Plus, the other thing about Cora is, she always has to get her own way, which is exactly how it turned out this time.
Although the weird thing was, after we picked Mason up and started heading back towards the footbridge, I have to say, I felt … it felt … OK. It’s odd, but sometimes seeing people is all it takes. It makes you realise how much you’ve missed them. Do you get that? Sometimes it goes the other way, too, like the way it does with my mum and her sister at Christmas, but I’d basically been in this bubble since Sadie had gone missing, not really talking to anyone, just watching what was going on through my phone. Reading the rumours, all the stories, not knowing what to believe. But then, getting everyone together, it was actually like this huge relief. It even felt good seeing Mason. Not good exactly, but not as creepy as I thought it would feel. And rather than scared of him, I actually felt a bit sorry for him. At the time, I mean. There was the way he looked at us when we turned up at his front door, for example. It’s like that thing my mum always says about spiders.
Spiders, right.
Like, Mum always goes, They’re more scared of you than you are of them. Which is obviously bullshit. I mean, they’ve got eight legs, and eight eyes, and they’re all, like, hairy and gross, whereas we, you and me, we just look normal. Right? So how is it remotely possible that a spider would be more scared of you than you are of it?
But with Mason that was the phrase that came to mind. He looked like he thought we were about to lynch him. And then afterwards, as we left, we got spotted by his dad. Who’d been round the corner. Painting, I thought, until I realised he was standing there going over and over the exact same spot.
‘Mason?’ said his dad. ‘Where the hell do you think you’re going?’
Mason ignored him. He kept walking, away from the house, so the rest of us just had to follow him. Although, personally, I couldn’t help looking over my shoulder.
‘Mason!’ his dad said again. ‘Mason! Get back here!’
Mason stopped. He waited for a second, then he turned. Like, what? You know? But he didn’t say it.
‘I asked you a question,’ said his dad.
‘I’m going out,’ said Mason. ‘What does it look like I’m doing?’
‘Out?’ his dad repeated, like it was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard. ‘You’re going out. With your friends. While I’m slaving away out here, trying to get rid of’ – he stabbed his thumb into the air above his shoulder, and half turned around towards the wall – ‘that.’
I had to lean to get a better view of it. Of the wall, I mean. The graffiti. URDERER, it said. Without the M. The first letter was just a splodge of red now, where Mason’s dad had gone at it with his bucket of suds.
‘I told you to leave it,’ Mason said. ‘Someone’ll only come back and do it again.’
‘Leave it,’ his dad repeated. ‘Leave it. That’s your solution to everything, isn’t it. Just shut yourself in your room and stick your headphones on.’
Mason gave this little shake of his head. ‘Which is it, Dad? Have a go at me for staying inside, or shout at me in front of my friends when I decide to go out? You don’t get to do both.’
His dad was holding the bucket he’d been using in one hand, a big yellow sponge in the other. He squeezed that sponge so hard, water dripped down all over his shoes. It was red from the paint, and it looked like blood.
‘Come on,’ Mason said, talking to the rest of us. ‘Let’s go.’ And he turned away from his dad and started walking. This time when the rest of us followed, I didn’t dare look behind me. I kept expecting to hear a shout, or for Mason’s dad to come charging after us. It’s what my dad would have done, I reckon. I mean, he’d kill me if I ever spoke to him like that.
‘Jesus Christ, Mase,’ said Cora, once we were safely down the lane. ‘What was all that about?’
Mason shrugged. ‘He thinks I did it,’ he answered. Just matter-of-fact. You know, like, Ho hum, my dad thinks I’m a murderer. No big deal.
Just like that.
The rest of us exchanged these little glances. I looked at Fash, who looked at Cora. Then all three of us looked at Luke.
Luke didn’t say anything for a second. Then he said, ‘I told you the graffiti would be overdoing it, Fash. And you could at least learn to spell. Murderer begins with an M.’
Which, for a second, was like … is that even funny? You know?
And then I noticed Fash’s face. About the same time Cora did, I guess. Luke and Mason, too.
And suddenly, from nowhere, we burst out laughing. All of us. Together. Fash maybe slightly behind the rest of us, but in a way I hadn’t laughed since the start of the summer, when all six of us – Sadie, too – had taken some speakers and a bottle of wine each down to the sand dunes, and Fash had got so drunk he kept insisting he could light a fire using only his eyes.
It was just the sudden release of tension, I suppose. All the worry
