| |
Chloe
Chloe’s father came home quite late. He and her mum had sat up late, talking. Chloe could hear the murmur but not what they were saying. It went on for a long time. Each time Chloe woke, they were still talking. Chloe finally fell into a deep sleep and woke when the sun shone in her window. The house was quiet. Even Lily was still asleep.
Chloe climbed into shorts and a T-shirt. It was already a warm morning. She fed Snowball and went to feed the chickens and let them out, checking for eggs. Then she checked the sheep paddock to make sure there was enough grass for them. One more day, then they’d have to be moved, she decided.
It was such a beautiful morning. Chloe made herself some breakfast and sat on the front steps to eat. She had barely started when the three boys came past. They beckoned her over to the gate. Taking her bowl of cereal with her she stood and waited to hear what they had to say. Wiremu was grinning all over his face, while Hemi and Walter looked glum.
“We going to be rich!” Wiremu said.
Chloe looked at him and raised an eyebrow in disbelief.
“True!” he said. “My dad was telling my mum last night. She got HEAPS of money. She’s going to give it to her famblies, her whānau. You too.”
Hemi and Walter were nodding their heads.
“It’s true, alright,” Hemi said. “Everyone is talking about it already. They’re going to have a meeting tomorrow. It’s really stink! Why can’t it be my dad what got adopted? I want to be rich too!”
Chloe smiled. Clearly Hemi hadn’t thought it through. Then she had a thought.
“Where ...?” she said quietly. She stopped.
“Where, what?” Wiremu asked.
“Where is she?” It was the most she had ever said to them.
“Who? You mean that lady?”
“Heeni.” Chloe said. “Your grandmother.”
“Yeah, nah, she’s not my nana.” Wiremu shook his head in disgust at the thought.
“Where is she?” Chloe said again. It was an effort, but she was keen to go and find her, and these boys were the only ones who would tell her.
“She’s over to my place. I had to sleep in with my sister!” Apparently, this was even more disgusting.
Chloe sagged with disappointment. There was no way
she was going over there to talk to her. Too many explanations required, and it would be too hard. Maybe she’d see if Mereana would go with her.
The boys ambled off.
“See ya’,” Wiremu called.
She waved at them and went back to her breakfast. When she went to put her dishes in the sink her mum came through, yawning and complaining about a lack of sleep.
“What happened last night?” Chloe asked.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart. You’re going to have to ask Dad. It’s not my story to tell.”
Disappointed again, Chloe washed her dishes and put them away, and went back to get a book from her bedroom. She thought she’d go out to the tree in the garden and read for a bit until everyone else was up.
Lily erupted with a roar through her bedroom door.
“Nobody didn’t wake me up! I wanted to see the sun come up. You promised!” she yelled at her mum.
“Sorry, chickadee, I was too tired this morning. We’ll do it tomorrow. Come and have some breakfast.”
Lily sulked by the kitchen door. “I don’t want no breakfast.”
“I don’t want any breakfast, thank you Mum,” her mother corrected. “Okay, please yourself, but you may get hungry later.”
Chloe slid out the back door before Lily could get any bright ideas about joining her in the tree. She swung herself up onto the lowest branch, and with her book in her shorts pocket, climbed to the lookout that someone had built in the tree a long time ago. It gave her a vantage point over quite a large part of the surrounding properties. With her back against the tree trunk and her legs dangling over the far edge, she settled down. Birds occasionally landed close by, but didn’t stay long. A light breeze caused the tree to sway slightly. Chloe was at her happiest.
Sometime later she became aware of a furtive movement along the road. Someone running from shrub to shrub. Carrying a bag slung over his shoulder. Far in the distance a voice could be heard faintly.
“Walter! Walter!”
He was closer now, within spitting distance, as Dad sometimes said. Chloe broke an old pinecone off the tree, and taking careful aim, lobbed it to where she had last noticed him behind the hedge.
“Ow!”
Walter stepped out into the road to see where the cone had come from. He didn’t think to look upwards. Chloe sat back and took another pinecone from a nearby branch. Walter was still rubbing his head, and as he turned away Chloe lobbed another in his direction. It hit his bag on his back. This time he looked up. Chloe pointed her arm towards his house. He put his head down and slunk off back the way he had come.
At that moment, Mereana and her friends came along the road towards him.
“You’re not trying to run away again are you, Walter?” Keri asked.
He muttered something unintelligible and skirted right around them as far as he could, without falling in the ditch. The girls turned off from the road, into Chloe’s drive, looking up at the tree and letting her know they had seen what had happened. Smiling, Chloe climbed down the tree and ran to the front of the house to greet them.
“Perfect aim!” Jess said. “Couldn’t have done it better myself! At least this time we won’t have to go looking for him.”
“We’re going for an explore,” Mereana said to her. “To the haunted house. Do you want to come? Probably better you don’t tell your parents where we’re going.”
Chloe nodded. She raced inside to ask permission to go with the girls, put on a pair of sneakers, and raced out the door again, with Lily loudly complaining that she wanted to go too.
Chloe knew of the haunted house; some of the kids at school had been hassling her about not talking. They had threatened to take her to the haunted house and lock her in. Luckily a teacher passing by had overheard them and had intervened. Chloe made sure never to pass by the house when she was by herself. Not because she thought it was haunted, but because she was afraid she might do something embarrassing if she got locked in there. But with these girls beside her, she felt safe.
At the front gate, they checked there was no one looking then, giggling madly, they tore down the path and around the back, out of sight of others. Chloe’s heart was pounding with excitement and fear. Jess pushed open the back door, which creaked loudly on its rusted old hinges. They all giggled again. Then boldly, Jess stepped through the door with the others following.
The room they stood in was a kitchen. Everything was filthy – dusty, cobwebby, insecty; and it smelled really bad. A dead mouse lay in the sink, decaying. It must have fallen in recently. Rat and mouse droppings littered the floor, and a desiccated bird lay in a corner.
“Yuck!” Keri said. “There’s nothing much haunted about this. It’s just abandoned. Come on, let’s see what else there is.”
Room by room they explored the house. Downstairs there was only the kitchen and the lounge, plus a lean-to with an old bathtub. Up the stairs they found three bedrooms, and a tiny bathroom.
“Hey, look! There’s something in this dresser.”
It was the only piece of furniture in the room. Jess was determined to get to the bottom of the mystery of why the house was haunted. She pulled open the top drawer, tugging hard on the handle when it stuck halfway open. She put her foot against the dresser and pulled again, falling backwards as the drawer finally gave up its treasure.
Jammed in the side of the drawer and caught along the runner was a packet of photos. Jess opened the packet, and they looked quickly through the photos. A young woman and some little children. A man and a woman. Some people sitting outside drinking and smoking. Most of the photos were coloured but faded. Some were black and white. Jess put them back in the packet and tucked it away in her pocket.
“Let’s look at these outside, in better light,” she said.
They each wandered away from the room, looking to see what else there was that could give them a clue. Mereana opened a wardrobe and found some old clothes, moth eaten and falling to pieces. Chloe pulled out an old suitcase and inside, found more photos, old cards and, in a rolled-up packet, some documents.
She said quietly to Mereana, “Look!”
“Oh,” said Mereana. “Look at this. It’s my dad’s birth certificate. It says Hoani and the right date of birth, but the wrong last name. Mother Heeni, father ... can’t read it.”
Together Chloe and Mereana sat on the floor and went slowly through the contents of the suitcase. Keri and Jess joined them, having found nothing else of interest. Totally engrossed, it took them a moment to notice that there were footsteps on the stairs, climbing slowly to where they were sitting in one of the bedrooms. They looked at each other, showing varying degrees of fear.
Chloe leapt up, dropping the papers, just as Heeni stepped through the door.