blazers. A few of Omen’s fellow Fourth Years passed. Their blazers, like his, had green piping. He nodded to them. They ignored him. He shrugged.
He took his seat in the next class. Never came in, looking half dead from exhaustion, and sat next to him.
“You doing OK?” Omen asked.
“No,” Never said, gazing blearily at her desk. “Did we have homework to do?”
Omen took out his books. “Yes. You didn’t do it?”
Never gave a groan as an answer, and peered at Omen through one eye. “Why are you smiling?”
Omen shrugged. “It’s just very unusual to have you being the one who’s struggling while I’m doing all right, that’s all. Maybe it’s a sign that I’m finally getting my life in order, that I’m finally becoming the person I’m meant to be.”
“Or,” Never said, “this could not be about you, and actually be about me, and how hard it is to juggle being fabulous at school with being fabulous at having adventures. So, really, it could be either.”
“All those adventures taking a toll, are they?”
Never laid her forehead on the desk so that her hair covered her face. “I’m bruised. And battered. I get into fights now. Real, actual fights. Me. A pacifist.”
“You’re not a pacifist.”
“Well, no, but I hate fighting. I hate the pain aspect. Also the effort aspect. Fighting would be so much easier if you could do it from your phone, you know?”
“Damn these physical bodies.”
“Ah, now,” Never said, sitting up and flicking her hair back, “I wouldn’t go so far as to damn my physical body, Omen. I’m blessed with this form. See these cheekbones? I will never take these for granted. But I do ache. I mean, I can’t be expected to follow your brother into every single battle, can I? He’s the Chosen One. He’s got the strength and the speed and the skill. I just have the bone structure and the attitude.”
“Kase and Mahala aren’t Chosen Ones,” said Omen. “How do they do in these battles?”
“They’ve been doing this for longer,” Never countered. “They’re better at it than I am.”
“There you go,” Omen said. “You just have to give it time, and then you’ll be as good as they are.”
Never lolled her head back, and looked up at the ceiling. “Three days ago, we were fighting this guy, a Child of the Spider. Ever seen one of those people? They’re creepy enough in their human form, but when they change …”
“You actually saw him transform?”
“Oh, yes,” said Never. “It was gross. Like, seriously disgusting. He sprouted all these extra legs, his body contorted, his face became a spider face … and the sounds. Great Caesar’s Ghost, the sounds! Squelching and tearing and popping and more squelching … And, at the end of it, he’s twice as big as us, and a spider. A spider, Omen.”
“You’re not afraid of spiders, are you?”
“I tend to get slightly arachnophobic when they’re three times the size of me.”
“Understandable.”
“So, we were fighting this giant spider, and I realised I’d forgotten to do the biology homework.”
“You thought about biology when you were fighting a giant spider?”
“Well, yeah,” said Never. “It just popped into my head – the module where we studied insects and arachnids – and then we had that chapter on the Children of the Spider and how we still don’t really know how they came to, like, be spiders.”
“Yes,” said Omen, “I remember the lesson.”
“Do you?”
Omen hesitated. “No.”
“Thought not. Anyway, I asked Auger about the homework.”
“While you were fighting?”
“Oh, wow, no. I’ve still got a long way to go before I can have light-hearted discussions while trying not to die. I just don’t have the stamina. I’m out of breath the entire time. So I waited until after. And you know what he said?”
“He’d done the homework?”
“Well, yes, but do you know how he’d done the homework?”
“I would imagine by doing it in his spare time?”
“Will you please stop spoiling my stories by knowing what I’m going to say?”
“Sorry.”
Never sighed, and continued. “He did it at night. The previous night, after we’d sneaked back to our dorm rooms. Four o’clock in the morning and he’s making sure his homework’s done. The same with Kase and Mahala.”
“So … so why didn’t you do that?”
Never frowned. “Because I was sleeping.”
“But why didn’t you—?”
“Because I was sleeping,” Never repeated. “I love my sleep, Omen. It’s one of the eight things that I do best. You can’t expect me to not sleep because of homework. We all have our limits, the lines in the sand we do not cross. That is mine.”
Omen nodded. “It’s a great honour just to be around you sometimes.”
Mr Chou walked in and closed the door.
“Can I copy off you?” Never whispered.
“Oh,” Omen whispered back, “sorry, no. I didn’t do the homework, either.”
“Why the hell not?”
Omen shrugged. “I was thinking about other things.”
Never glared.
“Right then,” said Mr Chou, “let’s start off with last night’s prep. Who can give me the answer to the first question? Never?”
Never sagged.
Razzia was bent over the sink in the Ladies, doing her make-up, because that was practically the only room in the whole of Coldheart Prison where the light was good enough, and Abyssinia was in there with her, the two of them just spending time together, not bothering to talk, just two Sheilas hanging out, enjoying the silence, alone with their thoughts, and then Abyssinia said, “I don’t know if I do.”
Razzia stopped applying her mascara, and frowned. Had Abyssinia been speaking this whole time? Had Razzia been answering? Was this another one of those conversations she forgot she was having halfway through?
Strewth, as her dear old dad used to say. Her dear old dad used to say a lot of things, though. Her dear old dad could talk the hind legs off a kangaroo.
Was that a saying? Was that a popular phrase, back in Australia? She couldn’t remember. Her past got so hazy sometimes. She wasn’t even sure if she had a dear old dad, at least one that she’d known. She had a vague image of a nasty man, quick with his fists, but she didn’t like that image, so it went away, and was replaced by Alf Stewart, the cranky but lovable old guy from Home and Away, the greatest television show ever made. Yep, a much better dad to have, she reckoned. Maybe. She hadn’t seen that show in years. Did they still make it?
Oh, bloody hell. Abyssinia was still talking. Now Razzia had completely lost track of what was going on. The only thing she knew for sure