Darkwater (17 page)

Sometimes when we used to go to the waterfront we would cut our feet on the oyster shells, the sharp blades slicing through the flesh on our heels. As we walked back along the edge of the river, the blood would unfurl, like a ribbon, into the salty water, staining the tide a murky brown. I think Amanda's death was, as Mrs Scott says, like a stain. It spread throughout the peninsula, affecting so many of us in ways we wouldn't have expected.

For Cherry, Lyndon and Daniel, the change in their lives was dramatic.

Cherry's father was taken into custody, and released on bail the next morning. His trial is not for a few months. He will probably argue that Amanda was a difficult child from a difficult family. She was attempting to bribe him, and he will roll his eyes, saying there was no basis to her claims. He will confess he was angry with her and thought she needed a lesson. He will admit they fought and it got a little out of hand. But he left her alive. She slipped and fell, causing her own black eye, her own broken arm and ultimately her own death.

‘He's got money, connections and a top legal team,' Dee says.

When she tells me this, I cannot help but wonder what would have happened to Lyndon if he had continued to carry the blame.

Cherry hasn't been at school since she went to the police. I can't even begin to imagine what it must be like for her. Joe says her mother has taken her away on a holiday, and no one knows when they will return. I don't know how Cherry faced her dad, or how he faced her. Perhaps Mr Atkinson rings them regularly and tells them it has all been a terrible misunderstanding, and they should come back. They would probably want to believe him, and when you want to believe something, taking the next step and seeing it as true isn't that hard.

Lyndon has also left school. I know Joe and his friends feel ashamed when they think about how ready they were to turn their backs on him. Joe tried to see him, to apologise, but Lyndon closed the door in his face. When someone has thought you capable of the very worst, it must be hard to forgive.

Daniel has also gone. I saw him two days before he left. All their furniture had been taken by a removalist and the house was bare. We sat on the lounge-room floor, both feeling we had to whisper in the loudness of that emptiness.

He told me they were moving interstate. ‘To Queensland.' He looked at the ceiling. ‘Funny, isn't it?'

I didn't know what he meant.

‘Amanda always wanted to live there.'

I told him he could write to me, and I'd write back. He nodded and said he wasn't that good at letters.

Since then, I have tried several times to put down in words how sorry I am for all that he went through, sealing my attempts in envelopes I never send. Nothing sounds right and besides, I have no address for him.

Jude says it's going to be a while before the new owners move in to the Clarkes' place. ‘Apparently they're completely changing it. Giving it a fresh look, new paint, carpet, the works. You'd want to – with all that happened to that poor family.'

I remember the sadness of that house, and I know I wouldn't want to live there.

I have spent a lot of time at home, practising my skateboarding on the steep incline that leads down to the waterfront path. I wanted to teach myself how to take the dip without fear, and how to stop without crashing. Often I would land in the gutter, my board upended, and my shins blue with bruises.

Sometimes Cassie and Sonia came over, and I continued teaching them the basics. How to get on the board, how to tic tac toe; the little that I could remember from Nicky I passed on to them. Occasionally Bradley Parsons would watch us. He sat on the footpath, cheering loudly each time one of us crashed, and then begging me or Cassie to come and play hide and seek at his house.

But apart from those few times, and seeing each other at school, we haven't hung together as often as we used to. It's getting darker earlier, and Jude and Karen, like so many parents, now want their daughters home safe before the evening sets in. But that isn't the only reason. I think I've just needed some time on my own after all that happened. I've liked spending it practising, getting better at taking the hills with each day.

This morning when I went to get my bike for school, I decided I was ready. I left it leaning against the tree, and took the skateboard instead. With my schoolbag slung over my shoulder, I rode up our street and along the main road, the wheels thumping over the cracked footpath where tree roots pierce through the concrete. It is well and truly autumn now, and the cool is sweet against your skin. The bare branches crisscross the clear blue skies overhead and the heavy heat of summer is hard to remember.

As I turned the corner into the road that leads to the high school, I took a deep breath. This was what I had been working towards. There was a rush of wind in my hair and the sharp taste of the excitement in my mouth, as I crouched low, swooping down that hill, turning in a wide graceful arc straight into the school gates, my board smooth and sure, and it was like flying, so unbelievably wild that I misjudged the moment when I would leap off, just before the car park, and missed by a few seconds, slamming straight into the fence inches away from him.

He bent down and picked up my bag, holding out his other hand to help me up.

‘Not bad,' Nicky Blackwell told me, his green eyes sparkling.

His palm was warm in mine, and as he pulled me up, he winked.

‘But I reckon you need another lesson.'

‘From you?' I asked.

His grin was just how I remembered it. ‘I can't see anyone else offering.'

I knew Nicky might still have a girlfriend. But on the brightness of that morning, I chose to let that go. The fact was simple: I liked him and he liked me.

I told him I was free that afternoon. And then I smiled back at him. ‘But things are different now.'

He looked at me. ‘How so?'

‘Time you got a few tips from me.' I flicked the board up into my hand, and then I walked away as the assembly bell started to ring, loud in the yard.

It was strange how so much could change, while such a large part of our existence could continue as though on another track, rolling forward with a force of its own. It is something to be grateful for, allowing me gradually to believe once again that each new morning would bring no announcements of death or trouble or danger, just uniforms, jewellery and hair. And as I kept walking away from Nicky and towards my form line, I could only hope that all would soon be what it should be, the darkness of the summer slowly unfurling, never to be completely gone, but fading to become no more than a part of the life that surrounds it.

Georgia Blain has written a number of novels for adults, including the bestselling
Closed For Winter,
which was made into a feature film. She was named one of the
Sydney Morning Herald
Best Young Novelists in 1998, and has been shortlisted for the NSW Premier's Literary Awards and the Nita B Kibble Award. She lives in Sydney with her partner and daughter. Her interest in writing for teenagers was sparked by starting to share books with her daughter.
Darkwater
is her first young adult book.