Graceful Abaddon

Loveable Creatures (6)

Chapter Six: The House on the Island 

(Part 1) 

Bullying thoughts harassed Abbey's mind. No Internet, no Facebook, no link to home. Oh God, she thought suddenly, sucking in breath. Mum! Her mum wanted her to call when she arrived.

In a surge of panic like she hadn't experienced since Year Four camp when she found out she'd left her cozzies at home, her hand dove into her jeans pocket. She fumbled quickly for her phone. Please God, let there still be time. She closed her fingers around the phone - pulled it out. It caught on the lining of her pocket. She lost grip. Quickly, she grabbed it again.

Mr Leathe, facing the darkness, went on talking obliviously to himself. Relieved he wasn't looking – he now seemed legitimately focused on navigating the boat through the reef system – Abbey pressed the home button. The screen lit up. Frantically, she thumbed her pin.

Her eyes jumped to the top-right corner. Battery: 12%.

She could charge it overnight.

But there's no electricity!

Breath hitching, heart beating harder now, she typed the pin too quickly.

She tapped furiously. Started again. Messed up again.

Hurry, hurry – he'll look any second!

Finally she got it. The familiar home screen came up: a cute picture of Gavin wearing a Luigi hat at a friend's twenty-first. A picture from another time, another world than here.

Forcing herself to calm down, she tapped the pin deliberately. Don't panic. Get it right.

She tapped the messenger icon. Went to the calls log. Her mum was the second number after Gavin's.

She clicked her mum's name. Began typing ...

Safe. No wifi or power xx

... then pressed send.

Mr Leathe turned his head just as she pocketed her phone. She straightened, looking as innocent as she could. She feigned an interest in the surrounding darkness, the rising and falling waves.

"Not long now, sweetheart," he yelled, grinning widely.

The rest of the trip lasted about ten minutes.

Shallow reefs, it seemed, really did surround the island. That much Mr Leathe was not lying about. Abbey could literally see the rocks and coral clusters, along with other quick, mysterious shapes that shimmered in the water underneath the incandescent light from underneath the boat.

Despite the sinking feeling in Abbey's stomach, this exotic element of beauty did impart a dramatic if not altogether cheery aspect. It was enough to instil a resigned confidence in her; a determination that however out of her depth she felt, she was equipped to handle this situation. Of course she could not maintain this confidence consistently. Rather, like a prisoner awaiting execution, the inevitable plunge into the unknown, she would fluctuate between numb, abstract resignation and the occasional crippling despair. This would, at least for a few weeks, be the new normal. Being a girl, she figured she could live with that. She'd felt similarly during her second, more disastrous classroom placement when the supervising teacher had hated her and told her she wasn't confident enough to be a teacher.

Basically, she just wanted a bed – any bed; it didn't even have to be comfortable. She needed to sleep. A mental and emotional restart would make her feel much better. And everyone knows strange places look better in the morning. She was probably, she thought, even be able to see the mainland from the beach. Even that would make her feel so much better, so much less estranged from home, from the town, from normal people living ordinary lives, taking their kids to school, working, buying groceries.