The Girl Who Wasn't There (7 page)

 

I lie on my bed, my school shoes kicked off, flicking through an old photo album of Mum's from her teens.

We've got heaps of albums with Mum starring in them – just her and Dad, lots of Clem and me snuggling up to her as babies – but this one's my favourite.

Dad's told us a whole bunch of Stories About Your Mum based on this particular album, though it's just what he can remember her telling
him
, since they didn't get together till they were in their twenties. (Guess that makes them second-hand stories.)

“Your mum and her friends went to a youth-club disco every Saturday,” I imagine Dad saying as I smile at the photo of my mum aged fourteen, arms around her gaggle of best mates. “She told me the disco lasted two hours, but the getting ready took three!”

I can see why: never mind the rah-rah skirts, leggings, ankle warmers and ribbons they were wearing, the smiling teenagers grinning back at me must have spent
for ever
backcombing their eighties hair, deciding which layers of bangles and necklaces to pile on.

I wish she'd kept some of her old clothes and jewellery from that time
, I think, shivering slightly. It would've been fun to try them on, drape the necklaces and bracelets around me. See if I'd look in the mirror and recognize part of myself as that eighties version of Mum…

The shiver I felt: it's because a light late-spring breeze has meandered its way through the open window and is lazily blowing my curtains around, making them billow like the sails on some old-time galleon.

The billowing effect is 'cause my curtains from our old place are
way
too long for these small windows. They look kind of comical with those folds of material gathered on the ground, same as a clown wearing oversized trousers.

It would be good to take them up sometime; they do that service at the dry-cleaner's in town. But it'll wait; I'm not about to ask Dad, since I know there's a ton of stuff that needs fixing and sorting around here first, and it'll take him months of working and wages to be able to afford it all.

So, yeah, I'll wait.

Don't think Clem can, though.

“You know what I hate most about this place?” she said this morning, standing in her washed-out, faded dressing gown and latest foul mood, scowling at the too-slow toaster.

“No, but I think you're going to tell us!” said Dad, who probably wished he hadn't popped back for a minute to make a coffee for his flask mug.

“The carpet in my bedroom,” Clem growled. “It's not just the ugliest thing I've ever seen, with that swirly pattern, but it's lethal too!”

I glanced up from my bowl of cereal, ready to make a jokey comment about her carpet carrying a gun, but then I remembered that this was Clem, who was pretty lethal herself in the mornings. Get on the wrong side of her and she'll cut you in two with her razor-sharp tongue.

“Dad, that thing is so threadbare, I caught my toe in a bald patch just now and nearly went flying!” she moaned on.

“Well, I'll make that top of the list of fixes when I get paid, OK?” he said wearily, heading out of the door, ready to do battle with the parents who liked to park on the zigzags if they could get away with it.

“
Don't keep secrets from each other
,” I mutter now, watching the billowing curtains in my bedroom.

Another bit of advice from Mum's notebook, but advice I don't completely agree with. Like Clem's carpet woes; she could've kept them to herself for a bit, instead of giving poor Dad grief. And her loathing of the cottage; she really
should
keep that a secret.

With a sudden
whoosh!
, the curtains flap out into the room; long stripy arms reaching out for me. I place Mum's photo album down on the duvet and swing my legs off the bed, padding across my own tatty, faded carpet, thinking I should use the cream rope tie-backs that were left here by the previous family, when some other person lived in this room.

As I fiddle with the silky rope and hook, I gaze across the playground at the imposing red-brick school, at the three long windows of the art room, rising up from the roof terrace above the main entrance.

Three long windows with nothing in them except the reflection of clouds flitting across the sky above our cottage.

I haven't seen the figure, the forgotten, century-old girl ghost, since Monday evening – if I ever saw her at all. And I have
tried
to spot her. Every day this week I've spent for ever at this window, gazing across, willing her to appear to me again.

Maybe that's the problem! Maybe she won't come if I stand and stare. Like a deer in the forest, perhaps she'll materialize when I'm not expecting it; I'll catch a fleeting glimpse of her out of the corner of my eye.

I'll do an experiment, I decide.

And so I quickly flip around and flatten my back against my bedroom wall, feeling the knobbles of the old-fashioned textured wallpaper through my thin school shirt.

One, two, three, four, five
, I count silently to myself, then swivel around, hoping to see her suddenly there in the window.

No one, nothing.

I try again, giving it more time.

“One elephant, two elephant, three elephant…” I mutter out loud, pressed against the wall like an SAS officer ready to burst through the door of the bad guys' lair.

“Ahem!” comes a fake cough from the doorway.

“Dad!” I gasp, like I've been caught red-handed.

Caught searching for a girl who isn't there – but Dad doesn't know that.

“I
would
ask you what you're doing, Maisie, but I'm not sure I'd understand the answer!” Dad says with a wide grin.

“Just acting out a … thing we're doing in drama,” I lie, hoping he hasn't looked at my week planner and seen that I don't have my first drama lesson till tomorrow.

“Harrumph,” Dad snorts, not quite believing me, or just sniggering at how stupid I must've looked and sounded just now.

“And should I ask what
you're
doing here?” I say to him, checking my watch and seeing that it's nearly five-thirty p.m. “Don't you have buildings to inspect and doors to lock up about now?”

Yes, I'm using good-natured cheekiness to cover up my embarrassment and blatant fibbing.

“Just popped back for my phone – left it here earlier,” he replies, holding up his battered black mobile.

In case of messages from Donna, I bet. He doesn't need his phone to stay in touch with me, since he can find me pretty easily, pretty quickly, any time of the day. It would only take a chat with Mahalia or June in the office, or a hover in one of the playgrounds at break time, to locate me.

And he's not expecting any messages from Clem, since she never sends any, or answers his, when she's busy at college or mooching with Bea or Marcus or Alima or one of her other friends.

“Did you have a nice time with Donna last night?” I remember to ask him, since I forgot this morning.

Dad's smile slips, just a little, then brightens again.

“Yes, thanks, honey,” he says. “And hey, how are things going with that Kat girl you've hooked up with?”

Clem had told him about Kat. I bet his eyes lit up, hopeful that I'd found a proper friend, that things would work out for me.

“Good,” I answer Dad, remembering me and Kat, our stifled sniggers in the library this lunchtime, at the same time as I'm wondering about that momentary disappearance of Dad's smile. What did that mean?
Is
Clem right? Could Dad be having problems with Donna? Does he have a secret of his own he's keeping from us?

“You should ask her around sometime,” Dad chats on. “Invite her back after school one day, or at the weekend, maybe!”

After what went on at the old school, I know he's
so
desperate for me to have a new best friend that he'll probably bake a cake specially and put up a handmade “Welcome, Kat!!” banner above the front door.

“Yeah, I'll ask her,” I say, just as hopeful and keen as he is, minus the cake and the banner bit, of course. Well, maybe the cake would be OK…

“Why don't you invite her soon? I could make my enchiladas for tea!”

“Maybe.” I'm nodding, smiling, but joking aside, I don't want Dad to go overboard and scare Kat away. It would be like that time Ben Preston from two doors up in Park Close asked Clem to come to a gig 'cause he had a spare ticket. She thought it was all really casual, till he insisted on paying for everything, even bought her the band T-shirt afterwards when she nipped to the loo, and then tried to snog her at the bus stop when she was rummaging in her bag for her travel pass. She ended up calling him a freak and they ignored each other for the next year.

“Well, I'd better get going. The school won't lock itself up, will it?” Dad says brightly, stomping off down the stairs.

I have a sudden image of the phantom of Mr Butterfield, the previous site manager, creaking his way stiffly around the building, forever checking and rechecking that the doors and windows are locked.

“He's not even dead!” I mumble a reminder to myself, now starting to imagine spirits everywhere.

Whoosh!

The curtain that I haven't tethered yet flaps wildly, the noise of it making me start.

But as I quickly tie the runaway curtain back, I can hear a
new
noise … giggles.

I look out into the playground, but there's no one there except Dad, whistling his way towards the main entrance.

The soft sounds of giggles come again, not close, not far.

Hardly daring to breathe, I move towards the doorway of my room, and – like that game of Hot and Cold – I know I'm nearer to the noise.

“Getting hotter, getting hotter,” I whisper, stepping out into the hall.

Clem's room.

It's where the giggles are coming from. They overlap, so I know that there's more than one person in there.

“Clem?” I call out, rapping softly at the door. When did she come back? I didn't notice she had; Dad didn't say.

Cold.

The giggles have stopped.

I push the door open and see an empty room; Clem's clothes on her rail-on-wheels, or strewn on the floor, possibly deliberately hiding the carpet she hates so much.

The buffeting breeze makes Clem's closed window rattle in its frame, and I jump all over again.

But it gives me a clue to what I heard … the wind carries sounds you wouldn't ordinarily hear, doesn't it? Well, there are flats over the back of the main playground. Behind that imposing red-brick wall, girls will be playing, laughing, and that laughter has swooped up and wafted over the bricks, over the rolling green of the grass, to my open window.

Yes, that's it.

There're sounds and smells, creaks and crackles, ticks and tricks of the light to get used to in this new, very old, home of ours.

I go to close the door before my breath contaminates Clem's room and she accuses me of noseying in here when she gets home.

And then I see something out of the window that makes my heart lurch for the third time in as many minutes.

I re-cross the carpet, stepping on cast-aside clothes, and stare through the pane of glass at the school.

The long window on the left is open, when it wasn't before.

A figure in white is behind it.

And now the person is bending down, as if they're about to wriggle through the space, to come out on to the terrace…

 

Dad's mobile gives a chirpy little whistle.

It's the sort of noise that makes you smile, but this evening Dad is frowning as he glances down at it.

“Problem?” I ask, stuffing laundry into the washing machine.

“Um, not really, but…” he drifts off distractedly.

I know what the
but
means.

Last night I heard the whistle of an incoming text just as I walked into the kitchen to grab myself a glass of water.

Before Dad could leap up from the sofa and retrieve his phone, I had the quickest peek at the message on the screen.

Jack – would you be able to meet up tomorrow eve? Donna x

Yes, I admit that I peek at Donna's texts when I get the chance, which is really bad, I know, like reading someone's diary or something. But as it's my only clue to the person my dad likes most beyond me and Clem, I can't help myself.

Though I sort of wish I hadn't read
that
particular message. It was different from the others: cooler, with no smile to it. Maybe Clem really
is
right about things going wrong between them…

Then I spot Dad checking the clock on the kitchen shelf, right beside the framed photo of us all.

OK, so now I get it; I bet another reason for that
but
is the time.

“Dad, just
go
!” I tell him, straightening up and taking the wash basket he has balanced on his hip. “I'll finish up the laundry.”

“But Clem…” he starts.

“…will be back soon,” I assure him. “She knows she's babysitting me. She won't be long.”

“Yes, but I should still hang about till she's back.”

“No, you shouldn't!” I tell him.

I don't want him to be late meeting Donna. I don't want any niggles between them. I want them to have as long as they need to chat about whatever they need to chat about and hopefully sort out their problems.

“But—”

“Dad, I'm thirteen. I can be left on my own for a while. I promise I won't play with matches, stick my fingers in plug sockets or invite axe-wielding maniacs into the house. OK?”

“OK,” he laughs. “But are you sure you're all right to be here by yourself for a bit? After yesterday, I mean?”

Ah, yesterday…

I think I freaked him out, running out of the side door, across the empty playground, yelling for him at the top of my voice.

Then there he was – at the left-hand window of the art room.

He was reaching out to retrieve Miss Carrera's long white paint-splattered apron, which had somehow danced and twisted in the blusters of breeze and begun to flutter its way out of the open classroom window.

Dad caught it with one hand, then wriggled his way out on to the terrace so he could find out what was wrong – and talk me through the rational thing that had just happened.

Just a teacher's apron.

Just a fluke wind.

Just an open window.

No ghost.

Yes, of course; it all made sense.

This
time.

(Though – and I'm not doubting what Dad said or did – wasn't that window
closed
when I was playing hide-and-seek at my window earlier, trying to catch the “ghost” out…?)

“I'm fine, honest, Dad,” I tell him now, in our warm, cosy kitchen, even if a tiny bit of me isn't really.

“Right,” he replies, nodding and checking his pockets for his wallet and car keys. “If you're sure we're all good, Maisie!”

“We're all good!” I say, jokily impatient with him, and giving him a playful push towards the front door. “Clem will get back any minute now. You'll probably pass her in the car.”

“Probably,” says Dad, leaning over to kiss me on the forehead – and then he's gone.

As soon as he is, I lean back on the kitchen units, idly staring at the happy family of four on the shelf by the clock, and phone the formerly sweet little girl who had her arms wrapped around her daddy's waist. The formerly sweet little girl who would do
anything
for her daddy.

“Clem,” I say into my phone, just as soon as her answer message kicks in. “You've forgotten you're supposed to be looking after me tonight, haven't you?”

I leave it at that, because there's a ring at the doorbell.

It'll be Dad, forgetting something and wanting me to run back into the house and get it for him. Or Clem, with her keys lost in the depths of her slouch bag.

Opening the door, I have a smile ready for either of them, which wobbles slightly when I see who's
actually
standing on the pavement, outside the gate in the railings.

“Hi,” I say shyly, hesitating before I go down the garden path towards her.

“Hi,” says Kat, doing her funny little-kid wave, sounding just as shy as me.

It's like when you meet your teacher in the chemist, or your doctor in the swimming-pool changing rooms; the switch of location throws you.

Though me and Kat are hardly miles away from school. The windows of it are watching us now, wondering what we're going to say, wondering why she's here.

“D'you want to come in?” I ask, releasing the lock and twisting open the thick black-metal door handle.

“Yeah … if that's OK?”

As I wave her into the garden, towards the house, it strikes me that we don't match. I'm in bare feet and leggings, baggy T-shirt and messy topknot; she's still neat and tidy in her school uniform.

My brain flashes to the time on the kitchen clock – seven forty-five p.m. Where's she been?

“I was passing, so I just thought I'd drop by say hello,” she says, stepping into the cosy gloom of our hallway.

“That's great, of course,” I reply, surprised and pleased, as I close the door. “Want a juice or something?”

“No, I'm fine,” she says. “Hey, fancy giving me a guided tour, Maisie?”

Kat seems so different from the other girls I've got to know so far at Nightingale SchooI: she's funnier, quirkier – and an outsider too, like me. But I guess she's the same when it comes to our cottage. Bella and Natasha and Libby are all
dying
to see what it's like to live here, in the shadow of the school building, a house adrift on the ocean of the school grounds.

“Sure,” I say, and point to the kitchen and the living room like I'm an air steward making passengers aware of the emergency exits.

Kat sticks her head into both rooms, commenting – I'm pleased to notice – on the things I like best in both.

“The jug by the clock is pretty. Love the colours!”

It's got this loud pattern all over it. Mum fell in love with it and bought it when she and Dad were touring round Spain one year, long before me and Clem came along. I wonder if Kat noticed the photo right beside it?

It would be nice to talk to her about Mum sometime.

“Ooh, that sofa looks comfy. It's all squashy like … like a giant marshmallow.”

I'm kind of pleased she's noticed that too. When we were little, Clem and me would cuddle up on either side of Dad, lost in his arms and the fat cushions, cheering and booing the acts on
The X Factor
. Clem doesn't do that any more. If she ever joins us in the living room, she'll slump down on the beanbag, as if sitting in close proximity to us would bring her out in a rash.

I wonder if Kat'll stay a while?

Maybe I'll moan to her about Clem, as well as telling her about Mum.

I wonder if Kat has a sister?

But first question's first.

“So, where do you live, Kat?”

Kat takes a second or two to answer; she's too busy staring her way around the room, as if she's taking in every detail. “Me? Just a couple of streets away. Hawthorn Road. Do you know it?”

“No,” I reply, wondering if I'll get a return invitation round there any time soon. “Don't know the area too well yet. What's your place like?”

“It's OK. Can I see your room now?” Kat asks, pointing upwards.

A ripple of uncertainty unsettles me. Not so much because Kat is already heading for the stairs, but because I get the feeling she doesn't want to talk about home…

“Um, it's probably a bit of a mess,” I say apologetically, padding up the carpeted steps in her wake.

On the landing, she makes a mistake – a mistake that gives me the chance to mention Clem.

“Is this it?” she says, pushing Clem's door open before I can warn her that we're in banned airspace.

“Nope – that's my big sister's room,” I say, staying very much in the doorway.

“It's … nice!” Kat murmurs, treading on the threadbare swirly carpet and taking in the tatty patterned wallpaper, the purple duvet, the jumbled clothes rail, the make-up heaped on the dressing table. I suddenly feel unexpectedly sorry for my sister – Kat's wrong, it's not very nice at all. And this small, scrappy room really
is
a step down from Clem's bright, airy bedroom back in Park Close.

“My sister hates it!” I laugh.

“Really? It feels sort of … happy to me,” says Kat.

She sounds so wistful it gets me wondering. I already have an idea that she's been lonely at school. Maybe Kat's home life isn't too perfect either. I mean, if she thinks this room is “nice” and “feels happy”, what does that say about
her
house or flat?

Kat flops down on the bed, which makes me anxious – Clem's bound to spot any rumples in the duvet. Actually, it's completely rumpled anyway, so I brave it and flop down next to Kat as she gazes around.

“Have you got your own room, or do you have to share?” I ask, rootling for more info about her life and hoping I'm not being too obvious.

Now I'm right beside her, I can hear she's humming something to herself, but I can't make out what it is. Whatever, she stops to answer my question.

“I share with my little sister. I'm on the top bunk and she's on the bottom – singing or shouting, usually!” Kat laughs.

I laugh too. Then I notice a twinkle of tears in her eyes… Something
definitely
isn't right. I don't really know what to say or do, so I just suggest the first thing that pops into my mind.

“Er, my room's right next door. Want to see it?”

“Yes, please,” Kat replies, quickly (and gratefully?) following me through.

“Ta-da!” I call out, throwing the door open.

“Wow, it's great,” says Kat, glancing, nodding.

But weirdly, I can tell she's less taken with my room, even though – compared with my sister's – it looks more loved, with books on shelves, posters on the walls, clothes safely stored away instead of tossed on a clothes rail or on the ground.

Without taking much notice of my stuff, Kat walks straight over to the window.

Of course; she wants to look over at the art room from here. To imagine what I saw from this angle.

“So? See anything?” I ask, walking to Kat's side and staring out over the locked-tight long windows and the terrace in front.

“Nope, no sign of ghosts, or flapping aprons, even!” she jokes.

“Well, it IS Friday evening. Maybe the ghost has better things to do!” I say, and we both get a fit of the sniggers, as usual.

“Hey,” Kat says suddenly, “are you here on your own?”

She's only just noticed?

“Yeah, my dad's on a date and my sister's hanging out with her friends somewhere, even though she's supposed to be home right now, looking after me!”

“And your mum?” she asks, opening her mouth to breathe on the windowpane and idly doodling a stick-man figure in the steam.

“Oh, she died when I was little,” I say, shrugging.

“Oops, sorry,” she says, wincing a little.

“Don't be. It happened a long time ago.”

I'm sounding too casual, I know, but I tend to feel kind of self-conscious talking about Mum for the first time to people. It's like I'm more worried about making
them
feel OK with it or something. Like that matters more than the fact that it's mega-weird for me.

“So, what about you?” I charge on.

“What do you mean?” Kat asks, dotting eyes, nose and mouth on to her stick man.

Oops;
that
came out a little clunky. I sounded as if I was wondering if
her
mum had died too, rather than simply trying to change the subject and not doing it very well.

“It's just, I mean, how come you're here?” I say, with a nod to what Kat's wearing.

“Oh, that,” she says, gazing down and realizing I'm wondering about her uniform, since school finished hours ago. “I had stuff to do after school. And I'm not in the mood to go home just yet.”

“Why?” I ask, staring at her profile, her face suddenly pale and drawn and little-girlish in spite of the blusher and mascara and shiny lipgloss.

“I'm not exactly my mum's favourite person right now…” she says, marking what looks like the shape of a star round her stick figure as the steamy breath begins to fade away.