Girl Defective by Simmone Howell Page A

Otis?”
    â€œYeah,” I said. “He’s like . . . total catnip.”
    Quinn laughed. She looked completely different from in school. Open, friendly. Less bulldog-ish. She paused to snap two guys who’d scaled the sides of the building to lift letters from the marquee. Old Eli Wallace was in his camp chair, watching, his face an etching of despair. Quinn snapped him, too. Finally she lowered the camera. She pointed city-side. “I’m that way.”
    I pointed in the other direction. “I’m that way.”
    â€œI know,” she said. “The record shop, right?”
    We smiled at each other like we shared a secret and then forked off.

DESPERATE ANIMALS
    I WENT FROM GLOOM to rushing. I felt jittery, alive. I half ran, half skipped with one hand on my new necklace, my heart pounding. The night was all things coming together and breaking apart, like kaleidoscope patterns, like kisses. The lights of McDonald’s pulsed. The traffic was a steady throb. The clown face of Luna Park looked sinister in the half dark. I slipped onto the park path, into shadows, and heard movement by the iron siding, a scraping noise. Behind the bushes someone was pasting up a poster—a poster of Mia Casey.
    â€œHey!” My voice broke the quiet. The guy turned around, startled, and he was Luke.
    â€œIt’s you,” I said, but that was all I could manage before lights swamped us and a voice commanded: “Stay where you are.”
    Luke pushed past me, knocking me down. In that moment I heard something fall. I crouched and my fingers found Luke’s glasses. I clutched them and stood up again, and blinked into the torch of a big-faced policeman. There was another officer with him. She steppedout of the shadows, and I saw she was Constable Eve Brennan. My mind whirled on the smallness of St. Kilda and the bigness of my fuck-up.
    â€œYou’re Bill’s kid, right?”
    I nodded.
    â€œWhat are you doing?”
    I found my voice. “Going home.”
    â€œWho was with you?”
    â€œI don’t know. I don’t know him.”
    â€œWhere have you been?”
    I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.
    Eve exchanged a weary look with her partner. “Come on.”
    The police car smelled like warm leatherette and antiseptic. I was in the backseat but not cuffed or anything. I pictured the cell, bread and water, skeleton keys. I played out scenarios—the stuff of Gully’s dreams: being printed and interrogated under a bare, swinging bulb. The station loomed, all matte black and windows. Eve’s eyes met mine in her mirror. She gave me a firm smile. “I’ll take you home.”
    I nodded. She was giving me something and I was grateful. I hoped I didn’t look stoned, or that if I did, Dad would be too pissed to notice.

    Eve came up with me. Up our skinny stairs into the too-bright light of the living room, where Dad was dozing in front of an old movie. She clocked the emptiesbut didn’t mention them. When Dad saw her, his face was like the picture for HAPPY on Gully’s chart. When he saw me, it changed to CONFUSED , and then ANGRY.
    â€œWhere the hell have you been?”
    I still had Luke’s glasses in my hand. I moved them behind my back. “The movie finished early, so we went to a party. It’s okay. I’m okay. Nothing happened.”
    Dad ran his hand through his hair and then brought it down quickly to cover his beer belly. He was in his friendlies: a Cosmic Psychos T-shirt and football shorts that showed way too much leg. I looked at our flat the way Eve would see it: the unwashed dishes, the Pee-wee Herman poster, the bills skewered on the antlers Mum had found at a garage sale a lifetime ago.
    â€œShe was walking home by herself,” Eve reported.
    Dad stared at me. “Where’s Nancy?”
    I smiled a stupid involuntary smile, and Dad’s face just crumpled.
    â€œAre you drunk?”
    I ran