Paul and Andrew sat next to each other on the round kitchen table, a box of Coco Pops between them and their bowls filled with brown milk. They were laughing like mad, still in their shorty pyjamas with their dark red hair sticking up at weird angles. Bec felt a sudden stab of love for them. She longed to ruff le up their hair, but she knew they would find it patronizing.
“Ready?” Paul asked.
“Yep,” said Andrew.
They picked up the bowls of chocolate milk.
“One…two…three!”
They both began chugging down the milk from their bowls; throats working, brown drops falling onto the table.
“Done!” screamed Andrew, dropping his bowl down and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Oh, shit!” Paul yelled, the word sounding forced from his mouth. They looked at Bec for a moment to see if she’d get him in trouble for using it, then couldn’t hold in their laughter.
“You guys are disgusting!” she said, but she was smiling, too. The horror of last night was starting to wear off.
“You look like Hitler!” she said to Paul, who still had a brown milk moustache on his top lip.
“Goot a morgan!” he said, making Andrew burst into giggles again. She shook her head and poured out her own sugar-free Muesli.
“What are you doing today, Becky?” asked Andrew.
“I’m going to go meet Lizzie in the city.”
“Can we come?” asked Paul straightaway. Two sets of identical pale blue eyes fixed on her. She knew they must be really bored. They’d been on summer holidays for two months now and they weren’t allowed to go any farther than the local shops by themselves. Her mom was so overprotective, she thought, as though their suburb was the only safe place in the world. It was Canberra, for God’s sake. She didn’t know why they just didn’t go out anyway. She wouldn’t tell on them, that was for sure, but she didn’t want to suggest it. Somehow that felt wrong.
“Please?” Paul said.
She felt bad, but she really needed to talk to Lizzie about what had happened last night, and she couldn’t do that with her little brothers running around everywhere. Plus, there was another thing she had to do with Lizzie that would be impossible with them around.
“Sorry, guys,” she said. “Next time.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Well, I’m at work tomorrow but how about Sunday?”
“Okay,” said Andrew. But she could tell they were both upset; the smiles were gone. Bec hated upsetting her brothers. It did something to her heart that nothing else could.
“We can go to the pool if you want?”
“And you won’t tell us off if we bomb?”
“Nope. Cross my heart,” she said, miming a cross over her chest. They looked at each other and then turned to her, beaming.
“Awesome,” said Paul. She patted them both on the head, which made them groan but she couldn’t help it, and went upstairs to get dressed.
Lizzie was waiting for her on a bench in Garema Place, a few feet away from the Silver Cushion. Canberra was filled with weird sculptures, but this one was Bec’s favourite for some reason. It looked like a giant half-full wine bag propped on some black steps. In summer the sun ref lected off its metallic silver surface so it hurt to look at it and definitely hurt to touch it. Bec plopped down on the bench next to Liz.
“Why are you all the way over here?” she asked.
“Emos,” she said, and Bec looked over. Four teenagers with striped black-and-red socks, bad eyeliner and floppy hair sat around the Silver Cushion.
“I worry it’s contagious,” Lizzie said, shuddering. Bec could tell she meant it, too; there was nothing Lizzie hated more than bad clothes. That’s why they worked so well as best friends; they were like each other’s perfect accessory. Today they both had on summer dresses and brown sandals; they didn’t need to call each other. They were just effortlessly coordinated. Not just in clothes, but everything. It was as if they were made of the same stuff, as if they had the same heart.
If she hadn’t already sent the message, she wouldn’t have told Lizzie about last night. The image of them sitting there was perfect: two carefree, pretty teenagers ready for anything the endless summer threw at them. The shadow in her room didn’t fit with that.
“So what happened?” asked Lizzie, and the perfect image flickered and died.
“Talk and walk?”
“Could it have been your brothers just trying to freak you out?” asked Lizzie, after Bec had briefly explained what had happened.
“No, no way. They would have been wetting themselves laughing if they managed to scare me that much. Plus, it didn’t feel, you know, human.”
“So you think it’s, what, like a poltergeist?”
“I think, like a specter. Not a ghost or spirit, but something evil and solid that’s not meant to be there.”
“Wow,” said Lizzie, not quite looking at her, “how horrible.”
She was worried Lizzie might laugh and call her crazy, but she seemed just as genuinely shocked as Bec.
“It was horrible.”
“Do you think it will happen again? Maybe you should stay at mine tonight, dude?”
“Maybe. Ugh, I don’t even want to think about it anymore.”
“I know something that would take your mind off it.” Bec recognized the glint in Lizzie’s eye.
“I thought you’d never ask!”
They were mucking around as they ran up the last few steps of the escalator. The white facade of the department store shone in front of them. They stopped laughing abruptly as they walked into the store.
The most important thing when shoplifting is to be as quietly confident as possible. Bec had learned that in the early days. The moment you start looking shifty or laughing too loudly, a security guard is shadowing you and that’s your chance blown for the day.
The second most important thing is to pick something with a lining. Bec had a look through the racks in the teenager section. Trying to find a label her mother would know was worth a lot of money. Scanlan & Theodore, perfect. She was getting so good at this it was almost unconscious. She looped the straps from the dress behind onto the hanger in front. It now looked as though there was one dress on the hanger, where in fact there were two. The maximum for a change room was six. So she quickly picked five other bulky dresses. The thin silky fabric was barely visible amongst the thick knits and ruff les of the other dresses. The harassed-looking girl at the changing rooms counted her hangers without really looking, gave her a red piece of plastic with the number six on it and ushered her through.
Bec pulled the silky fabric over her head and looked at herself in the mirror. She would have taken it either way, but it was nice when it actually suited her. This one was a teal colour, which looked pretty against her pale skin, and the soft folds hung nicely from her figure. She’d have to find some excuse to wear it in front of Luke. She slipped it off again and took the little pair of scissors out of her handbag, cutting the lining neatly around the plastic antitheft tag attached. When it came off cleanly, she slipped it into the pocket of one of the other skirts and rolled up the dress and put it in her handbag. She’d come in with six hangers and she came out with the same.
“Sorry, they just didn’t look right,” she said to the shop assistant, who obviously couldn’t care less.
“Did you find anything?” she asked Lizzie,