time I had filled Repro in on my latest
adventures
.

He leaned back in the old armchair. ‘You mean to tell me after all my hard work with these,’ he rubbed and twirled his fingers so fast they blurred, ‘that you’ve gone and lost the Ormond Jewel?’

‘I didn’t lose it, Repro. Like I told you, I had no option.’

He grunted, nodding, peering at me again over his new glasses. ‘So what do you intend to do now?’

‘Get them back. Then work out how we can get ourselves to Ireland.’

In turn, Repro told me what he’d been up to. He’d been ‘borrowing’ more and more objects from the trains before they were collected and locked up by Lost Property.

‘You’ll never believe what I found packed away in a box!’ He jumped up from the armchair in excitement, stepping behind the central
bookcases
. ‘All nicely strung together.’

‘Umm,’ I said, trying to guess, ‘a pearl
necklace
?’

Suddenly the light went out and I was sitting alone in the darkness.

‘Hey!’ I yelled. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Boo!’ he called out. I nearly jumped out of my skin as Repro danced out from behind his
bookcase
, switching the light back on to show he was holding up a full skeleton.

‘Say g’day to Mr Bones!’

‘Repro!’ I yelled. ‘Are you trying to give me a heart attack?’

‘What do you think? He has to be worth a few hundred dollars! Crazy thing is, he’s the second skeleton I’ve found! Mr and Mrs Bones I call them.’

I sank back down on my seat. My heart was pounding. ‘You should pay me the few hundred dollars as compensation for taking years off my life!’

I heard his chuckle as he disappeared again, returning Mr Bones to wherever he’d come from.

‘The least you can do now,’ I said as he plonked down in his crooked armchair, ‘is offer me
shelter
here for a little while …’

Repro threw me a sneaky sideways glance. He ignored my suggestion.

At least he hadn’t said no.

The two of us sat around all day and well into the night talking. I told him all about the Zombrovski
brothers, the fatal fall of the younger one, and how Zombie Two, even meaner and tougher than his dead brother, was just one more killer enemy I had to look out for.

‘There are some mean people around,’ said Repro. ‘I saw a pair of young terrors just a couple of days ago when I was out getting
supplies
. They were hanging around, looking like they were up to no good. One guy looked like a pirate with a bandana; the other had a finger missing.’

Three-O and friends? No way!

‘I know those guys,’ I said, frustrated to be hearing about them. ‘They are very bad news. Keep away from them.’

I got up and collapsed into Repro’s sagging couch. ‘Ah,’ I said, stretching my legs out. ‘It’s so comfortable here.’ It was an obvious attempt to convince him to let me stay. I crossed my arms behind my head and yawned loudly.

He picked up an army blanket and threw it at me.

‘OK, OK,’ he said, with a grin. ‘You can stay.’

19 SEPTEMBER

104 days to go …

Repro was standing the two skeletons next to each other when I approached him with his cup of tea. He’d popped a floral, straw hat and a string of beads on one, and had draped an army overcoat and an eye patch on the other.

He looked at me for my reaction as he wedged a pipe in the rattling teeth of the skeleton in the overcoat.

‘What a good-looking pair, eh?’ he joked.

‘Sure are,’ I said as I passed him his tea. ‘Listen, I’m going to try and visit my sister later today.’

‘Your sister? Didn’t you say your uncle has the place all locked up? You only just got your sister back. You don’t want to go and mess it all up by getting caught now.’

‘No, I do not want to do that. But I
do
want to see Gabbi. Even if she doesn’t see me. I just need to know she’s OK. For myself.’

‘Right, right. One has to look after his family,’ Repro agreed. ‘Family is most important. You do whatever you have to do. Just don’t let anyone follow you back here.’

I’d slipped out from Repro’s at dusk. For the outing, I’d borrowed a black jacket, a beanie and a pair of binoculars from his collection.

By the time I reached Rafe’s house, it was dark. On the way, I’d picked up a handful of leaflets, advertising a local house painter and gardener, which someone had abandoned near an overflowing bin. I had to be careful not to raise suspicion by hanging around this expensive end of town, so whenever anyone passed me by I pretended I was merely dropping the leaflets into letterboxes.

Cautiously, I peered through the front gate. The street outside was quiet, but I had to make sure I wasn’t going to get caught on any cameras or set off any alarms if I came too close to the house. I’d promised Gabbi I’d visit her, even though I knew it wouldn’t be easy. I needed to be exceptionally careful.

I pulled out the binoculars to take a better look.

A couple of lights were on upstairs, and one seemed to be switched on near the rear of the house—a terrace area where I recalled Rafe had an outdoor table setting. I scanned the top edges of the house, counting the cameras and sensors that were perched beneath the roof guttering. I worked out the best way in, dodging the scope of the surveillance equipment.

I hoped that the narrow path I had plotted out was going to work for me. If not, I’d be in big trouble.

At the bushiest spot along the fence line, I climbed up and over. I landed almost silently on the other side.

The yard seemed greener and denser than when I’d been here before with Boges, all that time ago in January, looking for the envelope containing my dad’s drawings.

I sidled along the fence, trying to work out exactly where Gabbi would be. Not only were there cameras and sensors, but there were grilles on every window. On the entrance foyer were bifold steel mesh doors.

Upstairs, in the middle of the front of the house, there were two windows with a soft light behind them. I felt pretty sure that was where
Gabbi’s new room was. I started making my way up a tree, to get a better look in. From my position—facing the house, but just to the side—I could see what was going on out the front, and down one side leading to the backyard.

Another light came on in the house. It was the room that I recalled had been Rafe’s study, where I’d first seen the scribbled phrase, ‘Ormond Riddle’. A silhouette, which I guessed was Rafe, moved past the window.

I shuffled into a more stable position in the tree so that I could free my hands to use the binoculars once more.

Through them, everything was much clearer. I could see Gabbi’s old furniture—her dressing table and cupboard—in the room I had guessed was hers.

All of a sudden she walked past my vision.

My heart started racing. I wanted to shout out to her. Tell her to come outside.

She was wandering around the room, moving things here and there. She was wearing a pink nightie and white, fluffy slippers.

Rafe’s silhouette appeared in her doorway. I watched as Gabbi turned in his direction.

She ran over to him, hugging his waist. He
leaned down and kissed her on the forehead, before leaving the room again.

For a moment it had looked like Dad was in there with her.

How was I going to let Gabbi know I was there? That I’d come to see her?

Just as I was racking my brain for an idea, Gabbi pulled open one of her bedroom windows. She was leaning on the window sill and staring out, through the bars, into the night sky.

Whenever Dad used to go away on overseas trips, he’d tell both of us to look out into the night sky and stare at the stars. Even if we’re on opposite sides of the world, he’d say, we’re still looking at exactly the same stars.

He said it mostly for Gabbi’s sake, but it always made both of us feel closer to him.

For a moment I felt like she knew I was there. But how could she?

I stared at my sister’s face.

She was frowning.

I froze, hearing someone coming along the path down the side of the house. I ducked down closer to the trunk of the tree.

The footsteps came closer and closer to my position. I hardly dared to breathe. Through a
break in the leaves, I could see Rafe walking past, carrying a cup of tea. He paused just beyond where I was hiding. What was he standing there for? Had he heard something? Did he sense my presence? I didn’t dare move and run the risk of rustling the leaves.

‘Win?’ I heard him call. ‘Win? Is that you?’

My body tensed up.

My mum’s voice called out from the back patio. I could just see her silhouette at the edge of the paving, small and hunched over a table. ‘I’m out here.’

Seeing the similarities between Rafe and my dad had me thinking of Ryan Spencer again, and how much I just wanted to ask my mum about it and get a straight answer. A straight
explanation
.

‘I have your cup of tea for you,’ Rafe said, walking over and carefully transferring it to my mum’s hands. ‘Were you out the front a moment ago?’

‘No,’ she said after a pause. ‘How come?’

‘I thought I saw someone. Through the window.’

‘It was probably just next-door’s cat. She’s a black cat, sometimes jumps up on the windows, behind the grilles.’

‘I’m going to check the grounds,’ said Rafe, ‘and make sure there’s no-one here.’

‘It wasn’t your fault, you know,’ my mum said gently. ‘You can’t blame yourself for Gabbi’s kidnapping. You did everything you could to protect her.’

‘One can always do more,’ he said, walking off.

He came back to the front of the house and pulled a torch out of his back pocket. What if he shone it up the tree I was hiding in?

‘Rafe?’ Mum called. Her voice sounded tired, but relieved. ‘Look, it is the cat. There she is, just trotting up behind you.’

Rafe turned around again and looked down at the cat.

‘So it is,’ he said. He shook his head then
wandered
back inside the house. Mum slowly stood up from the table and followed him, cautiously carrying the cup of tea out in front of her.

Thank you, thank you,
thank you,
next-door’s
cat!

The black cat stalked away along the path, tail held high. Who said black cats were unlucky?