Give Me Four Reasons (8 page)

‘Do you want to come, Fliss?’

‘Out to the exercise yard?’ she grumps. ‘No, thanks. I’ll just sit here and dig a tunnel under my bunk with my toothbrush. I might make it out before I turn eighteen.’

‘Take some water,’ Mum calls out as I leave the annexe.

I walk and walk in the late afternoon sun. I’ve forgotten my hat and I’ve forgotten my sunscreen. Sweat is soon streaming down my face. The hill has not got any closer. Every so often, I wipe the sweat off my face with my t-shirt and check the signal on Mum’s phone. Nothing.

After about an hour, the tufty heath grass ends and the hill looms up before me. It is like a jungle. It reminds me of Felicity’s pool party.

I don’t want to be reminded of Felicity’s pool party. I shake my head to clear the image of Dad standing there with his fists clenched and a lost look on his face. I take a deep breath and force myself to concentrate on what is right in front of me. Long vines are wrapped around trees. Birds flitter through the shadows. Lizards scuttle under the leaf litter. The path winds up through the trees. It is steep, and I need to hang onto the trees in places and pull myself up. Some vines are stretched across the path, and I wish I had a knife, like a real explorer, to cut my way through them. I have to scramble under them instead. My t-shirt is dripping with sweat.

Towards the top of the path, the trees begin to thin out and I can see blue sky. I am tempted to check the signal on the phone, but now the rocky hilltop is in sight, I want to keep going.

I walk with my head down against the scorching sun, lifting it every few steps to see if I have reached the top. One more minute of climbing, I figure. I begin to count silently to sixty, focusing on the numbers and trying to forget about my burning face, my rasping breath and my aching legs.

‘Fifty-eight, fifty-nine, sixty!’ I round a corner between boulders, look up and nearly fall backward. A girl is sitting on the highest rock at the top of the hill.

‘Who are you?’ she says.

I’m panting too heavily, from fright and exhaustion, to answer. She stares at me with aquamarine eyes, a sun-tanned face and wavy, sandy-blonde hair.

‘Where did you come from?’ she demands.

‘I’m … staying at the … camping ground … back there,’ I pant. I turn around and point down the hill. The view is amazing. I can see the entire coastline. The tiny dots of colour in the camping ground look like the freckles on fairy bread.

‘So you’re with
them
,’ the girl says.

‘Them? Who?’

‘The freaks,’ she says. ‘The wailing, chanting, belly-dancing, incense-burning fortune tellers.’

I am too exhausted to be offended. I smile instead. ‘Yeah.’

‘So what do
you
do?’

‘Do?’

‘Yes. Tea-leaves? Jewellery? Palms? Or have you got a crystal ball?’

‘I don’t do anything. My mum reads palms and tarot cards. And she has a crystal ball.’

The girl rolls her eyes.

‘Do you live here?’ I ask.

‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘My mum runs the caravan park and my dad makes jewellery.’

‘Are they into all this psychic stuff, too?’

‘No way,’ the girl says. ‘Although Mum does get a reading every year and they always say the same thing:“
You are going to have a very profitable summer.
”’ She waves her fingers beside her face, spookily.

I smile again.

She jumps down off the rock and lands beside me. ‘So what’s your name?’

‘Paige.’

‘Paige!’ she scoffs. ‘Read It and Weep! What sort of a name is Paige for a psychic’s daughter? Aren’t all you lot called Moonstone or Amethyst or something?’

‘My middle name is Crystal.’

The girl laughs.

‘What’s your name, then?’ I ask. I don’t really care about the answer. This girl is starting to annoy me.

‘Shelly.’

I can’t help myself and I burst out laughing. Now it is her turn to be offended.

‘Yeah, I know, I look like something that washed up on the beach.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘That was mean of me.’

She shrugs. ‘I get it a lot. Just like you must get “Read It and Weep” a lot.’

‘First time,’ I reply.

‘To your face,’ she answers, grinning.

I laugh again. It feels good to laugh. Maybe this Shelly is not so bad after all.

‘So,’ Shelly says, ‘do you want me to show you the easy way back down?’

I pull out Mum’s phone. ‘Give me a few minutes. I want to make a call.’

Shelly walks down to a rock on the ocean side of the mountain. I check the signal and jump for joy when two bars flicker. I scroll through Mum’s contacts until I find Dad’s work number.

I hit the
call
button and stand on the rock looking out at the brilliant-blue sea. Dad answers after six rings. ‘Hello?’ he says.

Suddenly I don’t know what to say.

‘Hello?’ Dad repeats.

‘Um … hi, Dad. It’s me, Paige.’

‘Paige! It’s so good to hear from you. How are you?’ His voice sounds echoey.

‘I’m … I’m …’I don’t know how I am. ‘I’m standing on a rock on top of a hill looking across the ocean.’

‘What?’

‘Mum’s taken us on holiday.’

‘Where?’

‘Um …’ I don’t know. I’d been asleep for most of the trip. ‘Shelly,’ I call out, ‘where are we?’

Shelly turns around, squinting into the sun. ‘On top of the world.’

‘But what’s the name of your caravan park?’ I ask.

‘Bloodstone Beach. It’s just north of Sugar Harbour.’

I relay the information to Dad.

‘Sugar Harbour!’ he says. ‘That’s six hours away!’

Six hours? I didn’t realise we’d travelled so far. ‘So you’ll come tomorrow for Christmas?’ I ask. I suddenly can’t wait to see him, even though I am dreading explaining about the pool party.

Dad hesitates. ‘I don’t know, Poss. It’s a long drive. As soon as I get up there I’ll have to turn around and come back again. I have to work on Boxing Day.’

‘But you promised.’ I try to keep the desperation out of my voice.

‘But that was when I thought you would be at home for Christmas. Why didn’t you tell me you were going away?’

‘We didn’t know, Dad. It was one of Mum’s snap decisions. I guess she heard that there was a psychic fair on …’

‘A psychic fair?’ My father sounds angry. ‘Oh, now I understand.’

‘So will you come, Dad? Please.’ But before he can answer there is a long beep and the signal goes dead.

‘Dad? Dad?’ I shout into the phone. I hit the
redial
button, but the little bars that show the level of reception have disappeared. I switch the phone off and then turn it on again. Still nothing.

‘Trouble at home?’ Shelly says.

‘Are you psychic or just an eavesdropper?’ I grumble.

‘Neither,’ she says. ‘But people often come to Bloodstone Beach when they’re going through a rough time.’

‘Bloodstone Beach sounds like the place a serial killer would go for a holiday,’ I say.

Shelly laughs. ‘You’re funny, Paige. No, bloodstone is a healing stone and the beach down there used to be full of them. If you find one, it’s meant to sort out all sorts of problems with friendships, relationships, everything. Hey, you might find a boyfriend here.’

‘I don’t want a boyfriend.’

Shelly shrugs. ‘Me neither. Come on.’

I follow her down the grassy hill until we come to some huge rocks. Waves crash below the rocks and the spray soon drenches us. Shelly leads me along the rocks, leaping from ledge to ledge. The churning ocean heaves beneath us.

‘I thought you said this was the easy way back,’ I shout.

‘Did I say easy?’ Shelly laughs. ‘I meant scary.’

A huge wave erupts and I swear the rock I’m standing on is going to crumble into the sea. ‘Thanks a lot,’ I shout over the roar of the surf.

‘This will be something for you to
write
home about,
Paige
,’ Shelly says.

‘The only thing people will be
reading
is Paige’s obituary,’ I scream as another wave crashes beneath us. ‘And yes, they’ll read it and weep.’I had to say it before she did, even if I don’t think many people really would weep if I just disappeared.

Shelly laughs. ‘You’re not going to die.’ She reaches out her hand to help me across the last ledge. My feet hit dry, level rock. ‘There. The worst of it is over.’

A path springs up between the rocks and leads down to the sand. I trail behind Shelly and collapse on the beach. I’m exhausted and my legs are trembling.

‘Come on,’ she says. ‘We’ve still got the length of this beach to go before we get back to Bloodstone Beach.’

I lift my head and groan. The beach stretches south for as far as my weary eyes can see. Shelly helps me to my feet.

‘I’ll race you,’ she challenges. She sprints off across the sand, and I follow.

* *

The sun is setting behind the hill when we get back to the camping ground. ‘My mum will be worried,’I say.

‘Wouldn’t she have looked in her crystal ball and seen that you were okay?’ Shelly says. ‘Well, Dad’s cooking up a Christmas Eve barbecue, so I’d better go. See ya.’

‘Yeah, see ya,’ I reply. But I doubt that Shelly will see me again. She’s probably got loads of friends. Why would she hang around with someone boring like me?

Mum has not looked in her crystal ball to see where I am, but she’s not worried, either. When I get back to our van she is sitting on a sun lounger outside, talking to a man with a balding head and a long ponytail. They are drinking red wine.

‘Hi, Paige,’ Mum says. ‘Did you get in touch with your father?’

‘Yes.’ I take the phone from my pocket and put it on her lap. She doesn’t ask how he is.

‘Honey, this is Reuben. He does psychometry, among other things. He’s going to teach me how to do it.’

‘Side commentary?’ I say. ‘On what? The football?’ I can’t imagine Mum wanting to be a footy commentator.

Reuben laughs. ‘No,
psy-chom-et-ry
,’he says slowly. ‘I read people’s futures and their pasts from their jewellery or some other object.’

‘Oh,’ I say.

I step up into the van, hoping to find some dinner. I’m starving. I can’t remember the last time I ate. But the little fridge is empty. And so is the cupboard.

‘Would you like me to get dinner ready, Mum?’ I ask, wondering how I can make something out of fresh air.

Felicity is sitting at the table in the living area. ‘You have to go to the mess hall here at juvie,’ she says, without looking up from her magazine.

Mum ignores Felicity. So do I.

‘No, thanks, Paige,’ Mum says. ‘Look around. Smell the delights. Every second caravan sells food of some sort. We won’t ever have to cook a meal while we’re here.’ She gives me some money from her purse and I go off in search of the pluto pup van.

But I don’t find a pluto pup van, a chip van or even a fairy floss van. This fair is different. There is a lentil curry van, a seaweed soup van, a freshly squeezed vegetable juice van, araw fish van. There are herbal teas and herbal coffees. Everything is organic.

It is getting dark, and I am about to pass out from hunger, when I find a van that sells chicken burgers. I can see myself eating at this van a lot. I order a burger and take it back to our caravan. I sit at the outdoor table beside Mum and bite into my burger.

‘Yuck!’ I say, almost spitting out my mouthful.

‘What’s wrong, Paige?’ Mum asks, looking up from the bracelet that Reuben is reading.

‘This doesn’t taste like chicken. It tastes like mush.’ I hand the burger over to Mum. She takes a bite.

‘Where did you get it?’

‘The second van from the end up there.’ I point.

Mum and Reuben howl with laughter. ‘The Chickapee van?’ Mum asks.

‘I thought it said,“Chickadee”.’

‘They make everything out of chickpeas, sweetheart,’ Mum says. ‘Not chicken.’

I eat the burger but only because I am so hungry.

After dinner, there’s not much else to do, so I go to bed. I scramble into the bunk above Felicity, who has her headphones in and is ignoring everyone.

My shoulder hits the roof every time I turn over. I’m worried I won’t be able to fall asleep in such a small space and with so much on my mind. But as I try to get comfortable, I realise I’m exhausted from the long drive, and from all the stuff that has happened in the last few days.

Before I know it, I fall into a deep sleep.

10

It is weird waking up on Christmas Day in a strange place. There are no twinkling fairy lights outside my window. No stocking at the end of my bed. And no Christmas tree in the lounge room. In fact, there
is
no lounge room.

I climb down the ladder from my bunk, careful not to wake Felicity, and tiptoe out into the kitchen area. Mum has closed the little concertina door at her end of the van. I look around the dark annexe. Our Christmas gifts sit in a cardboard box at the far end. I am half-tempted to look at them but I don’t. They’ve lost their magic.

I am dying to take a shower, but when I poke my head out of the flap of the annexe I see that Claire, the Queen of Clairvoyance, is already up and is
ohm
ing outside her van. I can’t face walking past her. Instead, I put on my swimsuit, pull yesterday’s t-shirt over the top, and set off from the caravan in the opposite direction from Claire. I follow the winding track down to the beach.

Having a swim first thing on Christmas Day is not unusual for me. Dad and I are always the first ones up at home and we have to wait hours for Mum and Felicity to surface. So every year we swim and splash about in the pool, making enough noise to wake the dead.

I don’t make any noise today though. The beach is empty. I dive under the waves and imagine that I am in the pool at home with Dad. Maybe if I think about him hard enough he will appear.

Suddenly something grabs my foot and yanks me down. My mouth fills with water as I try to scream. I thrash and kick my leg free. Then I torpedo to the surface, spluttering for air. I look around for the shark’s fin, frantically treading water. A flash of colour pops up beside me. I scream again.

‘Merry Christmas, Read It and Weep!’

It’s Shelly. I splash a wall of water at her.

‘You’re easily spooked.’ Shelly laughs. ‘I knew it was you because I recognised your t-shirt on the beach.’