Everything We Keep, Di Walker [best pdf reader for ebooks txt] 📗

now. Grabbing the jeans, she slipped her hand into the pocket. Her fingers found the clasp of the purse and she pulled it out. Its contents were still intact.

She put it back into the jeans pocket and then methodically refolded all the items, carefully placing them back in their correct spots.

Before closing the lid to the suitcase, she went to her wardrobe and opened the drawers. There were a few more things she wanted to take. Her hairbrush and the small pile of wrappers amongst the things she grabbed. Satisfied that she had everything she needed she zipped the suitcase closed.

She sat upright on her bed, next to the suitcase, one hand resting on it to, as if to protect it. She waited. Agatha knew what she needed to do. As the minutes ticked past and turned into hours, Agatha knew the time would eventually come. She waited.

When the time finally arrived, she stood up, picked up the suitcase, smoothed the doona with one hand and, satisfied it was perfect, and went to her bedroom door.

Opening it slowly, she listened. There were no sounds coming from in the house. Her parents would be out the back. She didn’t know what the time was, but she didn’t care.

When she opened the front door, the long shadow of the house told her it was well into the afternoon. She put her front door key on top of a stack of papers closest to the front door.

She wouldn’t be needing that key anymore. Agatha was not coming back.

6

Agatha had walked, without looking back, past the bus stop. ‘That would be the first place they would look,’ she thought to herself, then almost as quickly, ‘Who am I kidding.’ She walked on, past the next stop and then the next. Finally, the empty shelter of the fourth stop gave her shade from the evening sun, but not a reprieve from the heat. The summer seemed like it would never end.

She lifted the suitcase onto the seat unlocking and unzipped it. Looking around her, checking that no one was approaching, she lifted the corners of the clothes until she reached the jeans. Sliding them out she found the purse. Agatha opened it and looked at the contents. Four ten-dollar notes, and a bus card and a piece of paper with instructions, which Agatha had already memorised. She took out the bus card, snapped shut the clasp of the purse and returned it to the jean’s pocket.

Her haste had disturbed the neat formation of the piles within the case, but she didn’t have time to fix them now. She zipped it up and sat beside it, aware of a growing knot irritation inside of her.

She held the bus card close to her chest and closed her eyes. She pictured Katherine preparing dinner and Chief sitting near her, waiting for any little morsel she would have to spare. Knowing Katherine, Agatha knew Chief would not be waiting long.

A blast of a car horn startled her. She looked around. The cars were rushing past, drivers keen to get home at the end of a long sweltering day.

She hadn’t seen or used a bus card before, until Katherine had suggested, one day in mid-January, that it would be fun to catch the train into the city, a day out, she had called it. She had given Agatha her own card for the train and let her do it herself. Katherine had told her to always be polite, and if she was on a bus to sit near the driver.

As she waited for the bus, that would take her to the train station, Agatha wondered how long it would be before anyone noticed she was gone. Her parents wouldn’t realise. Rarely did they check on her. They would be out the back, still in their chairs. Even if her mother did go into her room, it wouldn’t be to find her. If her mother opened her drawers and saw her things were gone, she wouldn’t wonder where they had disappeared to, all she would see is an empty space that needed to be filled.

It would be Nell who would realise, but not until tomorrow. She had said she would come again at nine. Agatha started to relax. No one would know she was gone until tomorrow. By tonight, she would be safely at Katherine’s and she was sure Katherine would know what to do.

Two people arrived at the bus stop. Neither sat down near Agatha, neither really looked at her. They both had earplugs in, their heads moving slightly to whatever music they were listening to. Agatha felt her body tense. Katherine had told her, if she could, if there was an opportunity, to ask someone to use their phone, to call her and let her know she was on her way. Agatha didn’t see an opportunity here. She lifted her suitcase and slipped it between her knees, holding the handle tightly. The determination she had when she left home was beginning to fade. Maybe she had made a mistake? Maybe she should go back?

Right on cue, the bus arrived. The other two moved towards the edge of the bus stop. Agatha stood up. Decision time. She looked back down the street where she had walked and then looked at the bus. She stepped forward, closer to the door.

‘Are you getting on?’ the voice of the bus driver floated down to her. She nodded and stepped up. Manoeuvring the suitcase was trickier than expected but she managed, swiping her card and finding a seat, two back from the driver. The bus jerked back onto the busy road making Agatha half fall into the empty seat, her suitcase nudging into her.

This bus, number 34, she knew from the instructions, would take her to the train station. The trip had three parts, and this was the first. Bus, train, train. Katherine’s note had said to call her, and she would come and get her, at any part of the trip.