Fish Face- Part 2
A small-town ghost story in four parts
Previously: Nick and Sean decide to enter the New Paranormal competition and arrange to meet at the school to start the hunt for ghosts.
Fish Face- Part 2
Mum’s rushing around the house frantically looking for her left shoe when I get home. She meets me in the hallway in her green scrubs, twisting her long brown hair into a bun at the nape of her neck and kisses me on the forehead.
“Have you seen my other sneaker? How was your day? I swear I left them by the door last night.”
She shuffles lopsided into the kitchen and pulls a microwave meal from the fridge for herself. I follow her and pour myself a glass of water from the tap. Mum’s got the late shift at the hospital all weekend.
“Pizza is in the freezer. Grandpa should be here soon.”
I’m fourteen, but mum still thinks I need a babysitter. I down another glass of water and put the glass in the sink just as there’s a knock at the door. Grandpa doesn’t wait for an answer and lets himself in.
“Hi-ho, it’s just me.”
“In the kitchen, Dad,” Mum yells from the pantry, “my shoe!” She emerges from the narrow cupboard with her white hospital-issue sneaker and an apricot muesli bar in hand.
Grandpa places his wallet and keys onto the kitchen counter and kisses me on the forehead. He takes a seat at the table and unfolds the paper, frowning when he sees the crossword already completed.
“I’m gonna have a shower.”
“Ok, sweetheart,” Mum says as she fills my used glass up from the tap, takes a sip and tips the rest down the drain.
I climb the stairs until I’m behind the curve of the wall, far enough out of sight from the kitchen but not so far that I can’t catch the conversation between mum and grandpa. They think they’re so slick waiting for me to leave before talking about me. You wouldn’t believe the sorts of things I’ve heard.
“How ya doing, love?”
“Oh, you know. Fine. Lucky was at the hospital again last night watching me.”
Huh? Who are they talking about?
“Has anyone else noticed?”
“I don’t think so.”
“It might be harmless. He would never hurt you.”
What? Someone’s trying to hurt Mum?
“Oh, I’m not worried about that. It’s just…why can’t he let go?”
“Would you be able to?”
“No, I guess not.”
“He loves you both. He’s just looking out for you.”
What’s going on? I desperately want to bound back into the kitchen and demand answers, but I don’t want to give my position away.
“Yeah. Anyway, thanks again, Dad. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Bye Nicole,” Mum yells up the stairs at me, “be good for Grandpa!”
I don’t respond, instead I creep up the rest of the stairs, frown on my face, no clue what they were on about. I shower, clean my grazes and stock my backpack. Torch, batteries, walkie talkie, juice boxes and a packet of jellybeans. The pizza’s ready by the time I re-join Grandpa in the dining room.
“What shall we do tonight, sport?” he asks, picking the pineapple off his slice, “would you like to watch a video?”
It’s been me, Mum and Grandpa my whole life. I never knew my dad, I’m the product of a fleeting teenage romance according to Mum who doesn’t like to talk about those days, and my grandma died before I was born so I never got to meet her. Mum says she got sick and never recovered. Apparently, I look just like her, but I’ve seen photos and I don’t see the resemblance. Our family has lived in Tamarind for as long as the town records have existed. Mum likes to say we’ll always be protected in this town with so many of the family buried here. The cemetery at the back of the old church has a row of graves just for us, about fifteen Fishers all in a row. A school of us, or whatever the collective noun for gravestones is.
Grandpa was the youngest of seven. The only one left in this town now. His brothers and sisters were smart and left when they could. They scattered across the country, some having families of their own, others donning a uniform to fight overseas, never to return. I can’t wait until I’m old enough to leave this place. I want to see the city and other places so bad, do something different. It’s the same thing every weekend. Mum has to work so Grandpa and I share a pizza and watch a movie until it’s time for bed.
Nothing exciting ever happens around here.
I check the time on the microwave. Eight o’clock. I’ve gotta meet Sean at the school in an hour. I hate to lie to my grandpa, but there’s no way he’s going to let me go if I tell him I want to hunt for ghosts.
“Nah, I’m kinda tired. I might just go to bed.” The twitch of Grandpa’s mouth and disappointment in his eyes shoots straight through my heart. “Next time for sure.”
He squeezes my shoulder. “Ok. How about I make you a hot chocolate?”
“Thanks, Gramps.”
***
At quarter to nine I tiptoe out of my room to the living room. Grandpa is fast asleep, ear to shoulder, an episode of M.A.S.H playing on the television. I ease open the front door and slip out. It’s a five-minute bike ride to the school. Sean is leaning against the chain link fence, wearing his tatty grey and white checked flannel shirt and ripped jean shorts, the glow of his cigarette a pinpoint in the dark. He takes a drag and crushes the butt under his shoe.
The school is situated on top of the hill overlooking the town. Tamarind sparkles below us, clusters of golden orbs, the moonlight glinting off the slate roofs. I like it when folks keep their windows open at night, there’s something comforting about looking in from the outside at them, specters slouched on soft sofas, scrubbing plates clean, knowing they are safe in their homes watching Saturday night variety shows.
“Have any trouble escaping?”
“Nope. Mum’s working, Grandpa’s asleep. You?”
“Nah, told them I was staying at your place. Mum never said nothing about it.”
I laugh, and my stomach flips at the thought. I unzip my backpack and pull out my torch.
“Got your camera?”
Sean pulls a disposable yellow and orange camera from the front of his backpack. “This baby can take up to thirty shots. I’ve already taken a bunch though. Me and Mitch were mucking around on the basketball courts yesterday trying to dunk.”
“How did that go?”
Sean runs a hand through his floppy middle-parted sandy blonde hair. “Yeah, fully dunked it. I’ll show you the photos when I get them developed.”
“Cool.”
He doesn’t look away, the corners of his mouth curl into a smile. My cheeks burn and I fumble my torch, pressing the rubber button on the side and shooting a beam of bright white light across the gate. It’s padlocked shut but it’s about my height and easy enough for us to scale. I swing my backpack over and Sean gives me a boost up. Once he has hitched himself over, we grab our things and head down the central path towards the main block of classrooms.
It’s weird to be on the school grounds at night, familiar spaces usually bathed in colour and sunlight are now cast in sharp shadow by the blinking flood lights along the white brick walls. Cracked footpaths and silent shrubbery, rows of empty desks, grey plastic chairs stacked along the walls filled with drawings and paintings in red, yellow and blue. Signs of life put to sleep.
Sean trails his hand along the brick, stretching up on his toes to peer through the wind-out windows, feeling under the frames for gaps.
“Hey, your drawing is still here.” He leans against the wall, pulling himself up to look into the classroom.
“Which one?”
“The one with the fruit bowl.”
“Where?”
I stand beside him on my tippy toes, straining my neck to see. Sean leans across me and taps the glass, pointing to the A3 sized paper at the back of the room, a still-life scene in pastels. Lemons, limes and oranges Grandpa arranged in a blue and white ceramic bowl on his kitchen table for me a couple of years ago. It took me a whole weekend to get the shading right on the oranges but I still wasn’t happy with it. I almost tore the thing up because the proportions were all wrong.
“You should be an artist,” Sean says, his face so close I can feel his breath on my neck.
“Yeah right, I can’t draw for anything.”
“What are you talking about? It’s wicked.”
“Yours was better.”
“Mine’s not the one on the wall.”
He takes his camera from his pocket and winds the wheel until it clicks, then lines it up against the window. The flash fills the classroom with light, dust motes floating in the air.
I met Sean in the third grade when his family moved down from Perth to Tamarind. He was the cool new kid from the city who had to sit next to me because my desk was the only one free. I think he only liked me at the start because of my collection of basketball cards that I was willing to trade, but we are proper friends now. I’ve never been good at making friends. I had a best friend in kindy, Sandra Holly, but she wasn’t very nice to me and punched me in the arm when I didn’t want to do her stupid ballet routines. She’s best friends with Megan T now. I mean, I was invited to birthdays and stuff, but I’ve never belonged to a group or anything. It’s just kinda been me and Sean.
Sometimes I wonder how you know if you like someone. Like more than a friend.
“Let’s try around back, none of these windows are open,” he says, pushing himself off the wall.
We head down the narrow path between the main building and the portables towards the assembly room and oval. The assembly room is less of an actual room and more like a large tin shed with a lino floor and no air conditioning, used for everything from school plays to the end of term discos the teachers put on with cold party pies, watered down cordial and Nutbush City Limits on repeat. As we round the back of the English block Sean puts his hand out to stop me and raises a finger to his lips for me to be quiet. I concentrate, listening out for what has spooked him and hear the sound of spray paint cans being shaken and the unmistakable voices of three dirtbags.
I move slowly, leaning inch by inch around the beige paneling of the portable building. Wayne is standing in front of the assembly shed, no more than a couple of metres from us, back turned, drawing a tag on the silver cladding in black spray paint. His ridiculous ginger mullet is creeping out the back of his blue trucker cap. Chad and Tyler with their matching buzz cuts and Pearl Jam t-shirts are wrist deep in a packet of barbeque chips. Tyler smears his greasy palm on the side of his jeans before sniffing and wiping his runny nose on his arm.
Sean raises his camera. I grab onto his elbow and shake my head wildly, gesturing with my thumb for us to leave. He just smiles at me and takes the photo. The bright flash lights up the night, the dirtbags’ stunned faces in full definition. Wayne turns, his face red, just in time for Sean to wind the camera and snap a second photo.
He fixes his eyes on me. “You’re dead, fish face!”
Sean pulls on my arm, whipping me around. We run. I can hear Wayne, Chad and Tyler scrambling behind us. Sean is fast, quickly out pacing me as we round the corner of the portables and head back up the pathway towards the main building. My feet pound against the cracked pavement, a stich forming below my ribcage. Wayne is yelling something at me, his footfalls echoing across the courtyard. As I reach the main building I glance back, Wayne is closing in, rage painted across his face. He reels back his arm and pelts the spray can. It hits me right on the forehead, blacking out my vision for a moment. I stumble as I reach out for the edge of the building. Sean yells out and his arms wrap around my shoulders, pulling me forward.
My head throbs as Sean grabs my waist, hoisting me onto the fence. It shakes under my hands, the rattle of chain links filling the night air. He shoves me up and I cling onto the cold bar at the top. I can hear Wayne screaming behind us. Sean is right beside me; he jumps down from the fence and pulls my legs over. The wire snags my shirt and cuts a line down my stomach as I slip into his waiting arms.
“Let’s get out of here.”
Part three next week…
🎶”They call it Nutbush … ohh, Nutbush!” 🎶