The Girl Who Wasn't There (16 page)

 

There never was a next time.

Just blank school windows, an empty summerhouse, long corridors with laughing, living girls.

In the long summer holidays, I'd wander the playgrounds with Dad, helping him water the shrubs and plants, bringing him coffee as he mowed the ever-growing lawn, hoping, fingers crossed, that I might somewhere and at some random moment see a shift … but there was nothing.

Nothing.

“Thank you
so
much for this. I really appreciate it,” I hear Donna say, standing up after stroking the simple silver plaque that reads
In memory of Katherine Mary Jessop, Nightingale School student, much missed.

The plaque is on a wooden stand at the bottom of a newly planted cherry blossom tree in the corner of the playground.

It's autumn now, so we'll have to watch this year's leaves fall first before the new shoots come next spring, followed by the fat puffs of pink flowers.

“The head teacher was just really glad we could do something to commemorate your sister,” says Mrs Watson, who's here as a representative of the school, along with Miss Carrera, and Mahalia and June from the office, who all keep dabbing at their eyes. “And of course it was Jack who came to us to suggest it.”

“Of course,” says Donna, leaning into Dad, stretching up to kiss his cheek.

And it was Dad's idea never to tell Donna the newly discovered details of the accident in the first place.

“Her mother – her whole family – must have decided to keep it from her,” he'd reasoned with me and Clem, the day we showed him the newspaper article. “Can you imagine what a burden that would be, to know that you – however innocently – were the cause of a tragedy like that?”

So Dad and Donna, me and Clem, the staff from school; we're here just to celebrate and remember Katherine, nothing more.

And it's a pretty beautiful, pretty special moment.

Above us, the September sky is blue as blue can be, not a cloud troubling it.

Close by, children's laughter bubbles over the high red-brick wall that separates the school grounds from the neighbouring housing estate.

Clem is holding my hand, which feels very, very nice, but – and Mum would be proud of this – she has been very, very nice to me in general, ever since the we found out the truth about Katherine.

The night that happened, I had this sudden need for Clem to be the beloved big sister she once was. So at bedtime, I took a deep breath and tiptoed through to her room with Mum's notebook clutched hopefully to my chest. We ended up cuddled under her duvet, flicking through every single page together, taking turns to read out what Mum had written, chatting about what she meant.

“What do you think of this one?” I'd asked her, stopping at the very last page. “
Miss me, but not too much
…”

“She's just telling us to be happy, to get on with our lives,” Clem said simply.

And since that bit of Clem-and-me time, it's been great between us. I mean, we haven't gone back to the pretending-to-be-dogs or tickle-fighting games of our childhood, and she still nags me if I drink the last of the orange juice or stay in the shower too long. (And
boy
, did she tell me off for writing that pretentious and dramatic
R.I.P. my life
stuff at the back of the notebook…) But like I say, it's more or less great, which is, I guess, great.

“Would you like to come back to the house…?” Dad offers the teachers, and Mahalia and June.

“No, no, we don't want to intrude,” they all say, practically in unison.

Maybe Mrs Watson and the others assume we're all going to be very sombre, but we're not. Dad has made Mexican food for tea, and me and Clem put together a playlist of songs from 1987.

The staff might picture us sitting stiffly around the kitchen table this evening, but actually, we're planning to salsa around it to “La Bamba”
–
and
“La Isla Bonita”
by Madonna; Dad remembered that was one of Mum's teenage favourites.

Patience has promised to come along later, so it'll be quite a little party.

Me and Patience? We became best friends while we helped Miss Carrera all those lunchtimes in the art room last term. She was really touched by Katherine's story (though I never told her about
Kat
).

It's kind of funny; Dad goes over the top whenever Patience comes around, cracking endless bad jokes and forcing cookies on her. I think he panicked a bit when I told him me and Kat had “drifted apart”, and wants to bribe Patience into staying as my long-term friend…

“Are you sure?” Dad tries to persuade the retreating school staff. “You'd be most welcome!”

“Thanks, but we'd all better be going; leave you to it,” says Mrs Watson, heading off across the playground, which was deserted by home-streaming students an hour or so ago.

Miss Carrera, Mahalia and June follow her, while Dad and Donna call out their thanks again, then lead the way towards the cottage.

“Coming?” says Clem, tugging gently at my hand.

“In a minute,” I tell her.

She nods, smiles, and strolls off after Dad and Donna.

As soon as I'm alone, I feel for the scrap of paper in my pocket.

Taking it out, I stare at the drawing I doodled earlier: the outline of a squashy star, inside it a bigger stick figure holding hands with a diddy little one.

“I'll miss you, Kat, but hopefully not
too
much,” I whisper, tucking the tiny drawing into the grass in front of the plaque.

Mum's right; everyone has to move on.

Not so long ago I searched – and I found – the girl who wasn't there.

But now there are girls who
are
here, girls like Patience and Natasha and the others who all want to know me. Who
never
, by the way, had any idea about the bad stuff that happened at my old school. They only ever stayed away from me because I was making such a point of staying away from
them
…

Smiling at my own stupidity, I straighten up – then tune in again to the giggles of children playing on the other side of the perimeter wall.

Or … or
is
it coming from that direction?

A waft of a breeze seems to guide my gaze, to gently turn my face towards the school building.

Is
that
where it's coming from?

The art room?

The three long windows…

I guess the movement I can see could simply be the reflection of the sun, or a passing plane, but I know it's not.

It's a shift; an echo through time of two sisters – one big, one small – fooling around, playing while their mum looks on.

The bigger of the two stops suddenly.

She looks my way.

Puts her hand on the window, then waves her funny, dumb little-kid wave.

“Hi…” I croak, madly waving back.

But I really mean bye.

Because Kat has already faded away, along with the laughter.

This time, deep down, I know she's a girl who really isn't here any more…

 

 

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First published in the UK by Scholastic Ltd, 2014

This electronic edition published by Scholastic Ltd, 2014

 

Text copyright © Karen McCombie, 2014

Cover illustration copyright ©Michelle Breen, 2014

 

The right of Karen McCombie to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her.

 

eISBN 978 1407 14421 4

 

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