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2. Don’t let them touch you!!

3. Don’t give them your shit!!

The forums section seemed to be mostly arguments about which famous people were definitely shapeshifters (just about every famous person, living or dead, seemed to be mentioned), and how you
could tell.

‘Seriously, Ami,’ I said, pushing away from the desk. ‘This is pointless rubbish. Let’s go.’

But Ami – who usually had no time for this sort of stuff – hunched forward. ‘Not yet. Try the FAQs.’

I clicked and pulled up a list of twenty questions. The first one was:
Isn’t ‘shapeshifter’ just another word for werewolf?

Another click and the answer appeared.
Shifters vary from country to country. Werewolves are just the most well-known type. There are also legends from around the world about people changing
into panthers, reptiles, dolphins, birds and even insects.

There are also
humanoid shifters
. They don’t transform into animals but take on the characteristics of other humans. Humanoid shifters ‘latch’ on to people (generally
those with strong personalities) and slowly drain them of their vitality and spirit. Gradually the shifter adapts to the physical attributes and mannerisms of the host until they can be difficult
to tell apart. The shifter
becomes
the person they’ve latched onto.

Once the host is dry, the shifter rids themselves of the host (or what’s left of them) and enters a
search phase
. This is when they ‘fade into the background’ –
presumably to be better disguised as they hunt for a new host. It is common in this phase for their eyes to become reflective, like mirrors.

The computer lab noises started up then, the slow clicking of the pipes expanding and contracting that some idiots said proved the place was haunted. There were also the website sounds, a loop
of music playing over and over.
La la di dah. La la di dah.
So cheesy and tinny, and yet also somehow creepy. My head began to hurt.

‘It’s just a weird fantasy site,’ I said, pushing back from the desk. ‘It’s not the real world.’

This was Ami’s cue to grin and make some joke about how I actually looked like I was falling for this crap. But she didn’t.

‘I guess so,’ she said slowly. ‘But it sure would explain a lot.’

The next day was Saturday, and date night at the Mercury – busy and super-stressy. Lots of couples would turn up, buy crap food and tickets to crap movies and try like
crazy to impress each other. I was supposed to turn up fifteen minutes earlier on Saturdays but somehow I was always late instead. Maybe it was subconsciously deliberate. Date night was pretty
depressing.

How come none of them realised their relationships were doomed? It seemed so obvious to me that they didn’t match. Not just physically either. One of the pair would always be way more into
the relationship than the other. Or they just had nothing in common. At first I made a little game of it – predicting how many more date nights each relationship would last. I stopped after a
while. My accuracy was getting me down.

That particular date night, I’d just served my tenth jumbo tub of stale popcorn when Katie and Cameron came in. He had his arm around Katie and she was leaning into him. They were both
laughing. I mean, if you were picking perfect couples in a magazine, the picture of Katie and Cam is the one most people would circle. They looked like a match. But they didn’t fool me. I
happened to know that before they got together Cam had been chasing after another girl. Me. The old me, that is. I’d had fun stringing him along for a while, making him think I was interested
while treating him like shit. Because that’s what I was like back then. It wasn’t until I hooked up with someone else right in front of him that he went after Katie.

Still, I had to admit they’d been putting in a regular appearance at date night for a few months now. Longer than I’d thought they’d last. They bought their tickets from Noah,
then came over to my counter where I had their stuff already waiting for them. Water and large salted popcorn for Cam. Diet Coke and choc-top for Katie. The choc-top was Katie’s weekly treat
in an otherwise super-strict diet. Having the snacks set up and ready to go was my way of minimising our interaction, which was – from my perspective at least – leg-amputationally
painful.

Cameron always gave me these patronisingly sympathetic looks, like I’d totally missed out when I rejected him. Although knowing Cam, he probably turned the whole thing around so it was
him
who’d rejected me. And then there was Katie, relishing the chance to have me run around serving her again, like I used to when we were partners in bitchiness.

The crowd in front of the counter had finally begun to let up when the heavy front doors of the Mercury swung open and a small figure appeared, bedraggled and hunched over.

‘Toby!’ I said, coming out from behind the snack bar. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I just wanted to hang out with you.’ His voice had a pleading note to it. ‘Can I stay?’

‘Come and sit here, Tobes,’ I said, clearing a space at the counter for the laptop. I was used to having Toby there when Mum needed a babysitter. I constructed a wall of junk food in
front of him.

‘This is a cinema, not some kind of free-food centre!’ called Noah from the ticket window. Noah’s sleaze-to-boss ratio altered on date night.

Luckily my rate of ignoring him remained the same. ‘I’ll pay for whatever he eats,’ I said, and didn’t point out that at the inflated prices we charged, the cinema could
afford to give a few snacks away.

Toby climbed slowly up onto the barstool. ‘It’s so crowded.’

‘I can fix that,’ I said.

Toby glanced at me dubiously. I reached to the control panel near the cash register and pressed the bell that made session chimes ring. ‘Watch.’

The moment they heard the chimes, everyone made a dash for the cinema doors. There was no allocated seating at the Mercury.

Noah frowned and leapt over to the front of the mass. It was his job to tear the tickets and let people in. ‘Bit early, isn’t it?’ he muttered as he swung past.

I didn’t care. Five minutes later all the couples had gone and Toby was clacking away happily at the laptop. All was right with the world again. Even Noah cheered up once he’d done a
till-reading and saw how much money we’d taken. It’s amazing the amount of poor-quality confectionery that people will buy when they’re on a date. Noah didn’t even complain
when I removed the Mercury CD and plugged in my iPod to play Luxe.

I began to restock the takeaway cups as ‘Steeple Chaser’ started playing, and when the foyer filled with the sound of Dallas’s voice I got a sudden, unavoidable urge to dance.
The feeling swung me up and away and promised to help me forget all about everything. Date night. Katie and Cameron. Dad. Weird websites that made my skin crawl and that I somehow couldn’t
quite forget, no matter how hard I tried.

To hell with it all
. I closed my eyes as I started to dance.
You’re not at the Mercury anymore,
I told myself.
You’re at a Luxe gig.
Straight away I could
picture it. The place was packed and there was no room for dancing, and somehow we were dancing anyway. Dancing and going crazy. But then I felt someone watching me. Dallas from Luxe.

When our eyes met he smiled and he stretched out his hand and suddenly I was being pulled up onto the stage. In my fantasy, Dallas paid no attention to anyone around him. Only to me.

‘Olive,’ called Noah suddenly. ‘What are you doing?’

‘I’m expressing the joy of life,’ I called back, my eyes still closed. ‘Through movement.’

‘Maybe you could express your joy of having a job,’ suggested Noah. ‘Through serving that customer.’

My eyes opened. On the other side of the snack bar counter was Lachlan. He raised his hand, his eyes crinkling a little at each corner. ‘Hey there.’

‘Oh … Hi.’

Why wasn’t there an emergency number to call when your face was so hot it was in danger of spontaneously igniting?

I turned down the music. Tugged my skirt back into place. The giant plastic ice-cream above the snack bar began a round of high-pitched whining while Lachlan waited patiently. He looked
different out of school uniform. Less like everyone else. I found myself noticing things about him that I hadn’t seen before. Tiny imperfections that made him, I don’t know, more
interesting somehow. Like the tiny C-shaped scar on his chin, from some childhood accident on a bike maybe. And the crease beneath his left eye that appeared when he smiled. The funny little tuft
of hair that stuck out at the side of his head – the one that my hand itched to smooth down.

Then there were his clothes. I mean, he was wearing jeans and a hoodie like just about every other guy that night, but the hoodie had been patched at the elbow.
Both
elbows. A lot of
people would’ve just chucked a hoodie when it wore out like that. But Lachlan hadn’t. He’d got it fixed. Maybe he’d even fixed it himself.

It’s his favourite,
I realised. And that’s when I started thinking that maybe Lachlan Ford wasn’t a sky puzzle-piece after all. Maybe he was a bit of the grass. Or the
trunk of a tree. Something with texture.

‘The movie’s already started,’ I said, suddenly aware that I’d been staring. ‘Sorry.’

‘I didn’t come for the movie,’ Lachlan replied.

‘Well, what did you come for?’ I said without thinking. ‘Bowling?’

And straight away I knew what Ami would’ve said if she’d been there.
You putz. He came for you.
This was one of the reasons I needed her around. Without her I said stupid,
stupid things.

Lachlan pulled at the cord of his hoodie so it was way too short on one side. Then he pulled it back the other way. ‘I – just dropped by for an ice-cream. They’re supposed to
be good here.’

‘Better than the popcorn that’s for sure,’ I said, scrambling to regain some dignity. ‘What flavour do you want?’

Toby looked up, puzzled. ‘Is there another flavour now?’ he said. ‘I thought there was only vanilla.’ Then he turned to Lachlan. ‘Boringest flavour ever.’

Even the way I blush is weird. It’s my neck, not my face, that turns red. ‘I forgot,’ I muttered. ‘We only have vanilla.’

Then I tripped over, like someone had sneaked in and swapped my real feet for a larger pair.

Lachlan didn’t react at all. Not to my neon neck, my tripping or anything. ‘Vanilla’s good.’

Amazingly, I was able to hand Lachlan the ice-cream without further humiliation. He shoved it into the pocket of his hoodie and I waited for him to turn and leave. But he didn’t. He
started to hum along to ‘Steeple Chaser’.

I stared. ‘You
know
this song?’

‘I’ve heard it once or twice,’ said Lachlan.

OK, so that was kind of sweet, this sporty guy trying to make out he’d heard a Luxe song. I mean, Luxe weren’t on iTunes and they didn’t have a distributor yet – the
‘album’ was a collection of tracks I’d downloaded from their website. There wasn’t even any official album art, which is why I’d had to make my own with a picture
I’d found of Dallas on MySpace. I couldn’t bring myself to friend him, but I did look through his pictures and borrow one that I liked.

‘Olive is obsessed with Luxe,’ piped up my big-mouthed brother cheerily. ‘She’s always listening to them.’ I pulled a
shut-up
face at Toby, which he
didn’t seem to see. ‘Luxe, Luxe, Luxe. All the time.’

‘Maybe they’ll do a gig here one day,’ said Lachlan. ‘What’s that local pub called?’

‘The Rainbow,’ I said.

‘Right. Maybe they’ll play there.’

I made my eyes big and wide. ‘You’re a genie, aren’t you? And you’re going to make my wish come true.’

Lachlan smiled, and with a shock I realised I was kind of flirting with him. ‘It’s at least possible, isn’t it?’ he said.

Well yeah. Most things are possible in theory. It’s possible that there’s life on other planets, or that Ralph could be taught to
stay
, or that one day my mother will learn to
speak fluent Spanish. But a lot of things are also very unlikely. It was unlikely that I’d ever see Luxe play. Or that anything good would ever happen to me again.

The lightness I’d felt while dancing started to ooze out of me like toothpaste from a tube, and I thought I was about to lose my balance and crash to the floor. I steadied myself by
leaning against the cash register and focusing on the small panel where the prices came up. The numbers glowed green.

Lachlan leant across the counter. ‘Hey, what’s wrong?’

Stuck to the wall just above the cash register was a small mirror, curved like an eyeball. The thief mirror, Noah called it. He – or possibly his dad – had put it there so that
whoever was working the snack bar could make sure no-one was stealing stuff when they were busy at the till. The curve meant that you could see pretty much the entire cinema reflected in it –
but in a distorted way. Looking in it now, I could see my own face looming like a monster’s, my body stretched, and my nose sticking out like a toucan’s beak.

Behind me in the mirror was Lachlan. He looked perfect. It felt wrong for us to even be in the same reflection together.