Waltzing Matilda (Emma Frost Book 11), Page 2

  He leaned over the bowl to better look down. He felt the suction grow stronger and more forceful, just as the thumping did the same. What he saw in the bowl literally made him stop breathing.

  Oh, dear Lord!

  Now, John had never thought he would ever wet his pants again. He could have sworn he never would.

  But for the first time in thirty years, he did.

  Part I

  January, Present Day

  Chapter 3

  It was getting dark and cold, but Susan hardly noticed. She was lying on the beach, her boyfriend Caspar next to her. They were listening to Sam Smith on her phone, each of them wearing one of the earplugs.

  "I love this song," she said and giggled.

  "Me too," he said with a deep sigh.

  In front of them stood a dragon. A big black fire-breathing dragon, panting and wheezing. It looked just like the one in the movie How to Train Your Dragon. It was kind of cute, Susan thought. She wanted to ride it but wasn't sure she could stand up.

  "Are you still tripping?" Caspar asked.

  She smiled, blissfully. "Uh-huh."

  "Mine wore off," he said.

  He sat up and the earbud fell out. Susan stared at Toothless in front of her. It was fading in and out like it was deciding whether to be real or not.

  "You wanna do more?" he asked and showed her the bag of magic mushrooms.

  She thought it over for a few seconds, her mind spinning out of control. She kind of wanted to since she didn't want Toothless to go away. But at the same time, she had to get home soon. It was getting late. She had school tomorrow. They both did.

  Caspar ate some, then handed her the bag.

  She smiled and took a few, then chewed them. She laughed as Toothless came back in its full shape, then lay back down to look at it as it lifted off the ground and hovered above her. Susan had always wanted a dragon of her own. Who wouldn't love that?

  Caspar grabbed her hand in his and squeezed it. Susan sat up, fast. She was suddenly feeling nauseous.

  "I think I took too much," she said.

  "You're fine," Caspar said, laughing. "Just tell the whale."

  Susan chuckled, but her stomach felt wrong. She rose to her feet. Everything was spinning forcefully and made her even dizzier. Caspar was deep into his trip and didn't even notice that Susan had left and walked up to the dunes, where she fell to her knees and threw up.

  As the entire contents of her stomach ended up in the sand, Susan suddenly didn't feel so blissful anymore. Nor did she feel like staying on the beach. She was freezing and needed a warm bath and bed.

  "Caspar?" she said.

  "Uh-huh," he said from the beach.

  "I…I think I need to go home."

  "Okay. Don't forget the stroller or the grandmother on the way," he said, tripping.

  It didn't even make her chuckle. Her stomach was hurting, and she felt so thirsty, she could drink the ocean if only it wasn't so salty.

  "I'm going now," she yelled at him but received no answer.

  She struggled across the thick dunes, feeling dizzy and nauseous. She fell to her knees a few times, got up, and wandered off, relieved that she didn't have a long way home.

  When she reached the asphalt by the closed ice cream shop and heard the footsteps coming from behind her, she thought it was Caspar and turned to look.

  But it wasn't him. It was something else. Something dark and sinister, something shadowy. Just being in its mere presence made her skin crawl.

  "W-who's there?" she asked.

  She tried to scream as the figure reached for her, but no sound escaped her mouth. Even if Caspar had heard her, he would have only assumed it was part of his mushroom-induced fantasy. A conjecture he was going to regret for the rest of his life.

  Chapter 4

  "I am sorry. There is nothing more we can do for him."

  I stared at Mrs. Kimberly in front of me, my jaw completely dropped. "Excuse me? You're telling me you're expelling my son, and all you can say is you're sorry?"

  The principal shrugged. We were sitting in her office—like so many times before when she had called me in to discuss Victor's future. Her kids—her annoyingly picture-perfect kids—were smiling from inside a frame on the shelf behind her. I often wondered why she had a need to turn her back on her kids every day, but in this instant, I realized that was what she did, wasn't it? She didn't care that my son was in the spectrum for autism and that he needed extra attention, extra help.

  She leaned forward.

  "Miss Frost…"

  "Emma."

  "Emma. Your son is twelve years old now. He should be able to behave himself. He should know that this behavior is unacceptable by now. Lord knows we've discussed this many times before."

  "I’ve told you," I said annoyed, "he didn't bring the knife to school because he was planning on hurting anyone. He brought it because he is scared. He has this idea in his head…there are these monsters, if you wanna call them that, these…beings that are targeting him. That's what he believes. He wanted to make sure he was protected." I sighed deeply, knowing I was fighting against all odds.

  "He can't bring a knife to school, Emma. No matter the reason. You know that and so does he."

  "He didn't even take it out of his backpack," I said. "He's been bringing it for months."

  "And now it was discovered, when it fell out during class. It spread panic all over the classroom."

  "But you know my son, Kimberly. He's a sweet boy. He wouldn’t harm a soul. Can't you give him at least one more chance?"

  "How many last chances have I given him so far?"

  "Six," I mumbled, looking down. "But you have to help me out here. I don't know what to do."

  "There’s always Fishy Pines."

  "No," I said, determined. "My son is not mentally ill. He's not going to be institutionalized. He can live a normal life."

  Kimberly sighed deeply. "Who are you kidding, Emma? You've said that for years. Still, the boy gets more and more closed up every year. He still throws fits. He screams in class if someone accidentally touches him and he yells things out if people make a mistake. He's a disturbance."

  "A disturbance? Is that how you see my kid?"

  "Yes, Emma. You know I love Victor, but he can't seem to function properly in class. Not even with help from the Special Ed class. He won't cooperate with anyone."

  "He's scared," I said.

  "He suffers from anxiety," Kimberly said. "He needs medical attention and you're not giving him that."

  "He's not sick. He just has a very vivid imagination."

  She sighed again. It annoyed me.

  "He's never going to make it through high school," she said. "There’s no way he can do that."

  "Why not? He can already do all the math and don't get me started on his reading. He's better than any high school student in most subjects. Science too."

  "But his grades are not good enough," she said.

  "That's because he doesn’t like being in school. He can't focus, and he refuses to take tests because he…"

  "Because he refuses to take orders from anyone, I know. He lives in his own world and he needs help, Emma. He needs real help, the kind we can't give him here."

  I was biting my lip, worrying how to convince her my son was still able to make it through school. But, deep down, I feared she was right. Things had gone from really bad to extremely worse over the past year since his therapist Ole Knudsen left the island, and Victor seemed further away from this world than he had ever been. He spends all his time in the yard with the trees and the rocks, speaking to them, doing whatever he does with them and refusing to participate in anything in school. Was I really kidding myself thinking I could give him a normal life?

  "I am sorry," Kimberly said. "As I said, there is nothing more I can do. I have recommended to the county that he be transferred to Fishy Pines. They have a program there that Victor might like. They know how to deal with someone like him."

  She hand
ed me a pamphlet. I pulled it out of her hand—forcefully—with a loud grunt.

  "Someone like him," I mumbled and got up.

  My son is smarter than anyone here. You just can't see it because—God forbid anyone is a little different.

  Victor was waiting for me outside the principal's office. He was talking to himself when I got out there and didn't look up at me. He kept his head bent down.

  "Come on, buddy," I said. "We're going home."

  "But we just got here?" he said, then mumbled something to an imaginary friend next to him.

  "The school has expelled you, Victor," I said.

  He didn't react. He kept staring at the bathroom door next to the row of chairs.

  "You're hearing it again, aren't you?" I asked.

  He nodded.

  I cleared my throat. "Come on, buddy. We need to go. This school isn't good enough for someone like you. You deserve something much better."

  Chapter 5

  I was still mumbling under my breath when we got home. Victor immediately ran into the backyard and hung out with his trees. Meanwhile, I made myself some coffee, mixed together the dough for some bread, and kneaded it thoroughly while imagining it being Principal Kimberly's face before I put it in the oven. I ate chocolates from a box I had received at Christmas from my publishing house as a thank you for a great year, while staring at the bread in the oven, grumbling about how idiotic and amateurish those teachers and the entire system was. I looked at the card on the box from the publishing house, then wondered if I should write a book about it. It probably wouldn't sell very well, not like my other books that had become multi-million bestsellers all over the world. The publishing house probably wouldn't even publish it. I was just so angry with them for throwing my boy out that way. And now what? What was I supposed to do? There were no more schools on the island. I couldn't homeschool the boy; that was out of the question. I didn't have it in me. I couldn't let him run around out there all day in the snow, talking to the trees. He needed an education. His problem was that he didn't have a diagnosis; there was no box he would fit into. He was too smart and too normal for the mental institutions, and too abnormal for the school. Wasn't there anything for someone who was just in-between?

  I groaned and sipped my coffee, then ate more chocolate, and then Sophia walked in the door.

  "Hey there, anyone home?"

  I smiled. She walked to the pot and poured herself a cup of coffee. Alma was right behind her, running into the living room where I knew she would grab all Victor's old Duplo Legos that he never played with.

  "So, what did they say at the school?" Sophia asked as she blew on her cup and grabbed a piece of chocolate. She would never let me eat alone.

  "They threw him out."

  "Uh-oh. It finally happened, huh?"

  "I know. They’ve threatened to do this for years, but somehow always ended up taking him back. I really thought we could avoid it."

  "What did he do this time?"

  "Brought a knife to school."

  "That's bad, Emma. That's really bad."

  I grabbed two more chocolates and ate them both at the same time. "I know," I said with a deep sigh. "I know."

  "So, what are you going to do?"

  I answered with another sigh and grabbed the last piece in the box.

  "I’m guessing you don't know," she said.

  "You guessed right."

  "You never told me what happened to that guy who worked with him?" Sophia asked. "He did some excellent work, didn't he?"

  I nodded, annoyed. "Ole Knudsen, yes. He was so good I thought he would change everything for us. He did so much good for Victor. But he left last year. Got a better job in Copenhagen."

  Sophia shrugged. "Maybe you should move back there. I mean, I would hate to see you leave, but if that’s what’s best for Victor?"

  "Victor hated the city. Maya loved it but would kill me if I forced her to move again. She has all of her friends here now."

  "But she's a senior in high school; she'll be graduating this summer, right? And will probably soon…"

  "Don't say it out loud," I said and looked at the empty box of chocolate. I craved more now as I thought about Maya and the possibility of her leaving home. I knew she would one day, of course. It was the natural way of things, but I couldn't bear the thought of my little daughter growing up and moving away from home.

  "I don't want to think about it," I said and sipped my coffee.

  "But she might go to Copenhagen to study anyway," Sophia said, not letting it go. "Then you would be close to her."

  "But I love it here," I said. "I love our little island. I love the tiny ferry you have to take to get here and I love the people, even though they are very strange and stubborn. I can't leave this house. I love it so much and now I have finally gotten it renovated so it’s just perfect for me. I love living on the beach and I love having a yard with big trees that Victor can play with. I love having all this space and eight bedrooms, Sophia. Eight. I never had eight bedrooms before. And my parents just moved here. Should I just leave them? They moved here to be closer to me and to the kids. Plus, did I mention that Victor hates the big city? There are not enough trees there. It's no place for him."

  "Okay, okay, I get it," Sophia said with a chuckle. "I'm glad you're not going anywhere."

  "And there is Morten," I said. "He can't leave the island. He won't. He loves being a policeman here. The big city would kill him with all its hardcore crime."

  I chortled thinking about Morten running after drug dealers and gang members. It definitely wasn't his thing. He was a typical small-town cop, who knew everyone and enjoyed the calmness of the island.

  "How are you guys doing?"

  "Pretty good," I said.

  "Are you going to move in together anytime soon?"

  "We’ve talked about it. A lot. But it's difficult with the kids, you know? Jytte hates me like the plague and there is no way Morten can get her to come live here with us."

  "But she graduated already," Sophia said. "She'll be out of here soon."

  "So far, she’s still here living with her dad, but as soon as that changes, I think we'll be ready to take the leap."

  Alma squealed from the living room and Sophia got up. She walked in there, then came back holding one of Alma's shoes in her hand. It was half eaten.

  "Not again," I said, then yelled, "Kenneth!!"

  "He was eating it with my daughter's foot still inside of it," Sophia said. "You've gotta get a better hold of that dog. He's just as bad as the first Kenneth you had. Maybe even worse."

  I scratched my head when I spotted Kenneth in the living room, ripping my new cushion to pieces and growling.

  "Kenneth II," I yelled and ran after him. The dog let go of the pillow and ran out the French door leading to the back porch that Victor had forgotten to close. It was freezing in the living room and a little snow had been blown inside and onto the carpet. I closed it while looking at Victor out there. He was wearing a full body suit to keep him warm and I was glad he was because he was kneeling in the snow in front of a big tree, looking like he was in a deep conversation with it. He closed his eyes and took in a few deep breaths, inhaling the freezing air. I wondered if he was meditating or something, then let it go and turned around. Right in front of me sat Brutus. The big pit-bull with those bright glowing eyes of his, staring at me intently like he always did. He was so quiet, I never knew where he would come from or that he had entered the room. He was Victor's dog, whereas Kenneth version II was Maya's after Kenneth version I was killed a few years ago.

  "Gosh, Brutus, you scared me," I said and held my chest. "Were you here the whole time? Did you see what Kenneth did? And you did nothing, huh? Well, that makes you just as guilty in my book."

  I heard the oven ding and rushed into the kitchen and pulled out my bread. It smelled heavenly and it was ready just in time for Maya to come home; we could all have it with our afternoon tea.

  "I gotta get home," Sophia sai
d. "The kids will be out of school in just ten minutes."

  "Have fun," I said, trying to imagine the hell it had to be for her, being alone with six children, having to feed all of them when they came home, trying to get them to do their homework and not fight while picking up backpacks and dirty socks from the floor. I was happy it was just the three of us in my house. This suited me perfectly.

  Chapter 6

  The rest of the day was quite uneventful. Maya came home and wouldn't eat any of my bread, as usual, since it was filled with carbs and she was cutting down on carbs, whereas Victor ate two pieces with jelly on them, then rushed back to his trees. I had a couple of pieces too, telling Maya the carbs caught up to me many years ago, while Maya ate some fruit before she went to her room to do her homework.

  Meanwhile, I returned to the room I had made my office and stared at the blank page on my laptop for a few hours, hoping for inspiration to strike, but it didn't. It hadn't for a very long time. It had been more than two years since I had last written anything, and it was getting annoying. Usually, I would write about things I had experienced myself, like my latest book Where the Wild Roses Grow, which was about what had happened to Morten and me when we traveled to Ireland for a vacation. It was probably the worst vacation of my life, but the book had turned out to be really good and became an instant bestseller. It made me a ton of money and I was good for a long time. So, it wasn't because I necessarily needed to write anything, but I was beginning to fear that I never would again. The past two years had been quite uneventful in my life, which I guess was good, but still. I had hoped I could just make stuff up like other authors did, but that was a lot harder than I had expected it to be.

  Morten had the evening shift at the police station, so I knew he wouldn't be over for dinner, and I made it easy on myself and heated up lasagna leftovers from the day before for all of us. Maya mostly ate salad, but she was in a good mood and talked about her friends and who was dating whom. It was fun to hear about, but it saddened me that it was all about her friends and not about herself. Maya had never had a boyfriend and it saddened me slightly since she was almost eighteen now and—as far as I knew—had never been kissed by a boy. It wasn't because she wasn't attractive. She was a very pretty girl, but she wasn't ready for it or at least hadn't been for a very long time. She had gone through some tough times, losing her memory some years ago and never fully regaining it. There were still gaps in it, especially from her childhood, but it was becoming less and less evident. I wondered if she was just getting better at hiding it or if it was actually improving. Still, she struggled with her self-confidence and was a little behind the other kids in maturity. Plus, she struggled in school to get her grades up, especially in math since there was so much of the basic stuff that she couldn't remember. Life as a teenager had been particularly rough on her and it made me sad. I wanted her to enjoy high school and have a great time with her friends and be a normal teenager, but it just wasn't happening.