Thyla - Kate Gordon [43]
‘You’re going out tonight?’ I asked.
Rhiannah nodded. ‘Yeah. Bushwalk. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?’
She raced from the room before I had time to say another word, leaving me alone with the hefty book.
My eyes brimming with tears, I looked down at it.
At first I wasn’t sure what I was looking at. I wiped crossly at my eyes.
‘I don’t cry,’ I muttered, through clenched teeth. ‘I don’t …’
As the words and pictures on the page became clearer, they sucked all the words from my throat.
I sat, open-mouthed, staring and reading and trying to make sense of what I was seeing. Finally, as I reached the end, I used a phrase I sometimes heard you use, Connolly, when you got particularly annoyed with Vinnie’s grumpiness, or when some new lead about who I might be failed to produce any answers.
I let the heavy book fall with a thud to the floor, and I whispered, ‘Holy hell.’
This is the point where you rejoin the story, Connolly. Do you remember?
It was morning when I called you. Rhiannah had not returned that night at all and, first thing the next morning, I walked to the office in my pyjamas. I told Ms Hindmarsh I was sick – that I had caught the same sickness that Rhiannah had. I said I did not think I was well enough for lessons that day, and I asked to call you.
You came straight away, like you said you would.
When I told Ms Hindmarsh I wasn’t well, she looked at me curiously, and I wondered if she had heard about Charlotte and me and the washroom and my stripes.
I didn’t have time to think about it. I didn’t have room in my brain to think about it. I just needed you, Connolly. I needed you to come and to look at the book and to tell me that I wasn’t dreaming. I had seen so many things in the past few days that had seemed like a dream; that had seemed so unreal that I thought I must have been imagining them. I needed you – with your policewoman’s logic – to tell me this was real.
‘Tess!’ you called out as you knocked on my door. ‘Tess, it’s me. Connolly.’
I raced to the door and yanked it open.
You looked tired and you looked worried, but you looked like … you.
I flung my arms around you and squeezed you as tightly as I could. I needed to believe that you were really there.
‘Oi, oi! Tess!’ you cried out, giggling. ‘Very, very happy to see you too, but can I have my lungs back?’
I relaxed my grip a little bit, but I kept on hugging. I honestly didn’t feel like I was capable of letting you go.
‘I’m so glad you’re here,’ I said, feeling more unwanted, unruly tears springing to my eyes. ‘I’m so, so glad you’re here.’
‘What’s up, Tess?’ you said, pulling away slightly so you could look at me. ‘I mean, I figured everything was going okay. You hadn’t called, so I guessed that meant you were just having too much fun.’
I sighed. ‘Come inside, please,’ I said, grabbing you by the hand and pulling you into room 36.
‘Your roomie’s not here?’ you asked, looking around.
I shook my head. ‘She’s gone on another bushwalk,’ I replied.
Your face suddenly looked pale beneath your freckles. ‘Alone?’ you asked.
‘I’m not sure,’ I said. ‘Probably with our friends, Harriet and Sara.’
You looked relieved. ‘Good,’ you said. ‘You girls should never go out into that bush alone. But, come on, Tess, I’m super curious. What have you got to tell me?’
I shook my head. ‘I can’t tell you, Connolly. I have to show you.’
‘Okay,’ you said. ‘Show me.’
‘I think you should sit down.’
I took you by the hand again and led you over to my bed. You sat down and I picked the book up from where I had placed it carefully on my bedside table, with a piece of card between its pages.
‘Here,’ I said.
You opened the book to the spot I had marked.
A few moments later, the book landed on the floor once again.
‘Read it to me,’ I said, once you had