Demons Read Online Free PDF Page B

less then hardly at all and it was weeks since we’d
seen her when one day we turned around, so to speak, and said: Where’s Elena? Her
name was Elena. Anyway, I’ll tell you what happened.
    Hannah: Pan…
    Elena lived in a house not far from me with her mother and younger brother, Ty. Her
parents had split up. It was an average-looking house, nice, suburban. None of us
had ever been inside but my brother, Cody, he knew a kid who was a friend of Ty’s
and this kid said the house was spotless—you had to take your shoes off at the door.
There was every kind of electronic gadget and appliance in there imaginable. The
father wasn’t rich, but he’d felt guilty about leaving the kids behind. Every night
in those last weeks before the break-up he’d come home from work with something new:
Ty got a TV, a computer, a PlayStation; Elena herself always had new clothes and
things. Her hair was shiny, she seemed to have an endless supply of makeup. In fact,
she was the complete opposite of what you would expect an outsider-type like her
to be: pretty, sometimes really confident, although most of the time, when I think
about it, quiet. When she first got sick and spent time away from school none of
us took much notice. Someone one day said: Where’s Elena? Someone said she was away
and that was it. She’s not well, the teachers said. But then she started staying
away longer.
    The end of the year came—formal, muck-up day, exams—and we sort of forgot about her;
we assumed she’d dropped out, and we had bigger things to care about. It wasn’t till
years later, when I was in my mid-twenties, that I heard what had happened.
    Elena had got sick, then sicker. No-one really knew what was wrong with her. Her
mother was working full-time and since the father disappeared she’d taken on overtime
too, so Elena and her brother were pretty much left to themselves—which was why,
at first, Elena did nothing about her illness but stay in bed and take Panadol. But
eventually the message came back from the school that if she were to be given special
consideration at exam time she would need to get a doctor’s certificate.
    Ty took the morning off and went with her on the bus. The doctor examined Elena top
to bottom but couldn’t figure out what was wrong. He presumed it was viral, possibly
even glandular fever, and sent her off for some tests. The tests came back inconclusive
and she was sent off for more. Her brother accompanied her when he could—his teachers
were losing patience too—to those funny medical places in converted suburban houses
which might be your auntie’s place if it wasn’t for the sign in the front yard, the
high counter with the brochures on it and the water cooler in the corner. They’d
sit on the bus, Elena with her X-rays or CAT scans in a big white envelope, Ty with
his Game Boy. Music was Elena’s other companion; she took out her earphones for only
as long as it took the specialist to say, for example, Please lift up your top, or,
Get up on the bed, or, Here’s your referral.
    After a while Ty stopped coming and Elena did all this on her own. In between the
bus trips and consultations she lay on her bed and listened to music or played on
her computer. But closing in on all sides always was this awful lethargy, a queasy
feeling in her stomach and a low buzz like from a faulty appliance somewhere up
in her temples. She was sick, and it seemed as if nothing would make her better.
    It was a friend of the family’s, a woman called Anna, who suggested one day that
maybe Elena should see an allergist. Her son, said Anna, had found out he was allergic
to varnish. Elena’s mother was so struck by her friend Anna’s advice that she took
a morning off work. The allergist was a couple of suburbs away in a house with a
neat front yard. Elena’s mother saw her in, spoke to the receptionist, then left.
Elena would make her own way home.
    She had only just picked up a lifestyle magazine and started flicking