The Hollows(18)

Her belly had a hard, cold lump inside it.

She loved that flask and she had promised her dad she would always look after it. She wasn’t like some of her friends, who didn’t care about breaking their phones or losing stuff because they knew their parents would replace it with barely a moan. She prided herself on looking after her things. But where the hell was it?

‘Hey,’ she called. ‘I’m going out.’

Her dad called back, ‘Where are you going?’ He seemed in a better mood. Excited about something, scribbling away in a notepad. She knew he’d enjoyed the archery too, though he kept going on about how she was a natural talent, that maybe she ought to take it up when she got home, that he could see her competing for prizes. Why couldn’t it just be something fun she’d tried? Why did parents always seize things they thought you were good at and try to squeeze all the joy out of them?

‘Just to get an ice cream,’ she replied.

But she didn’t go to the ice cream stand. Instead, she went into the general store, trying to remain calm. It was pretty small, with basic groceries plus some books, magazines and DVD rentals. DVDs. That was how quaint this place was. The shelves were full of all the stuff her mum wouldn’t let her have at home: Twinkies, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, that spread made out of marshmallow. She hovered by the shelf, distracted from her mission, wondering if her dad would buy some for her, until she remembered she was trying to convince him she wasn’t a kid any more. Marshmallow spread was hardly the best way to achieve that.

She approached the counter, where a woman who reminded Frankie of her grandma in Albany was standing.

‘Hey, sweetie.’

‘Um, can you help me? I can’t find my flask. It’s like, a metal water bottle, a kind of bright greeny-blue colour. Has anything been handed in?’

The woman shook her head, but went into a back room to check and ask her colleagues.

‘Maybe try at reception? They have a lost and found there.’

Reception was located in a large cabin near the entrance to the resort. Close to tears, Frankie hovered near the desk, waiting for the grumpy-looking woman seated there to finish her phone call, when a man appeared through another door. He was huge, his red polo shirt threatening to ride up and expose his belly. There was a badge pinned on his chest. Greg Quinn. Manager.

‘Hey,’ he said brightly, doing that twinkly thing that a lot of men did in her presence these days. ‘Can I help, sweetheart?’

She hated being called ‘sweetheart’, but she kept her face neutral.

‘Do you have a lost and found?’ she asked, wishing she didn’t always feel so nervous about talking to adults, especially men.

His shoulders slumped, like he was thinking, Not another one.

She told him about her flask.

‘Hmm. It doesn’t sound familiar.’

‘Are you sure? I really need to find it or my dad will kill me.’

Greg seemed taken aback. ‘Hey, I’m sure your dad won’t . . .’ But he must have seen the panic on her face because he said, ‘Why don’t you come through and we can take a look.’

He opened the door and beckoned for her to follow him. Normally, she would have hesitated, all the years of warnings about stranger danger causing her to be wary, but there was that grumpy woman behind the desk, which made her feel safer. Frankie could scream if anything happened, which it probably wouldn’t – she could hear her friends in her head, telling her she was so dramatic – and, anyway, she was desperate.

She went through into a large office. A desk with a computer, some filing cabinets, and framed photographs on the walls.

‘Okay,’ he said, rooting around. ‘Where’s that lost-items box?’

While he rummaged through the cupboard, Frankie inspected the pictures on the walls. They showed a campground. Rows of tents. Scouts and Guides and groups of schoolkids with funny haircuts and retro clothes, from the eighties or nineties, she guessed. One photo showed a small group of teenagers, two boys and a girl, in jeans and T-shirts, gathered by the edge of a lake.

Greg emerged from the cupboard with a large cardboard box and saw her looking at the pictures. ‘Cool, huh?’ he said, putting the box down.

‘I love their clothes,’ she said, for want of anything more profound to say.

‘Ha, yeah. We all dressed like that in the nineties.’ He pointed at one of the boys. ‘That’s me.’

‘No way.’ The boy was considerably bigger than his two friends and – Frankie was appalled with herself for thinking this – kind of cute.

He grinned. ‘Yes way. That was taken quite close to here, by the lake.’

Yes way? She cringed. But Greg was looking at her expectantly, waiting for a reaction, so she said, ‘So did you, like, stay here when you were young?’

He chuckled. ‘Me? No. I’m local. From Penance. But me and my friends used to hang around the Hollows a lot.’

He hunted through the cardboard box while he spoke. She held her breath.

‘Sorry, sweetheart. There’s no flask in here. Do you know where you lost it?’

‘No.’ She felt tears pricking the backs of her eyes and, apparently seeing how upset she was, Greg said, ‘Let me just go and ask Vivian.’

He left the office and Frankie noticed something. A Wi-Fi router sitting on the desk beside the computer.