Missing Abby (11 page)

His eyebrows drew together as I spoke. ‘Aren't you a bit old for all this?’

‘Well – no, not really. I mean, I think quite old people play it, actually. Adults.’

Dad shrugged, and tossed the book onto the bed. It landed with a soft
plump
beside me. ‘Well, whatever keeps you happy. Looks a bit odd to me. Come on now, Nat, time for bed.’

The word kicked me in the stomach. Odd. Thanks, Dad.

As Nat scrambled off the bed, she pressed the dragon into my hand, smiling angelically. (I swear she has a future as a con artist.) ‘'Night, Emma.’

‘'Night, Nat,’ I murmured back. I watched her leave the room with Dad, and clutched the tiny statue, running my thumb over the scales on its neck. It felt
like a lifeline – but a lifeline to what? Being
odd
all my life?

I pulled my knees up to my chest and looked at my wardrobe, thinking of the box. Of the notebook, filled with pages and pages of writing. And Karen's voice, laughing as she read –
‘Only magic can save us now, my friend! Ooh, magic-wagic!’

Odd was just an adult word for
freak
, wasn't it?

Finally I picked the book up and started reading again. And slowly, I fell back into it, until the only sound was the soft turning of pages.

A sharp noise clapped through the room, and I jolted upright. Blearily, I realized that I had fallen asleep, and dropped the book on the floor. I blinked at the clock. It was almost eleven.

I rolled onto my stomach to grab the book from where it lay splayed on the carpet – and stopped. There was a neon-green flier beside it; it must have been tucked into the book. I picked it up, stretching my fingers to grasp it.

Live action. But … hadn't Abby mentioned that on the bus? I sat up slowly on the bed, staring at the flier as phrases whirled around me, hitting me like hailstones.

We've been doing table gaming, but that's sort of boring … I'm going to get them into live action, not that they know it yet … You want to come along this afternoon, then? Should be almost as much fun …

I gripped the flier, remembering how stunned I had been when the police first started questioning me, how I had struggled to remember what Abby had said. And now, eleven days later, the exact words she had used had come flooding back.
Live action.

But what was it that I was remembering? What
was
a live action game, anyway?

Dad. I had to find Dad; I had to tell someone! I scrambled off the bed and lunged into the corridor, starting quickly down the stairs. When I was halfway down, I heard my name, and froze.

‘I suppose I'm just a bit worried about it, that's all,’ said Dad's voice. ‘I mean, she was into all that fantasy stuff with Abby, but she really seemed to have matured so much this last year at St Sebastian's. Now it's like she's harking back or something, buying that book …’

My pulse hammered. I pressed against the wall, listening.

Jenny's voice floated up. ‘A bit of regression, maybe? I mean, nothing serious, I'm sure, but she must want to retreat back to a safer time, with all that's going on. It's all very frightening, Tom, for her especially.’

She sounded so revoltingly
earnest,
so chuffed that Dad was even asking her opinion. The future child psychologist in action.

Dad sighed. ‘Yes, I know she must be terrified by all this … what can we do, though?’

I heard what sounded like a coffee cup being put down. ‘Well, counselling might be an idea. Just to help her over this time – give her some skills to cope.’

I stiffened against the wall. No
way.
That was apparently Dad's reaction too, because Jenny said edgily, ‘Tom, it's a totally common thing … good grief, I've had counselling myself.’

I could just picture Dad's grimace. ‘Yes, well … it's an option to keep in mind, I suppose. But for now, we'll just keep an eye on her, shall we? See that she doesn't start to – retreat too much into this fantasy stuff, or act odd in other ways.’

‘And I'll see if she wants to talk about things … maybe have a word with her tomorrow.’

Oh, will you? I flushed, shaking with shame and anger. It was like I had let Dad down by not being as fantastically mature as he had thought. I wanted to burst downstairs and scream at them that they didn't know anything, that half the time I had been acting this last year,
acting,
so that I didn't get slaughtered at my new school for being – what was the word? Oh yes,
odd
.

My fingernails bit into my palms, and suddenly I was near tears. The thought of trying to explain to Dad about the flier made my stomach jerk. I couldn't do it, not now.

I moved back up the stairs, placing my feet carefully on the carpet so they wouldn't hear me.

When I eventually eased away into sleep that night, Abby and the game drifted around in my head like smoke. Abby was wearing a cloak, slipping through the night with a tiger-eye necklace in her hand.

And she didn't know that Esmerelda was hiding just around the next corner, waiting for her.

Sheila's face slackened as she opened her front door and saw me standing there. ‘Oh. What do you want?’ She crossed her skinny arms across her chest.

‘Can I talk to you?’ I burst out. ‘It's important.’

Her eyebrows almost disappeared under her spiky fringe. She shrugged, and stood back to let me in. ‘Yeah, I guess. Whatever.’

In the lounge, a boy of about seventeen was sprawled in front of a wide-screen TV, where large American blokes in masks were wrestling each other. ‘Hold on, folks … YES! The Muskrat strikes again!’ The TV crowd roared, ‘
Musk-rat! Musk-rat!
’

And Dad thinks
I'm
odd.

The boy and Sheila completely ignored each other as we passed through the lounge. Sheila grabbed a pair of Cokes from the fridge and we went up to her room, stepping over a fat black Labrador on the way.

‘His name is Fred,’ said Sheila over her shoulder as we went into her room. ‘We've had him since I was about two … he's useless; all he ever does is drool.’

I assumed she was talking about the dog, not the boy.

‘Yeah, I've got a cat like that …’ I tapered off, trying to get my head around the fact that we were actually having a civil conversation. It felt unnatural.

Sheila handed me one of the Cokes and sat down at her desk. I sank onto her bed, looking around the room. And somehow I wanted to prolong being friendly, so I nodded at this fantastic poster on her wall – a mage on a cliff, with lightning streaming around him – and said, ‘That's really great … where did you get it?’

Sheila glanced at it. ‘Yeah, my Art teacher thought it was OK … it was in the Art Show last year.’

I thought she had
bought
it! I popped open my Coke, feeling completely inadequate. ‘Um … it's fantastic.’

‘Thanks.’ She squinted sceptically at it. ‘I'm more into anime now. So's Gail … that's how we all met, in fact – the four of us. We have Art together.’

‘Ski's an artist?’

She slid a sidelong glance at me. ‘Yeah, that's right. He's really into graphic comics. Design, that sort of thing. Why?’

‘Just wondering.’ I took a quick gulp of Coke to hide my reddening face.

Sheila smiled knowingly, straightening out a paper clip. ‘That's funny; he was asking about you, too. On and on. Goth Girl and I were about to gag him to shut him up.’

I froze. ‘Goth—’

‘Gail.’ Sheila gave me a strange look. ‘She's the original Goth Girl, or haven't you noticed?’

‘It's just that—’ I took a breath. ‘Well, that's what they call Abby at Balden. One of the things. Only they're not kidding.’

The desk chair squeaked as Sheila pulled a knee up to her chest. ‘She never told me that. She told me enough, though. They sound like a bunch of stuck-up cows at that school.’

‘Some of them really are. Like Karen Stipp and them.’ Glancing down at my forest green uniform, I thought about how I had just skipped off and left Abby to fend for herself. My mouth tightened, thinking about it. I mean, she had always claimed not to care about Karen, but what if she really did? What if
she'd
been acting, too?

I could feel Sheila's eyes on me, and knew that she was dying to ask what had happened. I rested the Coke on a pink beaded drink-mat that sat on her bedside table.

‘Look, the reason I came here … I saw this flier about a D&D convention, and it mentioned live action games. And it reminded me that that's what Abby was talking about on the bus.’

There was a flash of blue as Sheila's eyes widened. ‘What exactly did she say?’

‘That – table gaming was starting to get boring, and the game
she
was going to run would be live action.’

Sheila slumped back in her chair, gaping at me like I had just started chanting ancient Latin. ‘What, the game we were going to play
that night
?’

My heart racketed against my ribs. ‘That's what it sounded like. What does it mean, anyway?’

‘Um … well, it's when you play a game outside, in a real setting – like, if the game's set in the woods, then you actually go play it in the woods, acting it out. Emma, are you
sure
she said that?’

‘Yes, I'm sure! I just didn't know what it meant at first, so it didn't really sink in.’

‘But …’ Sheila's mouth pursed. ‘Did she say where we were supposed to go to play it?’

‘No, but she asked me if I wanted to play that night, and when I said no, she asked me along for that afternoon. She said it should be almost as much fun. Sheila, I thought she was inviting me to her
house
!’

Sheila shook her head slowly. ‘No, I bet she was asking you along somewhere else, to help set up the game … and it wouldn't have been at her house, because we were supposed to all meet
here
that night.’ She stopped suddenly, pressing a fist against her mouth.

‘What?’

‘I just thought – she knows my mum does line dancing Saturday nights! She knew we could leave the house if we met here – so if she was talking about live action, then she
definitely
must have been setting up a game somewhere else for us to play, and I bet that's where she was going when you saw her on the bus!’

Electricity shot through me, lifting the hair from my head. We stared at each other. I knew we were
both thinking the same thing: Abby going to the woods or something. By herself.

‘And I bet that's what the tiger-eye necklace was for,’ I managed. ‘Like, for treasure … something real for you to find at the end of the game.’

Sheila's pointed face had turned fish-belly pale. ‘Emma, we've got to go to the police. We've got to tell them all of this.’

‘Yeah, you're right.’ I fumbled to get my mobile out of my bag. ‘Do you reckon I should just dial 999, or—’

‘No, we have to go there!’ Exploding from her desk, Sheila snatched up a bus pass from her dresser and shoved it in her pocket.

‘
Go
there?’

‘Emma, this is urgent! We can't just
ring –
come on, they're going to want to talk to you in person anyway, aren't they? And the fastest way for that to happen is if we just
go there, now
.’

She stood by her door with her hands on her hips, looking like an outraged blond ferret.

I tried not to think about the fact that it was already after half four, and that I had told Jenny I was going to a Book Club meeting after school. I stood up and grabbed my things. ‘OK … you're right.’

A few minutes later, we were running for the bus.

The police department was in the Civic Building just beside the town centre – a tall, concrete office block that looked like a prison. All it needed were coils of barbed wire surrounding it.

Even Sheila looked a bit daunted as we got closer. She took a breath and shoved open the door. ‘Come on.’

I followed right behind her, my pulse drumming in my ears.

PC Lavine was there when we asked for her, which was a complete relief. And she was as nice as I remembered. She took us into a private office, and sat with us on a small sofa as I repeated what Abby had said, and explained how I had remembered it the night before.

‘See, live action games are different from table games,’ Sheila broke in.

PC Lavine had pulled out a small notebook, and was writing in it with a blue Biro. She glanced up. ‘Yes, I know … we've had a D&D expert in.’

Goatee-guy from the Dungeon flashed into my mind.

‘Oh.’ Sheila looked a bit deflated. ‘Well, anyway, we don't think she was going home that day, since the game was going to be live action … she must have been going somewhere to set it up for that night.’

‘Right, I see.’ Frowning, PC Lavine went over it again with us, asking loads of questions. What were the exact words Abby had used, could I recall? Had Abby ever mentioned live action gaming before? Did we have any idea at all where she might have gone to set up a game?

Sheila and I looked at each other on that last one, shaking our heads. I saw the same blankness on her face that I felt on mine.

Finally PC Lavine nodded, and snapped the cap back on her Biro.

‘Right … wait here a moment, girls, I want to show you something.’ She came back a few seconds later with a bulging file, and handed us some stapled-together sheets of paper. ‘This is the game we think Abby wrote for you and your friends to play, Sheila. We found it on the hard drive of her family's computer; she printed a copy of it off the day she disappeared.’

Sheila and I pressed together on the sagging sofa, looking down at the game.

Esmerelda's Dungeon
An adventure for a party of four, with experience level five.

PC Lavine sat down and placed the heaving file on the desk. ‘Have a quick read of it, OK? See if it rings any bells as to where she might have been planning to play it.’