The bell rings. The lights go on. The half of the class that is awake bolts; everyone else drags themselves blearily to their feet. I shake off my maudlin navel-gazing and swing myself from my stool.
Elsie gathers her things. Damien Pagono passes us while humming the chorus of ‘Brown Sugar’, grinning at Elsie and giving her a wink that she has categorically defined as ‘skeezy’. Evidently, our complete lack of response to the last half a dozen times he has serenaded us with songs about brown girls has not lessened his enthusiasm. Elsie and I have discussed this at length, but we still can’t decide whether it’s racist. As usual, we both ignore him.
‘Another week down. Sixteen to go.’ Elsie tucks her books into her bag. ‘So. Are you really okay?’
I struggle into my blazer as the class jostles around me, a swirling vortex of polyester and wool. ‘Yes. I’m fine. Just … had a moment.’
‘Sure, okay. Any reason why your moments seem to be happening more frequently lately?’ she asks carefully.
‘Is this your attempt at an official diagnosis, Doctor Nayer?’ I say, straightening out my uniform.
Elsie raises an eyebrow. ‘When I’m head of cardiology at a flash hospital, I’ll remind you that you used doctor so belittleishly.’
I didn’t mean to sound so crabby, and I don’t think she’s actually annoyed, but just to be safe I say, ‘I’m sorry, Els. I’m just … tired.’
Elsie picks up my chewed pencil, which has somehow ended up on the floor. ‘Sophia, go home. Watch telly. Tomorrow will still be tomorrow tomorrow.’
I force a smile. ‘Fortune cookie?’
She grins. ‘Nope. Quote-of-the-day loo paper.’
‘So the best advice you can offer me is from the toilet? Is that supposed to be a metaphor for my life?’
Elsie reaches behind me, briefly, and untwists the strap of my bag. ‘Metaphorical toilet or not, Rey, I think, all things considered, you should take your inspiration wherever you can find it.’
I grab the TARDIS wallet that holds my pens, and pull back the zip.
There is a card in my pencil case.
It is smooth and new-looking, blue with a silver pattern of swirls and stars on one side. A standard poker-sized playing card. (Sixty-three by eighty-eight millimetres. I don’t know how I know this fact.)
I flip the card over.
On the reverse is the two of hearts.
Elsie leans across the bench. ‘Are you taking up blackjack? We could make a fortune with your endetic memory.’
‘Eidetic. Elsie, this isn’t mine. Is it yours?’
She snorts. ‘Do I look like my Auntie Amita? I’ll start playing cards when I develop that hormonal moustache.’
I frown at the card. It stares back at me.
The two of hearts is contained within a finely drawn black hourglass. The top and bottom bulbs hold the red hearts, one pointing down and the other pointing up; in the middle of the bulbs, through the neck of the glass, a trickle of red sand joins the hearts together. It’s simple. But sort of beautiful.
‘Elsie, seriously, how did this get here?’
She sighs. ‘Sophia, don’t fixate. It’s just a card.’ She tugs at her ponytail, black waves bouncing – her annoyed-sign that I know means she is ending this conversation. ‘I gotta get to band practice. You sure you’re okay?’
I shake myself out of my stupor. ‘Yes. I’m fine. I’ll see you tonight?’
‘Yup. Need help with Physics homework. And Maths. And I’ve got more brochures for campus accommodation that we need to evaluate. Seriously, if we don’t choose wisely, I’m gonna end up in a dorm with a bunch of toothy American cheerleaders. Or worse – the Bible kids.’ She throws me one of her wide smiles and skips out of the lab before I can respond.
Donkey balls. I am so not in the mood for Elsie’s Future Planning tonight.
I glance at the card again.
It really is pretty. I guess the sand is supposed to be spilling from one side of the hourglass to the other, but there’s no way to tell in which direction. It’s a perfect palindromic image; mirrored hearts keeping some impossible, immobile time. But …
My pencil case has been sitting in front of me, zipped shut, for the entire hour and twenty minutes of the class. I have not moved. No-one has approached me.
Fact: This card is not mine. This card is not Elsie’s. It was not here at the beginning of the lesson. There is no logical way it could have slipped into my pencil case.
I flip the card over.
The two of hearts …
Intriguing.
CHAPTER TWO
The paradox of time travel
I bolt home from the bus through one of those sideways rainstorms that no amount of umbrella calisthenics can thwart. I’ve lived in Melbourne my whole life but the weather still freaks me out; blue-sky mornings that descend into gusty grey by lunch, as if the city is suffering from some chronic mood disorder.
I stumble through our side door and into the freezing kitchen. My brother is camped at the dining table, skinny frame huddled inside his parka. I can see condensation in his breath; his lips are tinged blue. Toby recently acquired a Finnish exchange student as an Economics study partner, and he’s been filling my big brother’s head with all sorts of nonsense about memory conversion and thermoregulation – nothing with much scientific basis that I can find but regardless, thanks to Viljami, we’re no longer allowed to use the heater during exam time.
Toby’s books are spread in front of him. His black hair is slipping slightly out of its side part, and a third of his polo shirt has come untucked from his pants. I suspect that he must be extra-stressed. My brother, normally, would never let himself look so rock star.
He startles as the door slams behind me. For a second I almost think he looks pained, like that time Dad accidentally clipped him in the balls with a mini-golf putter. He quickly rearranges his expression into unreadable blankness.
‘Hey,’ he says. He opens his mouth, then closes it again.
‘Hey,’ I reply. I drop my wet things on the kitchen floor, swiping dripping hair from my eyes.
Toby straightens his pens. ‘Good day?’ he mumbles.
‘Yes. Fine. It was … school.’ I glance at Dad’s souvenir magnets and photos of the Sri Lankan cricket team on the fridge. They don’t seem to have anything to contribute to this conversation.
My brother and I have always been useless at sports, but Dad likes to say that if there was a doubles division in the Awkwardness Olympics, Toby and I would be gold medal shoo-ins. Dad also likes to say that comic relief is the best cure for hostility and tension. I am fairly certain no-one else in our house is on board with this theory.
Toby taps at his laptop. ‘Did Mum text you? She and Dad are at Auntie Helen’s again. Apparently there’s some new crisis with Nisha’s wedding decorations. Mum’s left, like, eight kilos of chicken pasta in the fridge. And money for pizza.’ He sniffs. ‘Just in case I’m incapable of working the microwave, I suppose.’