I rang Bettina as soon as I arrived home to explain why I’d left her in the bus line. (She was very understanding.) Then I rang the local paper and asked for Ned Sandstrom. He wasn’t in. So I left a message, and went to finish my history project.
When the phone jangled about an hour later, I rushed downstairs again to grab it, thinking that Ned Sandstrom might be returning my call. But I recognised the voice at the other end of the line. It was my father’s.
‘Alethea? Is that you?’
‘Oh. Hi, Dad.’
‘You don’t sound very happy to hear from me.’
‘Oh, I am. Really. I was just – I was just doing my homework.’
‘Well, I’m sorry to interrupt. I wanted to ask if you’d like to come out with me tomorrow night. Another dinner. Just you and me.’
‘Oh!’ I glanced at Bethan, who was riding his scooter down the hallway. ‘Well, that would be great, but –’
‘I’ll take Bethan out another night. Friday, maybe. One on one. I think that might be a good idea, don’t you?’
‘I guess.’ Worried that Ned Sandstrom might be trying to call, I was eager to get off the phone. ‘Sure. Tomorrow night. What time?’
‘Not too late, obviously. Say, six o’clock?’
‘Okay. Great. Bye, Dad.’
‘Wait! Hang on. Hadn’t you better ask your mother?’
‘Oh. Right. Sure. I’ll do that.’ (But where was she? Out in the garden?) ‘Uh, what if I call you back if there’s a problem?’
‘Yes, all right. That should work.’
‘Bye, then. Bye.’
I broke the connection as Bethan whizzed past. ‘Where’s Mum?’ I called after him.
‘Dunno.’
‘Is she in the studio?’
‘Dunno.’
He disappeared out the back door. I was about to follow him when the phone rang again, and this time it was Ned Sandstrom. He had a gravelly voice, and sounded quite old (not to mention tired and impatient). But when I mentioned his article about Eloise, he seemed to brighten up a bit.
‘Oh, yeah,’ he said. ‘I remember that. What’s your interest?’
‘My friend lives in the same house, now,’ I explained, with my heart in my throat. ‘She wants to know what happened.’
‘I see.’ A sigh. ‘Well, you saw the story, didn’t you? Mother was off on a bender, sister came home with the boyfriend –’
‘No, I mean, what happened to the mother? Did she go to gaol?’
‘Oh!’ There was a long pause. I could hear noises in the background: clattering, chattering noises. ‘I’m trying to think,’ he said at last. ‘Yeah, I think I covered that, too. Yeah, I remember. Suspended sentence. They stuck her in a treatment centre. It was that one up the road from here, you know the one?’
‘No,’ I confessed.
‘Oh, what’s its name? Warriewood. Warriewood Drug Rehabilitation Centre. Lot of people go there instead of prison. Try to sort themselves out.’ Suddenly his tone changed. ‘How old are you, anyway?’
‘Twelve.’
‘Ah.’
‘Thank you very much. My friend was interested.’
And I hung up, before he started to ask me questions. Then I stood for a while, thinking. Warriewood Drug Rehabilitation Centre. It was bound to be in the phone book. Should I call, I wondered, and ask about Terri Amirault? Would there be any point? A drug rehabilitation centre sounded like a scary place. It sounded like the sort of place where people might not want to talk to little kids – especially to little kids looking for information on past residents.
Hesitantly, I flicked through the second volume of our White Pages, and quickly found Warriewood Drug Rehabilitation Centre. There was only one number, printed in big, bold letters. I have to admit, I don’t like ringing up total strangers. I get quite nervous. Ned Sandstrom had been bad enough, but Warriewood sounded much worse.
Then I thought about Peter and Michelle, and how disappointed they would be if I turned up at school, the next morning, without having at least tried to find out about Terri Amirault. They would wonder why I hadn’t called. They might wonder if I had been scared.
Michelle wouldn’t be scared, I knew. Michelle had no trouble asking shop assistants to get her things, or telling Year Five boys to be quiet.
I picked up the receiver, and punched in the eight-digit code. There were five rings followed by a woman’s voice.
‘Warriewood, how may I help you?’ she said.
‘Uh, hi.’ I swallowed. ‘My name’s Allie Gebhardt, and I’m calling on behalf –’
‘Allie Gebhardt?’
My jaw dropped.
‘Would that be the same Allie Gebhardt who’s a special friend of my son Peter?’ the woman exclaimed.
‘Uh –’
‘It’s Paula Cresciani, Allie. I’m Peter’s mum.’
‘Oh.’
‘We met once, remember? At Peter’s birthday party.’
‘Oh, yeah.’ I vaguely recalled Peter’s mum, who had lots of grey hair and a big smile. ‘Hi, Mrs Cresciani.’
‘Peter’s always talking about you. It’s always “Allie, Allie, Allie”.’
‘Really?’ I didn’t know how to respond. ‘Well, I like him, too.’
‘He’s a nice boy, my Peter. You should come over again, soon. Pay us a visit – we’d love that. Peter would love that.’
‘Okay. Sure.’ I was feeling embarrassed; I don’t quite know why. ‘That would be great.’
‘Good! Any time! Now what’s the matter, cara? Why are you calling this place?’
It was a relief to get to the point. Tugging at my socks, I stammered: ‘Do you – do you work there, Mrs Cresciani?’
‘I certainly do. Didn’t Peter tell you?’
‘Maybe.’ Now that I thought about it, Peter had mentioned something about his mother being a nurse. ‘You’re a nurse, right?’
‘A part-time psychiatric social worker.’
‘Oh.’
‘So what can I do for you, my love? Is everything all right?’
I asked if there was someone named Terri Amirault currently living at Warriewood. No, Mrs Cresciani replied, there wasn’t.
‘Oh.’ That was disappointing, though not entirely unexpected. It had been nearly two years, after all. ‘Well, she was there once,’ I continued. ‘About two years ago. Do you know where she might have gone?’
‘What’s your interest, Allie?’
Oh, dear. I wasn’t sure how much Peter’s mum knew – or how much he wanted her to know. Suddenly I wished that I hadn’t called.
‘It’s just – have you heard of Bettina Berich?’ I said carefully.
‘Bettina? Your little friend? Peter went over to her house, last week?’
‘That’s right.’ At least she knew about Bettina. It was a start. ‘Well … um … Terri used to live in Bettina’s house. And Bettina wants to ask her something.’
‘About the house?’
‘Yes.’
‘You mean it was trashed?’
‘Uh, no, I – I don’t think so. I don’t know.’ I had never really thought about that. ‘Bettina just wants to ask about something that’s been …’ (That’s been what?) ‘… that’s been left behind.’
‘I see.’ A short silence. ‘Well, you know, we don’t normally give out information about our clients, Allie.’
‘Oh.’ What a blow. ‘Not even if they don’t live there any more?’
Instead of answering, Mrs Cresciani asked another question.
‘What did she leave behind? Something she might need? Something important?’
‘Well …’ I didn’t want to lie. ‘She might not want it. I don’t know.’
‘So what is it, Allie?’
I was aware that if I said ‘a ghost’, I wouldn’t have a chance of finding out where Terri had gone. Mrs Cresciani would probably think that I was playing some sort of stupid trick, or game.
‘It’s nothing,’ I said. ‘Don’t worry.’
‘You can tell me, cara, it’s all right. I’ll talk to the manager here, and see if we can help.’
‘No, no. It’s not important. Bye, Mrs Cresciani.’
I slammed down the receiver, my heart thudding. But of course I couldn’t leave it at that. I had to ring Peter and warn him. I didn’t want him unprepared for the moment when his mum came home, and interrogated him about my peculiar phone call.
He answered on the third ring, and seemed unconcerned when I explained what had happened. It would be all right, he said. He’d think of something.
‘If we tell her it’s a ghost, she won’t lift a finger,’ he conceded. ‘We have to tell her something like … I dunno … like Bettina’s family wants to perform a traditional purifying ceremony, and would like the mother’s permission. She might go for that because it’s a cultural thing, you see.’
‘But …’ I didn’t know how to put this. ‘But if you’re lying, Peter, and she finds out –’
‘Lying? Who said anything about lying?’ Peter’s voice sounded funny, as if he was munching on a sandwich. ‘I mean, have we actually decided what we’re going to do yet? Have we decided that we’re not going to hold a purifying ceremony?’
‘Well, no, but –’
‘It’s okay, Allie, I’ll sort it out. And thanks for the warning.’ After a moment’s hesitation, he added: ‘Did she say anything else?’
‘About Terri? No.’
‘About anything.’
‘Like what?’ I was stumped. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Nothing. It’s nothing. She can be such an idiot, that’s all.’
‘Really?’ She had seemed perfectly sensible to me. ‘I thought she was nice. She asked me over to your place.’
Peter groaned. ‘I knew it,’ he spluttered.
‘What?’
‘Nothing. It doesn’t matter. I’ll see you tomorrow.’
He hung up. By this time it was getting late, and I had a history project to finish. So I rushed upstairs, thinking about Terri and Peter’s mum and the Warriewood Drug Rehabilitation Centre, and what with one thing and another, I completely forgot about Dad’s invitation.
It slipped my mind until the following evening. That’s when I – well, when I stuffed up big time. But I won’t go into it yet. First of all I have to describe what happened the next day, because it was important. Very important.
As usual, I caught the bus in the morning. And as usual, I met Michelle at the bus stop, where I told her all about my phone calls of the night before. She listened eagerly, before offering to make the next bunch of calls, because she never got to do anything interesting – not like me and Peter. We disagreed about that. Then the bus arrived, and we found a seat down the back, near Bettina.
I’d never seen her looking so excited. Her cheeks were red, and her eyes were popping, and her hair seemed to be standing out all over her head. When we swung ourselves onto the seat in front of her, the words were already tumbling out of her mouth.
‘Guess what, guess what, guess what?’ she babbled. ‘It worked! It worked, after all!’
‘What?’ I said.
‘Huh?’ said Michelle.
‘The bottle! It worked!’ She leaned forward. ‘I put that bottle of formula in the room, last night, and it worked, Allie! It really worked!’
‘You mean –’
‘Auntie Astra slept in there last night, and she didn’t drink it.’
‘Yes, but –’
‘She didn’t eat anything, either! She wasn’t hungry! So I went in there this morning, with my breakfast, and I didn’t finish my eggs! I wasn’t hungry at all, not one little bit!’
Michelle and I exchanged glances.
‘That’s great, Bettina,’ I said.
‘That’s terrific,’ Michelle agreed. We were both a bit stunned, I think. Personally, I had already given up on the bottle idea. It had seemed too easy.
‘Auntie Astra wanted to talk to the baby ghost,’ Bettina continued chattily. ‘She said if Michael wasn’t around, then perhaps the baby could tell her about him. She insisted on sleeping in my bedroom. And now she thinks the ghost was all a big lie, and she’s argued with my mother, but I don’t care, not now, because the ghost has gone.’
‘Are you sure, though?’ I couldn’t quite believe it. ‘How can you be sure?’
‘I am sure.’ Bettina nodded solemnly, just as our bus lurched to a halt at Peter’s bus stop. ‘One fresh bottle of formula every night, and that ghost won’t bother me any more. I can feel it. In my bones.’
All the same, I was sceptical. Eglantine had been so hard to get rid of; was it really possible to exorcise a troubled spirit with one bottle of baby formula? Bettina said it was. Michelle didn’t know. Peter, when asked, simply shrugged.
‘Remember what Delora said,’ he pointed out. ‘Eloise is a lot more primitive than Eglantine. Perhaps that makes Eloise easier to satisfy.’
I grunted. For some reason I wasn’t happy, though I should have been, for Bettina’s sake. Something was bugging me. As the others eagerly chattered about Eloise, and Astra, and Peter’s mum (who hadn’t promised to chase up Terri Amirault, despite Peter’s attempts to persuade her), I stared out the window, chewing on my nails.
It was Peter who finally drew me aside, after we had got off the bus.
‘Are you angry about something?’ he queried, and I blinked at him in surprise.
‘Who, me? No.’
‘Then why aren’t you talking to anyone?’
‘I was just thinking.’
‘About what?’
‘About whether I should ask Delora to visit the Beriches’ house, and see if she can still sense that ghost.’
Peter perked up a bit. We were standing near the assembly hall, and at that moment Tony Karavias stuck his big, ugly face between us and made smooching noises.
Peter swung at him, scowling.
‘Piss off!’
‘Cresciani’s got the hots,’ Tony cried, in a sing-song voice, dodging Peter’s heavy backpack. I knew what he was talking about, naturally. And it annoyed me too.
‘Stupid idiot,’ I muttered, hoping that no one else had noticed. ‘Anyway, what do you think? Should I call Delora this afternoon, after school? Just to make sure? I have to anyway, because I’ve got this money for her.’
Peter was red in the face. ‘Are you sure she won’t want more money?’ he said.
‘I don’t know. Maybe not. If she does, we can just wait and see, I guess.’
‘I guess.’
And that was that. The bell went, we parted, and I didn’t see Peter again until the end of the school day, when we were waiting for the bus. By that time I had already alerted Michelle and Bettina to my plan, and they hadn’t objected to it, though Bettina was convinced that she now had Eloise well under control.
‘Which means I won’t get hungry in the night any more, which means I won’t eat too much,’ she crowed, as we trooped out of the school gates. ‘And if I don’t eat too much, I’ll lose weight, and if I lose weight, I’ll have friends!’
Michelle and I stared at her.
‘What do you mean?’ I was almost insulted. ‘You already have friends.’
‘We’re your friends,’ Michelle pointed out, as if Bettina was being incredibly stupid. ‘What you weigh doesn’t have anything to do with it.’
Bettina went pink.
‘Really?’ she squeaked.
‘Of course.’ I nudged her onto the bus, and she bounced on ahead of me, looking pleased even from the back. Just to prove that I wasn’t lying, I sat next to her. Michelle dropped into the seat behind me. And Peter … well, Peter hesitated. He had been talking to Serge Blatevsky, who was tugging him into a seat down the front of the bus. He caught my eye, grinned a lopsided grin, and lifted his hand in a half-hearted way before joining Serge.
‘What’s he doing over there?’ Michelle spluttered. ‘What about the Exorcists’ Club?’
She half rose, but I pulled her back. I knew exactly what Peter was doing, as a matter of fact. And I didn’t blame him, though it hurt me a little.
‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘He’s a boy. Boys need boys.’ What boys don’t need is other boys teasing them about girls. They hate that. I know they do, because I have a brother. If you want to absolutely enrage Bethan, all you have to do is make jokes about the way he chases Elizabeth Green, sometimes.
‘Okay,’ I said, taking a deep breath and averting my gaze from the back of Peter’s head, ‘so what are you going to do, Bettina? Move into your bedroom, again?’
‘Of course.’
‘Leave a bottle of formula out every night?’
Bettina shrugged. ‘Maybe,’ she rejoined. ‘Or maybe one bottle is all the ghost needed. Maybe it won’t be hungry any more.’
‘Maybe.’ I couldn’t really argue with that. It was quite possible.
But somehow I had my doubts.