Lula Does the Hula (4 page)

Alex and I stretched our hamstrings outside the front gate. Opposite us were the remains of the Setting Sun Retirement Home, charred and still smoking, though every timber had been doused three times over since it burned down two weeks ago. Between my side of the road and the other was a three-metre bank of waving grasses, at the top of which was a tree stump on which I perched whenever I waited for pickups from friends. Which was often because friends did not come to my house; I went to theirs. My house was gnarled and flaky and unravelling at the edges, with help from my chaotic, untidy family. It was embarrassing. Even Blue was starting to drop raisins in places that no vacuum cleaner would ever reach. You’d think with all Dad’s number-one hits we’d have money to spend on the place, but apparently not.

On my tree stump this morning was Mr Kadinski. He usually sat in a rocking chair on the veranda of the Setting Sun, but . . .

‘Hey,’ I said. ‘You’re more conspicuous out here.’

‘Even with the hat?’ His usual fedora was pulled low over his silver hair, bright ice-grey eyes sparkling beneath.

‘Especially with the hat,’ I said, going into another stretch and gesturing to Alex. ‘This is my friend –’

‘Alex Thompson,’ said Mr K, holding out his hand and gripping Alex’s in a firm handshake. ‘I like your writing.’

‘Oh!’ said Alex, going all pink and stuttery. ‘Th-thanks, Mr Kadinski.’

‘We’re going for a run,’ I said, pulling my arms behind my back. ‘Gotta hurry, actually.’

Mr Kadinski nodded. ‘Hmm,’ he said. ‘Frey’s Dam is cordoned off, so I’m sure you won’t be heading that way.’

I grinned back at him and he winked. ‘Oh, boy,’ he said. ‘Another adventure. Make sure you check your postbox when you get back.’

‘Wowzers,’ I said, looking over at the rusty box on our front gate. ‘Postie’s up early.’

‘I’m not sure it was him,’ replied Mr K. ‘Five a.m. is not our postman’s style.’

‘Nooo,’ agreed Alex, raising an eyebrow at me. ‘So who’s been dropping letters off at dawn?’

I stood up, hands on hips. ‘Oh, Alex,’ I sighed, shooting a look at my watch. ‘Go and get it. Between you and Mr K –’

‘I was hoping you wouldn’t be able to wait,’ said Mr K, a triumphant smile chasing round his lips.

‘
Me?
Oh, please.’ I turned and looked at our postbox. There was something protruding from the mouth of it, and it flapped insistently in the cool morning breeze.

I laughed at Mr Kadinski. ‘You are unbelievable. You saw some person dropping off something at an unlikely hour and you just can’t leave it alone. Who was it? What did they look like?’

‘Even the secret-service training didn’t help me get a good look at him,’ he said with a twinkly smile, tipping the fedora right back on his head. ‘The mornings are still too misty.’

‘Ouch,’ I said, watching my friend reach into the postbox, pricking her hands on the thorns of the rambling roses that had totally taken over. ‘You okay, Alex?’

‘Oh, boy!’ she muttered, standing there holding a piece of paper, oblivious to the scratches. ‘Oh, Tatty. This is not good.’

The letter wasn’t in an envelope. Just half a piece of ruled A4 paper, with holes punched in the side, ready for a lever-arch file. Alex scrambled back up the bank and shoved it a centimetre from my nose. At the bottom, near the tear, someone had scribbled:

A cold chill ran down my back and raised hair all over my body. I looked over at Mr Kadinski waiting.

‘How did you know?’ I asked. ‘How do you always know when something terrible is going to happen?’

‘Though, strangely . . .’ I said, scrutinising the death note, ‘strangely this doesn’t bother me. It doesn’t feel like a threat.’

‘Oh!’ yelped Alex. ‘Oh, so
now
we’re getting all second sightish, are we? Ha!’ She turned to Mr K. ‘Let’s bag it and take it straight down to the police station.’

‘Hmm,’ he said, putting on a suede glove and taking the note. ‘You’re right to be cautious, Alex. Leave it with me.’

With that he wandered a little down the road and disappeared into a thick hedge. Alex was speechless. I did one last pull on my quads and pointed up the hill. ‘Trust him. Let’s get going.’

Alex stayed speechless all the way to the top of Hill Street, where it peters out into a dirt track that meanders into the woods and then stops. She didn’t speak when we headed into the trees, and didn’t utter a word even as we ran through Coven’s Quarter, a clearing where ancient stone seats sit quietly in dappled sunlight. Two weeks ago this spot nearly got bulldozed, but it was safe now, and I felt a lifting of my heart as we thudded through the dry leaves and pine needles to crest the rise on the other side. I’d have
been devastated if Grandma Bird’s witchy meeting place had been flattened. There’s definitely something about it that’s good for the soul – well, mine, anyway.

A few minutes more of puffing and panting up the hill, and that’s where we hit a line of red and white tape, cordoning off Frey’s Dam. Through the trees we could just make out the glinting water, and with the rustling of leaves in the breeze came the sound of voices and radio transmitters.

‘Damn,’ said Alex. ‘They haven’t gone yet. There’s no way we’re going to be able to get down there. We’re going to have to come back tonight.’

‘No point,’ I replied, trying to get a better look through the trees. ‘Jack will be back by this afternoon.
With Jazz
.’ I couldn’t keep a snarky tone out of my voice when I said her name.

‘Aw!’ groaned Alex, ducking under the tape and sidling up to a big boulder. ‘I
soo
wanted to get him inside info! He would have loved some images of all this!’

I crept up behind her, awed by the sight of every one of Hambledon’s police officers thronging the ground below. ‘What the hell’s going on?’ I whispered.

‘Dunno,’ murmured Alex. ‘Who’s that down there?’

I crept up behind her to take a look. ‘Oh yeah, I see. It’s that homeless guy. Grandma Bird used to talk about him a lot. She saw him up here mostly – he doesn’t go into town.’

‘Parcel Brewster?’

‘Yep, that’s him. He looks really upset. I bet the police are saying he has to move out of his shack. It’s just there on the north ridge somewhere. Do you think it’s a crime scene?’

‘I have no idea. Geez, Tatty. Maybe someone’s died a violent death – held beneath the surface by a jealous husband mad with rage and –’ Alex looked at me sharply. ‘What?
What?
’

I tried to stop laughing. I was not a rude girl. Usually. ‘Alex, you sound like a tabloid hack, not an investigative journalist.
Jealous husband mad with rage
.’ I got the giggles again and Alex punched me. ‘Sorry! Sorry! Come on, let’s get going.’

Alex followed me without argument, but made up for her lack of conversation earlier. Sadly, it was all about me: ‘What’s with the
Jazz
attitude?’ she asked straight away.

I blushed. ‘Sorry. That was really childish. I don’t know. Turns out your cousin Jack has spent the fortnight with the woman, plus he lives with her! Did you know that?’

‘Don’t let it bother you. Jack doesn’t
like
like her. He respects her commitment to journalism. She’s got amazing connections and the most fantastic zoom lens you ever saw.’

‘Oooh,’ I said. ‘
Zoom. Lens
.’

Alex threw me a
come on you’re bigger than this
look and changed the subject. Kind of. ‘So we’ve been back at school two weeks, you’ve had your first kiss, refuting all those idiots
who thought you were terribly jinxed and would never be kissed . . .’

‘Yes,’ I said, smiling a little.

‘Yes, well, let’s just keep it refuted, yeah?’

‘Yeah,’ I agreed. Wholeheartedly.

‘Nothing happens to Jack.
Nothing
. And he has to stay your boyfriend for a while. Okay?’

‘Okay,’ I said meekly, though I didn’t feel very calm as an image of my boyfriend flashed into my head, leaving me breathless, and it wasn’t the running that did it: tall, very tall, and very, very handsome with thick floppy hair that was chopped short at the back, but which fell into his beautiful dark eyes; dark brows; general dark broodingness that had my pulse racing at all hours . . .

Alex was saying something about Jazz being very attractive.

‘
What?
’ I demanded. ‘What are you saying? I thought you said Jack didn’t
like
like Jazz. What’s going on? What’s
really
going on? What have you heard?’

My friend huffed impatiently. ‘Forget it! It’s no big deal! It’s just that Tam said she heard from Gianni Caruso – you know, the guy with the fingers –’

‘Yes, the guy with the fingers. When is everyone going to forget about that?’

‘Um . . .’ mused Alex. ‘Like,
never
? Would you forget someone skating over someone else’s hand and slicing their
fingers off ? You, Tallulah Bird, the cause of Gianni Caruso in microsurgery for four hours –’

‘Okay, okay,’ I said. ‘Look, there’s the track through there. Nearly home. Gianni Caruso said . . .?’

‘He said that Jazz and Jack spent a lot of time together in Big Mama’s last term –’

‘That’s before anything happened between me and Jack.’

‘Exactly. Like I said –’

‘But –’

‘But nothing. What you
do
need to know is that Simon Smethy said to Jason and Jess that it was, like, totally weird that no one had seen Jack since you guys were kissing up at Frey’s that weekend.’

‘Simon Smethy!’ I shrieked. ‘I’ll kill him! I swear I will! He started the jinx rumour for real last time! He’s ruined my life once already! I –’

‘Calm down!’ yelled Alex. ‘Just calm down, Tatty. You’ll have a coronary or something.’

I took a deep breath. ‘I’m calm. Very, very calm.’

‘Yeah,’ said Alex. I could hear she didn’t believe me. ‘So the thing is once Jason and Jess were done discussing the weirdness of Jack disappearing –’

‘HE HASN’T DISAPPEARED! HE’S IN THE CITY!’

‘Caaaalm, caaaaalm,’ hissed Alex. ‘Otherwise no more information.’

‘Caaaaalm,’ I agreed. ‘But if people are talk–’

‘Tatty! Don’t make me smack you on the head!’

‘What?
What?
’

‘I will handle this. Don’t you worry. Think of me as your micro-manager – putting fires out wherever they appear.’

‘Fires? How can you talk about fires? I –’

‘Enough! You’re sounding like a crazy person.’

‘Sorry, Alex. But you know how I feel about Simon Smethy.’

‘He blames you for what happened with his hair.’

‘That was nothing to do with me! Nothing! He –’

‘Forget that. We’ve got priorities because now school slut and rumour-mongerer-in-chief Jessica Hartley is all interested and curious about you and Jack. We’ve got to nip that in the bud.’

‘How?’ I hated how I sounded all needy and helpless.

‘Don’t know. Leave it with me.’

At last we’d arrived back at my front gate. I bit my lip. ‘Alex,’ I said. ‘This term is not going to be totally about me, yeah?’

‘Yeah . . .’ said Alex, looking uncertain.

‘I’m not the only one with issues. Carrie’s got the twins who drive her nuts –’

‘Well, sure, but –’

‘Tam hasn’t had a boyfriend since Year Eight, and . . .’ I tilted my head to the side, considering. ‘And neither have you. What’s up with your love life, Alexandra?’

Alex flushed. ‘Funny you should ask . . .’

‘I knew it!’ I punched the air and continued on down the path to the annexe. ‘You don’t binge on white tea like that unless there’s a boy involved.’

‘You know me too well,’ mourned Alex.

‘Who is he?’ I asked, stepping into the dark cool of the annexe.

‘Gavin Healey,’ announced Alex with no hesitation.

I was surprised. ‘Ha! Well! Alex Thompson going for brawn, no brains. Riiight. Plus he’s in college. What is he? Nineteen?’

‘Oh, Lula, be quiet,’ said Alex, but she was grinning and embarrassed.

‘Wait!’ I hissed. ‘Has something happened already?’

‘Noo,’ denied Alex.

‘But something’s planned,’ I concluded. ‘Hey, I thought he was going out with Emily Saunders.’

‘She dumped him,’ said Alex. They were supposed to go off to Port Albert together on Friday night and she didn’t even bother to turn up.’

‘Harsh,’ I said.

‘So now he’s mine,’ said Alex, happily flopping into my armchair. ‘Hey, I’d better get back.’

‘No no no,’ I said. ‘Why the sudden interest in Gavin Healey? How did you even get talking to him?’

‘Oh . . .’ Alex flapped her hand dismissively. ‘I was
researching a piece on Cleo Cosmetics, you know?’

‘Oh yeah?’ I hustled up my steps to get a bath running, then jumped back down. ‘The factory up on Tillerton Way?’

‘Factory!’ said Alex. ‘Don’t make it sound so industrial! How amazing is it that we have a cosmetics giant on our doorstep?’

‘Not so much,’ I said.

‘Yes so much!’ argued Alex. ‘They’re set to take on Estée Lauder! Clarins! Clinique!’

‘Hardly,’ I said.

‘That’s what you think.’ Alex bent to retie her shoelace. ‘With Flavia Ames as the new face of Cleo, it’s going to take off like nobody’s business. She’s designed the whole colour palette. Fresh, funky, fantastic.’