THE CHRONICLES OF KERRIGAN CLEARY
Sometimes I’m a sister who gives advice and teases and all of that, and sometimes I’m just a girl who wonders how the kid who sleeps in the next room could ever be related to her. Only natural, right? We all love our brothers, in spite of the fact that none of us has a clue what’s really in their hearts.
Even before Fiona Loomis took off, or got killed, or who knows … before this neighborhood was all sirens, search parties, and ladies standing by their windows at all hours … weeks before someone shot Kyle Dwyer in the stomach, my brother, Alistair, had changed. Puberty: it got him and it got him good. At least that’s what I thought at first. That’s not what I think now. Because when they found him in our front yard, looking up at the stars, that wasn’t the boy I knew, and that wasn’t even the one I didn’t know yet. That was someone from outer space.
Here’s what we can say so far: Kyle Dwyer will live. For now. He’s in a coma, so he isn’t talking. Can’t tell us who shot him. My money is on Charlie because, well, he’s Charlie, and Charlie has always been a bit off. But Charlie is nowhere to be found, and the police bagged up Alistair’s wet and bloody clothes. They say Alistair is the one who made the 911 call.
“It’s not how it looks,” Alistair told me two nights ago as he stood in our hallway, dripping wet and terrified. “Just make sure they know it’s not how it looks.”
I didn’t make sure “they” knew anything. I love the kid, but he has to speak for himself. He has to start talking. He put a padlock on his mouth, though. Swallowed the key. Mom and Dad think he’s still in shock. It’s only been a couple of days, so they may be right. A psychologist tried to get him to open up and will try again. The police gave it a try too. Nothing doing. Not enough evidence to arrest him, I guess, but they can’t help but think this has something to do with Fiona Loomis.
Everyone thinks that.
The town prays for Kyle Dwyer. A sentence I thought I’d never write.
The town misses Charlie Dwyer. Another sentence that tests the laws of logic.
The town is sure my brother shot someone in the gut. Ding, ding, ding! That’s three in a row.
Oh, the town. Forgot to tell you about that. The town is Thessaly, up here in the forehead of New York State, where no one notices us until a couple of kids go poof.
Oh, and me. I’m Kerrigan Cleary. Keri to friends. I’ll admit, Keri Cleary is a bit of a tongue twister. Keri Cleary carried cherries for cheery chipmunks. Say that ten times fast. What can I do, though? It’s the name I got and I can’t get another.
Oh, and one more thing. I haven’t even told you the date yet, which I guess is pretty much necessary for this sort of … endeavor. I hesitate to call this a diary, even though that’s what it is. Hopefully it becomes more than that. A place to confess. A place to tell stories. Truth and fiction.
Anyway, I’m writing this on:
TUESDAY, 11/21/1989 EVENING
Which is two days after Kyle was shot and Charlie disappeared. A day after they found my brother sitting in our yard, looking up at the stars. Hours after I started thinking up a story about a wombat.
Yes, a wombat.
That’s yet another thing. There are no wombats here in Thessaly, at least that I know of. Most of my neighbors probably don’t even have a clue what a wombat is. For the record, it’s a marsupial, which means it has a pouch like a kangaroo or koala, and lives in Australia. It looks a bit like a woodchuck, but it isn’t related. Not even close.
How much wom could a wombat bat if a wombat could bat wom?
Dumb joke. Forget it.
The story is the important thing. In it, this brother and sister find a wombat on the side of the road, and the wombat has a sign around her neck that reads: PERFECTLY FINE WOMBAT. This is the type of story where kids believe signs like that, so they take her home and make her their pet.
I don’t think I’m ready to write any of it down yet, but I do have a pretty good idea how it’ll end. In a waterfall. Images and ideas have been crashing into me like a meteor shower for the last day, and the image of a waterfall is the clearest. The story starts with a brother and a sister on a road. It ends with a wombat and a waterfall. That’s what I’ve got so far.
I’ve never thought of myself as a writer. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve written stories before. For school. A few times for fun. But this is the first time I’ve really felt like I needed to do it. I’m finding out that if you have the ending from the get-go, then you’re in good shape. Problem is, I rarely have the ending from the get-go.
Here, for instance, is a different story, a shorter story, one about endings that doesn’t really have an ending. I don’t care. That won’t stop me from writing it.
Text copyright © 2016 Aaron Starmer
