September (10 page)
Authors: Gabrielle Lord
Gabbi was still in the window, frowning at the sky.
An idea suddenly came to me.
Gabbi always used to ask me to draw her pictures of cats. Sometimes they were of
Snuggles
—our old pet cat—and sometimes they were
just of any cat or kitten wearing a funny
expression
. She used to have a few of them stuck around her bedroom mirror. I pulled out the folded leaflets from my backpack, and dug around for a pen.
I quickly scribbled a smiling cartoon cat saying ‘Hi!’ on the back of one of the leaflets. I folded the whole thing into a paper aeroplane and took aim at her window.
At that moment, Gabbi stood upright and
disappeared
from the window.
Please don’t shut it, I begged silently.
She didn’t.
I knew it was a long shot, but I took aim and deftly propelled the paper plane through the air towards the window.
Miraculously, it snuck in perfectly between two of the vertical bars that crossed her window and landed somewhere on the floor inside!
Gabbi would know right away that it was a message from me, while anyone else picking it up would see nothing but a silly cat drawing.
I peered through the window with my
binoculars
, hoping to see her find it.
She was sitting at her dressing table, combing her hair. She stopped all of a sudden, like she’d seen the reflection of something unusual in the mirror.
My heart pumped with excitement when I saw her jump off her chair and run to the plane on the floor. Her face lit up when she unfolded it like a long-awaited Christmas present.
I wanted so badly to call out—for her to see me—but I knew I couldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t risk her blowing my cover by accident. I shrank away further into the tree to hide.
She leapt to her feet and ran to the window,
clutching the picture of the cat at her chest. Her eyes searched the yard.
The smile on her face was undeniable.
It was creepy sitting outside Ryan Spencer’s window, watching him sleep.
After seeing—hearing—Mum for those few brief moments at Rafe’s place, I decided
something
had to be done. I needed answers. I needed to know who Ryan was. I needed to know who I was. And I needed Mum to know what I knew.
Right now I had my eye on his bus pass, sitting on the floor by his backpack.
I carefully slid my fingers under his window, which was open only a centimetre, and slowly started lifting it. A cold wind blew in and I hoped it wouldn’t wake him up.
Soundlessly, I squeezed my body, right leg first, into his room. Once inside I snatched up the bus pass and slipped it into my pocket, but
before I could sneak out again, I couldn’t help but look for the white toy dog.
It was there on the shelf, just like last time.
I felt mesmerised, frozen to the ground.
Ryan moaned suddenly and turned in his bed, snapping me out of my mindless gaze.
I was back out the window in a flash.
I scrawled what I wanted to say to Mum on the back of the bus pass, and pushed it into the letterbox.
Although I’d been checking every couple of days,
so far I’d received no answer to my email to Dr Brinsley. I was also impatiently waiting on word from Boges about the altered air rifle. I was anxious to move forward with my plan to get information.
I hadn’t heard anything from Sharkey in a while either. I needed to give him a call.
mission accomplished. items r ready for collection. w says her place is cool for an hour. ‘strictly 4-5pm’. boges.
‘Three hamburgers with the works,’ Boges announced, as he sauntered into Winter’s flat. He passed one to each of us, before letting his duffel bag fall from his shoulder.
‘Thanks Boges,’ Winter said. ‘Next time it’s my shout.’
‘So let’s see it!’ I said, reaching to unzip his bag myself.
‘Hold on, hold on,’ said Boges, brushing my hands away. He dug into the bag and lifted out the air rifle, long and sleek, and placed it on the table. It looked straighter and more polished than when I’d last seen it. Next to it he placed a small box.
‘You’re looking particularly pleased with yourself,’ said Winter, pausing in her chewing. ‘What’s in the box?’
‘Custom-designed spyware.’ He proudly pushed the box in my direction. ‘Take a look.’
‘Let me see,’ said Winter, pushing in beside me.
I opened it and stared at the contents.
‘Wow,’ I said. ‘This is incredible!’
Gently, I lifted it out. Boges had turned the tiny metallic bug into an insect—a small, dark moth, complete with delta-shaped wings, a tiny head and feelers.
‘I used my uncle’s old fly-fishing materials to make it,’ he explained. ‘See this tiny button here?’ he said, turning the bug upside down to show me. ‘You push it with something small, like the tip of a pencil, to activate it. From that moment on, we’ll have roughly twelve hours to listen in to Oriana’s conversations—that’s if you shoot it into position properly.’
‘No pressure,’ I said, laughing nervously. ‘This is unreal, Boges. I mean, it’s so unreal that it looks so
real!
’
