September Read Free Page B

Mum’s old phone, and then I heardsome really loud noises downstairs. Yep, that’s right. At first I thought it was you, so I called out. I called out for Uncle Rafe, too, but nobody answered me. Mum had gone shopping, so I knew she wasn’t there. Then I heard these strange voices. I got really scared, thinking about the people who broke into our house last week.’
    ‘Last week?’
    ‘Well, two weeks ago, whatever. I thought it could have been them.’
    Two weeks ago? The break-in, back home, was months ago!
    ‘I was so scared,’ Gabbi continued, ‘I was even going to call the police! Then I heard these loud bangs and the strange voices got louder and I didn’t know what to do! I was running to my wardrobe to hide when bam ! Someone whacked me from behind! When that happens in cartoons, you see stars. But I didn’t see any stars.’
    Anger surged through me.
    ‘Next thing I know,’ explained Gabbi, ‘I think I’m caught in a rip in Treachery Bay … except it wasn’t the bay, it was this river here.’
    In the flickering firelight, Gabbi’s face was frightened and puzzled. She had lost the last eight months! She’d gone from that afternoon in January—when she was attacked and I found her slumped on the ground, not breathing—to thisday, right now on the riverbank near Spindrift River Bridge.
    ‘Why are you looking at me like that, Cal?’
    I realised now that Gabbi would not be able to help me clear my name.
    ‘Gab,’ I said, ‘they reckon I attacked you.’
    ‘ You?! But that’s crazy!’
    ‘Mum said you were yelling out my name when the ambulance came to get you.’
    ‘I must have been scared for you! Scared they were gonna hurt you too. I think it was you they were after! I was trying to warn you!’
    ‘Me? They were after me ? What makes you say that?’
    ‘I don’t know! I don’t remember! Maybe I heard them say something about you. I don’t know.’
    Gabbi was shaking her head, frustrated with herself for not remembering everything properly.
    ‘I think I must have been awake for a second after I got hit. I didn’t know where you were. I must have been trying to warn you before it all went black again. I don’t know what happened. I didn’t want them to get you.’
    Boges, Winter and Sharkey had rejoined us. I looked across at Boges. He was nodding to me as if to say that was why Mum and Rafe thought I was the guilty party. That, and the fact that my fingerprints were on the gun that shot Rafe.
    ‘They didn’t get me, Gabbi. And,’ I added, cautiously , ‘it didn’t actually happen last night. It happened a while ago. A long while ago.’
    ‘How long?’
    ‘You’ve been unconscious—in a coma—from the head injuries.’
    ‘Huh?’ Instinctively, Gabbi put her hand up to the back of her head. ‘But I don’t even have a lump! There’s nothing there!’
    ‘That’s because you were hit almost eight months ago …’
    ‘What? What do you mean, eight months?’
    ‘Look,’ I said, pulling my mobile out and showing the screen to her.
    She read it out slowly. ‘The first of September ? But … how could I walk upstairs to my room one day,’ she said, ‘and then wake up in a river eight months later? Ashley will never believe me.’ She grabbed my arm, tears welling up in her eyes again. ‘Oh, no! That means I’ve missed almost a year of school! I’ll have to repeat Year 3!’
    ‘After a while it won’t feel so weird. And you’ll catch up at school really quickly. You’re really smart, remember that?’ I said with a playful nudge. ‘You might even find that some memories of what happened to you will come back,’ I added, thinking of something Boges had toldme about memory loss and comas. ‘Like where you’ve been, and who was looking after you.’

    It took quite a while, but Gabbi finally started taking in what I was saying. I didn’t want to freak her out too much, so was careful about what I said. I eased her into the current family situation and about my