Mum and Russell were screaming themselves hoarse when I got in. I tried not to notice as I shuffled to my bedroom, but then a crack split the yelling, and the room lapsed into silence. I stopped dead in my tracks. No way. That son-of-a-bitch did not just hit my mother! Every muscle screamed at me to march in there and hit him back, but what good would it do? He’d hit me. He’d kick us all out. After all, he paid the rent and the bills. But it was wrong. So wrong I felt like throwing up. He had the nerve to hit a woman! I should show him. I should punch him out, teach him that woman aren’t weak.
I knew by the time I’d come to a decision about what I would do, the opportunity would be gone. Sweat trickled down my brow and palms. But when I looked down at my palms, it wasn’t sweat, but blood. Blood oozed from crescent shape cuts where my finger nails had bitten into my hands from my fists being clenched so tight.
“Just go to your room, Alexis,” a small voice said. I squinted down the corridor to see Ingrid’s bedroom door open just a crack. Through the sliver I saw her startling blue eyes, pronounced by the heavy mascara and eyeliner.
“Don’t tell me what to do,” I hissed.
The gap closed quickly, the eyes disappearing. I headed to my room, trying not to feel guilty for the sobs I heard from Ingrid’s, and later using music to drown out the noises of my family.
Around six, I turned off the music and abandoned my room to enquire about dinner. The house was eerily silent, the lack of noise pronounced by the cicadas outside. All the lights were off, my gut churned. I found Ingrid on the couch watching the Simpsons.
“Where’s mum?” I asked, the bad feeling looming ever closer.
“Out to dinner with Russell,” Ingrid said without taking her eyes off the TV.
I frowned. “But, weren’t they just fighting?”
Ingrid shrugged. “Aren’t they always fighting?” I opened her mouth to speak but Ingrid cut me off. “That’s a rhetorical question, by the way. It means you don’t have to answer it.”
“I know what a rhetorical question is, I’m not stupid,” I spat.
“Could have fooled me.”
“Bitch,” I muttered traipsing away.
I grabbed my mobile phone off my bedroom floor. It would hurt giving my mum a call just to see if she is all right. I dialled her number and it began ringing. I could hear singing; “I’m walking on sunshine, whoaaa. I’m walking on sunshine, whoaaa.” It was my mum’s ringtone.
I followed the tune to Russell’s room. My mum’s phone was in my handbag on her bed. Her purse was also in the handbag and Russell’s wallet was on the bedside table. How could she go to dinner with what I imagined to be a black eye, no money and no mobile phone?
I began to panic. I went through my mum’s phone contacts to find Russell’s number. I hit dial.
“Talk,” Russell barked almost instantly.
“Russell, its Alexis. Can I talk to my mum?”
“We’re in the middle of dinner, can’t you talk later?”
“Well I don’t see how she’s out to dinner; her handbag, phone and purse are right here.”
“What do you mean, ‘right here’? Are you in my room?” Russell barked.
Crap. “No,” I said hastily, “I… er, can I just talk to mum? It’s important!”
“Hello, Alexis, honey?” it was her, thank god.
“Oh, hi mum. Just seeing if everything’s alright…?”
“Yeah, fine.”
“Are you sure?” I prompted.
“Yes, of course, why wouldn’t it be?” she said, but I could tell by the sound of her voice that she knew why I was asking.
“Where are you?” I asked.
“A small Italian place down the road from Pizza hut.”
“Is the food nice?”
“Yes, lovely.”
“Ok, have fun,” I said, confident that mum wasn’t about to be knocked out with a shovel and buried somewhere in the desert like in all the movies.
“Ok, bye.”
“See ya.”
Reassured by my mum’s voice, I returned to my room, dialling Zeda’s number. Having a chat to my best friend was the only thing that could lighten my mood. Despite all our differences, we could talk for hours. So that’s what we did. I flicked on the mini TV in my room and muted it to provide visual entertainment as we talked.
“So what do you think happened?”
For a moment all I could hear was the faint buzz of the phone, then Zeda replied. “What do you mean?” she asked guardedly. “The kid drowned.”
“But the body was drained of blood,” I said, my finger tracing around the mute button on the chunky black remote. Adverts flashed across the TV screen, blurring into one another so diet ads had Mc Donald’s burgers in them and car insurance seemed to cover your budgies as well. My head throbbed; I closed my eyes and leaned back.
“He probably fell in, got a cut, and bled out as he drowned,” Zeda said, firm with certainty.
“He would have drowned before he bled out. Once he was dead the bleeding would’ve slowed – he shouldn’t have been completely drained.”
“Why does it matter? The cops’ll figure it out. Kids drown in the lake all the time. Can we stop talking about this? It’s morbid.”
“It matters ‘cause I know the victim’s sister. It matter ‘cause two year olds don’t just get up and go for a walk in the middle of the night and drown.”
“Well what do you think happened?”
“I don’t know...” I murmured, half to myself. An ad for ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ came on, and for a moment I was lost in the dark underworld of prowling vampires. The back door bouncing open snapped me out of it. “I gotta go, see ya tomorrow.” I hit the hang up button and jumped to my feet, pressing my ear against my bedroom door.
“We’re home,” mum called through the house. “We brought you dinner.”
My nose detected KFC. I raced into the kitchen, grabbed a box of chicken wings, and headed outside onto the deck. The deck had a modern feel, simply because Russell had removed all the railings after he’d kicked one part in with rage. The darkness closed down around it, plentiful stars visible in the sky. I sat upon the table, legs crossed, and dug in to my dinner. It took me a while to notice I was not alone. A pair of eyes followed my every move, my hands as they lowered to the KFC box, then back up to my mouth. It was right ahead of me, lurking in the darkness of the garden.
The wolf emerged from the shadows, its wet black nose twitching. It hesitated, sniffing the air, and took another step forward, it’s eyes glued to my hands. I looked down to the chicken wing I held, then back to the wolf. It whined. She’s hungry, I realised. Sympathy over came the fear. Trying not to make sudden movements, I tossed it to her, she gobbed it up in no time then looked at me, expecting more.
Something landed on the thick layer of leaves carpeting the backyard. The wolf’s head snapped up and she growled. I peered through the darkness. A figure stood in the far corner, completely motionless. A flame popped up in the darkness then a second light appeared, just a small orange spot. The flame vanished, but the dim orange light remained. He was smoking a cigarette. What the hell? Who jumps over someone’s fence and starts smoking in their back yard? The wolf darted off towards the figure then past it as it scrambled over the fence, crashing away through the bush beyond.
The light bobbed around as the figure moved. I considered calling the police, but it seemed unnecessary at the moment. The rules of our society were breached, I felt violated. A fierceness to make things right rose within me. He shouldn’t be in my backyard, that was wrong.
“Hey!” I called out. No reaction. “Hey! What the hell are you doing? Get off my property!”
He moved closer, gliding steadily through the darkness. The cigarette dropped from his mouth, embers crumbling off and bouncing across the leaves.
“Get out of here!” I cried, yelling blindly in to the darkness. I no longer had the aid of his cigarette butt to pin point his location. “Oi!” There was no sound of movement, no longer any evidence that there was anybody there. “Piss off, stoner!”
Light flooded my backyard, illuminating every inch of dead grass, all the way to the rusted tin shed. No one was there. The door banged open behind me.
“Who the hell are you talking to, girl?” Russell demanded. “Get inside.”
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