Miss Understood (16 page)

Let me tell you something unusual about our house. I don’t mean it’s an unusual thing
about our house
– I mean it’s an unusual thing to tell people. But it’s important. When you climb up on our upstairs toilet seat, you can see straight down into next door’s backyard. That was where I was standing later that evening when I saw some light in the corner room of the Greengrove 300. I was pretty sure I did, anyway.

Mum was getting Richie ready for bed, so I didn’t have much time. What I needed to do was to quickly go downstairs, out the back and around the side of our place, duck through the unlocked side gate and sneak along the back of the house next door.

As I crept along the back wall, trying not to think about spiders and their webs, I could definitely see a thin crack of light around the end window.

I strained my ears. Music was playing very quietly. I put my hands against the cold glass and peered in, trying to see through the thin crack at the edge of the curtain. In the end I had to use only one eye, squinting to see in.

Through the narrow gap I saw the end of the bed, a bit of the Superman doona, and a couple of feet (with socks on). Because of the way the curtain was hanging, that was all I could see. I leaned the other way, trying to get a glimpse in the big mirrors on the wardrobe doors. That didn’t help. Maybe if I could crane my neck a bit further I’d see better, I thought, and I put my feet against a big plant pot and stretched up.

Mistake. The pot made a loud scraping noise as it slid across the pavers and I slipped, catching my nail on the bricks of the wall as I toppled onto the ground.

My finger really stung, and I’d hurt my elbow as well, but I managed to lie there, completely still, completely quiet, not daring to breathe, hoping that the noise I’d just made hadn’t been too loud. Hoping that it hadn’t been loud enough to hear over the tinny music.

But the tinny music had stopped, just like my breathing, and nothing like my heart, which was really pounding. I looked up. The light around the curtain was gone. Whoever was in there had definitely heard me, but why had they turned the light off? Were they hiding from me? But that didn’t make any sense, because
I
was hiding from
them
.

I lay there for a long time, trying to slow my thumping heart, and trying to ignore the pain from my broken fingernail. It took a while, but eventually I began to relax. Being very careful not to bump the plant pot again, I got up onto my knees. The window was still dark, and I didn’t like the thought of someone being in that dark room peering out at me, so I crawled away along the side of the house, back in the direction I’d come. But then I froze as I heard a door close somewhere inside. It was too late to stay there for too long, though, and I got up and scurried across the back porch towards the end of the house, the gate, and safety.

‘Psst.’

I froze again. I was halfway across the porch, and someone had just hissed at me. Maybe if I stood completely still, whoever it was wouldn’t be able to see me out there in the dark.

‘Psst. I can see you there, you know.’

I guess not, I thought. I turned around slowly. The man’s voice seemed to be coming from the window I’d been crouched under.

‘I can see you,’ the man said again. ‘Who are you?’

‘I’m no one,’ I answered, which wasn’t really true, of course, but I didn’t think that it mattered all that much.

‘Why are you sneaking around here?’ he asked.

‘I thought you might be a burglar.’

‘Well, I’m not. Are you?’

‘No. I’m from . . . a house a long way from here. Are you a security guard?’

He paused. Then he said, ‘Yes, I’m a security guard.’

‘You’re not a security guard,’ I said.

‘How do you know?’

‘Where’s your little car?’

‘Right, that’s it – you’re trespassing,’ he said after a few seconds. ‘If you don’t leave, I’m going to call the police.’

‘We’ve met before,’ I said.

‘We have? When?’

‘The other day, outside the Helping Hands charity shop. I gave you a pink and white bag to put your clean washing in.’

‘That wasn’t me,’ he said.

‘Then why is there a pink and white bag up in the ceiling of this house?’

That made him stop talking all over again.

‘Who
are
you?’ I asked.

‘That’s not important.’

‘Are you a pirate?’

‘A
pirate
? Why would I be a pirate?’

But then I felt this awful chilly feeling roll over me, and my voice came out all nervy and quiet. ‘Have you escaped from jail?’

‘What? No!’

‘Then why don’t you want anyone to know who you are?’

‘It’s not that,’ he said. ‘I don’t want anyone to know that I’m living here.’

‘Why
are
you living here?’

‘That’s not really any of your business,’ he said. ‘But truthfully, I’m just trying to get my knife in order.’

‘I don’t . . .’

‘It’s all ruined, and it’s entirely my fault. It was perfectly fine, but then I did something silly.’

‘Are you okay?’ I asked. ‘Did you cut yourself?’

‘What?’

‘Couldn’t you find a screwdriver?’ I asked.

‘A screw . . . What? I don’t even know what that’s supposed to mean.’

‘Never mind. I’d better go,’ I said. ‘If Mum looks for me and finds me over here, she’ll be heaps cross.’

‘I thought you said you lived a long way from here.’

I gulped. ‘I do. So don’t try to follow me. Bye.’

And I ran.

Mum wasn’t anywhere downstairs when I came back in, and Dad was still out, which was a big relief – I really hadn’t planned to be next door for quite that long. But I’d gone, and I’d met a man who had a problem with his knife. He hadn’t said what kind of knife it was, and there are so many different kinds of knives – kitchen knives, butter knives, carving knives, Stanley knives, pocket knives, butcher’s knives, plastic knives, fishing knives. (There are probably two, maybe three more that I can’t think of at the moment, but you get the idea.) But he had been eating quite a bit of pizza, which is already cut up when it’s delivered, so you don’t need a knife to eat that. So that all made sense.

And that was what I thought about in the shower, and when I was brushing my teeth, and when I was putting on my pyjamas, and when I was looking for a bandaid for my finger, and when I was getting into bed, and as I was going to sleep.

I stopped thinking about it for a little while when I heard the garage door opening, and the car driving in, and Dad closing the door from the garage. I was still not thinking about it when my parents started talking in the hallway, right outside my door.

I couldn’t follow all of the conversation, but I did hear Mum say something to Dad about regulations and registration, and Dad said something about how ridiculous it was that they had to do all that stuff when Mum was already a teacher.

But then the conversation changed, and I heard something being said about needing to make a decision soon, and about what they would do if Barry said no. I didn’t even know who Barry was. As far as I knew, I’d never met anyone called Barry!

‘The reality is, we’re going to have to do something if things don’t pick up soon,’ Mum was saying. ‘It’s either you or me.’

Either her or Dad? Either her or Dad what? I hadn’t been all that worried up until then, but now I was
really
worried, and I lay there in the dark, staring at the ceiling and not thinking about the man next door at all.

That was when I heard a gentle knock on my door.

‘Lizzie? Are you still awake?’ Dad asked.

‘Yes,’ I said.

He opened the door really quietly (even though he knew I was awake, because I’d just told him that I was) and I saw him like a dark shape against the light from the hallway.

‘So you’re awake?’

‘Yes, Dad.’

He came all the way in then, and he knelt down beside my bed. Then he leaned across me and gave me a hug. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry I shouted.’

‘That’s okay,’ I said, because it was, now.

But he didn’t agree. ‘No, it’s not okay,’ he said. ‘Ioverreacted, and I’m sorry.’

‘So if I’m not allowed to say that it’s okay, what
can
I say?’ I asked.

‘You can just give me a big hug and say “Thanks, Dad”.’

So that’s what I did, and then he kissed me on the forehead and stood up.

As he got to the door, I said, ‘What sort of restaurant did you eat at tonight?’

‘French, I think.’

‘You
think?
And?’

‘I give it one star, Betty, and that was only because they reserved a car space for me. Sleep tight.’

After he’d gone, I tried not to think about what Mum and Dad had been talking about, and instead went straight back to thinking about the man next door, and the knife, and all the different knives, and the pizza. I guess I fell asleep thinking about all that stuff, and by morning, I had at least half an idea.

E
ven though I’d only been doing homeschooling for a week or so, eating my morning tea out on the front lawn was turning into a kind of tradition. Each day, as soon as Mum told me that it was time for recess, I would grab my lunch box (yes, Mum was still packing one of those for me every day) and head for the soft and sunny front lawn. It was autumn, so the days were starting to get a bit colder, and it was so nice to lie down in the sun for a few minutes.

It was Friday morning, and Miss Huntley was working in her garden, just like she did whenever the weather was good, so I wandered over the street. There was something I really needed to ask her.

‘Oh, hello Miss Elizabeth,’ she said. ‘It’s always such a lovely treat to see you!’

‘Thank you, it’s nice to see you too,’ I said, since I am usually quite polite like that. ‘Can I ask you something, Miss Huntley?’

‘You, my darling girl, may ask me anything at all.’

‘You know the Helping Hands shop?’

‘I am familiar with it, yes,’ she said, because of course she was. ‘How was your first day? Did you enjoy it?’

‘Yeah, it was fun,’ I said. ‘But you weren’t there.’

‘Yes, I know. I’m sorry I couldn’t make it, but I was otherwise indisposed.’

‘Indisposed?’

‘Busy,’ she said, which made me wonder why she hadn’t just said that. ‘Did you meet my friend Mrs Gardiner?’

‘Yes,’ I replied.

‘Was she nice to you?’

‘Yes, she made me tea in a nice cup.’

‘That’s excellent news, Miss Elizabeth. Anyhow, you had a question for me?’

‘You know how people donate stuff?’

‘I am also familiar with that concept, yes.’

‘When we sell those things in the shop, what happens to the money?’

‘It goes to those in need. I thought you knew that.’

‘Well, yes, I did, but I’m just making sure. And when that money is given to poor people –’

‘They’re not always poor people,’ Miss Huntley said. ‘Sometimes they’re just ordinary people who have fallen on hard times.’

‘Fallen on what?’

‘Hard times. It means they’re struggling. It could just be that circumstances have thrown up various challenges in their life.’

‘But some of them
might
be poor, right?’

‘Oh yes, of course. We help a lot of poor families, and people living alone and doing it tough.’

‘And what do they buy with the money?’

‘All sorts of things. Food items, clothes, blankets, some even need help paying their gas bill. There are people within the Helping Hands organisation that assess the needs of each person. Usually it’s money, but sometimes it’s furniture. There doesn’t seem to be much point to selling furniture and giving the money to someone so they can go and buy more furniture, does there?’

‘No, that wouldn’t make any sense at all,’ I said, because it didn’t.

‘Why do you ask, Elizabeth?’

‘Oh, I’m just interested in how it all works, that’s all.’

‘You know, I do find this very encouraging,’ Miss Huntley said. ‘Just when you begin to despair for the younger generations, you meet someone like yourself, a youngster who shows community spirit. Good for you, my girl.’

‘Thank you, Miss Huntley,’ I said. ‘I have to go now.’

‘Will we see you tomorrow?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

Now I had almost the whole idea in my head.

I decided to ask Jenni what she thought, so I rang her that afternoon, after I’d finished my schoolwork. ‘I need to ask you something,’ I said. ‘And I want you to be honest.’

‘Sure,’ she said. ‘I always am.’ (This was mostly true, I think.)

‘If things are being donated to Helping Hands, that means they’re being given away for free, doesn’t it?’

‘By the people who donate them? I think so. Is that what you wanted me to be honest about?’

‘No. So in that case, if Helping Hands sells those things and gives that money to people who need it, what do you think those people spend it on?’

‘I don’t know – all sorts of things,’ Jenni said.

‘Kitchen stuff, like dishes, or knives or forks or whatever?’

‘I guess. Why?’

‘No reason.’

‘You are so weird,’ Jenni said.

‘I’m not all that weird,’ I said.

But maybe I was.

The next day was my second volunteer shift at Helping Hands, but I almost didn’t get there – at least, not on time. That was almost completely because Dad couldn’t get out of bed. I was all dressed, and had brushed my hair, and was totally ready to go, but when I went to find Dad, he was still curled up in bed. I tried to wake him up, but he just growled at me. After a few more tries I decided that he might actually wake up all grumpy and start shouting at me, so I went and told Mum.

‘Have you tried waking him up?’ she asked me.

‘I went in there, like, three times, and he just went “Mumble mumble” and rolled over again.’

Mum took a big, deep breath. ‘Oh, Marty,’ she muttered. Then she took another deep breath and grabbed her car keys from the hook beside the phone. ‘Come on, Lizzie, grab Richie for me. I’ll drive you.’

Richie wasn’t all that happy to have his favourite TV show turned off so he could be strapped into his car seat, but I didn’t really care. I had to get to work, and that was what mattered.