Invitation to a Stranger (4 page)

 

“Jasmine must be in the yard,” Ronnie argued. “We heard her calling for her cat just a few minutes ago.”

“Well, there's no one there now, so clear out,”
Mr.
Demento said.

“But,” Ronnie started.

Katie nudged her to shut up. “Will you tell Drake we visited when he gets home
?
” she asked the man.

He
pressed his lips together and remained silent. Under his bad tempered gaze, Ronnie and Katie picked up the bikes and wheeled them down the driveway. Ronnie held Jasmine's bike as Katie opened up the front gate and they went through into the street.

"
So what do we do now?” Ronnie asked.

“Get moving,” Katie said.

Katie led the way to the corner of the street and then turned into the other street away from their homes.

"
So where are we going?” Ronnie asked, as she
walked
along wheeling both her and Jasmine's bike.

“Jasmine is definitely in that yard, so that man was lying,” Katie said.

"
So why didn't she hear you calling?” Ronnie asked.

“Maybe she tripped over and hit her head or something.”

“He'll only throw us out if we head back again to search for her,” Ronnie pointed out.

“That back yard ends against the big reserve,” Katie said.

“Of course,” Ronnie said more cheerfully as she remembered.

“We'll hide the bikes in the shrubbery of the reserve, climb over the fence and hunt around for Jasmine quietly, in case
he
is
still
poking around,” Katie explained.

“He had a spade in his hand,” Ronnie said. “Wonder what he was digging? He couldn't have been in the garden around the house or we would have noticed him.”

“He certainly did seem to pop up out of thin air,” Katie agreed.

They reached the reserve. Apart from a few boys kicking a football around it was deserted. They wheeled the bikes cautiously around the oval until they reached the overgrown shrubbery at the back of the big reserve.

“This should do,” Katie said as she pushed her bike under a thick bush.

She came back to push Jasmine's bike beside hers. Ronnie slid her bike under as well. They inspected the heavy overhang of the bush with satisfaction. Even if anyone walked past, they wouldn't spot the bikes.

They pushed through the bushes to where the fence of the Demento place should be.

“Oh!” Ronnie gasped.

“They've got a new fence put up,” Katie said. “Wasn't there last week.”

They stared up at the high, brand new paling fence, with its three rows of barbed wire on top of it. They started walking, following
it
to its end. The land was on a double block and where it reached the neighbouring fence, that
one
also had the three rows of barbed wire following the boundary.

They walked back to the boundary
on the other side
, but
it
also had the continuation of the three rows of barbed wire. They walked back more slowly.

“We have got to do something,” Katie whispered. “Jasmine might be trapped in that place.”

“Maybe we could get our parents to tell the police,” Ronnie whispered.

“What would Jasmine say if she wanders out if and when the police started searching?” Katie argued. “How lost can Jasmine get in an ordinary back yard?”

“Didn't look too ordinary to me,” Ronnie retorted. “All those overgrown trees.”

“Trees,” Katie echoed. She pointed to the bank of trees in front of them. “Thank goodness!”

Ronnie nodded relieved agreement. The large trees from the Demento backyard overhung the barbed wire, and mingled their tops with the trees in the reserve. All they had to do was climb a tree and swing over to the trees on the other side of the fence.

The tallest and most suitable tree didn't have any lower branches
. Ronnie looked at it doubtfully. It was all right for Katie who could climb anything, but it didn't look very accessible. Katie
dragged Ronnie's bike out and leaned it against the trunk. Katie stood on the bike and managed to climb into the first branch.

Ronnie climbed on the bike and stood on her tiptoes. She could barely reach. She got down again, and used her bike spanner to lift the seat higher. She climbed on the bike again. Katie reached down to grab her and she managed to scramble up.

They both kept climbing until they were well above the rows of barbed wire on the fence. Katie wriggled along an overhanging branch
,
and climbed across on to a branch of a big tree in the back yard and waited. Ronnie
edged
along until she was over the fence and then moved on to another branch.

Katie put her finger to her lips and slid down the trunk of the tree. Ronnie followed. Fortunately the branches on this side were closer to the ground. They stood at the base of the tree and listened. The light was fading and the overgrown shrubs, creepers and high trees made it very difficult to see.

A shadow against the deeper shadow of tree trunk moved. Ronnie clutched at Katie, her mouth suddenly dry.

“Katie, Ronnie,” a voice whispered.

“Drake?” Ronnie blinked and stared into the gloom
.

Drake stood against the tree supporting a limp figure. It was Jasmine!
Her eyes were shut and her arms clutched tightly across her front.

“Is she all right?” Katie whispered.

Ronnie peered more closely. A cat sagged across Jasmine's tight clenched arms.

"
She's found Sing,” Ronnie whispered.

“You've got to get her out of here,” Drake whispered. “Brod's in the house. If he wakes
up
you are all in great danger!”

 

“Must've fallen and hit her head,” Katie said. “Can I use your phone? I'm out of time on mine.”

“And mine's been confiscated again,” Ronnie admitted.

“We can ring her Dad to collect her from your phone,” Katie continued.

“Keep your voice down,” Drake whispered. “It's too dangerous! The sun's nearly set.”

“Be dangerous not to get her checked out if she has hit her head,” Katie whispered back.

“
She didn't hit her head,” Drake whispered. “The same thing has happened to her as her cats.”

Ronnie nudged Katie. She was getting scared, although she wasn't exactly sure why. “Wing doesn't recognise anyone and can't stop sleeping and eating.”

“And it's happened to Jasmine,” Drake whispered. “You've got to get her away without them noticing.”

“Who?” Ronnie whispered.

“I'll help you get her across the fence,” Drake whispered, not answering the question.

He moved over to the tree they had climbed down. As they watched, open mouthed and worried, he extracted the limp body of the cat from Jasmine's tight folded arms and gave it to Katie. Then he took a big check handkerchief from his pocket, twisted it around and tied Jasmine's hands together.

He held her upright long enough to pull her hands around his neck and then reached up and climbed up the tree as though the weight of Jasmine dangling around his neck and down his back was nothing.

Katie stuffed the limp cat under her jumper and followed him up the tree with Ronnie close behind. Drake was right about the sun setting
.
Ronnie worried as she groped her way across the branches after Katie. It was getting hard to see. By the time she had slid down the tree trunk to where her bike waited by the tree, Katie was already down.

Ronnie moved her bike. Drake leaned down, letting Jasmine down by her tied hands. He untwisted the hankie. She dropped and slumped into a boneless heap at the bottom of the tree.

“You must rouse her. She should be able to walk even if she has been bitten by something. Get away from here as fast as possible,” Drake whispered, and vanished back up the tree.

“I'll get the bikes,” Katie said.

Ronnie shook the slumped figure by the shoulder. “Jasmine, wake up,” she ordered.

Jasmine sighed more deeply and moved. Ronnie shook her again. Jasmine opened her eyes. Under Ronnie's shoving she sat and then stood up.

“You all right?” Ronnie nagged.

“What!” Jasmine muttered as she stared at Ronnie. There was no recognition in her eyes.

Katie came back wheeling the two bikes. She had dropped the limp body of Sing into Jasmine's bike basket.

“Is she all right?” Katie whispered.

"
She doesn't know me.” Ronnie put Jasmine's hands on her bike handles.
“
Start walking,” she ordered.

Jasmine lurched, and then started walking, pushing her bike. She was silent, ignoring her friends when they spoke to her. Katie and Ronnie walked each side of her, guiding her along the path by the oval. The boys who had been playing
there
were gone. The sun had set completely and the blackness was intense.

They walked towards the comforting brightness of the streetlights. Ronnie was relieved to reach them. It made the district seem less dangerous and hostile. No one was around and not even a car passed as they trudged along, guiding Jasmine
down
the footpath. Everything was very quiet and still
…
too still.

“What do we tell her parents?” Ronnie asked. “Drake said she might have been bitten by something.”

“We'll just say she separated from us to go looking for Sing,” Katie said.

“But what really happened?” Ronnie worried. “Do you reckon that
Drake's father
was telling the truth when he said she wasn't in the back yard?”

“
She must have been in the back yard,” Katie said.
“
She went down into it, and Drake must have found her near the back fence.”

“Drake sounded scared.”

“Of what though?” Katie mused. The closer they were to their homes the less frightened she sounded.

They reached Jasmine's place, opened the gate and wheeled her bike around the back. Ronnie picked up the slumped body of the cat as Katie took Jasmine's arm and led her up on to the back porch, and knocked on the door.

“What's with Jasmine?” her brother Mike asked as he opened the door.

“We split up looking for Sing and found her sleeping on the ground with him at the back of the reserve,” Katie explained. “But she won't talk to us. We wondered if she had been bitten by something.”

“No snakes around this time of the year,” Mike said. He took Jasmine's arm and pulled her into the house. “Mum can check her out. Time both of you were home anyway.”

“Don't forget Sing,” Katie said as she passed over the limp body of the cat.

The two girls went outside, got on their bikes and rode fast down the dark street.

“Why would she have been bitten by something?” Ronnie called.

“What about a mozzie with malaria or sleeping sickness?” Katie
asked
.

“I suppose,” Ronnie
said
doubtfully and veered her bike down the back lane that led to her own house.

She didn't really believe they had mosquitoes carrying those sorts of diseases in their suburb, but what else could have caused the mysterious sleepiness of Jasmine and her cats?

 

Jasmine wasn't at school the next day. After school, Katie and Ronnie rushed around to her place.

“
She's in hospital having tests done,” Mrs. Purdue reported. “They are talking of keeping her for the week.” Her face crumpled.
“
She doesn't recognise anybody.”

“Like the cats,” Katie said. “How are the cats going?”

“Eating and sleeping and ignoring everyone in the house,” Mrs. Purdue said with a sigh.

“
Suppose they got bitten by a mozzie,” Katie said. “What's sleeping sickness supposed to be like?”

“We have to wait for the result of all the tests they're doing.”

“
So can we go visit her?” Katie persevered.

“
She isn't recognising anyone,” Mrs. Purdue warned.

Ronnie talked her father into taking her into the hospital Tuesday evening, and Katie talked her mother into driving in Wednesday afternoon. Both times Jasmine slept peacefully in the hospital bed, looking perfectly normal. Except when she opened her eyes there was no recognition in them. After that, they didn't bother to visit.

“
So she hasn't got sleeping sickness,” Katie reported to Ronnie at school the next day. “They can't discover any reason why she keeps sleeping.
”

“The nurses say she is permanently ravenous,” Ronnie said.

“Like her cats,” Katie agreed.

Ronnie lowered her voice, although they were sitting well apart from everyone else in the schoolyard. “They think she might have something wrong with her brain.”

“I know,” Ronnie said with a sigh.

They sat silently. The doctors had asked them over and over again, whether they were sure that they hadn't seen Jasmine fall. There was no bruising on her head at all, and the doctors were becoming more and more mystified.

“I bet Drake knows more than he is telling,” Katie said suddenly.

“There is something funny,” Ronnie agreed.
“
Remember he said we were in great danger and to get away before they noticed. Who
are
they or them?
”

“And what was the great danger we were in?” Katie pondered. “We should try to talk to Drake.”

“There's no way I'm even going past that place with
Drake's
creepy
father
.”
Ronnie shivered as she remembered the oddity of a family happy to live in a darkened house.

“
Suppose we go back to the Horseshoe Café,” Katie suggested. “It's Friday night again, and he might be there.”

“Might not,” Ronnie retorted.
“
Remember his Dad hauled him out last time. Also I promised Jeff I wouldn't go back there.”

“
So where else can we meet him?” Katie demanded. “He might know why Jasmine and her cats are the way they are.”

“Might,” Ronnie agreed.
Her grumpy temper lasted. She desperately wished she hadn't promised Jeff, but she couldn't break her promise, not even to help Jasmine. She was yawning over her homework in her bedroom when she heard Jeff arrive.

“You're home early tonight,” she heard her mother say.

“Finished early and Will and I decided on an early night,” Jeff said. “I'm crashing.”

Ronnie took a deep breath. Of course she couldn't break her promise, but she could ask
Jeff
to let her off it. She stood up and opened her door.

“I want to talk to you,” she said to
him
as he walked past her room. “And it's very important.”

“How important?” Jeff asked with a yawn.

“It's about Ja
sm
ine.”

Ronnie pulled Jeff into her bedroom and sat him on her chair. She spoke in a low voice and recounted all that had happened that night. How one of the twins was hung over and asleep on the porch swing, and
Jasmine
had vanished into the backyard hunting for her cat, and
Mr.
Demento
denied she had been in the back yard. How she and Katie had climbed over into the back yard, and how Drake was waiting with the slumped form of Jasmine.

“He said it was dangerous for us to stay and
told us
to get away,” Ronnie concluded. “I want you to release me from my promise about going to the café. I want to talk to Drake and find out why was it dangerous, and who are the people he is scared of?”

“Hum,” Jeff said. “If he is involved in something nasty he is not going to confess all.”

“The hospital still hasn't found out what's wrong with Jasmine,” Ronnie reminded him.

“Hum,” Jeff said. “What about I talk to him?”

“You don't like him,” Ronnie pointed out. “Why would he talk to you?”

“Hum,” Jeff said again. “He hasn't been at the café since his father towed him off that night.”

“
Please, Jeff,”
Ronnie
asked.
.

“You are a good kid,” Jeff said. “I know you are worried about Jasmine, but leave everything go for another week. The hospital should have discovered what's wrong with Jasmine by then, and you won't need to worry about things.”

However, by the following week, everything had changed. Ronnie's little brother Jamie went missing!