MISSING
The joke doesn’t wear thin for Bo. Every day she drags it out, mocking and ridiculing me, keeping the story of my hysterics alive. She tells anyone who’ll listen, the other actors, the crew, Davida. Most smile and dismiss it, too busy to bother about such trivial matters. But knowing they know causes me to blush fiercely every time somebody even glances at me.
Emmet never rang back and I’m too shamefaced to call him. I doubt if he’ll have heard about my panic attack, but there’s no telling how far Bo might have decided to spread the joke.
The person I’m angriest with—apart from myself, for being such an idiot—is Tump Kooniart. I can’t blame Bo for wringing such wicked pleasure out of my embarrassment—it would be hard for any kid to ignore such a juicy bit of bait if it fell into their lap. But why was her father sneaking around outside our room? And why didn’t he keep his big mouth shut? If Dervish had heard something like this about Bo, he wouldn’t have told me.
Tump Kooniart should have kept quiet. He didn’t. So now it’s payback time!
I spend a lot of hours thinking about ways to get even with Bo’s father. Itching powder in his clothes? Rat droppings in his soup? Human droppings in his stew or chocolate ice cream?!? Shave him bald or glue his lips together while he sleeps?
All good stuff, but basic. I want something that’ll give him a fright, that I can use to humiliate him. Like, if he’s scared of rats, borrow one of the trained rats which are being used in the film, drop it down the back of his shirt when there’s a crowd around, laugh my head off as he writhes and screams. But to do that, I’ll have to find out more about him and what he’s scared of.
So I start shadowing him. I do it when I’m not in class. I don’t tell Bill-E. He’d happily join in if he knew what I was up to, but I don’t want him getting into trouble if this backfires. Tump Kooniart’s a powerful player. If I humble him in public, I might end up being booted off the set. I don’t mind that, but there’s no need for Bill-E to suffer too.
Tump’s easy to follow. Tall and wide, always dressed in a drab brown suit. He walks with a slow waddle, mopping sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief which rarely leaves his hand. He usually talks loudly as he strolls, to himself if no one’s with him. He doesn’t seem to be able to keep silent, except when a scene is being filmed. I bet he even talks in his sleep. If I was blind, I could probably follow him by sound alone.
I don’t learn much about Tump, except he loves to talk and eat. He has a trailer on the western edge of Slawter, separate trailers beside it for Bo and Abe. Three of the biggest trailers on the set. When he’s not on the prowl, making sure his actors are happy or pigging out in one of the canteens, he spends most of his time in the trailer. He makes lots of phone calls. There are no personal computers allowed in Slawter—no video mobiles either—so he has to work from a huge Filofax in which he keeps all his contact details and other info. I think about stealing the Filofax and burning it, but that’s hardly going to leave him a trembling wreck!
Close to Tump’s trailer, nearly a week after I began shadowing him. Waiting for him to emerge, sitting in the shade of another trailer, reading a movie magazine—always plenty of those around. Starting to tire of the detective work. Bo’s still annoying me, but her insults have grown stale. Nobody really laughs at her jokes any more. Maybe I should quit this game and forget about vengeance.
Someone knocks on Tump’s door. I look up and spot Chuda Sool entering the trailer. I haven’t spoken to Chuda since the day of the “demon” attack. I’m sure Bo told him about my hysterics. He must think I’m a right nutter. He might even feel insulted that I didn’t believe him when he told me about Nora and Tump.
“Look what the cat dragged in,” someone says behind me. I jump, but it’s only Bo, on her way back from filming. “Discover any demons today, Grady?”
“No. Discover any new jokes?”
“Don’t need them. Not when the old ones are still funny.” She flashes her teeth and growls demonically. I yawn and focus on my magazine until she loses interest and goes away. I wait for the sound of her trailer door locking, then get up, angry, sick of hanging around. I could be playing foosball with Bill-E, not sitting here like a third-rate substitute, wasting my—
Tump steps out of his trailer, followed by Chuda Sool. Tump’s talking loudly, mopping away busily at his forehead. Chuda never seems to sweat, which is handy—without eyebrows, sweat would flow straight into his eyes. The pair set off in a northerly direction, looking a bit like Laurel and Hardy from the rear. Since I’m here, I decide to follow. But this is the last time. I’ve had enough.
Tump and Chuda head for the D workshops. The huge warehouse dominates the northern part of Slawter. I haven’t spent much time up here—no point, since access to the workshops is strictly prohibited. As Tump and Chuda show their passes to a security guard on the western door—one of four doors leading into the warehouse —I hang back and take a long look at the building.
Three storeys high, 70 or 80 metres wide, maybe 120 metres long. Large, unplastered block walls. A flat roof. No windows. Grey and featureless, apart from a big red D painted on the wall above the door. A small guard’s hut to the right of the entrance.
I’d love to have a look inside, at the monster costumes and puppets. A small part of me still believes the demon was real. If I could check out the costumes perhaps it would help convince me of the truth. But hardly anyone is allowed to enter the hallowed halls of the D workshops. Even Dervish has only seen a small section of the complex.
I wait impatiently for Tump and Chuda to come out. Then I figure, stuff them! I’m through with this crap. I decide to find Bill-E and hang out with him for the rest of the afternoon. But before departing, I wander around the warehouse on the off chance that one of the doors is open, its guard asleep in his hut. That won’t happen, of course, but I might as well give it a shot while I’m here.
The guard on the southern door studies me suspiciously as I approach. Though he doesn’t openly carry any weapons, it wouldn’t surprise me if he had a gun hidden on him somewhere. I smile politely and don’t stray any closer. Walk to the eastern end and turn left. The door on this side is shut too and although the guard’s in his hut, he isn’t asleep—I spot him through the window as I walk past, leafing through a magazine with pictures of tanks on the cover.
I reach the northern end and turn left again. The guard here is standing next to the door, leaning against the wall. He smiles as I go past. I think about stopping to chat, maybe try to blag my way inside, but his smile isn’t
Back to the western end. Heading south, thinking about where Bill-E might be. As I come up to the guard’s hut, the door to the workshops opens. I hear Tump’s voice and stop behind the hut, where he and Chuda can’t see me, to wait until they pass.
“…not going to like it,” Tump is booming.
“They’re not meant to like it,” Chuda replies in a much softer voice.
“But the boy will be hard to keep quiet. They’re so close to each other. Maybe we should take them both.”
“One will be enough,” Chuda says. “Now all we have to…”
Their voices fade. I remain where I am, frowning, wondering who and what they were talking about.
The next day, Kik goes missing.
Kuk turns up for class by himself, looking lost. “Have any of you seen Kik?” he asks, eyes darting around the room as if his twin sister might be hiding behind a desk. “I can’t find her. I don’t know where she is. Kik? Are you here?”
Miss Jaun sits the agitated Kuk down, tries to soothe his nerves and coaxes the story out of him. It’s not complicated. He woke this morning and Kik’s bed was empty. He couldn’t find her. Their dad wasn’t too concerned—said she’d probably gone for a walk—but Kuk smelt a rat immediately.
“We don’t go anywhere without telling each other. She wouldn’t have slipped out without saying anything.”
“Maybe she just needed to be alone for a while,” Miss Jaun suggests.
“We don’t like being alone,” Kuk says, shaking his head vigorously. “Alone is bad. Alone is scary.”
When Miss Jaun fails to calm Kuk’s nerves, she calls security and asks a guard if he can put the word out to look for Kik. “It’s no big deal,” she tells him. “We’d just like to know where she is.”
