The Girl Who Wasn't There Read online

  Just as he puts down his backpack, Sheila comes into the classroom. She’s no longer accompanied by her cronies, but her expression makes it clear immediately that the matter isn’t settled yet. Her eyes seek out Andy and fire lightning at him.

  “There you are, you fat piece of shit,” she snarls. “You just think you can walk away from me like that? Who the hell do you think you are?”

  Heavy silence falls on the room. Everyone freezes up and looks from Sheila to Andy.

  Andy doesn’t answer. He ought to sit down, but his body doesn’t obey; it just stands there, next to his desk, firm like a soldier in line.

  Sheila breaks eye contact to look around for something. She goes to the whiteboard and grabs the pointer stick out of the holder. It’s a three-feet-long, thin aluminum spear, and in Sheila’s hand it looks like a nasty weapon.

  She turns to Andy, and now she’s once again smiling. She waves the pointer stick back and forth like a windshield wiper as she walks towards him.

  “What are you going to do with that?” Andy asks in a low voice.

  The bell sounds right at that moment, and Andy feels a jolt of hope. He might be saved by the bell, quite literally. The trouble is, sometimes it takes five minutes before the teacher shows up. And Sheila doesn’t even react to the bell.

  “I just want to ask you a question,” Sheila says, stopping a few paces away from him. “That’s all. Just one simple question.”

  As they stand in front of each other, Andy is both taller and broader than Sheila by a significant margin, yet Sheila’s voice clearly betrays that she feels like the one in control—and that she enjoys that feeling.

  “Fair enough,” Andy says. “Ask it then.”

  “Why are you so fat?”

  A couple of the other students snigger nervously.

  Sheila breaks into fake laughter. “That was just a trick question! I already know why you’re so fat: you eat too much.”

  “Stop calling me that.”

  “Why should I? It’s true. You are fat, Andy.”

  Andy glances towards the door. Students are coming in at a steady pace, yet no sign of the teacher. The classroom has turned into an arena, everyone looking at Sheila and Andy, the newcomers quickly realizing what’s about to go down and joining the circle.

  “All right, here’s my real question,” Sheila says. “But I warn you …” She taps him on the shoulder with the pointer stick. “If you don’t answer correctly, I’ll have to punish you.”

  “If you hit me with that,” Andy says through gritted teeth, biting back the rest of the sentence.

  “Then what?” Sheila hisses, stepping close to him and staring up into his face. Andy can smell her perfume. “Then what, you fat moron? Are you going to run home to your Mommy crying?”

  Andy can’t reply. He can’t get any more words out. His blood is boiling. Every muscle is seething. He manages to shake his head once.

  Sheila smiles. “Good. Here’s my question, then. It’s about your sister.”

  A rush goes through the room, then everyone falls even more quiet. Sheila just mentioned Rebecca, whom no one talks about.

  Andy feels something brewing in his chest. It feels like thunder.

  “Now, I know the police say she’s disappeared,” Sheila begins in a lighthearted tone. “But isn’t it the truth, simply, that you ate her?”

  No one laughs this time. The silence is as thick as sand.

  Sheila stares at Andy, smiling and holding the pointer stick ready to strike. “What do you say, Andy? Did you eat her? Is that what really happened to poor little Rebecca?”

  Andy forces his jaw to unclench, enabling him to whisper: “Fuck you!”

  Sheila’s smile vanishes. “Wrong answer.” She swings the stick. It hits Andy on the thigh, hard enough to produce a loud smacking noise. Andy doesn’t feel anything, though. He doesn’t even flinch.

  Instead, he draws back his right arm and hurls it at Sheila, connecting his open palm to her cheek with brutal force. The slap is much harder than he anticipated. Sheila’s head is flung sideways, she stumbles and halfway falls over a desk. The pointer stick lands on the floor with a metallic sound.

  Then, a few long seconds of silence.

  No one moves.

  Sheila straightens up, wobbles briefly, then lifts her hand to her cheek, which is already a fiery red. She stares from her hand to Andy, her face a mask of shock and confusion. Then the mask crumbles and she breaks into tears, right before she whirls around and runs out of the classroom.

  In the doorway she almost collides with Otto, who enters at that exact moment.

  “Wow, Sheila, where are you going? Class is about to begin …”

  Sheila just squeezes past him and disappears out of sight.

  Otto looks to the rest of the class. “Was she crying? What happened in here?”

  No one seems to want to answer. The students just exchange hesitant glances. A few of them look at Andy.

  Andy is suddenly able to move again. He sits down in his chair. The rest of the class follows his example and finds their seats.

  “Well,” Otto murmurs, shrugging. “I guess I’ll find out if it concerns me, won’t I? Right, let’s get to work …”

  DAY 84

  Andy is certain punishment awaits him. He’s sure the principal will show up, telling him they need a talk. Maybe he’ll even get expelled. And of course, once Mom hears about it, he’ll be grounded for life.

  Or maybe Sheila won’t even tell on him. Maybe she’ll simply take matters in her own hands and show up with a gun at recess to shoot him. Andy almost prefers that outcome; at least it’ll be over quick.

  But to Andy’s utter amazement, none of the scenarios come true. In fact, nothing further happens.

  The rest of the day proceeds in a surprisingly normal fashion. Sheila doesn’t turn back up. Apparently, she left school when she ran out of class.

  The only difference is how his classmates are looking at him. To begin with, their eyes are anxious, almost scared. But then, little by little, as they find out Andy hasn’t turned into a raging monster, they become softer, warmer even—and by the end of the day, a few of them have even smiled at him. That hasn’t happened since Rebecca disappeared. In fact, being completely honest, Andy can’t remember any of his classmates having ever smiled at him.

  Mom shows up after school. They go by the park as she promised, and Andy checks on the woodpeckers. He can still hear them in there, chirping away.

  Afterwards, they go by the library. Andy had actually decided to tell Mom they could skip the library today—after what happened last time, he was afraid to show himself, much less talk with Lisa. But now he’s not remotely scared anymore.

  Regan greets him with a smile when he steps inside. “Hello, Andy! Gosh, did you hear what happened? Apparently, an earthquake hit the library yesterday.”

  Andy stops dead in his tracks. “An … earthquake?”

  “Yeah, I know, it’s insane! Come look at this.”

  She shows him into her office and finds a videoclip on the computer. “Now, I’m really not supposed to show you this—it’s from the surveillance cameras.”

  Andy feels his skin on his scalp tighten all over.

  “But since no one is on the recording, I think it’s fine,” Regan goes on. “The angle is a little off; the camera moved slightly just as the shaking began, but we fixed it. Well, here it is, are you ready?”

  She runs the clip, and Andy sees a black-and-white overview of the library exactly where he sat yesterday—except the angle is just far enough to the side that the armchair isn’t in the shot. He sees how the shelves start to shake and books fall out.

  “Holy crap,” he whispers.

  “I know,” Regan says. “Luckily, no one was here—I checked in the system. They’re sending someone from a local news station later this afternoon to talk with me about it. Isn’t that crazy? I mean, there’s never been an earthquake within five hundred miles of here!”

&n
bsp; “That is crazy,” Andy admits, swallowing dryly, trying to think. It isn’t true that no one was here yesterday—he was. He let himself in using his card. But why doesn’t that show in the system?

  And who moved the camera so that I wasn’t in the shot?

  Andy feels goose bumps pop out all over his back.

  Regan talks some more, and Andy tries to nod at the right places. Then a woman comes to ask for Regan’s help finding a book, and Andy is released.

  He goes to the armchair. The shelves have been fixed and all the books are back in place—it must have taken Regan hours to sort it out.

  Andy takes a random book and sits down. For a moment, he just sits there, the book on his lap. He doesn’t really know what to say. He can sense Lisa is there, waiting.

  Then, finally, he says: “I fought back.”

  He waits a moment longer, then opens the book. A single word from Lisa.

  »good«

  That evening, Andy waits for someone to call Mom; either from school or maybe Sheila’s parents. But part of him knows it won’t happen.

  And that part is right; Mom’s phone never rings.

  DAY 87

  Sheila doesn’t come to school the next day. Or the day after that.

  Andy begins to think she’ll never show up; that she maybe moved to another school. But on the third morning, right after Mom drops him off, he sees her standing in the schoolyard, waiting, alone.

  Andy hesitates for a moment. He can tell Sheila has already seen him, but she just stands there, her expression blank.

  Okay, this might be it, Andy tells himself, breathing deeply. Round two is about to begin. Be tough. Don’t let her get away with whatever she’s going to try.

  He walks towards her, stopping a few yards away. His fists are buried in his pockets, clenched firmly. For a moment, they just stare at each other, like two cowboys in a western.

  Then Sheila says: “Hey.” No anger in her voice.

  “Hey yourself,” Andy retorts, a bit uncertain.

  Sheila rubs her arm and looks away. Then she takes a few steps closer. Andy stands his ground, thinking it’s a trick. He darts a quick look around, suspecting Kimmie and Stacey to be sneaking up on him; but no one else is around.

  Sheila looks at Andy’s feet as she says: “Look, I’m sorry for what I said about Rebecca.”

  She sounds so sincere, Andy is taken completely off guard. “That’s … that’s okay.”

  “No, it really wasn’t. It was very mean.”

  Andy has no idea how to react or what to say. The situation is so unexpected, almost surreal. Part of him is still suspicious, expecting this to be some sort of devious ploy to get him to lower his defenses so that Sheila can really hurt him when he’s most vulnerable. But something tells him she’s being honest.

  “I guess I’m sorry I slapped you,” he says.

  Sheila scrapes the ground with her shoe. “I probably deserved it; I hit you first.”

  “It didn’t really hurt.”

  “So … we’re friends, then?”

  “Uhm, yeah, sure.”

  Sheila looks up at him briefly, before she turns to walk away, but then seems to think better of it and turns back around. “You know, my older sister died.”

  “Oh,” Andy says stupidly. He had no idea Sheila even had a sister.

  “She was about Rebecca’s age when it happened,” she goes on, her voice very low, almost a whisper, and Andy must strain to hear her.

  “I’m … very sorry,” Andy manages. “How did it happen?”

  “She drowned. One day, she just vanished. The police never found her, but they found her clothes and her bag in the stream down in the park. They think her body …” Sheila breaks off as her lower lip begins to quiver. She bites it to make it stop, but Andy can see tears in her eyes now. “Her body must have been taken by the stream out to the ocean and eaten by fish. I was only six back then, but I still remember how we used to play.” A single tear runs down Sheila’s cheek, and she quickly wipes it away, then looks him straight in the eye. “I hope Rebecca comes home.”

  Sheila turns around and leaves.

  DAY 95

  Following the episode with Sheila, the days go back to normal and begin to look very much alike again.

  Andy is still looking for the yellow van at night; he feels his efforts might be in vain, but he doesn’t know what else to do, and at least doing something is better than nothing.

  The trips have grown longer, since he needs to go farther away from home to find streets he hasn’t crossed off the map yet. There are only a few hundred homes left by now, and with each night, Andy’s hope of finding the yellow van dwindles.

  One night, as Andy returns home at about 3:30 AM, he puts his bike in the garage and lets himself in through the front door, making as little noise as possible.

  By now, he’s done it so many times—slipping in and out of the house like a burglar—that he hardly thinks about it. That’s why the surprise is so much bigger when the lights in the hall suddenly flick on.

  Andy spins around.

  In the door to the kitchen he sees Mom. She’s dressed in her robe. Her hair messy and her eyes puffy. Behind her, on the counter, is a glass of water.

  For several long seconds, the two of them simply stare at each other.

  Andy has no idea what to say or do; his mind is blank with shock. On Mom’s face, however, a terrifying transformation begins, as she turns into New Mom in front of Andy.

  “Where … have you … been?” she breathes, barely moving her lips.

  Andy tries to answer, but he can’t.

  New Mom steps closer. “I asked you a question, boy.” Her voice rising ever so slightly. “Where have you been?”

  “I … I was just …” Andy gropes for the words. Perhaps he can still get out of it. An idea pops into his head. “I just remembered I forgot to turn off the lights on my bike. I went out to check, just in case I—”

  New Mom is at him in three longs strides, grabbing both his ears before he can even react.

  “Don’t you dare lie to me!” she screams. “I saw you from the kitchen window! I saw you come riding on your bike! Where have you been?”

  Andy tries to get loose, tries to pull away, but his back meets the wall. “Auv, Mom!” he howls. “Let go!”

  “What is this?” New Mom lets go of one of his ears to snag the map out of Andy’s hand. She stares at the crumbled paper. “It’s a … a map,” she says, breathless with horror. “Have you been all over town? In the middle of the night?”

  “I was just—”

  New Mom drops the map and twists Andy’s ear all the way around. The pain is intense. Andy can feel the spit hitting his face as New Mom screams at the top of her lungs: “Have you gone insane, boy!? Have you gone completely insane!? Do you want to disappear like your sister!? Do you!? Is that what you’re trying to do!?”

  “No, Mom!” Andy cries. He’s on his toes, grabbing her wrist with both hands, trying desperately to relief the pain from the twisted-up ear.

  She grabs him by the hair with the other hand and shakes his head back and forth, still screaming into his face: “Do you want to disappear!? Do you!? Do you!? Answer me! Do you want to disappear!?”

  Andy no longer understands the words; the world is an inferno of pain and fear. He hears himself crying and shouting over and over: “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

  Then, a new voice cuts through: “Helen!”

  Andy is able to turn his head just enough to see Dad’s legs coming down the stairs.

  “What are you doing?” he shouts in disbelief. “Let him go!”

  New Mom doesn’t let go. She just turns on him like a hawk, spitting: “Your son has been out riding around all over town! He’s been making fools of us, Henry! He’s gone insane! He’s—”

  “Let go of him, Helen! He’s crying!”

  Only when Dad rushes to grab Mom does she finally release Andy, and the pain lessens somewhat. He stumbles sideways, his han
d going to his ear, feeling warm blood.

  “What the fuck is going on?”

  A new voice from the staircase. Cindy is standing there in her nightclothes, glaring around at the scene with eyes big from shock.

  New Mom is still standing in the middle of the hall. The halogen spots in the ceiling cause her to look more like an animal than anything else. She’s breathing heavily, her lips wet from spit, her eyes wild. Her right hand is red from Andy’s blood. “He … he lied to us,” she hisses between ragged breaths. “He’s been making fools of us all … he’s going to disappear … just like Rebecca … he’s going to disappear … he’s going to disappear …”

  Dad comes to Andy; his eyes are worried and alive—really alive. Like they used to be before Rebecca disappeared. “Are you all right, Andy? God, you’re really bleeding.”

  Andy can’t answer, he’s still crying too much.

  “Disappear … disappear …” New Mom keeps saying. “He’s going to disappear …”

  “Helen, damnit,” Dad says, turning around. “You’ve almost—” His voice changes abruptly. “Helen?”

  Andy looks past Dad just in time to see New Mom turn her eyes up, then collapse to the floor.

  Cindy screams.

  “It looks a lot better already,” Dad says, squeezing the Band-Aid back in place on Andy’s earlobe. “It’s no longer bleeding.”

  They are in Andy’s room. Andy is sitting on his bed; Dad is standing in front of him.

  “What about Mom?” Andy says. “What happened to her?”

  “She just got a little too riled up,” Dad says. “She’s sleeping now.”

  “Did the ambulance come by? I thought I heard someone talking downstairs.”

  “I called them just to be sure. But they said everything will be all right. Mom just needs to rest for a few days. She’s under a lot of pressure right now. You understand that, don’t you?”

  Andy nods. There’s a dull throbbing in his earlobe.