Finally Mum brought him home. She could no longer watch his humiliation and disappointment when yet another family shook their heads and walked away. I thought maybe she was exaggerating the range and complexity of Mervie’s emotions, but she was right about the fact that no-one would ever take a dog with half a nose. He would have been a pretty thing before the accident, all white and fluffy, but people wanted other people to look down at their dog and say how cute it was, not recoil in horror at the animal’s unfortunate half-nose. Funny thing was, he was always sniffing around. Mum had joked that with half a nose he had to sniff twice as much as other dogs.
I ordered Mervie to stay again, and when I finally climbed into the ute and slammed the door, I could sense the prickle of Kevin’s irritation.
‘You’ve made us late,’ he said, jerking into first gear.
I spent the drive putting on my sneakers and trying to sort out my hair. I flicked down the tiny rectangle of mirror in the visor and inspected my face. In the grimy glass I looked both puffy and hollow with sleep deprivation. In recent months insomnia had become my unwelcome bedfellow. He’s a skinny, weedy bloke with a mean face and he likes to whisper bitter somethings into your ear all night long. As a result, ashen semicircles hung beneath my eyes and I assumed they were there to stay.
If you saw this year’s school photo, you wouldn’t notice me. I blended in with the others – short brown hair, nondescript light-brown eyes, average in height, roundish of face, freckly of cheek, not thin, not fat, unremarkable. My image had the same passport-like scrupulousness that all school photos have. I looked like all the other girls, except that my smile was definitely fake.
I did my best to flatten my hair and tuck it behind my ears and flicked the mirror back in disgust.
Kevin lit up, filling the cabin with veils of blue smoke. I opened a window and watched the smoke get sucked away; passive smoking wasn’t the best way to go. The Toyota shuddered and rattled with each pothole and rut in the road.
‘So, what happened to Dylan?’ I said when we pulled up at the Kelly’s Crossing Community Hall, across the road from Leanne’s fish and chip shop. I was still brooding about Mum’s bedroom, but I didn’t want to ask Kevin about it. That would be too hard. Besides, being passive-aggressive was much more satisfying.
‘He went missing on a camping trip up in the rainforest. Took off.’ Kevin shut off the engine.
‘He just disappeared?’ I unclipped my seatbelt, glancing at the dozens of other utes and trucks angled on the curb and double-parked along the street. No-one in this town owned a normal sedan; this was four-wheel drive country.
‘Kind of.’
Kevin – so full of sparkling conversation.
Walking into the hall we passed a police vehicle and several SES vehicles. Posters advertising the annual Christmas party decorated the cork board at the entrance. I’d been to two of those since we moved to the farm and a few when we’d visited Grandma over the years. It was a compulsory event and absolutely everyone in the area went. That’s what Mum had said, anyway.
Christmas Hop – all welcome! the sign announced.
Jesus, Mary and Joseph. I was trapped in the 1950s.
Inside, around sixty people, mostly adults, were gathered at the front of the hall. They mingled and murmured, housing serious expressions on their faces. A rabble of kids skipped up and down the sides of the hall until their mothers shushed them and ordered them outside, restoring the proper amount of respectability and silence for such a sombre occasion.
‘G’day, Jim.’ Kevin raised a hand as we passed a man sporting a beer gut, an Akubra hat and riding boots. This place was a country-town cliché.
The man nodded in Kevin’s direction. ‘Mornin’.’
At the front of the hall near the stage a cluster of men and women stood, cross-armed or hands in pockets, chatting. They wore the bright orange overalls of the State Emergency Service. Leanne stood at a table nearby, serving volunteers paper cups filled with tea or coffee from huge steaming urns.
As we made our way toward the seats, a tall woman emerged from behind the SES volunteers; she had short dark hair, a farmer’s complexion and stout thighs housed in tight jeans. Her face was familiar, but I didn’t know everyone in town that well. As she walked up to us I could tell by her grim mask of worry that she was the missing boy’s mother, Karen Koslovski.
‘Karen,’ said Kevin as she approached.
‘What happened out there, Kevin?’ Karen tilted her head to one side as if talking to a child who’d stolen something. ‘There must be something else you can tell me.’ She grabbed Kevin’s forearm and her thumb made a tiny well in his sleeve. Her red-rimmed eyes hardened with anger.
‘There’s nothing else. I’ve told you everything, Karen. I’m sorry. I thought he’d turn up by now.’ Kevin gently moved his arm away. ‘Did you ask Gary?’
‘Of course I did.’ She frowned at him.
‘Where is he?’ said Kevin, looking around.
‘He took off this morning. Said he was going out looking. None of this makes any sense.’ Karen rubbed her hands over her face and hair. ‘Bloody police, they should’ve got the SES involved yesterday. Why wait so long? Something must’ve happened to him. He’s never done this before.’ Her voice cracked.
‘Come on, Karen.’ Kevin moved to guide her toward a chair but she strode off, her shoulders tensed. Kevin glanced around furtively. I followed his gaze to see who else had witnessed their odd exchange. When his blue
