SHADOWDANCERS

By Sally Odgers

This is a book for young adult girls about the complications of life for two young dancers eager to succeed
Merimba and Pirry are twins in appearance and character, living in two different worlds. Merimba is a quadriplegic whose condition has dragged her family apart. She is in a coma. Pirry is a Valourn, an acrobatic dancer in the land of Rargon. When Merimba flees her body a switch is made.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Australia
• Release date: Aug 1, 2010
• ISBN: 9780730450399

Sally Odgers

Sally Odgers' first book was written in three basic exercise books with a dying ballpoint pen. Most of the writing took place in the barn, out in the paddock - wherever she could find somewhere peaceful. The writing was illegible, so she taught herself to type. Her next effort, written when she was 12, was a collection of short stories, composed on a portable typewriter. Two unicorn fantasies and a half-finished cat fantasy followed. After producing something like 80 000 words, she wrote another collection of short stories during her final year at school. This was published in 1977. Since then, Sally has had over 112 titles published. These include family stories, humour, historical novels, theatre stories, verse, children's picture books, non fiction, romance, adult horror, fantasy and science fiction. Sally was born in Latrobe, Tasmania, in 1957. She lives with her husband and sometime co-writer Darrel and their children James and Tegan. The Odgers family also includes a spaniel, a cat, four cockatoos, and a shifting population of pet rats, mice and other creatures. Everybody, including the animals, contributes (knowingly or not) to plot-lines, characters and incidents for books and stories. Sally's favourites among her own books include the Bandinangi Books (which continue to generate enthusiastic mail from primary school readers), Amy Amaryllis, Shadowdancers, Aurora and Trinity Street. Other books she particularly enjoyed writing include Timedetectors, Theft in Time, CD and the Giant Cat and Tasmania: A Guide (all co-written with Darrel), a picture book called Bunyips Don't and two romances for adults, both published under the pseudonym 'Tegan James'. Shadowdancers and Aurora were both shortlisted for the 3M Talking Book Awards, Looking Out for Sam was commended in the Christian Children's Book of the Year Awards and both Amy Amaryllis and The Follow Dog have been Children's Book Council Notable Books. Her most recent novel is Candle Iron.

Book preview

PROLOGUE

ShuMar

I am lost, I cried within my mind, as I cast myself panting on to the soft grey mosses of the desert. I had fled in the first flush of sunlift, now the sun was high. I wiped the sweat from my face, and sought shelter beneath a tough grey-leaved tree of flutewood.

Flutewood! The grey boughs are as smooth and sweet as the tumbled driftwood along the shore of Rargon’s Great Ocean. Each bough is hollow in the heart, so it is able to keep a store of water in the desert. Many a thirsting Valourn owes life and health to the bounty of the flutewood. Now I snapped free a long, finger-thick bough and drained its liquid into my mouth. I set about turning the flutewood bough into an instrument to set free the music my voice could not. When the voice of a male Valourn breaks, if he is not cast out, he is limited to the dance only.

With my knife I scraped and trimmed, binding the lengths with fibre from the flutewood’s own bark. Instrument perfected, I set it to my lips and played a soft phrase of melody. The air trembled.

With an upsurge of triumph I began to play, improvising music that held little of reflection and nothing of the slow grave measure approved by Master Loak. For the Valours one must keep the hands free, but here in the wilderness I had no critical eyes upon me and improvised a mad bounding dance to complement the music. Like a wild demon I pranced and leapt, piping my accompaniment, until I was breathless and collapsed in the shade of the flutewood tree.

My music quieted, and I began a wistful theme…who knows where melody is born?

I closed my eyes, the better to feel the notes and, with bewilderment, I saw the blackness dissolve into a pool of light in which lay a lass of strange beauty. Her body lay achingly still; her eyes held a well of loss far deeper than my own.

As I played, the tortured eyes of the lass closed and she slept in her high cot.

Under the flutewood tree I laid aside my pipes. I knew I must return to Loakencamp and, somehow, overcome my disappointments.

With me, I carried my vision…

PART ONE

Dancing Dreams

CHAPTER ONE

Pirimba

All my life, I’ve had this dancing dream. A real dream, not a daydream. It never made sense to me because I hate watching ballet—I reckon those bum-freezing tutus are weird. And as for the men’s tights!…how can you not get the giggles?

I was dreaming of a dancing figure—twirling, floating, leaping—she seemed to be training for the Olympics, like one of those incredible gymnasts. She had dark cloudy hair and pale skin. That’s how I knew it was me.

When I’d wake from that dream, I’d feel out of sorts, anchored to Earth by my heavy, human legs. Just like the Little Mermaid, who gave up a world for love, and paid again in pain and despair for her defiance. If I’d been her, I would’ve haunted that ungrateful prince into the next millennium, but then, I’m not the material Little Mermaids are made of.

I’m an ordinary human girl in an extraordinary situation and I’ve got a choice to make. It’s coming, that choice, very soon, so I think a lot about giving up a world. Heavy stuff, but I’ve done it once already. No, I haven’t…not really.

The Little Mermaid had a choice and she knew the odds when she went to the sea-hag. I didn’t. When my world gave me up there was no time for thought, or anyone to give me the odds. But this time—I’ve got to make a choice and I know the consequences.

For the real Little Mermaid, a choice would be easy. Give up the world for love!

But which world? Which love? Maybe an amputation is better than a festering wound. Maybe obliteration is better than a half-life. Maybe.

I’m feeling confused…do we ever really know the odds, I wonder…

There was another dream, too, the one I call The Nightmare Special. The Nightmare Special started in Sturt S.U., and I gave it the nickname as a gesture of defiance. I’m like that—give me a bit of opposition and I kick it in the guts. That habit got me loads of detentions at school. Mum hated it. God! If I got a detention tomorrow, she’d be rapt! Poor old Mum—she finds it hard to deal with the guilt.

I never talked about The Nightmare Special; not even to Pink the Shrink, who had a face like a marshmallow rabbit. Pink’s job was to listen to our problems and, not to solve them, but to help us ‘come to terms’ with our situations.

What a job! ‘Pirimba Raven, the quad girl in 3. She won’t make the slightest effort to come to terms with her condition…’

I didn’t want to come to terms with my condition, so I kept The Nightmare Special to myself. It was my property, not Pink’s. I didn’t tell her the dancing dream, either. She’d have tried to pretend it started after the accident and it didn’t. I’ve had it all my life.

I didn’t want Pink’s understanding, in those days at Sturt S.U. I didn’t want Kersey’s pity. I didn’t want Mum’s guilt. I didn’t want the land of Rargon—God, I didn’t even know there was a land called Rargon! I just wanted my own land back. But that was in the shadows, on the other side of The Nightmare Special.

The Nightmare Special began with waking up. A sigh, a stretch, a scratch where mozzies had been busy, then—transformation! Pirimba Raven, the quad girl, becomes Ma Kendall’s Compleat Schoolgirl. Breakfast…Mum saying a pot of fruit yoghurt isn’t enough for a growing girl. (‘Mum, I’ve practically stopped growing up, and who wants to start growing out?’)

Mum would ignore that, and cook toast I didn’t want. Then look martyred when the stuff flabbed on the plate. My sister Eden would eat it, and worry Mum more. (Eden’s got bulges, not curves. Mum never mentions Eden’s weight to Eden, because she reckons that’ll bring on anorexia or bulimia for sure. She just tries to make Eden eat the right things. Or she did once. These days, she’s given up on Eden and devoted her whole worry-quota to me.)

Bus pass, lunch money and out the door into a grey, grotty day—fending off Mum’s offers of umbrellas and plastic rainhoods. (‘For God’s sake, Mum!’)

Run for the bus; stick my pass into the clipper; settle on the seat that made a farting noise when the air squeezed out. I always got that one—Jojo and Kira left it for me on purpose. They’d lean over the back of the seat and wave a copy of the Mod sealed section in the air. Sniggers from the squirts in Grade Seven and rear-vision glares from Nigel Mansell up front. Arrive at school, groan; into home room…‘G’morning, Ms Kendall’.

Then I’d wake up and The Nightmare Special would run again. And again, heel and toe, until suddenly I’d awake—really wake up—a final time and there I’d be staring at the ceiling of my cell at Sturt S.U.

That’s what made The Special a nightmare—waking up and remembering the truth.

I’d feel tears trickling down my cheeks as I opened my eyes.

When I was a kid I’d duck my head and hoist my shoulder to mop up tears. After The Nightmare Special, I’d turn my head as far as I could, but never far enough. You see, I couldn’t move my shoulder to meet it. I just had to put up with it, like a baby. But a baby can scream and howl and be comforted.

I remember one day especially. I’d been on The Nightmare Special and I woke hearing my curtains rattle. A zombie was coming in.

‘Nice sleep, dear?’ Zombie Walken was better than Zombies Pace and Kersey. Kersey got tears in her eyes when she looked at me. Kersey’s too soft for Sturt S.U.

‘Awesome,’ I lied.

Zombie Walken checked my plumbing. I tried to pretend she wasn’t there. What if Zombie Walken put that pillow over my face?

‘Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink,’ I quoted, thinking of available oxygen and starving lungs. Would I die in silence or would my muscles wake up and fight?

‘What was that, dear?’

‘A poem,’ I said.

‘So you like poetry, Pirimba?’

‘Not much,’ I said.

End of conversation. Zombie Walken finished with my plumbing, then Zombie Kersey came in. They washed and massaged and rolled me from side to side on the rippled bed. No fun, but at least I got a change of view.

‘Roll me over, in the clover,’ I sang to myself. The Primary School bus song almost made me cry again because I knew that nobody would ever roll me over in the clover—or anywhere else. I remember wishing I hadn’t kneed Todd Landers in the balls when he came on to me after the Grade Eight Social. At least I’d have known what it was like to kiss a boy, if nothing else.

I looked at the walls, the ceiling, the floor—never at my disgusting wasted pale body. The Zombies just did their job.

(‘A certain amount of muscle wastage is inevitable. Care must be taken to avoid total atrophy.’ Physio Fritz—the talking textbook.)

‘Why bother?’ I asked.

‘What’s that, dear?’ Zombie Walken’s automatic response.

‘Why bother with that?’ I wanted to jab a scornful finger in my body’s direction, but had to make do with a scornful eyeroll instead. At least my face still worked.

‘You know why,’ said Zombie Walken briskly. ‘We have to keep your muscles in order.’

‘Why? No-one’s ever going to use them. Not even me. Am I?’

They exchanged glances. Then Zombie Kersey spoke up in her mousy voice. ‘You never know, Pirimba. Perhaps, one day, when surgery is more advanced—’

‘Bullshit!’ I said. ‘By the time that day comes, if it comes, my nerves will be deader than Elvis. Won’t they?’

Another look.

‘Well?’ I was really putting them through it. Myself, too.

Zombie Kersey said weakly, ‘Surgical breakthroughs happen all the time.’

I managed a scornful smile. ‘The only thing that will ever do me any good is a total body transplant,’ I said deliberately.

It amazes me now that I should have said that…could I have seen into the future somehow? Because if it isn’t a total body transplant I’m wearing now…But then it was just a shitty thing to say to the Zombies, so I continued:

‘Hey, got any young, freshly killed corpses kicking around in the morgue, Sister? Keep ’em on ice and lead me to ’em. Oh, I forgot. I can’t walk.’

Zombie Kersey took the dirty towels and left.

After a while, Zombie Walken bathed my face and held a tissue so I could blow my nose. ‘Try not to cry too much, my dear,’ she said. ‘We want to keep your lungs clear.’

She picked up a pot of pale green face cream. She rubbed it gently into my cheeks and across my forehead and it cooled the tight burning. ‘You’ve got lovely skin, Pirimba,’ she said. ‘I have a daughter your age who would kill for your complexion.’ I’d kill for her body, I thought, if I could raise an axe. Maybe ill-wishing would work? Ha!

I was watching the telly which was clamped on to a sloping shelf. There was this aerobics class; three Elle clones and one hairy hunk demonstrating exercises.

‘Not bad, is he?’ said Zombie Pace, poking a thermometer under my tongue.

‘Mff,’ I muttered. Typical zombie trick. Ask a question when your mouth’s full. I rolled the thermometer to one side. ‘I said,’ I said clearly, ‘the girls have got more balls than he has’.

Zombie Pace’s face never quivered. Probably coated with plaster of Paris.

‘Turn it off,’ I said. ‘There’s too much sex on the box.’

That didn’t get a rise either. I decided Zombie Pace went straight around underneath, like a Barbie Doll. After Zombie Pace, I got Pink the Shrink, then Physio Fritz. Every hour lasted forever, but I never had time to think, and that’s what I longed for at Sturt S.U. Time to think. About whether I’d do what Pink wanted and come to terms with it, or whether I’d do the other thing.

I’d need help, of course, to do the other thing, but there must be someone I could bribe. Maybe a parent whose kid needed a kidney transplant. Even the most law-abiding parents will go out on a limb for their kids. I bet Mum would turn body-snatcher tomorrow if it would put me back the way I was!

‘How long am I going to live?’ I had asked Zombie Walken once.

Zombie Walken spread her hands. ‘I don’t know, Pirimba. I don’t know how long anyone will live. You could die tomorrow. So could I.’

I sighed. ‘Don’t give me that shit.’ I summoned up a bit of zombiespeak. ‘Given the severity of the patient’s condition, what, in the absence of other contributing factors, would be your prognosis concerning her probable longevity?’

Zombie Walken never flickered. ‘I honestly don’t know, Pirimba. You must ask your doctor about that.’

Of course, I hadn’t.

I closed my eyes and dreamed of dancing.

Later, I had a visitor, a boy of eighteen or so who came into my room with his dog and a silver flute. He put one hand on the end of the bed, casually, then came up to my end. He bent over and bumped his nose on the bedhead.

‘Ouch! Bugger it! Where are you?’ he asked, rubbing his nose.

That was my first sight of Pierre Freedman and it was a bit of a shock. Strange blokes don’t collide with bedheads at Sturt S.U. ‘Who the hell are you?’ I spluttered.

His mouth dropped open. It was an expressive mouth, and now it expressed horror. ‘You’re not Louise.’

‘Of course I’m bloody not! What are you—blind or something?’

‘Yeah.’ His mouth went straight and he looked past me and I realised he actually was. Blind, I mean. I flamed with embarrassment and that made me angry.

‘Why the hell are you wandering around here?’ I asked. ‘This is Spines Supine, not Eyes Unlimited.’

‘I’m looking for my sister.’ He touched my face. Bingo. Right on the nose.

‘You can’t do that!’ I said, jerking away.

The mouth curled into a smile and a dimple showed. ‘Oh yes I can. I can do anything. Except see.’

The dog raised her muzzle as if she had caught my scent. She was a gorgeous yellow labrador and I lifted my hand to pat her. That is, my brain gave my shoulder and arm the message to bend, and lift up and outwards, but nothing happened. How could it? I was permanently short-circuited. The horror of that flooded me again.

‘Go away,’ I said.

‘Okay. But what’s your name? Why are you here?’

‘I’m Pirimba Raven. And why do you reckon I’m here?’

‘Pirimba.’ He rolled my name around his mouth and I swear he was tasting the sound. ‘You have a musical name, Pirimba.’ Then he focussed on the second thing I’d said. ‘Because of a broken spine?’ he suggested.

I grunted an affirmative.

‘Poor you. That’s what’s wrong with my sister Louie and she reckons it’s hell lying around waiting for bones to knit. So—how long are you in for?’

For the term of my natural life. No time off for good behaviour. But I didn’t tell him that. I let him go on thinking I’d mend. Why not? It was none of his business and I thought I’d never see him again.

‘Can