Mutation (8 page)

T
UESDAY
, J
UNE
16
58
DAYS

‘Seriously Jordan, she'll be fine,' said Peter again. ‘They're not going to do anything to her.'

‘She attacked one of the leaders of the Shackleton Co-operative!' I whispered, skirting around the edge of the quad. ‘She screamed out
He wants to hurt
everybody!
in front of half the town!'

Peter stooped down to catch a handball that was bouncing toward us. ‘She's six years old,' he said, chucking it back. ‘Who's going to listen to her?'

‘They will,' I said. ‘Because they know she's right.'

The question was, what else did they know? Would they think I'd told her about Tabitha? Or did van Pelt know enough to guess that there was something even weirder going on?

Either way, I was dreading the Shackleton Co-operative's next move.

The bell went, and we started cutting across in the direction of the gym. Cathryn, Tank and Mike were already over there, waiting.

Peter had got nothing out of them yesterday.

It looked like the only reason they'd invited him along was to try to smooth over the locker incident and convince him how normal and innocent they all were. The most suspicious thing he'd come back with was that Tank had been ‘scratching his arm a lot'.

Brilliant.

Before school this morning, I'd filled Luke in on my latest vision. I'd almost told Peter too, a couple of times, but something kept holding me back. The last thing I needed right now was hearing him go on about how impossible it all was.

Besides, it was hard to see how knowing that Peter's old friends were stealing groceries from the mall was actually useful information. If anything, it made things even more confusing, because why would Shackleton have them stealing from his own supermarket?

Unless it was some kind of test or something. Maybe Shackleton was –

Huh.

I lost track of my thoughts, attention flashing across to the gym. Mike had just twisted around to stick something in his bag.

A black notebook.

The one from my vision.

Maybe yesterday afternoon hadn't been such a waste of time after all.

‘Peter,' I whispered, grabbing his arm. ‘That book Mike just put in his bag. Have you ever seen it before?'

Cathryn glanced up and I shut my mouth. She smiled at Peter, then went back to her conversation with Mike and Tank.

Ms Jeffery appeared at the door and sent us all in to get changed. On the way inside, Peter went over and slapped Mike on the back. ‘Hey, mate. After school, you guys want to go –?'

‘Sorry, man,' said Mike. ‘Homework.'

Peter smirked. ‘Homework?'

‘Yeah, it's like school work, but you do it at your house.'

‘Since when do you do it at all?' said Peter.

Mike started to answer, but by then they'd both turned into the guys' change room.

I walked across to the girls' and got into my PE uniform as slowly as possible, weighing up my chances of sneaking in and getting Mike's notebook without getting caught.

All around me, the other girls were busy complaining about their mobile phones not working or discussing how wrong it was that Hannah was going out with a guy in Year 8.

Like these were the biggest problems in the world.

I took off my school shirt, careful not to smudge the make-up on my hand. The discoloured skin was starting to darken again, but it was still a long way from normal.

Luke would tell you to wait,
I thought.
He'd tell
you there'd be plenty of other opportunities to get that
notebook. No point rushing in there now.

But what if there weren't other opportunities?

What if this was it?

What if I'd seen that notebook in my vision because I'd
needed
to see it?

I pulled my sports shirt down over my head and saw Cathryn staring at me from across the room. She didn't even try to disguise the scowl on her face. I rolled my eyes and reached for my shorts.

How much do you know?
I wondered.

Judging from her reactions to Luke, Peter and me, it definitely didn't seem like Cathryn had the whole picture of what was going on in Phoenix. Shackleton had obviously told them
something
in that letter – but then, who knew how much of it was even true?

And that was another thing: Cathryn's mum, Louisa Hawking, was one of the heads of the Shackleton Co-operative. So why was Shackleton communicating with Cathryn and the others through a locker in the school? Surely it would be easier to just pass their instructions on through her.

Unless not even she was allowed to know what they were up to. If the information he was giving them was so sensitive that he needed to contact them directly.

I watched Cathryn frowning into her compact, brushing at her cheek with the back of her nail.

Not that I had any idea what she was supposed to be doing for Shackleton – but was she really the best he could come up with?

The room eventually began to empty. I finished getting changed and sat down on the bench, pretending to untangle a knot in my shoelaces.

Finally, the last two girls zipped up their bags and headed for the door. I stood in the doorway, watching until they'd left the room completely, then started tip-toeing across to the guys' change room.

I paused at the door, listening for any signs of life.

Empty.

I slipped inside, steadying myself against the nauseating cocktail of spray deodorants, and scanned the room for Mike's bag.

Most of us just used the standard Phoenix High backpack that they gave us when we got here, but Mike had a hessian satchel thing covered in badges and patches. It should have been easy enough to find, but at first I couldn't see any sign of it. I circuited the room. Mike's bag would be somewhere near Tank's. If I could find that –

Ah.

Over in the far corner of the change room, I spotted a strap of brown fabric poking out from under a pile of discarded clothes and shoes.

Typical,
I thought, sliding the bag out from under the mess and shaking off a pair of underpants. I checked the door again and snapped the satchel open.

The notebook was right at the bottom, wedged down underneath all Mike's schoolbooks. I pulled it out and reburied the bag.

I could hear Ms Jeffery on the other side of the wall, picking teams for whatever we were playing today. It wouldn't be long before someone noticed I was –

Footsteps.

Somebody was coming.

I crept to the door and peered outside.

No-one there.

I dashed back out across the gym, figuring it was better to get caught out here than to explain why I was rifling through the guys' bags. Straight through the door to the girls' change room.

I was halfway to my bag before I saw Cathryn.

I staggered to a stop, almost tripping over myself. She was standing with her back to me, taking off a pair of earrings. I shoved the notebook down the back of my gym shorts.

Cathryn turned around.

She pulled another face, like she'd just stepped in something, then looked away again.

I sidestepped across the room, keeping my back away from her, and sat down, pretending to search for something in my bag.

Cathryn stuck the earrings in her purse and dropped it into her bag. Then she wheeled around and stormed over to face me.

‘Just can't keep your hands to yourself, can you?'

Uh-oh.

‘Sorry?' I said, sitting up straighter against the wall.

She stepped closer. ‘Oh, right. Like you don't know what I'm talking about.'

I played dumb. ‘Cathryn, seriously, what are you trying to –?'

‘He's freaking wasted on you,' she spat.

And she turned and walked out of the room.

Chapter 9

T
UESDAY
, J
UNE
16
58
DAYS

I was the first one out of the gym at the end of the lesson, more than happy to get clear of Cathryn's continued face-pulling.

It was insane. The two of us were on opposite sides of a plot to kill seven billion people, and the biggest drama she had with me was that I was hanging out with Peter?

How could she even think there was a problem there? It was one thing for Peter to keep convincing himself that something was going to happen between us, but I would've thought it was pretty clear from the outside that –

Of course.

She was getting all this from him. The way he told it, it was probably only a matter of days before the two of us ran away together.

Like any of us had time to worry about that now.

I leant back against a wall, waiting for Luke and Peter to hurry up and get changed. I hadn't told them about the notebook yet. We'd spent all of PE on opposing teams, and whenever I got close enough to talk to them, Mike or one of the others seemed to be hovering somewhere in earshot.

It could be nothing, anyway,
I reminded myself.
It could be his stamp collection for all you know.

But it was more than that. More than coincidence. There was a reason I'd found that book.

I walked back over to the door. Tank's voice had suddenly risen up above the noise of the guys' change room. ‘Hey – No, don't you – Mate, no, you're a dead man!'

A loud snap, shouts of laughter from the other boys, and Mike came running out of the gym, shirt unbuttoned, bag swinging from his shoulder. Tank ran out after him, tie stretched tight between his hands. He flicked his wrist and caught Mike right between the shoulder blades. Mike shouted, whirled around, and raised his tie into the air to return fire.

‘That will do, gentlemen!' called a voice from across the grass.

It was Mr Hanger. Mike and Tank both started talking at once.

‘Come on, sir!'

‘We weren't even –!'

‘Quiet,' said Mr Hanger. He narrowed his eyes at the gym. ‘Where is Peter?'

Mike grinned and ran back inside.

‘Hey, Pete! Guess who's come to visit?'

A minute later he was back, with Peter and Luke behind him. Peter saw Mr Hanger and immediately did a one-eighty back towards the gym.

‘PETER WEIR!'

‘What, sir?' snapped Peter, spinning around again.

Mr Hanger pulled out a crumpled piece of notebook paper. I recognised it as the ‘essay' Peter had handwritten in the ten minutes before school started this morning.

Mr Hanger held up the page and read the first line.
‘Why World War II would've been so much more
awesome if they'd used robot soldiers.'

‘Yeah, sir, about that, I thought your original question was kind of restrictive, so I decided to –'

‘Detention, Peter. Now.'

‘Screw you,' Peter muttered, pulling his bag up over one shoulder.

Mr Hanger snarled. ‘What was that?'

‘I said you're an awesome teacher, sir!' Peter said loudly. ‘Your comb-over isn't even that noticeable!'

More of the class had arrived by now. Shocked laughter from a few of them.

‘Anybody else care to join us?' asked Mr Hanger, silencing the class. He grunted and turned back to the English block. ‘This way, Peter.'

‘He's going to die,' I said as soon as they were gone.

Luke sighed. ‘Which one?'

The bell rang from somewhere inside the gym, and Ms Jeffery reappeared, shooing the last few students outside. Luke and I headed over to the maths block to get our bikes, with Cathryn, Tank and Mike right behind us.

‘Crap,' said Luke. ‘Just remembered Mum wanted me to go to the supermarket for her this arvo.' He dragged his bike out from the rack. ‘See you tomorrow, okay?'

A tug of disappointment. I thought about calling him back, but there wasn't much I'd be able to say to him with the others still so close. And now that the school day was over, making sure Georgia was okay suddenly felt much more important.

‘All right,' I said. ‘See you.'

I spun my bike around and headed for the back gate, thinking that if I was quick, I might catch Dad coming in to pick Georgia up. But when I rode down through the primary school, there was no sign of either of them.

I rode straight home and found Dad stooped over his laptop at the kitchen bench. He worked from home on Tuesdays. One of those ‘great working conditions' the Shackleton Co-operative hoped would help distract its employees from the weirdness of life in Phoenix.

‘Hey,' I said. ‘Where's Georgia?'

‘She's with Mum. Dr Montag wanted to give her the once-over after her fall yesterday. Make sure the damage isn't any worse than it looks.'

‘Oh,' I said. My fist tightened around the strap of my backpack. ‘I think I'll go down there and –'

‘How much of that English homework have you done?' said Dad.

‘Most of it,' I said.

‘It's due tomorrow, isn't it?'