My breathing gets heavier. The breaths threaten to turn into sobs. I can hear Mum in Olivia’s room, checking on her. She closes Liv’s door and I silently beg her to come to my room next. Her footsteps head back downstairs. I want to cry, but I won’t. That Scotty jerk will NOT make me cry.

  So I don’t cry.

  But I also don’t sleep much that night.

  ‘What do you mean you don’t know where it is?’ Toby’s doing the shaking Chihuahua thing.

  I rang him first thing this morning to come over. At first, it felt better having him in my room and not being alone. But now that he’s shouting at me, I’m reconsidering the decision.

  ‘Don’t yell at me. It’s not my fault,’ I yell back. ‘It was here one minute and then it was gone. So that’s what I mean … I don’t know where it is!’

  ‘Well, it can’t have just disappeared. And now we have some crazy killer sneaking into bedrooms at night demanding back money that you’ve lost!’

  I roll my eyes at Toby. Whatever. He deserves it.

  ‘First of all, we don’t know that he’s a crazy killer.’

  ‘Well, he went to jail for something,’ Toby mutters under his breath.

  I ignore him. ‘And secondly, I didn’t lose the money.’

  ‘Do you know where it is?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then it’s lost!’

  Toby’s really starting to get on my nerves. The heat prickles at my neck. I hate that he’s the only one that can fire me up like this. I’m so angry with him I barely notice the door crack open. Olivia sticks her head in.

  ‘Are you guys okay?’ she asks.

  Toby paints on a fake smile. ‘We’re fine, Olivia. Just having a … discussion. Trying to work something out.’

  ‘Maybe I can help?’ she says quietly.

  My anger towards Toby is redirected at Olivia before I can stop it. I turn on her. ‘You can’t help, Olivia. Just leave us alone. This isn’t a little kid problem.’ I regret it instantly. The hurt on her face is hard to miss.

  Toby glares at me. ‘Tess!’

  Liv bites her lip. ‘It’s fine, Toby. I get it.’ There are tears in her eyes.

  ‘Liv, I’m sorry. I just …’ She pulls the door shut.

  Toby turns back on me. ‘Not cool, Tess.’

  ‘It’s your fault,’ I say, pushing my finger into his chest.

  ‘No, it’s not,’ he says calmly, and I hate him for how he can always keep his cool. ‘You need to go talk to her.’

  ‘I know,’ I say as I rub the back of my neck, begging it to cool down. ‘But right now, we have bigger problems.’

  Toby and I tear the house apart looking for the money – but find nothing. And we can’t ask anybody without giving ourselves away.

  ‘How much do we have on the card?’ Toby asks. ‘Maybe we can give him a bit while we find the rest?’

  I check the account online. ‘Only four hundred and eighty-nine dollars,’ I sigh. ‘Don’t think that’s going to buy us a lot of time.’

  I lean my head in my hands on the kitchen table. Dad’s out with Jake and Dane, Mum’s at work, Olivia’s in her room (still not talking to me) and Sash is around here somewhere. I have to say, I’m feeling pretty helpless. It’s not a feeling I’m familiar with.

  Toby puts his hand on my shoulder. ‘Maybe it’s time to tell someone, Tess?’

  I look up at him. I know we’ll be in so much trouble if we do, but what other option is there? ‘Maybe you’re …’

  BRING, BRING!

  The house phone scares the bejeebers out of me for two reasons. 1) I’m more than a little on edge and 2) that thing never rings. I don’t even know why we still have a landline.

  I pick up the phone. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Have you got my money?’ I recognise Scotty’s voice straightaway. How have I never noticed how creepy it is before now?

  ‘I swear I don’t know where it is. If I did, I’d give it back.’ I can hear that I sound scared. I don’t think I’ve heard my voice sound like that before. I try to shake it off. Toby leans in to listen too.

  ‘Don’t give me that crap!’ Scotty hisses down the phone at me. ‘Even a stupid little kid like you can’t lose a million bucks. Where is it?’

  ‘I don’t know!’ Now I can hear myself pleading. I have to pull it together. I mean, what’s he going to do, right? If I don’t have it, I don’t have it.

  ‘You need to listen to me very carefully, kid.’ Scotty’s voice lowers and calms. I find this even scarier. ‘I’ll give you till tomorrow afternoon to get me my money back, or else.’

  I want to ask, ‘Or else what?’, but I also don’t want to know.

  ‘Don’t forget, I know where you live. I know where your family lives. I don’t know what kind of guy you think I am, but I can tell you now, I’m the bad kind. I’m the kind your parents tell you to stay away from. The kind you should be very scared of.’

  I know this already. I remember the feeling of his fingers wrapped around my throat.

  ‘And I’m the kind of guy who wants his money back and will do whatever it takes to get it. I have no problem hurting people. So let me make this very clear. Are you listening?’

  I’m sure he can hear my panicked breathing over the phone but I manage to squeeze out a squeaky, ‘Yes.’

  ‘I want my money back by tomorrow. All of it. If you tell anyone, and I mean ANYONE – your parents, the cops, even that stupid pet dog of yours – I will come after your family. I know everything about you, Tess, and I know how to get you where it hurts. You have until five pm. Got it?’

  I don’t ‘got it’. I have no idea how I’ll get him any of his money, let alone all of it. But that’s something I’m going to have to work out later. Now, right now, he’s threatening my family. It’s one thing for me to be in trouble over all of this, but not them. I have no choice but to agree.

  ‘Yes. I got it.’

  Toby looks at me, shaking his head furiously. But what can I do?

  ‘Five pm tomorrow,’ Scotty spits down the phone and there’s a soft click.

  I slowly put the phone back on its cradle. Toby stares at me wide-eyed and trembles a little. I don’t have time for his Chihuahua impression right now.

  ‘But we don’t have the money,’ he says through a quivering bottom lip.

  ‘I know that, Toby.’

  ‘How are we going to …’ His voice trails off.

  ‘I don’t know yet. We need to make a plan.’ I force myself to shake off the terrible feeling bubbling inside of me. Plans are what I do best. It’s what we do best. We’ve out-thought our teachers and our parents before, and they all have more smarts in their little toes than Scotty does in his entire evil brain. Surely we can come up with something.

  Toby puts his hand on my arm. ‘We should tell someone. An adult. Maybe your parents or –’

  ‘No,’ I say sharply. ‘No adults. They’ll tell the police. And you heard what he said. If I tell anyone, he’ll come after my family. I won’t do that. You’re right, we should have told someone earlier, but we didn’t and now it’s too late. So it’s you and me, Toby, like it always is. We have to fix this.’

  ‘But this is big, Tess. I don’t think you and me is enough.’

  I don’t answer him. Partly because I don’t have time to argue. I have a plan to come up with. But mostly because I suspect he may be right. I do think Toby and I can outsmart Scotty, I do. But I also think we’ll need help. But it needs to be the right kind of help.

  * * *

  IT’S OKAY TO ASK FOR HELP.

  We don’t want to feel like we need help, right? We want to feel strong and smart and independent. And it’s not just ’cos we’re kids. Even adults need help sometimes, and they don’t always want to ask for it. But it’s always okay to ask for help from the people you love and trust. You’ll see it took me a bit to really understand this, but I thought I’d throw it in here because it’s a biggie.

  * * *

  We ask for Toby to stay over that night. I’m not going to lie, I’m a little scared, and having someone (even a Toby-someone) sleeping on the floor next to me sounds like a good idea.

  At dinner we eat in silence, which has to make Dad a bit suspicious. He tries to start conversations, but Toby and I are ‘somewhere else’ and Olivia’s still grumpy. I know I have to talk to her, but with everything that’s going on, maybe it’s better to have her keep her distance from me for now. Sash is leaning her head against her hand, which I know has a headphone secretly cupped inside. Dane’s head is buried in a carpentry magazine, and even Jake seems content chewing on a plate while his dinner sits turned upside down on the table. Mum’s at the theatre, of course.

  ‘Wow, so nice to have such a lively family dinner,’ Dad says sarcastically after his third attempt to start a conversation with little effect. I decide to take my chances.

  ‘Daaad,’ I say, drawing out his name while I decide how to put what I’m about to say. ‘I heard at school that the guy next door who got arrested by the police is out again.’

  Everyone’s heads spring up. Except Jake’s, he’s still chewing.

  ‘What?’ says Sash. ‘You mean he’s back next door to us? A murderer, next door?’

  ‘I should build some traps for protection,’ Dane pipes in. ‘That way if he ever steps a foot near our house, he’ll get strung up like a rabbit.’

  ‘He wouldn’t hurt us, would he?’ says Olivia quietly, cowering a little behind her chicken curry.

  ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa,’ Dad says, putting both his hands in the air. ‘Everyone just slow down. Yes, Scotty has managed to get himself released on bail, but you don’t need to worry. He’s on house arrest at his mum’s place in Terret Grove, and isn’t allowed anywhere near his place. Or ours!’

  He says this in a way that suggests it should be the end to both the conversation and our concern. I don’t think so! I look to Toby.

  ‘What’s house arrest, Mr Heckleston?’ Toby asks quietly. He’s trying to sound casual, but he’s a terrible actor.

  ‘It’s Alik, please, Toby,’ Dad says. ‘It means that he can’t leave the house, and his mum has to watch him.’

  ‘But he can leave the house, right?’ I say. ‘I mean, his mum’s not gonna stop him.’

  Dad must have picked up on the concern in my voice. ‘No, he can’t, Tess. He has an ankle monitor, so if he leaves the house the police will know about it and they’ll arrest him again.’

  Toby throws me a confused look and I give him a small shrug.

  ‘How does it work?’ I ask.

  Dane jumps in. ‘Haven’t you ever seen a cop movie? It’s this kind of black cuff that’s locked on his ankle with a GPS device inside. The cops set the area that he’s allowed in, like his mum’s house. If the ankle device leaves that area, an alarm goes off and the cops can track the device, find him and arrest him. Right, Dad?’

  Dad nods.

  ‘Can he turn it off?’ I ask.

  Dad laughs. ‘This isn’t a James Bond movie. No, he can’t turn it off.’

  ‘But he can take it off,’ says Sash. She turns her phone towards us. ‘See, there’s like a million videos on YouTube of how to remove an ankle monitor without setting it off.’

  ‘Stop it, Sash. Those videos aren’t real. It doesn’t work like that,’ says Dad. ‘Finish your dinner. Scotty isn’t coming anywhere near this place.’

  I poke at my chicken curry. I have a feeling Scotty’s probably watched a few YouTube videos in his life.

  ‘I know his mum’s house,’ says Dane. ‘Butthead and I pass it all the time when we deliver the pamphlets. I wonder if I’ll get a look at him?’

  ‘You just stay away from that place,’ warns Dad. ‘We’ll all be fine if we just mind our own business and leave it all to the police. Now, who wants some more curry?’

  I look around the table. Nobody has finished their first serving yet – Dad just wants to change the subject. I think maybe I do too.

  Toby and I don’t sleep well that night. We make plans. We throw away plans. We talk about telling someone. We talk about not telling anybody. We have long gaps where we don’t talk at all and I wonder if he’s fallen asleep.

  Then he says, ‘What if we –’ and another idea is suggested and discarded.

  I get up three times to make sure I’ve locked the window properly. I guess eventually we sleep, but it’s not a good sleep.

  I wake up early to find Toby’s already awake and scribbling in his notebook.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I say.

  He chews on his pen. ‘Just more ideas.’

  ‘Any good ones?’

  He shakes his head.

  I get up and go to the window again. It’s still locked. I gaze out into my backyard. At the clothesline where Dane strung Butthead up by a carabiner as Olivia giggled uncontrollably and Dane yelled, ‘Dog-Pan!’ At the trampoline where I jumped and watched Scotty over the fence when I should have minded my own business. At my treasure chest, where I found the … My breath catches.

  ‘Toby,’ I say, but it’s more of a whisper because my voice is stuck in my throat.

  ‘Yeah?’

  I wave him over. Toby stands next to me and I point down to the backyard. There on my treasure chest sits a can of soft drink with a twenty tucked into it. We look at each other, and run downstairs without a word.

  I knock the can aside and open the lid of the chest. It’s empty except for a yellow envelope. I don’t think I want to know what’s inside, but I force my hand to reach in and take it. As Toby peers over my shoulder, I pull out a piece of notepaper and what looks like a page from a newspaper. I unfold the note first. It reads:

  MAYBE SHE KNOWS WHERE THE MONEY IS? 5PM TODAY.

  I can’t make sense of the message, but my hands shake a little as I unfold the newspaper article. There, staring back at me, is the picture of Kooky Kathy. She’s beaming at the camera, shaking hands with the Guide Dog man. Just my luck, Scotty is the only person in Watterson who reads this stupid paper.

  Toby makes a small whimpering sound in my ear. ‘Kathy!’ he says. ‘Scotty has Kathy.’

  We tear through the house, ignoring Dad’s insistence that we ‘slow down and have some breakfast’.

  ‘We’ll be back in a sec, Dad. We’ll have something then!’ I yell as we pull on our shoes.

  ‘Where are you going?’ he insists.

  ‘Just to Brennan Park. Early morning walk. Fresh air and all that,’ I say, hoping he will just drop it.

  ‘Okay, but make sure you eat when you get back,’ he says.

  Toby and I sprint to Brennan Park and down to the Lego house. We bang on the wall.

  ‘Kathy! Kathy!’ Toby yells. He’s starting to panic. I am too, but I’m trying not to show it. ‘What if he has her? What if he’s hurt her?’

  A thick feeling of guilt starts to swirl in my belly and rise up to my throat. I’ve only vomited once before, when I had some weird stomach bug in Year Three, but it felt a little like this. Can you vomit from guilt?

  Then I hear a sound that pushes the feeling right back down again. It’s ‘Three Little Birds’ by Bob Marley, sung slightly out of key. We duck around behind the Lego house and there, on the bench underneath a huge jacaranda tree, Kathy is sitting cross-legged, strumming her guitar. Her terrible singing has never sounded so good.

  I squeeze Toby’s shoulder as we walk over to her.

  ‘Elvis. Lennon. You two look highly strung. All that money not making you happy?’ She smiles a knowing smile at us and although I’m glad she’s okay, I’m not a big fan of that smile. It feels like an ‘I told you so’ smile. She quickly switches her song to ‘I Can’t Get No Satisfaction’, and I try to ignore the irony.

  Toby gives her an awkward hug. It squishes the guitar between them but Kathy doesn’t seem to mind.

  ‘We’re so glad you’re okay!’ he says.

  ‘Why wouldn’t I be okay?’ she asks.

  ‘It’s just that … well, we thought …’ Toby looks at me.

  I pause. Scotty said not to tell anyone. But who’s Kooky Kathy going to tell, right? And she already knows about the money. I feel like maybe if we have someone else to talk to, it might help us work out what to do. I won’t tell her everything, just enough to get some advice.

  ‘Well,’ I begin. ‘So you know that money …’

  Before I know it, it’s like someone has turned on a tap and I can’t turn it off. My dad would call it ‘verbal diarrhoea’. The story gushes out of me like it’s wanted to be free for a long time. Every detail. From the first twenty dollars Scotty gave me, to the newspaper article in the treasure chest and the panicked sprint to the park. And when I finish, I feel lighter somehow.

  ‘Well, you’ve certainly got yourself into a bit of a pickle, haven’t you?’ Kathy says as she plucks a few notes on the guitar.

  ‘So what do you think we should do?’ Toby asks.

  ‘How would I know?’ says Kathy.

  Toby and I stare at each other. Adults always tell you what you should do. That’s what they’re there for, right? I mean, it’s their job. I know Kathy’s kind of out there, but she’s still an adult.

  ‘Do you think we should tell someone?’ Toby asks.

  ‘He said you can’t, or else he’d hurt your family,’ Kathy answers unhelpfully.

  ‘You think we should have told someone about the money when we first found it, don’t you?’ I say.

  ‘Coulda, shoulda, woulda. It’s a bit late for that, isn’t it?’ Kathy leans on her guitar. ‘You can’t change the past, so you have to find solutions for the future.’

  I’m finding her riddles particularly annoying today.

  ‘Look, you two are the smartest kids I know. You’re probably the smartest people I know. Me? I live in a park. I’ve made more mistakes than anyone. So I’m not going to tell you what you should do. I don’t even tell Mr Piddles what to do.’

  ‘But we don’t know,’ I say, admitting it out loud for the first time. ‘We need help.’

  ‘Then get help,’ Kathy says.

  ‘From who?’ Toby asks.

  ‘From other smart people. From people who you trust. People who have your back. People who care about the same things as you. Everybody’s got their people. And you've gotta help your people.’

 

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