chapter 19


"I can't," Sally said grimly. "I just can't tell you what's worrying me. Don't you see, Lance? Thinking aloud so that you can hear is EXACTLY the same as lagging."

Sally and Lance sighed together. In perfect synchronisation, without either of them being aware of it, each put their elbows on their knees and their chin in their hands, Sally sitting on the rocks and keeping a wary distance from the water, Lance sitting on the banks of the river surrounded by his fishing gear.

Sally could see no way round the problem. The Phillips brothers had warned her that they'd drown Milko if she lagged about them kidnapping him. She was a very honest little girl and it never crossed her mind that they had no way of finding out. She owed Milko. Even though he'd turned against her, he'd been her best friend when there'd been nobody else.

She sighed again. There was so much to worry about that she wasn't quite sure where to stop worrying about one problem and start worrying about the next. She'd dropped Mrs Martha running away from the Phillips brothers and poor Mrs Martha would be so frightened all by herself and poor Pippa frantic with worry when she learnt Mrs Martha was lost. And Colleen, Lance's Mum, would be so worried when she saw Lance hadn't eaten all his sandwiches. And what if Lance began to worry about everything he ate making his breath smell, like Sally had warned him that cheese and onion would, so stopped eating altogether and wasted away and became as thin as Milko? Everybody would be so worried about him.

Funnily enough, it didn't occur to Sally for a second that anyone might be worried about Sally herself.

Lance racked his brains and wished he had more of 'em. Then he might be able to piece it together. He was sure Sally's problem had something to do with Milko. Sally had been pretty cagey about Milko when he'd asked her how he was these days. She had only primly replied As well as can be expected under the circumstances, thank you when normally she loved talking about him.

The sunlight glistened on Lance's watch, to his horror showing exactly the same time that it had done last time he looked at it. The watch battery he still hadn't got round to replacing must have finally given up the ghost.

"Sweet Jee..." He jumped up, dropping the fishing rod in his haste, about to swear, but stopping himself. Serious little Sally would be shocked.

"Jumpin' jellybeans!" He amended. He was meant to be meeting Steven - and impressing Kathy Murray - at Summer Bay Town Hall for the dress rehearsal for the talent contest.

"Why did you say that?" Sally asked curiously.

"My watch stopped. Ages ago," Lance explained, sitting back down again, deciding a few more minutes wouldn't matter. Sally was more important and Steven would understand.

"No, I mean about the jelly beans. Jelly beans don't jump. Do they?" Sally liked facts to be correct, everything in the place it should be. "Pippa took me to Mrs Parker's Ye Olde Summer Bay Lolly Shoppe and I saw some jelly beans in the jar there. They weren't jumping. Were they supposed to?" She frowned anxiously.

"No, Sal. It's only an expression."

"Oh!" The little girl sounded very disappointed. "I was hoping they did. And that maybe people had to jump too if they saw them jumping. Like you did just now. You know, for luck or something."

Lance was a strong man who didn't cry easily, who laughed at the slushiest moments in tear-jerking movies and mercilessly teased those who would weep over nothing at the drop of a hat. But he felt tears prick the back of his eyes. She was eight years old and so much tragedy had blighted her young life. She needed to be eight. To laugh at nonsense like other eight-years-old could.

"Well, you know, Sal, who's to say jumpin' jelly beans don't exist?" He said gently. "After all, somebody must have said it first for a reason. So I think somewhere in the world there MUST be jumpin' jelly beans and there MUST be folk jumpin' for luck when they see them."

It did the trick. A smile lit up Sally's face.

Lance looked at the angry red scar and the dried-out tear streaks on her dirt-smudged face. Poor little mite. She needed to laugh more. Well, he was going to make darn sure she did.

"Anyhows, I better get on with practising my singing. First though need to clear my throat..." Lance twirled his ears with his fingers as though winding up an engine and began making strange noises that might have been an engine in trouble or a lion with a sore throat.

Sally giggled. Childish giggles, filled with fun and mischief. Probably the first time she'd truly laughed since before her parents drowned.

"More! More!" She pleaded, as, spluttering with coughs, Lance finally had to pause to catch his breath.

Lance grinned and obligingly launched into a peculiar gargling not unlike a water pipe about to burst, while rolling his eyes exaggeratedly and pumping his ears. Sally laughed heartily and knelt up on the rock, silver tears rolling down her cheeks. Happy tears. She wiped them away only for yet more to take their place.

And then a shadow suddenly crossed the little girl's face and she stopped laughing and sank down in dejection.

"Frank! Sally's over here!" Steven roared from the top of the rock face, the strange gargling noises having alerted him to where to look. He turned back, grinning. "Found you at last!"

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"Pippa, I'm sorry," Carly gulped, as they stood in the waiting area, having left Lynn sleeping.

The words were so inadequate. She might have meant them but what did that do to make things any better? Poor Pippa was white as a sheet and still running her fingers frantically through her hair. It was only thanks to the skills of the medical staff at the Northern District Hospital that Lynn hadn't died. And Sally was still missing. Anything could have happened to her.

Carly and Lynn had been located easily enough thanks to Zammo's directions, but Sally seemed to have vanished into thin air. The SES helicopter was searching the beach area and Tom was up there with them, helping to look. There wasn't room for anyone else and Tom had trained with the SES so Pippa had gone with Lynn and Carly to the hospital because somebody needed to be with Lynn too.

Pippa worked part-time as a nurse at the same hospital and some of her friends and colleagues were gathered round her. Carly stood on the fringe of the group. Even though nobody actually said anything, she could feel their disapproval. It was all a terrible, terrible mess and she wanted to break down and weep. But she couldn't. She had to be strong because she was on her own now. Forever and ever and ever. She'd thrown away her last chance. It was going to be so lonely, not having anyone again, but it was her own fault. All she'd cared about was the drinking.

Carly suddenly felt the need to retch again. She'd never felt so crook. Hangovers were awful but this was one was worse than ever. A nurse had given her one of the standard hospital cardboard containers in which to be sick, but she couldn't bear to be here with Pippa anymore, not after she'd broken her heart.

She pushed open the double doors and fled outside, to where a handful of cigarette addicts were getting their nicotine fixes, puffing clouds of blue smoke into the sea-cooled air. Carly heard someone click their tongue loudly as she threw up noisily and unprettily all over the grass and knew everyone would be staring at her in disgust. It was obvious that she'd been drinking. She could hardly stand straight and her breath reeked of alcohol.

Determined not to see the contempt in their eyes, she blinked back the tears as she looked up at the familiar sign "Northern District Hospital Caring for people from the Bay to the Breakers".

Sometimes Carly had caught the Yabbie Creek bus and met Pippa here as her foster mother came off her nursing shift. On beautiful days like this, filled with sunshine and breezes, they would have taken the short cut across the beach to Summer Bay, enjoying the sun's gentle warmth and the sweet kisses of the breeze, talking about anything and everything.

Carly would feel so proud when Pippa sought her advice about the younger girls, even when it was just little things such as whether Lynn and Sally might prefer jelly and ice cream or lemon meringue with dinner. Her own family had always dismissed her as too stupid to have ideas and opinions about anything. Well, Pippa asking her advice would never happen again. Drunks didn't know anything, did they? Drunks couldn't even look after their two younger sisters without putting both their lives in danger.

Carly turned away, blinded by the tears she was trying so desperately hard not to cry. She needed to be on her own for a while. Didn't matter where she went. Somewhere she couldn't hurt anyone anymore. Maybe she would just sit on a bench in the hospital grounds till it was night and the moon was high, till it was time for the social workers to come and collect her. Pippa and Tom would have her bags ready packed by then and be only too glad to know she was gone out of their lives forever.

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Sally took a deep breath. Steven hadn't been the Steven she was used to. He hadn't teased her once. Well, not yet. In fact, if Sally hadn't known better, she'd have thought he even seemed glad when he said he was glad she was okay. He seemed like the Steven she thought she'd seen for a moment before she'd lit the match, the day she'd been trying to make him go away. Almost like...well, almost like they could be friends.

A helicopter, probably checking out the weather conditions, was circling over the sea and Steven was looking up at it. And Lance and Frank were busy talking. So Sally took a deep breath. It had been on her mind a while. But she wouldn't have dared say it to the old Steven.

"Steven, we could swap," Sally said, as they walked along.

"What?"

"I don't know if it would work or not. I don't know if it would make it go away. But I'm not scared of fire and you're not scared of the sea so if I pretended to be scared of fire and you pretended to be scared of the sea, maybe...maybe...It's a stupid idea," she finished lamely, wishing she hadn't said anything now.

Steven was just looking at her without saying anything. He was probably going to start calling her silly Sally again and sing that cruel song about her living in an alley to make her cry. And the terrible sea was thundering closer and closer. She could hear it rushing through her ears and there was no Milko to tell her everything would be alright. She closed her eyes as the ground began to rock beneath her...

"No, it's not," Steven said huskily, when at last he found his voice. There was a lump so large in his throat that he'd begun to wonder if he'd ever be able to speak again. Nobody else knew his greatest fear but little Sally, whom he'd bullied constantly simply because she could cry and he couldn't, had seen right through him. And even wanted to help.

It was just a little kid idea. Based on magic and superstition and everything else that anklebiters believed in as much as they believed in the myth of Father Xmas. But Sally wasn't so far wrong, Steven realised. If they supported each other instead of being enemies, they could help each other overcome their fears.

"You know, it just might work," he said gently. "We could give it a go anyway. It's a great idea!"

He squeezed Sally's shoulder as he spoke and, without thinking, Sally opened her eyes. There was no water coming inland to sweep her away. No sound of the terrible sea rushing through her ears. No ground rocking beneath her. As though just talking to Steven had made it all go away.

"Is it?" She smiled uncertainly.

"Dead set!"

Sally's smile became a little more sure. It was the first time she and Steven had ever had a proper conversation and she didn't know if at any moment he was going to turn into the old Steven again.

Frank began strumming a tune and she glanced curiously back, wondering why Steven had been carrying the guitar when they'd first found she and Lance. Frank never let anyone take the guitar normally.

"Are you...are you going to play guitar?" She asked, still slightly wary of him. "And be in a band? Like Frank?"

"I can't play even half as well as Frank, Sal. Wish I could!"

"I bet you can!" Sally said loyally, and giggled when Steven flicked her hair and said "No, I can't, doofus!" But in a nice way, a way that made her laugh.

Steven grinned down at her. Sally was funny. It was cool having a kid sister. Someone who thought you could do anything. It was like...he didn't know how to tell it. All he knew was that it was somewhere in the music that had come from nowhere into his heart.

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Tears misting her vision, Carly turned abruptly - and immediately collided with someone coming up the path.

"Hey! I love it when chicks fall for me in a big way! Jen's sister just dropped us off so's we could come to see how you and Lynn were," Zammo grinned, steadying her. Then he saw how upset she was. "Hey! You okay?" he asked.

"Fine," Carly croaked. "Just feeling a bit crook with the drink, s'all."

"Your Mum's shouting you." Jenny indicated to where Pippa waited by the double doors.

"Pippa's not my Mum. Not my real Mum," Carly corrected sadly, wiping a hasty hand across her eyes. "I wish she could be. I wish a lot of things hadn't happened."

"It'll be okay, Carl. It will," Zammo said, his brown eyes full of concern. He didn't know what else to say.

"Sure it will," Jenny promised. "You've got your mates, haven't you? You've got us."

Carly swallowed. That was another thing she'd miss. Without realising it, she'd made some good friends in Summer Bay. When she wasn't drinking, she could actually be a nice person. Even Carly hadn't known that Carly existed.

"Carly, what's wrong? Where are you going?" Pippa had caught up with her and looked baffled.

"I don't know." Carly's voice was a strange, tearful squeak. "Wherever the social workers place me next. Because you...you and Tom...I know you can't have me stay now...Not after everything..."

"Pippa! Pippa!"

Like one of her own small pupils might do, Kathy Murray threw her car keys in the air, clapped her hands twice and caught them again, so stoked she hardly knew where she was or what she was doing. She didn't know how, when or where she'd put the car in the parking lot, let alone whether or not she'd locked the doors. In fact, if you'd asked Kathy what her own name was at that moment, I very much doubt she'd have been able to tell you.

"I just heard it on the car radio! Sally's been found! They said Tom radioed back to HQ and said she's with her two older brothers and a friend and she's absolutely fine!"

"Oh, thank God!" Pippa said, flinging her arms round Carly, while Zammo and Jenny high-fived each other in delight.

Carly drew a great shuddering breath.

"Yeh. Thank God. I was hoping and hoping and hoping I'd hear Sal was alright before I went back into Care," she muttered into Pippa's shoulder.

And then the tears finally fell. The tears Carly had sworn she'd never let anyone see her cry, they soaked through, drenching Pippa's left shoulder. If only she hadn't ruined everything and had been able to stay, she'd have let Sally have as many invisible Milkos as she wanted and Lynn go to church as often as she liked. She wouldn't have teased them about it anymore. Well, no more than older sisters did. With slightly exasperated humour and heaps of love and without the cruelty and acid-tongued put-downs.

The drink must have still been befuddling her brain. Carly suddenly had a peculiar picture in her mind of hundreds of Milkos - Lynn had told her what he looked like, based on a description Sally had given her once so her image of Milko, it has to be said, was pretty accurate - gathered, like a flock of birds, on the Fletcher house roof. Why they were on the roof, Carly had no idea, but one by one they were jumping down, half to follow Lynn and Sally who were walking to a church, the other half protesting and trying to start fights with their saintly brothers. The image made Carly want to both laugh and cry at the same time.

Of all the Fletcher kids, most people would have thought stunningly beautiful Carly the most confident. But Pippa had seen the flashes of vulnerability behind the always-carefully-made-up eyes and knew that Carly needed as much reassurance as eight-year-old Sally did. Outwardly self-assured, inside she still trembled like a leaf, remembering the harrowing memories of her childhood. Small wonder she had turned to drink to blot out the pain. Pippa held her eldest daughter as tightly as she would have held her youngest.

"Carly, tell me where it says that family just give up on one another. Because I never read it anywhere." Pippa spoke to her as tenderly as though she were talking to little Sally. "Sweetheart, family is about having a home and a place where you belong."

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The guitar playing suddenly picked up speed.

"Nobody loves me, everybody hates me, guess I'll go eat worms! Long, thin, slimy ones, big, fat, juicy ones..." Frank and Lance began the singing, their voices blended in perfect harmony even though it was a nonsense song.

"I know it! I know it!" Sally cried excitedly, innocently unaware that Lance and Frank had just hatched the plot between them, knowing perfectly well it was one of Sally's school songs. It was one of several songs that Summer Bay Primary liked to blast out at every end-of-term show while proud parents dabbed their eyes and gave standing ovations, oblivious to the fact no one had sung in tune.

Like Steven, Lance and Frank had noticed the helicopter with SES emblazoned across its side and realised they must be looking for little Sally. But they realised too that there would only be room for one small girl inside the helicopter and how timid Sally was. The nonsense songs had been Lance's idea.

"We better make it into a game for her," Lance had said, "or Sal will think she's being arrested for running away. Fortunately, it don't take a genius to figure out she's running away from something 'cos I ain't no genius," he added wryly.

"You know about kids though," Frank said, half enviously. Sally was his kid sister, but it hadn't occurred to him to tread softly. He'd been all set to yell out "She's here!" and probably terrify poor little Sally into the bargain till Lance made his suggestion.

"Not everything," Lance sighed.

He still hadn't discovered what was troubling Sally though he was convinced Milko had something to do with it. And that the Phillips brothers had something to do with it too. Frank had told him that Scott Phillips had been throwing Sally's doll around when they came across him. Sometimes Lance wished he did have the mind of a professor. Like Steven. Who'd glanced at Lance and Frank for a moment and taken only a second to work out their plan.

"Down goes the first one, down goes the second one, oh, how they wriggle and squirm! Up comes the first one, up comes the second one, oh, how they wriggle and squirm!"
Steven and Sally joined in, losing the tune and words often because they both kept looking at each other and laughing.

Unbeknown to Sally, while Steven was keeping her occupied with the singing, Lance and Frank were signalling to the helicopter. But the SES pilot indicated back that there was nowhere yet to land. They needed to move further away from the rocky, half hidden fishing area - the reason it had taken so long to locate Sally - and get on to the beach, where there would be plenty of space.

They reached the end of the first nonsense song and Frank immediately led them into another, one that he had often sung with the Fletcher family when he'd been trying to teach them some basic guitar notes.

"Where have you been all day, 'En'ery, my son? Where have you been all day, my beloved one?"

Laughing, the others quickly picked up the words.

"Woods, dear mother, woods, dear mother, oh, mother, come quick cos I feel very sick and I wanna lay down and die..."

People on the beach stopped and stared. Surfers abandoned surf boards and perfect waves and came out of the water to stand and watch the strange sight of the motley band of singers and the helicopter that tailed them.

"What did you do there, 'En'ery, my son? What did you do there, my beloved one? Ate, dear mother, ate, dear mother, oh, mother, come quick cos I feel very sick and I wanna lay down and die..."

Suddenly realising they were the centre of attention, Sally blushed and buried her face in Mrs Martha's yellow woollen hair.

"Don't stop, Sal, don't stop!" Lance said, wrapping his arm round her and propelling her forwards with him. "I just heard someone say we must be making a commercial or a movie so let's have a lend of them and pretend we are! It'll be funny!" Lance's voice boomed back into the song.

"Ate, dear mother, ate ,dear mother, oh, mother come quick, cos I feel very sick and I wanna lay down and die!"

Lance was right. It was funny that all these people thought they were making a movie. Funny like folk jumping when they saw jumping jelly beans. And she was quite safe with Steven, Lance and Frank. Even the terrible sea couldn't hurt her.

Feeling more confident as Lance took her hand, Sally grinned up at him and began singing again.

Steven suddenly felt a cold draught as Frank fell into step beside him.

"This is for the benefit of Sal," Frank said in a low menacing voice, his eyes blazing with fury. "But you still owe me for taking my guitar. And, trust me, Einstein, there's gonna be payback."