SORROW WOODS (14 page)

And why was it Kaiden? I wish it had been someone else that had found me. I wish I hadn’t

liked him as much as I did.

“I can’t see past the fact that he has separated me from the people I love,” I whisper. “I can’t

see past the fact that he pretended to be my friend when he wasn’t.” I can feel the tears spring at my eyes, but I refuse to cry. I am not a baby and I certainly will not cry over Kaiden Matthews.

Kaiden

I swing my BMW into my usual parking space and cringe at the sight of so many people milling

around. I didn’t want this. No matter what the press say about me or what my parents say behind

my back, I didn’t want any recognition for what I did. I didn’t do it to be a hero and I certainly don’t want to be called one, so I wish people would quit treating me as such.

I huff and climb out of my car, slamming my door behind me when a group of girls make

horrible shrill noises and squeal at me. I roll my eyes at my best friend as he approaches me with a grin on his face.

“Ladies,” he says smoothly, “let the hero get to his class, will you? The teachers will still

punish him for being late, even if he is the biggest legend ever.”

I shoot him a look. I’m not sure if I’m grateful or annoyed at him. Either way, he gets them to

shut up.

“Bye, Kaiden,” they all call in unison.

“Ah man, you’ll be able to use this as an excuse to get laid for years now,” Mike tells me.

I shove him. “I don’t need an excuse.”

“Ouch,” he says, rubbing his chest. “All I’m saying is that you’ve got chicks falling at your

feet.”

“I don’t want them falling anywhere,” I say irritated.

Mike laughs and pulls his long brown hair into a low ponytail. I have no idea why he still

thinks it’s cool to have long hair. “So you keep saying, but I don’t believe you. I think you secretly love that everyone now loves you and thinks you’re a hero. All of your past sins have been forgotten.

I wish I’d have found them. I could do with a fresh slate; mine’s all full up.”

I ignore him and his stupid comments. I push open the green double doors and walk into the

school.

“What the fu--“ I breathe as my eyes take in the hallway.

We both stop mid-stride as several images of my face stare back at us.

“Jesus Christ,” I hiss.

Mike laughs. “Nope. It looks like Kaiden Matthews to me.”

“Funny,” I say. “Now help me to get them down.”

“No way.” He walks over to his locker that’s been broken since school started and punches it

with his left hand. It swings slowly open. “I love to look at your face. I love that your face is all over every wall that I walk past. It means I’m horny for you all day long.”

“You’re a dick,” I tell him.

He laughs. “Yes I am, but I wish I was a hero like you.”

I stop and rip a poster down from off the wall and slap it into the centre of his chest. “Will

you please stop saying I’m a hero? It’s pissing me off.”

“Fine,” he huffs, “but if you aren’t going to use this as an excuse to get those girls into your

bed, then as your best friend, I will.”

“Feel free,” I say, more than ready to end this conversation.

He shoves two books into his bag and grins at me. “I’ll be feeling something alright, but I’m

sure you don’t need to me to give you the gory details of what that something is.”

I shake my head. Of course I don’t need the details. The speakers in the hall crackle to life

and then the voice of the principal booms throughout the corridors. “Will every student please go to the auditorium immediately?”

“Great,” I say, “just great.”

Mike slams his locker shut and jogs to keep up with me. “Do you want to bet what this is

about?”

I shake my head. I really hope it’s not about what he thinks it’s about. As we walk in the

same general direction as everyone else, I feel my phone vibrating in my pocket. When I pull it out, I notice that it’s a number I don’t recognise and see that they’ve tried to call me ten times in the last two hours. I have no idea why someone would want to speak to me so badly and because it’s

someone I don’t know, I just ignore it and shove the phone back into my pocket.

We file into the auditorium and take a seat near the doors. We sit quietly as the rest of our

classmates fill up the seats. As soon as Mr Birks, the school principal for the last fifteen years, walks onto the stage, a silence so eerie that it makes me shiver descends upon the auditorium.

“Students,” he booms, “welcome back. I’m sure you’ve all heard our school being mentioned

in the press while we’ve been away.” He sucks in a deep breath and pulls his trousers up his big, round waist. “Our school has been known for our athletic success, our investments into the space

revolution project, and now we are in the news again. One of our students has solved two child

abduction mysteries, one of which was a fourteen-year old case that affected our town directly.”

I slouch down further in my seat. I can’t believe this is happening. Why can’t they just leave

it alone now that they’ve been found? Why do they have to keep banging on about it?

Mrs. Phelps, who looks as if she’s ninety years old and might drop dead at any minute,

wheels a large television onto the stage. She flicks a button and the screen springs to life. Images of baby Ayla and then sixteen-year old Serena flash across the screen. In the last image, I see Serena being escorted from the police car and into the hospital. I stare at her scared face and worried eyes and feel the ball of sickness uncurl in my stomach. Just as I think I can’t keep it down, the images change to ones of me.

They use my school photograph from last year. Then they show the clip of me being led from

the police car and into the police station right after Serena and Elodie were brought back. I stare at my face. I don’t look pleased or proud. I look just as sad and worried as Serena did. I sigh and slouch even further down in my seat until my ass is hanging off the edge.

“Where is Kaiden Matthews?” Mr. Birks asks.

I say and do nothing. Mike, however, has other ideas. He raises his hand above my head and

points down at me.

“He’s here,” he calls.

“Knock it off,” I hiss.

“Mr. Matthews,” he calls, “will you please stand up?”

I roll my eyes and elbow Mike in his side as I stand up.

“Ah, there he is. Will everyone please take a long, hard look at Kaiden Matthews? If there

was ever a student that has changed people’s opinion of him overnight, then here he is!”

This is a nightmare. I hope that someone passes out or something. Anything to take the

spotlight off me.

“Mr. Matthews, I’m sure you’re more than aware of what you’ve done for those two young

girls and this community, but on behalf of the school, I just want to say ‘well done.’ It was a very brave thing you did and we’re proud of you.”

He starts clapping and then the whole school joins in, until the thunderous sound of their

applause forces some of the girls to cover their ears. I look around the rows of students until my eyes catch a pair of steely grey ones that stare at me, mocking me.

Anastasia.

She rolls her tongue over her bottom lip, teasing me with it. I smirk as she turns back

around. I look at her dark, smooth, poker-straight hair that falls down her back and try to fight the smile I can feel creeping across my face. If anyone can make me forget all this hero nonsense, it’s her.

She already can’t stand the fact that I’m bigger news at school than her latest set of hair

extensions. She snaps her head back around to make sure I’m still looking at her and grins when she realises I am.

“Later,” she mouths at me.

I nod once and turn my attention back to Mr. Birks.

Serena

The sun sneaks in through the gap in my curtains and leaves a trail of light across the floor and bed, where it slithers across my face. I blink a few times and rub my eyes. I stretch my legs out and

snuggle further down underneath the soft sheets, still unable to believe that the bed is so big that my feet don’t hang over the end. I didn’t realise until I came here that the bed I slept in before was nothing more than a battered mattress that squeaked and hurt my back. I’m not sure if I could go

back now and not miss this.

I look down at my black nightie that Janet told me was made of silk and lace and push the

covers back. I stare at my body and wonder how I’m supposed to make myself fit in around here,

when I haven’t even seen what other girls look like. The only people I’ve seen are the doctors, the police, and Janet, who are all older than me.

I sit up and stretch my muscles. I glance towards the small bathroom that’s connected to my

bedroom and admire the thick, fluffy towels that hang over the silver rail. The fact that they have instant, hot running water still mesmerises me, and I still can’t figure out how they can heat water for an entire building.

Just as I step into the bathroom, there is a knock on my door. I glance at myself in the mirror

and notice that my green eyes still sparkle, just like they did when we were in the woods. I’m still me. I’m still Serena. I’m just cleaner, have nicer smelling hair, and now know that I’ve been lied to for most of my life.

I walk over towards the door and pull it right open.

“Happy birthday!” squeals Janet, shoving a huge bunch of strong-smelling flowers wrapped

in purple paper into my face.

I take them from her and step back so she can walk into my room. “Thank you, Janet.”

“No worries, sweetheart,” she says with a smile. She strides towards the bed and places a

small, rectangle-shaped box and two envelopes on it.

I look at them and then look back at her. “What are those?” I ask.

She grins and nods towards the flowers in my hand. “The flowers are from me and there’s a

card from me on the pile too. The present and the other card are from your parents.”

I glance at the box that’s wrapped in sparkling silver paper and admire the small pink bow

that’s on the top of it. “What is it?”

She shrugs. “I have no idea. Why don’t you open it and find out?”

“I think I’ll open it later.”

She smiles at me and takes the flowers from out of my hands and puts them on the table.

When I look at them again, I realise they’re in a bag of their own water.

“Alright then,” she says with a shrug, “I’ll go and get you some breakfast. What would you

like?”

I can’t stop staring at the flowers. “Where did you get the flowers from? How come they’re

in their own water like that?”

She turns her head back towards the flowers and frowns. “Erm, you just ring a florist and

order them that way.”

“How do they get the flowers?” I ask.

“Someone will have fields or greenhouses where they grow flowers. They’ll pick them,

bunch them together, and deliver them to florists all over the city.”

“But how do they survive in the car without water?”

“It’s not a car,” she says. “It’s probably a huge truck and I think they only travel for a few

hours at the most. The flowers are fine so long as they get put into water as soon as they get to the florist.”

I nod. “So you just ring up and ask for loads of flowers to be bunched together and

delivered?”

“Yes.”

I guess that makes sense now that she’s explained it to me. I’d never read about flowers

being delivered before. It’s funny that I know all about how human bodies work or what girls think from reading my books, but I don’t really know much about how stuff works in the real world.

“Okay,” I say.

She smiles and rubs her hand down my arm. “Don’t worry about asking questions, Serena.

It’s good that you want to learn.”

I wasn’t worried about asking questions. “So, breakfast?”

She chuckles. “What would you like?”

I think about all the foods I’ve eaten since I’ve been here. There are too many to ask to put

them all on one plate, so I pick my favourite breakfast.

“Please, can I have a plate of all those foods that you did for me the first morning I was here?”

I ask, not really sure if those sorts of foods are readily available.

Janet smiles and asks, “Sausages, beans, eggs, bacon, tomatoes, and toast?”

I nod. “Yes, please.”

“Sure,” she smiles. “You take a shower and get dressed, and I’ll have it brought up to you.”

“Thank you.”

She stops in front of me and looks into my eyes. I wonder what she’s thinking but before I

can ask her, she pulls me into a quick hug and then stumbles out of the room.

It’s the first hug I’ve had from someone that wasn’t Elodie for about six years. My Mother

stopped hugging me a long time ago and I stopped asking for them. She said that people who always wanted hugs and needed to hear someone else tell them how much they loved them were needy

and annoying. What used to confuse me was that she still kept hugging Elodie.

I pad back into the bathroom and switch the shower on. As the room fills up with mist, I pick

the present up from off the bed. I glance at the card, but I’m not ready to read their words yet. I carefully tear the paper off the present and find a black box that feels strange to touch. I’m not sure what the material is, but I don’t think I’ve ever felt it before. I make a mental note to ask Janet later.

I open the box and blink at the silver necklace that sits proudly in the middle of the box. On

the bottom of the chain is a tiny square stone that sparkles and twinkles at me. I’ve never had

jewellery before and have no idea how to even open it. I slowly pull it off the little cushion and let it run through my fingers.

I think about Angela and Auden buying this necklace. Did they go pick it out together with

smiles on their faces because their daughter has returned? How can they buy something for me