On Mount Everest With You

CHAPTER ONE

↠ Etienne

”…you and I knew

strange corners of life. ”

― F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise

▌ ♚ ▐

OUR heads floated directly over the old ladys lifeless body, taking in every gruesome detail with a careful eye. Her eyes were still open and her lips slightly parted, and there was something so fascinating about the absence of life that neither Cassie nor I could look away. We had also seemingly forgotten that we had entered the home without permission, and that great trouble would likely come our way if anyone was to find us hovering over Mrs Rhodes dead body.

Cassie and I had a tendency to steal. I would not go as far as to refer to us as thieves. We could not appreciate anything of real value even when it was staring us in the face. We always went for the insignificant things that captured the attention of weak-minded children. She liked taking books, I liked stealing key chains. We had both made a collection out of our stolen items.

It took people days, sometimes weeks, to notice the missing objects. Sometimes they never even realised theyd been robbed. The problem was the trespassing. The finding of two badly behaved kids inside of someone elses property.

What made Mrs Rhodes an easy target was that she was an old lady who lived on her own. Her hearing was bad and she tended to not trust her vision, which made her the less challenging option out of all our neighbours. She did find us in her house once but after staring us down for a solid twenty seconds she simply shrugged it off and walked away, saying to herself, ”Oh, Mary, these years are starting to do a number on you. ”

We also knew for a fact that she always left one of the windows on the right side of her property open, even when there was a storm as lively as the one dampening the streets of Denbrough that Saturday afternoon. She did not do that intentionally, though, but would rather forget to close it. That was the curtain opener for us.

This time around we had broken in because the elderly lady had stolen my cat and I wanted it back. Alfred was never mine to claim. Our building did not allow pets. But I had spent months stealing from my pantry to feed the orange cat and so I felt a rightful sense of ownership over the obese creature. Hence the outrage when I learnt that the grumpy old lady had taken it in with her when she already had a dozen of them to nurture her loneliness.

But even as we were crossing the window to enter Mrs Rhodes antiquated home, we could tell that something was very wrong.

What surrounded us was a frantic scene that felt as if itd been carefully arranged to test our sanity. The raging storm, the fretful cats, the opera singer on TV hitting a staggering high note. The sight of an old lady that had met her timely fate, sprawled on the floor of her dimly lit kitchen. Her death played out before us like a play in desperate need of an audience.

We walked towards her taking small hesitant steps, feeling like the main protagonists in a horror film that unfortunately starred two brave but incredibly dense children. I remember looking around, fearing that this had been a murder and the perpetrator was still somewhere inside the house. But there was no blood, no sign of a struggle, and poor old Mary Rhodes looked like she had simply succumbed to old age.

”What the hell are we gonna do now? ” I asked. My voice a loud whisper that somehow managed to travel over the chaos of it all. ”Do you think they
e gonna blame us for it? ”

Cassies russet brown eyes, widened with shock and a hint of disbelief, travelled up and down the old womans stiff body. ”I mean… look at her. Its natural causes, isn it? Her time had come. ”

I looked around the place, still falling victim to the irrational fear that someone else was in the house with us. ”Should we leave her here until somebody else finds her? ”

”Etienne, you prick, ” Cassie muttered with evident humour in her voice. ”Of course we can leave her here. Shell stink up the place in no time. Poor Mrs Rhodes. I might as well just head over to the neighbours to tell them what weve found so that she doesn decompose anymore. ”

Neither of us was particularly smart, and we certainly did not know the first thing about the stages of decomposition. But Mrs Rhodes was already old and frail, so we assumed time was not working in her favour. ”Are you going to Elizabeth or the Kanes? ” I asked Cassie, who was already well on her way to the window wed used to break in.

”Definitely Elizabeth, no? Shes nicer, and a nurse. ”

”Wait. Im coming with you, ” I said as I hurried to my feet.

A teasing grin quirked the side of Cassies lips as she looked back at me, and it was so characteristic of hers, so uniquely playful. ”Why? Are you scared? ”

”No, ” I responded with feigned nonchalance. ”I just want to see Elizabeth. ”

It wasn exactly a lie, but it can also be said that no sane eight-year-old would like to be left alone with a dead body.

I don think we handled this endeavour well at all. In the sense that we were not exactly affected by the finding of this deceased old lady. There was a sort of excitement to it, actually. Not because we wanted Mrs Rhodes to die but because wed been part of something relatively important. Wed approached it like an adventure, a mission. It was our duty to inform Elizabeth Scott about the dead body not because we cared but because it felt like part of a quest.

We did go on to have nightmares here and there, but nothing that truly marked us. And I think that just goes to show how warped our little brains already were.

”Just don be weird when you see Elizabeth, ” Cassie said as she walked ahead of me. She had a weird accent. Two years in England, six in France, and a Spanish-speaking father do that to you.

”When am I ever weird? ”

”Most of the time. ”

Elizabeth was tall and beautiful. And two things about me were true at that age—I did not know how to measure the seriousness of a situation, and I was a brave little git who refused to participate in the distaste for girls that every boy my age seemed to have. I took pride in fancying just about every beautiful woman I came across. If you let me, I wouldve gladly boasted about being good with the ladies even though I hadn had my first kiss yet and was just an inappropriately bold little boy.

Cassie got tongue-tied when Elizabeth opened the door because she had not thought this through. ”Mrs Rhodes just died, ” she said bluntly and with comically widened eyes.

Elizabeth gasped and hurried past us. An ambulance came, and a necessary amount of mayhem ensued. ”Wed come over to visit Alfred the cat when we saw her on the floor and immediately called for help, ” Cassie had said when asked for more details. She knew better than to let me speak.

It wasn a lie, but a beautifully deceptive explanation. None of the neighbours believed her, though. They knew we had sneaked in to rob the now-deceased old lady as we had already done plenty of times before. They thought this would be good for us, in a way, that we would finally learn our lesson about breaking into other peoples property. We didn .

Mrs Rhodes adult son thanked us for springing into action despite how traumatic it must have been for us. ”It would have taken us hours, maybe even days for us to notice, ” he cried. This Gustav Rhodes made me mildly uncomfortable, and I guess the one thing I took from Mrs Rhodes passing was not to be sentimental around eight-year-olds.

It took us a minute to untangle ourselves from the turmoil of sobbing relatives that had quickly gathered at the property. There was no graceful way to make a departure, but we did eventually manage to sneak out unnoticed and walk up the block to the apartment building where we both lived, in one of the most uninspiring neighbourhoods of Denbrough.

The town of Denbrough could be found on the northern edge of Merseyside, too far from any big cities to garner the attention of any outsider who wasn familiar with the area. It was the sort of place where a lot of things happened but nothing ever changed. Its history was tainted by all sorts of unfortunate events that people just dismissed with a shrug of their shoulders. From arsons and robberies that had claimed the lives of many, to massacres and floods that claimed the lives of many more.

People in this town had a talent for looking the other way that was actually admirable to a degree. They reacted to the retellings of Denbroughs history as if theyd been told the weather forecast. It was no wonder we lived in a never-ending cycle of misery.

And, I guess if anything is to be said about this godforsaken place, its that it knew no middle ground. It had beautiful woodlands all around and a small enchanting river that ran on the east side of town, but also more wastelands than I could ever keep track of. It had slums and it had beautiful gated communities. People did great or they did terribly. They ran the manufacturing plants in town or they were enslaved by them.

Millfield Road could be found up north. It swallowed us whole with its cluster of dysfunctional families and erratic characters. Silence, a defeated storm, and the sinking realisation that my story had just acquired its first little stain of blood followed me all the way home.

Cassies father, David Loaiza, kept a watchful eye on us from our buildings parking lot. He watched as we raced down the street like the two impertinent children that we were. His forearms rested over the railing of the entrance steps as he smoked a cigarette and carefully absorbed the details of that sombre day.

He was a detective for the Denbrough police, so he was good at being desensitised to this type of turmoil. God knows that town had seen no shortage of brutal crimes that made outsiders feel slightly nauseous and neighbouring towns feel uneasy. We were in the Top Five list of every abominable crime known to mankind. Drug offences, ****, domestic violence, armed robberies. You name it, we had it. And we had it good for a town with a population of just a little over thirty thousand people.

And I guess, given his and Elizabeths reaction, that most adults around already had an inkling that Mrs Rhodess time was coming. No one seemed to find her death particularly surprising.

He took one last drag from his cigarette before he let it fall to the ground and proceeded to briefly step on it. I could see how he savoured the nicotine, almost as if hoping the smoke would travel through his body and collect all of his sorrows. And out they would come, out with the smoke.

David was a very kind man, but he was also a very sad one.

”Should I be worried that you two were the ones to find her? ” he asked jokingly. But his most convincing smile could not rival all of the sadness that plagued the many layers of his eyes. He still tried his hardest to appear sufficiently happy, though, and his efforts were appreciated.

”We were just there to see Alfred the cat, ” I told him, feigning an innocence that never came to me naturally.

He laughed at my words, ruffled the curls of my hair, and said, ”Like you care about that stupid cat, Etienne. Now lets get you both in. Look at your shoes. I told you to avoid the puddles, not stomp on them. Your socks are probably all wet as well. Move it. ”

Out of all the people who have entered my life at some point or another, Davids entrance is the one I hold closest to my heart. Two years prior, that same parking lot. My father and I had just stepped out of our car to find an unfamiliar man leaning against the vehicle right next to ours. He was tall and slim and had kindness written all over his face. Millfields newest acquisition, an unknowing victim of this web of misery.

With that same careful eye he always employed, David watched as my father marched inside of the building without sparing him a second glance. I don remember much about what had happened before that moment, but I remember I had been crying on the car ride home and it probably had something to do with my mother. I made no attempts to follow my father into that dreaded small apartment we called home, and David took notice of this as well.

His eyes followed the path my father had just taken and then returned back to me. Tentatively, he walked toward me and crouched down.

”Are you alright there, kid? ” His gentle hand found its way to the back of my head, which he caressed tenderly. I didn feel comfortable speaking to strangers, but he didn take any offence to my silence. ”I have a daughter, ” he informed me as he pulled two chocolate bars from his pocket and handed one to me. ”Probably around your age. I think you two are gonna make great friends. ”

He was right, but little did he know it would happen for all of the wrong reasons. I had not cared for Cassie in the first couple of weeks after her arrival. I had seen her around, but I was fine with having the frail eight-year-old Tommy Clarke be my only companion in the building that mostly housed struggling adults from every corner of society.

That is until I sneaked my way out of my apartment one day and found her quietly sitting on the staircase that separated my world from hers. I can vividly recall that chilling panic that climbed its way up my spine when I realised she could hear my mother screaming. But I was instantly soothed by the fact I could hear screaming coming from her apartment as well.

”My mums having an episode, ” I explained shyly even though she hadn asked for an explanation. I already knew this was something I had to be ashamed of. ”She gets like that sometimes. ”

She nodded once, with her bored expression remaining undisrupted by my admission. I did not see pity or judgement anywhere in her features, which were a little too sharp for a little girl. ”My parents are arguing because my mum keeps sleeping with other men, ” she replied as if it was the most ordinary thing in the world.

That was the beginning of a very tumultuous friendship.

We left marks of mud on the stairs as we made our way up from one floor to the other. It didn matter. This wasn a high-maintenance place, to begin with. We could already hear the echoing of a commotion bouncing off the walls all the way down on the fifth floor and our postures immediately stiffened. My legs began to feel heavy as I dragged them over each individual step.

Once we reached the eighth floor, we could positively confirm that the screeching and screaming were coming from my apartment. David took one long look at the circular bruise that had tinted the skin around my right eye in various shades of purple and sighed.

”Come stay with us, Etienne, ” he said, putting on the same reassuring smile that he had offered me plenty of times before. ”Ill make hot chocolate for the three of us and we can watch a movie. Im sure weve got some biscuits somewhere around here. ”

”Is mum not home? ” Cassie asked casually, although all three of us knew her words carried more weight than they were leading on.

”No. ” Davids reply was quick and dry. His lips then stretched into a smile that conveyed everything but what it was supposed to. ”More biscuits for us. ”

Thirty minutes later and that entire afternoon was already starting to feel like a hazy episode of a show wed seen on television a couple of days back. It had an air of surreality clinging to it. We were already in Cassies bed by then, with mugs of hot chocolate keeping our hands warm and cosy socks having replaced the damp ones. A silly cartoon was airing on the small boxy television she had on top of her chest of drawers but neither of us was paying particular attention to it.

The only two things that could corroborate that we had in fact discovered a dead body that day were the unusual amount of visitors over at Mrs Rhodes house, and the book about some girl named Emma that had been added to Cassies collection.

But then there came a moment, I presume an inevitable one, in which Cassies mother came home. And so, for about a minute or two, we were suspended in this very bizarre scenario that seemed to stretch for longer than it actually lasted. The cartoons were airing, her parents were arguing in hushed whispers, and my mother was trashing the apartment below us. And we could hear everything. We understood everything. But it also felt like it was happening a world away.

Neither of us said anything because you don comment on how the grass is green and the sky is blue. Things just are and you let them be.

We weren startled when David suddenly opened the door to Cassies bedroom. We knew what he was going to ask of us before hed even opened his mouth. We were already in the process of reaching for our shoes when he uttered that first word. ”Cass, why don you and Etienne go up to the rooftop to watch the sunset? It looks lovely. ”

He had that agitated look in his eyes that he tried to soften the way adults do as to not alarm kids. But everything about him was strained and I felt infinitely sorry for him. I think David was the only adult in our lives who cared about sheltering us from all of the bad things that were happening. Not only did that make me appreciate him that much more, but it made me angry with everyone else.

Cassies mother Sophie had her back turned to us when we stepped out of the bedroom and I thought it was only right. She should have been ashamed. I knew Cassie mirrored my sentiments but she never bothered to voice them. It was an unspoken truth that was always at the centre of whichever room we were in. She didn even spare Sophie a single glance as she crossed the small living room space to get to the door.

”Who do you think is gonna be the first to phone the police this time? Im thinking Mrs Johnson. ” There was an air of annoyed casualty to her as she stomped her way up the one set of stairs that separated us from the buildings rooftop. She didn look back once.

”Or better yet, who is going to get the police called on them first? Your mum or mine? And its gonna be Frank. Hes gonna be the one to call. ”

”I say Mrs Johnson and shes sending them straight to yours because shes stomping too much and its annoying her. ”

”Frank and yours because hes nosey. ”

”Its a bet then. What does the winner get? ”

I think now is the right time to mention that I was at a point in my life where I wanted nothing more than to kiss Cassie. I pestered her constantly with propositions until it ended up becoming a running joke.

I find it fruitless to try to understand the psyche of eight-year-old Etienne. His little brain was too warped a place for us to explore. But if I have to submit myself to the tortures of retrospect, I will say it all comes down to my incessant need for attention.

I was still far too young when I developed a craving for approval. A craving for anything that could make me feel as if I wasn taking up space in places where I was clearly not wanted.

The one feeling that prevailed during my childhood was that of being left behind. Of no one wanting to bring me along on their journey. My father was just a passing figure in my life despite being physically present at all times. His gaze would never stay on me for long, and the disappointment that would cross over his features on the odd occasion where he did look at me was so easy to read that even my childhood self had no trouble dissecting it.

It wasn that he did not love me. He quite simply did not want me.

And my mother was simple, to put it lightly. Simple in the most complex of ways. She was not of an able mind. She was not motherly, not nurturing, and certainly not reliable. If she was to ever set out into the world I had no doubt in my mind that she would be leaving me behind. And so I felt abandoned and neglected. I felt I had a lot to prove. I had to remind the universe, or God, or whoever it was that was in charge of this overly intricate disarray of stories, that I deserved a place in this world.

I wanted to collect milestones and I wanted to do it quickly. I talked back to teachers and got in fights with the neighbourhood kids and broke into peoples houses because I got a feeling of importance from it. And I wanted to have my first kiss even though I was still relatively young because I wanted it to be something I could carry with me always.

That way, I would be able to look up at the sky on a particularly desolate night, look up at the infiniteness of a merciless universe that Id already learned to see as an enemy of mine, and say: See? You want to diminish me into something insignificant, but Cassie likes me. So much so that she even kissed me. You were not counting on that, were you? You
e always out to make me feel as if Im all alone in this world, but I have Cassie and I have David, and that is more than enough for me. So I won. Ive beat you at your silly little game. How do you like the taste of that?

There was also the underlying truth that I did find Cassie to be impossibly pretty. Her skin would absorb the rays of the sun and then proclaim their absence. Her hair was a pitch-black colour, always straight, never styled. Her features were not soft, they were not romantic. They expressed a level of maturity she shouldn have possessed at that age. But she had her fathers eyes, a rich and warm hue of brown, and that alone gave her face the tenderness that many others lacked.

We were up on the rooftop. She sat on the ground with her legs crossed, watching as yet another car pulled up to Mrs Rhodes driveway. I walked past her.

”How about a kiss? ” I suggested, but I kept on walking.

Frankly, Id been growing scared of asking. I feared that the moment would come in which she would say yes and then I would actually have to kiss her. I had wanted it for so long that it had ended up becoming this incredibly daunting thing. The idea of going to the grave without it was starting to sound more pleasant and less nerve-racking.

She turned to look at me. Her pretty face brightened with an amusement that I thought no one could wear as well as her. She was sitting in the exact same spot David would jump from two years later.