First published in Australia 2011
by Hardie Grant Egmont
Published in Great Britain 2012
by Electric Monkey – an imprint of Egmont UK Limited
239 Kensington High Street, London W8 6SA
Text copyright © Em Bailey 2012
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
ISBN 978 1 4052 6116 6
eISBN 978 1 7803 1083 1
www.egmont.co.uk
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
For Jim and Julie
Contents
Cover
Title page
Copyright
Dedication
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY-FOUR
TWENTY-FIVE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
About the Author
About the Publisher
There were two things everyone knew about Miranda Vaile before she’d even started at our school. The first was that she had no parents – they were dead. And the second was that they were dead because Miranda had killed them.
When these rumours started spreading, people got all steamed up about it, saying it was disgusting that she was allowed to come here and, you know, mix with us nice, non-murderous types.
Not everyone felt like that, though. Personally, I couldn’t wait to meet her. As I said to Ami, what kind of wonk wouldn’t want to meet someone who sounded halfway interesting? Of course, maybe that just showed I didn’t belong at our school either.
One night, my little brother Toby woke up screaming in the darkness. He hadn’t done that for weeks, and somehow that made it worse. I’d been stupid enough to think that maybe Toby was finally accepting that Dad had gone. I thought maybe the nightmares had finished for good. After the screaming, Toby cried. Cried like a baby. I sat beside him feeling like I might sink into the sadness of it and never escape.
Mum appeared in Toby’s room moments after I did, the hallway light shining behind her. Standing there in her baggy T-shirt, she looked even more like Toby than usual. Small and delicate, with these big, grey-blue eyes and that fine, fair sort of hair that always sits smoothly, even when you’ve been woken in the middle of the night.
It used to bother me that I didn’t look like anyone else in my family and I’d examine photos, searching for similarities. A nose, ears, the curve of a jaw. Anything that resembled me. But there was never anything. In the end I quit looking.
‘It’s OK,’ I said to Mum. ‘You go back to bed. I’m good at calming him.’ That was true. But there was another reason I wanted to stay. It was my duty. Because it was my fault Tobes was in this state in the first place.
I snuggled up next to him, our heads side by side on his pillow like two pupils in the one eye socket. He finally drifted off. But there was no chance of me doing the same – I was way too keyed up. So I just lay there, looking at the model solar system he’d made in grade two. Waiting out the night, and thinking about all the things that had happened.
I don’t remember much about the next morning. Not Showering or Having Breakfast or Taking My Meds or any of that stuff which must have happened because that’s what mornings were about. You Did Something, then you Did Something Else. I was supposed to congratulate myself for every little accomplishment. Good job getting out of your PJs! Eaten all your toast? Nice work, you!
Baby steps, Dr Richter called them. But people seemed to forget that babies fall over all the freakin time.
But I do remember the rush of relief when I got to school and found Ami waiting for me. Ami, who I did look like – even though we weren’t related. We had the same black eyes and freakishly long lashes. The same short, mussy dark hair, although hers looked like it was meant to be mussy and mine looked like I’d slept on it funny. We had our differences too, of course. Her skin was blemish-free and her uniform didn’t strain and bulge the way mine did. But the biggest differences were things you couldn’t see. I mean, if I’d been alone like that in front of the lockers, I would’ve looked like a complete loser. Not Ami. She was standing there, calmly watching everyone swarm around her with this big grin – like the whole thing was some special event put on for her amusement. The group of non-stop chatterers. The panicked last-minute homework-finishers. The tracksuit-wearing cretins who’d nicked some poor kid’s bag and were chucking it around. The smoochy year nine couple weaving their way down the hall, stopping every few seconds to exchange saliva.
As I came up, Ami inhaled deeply. ‘Smell that?’ she said. ‘The shtink of Monday morning. What’s in it? Sweat, of course. Smoke. Hair products. But there’s something else …’
The smoochy couple from the year below walked right into me. It’s hard to walk straight when your lips are fused to someone else’s. The guy’s elbow dug into my arm. ‘Sorry,’ he said, laughing. ‘We weren’t –’
When he realised who he’d jabbed, he edged away like he might catch something. ‘Oh,’ he muttered. ‘I’m –’
His girlfriend tugged his arm. ‘Come on.’
Ami turned to me as they hurried off. ‘Pheromones,’ she said. ‘That’s the other smell.’
I let my bag slide off my shoulder and fall to the ground. I rested my head against the wall. ‘I can’t smell anything,’ I said. My nose was blocked. My lungs too. I was drowning in myself. I felt Ami examine my washed-out face. My hair sticking out in dark, wilted quills. The smears of black beneath my eyes.
‘Bad night, huh?’
‘You could say that.’ I bent down and unzipped my bag.
Ami sat down beside me. ‘Toby?’
I put my hands up to my face, palms together like I was praying. Or sneezing. Keep it together. ‘Shouldn’t it be easier by now?’ I said. ‘It’s been six months. Almost seven.’
‘Olive,’ said Ami, steady and firm as a heartbeat. ‘It’ll get better. Easier. I can promise you that. I’ve been through it too, remember.’
I wanted to believe her.
Ami took my hand, her fingers folding around mine. The smooth, perfect nails at the end of each long, elegant finger made my hands look even more stumpy and chewed-on. ‘Hey,’ she said. ‘If I can make it, why wouldn’t you?’
There were about a thousand reasons why. Ami was a coper for one thing. She adapted and evolved. She could shift her mind so she didn’t just focus on the bad stuff. Not exactly my strengths. Then there was the other thing. Yes, Ami’s dad had left, just like mine had. But it hadn’t been Ami’s fault.
‘How about we chuck school for the day?’ said Ami suddenly. ‘Go down to the beach. Hang out. Talk.’
I shook my head. I’d made some promises to Mum and Dr Richter, the first one being that I wouldn’t cut school anymore. Besides, Ami and I had already spent a lot of time talking about our dads. That was to be expected at first – it was the main reason we became friends after I’d been discharged. I could vent stuff with Ami because she understood what I was going through. But there was more to our friendship now. At least, I hoped there was.
Ami’s mouth twitched. Mischievously. ‘
Yeah, I figured you’d want to hang around,’ she said. ‘The new girl and all.’
That was something else Ami was good at – dragging my mood out of the swamp and sending it towards the rainforest canopy. ‘Oh my god. The parent-murderer!’ I said. ‘I can’t believe I forgot.’
‘Olive!’ Ami laughed, pretending to look shocked. ‘She’s not a murderer.’
‘Probably not,’ I said, grabbing some books from my bag and shoving the rest in my locker. ‘But I can hope, can’t I? Come on.’
Now I was in a rush to get to class. We headed off down the corridor and straight through the middle of everyone – the starers, the pointers and the whisperers stepping aside as we came through, before falling back into place behind us.
‘Do you really think they’d let a murderer into the school?’ said Ami. ‘Around here? Anyway, if it was even a tiny bit true it’d be all over the news.’
‘Maybe there’s been a big cover-up,’ I said. ‘Maybe Mrs Deane was given a heap of cash to take her on. They’re not exactly picky, are they? I mean, they took me back after my little Incident.’
A group of year seven stupidos rushed by, yelling like they were still on a footy pitch somewhere. One of them squirted the others with the fire extinguisher, bubbles flying everywhere.
Ami stepped over a little foam mountain in the middle of the floor. ‘Just don’t get your hopes up,’ she said. ‘It might be like when that year twelve girl was preg-not.’
‘That could still be true, Ames,’ I protested.
Ami did an eye roll. ‘Admit it. She’s just putting on weight.’
I sighed, über dramatically. ‘You’re so freakin logical and … sensible. Remind me. Why are we even friends?’
‘Who said we were friends?’ Ami’s smile was cheeky. ‘As far as I’m concerned, you’re my science experiment.’
‘Funny. Let’s get a move on. That was the first bell.’
‘Don’t you think it’s weird that everyone’s so obsessed with her?’ said Ami as we neared our classroom door. ‘When that new guy started last week no-one acted like this.’
A new guy? For a moment I couldn’t picture who she was talking about. And then I remembered. He was just more of the same. Sunny and bland and hard to distinguish. You know, one more piece of sky in the jigsaw puzzle of our school.
‘That’s my point,’ I said. ‘All this hype. It must mean something.’
Ami frowned. ‘She can’t be a child genius and a model and a drug dealer all at once.’
‘Of course she can,’ I laughed. ‘Or she might be just one of those things.’
‘Come on, Olive. We both know where the rumours probably started.’
‘Katie.’ I pushed a sprig of hair behind my ear. Instantly it sprung back out. ‘I dunno, Ames. Is she capable of making up stuff quite that interesting?’
‘Let’s ask her,’ Ami murmured, looking ahead. ‘Here they come.’
Sure enough, Katie and the others were walking towards us. I found myself searching for some kind of emergency exit. Preferably one that led directly into a parallel universe.
‘I am so not in the mood for this,’ I muttered.
Katie and the others arranged themselves in front of me like a thin-lipped smile. I could just about feel the gleam of Katie’s teeth, so radiant it was probably causing skin cancers on my face. Katie was staring at me, seemingly transfixed with horror. Her eyes moved over me, noting my gnawed-on nails and my uniform straining in ways it never used to before. Along with pimples, my medication had given me a brand new body. Softer, Mum kept saying. Curvy.
Katie stopped at my hair. ‘God, Olive. When are you going to let your hair grow back?’
Justine and Paige shook their heads, obviously too overcome to speak. Katie touched her own hair then – blonde and super-smooth. The sort of hair that stayed tucked behind your ear if you put it there. The dark pink thread she wore around her slender wrist slipped slightly.
Sometimes I almost enjoyed these encounters with Katie. Ami called it Rate with Kate, because Katie always made you feel like she was mentally giving you a score out of ten. Ami pointed out that if I no longer wanted to be the person I was before – all skinny-jeaned and long-haired and whatever – then I may as well have some fun being different. And when I was in the right mood, it was fun seeing the confusion on Katie’s face as she tried to figure out what had changed. But that day I just wasn’t into it.
‘Thanks for the feedback, Katie,’ I said, ‘but I have to go.’
‘I’m only doing this because we used to be friends,’ Katie shot at me. ‘Do you want to end up a road accident?’
‘Oh please,’ I said. ‘Not this again.’
Katie’s expression changed. It’s amazing how a face can shift from pretty to ugly just by tightening a few facial muscles. ‘The old you would’ve died rather than look like this,’ she said.
The metallic, medicinal taste was in my mouth again. ‘The old me did die,’ I snapped.
Ami’s hand was on my arm. ‘Calm down,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t be pissed off by someone who is still bragging about winning the Sweetest Smile on the Beach competition. You should be glad she doesn’t like how you look.’
Ami was right, of course. It was a long time since I’d wanted Katie’s approval. A long time since I’d been on the other side of this type of conversation, making a fat chick’s life miserable. My anger began to loosen and slip away. Not completely, but enough.
‘Go on then,’ called Katie as we walked away. ‘But don’t forget, once you’re a road accident, that’s it. No going back.’
We were opening the classroom door when my ears did this thing.
Ami caught my expression. ‘One of your headaches?’
‘It feels different this time,’ I said, giving my head a shake. ‘There’s a noise. Buzzy, like static. Can you hear it?’
Ami stood still for a moment. ‘Nope.’
I rubbed my ear, wincing.
‘Maybe you should go home, Olive.’
I snorted. ‘Yeah right. You know what my mum’s like when I’m sick. Anyway, I want to see the new girl.’
I could see Ami trying to work out if it was worth arguing. She decided against it, as I knew she would. In her own way, Ami needed me around too.
‘No blaming me if your head explodes,’ she said.
‘OK,’ I said. ‘But if it does can you make sure it stays off the school blog?’ I’d been on that thing way too much already.
Miss Falippi was standing up the front when we arrived, dressed in her unstructured layered clothes and jangling, dangling jewellery. One hand held her usual mug of foul-smelling herbal tea and the other fiddled with her locket. I used to look at that silver disc all the time, wondering what little secret was tucked away inside it. A photo of her hippie boyfriend? A lock of hair from a child she’d been forced to give up at birth? A stash of weed to get her through the day? That would explain why she sometimes zoned out, gazing off into the distance like she’d forgotten we were there.
After I’d returned from the clinic, though, I lost interest. The locket was probably just a necklace.
‘People,’ said Miss Falippi. ‘Sit down, please.’
Ami and I sat at the back these days. The front was occupied by the students with focus issues – either too much or not enough. The middle rows belonged to Katie. That’s where everyone wanted to sit, and the closer to Katie the better. Paige sat on one side of her, and Cameron Glover – naturally – sat on the other. It was where I used to sit too, and occasionally I still stopped there. Habit, I guess. Forgetting for a moment how things had changed. Who I was now.
Usually I kept my eyes fixed on the posters on the back wall as I walked to my seat. The posters depicted insect life cycles from pupae to adult. I’d learnt a lot about this fascinating subject since I’d moved seats.
But that day something surprising pulled my eyes away from the posters. The flash of a smile from an unfamiliar face. The new guy’s. New Guy was what
my mum would call a looker – all broad shoulders and dark, tousled hair. He looked like he’d been incorrectly shelved, sitting two rows away from Katie. But it wouldn’t be long before he moved. Katie would match him up with one of her buds and soon New Guy would be sitting where he belonged. I turned to see who the smile was intended for.
There was no-one behind me. When I looked back, New Guy’s eyes were waiting and his smile twitched a little. Then I understood. He’d heard about what happened from Katie – like everyone else had – and the smile was a mocking one. It showed that he’d already begun his journey up, up and away from the likes of me. I turned my head and stalked the rest of the way to my seat.
Miss Falippi shut the door and put the mug on her desk halfway between a tin of pencils and her Greek mythology textbook. ‘People,’ she said, raising her hand for silence. ‘I’m sure you’ve heard there’s a new student joining us today. Miranda Vaile.’
‘The chick who knocked off her parents?’ someone called. Cameron, I think. There was muchos sniggering.
Miss Falippi sighed. Clearly she’d heard the stories too. ‘OK, it’s time to sort a few things out here. It’s very sad, but Miranda is an orphan.’
‘Rumour confirmed!’ I said to Ami a little smugly.
Half of the row in front turned to stare. Oops. The buzzing was making it hard to judge how loudly I was speaking.
Miss Falippi twirled a finger in the air. ‘But let me make this very clear. Miranda Vaile is not a murderer. Her parents died in a car accident when she was just a baby.’
Now it was Ami’s turn to look smug. ‘Rumour squashed,’ she said. ‘Unless you think she cut the brake cable with her little baby hands?’
Miss Falippi was swinging her locket like a pendulum. ‘Miranda has spent most of her life overseas,’ she said. ‘This will be a big change for her, leaving the vibrancy and excitement of Europe to live in our quiet little suburb. We’ll need to be very understanding. It might take her a little while to fit in.’
‘She should’ve just stayed over there,’ said Katie, cleaning a fingernail with Paige’s pen lid. ‘If it was so vibrant and exciting.’ Somehow Katie could say this shit and not get into trouble.