She sees me looking at the pages. Do you want to read it? she asks quietly.
I dont have time.
Youve wanted to read it for ages, so is it okay to ask why not, now that Im offering?
Thats new, I say to her.
Whats new?
You asking me a question.
She doesnt respond.
You never ask me anything, I accuse.
Well, what would you like me to ask you today, Taylor?
I stare and as usual I hate her for not working out what I need from her.
Do you want me to ask where youve been all night? Or do you want me to ask why you always have to be so difficult?
Id prefer that you asked me something more important than that, Hannah!
Like how am I supposed to lead a community? I want to say. Or whats going to happen to me this time next year? Am I just going to disappear like our insignificant leaders did last night? And where do I disappear to?
Ask me what the Hermit whispered in my ear that day.
I can tell that shes stunned, her hazel eyes wide with the impact of my request. She takes a moment or two, like she needs to catch her breath.
Sit down, she says quietly.
I shake my head and hold up the list she gave me. Sorry, no time. Ive got fragile kids to look after.
When I get back, classes have just finished and everyones making their way back into their Houses. Jessa McKenzie is sitting on the verandah steps. Despite her being in year seven and in Hastings House, somewhere in my worst nightmare shes become surgically attached to me and nothing , not anger, not insults, not the direst cruelty can dislodge her.
Dont follow me. Im busy. I keep walking. No eye contact because that will encourage her. That someone can want something out of another person who gives absolutely nothing in return astounds me. I want to say to this kid, Get out of my life, you little retard. Come to think of it, I have actually said that and back she comes the next day like some crazed masochistic yo-yo.
They reckon the Cadets are arriving any minute and that this time they mean business. Jessa McKenzie always speaks in a breathless voice, like she hasnt stopped speaking long enough to take a breath her entire life.
I think they meant business last year when they threw every bike in the school over the cliff.
I know youre worried as well. I can tell you are, she says softly.
My teeth are gritted now. Im trying not to but they grit all the same.
I get to the front door, dying for an opportunity to shut it in her face, but Jessa McKenzie still follows, like those tenacious fox terriers that grab hold of the bottom of your pants and tug.
The kids in my old dorm are scared, you know, she explains. The year sevens? As if Ive asked a question. Its because the older kids are going on about the Cadets coming and how bad it is. I think you should speak to them, Taylor. Now that youre leadershe leans forward and whispersof the Underground Community.
My hand is on the door, almost there, almost but then I stop because something lodges itself in my brain like a bullet.
What do you mean in my old dorm?
Shes beaming. Freckles glowing.
I look at the transfer paper in my hands and then back at her. I open it slowly, knowing exactly whose name Im about to see there, transferred to Lachlan House. My House.
You have no idea how much I can help, she says. Raffaela thinks Ill be better off in the senior rooms than the dorms.
What would Raffaela know?
She reckons she can work out where the tunnel is, I hear Raffaela say behind me.
My father used to say
But Im not listening to what Jessa McKenzies father used to say. Im sandwiched between my two worst nightmares.
Congratulations, Raffaela says, although I think Richard and the others are already organising a coup. Raffaela always has this weight-of-the-world, old-woman thing happening.
Congratulations from me, too. Jessa McKenzie is still beaming.
Were going to work out where the tunnel is, Raffaela says, and get back the Prayer Tree and learn how to
I want to be sitting in front of my computer, where you can press a button to block out your junk mail. These two are my junk mail.
But Taylor, Jessa continues in that hushed annoying voice of hers. You have to get to know the kids in your House because Chloe P. says they hardly know you down in the dorms.
Incoming! This comes from one of our guys sitting in the surveillance tree.
Raffaela and I exchange looks before she begins bustling the younger lot into the House.
The Cadets have arrived.
Im in charge.
The territory wars are about to recommence.
They met Jude Scanlon for the first time exactly one year after the accident. At that time Webb thought nothing would make sense ever again. The pain was worse now because up till then Narnie and Tate and Webb had all just felt numb and if it hadnt been for Fitzs spirit blasting them out of their grief, Webb honestly believed that the three of them would have made some crazy suicide pact. But during that year, when they were fourteen years old, the numbness went away, replaced by memories that made Narnie disappear inside herself and him ache. He saw the same in Tate. Despite her ability to enjoy most of their days, sometimes her despair was so great that, in a melancholy moment when shed allow herself to think of her family, shed almost stop breathing and hed hold her and say, Im here, Tate. Im here, Tate. Im here. Tate had lost her younger sister as well as her parents in the accident. We were playing Rock, Paper, Scissors, she told him once. I was paper and she was rock so I lived and she died.