reach up high to put flowers on the coffin. I can’t see Robot Man any more because of all the flowers. He must be drowning in the flowers. I wonder what would happen if I saved Robot Man like the man saved me. The nurses were nice to me in the hospital and even let me keep the flappy slippers to take home, but they didn’t tell me Falcon was dead. Dad told me. He said the man saved me first because I was in the front and when he went back down for Falcon he was already dead.
Everyone sings ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ but I don’t, even though I know all the words, and then some men I don’t know lift up the coffin with Falcon in it and take it out of the church. Dad takes my hand and we walk behind it. Everyone stares at me, even though they pretend not to, and I can hear all the people sniffing and crying but I don’t look at them. The light coming through the door hurts my eyes. Maybe all that light is from the angels and they’re going to take us all up to heaven with Falcon. I tug at Dad’s sleeve to tell him I want to go with Falcon and the angels but, instead of bending down to hear me, he picks me up in his arms like when I was little and carries me out into the bright light.
Outside the light isn’t so bright any more but it’s still weird. They’re sliding the coffin into the back of the big black car like a tray going in the oven, but they leave the end sticking out and the back door open so people can put flowers on it. Dad puts me down and people come over and touch me and call me dear. I don’t like it. But the man who saved me comes up and smiles at me and I like it, but then he goes away again without saying anything. Everyone looks strange like they’re far away but their faces are really big, like balloons.
‘Where’s Mum?’ I say to Dad, but he doesn’t answer me. He’s looking at the coffin with all the flowers on it. His face is wet and puffed up from all the crying. ‘Where’s Mum?’ I say again and even though I know he’s heard me he doesn’t answer. The people beside Dad turn away, pretending they can’t hear me either. ‘I want Mum,’ I say, but I don’t really. I just want to see what Dad says. He turns his head and looks at me and I don’t know what he’s going to say. ‘It’s just you and me now, Sunny girl,’ he says.
I think of Mum standing at the kitchen bench with the weird light coming in the window and the way her eyes slide at me and make my tummy feel sick, and how the policeman put his hand on the top of her head to stop her banging it when she got into the back of the police car. She didn’t turn around to look at me when they drove away.
Dad hands me a flower. ‘Go on,’ he says. ‘Say goodbye to your brother and then we’ll go home.’ He gives me a little shove so I know to put the flower on the coffin. Everyone stands back so I can go right up to the coffin. I reach in and put the flower in the middle of all the other flowers and I feel the shiny plastic of Robot Man underneath all the flowers, like he’s drowned, like he can’t get out. I catch him and pull him out and hold him tight in my hand where no one can see and then I put him way down deep inside my blue pocket with the daisies on it where he’ll be safe.
Chapter 12
SATURDAY 24 NOVEMBER 2012
Karen’s house on the rise of Mt Victoria was bigger and flashier than I’d expected. It’s hard to break the old prejudice that criminals are all working class and poor. She had written her address on the back of the down-payment cheque I still hadn’t got around to banking. First thing Monday I’d deposit it and send her an invoice for the extra days in Auckland, plus expenses. Given her no-show, I was tempted to add the cost of Ned’s dinner to the invoice, plus extra remuneration for loss of pride over the naked she-devil incident. My anger