Carousel Read Free Page B

alternative music section in JB’s. I was supposed to stay by the dome to meet Taylor but got hungry and went to Coles. The corridor lights timed out and we chased each other’s echoes around the place for hours before giving up and sleeping where we were. It felt like losing your mum when you were a kid. And the sounds had made it worse. Without people, parts of Carousel echoed like crazy. So when Lizzy started crying in Friendlies Chemist, Taylor and I could hear her. And when Taylor started too I couldn’t really help it either. It was the first time any of us got upset. In the morning we found each other easily and all felt pretty stupid. So we charged some radios from Dick Smith and went shopping for belts to hook them on.
    Now I didn’t even notice it hanging by my side.Right now breakfast was at the Pure ’n’ Natural island. It had a microwave and toaster, but more importantly a freezer full of frozen fruit. Taylor and Lizzy were paranoid about getting scurvy after a former schoolmate of theirs contracted the ancient nautical condition. He was left to fend for himself while his parents were on holidays. They had a chest freezer full of frozen sausage rolls and party pies. So, thinking nothing of it, that’s all he ate for a month. Until he collapsed at school with pasty white skin and sores all through his mouth.
    Taylor and Lizzy Finn floated sleepily around the tropical-coloured island as I approached. Lizzy was putting together some weird fruit smoothie. She was slightly shorter than her twenty-six-year-old twin, but wispy in a way that made her seem taller than she actually was. She dressed herself in a lot of rock-star black but always with a flicker of feminine via a heart-shaped brooch or some smoky eye shadow.
    Taylor was reading the box while she toasted some Pop-Tarts. She shared Lizzy’s big, luminous eyes but hers had a kind of attitude that immediately distinguished her and somehow said both
What are you looking at
and
I’m really lost
at the same time. Taylor was all vintage denim jackets and high-cut boots. Ontheir album covers Lizzy was usually photographed at the front, but in an ironic kind of way.
    I gave them a little wave and stepped inside to clean a couple of plates at the sink.
    â€˜Is Rocky coming?’ I asked, once Lizzy had stopped the blender.
    â€˜He’s not answering his radio,’ replied Taylor.
    Lizzy shook her head and inspected the smoothie.
    â€˜We told him about that,’ I said.
    â€˜I know,’ shrugged Taylor.
    The Pop-Tarts shot up and I plated them, leaving a spare in the machine for Rocky.
    We chewed silently with a glass of purple smoothie to wash down the clumps of sugary dough.
    â€˜Do you need help moving equipment today?’ I asked Lizzy.
    â€˜Sure,’ she replied.
    Taylor was quiet. She’d kept right out of Lizzy’s plan to set up a recording studio from the equipment in the music store next to Target. I’d overheard them talking about it last week. Taylor telling Lizzy not to expect her to run in and play stuff once it was ready. Lizzy telling Taylor that she shouldn’t assume she would be invited.
    â€˜I’m so into these blueberries,’ said Taylor looking at her drink like it was mystical.
    â€˜I know, right,’ said Lizzy.
    â€˜Are we on to berry Pop-Tarts because the others are out of code?’ I asked.
    Taylor nodded. Food wasn’t our favourite topic now that items had started to reach use-by dates in all of the supermarkets.
    â€˜I was thinking that some of the stores in the food court might have storage freezers at the back with stuff inside,’ I said.
    They both nodded.
    â€˜Have you finished
Breaking Dawn
?’ Taylor asked Lizzy.
    â€˜Almost. You know there are like fifty copies in Dymocks, right?’ Lizzy replied.
    Taylor shrugged.
    A whirring noise interrupted them as Rocky wheeled around the corner on one of his kid’s-size mountain