A Trail of Lies

By K T Bowes

“You hate too many things, Cal,” he sighed, brushing stray curls away from her face. “Your heart doesn’t have room for it all.”

When Callister Rhodes runs away from home, she expects to leave her problems far behind. Persuading a classmate to take her into the bush on Mount Pirongia, they stumble on a secret that is not easily forgotten and its menace follows her back to Hamilton, staining her new life with old, familiar wounds.

What happens in the bush should stay in the bush, but it won't. As the consequence of what they did wraps itself around the teenagers, they find themselves in danger. Calli realises all too late that the demons in her past have come full circle and want payback.

The treacherous New Zealand bush offers Calli love and salvation before snatching both cruelly away. But in her quest to find escape she is forced to test her own limits and ultimately, find herself.

This storyline contains issues such as mental illness, self-harming and the theme of rape is touched upon, but not explicitly.

Blaming the Child has earned five stars from Readers' Favorite and a top genre winner's seal in the Authors' Cave Book Awards 2014 in the romance genre.

• Language: English
• Publisher: K T Bowes
• Release date: Dec 30, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311245595

K T Bowes

K T Bowes has written 26 novels to date, stretching across Women's Fiction, Fantasy and Young Adult novels. She lives in New Zealand as an exile from the British Empire. She's married to the man who sets the blueprint for all her fictional heroes and has four children who appear as characters from time to time. A crazy streak means she's embarked on many foolish adventures, including free falling from a perfectly good plane and falling off horses. She loves living in New Zealand because there aren't any snakes.  When she's not writing, K T can be found searching antique stores or wrecking furniture in the name of art.

Book preview

Chapter 1

The dull razor blade tinkled out onto the shower tray, glinting up at her beneath the cascading water. Calli stood holding the now redundant plastic casing of her razor, her olive face scowling in irritation at the implement’s betrayal. What else could go wrong today?

The teenager looked down at her tanned calves, which she thanked the week of sun and her outdoor sports lessons for, as the shower spray pounded the back of her willowy neck. They didn’t look too hairy; she could probably get away with it for today - as long as they didn’t have assembly. Anyone sitting on the assembly hall floor close to her would notice the small protrusions of downy hair sneaking out of her pores. Calli considered shouting for her mother, instantly rejecting the thought. The new razors were in the hall cupboard. Marcia would be sure to yell at her, especially at the moment while she was trying to get ready for work and sort the little kids out.

Calli let the soap run from her body unhindered. She smoothed conditioner into her unruly, black curls and let it stay there, the wetness touching the bottom of her back uncomfortably. She turned off the shower even as the frantic knocking sounded on the bathroom door. Hurry up, Calli, I’ve got netball practice at seven thirty! If I’m not there on time, the coach will make me sit out of the first quarter on Saturday. Come out, or I’ll get Mum!

Exasperated, Calli snatched up the errant razor blade and gingerly picked her way out of the slippery shower. Winding her towel around her so she could unlock the bathroom door and admit her desperate, whining sister, she felt the blade’s sharp point slip underneath the skin of her index finger and winced. She couldn’t leave it in the bathroom bin in case Jase found it. She wouldn’t put it past her baby brother to do some serious damage to himself, out of boyish curiosity. There! she said rudely to the skinny blonde girl who bounced up and down on the balls of her feet outside the bathroom in a thin, cotton nightdress. Try to get up on time next week.

Calli was almost at her bedroom door when her sister let out a piercing screech, Mum! Callister’s been using my shower gel!

Calli rolled her appealing blue eyes and slammed her door on the ensuing scene, currently unfolding on the landing outside the bathroom. The razor blade produced a small nick that was painful, but not life-threatening. It bled a little as the sixteen year old got dressed in her school uniform, tartan skirt and white blouse. She pulled her damp curls back into a ponytail and pouted lips that rarely exhibited their fullness in a smile. Of all of her siblings, Calli was the only one who looked like her Samoan father. Raven haired and olive skinned like Simon, the others were blonde; blue eyed, sylphlike carbon copies of Marcia, their mother. It always made Calli feel like an outsider, her dark ringlets betraying her even when the other children were white blonde from the sunshine. She once heard an old lady in the park ask her mother if she was adopted. Calli would have loved to have been blonde, with easy-to-manage poker straight hair. She might have fitted in better.

Sighing, the girl straightened her school tie and slipped on the horrid black roman sandals that were part of the school issue uniform. Turning away from the mirror after a cursory check, she refused to look at herself again. There was no point. It changed nothing.

Calli-Walli!

The steady knocking came from somewhere near the bottom half of the bedroom door. With an exasperated shake of her head; Calli wrenched it open to find her tiny brother standing there, his shorts on backwards and his shirt buttoned up at the wrong intervals so his small chest resembled a rolling seascape. Help me? he beseeched her and pulled a cute face.

Good boy for knocking, Jase, she told him, pulling him into the room so she could sit on the edge of the bed and deal with his haphazard dressing.

I’m a good boy, he repeated as his older sister redid his buttons and persuaded him to step out of his shorts and back in again.

You’ve almost finished a whole term at big school, Calli said softly, stroking his white blonde hair back from his forehead. He nodded, his face innocently proud, before snuggling in for a cuddle, his five year old hands reaching around his sister’s slender waist for a moment.

Can I have my Easter egg now? he asked with a cheeky grin and Calli smiled. Good Friday is the day after tomorrow, so only four more sleeps to go.

Jase nodded, understanding completely, but knowing with that childish optimism it was worth a try. Will you do my buckles please? he asked her, looking up with his bright blue eyes. Mummy does them too tight and it hurts me.

Calli nodded and smiled as he skipped off to get them, singing to himself. She loved her brothers, especially Jase, but clashed unbearably with eight year old Sadie. Her younger sister was a lot like Marcia. Calli and her mother both regularly sparked like an electrical storm, frequently causing significant damage to their surroundings. It was of little surprise that from the start, Calli turned her nose up at the blonde baby girl Marcia proudly presented. The fireworks began as soon as Sadie was able to let out that irritating whine.

Get breakfast, Calli! Marcia’s blonde head popped through the open door, her first greeting of the day being a frustrated, sharply issued order, without even a smile to soften her words.

Calli nodded once, unwilling to get into a familiar argument. Both women knew she wouldn’t eat before leaving. Her stomach wouldn’t wake up until half way through history in the third period, just in time for lunch. The doctor said she had to put weight on, but it was difficult when hunger evaded her for most of the day. The gluten free food which cost her parents an absolute fortune had a peculiar texture to it and resembled cardboard. The cereal was like something left at the bottom of a hay bale when you lifted it off the ground and her taste buds were only fooled during the first few bites.

Marcia grunted in frustration and whirled around on her heels, her full figure disappearing down the hallway. Calli relaxed and exhaled slowly. Marcia frightened her. The anti-depressants she had recently been shoving down her throat mellowed her a little more. She was less given to the loud and never ending lectures, mostly directed at Calli for some minor misdemeanor. It was good when Danny lived at home. He pulled faces behind her back and made Calli laugh, often getting her into even more trouble, but the sound of his whispers and that smirk which never failed to set her off giggling seemed like a distant memory now.

Calli bit her strawberry coloured lip to stifle the emotional pain. Danny died two years ago, his lithe, cyclist’s body crushed by a passing truck which turned across him on his way home from school. Everything for a while after that was a dull blur in Calli’s mind; his mangled bicycle and his creased, blood stained uniform, neatly folded by a medic’s careful hands and dropped off by the police. His loss left a raw, open wound in Calli’s soul; a cavernous insatiable pit of nothingness, which threatened constantly to suck her in and hold her there interminably. She hadn’t dealt with it, because she had no idea where to start.

Mum’s angry, Jase announced, puffing back into the bedroom and shutting the door carelessly behind him. He hopped from foot to foot looking nervous and Calli instinctively reached out for his soft body and pulled it into hers. Next door’s doggie did another poop in our front garden. Dad’s just trodden in it putting the bins out.

Calli rolled her eyes. Marcia detested the family next door with a passion, turning all of her unresolved grief in their direction without reservation. Their house towered above Calli’s, and it was as though the shadow cast by their structure, reminded Marcia of the spectre of doom over her whole existence. She found fault in everything they did, which was awkward, as Calli shared most of her classes with the oldest son of the family. If their dog had defecated on the lawn, which she doubted as she hadn’t seen or heard it for over six months, Marcia would never let it rest.

Can you walk me, Calli Walli? Jase begged as his sister did up the last buckle and sat up again, a look of reluctance in her face.

It makes me late, Jase, she replied, her head already shaking out a determined no and tears formed in his eyes.

Pleeeeeeease? he whimpered, Mum’s being scary. I want you to take me. I’ll walk as fast as fast can be, I promise and I won’t do messing abouts on the way. I won’t.

No, Jase, Calli said firmly. You haven’t eaten breakfast yet or cleaned your teeth and we would have to leave right now.

Jase’s eyes bulged excitedly in his head and he nodded frantically like a maniacal head-banger from the 1980’s. Had toast, he beamed victoriously and Calli saw the jam stain on his clean shirt."

Teeth! Her face was stern as she pointed towards the bathroom.

As Jase pelted noisily down the hallway, Calli noticed the flash of metal on her desk as the rays of the sun, already streaming in through her bedroom window, licked gently at the razor blade. Her father had put the bins out for collection by the sound of it and she didn’t want the blade lounging in one of the house bins for a week because of Jase. She considered putting it in her pocket and binning it at school, but if she were discovered in possession of it, wrong conclusions would be drawn. It wasn’t worth the hassle. Callister Rhodes already had something of a ‘reputation.'

Pulling out her desk drawer, Calli found the battered little tin where she kept her treasures and dropped it in with a gentle plink. Jase could never get the lid off with his tiny finger joints straining and his little thumbs slipping on the surface. It would be safe there.

Chapter 2

Marcia was grateful not to have to run the gauntlet at the local primary school with her son, but merely grunted in reply as Calli tentatively offered to drop him off. The mother hugged the little boy and kissed his forehead with her coffee breath, still clutching the mug in her left hand as she swallowed a cocktail of prescribed drugs meant to alter her mood, but mostly failed.

The children beat a hasty retreat and set out down Achilles Rise and through the intersection onto Discovery Drive. Has she got a big case on again? Jase asked, referring to his mother’s role as a lawyer. Calli nodded enthusiastically but had no idea anymore. Marcia rarely spoke about anything, preferring instead to rage about small wrongdoings at home, usually aimed at her eldest daughter. Calli often wondered if Danny had also been the buffer in his role as eldest, but it hadn’t seemed that way. Marcia didn’t like her attractive daughter and made it abundantly clear. Calli had taken to working extra hard at school, desperate to secure a university place in a city far away from Hamilton. As a bright Year 12, she only had three more terms of this year remaining and then next year to survive. Then she would be gone. A tug on her hand as Jase spied a fluffy cat and pointed, caused her heart to constrict painfully with sadness. He was the one bright point in her life and the only thing she would miss about the city.

The route to school, once rural, was now bisected by a road that cars drove along at 80km. But the pavements were huge and set back from the grey highway, separated by a large grassed berm and as promised, Jase skipped and ran and covered the distance swiftly. He came back for Calli’s offered hand to negotiate the busy roundabout as Resolution Drive intersected Borman Road and then skipped off again, his Thomas the Tank Engine backpack bouncing up and down on his slender shoulders. Calli’s heavy bag contained text books and work folders. She sincerely wished all she needed to carry was her lunch and a change of shorts and undies. Swap with you, Jase, Calli grinned, offering him her weighty bag and he smiled at her through sultry eyes and kept skipping.

Another small boy loped past her, catching the corner of her bag with his shoulder as he went. He listed a little as he lolloped along and Calli reasoned it was clumsiness rather than on purpose as she stopped to readjust the strap on her shoulder, feeling the weight dragging her spine sideways excruciatingly.

Sorry, came a male voice from behind her. He was running to catch up with his friend.

Calli looked harder at the dark mop-headed child, now tagging Jase on the back. The calliper on his right leg was quickly evident against the tiny tanned calf underneath it. Her heart sank into her sandals. They lived next door and would have heard Marcia’s shrieks about their damn dog earlier. It’s fine, she said, her manner brusque and formal. Just an accident. Calli deliberately didn’t look at the teenager striding quickly next to her. She already knew he was good-looking, hair the colour of black coffee, casually tipping over speckled brown eyes. A ready smile and a cute dimple had turned in her direction a few times, but she ignored it. Her mother would rant if Calli even looked his way.

The little boys were less than fifty metres ahead, but being silly on the pavement. The concrete walkway narrowed to account for the roundabout and as Jase giggled and leaped around, he came dangerously close to the edge.

Jase! Calli screamed as a car began negotiating the roundabout and her brother lurched again, but the sound of the traffic dulled her voice and the boys didn’t hear her cry.

The man-boy next to her ran as she covered her face with her hands. All that remained of him was a khaki green satchel, hastily flung on the ground. He crossed the dividing tarmac path with ease, reaching the two boys in a matter of seconds, yanking them both away from the traffic to safety and keeping hold of them in a tense grip. Calli gulped as Danny’s death worked its way back up her throat, filling her head and leaking out of her eyes and nose shamelessly. Relief was there somewhere, but for the moment, all she could feel was the awful blackness, descending down over her eyes and filling her lungs with oxygen-stealing fingers.

By the time Declan returned to the place where his bag lay in a heap on the path, dragging the little boys along with firm hands, Calli bent double, gasping for breath, seeing Danny’s face as he turned to wave to her before he died. Inside her head, she heard the lorry’s engine brakes and the muffled thud as her beautiful older brother’s body became crushed underneath the enormous wheels. It replayed over and over in her vision like a scratched DVD. Calli’s body froze, even as it sweated and she felt physically sick.

The sound of the metal caliper scraping on the pavement told her the children were obeying Declan’s sharp order to ‘sit,’ which crept through the sound of Calli’s own heartbeat and her violent, ragged breathing. The little boy’s leg brace made the unusual sound some more as he shuffled around on the ground. Both boys were utterly silent and Calli knew if she looked at Jase, he would cry. A tear dripped off the end of her nose, surprising her. Calli hadn’t registered she was crying and fought to contain the terrible animal noises that grappled to escape from her mouth.

The stable arms of the boy next to her forced her to stand upright. Air whooshed back into her lungs and to her embarrassment, he pulled her face into his collarbone and held her, as though understanding the grid reference for a place in which Calli had so entirely lost herself. They embraced for a while until the foot and road traffic increased and Declan became aware of people staring. He lifted Calli’s chin and used the cuff of his school jumper gripped around his thumb to brush the tears and snot away from her face. It was a tender action and his face was one of concentration and so compassion laden, his concern almost unpicked her again. Shouldering both Calli’s heavy school bag and his own, Declan pulled at her arm and made her walk. Stay with us! he commanded the boys gruffly and the five year olds obeyed, linking hands as best friends and walking just a few metres in front. Calli knew she should say something, but thank you seemed pathetic to her internal ears, even before the words could fall from her mouth. So she focused on scrubbing at her swollen eyes with a crumpled tissue from her blazer pocket and concentrated hard on taking decent breaths as the spasm in her lungs released its hold. You ok? he asked her once and she nodded gratefully.

Sorry, she managed finally, feeling a complete idiot. They trooped along in silence, navigating Borman Road and finding themselves almost at the primary school nestled at the foot of lush, green, rolling hills in the northernmost suburb of the city.

Sorry Dec, his little brother called back over his shoulder as they neared the front gates, his small face a mask of sorrow. The older boy did a curious uplift of his face, a kind of upside-down-nod and it seemed to settle the child, who resumed his brisk walk alongside Jase, his ungainly leg swinging out at a peculiar angle. Calli worked on her breathing and tried to renegotiate her equilibrium with some success. 

At the gates, amongst the yummy mummies driving SUV’s which disgorged a single child and the ones in leggings and flip-flops, Calli and Declan stood out like beacons in their school uniform. To Calli’s surprise, Declan reached down and kissed his brother, Levi on the forehead and ruffled his hair.

Jase buried his face in his sister’s stomach and hugged her hard. I love you, Calli Walli, he whispered and smiled up at her. A soft breeze stroked his white-blonde hair, bringing the scent of the Tasman Sea with it and his pale, freckled skin seemed to shimmer ethereally. It acted as a physical kick to Calli’s chest, as fear of losing this brother too, cut through her sensibility like a knife. Her lower lip wobbled and tears rose unbidden to hover on the edges of her eyelids. Jase looked suddenly fearful.

Go, Declan said roughly to him, pressing him away from the distraught girl. Levi’s waiting for you. Look.

With the sudden realisation his friend found it hard to stand for long periods, Jase’s kind nature prevailed and he skipped quickly up the front path to the other boy and taking his arm, led him inside the building. Calli raised a hand to wave to him, hoping he would look back at her, but he didn’t, suddenly preoccupied with the newness of his day. She put her useless hand back down, embarrassed at having betrayed herself in front of this stranger so monumentally.

Declan walked hurriedly away, knowing the distance between the primary and high schools was greater than the time they had left to cover it before being marked absent. But Calli seemed rooted to the spot, blatantly in the way of mothers with buggies and baby car seats, who were forced to move around her like flood waters around a boulder. Managing the unwieldy school bags, Declan retrieved her, gripping her fragile wrist and hauling her towards him, almost colliding with a babbling group of tiny females who scattered out of the way of the bigger children with awe.

Calli was tugged none too roughly down the street, gradually coming back to life and checking the time on her phone as she panicked about being late.

I cut across country, Declan informed her, turning through a partially open field gate and picking up the pace. The ground was stubbly and rough going, evidently decimated by the cloven hooves and hungry mouths of cattle. Calli followed him sheepishly, tripping over lumps of hardened mud and trying desperately to avoid the cow dung which littered their path. After ten minutes of skirting paddocks, she was surprised to find herself at the back gate of the high school.

This gate is locked, she said, bemused as Declan stuck his arm over the high, solid gate.

It is, he said, turning to smile smugly at Calli as he felt around for a bolt on the other side. There came a grating sound and click, upon which the wooden panel swung inwards with a creak. Once they were through, Declan shot the bolt home again and held his arms wide, palms upward like a proud magician. It saves about ten minutes of walking round by road. I do it most days.

That’s awesome, Calli beamed, relieved. She glanced back at the position of the bolt on the gate and frowned. I probably wouldn’t be able to reach from outside though. I’m not tall enough. She sounded wistful and strangely sad.

You’ll be right, he said, his expression kind and inviting, just make sure you walk with me and Levi if you have to drop your brother again.

Calli nodded, feeling awkward, the memory of Marcia’s rants about Declan’s family next door reminding her of their precarious existence at the mercy of angry adults. Declan’s mother often worked nights and Marcia decided, therefore, she must be a prostitute, expressing her opinion loudly both inside the property and out. The lady next door always smiled nicely at Calli and never looked overdressed or tarted up. Calli had heard her playing with her children over the fence. No screaming or yelling came from their house. The noisiest thing she ever heard was the faint strumming of guitar music. Her cheeks graduated to an uncomfortably familiar pink and Calli hated her body for betraying her again. Declan didn’t seem to have noticed, trudging across the school field, still carrying both bags.

Maori features, a strong nose and huge, almond shaped, brown eyes flicked intermittently across to Calli. Declan’s role in the first fifteen rugby team dictated a muscular and well-toned frame, from lunchtimes spent in the school gym. He was a promising midfield player, named in the squad a few weeks ago for the upcoming season, the only Year 12 amongst the elite handful of boys.

Will rugby practice start soon after school? Calli asked, trying desperately to make conversation and give her face tones a chance to calm down.

Next term, he smiled down at her. We’ve just been having weekend trainings up to now and running our own programs in the gym at lunchtime.

Did your dog get out last night? Calli asked, keeping her voice casual, kicking herself inwardly at the stupidity of her question and the trouble such a discussion could potentially lead to. Declan looked down at her curiously.

Our dog died about six months ago. She was quite old, so it wasn’t unexpected. We were all upset. Dad brought her home when I was little. I guess she was the last link to him.

To your dad? Calli asked foolishly, mindful of the fact she’d never seen an adult male at their place. It was another reason for Marcia’s unkind fantasy that Declan’s mother was a hooker. The boy nodded a dark, melancholy action which betrayed a perpetual misery.

He died when I was in Year 8, Declan said, perhaps keen to dispel any erroneous conclusions about absent fathers or prison sentences. We bought the house next door to you shortly after. Levi was only a year old.

That’s so sad, Calli breathed with feeling and Declan turned a tight, painful smile in her direction. The words seemed to gush from him, sensing the empathy in the girl trotting to keep up with his long stride.

Bowel cancer, he blurted, he fought it a few times but it kept coming back in different organs. He kept quiet about the symptoms the last time, until it was too late. He got real skinny, but we thought it was just all the stress of having Levi and coping with all the trips up to the pediatric specialists in Auckland. Mum’s a nurse... Declan stopped dead in the middle of the rugby pitch. She blames herself - thinks she should have noticed he was ill again.

Calli had accidentally run on ahead in her attempt to glide along elegantly next to him, failing miserably as her pony tail bounced on her head like a rag doll and the side seam of her skirt worked its way round to the front. She skidded to a halt and whipped around to face him as Declan stood prone on the grass, staring at a daisy as though everything was its fault. He seemed lost, a body placed statuesquely on display while the mind wandered elsewhere through time and space. The fleeting thought stomped through Calli’s mind that two of her friends were already going to be jealous at the fact Declan had put his arms around her and now, well, what was she going to do now?

Reaching out, Calli took Declan’s clenched fist between her hands, feeling his skin soft and yet masculine like her father’s, even though he was only just seventeen. She remembered a few weeks back, some of his mates bringing in party poppers and shrouding him in the long, colourful strands out on the field at lunchtime for a laugh. It clung to his uniform and hair and he had taken the birthday surprise well, as they congratulated him on another annual milestone and slapped him heartily on the back. Declan had a tight knit group of friends who enjoyed safety in numbers in the volatile environment that was Hamilton North College of Education. Some of the boys were older, already Year 13 and selected for the rugby team but they met up at break times and stuck together loyally. The wider school sneered and mocked them for being ‘God botherers,' whilst envying the strong bond between them. A little knot of girls orbited around the males, safe in their comfortable universe, but strangely there was never any gossip. Nothing emanated from the ranks of the ‘chosen’ which could be used as missiles by the rest of the general populace. Calli’s friends drooled in Declan’s direction, watching the handsome boy from afar, but they would never dare to venture into his particular galaxy.

We need to go, Calli said gently, feeling as though she had covered his hands with hers for a lifetime, when it was a matter of mere seconds. He nodded and set off again, still carrying both bags, but his face showed a raw and childishly open grief.

By the time they reached the tennis courts, Declan had recovered and his usual jovial smile returned. He handed Calli’s bag over and his eyes crinkled pleasantly at the corners as he said goodbye. She felt momentarily stupid thanking him, but he brushed it off effortlessly. See ya later, huh?

Calli nodded gormlessly. They shared most of the same classes but bizarrely never spoke. Declan handed Calli a worksheet once in English, but that was about it. In Year 10, he was good-looking in that way boys have, something of the ‘x factor’ with the promise of better to come, but by Year 12, he was a fully-fledged hunk. If he only hung with a different group of friends, he could be the hottest date in school.

Chapter 3

For the whole of tutor group, Calli had to contend with a barrage of questions from her curious girlfriends, who inadvertently saw her and Declan walking across the field together. Did he kiss ya, Sally asked, pushing Calli in a shove that was half mischief, half jealousy. Calli felt peculiarly shy about their encounter, mainly because it meant divulging her meltdown over Danny and for some other reason she couldn’t quite catch.

Calli’s friends were sympathetic when Danny died at the start of Year 10, cosseting and enfolding her in a cushion of care as only teenage girls can. But it was short lived and outside of that first, dreadful year, no other displays of grief would be tolerated. It was the way of the world, it seemed.

Their love had in truth been conditional, containing a clause at which the sympathy timed out, but it was the only acknowledgement of the tumultuous rupture in Calli’s sanity and the practical cessation of her childhood. With internal agony such as that came womanhood, her first period and an end to all pretence at play. Danny was gone, unreachable and lost. Calli felt as desolate emotionally, as her brother’s broken body was physically. Following Danny’s heartrending funeral, Simon and Marcia reeled understandably as the world tipped on its edge and the natural order of death turned on its head. It was the wrong way round - no parent should have to watch their child’s coffin sinking into the soft, silty earth. It was as though all pretence at being a regular family ended that day. It was game over for each of them.

For the first time, Declan acknowledged Calli in English, tilting his head upwards and smiling at her as she entered the classroom shrouded by her friends. She smiled back cautiously, noting how one of the girls sitting behind him raised her eyebrows and looked distressed. The Christian girl was slightly plump, not unattractive but relatively dull in appearance. Her teeth hung like wonky farm gates but then she rarely opened her mouth, hence avoiding the issue. She was in possession of one of those forgettable faces but had never been unkind to Calli. Well, not before today anyway. Calli felt her pulse quicken as the girl’s brown eyes narrowed and fired virtual daggers at her. Reacting as though shot, Calli took a step backwards in alarm as the girl’s jealous anger came at her like a wave. So much for being a group of Christians, Calli thought to herself judgmentally, justifiable disdain showing on her pretty features. The retaliatory look which Calli shot back at Declan’s admirer must have contained vibes that were equally disturbing, because the girl, Lorna, averted her eyes hurriedly.

Yeah, you look away, Calli thought smugly, finding her seat in the middle of the classroom and slumping down into it. She allowed her heavy school bag to slide to the dusty floor, spewing books out from what presented itself as a broken zipper. Calli groaned inwardly. She was making the bag last as long as she possibly could, not wanting the pain of having to ask Marcia for money to buy another one. The bag had a garish variety of poorly done stitches adulterating its fabric surface. Calli had kept it going since the end of Year 10, when Marcia screamed at her over the state of the old one, forcing her to carry it with a broken strap for almost a term. Simon took pity on Calli and given her cash to get a new one, having seen her struggling home with it. It was such a relief for the girl to have a bag with a handle, to be able to sling her school gear over her shoulder instead of carrying it out front like a small, awkwardly shaped and lumpy child.

Calli fingered the short metal catch, doing an excellent job until then of pulling the zip open and closed but seemingly now retired. Stupid thing! She punched it and heard the thunk of books inside. The wave of anger washed over her and she fought to control it as a male teacher entered the room and instantly demanded silence. Her mind wandered to a time when the bag was only a week old and some older boys decided to use it like a rugby ball, snatching it from her shoulder in the corridor and hurling it above her head to one another. Desperate to retrieve it, Calli bounced like a small, clockwork toy, betrayal prickling the tears behind her eyelids as her friends stood around and watched her as though she was the interval entertainment. Calli ran shaking fingers over her face. A wave of anger and disappointment returned. She could almost taste the blood in her mouth at the memory of the cut lip as she lost her temper and charged the boy nearest to her. He was so surprised, even Calli’s slight frame barrelled him over and her slight fists pounded his face and chest in fury. A hot flush lit her cheeks at the embarrassment of the scene, followed by a week