It took me forty-five minutes to run to Seb’s house. The wind blasted in my face for most of the way and the rain came back ten minutes into the journey. The wind burrowed into my clothes and chilled me. Twice I stopped. I could tell Seb I’d changed my mind. He loved me. He’d wait.
And each time, when I started running again, I heard Lizzie’s voice telling me how Sherry Faulkner had the hots for him, or Petrina Berry, or half the girls in the school, and how I’d better cement my love for him if I wanted to keep him.
I would do it. It was the right thing.
I sprinted up the nineteen steps to his house and hammered on the door. I waited while the wind blew wild and free and insistent. I hammered again, then remembered the doorbell and jabbed that. Seconds passed, slower than my heart beats by a good ratio that I was much too stressed to work out.
The door opened. It was his mother. ‘Hello, Minna! My goodness, you’re soaking. Come on in and we’ll get you dry.’ She hustled me inside the house and into her bedroom. ‘Here you are. Put that on.’ She handed me a dressing gown. ‘Pop your clothes in the dryer when you’ve changed, and I’ll tell Seb you’re here.’
I took off my clothes and had to clamp down on the hysterical laughter that lurked in my throat. This wasn’t how I’d imagined getting my gear off in Seb’s house. I was stuffing my clothes in the dryer when he turned up.
‘Hiya babe, get a bit damp? Should have let me collect you.’ He wrapped his arms around me and gave me the sort of kiss that swept all my doubts away. I wanted to do this.
His mother called from the kitchen, ‘Bring Minna in here, dear. She’ll need to get something warm inside her.’
Seb whispered, ‘I’ve got something hot she can have.’
I choked and he gave me that twinkling, heart-breaker smile that melted me all through from my backbone out. He grabbed my hand and towed me into the kitchen.
His mother fussed. ‘Seb, where are your brains? Get Minna a towel to dry her hair.’ She smiled at me. ‘Such pretty hair too — the shades of autumn leaves. Do you colour it?’ She shook her head. ‘No, I thought not. Ah, to be young and gorgeous again!’
Seb rolled his eyes but got me a towel and perched himself on a stool beside me at the breakfast bar. Mrs King handed me a mug of soup. I was sure I wouldn’t be able to drink it, but I held it cupped in my hands and let the warmth soak in.
She was cooking — making a birthday cake for Seb’s grandmother, she said. She chatted as she measured and stirred. I chatted right back and it was warm and peaceful and happy there in that kitchen with the boy I loved beside me. Seb didn’t seem in any hurry. He moved his stool closer so that he could sit with his arm around me. I smiled at him. I would keep this moment forever in my heart.
I did drink the soup because I discovered I was hungry. Seb took the empty mug from me. ‘Want some more, babe?’ His eyes quirked as he asked and so it was a different question I answered.
‘Yes. Please.’
He ran a hand down my spine as he ambled towards the soup pot on the stove.
My phone vibrated in the pocket of the dressing gown. A text from Jax. I read it, holding it below the level of the bench because Mrs King didn’t need to know I was the sort of girl who couldn’t leave a text unread for two seconds.
N here. Unconshis. Can’t wake him. Help.
I gasped. Seb and his mother looked at me. I flapped a hand. Jax. I had to call her. ‘Explain in a minute,’ I said.
My heart was thumping again but this time it was a painful, squeezing thump. My idiot brother. He’d really done it this time.
Her voice was high and panicked. ‘He just turned up. About ten minutes ago. He was acting strange — I thought he was drunk and I told him to go home because Mum’s going to be home soon, but he got to the door and fell down and now I can’t wake him. Min, can you come?’
‘I’ll be there.’ I hung up and faced Seb and his mother. I told them what had happened.
Mrs King ran for the laundry. She hurried back and pushed my warm, damp clothes at me. ‘Get dressed. Seb will take you.’
I threw my clothes on then ran for the car. Seb was such a good driver. We flew through the streets. He didn’t take his eyes off the road but when we had to stop at a light, he squeezed my knee. ‘Don’t worry, babe. He’ll be sweet.’
At Jax’s house he said, ‘Want me to come in with you?’
‘Yes. Oh, yes. Please.’
Together we ran up the path. Jax was at the door, her two little sisters wide-eyed behind her. Noah was sprawled on his back in the hallway. Seb bent down and rearranged him on his side. ‘The recovery position,’ he said. ‘Safer.’
I knelt beside him. ‘I can’t smell any alcohol and marijuana doesn’t do this to him.’ I shoved a hand into his pocket, then checked all of them. In the one in his sweatshirt was a small pill bottle. I held it up. ‘This has got to be what he’s taken.’ I jumped up. ‘Get the phone book, Jax. I’ll phone A&E and ask them if he’s going to die.’ Or if I should just kill him right now.
It wasn’t simple getting an answer. I talked to a receptionist, then to a nurse, then to a doctor who went and asked another doctor. But the answer was okay. I looked at the others and gave the thumbs up. I hung up and let out a woosh of breath. ‘They said it won’t kill him, but that he’ll sleep for ages.’ I looked at Jax. ‘Best we get him out of here, wouldn’t you say?’
She just nodded, then she looked down at Noah snoring gently on the floor and her eyes filled with tears. She still liked him? Where was her brain? Then she whispered, ‘Why did he want to die?’
Oh god! I hugged her. ‘He didn’t — at least, the hospital reckoned he would have wanted to get high, but there’s a fine line between high and asleep.’
Seb slid an arm under Noah’s shoulders, hoisted him up into a fireman’s carry and headed for the car. I wanted to hug my boyfriend and slam-dunk my brother. Seb dumped Noah along the back seat.
‘Your folks going to freak out?’ he asked as he snapped the seat belt in.
I nodded. ‘Big time.’ I hoped Mum would miraculously be out and that Dad wouldn’t miraculously be at home.
Seb manhandled Noah out of the car. I ran to open the front door. No sign of Mum. So far, so good. ‘Along here,’ I told Seb. ‘Put him on his bed.’ I opened Noah’s bedroom door, darted to the bed, chucked the junk off it and helped Seb lower him on to it. Seb turned him on his side and put him in the recovery position again. ‘Seb,’ I whispered, ‘thank you so much. I just don’t know what I’d have done if you … if you …’ and I burst into tears.
He put his arms around me. ‘C’mon, babe. He’ll be sweet. Don’t stress.’
I tried to stop crying but it was so lovely with his arms around me and he was going away for two whole weeks and I wouldn’t be able to see him.
‘Minna! What is going on here? Who is this, and what are you doing in Noah’s bedroom?’ Mum. Of course.
Seb dropped his arms from round me like I’d become radioactive.
I wiped my face. ‘Mum, this is Seb and he helped me get Noah home.’
Mum skimmed a glance at Noah. ‘What do you mean, get him home? He’s sound asleep.’
I probably should have shut up, shrugged and got out of there, but her voice was loaded with suspicion. The look on her face showed that I’d been tried and condemned in the blink of an eye and it’s a wonder Seb didn’t die on the spot from poisonous mother vibes. So I did the dumb thing and explained. ‘He’s taken pills and A&E say he’ll sleep for hours.’ So suck on that. ‘And Seb helped me get him home.’
But did that make her apologise to him and smile? Not on your life. Her voice clanked with icicles as she said, ‘Thank you for your assistance, Seb. We’ll do very well now on our own. Minna will see you out.’
I would if I didn’t die of shame first. How could she speak to him like that? When I thought of how lovely his mother had been to me, it made me want to throw up, preferably all over my mother. ‘Sorry,’ I muttered once we got out of earshot. I couldn’t even look at him.
Seb gave me a hug. ‘Don’t sweat, doll. See you when I get back from Aus.’
I pulled out a smile. ‘Don’t forget the koala. And the postcard.’
He waved, climbed into his car and was gone. I watched until he was out of sight.
‘Minna! What’s happened here? Tell me this instant.’ Mum steamed out of Noah’s bedroom. ‘What’s Noah taken?’
I dug in my pocket for the pill bottle and held it out. ‘I found this. He must’ve taken some.’ She snatched it from me, marched off, phoned our doctor, and got the same advice that I’d already told her — let him sleep it off.
I waited for her to hug me and thank me for being adult and responsible and caring for my brother — huh! Some long wait that would be. She started right in on me.
‘All right, Minna. Let’s talk about the fact that you were with that boy when I trusted your word that you wouldn’t see him again outside school. Let’s talk about the fact that half your clothes are inside out.’ She stood there in front of me, her fists jammed on to her hips and her eyes firing red-hot lava in my direction.
I could do this. I could be calm and sensible and mature, even if she couldn’t. I explained that I’d been at Jax’s house, that I’d put my clothes in the dryer, that Noah came and collapsed, that I’d rung Seb and he’d come with his car to help me.
Mum didn’t say a word for about fifteen seconds, which is one long stretch of time. I opened my mouth to say What? but then her whole body seemed to cave in. She turned away from me and started walking back to her studio.
‘What?’ I yelled after her. ‘I haven’t done anything wrong. You should be glad I helped …’
She stopped. Didn’t even turn around and look at me as she said, ‘Maybe your story is true, Min, maybe it isn’t.’
‘Mum!’ I howled, ‘you’re the one who goes on about trust. Can’t you just believe me when I tell you the truth?’
She did turn then, and she said very quietly, which was much worse than being yelled at, ‘Minna — I know for a fact that Jax’s family does not have a clothes dryer.’
I gawped at her, all the wind knocked from my lungs.
She nodded once. ‘Exactly.’ And that was it. She took herself off to her studio and left me gasping for breath in the hallway.
I shut myself in my bedroom. I was doomed. Even if I did tell her the truth, and even if I made her talk to Mrs King, she still wouldn’t believe me. It was so unfair.
I rang Jax, sent Addy a text, then rang Jax back and asked her to tell Lizzie. I just couldn’t face Lizzie mourning over how I’d blown away yet another opportunity.
I stayed in my room. I got hungry but Mum didn’t call me for dinner. In fact I didn’t hear her in the kitchen so perhaps there was no dinner, but no way was I going to ask her when we were going to eat.
Dad got home just after nine. I heard noises in the kitchen, then he bellowed out that grub was up, come and get it.
Wounded dignity, I decided, would be the way to go. I walked out to the kitchen, greeted my father and ignored my mother. We sat down at the table and ate the pizza Dad had brought home.
We finished, and I hadn’t said anything the whole entire meal. Mum asked a couple of polite questions and Dad babbled on about the stupid island and how, even if we didn’t go, he’d arranged to spend a couple of weeks there by himself and wasn’t that awesome?
Mum put down the slice of pizza she’d nibbled. I wish she wouldn’t do that — eat it or leave it is my motto. She spoke to Dad, not to me. ‘We’ll do it, Wes. We’ll all go to the island. For the year.’
I choked and spluttered, but thank goodness I had Lizzie. Dad whooped and hollered and carried on like we’d won the biggest lottery in the universe.
‘But Mum — why?’ I couldn’t believe she was actually agreeing. ‘You don’t want to do it! Look at you! You look as if you’re going to prison — you’re crazy.’
She didn’t respond to that, and Dad didn’t pick up on it either, I was interested to note. Instead, Mum said to him, ‘You might like to take a look at your son.’ She told him the Noah story, but left out the chapter entitled Rescue by Minna.
Dad shot out of the room, came back, sat down, didn’t say anything.
I stood up. ‘Well, you lot can go and play happy families on the island. Not me. I’m staying with Lizzie.’
Mum did look at me then. ‘No, Minna. You’re not. You’re coming too. We’re a family. We’re staying together and we’re all going.’