The Other Side of Summer (11 page)

It was warm that night, not like any autumn we were used to. Dad insisted on asking the Witkins over for a barbecue in our garden instead of theirs for a change, so Sophie would have got her way whether or not I’d made the bargain with her.

I had to watch Julie Witkin bustle around our kitchen, opening our drawers and fridge, pointing out all the things we needed. ‘You seem to be out of extra virgin.’ ‘Don’t you have a grater, Dougie? I’ll get you one like mine.’ If Mum had been here, and if she had drunk more than two glasses of wine, her barbed words would have flown out and stuck in Julie Witkin’s butter cream face.

But she wasn’t.

And then there was Sophie to deal with.

‘Let’s go to your room.’ She was trying to be cute and conspiratorial, with her shoulders bunched up to her ears and her hands cupped around her mouth.

‘Can’t. I’ve got homework.’

‘But you said. And if you
don’t
, I might have to tell the
seeeecret
.’

‘Sh! All right, but not in my room. Come outside.’

So I had to spend the rest of the evening making crowns for her out of leaves and flowers. Sophie was as happy as a ladybird, no matter how much I scowled at her. The whole time she gabbled on, I looked up at my bedroom window, wanting to be holding the Ibanez Artwood and learning the next piece, wanting it to be just me and Floyd.

I played the melody from ‘If I Were a Boy’ in my head while we sat around eating Dad’s burnt chicken kebabs and Julie’s weird salad.

Finally they were gone. Dad and Wren had washed up and gone to bed, and the house was quiet. I got out of bed and stood with the Ibanez Artwood by the open window.

The room was stuffy and the night air was wafting
in the scent of tight early blossoms on the lemon tree. I stuck the second song sheet to the window frame, so it was lit by the huge dinner-plate moon.

E minor to C ninth to G to Dsus … I was fixed on the dots Floyd had drawn, each one representing a fingertip, and had to concentrate to stop my brain from moving faster through the song than I could change chords. But I was making music. I sang the lyrics, soft as a cat’s purr.

Suddenly I noticed movement out of the corner of my eye and stopped playing. Down in the garden. A cat? Or a possum? No, I could see better now – it was much, much bigger. Under the tree, crouching. My hand was frozen in E minor. It was a some
one
. Not Dad or Wren – the someone had longer legs and was wearing a hood.

I ducked out of sight, and pulled the guitar strap over my head so I could lay it gently down. Slowly I rose just enough to take another look. He was still there, standing at full height now. He had sharp, wild animal movements, his hands out for balance even though his feet were planted on solid ground. I sank back down and tried to think what to do. There wasn’t a single sound except for the ones I was making.

I peered above the bottom of the window frame again, and this time I saw Bee. She was out there with
him! She was sniffing at his legs. What was she doing outside? What if that hooded man wanted to hurt Bee, or take her away? I started to panic. It was my fault; I’d forgotten to call her in for the night.

No one was going to take my beautiful dog. I ran down the stairs and across the cool wooden floors to the locked French doors, slid them open and prepared to scream my head off.

But he’d gone. There was no sign of him. Nothing to see, and no sounds of footsteps or someone scrambling over the fence. I looked everywhere, dizzily, and now I could hear animal noises: some brushtail possums hissing and coughing. Then a cat landed heavily in the flowerbed. I started to doubt everything I’d seen. Bee trotted over and nuzzled my hand with her wet nose. She didn’t look scared, or like she’d been guarding us and needed praising. But surely, even in the wide, dark night, I wasn’t imagining this sense of something newly gone.

Floyd?

What is it? Are you scared?

I’m okay now you’re here.

A sudden wind swept over me like a lick of cold paint and I wrapped my arms around myself.

I brought Bee in and we went back upstairs. Bee lay down on the landing, stretching out between my room and Wren’s. She nearly reached the whole way.

I was suddenly tired. I got into bed but just as I closed my eyes I realised what was missing. I leapt up and grabbed at the Blu-Tack on the window frame that had held the music sheet in place. Shoving half my body out of the window, I scanned the lawn and the bushes and sought out the dark corners, but there was no precious white paper there. I was too scared to go back out and look for it properly. Autumn leaves were being carried high up and far over the surrounding fences by a wind with new strength. I pictured Floyd’s music landing in some stranger’s garden. I pictured the neighbour puzzling over the paper for a moment and then screwing it up for the bin … No, that was too hard. I pictured it again, flying and flying like a bird but never landing.

I lay back in bed again and cried a little. I was getting everything so wrong. Why hadn’t I shouted for Wren or Dad the way anyone normal would have if they’d seen someone in the garden who shouldn’t be there? What was happening to me?

I reached over to the Ibanez Artwood on the floor beside me and tugged the E hard between my forefinger and thumb. Buried under the echo of the note there was a shift in the room. I froze, my hand hovering over the strings as the soft vibration came to an end.

Floyd? Is it you?

He didn’t answer.

Are you there, Floyd? Speak to me!

I could hear something. No, it was different to hearing. Deeper. Someone in here, sharing this space. I wanted to look around the room but I was terrified. I squeezed my eyes shut. Waited. Very slowly I pulled my cold hand back under the covers. I tried to move further down so that my head was almost covered. Then I just stayed there, feeling as though every clock had stopped ticking, my shallow breaths growing warmer.

In the morning my first thought was that I was definitely alone. I wasted no time scrambling off the bed and locking my bedroom door. The sense of an intruder was still strong, even though it was an impossible thing to have happened. It surprised me that sleep had managed to pull me under, as frightened as I’d been. My eyes felt pickled. My bones were heavy.

Now what, sis?

How should I know?

You look like you’re waiting for something.

Floyd, is there something you’re not telling me?

But he went quiet.

I sat on my bed. He was right, though, I did feel like I was waiting, I just didn’t know what for.

At eight o’clock my door handle moved down.

‘Summer? Come on, we’ll be late for school.’

Wren. I ignored her. There was no way I could go to school feeling like this. I was stuck – scared to go out and scared to be in.

I heard her footsteps going down and two sets coming back up a few minutes later. I sat tight.

‘Summer? Are you okay?’ Dad’s voice was full of concern.

I imagined telling him the truth, but even I didn’t believe it. ‘I’ve got a headache,’ I said. It had to be stronger than that. ‘It feels like my brain is pressing into my skull. A migraine.’

‘Let me in. We’ll go to the doctor.’

‘No. I just need darkness and quiet, Dad.’

In the pause I imagined Wren mouthing something to him.

‘I don’t like this door being locked. Open up, Summer. I mean it.’

He sounded worried enough to kick the door in, so I did as I was told. His face when he saw mine told me I looked as bad as I felt.

‘Will you be all right here alone?’ he said.

I nodded. ‘I just need to sleep.’

While Dad popped into the small upstairs bathroom and rummaged for, I guessed, some headache pills, Wren stared at me and her left eyebrow shot up. That was an old trademark of hers. It meant she was suspicious. I looked away. Dad handed me two pills and I swallowed them. Come to think of it, I did actually have a headache.

Dad and Wren finished getting ready for the day and left me. When I heard the front door slam and I turned the lock of my bedroom door again, I felt a new sort of loneliness. This one had a bitter, be-careful-what-you-wish-for taste. Even loneliness had different flavours.

All day Bee lay at the end of my bed. I slept for minutes or hours at a go. Every time I opened my eyes or moved she’d lift up her head. But she didn’t nag me. Neither of us ate, but once in the afternoon I unlocked the door so I could use the toilet and Bee could run to the garden. Afterwards I locked us in again.

The day stretched on for so long that when I heard Dad and Wren come through the front door I was almost relieved.

‘It’s only us!’ yelled Dad up the stairs. ‘How’s the head?’

‘Bit better,’ I yelled back. Then I heard the extra voices and groaned. First there was Julie Witkin’s metallic laugh, then little footsteps unevenly running
up the stairs, and finally a knock on my door. I ignored it. The handle moved down.

‘Let me in, Summer. Your dad says you’re sick.’

‘I am, Sophie. Why are you here? Didn’t Dad tell you not to come up?’

‘Let me in!’

‘No!’

‘
Seeecrets!
’ She sang the word in a high-pitched tease.

I got up, hugged my duvet around me, and moved to open the door a crack, plotting how to get rid of her.

She was frowning and had her arms crossed. ‘There are scratches on my bike,’ she said, darkly. ‘You took it again, didn’t you?’

‘Nope.’ I got back into bed and buried myself up to my neck.

‘Well, guess what?’ The frown had vanished. ‘I lost a molar!’ She was fingering the gap, spit dribbling from the corner of her mouth all down her hand. In her other hand she waved a piece of paper, and let it float onto my bed. Then she plopped on a chair in the corner of the room that was covered in my clothes.

I picked up the paper. ‘Get better,’ the picture said. It was more of an instruction, like the ones she gave her mother: more biscuits, new toy, get better. She’d drawn two girls holding hands and a thick blue ribbon of sky above. We were the same height and had dots for eyes
with six eyelashes above each, pretty triangle dresses, sausage legs and tiny sausage fingers, shoes as round as baby wombats, and smiles like horseshoes.

Be nice, Summer. She drew you a picture. And she’s just a kid. She likes you.

What would you know?

Hey, don’t be like that with me.

Why can’t
everyone
just leave me alone?

If I ignored Sophie she’d eventually have to give up. I kept my eyes closed. Wren used to freeze me out this way all the time.

But after a while Sophie became so quiet that I got suspicious. What was she getting up to? I couldn’t help it. I opened my eyes and caught her lifting the Ibanez Artwood up by its strings.

‘Hey!’ I snapped. ‘Don’t touch that!’

She flinched but didn’t put it down.

‘I mean it, Sophie. Get away from it right this second.’

‘I won’t break it.’ She frowned at me.

‘I said leave it! I’ve got another one downstairs if you want.’ My birthday guitar was still propped against a wall, covered in a thin layer of dust.

‘I like this one. I’ll be careful, Summer. Don’t boss me around.’ Her face was red with frustration, and she rested the guitar flat on her lap with the strings facing the ceiling. She poked four fingers in between the
D and G strings and into the sound hole, and peered in at them. Ugh! I hated this girl. Words brewed in my belly, harsh and bitter: you stupid, spoiled, thoughtless thing. You come in here, invading my space. You touch my things. You don’t know anything about the world. You think it’s all sunshine and magic and Christmas and the tooth fairy.

Summer, this isn’t you.

Yes it is, Floyd. This is how I am now.

Sophie pressed her fingers into a nothing chord on the neck and strummed messily with her right hand. She proudly flashed a gappy smile. I wanted to scream.

‘Mum says I’m
very
musical.’

‘Good for you,’ I snapped.

She changed her chord into something else just as tuneless and played the strings as if she were filing her nails: strum, strum-de-strum. Then she stopped to suck her fingertips.

‘Mum’s getting me a clarinet.’ Her voice scraped over my nerves. ‘Or a violin. Or a cello.’

We’re going to need earplugs, sis.

I didn’t reply.

Don’t ignore me. Please don’t be like this. I miss the old you.

I couldn’t handle hearing Floyd telling me to be nice or joking with me when I was feeling so angry.

‘You don’t seem very sick,’ said Sophie.

‘Well, I am.’

Are you, though?

‘
Yes
, actually.’

‘What? I didn’t say anything,’ said Sophie.

I realised I’d spoken to Floyd out loud by mistake.

‘My mum says you’re like this because something very sad happened to you. She won’t tell me what it is. I’m too young.’ She pouted, like
my
thing was sad because
she
wasn’t getting her own way.

‘Do you want me to tell you the sad thing, Soph?’

‘Yes!’ she said, as if I was about to tell her how to find fairies at the bottom of her garden.

Be kind, Sum. She’s just a kid.

What am I, then?

I looked at Sophie’s perfect little face and realised that I wanted to make her cry. I wanted to stretch her horseshoe smile into a grim, flat line.

This won’t make you feel better, Summer.

‘My brother died,’ I said, as casually as a comment on the weather.

Sophie’s face turned cartoon-sad with a sticking-out bottom lip. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘That’s so sad. What happened to him?’

Summer, stop. Don’t tell her the details. She’ll have nightmares.

‘He was in an accident.’

‘Oh no … Our cat died last year,’ she said. She paused for a little while. ‘We’re getting a new one.’

It took a second for the change of topic to sink in. She thought her cat dying was the same as my brother dying. The only way she had of thinking about this was to think about herself.

But a feather-soft piece of truth floated down to me: I’d been Sophie once. Not even very long ago. I’d thought the way she was thinking now. I hadn’t known that life could feel like this. I felt sorry for her and for the old me.

The hate found an exit. What would the old me have said now?

‘Sorry about your cat, Sophie. We used to have a cat too.’

‘What was it called?’

‘Charlotte. After the spider in
Charlotte’s Web
.’

‘You named a cat after a spider?’ She laughed open-mouthed like a little chimp.

For the next five minutes Sophie talked nonstop about her dead cat and all the funny things it used to get up to. I let myself fall into a kind of daze so that when I heard her clumsy plucking of the deep E string it made me jump out of my skin.

‘That’s too rough, Sophie! I told you before!’

‘No it’s not. I’ve seen them on
The X Factor
playing
much
harder than that.’

‘Sophie!’ Why wouldn’t she hear me? Why did she keep making me so angry?

She plucked all six strings again and I couldn’t take it anymore. I was half out of bed by now and I swiped at her. ‘Seriously, get off, Sophie.’ I steadied myself, grabbed the guitar and pushed her off the mound of clothes.

‘I don’t like it when you do that!’ she shouted, with one hand on her hip and the other stopping traffic.

‘I don’t care
what
you like, you brat.’

‘You’re not allowed to call me that! It’s rude and I’ll tell!’

‘I’ll call you what I like. And if you
ever
touch this guitar again …’

Sophie’s bottom lip quivered and in one swift movement she ran out. I slammed my door after her and gasped as a shock of cold air swept over my back. I froze. It’s just the draught from the door, I told myself. But it had come from behind. Something had happened. I was too stiff with fear to put it into words.

I stayed in the same position, breathing in short, even sputters. My hand was flattened against the door. Blood drummed in the soft well underneath my throat as I waited for the courage to move from this moment into
the next. My whole body believed something nightmarish was behind me, and my brain couldn’t make the monster any smaller.

There was someone in here with me.

Eyes shut. Turn around. Face the truth. Be brave, Summer.

Three.

Two.

One.

Eyes open.

There he was. The creek boy, the boy in our garden, the boy in the dark of my room.

Not a dream or a trick of the light: the boy was here.