This was incredible.
The faint strains of a song reached her ears - Prince’s Pussy Control.
Her cellphone. She didn’t even have to look it at to know who was calling – Annabel had chosen the ringtone herself.
“Sunny?”
Ohshitohshitohshitohshit. Steph had heard her phone from downstairs and had assumed, quite rightly, that she was home. Sunny heard her footsteps on the stairs.
“Uh, yeah.”
Steph knocked politely and pushed the door open slowly. Archie sat perched in her arms. He gave Sunny a big toothless grin and waved his arms furiously when he saw her.
“Are you ok? What are you doing home?”
“I wasn’t feeling well. So, ah, I kind of, I sort of ditched.” Sunny had learned from past experience that it was best to keep as close to the truth as possible when she was indulging in subterfuge.
“I know. That’s why I’m here, the school called. You never made it to fourth period, and Mrs Price was worried,” Steph said, studying Sunny intently.
“Well, I’m fine. Not feeling great, but I think I just need to sleep it off.”
Steph stepped closer, looking carefully at her. She seemed to reach some mental decision and smiled.
“Ok. I’ll make you some hot chocolate and bring you up some Panadol and a hot water bottle, and then I gotta run. I’ve got some errands for your father, and Archie’s got an afternoon play date at Jenny’s after that.”
“Right.” She held out her arms to Archie for a cuddle and Steph surrendered him without a fight. She turned and went downstairs and busied herself in the kitchen.
Sunny held Archie close and looked him in the eye. “I have a secret,” she whispered to him, smiling.
“Ahh raaagah gee!” Archie answered her, bashing his tiny fist against her forehead, apparently understanding perfectly.
Once Steph had deposited the hot chocolate and hot water bottle in her arms and saw her tucked up in bed, she collected Archie and went on her way. Sunny had one more loose end to tie up, and she would be free for at least four hours.
She picked up her phone and called Annabel. She must be in Trigonometry – Mr Albertson didn’t care if the students carried on their personal lives in his class, as long as the problems were completed. Annabel was a math nerd and would have finished the class already.
Annabel answered her phone immediately. “So, I think soaking in Napisan would be the best. If you don’t have any, I hear you can use a paste of bicarb soda and water and that works fine too.”
“What?”
“To get the stains out,” Annabel carried on, at completely normal volume. “I know that’s what happened. Why else would you run off like a fat kid after an ice cream van? You bled through. Aunty Flo made a surprise visit, didn’t she? Moses came parted the red seas right out the sides of your knickers, right? You must have gushed all over your skirt, by the way you slung your bag over your butt and made a run for it.”
“Ahhh… yeah.” God, Annabel was crass. But it was a good alibi as any. “Yeah, I didn’t see that one coming. Anyway, I’m not coming back today. Cramps, you know.”
“Oh man, tell me about it. When I’m having my blood baby I’m popping ibuprofen like they’re M&M’s.”
Charming. Suddenly Sunny clicked…
“Did you call Steph?”
“She called me. I told her why I thought you’d left.”
That explained the chocolate and the water bottle.
“Why didn’t she call me?” Sunny mused out loud.
“Because you’re such a bitch to her. She’d just expect you’d tell her it’s none of her goddamn business.”
“Well, it’s not.”
“She’s a nice person, Sunny. She is sweet, she loves you, she loves Ben, you’re just jealous,” Annabel said in a sing-song voice. They’d had this conversation many times.
“You don’t know her, Annabel. She’s so fake. Underneath all that drippy niceness, she’s so calculating I swear I can see the code run past her pupils like she’s a flipping cyborg or something. She’s not what she seems. I just know it.”
“Whatever. Hey, no spoilers on the next episode of House of Glass. I know that’s what you’re about to do.”
“Yeah, right. Say hi to Simon. Don’t tell him why I left.”
“Are you kidding? I even mention periods and he’s rocking in the foetal position with his hands over his ears.”
“Ha. Bye.”
“Bye.”
Sunny hung up and smiled. Time to experiment a little...
Chapter 5
She pulled the vibrations all over her and opened her eyes in her new world. God, it was beautiful, even in the ordinariness of her room. She floated up out right up through the roof and looked around. Where to?
First, she wanted to see how high she could go. She drifted up, slowly at first, rising out of her house and into the air above Forster. The town looked tiny from up here – the houses were laid out in perfect grids and looked like models, the cars that were shooting down the roads looked like toys. She flew up and up, slowly, then quicker when she realized how effortless it was. Then faster, faster, she was shooting up like a rocket, the endless blue of the sky whispering past her shimmering body. She stopped abruptly, floating like a genie, and looked down.
Whoa. She couldn’t see her house anymore. She couldn’t even see Forster. She could see the whole of the mid north coast. She could make out what she thought was Newcastle to the south, and up north, she could see the major islands of the Great Barrier Reef. She grinned to herself and went higher. She wasn’t having trouble breathing – she wasn’t even sure that she was breathing air. She was pure energy, floating through space as if she was part of it, just only fractionally defined by her substance. She went higher, higher again, so fast that she thought her heart would explode with the joy of it all, until she could faintly make out the barrier between the earth’s atmosphere and space.
It was so beautiful, the fuzzy blue ring, then the pure blackness of space, punched by brilliant tiny specks of pure rainbow-bright stars. She stopped and looked down.
She could see the whole of Australia. To the southeast, she could see the outline of New Zealand, and the tiny dots of the Pacific Islands beyond that. Up ahead was Indonesia, she could see Africa bending softly over the horizon. It was as though she was a god with a globe, looking closely at the southern hemisphere.
She laughed softly to herself and headed north, eager to explore this amazing new world. The distance seemed like nothing – whole countries flew beneath her.
She could only recognise each continent from a height - when she flew too low, she was dazzled by the beauty of the energy on the earth and found it hard to orient herself. She went back up and spotted the American continent.
Fantastic, she had always wanted to see New York. She headed back down.
As she got closer to the earth, she realized her new power was a little flawed. She didn’t know where the hell she was. Her geography was limited to the major cities in the states; LA on the west coast, New York on the East. She headed in the vague direction where she thought New York might be, expecting that she would be able to see the Empire State Building and figure it all out from there.
As she drifted lower, something else occurred to her. What did she look like? Soon someone might spot her, and then all hell would break loose. Stories of Supergirl would soon be all over the world. Everyone had a cellphone these days; someone would get video. Fuck.
She backed up and headed a bit more south to what looked like a more isolated area. She imagined she was somewhere in Texas, near Houston, perhaps? Here, the beautiful bright-light energy of the trees and landscape made her dizzy with wonder. She lowered herself, looking around intently for any sign of humanity, and realized she was coming down in deep jungle.
It was overwhelming. The jungle teemed with life, all shimmering colours weaving in and around each other. Monkeys, birds, and lizards lit up the trees like lanterns of all di
stinct colours, pinks, bright yellows, bright aqua. Tiny bugs sparked on the jungle floor like little firecrackers. The pure light greeny-blue glow of the older trees dazzled her so much; she couldn’t take her eyes off them. They produced a strange resonance that seemed to indicate their ancientness – the giant trees thrummed with a deeper timbre, and she was entranced. She wandered absently, soaking in the hum of the trees, awestruck at the beauty of the jungle in this dimension.
After a while, she wanted to see some humans. She went up again, only a little this time, and then headed toward what looked like a handful of smaller houses scattered around a few bigger buildings. She came down towards the edge of the small town, eager to switch back to reality so she could explore at ground level. She landed softly near a stone wall that seemed an entranceway into the village, underneath a huge magnolia tree. She tried to grasp the tenuous feeling to push the vibrations back down.
Nothing happened. Sunny stayed in the other world, in what she was beginning to think of as the ‘Alternate’- her alternate dimension.
Sunny concentrated, getting the feel of the shape of her power. It was becoming familiar; she just needed a bit of practice.
She heard voices and panicked. What must she look like? A burning girl, floating in the air, all fuzzy at the edges? A flying sun-coloured ghost? She was about to launch herself into the sky when she realized that this was a good opportunity to see what she looked like to other people. If she scared the crap out of a few small-town folk from the Deep South, she thought, who would believe them? These guys were always seeing aliens.
She braced herself and turned towards the voices.
Three people were headed towards her, clattering down the dirt road - an older lady and what must have been her two little children. They walked towards her, gabbling away in what Sunny thought was Spanish. When they were closer, Sunny held her breath. They gambolled straight towards her, both little girls skipping and singing away, holding their mother’s hands and talking a million miles an hour. They were three feet away before Sunny realized that they couldn’t see her. At all. They were ignoring her completely. Yes!
Feeling braver, Sunny stepped to the left, straight into the path of one of the little girls. She swung her mother’s arm as she sung to herself, then passed straight through Sunny’s ghostly form. They carried on down the path, which wound down through some trees and out of sight.
Grinning wildly to herself, Sunny went in search of a bigger city to do some exploring. Straight up she went, and, spotting some huge buildings miles away, she came down. From the sky, it looked like a busy city at the edge of the water. Further up the hills sat some huge mansions. It looked like a good start, so she headed down, stopping at some of the bigger buildings in the city.
The streets were busy. All around her were people, glowing bright with assorted colours, all the hues of the rainbow and some strange combinations, in all different shades and levels of brightness. Dark blue, bright pinks, deep purples, everyone had a beautiful and unique glow. Some colours flickered quickly, some pulsed gently, some were a whirlwind of light within their hosts. Sunny looked around, drinking it all in.
Then she realized: was everyone speaking Spanish? Maybe she wasn’t in Houston after all? She looked closer at the buildings around her.
All the signs were in Spanish. A big stately building caught her eye – Banco De La Republica Colombia.
Colombia. She wasn’t in the United States of America. She wasn’t even in Central America. She’d overshot the mark a bit, by oh, about fourteen countries.
Sunny drifted up towards the hills. The beachside city gave way to lush grass, tall trees and huge mansions. One enormous building must have been some kind of palace – it was huge, overlooking the whole city, with dense green foliage and big bright flowers surrounding tennis courts and swimming pools. Armed guards walked everywhere in their simple short sleeved shirts, automatic weapons slung over their shoulders. They gave Sunny the creeps, but she reassured herself that nothing could happen to her. She was invisible – she was invincible! There was nothing that was closed off to her now. She could sneak in anywhere, and no one would ever know that she was there!
She floated up to a wide terrace and through some French windows. Before her sat a huge dining room table, with exquisite table settings, sparkling cutlery, and elaborate centrepieces. The room was decorated with gorgeous artworks - she was no art buff, but she thought she recognised what looked like a Picasso near the bar, a Modigliani in the corner over a cavernous fireplace. This was so fascinating! Who lived here? Some kind of prince?
She moved through the rooms inspecting every object inside, each room as gorgeous as the next. She ignored the doors and drifted straight through walls and hallways, and came to a plainer room with not much in the way of opulent décor. It had just a desk, computer, some lab equipment, and a long table with some odd packages.
Sunny looked closer at the packages. They were stacked in fat lumpy pyramids on the table, it looked like vacuum-sealed flour…
Cocaine. Annabel would freak out. She had strong views about cocaine in Australia. Some of their fellow students had bragged about snorting lines at parties on the weekend, until she pointed out that their coke probably made it to Sydney in the arse cavity of a dirty backpacker. Sunny had lived in Sydney long enough to know what an overindulgence of drugs could do to someone. But curiosity caught her; she almost absent-mindedly pushed back the vibrations so she could return to Reality. Solid now, she picked up one of the packets and hefted its weight in her hand.
Then she froze in terror when a piercing shriek filled the air.
She had set an alarm off somewhere. Stupid stupid stupid! She glanced up and saw tiny cameras in the corner of the room. She was about to enter the Alternate when she realized how that would look on camera. They would have it on film! Then all sorts of witch hunts would start, and with facial recognition software these days… whoever owned this house wasn’t short on a penny and could probably track her down to the other side of the world. What was she going to do? She wasn’t safe. Why did she think she was invincible? She was a fool.
She started hyperventilating a little and looked around in panic.
Eventually, she crawled under the desk, hidden from view from the cameras. It took every ounce of concentration she had to ignore her mounting fear and clear her head enough that she could focus on the vibrations in her hands. She was hidden for only a second before armed guards burst into the room; they headed straight for the desk, saw that she had disappeared, and yelled at each other in confused anger. Sunny backed eagerly out of the room.
She’d had enough of this terrifying journey. It felt almost physically painful, to go from feeling invincible to being in the worst, most grave danger. What an idiot she’d been.
She wanted to go home. She drifted backwards through the wall and turned around, apparently in another industrial-use room, smaller this time, windowless, with a small portable bed in one corner, and a toilet and basin in the other.
And there was a little girl handcuffed to the bed.
Sunny’s stomach, already sick with fear, gave a terrified lurch. The girl was small, about ten years old, with long dark hair streaming over her shoulders. She wore a cute sundress and a fashionable cardigan, but both were dirty and ripped in places. She sobbed quietly, looking nowhere in particular, oblivious to Sunny’s presence. One hand cradled the other - a dirty bandage around her right hand emphasised the fact that her little finger was missing. Oh God.
Sunny looked up in the corner of the room – there was a camera there in the ceiling. She had to get this poor girl out of here, but how? There was only one exit, a small door with four deadbolts on it. Sunny thought frantically – she would need a distraction first, then she would need someone to open this door. And she would have to act quickly.
Sunny reluctantly turned away from the little girl and headed out. She went back into the gardens and found a large tool shed set apart from the main house. A vas
t menagerie next to the tool shed outside caught her eye; she saw two enormous Bengal tigers pacing backwards and forwards in their cage. Sunny drifted forward, telling herself that the tigers couldn’t hurt her, although they seemed to do a lot of swiping and growling in her general direction. She studied the gate, concocted a hasty plan, then headed into the tool shed.
She would have to act before she lost her nerve.
She entered reality while she was walking into the tool shed to fool any cameras that might be watching. She grabbed a crowbar, a can of spray paint and some bolt cutters and raced out the door to the menagerie. She quickly sprayed “Animal liberation!” on the side of the tiger’s cage, and took to the lock with the bolt cutters. As soon as the lock was cut Sunny flung the gate wide open and ran like the devil was after her.
She heard shouts behind her – the guards were already looking for a strange girl on the premises, freeing the tigers was a good red herring and should keep them occupied for a while. But she was counting on one of the guards checking on the little girl, and she had to move fast. Cradling the crowbar and bolt cutters, she bolted into the house, keeping low to the ground. She moved quickly down the grey stone hallway to where the little girl was being held.
She heard an angry shout coming from within the room. A squat, muscular man was standing in the doorway, mercifully looking away from her. Hugging the walls, ready to disappear in an instant, Sunny crept up to him with the crowbar and hit him on the head as hard as she could.
The guard dropped like a bag of cement. She took a quick look inside the room – another man was yelling a stream of abuse at the petrified little girl. Her eyes widened when she saw Sunny. The man noticed her distraction and turned, but he was too late. Sunny struck him on the head while he was turning and he fell to the ground, unconscious.
She flung the crowbar down and faced the little girl who was screaming at the top of her voice.
“It’s okay, it’s okay, I’m here to help.” Sunny tried desperately to calm her. “Uh, moy ba-weeno, moy ba-weeno. Ah, Ander-lay. Ander-lay. Guacamole… burrito.”
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