Jasper Jones (4 page)

After a considerable silence, I turn to Jasper and sigh a shaft of air through my nostrils. I speak quietly.

“Okay. What if
I
report it? Just me. Without you. What if I go to the police, or my parents, right now, and tell them what I’ve seen. I never mention your name. Ever.”

Jasper Jones pinches his chin. Then abruptly shakes his head.

“Never work, Charlie. First off, why would you be here all by yourself? Makes no sense.”

I shrug. “I could say I’ve been sneaking out all summer. Just fishing and that. Exploring. Whatever. Stuff. It’s no big deal.”

“All due respect, Charlie, I don’t think anyone will believe that, least of all your folks, and specially not the sarge.”

“They could,” I say, indignant.

“And second, soon as they find out where she is, half a dozen girls in town are gonna recognize this place and come forward, start telling the police who brang them here. They’ll see a pattern, right? And then they’ll know you covered for me. They’ll find out, don’t you worry. And you’ll be an accessory after the fact, Charlie. For certain. And then I got no chance.”

I wipe the sweat from my brow. Palm the back of my head.

“Well. Okay. Suppose we move her, then. If it is mostly the fact that Laura is
here
that will get you into trouble, suppose we move her someplace else, someplace closer to town so that someone else finds her. Discovers her. You know, for the first time. That way, you’ve got a chance, right? That way you’re nowhere near her.”

I can scarcely believe that this is what I am saying. I can’t honestly be proposing this. Surely. But by the way Jasper is rubbing his
cheek, he seems to be considering it. My belly roils. I want to retract it immediately.

“I see what you’re saying, Charlie. But it’s too risky, mate. If someone sees us, if we’re caught, we’re done then and there. No questions asked, we’re good as guilty. Even if we’re not caught, the police aren’t idiots. They’ll know. They’ll know she bin moved. We might leave prints or whatever. Shit, they might even trace our steps back to here.”

“Too risky,” I agree readily.

“I like your thinking but. I hadden thought of that.”

I turn.

“Okay, Jasper. So, what if we do find out who did this. Suppose we somehow find evidence that can convict Mad Jack. What then? What do we do? Tell him to confess? Send an anonymous letter?”

Jasper Jones picks at the hairs on his arm and sniffs. “I guess we cross that bridge when we make it to the river. I mean, we don’t know the circumstances or nuthin yet, right? Who knows? It might not even be a decision we have to make. But we got to
try
, Charlie. We got to do that. We owe her the truth, right?”

I shake my head softly and sigh. This makes no sense: to cover this with lies to uncover the truth. I try to reason with him, like Atticus might.

“Jasper, there’s still a chance that they won’t blame you for this. There’s a
chance
, isn’t there? Listen, we can still do this properly. Tell the right people. The authorities. Do it by the book. I mean, you’re still protected by
law
, by …”

“Christ, Charlie! I ain’t protected by shit. See, that’s you bein afraid. That’s you washin your hands. You know that’s not honest. You
know
what’ll happen. This town, they think I’m a bloody animal. They think I belong in a cage, and this here is just an excuse to lock me up in one. They don’t need any more than what they see right here. All that matters is how this looks. I’m in
trouble
, Charlie. Real trouble. And I can’t run, because they’ll find Laura, then they’ll find me. I got to tough it out. We got to do this.”

I cradle my head in my hands, lifting my glasses and rubbing my eyes with my palms.

“
Do
? Do
what
? What the hell do we
do
?”

“Only one thing I can think of. Only one thing that’s going to save me for the time being.”

I look up. Bleary and weary.

“What?”

“We got to bury her. Hide her. Here. Ourselves.”

“What?”
I look at Jasper, horrified.

“It’s the only way, Charlie.”

“It’s not the only way! That’s
you
being afraid!”

“Yair, I
know
. But I got somethink real to be afraid of. This is the only way I can keep myself out of trouble for now. Don’t you see?”

I shake my head. Incredulous. I try desperately to conceive of alternatives, ways of escape.

“Well, no. We can’t. We can’t bury her here and now. Okay? I don’t know. We don’t have any shovels. Or anything. Either way, it’ll take hours. The sun will be up before we’re finished. And it is going to look real bloody suspicious if I arrive home after sneaking out, dirty as shit from digging a
grave
, and then suddenly everyone knows that Laura Wishart is missing.”

“Not in the ground, Charlie. In there.”

And Jasper Jones motions toward the dam, its surface still as a sheet. My stomach knots.

We are going to drown the dead.

“The dam?”

“Yeah.”

I’m caught in a rip, being dragged out further and deeper against my will.

“But what about her family? Don’t they have the right to bury their own daughter? To say goodbye? What about Eliza? What about last rites and sacrament and all that? What about their beliefs?”

“Do
you
believe in that?”

“It doesn’t matter what
I
believe! That’s not the point.”

“Listen. I know for a fact that her old man is no good. He’s worthless, and he drinks worse than mine. And her mum is near enough to the walking dead. Strangest woman I ever seen. For certain. And I know that doesn’t come into it. But, end of the day, I reckon they’ll be more concerned with the real truth than how she’s bin buried. And that’s all we’re doing, Charlie. We’re making time so we can find out who done this. And I don’t know, after this is all over, when Mad Jack is put away, we might still be able to do things right. We’ll know where she’ll be, right?”

I can’t believe any of this. I’m being pulled further down. I glance across at Laura Wishart’s hanging frame and feel a fresh sluice of sickness and fear. She’s a gossamer ghost. She’s not real. Neither is this place.

“I don’t know, Jasper. What if we
don’t
find out? Ever? What if the Wisharts never find out
any
part of the truth? What if you’re wrong, what if we’re wrong about Corrigan? About Mad Jack? About everything?”

Jasper suddenly leaps to his feet, shaking his head and looming large. He swats the air, like he’s trying to catch a passing insect.

“What would you rather, mate? You want me to go to prison for nothing just so the Wisharts can say goodbye properly? I didn’t
plan
this, did I? I’m just tryin to do the right thing without seeing myself strung up like that.” And he points at Laura, his eyes bearing in at me wildly. “Because that
is
what will bloody happen. And you
know
that. And I
swear
to you, again, on my mother, that I knew nuthin about this. That I come here tonight and found her here, and I don’t know what to do except to save my own arse and then maybe try to work it all out. And that’s why I need your help. Because you’re smart, and you’re different to the others, and I thought you’d understand for sure. I mean,
shit
, I took a big risk when I come to you, Charlie.”

I cast my eyes down and keep quiet.

“It’s a big thing for me to trust you, Charlie. It’s dangerous. And
I’m askin you to do the same. I can’t force you to do nuthin. But I hoped you might see things from my end. That’s what you do, right? When you’re readin. You’re seeing what it’s like for other people.”

I nod.

“Well, Charlie, you think about this space here, and you think about what this means for me. And think about what I’ve got to do. What the right thing is.”

I feel grimly resigned. How could things be so messy and complex outside this quiet bubble of land? Laura Wishart, her hanging body—this shouldn’t be our responsibility. It shouldn’t be our hideous problem to solve. We should be able to pass this to the right people. We should be able to run like frightened kids, to point and pant and cower someplace safe. The real truth shouldn’t be for us to discover. Laura Wishart has been hanged, and Jasper Jones is in serious trouble. Somehow I am here among it.

Jasper softens. He squats and roughly ruffles his own hair.

“But, Charlie, just so you know. I mean, if you stick with me here, if you help me, nuthin is going to happen to you. At all. I mean that. If something happens, I’ll do everything it takes to keep you clear, orright? You don’t have to worry about that. And that’s a promise.”

I nod again.

“You got to get brave, Charlie. It’s all it is. I know you unnerstand what I bin saying and why I’m in so much trouble. Me, I had to get brave in a hurry. Since I can remember. I had to do it all real quick, Charlie. Some days I feel so
old
, you know?”

“Yeah, I know it,” I say.

“See, everyone here’s afraid of something and nuthin. This town, that’s how they live, and they don’t even know it. They stick to what they know, what they bin told. They don’t unnerstand that it’s just a choice you make.”

I raise my head and look Jasper in the eye.

“I mean, I know people have always bin afraid of me. Kids specially, but old people too. Wary. They reckon I’m just half an animal
with half a vote. That I’m no good. And I always used to think,
why
? They don’t even
know
me. Nobody does. It never made sense. But then I realized, that’s exactly why. That’s all it is. It’s so stupid, Charlie. But it means I don’t hate them anymore.”

How eerie and distilled this night is. How strange and abandoned and unsettled I am. Like a snow-dome paperweight that’s been shaken. There’s a blizzard in my bubble. Everything in my world that was steady and sure and sturdy has been shaken out of place, and it’s now drifting and swirling back down in a confetti of debris. A book I knew by heart, torn up and thrown into the air. Everything has been rocked with such rigor and tumult. Everything has been uprooted and broken. A dozen disasters at once. I can’t begin to collect the pieces and try to set them as they were. It’s like I’ve got to crawl out of my own eggshell and emerge. And, a little like Jasper Jones, I no longer have the luxury of choosing the right time. I can’t unfurl from my cocoon when I’m good and ready. I’ve been pulled out early and left in the cold.

We nurse this strange, empty silence for a while. Our heads turned away from the tree.

Jasper finally suggests that we have one last look around. One final survey of the surrounds before we disrupt them forever. I don’t object, but I stick right by him, shrinking when we approach Laura’s body.

I’m too distracted to really concentrate on details. I don’t even really know what I’m supposed to be looking for. Footprints, I guess. Evidence. A scrawled confession. Anything. But everything is so unfamiliar anyway that I have no idea what’s inconsistent. It just reaffirms how hopeless this mess is. How firmly the odds are stacked against us. Jasper frowns and bends slightly as he walks.

We scour the whole area by moonlight. It doesn’t take too long. When Jasper finishes inspecting the last of the surrounding shrubs, running his hands across their skeletal branches, he nods, satisfied.

“Well, they must have come in the same way I always do. Same way we come in before,” he says finally, motioning toward the wattlebush, deep in thought. He points. “But look, there’s some grass up till
this bottlebrush which looks like it’s bin trampled. Not much, though. I dunno. It could mean anythin. Maybe she tried to escape. Maybe not. We don’t know. We don’t know anythin. We don’t even know if they hanged her. Proper, I mean.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, anythin could have happened here, Charlie. They might’ve killed her and then strung her up to make it look like she did it herself. We just don’t know.”

I nod absently, distantly. It’s too much for me to think about. I wonder how Jasper Jones remains so straight and level. How he can make these kinds of considerations, right here and now. I just follow him in a mute daze.

I glance up and Jasper is looking at me. Patiently. The world is spinning.

“You ready, Charlie?”

I stare back blankly.

Jasper Jones regards me for another moment. Then he tells me to wait where I’m standing, for which I’m relieved. My feet, my pansy sandals, are rooted to the earth.

I watch Jasper walk toward the eucalypt. He ducks into the cavernous hollow at its base. As soon as he is out of my sight, I’m beset by anxiety. My arse tries to crawl into itself and my head is a white whorl. He emerges, holding a broad knife by the handle.

I watch him fasten it to his long shorts through his belt loops. He is so close to Laura’s body, so close he could touch her, but he keeps his head bowed from it.

Jasper begins climbing. In spite of my proximity to this scene, in spite of the cloying press of this little plot and its stifling air, I feel almost completely detached as I spectate. As though I’m watching a spider crawl a wall. Jasper grips and pulls himself up to the sturdy burr, and I’m thinking about Jeffrey Lu. I remember that tomorrow is the Test Match debut of his favorite cricketer, Doug Walters. I’ll wager that Jeffrey can barely sleep tonight with anticipation. I wonder
if Doug Walters is as breathless and nervous as I am at the moment. I wonder if he can sleep tonight. I wonder if he’s ever seen a dead person.

Jasper’s climb has slowed as he nears the branch. He’s shunting up by degrees. It’s true: it looks like a hard climb. You’d need to be strong and nimble.

Looking at the stress and strain in Jasper’s arms and calves, I wonder how Jack Lionel could have done the same. It seems an unlikely feat. I wouldn’t ever make it anywhere near that branch, or even the burr, so how could an old man? But I don’t ask Jasper. I stand here and I wait.

Nearing the wrinkled elbow of the branch, Jasper twists his body and hoists himself high, releasing his legs in an act of faith I could never summon. He looks fearless. Like a circus acrobat, practiced and sure. He swings, levering himself up and straddling the limb. He scoots his body toward the rope knot.