Blaze passes me, lunges for the hut so fast he ends up falling and sliding towards it on his knees. He grabs Dennis by the feet. It takes no time at all for Blaze to pull Dennis out, but somehow it’s long enough for me to imagine what we’re going to find. Sticky blood on Dennis’s chest, a slit in his throat? Who knows what kind of pregood things Gil imagines Dot wants him to do to Dennis?
Then Blaze yanks again and the whole of Dennis appears, unhurt as far as I can see.
Dennis’s eyes screw up against the burst of bright light. A smile spreads across his face, sweet and breezy as a towel unrolling beside the lagoon. His tongue swipes his lips.
Blaze leans in and uses a thumb to pry apart Dennis’s drooping eyelids. Dennis’s eyes are usually grey but they don’t look that way right now. The coloured bit is basically covered by the black circles in the centre.
Huge black circles, just like Gil’s eyes and Brook’s and Fern’s. Like mine used to be, before the dreams.
‘Hey, you guys. What’s up?’
Blaze doesn’t answer. He bundles Dennis up until he’s just a bunch of legs and arms. Then Blaze runs with him and I follow, heading for the orchard, for an empty patch of Dot’s creation where the hector might be able to land. The harder we run, the more Dennis laughs.
When Blaze deposits him on the petal-flecked grass in the orchard, Dennis’s head flops to one side.
‘Why do you have to be so intense the whole time?’
Blaze ignores Dennis. He starts shouting, like the hector can somehow hear him. I’m listening for the sound to build, the way it would if it came swooping towards us again. The same sound it’d make as it flew away with Dennis on board, leaving me in the orchard, test passed, free to be as dotly as I want.
But the hector doesn’t come near us. I don’t want to believe it, but it sounds like it’s flying away. Soon the hector is tiny in the sky, the
whoomping
noise getting quieter.
‘It can’t leave!’ I shrill. ‘He has to get on! If he doesn’t then … then …’
‘Too late,’ says Blaze.
He looks first at the sky then down at Dennis. Not that Dennis even realises what’s going on. He’s laughing still, and I catch the smell of his breath.
Honey, vanilla, sunshine, frangipani and freshly washed sungarb, the blissful smell of the dotliest fruit in creation.
Dennis has eaten newfruit, I realise. And suddenly the test is about as serious as it’s possible to get.
‘Any more of those silver things?’ Dennis says, feeling in the pockets of the sungarb, ‘I could go another one.’
His voice comes out blurry. ‘Nathe would love these.’
Dennis curls into the grass. His eyes are glazed. His mouth curls into a grin. That look. I’ve definitely seen it before.
____________________
A new picture. I see a flash of an image, this time a guy. The gorgeous one from the park. He’s beside me on a bed. He’s looking up at the pictures on the wall of the room we’re in. Backflip pictures. I recognise this as my bedroom.
‘I should take all those down,’ I stand up, wobbling a bit on the bed. ‘I don’t even know why they’re still there.’
I begin to rip the pictures off the wall. ‘It’s been months since I …’
‘How come you gave up gymnastics?’ the guy asks.
‘I don’t know. I just …’
‘You should keep doing it. Gymnasts are sexy.’
My hand stops on one of the pictures, mid-rip. ‘You think?’
The guy sort of ponders this. ‘They’re okay.’
Still my hand hovers over the posters.
Then he smirks, ‘Not as good as ballerinas though.’
And I tear the picture from the wall.
I guess he doesn’t really care about gymnasts or ballerinas though. Already he’s onto the next topic.
‘Found these in your mum’s desk,’ the guy pulls a little rectangular bag from his pocket, clear, with two capsules inside.
He holds it up. ‘Soon as I heard your mum was a doctor, I knew she’d have something good lying around.’
‘Are they … isn’t that kind of …’
‘Relax, Miss Just Say No. Your mum’s a doctor, right? They’re not street drugs or anything. These are safe.’
‘Mum thinks drugs mess with teenagers’ brains.’
‘That’s kinda the point.’
‘Aren’t they going to … you know … wipe me out? I’m meant to be responsible … I mean, Julius is asleep and Mum’s not back for ages.’
‘You’re still going to be here. We’ll stay all night. You’ll just be more chilled than the average babysitter.’
So I close my eyes and stick out my tongue. The guy lays a capsule on it and I swallow. Then he takes something else from his pocket. A box. He flips the top open and takes out a short white stick. He puts it in his mouth, lights one end and sucks on the other end, his eyes narrowed.
He blows smoke from his mouth like there’s a tiny bonfire inside.
Cigar? No. Cigarette
.
The guy holds it between two fingers and pops a capsule into his own mouth. He swallows and starts to laugh.
‘You look like someone’s about to die or something.’
He passes me the cigarette, ‘Here.’
‘No, thanks. I don’t smoke.’
‘One drag.’
I take the cigarette and put it to my mouth, ‘Okay.’
‘There’s a pool here, right?’ the guy says. ‘Let’s go skinny-dipping.’
And as I watch him watching me smoke, I see his eyes widen and darken. On his face, there’s a big, blissed-out smile setting in, same as the one I feel creeping across my face.
I
’M CRUSHING
B
LAZE’S
hand. I guess I grabbed it when the hector flew away. You know, about the time it sank in that my big chance to make Dennis disappear was gone.
Really, truly gone.
Blaze is just letting me do it. He’s probably thinking I wanted to leave in the hector, the same as he did. We’re like that, holding hands, just looking at each other dumbly when behind us someone speaks.
‘Wren? What’s going on? I heard laughing.’
At the same moment, me and Blaze turn. Sunshine is streaming down, turning the person standing there into a black shape edged with light. It’s a familiar shape, the same completely adorable one I’ve loved since I first fell from the sky. A short shape, soft and round and sweet.
Then Fern’s voice says, ‘Oh my Dot. Who’s that?’
I can still see the outline of grass pressed into Fern’s arms. There’s even some stalks in her hair. Her sungarb swings from her left hand. In her right, the coconut knife. She must have been harvesting in the orchard and then fallen asleep in Dot’s sunshine. Probably flat on her back, sungarb in a silky puddle beside her, her soft, round tatas pointing up to the sky.
Fern would have to be the only person in creation who could sleep through the sound of a hector.
Fern’s eyes fix on Dennis, the black circles in the centre of her eyes almost the same as his.
‘Wren?’ Fern looks from me to Dennis. ‘Who is that?’
Her nose wrinkles. ‘Why is he so small?’
‘He’s no-one. He’s … um … I mean … I don’t exactly know.’
Nice one,
I tell myself.
Great answer
.
‘Get Gil.’
Fern’s still smiling but I can tell her expression’s just about to crack. Then it does and she looks at me and says, all panicky, ‘Don’t touch him. It. Whatever. Anything predotly must be crushed. That’s what Gil said.’
At this point Dennis opens his eyes. When he sees Fern, he sits up, and then
bounces
up to standing, practically. But when he gets near to Fern, he can’t seem to figure out what to say.
‘You’re the pretty girl,’ he finally manages.
It’s like Fern’s some beautiful newfruit blossom. Dennis kind of gapes at her in wonder.
‘We have to get Gil,’ is all Fern says, and she doesn’t look dazed or sleepy or dreamy or sweet anymore.
‘Could you hug me?’ Dennis asks. ‘Just once. Please?’
Fern looks from me to Dennis, then back to me again.
‘You’re not moving. Why aren’t you getting Gil?’
She steps closer to Dennis. She’s holding the knife out in front of her like it’s not connected with her body even though it is. It definitely is. At the end of Fern’s hand, the coconut knife’s basically the sharpest, shiniest thing I’ve ever seen.
Dennis seems all pale and exposed, like something from the lagoon that’s lost its shell.
‘Fern, you’re going to cut someone.’
I drag Dennis away from her, my arm around his shoulder.
In my head, a prenormal set of words rings out.
Not again, no way. I am not letting something bad happen again.
‘Listen,’ I say.
But Fern mashes her lips together and shakes her head at me.
Beside me, I can hear the smooth in and out of Blaze’s breathing.
‘Tell her,Wren,’ he says. ‘You have to now.’
‘Tell me what?’
‘Okay, alright. If you stop right there, I’ll tell you.’
Fern doesn’t come any closer but she doesn’t let the knife drop either.
‘This isn’t what you think. His name’s Dennis. He’s … um …’
I look at Blaze, who gives me just the tiniest little nod and smile. Except I don’t say what Blaze is expecting me to. Instead I blurt, ‘Dot sent him. Did you see that big huge bird just now? The bird dropped him.’
I can’t tell who’s staring harder at me now, Blaze, Dennis or Fern. I’m guessing none of them can believe what they’ve heard.
‘Wait,’ says Fern. ‘What?’
‘He’s … he’s a new creation.’
Fern’s round face wrinkles. ‘There’s nothing in the Books about Dot creating anyone new.’
‘I know but … Dot’s trying it out. Just temporarily. To see if creation’s ready for new people. Small ones.’
‘Really?’
‘Of course!’ I tell her. ‘Just because something’s not in the Books doesn’t mean it can’t be real.’
As Fern thinks this over, I go on. ‘It makes sense when you think about it. What else are all the empty huts for?’
That gets Fern nodding. And now that I’ve started, words begin to tumble from my mouth, unstoppable. It’s the blurt to end all blurts, basically.
‘Dot wants you to look after Dennis.’
Fern starts to lower the coconut knife. ‘
Me?
’
‘Of course
you
. Why not? She loves you. She’s thinking of choosing you on completion night, if you take care of Dennis well enough. It’s … it’s sort of like a test.’
A grunt from Blaze. But whatever, because now Fern’s smiling.
‘She’s choosing me? For real? What do I have to do?’
It’s kind of prenormal how quick Fern is to believe everything I say. She
wants
to believe me, I can tell, because believing is the easiest thing to do. I understand that. Believing is how you get to keep things exactly the way they are, all nice and calm and happy.
I tell Fern, ‘Nothing much. Just make sure no-one finds out about him. Dot … um … she doesn’t want anyone to know she’s testing you, in case the others start wondering why they’re not being tested.’
‘That’s all?’ Fern brings her hands together and I kind of shrink away from her. She’s totally forgotten about the knife she’s holding. She’s actually clapping.
‘How long for? Just until completion, I bet. That’s when she’s choosing.’
Completion night. As in, two days away.
‘Um, right! Just till then. Dot’s going to take him back to the beyond and make some others just like him.’
Fern’s looks down at Dennis. She angles her head to one side.
‘How do you know all this?’ she asks me.
‘I never told you, did I? I can hear her. She told me Dennis was coming.’
‘Wait. Oh my Dot. You’re like Gil?’
I shake my head.
‘Gil’s like me.’
I’m surprised how easily all this is coming out of me. The only problem is I can’t stand to look at Fern while I’m saying it. Or at Blaze.
Definitely
not at Blaze.
‘Gil’s mixed up. He thinks he can hear her but I’m the only one who
really
can.’
‘Oh my Dot,Wren. Seriously? How lucky are you!’ Fern laughs and hugs me. She jumps up and down on the spot, squealing, ‘You’ll be chosen for sure then. We’ll be chosen together!’
‘I guess.’
‘Maybe Gil thinks he caught it when you guys hooked up or something! That’s hilarious.’
She shakes her head and her blonde hair falls across the brown skin of her tatas. For a moment, I wonder whether Dennis will ask Fern where her clothes are. But Dennis can’t even seem to form words.
‘I know,’ I say to Fern. ‘Pretty funny.’
The entire time I can sense Blaze, standing silent beside me.
‘So everything he’s been saying about predotliness, is that –’
‘I don’t know where Gil got that stuff from. Everything’s one hundred per cent normal. I mean, deep down we all know there’s no such thing as a predotly creation, right? Why would Dot make someone like that?’
‘Totally!’
Which is about the point Blaze turns his back on me.
____________________
Inside Dennis’s hut, the air is trapped and still and stale.
‘Thanks for your help carrying him,’ I tell Blaze when I finally make it back with Dennis, who won’t stop laughing and flopping all over the place.
I was thinking Blaze wouldn’t even help Dennis through the window, but it ends up that he does. He even offers
me
his hand. When he puts it in mine, it feels wooden as the hut itself. Then I’m inside and I know he’s going to say something to me about what happened with Fern. I also know I’m not going to enjoy it even slightly.
I kind of wish Blaze would just get started, but he doesn’t. Instead he spends ages pouring Dennis water and looking in his eyes and all this other stuff.
Finally I say, ‘Are you ever going to talk to me again?’
There’s a little bang from one of the shutters and Blaze goes over there, paying a ton of attention to it, making sure it’s really closed and everything. Then, when there’s no more closing to do, Blaze kind of sighs.
‘You’re pretty imaginative.’
‘Not a compliment, I’m guessing.’ I slide into one of the chairs beside the table. ‘I had to say something to Fern.’
‘You’re best friends. How about the truth?’
‘All that stuff about Woodend and FancyVividBlue? Dennis never got the gate open, remember? You don’t even know if that is the truth.’