Chalkboy had witnessed something from the top of the billboard which she had chosen to keep quiet about. It was something she wanted to investigate privately before breathing a word to anyone. She and her friend parted company on the road. Strawberry sauntered down to town and Chalkboy toiled further up the road, jumping a fence and cutting into the woods. The thing was that she had seen Wendy dragging what looked like a heavy sack into Sex Cemetery. And this had put her head in a fizz. Sex Cemetery was on a hill, just beyond the field. It was not visible from the fairground, but a small portion of it could be spied through a chink in the trees, if one was perched up on the billboard and knew where to look. Sex Cemetery lay in the mangrove wood which collared out the creeping fringes of the outer cane. It was not your average sort of graveyard, for it's soil contained not bodies but dreams. It was the place where all the teens of the town had, for many years, buried their broken hearts. The small meadow contained lopsided, scrawly crosses and cairns of rotted chocolate boxes. Beneath these were buried torn Valentine's Day cards, un-opened loveletters and returned tokens of affection. All the murmurings of murdered young love found their place here; sticky little corpses clustered like poisonous sweets around the leavings of tears. There was also a sort of Hall of Fame going on in the Sex Cemetery, for each generation had it's legendary heartbreakers. And it was for this reason that Wendy's presence presented something of a mystery to Chalkboy. It would be fair to say that Wendy herself was the cause of over half the graves in Sex Cemetery. Her cruelty was biblical and her admirers littered the town like crushed butterflies. If Wendy had a throne, it would be made of candy and scandal. She literally knew the insides of half the cemetery, and therefore the insides of half the lovelorn in the town. She knew and despised them all, handling her power like a mad tyrant. Her enchantment fitted her badly, like a cheap dress. No-one knew why she was so loved. Some boys thought she was a little witch, but worshipped her all the same. Girls like Gracie plotted her downfall with ruthless conviction. She had no friends and dragged her little sister everywhere like a talisman, recording observations on her clunky dictaphone. Marie-Louise had cornered her in the library once and confronted her about the dictaphone recordings. Wendy told her that she was writing a book of secrets and needed to make constant notes. She said that secrets came to her like flies, and that she planned to catch them one by one, so that she could pull all their wings off. She graced Sex Cemetery as the Grim Reaper would grace the morbid avenues of a genuine graveyard. Yet she had never had cause to visit it before now. It was a fact she was insolent about. Her visit to the graveyard of shattered love boded ill for Chalkboy, who now sensed an even deeper disturbance in the fabric of the town. Who had Wendy come to bury in the black loam of the Sex Cemetery? And who had broken her bullet-proof heart?

Chalkboy made her way through the twisted trees. It was growing dark and she could still hear the fairground. But the sounds came from a distance, and sounded false, like a faraway television. Again, she had the sense that she was being followed and stopped. She peered through the brushwork of the ferns and brambles and saw a naked little boy standing in the trees, watching her. He was shaded by the straining clouds of tangled briars and she could not make out his features. There was something queasily familiar about his stance, something which put her in mind of strange memory feelings. She blinked and the boy was gone, scampering off between the trees like a squirrel. She continued through the thorny bric-a-brac, finding the dirt path with little difficulty. The black powder of the night was soaking up the last red juice of sunset when she at last arrived in Sex Cemetery. Little stuffed toys stared at her from make-shift tombstones. Their lashed limbs drooped wearily and they were still. Some were moulded and dark with rot. A large turn-out of earth marked a new digging to one side. Wendy was on her knees in the blackness, on the opposite edge of the Cemetery. Chalkboy lingered for many minutes, before approaching her. A spider got caught in her hair halfway, and she swiped at it clumsily. The movement woke Wendy from her stupor. She turned a tear striped face in the dimness, staring at Chalkboy for several seconds before looking back at the ground in front of her. Chalkboy drew close and saw the twisted corpse of Wendy's little sister, splayed like a broken kite on the damp loam. Wendy was still sobbing in an ugly fashion. The limbs of the girl had been twisted out of place, and parts of her bitten off. Her face was very calm though, the eyes staring endlessly out over the slouch of a cold shoulder. Leaves were caught like christmas decorations in the wreckage of her hair.

"She's dead," Chalkboy said meaninglessly.
Wendy's sobs quenched abruptly, and the sounds of the woods crept up on them. An owl flapped like a blanket in the trees, disturbing some crickets.
"She was by the lake," Wendy murmured.
She cleared her throat, spitting into the grass.
"I brought her here to bury her."
Chalkboy moved uneasily. The reality of the situation had still not occurred to her, and she operated like a patient under sedation.
"I think we should tell the Sheriff Wendy."  
Wendy made a funny squealy noise, like a child who has been denied an ice-cream.
"But I want.." she started, and then faded out.
Some stars had appeared and Chalkboy gazed up at them. She could still hear the elephant, trumpeting mournfully from the distant swamp.
"I'll probably get to keep her silver dress now," Wendy coughed.
Chalkboy attempted to light a cigarette. The quick blush of flame flickered in the dead girl's eyes, making her drop the match. She tried again and breathed in smoke.
"Most kids her age are plain old washing machine kissers," Wendy went on. "Just going round and round..."
Chalkboy passed her the cigarette and Wendy sucked on it. Her voice, when it came, was cold.
"Don't tell anyone that we used to practice on each other Chalkboy, they wouldn't understand."
Chalkboy nodded and lit another cigarette for herself.

The death of Wendy's little sister caused a rupture not unlike a chocolate flake sinking into a smooth white ice-cream. The happening stood out, but was somehow expected and complimentary to the energies at work in the town. The Sheriff called a town meeting, but only one or two townsfolk turned up. They loomed quietly, unsure of whether or not to gloat at Wendy's demise. Many townsfolk didn't even see the little sister as a person in her own right - only as some form of extension of Wendy's influence. Chalkboy spotted Strawberry across the sallow rooms of the town hall and together they elected to go up to the big white house on the hill where Wendy lived. Chalkboy had expected to meet Gracie at the meeting, but no-one was sure where Gracie was these last few days. Her telephone rang unanswered. Laverne would scream obscenities at anyone who ventured to the beachfront apartment in search of her 'daughter'.

Wendy and her little sister had been adopted by Oblong Jones and his glamorous wife. Oblong was a wealthy insurance man who owned the largest house in the area. It sat just outside of town, floating over the gusting cane-fields like a large, creamy coloured steamboat. His wife Jane wore floral dresses, threw numerous Sunday Lunches and owned the only jacuzzi within a hundred mile radius. She was the editor of the town's periodical and viciously enamored with her step-daughter's demonic attractiveness. Once again, the little sister featured more as an appendage than a real sibling and could not be viewed, unless in relation to her semi-divine sibling.

Jane Jones was on the pool-deck drinking cherry and pineapple Pimm's with terrible abandon when Chalkboy and Strawberry arrived. The girls approached from around the side of the wedding-cake of a house and observed as Jane lay amidst a clutter of fashion magazines, sunglasses and various lotions, drinking cocktail after cocktail in a silvery swimsuit. There was a tension in the air which set everything off-balance. Even the wasps seemed to fly at unnerving, uncontrollable gradients. The girls approached nervously and Chalkboy suddenly saw that the vivid blue, kidney shaped pool was contaminated by large translucent jellyfish. These wafted about like poisonous balloons, trailing tendrils and sighing drunkenly in the water, agitating the pool-cleaning device. Jane noticed the girls and turned with bleary, tear-stricken eyes.

"They were just...here!" she muttered theatrically, indicating the jellyfish.
The girls entered the house through a chinked sliding door, leaving Jane to her platitudes. The stench of detergent and freshly washed white tiles overpowered all else. A television screamed out daytime advertisements for cleaning products. Their maid Josephine was lying on the couch eating scampi pizza in a polyester uniform. She ignored them blatantly, sticking out the remote control and turning up the volume up to capacity as they passed. Deeper within the household, the atmosphere intensified. The sound of wailing (unmistakably Wendy's) came drifting from the wasp-hive of white rooms above. Oblong was on the stairs in his golf-togs, lying diagonally. At first he appeared to be dead - like a corpse in a television whodunnit. But as they drew closer they saw that he was instead studying a column of ants which was travelling slowly up and down the bannister.

"Mr Jones..?" Chalkboy ventured uneasily.
"Do you see how they are all carrying jigsaw pieces..." Oblong whispered in quiet fascination.
Chalkboy looked at Strawberry who looked at her in turn. They both leaned on the stairs, peering down at the caravan of insects. Sure enough, each ant was carrying a miniscule segment of a jigsaw puzzle. Thousands, perhaps millions of pieces were being trawled up the stairs each minute.
"It's...it's almost surreal," Oblong muttered.
"Have you found out where they are taking them?" Strawberry asked, innocently enough, smacking noisily on her bright blue lollipop.
Oblong turned an unexpected shade of purple. His head whipped up in barely contained rage.
"I don't play children's games!" he roared, frightening them both up the stairs like a couple of pigeons.
"Jesus," Strawberry sucked, pulling Chalkboy by the arm. They gradually closed in on the distant source of wailing. The fragrance of shampoo suddenly came into focus, vanishing as abruptly as it came. They stopped outside Wendy's door and Strawberry raised her hand to knock.
"Wait," Chalkboy said, grabbing her friend's hand.
"Look."
They both knelt down on the soft, white pile carpet where the ants could, once again, be seen. The insects struggled with their geometric cargo, over the wild white forest of the carpet, threading beneath the jamb of Wendy's door.
"Typical," Strawberry slurped.
They both rose and knocked.
"Who are you!" Wendy screamed from within.
"It's me," Chalkboy ventured. "Strawbs is here too."
After a while the door opened and a bloodshot eye peered through the crack.
"I look terrible!" Wendy moaned.

She let them in after some coaxing and they all sat cross-legged on her rumpled white bed. Posters of shirtless movie stars grinned down with enormous white teeth. Dictaphone tapes lay everywhere. Some had been destroyed with scissors, others stacked in crazy piles. The entrance to the en-suite bathroom was closed and Chalkboy noticed the ants winding under the door.

"So what's with the ants Wends?" Strawberry asked casually.
"Fuck!" Wendy exploded, sinking her face deep into a heap of pillows.
"See for yourself," came her muffled, deeply buried response.
Chalkboy and Strawberry got up and went to the bathroom door. Strawberry cautiously opened it and they both regarded the figure of Wendy's little sister, who was constructing slowly in the bath. The jigsaw sister had been done to the thighs and lay slouched naturalistically. The jigsaw pieces gave her a curiously faceted appearance, but she was otherwise photo-realistic in every aspect. She even heard them come in and turned in the water-less bath-tub. The interlocking segments all made tiny cardboard squeaks as she moved, lending her a sort of cereal box quality. She smiled and waved in a friendly fashion while the ants proceeded with their tireless re-construction of her limbs. Strawberry closed the door quietly and the girls went sullenly back to the bed. Wendy pulled her head out of the pillows after awhile.

"You guys didn't bring cigarettes did you?" she asked, her hair sticking and fluffing up like some kind of crazy canary.
Chalkboy dug one out and they all shared it by the window.

Aside from the cigarettes, Strawberry also had the good sense to bring a slope of purple headed reefer. They talked Wendy into climbing out onto the roof, down the side of a bougainvillea trellis and toward the distant crash of the beach. Nobody wanted to be there when the jigsaw sister came out asking for a towel. They got stoned in the palm line, emerging onto a section of abandoned coastline. Nobody noticed Easter Jack. He had been trailing Strawberry all morning, keeping his distance, muttering to his doll. He crouched in the distant trees, tapping trunks and clicking his fingers. But even he didn't notice the little dead boy who moved soundlessly through the cane. Clouds followed the smoke like sheep. The three girls slogged up and down collapsing dunes, slipping drags off the purple reefer. Enormous grandfather clocks spiked up out of the sand at irregular intervals, ticking disjointedly at each other.

"This town is turning to fucking jello," Wendy muttered, kicking down the nearest one.

It was weird seeing her without a sister. She was like a band without drums; too close to karaoke for comfort. She hugged her dictaphone to her stomach in the manner of an oxygen tank, recording the occasional neurotic whisper. The trio stopped at an abandoned lifeguard station and Strawberry went out for a swim. Huge rusted shark-attack signs heaved creakily in the wind.

"Never thought I'd see you down in Sex Cemetery, Wends," Chalkboy mused.
Wendy stayed quiet for a spell, her foot knocking an irregular beat against the boards of the shack.
"I used to go up there some nights with my sis," she said after awhile. She puffed at the dregs of the joint and handed it over.
"Fascinating," Chalkboy slurred.
"I used to go round midnight sometimes, walking through all the shrines... like a Dolly-Goddess or something...,"
Chalkboy gazed out to where Strawberry was; a pale smudge weaving through the murky breakers, avoiding floating clocks as best she could.
"I used to uproot some of the graves and read the letters people had written," Wendy went on dreamily. "I would get the sweats moving from grave to grave, eating up all those hearts like chocolate...reading them into my dictaphone."
"You knew everybody's secrets?" Chalkboy frowned, slumped heavily against a candy coloured life-saver.
"Secrets hide in hearts...and I eat hearts."
"Oh yeah...I forgot."
Wendy turned to face her. Her sharp blue eyes lit jaggedly against the dope reddened whites.
"I'll tell you a secret Chalkboy..."
"What's that Wends?"
"Most of the letters weren't for me,"
Chalkboy sat up clumsily, experiencing a peculiar realignment of her value system.
"What? What do you mean?"
"I mean only one or two graves were for me, most of the others were for someone else."
"Who..?" Chalkboy stammered.
Wendy lay down slowly, observing the distant roll of the waves.
"Who do you think?" she answered, eyeing the figure in the water.
Chalkboy rubbed at her temples, somehow emotionally affected by this confession.
"How did everyone always think that it was you?" she spluttered. "Most of the graves had your name on them?"
Wendy lay back in the cool shadows, fiddling with her dictaphone.
"My sis and I dug those graves Chalkboy...We would just get so fucking bored."