Strange Sally Diamond

I sighed. ‘So do I, but I only noticed recently, after my dad died. Is your mum alive?’

‘Yes.’ Her voice grew more high-pitched. ‘Will you ring her, please?’

Ah. A question. A question I didn’t like. I didn’t like speaking on the phone to strangers.

‘I’ll ring Dr Caffrey and she can ring your mum, okay?’

‘Okay.’

I remembered that children love sweet things. ‘Would you like a chocolate biscuit?’

‘Can you ring my mum first?’

‘Fine.’

I went to get the phone from Dad’s study and brought it back into the sitting room. She was sitting up now on Dad’s chair on the other side of the room, but she held the towel of ice to her head.

As I was about to ask for her number, she asked, ‘Can I ring Mum myself?’

That seemed like a good idea. I passed her the phone. She dialled furtively. I don’t think she wanted me to see the number.

‘Mum, can you come and get me, please? … I’m in –’ she looked up at me – ‘Strange Sally Diamond’s house … Yes, I know. She’s here … In the room with me. I was on Maduka’s bike. He cycled away and I fell off … I don’t know where he is … please come and get me … hurry … no,’ she whispered, ‘but she asked me if you were dead … I don’t know … Maduka and Fergus and Sean wanted to see where she – you know –’ she looked up at me again – ‘where she did it …’

Then a stone came crashing through the window of the room and landed at my feet. I looked out to see the two white boys picking up stones from the gravel drive and hurling them towards the window. The girl ducked down in the chair. The back of the chair would shield her from flying glass.

I ran to the front door.

‘Let her go!’ said the freckled boy.

‘She is concussed because you, Maduka,’ I pointed to the Black one, ‘dropped her off your bike and she hit her head. She’s on the phone to her mother right now.’

‘Oh man, I’m going to be in so much trouble.’

‘You’ve broken my window. Drop those stones right now.’

‘Killer Sally Diamond!’ said the lanky one, but they dropped their stones.

The girl came to the door. She still had the phone in her hand. She looked up at me and handed me the phone. ‘Mum wants the address.’ I didn’t want to talk to her mum. I didn’t want any of these children on my property and I didn’t want a broken window. ‘You,’ I said, pointing to Maduka, ‘tell her where I live.’ Maduka approached and I could read fear in his face too.

He took the phone from me. ‘Hi, Mum,’ he said in a low voice and wandered away with the phone. I didn’t look at the other two boys’ faces but I noticed them picking up their bikes and edging slowly up the driveway towards the gate. By the time Maduka handed back the phone, they were gone.

Maduka and the girl sat on the sofa together while I cleaned up the broken glass and set the fire going. They whispered to each other as I cut up a piece of cardboard and taped it to the window.

Then I gave them chocolate biscuits and they took one each, sniffing them first, and then Maduka licked his and nodded to the girl and they both ate their biscuits in a hurry, dropping crumbs into their laps. We sat in silence.

Eventually, Maduka coughed and said, ‘Did you do it?’

I avoided looking at him.

‘Do what?’ I’m not normally good at guessing but I had a good idea what he was going to ask.

‘Kill your own dad and then burn him? I mean, did you burn him alive?’

‘No. I did not. He was dead that morning when I brought him his cup of tea, so I put him out with the bins and we always incinerate most of our rubbish so I thought it was the best thing to do.’

‘Are you absolutely sure that you did not kill him?’

‘One hundred per cent. I took his pulse. Nothing. The guards agreed that I didn’t kill him. I made a mistake by burning his body. I didn’t know that I wasn’t supposed to do that. If I had killed him, I’d be in jail, wouldn’t I?’

‘That’s not what they said at school.’

‘Schools are full of liars. When I was at school, everybody lied about me. It was a dreadful place.’

The children looked at each other. Maduka said, ‘Fergus said that I smell.’

‘Of what?’

‘I don’t know … I guess that I smell … bad.’

I approached him without getting too close and sniffed the air.

‘See? They are liars. You don’t smell of anything. Why are you hanging around with eejits like Fergus? Was he the freckly one?’

‘No, he’s the tall one.’

The girl smiled. ‘My name is Abebi.’

‘You don’t look like a baby.’

She giggled and spelled her name. I smiled back at her.

‘Do they say that you smell too?’

‘No, but some girls say I should keep washing so that my face would be white.’

‘Stupid girls.’

Their mum came to collect them. I heard and then saw the car in the driveway. I told them to go on out. The boy said, ‘I will make Sean and Fergus pay for your window. I told them not to throw stones, but they wouldn’t listen.’

‘Do they have jobs?’

‘No, we’re only twelve,’ he said.

‘I’ll pay for the window, then. I have lots of money now.’

He smiled. ‘Thank you.’

‘Do you want to come to my dad’s funeral on Tuesday?’

Abebi looked up at me with her big eyes. ‘We have school.’