CHAPTER EIGHT
I made a quick escape at the end of the class, to avoid being interrogated by Lara. Normally Lara was impossible to lose, being much faster at weaving between desks than I am, especially when she could sense a gossip opportunity. Today, though, I'd been in luck when Karl, a short, red-faced guy who'd had a painful crush on Lara since year seven, had chosen to pluck up the courage to talk to her. Not only had pudgy Karl provided an effective barrier between Lara and the door, but in his nervous state, he'd managed to knock her pencil case onto the floor. Leaving Lara to politely endure Karl's advances, I'd headed for the safety of the library.
I was keen to find more information about how Chris had died. He'd told me his side of the story, but even good-natured ghosts tend to be biased about their own deaths. I don't know, something to do with them being upset about the whole being-dead thing.
I shivered as I stepped into the library. It was the only air-conditioned place in the school. Mrs Stratton, the librarian, seemed to want to show off this fact by keeping the temperature set to Antarctic levels. She was an extremely skinny woman with a narrow face and a long, thin neck, who matched the temperature of the library with her icy glare. I walked past her, trying to look inconspicuous. Her eyes followed me accusingly.
I headed for the lone computer in the corner. The school had a subscription to all the major Australian newspaper archives, including The Canberra Times.
I opened the search engine for The Canberra Times and typed in the name 'Chris Reynolds' and 'death'. To my surprise, this search resulted in thousands of hits. I'm sure his parents missed him, but I was pretty sure that Chris' death hadn't been that media-worthy.
I clicked on the first three results but found nothing of interest. The fourth gave me better luck. It was an article dated January 14th, around the time of Chris' death. I read the post eagerly, hoping for something of interest.
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January 14th, 2013 Teenager Dies in Fatal Car Accident.
An 18-year-old has died after his car collided with a tree in Queenbeyan. Chris Reynolds, a Year 12 student at Canberra Grammar school, lost control of his vehicle as he was exiting a roundabout on Lowe Street at about 1am on Sunday morning. Speed and alcohol may have been factors.
This is the second death in the Reynolds family in the past year, as mother Annette Reynolds died from a drug overdose on February 19, 2012 after a lifelong battle with depression. Chris is survived by his father Bryan Reynolds 50, brother Alan 12, and stepmother Sharelle Reynolds, 30.
'Chris will be sadly missed,' said Barry Wentworth, Principal of Canberra Grammar School. 'He was a well liked student and an outstanding rugby player with a bright future ahead of him. This is a devastating loss to all who knew him.'
.
Shocked, I leant back in my chair to consider this information. Chris hadn't mentioned that his mum had battled with depression and died of a drug overdose. Considering that he suspected his brother was being drugged, it seemed like a relevant fact to pass on to me.
His family history was terribly sad. It must have been really tough at home for Chris. He probably didn't like to talk about the circumstances of his mother's death. The fact that his mum was depressed and taking drugs explained the strange behaviour that Brett had described seeing at Chris' rugby game—the way his mother had been distracted and watched Shane rather than Chris, and how she'd burst into hysterical tears when Shane had scored a try.
Yet again, I felt like Chris hadn't been completely honest with me when he'd described his happy, carefree life. Perhaps Chris hadn't been murdered at all. Perhaps he had been depressed too and didn't remember the accident because he'd been in the middle of a dark drinking binge when he drove his car into a tree. That still didn't explain what was wrong with Alan.
The next few articles I clicked on randomly contained the words 'Chris', 'Reynolds' and 'death' but had no connection to what I was looking for. It made me wonder what would come up if I searched for my own name. I resisted the temptation to procrastinate. The longer I was stuck in this ice-cave, searching, the less time I had to eat my lunch.
Finally I stumbled across Chris' obituary. I felt a touch of sadness as I read the obituary.
.
REYNOLDS, Christopher Kenneth
January 15th, 2013
Loved brother of Alan, son of Bryan and Annette (deceased), stepson of Sharelle.
Aged 18.
Family and friends are invited to attend Chris' funeral at
St Johns Anglican Church,
Cnr Constitution Ave and Anzac Park West, Reid
On Saturday (January 21st) at 10.30am
.
I scrolled through the next few pages of search results and found nothing useful. I was about ready to give up. It was worse than searching for a clean pair of socks in Brett's rugby bag.
Frustrated, I decided to try one last thing before packing it in. I added Chris' father's name 'Bryan' to the search parameters and clicked on the first result to come up—an old article dated 1995.
I almost fell off my chair. Staring out of the screen, with his characteristic big nose and strong jaw, was none other than the smug face of Shane.
Except that Shane had aged about twenty years and had a really bad haircut and a beard. The Shane look-a-like was wearing a suit and holding a baby in his arms. He was standing next to another suited man who was also holding a baby. What was Shane doing in an article about Chris? Shane would have been just a baby in 1995 when this article was published. It must be his father.
The men in the picture were standing outside a new-looking building near a large plaque saying 'Home Wizards'. I settled back down in my chair and started to read the article.
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February 11th, 1995 Home Wizard Entrepreneurs Add Sons to Partnership
Canberran entrepreneurs, Bryan Reynolds and Kenneth Harris, founders of the successful new home renovation company 'Home Wizards' have a new reason outside of the business to celebrate their partnership. Both men became proud fathers of sons on January 10th in Canberra Hospital.
Since its establishment, Home Wizards has grown quickly to dominate the home renovation market as the 3rd largest company of its kind in Australia. The success of the company has been attributed to the strong partnership of its founders and the visionary concept they brought to the home renovation business. Home Wizards differentiates itself by renovating old homes into architectural designs within six weeks, a time limit previously considered impossibly short. The company celebrated its 5-year anniversary last month, contradicting the early predictions of competitors, who called the Home Wizard approach 'unsustainable and impractical and will be bankrupt within a year'.
The business partners now plan to add play dates to their business meetings. 'I'm so excited to be a father, and so happy that my son Shane will have Bryan's boy Chris to play with,' commented Kenneth Harris. …
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The article continued with more gushing quotes from the fathers, but I stopped reading. I looked back at the photo. Whilst Shane's father showed a striking resemblance to the current day Shane, Chris' father looked nothing like his son. In fact, Chris, with his slightly large nose, looked more similar to Shane's father than to his own. I guessed Chris had inherited his mum's looks.
So it seemed that Chris and Shane were childhood friends. Their families were so close that Chris had even been given Shane's dad's middle name—Kenneth. But if Shane and Chris were such close family friends, then why hadn't Shane mentioned it at dinner the other night when I'd asked about Chris' death? Obviously, something had happened since the article was written to make Shane hate Chris so much. I had to find out what it was.
I typed 'Home Wizards' into the search engine. The first few articles that popped up were of little interest, describing only the business aspects of the establishment and growth of the company. Reading these was painful. My eyes glazed over; however I pushed on and opened the next few articles.
It seemed that after its spectacular gro
wth over the first few years, Home Wizards became boring even to business journalists, because the company barely rated a mention in The Canberra Times over the following three years.
Things changed in February 1995—one month after Chris and Shane had been born and their fathers had raved about their friendship. Home Wizards rated an article every day that month. This was going to take a while. Steeling myself to focus and stay awake, I opened all the articles for that month and read.
The articles were all about the sale of Home Wizards. There was something peculiar about this sale that had captured the journalists' attention. It seemed that Chris' dad had sold the business to Shane's dad for an unseemly low, bargain price. No one could understand why Chris' dad has sold out so cheap. The business was profitable and valued highly. Why give it away? Some articles speculated that the fathers had had a falling out and that Chris' dad wanted out, even at the cost of losing such a profitable business. However when Chris' dad had been questioned about the sale, he claimed only that he wanted to spend more time with his newborn son.
So it sounded like Shane's family had profited at Chris' family's expense. It still didn't explain why Shane hated Chris. If anything, it seemed that it should be the other way around; Chris should hate Shane's family for ripping his family off.
Six months later, in August 1995, there was another cluster of articles about the company. I opened the articles eagerly.
Financial trouble.
Under Shane's father's ownership, the company was going under. The staff weren't receiving their pay, customers' renovations were unfinished, and banks were pressuring the business to close. It seemed Shane's family would go bankrupt. Somehow, though, bit by bit, the business made it through the tough times and recovered. It no longer reached its previously epic levels of profit, but it was surviving. It seemed, from the sporadic articles over the years, that the business survived to this day. It wasn't a spectacular business, but it was breaking even.
So Chris' father had sold the business to Shane's just in time, before it started losing money. That seemed a bit suspicious to me. Maybe he'd known the business was about to go under. Maybe he'd caused it to go under and had off-loaded it to Shane's dad. In that case, it was Shane's dad, not Chris' who'd been disadvantaged in the bargain-basement deal.
The failure of the business could explain why Shane hated Chris so much; but Shane's family hardly seemed to be suffering financially. Shane's attendance at a ritzy private school and the way he dressed indicated that he belonged to a wealthy family. They were doing more than okay. So it didn't make sense for Shane to hold a grudge against Chris for his father's business dealings eighteen years earlier.
All I'd achieved with my research was to confuse myself further. It was time to give up. With my mind buzzing, I got up from the computer and made my way down a row of books towards the entrance of the library. It was lunch time and I was starving. I was still lost in thought when the familiar voice of Ella interrupted me.
'Hang on, Fiona.' Ella was walking behind me, running her shimmering arms, which were currently translucent, through the shelves, as though knocking the books to the floor.
'Good timing for once,' I whispered, eager to tell her about what I'd just discovered. I glanced around to make sure no one was watching me apparently talk to myself. Mrs Stratton was now shelving books at the end of the row, within earshot, but her back was turned to me. Ella motioned for me to lean forward so she could whisper in my ear.
'Don't forget to fix your hair,' she giggled as she suddenly pulled out my hair elastic before disappearing.
'Aargh!' I yelped in surprise and frustration as my hair fell messily onto my shoulders.
Mrs Stratton looked up at me sharply.
'Fiona! Is there a problem?'
'Ummm … sorry Mrs Stratton. I just found a book I really like.'
I hoped that this lie would impress Mrs Stratton with my devotion to reading, but it was clear that either Mrs Stratton saw right through my story or she was a terrible librarian who was indifferent to her job.
She glared over her glasses at me, and pointed her finger towards the exit. She seemed almost triumphant that she finally had an excuse to kick me out of her precious, glacial library.
'If you want to make noise and be silly, get out. I shouldn't need to remind you that that's what the playground is for.'