At the End of the Garden

Chapter Twenty-Four

Wednesday had started somewhat peacefully. I'd gone to school with my load a lot lighter than I had the previous days. My dad had even noticed that I felt better. Although, maybe 'better' wasn't the word, perhaps less stressed. There was nothing more for me to do anymore, other than wait and see if Eden wanted to take action.
But my day slowly started to get worse when Sidney's name was mentioned at lunch with Ren and Michael.
"We saw Naomi yesterday." Ren said.
I needed to be reminded that she was Luka's little sister who had latched herself onto her foster brother, Sidney.
"She seems more relaxed about everything." Ren said. "Last time we spoke she was desperate to find him, and do everything we did when Luka disappeared. Even though she can barely remember it."
"Is he still being looked for?" I asked.
"I thought you would know." Ren tried to tease me about it.
I didn't know. I wasn't even sure how I would find out. Besides, I was too mad to check the news or anything. If they found his body floating down the Thames or something, I don't know what I'd do.
"I don't care anymore." I said.
"Wow." Ren said, I think she meant it genuinely, "I'm proud of you."
Michael shook his head, perhaps trying to condone our attitudes. Even though he was somewhat certain that Sidney had run away again like he'd done in his past, he couldn't help but doubt himself (I'd said nothing to them about Sidney's visit).
"The police are going to close it soon." Michael said, "Her mum's thinking of getting a private investigator."
"That's...." I began. I wanted to say it was extreme, but I supposed if it was the second time one of your children had disappeared it wasn't so dramatic.
"I'm just confused about Naomi," Ren said. "I wonder what caused her to calm down so much. Before she was even saying how it wasn't fair, Luka got so much more attention than Sidney has. I mean, she's right, we couldn't go near Luka's house without seeing journalists when it first happened."
What I should have been thinking was how she had made a good point. The rich girl earning so much attention for disappearing, but the foster child... Later, I'd wonder how many others were like Sidney. Out in the cold with nobody looking for them. But for now, I thought about what had changed Naomi's tune. Surely, he wouldn't call her but not me? If he had, the whole thing stung more. The thought that he might be safe was bittersweet, and could still go with me feeling either way.

Extra homework was the other thing that ruined my positive spirits. And then after that, we were told we'd all be having compulsory extra lessons on a Wednesday after school from next week to prepare for our GCSEs. On a Wednesday! It made me ache, that was mine and Eden's day. And it only got worse, when I went back to Eden's that night thinking it would be our last opportunity to play games together until exams were over, he said:
"I'm really busy today. Can we play some other time?"
Like I was a dog! Actually, that was a line I tried on my toddler cousins over Christmas. When he said it, I instantly wanted to revert to being seven and have a tantrum. I remembered the summer Eden had started revising for the Quinn's Academy entrance exams. This time, I tried to act like an adult.
"This will be the last Wednesday we can. Can't it wait?"
I didn't think there was any exams that desperately needed to be revised for, or homework due tomorrow (not that Eden would ever leave it until the last day). Still, he shook his head.
"If I finish early, I'll let you know. But it's really important."
"Fine." I agreed. "What is it anyway?"
"I'll tell you when I've done it."
Before I could tell him how suspicious that sounded, he was half way up the stairs. I had no choice but to go into the living room and spend the evening alone. For the most part, I'd been sulking but then remembered I'd spent more nights here feeling much worse. In fact, I would have loved for a disagreement to go this smoothly months ago. Once I was done sulking, I moved onto revenge. I switched on the game console and let it fill the screen with bright colours. I planned to play our shared Super Mario file and get a few levels ahead so he might feel guilty about ditching me.
One level in, I was forced to pause the game. Over the sound of the music and other in game noises, I could hear a door slamming. That meant Eden had come out of his room. I wondered if it was a good time to turn the TV off and hide the evidence of me playing without him. He would notice eventually though, so I left everything as it was and waited to see if he was coming to the living room.
No-one knocked or opened the door. There went my hope that Eden was done with what he was doing and was coming down to join me. He could have always been going to the kitchen, or deciding to work downstairs. I thought, if he was down here, I could pester him about how long he was going to be (in the least childish way possible). I poked my head out the living room door, I couldn't see him in the dining room. So, I followed the corridor down to the kitchen but I couldn't find him there either.
I was ready to accept that I had missed him, until I heard a noise from a frightening direction. The sound of paper rustling, from the front of the house. Where Victor Quinn's office was.
Perhaps it wasn't Eden coming out his room, but his father coming in. That was my cue to back away towards the living room quietly.
"Shit."
I stood frozen. The voice from Victor Quinn's office was not his. It was Eden's. And Eden didn't swear either, I hadn't heard him swear since we first learned the words as children. I approached the office carefully and poked my head around the door frame.
"Eden?"
There he stood, by the desk, a pile of paper by his feet. He looked at me like a deer caught in a cars headlights, but quickly tried to return to his usual posture.
"What are you doing?" I asked, I couldn't help but whisper even though we were the only ones in the house.
He said nothing as he picked the paper off the floor and placed them back on the desk in a neat pile.
"Is this what you meant by work?" I said, slowly entering the office. But as I did I felt like I'd stepped out the house and into an enemy base. There was a cold chill in here, even though the only way for air to get in was from the warm corridor behind me. It didn't help the room was empty of colour. Black wooden bookshelves completely covered two of the walls, they contained a mix of leisure reading and files, all organised and none very interesting. Filing cabinets were behind the desk and took up half the back wall. It would have brightened the room if there were a window, but it was just grey wallpaper, not even a picture hung up on the wall. The desk was near the back and was centred. As you walked into the room he would be facing you (if he were there, he wasn't but his presence lingered). It was actually a small room compared to everything else in the house, but it was only supposed to contain his books and himself. If only such sustainable space usage was applied to the garden.
Eden eventually gave up trying to avoid the question, and said:
"I was looking for something."
"For what?"
He continued to try and straighten the pile of paper he'd previously knocked over, though it didn't seem like it could get much neater. "It's about what you told me the other day." He began. "I was looking for more evidence."
"You don't believe me?"
"I do." He answered sharply. "I intend to confront my father, but I don't want to get you in trouble so I'm looking for more evidence I can use other than that scan. This is the last place I'm looking, before you judge me."
"Oh." I'm glad he trusted me. "Can I help?"
He looked like he wanted to say no, but instead, "I want to make sure I leave this place the same way I found it. Can you make sure of that?"
I nodded and was sent to work to look for evidence, though I could still see him fixing the paper in the corner of my eye.
I'd been directed to the shelves while Eden began looking through the cabinets. Each file mainly contained things I didn't understand like budgets, lesson plans. I didn't look at anything too long but I noticed Eden hovering over one file.
"Did you find something?" I asked.
He shook his head but showed me what he was looking at.
"It's the only one here, I guess he must have had to change it or... something." Eden didn't really seem to know why Victor Quinn had this file and he sighed when he gave it to me.
It was Sidney's school file. The front page had his ID photo from year eight, a cute version of Sidney. He was a little chubbier and had twice the amount of freckles, his hair seemed a little lighter too. He wasn't smiling, or even smirking in the photo, it actually looked like he was going out of his way to frown. He looked better than I did in my year 7 ID photo. Below was his information, his birthday in February, how he'd managed to move up from set 3 to set 1, his guardians contact details. The next page had his grades, which had improved dramatically since Year 8, by Year 11 they were the same as mine. The one time he was excluded was listed, and a warning about his attendance and punctuality. On the final page were notes about how he was fostered and used to run away often. He might as well have put 'troubled pupil' on it, I'm pretty sure that was what this page was trying to tell the reader.
"I didn't know any of that..." Eden said. "Do you think he's runaway again."
"Yeah." I said. "And he's being a jerk about it."
"What?" Eden looked sharply at me. "I was about to apologise..."
"For what?"
"That I never... even mentioned it until now. I thought you might have been worried about him."
"I am." I admitted, handing Eden back the file. "I'm really worried. He said he'd call or text me by now or something. He hasn't."
"You knew?"
I nodded, Eden turned his head away as a smile crept onto his lips.
"That means you lied to the police."
"I suppose I did." I caught myself giggling at the idea, and how Eden was smirking too.
Eden didn't let the mood last long. "Let's hurry. I want to make sure we're out of here before my father gets home."
We carried on looking. On one of the highest shelves was a small box. I wondered if it was something valuable, but when I opened it I found a spare set of keys. Eden told me to keep them for now. I didn't know what he was planning but I slipped the keys into my inside blazer pocket anyway before returning the box exactly where I found it.
The clock above our heads seemed to start ticking louder. When Eden and I were silent it took over the air in the room completely. At one point I thought it had started moving faster. Victor Quinn was a lot of things but he wasn't a super villain, he couldn't control time so he could get home early. Not that it stopped me worrying.
On a hunch, I moved over to the large computer screen. I wasn't getting anywhere with the shelves and thought this would be faster.
"What are you doing?"
I explained my logic to Eden, but unsurprisingly, when I shook the computer mouse it revealed a lock screen burning a hole in my plan.
"Hold on." Eden said and I got out the way for him. He typed something onto the keyboard. On first attempt access was denied, but the second time he was let in.
"How did you know?" I asked, somewhat impressed.
"I've spent years looking over his shoulder." Eden said nervously, perhaps to sound modest. "I've watched him type it before."
"Huh. Not so well-behaved after all."
"I'm not the one who lied to the police."
I laughed and I might have seen Eden smile in the reflection of the black screen as it loaded up Victor Quinn's desktop.
He must have left in a hurry this morning because some of the documents were still open. These were an internet explorer page, a publisher document with the letter all the students received from school today, and finally a huge excel spread sheet. The title was 'YR 11 REGISTER V CONFIDENTIAL.'
"This looks like a normal register, why would he need a copy on his home computer?" Eden said, taking a brief moment to examine it. For safe measure, he looked through all the tabs at the bottom until he found our class and his own name (the last on the list). The last column on the grid was blank for most student, but was highlighted red for Eden showing he was on scholarship. He scrolled back to the top before going to minimise the page.
"Wait." I said.
"What?"
"I thought I saw four names with scholarship." I told him.
Eden nodded and began to scroll back through our class. He knew there were only supposed to be three, himself included. We found the two others near the top of the register, and Sidney's name missing. Then, finally, the last scholarship student, who I knew for a fact didn't even take the test, read Angela Haden.
"She told me she didn't even bother with it." I said.
"It could be a mistake, or she lied to you." Eden said.
"Check the other classes."
"We don't have a lot of time."
"There shouldn't be any other in the lower sets," I argued. "You can just skim through."
Eden clicked on the tab for set two. Nothing stood out. He clicked on set three next and I drew a deep breath. It was a believable idea. That Angie would lie to me and everyone about being a scholarship student to protect her image. But.
Eden scrolled down, and just as a small part of had worried. Renée Haden was highlighted too.
"That can't be right." Eden said.
The only way I could get rid of the air I'd taken in was by speaking, I couldn't sigh like I had wanted to. "She's... Angie's cousin... and both of them... used to be friends that girl, Luka."
Eden didn't say anymore. He checked set four and found no other names. Then he minimised the document and stood up straight, distancing himself from the computer screen.
"It could always be something like a bursary." He said, then admitted, "I can't think of another reason."
"I suppose." I said, but it didn't feel right.
Eden started looking through the other files on the computer. It was obvious he wasn't sure where to look, or where he could find what he looking for. It was lucky Victor Quinn was so organised. Everything was in neat folders with clear segregation between work and home. Though, those home folders were practically empty. There wasn't one photo album on there and even his home screen was just a boring blue background. Victor Quinn didn't even want to give the impression he was a family man.
"This is taking too long, and it's probably a dead end." Eden said, almost sounding frustrated. "Check the desk drawers. Though I'm starting to think there's nothing here."
As we went quiet again, the clock ticking became louder, somewhat faster. Before I could even open the top drawer the clock was silenced.