Aunty Bec’s reading the spines on the bookshelf. “Serves me right for forgetting my Kindle. These books haven’t changed in twenty years: It’s all Sherlock Holmes, Ngaio Marsh, and Agatha Christie.”
She’s right, but I don’t care. I love murder mysteries, the higher the body count the better. You wouldn’t think you could read a mystery more than once, but maybe my brain is defective, because I often forget who strangled so-and-so in the library or poisoned blah-de-blah in the conservatory. (I’m still not sure what a conservatory is, but they’re constantly popping up.)
I love real-life mysteries too, and I’m pretty good at solving them. Sure, as a fourteen-year-old who’s never lived anywhere but Perth, I only get to solve mysteries like the Mystery of the Weird Smell in My Bedroom (a moldy banana at the bottom of my bag) or the Mystery of the White Dots on My Black Skirt (a tissue in the wash), but they count. I’m sorry to brag, but, you see, it’s going to be relevant soon.
“There’s still the TV,” says Shippy, who I am definitely notcalling Uncle Shippy no matter what (he’s not Dylan’s dad so he’s barely family anyway). “Right?”
“You could always catch the bus back,” Dad says hopefully.
“I get carsick on buses and it’s, like, four hours.” Shippy brightens a bit. “Maybe I could check out the surf. Are there any old boards lying around here? Mine didn’t fit on the car.”
Dad shakes his head and doesn’t point out that neither his dead-dad hobby farmer nor his elderly stepmother is likely to be a big surfer, which is uncharacteristically restrained.
Nobody has asked me how I’m feeling about any of this, which is annoying because I’d love to complain. It’s not that I hate Dad’s family: Compared to Mum’s side, which is kind of a snooze (her only sister is a nun, and not the “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria” fun kind), they’re good value, and Dylan is…I’ll get to him. The problem is that tomorrow night I’m supposed to be watching a movie with my best friends, Ali and Libby, and if they do it without me, they’ll probably bond over their mutual love of gore-free horror, and then the next time we have to pair up in PE, they’ll choose each other and I’ll be stuck with Viv, who will definitely want to do my personal astrology chart again.
The kitchen door bangs open and closed and in walks Dylan. He’s missed the whole thing, which is classic Dylan, really. At the sight of us all he stops and slides his over-the-ear earphones down to his neck. Something that might be Finnish death metal blares out.
A word about Dylan, on whom Ali and I developed crushesthe summer he learned how to do something with his hair. It was awkward enough to have a crush on a family friend—Bec grew up around here too and stayed friends with Dad and Aunty Vinka when they all moved to Perth, so I’ve known Dylan my whole life. But it went full cringe about six months ago when I learned we’re not just family friends butrelated.Turns out his mum, Bec, is the half sister of my dad and Aunty Vinka.
It’s a whole thing, but the short version is that forty-something years ago my grandad had a super-sneaky affair with a woman he worked with, who put the resulting kid up for adoption. That much we know from a letter that surfaced after Grandad died. Turns out Aunty Bec’s mum, who wasbest friendswith Grandma, thought it was a great idea to secretly adopt the kid and not tell anyone. This bit Aunty Bec only found out afterherparents were killed in a car accident and she went through their stuff.
The word you’re looking for is:yikes.
Dylan looks at me and raises his eyebrows. He can’t raise just one, like me, and I know it kills him. I shrug, not sure how to communicate the wholeSnake!thing with just my face. Now that we’re, what, half cousins, I haven’t even noticed this trip that he’s lost his curls (bad) and skinny jeans (good).
“What’s going on?”
“We’re staying another night,” Aunty Bec says.
“Why?”
“Ask Nick,” Dad says. That’s when he gets a look like he’sjust been told the toilet’s overflowing and all the plumbers in the world are booked until Christmas. “Crap.”
“What?” I ask.
“Someone’s got to tell Gertie.”
Anyway, that’s how the whole murder-mystery thing starts.
2
Before we get to themurder, though, you’ll have to meet GG. (The nickname comes from her maiden name, Gertrude Goodwin, which is an amazing superhero name if only she had the inclination and a Lycra onesie.) Dad and Aunty Vinka have never been all that keen on GG, although they wouldn’t say so. Aunty Vinka thinks Grandad moved on too quickly after Grandma died, and Dad once told me she has “bad politics.” I’ve never been totally sure if they come here out of a sense of duty or to check on the house.
“I’ll go up and tell her,” Dad says, not moving.
“I can do it,” Aunty Bec offers, also not standing up. “We’ve kind of bonded.”
“Since when?”
“I had a conference in Dunsborough and stayed here for a week a few months back. After Mum and Dad died.”
Shippy, slouched so deeply on the couch that his fading chest tattoos are visible, farts into the silence and I stand up.
“I’ll tell her,” I say.
“You don’t have to do that, Ru,” Dad says.
“I don’t mind. I’m kind of bored anyway.” (Do I just not mention the fart if nobody else is going to?)
