Trust Me

Chapter 1

The story begins on a windy day in May, and when I say windy, I mean windy. Things aren't done by halves in this corner of the globe.

The power to eight hundred houses on the west side had been cut by fallen power lines, slashed out of the air by broken tree branches, or so the solemn news anchor is reporting. She shuffles her papers and continues in a much peppier voice that the Pets in the Park walk had continued despite the wild weather and I turn back to my phone where a little speech bubble had popped up.

"Do you think training will be cancelled tomorrow?" Paige's immaculate face grins up at me from the corner of the screen beside her message and I remember briefly how long it took to get that photo exactly right. We had spent at least an hour on hair and makeup and then a further thirty minutes on getting it so that it looked like she had been caught completely unaware by the photo as if she just looked that perfect all the time. To be fair, she did typically look quite stunning and put together so it's not too much of stretch. I speedily type back.

"I think a meteorite could hit and training would still be on."

"I'm not going if it's raining this hard." I sigh at the message, she won't bail, she knows how seriously training is.

"Suffer the wrath of Mr Walt then."

"True. gtg dinner."

"See ya :)" I toss my phone down beside me and flop back onto the couch, reaching out to stroke my cat, Jemima, who had pressed herself again my thigh when I sat down.

"There's no way she could miss training tomorrow because she missed it last week," I whisper to Jemima's sleeping face. She slowly lifts her eyelids and stares irritably at me. "You know I'm right, though," I tell her and sit up again to give her some peace.

The next programme comes on tv and I turn my attention to the game show, only half listening to the over-excited host with blindingly white teeth. Behind me the wind lashes at the window, rattling the glass pane with concerning force. 

"Ivy, don't you have homework to be doing?" My mum calls from behind me on her way to the laundry. I let out a loud groan and roll myself off the couch, landing clumsily on my feet and standing up.

"Doing it," I reply on my way past, shooting her a cheeky smile as I pass the door. My bedroom is at the very back of our single-storey house, divided from the other bedrooms by the bathroom and laundry. I've gotten so used to the constant rumble of the washing machine and the sound of the water in the pipes that I barely even hear them but it drives everyone else insane, especially Paige.

My room is also the smallest in the house, barely more than three metres square, but just like the noise, that hardly bothers me. I have my narrow single bed shoved into the corner, covered in the same dark blue, star-speckled doona I've had since I was ten, and my chest of drawers is pushed up next to it. It doubles as a bedside table. My desk is opposite that, buried under a mountain of loose papers, study materials and miscellaneous items. The beige walls make it seem cosy and close, which I find more comforting than suffocating, as my older brother Matty complains.

I scoop up all of the random crap on my desk and dump it on my bed and start laying out all of my books and pens. Finally, I turn on the fairy lights strung across my ceiling, like I do every evening and sit down to work.

***

"Do people not realise there's a line?" Paige hisses angrily at me, her eyes staring daggers at the girl who had just cut in front of us. The line at the canteen is moving painfully slow today, partially due to a new person being trained and also because people keep slipping into the line before their turn. I just shrug in response and move slightly closer to the people ahead of us so that no one else can push in front.