The Girl Who Was Buried In Her Ball Gown

Chapter Five: Where is she now?

I spent a week by Martin's side and never left him. If this Maori girl, or – Michelle girl, whatever she was – came for my Martin, I would be ready; ready to whawhai her! He woke, we talked, he slept, I waited. He woke, we talked, he slept, and I waited. It was nice. Nothing changed though and I was totally bored out of my tree. By day ten, I had read everything in that drab hospital room, well the cover pages anyway, since I couldn't actually turn those damn pages, but when someone else did... I was there, hovering over their shoulder like a shot. Heck, I was even looking through their shoulders or whatever, just to get my stupid brain to function and do something new!

I had met all the doctors and nurses, well I had seen them and heard them. I even tried to talk with some of them, but they didn't reply. New patients came and went; family and friends did too. Nikki and Mum came once as well, even Dad. I wondered if I should appear to them? But, I wasn't sure about that.

God, I was bored! My brain needed stimulation, I muttered to myself like a nutter, "Why am I here anyway? What could actually happen? So what if she came here, what could she do anyway?" I needed to get out of here, before I went mad! And that idea made me wonder if Jason was there himself yet – mad, I mean and already in the loony bin. Ugh, why was being dead so damned hard? I needed to cut a track! Just one more day and I was going to be outta there! One more day came and went and I told Martin I'd be back later to see him.

"I'm gonna miss you honey, give me a kiss – well, try to anyway." And I did. He still had his humour, that was good.

"Oh Martin, are you ever going to recover? Besides, you've got your whole life ahead of you. You don't want to hang around with a dead girl, do you? What good will that be? No children, no wedding bells. You might end up in the loony bin yourself, like Jason. Remember I told you about him?"

"Hey, don't talk like that. All I need right now, is here in front of me; I know it's not a normal relationship, but are there any normal ones?"

"The only cross-race relationships I know about, are usually with a man and his dog! I'm not a man, and you're not a dog!"

"Oh, you are really smart honey. Witty too." And you Martin, are beautiful! Oh, how I wanted to be with you.

"Don't call me honey," I grumped, it was annoying but sweet as well. This was so confusing! "This is never going to work. Look Martin, just get better okay. Please! For me, for your family, for yourself. Just be careful. This girl is bound to turn up sooner or later and for what? I don't have a clue! Get better, please!" And then I had to leave, in case he could see my tears starting to roll out of my stupid dead eyes again. I needed to go to some calming place somewhere; I needed some space to think. The beach, oh the beach. What a fab idea! Beach bum, here I come!

Oh my God! This was the worst move I had ever taken. There they were, four of them... and Nana? Was that really Nana with them? What was she doing out here? Oh no! She was there too! Her... the disgusting creature – the chameleon girl, Michelle, big spider, whatever she was – posing as me again. They were all around the car, taunting and screaming. What was happening? I had to go for a look.

I recognised the car straight away and something told me, there was danger here. I saw the bonnet facing toward the ocean, so that whoever was in it could have a nice view of the waves, crashing in and pulling back. The car was parked pretty close to those calming waves, they looked dangerously close. What really struck me, at the same time as I registered just whose car it was, was the alkathene pipe that ran up from the tail end and had been stuffed in through the rear–door window. The window pane was wound up as high as it could go to hold it there. Oh no! That's Auntie Annie's car!

"Stop it! Stop it!" I ran at them like lightning in a rage!

"Ho ho! Look who we've got here! Get bored at the hospital, did you? Ha ha, and I got bored waiting for you to leave! I've found another toy to play with, since then. Oh, I believe you know her too! Such a shame really." She had an evil coo in her voice.