Free Jasper Jones by Craig Silvey Page B

frowns doubtfully and stays silent.
    “See, Batman is different. He’s mortal. He’s got a real life to risk. Superman just has to avoid Kryptonite. Big deal. Superman fears nothing because outside a few very specific circumstances where he might encounter some stupid rock, nothing can possibly do him in. Batman has the same vulnerabilities as the rest of us, so he has the same fears as us. That’s why he is the most courageous: because he can put those aside and fight on regardless. My point is this: the more you have to lose, the braver you are for standing up. That’s why Batman is superior to Superman, and that’s why I am infinitely smarter than you.”
    I am a genius. I have won.
    “
Pffft
! Whatever. I’ll bet Batman won’t be too loud about his superiority when Superman is belting seven shades of shit out of him.”
    Jeffrey executes a number of weird kung fu thrusts, then shrugs and pulls a face. He drags his feet as we reach the eastern end of town. Suddenly he grins, slyly.
    “I hope
you’re
feeling brave.” He points.
    It is Eliza Wishart.
    The brick in my belly sinks a notch.
    She’s wearing a plain sleeveless cream dress with a lime stripe. Her hair looks thinned out. Maybe it’s the heat. Her skin is blushed pink. Usually it’s lily-white. And she’s outside the bookstore in the shade of a jacaranda, examining the cheaper secondhand paperbacks stacked on trestle tables. She has one open in her palm. I wish I could see what it is.
    Nobody knows about Laura. That’s what this means. Except me and Jasper. But I wonder how Eliza Wishart can be here when her sister is clearly missing. How can she be browsing books as she is? Looking, as she always does, so distant and sedate?
    Eliza’s manner has always intrigued me. She seems troubled, yet infinitely untroubled. Sometimes at school her heart beats too fast and she has to sit down. She goes quiet and pale and tells everybody she’s fine, even though she’s breathless and sweaty. And I just want to hold her hand and slow her pulse and calm her down.
    I wonder how it is she’s not panicking today. How is she not belting on the glass door of the police station? How is she not yelling her sister’s name down side streets, banging pans, corralling locals?
    I prod my glasses and tug my ear. We’re getting closer to her. The urge to blurt everything out is at me again. To spill this illness. It sounds stupid, but I want to take her hand and lead her to the leaf-littered bank of the Corrigan River. Someplace cooler and quiet. To tell her what I saw, what I did, what I suspect. I want to tell her, assure her, that Jasper Jones didn’t do it. I want to ask her not to listen to what people say. With air in my chest, I’ll tell her that I know him. That he’s a friend and I know what he’s like. That he
can’t
have done it. That it makes no sense. That I think he loved Laura. And I want to tell her that I feel horrible. I want to apologize. I want to tell her how her sister’s face looked last night. That before we moved her, she looked strangely peaceful. I want to ask her if she knows who would do this. If it was just shit luck or something more sinister. I want tolook her in the eyes when I tell her. I want to hold her tight when she cries. I’ll wait until she’s calm. And then make her promises. Say all the right things.
    I watch her as we move closer. Wary. As though she might detonate. Jeffrey, because he is a dickhead, does a lot of throat-clearing and foot-scuffing as we approach. I want to clap his head from both sides and squeeze until it bursts.
    She looks up from her book. My body knots.
    “Afternoon, Miss Eliza,” Jeffrey sings, and doffs an invisible cap. I will kill him for this.
    Eliza’s eyebrows leap slightly. Her nose is specked with barely visible freckles. And her lips just look perfect. Red and varnished. But I can’t shake her resemblance to her sister. She has those same eyes, and the same dark moons beneath them. It