Arrival (2 page)

I thought of arguing. I thought of telling her that she was the only one who needed a clean break, and that I had been perfectly happy with my old life (minus all the arguing and screaming and divorcing, anyway). But I knew there'd be no point. I just nodded and let her pull me into a hug.

Not the end of the world.

Over the next few days, I was going to find out just how wrong she was.

Chapter 2

W
EDNESDAY
, M
AY
6
99
DAYS

A blast of music rang out across the room and suddenly I was awake. I fumbled around for my phone and switched off the alarm. It took me a minute to remember where I was.

Huh? What happened to my –?

Oh. New house. Right.

I rolled out of bed and staggered into the hall
,
feeling vaguely uneasy. It's always weird waking up in a new house, and it didn't help that everything here was so abnormally
tidy
. I squinted around stupidly, reminding myself where the bathroom was.

‘Morning, Luke,' called Mum from below me. She

was halfway down the stairs, already up and dressed. ‘Mmph,' I said, my brain still kicking into gear.

‘I'm on my way out the door. There's a bit of food in the kitchen, someone dropped off a welcome hamper about ten minutes ago. There's a town map on the bench – don't worry, it's very straightforward – and I've left you some money in case you want something else for lunch. I'll try to do a proper shop tonight, but it might end up being take-away for dinner. Are you okay to get yourself to school?'

I nodded, yawning, my brain only registering about half of what she'd said.

‘Okay, good. Have a great day, sweetheart, I'll see you tonight.'

‘Yeah, see you.'

I stumbled into the bathroom, splashed some water on my face, and felt slightly more awake. Heading back to my room, I flipped my phone open again and squinted at the time.

8.07 a.m.

School started at nine, but I was supposed to get there early so that the principal could show me around. The usual first-day-of-school thing.

When I opened my wardrobe, I found it already filled with school clothes – grey pants, white shirts, red ties. All in my size, too, which was weird. I didn't think Mum even knew what size I was anymore. There was a backpack as well, filled with books and pens and stuff.

I got dressed and went downstairs to find some breakfast.

Our new house was incredible. I'd always lived in nice houses, I guess, but this place was like something out of a home and garden magazine. High ceilings and paintings on the walls and giant indoor plants and light streaming in through enormous windows. Everything perfectly neat and tidy and expensive-looking.

The Shackleton Co-operative had insisted that we leave our old furniture behind and let them buy us all new stuff. Most people probably would've counted their blessings or whatever, but for some reason it put me kind of on edge
.
This place was meant to be my new home, and I felt like I wasn't supposed to touch anything. But I shook the feeling off and grabbed some fruit from the basket on the counter.

Ten minutes later, I was riding through the busy town centre. I was still getting used to the whole bike-riding thing and I almost ran down about five people as I made my way through the morning traffic.

Everywhere I looked, there were men in black security uniforms, like the one Officer Calvin had been wearing the night before. Each of them had a gun holstered to his side. Maybe that's normal for security guards, but there was still something off-putting about them.

Halfway down the street, opposite the massive fountain in the town square, was a building covered in dark tinted windows, those ones that make the whole thing look like a giant black mirror. The words SHACKLETON CO-OPERATIVE were emblazoned across the top of the building in big silver letters, next to a giant-sized version of the phoenix logo on the guards' uniforms.

Back in Sydney, I wouldn't have looked twice at a building like that. But here in this tiny town where everything else was so clean and bright and friendly-looking, there was just something
wrong
about it. Like the people who put it there were trying to make a statement.
Don't forget who's in charge here.

I kept glancing back over my shoulder at the building as I continued up to the school.

Phoenix High was at the end of the street, right across the road from Phoenix Mall. Creative naming was clearly not a high priority around here. There were kids in school uniforms milling around, getting breakfast from a burger place that looked like Phoenix's version of McDonald's.

It was hard to believe that a student had ever set foot in this school before today. There was no rubbish. No graffiti. Not one blade of grass out of place. And the buildings looked like they'd never been touched, like the cement was still drying between the bricks.

I chained my bike up at one of the hundreds of bike racks scattered all over the place and looked around for the front office.

The office lady smiled at me as I walked in the door. ‘Ah, you must be Luke Hunter,' she said warmly. ‘Wait just a moment and I'll tell Mrs Stapleton you're here.'

‘Oh,' I said, surprised to be recognised so quickly. ‘Okay, thanks.'

The office lady got up and walked out of the room. She came back almost straight away, followed by a serious-looking woman carrying a black bag.

‘Luke,' said the woman, extending a hand for me to shake. ‘Welcome. I'm Mrs Stapleton, the deputy principal here at Phoenix High.'

She smiled the smile shared by deputy principals all around the world, the one that says,
I'm being friendly
now, but put a foot out of line and I'll destroy you.

‘Hi,' I said. ‘Thanks.'

‘Our principal, Ms Pryor, sends her apologies for not being here to greet you, but she's been held back at a meeting.' Mrs Stapleton held out the black bag.

‘Here, this is yours.'

‘What is it?' I asked.

‘Your new laptop. Every student receives one when they arrive.'

I took the bag and was suddenly reminded unpleasantly of my mum.

Right after my parents told me they were separating, which was about a month after I'd figured it out for myself, Mum went on this gift-giving spree. Almost every day, she'd come home with some new DVD or video game or whatever. It was like she thought that if she gave me enough stuff, I'd be too distracted to notice or care that my family was disintegrating around me
.

And between the new bike, the new house, the massive TV in my room, and now this new laptop, it was almost enough to make me wonder if the people who ran this town were trying to pull the same distraction tactics.

Mrs Stapleton walked outside and gestured for me to follow her. ‘As you may have heard, our external internet connection is down at the moment, but your computer will still be able to send and receive emails within Phoenix through our town intranet.'

She stopped in the middle of the quad and looked around. A guy dashed past and she called out to him, ‘Peter, may I see you for a moment?'

He rolled his eyes and walked over to us. ‘It wasn't me, miss, it was Tank! He was trying to hit me with a bin, and –' ‘Peter, what class have you got for first period today?' asked Mrs Stapleton, interrupting him.

‘Um, English with Mr Larson.'

‘Excellent,' said Mrs Stapleton. ‘Peter, this is Luke Hunter. He arrived yesterday. Will you show him around?'

‘Sure, no worries, miss,' Peter grinned.

‘I'm trusting you to be sensible here, Peter,' frowned Mrs Stapleton.

‘Of course, miss!'

Mrs Stapleton shot Peter a suspicious glance, but didn't say anything more. She turned and went back into the office.

‘Luke, right?' said Peter, moving off towards a building at the other end of the quad. ‘Let's go find your locker.' He was a tall, weedy guy with messy brown hair, and he walked across the school like he owned the place. He seemed like a weird choice for the show-the-new-kid-around job.

‘Don't you need to know my locker number?' I asked, following him.

‘Nah,' said Peter. ‘They're all in order of arrival.

You'll be after Jordan.'

‘Huh?'

‘Whenever someone new comes, they just give them the next locker in line,' Peter explained as he led me down a crowded corridor. ‘And
everyone
here is pretty new. I've only been in town for six months and I was one of the first to get here. That's why Staples gets me to show you guys around, even though she hates me, because I'm practically the only one who knows where everything is.'

We stopped right at the end of the corridor.

‘Huh,' said Peter. ‘Look.'

‘What?' I asked.

‘You've got the last locker.'

‘Does that mean something?' I asked, opening the locker door. I pulled a pen and a notebook out of my backpack and stashed the rest of my stuff inside.

‘Dunno,' said Peter. ‘I guess it means you're the last one coming.'

Chapter 3

W
EDNESDAY
, M
AY
6
99
DAYS

‘What do you mean, the last one coming?' I said, my hand tensing up against the locker door as someone pushed past me. ‘You just said there are new people arriving all the time.'

‘Yeah,' said Peter, ‘but I think this town is kind of invite-only. I mean, Shackleton built it for all the people who work at his company, right? And who else would want to live out here?'

‘So, what, you're telling me this school knew in advance how many of us were going to be here and ordered that
exact
number of lockers?'

Peter shrugged. ‘So?'

Before I could reply, the bell rang and everyone started moving towards their classrooms.

‘This way,' said Peter, heading around a corner and up some more stairs. ‘Larson's an alright teacher. Hardly ever makes us do any actual work.'

‘Hey!' called a small voice from behind us as we made our way along another corridor. ‘Hey, uh, you – wait!'

A kid who looked like he was probably in Year 7 came running up to Peter. He was wearing a back-pack that was almost as big as he was and he had a panicked look in his eyes.

‘Excuse me,' he said in rush, ‘I have a history class in room nine and I can't remember –' ‘Back down the stairs,' said Peter wearily. ‘Hang a right, then go down to the end of the hall.'

‘Thank you!' squeaked the kid, running off again.

‘Honestly,' said Peter, shaking his head
,
‘I should be getting paid for this.'

By the time we got to the English room, a bunch of other students were already waiting.

‘Hey, Weir!' shouted a girl up the back as soon as we walked in. ‘Who's that?'

This girl was pretty and she knew it. She had wavy blonde hair and
Days of our Lives
make-up, and was sitting on a desk in front of two boys.

‘This is Luke,' Peter called back. ‘Got here yesterday, I think.' He was acting casual enough, but the way his eyes flashed between the three of them as we walked over made me wonder if there was something going on. He turned to me and pointed to each of them in turn. ‘Cathryn, Tank, Michael.'

It wasn't hard to see where Tank got his nickname. He was tall and wide, and clearly not the sharpest tool in the shed. He looked like he could easily roll right over the top of me. Michael, meanwhile, was hunched over a piece of paper, working on an elaborate drawing of two men in flowing white robes. He wore dark sunglasses and black nail polish and he was clutching his pencil like that drawing was the most important thing in the world to him.

Michael seemed like the sort of guy who probably would've got beaten up a lot at my last school. But I doubted anyone was going to mess with him while Tank was around.

For a minute, Peter looked like he was going to sit down next to them, but then he turned away and started moving across to the other side of the room.

‘Friends of yours?' I asked, as we shuffled our way between two rows of desks.

‘Used to be, yeah,' he said under his breath.

There was a definite edge to Peter's voice now, but I figured I should wait until I'd known him longer than ten minutes before I started hammering him with personal questions.

We found two empty chairs and sat down. In the row behind us, a girl who looked like she might be Fijian or something was reading over a page of maths questions. She had black hair all done up in little braids and a look of frustration on her face. She was pretty, but not in a self-conscious way like Cathryn.

‘Hey, Jordan,' said Peter, turning around to talk to her.

‘Something I can do for you, Weir?'

‘Just wanted to say that you're no longer Phoenix High's newest inmate,' said Peter, waving a hand in my direction.

‘Wonderful,' said Jordan, not looking up from her paper.

Peter gave me a weary look. ‘She's kind of in love with me,' he whispered. ‘It's a bit embarrassing, actually.'

I raised an eyebrow at him.

‘No, seriously! She may try to hide her feelings behind that harsh exterior, but deep down I know she's –
ow!'

I turned around. Jordan had just nailed Peter in the back of the head with an eraser.

‘See?' he said, bending down to pick it up. ‘Text-book love-hate relationship.'

Jordan just rolled her eyes.

‘This is going to bruise,' said Peter, sitting up and rubbing his head. ‘Seriously, there's a lump here. I should report you to Staples, Jordan. Violence against a fellow student, that's not something we take lightly around here.'

Jordan held up a hand like she was about to slap him. ‘Keep whingeing, Weir, and I'll give you something to really cry about.'