The Paradise Trap

  ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘How did you know?’

  ‘Because— ouch!’ Edison jumped as Newt pinched his neck. ‘What’s your problem?’ he demanded.

  ‘You are,’ Newt rejoined.

  ‘I just wanted to tell her—’

  ‘Yeah, well, don’t. She’ll freak.’ Newt jerked her chin towards Big Coco, who was shaking and sniffing and wiping gobs of damp green gunge off her face. ‘We’ve already got a basket case on our hands. We don’t want another one, do we?’

  Sterling, meanwhile, was thinking aloud.

  ‘Miss Molpe’s got to be the codename for the Command and Control program that’s running this system,’ he observed, tapping his front teeth with one finger. ‘There’s a definite pattern here, don’t you think?’ When Coco failed to acknowledge his appeal, he turned to Marcus. ‘We should check out Miss Molpe’s caravan. It might be an access point to the mainframe.’

  Marcus sighed. ‘There is no mainframe. It’s magic,’ he groaned, wondering why Sterling couldn’t accept that. He was about to suggest that on no account should they go anywhere near Miss Molpe’s caravan when his mother leaned down to address Little Coco.

  ‘Hey, sweetie,’ she quavered. ‘Are – are Mr and Mrs Bradshaw here?’

  Little Coco looked puzzled. ‘Who?’

  ‘Holly’s mum and dad.’ Holly had to swallow before continuing. ‘The ones who live in that tent.’

  ‘I dunno.’ Little Coco squinted at the tent in question. Then her face lit up. ‘There’s Holly!’ she cried, madly waving. ‘Hi, Holly!’

  Without warning she bolted, making a beeline for the older, skinnier girl who was waving back at her. Marcus could see that the older girl was wearing a bikini. She had straight blonde hair.

  ‘Oh my God,’ his mother wailed. ‘It’s me. It’s me.’

  ‘I can’t bear it.’ Coco’s voice cracked. ‘We were so young. What happened?’

  Edison eyed his stepmother in a bewildered kind of way.

  ‘You grew up,’ he said. ‘Everybody grows up. They have to.’

  ‘Unless they die,’ Marcus mumbled. By this time he had spotted other children appearing from behind rocks, cars and bushes. They were skipping out of the distant surf and crawling through tent-flaps. They were climbing down trees and surging over sand dunes.

  It was like watching the slow build-up of ants around a dead lizard – and he began to feel uneasy.

  ‘Which tent belongs to Jake?’ he asked his mother, who shook her head.

  ‘Jake’s family had a caravan,’ she replied, pointing. ‘That one.’

  ‘We should go there first, before we get swamped by kids.’ Marcus had noted, with growing alarm, that many of the converging children were carrying sticks and boogie boards and fishing rods. ‘If Jake’s not there right now, he might drop by later. And when we go inside we can shut the kids out.’

  ‘Hear, hear!’ Newt’s vote of conf idence was unexpected, to say the least. ‘Good call! Let’s shut the kids out!’

  Edison showed his support by saluting Marcus. Coco nodded. Sterling said, ‘What if we split into a couple of teams, one for each caravan, and meet back here in ten minutes . . . ?’

  But Holly wasn’t listening. She was already halfway across the parking lot, heading for Jake’s caravan.

  31

  ‘YOU’RE NOT ALLOWED IN THERE . . .’

  KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK.

  ‘Hello? Jake? It’s Holly Bradshaw . . .’

  There was no reply. As Holly pulled open the caravan door, Marcus stood behind her, anxiously watching wave upon wave of sandy, sunburned kids close in from every direction. So far, only Little Coco and Little Holly had reached Jake’s caravan; they were tugging at Sterling’s Hawaiian shirt, nagging him to come and play – to buy them some ice-cream – to leave Jake alone. ‘You’re not allowed in there,’ they whined. ‘Jake said so. He’ll get mad. He always gets mad . . .’

  Marcus tried not to look at Little Holly. He found her freckles and her pointed chin extremely disconcerting, because he wasn’t used to seeing them on such a small face.

  ‘Just go!’ he urged his mother, who didn’t need any encouragement. She yanked open the door and plunged inside, closely followed by Coco, Newt and Marcus. Edison soon joined them, with his father in tow.

  When Little Coco tried to bring up the rear, it was Newt who pushed her back outside and slammed the door.

  ‘God, you were a pest,’ she informed her stepmother.

  Jake’s caravan was one of the largest in the campground. It had a separate bedroom at one end, with a bathroom off that – plus all kinds of extra luxuries. There were flyscreens, clothes cupboards, wall-mounted fans, a dining nook, a separate lounge area, a picture window, and a built-in china cabinet. Despite the woodgrain laminex plastered over nearly every available surface, including the fridge, it would have been a nice place to live if it hadn’t been so untidy. Junk was piled up everywhere: rags, nets, shells, bottles, barbecue grills, gas cylinders, cricket bats, buckets and spades, broken umbrellas, comic books, animal bones.

  Coco was appalled.

  ‘How can anyone live like this?’ she exclaimed, shocked out of her teary-eyed stupor. ‘It’s a pigsty!’

  ‘It’s not that bad,’ was Edison’s view. ‘It’s not super dirty, or anything. I could live here.’

  ‘That’s because you’re a boy,’ Newt said – pronouncing the word ‘boy’ with utter disdain. ‘Maybe this guy is too. A boy, I mean. Maybe he hasn’t grown up after all.’

  ‘Then why did that other Coco say he’d got so big?’ Marcus objected, as his mother gingerly picked up a soiled bandanna.

  ‘I remember this,’ she whispered. ‘He used to wear it all the time – Coco, do you remember this?’

  Coco nodded. Edison, meanwhile, had slipped into the bedroom, where he was pulling open doors. ‘No one in here!’ he announced, peering into a cramped little cupboard that contained a toilet and nothing else. ‘Doesn’t look like he’s at home, eh?’

  BANG-BANG-BANG! Someone pounded on the caravan’s exterior. ‘Come out!’ a muffled voice demanded. ‘Come out and play!’

  Sterling looked at his wife. ‘That’s you, isn’t it, Cokes?’ he asked.

  BANG-BANG-BANG! More thumping followed, involving more than one fist. Then came a chorus of high-pitched voices, echoing Little Coco’s entreaties.

  ‘Come out . . . come and play . . . you’re no fun . . . you’re not allowed in there . . .’

  Newt scowled at the two women. ‘Can’t you please tell yourselves to shut up?’ she said.

  But Holly wasn’t listening. She had discarded the bandanna and pounced on something else: a dog-eared notebook. ‘Oh my God,’ she croaked, flipping through its pages. ‘I just found Jake’s diary!’

  ‘Yeah?’ Even Sterling was interested to hear that. Marcus gasped, while Newt raised her eyebrows. Edison came scurrying back from the bedroom just as another volley of thumps hit the side of the caravan.

  ‘I don’t know what day it is. The days don’t matter anymore. They’re all the same. I went fishing as usual,’ Holly read aloud. ‘Oh Coco, will you look at his spelling? Even Marcus can spell better than this!’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Marcus was offended. ‘I’m a really good speller!’

  ‘Marcus goes to school,’ Coco pointed out, as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘I bet there’s no school around here.’

  THOMP! This time the noise wasn’t caused by a fist, or even by a collection of fists. It was caused by something large and solid, and its impact made the whole caravan shudder.

  ‘Hey!’ Sterling boomed, with a touch of annoyance. ‘Stop that!’

  ‘You’d better come out!’ was someone’s squeaky retort. Then the caravan started to rock and sway so vigorously that Marcus almost fell.

  ‘What on earth—?’ said Holly.

  ‘They’re trying to push us over!’ Marcus exclaimed.

  ‘Hey! Hey, stop!’ Sterling lunged for the front door, but lost his
footing as the floor dipped. He was thrown against the china cabinet.

  ‘Stop it!’ Holly shrilled. ‘Holly Bradshaw, you stop that immediately!’

  A burst of excited laughter was the only response. Then the caravan bounced again, before tipping sharply to one side.

  With the floor on such a slope, it was impossible for anybody to reach the door.

  ‘They’ll roll us!’ Newt yelled, grabbing a benchtop. Outside, the cheering and chanting had swelled in volume; Marcus could no longer count the number of voices being raised. But he could tell that they all belonged to children – children who were happy and busy and having a lot of fun.

  Then another voice cut through the din: a loud, deep, angry voice. ‘Oi!’ it thundered. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’

  And suddenly the caravan dropped back into place.

  CRASH!

  It took Marcus a few seconds to recover his wits. During that time, the shocked silence outside was succeeded by a babble of plaintive explanations. ‘It’s not our fault . . . they wouldn’t come out . . . we’re sorry, Jake . . .’

  ‘Get lost!’ the deep voice roared. ‘Piss off before I lose my temper!’

  ‘We were just trying to help . . .

  ’ But Jake wasn’t impressed. ‘I’ll count to three!’ he warned. ‘One!’ A pause. ‘Two!’

  He didn’t have to say ‘three’. After a short burst of scuffling and squeaking, there were no more noises from the mob of children. All Marcus could hear, as he pulled himself to his feet again, was the sound of someone tall and heavy thudding up the caravan steps and jerking the door open.

  ‘Who’s in there?’ Jake barked. ‘You’d better come out, or I’ll come in after you!’

  32

  THE TERRIBLE TRUTH

  JAKE BORAZIO WAS A BIG GUY. WITH HIS BROAD SHOULDERS, great height and shaggy head, he filled the entire doorway. What’s more, his muscles were very well displayed – because he wore only a pair of frayed denim shorts, a rope belt, and a necklace made of shells, bones and teeth.

  He took one look at Holly and the colour drained from his face.

  ‘H-Holly Bradshaw?’ he stammered.

  ‘Oh my God.’ Holly would have turned white too, if she hadn’t been covered in fake tan. ‘Jake. Oh my God.’

  ‘You’re still the same,’ Jake marvelled. ‘You haven’t changed a bit.’

  ‘Neither have you,’ Holly replied, her voice cracking on a sob.

  Marcus snorted. He knew for a fact that Holly had changed; he’d seen the difference with his own eyes. And as for Jake . . . well, Jake now had a raggedly trimmed beard, as well as hair down to his shoulders. He looked like a cross between a pirate and a pro wrestler, with a bit of rock star thrown into the mix.

  In the Diamond Beach brochure, he was just a skinny kid wearing board shorts.

  ‘Do you remember me, Jake?’ said Coco. ‘It’s Coco della Robbia. The one in the purple-hippo swimsuit.’

  ‘Coco?’ This time Jake sounded utterly gobsmacked. ‘You’re Coco?’

  ‘And this is my husband Sterling. And these are my children, Newt and Eddie.’

  ‘Stepchildren,’ Newt corrected, in a surly kind of way.

  ‘And this is my son Marcus,’ Holly croaked. ‘We’ve come to save you, Jake.’

  Jake blinked. ‘Your son?’ he said hoarsely, staring at Marcus as he addressed Holly. ‘You got married?’

  ‘Well – uh – yes, but I’m not married now. Anymore.’ Holly flushed. ‘It’s complicated.’

  ‘Did you hear what she said, Jake?’ asked Coco, obviously surprised at his lack of enthusiasm. ‘We’ve come to take you home.’

  Jake’s stunned gaze shifted in her direction, but he didn’t respond.

  ‘Maybe he doesn’t want to go home,’ Edison remarked. ‘It’s pretty nice here.’

  ‘No.’ Holly shook her head. ‘Jake, you can’t stay. This is a bad choice. This isn’t real.’

  ‘Are you real?’ he interrupted, then frowned and glanced away, murmuring, ‘You must be. You must. I never could have imagined this . . .’

  ‘Of course I’m real!’ Holly seized his hand. ‘There! See? Feel that! I’m as real as you are.’

  ‘We’re from the outside world,’ said Marcus, who felt that the time had come to supply Jake with a clear and precise explanation. ‘Me and Mum bought Miss Molpe’s old caravan to go camping in. We didn’t know it was hers when we bought it. We didn’t know about the cellar. But we found the office, and then we got on the lift—’

  ‘The lift?’ Jake cut him off. ‘You came in the lift?’

  ‘Yes.’ Marcus was surprised. ‘You know about that?’

  ‘Of course. I know about everything here.’ Jake’s tone was flat and bitter. ‘I’ve been in this place so long, I know every rock. Every tree. Every blade of grass. But the lift doesn’t work. Nothing happens when I push the button.’

  ‘That’s because you need a robot,’ Edison weighed in. And when Jake’s jaw dropped, Holly added gently, ‘Things have changed since we were kids. There are robots and . . . and other things . . .’

  ‘Like computers!’ Edison supplied, much to Coco’s disgust.

  ‘We’re not that old!’ she snapped. ‘There were computers around when we were your age – they just weren’t as good as they are now!’

  ‘Yeah. Well, I guess a lot of things have changed while you’ve been down here,’ Marcus said to Jake, steering the conversation back towards more urgent matters. ‘But the important thing is that we’re all trying to get out now. And since we found your brochure in the office—’

  ‘This brochure,’ Holly interjected, producing the crumpled Diamond Beach Paradise pamphlet and passing it to Jake. It was a clumsy gesture because of her false fingernails, several of which still hadn’t broken off.

  Jake didn’t take the brochure. He simply stared at it dumbly.

  ‘When we found that,’ Marcus continued, ‘we thought we’d come and get you before we tried to go home. Just in case you wanted to leave.’

  ‘Because you should leave,’ advised Edison, who must have thought that Jake needed persuading. ‘I didn’t want to leave my dream holiday either, but I’m glad I did. You’ll be glad too. It’s nice to visit, but you have to go home some time.’

  Jake’s lips began to tremble as he gazed at Edison in wide-eyed disbelief.

  ‘You think I don’t want to go home?’ Jake rasped. ‘Are you crazy?’

  ‘Shhh.’ Holly tried to calm him down – worrying, perhaps, that someone as big as Jake could do a lot of damage if he became overwrought. ‘Edison’s so young, he doesn’t understand how hard it can be when you’re away from your family—’

  But Jake didn’t let her finish.

  ‘Of course I want to go home!’ he cried. ‘I’ve been trying to leave since day one! The minute I got here, I wanted to leave!’

  ‘Really?’ Marcus was puzzled. ‘That’s weird.’

  His mother was also confused. ‘But wasn’t this your dream holiday?’ she asked Jake, whose shoulders slumped as he became more subdued.

  ‘Yeah,’ he confessed. ‘It was. Until I realised that you weren’t here with me.’

  Holly frowned. So did Marcus. Coco said, ‘But Holly is here. I saw her. She’s just outside.’ Then, as Edison opened his mouth to correct her, she quickly forestalled him. ‘I mean, obviously the one outside is a younger version, but—’

  ‘I knew that kid out there wasn’t you,’ Jake cut in, as if Coco hadn’t spoken. He was talking to Holly. ‘As soon as I saw her diary, I realised I’d made a mistake. Remember how you used to keep a diary? You were always scribbling away.’

  Once again, Holly flushed. ‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘I remember.’

  ‘You’d never let me look at it,’ Jake went on. ‘So when I got here, that’s the first thing I did. I asked to see your diary – and you gave it to me. That Holly gave it to me. The fake one.’ He pointed at the door. ‘But then I opened it up and there was not
hing. Blank pages. Because I couldn’t fill it up myself, you see. I didn’t really know what was going on inside your head. That’s when I realised that all of this . . . this whole set-up . . . it was all my own creation, somehow. It wasn’t a copy of the real thing; it was just a dream of mine. And people in dreams are never any good. They’re like fairy floss – they just melt away. I wanted the real you. I wanted to know what you’d written in your diary.’

  Holly was gulping and sniffing. ‘I wrote about you, Jake,’ she whispered. By this time Coco was wiping tears from her eyes (and dried goo from her face) with the sleeve of her bathrobe. Even Newt wore a slightly soppy expression.

  Marcus scowled. He didn’t much care for the way his mother was holding Jake’s hand. ‘So if you wanted to leave, why didn’t you?’ he said sharply, causing Jake to snap out of his momentary daze.

  ‘I tried. I went to see if Miss Molpe would send me back,’ Jake revealed. ‘She was the one who conjured up this place when I complained that I didn’t want to leave Diamond Beach. She told me I’d never have to go away. So I packed a suitcase with things like a towel and a sleeping bag, snuck back to her place one night, and when she sent me down into her cellar—’

  ‘—you opened a door!’ Edison concluded. ‘And you stepped into your dream holiday!’

  ‘Yeah.’ Jake gave a nod. ‘But when I looked for the door again, it had disappeared. That’s why I went to her caravan. Her fake caravan, I mean. I went there and I found out what Miss Molpe really wanted.’

  He paused, as if expecting instant and total comprehension from his audience. Instead, all he got was a series of blank looks.

  ‘Oh yeah?’ Newt said at last. ‘And what was that?’

  ‘You mean you don’t know?’ Jake sounded genuinely taken aback. When no one answered him, however, he took a deep breath and said, ‘She wanted to kill me. That’s what she does. She kills children.’

  33

  ‘THEY DON’T EXIST . . .’