Red (5 page)

‘Really? How do you know that?'

‘I always got into trouble at school. When Dad got called in to talk to the teachers they had all these printouts of results and when I hadn't been there. Just about down to every time I farted.'

‘You mean, on the computer?'

He nodded.

‘But there's no electricity, no power.'

‘Mmm. Yeah. Maybe a computer will run long enough on batteries to give us what we want.'

‘And maybe you know the password to this school's computers.'

‘Good point.'

Peri opened the cupboard under the photographs. He pulled out magazines and papers and flicked through them.

‘What are you doing? What're you looking for?'

‘Some schools have magazines or newsletters and things that have pictures of kids doing stuff. You could be in one.'

‘It'd have to be an old one.'

‘Lots of librarians hoard the ones left over.'

‘How do you know all this?'

Peri grinned. ‘I've been to a few schools in my time.'

Red joined him on the floor. They made piles of the catalogues of books and library and computer furniture. They found newsletters filled with information for parents and sometimes a photo of a presentation or an exhibition of student artwork. Nothing was more than six months old.

‘You're not here,' said Peri, ‘After Year Five, you don't exist.'

• • • • •

It grew darker. They found more beanbags scattered around the library and made a nest for themselves under the window.

‘I could read you a story,' said Red. ‘Put you to sleep.'

‘Weird. No one's ever done that for me before.'

‘Or I could tell one.' Red sat deep in her bag and tucked her knees up under her chin. ‘Once upon a time there was a famous actor called James Martin and he lived near the coast and he had a boat and he used to go out sailing everywhere and sometimes he'd go with his family and sometimes he'd go by himself and one day he went out and he didn't know it but there was a big cyclone coming and his family thought he was dead but what they didn't know was that his boat got washed all the way in onto the land and he got tossed out and he hit his head and he couldn't remember who he was and so he wandered around for a while till he got better and then he remembered that he had a daughter and he had to find out if she was all right and so he went to the Centre to see if she was there.'

‘And was she?'

‘No. But she'd put her photo up and every day she'd come to see if her dad was there and one day they found each other.'

‘And what happened then?'

‘They lived happily ever after.'

‘It won't be like that, Red. You're kidding yourself.'

‘It's just a story.'

‘Maybe.'

‘And anyway, I want to go back to that place, the Centre, and look in the morning.'

• • • • •

Red woke early. Peri still slept, stretched out on the floor where he'd rolled from his beanbag.

She pushed herself up and moved quietly across to the window. Pink morning light washed over the courtyard below her. She flicked a layer of dead flies off the sill and stared down at the seats around the stump of a fallen tree. Did I sit there? Is that where I ate my lunch? With friends? Why can't I remember them? And why aren't I in that final photo? She went back to the librarian's desk and stared at the photos.

She tried to put names to the kids who were standing around her. The girl next to her in Year Five with curly black hair and her arm in a sling. Had she broken it at school when Red was there? Were they all playing on the monkey-bars or racing round the playground and she fell? Or the one holding the sign. She was shorter than the others but she had the biggest grin. Is that why they gave her the sign? What was her name?

Red wandered into a side room off the main part of the library. More computers lined walls that were covered with posters:
Join the Reading Challenge
,
Defeat Bullying
,
Celebrate Diversity
and
Love Your
Library
. Desks were set in a horseshoe shape, ready for a discussion group. Red picked up a backpack lying on the floor. She flipped it to see if it was empty. Two blackened bananas fell to the floor.

She took the pack out to the main desk and put into it some of the food that Peri had found, drinks and chocolate bars. Then she went over to the bookshelf. She slid the book with the haunting face of the girl out from where she had hidden it. Why had she done that? She stuffed the book into the pack without looking at it.

Peri was stirring. ‘You're up early.' He rolled onto his stomach and rested his chin in his hands. ‘What are we going to do today?'

‘The Centre,' said Red. ‘I want to see if anyone has written on our photo. I know it's crazy, there won't be anything, but I just have to know.' She tossed an energy bar to him. ‘That's breakfast.'

They walked along the top corridor and down the internal staircase. Stories and poems were Blu-tacked to the wall. Red didn't linger to read.

They cut across the oval where the grass was ankle-deep and they had to step between the bits of rubbish strewn around. The sun was hot and the glare from it danced off the tin roofs of the houses ahead of them.

‘Feels good,' said Peri. ‘Should be going for a swim.'

‘Like where?'

‘Just a thought.'

They ducked under the police tape and headed back the way they had come the day before.

‘You think someone is going to have written on our photo, don't you,' said Peri.

‘Maybe.' Red stared down the road ahead of her. She couldn't tell him that she had a picture in her mind, a firm picture that on that photo would be words written by her mum or her dad. They would say they were looking for her. They were so relieved to have found her. It was a miracle. They were there in the building, maybe standing right next to the photo, waiting for her to come back in to check the board.

They would see her coming and they would run to her with arms outstretched. There would be tears. They were her family, they knew her name and they recognised her and she would know them.

She didn't look at the front yards where people were stacking the smashed-up garden furniture, bits of fence railing, bricks and concrete. She followed Peri, stepping around the holes in the footpath, moving aside for an old man in a wheelchair who wheezed and hissed past them.

• • • • •

It was just as the day before. Children were playing with hoops and balls on the grass while there were huge crowds of people, some heading for the building, others just standing around waiting for something to happen. There was a hum, a buzz of background noise. Red couldn't hear individual words but it was as if everyone was talking, questioning, filling the air with their voices.

They joined the queue that snaked towards the doors. Red clenched her fists so tightly that her nails dug into her palms. Pain ripped through the cuts and torn sections of skin. She forced her hands to spread open. Someone would have written on her photo. They must have. Peri was at the door first. He shouldered his way past those who were ahead of him and got to the boards. Red was through the door. The crowd drew her past the first board and then she heard Peri's voice.

‘Red, Red. Quick. Look!'

She stumbled past a couple to reach him. There must be something. Her mum? Her dad? Beneath the words they had written was scrawled:

Ruby Martin? You look like my friend Ginger from
Year Five.

Jazz
0464819556
And I didn't know you had a brother.

CHAPTER FIVE

JAZZ. JAZZ AND GINGER.

She is the girl sitting next to me. The broken arm. It
wasn't the monkey bars, it was racing on rollerblades.
Across the playground we went, holding hands, the fastest
twins in the Universe. Then Jazz hit a crack in the
concrete and over she went, both of us sprawled at
the feet of half our class and Mr Tomkin. He went off
his brain. Jazz was screaming. I was all right. The
ambulance. Hospital. Plaster.

Peri was shaking her. ‘What's going on? Who's this Jazz?'

‘I think I remember her. She was my best friend.

The girl in the photo. The one with the broken arm.'

‘Let's phone her, then. She'll know who you are. Where your parents are. She can tell you why you aren't in the Year Six photo.'

Red tore the message from the bottom of the page.

Ruby Martin? You look like my friend Ginger from
Year Five.

Jazz
0464819556
And I didn't know you had a brother.

She folded it over and over into a tiny square and slipped the paper into her pocket. Jazz could tell her who she was. Jazz could fill the huge empty space in her head. She could answer all the questions, tick all the boxes.

What happened after the accident? After the broken arm? Red pushed her way through the crowd, out onto the grass. Nothing. No pictures in her head of parents. No pictures of Jazz beyond the sprawling and the school photo. What had happened next?

They sat in the sunshine and broke open another packet of jellybeans. Red tossed a handful into her mouth.

‘We could borrow a mobile,' said Peri, ‘or nick one.You can call her and then maybe we could meet her and she can tell you everything you want to know.'

Red couldn't look at him. ‘It's weird.' She tugged at a piece of grass, pressed her fingernail into the centre of the leaf and slit it neatly in two. ‘Telling me won't be enough. I need to remember. I need to know it to believe it.'

‘But if she tells you something, that might make you remember.'

‘Maybe. It's just strange.'

‘Just do it, Red.'

Was he trying to get rid of her? He'd found her and now he could hand her over to someone who knew her. His job was done. He could deliver her to Jazz. Red followed him to the room where they had had their photo taken. Peri spoke to the woman behind the desk and came back with a mobile phone. Red unfolded the paper and passed it to him.

Peri pressed the buttons, standing so close to Red that she could hear the echo of each number as it dialled. Then the ringtone. She counted the sounds. Three, four, five. Maybe Jazz didn't have her phone with her. Maybe it was lying on the floor of her room and she was outside. Maybe she'd lost her phone. Maybe … ‘Hello?'

Peri pushed the phone into Red's hand.

‘Hello? Who's that?'

‘Um … it's Ginger.' She'd said it. It sounded like a word from another language, a word whose meaning she couldn't quite understand.

‘GINGER! It
was
you in that photo. Fantastic. It's you. Muuuum! It's Ginger. This is soooo good. Soooo fantastic. But who is that boy? You don't have a brother, do you? Did you get one when … doesn't matter. Is he a boyfriend? This is so good … so cool. Where are you? When can I see you? And how come you said your name was Ruby Martin?'

‘Um … I don't know. Where are you?'

‘At home. Agh, you don't know this house. We moved. A year ago. Where are
you
?'

‘At the place where you saw the photo. We … I was in all the mess of the storm. It's a long story.'

‘Tell me when you see me. Hang on a sec.'

Red heard murmuring in the background. She put her hand over the phone and whispered to Peri, ‘I think she's getting her mum to bring her over here. What'll we do?'

He shrugged. ‘Go with it. Might get a decent feed.

Do you remember her mum?'

Red shook her head.

‘Wait at the Centre.' Jazz's voice was loud, organised. ‘Be on the grass near that main door. We're coming over there and Mum's not working today and she said she'll bring you back here for the afternoon. It'll be great. I can't wait to see you.'

‘Yeah.'

‘See you.'

‘Yeah, see you.'

They took the phone back in to the woman. ‘A happy result?' She smiled a dazzling white smile and raised her eyebrows.

‘Happy enough,' said Peri and they walked quickly back into the sunshine. ‘How long will they be?'

‘I don't know. I didn't ask.'

‘When they come, might be good if I don't go with you.'

‘You sure?'

‘You'll have all this girl stuff to talk about. You won't want to have me hanging around.'

‘Where would you go?'

‘Around. I'll be OK.'

They were at the door to the Centre. Red took a deep breath. ‘Peri, will you please come? I mightn't like Jazz any more. She mightn't like me. I can't remember anything about her family. I mightn't like them. They might try to boss me around and tell me what I have to do. I don't want to go by myself.'

He didn't hesitate. He shrugged. ‘OK. But they'd better feed us. And it had better be good.'

• • • • •

‘Ginger!' Red heard Jazz before she saw her. Then she was there. Tight black curls, arms waving, Jazz ducked and weaved her way through the crowd. She stopped. Red stared. Then suddenly they had arms around each other, cheeks pressed together, Jazz was laughing and Red was struck dumb. She did remember. She knew this person. She really knew her. Red drew back and looked at her. Jazz too.

Then Jazz turned to Peri. ‘I'm Jazz.' She held out her hand.

‘Peri. And I'm not her brother but it's a long story.' ‘Tell me later. Mum's got the car up the street.' She linked her arms through theirs and almost dragged them over the grass to the road.

The woman leaning against the black four-wheeldrive was a stranger. She put her arms around Red. ‘So lovely to see you again after so much.' Red's nose pressed against the gold chains around her neck and breathed in a sickly perfume.

‘Mmmm,' was all Red could say.