‘Maybe,’ Tilly said.
I grabbed one of Mango’s paws and squeezed it so that her claws poked out of her fur like pieces of plastic.
‘We should paint her nails,’ said Tilly, stroking one of the claws.
‘Alright,’ I said.
Tilly left the room, and when she came back she was carrying a bunch of different-coloured nail polishes. She dumped the bottles on the ground, and then lined them up in a row, straightening them so we could read the names on the labels.
‘What colour?’ she said.
I picked out a purple one, the colour of a bruise. The label said it was Midnight Plum. I put Mango in my lap and held her paws while Tilly unscrewed the nail polish. Mango didn’t seem to like it and hissed for a bit, and then whipped her head around to nip at my arm, her eyes wide as buttons. I held her tighter, and Tilly jabbed the brush at the claws quickly. Most of the nail polish ended up on Mango’s fur.
‘I’m hungry,’ Tilly said.
‘Me too,’ I said.
‘Leave her in here,’ Tilly said. ‘Mum will be mad if she wees all over the house.’ I scooped up Mango and put her on the blanket. I gave her a few pats, touched the tip of her nose with mine, and slipped the nail polish in my pocket, quickly so that Tilly couldn’t see. She closed the door when I came out of the room. I could hear Mango meowing, her sock paw poking out from under the door.
In the kitchen, Tilly opened the cupboard and pulled out a bag of Shapes.
‘What flavour do you want?’ she said, riffling through the bag. ‘I want pizza but there’s only one of those left.’
I put my hand in the bag and took out the first packet my fingers touched.
Tilly looked at the flavour I’d chosen. ‘Good,’ Tilly said. ‘I hate cheese and bacon.’
We ate the Shapes standing up in the kitchen, chewing and not talking. I leaned against the stove and pressed my foot against the black burn on the floor, big strips of lino peeling away. When Tilly was done she licked the tip of her finger and pressed it to the corner of the packet to get all the red and yellow specks of flavour.
‘You should probably go,’ Tilly said.
‘Don’t you want to keep playing with Mango?’
‘Mum will be home soon.’
‘So?’
Tilly paused. ‘She doesn’t want you or Wally over here.’
‘Why not?’
‘I only let you in because Mum’s at work,’ she said. ‘She thinks you’re both rough as guts.’
I felt tears rush behind my eyes. ‘I’m not rough,’ I said.
Tilly shrugged. ‘Well, that’s just what my mum says.’
I ran my tongue over the mush stuck in the grooves of my back teeth. ‘Is that why you don’t come over anymore?’ I asked.
Tilly shrugged again.
‘I thought it was because of Ian,’ I said. ‘What happened at Christmas.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I know Ian did something. At first I thought the blood was because of something else, but now I know. I know he did something, like what he did with the girl in the school toilets.’ I didn’t even realise I’d connected the two things in my brain until I’d said it out loud. I hadn’t thought about what I’d overheard in the knackery for months.
Tilly stared at me for just a second, but then her eyes went out of focus, her face blank. Something invisible had passed between us and I knew for sure she was never going to be my friend. I looked around the lounge room, at all the strange furniture and knick-knacks. They didn’t belong here with us. I suddenly felt sick, as though I was very far away from my own house and not just across the fence. I wanted to go home. I wanted to pinch myself very hard.
I walked to her room.
‘Where are you going?’ she asked, her face and voice back to normal.
I turned around. ‘Mango,’ I said.
‘Oh, yeah.’ Tilly followed me to the hallway. She opened her bedroom door and when Mango scampered out I grabbed her. I glanced into Tilly’s room for one last look. Mango had pulled the blanket off the bed, and the inflatable chair was covered with scratches. It was slowly deflating into the carpet.
In the kitchen, Cassie was sitting at the table. I’d hardly spoken to him since he’d pulled my hair and yelled at me. He hadn’t even said sorry, but I was getting tired of trying to remember to ignore him. He didn’t seem to see me until I sat down next to him. He glanced up and then back at his food, took a mouthful of spaghetti.
I took the bottle of Midnight Plum out of my pocket, unscrewed the lid.
‘Where’d you get that?’ Cassie asked.
‘Tilly gave it to me.’
‘When?’
‘Just then,’ I said. ‘It’s called Midnight Plum.’
I started painting my nails. The first hand was neat, but when I tried to do the thumb of my left hand, it felt like the muscles in my fingers had melted. My hand wobbled and the polish smeared onto the peeled flaps of skin on the sides of my nail.
‘Here,’ said Cassie. He put down his fork and took the nail polish from across the table. He held my hand in front of him, dipped the brush into the polish and slowly ran it along the nail of my index finger. ‘The second hand is always the hardest,’ he said, as though he was giving me an important piece of advice.
For a second it was as though the old Cassie was back. He finished my nails and blew on my hands. His breath was warm and wet. I fanned my fingers out on the table and looked at my nails. The ones Cassie had done were even messier than my thumb.
‘Your worms are getting cold,’ I said. I put my hands under the table, but he kept staring at the place where my hands had been, like he was trying to magic them back again. ‘What are you looking at?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Are you alright?’
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘I had this weird dream last night,’ he said, taking another mouthful of spaghetti.
‘What about?’
‘I was driving along the highway when I felt something go underneath the wheel. I hit something—a roo, I thought—so I stopped the car and got out and looked at the road in front of me.’
‘What was it?’ I asked. ‘What did you hit?’
‘There was nothing there.’ Cassie put his fork down, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘But when I got back into the car there was this girl in the back seat. Her skin looked real bad, and I reached out to touch her, and when I did the skin was so thin it just peeled away, until there was this hole where her bellybutton should’ve been. A mouse started burrowing out of it. Just the one at first, but then another and another, until there were dozens of them, just streaming out of this dark black hole, running up her chest and then up into her mouth which was wide open, just going back inside her again.’
Cassie picked up his fork. I didn’t know what to say. I felt sick that something so awful could come out of his brain. Cassie once told me it’s bad luck to tell people your dreams, but I bet that was just something he’d made up, another lie. I tried to remember my dreams from the night before but I couldn’t. I never remembered my dreams. Maybe I didn’t have any. Maybe my brain died when I slept.
‘Do you ever feel like something bad’s going to happen?’ Cassie said.
And I said no, because I didn’t realise it at the time, but the rot in my stomach, the little pin that rubbed away at my insides was that feeling he was talking about.
‘I think I’m getting sick,’ Cassie said. ‘I feel real crook.’
Cassie got up, went outside. I watched him from the kitchen window. He stood on the verandah and lit a smoke, put on his shoes and walked across the yard. He stood by the gate for a while, squatting down and pulling out weeds that were growing along the fence posts. It started to spit again. He turned towards the yellow house, took a few steps towards it, but then climbed over the gate and wandered into the paddock.