Spells to summon storms. Spells to summon back spirits from the afterlife. Spectral gates to other worlds. Other worlds themselves. Other worlds with werewolves. Definitely werewolves.

  He scared himself sick with his belief in werewolves.

  He believed in the supernatural. Ghosts. Ectoplasm. Poltergeists. Spirit orbs. He said everyone has a doppelganger. Everyone. ‘Somewhere in the world Pip, there’s another you. There’s another me. And in another universe, we’re there as well, doing something else.’

  She always shook her head at that.

  ‘There’s only one me, and only one you,’ she’d argue back although she had as little proof as him.

  Portals. Rifts. Wormholes that allowed interstellar travel.

  He believed in intelligent life in outer space.

  Typical Mika question: ‘If a spaceship landed at Gallipoli Park, Pip, middle of the night, and asked us to come on board and see the universe, only catch, we could never come back, what would you do?’

  Pip hated questions like that. In the beginning they shocked her. Made her feel physically unwell because her brain didn’t work like that.

  She was black and white. Vegemite or Marmite. Chocolate or vanilla. Chewing gum or Hubba Bubba. Nothing bigger. Not: Never see your mother again versus see the universe.

  Mika lived with his great-grandmother and he’d been sent there from the city. He’d arrived at the end of Grade Three, at the classroom door with a green backpack that was way too big for him, smiling his secretive Mika smile as though he found the whole situation amusing.

  He’d been sent on a train. Two whole nights and a day alone, he told the class on that first day when the teacher asked where he’d come from. ‘It’s called The Inlander,’ he said, ‘but first I went on The Spirit of Queensland. I saw some gum trees at night that shone like gold in the moonlight.’ That shut everyone up. ‘I only had twenty bucks for the whole trip so every time I got a cheese toastie, I had to save half of it for later. It was like Survivor on a train. I nearly had to drink the water that had a sign above it that said “DO NOT DRINK THIS WATER”, but then this nice lady gave me money for a bottle of water. I was fully dehydrated.’

  He never really answered the question of where he’d come from, though the entire Grade Three class was, by that stage, enthralled.

  ‘Something’s different here, Pip,’ he’d say at the waterhole, at the side of the highway, at the top of Gallipoli Park. ‘Can you feel it? Like there’s a portal nearby.’

  ‘What even is a portal?’ she’d say, watching him. He was skinny, although Mrs Jarvinen had put some weight on him since he arrived. His white-blonde hair flopped down over his eyes. His nails were permanently dirty because he liked to dig for things too.

  ‘So, you can’t feel it?’

  ‘Just feels like hot air,’ Pip would answer.

  The creek did have places that felt different, though. Where the air changed. Where it felt heavier or lighter or strangely still, expectant, like something was about to happen. She didn’t want to give away too much to him back then. In the beginning.

  ‘I wish I had a sonic screwdriver,’ he’d say, kind of sadly, like it actually was a real thing. He’d hold the invisible wished-for sonic screwdriver in his hand and point it to the sky. ‘I could scan for the types of life forms here. Or close by, in another realm. Maybe burn a hole into another realm.’

  ‘What’s wrong with this realm?’ she’d say. To annoy him more than anything. There was everything wrong with this realm. Mika had arrived two weeks after Matt had moved into her house. Two weeks of an entire strange new realm.

  As the memory faded, the singing dried out on her tongue. The tears dried on her cheeks. The sun rose, white-hot, burning momentarily into the cave then passing, rising, rising. The shade slid across the cave floor, covering Pip and the dragon like a blanket and velvet geckos, hidden from view, ticked softly in the new shadows. She wondered what would be happening at school. Maybe they were doing the Christmas card activity that had been promised yesterday.

  ‘We’re going to make some pretty cool cards for our mums and dads,’ Mr T had announced.

  ‘Have you got a dad, Pip?’ Laura Denning, who sat in front of her, had turned to whisper.

  It was said in a sickly-sweet voice. Pink ribbons braided through her hair.

  Pip had flipped her the bird.

  ‘Pippa, you know we don’t do things like that here,’ said Mr T.

  She hoped they were doing that activity right now. They’d be colouring in while she was on a hill, saving a dragon. She smiled at that.

  She had stopped feeding him because he’d grown tired. His swallow, which had grown stronger, had weakened. Pip thought she could see behind those leathery closed eyelids, the eyeballs moving, the way she’d see Matt’s moving when he was passed out on the sofa on a Saturday afternoon. Was it a good sign? He’s come from nearly dead to dreaming, she thought. One day he’ll open his eyes. The colour would be blue or green, she couldn’t decide, though definitely not red like a dragon in a picture book. She was so glad that her weird crying had stopped. That crying was the strangest thing. That crying was deep like an ocean that no one could ever touch the bottom of.

  She watched his breathing. His breathing was definitely settled. There weren’t so many pauses and then the jagged shuddering catch-up gasps. The little heartbeat had slowed too, beneath that bony rib cage.

  ‘Where have you come from? Did you fall from the sky?’ she asked.

  ‘Maybe …’ she started. ‘Maybe your … mother dropped you?’

  ‘By accident,’ she added quickly.

  The sun climbed. She’d be in trouble. That was at the back of her mind. The school would have rung her mother to report her absence. It would be Mrs Green from the office and she’d say, Hi there, just wanting to check that Pippa is with you, Melissa? Her mother would sigh, No, no she’s not with me. After all, it wasn’t like she hadn’t done it before. Her mother would know she was at the creek, or somewhere hidden in the hills but it still wouldn’t stop her worrying and that hurt Pip.

  Okay, well I’m really sorry Mrs Green, I’ll go and look for her, okay?

  She was probably walking around right now looking for Pip. It would be Monumental-End-of-the-Earth-Trouble.

  Then Little Fella coughed. It was a big cough for something so small. He opened his mouth wide and she saw for a few seconds deep inside two rows of razor teeth, one behind the other, the dryness of his dark tongue. A gob of spit came hurtling out and hit the ground and sizzled. He didn’t wake and he looked more comfortable for having that out. He uncurled unexpectedly and extended his four feet the way a kitten might stretch, then curled himself tight again. He made a rattly noise like a tiny maraca. All the trouble with her mum aside, Pip knew she’d done the right thing.

  Told you arrowroots would work, said Mika.

  The sun reached its zenith and started its slow trek down. The cave grew even darker and cooler. She tenderly placed Little Fella in his hoodie nest onto the dirt and went outside to pee. She climbed out of the cave into the sun and down and around a spine of rocks, all of them flat and red, slammed into each other by some cataclysmic force eons ago. She pulled down her school shorts and squatted, watched the trail of wee forge a river through the red dirt.

  Little Fella was better. She knew it inside her. Or getting better. And with that knowledge came sudden exhaustion. She went back into the cave and lay down on the dirt beside him.

  I wonder how big it will get? asked Mika inside her.

  ‘It’s a he,’ said Pip.

  I wonder how big he’ll get?

  ‘Big,’ said Pip. ‘I won’t see him when he’s big though.’

  How do you know?

  ‘I dunno. Just a feeling.’

  She closed her eyes. She could have sworn it was for a second, yet when she opened them again the sun was low and the hummock grass glowed golden by its setting. ‘Come on Little Fella,’ she said and placed him carefully, hoodie and all, down inside her backpack. All the way back to her bike she could feel the new weight of him. She pedalled slowly, coasting down the hill, drifting across the intersections towards the crossing to where her mother was standing, waiting.

  They walked in silence at first, then:‘Do you think I’m a fool?’

  ‘No,’ said Pip.

  ‘Do you think I’m a fool?’ her mother asked again.

  ‘No,’ said Pip, ‘really, I don’t. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Do you think I want to walk around all day looking for you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you think that’s fun for me?’

  Pip’s mum had sold her car to help pay off Matt’s four-wheel drive, except he hardly ever let her drive it.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘You aren’t sorry,’ said her mother. ‘You say sorry and then you keep doing the thing again. This running away. This not going to school. Ever since …’

  ‘Mika,’ said Pip. No one could say his name.

  But she was sorry for everything. Sorry for running away. Sorry for hating school. Sorry for Mika. Sorry for Mika’s mum. Sorry for her own mum, who kept trying to be better, trying to exercise and trying to be a goddess in six easy steps while always wishing she were someone else. And sorry for Matt who had a heart made out of stone. Sorry for all of them. Sorry for their house, which was exactly the same as all the others, yet somehow looked darker. Sorry for the dragon in her backpack who’d lost his own mum and ended up in her care.

  They walked past Mrs Lee, watering her buffalo grass. She didn’t say anything to them. Simply watched.

  At home, her mother told her to go to her room but Pip knew it wasn’t over. Her mother was too calm. There would be more crying and maybe some yelling. Her mother would come back again with a catalogue of everything Pip had ever done wrong. Running away, not doing homework, not eating like a normal child, being too secretive, being too lonely, being too impulsive, never being sorry, not accepting consequences, constantly lying. It was all going to come down that hall in a great flood.

  She reached into the backpack to take out Little Fella. Her eyes were on the door, waiting for her mother, when she felt a sudden sharp pain, like a knitting needle had been jammed into her left palm.

  ‘Hey!’ She ripped back her hand.

  She looked into the backpack and expected to see Little Fella staring back up at her. He was still sleeping. She inspected her bleeding hand. It wasn’t the teeth that got her. Those tiny sharp teeth would have ripped her hand apart. This was a deep hole in her palm, filling up like a well with blood. A claw mark.

  She took an old handkerchief from her wardrobe drawer and clenched it in her palm to stop the bleeding. She put her hands into the bag again, slowly. She touched Little Fella and he didn’t move, so she dug her fingers beneath the hoodie and scooped him up. He made the small, contented maraca sound. Out of the bag and up and into the wardrobe in time for her mother’s footsteps.

  ‘You never used to be like this,’ said her mother, standing at the door, her arms crossed. ‘I mean, I know things have been tough—’

  ‘You used to be different too,’ Pip interrupted, pressing the handkerchief into her palm. She stared right into her mother’s eyes until her mother glanced away.

  ‘I think I need to take you to a psychologist or something, find some help for you,’ her mother said. ‘It’s the lying that bothers me.’

  ‘I’m really sorry,’ said Pip.

  But they were all just words patched over the great surface of things. Her mother lied all the time. She lied to herself. She lied to Pip that everything was going to be okay. She lied that everything was going to get better. She lied when she said she was leaving Matt. They never left.

  Pip’s hand was aching. A deep rose thorn ache. It felt wet and sticky where it was bleeding into the handkerchief.

  ‘Do you want me to make the dinner, Mum?’

  ‘There’s no dinner,’ said her mum. ‘Get in the bath.’

  HER MOTHER COULD NEVER STAY ANGRY for long, though. When Pip climbed into bed, she appeared with eggs and toast and a bandaid.

  ‘How’d you do it?’ her mum asked.

  ‘Spinifex,’Pip lied. A pause while her mother watched her eyes. ‘I tripped and fell into a whole patch of it.’

  A bandaid wasn’t going to work, so after Pip had finished eating her mum left and returned with a pad and bandage.

  ‘That’s deep,’ her mother said, dressing the wound, then tucking the blanket up around her chin. Outside the night was singing, cicadas humming themselves loose from their skins and above, Pip knew, the stars would be blazing. Parents like you better when you’re injured, she thought. It’s a fact.

  ‘I know it’s bad,’ said her mum quietly, sitting on the edge of the bed. ‘I’m trying to sort it out, okay?’

  We have to find out how to make him happy. We have to solve the mystery of how to keep him happy. We have to make everything perfect. When everything is perfect, he’s happy.

  ‘We have to leave,’ Pip whispered. She wouldn’t normally say something like that only her hand was aching and the aching made her feel reckless. ‘We could take his car when he’s at the pub.’

  Her mum winced at that, bit her bottom lip.

  We’ll have a dragon, Pip wanted to add.

  Was that Little Fella she could hear moving in the wardrobe?

  ‘Shhh,’ said her mother, touching her cheek. Then she was sighing and standing up.

  ‘One more day of school, Pippa. And tomorrow you’re going to school,’ she said, turning the light out and closing the door.

  Pip took Little Fella from the wardrobe in his hoodie nest and prepared her feeding equipment. Yes, he was definitely a boy dragon. She had no proof of it, she just believed it. That’s what happened with dragons. You started to believe stuff. Before a dragon, life had drifted. Information had washed over her. Times tables and Captain Cook, chewing gum advertisements and terrorism, all sorts of people blowing each other up, fidget spinners and fast cars, clean breath, Lego for girls and Lego for boys. Television and the chatter of the radio and Matt scrolling with his angry finger down the phone. With a dragon, she believed.

  I will save you.

  I will help you.

  I will fix your wings.

  I was chosen.

  Chosen. It was such a huge word and she almost felt foolish thinking it. Maybe some other girl could have been sitting there at the creek, at dusk, and that other girl would have found him and saved him just as well. ‘Chosen’ was a weighty word.

  She’d never in her whole life felt the weight of that word.

  It made her feel like there were one hundred Christmas mornings thrumming through her veins, excited and impatient.

  She mushed arrowroot in the dark; he was hungry. He slurped and guzzled against the eye-dropper. He seemed bigger in the dark. She tentatively put her hand out and stroked his back. Those papery tufts felt rubbery now. He rattled beneath her fingers, writhed in a contented away.

  ‘It’ll be all right, Little Fella,’ she whispered because she wasn’t silly for thinking it. Because she believed it.

  That first day in class, when Mika arrived and thrilled everyone with his solo travel escapades, he chose Pip. He could have become friends with any of the other boys. Those boys were there for the picking. There was Mason, Zane, Alex, Simon, Luke, Harry, Jack (times two), Hunter, Angus, Johnathan, Israel and Archie. And that was just her class. He talked to them of course and kicked the ball with them and argued with Hunter who everyone argued with, straightaway, and Angus, Alex and Simon gathered around him at recess when he extracted a mysterious battered magazine from his green backpack, the words ‘The Unexplained’ emblazoned on the front cover.

  Maybe he noticed she wasn’t really listening to the train story. That she was thinking of something else. Maybe he could see that, as he told the part about the dehydration. That she was staring out the window at the dead white grass. Maybe he saw her turn away when he showed the boys the article on werewolves. That she was a girl with things on her mind who needed a friend.

  She had friends. That’s what she thought, with annoyance, when he followed her home from school through the park. He was ten metres behind, head down, trudging in the heat with his backpack weighing him down. She had Emily, the funnier of the two twins, who made her laugh. She had Audrey, who sometimes invited her over to jump on her trampoline. She had Taliah, who commanded a large group of girls that sometimes Pip sat at the edge of. There were others too. Lots of other sometimes friends. She fitted in anywhere on the edges. She could blend. She was the blurred girl at the sides of photos, shapeshifting. Except with Laura Denning. She could never shapeshift with Laura.

  Pip knew he was going to try to be her friend. He was going to try to fit in with her. She had a sense for such things. You had to wait for the right time and say the right thing. You had to get ready to disappear if it didn’t work out. She could sense him waiting for the right time.

  She had a flat tyre and she was glad for it. She was walking slowly, pushing her bike, because she didn’t want to go home. Her mother would be thinking about what she’d make Matt for dinner and worrying that she had to make it right. If she didn’t make it right Matt wouldn’t talk to them. He’d go and turn his huge television up loud and pretend they didn’t exist. He’d already done it twice since he’d moved in and Pip knew her mother never wanted it to happen again.

  ‘You got a flat,’ he said behind her.

  ‘Uh huh,’ she said.

  ‘I can fix it,’ he said, running to catch up. ‘We need a bucket of water. Have you got one? I have a bike repair kit. You take the tube out and run it through the water looking for air bubbles.’

  ‘I know how to fix a flat tyre.’

  ‘Just saying,’ he said. ‘You got a bucket at home?’

  He pulled the backpack around and rummaged. There seemed to be a lot of stuff in that bag. Finally, he retrieved the bike repair kit, a tiny plastic sleeve containing adhesives. He was beside her now.

  ‘Why do you have that if you don’t have a bike?’

 

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