Dead End High

Adam didn’t see Robyn again that afternoon. He heard that she went home early. Daisy approached him just before school finished for the day. ‘So are you still going to follow Miss Casey to see where she goes tonight?’

‘Yep.’

‘Be careful won’t you?’ She looked him right in the eye with a look of concern.

‘Of course,’ Adam replied, delighted that she cared. She had never shown that sort of interest in him before.

‘Hey, Adam...’ she said, before she left, ‘What do you think of the new girl, Robyn?’

Adam hesitated. ‘She’s ok, I guess.’

‘You guess?’

‘Yeah. Nice enough. No big deal though.’ He didn’t want Daisy thinking he thought too highly of Robyn.

Daisy smiled. ‘Well I’ll catch you tomorrow.’ She rolled her fingers and walked away.

Adam watched her go. For the first time in his life, he was feeling good about himself. The one girl he really fancied was finally talking to him as if he was a friend. He almost dared hope that she was accepting him for who he was and not just because he had come into money.

There was no way of knowing whether Miss Crazy was even still on the school grounds. He started to get a case of the nerves as he wandered over to the staffroom and began to hope that maybe she had gone home. The thought of shadowing another person seemed a little intimidating. What if she caught him? That would put him in an embarrassing situation.

He paused to look at the new pavilion again, still standing there in all its glory. He shook his head a few times, trying to think back, considering that maybe he had suffered some kind of memory loss. Could this be another side effect of his recovery from the illness? Seeing things that weren’t really there… or in this case, not seeing something that really was there. It made no sense at all. Why would he only see the foundations and not the rest of the building?

Adam froze when he saw Miss Crazy emerge from the staffroom. He hid behind the corner of the new pavilion and watched as she began to walk towards the main exit of the school. Once she moved on ahead, he followed from a safe distance, ensuring a hiding place was nearby at all times.

Adrenalin pumped through Adam’s veins. The last time he had ever done anything so exciting was when he was eleven years old. He and Darren had been following a teenager and his girlfriend. When the older boy caught them spying, they made a run for it. But he caught them within seconds. Adam shuddered to think what might happen if Miss Crazy caught him, especially if she had anything to do with those kids disappearing. She’d know he suspected her and then he’d be moved to the top of her list of targets. She might even have a gun or other type of weapon on her.

She continued her walk down the pathway, seemingly oblivious to his actions. Adam moved along from one property to the next, trying to keep himself hidden. At one point he thought he had been seen. She started to turn, to look behind her, so he dove through the gate of somebody’s section, hitting the concrete of the driveway hard, scraping his bare leg in the process. He winced, but held back a cry of pain in case she heard him from down the road. When he peaked over the fence of the section, she was crossing the road looking towards the next intersection.

She turned right - down Stanley Ave. There was a workshop for motor vehicles and he knew a short cut leading from a parallel street. If he moved fast enough, it would take him out just ahead of where she was walking.

He ran as quickly as he could across Pungaru St into Shakespeare and headed towards the back entrance of the garage. It was deserted apart from a few rusted-out cars and lots of junk lying around. Why it would be deserted at this time of the day, Adam had no clue, but he had no time to investigate. In seconds he navigated his way through to the front side of the garage. Behind a pile of tyres, he watched as Miss Crazy walked in his direction.

As she passed by his hiding place, his shoulder knocked a tyre that jutted out over the others. It fell to the ground, bounced and rolled along the ground where it stopped near the main entrance to the yard.

Miss Crazy stopped walking and jerked her head over to the fallen tyre. Adam ducked down as low as he could, expecting to be discovered at any moment. He held his breath, listening to the click of her heels as she came to investigate. Peeking through a gap in the tyres, he saw her trying to work out what happened. Finally, she shrugged, turned and continued along the path.

Adam breathed easy.

Miss Crazy crossed the road, making a beeline for a very nice brick house, surrounded by a knee-high wooden fence. Adam recognised it as the house of Dora Collins. Without ceremony, she opened the gate and walked towards the front door.

Adam expected her to knock, but she didn’t. She opened the door and walked straight in. He rose to his feet, confused. Why would she be entering the Collins house like that? Was she living there?

He scanned the area to see if anyone else had seen her enter, but the streets appeared deserted, so he hurried across the road and ducked behind a tree, hoping desperately she wasn’t looking out the window.

He was in a dilemma.

He realised it was one thing to follow someone along the street; it was another thing entirely to go peeping into people’s windows. He leaned with his back to the tree and slid down until he was sitting there. What were his options? He hoped that Miss Crazy might come out again and then he heard heavy footsteps from along the path. If he stayed where he was, they might see him. He pulled himself to his feet and made for a small lemon tree beside the house. He peered through the leaves and saw the same two men he had seen before. They opened the gate to the Collins’ yard and walked in.

Adam held his breath as the two men walked to the doorstep and entered the house. Iit was true, they did know Miss Crazy and he hadn’t mistaken her for someone else. She’d lied. They didn’t even knock. It seemed unbelievable to Adam that they could just come and go like that, without ceremony, as if they had been living there all their lives.

His curiosity was too much to overcome, so he moved to the side of the house and peered through the window into a bedroom, which had a single bed, posters of pop-groups on the wall and a bedside table. Nobody was in there. Being very careful, he moved to the next window. There they were.

Peaking through a gap in the curtains, he saw Miss Crazy and the two men sitting at a wooden dining room table. There was a glass cabinet against the wall filled with various dishes and crockery. He could see a plain kitchen in the background with wooden cupboards and stainless steel bench tops. A tall fridge stood in the corner.

His eyes returned to the three at the table. He couldn’t hear what they said, but they seemed friendly enough. One of the men even smiled and laughed.

Adam figured something was definitely going and how convenient that they happened to be meeting in the house of a student who had gone missing. That was surely no coincidence.

If it wasn’t for the two men, Adam may have been tempted to knock on the door pretending to be checking up on Dora. He would have acted surprised to see Miss Crazy there and perhaps find out why she was there, but with the two men there, that put an entirely different perspective on things.

Adam resigned himself to the fact he would not be able to find out anything more. What he needed to do was come back later when nobody was around, maybe while Miss Crazy was still at school.

He remained hidden for a few more minutes and then decided it was time to go. He checked to make sure the three were still at the table and quickly made his way to the street.

’Adam, what are you doing here?’ a female voice called from behind him.

Adam almost jumped out of his skin. He turned and saw Robyn Litchfield standing only a few metres from him on the pathway.

‘Robyn!’ Adam stared at her. ‘I… I was just...’ He had to think fast. ‘I was just coming to see if Dora Collins was around.’

‘Dora Collins? One of your classmates?’

‘Yeah, she lives here.’

‘So, did you see her?’

‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘I sort of changed my mind.’

‘But… but you were in the yard. I saw you come out from there.’

‘Yeah, I changed my mind when I got to the door.’

‘Why?’

‘Ummmm... I decided I needed to get home.’

Robyn continued to look sceptical. ‘Where do you live?’

‘On Marconi Rd. What about you?’

‘Oh...’ Robyn hesitated. ‘I... I can’t remember the street name,’ she pointed further on ahead. ‘Over that way.’

‘That’s on the way to my place. Come on, I’ll walk you home.’

‘O… Ok,’ Robyn stuttered, giving one of her shy smiles.

They walked along the path in silence. Adam wasn’t quite sure what to say, because he was still uneasy about what he had seen at the Collins house. But he had to make conversation of some sort. ‘You know Robyn, you’re actually taking a risk wandering around here on your own.’

‘Why?’

‘Haven’t you heard? Many kids have disappeared. They reckon there might be child abductors in the area.’

Robyn gave him a weird look. ‘What? Kidnappers? Why would you say that?’

Adam couldn’t believe she didn’t know. Perhaps her parents weren’t aware of what was going on, or maybe she was as dumb as he first thought. ‘It’s big news! Kids haven’t been turning up for school. People are really worried. I mean, I shouldn’t be out here on my own, but I had to get home, you know?’

‘Well, same here.’ Robyn looked bewildered. ‘Are you serious about kids disappearing? You’re not pulling my leg are you?’

‘I’m dead serious. Ask the teachers at school. They’ll tell you.’

‘Where are all the cops?’ She said it with an amused look in her eyes.

‘I guess they don’t want to be seen. Keeping undercover?’

‘Are you kidding? If they really are disappearing, don’t you think they’d have cops from all over the region coming in to investigate? They’d be around the streets in plain view to deter would-be kidnappers, wouldn’t you think?’

‘It’s strange I know, but people have disappeared. It’s no joke.’

Robyn said nothing more until they reached an intersection. ‘This is my street,’ she pointed to the left.

‘Same way I’m going.’

Adam tried to lighten the mood with a few jokes. She laughed and even issued him a challenge. ‘Can you guess which one is my place?’

‘Hmmmm.’ Adam looked down the line of houses. ‘Well that one there is where Donald Henderson lives, so it’s not that one. The next one... Well I think a doctor lives there. How about the next one along?’

Robyn nodded. ‘How did you guess?’

‘Just lucky I suppose.’ Adam chuckled.

They stopped outside her house. ‘Well I guess, I’ll see you tomorrow.’

‘Ok. Catch you later.’

She hesitated, but then headed for the house. She stopped at the front door and turned to wave.

Adam waved back and continued his way home. Immediately his mind went back to what he had seen at the Collins house. If only he could hear what they were talking about, but he couldn’t dare go back. He would have to hold off on the investigation for now, but he couldn’t wait to see Drake and Daisy to tell them all about it.