Preloved Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  Blurb

  Logo

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Acknowledgements

  About The Author

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Other Books by Shirley Marr

  Amy has enough to deal with for one lifetime.

  A superstitious Chinese mother. A best friend whose

  mood changes as dramatically as her hair colour.

  A reputation for being strange. The last thing she

  needs is to be haunted by someone only she can see.

  Logan is a ghost from the Eighties.

  He could be dangerous.

  He’s certainly annoying.

  He might also be Amy’s dream boy.

  Chapter 1

  Whenever my mum decided to give me advice, it often sounded like this:

  “Amy, don’t bring an open umbrella into the house, because a ghost might be hiding under it.”

  “Amy, don’t touch the sleep on a cat’s eyes and then touch your own eyes, because you will see ghosts.”

  “Amy, never tweeze the hairs off the tops of your toes, or you will see ghosts.”

  If only I had listened to Mum.

  Only that morning, I had been thinking that all those superstitions might have worked when I was five years old, but I was sixteen now. If she was trying to prevent me from hanging out with boys, going to parties with boys or even being within a two-metre vicinity of boys, then sorry, I wasn’t about to freak out and hide under my bed.

  I was old enough to know better. To know that it was stuff like this that had psychologically scarred me for life.

  Today she had a new one that I’d never heard before.

  “If twins are born and one is a girl and the other a boy, then one needs to be adopted out or else one will die.”

  “Way to be dramatic, Mum,” I replied.

  “Let me finish my story, Amy. You know your twin cousins Audrey and Alfred? Uncle Andrew had Uncle Adrian become Audrey’s godfather and had Audrey spiritually bound to him with an invisible red string. That’s a perfectly acceptable modern-day solution.”

  I scrunched up my nose. “If the string is invisible, how can you tell that it’s red?” I questioned. “Where does this stuff even come from? The secret Big Book of Chinese Superstition that all Chinese mothers refer to?”

  Mum pursed her lips and gave me this haughty look of offence. She started vigorously dusting the stuffed owl on the shelf.

  “Your granny, your ah ma, told me these things, and I am sure your big-big ah ma told her in turn.”

  “I love it,” murmured Rebecca from the other side of the counter. “I love your culture, Amy. It is just too cool. I wish my mum told me stuff like that.”

  Mum threw her hands up dramatically. “Thank you! See Amy, why don’t I have a daughter like your nice friend here?”

  Rebecca shrugged.

  “Mum! You’re doing it again. You’re doing the Chinese mother thing. The emotional blackmail thing.”

  I grabbed the duster from her and threw it out the back.

  “And stop dusting Ollie like that, or he’ll end up naked like a raw chicken and no one will want to buy him.”

  That’s if anyone was creepy enough to buy a dead owl with yellow glass eyes anyway.

  Mum pushed her glasses back up on her nose and fiddled with the price tag.

  “I really hope no one buys Ollie. Sometimes when the shop gets quiet, well … he’s kinda like my little friend.”

  Mum turned her pencil around and rubbed the price out. I knew she was serious about it. Since she’d acquired Ollie at a flea market, he’d gone from $49 to $99. I figured soon he’d be so expensive that Mum would achieve her goal of keeping Ollie forever. And go bankrupt in the process. I could just imagine the two of us out on the street with nothing but that old featherbag keeping us warm.

  “I better go. Don’t want to be late for school.”

  “See you tonight then,” replied Mum.

  We paused awkwardly, our shoulders almost touching. Chinese mother and daughter combos don’t do hugs. That’s what I told myself, anyway. It was scandalous enough when Mum walked out on Dad. The Asian community had a field day. The after party of gossip on that one still occasionally stalked me in the fruit and veggie aisle of the supermarket.

  I grabbed my school bag, came out from behind the counter and nudged Rebecca towards the door.

  “I’ll try to come home early so I can help you in the shop, Mum.”

  “Bye, Mrs Lee. I hope you get lots of customers today,” Rebecca called out.

  “Remember, girls, if you walk past a cemetery and see a picture on a tombstone, don’t fall in love with that person, or they’ll come for you.”

  I could’ve sworn I saw Mum wink at Rebecca. I rolled my eyes and flipped the sign hanging on the front door to read “Open”. If I hadn’t, the shop would remain “Closed” for the whole day and Mum would wonder why no one came in.

  “Pfft. As if we even pass within a billion kilometres of a graveyard on the way to school. Our lives aren’t that exciting,” I said to Rebecca.

  I unwrapped the fresh flowers left on the front mat and arranged it in the basket of the vintage bicycle that Mum kept out the front. I wasn’t even sure the bike even worked; it’s only ever served as a glorified vase. Like most of the things in Mum’s shop, Buy Gones, it was old or unwanted or broken or all of the above.

  And pre-owned.

  Or as Mum preferred to call it, preloved.

  I walked with Rebecca through the depressing, still-empty suburban shopping square, as fast as possible away from Buy Gones.

  “I wish my mum was cool like yours.” Rebecca rolled her incredibly beautiful green eyes.

  “You really want a mum who tells you that she didn’t dare look at monkeys when she was pregnant just in case her baby was born with a monkey’s face?”

  Rebecca smiled. I could tell she thought it was funny, but she was too cool to laugh out loud.

  “It’s your heritage, your birthright. I wish I had something that … deep.”

  “Please don’t say that. The wind might change. And you really don’t want that. Not today.”

  I realised that I hadn’t even had a good look at Rebecca’s outfit. I made her stop and turn towards me. I smiled.

  “You’re going as Kylie Minogue? Australia’s Pop Princess? Seriously, Rebecca? I thought you were cool and punk and alternative.”

  Rebecca twirled around for me.

  “Well, it is ironic fashion day and I’m doing just that. Being ironic.”

  Our school, Middlemoore High, had resorted to dire fundraising tactics to pay for the Year 12 Ball. Since school had started this year, they’d been holding middle-of-the-week fancy dress days for a gold coin donation.

  In its defence though, it has been a lot of fun. Some of the themes we’ve had so far have been Superheroes and Villains, Private School (as we’re a public school, that’s been the most fun and ironic) and Come As Your Favourite Book Character.

  Today was Eighties Theme, and I had to admit I was a little excited.

  I had asked Mum for advice.

  “Mum, I know you know heaps about ancient stuff.”

  “Amy! The Eighties weren’t that long ago.”

  “It was thirty years ago. That’s, like, almost twice my age. That means I could have lived twice over.”

  “You know, Amy
, when they say single parenting is hard, I think they’re referring to stuff like this,” Mum had said.

  Right now, I admired Rebecca as she curtsied in front of me, the brightest thing in the drab shopping square. She was dressed as Kylie Minogue from the cover of her eponymous 1988 debut album. The one where she’s wearing a hat, except it’s just the brim of a hat and her hair is coming out the top.

  You’re probably wondering how I know all this. Secretly, I wished I had been a teenager in the Eighties. Everything looked like it was so much more fun: the fashion, the music, everything. I often felt like I was cruelly born into the wrong generation.

  Rebecca had somehow managed to curl her mass of wild hair to get the volume. And she was wearing an off-the-shoulder black spandex dress. The only thing about her that didn’t look Kylie Minogue-esque was the colour of her hair.

  It was purple.

  Rebecca changed her hair colour all the time. It was Fantasy Fuchsia before. She says that next week it might be Tangerine Dream or Too-Cool-For-School Blue.

  “You look so awesome!” I admired. “It must be so hard to be awesome all the time.”

  “I’m not awesome.” Rebecca sighed. “It’s not my fault all the boys like me and all the girls hate me for no reason.”

  “Hey, don’t worry about it. Teenage girls are just rampant with rabid mean girl hormones,” I replied, tucking into my breakfast of a metre-long raspberry liquorice strap. “Give them a few more years and they’ll all give up on trying to have lives and become nice housewives and office workers. And the boys like you, ’cos why wouldn’t they? Look at you; you’re a fanboy’s dream.”

  She seriously was. Rebecca not only had the scene hair, she also wore stuff like knee-high boots, tartan skirts, tutus and Fifties-inspired bombshell dresses. And she read stuff like The Bell Jar and The Edible Woman. I read Girlfriend fiction and Alex Rider. And, secretly, Twilight.

  It suddenly struck me that I was Rebecca’s only female friend.

  “Oh my God, Amy, you’re dressed as Princess Buttercup. How cute.”

  Indeed I was. From my favourite Eighties movie The Princess Bride.

  I didn’t care if I was Rebecca’s only female friend. There was nothing wrong with her. Other girls were just jealous. I was pleased that I had a friend who had so much pop-culture brains and not some airhead who instead would say, “OMG, Amy, like, what on earth are you supposed to be today? Some sort of goth?”

  Having a mum who was into antiques and vintage stuff had its uses. She surprised me last week by finding, during one of her sourcing trips, a long-sleeved tomato-red gown that looked almost identical to Princess Buttercup’s red riding dress. She helped me fashion a belt from parts of old gold necklaces. Now, wearing a pair of old riding gloves from a deceased estate and a long corn-blond wig, I was all set.

  I sighed. What I remembered most about The Princess Bride was having the chickenpox when I was eight. Disregarding the itching, the pain and the disturbing pinkness of calamine lotion, I remembered the joy of being away from school for weeks.

  Staying at home, tucked in bed, I would watch the movies Mum liked when she was young. The Princess Bride. Labyrinth. The NeverEnding Story. And not on downloads or DVDs, but on video cassettes. Yup, the retro days. The VCR sat next to the laser disc player that Mum would occasionally sing karaoke on.

  I remembered freshly popped corn dusted with icing sugar. I remembered the scene in the end when Westley and Buttercup rode off together happily ever after, while back in reality, Mum threatened to hit Dad over the head with a beer bottle if he didn’t stop drinking so much.

  Those were the best days of my life.

  “To be honest, Amy,” said Rebecca in her droll, slightly deep and sexy voice, “I really admire your mum for doing it alone. Following her dream. Raising you single-handedly. That sort of thing. It can’t be easy.”

  “Hang on. Are you trying to say that I need more than one hand to be handled? Shit! What is that?”

  Up ahead, intending to block our path, were three boys. Two of them stood facing each other, hands on hips, looking at the ground. The third one was poking a stick into the large rectangle of water that was supposed to be a water feature or a wishing fountain outside the shopping square, but had degenerated into an open gutter with rusty coins at the bottom.

  I was pretty sure they were boys who went to our school, because they were all sporting matching blond mullet wigs.

  “Oh no.” I put out an arm to stop Rebecca. “I think we’re about to be ambushed by a pack of – Jason Donovans!”

  There was one in a horribly loud shirt that was paisley and abstract at the same time, and one in stonewashed jeans and a white T-shirt with a tab-collar jacket. The third was in a black tux, re-enacting the Neighbours-era Jason Donovan who married Charlene, played by – you guessed it – Kylie Minogue.

  “Bex! Bex! Come over here, Bex!” They started heckling and surged forwards.

  “This early in the morning?” I muttered to Rebecca, rolling my eyes.

  Rebecca looked at me as if to say, “I can’t help it. What is the big deal with me?”

  “Okay, boys,” I said to the three of them, and I got ready for business. I put my hands on my hips and stood in what Mum would say was an unladylike manner.

  Even though I was dressed as the heroine, I knew that in our movie, it was Rebecca who was the star. Me? I was just her short, awkward, Asian best friend. Which did have its advantages, because everyone instantly believed I was O-Ren Ishii from Kill Bill, with martial arts skills.

  “Get out of the way, you Bexter groupie,” said one of them. He came closer. I recognised him and his sidekicks. They were the library crew who liked to sit around at lunchtime and have discussions like, “Tolkien’s role in bringing ancient fantasy archetypes to the mainstream and shaping the fantasy fiction genre as we know it today. Discuss.”

  “Groupie?” I repeated. Ugh. “Excuse me, but I’m her best friend.”

  Why did Rebecca have to attract so much attention wherever we went? From gods and geeks alike. I straightened my wig.

  “Go away. Or else I’m going to kick your arses.”

  This wasn’t true, of course. I couldn’t do any sort of martial art to save my life. I was pretty sure if someone else decided to mirror my pose, I would squeal and run off.

  I could see the lot of them eying me, trying to work out if I was being serious.

  Yeah, you know it, I nodded back to them.

  “Okay, whatever, but can’t we talk about this?” said Jason Donovan in the tux, who was obviously the number one JD on the JD Barometer of Supremacy.

  “Can’t a girl even walk to school these days without being assaulted? What’s happening to society?” I shouted as they all backed away. “Right, Bex?” I turned my head to look at her. Rebecca looked back at me with her big sullen eyes just like a maiden in distress.

  “Let’s get going before these jerks try another trick.”

  “Oi! Bexter’s sidekick! I bet you didn’t expect this … secret weapon!”

  Tuxedo Jason Donovan held something metal and rectangular in the air.

  “Oh my God,” I mouthed. “I hope that’s not what I think it is.”

  It was.

  A music player from the Eighties my mum termed a “ghetto-blaster”.

  I’m not sure what people who didn’t live in ghettos used.

  Tuxedo Jason Donovan inserted a cassette into the player. Mum explained to me that you could get cassettes in two forms: as full-length albums or … “Cassette singles,” said Mum. “As the cool kids would say – cassingles.” At that point I fell off my chair from laughing.

  Suddenly the air was filled with the tinny strains of the Kylie and Jason duet. “Especially for You”.

  “Turn it off! It’s horrible!” I covered my ears.

  “Ha! We win, fangirl,” one Jason Donovan yelled at me.

  “This has gone too far,” I shouted back.

  “Amy! Don’t do it.” Rebec
ca grabbed my arm, but I shook her off.

  I don’t know what came over me that day. It was like something just snapped inside my mind.

  I marched up to the ghetto-blaster and kicked it over. I ejected the tape and I held it up to Tuxedo Jason Donovan AKA Michael Limawan’s face. Then I bounced it off his forehead.

  Let me plead ignorance: I didn’t expect it to hurt as much as it did. The corner of it hit Michael between the eyes and he screamed. Then he fell backwards into the water.

  “Amy!” shouted Rebecca.

  “Argh! Oh! Don’t worry, I have this under control.” I spun around.

  And I knocked Rebecca in the shoulder.

  I could say in hindsight that it was her fault for creeping up so close to me, but it was nice to know that when friends get into trouble, they go in together.

  Rebecca grabbed me by the arm and we both fell into the rank, disgusting, algae bloom water.

  I opened my eyes to find three Jason Donovans (one wet and now sans wig) staring down at me.

  “Get lost. Now!”

  They all simultaneously looked at Rebecca to see if they could save her.

  I did a kung-fu hand and they scattered.

  “What a morning. Oh … yuck.”

  I looked down at the beautiful Princess Buttercup dress that my mum had sourced just for me. I pulled the damp blond wig off my head and threw it aside.

  I looked over at Rebecca. Her dress was also submerged in the slimy water, but because it was black, it wasn’t so bad. She still looked great from the shoulders up.

  “Hey, what have you got in your … hair?”

  I carefully picked it out of her curls.

  It was a thin silver chain. At the end of it was a locket.

  “Is this yours?”

  “No,” replied Rebecca.

  Was it a tone of displeasure I detected in her voice? I rarely saw her angry. Angsty in an arty way, yes, but Rebecca was way too cool to throw tantrums at me.

  I quickly looked down at the locket. Disappointed. I wouldn’t be a true antique dealer’s daughter without knowing a thing or two. It was what you would grade as “a piece of crap.”

  Rebecca stood up. I watched as the water dripped down her black pantyhose.

  “Do you want it anyway? After all, you – or your hair – found it.”