Tilly had that dumb look on her face that Wally hated and for a second I thought he was going to go across the room and spit on her as well.
‘And there’s a ghost,’ Wally said, ‘standing right there in the corner, looking at you.’ He pointed to the stove, where the black burn was. ‘It’s going to try and kill you. It’s going to strangle you when you’re sleeping, and then chop your hair off, and boil you up and bury you in the paddock. Just like Les did.’
Wally turned and sprinted out the door. I didn’t wait to see Helena’s reaction, just followed right behind him. I felt my legs buzzing, like I was going to shoot off into the sky. We ran down the stairs and didn’t slow down until we’d reached our yard. We stopped under the clothesline. There were dozens of wooden pegs on the line like little birds. Wally did a handstand in the grass, got back on his feet and crossed the yard. He kept touching his hand to his cheek, checking it was still there.
I felt excited, as though we’d just done something brave and grown up. I thought about what Wally had said about Dermott, and remembered what Helena had said about him at dinner all those months ago. I didn’t understand at the time, but I knew that what Wally had said wasn’t a lie. Helena and Tilly weren’t magic; they were just like us. They were rotten, just like us. I felt my body swell. I felt like Wally and I were connected for the first time in a long time, like I had a silver thread going from my fingertips into his. ‘Did you really see a ghost then?’ I said.
‘No,’ Wally said.
‘Why’d you say it?’
Wally shrugged, touched his hand to his face. I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I just said it.’ I could see Wally’s eyes start to shine, but when I looked right at him he turned away from me. ‘I just said it to scare her.’
Alone on my bed, my fizzy mood faded. Helena would come over and then we’d be in big trouble. After dinner I told Cassie what had happened at the yellow house, what Wally had said about Dermott. When I’d got it all out Cassie took a long drag of his cigarette. I thought he’d be mad, but all he did was blow smoke into the air, shrug like he didn’t even care.
‘So it’s true then?’ I said. ‘What Uncle Dermott did?’
‘Yeah.’ He went to butt out his smoke on the railing but it fell from his fingers and dropped over the side of the verandah.
‘Why would he do that? Why would he do that on purpose?’
‘I don’t know,’ Cassie said. ‘He went a bit weird after he found out about what Les had done. Was probably a bit weird before that as well. I don’t know. Mum reckons it was an accident. Maybe it was.’
‘How did Wally know?’ I said.
‘Wally just finds things out,’ Cassie said. ‘He just knows things.’
I leaned over the railing, watched the red tip glow until it snuffed out in the grass.
All afternoon I waited for Helena to come and tell on us to Mum and Dad, but she never did; she never even came out of the house, even when the wind blew and sounded like the sea, and a rickety gum fell flat across our yard and made the ground shake for a second as though it was going to crack right open. I’d started to feel a bit bad about what I’d done, what Wally had done, but not bad enough to say sorry, not bad enough to properly care. They deserved it. They’d been swanning around like princesses since they got here, acting like they were special when really they were pretenders.
I couldn’t stop watching the house, though, watching to see what they would do. After a while the lights in the windows switched off and the house went invisible in the dark, like there was no house there at all, like it had been sucked into the sky.
‘Where’s little kitty?’ Ian said, later that night on the verandah. I was lying on the floorboards. Cassie had told me to rack off but I didn’t want to move.
‘She’s been eaten by a fox,’ I said.
‘Shit,’ Ian said, laughed.
‘It’s not funny.’
‘It’s a bit funny.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘It’s not.’
Cassie told Ian what had happened, how Mango had gone missing and how I’d scratched up Tilly’s arm, and then what Helena had said to us in the kitchen, about us being animals. He didn’t mention what Wally had said to Tilly about Uncle Dermott. I don’t think Ian knew about that; it was the only thing Cassie was keeping from him.
‘Well, she’s right, isn’t she?’ Ian said.
‘Right about what?’ I said.
‘You’re all a bit mental.’
‘Are not.’
Ian nodded towards the yellow house. ‘Too bad you’re related,’ he said to Cassie. ‘She’s pretty hot for a cripple.’
‘Piss off,’ Cassie said.
Ian said that I should get revenge, do something to the yellow house that night.
‘Don’t give her ideas,’ said Cassie. ‘Especially not now. Not now that she’s like this.’
‘What am I like?’ I said. ‘I’m not like anything.’
‘Don’t be such a pussy,’ Ian said. ‘She needs to stand up for herself.’
‘Like what?’ I said. ‘What should I do?’
‘I don’t know,’ Ian said. ‘Chuck shit on the walls. Chuck guts on the walls.’
I didn’t want to chuck anything on the walls, and Cassie said that would make things worse for Wally and me, that he’d try to talk to Helena tomorrow and tell her we were sorry.
‘I’m not sorry,’ I said.
‘At least pretend you’re sorry then,’ Cassie said.
‘But I’m not.’
‘Just pretend.’
‘What are you going to say to her?’ I asked Cassie the next morning.
‘I don’t know,’ Cassie said as he buttoned up his shirt. He’d had a shower and smelled like Lynx. He brushed his teeth, gargled minty Listerine.
‘Make sure she doesn’t tell on us to Mum and Dad,’ I said.
‘I can’t make her do anything,’ Cassie said. ‘I’m just going to tell her you’re a pair of boofheads.’
I stood at the fence as Cassie walked across the yard. He seemed nervous, stumbled over a washing basket under the clothesline. I heard him swear, turn the basket the right way up. He stopped by a mess of scraggly flowers, yanked one from the grass.
He went up the steps and stood by the door for a while before knocking. A minute later Helena opened the door. I thought maybe he’d go inside, that Helena would invite him in and he’d be able to explain things properly. But Helena shut the door.
Cassie stood there for a second, then turned and thumped down the stairs, stormed across the yard. He kicked the washing basket and it blasted into the sky. When he got to the gate I could see his face was red, sweaty. The flower crumpled like a dirty tissue in his hand. He didn’t even look at me.
‘What happened?’ I said.
Cassie muttered something under his breath.
‘What did she say?’
‘What a fucking slut,’ Cassie said. ‘What a fucking user.’
Cassie walked past me and into the yard. He brushed past a shrubby tree and pulled off a branch, snapped it in two.
‘Tell me what she said.’ I jogged behind him as he strode to his car. ‘Is she going to dob?’
‘Get lost, Cub,’ he said.
I caught onto his shirtsleeve, tried to make him stop and listen to me. He turned around with the stick still in his hand. It struck me hard across my face, nearly got me in the eye. I felt my cheek burn and took a step back from him, my hands shielding my face. He dropped the stick, and for a second I thought he was going to say sorry, but he fumbled into his car and screeched down the driveway, disappeared in a cloud of brown dust. It sucked into my lungs and I could feel dirt clinging to my insides.