Preloved (2 page)

I remembered freshly popped corn dusted with icing sugar. I remembered the scene in the end when Westley and Buttercup rode off together happily ever after, while back in reality, Mum threatened to hit Dad over the head with a beer bottle if he didn’t stop drinking so much.

Those were the best days of my life.

“To be honest, Amy,” said Rebecca in her droll, slightly deep and sexy voice, “I really admire your mum for doing it alone. Following her dream. Raising you single-handedly. That sort of thing. It can’t be easy.”

“Hang on. Are you trying to say that I need more than one hand to be handled? Shit! What is
that
?”

Up ahead, intending to block our path, were three boys. Two of them stood facing each other, hands on hips, looking at the ground. The third one was poking a stick into the large rectangle of water that was supposed to be a water feature or a wishing fountain outside the shopping square, but had degenerated into an open gutter with rusty coins at the bottom.

I was pretty sure they were boys who went to our school, because they were all sporting matching blond mullet wigs.

“Oh no.” I put out an arm to stop Rebecca. “I think we’re about to be ambushed by a pack of – Jason Donovans!”

There was one in a horribly loud shirt that was paisley and abstract at the same time, and one in stonewashed jeans and a white T-shirt with a tab-collar jacket. The third was in a black tux, re-enacting the Neighbours-era Jason Donovan who married Charlene, played by – you guessed it – Kylie Minogue.

“Bex! Bex! Come over here, Bex!” They started heckling and surged forwards.

“This early in the morning?” I muttered to Rebecca, rolling my eyes.

Rebecca looked at me as if to say, “I can’t help it. What is the big deal with me?”

“Okay, boys,” I said to the three of them, and I got ready for business. I put my hands on my hips and stood in what Mum would say was an unladylike manner.

Even though I was dressed as the heroine, I knew that in our movie, it was Rebecca who was the star. Me? I was just her short, awkward, Asian best friend. Which did have its advantages, because everyone instantly believed I was O-Ren Ishii from
Kill Bill
, with martial arts skills.

“Get out of the way, you Bexter groupie,” said one of them. He came closer. I recognised him and his sidekicks. They were the library crew who liked to sit around at lunchtime and have discussions like, “Tolkien’s role in bringing ancient fantasy archetypes to the mainstream and shaping the fantasy fiction genre as we know it today. Discuss.”

“Groupie?” I repeated. Ugh. “Excuse me, but I’m her
best friend
.”

Why did Rebecca have to attract so much attention wherever we went? From gods and geeks alike. I straightened my wig.

“Go away. Or else I’m going to kick your arses.”

This wasn’t true, of course. I couldn’t do any sort of martial art to save my life. I was pretty sure if someone else decided to mirror my pose, I would squeal and run off.

I could see the lot of them eying me, trying to work out if I was being serious.

Yeah, you know it
, I nodded back to them.

“Okay, whatever, but can’t we talk about this?” said Jason Donovan in the tux, who was obviously the number one JD on the JD Barometer of Supremacy.

“Can’t a girl even walk to school these days without being assaulted? What’s happening to society?” I shouted as they all backed away. “Right, Bex?” I turned my head to look at her. Rebecca looked back at me with her big sullen eyes just like a maiden in distress.

“Let’s get going before these jerks try another trick.”

“Oi! Bexter’s sidekick! I bet you didn’t expect this …
secret weapon
!”

Tuxedo Jason Donovan held something metal and rectangular in the air.

“Oh my God,” I mouthed. “I hope that’s not what I think it is.”

It was.

A music player from the Eighties my mum termed a “ghetto-blaster”.

I’m not sure what people who didn’t live in ghettos used.

Tuxedo Jason Donovan inserted a cassette into the player. Mum explained to me that you could get cassettes in two forms: as full-length albums or … “Cassette singles,” said Mum. “As the cool kids would say –
cassingles
.” At that point I fell off my chair from laughing.

Suddenly the air was filled with the tinny strains of the Kylie and Jason duet. “Especially for You”.

“Turn it off! It’s horrible!” I covered my ears.

“Ha! We win, fangirl,” one Jason Donovan yelled at me.

“This has gone too far,” I shouted back.

“Amy! Don’t do it.” Rebecca grabbed my arm, but I shook her off.

I don’t know what came over me that day. It was like something just snapped inside my mind.

I marched up to the ghetto-blaster and kicked it over. I ejected the tape and I held it up to Tuxedo Jason Donovan AKA Michael Limawan’s face. Then I bounced it off his forehead.

Let me plead ignorance: I didn’t expect it to hurt as much as it did. The corner of it hit Michael between the eyes and he screamed. Then he fell backwards into the water.

“Amy!” shouted Rebecca.

“Argh! Oh! Don’t worry, I have this under control.” I spun around.

And I knocked Rebecca in the shoulder.

I could say in hindsight that it was her fault for creeping up so close to me, but it was nice to know that when friends get into trouble, they go in together.

Rebecca grabbed me by the arm and we both fell into the rank, disgusting, algae bloom water.

I opened my eyes to find three Jason Donovans (one wet and now sans wig) staring down at me.

“Get lost. Now!”

They all simultaneously looked at Rebecca to see if they could save her.

I did a kung-fu hand and they scattered.

“What a morning. Oh … yuck.”

I looked down at the beautiful Princess Buttercup dress that my mum had sourced just for me. I pulled the damp blond wig off my head and threw it aside.

I looked over at Rebecca. Her dress was also submerged in the slimy water, but because it was black, it wasn’t so bad. She still looked great from the shoulders up.

“Hey, what have you got in your … hair?”

I carefully picked it out of her curls.

It was a thin silver chain. At the end of it was a locket.

“Is this yours?”

“No,” replied Rebecca.

Was it a tone of displeasure I detected in her voice? I rarely saw her angry. Angsty in an arty way, yes, but Rebecca was way too cool to throw tantrums at me.

I quickly looked down at the locket. Disappointed. I wouldn’t be a true antique dealer’s daughter without knowing a thing or two. It was what you would grade as “a piece of crap.”

Rebecca stood up. I watched as the water dripped down her black pantyhose.

“Do you want it anyway? After all, you – or your hair – found it.”

“No,” said Rebecca and she got up and coolly walked away.

I got up. Or I
tried
to get up. My dress had soaked up so much of the manky water that I could hardly move.

“Wait! Rebecca!”

Oh, Crapolla, I wish I didn’t have to wring what felt like ten buckets of water from my dress before I could chase after her.

“I’m sorry,” I said after I had madly dashed to catch up.

“That was not cool,” said Rebecca. “That made me look ultra-uncool.”

“But I thought you were against cool. You’re supposed to be the alternative chick. The
anti-cool
.”

“What are those guys going to think, the next time they see me? Will they still be as enthusiastic?” Rebecca considered this with her finger pressed against her bottom lip.

“Seriously? Wouldn’t it be great if that whole incident did turn them off forever? We wouldn’t have to battle them again. Hurray!”

“Amy, I need them to love me. Then I can act coolly detached and say I wish I wasn’t so beautiful and be able to reject them on my own terms,” moaned Rebecca. “You don’t get it, Amy, because you’re not like me.”

“Oh.” I am sure my eyebrows had gone so far up my face they’d slipped to the back of my head. “But we fell into that stupid water feature together. If it was a scene out of a movie, it would be kinda funny, don’tcha think?”

“If
you
fell into the water, Amy, that would be funny – it’s something a sidekick does. It’s not something that happens to the main character.”

I realised I was still holding onto the crappy locket. I don’t know why, but I hurriedly put it around my neck before I tried to fluster myself back into friendship with Rebecca.

That was the first mistake I made. Not the trying to get back with Rebecca thing – that proved to be a mistake much later. What I shouldn’t have done was put on that necklace.

I learned a few things that day.

One: if I hadn’t scared bloody Michael Limawan and his two
Lord of the Rings
super geeks away, they would have told me that Frodo would tell you never put on a cursed piece of jewellery.

Two: there was a reason why that necklace mysteriously appeared on Rebecca and not me. Because it was intended for her. Rebecca was supposed to be the star of this story, not me. In the correct circumstances I would have been regulated to the sidekick status Rebecca said belonged to me, and I would have been happy with that. I’m cool with the stereotype.

Three: most importantly, I wish my mum had told me something like this: “Amy, do not pick up old lockets and put them around your neck, even if you are distracted and not thinking straight because you’d just been attacked by three Jason Donovans and your best friend was on the verge of possibly breaking up with you forever. You don’t put on an old locket, because it might just have a ghost inside.”

Chapter 2

Don’t you just love the styling of Middlemoore Senior High? All the fencing – I’m not entirely sure if it’s for keeping danger out or for keeping students in. The school appears at first glance to have more demountables than actual buildings. At least the demountables are air-conditioned, which is more than can be said for the rest of the school.

I watched the groups of girls talk to one another. Their Eighties get-ups were mainly derivative variations of bubble-hemmed dresses and tiered ra-ra skirts. They flicked their scrunchie-adorned side ponytails.

I walked past a guy hanging around the shady bit of the playground and was pleased to see from the big black hair, white pancake face and red lipstick that he was dressed up as Robert Smith from The Cure.

“Nice costume, man,” I shouted out to him. After all, fancy dress day was supposed to break down barriers and get students to interact in a fun-filled supportive environment. That’s what the school told the parent committee when they lodged a complaint against Nineties theme day. Who would have thought so many girls would choose to come as schoolgirl Britney Spears?

“What costume?” A look of confusion spread across the boy’s face. “Is today supposed to be fancy dress day?”

I quickly hurried to the girls toilets.

I had dried my wig and was drying my dress, centimetre by excruciating centimetre, when Nancy Soo walked in.

“Just reminding you that the ball is this Monday. And as it’s my turn to collect – cough up,” she said tersely, and stuck her tin out.

Introducing Nancy “Fancy Pants” Soo. Top student. Plays the piano and the clarinet. Stereotypically good at Maths. Would probably get into Pharmacy at uni next year. Exactly the sort my Chinese mum would love to have as a daughter. Me? Until recently, I had thought an algorithm was a type of dance move.

I stared at Nancy in surprise. She appeared to be covered in rubbish. If she wanted to dress up as a pile of rubbish for Eighties day, she could have asked to fall into that dirty wishing fountain instead of me.

“Nancy, no offence, but what are you supposed to be?”

Nancy put her free hand defensively on her hip.

“I’m dressed as the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. God! Everyone thinks the Eighties was all fun and games, but does anyone think about the fall of the Berlin Wall? The space shuttle
Challenger
disaster? The important, revolutionary and serious stuff that happened during that decade?
No
.”

I wasn’t sure whether it was being part of the debating team, the Asian minority or the Avril Lavigne fan club that made her so angry all the time. I dropped my two-dollar coin into her tin without hesitation.

“What is that on your head? Is that a three-eyed cat?”

“You see this?” Nancy pointed to the photocopy cut-out. “In Chernobyl, kittens were born with three eyes! And no eyelids. Imagine their short and agonising lives.”

“Um, Nancy, this is a very interesting discussion and everything, but you haven’t you seen Rebecca, by any chance, have you?”

“Is that you, Amy, underneath that ridiculous blond wig? Why are you dressed as something from the Middle Ages?”

It’s
Princess Buttercup,
Nancy Pants
! I wanted to shout, but instead I said, “Yup, it’s me. Ha-ha, fooled you, didn’t I? Made you talk to me.”

“Why are you still staring at me like that?” snapped Nancy. “Just because I didn’t come in oversized power suits and giant hair, or as Kylie Minogue.”

“So you
have
seen Rebecca.”

“No! Why would I care about her? She doesn’t even make a blip on my radar.” Nancy flashed me a sulky look.

“What is the problem you have with us?” I asked. While we’re being honest.

Nancy looked at me seriously from behind her thick-framed glasses. “I don’t have a problem with
you
personally. After all, our mothers know each other.”

“Right, that should make us best friends.”

“I’m just saying that if you ever want to hang around us, you know you can. We’re a minority group; we should stick together.”

Nancy disappeared into one of the cubicles. I stood in front of the metal trough and stared in the mirror, fiddling with the mystery locket around my neck.

“No thanks,” I said to my reflection. “I’ve already got friends … well,
a
friend …”

Me and Rebecca made our own minority group. We were the unpopular girls. Actually, Rebecca was popular with every single male at school, so maybe that left just me.