Eleanor Jones is Not Drowning

‘It was murder. I’m absolutely sure of it.’

The rain beating down on the tin roof of Cooinda Secondary is making it hard to hear, but I’m receiving the message loud and clear. It’s lunchtime, and we’re in the school library, so it’s not exactly what I’d call a private environment for this kind of conversation.

Sitting across the table from me is Letisha Sabri. She’s got long dark hair, and big brown eyes that are filling with tears as she speaks. Standing behind her, with his arms folded, and his own dark hair and big brown eyes making him almost look like he could be Letisha’s brother, is Ethan Griggs.

Ethan’s my friend, and the boyfriend of my best mate, Namita Chandra, and I don’t mean to be rude, but I didn’t think he had many other friends outside of our weird little group. However, the boy continues to surprise me because here we are, sitting in the library on a soggy Monday. Talking about murder. Again.

If you didn’t know any better, you might think that death and disaster follow me around. I swear though, the drug thing, and the robberies, and the dead body under the house, and the guy down the street who died and then his place burnt down, and the other fires . . . none of those were my fault. I suppose, maybe I get somewhat carried away when there’s a puzzle to be solved, but it’s not like I go looking for trouble. Promise.

I glance up at Ethan before responding to Letisha. He gives me a short nod and I realise this is serious. If Ethan Griggs is encouraging me to get involved, then that means something.

‘Letisha . . .’ I start. ‘This is a pretty major accusation. Are you positive?’

A single tear rolls down her flawless face and I suppose that’s my answer.

I sigh. Troy is going to be so mad at me for this.

‘Tell me everything,’ I say.

She’s about to speak when three Year Seven boys run past us, one cracking the top of his thigh on the back of the empty chair next to me. The chair falls to its side and Ethan reaches to straighten it, glaring at the boys in the process. They look terrified. Nudging each other and whispering, they back away from the table, all the while keeping wide eyes on Ethan. He takes a single step and they run off in fear. Their response causes him to shake his dark head of hair as he pulls the seat back and drops into it. I try not to laugh. Every-one’s so scared of Ethan but he’s actually softer than  a two-week-old kitten.

Ethan and Letisha are both in Year Twelve, the year above me. I don’t want to say it out loud, for fear of jinxing myself, but another month and this will be the longest I’ve spent at any one school, or in any one town. Best not mention it to my mother. Min, as everyone calls her, including me, would take it as a personal chal-lenge and likely pack up quicker than a girl could say ‘dead body’.

Which reminds me. Letisha.

She’s wiping one eye, no mascara to smudge, which makes me think those long lashes are real. I do not have lashes like that. I check myself. Focus, Eleanor. She’s talking about someone being murdered here.

I clear my throat. ‘Xavi was your boyfriend?’

‘We’ve been together for two and a half years,’ she starts before correcting herself. ‘Had. Had been together. I’ve never loved anyone like I loved him.’

Ethan moves uncomfortably in his chair. Talking about love and relationships is not his idea of a good time. Even more than me (and this is saying something), he hates feelings: talking about them, thinking about them, experiencing them, so I know Letisha’s incredibly human emoting is freaking him out right now. To his credit, he stays seated.

‘Xavi was in the year above us,’ he explains, allowing Letisha to take a moment. ‘He’s an incredible artist. Street art. You would have seen his stuff around town, for sure.’

‘Street art?’ I frown. ‘You mean like graffiti?’

‘More than that, so much more!’ Letisha’s tears stop abruptly, and she leans across the table to grab my arm. ‘Xavi was so talented. It wasn’t just his technical skill, or his creativity, either. His work somehow made you feel, you know?’ Her fingers dig in and I try not to wince. Or crack a joke about what I’m feeling right now. I let her keep speaking. ‘He was accepted into art school, but he wanted to stay here.’

‘In Cooinda?’ I don’t mean anything bad by that question. I mean, I’ve loved living in Cooinda so far.  I know how people feel about small country towns though. Namita and Ethan talk all the time about how they can’t wait to get out of here.

Letisha drops her head. ‘I want to go to art school too. Xavi said he’d wait for me, and then we could go together.’ Her voice catches on that last word. She’s crying again.

‘The local council commissioned Xavi to do a lot of work around town this year,’ Ethan says, trying to keep the conversation on track. ‘You know that big brick wall next to the hardware store?’

I pause, thinking. We have a hardware store?

He raises his eyebrows at me. ‘Across the street and one block down from the library.’

Now I know immediately what he’s talking about. Why didn’t he just say that in the first place? ‘Oh, yeah. With the birds? I love that!’

‘Yeah, well,’ Letisha continues as she wipes her eye. ‘That’s Xavi. Then, more recently, he was doing all the concrete pylons under the bridges. He’d slowed down over the past few weeks. Because of all the rain.’

The rain. It hadn’t rained here for years and years, but in the past couple of months it’s barely stopped. At first, everyone was thrilled. Water in the dams at long last. Everything stopped being so dry and dusty. The river was rising again. Alfie – that’s my friend, Alfred Ryan – gave me a lesson in what happens when drought-hardened soil can no longer absorb water and now I’ve gone from freaking out about bush-fires to freaking out about floods, so that’s great. Troy thinks it’s hilarious because once upon a time I wasn’t taking any of that sort of stuff seriously and now I’m somewhat paranoid about all of it. Hooray for finding humour in my trauma, Troy.

Troy Masterson is my boyfriend, and that feels weird to say. It’s honestly so odd. Like, he’s popular and kind and hotter than you’d expect a boyfriend of mine to be. He’s also an excellent kisser and thinking about that makes me smile, but then across from me Letisha sniffles and I feel bad for thinking good things about my boyfriend when hers is officially dead.

‘And Xavi was found . . .?’ I sort of stop at this point, because what’s the right thing to say in this moment? That his body was found in the river? That he drowned? I mean, does Letisha know for sure how he died?

‘Eleanor, I’m telling you.’ Letisha’s voice is firm, but her chin has a tiny wobble to it as she speaks. ‘They’re all saying it was an accident, that he was painting and he slipped. Or that maybe he . . .’ She shakes her head and tightly presses her lips together.

‘So . . .’ I hesitate. I’m not sure how to word this without sounding like I don’t believe her. ‘If you think Xavi’s death was murder, why exactly do you suppose someone would want him dead?’

Letisha’s mouth contorts into a confused pout, then her chin trembles and I worry there are more tears coming.

‘I don’t know,’ she finally says. ‘And it’s not so much that someone would want to kill Xavi, but more that the alternative just isn’t right. Xavi would never leave me, and he would never do anything reckless either. Every decision he made was about our future. Together.’

She takes my silence as doubt, and then the words tumble out. ‘He said he was working on things, okay?’ She stops for a moment, chews her bottom lip and then starts again. ‘He kept telling me not to worry. He had plans. Plans for both of us to have this amazing future.’

‘Right . . .’ I draw the word out slowly. ‘And you think maybe these plans got him into trouble? What do the police say?’

‘Apparently the police are looking into it . . . but I don’t know. They haven’t talked to me about it. His family think he was so involved in the work that he slipped and fell. They’re getting mad at me because  I keep saying he wouldn’t do that. They’re all telling me that I just can’t accept that he’s gone.’ She furrows her brow. ‘He was a smart guy, Eleanor. Careful. He loved his art, but I know he wouldn’t do that.’

‘Okay.’ I consider what she’s telling me. I don’t know what to think. I don’t know where I can even begin with this, but I also know that sometimes gut feelings are a thing. Besides, what if something happened to  Troy? What if I felt it was off and no one wanted  to ask those questions? ‘Who else might have known what was going on with Xavi then? Outside of you and  his family?’

‘Look,’ Letisha says, her sad eyes focusing on the desktop. ‘If anyone knows what Xavi was up to, it would be Luca Fowler. Luca has always been obsessed with everything Xavi was doing. But I can’t talk to him, he’ll take it the wrong way.’

‘Who’s Luca Fowler?’

‘He’s an artist, like Xavi. Not as good, if I’m completely honest, but they often do things together and compete for a lot of the same jobs.’ She sees my expression and holds a palm up. ‘I’m not saying Luca would hurt Xavi, of course not . . .’ Her eyes shift as she says this, and  I know she’s not convinced.

I have a lot of questions, but I need to put them in some form of order to make sense of what Letisha is implying. And, I also really don’t want her to start crying again.

‘If anyone can help you with this, it’s Eleanor Jones,’ Ethan says, providing more faith in me than I thought he had.

I’m about to respond to this when the bell sounds and there’s a flurry of activity from every direction.

I honestly don’t know how I can help Letisha, but I won’t lie. I am curious. About what Xavi might have been up to, and who this Luca guy is.

‘Letisha,’ I say as we stand. She looks directly into my eyes, hers pleading. ‘I can’t promise anything. You know that, don’t you?’

She turns to Ethan and I just know he’s getting the same pitiful look, because he glances at me and gives me the smallest of shrugs.

Sighing loudly, I nod. ‘I’ll see what I can find out. That’s all.’

I tell myself that there’s no harm in asking a few ques-tions, while ignoring the minor alert that’s sounding in the back of my brain at the same time. It’ll be fine.  I’m sure.