The Girl Who Wasn't There (4 page)

And he couldn't say or do anything to make today all right, same as he can't make tomorrow any better.

Just how am I going to get through thi—

Suddenly I freeze, seized with shock.

It's there again…

The figure at the art room window!

I lean on the ledge, squinting hard, trying to see how that human-looking shape could be the dangling pile of plastic bottles and CDs.

It could be, I suppose.

Only I can't see how it would have a
face
.

As my heart races, a thought occurs to me.

There's something I could try, just to be sure. Sure of something I don't understand.

I lift my hand up and wave…

And the figure in the window waves back.

 

Another morning.

My second day at Nightingale School.

“I am SO sorry about yesterday, Maisie!” says Mrs Watson, who is placing a small plate of chocolate biscuits in front of me. She waves her hand towards them, so I know I'm allowed to help myself, that it's not just some teacher's treat.

We're sitting in her bright, neat office, which has a view of the back playground and the multi-sports court.

I knew to come here today 'cause Dad texted me from his standpoint by the traffic cones earlier, telling me Mrs Watson had hurriedly introduced herself to him and told him that she wanted me to report to her first thing.

I'd panicked a bit about that;
how
was I meant to report to her? Where would I find her?

But there in the reception area was a woman with neat, short hair and a matching neat skirt suit reaching a hand out to shake my trembling one and barking, “You must be Maisie; I've been on the lookout for you!” in a loud but kindly voice.

She's apologized for being off ill about twelve times already, but you know, I like this chocolate-biscuit-flavoured apology best.

And I like
her
.

The more Mrs Watson talks, the more I feel the tightly wound springs inside me begin to uncoil and release. Suddenly, I feel hungry. Which is no surprise, since all I did was swirl my tea last night and eat about two teaspoonfuls of Cheerios this morning.

I take a biscuit in the shape of a small doughnut and eat it in one go.

“Anyway, I know it's not easy coming into a year group halfway through a term, Maisie,” Mrs Watson breezes on. “But I'm sure you'll come to love everything about Nightingale School.”

What – even its ghost?
I think, as I try to crunch quietly and politely.

Immediately, I give a little twitch, trying to shake that stupid thought away.

Yes, there was someone in the art room about six-ish last night. But it was probably the teacher, hanging back to mark work or plan the next day's lesson. Or it was a cleaner, maybe.

I didn't say anything to Dad this time; he looked at me like a kicked puppy when I finally came downstairs yesterday. This job is too important – it's
everything
– to go worrying him about things I
imagined
I was seeing.

(I don't want to think about the fact that the teacher or cleaner or whoever at the window looked a lot like the figure I saw on Saturday morning. The one that was just a trick of the light; a reflection; the twirling junk sculpture, maybe…)

“And I'm guessing you might be a bit concerned about all the existing friendship groups in class. Well, the girls here really are very nice, so if you can just try to have confidence in yourself and give it time, you'll settle in, I'm sure!”

I choke slightly at the word
confidence
. Last night I flicked through Mum's notebook and found myself staring at the page that read:
Be confident in yourself – even if you feel shy and nervous.

“All right?” says Mrs Watson, reaching over and giving me a friendly thump on the back.

I really hope so
, I say silently to myself, crossing my chocolatey fingers as I struggle for breath…

 

I'm eating my lunch
very
slowly.

Not because I'm stressed about choking, but because lots of people are hunched around, lobbing questions at me like tennis balls.

It's a change from the loneliness of yesterday, that's for sure, and it's all thanks to Mrs Watson. She's assigned two different girls to be my “minders” every day this week, to help me find my way around
and
help me get to know people, I guess.

Today it's the turn of Hannah and Patience.

Up till now they've marched me between classes like efficient nurses, talking at me, telling me where things are, what the teachers are like. Neither of them has asked me much about myself so far, but all the girls huddled round are more than making up for it now.

“What was the name of your old school?”

“Park View.”

“Yeah? Don't know it. Do you, Bella?”

“No. Was it OK there?”

“Yeah, it was all right.”

“Were there boys at Park View school, or was it just girls, like here?”

“Uh, there were boys too.”

“What was
that
like?”

“It was mostly all right,” I say with a shrug, answering the mass of faces staring at me. Well, about eight or nine faces, I reckon, but that's enough to fluster me, even though I really
want
the company.

“So, is it true that your dad's, like, the
caretaker
here?” says a girl who I think is called Libby or Livvy, maybe.

(I'm sure I hear someone on the outer edge of the gaggle of girls giggle, and mutter something about “emptying bins”. But maybe I'm just being paranoid.)

“
Site manager
, Libby!” another girl corrects her, who I remember for sure is Natasha. “The only place Mr Mills would be called a ‘caretaker' is if he was in an episode of
Scooby Doo
, being unmasked as the bad guy! He's not a bad guy, is he, Maisie?”

“Er, no…”

Uh-oh. Is this Natasha taking the mickey out of my dad too, only in a more subtle way?

“So is that what he's always done, been the site manager at different schools?” asks someone called Rose or Rosie.

“No – this is the first time.”

“What did he do before?” That's Hannah.

“He worked for a consultancy, but he got made redundant.”

At the words “consultancy”, I can see my classmates' eyes glazing over.

“So, what's it like living
right
in the school, practically?” asks Bella, steering away from that boring topic.

“Um…” I say, thinking about how I feel. “I'm not sure yet.”

“Your dad seems nice,” Libby adds. “At least he's a lot younger than Mr Butterfield. He was so ancient we used to worry he'd keel over one day in the playground!”

“Did he? Die, I mean?” I ask, spotting a chance to find out more about our home's former owner.

“No!” snorts Libby. “He just retired. The head presented him with this
boooring
clock at assembly one day, remember?”

She turns to look at the others, who all nod and remember too.

I allow myself to smile inside, looking forward to blowing Clem's theory about Mr Butterfield dying in the house.

Then I jump when I realize Hannah has said something to me.

“What's so funny?”

Oh … was I smiling on the outside too?

“Um, nothing,” I mumble, feeling instantly tense.

“Were you really sad to leave your old friends?” Patience asks, and I find myself wondering if she senses my anxiety, and has helped me out by flinging another question my way. Pity it's one that's difficult to answer truthfully, and not get into a long story I'd rather avoid.

So I go for a white lie.

“A bit.”

“Bet you were all crying on your last day!” Patience adds.

“Mmm.”

My answers aren't too interesting, I guess. There's an awkward few moments, where the questions peter out, the girls' interest in me seeming to stutter and falter – even Patience loses her patience, and glances sideways at the others.

The silence probably lasts all of two or three seconds, but it's long enough for me to feel the wave of panic roll in. I spent a horrible chunk of time at my last school with no one talking much to me, and the thought of that happening again makes me feel scared and hopeless.

Sorry, Mum; I know you wrote what you wrote in your notebook 'cause you hoped it would help, but I can't rely on confidence to get me through this. Any slivers of self-confidence I might have had once upon a time got mashed up and mushed up quite a while back.

But I
can
try something else.

Take a breath, Maisie.

Don't think about it.

Just say it – and
quickly
.

“Can I tell you something that might sound weird?” I start, heart thudding at the risk I'm taking. These girls might think I'm completely insane…

“Go on!” says Patience, her dark eyes widening with interest.

OK. Here goes.

“A couple of times from my bedroom window … I've thought I've seen something in the art room window. Some
one
, I mean. But at times when there shouldn't be anyone in school.”

There's a micro-second's quiet where I hold my breath, wondering how they're going to respond.

And then Patience gives an excited squeal, while Hannah shrieks at a couple of people on the next table.

“She's seen it! Maisie the new girl has seen the ghost!!”

Whooaa … what a relief. They
don't
think I'm crazy. I've done it; I said something that made them take notice of me again.

“What did she look like?”

“Was she in this long, sweeping Victorian dress?”

“Was she scary?”

“Or sad?”

“Were you frightened?”

“Was she about our age?”

“Was she pretty?

“Or like a skeleton or something!”

“Did she seem like she had a broken neck?”

With the jabber of voices all talking at once, I don't know who to answer first, so I try a question myself.

“So there
is
a ghost?” I ask incredulously, tiny shivers rippling up and down my back.

“Oh,
absolutely
!” says Natasha, taking control of the conversation as more girls crowd eagerly around us. “But come on; what did she look like to you?”

“Just a girl, or young woman, dressed in white,” I tell my excited audience. “Which of
you
have seen it?”

“Oh, none of
us
have ever seen it,” says Natasha.

My excitement dips slightly, as the assembled girls shake their heads in disappointed agreement.

“But plenty of people have in the past, or we wouldn't know about it, would we?!” says Natasha, undeterred.

“Yeah, Ella in 8H, her auntie saw it when
she
was at school here years ago,” Hannah butts in.

“And that Marta girl in Year Eleven; her big cousin saw it too, when she first started at Nightingale,” adds Patience.

“Anyway,” Natasha carries on, “it's supposed to be the ghost of this girl who went to school here when it was first built back in eighteen … eighteen-something-or-other, and she roams the corridors –”

“Woo-OOOOOO-ooooo!” Rose (or Rosie) joins in, with fitting sound effects and wafty hands.

“– trying to solve the mystery of what happened to her!”

“And what
did
happen to her?” I ask, gripped by this new twist in my very own tale. My mouth feels dry, even though the glass of water beside me is nearly empty.

“She had a terrible accident, and her neck was broken, like this,” says Natasha, miming a very dead person, tongue lolling.

“Ah, but
was
it an accident?” Libby jumps in. “'Cause maybe—”

“Maybe you ladies need to get to your first afternoon class!” a voice interrupts.

Mrs Watson, standing unnoticed just behind some of the gathered girls, has a grin of amusement on her face, even if she's trying to be stern.

“But Mrs Watson, we were just telling Maisie about—”

“I
heard
what you and Libby were telling Maisie about, Natasha, and you
know
that it's just a silly story. So chop, chop … let's move it out and beat the bell!”

As Mrs Watson marches off, she gives me a wink over her shoulder. Luckily, it doesn't seem as if she heard
my
part of the conversation or she might be dragging me to one side to tell me off for spoofing the other girls.

But there's no time to think about Victorian ghosts right now, even though that's exactly what I want to do, of course. The end-of-lunch bell shrills deafeningly, so I copy everyone around me and screech back my chair, hauling my school bag up on my back.

I go to follow Hannah and Patience, who are up ahead of me, chatting excitedly together, when a hand on my shoulder stops me where I am.

Turning, I see a girl I'd vaguely spotted hovering at the edge of the circle of girls who'd gathered around me. She's smiling shyly, like she wants to say something to me.

“Hi – I'm Kat. Kat with a ‘K',” she says.

Kat with a ‘K' is pretty, with all this tousled, fair hair just past her shoulders, held back with a silky navy scarf, tied in a cute, fat, slouchy bow at the top of her head. But she is wearing a bit too much make-up – her lashes are thick with mascara and her cheeks are pinked up with very obvious rosy-brown blusher. Won't she get into trouble for that?