A Trail of Lies E-Book

K T Bowes

• Herausgeber: K T Bowes
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

A teenage runaway. A mountain of secrets. This mistake might cost her everything.

A lie underpins Callister’s home life, one that accidentally spews free and taints everything it touches. It’s no surprise that it horrifies her enough to run, hoping to leave the devastation behind.

But the mountain is no place to hide, not for a vulnerable teenage girl.

Persuading a classmate to go with her, Calli leads him into a frightening trap which can’t be ignored. What happens in the bush should stay in the bush, but it won't. As the consequence of what they did wraps itself around the teenagers, they find themselves hunted. Calli realises all too late that the demons in her past have come full circle and they want payback.

A quote from the novel. “You hate too many things, Cal,” he sighed, brushing stray curls away from her face. “Your heart doesn’t have room for it all.”

Leseprobe

A Trail of Lies

K T Bowes

K T Bowes

Copyright K T Bowes © 2014

Published by Hakarimata Press

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Join our In Crowd

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Dear Reader,

Would you like a peek at the next book?

Chapter 1

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

OTHER BOOKS BY K T BOWES

Copyright Notice

Disclaimer

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thank you to my family, who believe in me even on those terrible days when I no longer believe in myself. Thank you to my heavenly father who created me for a purpose.

Join our In Crowd

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Chapter 1

The dull razor blade tinkled out onto the shower tray, glinting up at her beneath the cascading water. Calli stood holding the now redundant plastic casing of her razor, her olive face scowling in irritation at the implement’s betrayal. What else could go wrong today?

The teenager looked down at her tanned calves, which she thanked the week of sun and her outdoor sports lessons for, as the shower spray pounded the back of her willowy neck. They didn’t look too hairy; she could probably get away with it for today - as long as they didn’t have assembly. Anyone sitting on the assembly hall floor close to her would notice the small protrusions of downy hair sneaking out of her pores. Calli considered shouting for her mother, instantly rejecting the thought. The new razors were in the hall cupboard. Marcia would be sure to yell at her, especially at the moment while she was trying to get ready for work and sort the little kids out.

Calli let the soap run from her body unhindered. She smoothed conditioner into her unruly, black curls and let it stay there, the wetness touching the bottom of her back uncomfortably. She turned off the shower even as the frantic knocking sounded on the bathroom door. “Hurry up, Calli, I’ve got netball practice at seven thirty! If I’m not there on time, the coach will make me sit out of the first quarter on Saturday. Come out, or I’ll get Mum!”

Exasperated, Calli snatched up the errant razor blade and gingerly picked her way out of the slippery shower. Winding her towel around her so she could unlock the bathroom door and admit her desperate, whining sister, she felt the blade’s sharp point slip underneath the skin of her index finger and winced. She couldn’t leave it in the bathroom bin in case Jase found it. She wouldn’t put it past her baby brother to do some serious damage to himself, out of boyish curiosity. “There!” she said rudely to the skinny blonde girl who bounced up and down on the balls of her feet outside the bathroom in a thin, cotton nightdress. “Try to get up on time next week.”

Calli was almost at her bedroom door when her sister let out a piercing screech, “Mum! Callister’s been using my shower gel!”

Calli rolled her appealing blue eyes and slammed her door on the ensuing scene, currently unfolding on the landing outside the bathroom. The razor blade produced a small nick that was painful, but not life-threatening. It bled a little as the sixteen year old got dressed in her school uniform, tartan skirt and white blouse. She pulled her damp curls back into a ponytail and pouted lips that rarely exhibited their fullness in a smile. Of all of her siblings, Calli was the only one who looked like her Samoan father. Raven haired and olive skinned like Simon, the others were blonde; blue eyed, sylphlike carbon copies of Marcia, their mother. It always made Calli feel like an outsider, her dark ringlets betraying her even when the other children were white blonde from the sunshine. She once heard an old lady in the park ask her mother if she was adopted. Calli would have loved to have been blonde, with easy-to-manage poker straight hair. She might have fitted in better.

Sighing, the girl straightened her school tie and slipped on the horrid black roman sandals that were part of the school issue uniform. Turning away from the mirror after a cursory check, she refused to look at herself again. There was no point. It changed nothing.

“Calli-Walli!”

The steady knocking came from somewhere near the bottom half of the bedroom door. With an exasperated shake of her head; Calli wrenched it open to find her tiny brother standing there, his shorts on backwards and his shirt buttoned up at the wrong intervals so his small chest resembled a rolling seascape. “Help me?” he beseeched her and pulled a cute face.

“Good boy for knocking, Jase,” she told him, pulling him into the room so she could sit on the edge of the bed and deal with his haphazard dressing.

“I’m a good boy,” he repeated as his older sister redid his buttons and persuaded him to step out of his shorts and back in again.

“You’ve almost finished a whole term at big school,” Calli said softly, stroking his white blonde hair back from his forehead. He nodded, his face innocently proud, before snuggling in for a cuddle, his five year old hands reaching around his sister’s slender waist for a moment.

“Can I have my Easter egg now?” he asked with a cheeky grin and Calli smiled. “Good Friday is the day after tomorrow, so only four more sleeps to go.”

Jase nodded, understanding completely, but knowing with that childish optimism it was worth a try. “Will you do my buckles please?” he asked her, looking up with his bright blue eyes. “Mummy does them too tight and it hurts me.”

Calli nodded and smiled as he skipped off to get them, singing to himself. She loved her brothers, especially Jase, but clashed unbearably with eight year old Sadie. Her younger sister was a lot like Marcia. Calli and her mother both regularly sparked like an electrical storm, frequently causing significant damage to their surroundings. It was of little surprise that from the start, Calli turned her nose up at the blonde baby girl Marcia proudly presented. The fireworks began as soon as Sadie was able to let out that irritating whine.

“Get breakfast, Calli!” Marcia’s blonde head popped through the open door, her first greeting of the day being a frustrated, sharply issued order, without even a smile to soften her words.

Calli nodded once, unwilling to get into a familiar argument. Both women knew she wouldn’t eat before leaving. Her stomach wouldn’t wake up until half way through history in the third period, just in time for lunch. The doctor said she had to put weight on, but it was difficult when hunger evaded her for most of the day. The gluten free food which cost her parents an absolute fortune had a peculiar texture to it and resembled cardboard. The cereal was like something left at the bottom of a hay bale when you lifted it off the ground and her taste buds were only fooled during the first few bites.

Marcia grunted in frustration and whirled around on her heels, her full figure disappearing down the hallway. Calli relaxed and exhaled slowly. Marcia frightened her. The anti-depressants she had recently been shoving down her throat mellowed her a little more. She was less given to the loud and never ending lectures, mostly directed at Calli for some minor misdemeanor. It was good when Danny lived at home. He pulled faces behind her back and made Calli laugh, often getting her into even more trouble, but the sound of his whispers and that smirk which never failed to set her off giggling seemed like a distant memory now.

Calli bit her strawberry coloured lip to stifle the emotional pain. Danny died two years ago, his lithe, cyclist’s body crushed by a passing truck which turned across him on his way home from school. Everything for a while after that was a dull blur in Calli’s mind; his mangled bicycle and his creased, blood stained uniform, neatly folded by a medic’s careful hands and dropped off by the police. His loss left a raw, open wound in Calli’s soul; a cavernous insatiable pit of nothingness, which threatened constantly to suck her in and hold her there interminably. She hadn’t dealt with it, because she had no idea where to start.

“Mum’s angry,” Jase announced, puffing back into the bedroom and shutting the door carelessly behind him. He hopped from foot to foot looking nervous and Calli instinctively reached out for his soft body and pulled it into hers. “Next door’s doggie did another poop in our front garden. Dad’s just trodden in it putting the bins out.”

Calli rolled her eyes. Marcia detested the family next door with a passion, turning all of her unresolved grief in their direction without reservation. Their house towered above Calli’s, and it was as though the shadow cast by their structure, reminded Marcia of the spectre of doom over her whole existence. She found fault in everything they did, which was awkward, as Calli shared most of her classes with the oldest son of the family. If their dog had defecated on the lawn, which she doubted as she hadn’t seen or heard it for over six months, Marcia would never let it rest.

“Can you walk me, Calli Walli?” Jase begged as his sister did up the last buckle and sat up again, a look of reluctance in her face.

“It makes me late, Jase,” she replied, her head already shaking out a determined no and tears formed in his eyes.

“Pleeeeeeease?” he whimpered, “Mum’s being scary. I want you to take me. I’ll walk as fast as fast can be, I promise and I won’t do messing abouts on the way. I won’t.”

“No, Jase,” Calli said firmly. “You haven’t eaten breakfast yet or cleaned your teeth and we would have to leave right now.”

Jase’s eyes bulged excitedly in his head and he nodded frantically like a maniacal head-banger from the 1980’s. “Had toast,” he beamed victoriously and Calli saw the jam stain on his clean shirt.”

“Teeth!” Her face was stern as she pointed towards the bathroom.

As Jase pelted noisily down the hallway, Calli noticed the flash of metal on her desk as the rays of the sun, already streaming in through her bedroom window, licked gently at the razor blade. Her father had put the bins out for collection by the sound of it and she didn’t want the blade lounging in one of the house bins for a week because of Jase. She considered putting it in her pocket and binning it at school, but if she were discovered in possession of it, wrong conclusions would be drawn. It wasn’t worth the hassle. Callister Rhodes already had something of a ‘reputation.'

Pulling out her desk drawer, Calli found the battered little tin where she kept her treasures and dropped it in with a gentle plink. Jase could never get the lid off with his tiny finger joints straining and his little thumbs slipping on the surface. It would be safe there.

Chapter 2

Marcia was grateful not to have to run the gauntlet at the local primary school with her son, but merely grunted in reply as Calli tentatively offered to drop him off. The mother hugged the little boy and kissed his forehead with her coffee breath, still clutching the mug in her left hand as she swallowed a cocktail of prescribed drugs meant to alter her mood, but mostly failed.

The children beat a hasty retreat and set out down Achilles Rise and through the intersection onto Discovery Drive. “Has she got a big case on again?” Jase asked, referring to his mother’s role as a lawyer. Calli nodded enthusiastically but had no idea anymore. Marcia rarely spoke about anything, preferring instead to rage about small wrongdoings at home, usually aimed at her eldest daughter. Calli often wondered if Danny had also been the buffer in his role as eldest, but it hadn’t seemed that way. Marcia didn’t like her attractive daughter and made it abundantly clear. Calli had taken to working extra hard at school, desperate to secure a university place in a city far away from Hamilton. As a bright Year 12, she only had three more terms of this year remaining and then next year to survive. Then she would be gone. A tug on her hand as Jase spied a fluffy cat and pointed, caused her heart to constrict painfully with sadness. He was the one bright point in her life and the only thing she would miss about the city.

The route to school, once rural, was now bisected by a road that cars drove along at 80km. But the pavements were huge and set back from the grey highway, separated by a large grassed berm and as promised, Jase skipped and ran and covered the distance swiftly. He came back for Calli’s offered hand to negotiate the busy roundabout as Resolution Drive intersected Borman Road and then skipped off again, his Thomas the Tank Engine backpack bouncing up and down on his slender shoulders. Calli’s heavy bag contained text books and work folders. She sincerely wished all she needed to carry was her lunch and a change of shorts and undies. “Swap with you, Jase,” Calli grinned, offering him her weighty bag and he smiled at her through sultry eyes and kept skipping.

Another small boy loped past her, catching the corner of her bag with his shoulder as he went. He listed a little as he lolloped along and Calli reasoned it was clumsiness rather than on purpose as she stopped to readjust the strap on her shoulder, feeling the weight dragging her spine sideways excruciatingly.

“Sorry,” came a male voice from behind her. “He was running to catch up with his friend.”

Calli looked harder at the dark mop-headed child, now tagging Jase on the back. The calliper on his right leg was quickly evident against the tiny tanned calf underneath it. Her heart sank into her sandals. They lived next door and would have heard Marcia’s shrieks about their damn dog earlier. “It’s fine,” she said, her manner brusque and formal. “Just an accident.” Calli deliberately didn’t look at the teenager striding quickly next to her. She already knew he was good-looking, hair the colour of black coffee, casually tipping over speckled brown eyes. A ready smile and a cute dimple had turned in her direction a few times, but she ignored it. Her mother would rant if Calli even looked his way.

The little boys were less than fifty metres ahead, but being silly on the pavement. The concrete walkway narrowed to account for the roundabout and as Jase giggled and leaped around, he came dangerously close to the edge.

“Jase!” Calli screamed as a car began negotiating the roundabout and her brother lurched again, but the sound of the traffic dulled her voice and the boys didn’t hear her cry.

The man-boy next to her ran as she covered her face with her hands. All that remained of him was a khaki green satchel, hastily flung on the ground. He crossed the dividing tarmac path with ease, reaching the two boys in a matter of seconds, yanking them both away from the traffic to safety and keeping hold of them in a tense grip. Calli gulped as Danny’s death worked its way back up her throat, filling her head and leaking out of her eyes and nose shamelessly. Relief was there somewhere, but for the moment, all she could feel was the awful blackness, descending down over her eyes and filling her lungs with oxygen-stealing fingers.

By the time Declan returned to the place where his bag lay in a heap on the path, dragging the little boys along with firm hands, Calli bent double, gasping for breath, seeing Danny’s face as he turned to wave to her before he died. Inside her head, she heard the lorry’s engine brakes and the muffled thud as her beautiful older brother’s body became crushed underneath the enormous wheels. It replayed over and over in her vision like a scratched DVD. Calli’s body froze, even as it sweated and she felt physically sick.

The sound of the metal caliper scraping on the pavement told her the children were obeying Declan’s sharp order to ‘sit,’ which crept through the sound of Calli’s own heartbeat and her violent, ragged breathing. The little boy’s leg brace made the unusual sound some more as he shuffled around on the ground. Both boys were utterly silent and Calli knew if she looked at Jase, he would cry. A tear dripped off the end of her nose, surprising her. Calli hadn’t registered she was crying and fought to contain the terrible animal noises that grappled to escape from her mouth.

The stable arms of the boy next to her forced her to stand upright. Air whooshed back into her lungs and to her embarrassment, he pulled her face into his collarbone and held her, as though understanding the grid reference for a place in which Calli had so entirely lost herself. They embraced for a while until the foot and road traffic increased and Declan became aware of people staring. He lifted Calli’s chin and used the cuff of his school jumper gripped around his thumb to brush the tears and snot away from her face. It was a tender action and his face was one of concentration and so compassion laden, his concern almost unpicked her again. Shouldering both Calli’s heavy school bag and his own, Declan pulled at her arm and made her walk. “Stay with us!” he commanded the boys gruffly and the five year olds obeyed, linking hands as best friends and walking just a few metres in front. Calli knew she should say something, but thank you seemed pathetic to her internal ears, even before the words could fall from her mouth. So she focused on scrubbing at her swollen eyes with a crumpled tissue from her blazer pocket and concentrated hard on taking decent breaths as the spasm in her lungs released its hold. “You ok?” he asked her once and she nodded gratefully.

“Sorry,” she managed finally, feeling a complete idiot. They trooped along in silence, navigating Borman Road and finding themselves almost at the primary school nestled at the foot of lush, green, rolling hills in the northernmost suburb of the city.

“Sorry Dec,” his little brother called back over his shoulder as they neared the front gates, his small face a mask of sorrow. The older boy did a curious uplift of his face, a kind of upside-down-nod and it seemed to settle the child, who resumed his brisk walk alongside Jase, his ungainly leg swinging out at a peculiar angle. Calli worked on her breathing and tried to renegotiate her equilibrium with some success. 

At the gates, amongst the yummy mummies driving SUV’s which disgorged a single child and the ones in leggings and flip-flops, Calli and Declan stood out like beacons in their school uniform. To Calli’s surprise, Declan reached down and kissed his brother, Levi on the forehead and ruffled his hair.

Jase buried his face in his sister’s stomach and hugged her hard. “I love you, Calli Walli,” he whispered and smiled up at her. A soft breeze stroked his white-blonde hair, bringing the scent of the Tasman Sea with it and his pale, freckled skin seemed to shimmer ethereally. It acted as a physical kick to Calli’s chest, as fear of losing this brother too, cut through her sensibility like a knife. Her lower lip wobbled and tears rose unbidden to hover on the edges of her eyelids. Jase looked suddenly fearful.

“Go,” Declan said roughly to him, pressing him away from the distraught girl. “Levi’s waiting for you. Look.”

With the sudden realisation his friend found it hard to stand for long periods, Jase’s kind nature prevailed and he skipped quickly up the front path to the other boy and taking his arm, led him inside the building. Calli raised a hand to wave to him, hoping he would look back at her, but he didn’t, suddenly preoccupied with the newness of his day. She put her useless hand back down, embarrassed at having betrayed herself in front of this stranger so monumentally.

Declan walked hurriedly away, knowing the distance between the primary and high schools was greater than the time they had left to cover it before being marked absent. But Calli seemed rooted to the spot, blatantly in the way of mothers with buggies and baby car seats, who were forced to move around her like flood waters around a boulder. Managing the unwieldy school bags, Declan retrieved her, gripping her fragile wrist and hauling her towards him, almost colliding with a babbling group of tiny females who scattered out of the way of the bigger children with awe.

Calli was tugged none too roughly down the street, gradually coming back to life and checking the time on her phone as she panicked about being late.

“I cut across country,” Declan informed her, turning through a partially open field gate and picking up the pace. The ground was stubbly and rough going, evidently decimated by the cloven hooves and hungry mouths of cattle. Calli followed him sheepishly, tripping over lumps of hardened mud and trying desperately to avoid the cow dung which littered their path. After ten minutes of skirting paddocks, she was surprised to find herself at the back gate of the high school.

“This gate is locked,” she said, bemused as Declan stuck his arm over the high, solid gate.

“It is,” he said, turning to smile smugly at Calli as he felt around for a bolt on the other side. There came a grating sound and click, upon which the wooden panel swung inwards with a creak. Once they were through, Declan shot the bolt home again and held his arms wide, palms upward like a proud magician. “It saves about ten minutes of walking round by road. I do it most days.”

“That’s awesome,” Calli beamed, relieved. She glanced back at the position of the bolt on the gate and frowned. “I probably wouldn’t be able to reach from outside though. I’m not tall enough.” She sounded wistful and strangely sad.

“You’ll be right,” he said, his expression kind and inviting, “just make sure you walk with me and Levi if you have to drop your brother again.”

Calli nodded, feeling awkward, the memory of Marcia’s rants about Declan’s family next door reminding her of their precarious existence at the mercy of angry adults. Declan’s mother often worked nights and Marcia decided, therefore, she must be a prostitute, expressing her opinion loudly both inside the property and out. The lady next door always smiled nicely at Calli and never looked overdressed or tarted up. Calli had heard her playing with her children over the fence. No screaming or yelling came from their house. The noisiest thing she ever heard was the faint strumming of guitar music. Her cheeks graduated to an uncomfortably familiar pink and Calli hated her body for betraying her again. Declan didn’t seem to have noticed, trudging across the school field, still carrying both bags.

Maori features, a strong nose and huge, almond shaped, brown eyes flicked intermittently across to Calli. Declan’s role in the first fifteen rugby team dictated a muscular and well-toned frame, from lunchtimes spent in the school gym. He was a promising midfield player, named in the squad a few weeks ago for the upcoming season, the only Year 12 amongst the elite handful of boys.

“Will rugby practice start soon after school?” Calli asked, trying desperately to make conversation and give her face tones a chance to calm down.

“Next term,” he smiled down at her. “We’ve just been having weekend trainings up to now and running our own programs in the gym at lunchtime.”

“Did your dog get out last night?” Calli asked, keeping her voice casual, kicking herself inwardly at the stupidity of her question and the trouble such a discussion could potentially lead to. Declan looked down at her curiously.

“Our dog died about six months ago. She was quite old, so it wasn’t unexpected. We were all upset. Dad brought her home when I was little. I guess she was the last link to him.”

“To your dad?” Calli asked foolishly, mindful of the fact she’d never seen an adult male at their place. It was another reason for Marcia’s unkind fantasy that Declan’s mother was a hooker. The boy nodded a dark, melancholy action which betrayed a perpetual misery.

“He died when I was in Year 8,” Declan said, perhaps keen to dispel any erroneous conclusions about absent fathers or prison sentences. “We bought the house next door to you shortly after. Levi was only a year old.”

“That’s so sad,” Calli breathed with feeling and Declan turned a tight, painful smile in her direction. The words seemed to gush from him, sensing the empathy in the girl trotting to keep up with his long stride.

“Bowel cancer,” he blurted, “he fought it a few times but it kept coming back in different organs. He kept quiet about the symptoms the last time, until it was too late. He got real skinny, but we thought it was just all the stress of having Levi and coping with all the trips up to the pediatric specialists in Auckland. Mum’s a nurse...” Declan stopped dead in the middle of the rugby pitch. “She blames herself - thinks she should have noticed he was ill again.”

Calli had accidentally run on ahead in her attempt to glide along elegantly next to him, failing miserably as her pony tail bounced on her head like a rag doll and the side seam of her skirt worked its way round to the front. She skidded to a halt and whipped around to face him as Declan stood prone on the grass, staring at a daisy as though everything was its fault. He seemed lost, a body placed statuesquely on display while the mind wandered elsewhere through time and space. The fleeting thought stomped through Calli’s mind that two of her friends were already going to be jealous at the fact Declan had put his arms around her and now, well, what was she going to do now?

Reaching out, Calli took Declan’s clenched fist between her hands, feeling his skin soft and yet masculine like her father’s, even though he was only just seventeen. She remembered a few weeks back, some of his mates bringing in party poppers and shrouding him in the long, colourful strands out on the field at lunchtime for a laugh. It clung to his uniform and hair and he had taken the birthday surprise well, as they congratulated him on another annual milestone and slapped him heartily on the back. Declan had a tight knit group of friends who enjoyed safety in numbers in the volatile environment that was Hamilton North College of Education. Some of the boys were older, already Year 13 and selected for the rugby team but they met up at break times and stuck together loyally. The wider school sneered and mocked them for being ‘God botherers,' whilst envying the strong bond between them. A little knot of girls orbited around the males, safe in their comfortable universe, but strangely there was never any gossip. Nothing emanated from the ranks of the ‘chosen’ which could be used as missiles by the rest of the general populace. Calli’s friends drooled in Declan’s direction, watching the handsome boy from afar, but they would never dare to venture into his particular galaxy.

“We need to go,” Calli said gently, feeling as though she had covered his hands with hers for a lifetime, when it was a matter of mere seconds. He nodded and set off again, still carrying both bags, but his face showed a raw and childishly open grief.

By the time they reached the tennis courts, Declan had recovered and his usual jovial smile returned. He handed Calli’s bag over and his eyes crinkled pleasantly at the corners as he said goodbye. She felt momentarily stupid thanking him, but he brushed it off effortlessly. “See ya later, huh?”

Calli nodded gormlessly. They shared most of the same classes but bizarrely never spoke. Declan handed Calli a worksheet once in English, but that was about it. In Year 10, he was good-looking in that way boys have, something of the ‘x factor’ with the promise of better to come, but by Year 12, he was a fully-fledged hunk. If he only hung with a different group of friends, he could be the hottest date in school.

Chapter 3

For the whole of tutor group, Calli had to contend with a barrage of questions from her curious girlfriends, who inadvertently saw her and Declan walking across the field together. “Did he kiss ya,” Sally asked, pushing Calli in a shove that was half mischief, half jealousy. Calli felt peculiarly shy about their encounter, mainly because it meant divulging her meltdown over Danny and for some other reason she couldn’t quite catch.

Calli’s friends were sympathetic when Danny died at the start of Year 10, cosseting and enfolding her in a cushion of care as only teenage girls can. But it was short lived and outside of that first, dreadful year, no other displays of grief would be tolerated. It was the way of the world, it seemed.

Their love had in truth been conditional, containing a clause at which the sympathy timed out, but it was the only acknowledgement of the tumultuous rupture in Calli’s sanity and the practical cessation of her childhood. With internal agony such as that came womanhood, her first period and an end to all pretence at play. Danny was gone, unreachable and lost. Calli felt as desolate emotionally, as her brother’s broken body was physically. Following Danny’s heartrending funeral, Simon and Marcia reeled understandably as the world tipped on its edge and the natural order of death turned on its head. It was the wrong way round - no parent should have to watch their child’s coffin sinking into the soft, silty earth. It was as though all pretence at being a regular family ended that day. It was game over for each of them.

For the first time, Declan acknowledged Calli in English, tilting his head upwards and smiling at her as she entered the classroom shrouded by her friends. She smiled back cautiously, noting how one of the girls sitting behind him raised her eyebrows and looked distressed. The Christian girl was slightly plump, not unattractive but relatively dull in appearance. Her teeth hung like wonky farm gates but then she rarely opened her mouth, hence avoiding the issue. She was in possession of one of those forgettable faces but had never been unkind to Calli. Well, not before today anyway. Calli felt her pulse quicken as the girl’s brown eyes narrowed and fired virtual daggers at her. Reacting as though shot, Calli took a step backwards in alarm as the girl’s jealous anger came at her like a wave. So much for being a group of Christians, Calli thought to herself judgmentally, justifiable disdain showing on her pretty features. The retaliatory look which Calli shot back at Declan’s admirer must have contained vibes that were equally disturbing, because the girl, Lorna, averted her eyes hurriedly.

Yeah, you look away, Calli thought smugly, finding her seat in the middle of the classroom and slumping down into it. She allowed her heavy school bag to slide to the dusty floor, spewing books out from what presented itself as a broken zipper. Calli groaned inwardly. She was making the bag last as long as she possibly could, not wanting the pain of having to ask Marcia for money to buy another one. The bag had a garish variety of poorly done stitches adulterating its fabric surface. Calli had kept it going since the end of Year 10, when Marcia screamed at her over the state of the old one, forcing her to carry it with a broken strap for almost a term. Simon took pity on Calli and given her cash to get a new one, having seen her struggling home with it. It was such a relief for the girl to have a bag with a handle, to be able to sling her school gear over her shoulder instead of carrying it out front like a small, awkwardly shaped and lumpy child.

Calli fingered the short metal catch, doing an excellent job until then of pulling the zip open and closed but seemingly now retired. “Stupid thing!” She punched it and heard the thunk of books inside. The wave of anger washed over her and she fought to control it as a male teacher entered the room and instantly demanded silence. Her mind wandered to a time when the bag was only a week old and some older boys decided to use it like a rugby ball, snatching it from her shoulder in the corridor and hurling it above her head to one another. Desperate to retrieve it, Calli bounced like a small, clockwork toy, betrayal prickling the tears behind her eyelids as her friends stood around and watched her as though she was the interval entertainment. Calli ran shaking fingers over her face. A wave of anger and disappointment returned. She could almost taste the blood in her mouth at the memory of the cut lip as she lost her temper and charged the boy nearest to her. He was so surprised, even Calli’s slight frame barrelled him over and her slight fists pounded his face and chest in fury. A hot flush lit her cheeks at the embarrassment of the scene, followed by a week of lunchtime detentions and a night of pricking her fingers on the only needle sharp enough to sew up the ripped pocket on the front of the no-longer-new bag. The anger was like a ferociously burning ball of pain in her chest, alarming even her mild natured self and Calli wondered fleetingly if that was what she channelled through her eyes into Lorna just a few moments ago.

“Earth to Miss Rhodes!” The teacher yelled in her direction and with a jolt, Calli grasped that everyone was looking at her, their books out on the desks in front of them. Flustered, Calli rifled around in her sagging bag and retrieved the current novel the class was reading. She loved books and had already steamed ahead and finished it, which meant going at the same snail’s pace as the rest of the class whilst some poor fool stumbled over the words out loud, was infinitely boring. Unfortunately, it also meant she had no idea where the last person finished off reading, as the steady droning formed background vibration to her inner turmoil. Calli hadn’t even registered the class beginning. Heat rose up the unfortunate girl’s neck as she fumbled with the tatty school library copy of To Kill a Mockingbird, with absolutely no idea where to start reading from. As the English teacher, a portly man in his early sixties who possessed not a single molecule of patience or compassion in his genetic makeup, opened his mouth to blast her off the face of the planet, another voice began reading. Declan was a scientist at heart, able to digest the most complicated formulas in chemistry, biology and even math classes, but he was a poor out-loud reader, stumbling over his words painfully.

Calli quickly found the page Declan struggled with, tears of humiliation dripping unbidden down her nose and plopping off into the centre fold. His kindness was almost worse than the punishment the bellicose Phil Bader would have been planning for her inattention and it pricked at something in the girl’s soul. Why did the sweetest acts of generosity cause as much emotion as overt cruelty? Calli concentrated on tracing the boy’s words with her finger, willing the tears to dry quickly before Bader called for her to continue.

Declan’s halting speech always wound the English teacher up and the man terminated the torturous journey through the text after only a few pages, adding a sharp, “In future, speak when you’re spoken to, boy! You read like a Year 8.” Bader’s gimlet eyes roved across the room in his florid face and the bowed heads in front of him. To Calli’s utmost relief, he didn’t return to her, imposing his authority on other unwilling victims. She hadn’t realised she was sniffing until Bader’s voice cut across the more somber one of the boy reading next to her. The blonde boy in the seat next to Calli stopped reading immediately, flicking his overly long hair out of his neatly proportioned face and cringing. “Miss Rhodes, kindly take your things and go to the school nurse, please.”

It was an order, not a request and for Bader, a surprisingly insightful one. Calli could almost hear the silence humming and fizzing like an electrical current, the inner thoughts of thirty-one adolescents combining to create a mental hum that undercut every other sound in her ears. “Yes, sir.” She snatched her dilapidated school bag with its patchwork of dreadful darning and fled, the copy of the class book clutched so hard in her left hand it bent awkwardly. The door clicked shut behind her.

The cessation of the unreal hum was a physical and mental relief as Calli obediently made her way to the office of the school nurse. What do I say? Why am I here? The worries paralysed her as she entered the sickbay, a large room equipped with hospital beds and a full time nurse. Fortunately, there were no unwell occupants in the room and the door was already flung wide open.

“How can I help you?” the short English nurse asked, beaming a genuine smile with her eyes in Calli’s direction as she stood up from her computer chair.

“I...I don’t know,” Calli ventured pathetically. “Mr Bader sent me here.”

“Did he now?” the nurse asked, a flicker of sympathy in her eyes. “Well, why don’t you take your bag and blazer off and let’s try and work out what the problem is.

“I’m not pregnant,” Calli said. The statement came out defensively and more than a little rudely and the nurse looked at her with interest. “I just thought I’d save you some time.” Calli qualified the sentence, putting her bag on the floor and tutting as two textbooks piled out. She slipped her blazer off and slung it over a chair before plonking herself down. “It’s the first thing doctors always think, that all teenage girls must automatically be at it all the time, so whenever you go to the doctor for anything, it’s the first thing he asks.”

“Is it indeed?” the nurse replied, keeping her voice low and conversational, pulling Calli’s sleeve smoothly over her arm and fitting a blood pressure cuff over the top. “And why do you suppose they think that?”

“Probably because most teenage girls are at it all the time, I guess,” Calli conceded.

The nurse smiled. “Quite possibly,” she replied, her face professionally neutral. “Your blood pressure is a little high, but that’s probably because you’ve gotten yourself all upset.” The nurse took Calli’s wrist and placed her fingers over the artery, silent whilst she read the petite fob watch attached to the top pocket of her uniform. “Pulse is high too.”

“I’m not upset,” denied Calli, biting her lip and trying not to look quite so unhappy.

The nurse came and sat down next to her on another chair, reaching backwards for a packet of wipes at the same time as drawing one of the small white pieces of fabric out through the hole in the top. “Sweetheart,” she said, “your mascara’s run all down your cheeks and you look like you’re bottling up something frightful inside that head of yours. I think you’ve strayed beyond the realms of upset and more into distraught.”

Calli put her head down and looked away. The nurse took her wrist again and the girl thought she was going to repeat the pulse measurement, surprised when the woman’s other hand lay over the top. It wasn’t uncomfortable or awkward, but strangely comforting as though the nurse cared about Calli. It felt unusual and oddly agreeable. “How about you wipe your face while I make us a nice cup of English breakfast tea and run some blood tests. I’ve got a little suspicion I wouldn’t mind having confirmed. And no...” the nurse held her hand up as Calli opened her mouth to speak, “I don’t think you’re pregnant, love.”

Calli didn’t usually drink tea, but the hot liquid was surprisingly comforting and the nurse companionable. The drawing of blood was a painful as Calli’s body seemed reluctant to give any up, but the nurse recovered two adequately full vials of it, which she neatly labelled and got ready to go to the pathology laboratory in town. “I think your Celiac Disease might have made you iron deficient and lacking in vitamin B12.”

Calli observed her checking the computer records for her new patient. It was written next to Calli’s student photograph in bright red: Student has proven Celiac Disease. “Is that dangerous? Low iron and B12.” Calli winced involuntarily. “Can I die?”

The nurse smiled, a sweet, gentle expression crossing her face like a burst of sunshine. “Not nowadays sweetheart. Untreated, it can cause lots of problems, but it’s so easy to sort out.”

“With pills?” Calli concluded, her voice sounding flat as she lowered her eyes. Everything in her life recently seemed to be fixed with pills, not that the anti-depressants seem to have made much difference to her mother’s temper.

“Not necessarily,” the nurse replied, placing the vials of blood into a fridge in the corner of the sick bay. She didn’t elucidate and Calli concluded it was better not to ask. Perhaps it involved needles and she hated those with a passion. She rubbed at the pinprick inside her elbow from the blood test and scowled. “What did you have for breakfast?” the woman asked and Calli blanched. Marcia wanted her to finish up the ageing box of rice-bubble things that had cost almost ten dollars for a single, small box, but it tasted like cardboard and plaster rolled into one inedible sea of tiny, threatening, white pellets.

“I can’t remember,” she lied and looked shifty.

“What about lunch?” the nurse persisted. She asked half-heartedly, fiddling around on a work surface with some paperwork, but Calli felt guilty under the woman’s perceptive microscope.

“Plenty of...different things...” Calli bit her lip and swigged the last of her tea, knowing she had to leave before the nurse became any more inquisitive and asked to see her lunchbox. It would give her away, containing an apple from yesterday and a gluten free muesli bar she probably wouldn’t eat. Calli placed her cup carefully down on the work surface and excused herself politely, “Thank you. I feel much better now. I should go to class.” Calli reached down for her broken bag, a frown creasing her bonny face for a second as everything slid to one end and threatened to climb out.

“Oh, did it break?” the nurse asked, her fluffy, mouse coloured hair moving in a calm halo around her face and Calli felt tears of disappointment and anger with the bag, rise unbidden again. She kept her eyes looking downwards and nodded, her dark ponytail falling sideways and rocking with the motion of her head. “Let me see?” The woman held out her hand for the bag and Calli turned to display the yawning mouth of her heavy-duty khaki companion. “Mmnn,” the nurse muttered thoughtfully. She took the awkward bag from Calli’s hands and plonked it on the work surface. There was a clunk as one of the hard backed textbooks resettled itself.

Within seconds, the nurse identified the bulge in the zip that had caused it to come off its track and managed to get the zipper to close by coercing its tag over the lumpy teeth. Producing a staple gun - the upholstery kind - from a drawer, she fired a couple of sturdy staples into the zipper. She aimed for just after the point where it broke and the teeth gaped, making a dull thud on the plastic board underneath the bag. Inverting the zip, she then used a pair of pliers from the same drawer to crush the protruding ends down around the metal teeth. The nurse ran the zip a few times, impressed with her handy work. “Kiwi ingenuity,” she grinned, winking at Calli. Fortunately the broken teeth were near to one end and not slap-bang in the middle of the opening. That would have been awkward. “There you go.” She handed Calli her bag casually, with a smile. “That should hold for a wee bit longer.”

Calli peered down at her bag, undisguised relief flooding her face. “Thanks!” the girl gushed, genuinely appreciative.

The nurse beamed at her. “That’s all right love. I’ll get these bloods off to the lab at lunchtime, but with us breaking up for the holidays tomorrow, it might be next term before I get the results. I’ll contact you through your tutor teacher. Ok?”

Calli nodded, enthusiastic about life for the first time in months. She didn’t care about blood results or cures for iron deficiency. This woman had mended her bag and effectively removed a dreadful scene at home from Calli’s immediate future. The girl reached her next class, maths, with a much happier outlook and settled next to her study partner with an absurd degree of excitement. Calli didn’t like maths but kept her subject base broad, not absolutely sure what she wanted to do at university, just that she had to leave every possible passageway open to that particular escape route.

“What was wrong earlier?” her friend, Mel asked her outright.

“Just home stuff,” Calli replied, knowing her friend wouldn’t probe for more details. Mel’s own home life was far too complicated and embarrassing for that. A sharing of confidences by Calli would require reciprocation and Mel’s home included a lesbian mother and her girlfriend, which Mel would probably rather not have to explain to her group of friends. Calli eyed her friend sideways and felt pity for her. She was perfectly aware of why Mel wouldn’t pump her for details, but compassion made her steer clear of the site of her friend’s pain.

The day passed reasonably happily. Lunchtime forced Calli to face the fake fruit bar thing in her bag and the wrinkled apple, which left her still hungry and dissatisfied, but it didn’t dampen her spirits any. In the girls’ toilets after lunch, the usual little knot of smokers were congregated over by the window and Calli nodded amicably to them as she used the cubicle. “Hey, Call. How ya doin’?”

“Good thanks, Sal,” she called back with a smile. “Hold your breath. I don’t want none of that crap on me. My dad will kill me.”

The older girl laughed. “That’s what ya get for having a cop for a da.”

They held no fear for Calli. The day the little Year 10 girl flattened the Year 12 boy, earned Calli enough kudos to guarantee her survival, right through school. She washed her hands in comparative safety, unmolested by a group who terrified every other female in the building. The fog from their cigarettes was overpowering, hanging around the wide space in a choking haze, getting unavoidably into Calli’s hair and onto her uniform. She usually made sure she got to the toilet before the toxic group, fearful of unbearable interrogations at home from Simon and Marcia, who wouldn’t believe she hadn’t taken up the habit for herself. They’d done that argument already, more than once.

As Calli approached the exit, feeling for the handle amidst the grey, drifting stench, the hardwood pushed inwards, knocking her violently backwards against the sinks. “Ow! Oh, crap!” Winded, Calli struggled to catch her breath as Lorna sauntered confidently past without apology, flanked by a couple of her friends. One of them, Jess, looked at Lorna’s retreating back with horror, halting next to Calli and asking if she was all right. Calli nodded, rubbing the base of her spine where the edge of the sink caught her hardest.

“Lorna!” Jess exclaimed, “You’ve hurt her.”

Lorna shrugged and went into one of the cubicles, seeming totally unrepentant.

“I’m so sorry. Are you ok?” Jess asked, her red curly hair flopping into her eyes as she leaned into Calli’s face. Calli nodded, not wanting to show weakness and limped away, her bag feeling unbearably heavy and unwieldy against her hip. Her back was agonisingly tight and tender at the bottom. Calli left the toilets feeling stiff and a little sick.

Biology was straight after lunch and although Calli found it difficult to get comfortable on the hard plastic chair, the pain did begin to dull to a steady throb. Lorna appeared late, soaked through to her skin, her uniform hanging limply on her body and her blonde hair plastered to her head. Calli saw Declan’s brow furrow as Lorna made her way to the desk in front of him and he shot an inquiring look at Jess. The other girl shrugged and looked uncomfortable. There were four boys and five girls in their close-knit, elite Christian youth club and each of them watched as Lorna settled herself and got her books out. She looked as though she tried not to cry, but shot a lethal look across at Calli, who couldn’t help but smirk. She assumed the group of smokers had pelted Lorna with mouthfuls of water over the top of the cubicle door, unappreciative of her treatment of someone who had street-cred in their eyes. Lorna caught Calli smirking, indignation forming her facial features into a mask of hatred, even as water dripped off her fringe and onto her book. The saturated girl narrowed her eyes and gritted her teeth, issuing an unspoken declaration of war to the attractive dark haired girl. Calli returned her glare with a grin and mouthed ‘Bring it on bitch,’ at her. Lorna blanched and the colour drained from her flushed cheeks as she suddenly comprehended that her rash jealousy had caused her to bite off more than she could realistically chew.

Unfortunately, Declan intercepted Calli’s mouthed threat and his gorgeous face became shrouded in dismay. Shame cut through Calli’s body like a knife, surprising her with its intensity.

Why do you care what he thinks? Calli questioned herself crossly, not understanding what the issue was. Declan was a nobody. Her mother hated his whole family, their stupid dead dog and prostitute mother. Why should his disgust bother her? But it did. Calli cared acutely, allowing shame to sear a scorching space in her chest for the rest of the afternoon.

During the last lesson, Calli felt her mobile phone vibrate gently in her blazer pocket. When her Classics teacher turned around, writing something illegible on the whiteboard, Calli pulled the phone out and read the text underneath her desk. It was Simon, asking her to fetch the little kids from school as the childminder was unable to get them. He was stuck at a road accident and Marcia was in court. Calli sighed and her shoulders slumped in annoyance. There was no way she could finish school at the same time as them and manage to be at the primary school gates waiting when they came out. It was impossible. She texted Simon back, saying as much, irritated when he responded almost immediately.

‘Just do it. I’ve rung their school and they can wait inside for you.’

At no point had Simon said please or thank you. Calli was just expected to do as she was told. She was distracted for the rest of the class, scribbling down the homework as she bolted out of the door. Remembering Declan’s quick way across the field, she jogged the distance towards the hidden gate, feeling the painful pull in the base of her spine as her feet assaulted the hard ground and scorched grass underfoot. To her misery, the thick bolt at the top wouldn’t move under the tug of her tiny fingers. She pulled and pushed and panicked as it swivelled around in its housing but wouldn’t budge backward. “Move, damn you!” she screamed at it finally, allowing her aching arm to fall to her side. It would take ages to retrace her steps across the field and round by road, ensuring the little kids would be left at school much longer than they should and possibly causing their teacher to call Simon on his mobile. There would be heaps of trouble and it would all land at her door. Simon would assume Calli was being deliberately problematic and if he complained to Marcia, her mother would be sure to pile on the chores as punishment.

Calli stamped her feet and tried to alleviate the pressure building in her chest, the result of a familiar sense of desperation. She stared helplessly at the bolt, wondering when it was going to be her turn to get some good luck, if ever.

“S’cuse,” the male voice said coldly, reaching over Calli’s shoulder and wrenching the bolt back. Calli turned to face Declan, her jaw dropping unattractively.

“How did you do that?” she challenged him furiously.

“Just gotta hold your lips a certain way and wiggle it.” Despite his palpable disgust at her behaviour towards his friend, he couldn’t help the boyish impulse to have fun at Calli’s expense.

“Thanks.” Calli tried to hide her gratitude, hoisting her bag higher onto her shoulder and setting off at a trot. Declan locked the gate from the outside and then pounded after her, much to Calli’s dismay. She still stung from the look he gave her earlier. He made a grab for her right arm as she got up speed, managing to hold on tightly and spin Calli’s slight body in a full circle until she banged hard against his body. “Ow!”

The snapping action as Calli’s body contacted Declan’s, caused the bruised bones in her back to jar horribly and the cry escaped her lips before she could prevent it. The boy looked mortified as she placed her other hand on the sore spot and tried to rub the pain away, swearing prolifically. “I’m sorry, what happened?”

“Your bloody girlfriend, that’s what happened!” Calli bit back, catching her breath and surging onwards, the need to get to Sadie and Jase overriding any other pressing need in her itinerary.

Declan released her wrist as she pulled away, his hand falling uselessly to his side. “I don’t have a girlfriend,” he muttered, as much to himself as to Calli’s retreating back.

Chapter 4

“Will you just leave me alone?” Calli screamed at Declan as he caught her up at the end of the tussocky grass.

“Not until you explain,” he countered, looking equally as stubborn as her.

Refusing to back down, he marched alongside her, as Calli postured and gritted her teeth in rage. “What’s to explain?” she hissed angrily as they reached the pavement. “Your little girlfriend saw you smile at me and has been looking at me with daggers ever since. Call yourselves Christians? You make me sick!”

“She is not my girlfriend,” Declan’s eyes flashed, his fury equaling Calli’s.

“Well, she thinks she is!” Calli yelled, drawing the attention of passers-by, mothers walking their small children home from school. “She shoved the toilet door into me and couldn’t care less.”

“So you wet her?” Declan wasn’t getting it.

“No, I didn’t, but that gang of Year 13’s bloody did. And I’m not sorry, she asked for it.”

Calli’s back throbbed and she felt hot and angry. She wished the day would hurry up and finish. It had been rotten from beginning to end. “God, it hurts!” she groaned, rubbing again at her spine as they hurried the last hundred metres to the primary school’s gates. Declan winced as Calli blasphemed and it gave her an irrational pleasure. She wished she could think of an excuse to say it again, but the look of disappointment on his dark features expunged the idea as quickly as it arrived.