Hal sniffled a bit. “I better be getting home. He'll be wondering what's keeping me.”
“Oh well,” I said. “Yeah. Better not keep old Shiny Face in suspense, eh?”
Hal sighed. “I wish I hadn't done it,” he said. “The hospital thing. I really wish I had never thought of it.”
I didn't know what to say. I wished I was grown-up and could think of something soothing, but the only things that came into my head were either stupid or funny. That's the trouble with my head, it's always full of stupid funny stuff.
Hal kicked himself. I mean, he did literallyâhe kicked the instep of one foot with the toe of the other. It looked as if it hurt.
“It was supposed to solve a problem,” he said, “but it only made it worse.”
I
woke up very early the next morning. I don't know what woke me, but the first thing that popped into my head was shoes, shining like polished brown chestnuts. I wondered where that thought had come fromâit's weird the way things drift into your mind when you are between sleep and wakingâand then I remembered that was what Hal had said to Sonya, something about remembering his dad's shoes. I think he meant on the day he died, but that didn't seem to make a lot of sense. I mean, people don't usually have their shoes on when they die, do they? Unless they have an accident, I suppose. Or drop dead. And why would you notice their shoes? If someone died, you wouldn't be looking at their
feet
, would you? I suppose if you are only five or something, you might be closer to their feet than other people. That didn't seem like a very convincing explanation, though.
Poor Hal, I thought, just like my mother always says, only I really meant it. I'd never thought about Hal's dad being dead before as, like, a major problem or anything, especially since it had happened a long time ago. It was just
a fact. But now I realized, all of a sudden, that my mother was right, and it was awfully sad for Hal, and that was why she always said “Poor Hal.” That was what the thing about the shoes made me think.
Then I remembered about Hal's mother being missing still, and I lay there for a while and worried about that. Then I wondered why Alec's face was so shiny. After that I wondered if he could deshine it by using some sort of stuff on it, but that would probably count as makeup and I didn't think he'd be into that idea. I began to feel a bit sorry for him. I mean, not only did he have a shiny face to contend with, but the situation about Hal's mother must be pretty terrible for him as well as for Hal. Plus he also had Hal to worry about.
The next thing I thought was, they really ought to ring the police. I could see that they didn't want to get Trudy into trouble and all, but still, there's a limit, and I would think being missing for nearly a week was definitely it.
Then I thought, without meaning to think it, it just sort of drifted into my head as a fully formed sentence: well, if they aren't going to ring the police, it's up to me to do it.
Me! I thought then. I could hear my own voice in my head. It was squeaky with terror. What's it got to do with me? I reasoned. It's not my problem. I'm not going to go there.
I turned over and tried to go back to sleep. But having
thought such a thought, I couldn't unthink it. I knew I was going to have to act on it.
In the end, I got out of bed. It was nearly six o'clock. If I was lucky, Sonya might still be on the same shift she'd been doing on Saturday, and that would mean she'd be on in the morning. Maybe she'd be there already, if she was due to finish at lunchtime.
I put on my dressing gown and went down to the hall, where the phone book is kept, and I looked up Balnamara Garda station in the green pages where all the official stuff is. It took a while, but I found it. Then I grabbed the cordless phone off its cradle and punched in the number. I ran back upstairs with the phone while it was ringing, and I was back in bed by the time it was answered.
No, said a cross-sounding voice, Guard O'Rourke was not on duty today.
“Oh!” I said. “When will she be in?”
“I can't be giving out that sort of information,” said the cross guard. “If it's Garda business, you can speak to me. If it's a personal call, you'll have to ring her at home. Is it personal?”
“I suppose so,” I said.
I meant it was personal in the sense that it was kind of private, not that I wanted to ask her to a party or something, but he didn't give me a chance to explain that.
“Well, then,” he said, “you'll have to make your own
arrangements. I can't be spending Garda time talking to you. Slán.” And he hung up.
“Slán,” I said automatically, though he couldn't hear me.
They worry a lot about their time, the guards, don't they?
T
he phone leaped in my hand. Well, that's what it felt like; I don't suppose it actually did leap. But anyway, it rang as I sat up in bed with it in my hand.
Maybe he's sorry, I thought, that cross guard. Maybe he's ringing back to apologize. They probably have one of those screens that tells you who's ringing you so you can call them back if you like. We haven't got one of those. We are very lo-tech in this family. My parents think that is a grand thing; I think it's just a pain. We wouldn't even have a cordless phone, only the old phone died and it was cheaper to get one of these as a replacement.
But it wasn't the guard, it was Hal.
“Hal!” I yelped. “It's the middle of the night.”
“Not really,” Hal said. “It's that sort of plum-colored time, about six.”
“Does it taste like plums too?” I asked.
“No, mint,” he said. “Did I wake you? Sorry.”
I wondered if six o'clock in the evening was the same color and taste, but I didn't get a chance to ask.
“I just wanted to tell you,” Hal went on, “Alec looked up
that quing-ming-jay thing on the computer, I mean, on the Internet. He's an insomaniac.”
Alec
! That was the first time Hal'd ever called his stepfather by his name. But I was a bit distracted by that other thing he had called him.
“Inso
what
?” I asked.
“Maniac,” he repeated. “Inso-maniac. It means he doesn't sleep.”
“Oh!” I said. “You mean insomniac.”
“Yes,” said Hal. “That's what I said. So he gets up early and goes surfing. We have broadband, did I tell you?”
“Hal, do you know that it's six
a.m.
?”
He didn't answer, he just kept going.
“It turns out it's not âqueuing'
or
âking'
or
âkwing.' It's âching.' That's how you pronounce it. He woke me up to show me this site he found, all about it. It's dead interesting.”
“Ching?” I said.“
Ching!
Oh!” Something was fluttering in my brain. Things were slotting into place. I wasn't sure exactly what things, but something was definitely going on in my head. “Hal! That must be ⦠Hal, is it
Chinese
?
”
“That's right,” he said. He sounded a bit disappointed that I'd worked it out for myself. “How did you guess?”
“It's that festival, isn't it?” I said, finally realizing the connections that my brain was making. “That thing in China with the kites, right?”
“Oh!” he said. “You
knew
. Qing Ming Jie, yes, the Festival of Pure Brightness. How did you know?”
Well, of course, I hadn't known, it was just the only Chinese thing I'd ever heard of apart from wonton soup and dragons and Beijing, and anyway, the person who'd mentioned it was Sonya, and she was also the person who'd written those words on the scrap of paper, so it all had to be connected, hadn't it?
I didn't say any of this to Hal. Instead, I said, “But so what?”
“So that's what Sonya was
saying
to me, she wanted me to know about this festival.”
“Yeah, but what
about
it?”
“I don't know,” Hal said. “I'm thinking about it, though.”
“Hmm,” I said.
My eyes were starting to prickle with sleep. I'm not usually functioning at six o'clock in the morning.
“It's deadly,” Hal was saying now. “There's loads of information on this site. It's also called Tomb Sweeping Day.”
“What is?”
“The Festival of Pure Brightness.”
“Tomb sweeping! How do you mean, tomb sweeping?”
“People visit graves and sweep them.”
He's flipped, I thought to myself. He's finally flipped. If I thought he was weird before, that was nothing compared to this.
“Why?”
“I don't know, to tidy them up, I suppose. It's a bit like Halloween, I think, only in the spring. It's about dead people.”
Dead people, that's just terrific, I thought. As if Hal hadn't got enough problems.
“Maybe that's why witches have broomsticks,” I said. “For sweeping graves.”
“It's not spooky,” Hal said. “It's in the spring. It's fun.”
Well, if sweeping graves was Hal's idea of fun, he was weirder than I thought.
But the weirdest thing of all was the way Hal was suddenly chattering away about Alec, as if they were old mates. The man he couldn't even say “Pass the sugar, please” to last week.
“Tell me, Hal,” I said, “how are you getting on with Alec these days?”
“Er, well, I dunno, Iâ”
“Put it this way,” I said. “Have you put any pebbles in his shoes lately?”
“Um,” he said, “no. I sort of ⦠went off that idea.”
“That's good,” I said. “Is he, you know, looking after you properly and everything?”
“Well, I suppose ⦠yeah. He cooks, you know. And washes. He'd washed my school sweatshirt, that's why I couldn't find it.”
“Oh, so
that's
why you had your blue one on.”
“Yeah, he noticed I'd got toothpaste on it, so he put it in
the wash. He thought I'd have a spare. It's dry now, I'll be able to wear it today.”
Well, well, well, I thought to myself. Alec
noticed
toothpaste on Hal's sweatshirt, and he
washed
it. Curiouser and curiouser. And Hal must have shown that piece of paper to Alec, the one with the Chinese words on it, his precious clue from Sonya. That sounded as if they were practically pally, didn't it? And then Alec had gone to the trouble of looking it up for him. He'd woken Hal up at the crack of dawn to show him some Internet site he'd found. Thick as thieves, they were.
Then I had another thought. A tiny suspicion of a thought. About Hal's mum. About what was going on. Thick as thieves. Maybe ⦠could it be? Maybe that was the
whole plan.
It couldn't possibly be true, could it? And yet ⦠I'd need to think it through, but it was the only thing that made sense. In the meantime, I wouldn't ring the police just yet. I'd wait and see.
“I'll see you at school, Hal,” I said. “But now I really have to catch a bit more sleep before it's time to get up.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Sorry I woke you, I was just excited. See you later.”
L
arry's tattoo began to fade. I noticed it at breakfast. At first I thought I was just bleary-eyed, after being awake so early, but even after I'd blinked and rubbed my eyes, it was still very fuzzy-looking.
“Larry!” I shrieked. “Your tattoo, it's disappearing.”
He grinned.
Something had happened to Larry since he'd been to Paris. Things didn't seem to get him down so easily. Maybe he'd fallen in love. I hoped so. I am dying for him to fall in love, because I want to see what it looks like when a boy is in love, so I will know what to watch out for if anyone falls in love with me. When I am older, of course. I don't think I am quite ready to be fallen in love with yet.
Mum was doing something at the sink. I could see her spine stiffening, but she didn't turn around.
“Tattoos
can't
fade,” I said. “They're there for life, under your skin. They cheated you, Larry, it's a dud. You were done! You are such a twit.”
Mum half turned at that, one hand raised and covered in soapsuds, the other one still in the sink.
“It's not a dud,” Larry said. “It's a Mehendi design. It's
supposed
to fade.”
“Me-what?” said Mum. “What's that?”
She dried her hands and came over to us at the table.
“It's an Indian thing,” Larry said. He had rolled up his cuff and was examining the fading design. “They do it with henna.”
“Henna?” I asked. “Like for hair?”
“Yes. They squeeze this squidgy stuff out of a sort of icing-bag thingy and it goes hard, like icing, and then they scrape it off. There was this place in Paris that does it, and all the girls were getting themselves covered in leaves and flowers and things. It's mostly girls that get them done, but they dared me to get one done as well, so I did, for a laugh. It's only temporary, Ma.”
“Oh!” Mum said, and she sat down with a
thunk.
“If you were a Mehendi design, Mum, would you be a flowery one or an animally one?” I asked her.
She glared at me. I was only trying to be light-hearted. Seems I can say nothing right these days.
“Animally, I'd say,” I said under my breath. “A
dragon
.”
“But why did you let me think it was a real tattoo, Larry?” Mum was almost wailing. “What you put me through!” She put her head in her hands, as if she had the most appalling children in the world. She does exaggerate, even if it's only by gestures.
“I never said a word!” Larry protested. “You just started
moaning and freaking out. You didn't give me a chance to say anything.”
“But you could have explained.”
Larry shrugged. “Yeah, well, now you know,” he said.
“And there isn't a hasp in the house,” I added.
Larry grinned. My mother frowned.
“You two,” she said, but she never did add what it was about us two.
I had a sudden moment of inspiration. Why had I not thought of it before? It was staring me in the face, and it just hadn't occurred to me. Here was Mrs. Psychology sitting in front of me, and I hadn't thought of tapping into her great wisdom.
“Mum,” I said. “I need your advice.”
She stared at me, as if I had said, “Mum, there's a large pink elephant with green ears standing behind you, and it's about to
eat
your apron.”
“You want my advice?” she said wonderingly. “Why, certainly, Olivia, what's the problem?”
I should ask for her advice more often, I thought. It makes her happy.
“It's to do with Hal,” I said.
“Ah, poor Hal,” she said. I might have known that's what she'd say. “Tell me about it.”
So I did. We had quite a long chat, as it happens. A very interesting long chat.