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The Ghosts of Ashbury High


Jaclyn Moriarty
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Arthur A. Levine Books
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First paperback printing, July 2012

Note
Most of the following story takes place in an HSC English
exam on the topic of gothic fiction.
The HSC (or Higher School Certificate) is a series of exams
taken by students in New South Wales at the end of their final
year of school. During that final year, students also complete
projects and assessment tasks, the results of which are
combined with the HSC exam results to determine which
university major the student may pursue.
Gothic fiction includes novels like Wuthering Heights and
Frankenstein. In a gothic novel, you will often find mad people
locked in attics, secret passageways, monsters, murderers,
ghosts, and family curses. A beautiful young woman is likely
to ride in a carriage through a bleak landscape, hear the toll of
a distant bell, see a black crow, hear a rumble of ominous
thunder, see drops of blood, hear haunting music, see a figure
shrouded in mist, hear a bloodcurdling scream and it will
all make her prone to fainting several times a day.

PA R T O N E

1.

Board of Studies
New South Wales
HIGHER SCHOOL CERTIFICATE
EXAMINATION
English Extension 3
General Instructions

Reading time 5 minutes


Writing time 4 hours
Write using black or blue pen

Elective: Gothic Fiction


Question 1
Write a personal memoir which explores the dynamics of first impressions. In your response, draw on your knowledge of gothic fiction.

RILEY T. SMITH
Student No. 8233569

My first look at her was her name.


It was inky dark blue. On a note theyd left stuck to my backpack.
Knock on the second red door, said the note. Ask for Amelia.
Amelia, eh? said I.
Theres a lot you can do with a name like Amelia.
You can play with it, sure, is what you think Im going to say. Make
it cute (Amy), or cuter (Millie), complaining (Meelie), or French, I
guess, like the movie (Amlie).
You can step right into that name, is what I mean, and walk around.
Swim with it or spill it on your shirt. Whisper it over like a sad, soft
ache, or bark it out loud like a mad, manic message: camellia, come
heee-re, a-million, ah murder you, ye-eah.
You can peel it off your backpack, fold it up safe, walk right past
that second red door, or you can not.
This was a few years back. I was fourteen then.
I was still looking down at the name on the note, while I headed to
the second red door and I stopped with a fist in the air.
And there she was.
You think you know what Im about to say, dont you?
You think Im going to say: Amelia was just like her name.
No. Amelia was a girl in a cute T-shirt nightie with a
retro MS. PAC-MAN on the front, and the sexiest thigh-high
boots I ever saw. If Jesus were a boot maker. And she looks at me
with her eyes open wide and a face that says: Oh my God, Im
muckin around in my sexy Jesus-boots, in my crazy dreamworld,
and Ive opened the door and let you in on my crazy dreamworld and thats so embarrassing but, actually, who cares? because
its funny.
2

And then were both laughing. Theres this rope-length of laughter


between us.
Funny thing is, even while Im laughing, and falling in her eyes, a
part of me knew she was a ghost.
The first time I saw her I knew that my Amelia was a ghost.

EMILY MELISSA-ANNE THOMPSON


Student No. 8233521

Lightning struck! There was a howling of wind, as if wolves roamed


about, howlingly. Thunder crashed! Lightning struck again!
It was the first day of Year 12.
I had set out that morning with trepidation. I did not, in all honesty, see a crow, a raven, or any other black bird on the way to school
that day.
And yet! I was trepidatious.
In part, of course, it was the Higher School Certificate looming
like a monstrous entity at the end of the year. Not to forget the likewise looming of my future career in the law. (Or, anyway, the degree in
law that awaited me at the wrought-iron gates of my future. A degree
that could be locked in an attic like a crazed ex-wife if I did not do
well in my HSC exams!!! But, by and by.)
But no, it was more than that! Something about the impending day
struck me as ill. Perhaps it was the gathering dark clouds? (In all honesty, I dont think I actually noticed them because my dads car has
tinted windows and I always think theres a cloudy sky but it turns out
to be the tint. So Ive stopped bothering to look.)
But maybe my subconscious noticed!
At any rate, now it was lunch and the storm had come!
And there I was on the green velveteen couch in the Year 12
3

common room at Ashbury High, which is in Castle Hill, forty minutes


drive northwest of Sydney if you take the M2, while the thunder
howled! And the lightning struck! And generally the weather rattled
around, as if it had to carry gothic chains behind it!
I chatted with my friends Lydia and Cassie.
There is a deep foreboding within me, I said (or words like that,
not exactly that), that my new shampoo doesnt actually bring out the
honey highlights in my hair like it says it does!
Lydia shook her head at me, slowly, cryptically.
It could be that she meant: No, Em, dont worry. I see plenty of
honey highlights.
But I doubt it.
Cass reassured me that the shampoo worked. But she wasnt really
looking at my hair!! She changed the subject, saying that thered been
a snake in the doorway of the Music Rooms that morning. (A snake!
Gothic.)
Lyd said shed heard Ms. Wexford killed the snake with a
saxophone.
Seriously? I cried.
Lyd gazed at me. No, she said.
It was already dead, Cass explained. A kookaburra probably
dropped it there.
Then Lyd spoke over my mild hysteria to say this: Hey, did you
hear theres two new people this year? A girl and a guy?
TWO NEW PEOPLE THIS YEAR??!!
Strange time to be changing schools!! The final year? Why now?!
In all honesty I think my skin crawled a little. But it might have
been the scratchiness of the velveteen couch.
Seriously? Cassie said. Where from?
Theyre in my homeroom, Lyd commented (ignoring Cassies
question why? Why?! Perhaps she did not know). Theyre together.
Together, you mean, like, together?
Yeah. Since they were fourteen or something.
4

Strange! Most highly strange.


Lydia told us several facts about the couple. She must have chatted
with them at roll call! Unlike her! She is not shy, but she is suspicious
and therefore a bit of a reservoir with strangers.
And yet, something was missing. What was it?
Of course.
Whats their names? I said.
Amelia and Riley, was my friends reply.
(Did she tremble a little as she said that? I know not. Probably not.)
Riley and Amelia. I swapped their names around. It seemed
wrong, the order Lyd had chosen. There is always a correct order
when you say a couples names.
And yet was my order right?
I think it was.
Riley and Amelia.
The names quivered before us.
At that moment, three things happened:
There was a roaring sound. (The rain was suddenly heavier, as if
someone had held the volume down on the remote so that the room
was now aghast with sound.)
There was a clanging of bells. (Our school bell ringing for the end of
lunch.)
There was the creeeeeeaaaaking of a door. (The door to the common
room opening.)
We turned as one, the three of us.
And I think that we felt chilled to the bones. (In all honesty, I
myself did because the open door was letting in a draft.)
For there, in the doorway, they stood:
Riley and Amelia.
I knew, at once, that it was they.

LYDIA JAACKSON-OBERMAN
Student No. 8233410

There was the first time I saw this exam question.


It happened just now.
The dynamics of first impressions, said the question.
Are you serious? I replied. (The supervisor frowned at me for
talking out loud.)
My first impression of this question is that it sucks.
Nothing has happened so far to change my mind.
There was also the first time I saw them.
It happened in roll call, the first day of the year.
He had a pair of swimming goggles slung over his shoulder. She
had bloodshot eyes. He sat on the window ledge, facing the room.
She turned and pressed her forehead to the glass to look out.
They were talking to each other.
I remember he called her Ame. Like aim. Like a command. And I
thought that her bloodshot eyes were looking out the window for a
target.
I remember she called him Riley, like his name could not be
touched.
They both had wet hair, only hers was brushed back into a long
ponytail. From behind, I could see that the ponytail was leaking:
Thin watershadows formed on her school shirt.
As I watched, he rubbed his hands over his head. He was friendly
and rough with his head, as if it were a dog. Now his hair stood up in
spikes.
And then something happened.
She reached a hand toward him and he reached his hand toward
her, but his eyes found the eyes of strangers in the room. Their hands
almost touched but did not.
I saw cobwebs in the slender, empty space between those hands.
6

*
*
*
Later, at lunch, I told my friends about them.
Theres two new people, I said and a storm rattled the windows of the room.
I said theyd been together for years. I said they were swimmers. I
said they trained every day, and that swimming was her passion but he
went along just to swim beside her. I said she had a secret that was
breaking his heart.
Everything I said was based on my impression of Amelia and Riley
at the window in the classroom.
But nothing has happened so far to change my mind.

TOBIAS GEORGE MAZZERATI


Student No. 8233555

A blast of rain like a sudden loss of temper. Thunderclaps that feel


personal. Hailstones the size of sheep.
Or practically that size.
Its a mad kind of weather that they have in this country, to be sure.
Im an Irish lad, been here in Castle Hill these past two years and
today, as the storm rages around me, I can feel a darkness looming.
Night terrors have haunted me lately. Strange, dreadful visions of
spinning coins that turn into Maggies face: She laughs and then her
smile contorts into a scream.
Och, my Maggie, the sweetest, hottest girl you ever saw, and I left
her behind.
When I said good-bye, I promised that Id write once a day. Maggie
said shed write every hour.
Her eyes, I couldnt see them for the tears, as she swore shed find
a way to come here too. Shed find a leprechaun, she said, but shed
not take his gold coin, for itd only turn to ashes in her hand.
Ah well, then, I agreed. Dont be taking that.
7

Ill take his silver shilling instead, says she. Its magic, the silver
one, and returns to your purse each time you pay it.
Eventually, shed have a stockpile of silver, and then shed buy a
ticket and come.
Why go to the trouble, says I, of finding the leprechaun? Just
grow yourself a pair of wings and fly.
Tom Kincaid, she says, and flicks my wrist, but it was good to see
the spark behind her tears.
Shes not written to me for almost a year now, but I keep writing.
I wrote about the snakes in Castle Hill the other day. You cant walk
anywhere, I wrote, but youll fall over a snake. (That was an exaggeration.) Theyre not venomous, I added next, so she wouldnt worry. (But
the black or brown ones, theyll likely kill you.)
Do you remember, I wrote last week, the day we lay side by side on the
grass, and you told me your wee brother was learning to count? The little
one would say, one, two, and then six, seven and nine, twelve, for he
hadnt yet put it all together.
Imagine the world of numbers that way, you said. A great unfolding
mystery is what they are, with chasms of wonder between.
I laughed at you, but I knew what you meant, and I held your
hand, and we looked at the sky and our thoughts flew together, the way
that they do. Those clouds, we thought, are a great unfolding mystery, with chasms of wonder between. And the same, we thought, is
our future.
And our hands tightened like to something fierce.
Today I wrote, Dear Maggie and the thunder roared there are
heat waves here so powerful that birds fall dead from the air. Days when the
sky turns black with bats, driven in swarms by hot winds. They swoop
down, these bats, crowd onto trees, and a constant, rhythmic thudding
begins as they drop dead or dying to the ground.
I tore that letter to shreds, and there it is now in the mud. For
8

louder even than the crashing rain is the constant, rhythmic thudding
of my heart. I know what is coming, and its darkness.
I know that the future is gone.
Och, and when I think of how they shaved my head, clapped irons
on my ankles, and sent me away to the ends of the earth for the rest of
my God-given life they got me for stealing a sheep and when I
think
Not to mention, I have just noticed that the exam question asks for
a personal memoir.
So you want to hear from me Toby Mazzerati not some Irish
convict dude named Tom Kincaid who lived here in 1804.
Hence, please disregard the above, and I will start my answer now.
Thanks for your time.

2.

The Committee for the Administration of the


K. L. Mason Patterson Trust Fund
THE K. L. MASON PATTERSON SCHOLARSHIP FILE
A Scholarship Enabling Two (2) Students to Attend Ashbury High for
their Final Year of High School including Tuition Fees, Uniform
Allowance, and Monthly Stipend. The Two (2) Students must demonstrate Financial Hardship and Outstanding Potential.
A Bonus of $25,000 each to be paid to the Two (2) Scholarship Winners
upon the Completion of their Final Year of High School.
Memo

To:

All Members of the K. L. Mason Patterson


Trust Fund Committee
From: Chris Botherit and Roberto Garcia
Re:
K. L. Mason Patterson Scholarship Short List
Dear Committee Members,
Were delighted to announce that weve narrowed
the field to a tiny short list of FIVE applicants!!
The five students names are:
David Peter Montgomery
Riley Terence Smith
Sura Eve Bajinksi
Xavier Paul Simeon
Amelia Grace Damaski
10

Supporting documentation for each student,


including applicant essays, references, school
records, etc., attached.
So! Next step is for the Committee to interview
these five contenders. Look over the material, get
back to us with your comments or questions, and
well set up the interviews.
All the best,
Chris Botherit (English Coordinator, Ashbury High)
with Rob Garcia (History Coordinator & Drama
Teacher, Ashbury High)
P.S. Two of the applicants on this short list have
clearly had some troubled times. As you will see
from the attached, the troubles have manifested
themselves in ways that are a bit startling! But youll
also see that they have lots of potential (in an
unexpected area . . .), suffer great financial hardship,
have very persuasive reference letters and
Roberto and I are keen to meet with them! So,
theyve made the cut!

Y
(Sir Kendall Laurence) Mason Patterson
Scholarship Short list
Dear Mr. Botherit and Mr. Garcia,
Thank you for your memo.
To begin Id like to quibble with your tone.
Shouldnt we be more formal? This is, after all,
the inaugural year of the K. L. Mason Patterson
Scholarship. Does not the late Sir Kendall deserve

11

rather more respect? Phrases such as narrowed the


field and made the cut have surely been lifted
directly from the cinematographic films.
And, truly, are so many exclamation points quite
the thing?
(As a dear friend of the late Sir Kendall, I can
assure you there was little he loathed so much
as the cinematographic film and the exclamation
point.)
Now, I have studied the papers relating to the
applicants David, Sura, and Xavier. What a marvelous little trio! Such diligent young things and all
seem to me to come from good, quiet, respectable
stock. They are Ashbury through and through.
Indeed, I can imagine each of them walking the
corridors in my own glory days at Ashbury. I am
sure they will enchant us at the interviews.
However, I am bewildered as to why you have
included the students named Riley and Amelia. What
I see here is not manifestations of trouble, Mr.
Botherit. It is trouble. Through and through. Either
you are much less astute than I have been led to
believe and I say that with all the respect you are
due or you are making a sort of a joke. If so,
the joke is in very bad taste, and I assure you, Sir
Kendall would not have laughed.
Yours faithfully,
Constance Milligan
(Associate Chair, Ashbury Alumni Association)

12

Chris and Rob,


What are you on?
Riley Smith and Amelia Damaski?
Delete them from the short list and find another
two, pronto.
Cheers,
Bill Ludovico
(Ashbury School Principal/Economics Teacher)

Y
Dear Mr. Botherit and Mr. Garcia,
Remind me how you talked me into joining this
Committee.
I guess Sura and Xavier would be the obvious
choices. They seem scarily smart. And desperately
dull. I dont especially want to meet them. Do we
really have to meet them?
Yours,
Patricia Aganovic
(Parent Representative 1)

Y
Chris and Rob,
My two cents worth:
The one named Sura, now she sounds
perfect. I cant tell you what an accomplished
violinist like that would do for the school
orchestra.
(Apparently, Riley has taught himself to play

13

the drums. A self-taught percussionist! So is my


two-year-old. Say no more.)
Kind regards,
Lucy Wexford
(Music Coordinator, Ashbury High)

Y
Mr. Botherit and Mr. Garcia,
Constance, once again.
Forgive this scribbled postscript but it occurs
to me that it would be the height of foolishness to
keep Riley and Amelia on our short list for a moment
longer. According to the Scholarship Charter, we are
obliged to interview all students on the short list.
Ergo, at present we have to interview them! We will
have to be in the same room as them! They will see
our faces!
(No doubt, they will learn our names too, for good
manners will oblige us to introduce ourselves.)
I urge you to remove them with haste.
Yours sincerely,
Constance Milligan

Y
Mr. B and Mr. G,
Guessing that Amelia and Riley are included for
humor value?
David, Sura, and Xavier sound okay.
Although, if any of those three come to Ashbury
their marks will be off the charts. My boy Tobys rank
14

will slip and, from what he tells me, if it slips any


more itll end up in pieces on the concrete.
Could you find a couple of Applicants with
Outstanding Potential who arent likely to live up
to their Outstanding Potential for a few years yet?
Cheers,
Jacob Mazzerati
(Parent Representative 2)

Y
Mr. Bothersome and Mr. Gracias,
I write with urgent haste. It is I, Constance,
again by my night-light at midnight for I
have just awoken from a dreadful nightmare
dreadful! and I have no choice but to write to
you at once!
I have seen them! In my dream! It was those
applicants, Riley and Amelia oh, they were wicked,
monstrous, satanic creatures miscreants! they
had sprung, fully formed, from the loins of
Please hearken to my words:
In the dream, we were interviewing them. Riley
had taken the form of a great hairy ape, and Amelia
was a little black viper. (She had wrapped herself
around the back of that bright red chair, the one that
dear Patricia Aganovic favors at our Committee
meetings.) And do you know what they did? Why,
that ape and that viper, that pair of vicious reprobates, they spent the entire interview STUDYING US
ALL! Oh, their quick, cunning eyes were busy staring
and staring at us! (No doubt, they were valuing our
jewelry and our clothes and the quality of our
15

haircuts! And I myself, in this dream [and in real life,


if you can credit it], had just got a new perm and
rinse it keeps my spirits up AND I was wearing
my good pearl necklace and my great-aunts ruby
rings!)
Quite reasonably, I asked a simple question:
What of your parents? What do they do?
Well, they laughed and laughed and laughed.
Such hideous, horrible, howling laughter!
Then Riley, the ape, changed form and became a
nasty little squirrel with bloodred eyes. And Amelia,
the viper, turned into a sort of leaky fountain pen
and spilled all over the floor, and there I was with
my good mop and bucket, the expensive mop with
the fancy handle that I use on the floorboards in my
But that is incidental.
What is important is this! Dyou not see it? The
dream was a WARNING. And we MUST PAY HEED. If
we interview these two, each of us will find ourselves
secretly WEIGHED as a potential target for their
wicked, scheming ways!
And worse, what do you suppose will happen,
pray, when they miss out on the scholarship? Why,
hell will have no fury ! The vengeance they will
wreak It is THEN that we will see their truly hideous I can scarcely grasp this pen for
For, do you not understand? They will have seen
our faces. They will know our names.
Strike them from the short list at once.
Yours,
Constance Milligan

16

3.

TOBIAS GEORGE MAZZERATI


Student No. 8233555

If you could just ease your way out of the nineteenth century, and back
to modern times?
Back, in your actual fact, to a couple of weeks before the summer
holidays last year.
Cos thats when my dad had his tennis buddies round.
Thursday night and my feetre up, cold pizza, rain outside, TV
bright like its super-keen tonight, when a tennis shoe hits the back of
my head.
I turn around and theres Frankenstein.
Laughing his arse off at me, on account of the direct hit to
my head.
I kid you not: Frankenstein standing in my living room.
Couple of his monster buddies too. Big sweaty shadows in the
twilight-fading room.
Toby! go the monster buddies. (Thats their way of saying hi.)
Tobias, says Frankenstein. (Thats his way.)
Youd think his accent might have faded (like the twilight),
cause hes been in this country twenty years, but no Tobias, says
Frankenstein, accent smooth and sweet, you still have leetle pingpongs for balls?
In one smooth move I had his shoe up off the floor and hurtling
high speed toward his neck.
He took it from the air and let it drop.
What happened to your tennis game? I go.
All three monsters stand there looking at me. Sound of rain outside.
17

None of us blinked.
Next thing my dads there, handing out beers. Im thinking a
pasta, he says. Whaddya say, boys?
Skinny monster goes, That one you do with the olives?
Fat monster goes, And the anchovy fillets?
And Frankenstein: You kick ass, my friend!
Frankensteins real name is Roberto Garcia.
Also known as a buddy of my dad. They met at this wine tasting
course my parents did, back when my parents were an item. Roberto
Garcia was running the course.
Turns out, by spooky chance, hes my History teacher now. Gets
my dad onto school committees too. (He has Frankensteinesque powers of persuasion.)
Anyhow, this particular night, tennis rained out, big plates of pasta,
monster glasses of red wine, hangin with Dads buddies, the stereo
blasting out their favorite tunes I played them some sets of my
own Im a superstar DJ is what I am, in my spare time and they
started off ready to be full of mock and scorn but ended up kind of
nodding along, eyebrows jumping with the beat, now and then making that face. Lips turned down, head tilted sideways: Huh, whod
have thought it, this aint bad.
So Im taking a break some point that night, nice and sleepy
Dad and his fat buddy shootin some pool, skinny buddy frowning at
the stereo (trying to replicate my DJ success) (no chance), when
Frankenstein lands his big arse on the couch, shoving my legs to the
floor at the same time, and gets me with a face full of garlic-red-wine
breath.
Folks, he truly is one mother of a monster. Big acne-scarred face,
nose like a landslide, hairiest arms and legs you ever saw so youd
think he was a mountain goat in his spare time, but here if you
forgive a bit of sentiment please also the nicest guy in the world.
18

And this is the night when the story begins.


Lets just say, the short version is, Frankenstein recalled he was my
History teacher.
Tobias, he says, Toby, my boy, you wish for an idea for your
History Project you wish maybe to start during this summer?
Ill tell you what he meant:
He meant: Toby, my boy, your marks are running down the gutter
to the sewers of the earth. Your future, my boy, is a flying fox strung
up in electrical wires. Yes, youre a superstar DJ, my boy, but your
future is a maggot in a chunk of rotting cheese.
Thats what he meant.
But hes a nice guy like I said, so he didnt use those words.
Roberto, I said, I wish.
Hed been hangin with his homeboys down at the local history
club, he said. Some guy there had found some old papers in a termiterotting blanket chest.
The originals, says Roberto with that shrug he always does, like
he thinks hes a South American sex god, when in fact hes a big ole
ugly Frankenstein, the originals, we give to the Mitchell Library,
naturally. But I have copies. You can look at the
He gets a bunch of papers from his briefcase. Theyre the letters of
a guy named Tom Kincaid. Once lived right here in Castle Hill. The
letters tell a story, and its true. Thats the way of history I guess.
Youre yawning, folks, I can see your drooping eyes.
Youre thinking time lines, dates, import/export, sealing, whaling,
sextant, compass, let me quietly die of boredom, let me slip so far in
my chair that my chin smacks the edge of the desk and my teeth go
through my tongue.
Youd prefer the names and sexual preferences of my cousins and
their kids.
Or the tragic tale of my parents splitting up a few years back.
Or the story of Riley and Amelia, scholarship kids who came to
my school this last year.
19

Too bad.
By the time that Riley-and-Amelia started at my school, I was
deep into the Tom-and-Maggie story.
Its blood, gore, betrayal, torture, murder plenty of murder. And
its kind of a love story too.
Wake up and Ill tell you the story.

RILEY T. SMITH
Student No. 8233569

Three years later and my fists in the air at the same door.
The fist hits a gust of moving red and rushing ponytail. The fist
hits Amelias voice: What was that?
Forget it, I tell her.
My hands are on her chest. Im moving her back into her room.
Who were those people? What was that place?
She means the new private school where we started that day.
Soak it in bleach for half an hour.
Im moving her into her room. My elbow juts back to slam
the door.
Those wild, crazed eyes of hers can change to moonshine softness
in a door slam.
Her skin is pale as watermelon sucked free of its juices.
Thats the steel gray desk, thats the wardrobe, the bed, thats her
giant stuffed cow, her guitar. Her bag spilling sheet music and water
bottles. Thats her hands, cheekbones, lips, thats the space behind her
knees.
I love her bare legs from a distance. When shes standing by a pool.
When shes facing the water, thinking. Her legs are white as watermelon rind, veined with blue from cold. Theres that H shape behind
her knees. The H that trembles softly with the swimming water cold.
20

Or when she swings in the park, when she sits on the swing in a
short, short dress, and she pumps her bare legs, pumps all those muscles in her pale, slender legs. You watch from behind and you can
see the long hair flying. She holds so tight that her knuckles turn
dark pink.
She never wears makeup.
She wears this khaki cap sometimes, and the cap stays on her
head even when she tips her face backward to the breeze. She puts
her ponytail through the gap at the back. Thats how it stays on. The
ponytail flies free and holds the cap.
And theres that H behind her knees, stretching and contracting,
stretching and contracting while she swings.
You know when somebody pushes you on a swing? The thud of
their hands on the small of your back. You swing through the air
then you spin back down and theres the thud of their hands pushing
you higher. The hands are there to help you. They want to push you
higher. They want to make you fly.
But theres the pressing of the hands on the small of your back,
theres the force, theres the thud of their hands.
Dont ever push me.

EMILY MELISSA-ANNE THOMPSON


Student No. 8233521

How did I know it was they?


This, I cannot explain.
Except to say that it must have been one of those previous sentiments of doom.
Anyhow, there they were! In the doorway of the Year 12 common
room. At that very moment, the room lit up with lightning. And for a
split end of time, I think I saw Riley and Amelia laugh! Their faces
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seemed to crack in two with laughter! Sudden, howling, shrieking,


horrifying laughter! (No doubt it was also demonic.)
Perchance it was my imagination. I do have a hyperthyroid in my
imagination so who knows. Anyway, before I could be sure, the lightning was gone and the room was dim again.
And there they stood. Riley and Amelia. Not laughing at all. Just
looking calm.
Their eyes wandered the room.
They both put one foot forward and paused.
The air was silent. Every person in the room had stopped
breathing.
In fact, the blood had stopped pumping in my veins. (Which was
death-defying conduct on my part.)
There was an insufferable sense of waiting: a sense of terrible suspense. As if Riley and Amelia were lions, and we were a mnage trois
of lively, prancing deer.
The lions were stalking the deer. Which of us would they devour?
(Oh! Who could have predicted? If only I knew then what I
know now!!)
Riley and Amelia did not enter. They turned at exactly the same
moment and they walked away. . . .
Why?
Was it that they knew, even then, that they did not belong? Did
they sense the fear, and wish to torment a little longer?
Or was it simply that the bell had rung forth for the end of lunch.
So they had to go to their next class or whatever. I suppose it might
have been that.
Nonetheless!
I turned to my friends in amazement. Lydia raised a single eyebrow.
Cassie raised both eyebrows and gave me one of her dimples-in-thecorner-of-her-mouth looks, which means she is trying not to laugh. I
will say this about Cass: When a person is supposed to find something
dramatic and mysterious, she will often find it funny.
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I will also say this. That I wondered when I would see Riley and
Amelia again.
I did not have to wonder long. It was four minutes later.
The girl (Amelia) was in History Extension 1 with Mr. Garcia.
And so was I!!
But nothing of note happened in that class.
Plus, I couldnt see her. She was three seats behind me.
By the next day, I knew they were here on scholarships. In fact,
Cassies mother is on the committee that chose them! But she couldnt
tell Cassie (or me) anything about their backgrounds, because it was
confidential. Hmm, I thought.
That day, Amelia was in English Extension 3 with Mr. Botherit . . .
and so was I!!!!!
And so, normally, was Lydia. But she was not at school.
Now, I will here display two details which might seem shady now,
but later? The bloodred moon will shine upon them.
First! Our English class took place in Room 27B in the Art Rooms
across the oval.
The Art Rooms? Oh, you dont know how important that is!
Hearken! I will tell you!
Well, the Art Rooms are not the Art Rooms anymore. Oh no!
That building is now the K. L. Mason Patterson Center for the Arts.
Because it turns out that a very rich man succumbed to death, and left
a HUGE FORTUNE to our school.
A fortune which I could have taken off his hands with ease if he
had only had the foreskin to ask me. But oh no, he had to go and waste
it on our school.
Therefore, there is now a committee going mad, trying to think up
ways to spend the money. Im sure they have better reasons to go mad.
But did KL think of that? No.
One thing they have spent the money on is, of course, scholarships.
Another is the crazed renovation of the Art Rooms.
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The Art Rooms were once the building where students slept, back
in the olden days when our school was a boarding school! Anyhow,
but then it became the Art Rooms, and now it has been renovated and
includes conference rooms, drama theaters, auditoriums, art galleries, kitchens, and state-of-the-art resource centers (i.e., classrooms),
and, furthermore, its name has grown so long you need mouthwash to
loosen up the muscles of your teeth before you say it.
But we all still call it the Art Rooms.
Second! Mr. Botherit talked about the fact that English Extension 3
is a new subject this year, with an emphasis on memoir, and therefore we had to write blogs.
I had a lot to say about this idea, but Amelia, who happened to
be sitting five seats away from me (horizontally speaking) paid no
heed to me.
She spoke to not a soul. She was silent as a chocolate bar.
Her posture was good. Im not suggesting here that she hunched
over or hid behind her hair or suchlike. Oh no. She was poised and
clear-eyed and her posture was exquisite and her eyes followed the
teacher every moment.
He pranced around the room (as he responded to my many things
to say), and Amelias eyes followed so closely it was as if he had magnets in his face.
(Im not suggesting here that Mr. B is hot.)
Eventually, Mr. B asked me to stop talking. He said he was going
to give us topics for our blogs, and the first one was My Journey
Home.
And then I had a lot more to say.
Nevertheless, in the end, I wrote my blog. And as I typed, I heard
the sound of Amelia typing. I looked across at her. Her long hair slid
down her back like a waterfall. (I dont mean that it was wet; Im being
meteorological.) She would type very quickly and then shed stop.
Thered be a long, silent pause.
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Her fingernails were the extreme short of someone who bites their
nails overtly. And her fingers wandered across the keys, gently stroking them whenever she paused.
It was just as if we did not exist.
At the end of the lesson, she drifted back across the oval. A lot of
the boys in our class stopped to watch her go. Theyd been checking her out the whole lesson, both openly and stealthily. A mixture
of both.
And then, at the other side of the oval, Amelia stopped. I looked
in the direction of her gaze. It was Riley. He reached her. I did not see
them speak. I did not see them touch. I simply saw the space between
them close, and then I saw them gliding calmly onward.
The boys in our class uttered a silent, plaintive sigh.

LYDIA JAACKSON-OBERMAN
Student No. 8233410

The second day of term, I didnt see Amelia and Riley at all.
I stayed home from school.
Had to stay at home because my head exploded.
I was sweeping up the pieces of my head when my mum wandered
into the room. She was half-asleep/hungover in her bathrobe. Shed
been celebrating the night before bought herself an independent
record label just the other day. My mother picks up companies like
other people pick up milk.
Watch your feet, I said.
Her eyes flew open. Then she whimpered quietly: Opening her
eyes had hurt her soul. She closed them fast.
Seriously, I said, theres broken head all over the place in here.
Mum sighed and drifted to the hallway. I could hear her telling
Dad to stay out of the kitchen. I couldnt hear his answer, just his tone.
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It was: deep, low, hm, well, really, Im too important a man to have to stay
out of my own kitchen, arent I?
Mum replied with her own tone, which was: huh, interesting.
Are you?
I finished sweeping up my head and then, for a laugh, picked out a
couple of the bigger pieces, and juggled them.
That was funny. You should have seen our dog, Pumpernickel. He
thought it was a game just for him he was doing these frantic
bounces, like, spring! spring! All the time getting closer, desperate to
snatch one of the pieces of my head from the air. And I was shaking
my head. I mean that literally. Id put the rest of the head in a cocktail
shaker and I was shake, shake, shake. And Pumpernickel
Ah, just kidding.
My head didnt explode.
What, are you as stupid as my dog?
No, I stayed home because my mother asked me to let the roofing
guys in. She had some appointment to take her hangover to, and Dad
had to go rule the world! (Thats what he does. He rules the world!
Or, at least he judges it. Hes a judge.)
Anyway, I needed a break.
Dont think I cant hear you, Exam Marking Person. This is what
youre saying: What?! She needed a break? Isnt it the second day
after the summer holidays here? And she already needs a break? Isnt
that just like her generation?! I dont know about the future when
Take it easy or youll spill your herbal tea.
Youre forgetting that you dont know every thing.
Surprise!
You dont.
At the start of the summer holiday last year, my best friends, Em
and Cass, flew away. (Em on a Canadian ski trip; Cass to voice training in Melbourne.)
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While they were gone, my boyfriend and I broke up. And my dad
moved out of the house. (Three weeks later, he moved back in.)
The summer disappeared.
Not a single drop of light. Pure darkness. An eclipse.
Im much more sane than I sound. But this last year some kind of
madness has found its way underneath my nails. This last year, Ive
made the worst mistakes of my life.
Ill get to the mistakes.
The point for now is this: At the start of the year after that dark
summer I was not myself at all.
Or maybe I was. Maybe Id been cut down to my essence.

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