Preloved (11 page)

It was early and the school was like a crypt. Well, a mismatched jumble that looked more like a desecrated grave, actually.

I headed towards the spare staffroom, which basically doubled as a space for any group having a meeting: yearbook committee, debating team, angsty youth anonymous, you name it. I knew that Michael had somehow been roped into providing technical support for the newspaper crew and they had their meetings Friday mornings, so if I was lucky, I’d find him there.

Seemed like my lucky day had come. I could hear his voice coming from the open door. And by the sounds of it, his voice was having a heated conversation with … uh-oh. There could only be one girl that fierce.

“I need you to do me a favour and put in a good word for me with Victor Zhang.”

“Seriously? Why don’t you ask him to the ball yourself?”

“Because I want
him
to ask
me
. And I don’t want him to ask Valerie or Florence instead. Look, maybe I can help you with Rebecca.”

I could hear the distain in her voice when she said “Rebecca”.

“This is all too hard. Stuff it. Why don’t I ask you to the ball instead?”

“Yes, I would be flattered, Michael,” replied Nancy. “If I found you mildly attractive. And don’t just ask me just ’cos I’m Asian too. Ask someone you actually
like
.”

“Um, hello,” I said, tapping my knuckles against the door.

The two of them stopped fighting and turned to me in surprise.

“Far out, who is she?” asked Logan, walking up to and surveying Nancy. She was wearing a pair of horn-rimmed glasses and had pulled her hair into a big black bouffant. “Is she from the Fifties?”

“Sorry if I interrupted anything,” I said. “Feel free to carry on.”

Nancy folded her arms. Michael smiled at me and I was instantly suspicious, as I was suspicious of all boys who smiled at me, which prior to this was … zero.

“We’ll all friends here, right, Nancy Pants?” I grinned.

Oops. I didn’t mean to say that last bit out aloud. It just came out. Maybe Logan wasn’t the only invisible one. Maybe I was tired of being unseen and unheard and I wanted it all to come out, just so I could see what kind of person I really was.

“Ugh,” said Nancy. And that was it. She was lost for words.

“Amy,” said Michael eagerly, rubbing his hands. “Um, I want to know if we’re still okay … from last time.”

Logan jumped up on the big desk in the middle of the room and lay down in the middle.

“Um, what last time?” I frowned. “Sorry, I’m just a little … distracted.”

“Y’know. The library.”

“Oh that. That’s okay. You were with your friends; you tried to do some macho shit. I get it.”

Michael beamed brightly.

“Can I please talk to Michael
alone
?” I asked Nancy. “I need to ask him a question. Not related to you.”

It was now Nancy’s turn to grin back at me.

“No. I think I’ll stay thank you very much. Like you said Amy, we’re all friends here. And anyway,” Nancy pressed her pen sternly against her red lipsticked mouth, “I’m much smarter than Michael. I am an
investigative journalist
. I am sure I can answer your question.”

She dismissed the dirty look she received from Michael.

What could I say? Logan sat up – presumably to get a better look at the unfolding drama – and mimed eating popcorn.

“Okay, fine,” I replied. I unclasped the necklace and opened the locket. I showed the picture inside to Nancy and Michael.

“You managed to get it open then?” Michael raised an eyebrow. “Was it because you took my advice?”

“What open? What advice?” demanded Nancy.

“Look,” I said. “Do you want to know my problem or not? I need to find out who the boy in this picture is.”

Michael reached out his hand at the same time I put mine out and we meshed fingers. Michael mysteriously turned a bright shade of red and froze. I stood there with the locket still in my hand, wondering if he was going to take it.

“Here,” I finally said, offering it to Nancy.

“In that case, I don’t think you need me,” mumbled Michael, still red. He grabbed his bag and took off. “Bye!”

“Mike!” I yelled after him.
Boys
. What was wrong with them? Maybe I needed to tie Rebecca to the rungs of the monkey bars and laugh like a maniacal villain. That’d get him running back.

I was stuck alone with Nancy. I was scared.

Nancy stared at me. She looked sour, like the cat with Dame Edna glasses I once saw on a birthday card. She took the locket from me, grabbed a chair and sat down. I sat down as well. Logan was still sitting in the middle of the table. I decided to ignore him.

I watched Nancy take off her glasses, place them into a case and put on a cherry-red pair.

Logan took his sunglasses from his blazer pocket and put them on. He tucked his hands behind his head.

“Stop it!” I hissed. I wished he wasn’t so distracting.

“What did you say?” asked Nancy.

“I said …
it’s hot
.” I picked up the stack of papers in front of me and used it as a fan. “Whooo! Hot.”

I frowned at Logan. Naturally, my expression went right through him and Nancy thought I was frowning at her. I quickly removed my frown. Nancy turned around to check if someone was standing behind her.

“Is this … blood?” said Nancy, becoming serious. She scraped dark specks off the side of the rainbow motif with her thumbnail.

“Maybe it’s just rust?” I suggested, and I swallowed.

“Where did you get this locket?” she asked, turning back to face me.

“I told you, I don’t want to go into the details.” I kept one eye on Logan. I watched him as he decided to lie down and look up at the ceiling.

“I need to know some details,” said Nancy flatly. “I’m not psychic.”

“Okay. It used to belong to a girl who went to this school in 1988. Stacey Gibson. It’s … it’s because my mum wants to know,” I blurted out. Drats. “Y’know my mum owns a vintage shop, right? Well, when she sells something, she likes to tell the customer interesting stories. Stuff like that.”

I looked at Logan. I wished we could keep this between us. He could just live in the moment. We could just be together. We could be friends. I needed friends.

It’s not like I had a problem with letting go. Mum told me never to hang onto the past. That’s why she liked selling other people’s old memories. But what about Ollie the owl? She had attachment issues when it came to him. Maybe that meant I also had attachment issues.

“Amy?”

“Huh?” I jumped out of my skin. “Yes? What is it?”

“Look.” Nancy leaned over so we could both look at the photo of Logan.

“The boy in the photo looks like he’s wearing a tux. And if you look carefully at the bottom right-hand side, you can make out something that looks like a buttonhole corsage.”

Logan got off the table and came to look over my shoulder.

“She’s right. Don’t I look like a total spunk?” he said. He bent over so that his face was almost next to mine. Then he turned his face and smiled at me. I smiled back at him.

Nancy blinked back at me with a wide-eyed expression.
Sorry
, I wanted to say as I scrunched up my face.

“You’re lucky you came to me,” said Nancy, matter-of-factly. “I know that our school has been hiring the same photography house to handle the ball photos since the beginning of time. If Stacey went with him to the ball, there’ll be a record of him somewhere in the archives. I’ll go get the ones from 1988. Plus, I’ll also find the yearbook from that same year. I’m sure we’ll unravel the secret of your mystery man soon enough. Everyone leaves a trace. Unless they’re a ghost.” Nancy smiled proudly.

Yikes!
I almost cried out.

“So if you want to meet up again after school …”

“
Hang on
. Are you saying we’re going to …
hang out
after school? As, like, friends?” I asked.

“Well, firstly, it’s business.” Nancy dropped the locket back in my palm. “But yeah. Sorta like friends.”

“See you, I guess,” I said to her. “Come on, let’s go,” I said to Logan, who got up and sauntered out the open door.

“Are you talking to me?” asked Nancy. “I’m going to stay here for a little while, if you don’t mind.”

“Yes!” I said. “No! I … damn. I don’t know.”

Nancy gave me a confused look, but it wasn’t unkind. “Amy, you might have heard the rumours going around that you’ve completely lost it, but I think it’s unfair. You’ve had to deal with a fair bit this year. I told my mum to let your mum know that we’re not part of this.”

She walked up to me and put a hand on my shoulder. I almost had a heart attack. I wasn’t used to human contact.

Oh gosh, that’s so nice!
I wanted to say. If only it was true that I had “completely lost it”. That would be so much easier. My lips twitched with wanting to tell Nancy the truth.

“Thanks,” I said simply instead.

“Hey, before you go,” said Nancy, “you know, you haven’t called me Nancy Pants since we were five.”

I swear I saw her grin for a microsecond before she began organising her files and checking the textbooks in her bag as if we never spoke.

Logan stood waiting for me.

I touched the locket and stared at him.

I looked around. At Nancy still in the room. At the students starting to arrive in the corridors.

I looked back at Logan.

He smiled at me and tipped his finger against his hat to salute me.

Whenever I ask too many questions, Mum has this saying that goes, “The heavens don’t let you know for a reason”. This comes from the belief that when souls go to the underworld, they are forced to take a long and hard road so that by the end, they will drink what is offered to them at the gate. The drink makes them forget their previous life, so they can go forwards to the next.

I should have told Logan that sometimes ignorance can be bliss.

That once something is known, it cannot become unknown.

Chapter 7

“Here we go.” Nancy dumped the faded red box onto the table. “The ball photos.”

She blew at the dust on the lid. When it didn’t budge, she licked her thumb and scrubbed at it.

“Ewww,” she said, looking at her blackened thumb.
1988
, declared the box. I lifted the lid and we both peered inside at the … actually, I didn’t know what I was looking at.

“Um, when you say photos, what do you mean by that?”

“They’re on slides. Jeez, Amy, did you expect me to hand you a USB stick?” Nancy picked up one of the cells from the tray. “There’s a projector in the media room over there. Go and set it up. Here’re the instructions.”

Nancy held out a mouldy-looking piece of paper.

“Unless you want to run and fetch the yearbook instead. But I doubt you want to face Mrs Marshall again.”

“I’ll be fine with the projector,” I said, grabbing the instructions from her. I wasn’t in a hurry to see our librarian again, especially since I recalled shouting at her to mind her own business. Unintentionally, of course. I glanced at Logan. I wondered how long until the white van and the man with the net came to get me.

I grabbed the big rectangular box and headed for the door marked “Media Room”. Logan followed me. I balanced the instructions on top of the box while I grappled with the handle.

“Here, give me a hand,” I said to Logan, and I dropped the box into his open palms. I wanted it to fall right through and annoy him. I felt like I needed some sort of humorous release from all this angst I was carrying.

To my surprise, the box stayed where he held it in his hands.

“You can’t fool me, Amy Lee: you taught me the power.”

Logan stepped between me and the door.

Then, quite slyly, he said, “You remind me of the babe.”

I knew that line was from the movie
Labyrinth
. Where an owl turned into a hot goblin king at a masquerade ball that a chickenpox-covered seven-year-old version of me desperately wished she could go to.

“The babe with the power … the power of voodoo,” I found myself whispering. “You do. Remind me of the babe.” Then I recovered. “Excuse me,” I added quickly, but Logan just stared at me. He refused to move, so I walked around him and stuck the key in the door.

“How did you know how to answer me?” Logan asked.

“My mum’s got the movie on video. She lived through the Eighties. I’ve watched
Labyrinth
hundreds of times growing up.”

The door creaked open and I flicked the light on inside. I didn’t know why they called this the media room, when it was more like “media cupboard”. Or why they bothered to lock it when it was filled with old, outdated technology. The school would actually benefit if a robber stole it all. It would save them a trip to the dump.

“Are you sure it’s your mum that lived through the Eighties and not you?” asked Logan, following me in.

“I’m certain,” I replied. I shook my head. Imagine someone looking in right now. They’d think they were going crazy, watching me talking to no one and grabbing for a box floating in midair.

I plonked the slides down on the desk and picked up the instructions. When I unfolded the yellowed thing, it sort of disintegrated in my hands and a section dropped off onto the floor.

I looked around at all the black and beige bits and pieces, trying to figure out what was what. I found a VCR, an old DVD player and the battered ghetto-blaster that was last seen playing at a breakdancing contest. So this was where Michael had borrowed it from.

“Drats. How am I supposed to set up the slide show when I don’t even know what a slide projector looks like?”

“I’m so stoked,” said Logan. “I can’t believe I’m going to show you something you don’t know.”

There was a rustle to my right and I turned in time to see the projection screen whizzing down the wall by itself. Then something that looked like a grey
spaceship
banged down on the table. The lid of the box flew off by itself. Logan sauntered over to the desk and started inserting the slides one by one.

“This is the carousel that rotates all the slides to the projector lens here; these buttons are how you go back and forth – and this is the ‘On’ switch.”