“Get out,” Nia says. But there’s no venom in her voice. If anything, there’s a smile that sits in the corners of her mouth and a warmth in her warning. She likes Zak more than she’ll ever like me. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t care. Or maybe it’s because I’m too sensitive.

That’s what he thinks. He says, if I stop giving a shit, Nia will stop acting so bitchy. But I do give a shit. That’s who I am. I can’t just turn it off.

“You need to decorate,” Zak says. “Your room looks like a prison cell compared to this.”

Nia flashes me a look I can’t interpret, waits until Zak has left, then closes the door behind him.

“You shouldn’t piss her off,” I say.

“She loves it! She’d be pissed off if I didn’t go in there.”

“What do you think of her door?” I ask.

Zak glances at it. “It’s all right.”

“Do you notice anything?”

He looks again, then shakes his head and says, “Not really.”

“What about those?”

I point at the eight tiny holes and Zak looks closer. “I don’t get it.”

No one does. But who’s wrong? Me or them?

“Don’t you think it’s weird? It looks like this locked from the outside. Mine does too.”

Zak is quiet for a while, then he says, “That is weird.”

“You think so?”

“Yeah. Did your mum try to lock you in again?”

“It’s not funny. I think something bad happened here.”

“You think something bad happened everywhere.”

I don’t say it usually does. I just take the lock from my room and hold it against the door. “It fits perfectly. I think Amy was locked in.”

Zak makes a face. “Who’s Amy?”

He’s been out sick for a few days, so I tell him everything. And, when I’m done, he doesn’t say I’m foolish. He sits in silence for two long minutes, then finally he nods and says, “If you won’t ask her, I will.”

16

At school, Zak points at every girl he doesn’t recognize and asks, “Is that her?” over and over until I shake my head hard.

“Please don’t do this.”

“Why not?”

“Because she’ll think we’re weird.”

“We are weird.”

He’s right. But that’s no reason to broadcast it.

When Amy walks past, he almost doesn’t notice. Then he points and says, “Is that her?” And I must be a second too late because he grins. “It is.”