The Gaps

well. Serial killers, rapists, paedophiles, pornographers, public masturbators, flashers, angry guys we ghosted, creepy uncles, online stalkers.
‘The woman asked a lot of questions about her phone,’ Claire adds. ‘I thought maybe it’s missing?’
‘Yin had that silly cover she bought on Etsy, remember?’ Milla ventures a private smile to her friend, but something else is occurring to Claire.
‘Mil, did you message her that night?’ she says. ‘I did. I was asking about orchestra practise.’
Milla nods with wide eyes.
‘Imagine if he read your messages.’ Teaghan can barely hide how titillated this new idea makes her. ‘The kidnapper, I mean. He could be reading your private, personal messages, right now on Yin’s phone. Or looking at photos of you.’
Fresh horror on Milla and Claire’s faces. If I had a history of participation at Balmoral this is probably where I’d step in and tell Teaghan to stop being such a vulture. I look across at Lisbeth, and can see she’s thinking a similar thing. Natalia stabs her biro into the ground.
Teaghan must sense the tide threatening to turn against her, because she adds, ‘I mean, I’m just so distressed. Mum says we’re going to have PTSD from this.’
‘I’ve been thinking,’ someone says. ‘The man that’s keeping Yin has his hands full at the moment. So, in a way, we’re safer than ever.’
‘I heard that they were using GPS to track where she went,’ chimes in someone else.
‘Where did you hear that?’ Natalia sits up sharply, instantly alert, alert all along. Her eyes flash. I’m reminded of a predator moving into position. I lean as far forwards as I can without falling off the wall, Lisbeth too. Something awful builds in the quadrangle.
It’s easy to want something to happen, anything, even a fight. Something to break the tension, a wave to crash over us, letting us know that, yes, disaster has really struck.
The girl who made the comment—Tara or Kara or something like that—clearly regrets speaking. One word from Natalia, one look even, can cut some of these girls to ribbons.
‘Online,’ Tara/Kara mutters eventually. ‘Someone set up a private group. People are saying what they know, what they’ve heard. The teachers have been told not to talk to us, so how else are we supposed to figure out what’s going on?’
‘Did you write that email?’ someone calls out.
The girl closest to Lisbeth and I says in a low voice to her friend, ‘I’m going to walk home a different way every day. In case I’m being watched.’
‘Say whatever you want in your group.’ Natalia stands. ‘Send around those pointless chain emails, I don’t care. She’s not coming back.’
More than a few mouths are open. A gust of wind tears through the trees, jangling leaves, jangling nerves. I haven’t heard anything about a chain email, but it doesn’t surprise me that I’d be left out of the loop.
‘How would you know, Natalia?’ Teaghan demands. ‘Have you got some special line to the police?’
Natalia may be short and slight, but she commands everyone’s attention easily. ‘The GPS thing doesn’t make any sense. If police knew where she was, they would have rescued her days ago, they wouldn’t wait. If they knew anything, they’d be talking. Do you know how long it’s been? She’s not coming home.’
‘We know how long it’s been!’ Claire manages to get these last words out before dissolving into tears.
Milla cradles Claire’s head on her shoulder, her face crumpled. ‘Why are you such a bitch, Natalia? Why can’t you be nice?’
Sarah gasps at that, gasps so hard I almost laugh at the melodrama of it. People talking back to Natalia: it was like a solar eclipse. It hardly ever happened.
Natalia’s voice is calm but her hands are clenched. ‘You’re all thinking exactly the same thing. Don’t pretend you’re not.’ She stands up and her friends stand with her. ‘Eighty-eight hours and counting. That’s too long. Time to face facts. I’m the only person with the guts to say it.’
No one speaks.
I can see Natalia’s chest rising and falling, even from here.
The wind does a lap of the quadrangle, scattering plastic wrappers and paper bags. Sarah clamps her hands over her shiny hair.
The anger melts off Natalia’s face and something else, another expression, is visible for a split second before she covers it up. Then her face hardens and she mutters to herself and turns away.
‘Huh,’ says Lisbeth.
Even though Lisbeth has cochlear implants in both ears, she still lip-reads at times. I don’t ask her what she’s seen. If she wanted to tell me, she would.
The bell rings.
Everyone disperses slower than usual. I jump off the wall and brush off my skirt. There’s a strange sensation in my mouth, like it's full of words I might actually let out at school.
Lisbeth says, ‘It doesn’t seem real, does it? It’s like a nightmare. I’ve been praying a lot.’
I can’t think of a reply to that, so I ask a question. ‘Do you think she’ll get released?’
‘I read about something that happened in America. Three girls were held in a basement for eleven whole years before they escaped, all of them alive. It gave me some hope.’
I’m not sure that being imprisoned for eleven years is preferable to being dead and at rest, and I don’t even believe in heaven. Lisbeth and I drift towards the breezeway door, waiting for a flood of Year Eights to pass through.
‘Do you know what email they were talking about?’ I stop for a moment, to speak face to face. Lisbeth has told me that noisy, open places don’t work for her.
‘I got it last night, I’ll send it to you.’ Lisbeth holds onto her red lunchbox and smiles. ‘See you in Japanese, Chloe.’
I say goodbye and dump the rest of my sandwich into the bin. On the way to English I count how many people would notice if I never showed up to school again. I do not need to use more than one hand.
Lisbeth is true to her word. Halfway through English an email comes through. I