No. Thank you. I’m OK. And you want to know, right? And my mum said I should tell you what I remember. And I promised her I would, so I will.
Not everything she tells me to do, no. Why? Why do you ask? People think she’s strict, and she is, I’m not saying she’s not, but that doesn’t mean . . . it doesn’t mean anything. It’s just the way she is.
No. Never. I mean, not like argue argue. I’m not saying I don’t disagree with her sometimes. With her way of looking at things, the fact that she’s always constantly going on about . . .
Nothing. It doesn’t matter. The point is, she’s only looking out for me, trying to give me the opportunities she and my dad never got themselves. They came to this country with nothing. With literally the clothes on their backs. And my dad, before he died, he worked crazy hours, and now my mum does, too. So it’s only fair that I try to be respectful.
Look, is this relevant? You wanted to know about the search party. Didn’t you? The day we left? So can’t we just talk about that?
Right, that’s right. So I went to Cora, and me and her went to Abi, and then Abi suggested we go to Mason.
Right, sorry, that’s right; after me and the girls had already been to Luke. And yeah, yes, Luke wasn’t all that happy with the idea of asking Mason along. In fact, he wasn’t happy at all.
No effing way, is what he said.
He didn’t say effing, obviously.
Oh, OK. Well, if you’re sure. My mum doesn’t like it when I swear, so I try not to, but I suppose if I’m only telling you what other people said, it doesn’t really count.
But Luke, the way he reacted. It was because of all the rumors, I suppose. I mean, you basically as good as told the world that you thought Mason was guilty. That . . . that he’d killed Sadie. That’s what everyone was thinking, anyway. Not me. Not Cora and Abi. At least, I don’t think so. But Luke . . . I guess he wasn’t sure. With everything that was going on, I suppose he didn’t know what to believe.
“Come on, Luke,” said Cora. “Mason’s your friend.”
And that’s one of the things I’ve been struggling with most of all. Like, how did we get to the point where we all just suddenly turned against one another? After we’d always been so close? Because I know we’re all kind of different, and you’re probably wondering why we were even friends. But the thing is, we basically grew up together. We went to the same nursery, the same schools, all the way up to Harbor Park. I was always best friends with Luke, and Cora was best mates with Sadie. That was when we were younger. But then Mason started being mates with Luke, which meant Mason and I became friends as well, and then Abi started hanging around with Cora and Sadie. Abi fell out with her old friends, I think. In primary school, this was. They were basically always mean to her, and Sadie sort of took her under her wing. She was like that, you see. Even when she was younger. She’s always been kind, and generous, and . . . just . . . just a genuinely nice person. And it wasn’t because she was so talented or so . . . so pretty that everyone liked her. She always just seemed to be able to get on with people. In a way I’ve never really . . . I just admired that about her, that’s all.
So Sadie—her and Luke—I suppose they were the link that held the rest of us together. And actually the fact that we’re so different is one of the things that in the end made us so close. Plus, like, none of us has ever really fit in with anybody else. There’s me with my skin, Mason with his music and his boots, and Cora with her clothes like she’s planning to put on weight. Like a skater, basically, apart from the fact she’s never been on a skateboard in her life. Abi’s normal, sort of, but even so, she’s never been liked. She just . . . she tries too hard, I think, always posting pictures of herself on Instagram, or going on about saving the world. Not like Sadie, who was popular without even trying, but what I think is, us lot were like an antidote for her. When she was with us, she could just be herself, just the person she’d always been. She didn’t need to be the star of the show, or top of the class, or whatever else people were expecting her to be. And for Luke it was the same sort of thing. If Sadie had the pressure, Luke had all the responsibility. With Dylan, mainly, but also in terms of looking after himself. It’s like, he never got the attention from his parents that Sadie did, for example. Nowhere near. And again, when he was with us he could just forget. Particularly when Mason was around, because Mason’s got this way of making you feel like what other people think doesn’t even count. Which, again, I’ve always admired. He never lets anyone give him any shit. It’s like, with me, I do OK at school and that, but it doesn’t seem to count for anything. Being smart just makes people hate you, bully you, or else they’re on your case trying to push you to do even better. You can’t win. But Mason has never bought into any of that. I wish I could be like him.
I remember this one time—we must have been about thirteen—we were all hanging about in the woods. We had this place we used to go. Like a base, you know? It was near the stream, our favorite climbing tree was nearby, and there were these old stumps in a sort of circle you
