Wyrd Girl
Jon Jacks
Other New Adult and Children’s books by Jon Jacks
The Caught
The Rules
Chapter One
The Changes
Sleeping Ugly
The Barking Detective Agency
The Healing
The Lost Fairy Tale
A Horse for a Kingdom
Charity
The Most Beautiful Things
The Last Train
The Dream Swallowers
Nyx; Granddaughter of the Night
Jonah and the Alligator
Glastonbury Sirens
Dr Jekyll’s Maid
The 500-Year Circus
P
The Endless Game
DoriaN A
Text copyright © 2013 Jon Jacks
All rights reserved
*
It didn’t make any sense; it had been nothing more than a mild traffic shunt, yet both adults in the front of the Shogun were dead.
And with all the lacerations of a major collision too.
The girl in the back, presumably their daughter, was so young she didn’t even seem to know what had happened to her parents.
‘What do you make of it Diane?’ Detective Connery asked the forensic science officer as she approached him with a puzzled frown.
‘Weirdest thing is, Dave; way it looks to me, they died by drowning.’
*
Chapter 1
I’m the weird girl.
You know; the one everyone avoids being seen with.
Even those who whisper it to me that they’ve got nothing against me actually, but…
See, they act like what I’ve got is catching.
So what is it I’ve got?
What I’ve got, basically, is that I don’t care that the most popular girls in school have got it into their empty little heads that there’s something weird about me.
See the irony here?
I’m weird because I don’t care that they think I’m weird.
But I don’t care, see, because I know that there’s somebody, somewhere, looking out for me.
If I feel down, if I feel I need a sign that that special someone is still looking down on me (that’s in the caring, not the stuck-up sense), well, all I have to do is take a walk outside.
And whaddya know, there it is; a small, brilliantly white feather.
An angel’s feather, some people call it.
Only it isn’t, is it?
*
The thing about the feather, see, is that we can all conjure one up if we really want to.
No?
You don’t believe me?
Well okay, so try this, little miss full-of-doubts.
Think hard, really hard, about that small, brilliantly white feather.
Think of how it glows in the light.
Just like an angel’s feather, right?
Picture it.
Hold it.
Feel it.
That’s right; reach out.
Touch it, softly. (You don’t want to crush it!)
It might tickle, yeah?
Now sometime today – provided you actually manage to get outside, lazy! – when you’re out for a walk, you’re going to find one lying on the ground directly in front of you.
Take a look around; where did it come from?
Take it from me; there’ll be nothing round abouts from where it could’ve naturally come from.
Now how weird is that, eh?
See, you’re weird; just like me,
*
Chapter 2
I’ve been passed from foster home to foster home.
I never really seem to fit in, truth be told.
Yeah, I blame myself, see?
Quiet.
Moody.
‘Always in her own little world, that’s our Tracey.’
For the moment, I’m at a ‘home’.
That’s what they call it anyway, even though they mean an institution.
Nicer, though, to call it a home, isn’t it?
Me, I prefer the darkness of the alleys.
Places where no one else likes to go.
No one ’cept me and Chris.
Chris’s the boyfriend that no one at school believes exists.
He likes school even less than I do, see?
That’s why they never see him with me.
Not unless they’re prepared to come down the alleys.
Which they’re not.
So it’s hardly my fault that I can’t prove I have a boyfriend, is it?
*
I like the alleys because Chris likes the alleys.
He lives in them; lives in dumpsters he decks out with coverings to turn them into relatively smart little homes.
Like me, he used to live in a ‘home’.
Only he ran away.
He couldn’t stand it.
Like me.
Only I haven’t run away.
Yet.
I’m sorta more slowly drifting away, rather than running.
Staying away longer and longer.
Sleeping in the dumpsters.
Using the school washrooms to tidy up.
(Chris, he walks into hotel washrooms like he’s meant to be there. He’s clean, oh yes, he’s very clean.)
We laugh.
We joke.
We steal. (It’s a laugh, a joke.)
We rarely fight.
We like our own company, thank you very much.
‘Shhussshh!’ Chris says, putting a finger up to his mouth.
He’s heard someone outside.
Someone who’s come into the alley.
Into our alley.
It’s hard not to hear them.
They’re breathing real hard.
Like they’ve been running.
Like they’re frightened.
Like they’re hiding from someone, and trying desperately to control their breathing so they won’t be found.
(How do I know all this just from hearing someone’s breathing? I dunno. Perhaps I’ve been there plenty of times myself, yeah?)
‘No, no! Please no!’ the girl pleads.
‘Chris; she’s in danger,’ I mouth quietly.
Chris shakes his head, like he doubts it. Like we should wait and see what happens before risking revealing ourselves.
In the dumpster, no one can see us.
‘Please, please…I help the dead!’
I give Chris a puzzled frown, mouthing the weird word, ‘Dead?’
‘No no…oh God no! You’re…you’re not the dead, are you?’
‘Not dead?’ I mouth silently at Chris with another frown.
Chris puts his finger up to his mouth once more. He leans back against the dumpster’s side, trying to hear better.
‘You’re…you’re nothing more than…than bits of junk!’
Junk? I don’t bother mouthing this to Chris this time. He’s straining to hear.
‘No, no…please, I…’
I can’t stand it anymore.
That girls in danger, and I’m just sitting here, all safe and cosy.
I don’t care who’s out there.
I’ve got to help.
I stretch up towards the trapdoo
r Chris has made in the dumpster’s false ceiling.
Chris reaches for me, trying to pull me back. But he’s trying to do it quietly, so he’s at a disadvantage.
I push open the trapdoor and swiftly clamber out, standing up amongst the rubbish Chris has deliberately scattered across his roof.
‘Leave her!’ I yell, even before I’ve figured out where they are, let alone who they are.
‘I know who you are!’ I add, hoping they see this as a threat to their safety.
Dark coated guys who look like they’ve stepped out of a fifties film noir have cornered the cowering girl against the wall.
They all ignore me, apart from the one nearest to the dumpster.
He looks up at me, his face hidden in the shadows of his wide brimmed fedora.
‘Stay out of this.’
He says it calmly but gruffly, like he’s a dog struggling to talk.
‘You don’t know what you’re dealing with!’
He lifts and swings out a massively long arm, making a grab for my ankle.
I hop onto the other foot, but he’s too quick for me, like he was expecting this. He grabs my other ankle. –
As I’d urgently scrambled up through the trapdoor, my long, bushy hair had picked up a thick coating of the dust that lies everywhere around here.
I can’t think of anything better to do so, bending down towards his upturned face, I envelop it in my dusty hair as I give my head a fierce shake.
He steps back slightly, coughing, spluttering, choking, bringing up phlegm from his mouth.
And suddenly, his gripping hand vanishes.
He’s gone.
His hat, his coat, it all just drops to the floor. Like there had never been anything inside them in the first place.
Nothing, that is, apart from rotting cabbages, banana skins, crushed cans and mouldy packs. All of which fall to the ground along with the clothes.
The other guys are calmly walking away, like they haven’t seen what’s happened.
They’re not bothering to look back, like they don’t care or don’t notice that they’re a man short.
The girl is still by the wall, lying in a still heap amongst the sodden, filthy litter that’s gathered there.
I jump down, shout out, ‘Chris, get out here,’ and rush over to her.
I’m tempted to shout out after the guys too, but think better of it.
The girl’s completely still, silent.
It doesn’t look good.
But I never heard a shot. And there’s no blood. Nothing I can see, either, that looks like a knife wound.
Her face, though; it’s warped, frightened, frozen.
Like she’s just seen Death himself.
*
Chapter 3
‘How is she?’
Chris has crouched down alongside me, studying the girl.
‘Dead, huh? Wow; what a face! What made her face go like that, huh?’
‘I dunno,’ I answer. ‘Poor thing; she looks like she was absolutely horrified.’
‘Who were they, those guys?’ Chris had just caught a glimpse of the guys leaving as they had turned the corner. ‘What did they have to kill her for?’
‘They didn’t look like any muggers I’ve seen. More like some cops from an old movie. Or gangsters.’
Chris rises to his feet, gently pulling on my shoulder in an attempt to make me stand up with him
‘Come on; let’s leave it for the cops to figure out.’
‘Yeah, we’d better call them and–’
‘Call them? You kidding? Who’re they gonna suspect first if we report it, eh Twice?’
(Those who really know me, my real friends, call me Twice, not Trace or Tracey. Twice Hadday, get it? But there’s another reason I’m called Twice; the real reason.)
‘Us, that’s who they’re gonna suspect,’ Chris continues. ‘No no, let’s leave her here, Twice.’
He suddenly bends down alongside me once more.
‘On second thoughts…’
He starts rifling through the dead girl’s handbag.
‘Chris!’
I grab him hard on his arm, trying to pull him away. But he shrugs me off, griming hugely when he finds and withdraws her purse.
‘Look, she’s not going to need it now is she? Anyway, I’ve left her everything else. And we’re gonna need it twice – we’re going to have to leave for a while.’
He despondently nods back towards our dumpster. Our home.
‘The cops; they’ll find it, won’t they?’ I realise now that Chris was right; we would be prime suspects. ‘They’ll come looking for us!’
Chris shakes his head.
‘Nuh-uh; cos I’m gonna destroy it. Move everything out, let the roof and all that trash fall down on it, fill it in.’
I stand up, glance back down at the dead girl.
It seems odd; worrying about our trashy little house when she’s lying here dead.
But as Chris had said, there wasn’t anything we could do for her now.
Wait!
I urgently grab Chris by his arm.
‘Chris, wait –I just remembered. One of the guys; he attacked me!’
I run back towards the side of the dumpster, where the guy had been standing when he’d reached up for me.
When he’d disappeared.
The stench by the dumpster is overpowering. Sure, it never smells great around here, but you get used to it.
But this smell; it’s more like the worst kind of garbage you can think of. Garbage that’s been piled up and left to fester in a long heat wave.
‘Look Chris, look!’
I reach down and lift up the old coat the guy had been wearing.
Wow, is it old! Like something even a down-and-out would turn his nose up at.
I glance down at the hat – same thing. Ancient and worn out beyond belief.
Chris takes the coat off me.
‘Jesus? This is what they were wearing? So how come they left the girl’s bag?’
Around the coat, there’s nothing but the garbage I thought I saw fall to the ground as the coat and hat fell. It’s now mixed amongst all the garbage that’s always been there.
‘Chris, I–’
Nope, I can’t say it.
I was going to tell him that the guy we’re talking about didn’t seem to really exist.
He seemed to have been made of – well, nothing but his coat, hat and bits of this rubbish lying around our feet.
Crazy, yeah?
Yeah, crazy.
Chris holds me round the waist tenderly. Like he thinks I’m stumbling for words because I’m either shocked by what’s happened or sad that we have to leave.
‘It’s okay Twice; it’s okay.’
‘Yeah, I’m okay. Let’s pack up and go Chris.’
*
The room’s plusher than anything I’ve ever seen.
Seats you sink right back in, so I almost end up spilling the coffee the receptionist had brought out to me in a shallow white cup and saucer.
Plants too, but ones like small, delicate trees and brightly coloured bushes, sprouting out of massive earthenware pots.
The walls are stark white, made all the brighter by miniature spotlights hanging from taut wires stretched across the room.
Most of the light, however, is focused on the framed adverts fixed to the walls; adverts featuring impossibly beautiful women, incredibly handsome men, the best behaved children you’ve ever seen.
There’s a massive TV too, playing what seems to be an endless loop of commercials, selling you everything from breakfast cereals to the cars most of us don’t even get to see on the streets let alone end up owning.
Brightest of all is the agency’s name plaque, a mix of gold and steel letters on a grey marbled backing; Zoofelt, Dunnstedt & Ernst Adv
ertising.
Dimmest of all, like they’re embarrassed by its presence, is a large painting of elephants drinking at a water hole. Weird thing is, when I first saw it, I thought it was a picture of swans on a pond.
Then again, this whole thing is weird.
No, it’s crazy.
And it’s down to that damn dead girl’s purse.
‘Hey, look at this.’ Chris had said as, not long after the girl’s murder, he’d calmly begun to search through the purse’s contents.
It was an identification card.
Mary Anne Colderson. Courier Liaison. Zoofelt, Dunnstedt & Ernst Advertising.
‘You know what that means?’ Chris had said, eyeing me strangely.
‘It means we can’t use it, as it’s not only got a photo but also electronic coding strips,’ I’d answered, pointing them out to him.
‘Sure we can use it; if we use our intelligence.’ Chris had turned to me, reaching for my hair, moving the strands around my face.
‘Chris, I’m not going to be able to pass for her no mat–’
‘Shhussh,’ he’d said. ‘I’m trying to think how we can make you look a bit older, a bit more sophisticated.’
‘Chris!’
I’d given him a playful push in the chest.
‘Look,’ he’d said, laughing, ‘we don’t need the card. But it’s the school holidays, we’re short of cash, and all you’ve got to do is turn up here saying, excuse me, but I was wondering if you have any vacancies fo–’
‘Chris!’ I pushed him real hard this time. ‘I’m not slipping on a dead girl’s shoes! Besides, it’ll never work!’
When the receptionist had given me an odd look, I’d cursed Chris under my breath for persuading me to go ahead with this.
But she’d coolly looked me up and down, said take a seat, fill in this form, I’ll get someone to see you. Would you like a coffee or tea?
She hadn’t made the coffee. She’d called someone to do that too.
Now the form she’d given me, that’s really weird.
Sure, there’s all the usual stuff; age, where you live, ethnicity, all that sorta thing.
They’re easy to fill in. I just tell them what I think they want to hear, which means a few little white lies.
(Hey, if they’re gonna come out with stuff like This won’t have any effect on the judgement of your suitability, then why the heck should I be worried about lying?)
Ethnicity, well, that just requires a few exotic grandparents, ngay?
But the third page; well, this could have been a bit of a struggle even for me. Only I decided that, once again, the best solution was to tell them what they wanted to hear.
I mean: Do you consider yourself to be a) alive b) dead c) other.
Or how about this one: Do you believe there are worlds other than this one?
And: Have you ever thought you’d seen someone in a darkened room?
And this is an application form for an advertising agency, ngay?
Stranger still, I reckon that for most of these questions, if I were being honest, I’d have to answer yes. Or c).
You know what?
I’m not going to get this job am I?
I mean, I’m the girl whose favourite song is At Seventeen by Janis Ian.
It speaks to me, know what I’m saying?