The Paradise Stain by Nick Glade-Wright

Author:Nick Glade-Wright [Glade-Wright, Nick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction - Young Adult, Fiction
ISBN: 9780994183743
Publisher: Woodslane Press
Published: 2019-01-24T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

Carol Symmons, the support teacher, had just taken Pammy to the girls’ changing rooms so she could change into a clean windcheater. In the staff room she’d found one in the lost property box that would be large enough for Pammy’s fulsome body. In a moment of enthusiasm Pammy had wiped her clay covered hands onto her chest to clean them. Once outside the classroom, now lunch time, she would be fair game for mockery, as it looked as if her breasts had been mauled from behind.

Melinda’s class were just leaving the pottery studio when Kevin began another commentary, quietly to himself, on the numbers of people who had drowned, died of starvation, perished from famine, finishing with a repeat of the numbers that had been lost in the Queensland floods. Satisfied he trotted off to clean the sinks again.

After he had finished, and everyone had disappeared into the campus, and trying not to get too bothered about yet another ashtray that Vernon had sloppily put together, Melinda headed to the canteen for a sticky bun and a chocolate milk shake. While she was in line, not wanting to push to the front like some teachers did, a very large penny dropped in the fore front of her thoughts. Without making it to the counter she turned and rushed to her staffroom to fetch her mobile phone.

She went back outside.

‘Hello, oh hi, it’s Melinda Kant here, I don’t suppose my father’s available to talk to me?’ She waited. ‘Okay, could you ask him to ring me as soon as he has time please? Thank you.’

She flipped her phone shut and returned to the canteen for that bun.

The final afternoon cooking class, making pizza, passed without a return call. As she was driving along the Brooker Highway to home her phone rang. She pulled into the side of the road where the river bank was shallow and reedy.

Barry’s voice was full of concern. ‘You okay, Mel?’

‘Yeah, Dad. Sorry, I hope I didn’t scare you. I think I might have worked it out.’ She raced on. ‘Can you think carefully about what that guy said to you on the phone? Tell me again what he said exactly.’

Barry described what he could recall. It hadn’t changed since the last time he had been quizzed.

‘Think Dad! You said he mentioned the Queensland floods. What did he say about them?’

‘Oh, I really can’t remember exactly, Mel. I worry about my memory sometimes. Well, hang on … oh yes! He did say something about the number of people who were missing in the floods. He might have even said how many people actually died. That’s right, he did. Thinking about it now, it was a strange thing to even mention. Why, what’s that got to do with anything?’

‘I’ve been going over the possibilities. Kevin, remember the autistic boy I told you about? He was giving another one of his … ’ she sighed, ‘soliloquies. I’ll explain in a sec. And, well, I smell a skinny little rat.

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