The Four-Fingered Man (4 page)

Wow.
Who was this woman? She reminded Amelia of a movie star or a princess – and
not a boring actual princess, but a fairytale princess – someone who belonged in
a castle with a moat. Amelia leant out further over the railing, and the woodwork let out a creak.

Downstairs, the woman flinched and looked up towards Amelia with an expression that
seemed terrified. She squinted, and then, when she realised Amelia was just a kid,
the woman took a breath and smiled. An incredibly fake smile. She was clearly freaking
out.

Mum smiled very warmly, and said, ‘You must be Elizabeth Ardman. I’m Skye, the manager
here. Can I help you with your luggage?’

Miss Ardman pulled back in alarm, and clutched to her chest the only piece of luggage
she had – an old-fashioned leather case, about the size of a bowling bag. ‘No!’

Mum just kept smiling, totally relaxed. ‘Of course. Well, let me show you your room.
We’re in quite a mess as you can see, but I can assure you, Miss Ardman …’

Mum kept quietly talking on, saying nothing much, but in such a friendly, soothing
tone that Miss Ardman began to calm down.

‘Please, call me Liz,’ Amelia heard the guest say, and she was reminded again what
an awesome diplomat Mum must have been.

Mum led Miss Ardman up the right-hand stairs, past Lady Naomi’s room and so far down
the corridor that Amelia could no longer see them. She was just turning to go back
to her own room when she saw that the main door downstairs was ajar. Had Mum left
it like that? Amelia tried to remember whether it had been properly closed after
Miss Ardman came in.

She was about to go downstairs to close it herself when something moved in the darkness
outside the door. What she had assumed to be the black of the night sky was actually
a shadow – no, a shape. Somebody was out there, their whole body pressed into the
gap in the door.

The door eased open a little wider and a face pushed through, looking up the stairs
as if trying to see where Mum and Miss Ardman had gone.

Amelia saw his jaw clench, his brow furrow, as he stared after Miss Ardman with strange
intensity.

It was Tom.

As soon as Amelia arrived at school the next morning, she saw what Charlie had meant
about being in the same class. At her old school, there had been nine kindy classes,
five year sixes, and all the years in between were just as big. She’d assumed school
would be the same here. Maybe not quite as many kids as that, but enough that she’d
wanted Mum to come with her on the first day.

As they’d walked together, Amelia had tried to say something to Mum about Tom sneaking
around after Miss Ardman last night, but Mum told her not to be silly. It was like
her parents just couldn’t (or wouldn’t) see how strange and suspicious he was.

Maybe they’re right
, Amelia thought.
Maybe I am just imagining it all.

James had left super early to catch the only bus into the city an hour away. He was
going to the high school there, because Forgotten Bay was too small to have its own.
That should have tipped Amelia off, but she was still surprised when she and Mum
came around the last bend and saw a metal fence around an ordinary-looking house.

Not
that
ordinary. It was painted pink and blue, and the playground was a sloping
lawn that ran all the way down to a sandy beach, but it certainly wasn’t a normal
school building.

Amelia walked through the open gate, scanning her new surroundings and following
the path towards the school office – always checking her mum was close, but not
too
close.

They’d only made it halfway along the path before Charlie bounded up, exactly as
joyful and noisy as he’d been the day before.

‘Amelia! You’re here!’ He ran up and grabbed her arm. ‘Hi, Mrs Walker,’ he added,
dragging Amelia away with him. ‘Come on, I told everyone you’d be here today.’

She ran with him, but faltered slightly as they turned the corner of the building
and she saw the garden behind the school, full of children. Charlie yelled out, and
everyone turned to look.

In a split second, Amelia knew two things: that thanks to Charlie, she was now the
centre of attention for about forty kids who were complete strangers; and – judging
by the looks on some of their faces – Charlie might not be the best person to be
doing the introducing.

‘So,’ Charlie beamed, apparently oblivious to the fact that Amelia had stopped dead
behind him. ‘Everyone, this is Amelia – her family got here on Saturday. Amelia,
this is everyone – so, um, that’s Dean, and Callan, and –’

‘Hi, I’m Sophie T,’ said a girl about Charlie’s height, standing at Amelia’s side
and totally ignoring Charlie. ‘This is Sophie F, and Shani,’ she added, indicating
two girls behind her.

The three girls smiled at her, waiting, and Amelia blinked and realised she hadn’t
yet said a word. ‘Uh, oh – hi! I’m Amelia … like Charlie said.’

Sophie T ignored the mention of Charlie. She didn’t so much as glance at him as she
asked, ‘Did you just move into the hotel?’

Other kids had started to cluster around, listening as Amelia said, ‘Yes.’

‘Not the one on the hill?’ a boy gasped.

‘How many other hotels do we have, dummy?’ his friend scoffed.

‘But no-one lives there – it’s haunted!’ said someone else.

Amelia stood, dazed. Dozens of questions were flying at her now – about Tom (Charlie
was right, Tom seemed to be a local legend – a sort of cross between Bigfoot and
the bogeyman), about ghosts, about why they’d come, where she’d come from, how long
she’d be staying, and most of all, over and over again, ‘Aren’t you afraid to sleep
there?’

At some point a bell rang and Amelia supposed Mum must have left. She was nowhere
to be seen when they started lining up for assembly, anyway.

Assembly was on the lawn under a huge sail tied up as a shade cloth. Forgotten Bay
Primary had two classes: upper and lower. Mr Whitlock took the lower class, and Amelia
was with Ms Slaviero in the upper.

‘Good morning, everyone!’ said Ms Slaviero. ‘I’m sure you’ve all noticed by now,
we have a new student starting today. Amelia Walker, won’t you come up the front
and introduce yourself?’

Amelia would rather have made a run for it into the bushes, but she walked from her
place, past all the kids, and up to Ms Slaviero.

‘Settle down, thank you,’ said Ms Slaviero, waiting for quiet. ‘Now Amelia, tell
us about yourself.’

‘Um … well,’ said Amelia, thinking this was somewhat ridiculous. She’d done nothing
but tell people about herself since she’d arrived, but anyway … ‘I’m Amelia, and
my family just moved into the Gateway Hotel.’

To her surprise, the kids were all listening, rapt.

‘That’s nice,’ Ms Slaviero said, encouragingly. ‘Did you live in another hotel before
coming here?’

‘Um, no,’ said Amelia. ‘My mum is a diplomat, and my dad is a scientist. Or was.
I don’t know.’

‘A scientist!’ Ms Slaviero was suddenly more excited than the kids. ‘What sort?’

‘Some kind of astrophysicist,’ said Amelia.

Ms Slaviero let out a little yelp of delight. ‘An astrophysicist? My favourite! We’ll
have to invite him to give a talk! We could show him our telescopes! Oh, this is
too good!’

Amelia was eventually allowed to rejoin her class. For the rest of assembly, kids
kept turning around to stare at her. Some of them looked at her with curiosity, others
with pity, and some with a strange sort of dread. It was becoming pretty clear that
living in the Gateway Hotel was a massive deal in Forgotten Bay.

As they walked to class, Charlie was begging, ‘Can Amelia sit with me, Ms Slaviero?
Can she? Please?’

Amelia hadn’t thought about this, but now Charlie had brought it up, she was worried.
She liked Charlie, she really did. She could already tell that he was funny and kind
and generous. But she could also tell that being stuck with Charlie at school would
make it harder for her to make friends with other people. Even saying that to herself
felt disloyal and mean, but she knew it was also true.

Luckily for Amelia, Ms Slaviero said, ‘Sorry, Charlie, we’ve already got ten kids
on the Dark Side of the room, and only nine on the Light Side. I need to put Amelia
with the Sophies and Shani to bring balance to the Force.’

Amelia saw disappointment on Charlie’s face, but she couldn’t help a little guilty
sigh of relief.

As she unpacked her pencil case and put her books into her desk, the three girls
whispered at her over the top of one another: ‘How old are you?’, ‘Do you have any
brothers or sisters?’, ‘Do you have a boyfriend?’, ‘What year were you in at your
old school?’, ‘How many –’

Smiling to herself, Amelia chanced a quick look across the room at Charlie. He caught
her eye and sadly shook his head, as if profoundly sorry for her.

By recess, Amelia had learnt that Sophie T’s sister’s rabbit was having babies, that
Shani had a twin brother (Dean), and that yoyos and skipping were out, but trading
cards and handball were in. And she had told them in return about doing gymnastics,
and that she had a seventeen-year-old brother. With no encouragement from Amelia,
all the girls had decided that he was probably gorgeous.

Out of the corner of her eye, Amelia saw Charlie with a group of boys. She heard
them joking around, talking about someone.

‘My dad reckons he’s a criminal,’ said one boy. ‘Why else would he spend his whole
life hiding out at that dump?’

‘Maybe because he’s so ugly he’s embarrassed for anyone to see him?’ suggested Dean.

With a thrill of horror, Amelia realised they were discussing Tom.

‘No,’ said another. ‘It’s because he’s gone crazy. My brother went up there once
at night on a dare, and he heard Tom shouting to himself – like a real argument –
but no-one else was there.’

‘I know what he is,’ said Charlie. ‘Isn’t it obvious? Eye-patch, missing finger,
he walks with a limp – he’s a pirate!’

The boys recoiled as Charlie spoke, and Dean snorted, ‘A pirate? Are you six years
old?’

The other boys laughed. Not really cruelly, not really to be mean, but just because,
Amelia could tell, they thought Charlie was an idiot. She winced in sympathy, but
was soon drawn back to the Sophies’ conversation.

The rest of the day was a blur until after the final bell, when Amelia was free to
walk with Charlie back to the hotel.

‘Sucks that you got stuck with the Sophies,’ said Charlie as they walked along the
beach road.

‘They’re all right.’

‘Sophie F’s all right, maybe. When she’s on her own. But Sophie T is
so
bad.’

‘Well, she was nice to me.’

Charlie made a disgusted sound. ‘Whatever.’

‘Anyway,’ said Amelia, puffing slightly as they began to climb the steep road up
to the headland. ‘Guess what happened last night? A guest arrived.’

‘But we’re not open yet.’

‘I know.’

‘So how come –’

‘I don’t know,’ Amelia interrupted. ‘But that’s not the weird part.’

She told Charlie about Tom running back and forth to the hotel before the guest arrived,
and then how jumpy and strange the woman had been, and then how Tom had been spying
on her through the door.