Melissa, Queen of Evil

by Mardi McConnochie

  ‘You know what else we should do?’ Soph said, when we’d exhausted the list of people who’d offended us in some way, however minor or stupid. ‘We should test whether you can really make something happen.’

  ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘How?’

  ‘Let’s pick something and see if you can blow it up.’

  I felt a little prickle of excitement, mixed with something I could only describe as performance anxiety. What if this was all a big delusion? What if I didn’t have destructive powers at all? This could be very embarrassing. ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘What?’

  Soph looked round my room, hoping to see something to detonate, but nothing caught her eye. ‘Come with me,’ she said.

  We both jumped up and I followed her into the backyard. Soph spotted a sickly looking shrub in a horrible novelty planter shaped like a snail. ‘That,’ Soph said, pointing at it. ‘Detonate that.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Lightning, fire, I don’t mind.’

  I narrowed my eyes and stared at the pot plant. Nothing happened.

  ‘Are you doing it yet?’ Soph asked, after a while.

  ‘I’m trying,’ I said. ‘Nothing’s happening.’

  ‘Maybe you need to get angry,’ Soph suggested. ‘That’s what you said happened the other two times.’

  It was hard to get angry about a pot plant, even a very ugly pot plant; but then I started thinking about all the things that annoyed me and pretty soon I discovered that it was not really all that difficult to start a chain reaction. All I had to do was think about the myriad things that pissed me off about my life – starting with the small things, like the fact that Jason had eaten all the nice breakfast cereal this morning so I had to eat Mum’s nasty high-fibre stuff, and building up to the really big things, like Mr Boris – and pretty soon my heart was thumping and the blood was rushing in my ears and there were shivers surging up and down my spine, and I focused all my attention on the pot plant and then I felt it: a quick, convulsive pulse of energy, fwump! And then there was a sharp crack like a gunshot that echoed up and down the street, the snail-shaped pot exploded into fragments, and the sickly looking shrub did a 360 through the air and then flopped onto the deck, scattering potting mix everywhere.

  ‘Cool,’ breathed Soph.

  I didn’t say anything. I didn’t know what to say.

  The patio door was hauled open.

  ‘What the hell was that?’ Dad said, sticking his head out.

  I jumped – I hadn’t realised he’d come home. He spotted me and Soph standing there, no doubt looking guilty as hell, and then he saw the shattered bits of snail pot and the mess of plant and potting mix, and put two and two together.

  ‘Better get that cleaned up before your mother gets home,’ he said. He winked at me, then disappeared back into the house. I had no idea what he thought we’d done to the pot plant. Maybe he thought I’d been showing off my newfound bowling skills.

  ‘Your dad is way cooler than my dad,’ Soph said admiringly.

  I got a dustpan and some newspaper and we tidied up the mess and then took the poor unhappy shrub and replanted it at the back of the garden where I hoped it wouldn’t be too obvious. Its roots were all smashed up and the leaves were kind of pulverised so I didn’t hold out much hope for its survival, but it seemed wrong to just chuck it in the bin.

  ‘So,’ Soph said, when the shards had been binned and we’d watered the wilting shrub, ‘I guess this means you’re not going crazy then.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I guess I’m not.’

  We were silent for a moment.

  ‘Promise me you’re not going to tell anyone about this,’ I said. ‘Swear to me on everything you hold sacred. Because if this ever got out my life would be, like, over.’

  Soph’s face became very serious. ‘I swear on Bella’s grave that I will never tell a single soul.’

  Bella was our favourite character on Summerdale High, who was tragically killed in a boating accident, although her body was never found. When they had the funeral service they buried a single white rose in the empty grave and it was just the saddest thing you’ve ever seen. Me and Soph both cried for days about it.

  ‘But really,’ she added. ‘Who’d believe me?’

  Snowdome

  I had a lot to think about when I went to bed that night. I was no longer Melissa, student and cricket player ordinaire. I was Melissa, Queen of Evil. I still wasn’t completely sure I liked the idea – for one thing, I had no idea what I was going to be required to do as a destroyer – but Soph’s reaction had been sort of reassuring. I’d been worried she might freak out and refuse to speak to me ever again, but instead she thought it was kind of cool.

  And I suppose, in a way, it was kind of cool. Because there are plenty of moments in life when you really wish you could call down a lightning bolt from the sky – like when you’re walking past a building site, or a car full of bogans drives by, and they just have to let you know what they think about every aspect of your personal appearance. Now, instead of just ignoring them or shouting aw rack off I’d finally be able to do something really satisfying, like drop a piano on their heads or have the whole building site collapse into a huge, stinking, unmarked septic tank.

  Of course, there was always the possibility that I might run into an agent of order at any moment. And hadn’t Ben said something about a war?

  Tap tap tap!

  I froze, listening.

  Tap tap tap!

  There was someone at my window.

  Instantly, I thought of the agents of order. They’ve tracked me down already! They’re going to neutralise me! Various possibilities flashed through my mind: ignore them and hope they’ll go away, run like hell out the front door, yell for Mum and Dad.

  But I didn’t do any of those things. Instead, I got up and peeked through the curtains, my heart thumping in my chest. A huge dark figure loomed in the window, and I nearly screamed.

  ‘Sorry it’s so late,’ the figure whispered. ‘Were you asleep?’

  It was Ben.

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘Can I come in?’

  Sure, I thought, I let strange guys into my room in the middle of the night all the time. But there didn’t seem much point in arguing – after all, I had plenty of things I wanted to ask him – so I pulled back the curtains and opened the window and he clambered through and into my room. There’d be hell to pay if Mum or Dad came in and caught us together, but they were safely tucked away in front of the late news, so I hoped they wouldn’t notice.

  ‘Man, I’m glad I picked the right bedroom,’ he said, giving me a naughty smile.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ I asked.

  ‘I didn’t get a chance this afternoon to tell you everything you need to know,’ he said. ‘And there’s one thing I need to do before we go any further. Here.’

  He held something out to me, and I took it. It was a snowdome. I held it up to the moonlight coming through the window and saw that inside the snowdome was the Eiffel Tower, a guy on a bicycle in a stripy top and a beret with a baguette under his arm, and a cancan girl in a frilly skirt. A sign inside it said ‘Greetings from Paris’ in English, not French. I shook it and snow fell on the Eiffel Tower, the man in the beret and the cancan girl.

  ‘What’s this for?’ I asked.

  ‘We’re going to make this house into a safe house.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A safe house. It’s like a protective bubble around your house. It keeps agents of order out and stops them detecting you.’

  I felt a warm surge of relief welling up in me. ‘You can do that? How?’

  ‘Just imagine your house inside that,’ he said.

  I looked up from the falling snow to see Ben’s crooked smile. ‘And?’

  ‘That’s it. Trust me. It’ll work.’

  I shook the snowdome again, and as the snow flew in flurries around the tiny plastic Eiffel Tower, I imagined my house tucked safely inside it with the man in the beret and the
cancan girl. I felt the air around me start to quiver, and for a very brief moment I thought I saw a flash, like lightning. I looked out the window, hoping to see a science fiction–style force-field surrounding my house, but the back garden looked just the same as it had before.

  ‘Is it working?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s working.’

  ‘How can you tell?’

  ‘Next time you cross the threshold you’ll be able to smell it,’ Ben said.

  ‘Why? What does it smell like?’

  Ben crinkled his face up. ‘It’s hard to explain, but you’ll know.’ He paused. ‘There are safe houses all over the place, you know. Not just houses, either. I’ve found safe spots in parks, shopping centres. All kinds of funny places.’

  ‘So how did they get there?’

  ‘Other destroyers made them.’

  ‘And anyone can use them?’

  Ben nodded. ‘You should keep an eye out. You’ll be surprised by how many there are.’

  He paused, studying me. ‘So have you thought any more about being a destroyer?’

  ‘I thought you said I didn’t have a choice about it,’ I said.

  ‘You don’t,’ Ben said. ‘You’re a destroyer whether you like it or not. But it is up to you what you decide to do with your powers. If you want to learn how to use them, I can help you with that – to a certain extent. If you don’t, just say the word and I’ll leave you alone.’

  ‘What will happen if I don’t learn how to use them?’ I asked.

  ‘More of the stuff that’s been happening to you already – only it’ll get more frequent and more intense.’

  ‘So, what – every time someone pisses me off they’ll be struck by lightning?’

  ‘Or stabbed or shot or they’ll crash their car or their bus will jump off a bridge . . . ’

  ‘I’ll be a walking time bomb, in other words?’

  ‘That’s about it.’

  ‘Well in that case,’ I said, a little sarcastically, ‘I guess I’d better learn how to use them.’

  Ben smiled at me at last. ‘Good,’ he said.

  ‘So,’ I said. ‘What happens now? Is there a destroyer school?’

  Ben shook his head.

  ‘A rule book? An instruction manual?’

  ‘Nothing like that. The only rules are the ones you make for yourself,’ Ben said gravely.

  ‘But – but – there must be some rules. Things I shouldn’t do, stuff that’s not allowed?’

  Ben was shaking his head, a crooked smile on his lips.

  ‘But that’s nuts. There’s got to be something.’

  ‘Destruction has one guiding principle,’ Ben said. ‘For the new to flourish, the old must be destroyed.’

  I paused, thinking about it. ‘That’s it? That’s our principle?’

  ‘That’s it.’

  ‘It’s not much of a guideline, is it?’

  ‘No,’ Ben said. ‘It’s not.’

  ‘But how do I do that stuff you did with the waterspout? Or call down another lightning bolt?’

  ‘You’re going to have to work that out for yourself,’ Ben said.

  I was beginning to get a little bit annoyed with Ben. As guides went, he was proving to be pretty close to useless. ‘I thought you were supposed to be helping me,’ I said.

  Ben’s calm was unruffled. ‘Every destroyer has to find their own way,’ he said. ‘They’re your powers, and no-one else’s. I can tell you what I’ve learnt to do with mine, but that won’t really help you. Yours won’t work the way mine do – your powers are as personal as a fingerprint. You’ve got to find your own way through this.’

  ‘So I should just keep experimenting and hope for the best?’

  He looked at me curiously. ‘Keep experimenting?’

  ‘I detonated a pot plant.’

  He grinned. ‘And how was that?’

  ‘Surprisingly easy,’ I admitted.

  ‘There you go,’ he said, smiling. ‘You don’t need me.’

  ‘But there’s so much I still don’t understand,’ I said. ‘What are the forces of destruction? Where do they come from? Who decided to make me a destroyer and who picked you to be my guide?’

  ‘I can answer the last one. I got a message to seek you out.’

  ‘A message? From who?’

  ‘It came through the bracelet.’ He paused, looking at me. ‘You know, if you ever need my help you can use the bracelet to call me.’

  ‘How?’

  He closed his eyes and touched his bracelet with the fingers of one hand. The snake’s green eyes glowed –

  And then I felt it: Ben was calling me. It wasn’t like a telepathic message, it was just a feeling, a sudden knowledge, a certainty that he needed me. He opened his eyes again, and smiled at the look on my face.

  ‘Spooky, huh?’ he said.

  Spooky was not the word. There was something between us, a link, a bond, which was unlike anything I had ever felt before. It was quite disturbing.

  ‘And – you got a message like that about me?’

  ‘I just knew you were out there and that I had to be your guide.’

  I pondered this. ‘But if there are no rules, then why did you come and seek me out? You didn’t have to, right? They can’t make you do anything you don’t want to, right?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘It just felt like something I had to do.’

  I looked at him sceptically.

  ‘Look,’ Ben said, ‘I don’t know how any of this works. I’m really just trying to figure it out as I go along.’

  ‘But someone must have explained it to you.’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Didn’t you have a guide?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘I did.’

  ‘And didn’t you ask him all this stuff?’

  ‘Sure,’ he said.

  ‘And?’

  Ben shrugged, a bleak look on his face, and I wondered what he wasn’t telling me. ‘Here’s what I do know,’ he said. ‘Your powers feed on negative emotions: anger, fear, jealousy, aggression. The bigger the emotion, the more powerful the destructive energy. You’ve got to learn how to manage your emotions and manage your powers so you only go off when you want to.’

  I looked at him curiously. He seemed like such a cautious, guarded, controlled sort of guy it was hard to imagine him ever flying off the handle with rage. Then again, they say it’s the quiet ones you’ve got to watch. ‘So what sets you off?’ I asked.

  ‘I get competitive,’ he said.

  ‘Competitive about what?’

  ‘Sport. Winning. Being the first person to take off at the traffic lights. Anything, really.’

  ‘You don’t seem like that. To me.’

  He just smiled a half-smile, which said, more or less, that’s because you don’t know me.

  ‘Just remember, you can’t put your powers on hold forever,’ he said. ‘The energy produced by the forces of destruction is huge. If you don’t find a way to discharge it, the pressure keeps building and building until you explode. The consequences can be catastrophic.’

  ‘What could happen?’ I asked, alarmed.

  ‘It could be a natural disaster, like an earthquake. It could be a stock market crash or a gas attack on the Paris Metro. It could be a small war. You won’t know until it’s happened.’

  ‘But that’s terrible!’ I said.

  ‘That’s why you have to learn to use your powers properly, so you can control them. Otherwise they’ll control you.’

  ‘You’re freaking me out now,’ I said.

  ‘Just keep practising and you’ll be fine,’ he said, with a smile.

  Ravi

  Monday rolled around again after an incident-free weekend, and even though I now had terrifying destructive powers, I still had to go to school.

  Soph was waiting for me at the school gate.

  ‘Hey, did you remember to bring your money?’ she asked.

  ‘For what?’

  ‘“For what?”’ Soph rolled her ey
es at me. ‘The social, you idiot! Tickets go on sale today.’

  I had forgotten all about it. ‘Oh yeah. The social.’

  ‘You’re not going to chicken out, are you?’ Soph said.

  ‘No. I said I’d go, didn’t I?’

  ‘Yeah, but I wasn’t sure you actually meant it.’

  ‘Of course I meant it!’

  ‘Well then you’d better not forget your money tomorrow.’

  The school social was one of the really big events of the school year. It was a dance for the whole school, held on a Saturday night in the gym. A committee of students hired a DJ and did the decorations and the P&C sold drinks and snacks and every year someone would get caught trying to sneak alcohol into the gym and get suspended. Everybody talked about how stupid it was, but people usually ended up going anyway because they couldn’t bear not to.

  The year before, when we were thirteen, neither me or Soph had wanted to go to the school social. We weren’t really into music and we definitely weren’t into boys, so the night of the social we stayed home and watched a video instead.

  But this year, everything had changed. And it had all changed because of a boy called Ravi.

  Ravi was in the year above us and according to most of the girls in my year he was a god. He had skin like caramel and his eyes were really dark and he had beautiful hair which always looked perfect – in fact everything about him was perfect, from his clothes to his hands to the way he spoke. Soph was completely in love with him, along with nearly every other girl in my year. Personally, I wasn’t so sure – although I could see he was very good-looking, there was something about the way he smiled, as if he was secretly laughing at you, that made me a bit uneasy. Not that I had anything to worry about of course – he didn’t have the slightest idea I existed.

  ‘Are we going to look like total idiots if we turn up to the social without boyfriends?’ I asked, the first time Soph suggested we should go. Most of my information about school socials was based on TV shows, and in those shows, turning up without a date was social death. Especially the part where you had to slow-dance in a clinch with a boy. I didn’t know how to slow-dance and the thought of getting in a clinch with anyone was too mortifying for words.