The Apple Tart of Hope by Sarah Moore Fitzgerald

Author:Sarah Moore Fitzgerald
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Holiday House
Published: 2014-08-23T04:00:00+00:00

If someone who is a friend of yours goes missing, it’s important that you go home to recognize what they meant to you. You have to go back to the places where they last were to find out what happened.

It was funny how much work Mum and Dad had done to get me over here, and now we were going to go home anyway, because of Oscar. And for a short while, I’d wondered if I was going to have to have a big fight about it, but I didn’t even have to say a word. My parents had agreed that getting home and paying respects to Oscar’s dad and to Stevie were more important things to do than for my dad to finish his time here.

“Sometimes things happen and you need to jettison your own priorities,” he’d said to me. I was glad that my parents knew it was the right thing to do. They’d already booked the flights. Two days later, we were packed and the details had been taken care of.

A big part of Dad’s research project got handed over to this guy called Jerry Nolan. I said sorry, but Dad said I wasn’t to give it another thought. This wasn’t my fault, he said, and I didn’t have the heart to start explaining how much of it was. He went on about how research projects would come and go, and that none of that mattered right now because they wanted to focus on me, and how I was feeling.

I loved my dad even in the confusing mist that surrounded me during those days. My mum kept stroking my forehead as if I was a really small kid. It was a little bit annoying and not much help or anything, but I didn’t say a word to her about it because when someone is trying to comfort you they sometimes need to do quite useless annoying things and you shouldn’t stop them.

And for the whole time, nobody asked me to do anything. They didn’t get cross with me if I didn’t answer them. They stopped giving me the usual instructions, such as pick up after yourself or do your homework or brush your hair. The one time I could have done with a few mundane activities to take my mind off things, was the one time they let me sit in the corner doing nothing.

A couple of my Kiwi classmates called in to say good-bye. They stood around looking awkward and some of them said stuff such as how sorry they were to have heard about my best friend back in Ireland. That was no comfort either, even though I knew they were trying to be nice. They didn’t know Oscar.

The things that were in my head were wrapped up, muffled and distant and I couldn’t talk to anyone about them. Mostly I sat on my own trying to imagine what I was going to say to everyone when I got back. I was glad when it was time to get a taxi to the airport.

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