Shift

  Dallas leant over the edge of the bed and produced a jug of something viciously blue. His arm muscles strained as he tipped the blue liquid into two paper cups and held them out to us.

  ‘Not for me thanks, Dal,’ I said, trying to sound jokey. ‘Blue is nature’s warning colour.’

  ‘Olive is being a total wet blanket,’ said Miranda. ‘She’s forgotten how to have fun.’

  Dallas considered this and then fished out a little bottle of something red from his pocket. He shook a few drops of it into my cup and handed it to me.

  ‘Now it’s purple,’ he said, beaming like this somehow solved everything. ‘Nature loves purple. And so will you, little Ol, once you’ve tried this.’

  I took the cup. Even the smell burned. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Zombie juice,’ Dallas said. ‘It could wake the dead.’

  Just what we need here, I thought. Drunk undead people. When he wasn’t looking I hid the cup in a corner.

  Miranda clapped her hands. ‘Time for us to launch Luxe’s new album.’

  ‘It can’t be a launch,’ I said. ‘Vinnie and Pearl aren’t here.’ Or anyone else, for that matter.

  Miranda was fiddling with her iPod – Katie’s iPod – which was plugged into a small set of speakers on the floor. ‘Why should they be here?’ she said. ‘They’re not even in the band any more.’

  I gaped at her.

  ‘Luxe has outgrown them,’ said Miranda, like it should’ve been obvious. Then the music started up.

  First there was just a single guitar, strummed by an uncertain hand. Then Dallas’s voice joined in. I would’ve known his voice anywhere, even sounding as weak and quavery as this. And then there was another voice, female this time. She sang very softly to begin with, hovering in the background and harmonising with Dallas. But as the song progressed the female voice took on the main melody. It was only then that I could make out the lyrics. They were about a girl – a beautiful, incredible, overwhelming girl. The sort that you’d die for.

  ‘That’s you, isn’t it?’ I said to Miranda. ‘Singing.’

  Miranda clapped her hands in delight. ‘I wanted to surprise you. Are you surprised?’

  I shouldn’t have been – Miranda had taken so much by then. Of course she’d try to take Luxe from me too.

  Dallas had somehow managed to drag himself to an almost standing position. ‘I command that we dance,’ he said, beckoning to Miranda. ‘Come over here, you slinky thing you,’ he said.

  Dallas stumbled, almost falling over but managing to recover. He was crooning but seemed unsure of the words to his own song. Then he almost fell again. I couldn’t watch, but Miranda didn’t seem bothered. She giggled and began twirling around him, like it was all part of some complicated routine they were doing together.

  I could see then that extracting Dallas was not going to be easy. There was no way he would just come with me – even if I told him he was in danger. Dallas liked me, but it would only take a few words from Miranda and he’d turn against me in a flash. And then he’d be lost for good.

  I stared at the ground, seeing something pink and faded shoved under the bed. It was the T-shirt I’d worn during my suicide attempt. Ever since then it had been tucked in my bundle of Proof in my room. At least, that’s where I’d thought it was. When I picked the T-shirt up, three glittery silver things slipped from its folds. My old charm bracelet. Miss Falippi’s locket. A small silver key – the sort that was meant to keep a diary secure.

  My hands started to shake, but I picked up the bracelet and looked at it. It had been my favourite thing once. After a moment’s hesitation I slipped it on, the charms making their familiar jingling noise. I dropped the locket and the key into the pocket of Lachlan’s hoodie. I felt better. I’d started reclaiming a few things.

  I looked up to see Miranda watching me with the same searching look she’d had on the drive here. Trying to work out what had changed. She unpeeled Dallas from around her and immediately he sagged into the nearest chair. Miranda is his backbone now, I thought, chilled.

  Miranda walked over to his jug of zombie juice and picked it up. ‘I wish you’d cheer up, Olive,’ she said. ‘You’re bringing us all down.’

  I kept my face expressionless. Miranda poured out a fresh cup of zombie juice and held it out to me.

  ‘No, thanks.’

  Miranda’s eyes glinted. ‘Take it.’

  My dad had always been good at games and he liked teaching me winning strategies. I’d blocked them out since he left, but one of them came to me anyway. Pet, sometimes pretending that you’re losing is the best way of winning.

  I took the cup. It was made of soft plastic and the slightest pressure of my fingers made the blue liquid rise until it nearly spilled over the edge.

  ‘Go on,’ said Miranda. ‘Drink it.’

  I opened my mouth and poured the contents down my throat in one steady stream. Dallas whistled and cheered. Miranda refilled my cup and when I drank that she filled the cup again. As I drained the final drop the room began to turn. I staggered a little as the zombie juice took hold.

  ‘You look so funny,’ Miranda tittered. ‘Especially in that hoodie. Not like you at all. You used to have such interesting taste. Well, different at least. Now you just look the same as everyone else. But deep inside that’s what you are anyway, aren’t you? Boring and mainstream.’

  A new track began to play. A Luxe cover band – that’s what this music sounded like. I was having trouble standing up now and I stretched out my arms, trying to find something to steady myself on.

  ‘I know what’s wrong with you tonight,’ Miranda announced triumphantly. ‘It’s these new songs, isn’t it? Because they’re all about me – about how Dallas loves me more than anything else in the world. Poor Olive. It must eat you up.’

  The whirling, woozy feeling in my head was speeding up. I tried to slow it down by focusing on a single spot on the wall. Miranda stepped closer. ‘So does it?’ she whispered. ‘Eat you up inside?’

  Don’t let anyone see your cards, Pet. Especially when you’ve got a winner’s hand.

  ‘Lots of girls would kill to be in your position,’ I said. ‘And have what you have.’

  ‘But what about you?’ hissed Miranda. ‘Would you kill to be in my position? Do you want to be me and have everything I have?’

  I should’ve just nodded meekly. Or just said nothing at all. Lulled Miranda into believing everything was OK so that I could work on a way of getting Dallas out of there. But frankly I was sick of these games, and I wanted Miranda to know just how much she’d misjudged me.

  ‘No,’ I said, looking straight at her. ‘I wouldn’t kill to be you.’

  Miranda’s eyes were like two letterboxes. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I’m not in love with Dallas,’ I said simply.

  Miranda’s mouth fell open.

  ‘What are you two girlies talking about over there?’ Dallas slurred from his chair. ‘Come back and dance. The three of us.’

  Miranda was still staring at me. ‘You are in love with him,’ she insisted – like a teacher trying to drill facts into a stubborn, stupid student. ‘That’s why we saw Luxe in the first place.’

  I put my finger on my chin, pretending to consider this. ‘No,’ I said after a moment. ‘No, I’m definitely not in love with him.’ Then I smiled. ‘Here’s something you might find funny. It was at the Rainbow gig that I figured out I wasn’t crushing on Dallas. It was his music I loved. So I owe you. If you hadn’t talked me into going that night, I never would’ve figured out who I was really in love with.’

  Sheiss. Me and my big, fat blurty mouth …

  Miranda was leaning in so close that her face was practically touching mine. ‘Who? Who are you in love with then?’

  ‘No-one,’ I said, my hands and face clammy all of a sudden. ‘I was joking.’

  ‘Olive?’ Dallas’s voice was surprisingly strong, and when I turned to him his eyes had lost their murkiness. ‘Why are you wearing Lac
hlan’s hoodie?’

  At first Miranda didn’t register what he’d said – she was too busy glaring at me. But then I saw Dallas’s words sink in and her eyes fix on the hoodie. By the time she looked at my face again, she’d started sniggering. The sniggering bloomed into laughter until she was practically hysterical.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, when she’d recovered enough to speak. ‘I’m just trying to imagine you and Lachlan as a couple. It’s too funny.’

  I remembered how Lachlan’s arms had felt around me. I remembered his warm mouth against mine. ‘I don’t think it’s funny,’ I said.

  Miranda wiped her eyes. ‘Oh come off it, Olive,’ she said. ‘I mean, I kind of admire you saying that you don’t care if everyone found out about Ami and your little incident. But that was just a bluff, right? Do you think a guy like Lachlan – someone who could have anyone he wanted – is going to stick around once he finds out the truth about you?’

  I didn’t bother replying. There was no point. Just like there was no point in me staying here. I was done with Miranda. And Dallas wasn’t going to come with me.

  ‘Where do you think you’re going?’ she said.

  ‘Away,’ I said. ‘Far away from you.’

  It was Dallas who stopped me. He lurched from his chair and draped his arms around Miranda and me. ‘Hey, no fighting,’ he said. ‘This is a party. We all love each other here.’

  ‘Get off!’ Miranda yelled at him, shoving him away. ‘You’re always pawing at me. I’m sick of it.’

  If I’m logical about it – rational – I know that it was the way Miranda shoved Dallas that caused him to fall, to slip on the rug and knock his head on the table. He was so shaky and unstable anyway. But to me it seemed like it was what Miranda said to him that caused it, and the look of absolute hatred she flashed him.

  When he hit the ground, his eyes closed.

  ‘Dallas!’ I leapt over to him, knelt down and rolled him onto his back. There was blood on his forehead, and a sudden purple swelling underneath it. I patted his face. Gently at first, then more firmly. ‘Dallas?’

  He made a vague noise but his eyes stayed closed.

  I stood up. ‘Give me your phone,’ I said to Miranda. ‘We have to call an ambulance.’

  Miranda looked down at Dallas as if she wasn’t sure who he was or how he’d ended up on her floor. Like he was something boring.

  I wanted to shake her. ‘He’s hurt!’

  Miranda rolled her eyes. ‘He’s just drunk. As usual. Let him sleep it off.’

  I shouldn’t have been shocked, of course. I’d suspected for a long time that her interest in Dallas was just a way of getting at me. So it made perfect sense that she’d give up the pretence the moment she realised I had no feelings for Dallas. No romantic feelings, that is. I did still care for him. A lot.

  I felt the anger rush up through me as I headed for the bedroom door. Clearly Miranda wasn’t about to hand over her phone. I’d have to track down the landline. ‘God, Miranda. Why are you like this?’

  I wasn’t expecting an answer.

  ‘You know why I’m like this.’ Miranda sounded calm. ‘You’ve always known. You just let everyone convince you that you were wrong.’

  I stood there, hand poised over the door handle as Miranda walked up and stopped beside me. I found myself looking at her mouth, knowing exactly what she was going to say even as her lips were forming the words.

  ‘I’m a shapeshifter.’

  There was this time – I was just a kid – when I’d known something that no-one else had known. It was one of those silly bits of information that you grab onto as a kid. Flies take off backwards. I’d taken my interesting fact to school and told everyone during show-and-tell. No-one had believed me – not even the teacher – and by the end of the day I’d started to doubt it myself.

  But the next morning the teacher stood up the front of the class and made an announcement. ‘Olive was correct,’ she said. ‘I checked, and flies do take off backwards.’ Then she apologised for not believing me, and made everyone else apologise too.

  When Miranda said that she was a shapeshifter I had the same feeling of triumph. I wanted to call Dr Richter. See? I was right. Now apologise.

  But the feeling passed almost immediately. Was Miranda telling the truth? Maybe. Maybe not. Because after all these months of hanging out with Miranda, there were only two things I knew for sure. Two things that threw everything else into doubt.

  ‘You,’ I said, ‘are a liar. And a manipulative bitch.’

  I knew that Miranda wasn’t likely to let that pass by. But when she hit me, her hand cracking like a whip on my face, I was shocked.

  ‘You’re the liar!’ she spat. ‘You tricked me into thinking you liked Dallas!’

  I watched her face, how her anger twisted it. I heard how pathetic she sounded, and felt amazed that she’d ever had any power over me. I reached out for the door handle again, and this time I turned it, pushing the door open. My face was tingling from the slap and I imagined the marks of her fingers glowing on my face. ‘I’m going to find a phone,’ I said. ‘Dallas needs an ambulance.’

  The hallway was pitch-black and I felt a sudden wave of hopelessness. The phone could be anywhere. That’s if germ freaks even had phones.

  ‘Wait. Please, Olive. My phone’s not in here. I’ll take you to it.’

  Maybe I turned back because something in her voice had changed. Softened. Or maybe I turned because I didn’t know what else to do.

  Miranda glided past me, out of her room and into the hallway. ‘This way.’

  We went upstairs. It was hard to imagine it could’ve been darker than down below but somehow it was. Stuffier too. I peered around in the gloom but couldn’t see a phone anywhere. Miranda reached up her hand and pulled a chain that was dangling from the roof. A square of grey appeared in the roof above us – a trapdoor. There was a clunking sound and then a set of stairs slid out, leading up into the roof.

  ‘Up there?’ I said. Why did my voice have to squeak like that? I told myself I was just worried about Dallas.

  Without bothering to reply Miranda began climbing the ladder. I watched her climb, feeling the cold air from the attic fall and settle across me.

  The thing that always bothered me about scary movies was how stupid the victims always seem, and how they never act on their instincts. They might say something like I’ve got a bad feeling about this, while they dither about opening the cellar door. When we showed movies like that at the Mercury, someone in the audience would occasionally call out a warning. But of course the characters always opened the door or pushed the button.

  If anyone had been watching me, hesitating at the bottom of a ladder that led up into a dark roof, they would’ve yelled, ‘Don’t do it!’

  But I did it anyway.

  The attic was the only place in Oona’s house that didn’t reek of disinfectant, and after my eyes adjusted I saw why. The two small attic windows – the only windows in the entire place without grilles – had been pushed open. A breeze was blowing and I could smell the sea mixed with a whiff of chlorine from the pool down below. Miranda was standing in front of one of the windows, a dark, still shape. Can you radiate darkness? She seemed to. There was a pause. And then the dark figure disappeared through the window frame.

  ‘Miranda?’ I called, moving as quickly as I could across the uneven floor, stepping over the roof beams and around the taped-up boxes. I felt unstable and foggy-brained. When I got to the window I looked down. There was the swimming pool, glimmering way down below. But I couldn’t see Miranda. There was a noise on the roof, to my left. Hunched there, close to the edge, was a dark shape.

  ‘Funny place to keep a phone,’ I muttered.

  ‘We need to talk,’ Miranda said. ‘You’re so strange now, Olive. Heartless.’

  I was heartless? Dallas was lying on the floor of her bedroom, unconscious, and she didn’t seem the slightest bit concerned.

  ‘I don’t want to talk,’ I s
aid. The floorboards creaked beneath my feet and maybe Miranda thought I was about to walk away because she quickly pulled something out of her pocket. Her phone.

  ‘Here,’ she said, holding it up. ‘I’ve got it here. Join me – just for a moment? There’s something I want to show you. After that, you can call a thousand ambulances and whoever else you want.’

  The smell of the pool wafted up. Off in the distance I heard cars. I could just run out to the street, I thought. Flag someone down. But that would mean leaving Dallas here alone with Miranda. I looked at her again, sitting on the roof, hand outstretched. Maybe if I just went out for a moment. And then I’d take the phone. It wasn’t like her words had any sway over me now.

  That’s what I was thinking. I guess it sounds stupid.

  ‘OK, OK,’ I muttered. ‘I’m coming.’ The zombie juice rumbled and rolled in my stomach.

  I climbed out of the narrow window and into the orchestra of night noises. The whirr of insects. The ocean. The distant traffic. The loudest sound of all was my own breathing. Don’t look down. Once I’d made it onto the roof, I shuffled across the sloping surface on my bum, inch by inch. Miranda was only a metre away but it seemed to take forever to get to her.

  I finally stopped, panting and clammy, at what I felt was a safe distance away from her.

  ‘What did you want to show me?’

  Miranda had placed the phone down on the other side of her, away from me. She pointed out into the night. ‘That,’ she said. ‘All that darkness, stretching on forever. Doesn’t it make you feel small? Like a worthless little speck?’

  ‘It’s not so dark,’ I said, partly because I felt like disagreeing with everything Miranda said – but also because it was true. Maybe it looked dark at first, but if you waited a little bit, then you started to notice things. The stars. The moon. The glow of the city. Headlights working their way up the hill. The longer I sat there the more light there seemed to be.