Andrea Höst - And All the Stars

Nash hesitated. "It makes most sense to be proactive, to clearly describe the situation and pre-empt any…less calm announcement. We’ve held back to gauge the environment at Rushcutters."

Now that most of the Greens were up and having opinions. If Madeleine was a Green, she’d probably have an opinion about Nash too. But then there was Tyler.

"Noi and I should be able to support my cousin," she said. "Though I guess he’s already managing. We’ve been working on the relocating plan, in case things get weird, and have keys to enough boats to stage a carnival. Is it okay if I tell her?"

They agreed to that, and left her considering the sketch she’d just completed: Shaun and Nash watching Pan. Would Tyler and Nash be able to feed off normal humans as well, or only Blues and Greens? Would all Blues be seen as dangerous monsters, either destructive or life-stealing?

Before long a car arrived carrying five Blues in their early twenties. More people drifted in while these were running through their tests, a trickle which became a stream, until there were hundreds, Blues and Greens, far more than anyone had expected. Someone had brought a portable stereo, there were picnic baskets, umbrellas. As the day warmed, a handful went east of the lifeguard tower to swim. Then Pan discovered that he could use a partial force field to launch himself into the air, and immediately after frantically found a way to slow his fall with another, splashing down into the surf in a minor explosion of spray.

Madeleine drew. Faces full of excitement, strain, hilarity, irritation, hope, suspicion. People who clumped together, never straying too far from their particular friends. Those who sat apart. The group around Fisher, Shaun and Nash, pontificating at each other. The handful who had decided to jump off the walkway and force shield bomb the sand, and the group who went to lecture them.

Among the small sea of strangers Madeleine spotted Finger Wharf residents, and stopped sketching to talk to Asha, and to meet Mrs Jabbour.

"It is the feeling of taking a positive step," Mrs Jabbour explained, gazing fondly at her husband and daughter as they prepared to test. "Even though we saw that you had more than enough participants, we still wanted to come, to take part."

"Saw?"

With a smile, Mrs Jabbour nodded at the railing above and behind them. "The special news broadcast. Did you not know?"

Madeleine looked, and saw two women with a professional-weight camera. Wincing, she turned away.

"We will be leaving, early tomorrow," Mrs Jabbour went on. "To the house of a cousin on the South Coast. If you and your friends wish to join us, you would be welcome."

"Aren’t the roads still closed?"

"The main roads perhaps. We will find a way."

The idea of just getting out of Sydney was tempting, but Madeleine didn’t want to go too far from her parents, and explained their situation.

"You, too, have been blessed then." Mrs Jabbour held out her hands as Faliha came bouncing up, glorying in the length of her punch. "Cherish that gift."

Like Madeleine, the Jabbours were rare in not having lost anyone from the very core of their little family. Even Madeleine’s grandparents were fine, off up in Armidale.

Reminded of Noi, Madeleine looked about and couldn’t spot her. Tucking her sketchbook into her shoulder bag, she climbed the stairs and wandered across to the Bondi Pavilion, a low, square building with galleries and a gelato shop, lockers and showers. No sign of Noi, no response to her tentative call in the toilets.

Not quite concerned, Madeleine headed back toward the beach and stood at the top of the flat series of stairs to the left of the lifeguard tower. Bondi Beach was enormous, large enough for ten thousand, let alone the few hundred clustered around its centre. Noi shouldn’t be hard to find.

Far to her left an isolated figure in a sunhat was standing at the very eastern end of the beach. Noi. Madeleine headed in her direction, and Noi must have seen her, starting back.

"I think they’re about through," Madeleine said, when she reached the older girl. "The flow of new arrivals has slowed, at any rate. Did you know it’s being broadcast?"

"Yeah. Casey and Djella, ABC Sydney’s newest – and only – roving reporters. One of them was a sound editor, and the other some kind of junior-league production assistant. They knew a heap of interesting goss. You know the home billeting thing being set up – people volunteering to take in some of the city outflow? Blues and Greens are going to be specifically excluded, no matter what the science types say about there being no sign of person to person transmission. And they want to collect any Blues and Greens who are already outside the city, and not let them stay with uninfected people. Even their own families that they’ve been staying with for the past week without any sign of passing this on."

"I guess it’s too early to be entirely certain we won’t start spewing out dust," Madeleine said, far from pleased. "It’s only going to get worse when they know there’s two types of Blues." She explained briefly about Tyler and Nash.

"Is that what’s going on with Nash?" Noi produced a low, appreciative whistle. "Just what we didn’t need. Damn, I was already looking forward to meeting your cousin. This makes him twice as interesting! Think I can talk him into biting me?"

Madeleine gave Noi a wary look, and realised she was being teased.

"People really did give you a rough time for having Tyler Vaughn as a cousin, huh?" Noi said. "I would have thought they’d be queuing up to ask you to wangle an autograph."

"Some did. But at that point I hadn’t seen Tyler for six years. We knew he’d come back to Australia, and then we spotted him guest-starring on Blood Mirror . It wasn’t until they asked him to come back as a rival love interest, and that whole you realise I’m physically male story was released that most people back home even recognised him. School got very strange after that."

She rubbed her forearm, still able to find a slight lump.

"It wasn’t the people objecting to the way he dressed who were my main problem. All his new Biggest Fans were angry at me for not producing him for some kind of show-and-tell session, and then decided to be offended that I didn’t refer to him as she ."

" Tyler is Tyler ," Noi murmured, repeating what had become his fan club’s catchcry.

"Yeah, this was before he gave that interview about labels, and what he identified as. I got trapped in an argument with a bunch of girls about me not being sensitive or respectful enough and, well, we were at the top of a flight of stairs. I ended up with a broken arm, Mum took me out of school for what was left of the year, and we moved to Sydney."

The two people in school she’d thought her closest friends had been in that group. None of it had been strictly intentional; it had all just escalated into stupidity. At her new school she’d almost gone out of her way to cultivate a stuck up bitch reputation, and had maintained total disinterest in socialising right up until she met Noi’s Devonshire tea.

For someone who had been so convinced friends weren’t worth it, Madeleine was aware of spending more and more time worrying about Noi. She wanted to find ways to make it easier for her, to relieve the hurt beneath her surface good humour. It was an impulse born of more than just a practical need for allies, or a change in herself to fit a new world. There were some people that you were just meant to be friends with.

"Will you tell me about your family?" she asked tentatively, and saw immediately that it was too soon, adding: "Some time?"

Noi had turned her head so the sun hat hid her face, but she nodded, and increased her pace, weaving through the clusters of people sitting on the east side of the lifeguard tower.