Page 19 of Serenity Falls

Story of my life, I think.

‘You’ve given us no option. We’re lucky his parents aren’t suing the school.’

Still, I sit there.

I may well have stayed there till morning if my phone hadn’t suddenly beeped. I pick it up.

Motion detected in back yard.

I frown. What? I downloaded the security app while the pizza was cooking but I hadn’t got round to setting up an account.

The phone beeps again.

Motion detected in back yard.

Sometimes I miss the days when technology didn’t nag you.

I tap the message. A slightly fuzzy video image fills the screen.

It’s gone 10 p.m. and pretty dark out, but I can just see the back yard, the pool … and a figure standing in front of it. A figure dressed in a furry Armadillo costume, holding a bunch of balloons.

I swallow. I imagine the costume is still wet. Dripping wet.

There’s something else.

A sign has been hung around the figure’s neck:

No accident.

7

Sadie goes to sleep pissed off.

She tosses and turns, dreaming about a giant armadillo walking across the pool, actually walking on the water, holding a huge bunch of brightly coloured balloons. She can’t move or shout out because, if she does, the spell will break and he’ll fall in. The armadillo reaches up and pulls its furry head off and, inside the costume, it’s Grandma, her face a decaying death mask, white bone poking through ruined skin, teeth like yellowed fangs. Her black lips stretch in a grotesque grin: ‘Once you’re here, you’re here to stay!’

She starts awake. Grandma and armadillo melt away into the ether. Sunshine streams through the curtains. Outside she can hear birds singing, and the smell of bacon is drifting up from downstairs.

She is still pissed off.

But maybe not quite so pissed off as last night. She probably shouldn’t have shouted at Dad like that. None of this is his fault. He’s trying his best. Like he always does. And now she feels guilty.

‘Urgh.’

She sits up in bed. A giant king-size, way bigger than her bed back home, which was only a measly single. But then, everything here is bigger, brasher. A tiny part of her has to admit that the bed is super comfortable and the bedroom – if it was painted a different colour and she got rid of the stupid billowing drapes around the four poster – could be kind of nice.

Still doesn’t make up for a dead guy in the swimming pool, though.

Although at least you have a swimming pool, a small voice chides. I mean, First World problems.

She checks her phone for the time: 8.25 a.m. She’s surprised. She thought she’d wake up earlier, what with the jet lag and time difference, but aside from stirring briefly around 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. and some weird dreams, she’s slept through.

She swings her legs out of bed. Above her, the giant wooden ceiling fan stirs the air around. There’s aircon, too, which has kept the room at a pleasant twenty-one degrees. Her bedroom back home (or what used to be home) was always too stuffy in summer or freezing cold in winter, even with the cranky old iron radiator turned up to full. It crosses her mind again that this isn’t a temporary luxury. Not like staying in a fancy hotel (not that they’ve ever stayed in fancy hotels). But this, this is their life now.

Dead body in pool.

Cool ceiling fan.

Pros and cons, right?