I didn’t want Dylan to be dead. I really didn’t. I knew what that was like for the ones left behind. But – cold hard fact – with each hour a person is missing the odds of finding them alive reduce dramatically. Anyone who’s watched a crime show knows that.
Mr Greenwood thought I was obsessed with death. But really, wouldn’t you, under the circumstances, be just a little focused on the end of life? After Mum died, Mr Greenwood even tried to get me to talk to the priest. I bet he thought if I had an explanation for all this life and death stuff, it would help me somehow.
I refused to go.
I’m not preoccupied with death. I just have a vested interest, like everyone else on the planet. So far I didn’t believe in any of the explanations the human race had come up with to explain it. That’s just me.
No afterlife.
No fluffy white heaven.
No fiery pit.
No becoming a bird, or a princess or a beetle.
Sucks, I know. And the thing about not really believing in God or whomever, is that you have to face the fact that when you die, that’s it. Dust to cosmic dust.
I did believe in something. I believed in two oblivions: the first one before you’re born, then the short burning, passionate flame of life, and then another oblivion, after you die, an eternity long. Shakespeare knew it – ‘Out, out brief candle’ or something like that. If you think about it, the first oblivion has an end but no beginning, the second one, a beginning but no end. It’s a hard reality, but I’ve thought about it a lot and I’ve decided that it’s okay. No-one remembers the first oblivion, so it couldn’t have been all that bad.
‘Open your mind, Sunny,’ Mum used to say.
Is that what she was trying to do to me now – get me to open my mind? By showing up in private school libraries post-mortem and messing around with crockery?
Being a bit of a hippy, she believed in everything, including psychics and clairvoyants and all that freaky stuff. I never did. Maybe my scepticism was a reaction to Mum being so eager to jump on any passing bandwagon, or to join any fad or religion she came into contact with. I found all the spiritual stuff a bit tedious and embarrassing. I don’t want to sound like a bad daughter or anything. I loved Mum more than anything in the world, more than my life, but she was a bit flaky sometimes, like the time she gave me that Buddha.
‘Keep this with you,’ Mum said, handing me a little golden statue.
‘Really, Mum?’
‘Can’t hurt. If you lose your desire for material objects you can find true happiness and Karma will be kind to you.’
‘That sums up the whole Buddhist philosophy, does it, Mum?’
‘Don’t be glib, Sunny.’
‘You have desire for material objects,’ I said. ‘What about your FJ? You’re obsessed with it.’
‘I’m still working on that part,’ she said. ‘It’s a journey.’
I’m sorry to say that the little fat man lived in my socks and undies drawer at school for the duration: bad Karma I guess.
Shelley Hanigan was wrapping it up. ‘If Kevin or Gary can think of anything else that may help us with the search, I’m sure they’ll let us know.’
Again, a few people looked across to where Kevin sat. He shifted in his seat and nodded.
The fact that Shelley kept mentioning Kevin and I didn’t know anything about what was going on made me feel stupid. I death stared him for a few seconds, but he refused to look my way.
I sat back in my seat, suddenly feeling the closeness of the summer humidity. We needed the rain to start and cool things down. The wet season loomed somewhere up near Papua New Guinea and was refusing to come down and give us some relief. The fans on the ceiling spun ineffectually and the photo of Dylan swelled until it seemed to fill the whole room. There was something about his face, his dark eyes that bore into mine; I felt like he was looking at just me and we were the only two people in the room. His voice filled my head.
Can you find me, Sunny? Will you find me?
The atmosphere in the hall became too hot, too close, too tense. I needed to get out. I stood up and my chair squeaked on the wooden floor. A few people stared as I manoeuvred myself across the row of empty seats, stumbling and knocking chairs as I went. Kevin fired a glance my way as I hurried to the door.
Outside, I let go of a breath I hadn’t realised I was holding. I found a place to sit on a slatted bench under the shade of a massive mango tree. Fruit, already starting to drop, filled the air with the sweet, acrid smell of putrefying mango.The bats had been in and had a go at a few; the fruit was marked by their claws and teeth. Facing the road, I could see Leanne’s shop and the bus stop. The main street was deserted, the hills beyond olive green in the harsh sunlight.
Cue lonely tumbleweed.
I wondered what my fictional boyfriend Holden would have done at that moment. I bet he would go straight to the bus stop, get on a bus and get the hell out of town. He wasn’t one for sticking around, but that wasn’t really an option for me. Where could I go? To my Dad’s? I didn’t even know where that was.
At that moment I noticed a tall guy wandering along the side of the road. I knew from his familiar silhouette and bare feet that it was the boy who had been walking
