PRAISE FOR VIKKI WAKEFIELD AND FRIDAY BROWN
Winner, 2014 Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature for Young Adults
Shortlisted, 2013 Victorian Premier’s Book Award for Young Adult Fiction
Shortlisted, 2013 Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA)
Honour Book, 2013 CBCA (Children’s Book Council Award) Older Readers
Shortlisted, 2013 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Young Adult Fiction
Shortlisted, 2013 Queensland Literary Awards, for Young Adult Fiction
Shortlisted, 2013 Western Australian Premier’s Book Awards Shortlisted, 2013 Gold Inky, Centre for Youth Literature
* * *
‘Friday Brown will haunt you long after you’ve turned the last page. Vikki Wakefield weaves the fantastical and the gritty into a harrowing, heartbreaking, intensely suspenseful story that’s as dangerous and starkly gorgeous as the Australian outback. It will break your heart then put the pieces back together in a new way. I absolutely loved this book.’ Libba Bray
‘A feat of storytelling.’ Sydney Morning Herald, Saturday Age and Canberra Times
‘When I finish a Vikki Wakefield novel I get a tiny ache in my heart because I’m already missing her gutsy characters.’ Melina Marchetta
‘Friday Brown is every superlative you can throw at it. It’s a masterpiece…There are no words to describe this novel adequately. There is only humbled, awestruck, heartbroken silence.’ Mostly Reading YA
‘That she’s a new shining star for Australian YA is a given. But her explorations in Friday Brown are urban and fantastical, coming-of-age mixed with thriller… Vikki Wakefield writes the tough stuff…Her characters are so vivid and endearing, or vicious and infuriating that she makes you feel everything down to your bones. 5/5.’ Alpha Reader blog
‘The gripping story and rich characters took me to places where I didn’t expect to venture…I devoured each page.’ Australian Book Review
‘This is a pull-no-punches story about learning the truth and growing up, full of the preciousness of friendship and love.’ Herald Sun
‘This novel is Australian young adult fiction at its best. Friday Brown will blow your mind.’ Viewpoint Magazine
‘A tense, multilayered tale about loyalty, memory and survival…Lyrical, suspenseful and haunting.’ Kirkus Reviews
‘Every single character in Friday Brown is utterly fascinating…Set against an Australian landscape brimming with the gothic, and full of elegiac beauty and intelligent insights into the human mind, this is a stunning contribution to young adult fiction. ’ Australian Bookseller + Publisher
‘This book is moving. Be prepared to have your heart ripped out because this is no light read. It gets you thinking and staying up all night pondering questions you’d never thought of before.’ Viewpoint
‘Beautiful and brave.’
Readings bookstore, Top YA reads 2012
‘Wakefield’s prose is rich, gorgeous and raw…It’s not often you discover such a unique and exciting voice.’ Scotsman Savages
‘Wakefield reveals herself to be a master of madness and suspense, rivaling such authors as Adele Griffin and Neal Shusterman. With the effect of both a seductive dream and a nightmare, the story throbs with uneasiness; curses, terrible secrets and twisted relationships all threaten to explode at any moment. Wakefield’s writing is gorgeous. She renders the Australian setting…with visceral detail, and her characters are disturbing, yet sketched with deep compassion for their lonely, wounded hearts.’ Booklist, starred review
PRAISE FOR ALL I EVER WANTED
Winner, 2012 Adelaide Festival Literary Award for Young-Adult Fiction
Shortlisted, 2012 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards
Shortlisted, 2012 Queensland Literary Awards
A 2012 CBCA Notable Book
Shortlisted, 2012 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards
Shortlisted, 2012 REAL Awards
Shortlisted, 2011 Gold Inky, Centre for Youth Literature
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‘This is one of the most memorable YA books I’ve ever read. The voice is original, the characters are real, the language is startling and beautiful.’ Cath Crowley, author of Graffiti Moon
‘Vikki Wakefield has created a feisty, sharp-witted and thoughtful heroine.’ Adelaide Review
‘With a heart-swelling conclusion, Wakefield’s novel contains characters so palpable you can imagine passing them in the street.’ Weekend Australian
‘In a tarnished world, Mim is tough and sweet and true. Utterly charming.’ Fiona Wood, author of Six Impossible Things and Wildlife
‘A brilliant coming-of-age novel. ’ Australian Bookseller + Publisher
Vikki Wakefield’s first Young Adult novel, All I Ever Wanted, won the 2012 Adelaide Festival Literary Award for Young Adult Fiction, as did her second novel, Friday Brown, in 2014. Friday Brown was also an Honour Book, Children’s Book Council of Australia, 2013. Among other awards, it was shortlisted for the prestigious Prime Minister’s Awards, 2013. Vikki lives in the Adelaide foothills with her family.
vikkiwakefield.com
textpublishing.com.au
The Text Publishing Company
Swann House
22 William Street
Melbourne Victoria 3000
Australia
Copyright © 2015 Vikki Wakefield
The moral rights of the author have been asserted.
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright above, no part of this publication shall be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously.
First published by The Text Publishing Company in 2015
Cover and page design by W.H. Chong
Typeset by J&M Typesetting
National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry
Creator: Wakefield, Vikki, 1970- author.
Title: Inbetween days/by Vikki Wakefield.
ISBN: 9781922182364 (paperback)
ISBN: 9781925095340 (ebook)
Target Audience: For young adults.
Subjects: Teenage girls—Fiction. Life change events—Fiction.
Families—Fiction.
Dewey Number: A823.4
For Russ
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY - ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY - TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY - THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY - FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY - FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY - SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY - SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY - EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY - NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
CHAPTER ONE
The worst part was the waiting. I swear I spent half my life with my chin on my hands, looking out the bedroom window. The summer I turned seventeen we were all waiting—our town was waiting for death to
bring it back to life; my sister Trudy was waiting for me to grow up so the rest of her life could happen; Ma was waiting for Trudy and me to disappear.
I waited for Sundays. Every other day was just an empty square on the calendar that I couldn’t wait to put a line through.
Friday night: a pale half-moon, no breeze. The air was so humid it was hard to breathe and my pyjamas clung to my skin. Even though it meant the world could see in, I switched on a light in every room. The sky was split open and the stars were a blizzard; in the trees, the high-pitched buzz of the insects was like an electrical pulse. My blood kept time. Sunday was still too far away.
Just before eleven, a car had driven up the dirt road behind our house to the hanging forest. Now it was after midnight and it hadn’t come back down.
I was good at being alone. I listened to the radio, played who’ll blink first with the possum in the gum tree, or wrote notes to Luke Cavanaugh that I’d never send. I had our old boxer Gypsy for company. She was twelve, arthritic and half-blind, but her instincts were sharp. Her under-bite was so bad we had to wipe her chin after she’d eaten.
Gypsy was lying in her corner of my room, blowing air and twitching in her sleep. I wondered if she was young in her dreams. Could she run again? Could she see?
I picked up my pen and opened my notebook. I wrote: I love you. Next to that I doodled his name over and over, in loops, in capitals, in daggers: LukeLukeLukeLukeLuke. Trudy always said you should never be the first to declare love, but by her reasoning it would never be declared at all. I crossed it out. I’d wait for Sunday and show him instead.
I slid open the window and plugged the hole in the flyscreen with my finger. The air outside was still but the ground moved—bugs, millions of them, drunk on light. A big Christmas beetle hit the window and landed on the sill, spinning on its back. A smaller beetle, maybe a male, clung to the mesh. I pressed my knuckles into the hole, working my fist until my arm went through, then flipped the big beetle over, unhooked the smaller one, and turned them to face each other.
‘Here he is. Look.’ I nudged the big beetle with my finger. ‘He’s right in front of you.’ The female turned a slow circle, shuddered her wings and took off, lured back to the light.
How on earth did they find each other, fumbling around in the dark, half-stunned and blinking?
I saw headlights, but coming from the main road. Gypsy’s reaction was lazy and late, so it had to be Trudy. I was relieved, but the other kind of relief would have been better. A minute later, Trudy’s wheezy Mazda pulled into the driveway.
I closed the window. When she walked in the front door, I was waiting.
‘You’re late.’
‘Are you my mother?’ She smirked.
‘A car drove up.’
Trudy’s irises turned flat and black. She shrugged. ‘I’m shattered. I’m going to bed. Max kept the bar open way past closing.’ She stretched, faked a yawn and untied herself: hair, shoes, apron. She took too much care undressing, folding and stacking her clothes on the arm of the couch. When she was down to her underwear, she frowned at the neat pile she’d made. ‘Were you waiting up for me?’ Her tone was breezy but a mad pulse in her throat gave her away.
‘There was only one person in the car.’ It was a lie. I was half asleep when I heard it and by the time I got to my window, the tail-lights were all I could see.
‘You’re obsessed,’ she said.
‘We can’t sit here and do nothing.’
‘That’s what the ranger’s for. Anyway, cars go up all the time.’
‘Not this late. I know. I listen.’
I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep. I wanted Trudy to stay up. She would never come to look for the car with me, so the best I could do was wait out the dark. Morning arrived late to our town and night came early; it was ten by the time the sun made it over Pryor Ridge and around four when it ducked behind Mount Moon. Everything in Mobius stretched to reach the light: we built our houses on stilts, our trees grew tall and spindly, our shadows were long.
Trudy roughed up the pile of clothes and they fell to the floor. She went to her bedroom, switching off lights along the way, and came back wrapped in her robe. She poured herself a glass of wine and I knew she’d stay.
‘Just one,’ she said. ‘Do you want to watch a movie?’ She climbed onto the U-shaped couch we called the banana-lounge and curled her legs under her.
‘You pick,’ I said.
She chose The Man from Snowy River, like I knew she would. Trudy liked films. I preferred documentaries. It was our version of conversation and letting the other choose was as close to kindness as we got.
I watched her watching the film. She always mouthed her favourite lines. Maybe she thought I didn’t notice—more likely she didn’t care.
Male company will be a pleasant relief in this hothouse of female emotions.
Trudy snorted. Wine spilled onto her lap.
I didn’t think it was that funny.
It wasn’t often we laughed at the same things and, considering the man-ban Trudy had imposed on our house, it was kind of tragic. Under her rule it was okay for me to come home raccoon-eyed and bandy-legged, but I had to come home alone.
Something inhuman screamed out in the forest.
‘Have you been feeding that damned cat?’ Trudy snapped.
I shook my head.
She poured another glass of wine but fell asleep before the movie finished, still holding the full glass.
I prised it from her fingers and set it on the table.
When she was drunk or asleep, the lines around my sister’s mouth disappeared. She unclenched her fists and smiled in her sleep. All of her spikes were laid flat. This was the Trudy I’d remembered and missed.
I lifted a stray rope of hair and placed it with the rest.
When the credits rolled I turned the volume down and started the movie over. I draped a blanket over her.
Gypsy came out of my room. She shuffled to her spot by the back door and flopped down like someone had let go of her strings. Her eyes rolled back. I peeked through the curtains, but the moon had disappeared behind a cloud. The road stayed dark.
Mobius called itself a town but it was really a populated dead end, a wrong turn, a sleepy hollow. Other towns had histories, natural wonders, monuments and attractions, but Mobius was only famous for one thing: fifty-three people who had left their possessions in neat piles, gone deep into the forest, and never come out.
Ma used to say that it wasn’t healthy for the moods and fortunes of a whole town to be dependent on that dirt road and what lay beyond it, but the forest didn’t scare me. It was just a bunch of trees as old as time and if there were ghosts, I’d never seen them.
People scared me.
Only Trudy could make coffee smell bad. My stomach lurched.
I pushed open the sliding door, stumbled onto the deck and leaned over the railing, gulping air. After a night like the last, daylight always made me feel foolish—for being afraid, for thinking everything was bigger and darker and scarier than it really was.
‘What’s this?’ Trudy called.
Her foot connected with something. She’d found the box.
‘What the hell are we supposed to do with a hundred cans of tuna?’
I didn’t give her an answer because I didn’t have one. That box of tuna accounted for nine hours of overtime—I had a choice between taking the tuna or letting Alby feel bad that he couldn’t afford to pay me again. It wasn’t his fault the roadhouse was dying, like everything else in our town.
‘Jack, they’re almost out of date.’ Trudy stood in the doorway. She waved a tin at me. ‘What about the pub? I’ll ask Max if you can start some shifts in the kitchen.’
‘I don’t want to work at the pub. Alby needs me even more now his dad’s getting worse.’ That would be on my headstone: Jacklin Bates. She minded the shop.
Trudy shook her head then turned to stare at our falling-down back fence. ‘You’re not going up there, are
you?’ Her gaze traced the line of trees up to the ridge. She looked back sharply. ‘Are you? It’s not our business. You can’t change anything. All you’ll get is an image you won’t be able to get out of your head for the rest of your life.’
I shrugged and flicked a dead beetle off the railing, onto the lawn. The backyard needed weeding. If you weren’t paying attention, the forest would take over; pull out one new shoot and three more came up in its place.
I sighed. ‘I won’t go, okay?’
‘I heard Alby’s old man was standing in the middle of Main Street the other day.’
‘When you have dementia you don’t know what you’re doing.’ I frowned at her.
‘I heard he flashed Meredith Jolley and that’s why she’s in the psych ward. She’s never seen one before.’ She laughed.
‘She has a son. I’m pretty sure she’s seen one.’
‘God, Jack, you have no sense of humour.’ Trudy spun on her heel. She stopped and turned suddenly, one hand on a hip, the can of tuna balanced on the other like a shot-put. ‘Are you still seeing that Luke?’
‘Yes.’ I didn’t have to lie to Trudy. Apart from the man-ban, she gave me plenty of space.
‘You should end it,’ she said. ‘He’s not the one for you.’
She had good reason for saying that but it still hurt. We’re kinder to strangers and people we don’t live with. When I went inside, Trudy had gone back to bed. She worked so many late shifts, she was mostly nocturnal.
I stood in the shower until the water ran cold. I wouldn’t see Luke until the next day, so I left my hair unwashed and ignored the stubble on my legs. I turned off the taps and stepped onto the bath mat. One of Trudy’s hoop earrings was jammed between my toes. Strands of her long, white-blonde hair were caught in my brush, tangled with my own darker, shorter hair. My tweezers were missing, my deodorant, too. I pulled a face at my reflection and, not a second later, forgave her again.
When my sister blew back into town a year ago, it was like she’d let the light back in. I was desperate to live with her. Trudy made anything seem possible. She was six years older; she’d been to Europe, liked it, stayed. Five years had passed without a phone call or a postcard, but I couldn’t blame her—I blamed Ma for making her go. I missed Trudy so much I slept in her bare room for three months. Ma had packed away her things within a week.
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