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‘Especially as I’m such a weirdo,’ I pointed out. ‘It takes me forever to fix stuff.’

Katie glared. ‘I never said you were a weirdo.’

‘Not out
loud
maybe.’

Katie exhaled rapidly through her nose. As our friendship had crumbled, she’d made that noise more and more. ‘Why are you
like
this, Olive?’

A voice boomed through the PA. ‘Competitors in the girls’ 100-metres backstroke, please take your positions.’

Katie adjusted the straps of her bathers and they cracked like whips against her back. ‘Pathetic,’ she flung at me as she headed off. ‘Just pathetic.’

The words seemed to echo, bouncing off the tiled walls of the pool complex.
Pathetic. Just pathetic.
I heard a movement nearby and realised with a start that Miranda was standing right
near us. She was paying no attention to me, though – her head turned to follow Katie and I saw that her mouth was moving, forming silent words. Almost like she was practising her lines.

As Katie stepped up on her block, Miranda moved – surprisingly quickly – to the end of Katie’s lane, stopwatch raised.

‘Hey!’ said Lavinia. ‘I’m doing this lane.’

But Miranda clearly had no intention of budging and after a moment, Lavinia huffed and went over to where Miranda was supposed to be.

With no stopwatch, I couldn’t time the girl in my lane. Not that it mattered. From the moment the race began, Katie was so far in front that no-one else had a chance. On it went until the
predictable ending. Katie pulled herself neatly out of the pool, took off her swimming cap and shook out her hair. She took the towel that Paige was holding out to her and the praise everyone else
was offering in exactly the same way.

‘What was my time?’ she called to no-one in particular. That was the kind of relationship Katie had with the world. She asked it for things and they appeared, as if by magic.

‘A minute twenty-four,’ said Miranda.

Katie nodded. Totally unsurprised. ‘My best time yet.’

‘Your best time yet.’ Miranda copied Katie’s inflection perfectly.

Katie’s forehead folded. ‘Are you imitating me?’

Miranda frowned too. ‘Are you imitating me?’ Her voice rang with the exact same note of disbelief.

Katie’s eyes narrowed and began a slow and thorough scan of Miranda. It didn’t take long for her to spot the pink thread poking out from the sleeve of Miranda’s jumper.

Katie’s hand shot out and yanked up Miranda’s sleeve. The thin pink thread was fully revealed, bright and sharp as a razor-slash.

‘Why are you wearing that?’ said Katie.

A few girls from the race had formed a ring around Katie and Miranda. You could feel everyone tense up, waiting to see how the hell Miranda was going to get out of this. I had no idea why either
of them cared about stupid pink threads but I still found myself holding my breath. I don’t think anyone was expecting her to say what she did. The truth.

‘Because
you
are.’

A new word would be needed to describe the look on Katie’s face. Angry isn’t strong enough. She was
thrombtipic
with rage.
Murashable
.

‘Take. It. Off.’

Miranda paused for a moment – mulling it over. Then she shook her head. ‘No. I like wearing it.’

I felt uneasy then, knowing that Katie was capable of tearing someone to shreds when she was truly enraged. Where were the
responsible adults
? I glanced around. Miss Falippi was standing
on the other side of the pool, chatting with another teacher, oblivious. My ears began to ring.
Maybe I should do something.
I used to be able to calm Katie down – often the only one
who could. But things moved so fast then I couldn’t have gotten involved, even if I’d wanted to.

Katie grabbed Miranda’s wrist so tightly her knuckles blanched. But Miranda didn’t even flinch. In fact, she
smiled
, which of course sent Katie off into the stratosphere of
fury.

‘Who do think you are? Trying to be like me? You’re a no-one, don’t you get that? Nothing but a pathetic, tragic
road accident
.’ With her free hand, Katie hooked
her fingers under the thread and yanked.

A few of the girls nearby actually cheered when the thread broke. Like Katie had done something heroic. It made me want to puke. Yeah, I know Miranda was stupid to turn up wearing that thread.
But the fact Katie cared was stupid too.

From across the pool, Miss Falippi glanced over and smiled. Who knows what she thought was going on. Maybe that there was some
spontaneous school spirit
being displayed.

Katie let go of Miranda’s arm and it fell heavily to her side. Boneless. Miranda stood there as Katie marched over to the pool and flicked the thread in. There was this almost peaceful
moment as the thread floated, turning gently, before disappearing into a filter.

When Katie turned back, she had an ugly, triumphant look on her face. ‘I hope you enjoyed trying to be like me for five minutes,’ she said to Miranda. ‘Because that’s the
closest you’ll ever get.’

Katie walked off then – doing her victory walk – with Paige and Justine trotting along behind. Gradually everyone else just drifted away too until I realised with a jolt that it was
just me and Lachlan left standing there. Even Ami had disappeared. Somehow during the whole Katie-Miranda chaos we’d ended up right next to each other – so close that his arm brushed
mine, soft and cool. I moved away quickly, my heart beating out some crazy rhythm and my skin suddenly covered in tiny bumps. Lachlan had gone a bit red. Probably from the shock of touching me.

‘Katie is such a freakin wonk,’ I said. It came out way louder than I’d intended.

Lachlan’s head tilted. ‘What’s a
wonk
?’

I could’ve kicked myself for blurting that out. ‘It’s just a word I came up with,’ I told him. ‘Because so far I haven’t come across one word in any language
that does the same job.’

Lachlan nodded – not laughing as I’d been expecting. ‘What about the new girl? Miranda. Is she a wonk too?’

‘No.’ That was one thing I was sure of.

‘So what is she then?’

‘I’m not sure,’ I admitted. Which was true. I hadn’t yet figured out what Miranda really was.

Lachlan looked at the stopwatch in my hand. A piece of it clattered to the ground. ‘Do you really want help with this?’

‘Nah, it’s OK,’ I laughed. ‘I’ll figure out an explanation for Miss Falippi. I’m good at making stuff up.’

Lachlan raised an eyebrow and grinned. ‘You mean, for a weirdo?’

He was teasing of course, but not in an awful way. In a pretty freakin cute way, actually. I had to admit he was funnier than I’d expected. Smarter too. And I could see how other people
might find Lachlan quite attractive. You know, if you like that perfect, god-like look. The old Olive probably would have thought he was. Scrub that. She
definitely
would’ve thought he
was. She would’ve gotten all giggly and simpering over Lachlan Ford. But the new Olive – me – wasn’t interested in boys, especially not ones like him. Which was lucky,
because he wouldn’t have found the new Olive attractive either.

What happened next took me off-guard. Lachlan raised his hand, like he was saying goodbye. He even said something about seeing me in class. I stood there, waiting for him to go. But he
didn’t. Instead he shuffled his feet around and drew wet lines on the tiles with his big toe. His words finally slid out. ‘Isn’t there a formal coming up?’

‘You tell me,’ I said. ‘You’re the one who reads the school blog.’ I mean, obviously I knew there was a formal, but since coming back from the clinic I’d
prided myself on not knowing the details.

Lachlan did a few more tortured movements, and just as I was about to ask if he was having a fit, he said, ‘Do you … think you’ll go?’

In my peripheral vision I became aware of someone dancing around frantically. Ami, of course, looking like she was about to explode. I knew what she was thinking – that Lachlan was about
to ask me to the formal. But that was impossible. You don’t smile mockingly at someone one week and then ask them out the next. But all the same, I felt a little dizzy. Must have been the
chlorine fumes. Lachlan was looking at me expectantly. Like my answer mattered to him. Despite the sweltering heat, I shivered.

‘Um … well …’ I grasped around for something that would jettison me from this weird situation. ‘Yenope.’

I heard the faint sound of Ami groaning.

Lachlan regarded me in silence. ‘I like the way,’ he said after a moment, ‘you made “no”
almost
sound like a “yes”.’

‘It’s my speech impediment,’ I said. ‘Thanks for drawing attention to it. Look, I’ll probably be working at the Mercury anyway. On the night of the dance, I
mean.’

Lachlan dipped his head slightly. It was almost a bow. ‘Understood,’ he said. He raised one of those winner’s hands in a goodbye gesture. ‘
Adios
, Olive. And
thanks. You know. For saving me from the – the –’

‘Wonk?’ I said. ‘No problem.’

As he turned to walk off his words replayed in my head.
Olive.
It was nice the way he’d said my name. He’d said it as though he liked dark, salty, intense little things
– not like someone who picked them off their pizza.

I was fully expecting Ami to let me have it once Lachlan had left. But she was staring at something behind me.

‘She’s still there,’ she murmured.

Miranda was standing in the same place she’d stood during the fight with Katie, one arm cradling the other. Her jumper sleeve had been pushed back and, even from where I stood, I could see
red marks from where Katie had gripped her – almost like burns against her pale skin.

‘Most people would be curled up in the foetal position after the public humiliation she’s been through,’ Ami muttered.

But Miranda didn’t seem upset. She was smiling to herself, like everything had gone exactly how she’d hoped. It made me uneasy, that smile.

When the next race was called over the PA system, Miranda seemed to wake up. She adjusted her sleeve and walked off.

It was strange. Her walk seemed different. Bouncier. A victory walk.

When Miranda was out of view, Ami looked at me. The furrow between her eyebrows had deepened.

‘So,’ I joked. ‘Your Miranda-is-an-alien theory looks good.’

Ami didn’t laugh. ‘Let’s get on a computer,’ she said seriously. ‘I want to find out what’s going on.’

Ami and I ditched the rest of the swimming and headed for the computer lab. It was a Friday anyway, so school was basically out for the week. Technically, I decided, it
wasn’t breaking any promises. And anyway, I was desperate to do something that would stop me replaying the conversation with Lachlan in my mind.

The lab was down in the basement of the old wing. It was stuffy and reportedly haunted, so no-one was likely to disturb us. Even the computer tech guy avoided the place.

Ami and I pulled up chairs. Out of habit I almost logged on to Facebook and then remembered I’d deleted my account. It was tempting to check Pitchfork to see if there were any new band
reviews posted, but that wasn’t what we were there for. I opened Google instead.

Mirror eyes
, I typed in.
Weird skin. Alien?

I started feeling excited when several thousand results came up. Maybe there was some neat, simple explanation for what the hell was going on with Miranda. Who better to help me than a whole
community of people out there who saw things differently from the mainstream? People like me and Ami.

I shot Ami a grin and clicked on the first link. But the moment the site loaded, my hope dried up. It’s hard to take a site seriously when it’s covered in flashing banner ads.

The site was called Shifter World and the homepage featured pictures of celebrities – mostly actors and politicians. Below were words in red.
Beware! These people are all shifters.
That’s why they’re so successful.

‘Shifters, huh?’ said Ami, leaning in. ‘Scroll down a bit.’

There was a link to a quiz –
Find out your shifter percentage –
and a list of things to do if you meet one:

1. Avoid them!!