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‘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.

‘Miranda is moving here to live with her great-aunt,’ Miss Falippi said over the giggling, trying to keep control of the discussion. ‘Some of you might know her. Oona
Delaunay.’

More snickering. Loony Oona the germ freak? Yeah, we knew her.

‘Hard to picture Oona taking care of someone,’ I said to Ami. ‘She looks like she struggles to take care of herself.’

Katie turned around, her face screwed up. ‘Can you
stop
doing that?’

‘Doing what?’

‘
Muttering
,’ she said. ‘It’s really disturbing.’

This was so typical. It was OK for Katie to blather away as much as she wanted, but when I said something it was somehow disturbing.

Miss Falippi’s bangles clashed together as she clapped. ‘People! Enough.’

The buzz in my ears grew louder.
Maybe there’s something
in
there
.
A little bug, crawling around.
The thought made me shudder. As I tilted my head to one side and
shook it again, I caught a glimpse of something out the window. Two figures were heading across the quadrangle towards our classroom. I recognised Mrs Deane straight away, of course – solid
and dark in her principal’s suit, heels click-clacking across the concrete. The other figure I hadn’t seen before.
That must be her. Miranda Vaile.

I don’t know what I thought a possible parent-murderer would look like, but it certainly wasn’t this thin, pale creature trailing along behind Mrs Deane. I leant closer to the
window, wanting a clearer view. As the two figures disappeared from sight, I turned to Ami, my heart skittering.

Ami looked up. ‘What is it?’

‘I saw her,’ I whispered. ‘The new girl.’

Ami’s eyes widened. ‘What did she look like?’

I struggled for a minute, trying to find a way to describe what I’d just seen. ‘She looked . . . blurry.’

Ami sighed. ‘Stupid dirty windows.’

I didn’t reply. Mrs Deane hadn’t looked blurry – just the new girl. She seemed out of focus, like she’d moved at the last minute when someone took a photo. But I knew how
dumb that would sound, especially to super-sensible Ami. So I stayed quiet, watching the classroom door. Waiting.