LITMIR.BIZ

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so nothing bad can happen now. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. I know you better than that.’

      Amelia scowls but nods, satisfied.

      ‘Tell me what happened?’

      ‘Some fart-doodle planted this gear on Chloe. She told me about this guy at school who was stealing from the science lab. She warned him off and said she’d report him if he didn’t stop right away. Next thing, I see some dude going to a teacher and pointing at Chloe, and you know, he looked like a fart-doodle. So I got to Chloe’s bag and grabbed the stuff out first – a needle and a foil. Arsehole. Then that idiot teacher found it on me before I could ditch it and wouldn’t listen when I tried to explain.’

      ‘Did you see him plant it in Chloe’s bag?’

      ‘I didn’t have to see it, did I?’ she says scornfully. Lachlan, in spite of himself, grins. Amelia was always a smart one.

      ‘But he’s meant to be a Grade A student, and other people do love direct evidence, don’t they?’ Amelia sighs her bitter disappointment then raises her chin to glare over his shoulder at the sounds coming down the passage.

      Mrs Braithwaite brings Chloe into the room. Chloe has been crying.

      ‘Meely!’ Chloe pulls away from the teacher’s grip on her arm and rushes to her friend, who wraps her in a hug, but does not stop glaring at the teacher.

      ‘You will show some manners, young lady,’ the teacher snaps at Amelia.

      ‘I will when you stop being an idiot,’ ripostes Amelia. Lachlan knows he’s not supposed to encourage her in being disrespectful to adults, but honestly, the woman is an idiot and Lachlan is not going to berate Amelia for so intelligently noticing this fact.

      Mrs Braithwaite takes a breath, no doubt to demand he insist on Amelia exercising manners, but he turns his back on her and faces the girls.

      ‘Now,’ he says. ‘The facts.’

      Mrs Braithwaite, getting angry, starts to tell him about the drug paraphernalia found on Amelia, and possible police charges. Lachlan shushes her. ‘Let Chloe tell the story.’

      ‘It’s nothing to do with Ms Dykstra.’

      ‘It’s everything to do with me,’ says Chloe fiercely, and Mrs Braithwaite is forced to silence in the face of the girl’s sincerity. Mrs Braithwaite is unhappy, but she’s not an idiot. She folds her arms and waits for the new data.

      Between them, Amelia and Chloe tell the story of Jez Palmer’s petty larceny and attempted frame-up. Braithwaite’s lips are pursed. Lachlan gives the teacher an assessing look.

      ‘I think perhaps I should find young Jez and call his father as well,’ she decides. She gives a glare to Amelia. ‘You could perhaps have told me this earlier.’

      Amelia opens her mouth to snap that she’d tried, but she catches the look in her uncle’s eye, the one that says play along now, Amelia, we’re starting to win. She closes her mouth. ‘I was upset,’ is all she says.

      Mrs Braithwaite summons Lachlan to talk with her briefly in the hall. ‘Stay with the girls for the moment,’ she says. ‘I’ll see what I can get from Jez. Perhaps we can avoid police involvement.’

      ‘I won’t have Amelia suffering because of that vindictive little bastard,’ says Lachlan, voice tight with protective indignation.

      The teacher raises an eyebrow at him. ‘Jez Palmer is certainly not the Golden Child he pretends to be,’ she says. ‘But Amelia Carroway has her moments too.’

      ‘She’s a bit… brash,’ he concedes, because right now Mrs Braithwaite has too much power over them. ‘But she’s also honest.’

      Mrs Braithwaite gives him a funny sort of knowing smile, and Lachlan thinks maybe she knows a lot more about Jez Palmer’s true nature, and Amelia’s and Chloe’s, than she’s letting on.

      ‘Stay with the girls,’ she repeats. ‘I’ll be back shortly.’

      When Mrs Braithwaite returns an hour later, it is with the brief news that Jez Palmer has confessed all, that Mr Palmer senior will be handling the discipline for the matter, and that unless they wish to press charges, everyone is free to go home.

      Chloe is too embarrassed by her lapse to want anything more to do with it. Amelia seems to feel that justice has been served, because she was looking out the window and she could see how Mr Palmer was berating his son on the way back to the car.

      Mrs Dykstra shows up and hugs her daughter while getting the story. Chloe and Amelia hug goodbye and promise to see each other tomorrow. All’s well, so they say, that ends well, even though the dance has been spoiled.

      Lachlan, with Mrs Dykstra’s blessing, says he’ll take the girls to a live gig soon, to see a band they both like, to make up for it. Mrs Dykstra, who is single, is promised a ticket too, and she grins like it’s Christmas for her as well.

      Amelia and Lachlan are silent for a short while in the car ride home. Lachlan is still high on the relief of knowing that Amelia is all right, she’s all right, she’s going to be all right...

      He doesn’t flinch when Amelia reaches out to rub her hand along his forearm. Under his shirt, the track marks of his past feel the passage of her fingers through the cloth.

      ‘I would never,’ she says.

      He wants to say ‘I know’. What he says is: ‘Lives don’t always go the way we plan.’

      She squeezes the muscle under her hand. ‘I’m sorry for whatever made you pick that path.’

      Lachlan swallows. ‘It was... it made sense at the time.’

      ‘You must have been so lonely.’

      Lachlan blinks.

      She smiles at him, and he smiles back. She withdraws her hand and folds it with the other one in her lap.

      Amelia looks at Lachlan again.

      ‘I know you don’t like me noticing them,’ she says, and does not need to elaborate. The needle marks. The scars on his body, the marks of violence. She has scars too, he knows. For all that he wanted to spare her, he couldn’t, and there is a map on her body of mishaps and accidents. Nothing given to her deliberately, though. No harm done to her through malice or anger. He thinks he would destroy anyone who tried.

      His silence doesn’t faze her. ‘Do you know what Mum says about scars?’

      Lachlan shakes his head minutely.

      ‘She says that the thing about scars is that you only get them if you survive. Some scars are bad and some of them slow you down a lot, but if you have a scar, life tried to kill you and didn’t succeed.’

      ‘Is that what she says?’

      ‘I was asking her about hers, you know, the one from the C-section when she had me. She says she doesn’t mind it. She could have died, or I could have died, but we didn’t. The scar proves she outlived death, because the dead don’t heal.’

      Clara, thinks Lachlan, really is more than good enough for my brother.

      ‘We talked a lot about scars that day,’ Amelia continued. ‘Because you and Dad have so many and I wanted to know what it meant.’

      Lachlan swallows. ‘What else did she say, then?’

      ‘Mum says that some scars are what life gives you for being careless or unlucky, but at least you can learn something from them. Then, she says, some scars you get because you took risks so you could grow. And then, she says, some scars you get because you choose them, so you can protect someone you love or something that matters.’

      Lachlan thinks about all of his scars; the ones he got through carelessness and bad luck; the ones he got through risk. The ones he chose.

      ‘Those

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