Indigo in the Storm

Text © Kate Gordon, 2023

This is a work of fiction. Names, places, events and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Published by Riveted Press
Unit 3, 5 Currumbin Court
Capalaba QLD 4157
Australia

First published by Riveted Press in 2023

Print ISBN: 978-0-6452180-3-9
eBook ISBN: 978-0-6452180-6-0

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means without the prior permission of the copyright owner. Enquiries should be made to the publisher.

Printed in Australia by Ligare Book Printers

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Dedication:
For Tyron, Liam and beautiful Zoe.
You were all so very loved.
-KG

Indigo Michael was born during a storm. Her mother—barely more than a child herself—went into labour at home, alone.

They were both lucky to survive.

Her mum gave birth while songs from old movies played on her ancient CD player and the world outside roared in protest—wind and rain and ice lashing the windows and trees bent double in protest. The CD skipped as Indigo emerged into the world.

At that exact moment, all that could be heard was her shrieking.

Indigo came into the world noisy and wild—the only way a baby knows to be. But her mum didn’t like it when she cried. She soon learned to be quiet, at least at home. Sometimes, when she wasn’t at home, things burst out.

Some of the wildness.

Some of the storm.

Indigo had her father’s eyes, his nose, and his temper. At least, that’s what her mother said.

Indigo remembered what it felt like, to be held by him, and that he smelled of grease and tobacco and cheap aftershave. She remembered that he once read her a sad picture book, about growing up and growing old and dying. He cried when he read it, his arms wrapped around her. He kissed her and whispered, “I’m sorry.”

That was all she remembered.

Some people might say that at least she still had her mum. But Indigo knew—she always, somehow, knew, deep down in the very centre of who she was—that one day her mum would leave her, too.

And then her mum left. Of course she did. Because that was what happened to kids like Indigo.

When it happened, everyone told Indigo she wasn’t the reason, but Indigo knew they were lying. Because she was the problem.

Why would you stay for a kid like her?

Indigo was certain she knew what they thought of her at her new school. The principal tried to make it all okay. “You’re ‘on a journey’,” they said, smiling wide as a shark. “You’re a ‘work in progress’.” But Indigo knew that her journey would be longer and rockier than any of the special kids at this special school. She knew that whatever “work” she was becoming, she would never be as shiny or bright as they all were.

Stupid hippie school.

Why even try? This was the way it was, for kids like Indigo. She was all alone, and she always would be.

She was all alone and all the anger inside of her was far too big to fit inside one small girl.

That’s why it happened.

She just…

Broke…

Everything.

Without even trying.

She was too full of lightning and thunder and fire, big enough to destroy the whole world.

Her mother was gone, and Indigo felt as if the storm that brought her into the world was now trapped inside her.

The tablets kept it at bay, but it never really went away.

The time would come when it would surge again, and Indigo felt scared of what would happen, then.

Noni told her that, one day, she’d find out why she was really her—what really set her soul alight.

But she couldn’t see past the clouds, now.

There were only clouds. So heavy, so full of rain, blocking out all the light.

And the inevitable soundtrack of everything breaking.

Not only the things she hit, the things she threw, but trust. Friendships. How could a cloud break the whole world?

Some days, Indigo wished her storm would erupt out of her, all the way to the sky. All the way to the edges of the island.

She wanted it to be so loud and powerful that every human would turn around, looking for its source.

It would be as big as the world, as bold and impossible to ignore.

It would be so big and so loud that her mother would have to see it.

Maybe then she would finally come home.

Chapter One

The sky was cracked in two.

One side was the brightest shade of blue. The other side was all clouds—heavy, dark and menacing.

Indigo had never seen a sky so torn about who it was.

She squinted her eyes at it, nodded at it, knowingly.

It looked like how she felt inside.

Indigo felt a tickling on her ankle. She looked down to see a tiny ant, skittering across her skin.

It made her smile.

“Hi,” she whispered. “How are you going down there?”

Indigo liked to talk to bugs. It was her biggest secret.

She lay on her belly in the dirt, whispering to them.

She talked to ladybugs and Christmas beetles and harlequin beetles, too. Her favourite was the aphid. Tiny and fierce and hated by everyone.

She told the aphids her secrets. She thought they’d understand.

It was almost like having friends.

Ones who listened.

Ones who never judged.

Ones who never narrowed their eyes at her or pursed their lips or tutted or said, “Disappointing.”

Ones who never called her “that sort of kid.”

She looked back up at the sky, at the clouds.

When she was little, during the rare moments when her mum seemed almost happy, they would sit together, watching old romantic comedy movies, made long before Indigo was born. They’d share a family-sized chocolate block, and mouth along with the actor’s lines.

There was a movie her mother loved the best. It had one of the Batman actors and one of the Catwoman actors in it, and it was about love but also about family. It was warm and it was wonderful. There was a song on the soundtrack that caught Indigo’s ear. She sang along, whenever it played in the movie.

“The sky’s in love with you…”

Indigo loved the song. She loved to close her eyes and imagine it—the whole sky, in love. But it made her belly twist, too, whenever the song played, and her heart feel hollowed out. It seemed unimaginable, to Indigo—just as unimaginable as the love story on-screen—the thought of being so special, so beautiful, so amazing that the whole entire sky was in love with her.

It took years for her mother to realise that Indigo was singing the wrong words. By that time, her mother was hardly ever happy, and they barely ever watched movies together. They were on their fourth “new start” and each start had been a little less shiny than the one that came before.

“It’s not the sky,” her mother said, prodding Indigo in the arm, laughing at her so hard she cried as Indigo filled with shame. “It’s ‘this guy’.”

“This guy,” Indigo muttered. Inside, she felt something collapse, like a cardboard box, folded inwards and then flattened.

This guy.

There was nothing magical or enormous about this guy.

Nothing as immense and wondrous as the sky.

“I thought…I wanted to believe…I felt…” Indigo stammered, warmth creeping up her neck. “I thought it was the sky. The sky loved her. I…thought that.”

“They’re all the same,” her mother muttered, rolling her eyes, barely seeming to hear her. “Guys. The one who sang this song is no different. Don’t believe in guys, Indigo Storm. Believe in…something else. Anything else. Something important. I don’t know. Just don’t believe in guys.”

But despite what she said, and the roll of her eyes, her mother did seem to keep believing.

She believed in Tim, and then Jeremy, and then Don, and then Vince, and then Tim again, and finally she believed so much in Wil-with-one-l, she left this small town behind—this one that was to be their salvation—and she left Indigo behind, too.

And Indigo…stopped believing in anything much.

She stopped watching any movies about love.

Or families.

She stopped telling anyone what she felt, deep inside.

She felt big and scary and full of storms—so replete with thunder that all she wanted to do was scream.

Sometimes, she did.

Other times, she whispered to insects. She told them her secrets.

The secret she whispered most was this: Without her mother, she didn’t know how to believe in anything.

Without her mother, the space that belief left behind had been filled up with rage.

Chapter Two

Indigo sat with Noni, at a booth in Esme’s milk bar.

Indigo had one of Esme’s new monster shakes—vanilla ice cream, chocolate syrup, wafers, jelly beans, pretzels and sprinkles.

No nuts. Indigo hated nuts. They felt like…what was the word? Like styrofoam in her mouth and she was always, always worried she’d choke.

Her mother constantly used to tell her to chew her food a hundred times. ‘I don’t want to end up in hospital with you,’ she’d say, ‘just because you choked on a nut.’

Noni had a coffee, strong, and a bowl of pistachio ice cream topped with crumbled up Flake.

Noni was telling Indigo about her day. She couldn’t tell Indigo specifics, of course. Not about particular clients, or their particular circumstances. They lived in a small town where everybody knew everybody, so if Noni said too much, Indigo could easily work out who she was talking about.

Indigo knew how important it was to keep private things private. She’d learned that well before Noni came into her life.

But Noni could tell Indigo that some things made her sad, some things made her cry. She could tell her that one of her clients was funny and had turned their trauma into a comedy sketch, so Noni was laughing, until she wasn’t. Until she realised how terrible it really was.

She could tell Indigo that someone stole her tin of tuna from the lunch room at the office and that she was setting an elaborate trap to try and uncover the culprit.

And Noni, as she talked, stole some of Indigo’s jelly beans.

And Indigo responded by sticking her finger into Noni’s ice cream, scooping it out, licking her finger clean.

And Noni batted at her hand, shook her head, called her “wicked.”

She was laughing when she said it. And Indigo didn’t feel scared.

She didn’t feel scared to steal the ice cream.

She didn’t feel scared when Noni growled (it was never, really, actual growling with Noni. More a kind of laughing thing and gentle, like everything Noni did).

Indigo felt safe.

In this moment. This little booth. This sharing of days and stories and desserts. She felt safe until she let her mind out of this booth—let it wander. When she did that, the panic began to build. The wanting to run, wanting to escape. Forgetting how to breathe.

Remembering.

Remembering all the times she wasn’t safe before.

“Stay here, Indigo,” Noni said, gently, putting her hand on Indigo’s.

She knew.

She always knew.

“I’m not used to this,” Indigo said.

“I know,” said Noni. “But this is your life now.”

Indigo saw a millipede climbing lazily up the partition behind Noni’s head. Or maybe it wasn’t being lazy at all. Maybe it’s many, tiny legs (not a million, despite its name), were working, working, working, fast and furious and it only seemed like it was slow and calm because she didn’t look closely enough.

Because she didn’t know how to see.

Indigo looked down at her fingertips, shaking, still half covered in ice cream.

This is not my life now, Indigo wanted to say. My life is everything that came before, and it feels like that is always now.

And you aren’t real.

And none of this is real.

It can’t be real because girls like me don’t live lives like this. Full of ice cream and gentleness.

She didn’t say that. Instead, she smiled and said, “I think this monster shake is the best thing I’ve ever eaten.”

“Thanks!”

Indigo looked up. Esme stood by the booth, wiping her hands on her apron, her turquoise hair tied back in two long mermaid braids.

Indigo would never admit it but she envied Esme. Esme seemed to know exactly who she was and she seemed so at home, here in the milk bar. As if this was exactly where she was meant to be.

Indigo wished she could feel like that.

“It’s really good,” Indigo told Esme. “But don’t get a big head or anything.”

“Trust me,” said Esme, “that’s not about to happen. But I’m glad you like it. I didn’t go too heavy on the pretzels?”

“Impossible,” said Indigo, grinning.

The bell rang at the counter then, and Esme rolled her eyes. “Back to it,” she said. “No rest for the wicked and all that.” She half turned towards the counter and turned back, grimacing. “Great, it’s Mrs Griffin,” she whispered, through gritted teeth. “Wonder if I can swap some sour jelly beans for the regular ones. Though I don’t think the look on her face could get any sourer, right?”

Indigo shook her head, cringing along with Esme. Mrs Griffin was not her favourite person and she was not Mrs Griffin’s favourite, either. Mrs Griffin worked in the library at school and she’d banned Indigo from coming in three times this year already. None of the reasons for the banning were Indigo’s fault at all.

Well, maybe they were, but it was still undeniable that Mrs Griffin was a nasty old grump.

Indigo was glad that Esme thought it too. It made her feel like the thoughts in her head weren’t entirely evil.

But she knew that Aster would never think that way. Aster was perfect. She never thought a bad thing about anyone.

“Looking forward to school tomorrow?” Noni asked, when Esme was gone.

Indigo lifted a shoulder. “I guess,” she said.

“Try and look for little things to enjoy every day,” said Noni. “Happiness doesn’t always have to be big stuff. Little things can make a big impact, if you let them.”

“You sound like an inspirational quote,” Indigo said, picking out a pretzel that had fallen to the bottom of the glass. “Or, what are they called? An affectation?”

Noni smiled. “Affirmation? No, I don’t believe in those. I believe in real stuff. I believe in real happiness. And you can find it anywhere, even in small things. Trust me.”

Indigo looked for the millipede behind Noni but it had disappeared. Sometimes, it was impossible to even find small happy things. Sometimes, they disappeared when you weren’t looking.

“I’ll try,” said Indigo.

“Good,” said Noni. “And if you have trouble, ask Aster. She can help you.”

“I will,” said Indigo.

But she was lying.

The last thing she was going to do was ask Aster for help.

Chapter Three

Indigo hated walking to school with Aster.

It wasn’t that she hated Aster.

She had never hated Aster.

She might have acted like it, for a long time. She might still act like it, at least half the time.

And there was no way she’d let Aster be her friend, properly. She wouldn’t let Aster see her, the real her, the way she was inside. There’s no way she’d let Aster try and help her.

But actually, secretly…

Aster was okay.

A little bit too earnest, too quiet, too staring (as if she could see your whole soul), but okay. And really, when it came down to it, every bit as broken as Indigo was. Which made her more than okay. Broken people, according to Indigo, were the only okay ones.

It was only when they got so broken that they started to break other people (like their children), that things got a bit messed up.

Indigo knew someone like that.

Knew she was becoming someone like that.

It was because of this—her brokenness, the way she broke everything—that she was Aster’s responsibility.

“You are not Aster’s ‘responsibility’,” Noni insisted. “You are not her charge. She is not babysitting you.”

“But if I ran away…” (again, was the unsaid word. It had happened, already, once), “it would be Aster’s fault.”

“No.” Noni shook her head. “It would be your fault.”

“But Aster would feel bad.”

Noni sighed. “Probably. And do you really want that to happen?”

Indigo didn’t. Not really. So, she walked to school with Aster. And she didn’t run away.

She’d save the running for another time, when Aster wasn’t around.

Indigo didn’t want to care. She wanted to build a wall between her and Aster—she’d tried to do it, so many times. But Aster knew how to break down the bricks, slowly and gently. She knew how to see the Indigo behind them.

Sometimes being around her, somehow made Indigo feel bad. For even thinking about running.

While Indigo had been deep in thought, Aster was talking about sheep.

Ever since she and Xavier had started this sheep hugging venture, at Xavier’s dad’s farm, it was almost all she could talk about. She and Xavier were working on ways to “fully transition” the farm away from producing meat and into a “wholly therapeutic sheep-based experience.”

Now, she was talking about soap.

“Wait, sheep soap?” Indigo said, wrinkling her nose. “You’re going to turn sheep into soap? But isn’t that just as bad as using their meat? Worse? Imagine washing yourself with dead sheep.”

Aster laughed.

She lit up inside when she laughed, Indigo thought. Sort of…sparkly. Indigo doubted if she ever looked sparkly. She just wasn’t that sort of kid.

“Not soap made of sheep,” Aster said. “At least, not the meat part of them. Maybe their lanolin? It’s a kind of oil from their wool. Or their milk, maybe? I’m not sure about that one, although goat’s milk is a thing, so I guess it’s possible. Anyway, it’s only an idea. What do you think?”

Indigo shrugged. She actually didn’t mind the idea of making soap. It wasn’t something she was about to admit (except maybe to the bugs), but she really liked…She didn’t know exactly which word to use.

This happened quite a lot, with Indigo. She struggled a bit with words. She’d overheard one of her teachers, a few years back, at a different school, telling her mum Indigo should be assessed. Her mum didn’t like that idea. In private, she said to Indigo, “If you get assessed, people will know, and they’ll use it as a stick to beat you.” In public, she said to the teachers, “Yeah, well. She’s never been too bright.”

When she said that, Indigo felt like she was falling down a very deep well.

The school counsellor said it might be her “stressful home life” that caused her to have problems finding the right words.

Her mum told him to “nick off”, but in slightly different words.

Was the word Indigo was looking for ‘smells’?

No, that wasn’t quite right. There was something stinky and bad about the word smells.

Aromas?

Scents? That was it.

Indigo loved the scent of things. She loved her grandmother’s scent, which reminded her of buttery pastry, and her mum’s scent of sandalwood. She loved the scent of grass when she lay on it, talking to beetles and bugs. She loved the scent of the sky before rain. She loved the scent of the fancy shampoo that Aster and Noni used.

She even loved the scent of pastels and charcoal and parchment paper. That was the scent she loved most in secret. Nobody knew about her drawings.

Most of all, she loved the soap aisle at the supermarket.

When she was little, her favourite thing to do was go supermarket shopping with her mum, and the bathroom aisle was the best. She’d pick up cake soaps and sniff them, one by one. She loved the sandalwood ones—lavender not so much.

Her mum caught her once, though, easing a cake of soap from its box. Indigo cowered, worried about what her mum might say, worried about what her mum might think. Would she think she was being weird, sniffing the soaps? Would she think she was meaning to steal them?

Indigo wasn’t trying to steal the soap. Not the whole soap, anyway.

Only its scent.

Indigo remembered something a teacher told her once. She said that scents can send messages. Indigo always thought that soaps would be a good way of sending spy messages, if you knew the key. Rose would say, I love you. Coconut would say, I miss you. Vanilla would say, never leave.

Indigo tried to tell her mum about it, in the supermarket soap aisle, but her mum looked at her like she’d lost her mind and Indigo got all nervous, got all jumbled.

“What does lemon-lime say?” her mum asked, with a throaty chuckle and then, looking comically from side to side, she slipped the cake of soap in her pocket.

“I’m sending my own kind of message,” she said. She waved her hand. “Down with this capitalist scum.”

When they got home from the supermarket, her mum put the soap on the cluttered kitchen bench. Indigo picked it up, when her mum was in the bathroom, and she took it to her bedroom.

She put it in her bedside drawer.

It was probably still there. Indigo hadn’t had a chance to take everything, on the day she left. So much of her was still in that house, in that drawer.

Or maybe it was all gone, now.

Another family probably lived in that house, now, allocated to it by the council.

Maybe they used her soap.

Maybe they threw it away.

It didn’t matter.

At Noni’s house, they used liquid soap—the expensive stuff in big pump packs.

Indigo liked the smell of it—fancy smells, like amber and fig and cedarwood. She missed the cake soap, though. She missed her old house. It was stupid—her old house was broken down and sometimes it was scary. But it was home.

Still, sheep soap did sound a bit weird. Indigo had hugged Xavier’s sheep enough now to know that sheep were definitely more smelly than perfumed.

She wasn’t sure she’d want a soap that smelled like them.

But a soap that smelled like sandalwood and lemon-rind…

That could be nice.

“Sorry,” said Aster, when Indigo didn’t answer. “Am I boring you with all this sheep talk?”

Indigo shook her head. “Nah. Just thinking about other stuff.”

“Your mum?” Aster said, gently.

Indigo felt her cheeks warming. She hoped they hadn’t gone too pink. She hated the thought of Aster seeing how embarrassed she felt.

How sad she felt.

She put a brick in the wall, so Aster couldn’t see how much she was hurting.

“No,” she snapped. “Why would you think that? It’s fine. I’m just…” She pulled herself up. A swear word had been about to escape. Indigo tried not to swear in front of Aster—she was trying her best not to swear much at all, these days. It wasn’t that she cared what Aster thought. It was just…

Her mum swore a lot. When she stubbed her toe. When the power bill came. When this guy left. When she forgot to buy more cigarettes at the supermarket. Her mother was always swearing. So, somehow, all of those words reminded her of her mum.

“I’m just trying not to think about her. She’s gone,” Indigo said, shrugging again, hoping her indifference looked real. Hoping the bricks were strong enough.

“Won’t do any good, thinking about her. It won’t make her come back. I was…just then, I was just thinking about…I don’t know. Stuff.”

“I do know stuff,” Aster said, one side of her mouth turning into a smile. “My head is full of stuff.”

“Yeah. So. How do you shake it all out?” Indigo asked.

Aster laughed. Indigo’s cheeks grew warmer. Had she said something stupid?

But Aster said, “Shake it out. I like that. I don’t, though, is the answer. I try, but…”

Whatever Aster said next, Indigo didn’t hear. Aster’s voice became white noise.

There was a boy, in a blue baseball cap, bright red jeans and a tie-dyed hoodie, crouched beside the school sign.

He held a spray can in his gloved hand and was painting blue words on the white.

All must pay the debt of nature.

And then,

Be the revolution.

Indigo stared.

“Be the revolution,” she whispered.

Chapter Four

When Indigo was six years old, her mother fell in love with a this guy called Jeremy. Jeremy was an actor. He’d been in an ad for bread and another for roadside assistance and sometimes he did plays on the stage in Hobart. He was tiny and sparkle-eyed and red-headed and he was the best this guy her mum ever had.

He was kind to Indigo. He brought lamingtons with him when he came to visit and he watched Vampirina with her on the telly. He changed the words to pop songs so they were about her instead.

“Now you’re just somebody who is Indigo…”

“Here’s my number. So call me, Indy!”

He told her that her drawings were brilliant. He came to school assemblies.

Sometimes, when she was alone, Indigo played around with the idea of calling him Dad.

She knew he wasn’t really her dad. He wasn’t hers at all. He was just a this guy and one day he would be gone, but…

What if he wasn’t?

What if he didn’t leave?

What if he stayed?

With her mum?

With her?

He did, for a while. Longer than the others. Long enough that Indigo thought maybe…

Maybe...

At school, one of the girls asked who the man was, picking her up. The one with the T-shirt that said Be the Revolution and the silly lime green hat.

“That’s my dad,” Indigo said. And felt wonderful.

It was wonderful.

Until it wasn’t.

On the morning Jeremy left, Indigo had found a slater bug, curled in a little ball in the corner of their house.

At first, she thought it was dead, but when she poked it, it uncurled.

Alive!

She called it Rebecca and put it, carefully, in a glass jar, cling wrap with holes stretched over the lid and grass inside for it to eat, until she worked out if there was something better.

She sat with Rebecca at the kitchen table and told the little bug her secrets. That’s what she was doing when she heard them. Her mum and Jeremy. In the bedroom, arguing.

Her mum called Jeremy some bad words and he called her crazy. Which Indigo knew was a terrible word to call anyone.

Indigo’s heart was in her throat.

It was happening again.

This is what always happened before a this guy left and usually she was happy about it. This time, her heart was broken.

Jeremy.

Dad.

The bedroom door flew open. Jeremy stormed out, his face twisted in fury. He grabbed his backpack from the kitchen table, knocking Rebecca’s jar off.

It smashed on the tiles, into a million pieces.

He didn’t say sorry.

He didn’t say anything.

He marched to the front door and walked through it, leaving the door open. The room filled with light. It bounced off the million pieces of glass on the floor.

Amongst them, Indigo could see Rebecca, flattened.

Dead.

And there were so many broken pieces.

Everything was broken.

Indigo crouched amongst them. She picked up Rebecca and cradled her in her palm.

“Clean that up, will you?”

Indigo’s mum stood over her, her face blank and hard.

“What happened to Jeremy?” Indigo whispered.

“He was the same as the others,” her mum muttered.

But he wasn’t.

He wasn’t.

He was lamingtons and Vampirina.

He was Be the Revolution.

He was hope.

And he was gone.

And Indigo picked up every broken piece of glass, one by one, and put them in the bin.

And then she put Rebecca in the bin as well.

And closed the lid.

Chapter Five

At lunch time, it was all anyone would talk about.

The new boy—before he’d even attended one class—had vandalised the school sign.

Annaliese and Flynn sat surrounded by other kids, from all grades. Annaliese had seen him, too—the boy with the spray can, spraying those words—and was telling her story for the hundredth time.

“I bet he’s been kicked out of another school,” she finished, folding her arms. She bit her lip. “Maybe he’s a criminal. Do you think we should be scared?”

Indigo used to think that Annaliese was a stupid Barbie doll—she was so pretty and shiny and perfect. She didn’t think that way anymore. She was pretty, in a way that made Indigo feel messy and wrong, but she wasn’t stupid. She was just lucky. People like Annaliese didn’t understand what it was like to really have bad stuff happen in their lives. People like her didn’t understand what it was like to be people like Indigo.

People like her were genuinely scared of kids who got kicked out of schools and who sprayed words on signs. She had been taught her whole life, by other perfect, beautiful, rich people, to fear anyone who breaks the law.

Indigo’s mum always used to say that laws were written by rich men to keep poor men locked away, out of sight. She always said that they were just “guidelines.”

“Who gets to decide, anyway?” she’d say, “what’s wrong and what’s right? People with money. That’s who gets to decide.”

Indigo used to think, once, that her mother was so admirable and tough, talking like that, behaving like that.

She was like Robin Hood. She only stole from big supermarkets—never little shops—and she mostly stole for Indigo.

Glitter pens, tiny dolls, Hubba Bubba bubble tape.

“You took these?” Indigo would ask.

And her mum would shrug and say, “Who is it hurting? It’s just all such capitalist rubbish.”

Who is it hurting?

The boy who sprayed words on the school sign—those weird, mysterious words (what did they mean, anyway?)—who was he hurting?

He’d used wipe-off paint. Indigo knew that much because it had only taken Ms Jolley, the groundskeeper—with a rag and some rubbing alcohol and “a little bit of elbow grease”—five minutes to remove them, and the school sign was shiny and clean once again.

And the words he’d used? They weren’t bad words. They were pretty words.

Indigo had read some of Aster’s poems—a couple of Xavier’s, too, when he let her. Many of the words she couldn’t make out, some she could read well enough but didn’t know quite what they meant. But she knew the words were pretty.

The boy had used pretty words, and they’d been removed in minutes.

He hadn’t done any harm.

Or much harm anyway.

He wasn’t a criminal.

She didn’t understand why Annaliese looked so scared. Except, she did understand, of course. She was scared because she was Annaliese.

Indigo wasn’t scared.

She was curious, though.

It was a nice feeling—to be curious. It was nice to feel something, anything at all, that wasn’t anger or grief or hollowness.

The tablets she took every day took the edge off all of those feelings, but not enough so they didn’t exist.

She remembered Noni asking the doctor, quietly, when she thought Indigo might not hear, “These won’t make her…numb, will they? They won’t make her less…Indigo?”

The doctor had replied, just as quietly, that they would only make the bad emotions less severe. They would only make it so Indigo didn’t want to bash and crash and scream and break. She would still be Indigo.

And Indigo remembered thinking, “Why would Noni want me to stay like this? Why would I want me to stay like this? Why would anyone want to stay Indigo Michael?”

That feeling hadn’t gone away.

I am wrong.

I am bad.

I am a problem.

The other bad feelings hadn’t gone away, but they were less. Indigo still wanted to run. She wanted less to scream and break. Less. But she could still feel it—the urge to blow the world apart. Only now, it was only a small, grey cloud, and hidden deep within her.

She still felt it, familiar as her own fingertips.

But curious…

Curious was something she hadn’t felt, in a really long time.

When life is all change and chaos and fear, you want to feel safe, not curious.

Indigo was curious about the new boy.

“What are you thinking about?”

“Hmm?”

Indigo turned to see Aster staring at her, over the top of her ryebread sandwich.

This was new.

This sitting-with-Aster-at-lunch thing.

Before, Indigo used to sit by herself, often flinging around her own words—the not-so-pretty ones—at kids walking by. Insults. Mean names. She didn’t know why she was doing it, then. She still didn’t know. It was something to do. Making them feel less at least meant that she wasn’t the only one who felt bad.

She stopped doing it, even before she and Aster became…

What were they?

Not friends.

More like…

More like a weird kind of found family—a family not by blood or by choice but by happenstance (Indigo liked that word—she read it in one of Aster’s poems and Aster had helped her to sound it out, without Indigo even asking).

Indigo would not have chosen Aster. She would not have chosen to live with her.

She wasn’t sure she’d even chosen to sit with her.

She didn’t know how it happened—couldn’t remember who had made the first move.

Usually, Aster chose Xavier. To be with. To be her friend. But Xavier had a brain that broke sometimes and on those sometimes days, he had to stay inside, in his bed, away from all the things that made his black dog bite. That was what he called his sadness, and his sadness made him break.

And so one day—one day when Xavier stayed inside and didn’t come to the place by the fence where he and Hollyhock often met Aster—Aster sat down by Indigo.

Or Indigo sat by Aster.

And now, here they were.

And some days they went to see Xavier and Hollyhock.

And some days they sat by this funny old tree.

And they ate.

And they didn’t say much.

Sometimes, they talked about sheep.

Most of the time, they watched birds together, or searched for bugs in the tree roots (and Indigo didn’t tell Aster that the bugs were her friends, her only real friends—because that would make her seem even madder). Or they found tiny, broken eggshells, and buried them like a sort of ritual (and Indigo told Aster it was a mad thing to do, but she secretly kind of liked it). Or they made woven bracelets from thread that Xavier brought.

And it was small. And it was quiet.

And it was…okay.

The old Indigo would have said it was all stupid. The new Indigo still rolled her eyes sometimes, or curled her lip.

But it was okay.

More than that.

Today they had eaten, and they hadn’t said much and maybe they wouldn’t have said anything at all, if it wasn’t for the fact that everyone was talking about the boy in the dark blue cap. Indigo knew Aster was thinking about him. Aster must have known that the same was true for Indigo.

So, there was no use pretending.

“The boy…”

“I heard his name is Liam,” Aster said, and Indigo bristled. Why did Aster know that but she didn’t? She pushed the feeling down.

“He’s a criminal, right? Did you hear Annaliese?”

Aster shook her head. “Mrs Carnevale told me he transferred down from the North West. He wasn’t kicked out of school. He’s not a delinquent.”

“He painted on the sign,” Indigo said. “In wipe-off paint,” she added, quickly.

Aster raised her shoulder. “He shouldn’t have done that. Probably. But you never know what’s going on in a person’s heart or…brain. We don’t know why he did that.”

“You’re always so nice,” said Indigo, picking at the corner of her fingernail. “About everyone. The whole school is saying he’s a criminal—even Annaliese and she’s pretty much the nicest person in the school, apparently—and you’re out here defending him. Weirdo.”

Aster burst out laughing. It was like sunshine. “You were doing so well until the end bit,” she said, wiping at her eyes.

Indigo glowered at her fingers. The one she’d picked was starting to bleed. This was new. The picking. She didn’t know why she did it, same as she didn’t know why she sat with Aster.

“I’m not nice like you,” she muttered.

“Yeah, you are,” said Aster. “I mean, you don’t really think Liam’s a criminal either, do you?”

“I dunno…” Indigo began.

But just then, all the noise in the playground fell away, as if some huge, unseen hand in the sky had dropped a blanket over everything.

Indigo looked around. Everyone was frozen, staring in the same direction. Even the little kids had stopped their hopscotch and bubble-blowing and pretending to be tigers.

Indigo knew what the source of this Great Freeze would be. She knew he would be wearing a dark blue cap.

When she eventually looked up, that boy in the blue cap, who may or may not be a delinquent, was heading straight for her and Aster.

Chapter Six

Indigo had one good friend before.

It was at the big school, in the big city. She started there in kinder—a term after all the other kids because her mum “didn’t believe in sending kids to school so young.” At least, that’s what she’d said said at the time.

Later, Indigo heard her telling someone on the phone that the school day started far too early for any sane person to be out of bed. And, besides, it wasn’t like Indigo was ever going to win awards at school or go on to be a doctor or a vet. “She’s just not that kind of kid.”

Indigo blinked back tears when she heard that.

What kind of kid was she, then?

Indigo had no idea. She hadn’t been around other small children much. Her mother’s friends were mostly childless, and they never saw her mother’s siblings (or her parents, either, these days). Indigo never went to daycare (“A total waste of money,” her mum said), instead following her mother around, wherever she needed to go. The only times she ever really talked to other children was in the McDonald’s playground and they seemed to her strange, otherworldly creatures, who knew words she didn’t know, and wore bright, clean clothes and had new toys.

She guessed that they were all “that kind of kid.”

Indigo only had a few toys, and they were all from Vinnies, or had been slipped into her mother’s pocket, in the toy aisle at Coles. Some were things Indigo had made herself, from bottle caps and plastic spoons.

One of the girls she saw in the playground held a box of chicken nuggets in one hand, and in the other, a beautiful doll with curly blonde hair, wearing a pristine long white dress.

The girl held the doll close to her, as if it was the thing she loved more than anything in the world.

Indigo remembered feeling a rush of intense envy.

She wanted that doll. She wanted to be the kind of kid who had a doll like that.

That kind of kid.

But then the girl narrowed her eyes at Indigo and said, “Stop staring at my doll, Povvo. You can’t have her, and you’ll never have anything as good as her.”

Indigo didn’t know what “Povvo” meant, but she knew from the tone of the girl’s voice that it was nothing good.

She left the playground and went to find her mum inside. She thought her mum might be mad at her because she was meant to be playing and leaving her mum alone to have a bit of a breather.

When she told her mum why she had left the playground, her mum didn’t say much but she frowned a lot. She bought Indigo a soft serve and a small chips and taught Indigo how to dunk the chips in the ice cream. Indigo didn’t think that it would work—the salty, oily hot potato and the sugary, soft, freezing ice-cream.

But it worked.

And this moment, with her mum—it shouldn’t have worked either, but somehow it did.

Indigo knew that other mums might have hugged her or told her the perfect thing that would make it all better. But this was good. Chips and ice cream was good.

And after that, her mum took her to the forest just outside of town. She had to meet a friend there.

“Stay here,” her mum said, pointing to a patch of grass by the car. “Don’t you dare leave.”

And so Indigo did. She stayed.

And she sat on the grass.

And she watched a cabbage moth flutter about like it was dancing. And then the moth landed on her knee.

And Indigo told the moth everything that had happened. And she imagined that the moth answered, “You’ll be okay.”

And she felt everything drain away.

She felt peaceful.

The week after, she started school. Her mum didn’t tell her why. But there was a new man with a beard there sometimes, in the mornings.

On her first day, her mum left her at the gate with her lunch in a canvas shopper bag, and said to her, “Just wait for me here after school, okay? If I’m a bit late, whatever you do, don’t make a fuss and don’t tell the teachers.”

Indigo didn’t want to cry.

Indigo never cried. Her mum didn’t like it when she cried. She said it gave her a headache.

Her mum liked it when she was happy, when she was funny, when she made her mum laugh—made her mum’s friends laugh.

Sometimes, they’d give her money or chocolates and she would feel like a princess. Like the queen of the whole world.

But when Indigo cried, her mother would say, “The world doesn’t care about your tears, Indigo.” And then she would say, “The world only notices certain kinds of people.” She waved a hand. Cigarette ash dropped. “People who do big, grand things. Like…I dunno, act in movies or cure things or start revolutions. Stuff like that. We’re small people. We could cry enough to drown everybody, and nobody would notice. Nobody sees people like us. Unless we do something wrong. No point trying. No point to it. No point being soft. You gotta put yourself first kid. You hear me? Toughen up!”

Indigo did hear.

And Indigo tried, at that gate, in her black Vinnies school shoes, which she’d tried to polish with a tea towel. She tried to be hard.

She tried to build a wall around her, brick by brick, but with each brick she put up, another fell down. She could feel her eyes burning, feel herself crumbling…

And then she felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned to see a girl, with red, tangled curls and something sticky on her cheek, grinning at her with a gap-toothed smile. “I’m Sam,” she said. She nodded at Indigo’s lunch bag. “You’re povvo, like me, eh? All the other kids say I’m povvo. You wanna be friends?”

Indigo stared at Sam. “What’s povvo?” she managed, finally, in a voice much smaller than her usual one.

The girl shrugged. “Think it means we don’t have new stuff,” she said. “Or stuff with brands on it. And our mums aren’t in the canteen.”

Indigo couldn’t imagine her mum working in the canteen. And none of her stuff was new. “I think I’m povvo,” she said.

Sam took her hand. Her hand was warm and sticky like her face. “Come on,” she said. “I’ll show you where I sit. You can sit there with me. I’ve got some Wizz Fizz. You want some?”

Indigo stayed with Sam all day and Sam waited with her for her mum to come, after school.

Indigo’s mum ran in the gate, her cheeks all red. There were other kids playing, still, so nobody seemed to notice.

Indigo waved goodbye to Sam, wondering for a moment when Sam’s mum would come to get her.

She hoped it would be soon.

The next day was the same—Indigo stayed with Sam all day, until her mum arrived (only ten minutes late, that day). Sam gave her a Wizz Fizz and Indigo gave Sam half of her devon sandwich and Sam ate it so fast that Indigo laughed and asked her if she ate breakfast.

Sam shook her head.

And Indigo realised that Sam didn’t have a lunchbox. Or a paper bag.

At the end of lunch, she saw their teacher sneaking Sam a bread roll. Sam ate that fast, too.

The next day, Indigo asked her mum to pack two sandwiches. She grumbled about not being made of money, until Indigo told her that one of them was for Sam, her new friend.

“Doesn’t Sam’s mum have bread?” her mum asked.

Indigo shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

Her mum sighed. “This isn’t going to be every day,” she said.

But that afternoon, her mum asked Sam if she wanted to come over and play at Indigo’s house for a little while. “I can call your mum,” she told Sam.

Sam shook her head. “That’s okay,” she said.

She looked at the teacher, Miss Hartmann.

“I’ll tell her when she gets here,” she said.

Sam’s mum didn’t come to pick her up, so Sam stayed the night at Indigo’s house. Indigo’s mum packed two devon sandwiches the next day, in two identical bags.

Before school, while Indigo and Sam played outside, Indigo’s mum talked to their teacher.

After that, Sam came to play most days after school. They played with Indigo’s Vinnie’s dolls, and they drew together. Sam liked drawing cars and Indigo liked drawing houses and farm animals (sheep, mostly—they looked like clouds).

Sometimes, Sam drew other things. She drew people. Grown-ups. Yelling.

Indigo didn’t like those drawings.

Miss Hartmann came to pick her up, after tea, every time, saying, “It’s on my way home, anyway.”

But Indigo knew Miss Hartmann lived in the opposite direction, in a house by the water.

She didn’t say anything, though.

Sometimes, she caught her mum talking to Sam, in a low voice, sitting at the kitchen bench.

It made Indigo’s heart hurt a little bit. Her mum never talked to her like that.

She asked her mum about it, one day. Her mum just shrugged and said, “Kid’s got nothing. I was like that, too.”

“I don’t have anything, either,” Indigo protested. “We’re both povvo.”

Indigo’s mum curled her lip. She poked Indigo hard in the chest. “Ungrateful brat,” she hissed.

Indigo didn’t cry.

But she wanted to.

Indigo stayed at the big school in the big city until nearly the end of prep, when her mum met a different this guy (not the one with the beard) and they moved away for the first time, far from the last.

On the day when Indigo left the big school, Sam clung to her and cried. “Don’t go,” she sobbed, in Indigo’s ear. “You’re my best friend. You’re the only one who loves me.”

Indigo felt, driving away from the school in this guy’s ute, as if there was a hole inside her that would never be filled in.

“You’ll make other friends,” her mum said. ”Don’t worry about it.”

“But I want Sam,” Indigo cried. “And…I don’t know where she’ll go after school, now.”

Her mum shot her a look. Her voice turned gentler. “Miss Hartmann will look after her.” Then she smiled, a rare, precious, beautiful smile. “And we’re going to have such a good life, in the new place. You’ll see. We’ll be happy.”

Her mum said that a lot. Whenever she moved, she said that. But Indigo didn’t know that, yet. So, she believed her.

“Aren’t you worried about Sam?” she asked her mum.

She shook her head. “Nah. She’s tough. Like me. She’ll be fine.” Indigo tried, but she couldn’t quite believe her this time. Even if Miss Hartmann gave her sandwiches, how could a kid like Sam ever be okay?

How could a kid like Indigo?

Because she and Sam were the same, no matter what her mum said.

There was only one way, Indigo decided. And that was to build the biggest, hardest wall there was. And blow away everything and everyone around it.

*

Indigo had looked up Miss Hartmann—on the library computer, when Miss Carnevale wasn’t watching—a few times since she left Sam behind.

Miss Hartmann’s accounts on social media were set to private, but Indigo could still see her profile picture. She could see Miss Hartmann—five years older but still with the same kind eyes—hugging a girl with a tangle of red curls.

And in the comments below the photo, a comment said, “Love you, to the best Teacher/Mama a girl could ever hope for. Love, Your Sam (Can we please watch Lord of the Rings again tonight??).”

When Indigo clicked on the greyed-out profile picture, there was nothing to see. “SamIAmI” had an account, but all the content was locked away.

Sam was locked away from her.

But she’d had that glimpse. She’d seen enough. Sam was okay. And maybe she lived with Miss Hartmann now. Maybe she’d found her family, in a family she wasn’t born into either.

So, they weren’t so different, really, even now.

Indigo wondered if Sam needed tablets, to be okay. To survive. Or was Miss Hartmann enough?

Would Noni and Aster and Aster’s dad be enough for Indigo, eventually? Or would she need to take those tablets forever?

If she stopped taking the tablets, would the fire get bigger again? Would she destroy everything?

When Indigo looked at the boy in the blue cap, she saw something of Sam in him.

The blue cap was clean, with no holes or scuffs or sweat stains. And the baggy corduroy jeans he wore looked freshly washed as well. But there were patches on their knees—hand-stitched. And the flannel shirt and woollen vest he wore with them looked extremely vintage.

“You’re povvo,” she thought, as he sat with her and Aster. “Just like me.”

Either that or he was a hipster, who just preferred to buy things old.

But something told her that her first guess was true. There was just something about him. Something in his eyes like hunger and want and fire. She had seen the same look on Sam’s face.

In her own reflection in the mirror.

“Mind if I sit here?” he asked.

“You’re already sitting,” Indigo snapped, before she could stop herself.

The boy raised an eyebrow. His eyes sparkled a little. “I can go…” he said. He leaned in. “But I think you’re the only people who aren’t gossiping about me.”

“We were gossiping about you,” Indigo argued, crossing her arms. She felt her nostrils flare. This Liam boy wasn’t intriguing any more. Just annoying.

“Don’t mind her,” said Aster, kindly. Indigo shot her a dirty look. No matter what Aster said, it was obvious that Aster had all the “nice” genes and sometimes it was downright infuriating.

The cloud inside her darkened and grew.

Before, she might have punched the table or thrown something.

Now, she just felt tight and fidgety and wrong.

Like she wanted to pick all the skin off her fingertips.

It was better, but…

But she still wished Aster would be really mean, just once. Just so she knew they weren’t completely different. Just so she knew they could be properly friends. Indigo wasn’t used to niceness. She didn’t know what to do with it.

And she really wished that Liam would go away.

Now she had heard him speak, and seen that annoying glint in his eye, like he found her amusing…

He was nothing like Sam at all.

“Should I mind you?” he asked Indigo.

“Probably,” Indigo replied.

Liam sighed. “Can we start again?” he asked. He took off his blue hat. Underneath, brown-black curls were pulled into a little bun at the back of his neck.

That was weird.

Buns on boys were weird, weren’t they?

Although…if Xavier had turned up one day with a bun, that wouldn’t seem weird at all. It was just a bun on this boy.

Because he was annoying.

Without the hat shadowing his face, Indigo could see that Liam’s skin was browner than she thought, and his eyes were dark brown, too. He had a broad nose and slightly crooked teeth and a dimple in his left cheek, only.

“You can try,” Indigo said. “But why would you want to?”

Liam laughed.

Annoying.

He shrugged. “You interest me?”

Indigo pointed at herself. “Me?” she spat. “I’m not interesting.”

I’m not that kind of kid. The interesting kind.

“Let me decide that,” said Liam. He grinned. “Okay, well, I’m Liam Walker. And I’m one hundred percent not a delinquent. I do like street art, and I like cool quotes and sometimes I just get the urge to put the two together—I got that today, with the sign. It kind of overcomes me and I can’t stop myself. It’s my way of making people see me! At least, that’s what Mum says. She’s an artist, so she knows this stuff.”

Indigo and Aster exchanged a look. This boy was nothing like what anyone was saying, and Indigo could tell he wasn’t what Aster had concocted in her mind, either.

He also, probably, wasn’t povvo, like Indigo had thought. Not properly. Not like her and Sam. If his mum was an artist, he was probably…

What would Noni call it?

He was probably bohemian kind of povvo.

Indigo knew that word because her mum used it, sometimes, when she was talking about artists. She said it with a sneer. She said that people like that were choosing poverty and why didn’t they just get a real job?

She said that there was no use for art in a world where people couldn’t afford to eat.

Indigo never let her mum know that she loved looking at art. Or that she loved making it.

She knew she wasn’t bohemian because she hadn’t chosen to be poor.

She knew she wasn’t bohemian because she’d get a real job, one day.

And besides, kids like her didn’t do art. Unless it was graffiti. She knew if her mum knew about her drawings she’d laugh at her, just like she had about the sky and this guy.

What was the point of having stupid dreams? They only got you laughed at. If you were a kid like Indigo, anyway.

But maybe not if you were a kid like Liam. Liam looked proper bohemian, like it was a choice. And like he had the talent to back up his dreams and a mum who’d never laugh at them.

“I’m Aster.” Aster held out her hand and Liam shook it. “This is Indigo.”

“G’day,” said Liam, grinning.

“Don’t think you can sit with us all the time now,” Indigo said, folding her arms.

“Of course, you can sit with us,” said Aster. “We both know what it’s like to…” She trailed off, but Indigo knew what she would have said.

We both know what it’s like to be outcasts.

We both know what it’s like to not fit in.

We both know what it’s like to have the whole school talking about us.

Aster could also have added, we both know what it’s like to be crazy.

But they didn’t know if Liam Walker was crazy. Not yet.

They only knew…

Well, not much.

Only that he liked street art and quotes and was bohemian.

“Tell us about yourself,” Indigo said. “Then we might let you stay.”

Liam considered it for a minute. Finally, he puffed out his cheeks and exhaled. “I’ve just moved here from Strahan, and I’ve already told you my mum’s an artist. I guess…I want to be an artist, too. I want to save the world as well. Maybe I’ll save the world with art. I like recycled stuff and upcycling stuff and making stuff out of old stuff. I like making ugly stuff beautiful. I like spreading my messages.”

“Are you sure you’re not a delinquent?” Indigo asked, at the same time as Aster said, “You should come and visit our sheep.”

Liam looked between them and burst into laughter. “Not sure which of those to answer first, really.” When Aster and Indigo didn’t reply, he shook his head and said, “No. I know that’s what everyone’s saying but I’m not a delinquent and I didn’t get kicked out of my old school. My dad died.”

Indigo’s heart stopped. “Oh, no,” she heard herself saying. She didn’t sound like herself. “I’m sorry…”

Liam shrugged. “Me too. It sucks. He’d been sick for pretty much my whole life, but it was still…a shock.
I dunno. That sounds dumb. But I just got used to him being sick. I never thought he’d actually…” Liam swallowed, hard. “Anyway, Mum got a job here, so we moved. That’s it. No criminal history. Just a…just a dead dad. And yes…yeah.” He met Aster’s eye. “I’d like to meet your sheep.”

“Cool,” said Aster, nodding. She inclined her head. “You don’t know anything about soap, do you?”

Indigo tuned out, at that point. She’d heard more than enough about sheep and sheep soap for one day.

She started doodling, absently, on the underside of her lunchbox lid.

It made her feel calmer.

She drew trees.

She drew harlequin beetles.

She drew a sheep—she liked drawing sheep much more than talking about them—and then a house that looked a lot like Noni’s. Finally, she started sketching a blue baseball cap.

“What are you drawing?”

Indigo looked up, her neck twanging with the jerk. She slammed her lunchbox closed.

“Nothing,” she said.

Liam peered at her, his dark brown eyes twinkling again.

He was so cocky.

“Right,” was all he said.

Why was he so…what was the word?

Confident?

As if the world belonged to him.

Annoying, thought Indigo.

You are so annoying.

Chapter Seven

Indigo was meant to be in maths class. But she couldn’t handle maths class today.

And it was one of the classes she didn’t share with Aster—it was a remedial class, which Indigo was certain meant it was a class for people with no brains. Aster had brains out her ear holes.

So, when the other kids were heading inside, after the lunch bell, she said to Aster, “I’m just going to the toilet.”

But she didn’t go to the toilet.

She walked through the school yard and through the school car park and out of the school gates and on to the street.

And then she walked and walked until she reached her destination—the place she often came to, when she skipped out on school.

She went to her mum’s house.

Someone had patched up the window she broke, that day she had run away. There was a new pane of glass, shiny and clean, where Indigo had made jagged edges and broken pieces. It looked out of place. The rest of the windows were dingy and lined with mildew, as old and beaten-up as the rest of the crummy, neglected house.

Indigo had, by accident, given the house something beautiful when all she’d wanted to do was break it.

Despite the bad memories, Indigo liked coming here. It made her feel close to her mum, to the past, to what they used to be.

This place was theirs.

And it was dirty and falling apart and the heating was hardly ever working and sometimes the electricity got cut off all together and there were mice in the walls and, once, a dead possum in the roof for a month.

But it was theirs.

Indigo didn’t feel like anything was hers any more.

This house still felt like home.

There were no new tenants yet, but Indigo knew it was only a matter of time. She knew from her experiences with her mum that finding a place with the Department of Housing was like finding gold in a rubbish tip.

Soon, a new family would come, wide-eyed and hopeful, and this place would be theirs, then.

And Indigo would have nothing.

There was one other place she considered hers but it was only borrowed. Anything she had ever had was like dirt in the palm of her hand. She could only ever hold it for so long before it slipped through her fingers.

Indigo sat down on the front step of the house that was once hers, that was still hers in this liminal space before the next family arrived.

She pulled out her sketchbook and looked around until her eyes landed on a subject. A small house spider who seemed to be watching her too and waiting, cowering, until she showed herself as friend or enemy.

“It’s okay,” she told the spider, quietly. “You don’t need to worry about me. I’m just as scared as you are.”

The spider seemed to believe her. It didn’t run away.

Indigo began to sketch and while she did she told the spider her secrets.

Until it was time to return to school, before Aster knew she was gone, back to that place where she didn’t belong.

Chapter Eight

They met Xavier after school at Esme’s café.

It was quiet in the café so, after she’d brought over their three ice cream sundaes (rainbow for Aster, flamingo strawberry for Xavier and macadamia with sour worms and crumbled up Flake bar for Indigo), she sat down in the booth with them.

Indigo took a spoonful of her sundae. She held it in her mouth—the sharpness and tang. It was perfect.

“No sundae for you?” Xavier asked Esme, scooping up some of the glittery sprinkles from the top of his.

How could glittery sprinkles be safe for your body? Indigo wondered. She imagined Xavier’s stomach, all sparkling with the sprinkles stuck to it, like a big, pink disco ball inside him.

The thought made her shudder.

“No sundae for me,” said Esme, with a sigh. Then, she grinned. “I already had two this morning. I—”

There was a ding in the kitchen. Esme leapt up and ran across the room. Indigo, Xavier and Aster waited in silence until she returned, carrying a plate of hot chocolate cookies.

“Hey! They’re not on the menu!” Xavier protested.

“Perk of being the manager,” said Esme, pulling a cookie apart. Warm caramel oozed from its centre. “Secret menu, created by yours truly. So, what’s doing, little dudes?”

“I had my psych visit today,” said Xavier. He rolled his eyes a little, but Indigo could tell it was mostly for show. One thing she had learned about Xavier and Aster was that they understood the importance of going to their appointments—even if sometimes it was hard.

Indigo hadn’t quite got to that point yet. She didn’t know if she ever would. Her mum had always called psychiatrists and psychologists and anyone who worked with mental health “quacks.”

“There’s nothing going on in my head that a good rom-com and a block of Cadbury’s can’t fix,” she always said.

Indigo had believed her, at the time. She’d believed that her mum was invincible.

These days, she wasn’t so sure.

The chocolate and the rom-coms were just two of the things her mum used, to make herself feel better. Wine was another. And cigarettes.

And, Indigo guessed now, the latest this guy was another thing. Another medicine. Another escape. Another way to block out reality.

Indigo wished, sometimes, that chocolate really would fix everything, for her mum, for her. It helped. Her tablets helped more. Therapy helped a lot, too, though she hated admitting it.

Tablets and therapy weren’t quackery, but they couldn’t fix all of it.

Not for Indigo, not for Aster and not for Xavier.

None of them were fixed.

But they still kept going…

Was that all life was?

Keeping on going?

Her mum always said that life was just something to get through, for people like them. Something to survive.

Lives that meant something happened to other people.

Indigo looked at her sort-of-friends. People like you, she thought.

“It was okay,” Xavier said. “I’d still prefer to hug a sheep.”

“Have you thought any more about the soap?” said Aster. She grinned. “I have heaps of ideas for flavours…” Her nose wrinkled. “I mean, scents. Eew. Not flavours. We’re not going to eat them. But how’s this? Blackberry and vanilla? Orange and cinnamon? Lemon and mint?”

“They all sound great,” said Xavier. “And Dad’s on board as well. But we really need to think about how we can make it different. There are heaps of soaps on the market…”

“Not sheep soaps,” Aster said, holding up a finger.

“Still,” said Xavier, sighing, “we need a way to make these soaps seem special. It’s a great idea and Dad reckons that if we can make the soaps successful and have the therapy sessions too, that might be enough to allow the sheep to live instead of ending up on the dinner table, which would be amazing.”

Indigo let Xavier’s words wash over her. She retreated into her head.

And she found, waiting for her there, Liam Walker in his blue cap, holding his spray paint can. It turned out that he wasn’t in her class—all the grades were split down the middle into two, to make for a “smaller and more intimate experience” for the kids. Indigo was in Aster and Flynn’s class. Liam must be with Annaliese.

She hadn’t seen him much, since that first day, so she pictured him, always, holding that spray can.

“Be the revolution,” he wrote.

And Indigo couldn’t help thinking—despite how much Liam annoyed her—about those words.

The revolution.

Something inside her buzzed, when she thought of it.

The thing with the sheep—that was good. Saving the sheep.

But was it revolutionary?

It seemed so…quiet.

Indigo remembered what her mum had said:

“The world only notices certain kinds of people…People who do big, grand things. Like…I dunno, act in movies or cure things or start revolutions. Stuff like that. We’re small people. We could cry enough to drown everybody, and nobody would notice. Nobody sees people like us.”

Maybe if Indigo started a revolution, her mum would notice, and she’d come back.

If she did something big and grand. If she was so loud that even the sky listened to her and fell in love.

Or so loud that the sky cracked in two.

But what sort of revolution could one girl start, in a town as small and sleepy as this one?

At a school as calm and peaceful and hippy-ish as hers?

With friends who seemed obsessed with soap and hugging sheep?

Indigo gripped on to her ice cream sundae and took a long, loud slurp. The ice cream and sugar danced around her head and Xavier kept talking about sheep and Aster kept talking about soap and Esme started talking about some guy who’d started visiting her in the café and Indigo looked out the window…

At first, she was captivated by a tiny moth, beating its wings against the glass, pale and fluttering as a ghost.

But then her eyes focussed.

She looked beyond the moth.

Further.

And she saw him. Across the road from the café, reading a book with an orange cover, there sat a boy in a bright blue cap.

He looked up.

He met Indigo’s eye.

And he winked.

Chapter Nine

It was weird, living at Aster’s house.

Not as weird as it had been, at first, before everything that happened, before the tablets, before her brain quietened, and the storm eased. Before her edges were sanded off, just a bit. Back then, it was so weird that Indigo had felt as if she was bursting from her skin. She had felt as if she was full to the brim with pain and sadness and anger and grief.

Grief, because her mother had been there—wild and wrong and complicated—but there and hers and constant.

And then…

She was not.

And it was a hole in the sky.

A hole in the sky, and the sky was so heartbroken it couldn’t love Indigo anymore, nobody loved Indigo anymore and she was as small as a fruit fly, and she wanted to break everything.

Nothing felt right.

Everything felt upside down.

The clean house, the new shoes, the full lunchbox (a box), the actual-not-a-shopper-bag school backpack, Aster’s dad’s quiet kindness, Noni’s louder kindness, no swearing on the TV, no unpaid bills lying on the front carpet.

No more being povvo.

It felt weird, not being povvo.

It still felt weird.

It all still felt weird.

The only difference was that Indigo didn’t want to break it anymore.

She wouldn’t have admitted it to anyone, but she sort of wanted to keep it. It didn’t feel like hers, like her mum’s house did. It was still a shoe that didn’t quite fit her, but…

She liked it.

And hated herself for that. She knew her mum would be ashamed. A fancy house and a fancy life had made Indigo weak. Made her comfortable.

She still wanted to run away, all the way to her mum, but the difference was that now she wished there could be a way to mash her two lives together.

Indigo daydreamed about her mum living in this house, watching TV with Noni and Aster’s dad, helping cook healthy meals, hugging Indigo on the couch, watching old movies…

Indigo drew it, sometimes, and she wished for it so hard, while she drew, that sometimes she broke her pencil leads.

It was weird that there was a sharpener there, to fix the pencil, always in the same spot. There was everything she needed, at Aster’s house, exactly where it should be, exactly in the same place.

Everything except her mum.

Indigo knew what everyone thought of her mum—what everyone in this town had thought. Had said. She heard the whispers, because nobody tried very hard to make them quiet.

She knew they thought her mum was less-than. Because of her op shop clothes and her grown-out roots and her cigarettes and her wine and her boyfriends.

Indigo knew, too, that her mother wasn’t an easy person to love.

But sometimes…like that day in McDonalds; like the way she was with Sam…even the way she was with the this guys…

She could be soft, sometimes. And happy.

Indigo saw it. She saw the good in her mum. Maybe if she came back and stayed, other people might see it, too.

Maybe she would be like that—the way she was with Sam and the this guys and the way she was at McDonalds—with Indigo. All the time.

She wondered if her mum was out there, somewhere, missing her, or if the love of her current this guy had made her forget that Indigo even existed.

Indigo wanted to take her pencil and fly up to the sky and write across the clouds:

“Mum, look up. I am here. I am not an ant. I am as big as the sky. And I love you.

Please see me.

Please come home.”

She looked around at her small, fancy, cosy new room and she wished she could run from it; run into the streets and start a revolution there, big enough for everyone to see.

But what is there to revolt against when your life is as soft as this one?

And how can you force the world to notice you, when you’re as small and insignificant as an ant?

Chapter Ten

The next morning, Indigo walked to school with Aster.

It was another day just like the one before.

She wanted to run.

But she didn’t.

She stayed with Aster.

And Aster stayed with her.

There was something in that. The staying.

For now.

Just before they got to the school gates, Aster turned to Indigo and said, “Do you mind if I just quickly go and knock on Xavier’s door?” She pointed to Xavier’s house, right next door to the school, with its hippie windchimes and mandalas and huge sunflowers flanking the porch, reminding Indigo of a bunch of happy guards, protecting Xavier and his mum, Iris, from the outside world.

Indigo wished she had some happy guards, protecting her against…all of it.

She thought, for a moment, about the top that Annaliese sometimes wore, from the expensive hippie surf shop in town. It was pale pink and had an embroidered sunflower in the middle of it.

Indigo tried to picture herself wearing a happy, hippie sunflower top.

She looked down at her flannie and trackies and knock-off Blunnies.

She shook her head.

She just wasn’t a sunflower kind of kid.

“Indigo? Is that okay? He just seemed a bit wiped out yesterday. I’m worried that the black dog might have been there.”

The black dog was what Xavier called his depression.

Indigo wasn’t creative or clever enough to come up with a nickname for her own brand of mental weirdness.

Although, she had sometimes toyed with calling it Adam.

She’d never met an Adam that she liked.

Xavier had a black dog.

Aster had hiding days.

Indigo had…

Too much noise.

Too much breaking.

Storms.

Hurricane Adam.

“It’s okay,” she told Aster. “I’m not going to run away between here and the school gates.”

Maybe.

Aster grinned at something over Indigo’s shoulder. “Maybe you could hang out with Liam,” she said.

It took all Indigo’s willpower not to swing around to look.

She didn’t need to, anyway. She could feel him, watching her.

“He seems nice,” Aster, said, in a lower voice.

“Why are you talking like you have a crush on him?” Indigo said, rolling her eyes. “Or like you think I might have a crush on him? You don’t talk that way about Xavier.”

Aster wrinkled her nose. “I definitely don’t have a crush on him. And sorry if I made it sound like I thought you did. I honestly just think he seems nice.”

“I don’t have a crush on him,” Indigo said, firmly. It was one hundred percent true. Indigo had never had a crush on a boy. She couldn’t imagine ever having a crush on a boy. This guys only caused trouble, in her experience. And Liam Walker had major this guy vibes, with all that eye sparkling.

Also, she’d seen the roller coaster Esme went on with all her crushes and short-lived romances. No way was Indigo going to get caught up in all that.

Nope.

No way and never.

Beyond all that, she was only 12-years-old. Some days she felt more like 100-years-old and exhausted beyond imagining. But most days, she felt no different from when she was five and playing with Sam in her bedroom.

She’d never bought in to the “boys are yucky, boys have germs” stuff. She never saw boys as different from her. Maybe in the olden days it was different, but now half the boys in her class had hair past their shoulders, and half the girls had hair cut close to their scalps like pixies. And most of them wore whatever they wanted.

It was just all so unimportant, to Indigo. All those other things didn’t make much difference. It wasn’t that Indigo didn’t like boys like that. It was just that, in this time, she didn’t like anyone like that.

Liam’s sparkling eyes didn’t make her heart flutter. They were just annoying. His smile didn’t make her belly twist. It was just lips, pulling upwards.

And it wasn’t like all those romance movies she used to watch with her mum—where the man and the woman hated each other for nine tenths of the film, until they suddenly had an epiphany (Aster word), and discovered they’d actually been in love the whole time.

Liam was just annoying.

And Indigo didn’t want to fall in love. Not ever. She’d seen the results too many times.

Even if she wasn’t only 12—even at 16, like Esme, or in her 30s, like her mum—she couldn’t imagine any of that.

To be fair, she couldn’t imagine much, when she tried to think about her future. But she didn’t want to need anyone the way her mum did. There was no way she was going to end up with a this guy.

But even putting aside all of the crush stuff, she was one hundred percent sure she didn’t want to hang out with Liam Walker.

Because he was so very annoying.

“Sorry,” said Aster, again. “There are no crushes happening. Not with Liam and not with Xavier.” She leaned in close to Indigo. “Do you ever feel like people just make crushes up, to try and sound more grown up?”

Indigo shrugged. “I dunno. Annaliese and Flynn seem pretty…crushy. And so does Esme and the boys she likes. Maybe it’s just us.”

Aster smiled and linked arms with Indigo.

Indigo didn’t pull away.

“Glad it’s not just me,” she said. “Anyway, so, you’re okay if I go and see Xavier? I really just want to make sure he’s okay.”

“I’m okay,” said Indigo.

And she was.

She really was.

She didn’t want to run (not today), and she didn’t want to break anything (not right now) and actually, some time alone before school might be nice.

She hadn’t had time alone for a while.

Before, she was alone most of the time, but things were different now.

So, as Aster turned right, to go to Xavier’s house, Indigo turned left and walked through the side gate to the school.

She checked to make sure, first, that Liam Walker was still sitting by the school gates.

He was, scribbling away in an artist’s notebook and not paying her any attention at all.

Which was, obviously, the ideal situation.

Indigo clicked the gate closed behind her and followed the school fence past the silver birch trees and willows, past Xavier’s back fence and the tree where they sat with him, sometimes, at lunch time.

Past the tangled, prickling blackberry bushes, past the holes that dogs dug on weekends.

And, finally, she found her place.

At least, it had been her place once. Before. Before she met Noni, before she came to live with Aster, before her mother disappeared. When everything got too tight inside her, when she could see nothing but scarlet, when she felt as if she wanted to run to the end of the world or punch a hole in everything.

Before the tablets took away the sharp edges, or at least dulled them a little.

When she wanted to just shut herself away from everything and scream and kick at walls, this is where she came.

She didn’t know who it belonged to, or why it was here, at the end of the schoolgrounds. It could have been a groundsman’s shed, once, or some sort of very small demountable teaching space or even an outside dunny.

Whatever the case, it sat abandoned, as far as Indigo could tell. Nobody came here but her.

And even she hadn’t come here for a long time. It was hard to sneak away, when Aster was watching her every move, to make sure she didn’t run again, to make sure she didn’t lose it again.

But today, as she opened the door, as she was hit in the face by the strong scent of dust and motor oil and wet dandelions, she realised she had missed it.

She realised that this place had felt a lot like home, when nowhere else really did.

It wasn’t cosy, like Aster’s place, but that made it feel more like a place a kid like Indigo should be.

The shed looked (and smelled) as if it hadn’t been opened since she stopped coming here. There was a thick layer of dust over every surface, and nothing had been moved. She was certain of that, because she knew this place so well. Every millimetre had been committed to memory.

She walked carefully—the floorboards were waterlogged and perilous—over to her stash.

They were tucked behind an old filing cabinet—so old the drawers were rusted closed—in a thick sketchpad she’d bought at Shiploads for a dollar.

Her drawings.

Indigo was relieved to see her sketchpad was still dry, and the moths and silverfish hadn’t made lunch of it.

Indigo held it close to her. She hadn’t realised she’d missed this book, but now that it was in her hands, she wondered how she had lived without it.

As she sank down on to her hessian sack seat, she opened the book.

There were all sorts of drawings inside—drawings of houses, drawings of flowers, of sunsets, of Hollyhock the rabbit, who she had spied in the playground long before Aster had.

Drawings of her mother.

Her mother smiling.

Her mother laughing.

Sketches of her depicted the way Indigo liked to imagine her.

Looking so young, so happy, so beautiful.

Her mother was beautiful. When she was happy, she was more beautiful than the sun.

Indigo stroked her cheek, made of pastels. It did not feel like her mother’s cheek, and the paper didn’t smell like her mother, either, but it was something.

She was crying long before she realised it.

“I miss you, Mum,” she whispered. “I know I shouldn’t care. I tell everyone I don’t care. I tell myself I don’t care. But you picked a this guy over me and I do care. I care so much. And I miss you.”

She looked through the other pictures and realised they were mostly of bugs.

So. Many. Bugs.

There were ladybirds and katydids, blue ants and Christmas beetles, drawn as she sat in the school ground by herself. She found she liked these drawings. There was something about them, the beetles, made still instead of skittering. A sort of grace. A sort of peacefulness. They made her feel still and calm inside.

A loud creaking sound made Indigo gasp, startling her so much she almost dropped her precious book.

She waited, breath held, heart so big in her chest she thought it would burst out of her, but there was only silence. Until the happy music of the school “bell” broke it.

Indigo slipped her precious sketchbook behind the filing cabinet and tiptoed out of the shed. Then she ran across the oval, and all the way to school.

Chapter Eleven

After Indigo went to live with Noni, she visited her mum as often as she could. She would have visited every day, if she was able.

If her mum had been available that is.

Without her mum there, it felt as if something important and huge within her had disappeared.

It felt so enormous and so obvious that she couldn’t believe people couldn’t see it.

It felt as though she’d lost a limb, or an eye.

She’d definitely lost half of her heart.

But nobody can see a heart, can they? If people could see other people’s hearts, there would be so much less hurt in the world.

If people could see Indigo’s heart, they would know…

She wasn’t that sort of kid at all. Not inside.

“Are you being good?” her mum would ask. And she’d pull a cigarette out of its box and twirl it between her fingers. She lit it and blew the smoke away from Indigo. Indigo used to think that meant she cared.

“I’m being good,” Indigo said, and some of it was the truth.

“You’ve got a good place there, with that Noni lady,” her mum mumbled, averting her eyes. Indigo didn’t know if this meant she was lying, or if she was trying not to cry.

“She’s nice,” Indigo said, folding her arms. “But I don’t see why—”

“Don’t believe what people in this town say,” her mum said, urgently, leaning forward and taking her hands (her hands were hard and calloused and, Indigo noticed, now, older, more time-worn, than she remembered). “People say all sorts of things. You know that. About you. About me. Don’t believe any of it.” She shook her head. “We should never have come to this town. If we hadn’t—”

“They took me away from you because of what people say!” Indigo cried, tears stinging her eyes. “But if none of it is true…”

“Some of it is true,” her mum whispered. She shook her head. “I’m not a good mum to you, right now.”

“You are always good.”

Her mum looked at her, lip curled. “That’s not true and you know it.”

“I don’t,” Indigo mumbled.

Her mum shook her head. Looked away. “You ever look at birds, Indigo?”

“No.” Indigo shook her head. “I mostly look at beetles.”

Her mum laughed, low and throaty. “You’re a weird kid.”

Indigo’s cheeks coloured.

“I like looking at seagulls,” her mum said. “Just sort of…” She waved a hand, wafted smoke, “floating, you know. Going where the wind takes them.”

Indigo looked up at the sky. There were two gulls, flying side-by-side.

At the time, Indigo imagined her mum was seeing what she saw:

A pair of birds.

A small flock, perfect as it was, even though it was only two.

At the time, it made Indigo believe that one day, soon, they could live together again. As soon as her mum worked out how to fix whatever it was that was broken.

But then her mum had disappeared.

She had left this town and all the people and everything they said.

They weren’t a flock at all. The wind took her mum far away and Indigo was left alone.

And where had she gone, her mother, really?

After this guy, as always.

But this was the first time she didn’t take Indigo with her.

What if…

What if this guy didn’t like Indigo? What if her mum told him what a bad kid she was, and he didn’t want to have her around?

Or, a worse what if…

What if this guy wasn’t a good guy?

What if her mum was in danger?

What if…the worst what if…

What if her mum hadn’t come back because she couldn’t?

These were the things that Indigo thought of, at nighttime, in her room beside Aster, while Aster tossed and turned in her bed, her brain churning with whatever midnight thoughts she had (about sheep, probably).

What if her mum was gone, gone?

For good?

How would Indigo ever survive that?

Without her mum—without the hope that one day she would return— Indigo would be broken completely and forever.

At nighttime, in her room beside Aster, Indigo pulled her jumper in tightly around her and pretended her mum was holding her close, even though she had barely done that since Indigo was a little girl. So long ago it was hard for Indigo to remember what she felt like.

Indigo imagined it felt like this. Like warmth. Like safety.

Surely that’s what the love of a mother should feel like.

Chapter Twelve

Indigo and Noni sat in the garden of Aster’s house, under a tree, cradling mugs of hot, milky tea.

Indigo never drank tea, before she came to live with Noni and her family. She mostly drank juice or, sometimes, Coke. Milo, if she wanted something hot. She made it in the microwave, which gave the milk a skin.

Tea was new, like everything was new, here.

She didn’t mind it, as long as it had lots of milk. Noni always made it just how she liked it.

Aster was at Xavier’s place—something about sheep, or soap or something. Indigo had been invited but the idea of it exhausted her. The idea of people exhausted Indigo, most days. Knowing what to say. Knowing what to do with her face. Knowing what to do with her hands. Remembering to meet their eyes.

It was all too hard.

It had always been too hard. Even with her mum.

Indigo wanted so badly for her mum to see her as she was, to love her as she was. She never got it quite right.

It was different, with Noni, in another way. Noni knew the bones of her, the darkness of her—she had seen her at her absolute worst. And she never called her bad. When someone has seen you at your worst, and stayed, you don’t have to try so hard.

And she never made Indigo talk. Never made her do anything, really. She was happy just to sit, in silence, drinking tea.

Indigo liked that.

Indigo had never known she liked silence. Her mother was always talking, singing, clattering about, turning up Metallica songs on the radio, swearing at something or someone. Her mother was noise and colour and movement and wildness. And life.

Noni was life, too, but in a different way. A quieter way.

And Indigo, secretly, found Noni’s way calming. She felt much softer, in Noni’s presence, even without the tablets.

As if Noni was reading her mind, she said, quietly, “You took your tablet today?”

She didn’t peer at Indigo, judge her, search her eyes for truth. She only asked. And Indigo felt like, if she chose not to answer, that would be okay.

But she chose to answer. She wanted Noni to trust her. She wanted Noni to know she was doing well.

“Yep.”

“Are they…making you feel okay?”

Indigo nodded. “I guess. I feel different. But not in a bad way, I don’t think. I feel like everything isn’t so close to the edge. Or so noisy. Like life isn’t so…spiky.”

Noni laughed. “Spiky. That’s a good word for it. Have you thought any more about going back to the psychologist? A diagnosis could help a lot.”

“I thought I already had one,” Indigo said, darkly. “They gave me a bunch of names for what I am. A bunch of big words.”

Indigo hated those words.

Hated those labels.

Hated being in a box, like that.

“In the moment when you were…really struggling, yes, those…words made sense. But there might be more than that. And if we know…”

“You’d find other ways to call me a freak?” Indigo snapped, her cheeks flushing.

The dark clouds rumbled.

She could cope.

The tablets helped her cope.

“Other ways to help you,” Noni corrected, gently. She blew on her coffee.

“You know…I heard there’s a new boy in town. From what I’ve heard, I think maybe you’d like him. You have a lot in common.”

”Really?” Indigo snapped. “Is he my sort of kid?”

“And what does that mean?” Noni said, evenly.

Indigo shrugged, looking at the ground. “Dunno,” she mumbled.

Noni put her tea down on the grass. “I think you’d get along because he’s creative and talented and amazing, just like you are.”

Indigo met Noni’s eye. She felt something click—pieces of a puzzle coming together. And as they did, something deflated in her soul.

“This boy,” she said, flatly, shaking her head, “his name isn’t Liam, is it?”

“You know him?” asked Noni.

Indigo shook her head. “I don’t. And I don’t want to.”

Noni didn’t push her or ask why. She just nodded at the sky. “Look at the stars,” she whispered. “They’re so beautiful tonight.”

Indigo followed her eyes. Noni was right. The stars were so beautiful. So bright and shining. They looked so small, but she knew they were really enormous, bigger than you could imagine.

She felt an arm around her shoulder. “I like being out here,” Noni said. “Watching the stars, with you.”

Chapter Thirteen

Indigo still worked in the school library, sometimes. It had started as a not-punishment, a teachable moment, after some wrong thing she did. She couldn’t even remember what that was, now. It probably involved Annaliese. The teachable moment was long over, but she still came in, once a week, to help out. Only on Fridays, because Miss Carnevale was there on Fridays and Mrs Griffin was not. Mrs Griffin didn’t like her, not one bit (she’d heard her say as much). Miss Carnevale did like her (and had almost literally told Mrs Griffin to shove it, after she said the thing she said).

Miss Carnevale let Indigo cover books and shelve them and make library displays. It was the last of those that Indigo liked the most, because she got to draw. For fantasy month, she drew a big, red dragon, orange fire billowing from his nostrils. For space month, she made a silver spaceship and a dozen tiny green aliens.

This month was graphic novel month and Indigo was busy making an old-timey comic book style picture, complete with those tiny black dots and jagged-edged bubbles that said “pow” and “bang”. Miss Carnevale had brought her a new multi-pack of coloured Sharpies, which she’d put in a tartan pencil case with the words “Indigo’s Art Supplies” written on it, on a fabric label.

“They’re yours,” she said, smiling. “You can keep them in a special box in my office. I promise Mrs Griffin won’t find them.”

“Mine…to keep?” Indigo had whispered. She’d never had this many Sharpies, all of her own, before.

Once, for Christmas, her Mum bought her three of them.

“Mum, I love them,” she’d said, “but how…”

Her mum had tapped her nose. “What the Man doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”

Indigo treasured those markers, used them until they ran dry.

When they did, she tentatively asked her mum if she might have more. “Do you think I’m made of money?” she’d snapped.

Smelling these Sharpies, now, in the library, reminded her of the perfect happiness of those days, with her first pack of markers. How she’d felt like anything was possible, because she could make anything she could imagine, with her very own pens.

It was all she could do to concentrate on drawing.

It was all she could do not to cry.

But she would never cry at school. Imagine if Annaliese saw?

A little silverfish wriggled its way across the table. Indigo knew she should kill it. If Miss Carnevale was here, she’d kill it. Silverfish ate up books.

But Indigo liked them. They were misunderstood. They only wanted to eat the books so they could feel the words. So that they could know things. They didn’t mean to be bad. She felt like putting the silverfish in her pocket. To protect it.

“What’re you doing?”

Indigo’s heart sputtered like a car breaking down.

She turned, slowly, her eyes narrowed.

Liam Walker wore his blue cap backwards. He’d had a haircut. His hair tickled his jaw now, like some wannabe nineties skater boy. Like Nirvana-era Dave Grohl (Indigo knew all the references—her mum kept a stash of old magazines and Indigo read them cover to cover).

She bet that Liam Walker knew all of it, too. She bet he was trying to replicate it, as if he thought he was too cool to live now, as if he imagined himself skating on a half-pipe in 1993, listening to Kurt Cobain on his Walkman, as if that would make him special.

Her eyes narrowed even further.

“What are you doing here? Did Aster send you?”

“Aster? No? Why?”

“She wants us to be friends.” Indigo rolled her eyes. “Not going to happen.”

“I thought I’d be in your class,” Liam said, propping on the desk, beside Indigo’s work, without even being invited. “Weird how there’s two different classes. In my old school, all the kids in the same grade were in the same class.”

“It’s so we get more time with the teachers, I guess,” said Indigo. She didn’t look at Liam, just kept drawing. Maybe if she ignored him, he’d go away. “Because it’s a fancy hippie school.”

He did not go away.

“What’re you doing?” he asked, again.

“Should I be Captain Obvious?” Indigo growled. She gestured at the paper, at her pens.

“You’re good,” Liam said.

Indigo’s heart stopped.

Her ears started to ring.

Her brain was filled with clouds.

And she

Just

Wanted

To

Hide

Everything.

She wanted to scoop up her paper and her precious pens and run, run, run, all the way to her shed and squash herself down in a corner and cover her head with her hands and make herself as small as possible.

And scream.

Until the sky cracked.

“I’m not good,” she spat at Liam.

He raised his eyebrows.

“I’m not,” she repeated. “Don’t say I am. It’s not true.”

“Okay!” He held up his hands.

And she thought that might be it. She thought he would go, then, after she snapped like that. People usually did. She liked being able to make someone leave.

But he didn’t leave.

Instead, he leaned in. He smelled like PK chewing gum and a bit like eucalyptus.

“You are good,” he said. And then he moved off her desk and on to the one next to her.

Indigo didn’t look at him.

Wouldn’t look.

She heard a scuffling noise, and then a scratching noise.

She didn’t look.

Would. Not. Look.

Went back to her drawing.

A moment later, she felt a gentle breeze and something land on her table.

A moment after that, the library door opened and closed.

Indigo looked down.

A paper plane had come to rest on top of her tartan pencil case. “Open me” was written on one of the wings, in bright blue gel pen.

Indigo rolled her eyes.

She wouldn’t open the plane.

She’d throw it in the bin, instead.

Of course.

She went back to her drawing. She finished it just as Miss Carnevale came out of her office. She carried half a sandwich that smelled like curried egg.

“Indigo, that’s amazing!” the librarian cried, her mouth still full.

Indigo shrugged and looked away, her cheeks on fire.

“I’m putting it up right now,” said Miss Carnevale.

Indigo packed up her pens and she put them in her special, secret, hidden-from-Mrs-Griffin box. She collected her schoolbag.

And her drink bottle.

And the paper plane.

She would put it in one of the outside bins.

She tucked it in her schoolbag.

Just for now.

Chapter Fourteen

After school, it was all anyone could talk about.

A metre high, on the front office wall, painted in rainbow and glitter.

The eyes of all future
generations are upon you.

And beside the writing, there was a picture, of a planet, of Earth, crying.

Everyone stood and stared.

Nobody spoke.

They were transfixed.

Indigo most of all.

She had taken her tablet this morning, but none of her felt numb, now.

Everything felt electric.

This picture—it was a message, a howl, a call to action, and it made her crackle inside.

Even though she knew exactly who wrote it.

It felt like a revolution.

The paper plane felt hot, in the pocket of her bag.

She longed to open it.

She wouldn’t open it.

The principal marched out of her office.

“What is everyone…ohh.”

They were dispersed, sent away, sent home.

Indigo found Aster.

“It had to be him,” Aster said.

“Who cares?” said Indigo.

She meant it.

She didn’t mean it at all.

Chapter Fifteen

“Ooh! Lemon and chocolate!” Aster said, clasping her hands together.

“What about sandalwood and seaweed?” said Xavier, inclining his head. “That would be weird.”

“And, oh! Sundae scent, but with…like, a dirt undertone?” said Esme. “That sounds really creative! I bet nobody’s done that before!”

“For a reason.”

Everyone turned to look at Indigo.

Indigo had been trying to stay out of it. She didn’t want to be part of this. The sheep soap was dumb. It was small.

The eyes of all future generations are upon you.

She sat in the corner of Noni’s lounge room—she still couldn’t quite bring herself to think of it as hers— doodling.

She was meant to be doing homework but,

Honestly.

Aster had invited her to the “meeting” but Indigo just couldn’t bring herself to care about the dumb soap.

The eyes of all future generations are upon you.

She couldn’t help thinking of the electric storm those words had sparked inside her—how seeing them written there like that had made her feel…something. Properly.

How she felt a bit like she did when she wanted to run or throw something, only opposite.

Those words made her want to run towards something.

They made her want to build something.

She remembered her mum, and how she said that nobody noticed people like them.

“Unless we do something bad,” she had added, laughing her throaty laugh.

People said that Indigo’s mum was a bad mum. They saw all the bad things she did. They noticed.

They noticed that she left Indigo alone more than she should.

That—sometimes—she stole things.

Or drank a bit too much at the pub.

They noticed that she forgot to pay bills.

And hardly ever packed Indigo’s lunch.

They noticed it all.

Indigo’s mum was filled with a storm that made
her do bad things.

Indigo had done bad things, too.

Some of them weren’t her fault—that’s what the tablets were for.

Some of them were.

Some of them were because she wanted to be seen.

People had noticed Indigo, when she screamed and yelled and broke things.

But maybe that wasn’t the only way to be seen.

And now, she wanted to be seen more than ever.

She wanted to be seen from far away—from wherever her mum was now.

Indigo had always had her mother’s storm inside her. But she’d never known what it was for. She’d tried to blow away the world, a hundred times, but without a good reason.

Maybe the words written on the office wall were her reason.

Her revolution.

It was just such a shame that it was the most annoying boy in the world who had written them.

Indigo stood up and walked outside. She sat under a silver birch tree. She felt sheltered here. Protected.

A tiny fly landed on her hand.

“I don’t want to like him,” Indigo said. “I don’t,” she said, more firmly. “It’s only his words. They make me feel…everything.”

Chapter Sixteen

She dreamed that night of words written on walls, of walls that stretched to the sky, to the clouds. She dreamed of quotes, from movies and songs, from books and poems and all of them bright enough, dazzling enough to light a fire in anyone’s soul.

She dreamed of writing her own words, in sparkle-black paint, words from her own soul.

But words were tricky for Indigo. They didn’t come out quite right. So, she tried painting instead.

And the paintings she made said:

See me.

And they said:

I miss you.

And:

Am I big enough, bright enough, dazzling enough, now?

Can you see my storm?

Can you see how it’s big enough to make the whole sky fall in love?

She made her pictures, on that sky-high wall, and then, from her pocket, she pulled a book of matches, the kind her mother always liked, with the name of some old-time hotel on the back.

She broke one match free, and she scraped it along the striker.

The flame was blue as a baseball cap, blue as the colour of her name.

She lit the wet paint that dripped from her art,

And the whole wall went up in flames,

And the whole world went up in flames.

*

When Indigo woke, she took her tablet. She swallowed it down, deep, deep down inside of her and she said a little prayer of thanks for that tiny tablet. It stopped her from being wild, but it did not make her numb.
It stopped her wanting to break things, but it gave her the will to build.

She had been scared that the tablets would steal her soul. They didn’t. They only made her dark parts into light and the grey misery into something…

Like a wide, blue sky.

And today, this morning, when she crept to the window, she saw that the sky was on fire with the sunrise. The world was on fire.

She crept across the bedroom, while Aster snuffled and snored. She found the paper aeroplane in her backpack.

And, quiet as sunrise, she opened it.

And the words inside made the fire burn even brighter still.

“Join me,” the words said. “I can teach you how to make your soul into words and paint it on the world.”

Indigo wondered if these words were a quote, too—surely a 12-year-old couldn’t write words like that.

She found it hard enough to read them.

It didn’t matter, though.

It didn’t matter anymore that Liam Walker was the most annoying human alive. He had a power—a secret, special power—to paint words that set the world on fire.

And maybe he could teach her.

And then she could paint words like he did, too.

And her mother might see them—after all, who can miss seeing words so bright and powerful?

And if her mother saw…maybe she might come back.

Aster and Xavier and Esme could keep their sheep and their soap. That was small stuff, mediocre (Indigo had learnt that word from Aster’s poems, too).

Indigo was bigger than that, brighter and more dazzling.

She was a revolution.

At least, she could be.

She was tired of being nothing, tired of being quiet, tired of being a problem.

She wanted to be the solution.

The solution, she decided, lived in a can of paint.

*

“We’re going to the farm today,” said Aster. “You want to come?” She grinned at Indigo, through a mouthful of Weet-Bix. “We’d really like you to.”

“What for?” asked Indigo. She put a piece of bread in the toaster. She couldn’t shake a sort of hollow, grumpy feeling.

Usually, the weekends were a happy time—away from the stupid hippie school, hanging out with Noni and Aster and sometimes Xavier, too. But today, she wished…

She didn’t want to admit it to herself, but it was there, bright as neon and undeniable.

She wished she was going to school, so she could see Liam.

She didn’t know what she’d say, if she saw him—if she would say anything. How would you begin that conversation?

“You threw a paper plane at me, and the words you wrote started something in my soul and I do—I do want to join you. I want to do something big and something bright and something that changes things. I want my mum to see it, wherever she is, and be proud of me for being a revolutionary—so proud that she comes home.”

She couldn’t say that. Of course, she couldn’t.

Something told her that a kid like Liam wouldn’t laugh at her for talking like that—like some weird, twisted version of Aster’s poems— but still.

She couldn’t.

But a least, if she was at school, she would be near him, and sometimes being near to something bright is enough to light you.

Not that Liam was bright.

He was still annoying, but his words...

That’s what Indigo was drawn to.

She knew she couldn’t tell Aster. That would only set her off thinking about crushes again, even if she denied it.

“Indigo?’ Aster peered at her, furrow-browed. “You’re spaced out again. Are you okay? Is it the medication?
I know it can feel weird to take it, for a little while, but you have to keep going…”

Indigo shook her head. “It’s not,” she said. “And don’t worry—I’m going to keep going. It makes me feel better, taking it. I’m not going to stop. Why would you think—” She stopped, sighed, rolled her eyes, because of course. “Have you and Noni been talking about me? Are you both worried?”

Aster’s cheeks coloured. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I know we should both believe in you—we do believe in you. It’s just…you’re only twelve and it’s a big thing, to have to take tablets every day. I know how hard it would be for me.”

She was lying, obviously. If Aster had to take tablets, she’d do it perfectly, the way she did everything perfectly. Indigo crossed her arms. “No, you wouldn’t,” she said. “You do everything right.”

Aster laughed, hollow and scoffing. “In what world is that true?” she said. “I don’t do anything right. I fail at everything. I’m the only kid who’s not special and gifted at our whole school.”

“I’m not special and gifted,” Indigo protested. “I only go there because nowhere else would have me.”

“That’s not true,” said Aster.

“It is. I’m not smart or talented. My only gift is being a problem.”

Aster sighed. “Indigo, do you think people don’t know how good you are at art? I know you think you’re hiding it, but you’re not.”

Something inside Indigo tightened. Her fingers shook a little. Inside her, deep inside, the small pieces of the old Indigo, before…what happened…they stirred and awakened.

She wanted to run. She wanted to break.

She didn’t want people to know she did art. She thought she hid it well.

If they knew…if they saw…they would just have something else to laugh about.

“That’s why I thought you and Liam would get along together. He’s…I guess he’s an artist, too? And I thought, maybe, you could use another friend at school?”

The tightness inside Indigo intensified.

“Why? So that you would be relieved of your duties? If I had another friend, you wouldn’t have to babysit me all the time? You could just be friends with Xavier by yourself, like you want to be, and you wouldn’t have to deal with me tagging along? So, what, you thought you’d palm me off to the only other delinquent at the school? The kid who graffitied the school…twice, now? You thought we’d be a good match?”

Aster shook her head, eyes shining.

“No, no,” she said. “That wasn’t what I…I…”

Aster’s teeth began to chatter. her hands began to twitch. She was breathing really quickly, as if she couldn’t take in enough air. “I…have to…go…” she said, and she ran away, off and up the stairs.

And Indigo watched her leave. Watched her disappear. And she felt worse than she ever had. She’d made Aster cry, made her panic, sent her tumbling into a hole of anxiety and now Aster had gone to hide. This was the first time she’d made a hiding day happen. And she felt terrible. The tightness inside her unwound and turned into loose threads. She felt soft and sad and lonely.

Noni came into the kitchen. “Is Aster okay?” She asked.

Indigo shook her head. “We had a fight and she got upset.” Tears stung her eyes.

“Oh, Indy,” Noni whispered. “What happened?”

Indigo sniffed. She rubbed at her eyes. “She asked me about the medication—about whether I was taking it and then…she talked about my art, and I don’t really like talking about it and…and then I thought she didn’t want to be my friend any more. It just got bigger and bigger, and I felt…angry. I thought the tablets were meant to help with that.”

Noni sighed. “Help, yes, but they don’t just make your emotions go away. They just help you to cope with them. And look, you’re coping.”

It was true. Indigo still felt all weird inside, but the old Indigo would have been screaming, crying, breaking by now.

“Aster isn’t coping,” she whispered.

Noni shook her head.

“I do take my tablets,” Indigo whispered. “Every day.”

“I know,” said Noni. “I believe in you.”

“I miss my mum,” Indigo said, even more quietly.

“I know,” said Noni, again.

“Has anyone…heard from her?” Indigo asked this question every week or so. The answer never changed. It didn’t change this time, either. Noni shook her head.

Indigo swallowed. And then, quietly, she voiced the small but terrible fear she kept pushed down deep inside her. “What if she never comes back? What if she’s…”

Noni shook her head. “No,” she said, light but firm. “Don’t think like that, Indigo.” She smiled, gently.

“You should go to the farm,” Noni said. “You could help Xavier with his soap idea. You like soaps, don’t you?”

“How do you know that?” Indigo snapped without meaning to. She shook her head. “Why do you think I’d be the sort of kid who likes soaps?”

She could feel it, within her, the swirl of a cyclone, twisting into life. It wasn’t big enough to cause a disaster, to make her scream or break. The tablets kept the storms small and manageable. But they were there and undeniable.

“I haven’t changed, just because I live with you, and I’m being treated now. I’m still me. I’m…wild and wrong and a…a problem. I don’t like soaps. Other kids like soaps. Boring kids with boring lives.
I like…I like peril and…graffiti and…I’m different.”

Indigo was surprised to feel hot tears streaming down her face. She hadn’t cried like this for…she couldn’t remember when she’d last cried like this.

She expected Noni to be mad at her, for her outburst (though why she expected this, she wasn’t quite sure). Noni was never, really, properly mad at her, no matter what she did. Of course, because it was Noni, she instead found a pair of warm arms around her shoulders and a voice in her ear that said, “You are whatever sort of kid you want to be.”

It should have made Indigo feel better. But it didn’t. Because that was the problem, wasn’t it?

She still didn’t know what sort of kid she wanted to be. But whoever it was, it was bigger than soap.

“I’m not going to the farm,” she said, into Noni’s hair. “But would it be okay if I went to meet a friend?”

Noni pulled back. “Of course. Not Aster or Xavier? A new friend?”

Indigo felt a bit hollow inside. Noni looked equal parts confused and delighted.

Indigo had never mentioned another friend before. Because she didn’t have any, apart from Aster and Xavier. And Aster only liked her because she had to. And Xavier only liked her because Aster did.

“A new friend,” she lied.

Or perhaps it was a half lie.

Or perhaps, one day, it would be the truth.

Liam was infuriating. But he was the closest thing to something real that she had, until her mother came back.

The closest thing she had to feeling again.

Indigo looked down at the windowsill. A tiny ladybug sat there, wriggling its wings.

“I want to feel something,” Indigo whispered. “Do you feel things?”

As if in answer, the ladybug took flight.

Chapter Seventeen

Indigo didn’t go straight to Liam. Instead, she went to visit her house.

She still thought of it as hers. And she loved it. And she knew it was the silliest, most ridiculous thing in the world, to love such an ugly, unappealing place—dirty brown brick, mildewed windows, tatty curtains and so much cracked grey concrete—but she couldn’t help it.

Indigo saw the mess of it, of course. But she saw the beauty too. The bricks that were warm to the touch, under the midday sun. The mould on the windows made patterns—Van Gogh swirls and Seurat dots. The curtains were like blue butterfly wings, undulating (an Aster word) in the gentle breeze. And the concrete…

Dandelions grew through the cracks. And daisies. Indigo thought they seemed brave, these flowers that pushed their way towards the light.

She remembered a line that Noni had sung her once, from a Leonard Cohen song.

There is a crack, a crack in everything.
That’s how the light gets in.

“What does that mean?” Indigo had asked her.

Noni had smiled, sadly. And she said, “Everything and everyone is a little bit broken. But there is hope. There is light. And the people who are a little bit broken often shine the brightest, Indy.”

“Do you think I’m a bit broken?” Indigo had whispered.

And Noni had looked like she might cry, then. And she nodded. And she said, “But I think we need to reconsider what we think broken means. I don’t think it means destroyed. Or beyond repair. I think it means that we have all the pieces there to make beautiful art. Like those Japanese bowls, where the cracks are filled with gold. The cracks turn the bowl from an ordinary thing into something extraordinary.”

“So…I’m a bowl?” Indigo asked, completely confused.

Noni laughed. “No, not a bowl, Indigo, a masterpiece in the making.”

Kintsugi.

That’s what it was called—of course, Aster knew it. The Japanese art of repairing pottery with gold.

Indigo stared at the old house. Her house. She imagined the mortar replaced with gold, the cracks in the concrete filled with it, sparkling. She wondered, though, if the flowers would still grow if the gold was there.

She wondered if fixing something on purpose, with gold, was better than letting flowers grow.

Indigo bent down and picked a dandelion from between the concrete cracks. She twirled it between her fingers, letting the light catch its petals. She put it in her pocket. And then she sat down on the grass of her front yard.

This time, she didn’t find a bug to draw. This time, she drew her house. Every brick. Every break. Every piece of it, just waiting to be filled with gold or flowers.

And then she folded the piece of paper up and she put it in her pocket and continued on her way to find Liam Walker.

Chapter Eighteen

Liam sat on the hollowed log that had been on the front lawn of Indigo’s school since forever. Apparently, it had once been a tree—a towering eucalyptus. But a storm had broken it in two.

Indigo’s mum had liked the hollowed log.

She sat on it, sometimes, when she was waiting for Indigo to finish school. She sat away from the other parents, who clumped together, in their fashionably shabby designer surf brand clothes, discussing their latest trips to Byron Bay and Bali; their children’s bare-footed weekend escapades (all captured for Instagram, of course).

Indigo’s mum would sit alone, staring pointedly away from the other parents. As if she couldn’t hear their whispers.

But Indigo saw how sad her eyes were. How tired she was, of everything.

For a moment, sitting on the log, Liam reminded Indigo of her mum. His eyes looked a little sad too—and tired, as if he hadn’t slept at all the night before.

And there was something else about him—a fire glimmering inside of him, inside his soul, that made him glow.

Her mother had had that glow, too, on her best days.

Once or twice, she smiled like that at Indigo. Indigo could still close her eyes and see those smiles.

And now she was gone.

Indigo wondered if she glowed, now, or if the tiredness had consumed her. She wondered…

She shook it off. The worry. The fear. She fixed her eyes and her mind on Liam.

“You came,” he said, grinning bigger. “I didn’t think you’d come.”

“Why?” Asked Indigo, sitting down beside him. She made sure not to sit on a little cluster of ants. They could all share the log.

He smelled like paint and boy.

Liam ran his hand through his tangled black hair. “Didn’t think you liked me.”

“I don’t,” Indigo snapped.

Liam laughed, surprising her. Why was that funny? Did he think she was joking?

“And why is that?” He asked. “Because I’m new? Because I’m black? Because I’m a rebel with a cause?”

She ticked off on her fingers. “Not because you’re new. I’ve been new a bazillion times myself. Not because you’re black. I would never dislike someone because of something like that. That’s just dumb. Because you’re a rebel? Are you, though? Or do you just pretend to be?”

“Bit of both,” he said, shrugging. “Like you, I think.” He peered at Indigo. “So, why don’t you like me?”

“You’re annoying,” said Indigo, shrugging.

Liam blinked at her. “Why?’

“You’re just so…” Indigo waved her hands, looking for the right words, “confident. Like, you just waltz into this school and paint yourself all over it and you do the same thing with people. You just walked up to me and Aster, like it was no big deal, and assumed we’d want you there. It’s like...you assume everyone is going to love you. That’s annoying.”

Liam leaned close. “Pretending,” he whispered. He leaned back out and, as Indigo processed what he had just said—the idea that he was only faking being cool and confident—he got to his feet and held out his hand to her.

Indigo crossed her arms, shook her head. “I don’t do that,” she said. “I don’t hold hands with boys. I don’t have crushes. That’s not why I’m here. I won’t be your girlfriend. I’ll never run around after a this guy. Never. So, if you want that…”

Liam was shaking his head. “No,” he said, gently. “That’s not what I want.”

“Oh,” said Indigo, meekly. And then, “What do you want, then? And why did you ask me to come here and not…Aster, or Flynn, or Annaliese?”

He shrugged. “Friend crush.” He held out his hand. “I just want to help you up.”

Indigo took his hand. It was rough and sticky. She looked at her fingers, entwined with his. They both had blue paint on them, now.

“Why do you have a friend crush on me?” she asked him, wiping her blue hands on her jeans.

“I can spot an artist,” he said. “And I can spot a cool person.”

Indigo blushed. “I’m not a cool person,” she muttered. “I’m a problem.”

He shook his head. “You’re complicated. Like a problem is complicated. But complicated things are the most interesting.” He winked at her. “So, is that flower for me?”

Indigo looked down. The dandelion was poking out of her pocket.

“I like dandelions,” Liam said. “Do you know they symbolise hope?”

“I didn’t know that,” Indigo murmured. She looked up at Liam. “No,” she said. “The flower is for me.”

“Fair enough,” said Liam. He stared off into space for awhile before turning back to Indigo, grinning.

“So tell me,” he said. “What’s your favourite quote?”

Chapter Nineteen

“Why did you write that one?” Liam looked at the wall over her shoulder.

They sat, side-by-side, behind the music rooms. The music rooms were housed in a small weatherboard demountable at the back of the school. Indigo had always assumed it was because music classes were so noisy, which could distract the rest of the school. But Noni had told her the original music rooms had been at the front of the main schoolhouse, until they’d been crushed by a falling tree 12 years ago, during a major storm.

“What else was ruined that night?” Indigo had asked her.

“So many things,” Noni replied. “We don’t have storms here often, but when we do, they’re doozies. Half the businesses in town were affected in one way or another. I was only a teenager when it happened. Aster’s dad and I watched the lightning from our front room. It seemed exciting, then. I think I’d find it terrifying, now.”

Indigo looked at the quote she had written, small but visible, on the back wall of the music room.

What could she say?

Why had she written this one?

Because she knew how to spell all the words?

Because her mother had liked it, enough to have it inked on her skin?

Because one of her favourite artists had written it?

Because she just liked the way it looked?

Or was the real reason that she, Indigo, felt as if she were a storm inside, but there was peace within her, too.

When she took her tablets.

When she was with Noni.

When she was doing art.

And now. Now she was peaceful. Here, with this boy, who was only pretending to be infuriating. Here, doing something that was against the rules but shouldn’t be. Doing something that made beauty shouldn’t be against the rules.

She was making beauty.

She and Liam were painting flowers and bees and birds and trees and their favourite quotes. They were turning the peeling, dirty, unseen paint at the back of the music rooms—where nobody ever came, and nobody ever saw—into something lovely.

And she felt so peaceful, doing it.

She looked at her quote.

“There is peace, even in the storm,” she whispered.

She looked over at Liam’s quote.

“The poetry of the earth is never dead.”

“You’re really into environmental stuff?” She asked him.

He nodded. “My ancestors took care of this land for thousands of years and then you guys came and wrecked everything in a couple of centuries. Of course, I care. There’s a forest near here, you know? The trees are literally thousands of years old. They want to dump toxic waste there. How could you not care?”

“That’s terrible,” Indigo whispered.

Inside her chest, her heart thudded. The idea of those ancient trees being destroyed felt so wrong. And what about the animals that lived in them? What about all the bugs and beetles?

They were so small. Did anyone care about them?

“My friend Xavier saved some sheep,” she blurted.

Liam looked at her, one eyebrow raised.

Indigo looked at her knees. They were covered in paint.

“His family has a farm,” she said, slowly. “They were killing the sheep for meat. Now, kids go there to…hug the sheep and they’re thinking of making…soap? It’s dumb and it’s not, like, setting the world on fire, like you want to…”

“What makes you think I want to set the world on fire?” Liam asked, gently.

Indigo waved a hand. “Your quotes. Your…graffiti. You want to make big, real change and you have a fire inside you.” She whispered, “I want that.”

Liam stared at his quote. He traced it with the tip of his finger. “Small stuff matters, too,” he murmured. “My mum says everything has to start small, just like us.” He nodded at her quote. “I like your quote about peace.”

“I have to take tablets,” Indigo said. “To make peace. Just since my mum left.”

She didn’t know what she expected him to say. What would a boy like Liam think about her taking antidepressants?

But he just nodded and said, “Me too. For ADHD.”

He reached over and took her hand.

It felt nice. Normal. Nothing like a crush. Everything like friendship.

“Can we do this again?” he asked.

“Graffiti?”

He shook his head. “Art. And purpose. Leaving our mark on the world. Being seen.”

Indigo looked back at her quote.

She felt funny in her belly. All full of everything.

She had expected today to light a fire inside her.

A fire like Liam’s.

To spark a storm.

Instead, she really did feel peaceful.

And seen.

Chapter Twenty

Aster was out of her room.

She sat in the lounge room, wearing an oversized hoodie, drinking hot chocolate. Xavier was with her. He wore rainbow striped leggings and a knee-length, belted Adventure Time T-shirt and was eating Nutella out of the jar.

Indigo wondered if Noni knew. She probably did.

They were watching some Disney Channel TV show with a loud laugh track. They weren’t talking but seemed completely at home in each other’s company.

Indigo was just wondering if she should go quietly up to her room, without disturbing them, when Aster looked up. She raised a hand. “Hi, Indy. Come and join us?”

“You’re not mad at me?” Indigo asked, her cheeks burning.

Aster shook her head. She didn’t say, “Why would I be?” She just said “No.”

“We’ve all got our stuff,” said Xavier, as Indigo sat down between them.

He leaned his head on her shoulder and Indigo felt an unexpected warmth inside her. She was included. She was part of this. Part of them.

“We were talking about soap,” Xavier sighed. “But we couldn’t decide if chocolate and pistachio was a good idea or a terrible one, so we gave up and now we’re watching The Healing Powers of Dude.”

“It’s about a dog,” said Aster, sleepily.

“I think…chocolate and pistachio is one of the best ideas you’ve had,” Indigo admitted.

Xavier raised his head. “I didn’t think you cared about the soap stuff.”

Indigo shrugged. “I do like…perfumes. And…” She wrinkled her nose. “I used to like smelling soaps at the supermarket. Weird?”

“There is no weird,” said Xavier.

Indigo smiled. She thought of what Liam had said. “If it helps the sheep…”

Xavier nodded. “We’d be really happy to have you on the team,” he said.

He booped her on the nose and all three of them went back to watching the show.

And it was quiet. And nice. And peaceful.

But something still felt twisted and odd, inside Indigo.

Some sense that this—this peace—wasn’t enough.

Her mother would not come home for peace.

Her mother would only see her if she was a storm.

And to be that she had to feel something.

Being with Liam, writing her quotes, that had been something, but not enough.

She looked over at her backpack. Her tablet packet stuck out from her front pocket.

The tablets made her feel all softened, inside. If she stopped…

She shook her head.

She wouldn’t stop. She liked the feeling of being in control. And, after all, you can be a storm and still be in control.

She could light up the world without breaking it, too.

Chapter Twenty-One

“What do you know about the plan to dump toxic waste in the forest near here?” asked Indigo.

Noni peered at her over the top of her newspaper. “I think they’re planning to store it there, not dump it there,” she said. She shook her head. “It’s still a shame.”

“It’s terrible,” Indigo cried. “Why didn’t I know about it?”

“Do you read the papers?” asked Aster’s dad. He was trying unsuccessfully to make a coffee from the new podless machine that Noni had bought. His shirt was covered in brown liquid.

“Nobody reads the papers,” Indigo said.

Noni held up her newspaper. “Not nobody.”

“Liam knew about it,” Indigo said. “I wonder how?”

“Liam Walker? You’re friends now?” Aster was half-dressed and her hair was still mussy. She yawned.

“No, we’re not friends,” said Indigo. “Maybe. I don’t know. Maybe not yet.” She shrugged. “Anyway, he knows about this stuff. That’s why he does the wall art—”

“Graffiti,” Aster corrected.

Indigo shrugged. “I think it’s art. Anyway, he knew about it.”

“Maybe he reads the news online,” said Aster.

“Did you know?” Indigo asked Aster.

Aster took a bite of her toast and jam. “Xavier said something.”

“I thought he only cared about sheep.”

Aster laughed. “He cares about everything.”

“I want to do something,” Indigo blurted.

Everyone turned to look at her.

“I didn’t know you cared about that stuff,” said Aster.

“I didn’t, either,” said Indigo. “But I think I do. The thought of those trees—they’ve been there for thousands of years. They’ve survived storms and fires and floods, and they are still there and there are animals there and…” Her cheeks coloured. “And bugs and stuff. And people are just going to dump a bunch of toxic waste there? It feels wrong.”

She turned to Noni. “Is anyone trying to fix it?”

“There are petitions, and people are trying to raise money…”

“That’s not enough!” Indigo yelled.

Noni flinched. Indigo felt her belly drop.

“Don’t worry,” she said, quietly. “I’m not going to throw anything. I’m not going to break anything. But I do feel angry.”

“So, what can we do?” Indigo looked over at Aster. She had jam on her chin and her hair was completely ridiculous. But she had a spark in her eyes.

“You want to help?” Indigo asked.

Aster nodded. “You’re my friend. And you care about this. So of course, I want to help. And I have an idea. I have to warn you, though, it does involve—”

“Sheep?” Indigo sighed.

“Sheep,” said Aster, stick-mouthed grinning. “And soap, of course.”

“Of course,” said Indigo.

And she couldn’t help smiling, too.

Chapter Twenty-Two

They sat in a booth at Esme’s café. It was after closing.

Indigo, Aster, Xavier, Esme and…

Liam Walker.

“The Sheep Squad!” Liam said, grinning at all of them

He was so annoying.

“No,” said Indigo. “Call us that again and you’re out.”

“I’m only just in,” Liam pouted.

“Only because Aster is nicer than I am,” said Indigo.

But she smiled at him. A little bit.

Because it was nice having him here.

Because he wasn’t so annoying, all the time.

Esme played a Metallica CD over the loudspeakers: “To get us fired up to make change!”

“I love Metallica,” Liam said.

Esme held out her hand. “We can be friends,” she said, smiling.

Indigo smiled at Liam, too. Because she liked Metallica as well. And because he was full of ideas, for how this sheep-soap-forest-saving mashup could work.

“We print information on the cardboard that goes around the soap, see?” he said, showing all of them a sketch he’d made. “About the forest and its history and what’s happening, with the toxic waste dumping. And we split the profits between the sheep farm and organisations who are campaigning to save the forest.”

“And we can make all of the scents native forest themed,” Indigo added, showing the list she had made, of mixes for the soaps. “Lemon myrtle and honey, eucalypt and tea tree, wattle and native pepper. That sort of thing.”

“You worked these out?” Aster breathed, her eyes full of admiration.

Indigo shrugged, blushing. “I spent too much time sniffing soap at the supermarket. It’s not rocket science.”

“And Indigo and I can design the logo, if you like,” said Liam. He smiled at Indigo. “We’re both pretty good at art.”

“You two are amazing,” said Xavier.

“I am amazing, too,” said Aster, holding out her notebook. In between poems, she had written lists of ingredients and equipment, where to get it all from, and how much everything would cost.

“This is all amazing,” said Xavier. “I can’t believe we’re doing this. Helping the sheep and helping the environment. It’s going to be…”

“Amazing?” Indigo finished for him.

Xavier nodded.

“See?” said Liam, quietly, to Indigo. “Little things can be amazing.”

Indigo grinned at him.

He wasn’t really all that annoying, when it came down to it.

But still, something was missing. Something wasn’t quite right.

Something wasn’t…

Big enough.

“This is…a great start,” she said. “But I want to do something…bigger and bolder and louder.”

Liam reached into his bag and pulled out a spray can. “Something like this?” he asked.

Aster shook her head. “No, Indigo,” she said. “That’s…please don’t do something that will get you in trouble.
I don’t want that for you…or Noni.”

Indigo bit her lip. She looked over at Liam. “I don’t want to get in trouble,” she told him. “Noni has done so much for me. I don’t want to make things hard for her. But I do want to do…something like that. Big, brave art. Change the world kind of art. Revolutionary. I just don’t know how I could do it without…doing something illegal.”

She thought of her mum.

“Who is it hurting?”

The thing was, if Indigo did some big piece of graffiti—bigger than a tiny quote on a rotting board at the back of the music rooms—it would hurt Noni.

And she didn’t want that at all.

Esme smiled at both of them.

“I might have an idea,” she said. “For something big and bold but not illegal.” She tapped her nose. “Leave it with me.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Indigo sat with Liam on the bench outside the café.

The others were still inside, finishing their third sundaes.

Liam and Indigo had brought theirs outside.

Liam said he wanted to see the sunset, through the trees and Indigo, suddenly, couldn’t think of anything she wanted more.

“If I can put one touch of rosy sunset into the life of any man or woman, I shall feel that I have worked with God,” Liam murmured.

“Another quote?” Indigo asked. “Who said that?”

Liam shrugged. “Some old-time writer—a poet guy. GK Chesterton? Mum likes his stuff. She made me read some. It was…I didn’t really get most of it, but some of it I liked. I like that quote.”

“You’ve read heaps.” Indigo looked down at her sundae. “I don’t read very well.”

“I could help you,” Liam said, gently. “I’m pretty good with that stuff.”

Indigo blushed. “Okay.”

She looked up at the sunset.

“Noni says that every sunset is the chance for a new beginning,” she said.

“Maybe it is,” said Liam. He poked Indigo in the arm.

Indigo thought of her mum.

“Maybe this is a new beginning for both of us,” he said.

Indigo smiled. “Maybe.”

“Are we friends now?” asked Liam.

“Maybe,” said Indigo.

She looked up at the sky.

It was the colour of midsummer peaches, tinged at the edges with blueberry.

“This is good,” she said, to the sky or to Liam.

“You want to go and climb a tree?” Liam asked. “Sunsets are always better when you’re sitting in a tree.”

“Nah,” said Indigo. “That’s Aster and Xavier’s thing.
I kind of…prefer sitting on the ground. Looking at bugs.”

“You want to go look at bugs?” asked Liam.

Indigo peered at him, through her hair. “Yeah,” she said. “Okay.”

And so that’s exactly what they did.

Liam and Indigo left their sundaes sitting on the bench.

And they went and sat on the grass.

And they just watched them. The bugs. The beetles. The ants. The bees. Just living their small lives. Happy. Contented, just being their small selves. What they did every day was not revolutionary, but it was, at the same time. The world can’t exist without bees.

While they watched, they talked about everything.

And nothing.

And by the end of it, by the time Aster and Esme and Xavier had come out to find them, by the time the sky was daubed with indigo and starlight, they had become properly friends.

And Indigo, for the first time in a long time, felt no storm inside her at all.

Chapter Twenty-Four

The next weeks were a happy haze. Indigo spent every moment that wasn’t at school with her friends ­—her friends—planning soaps and sketching designs and buying ingredients and talking to Xavier’s dad about how they could get the sheep milk and lanolin they needed to make their products unique.

They went to Esme’s cafe and made plans for the other part of their project.

She spent hours with Liam. They told each other everything—almost everything. About their lives and their fears and their secrets.

He told her about his dad.

She told him about her mum.

And she felt so happy. To have made a friend.

To have allowed herself to make a friend.

She hadn’t felt like this for years. Not since Sam.

And she hadn’t let herself be open like this, for a very long time—if ever. As close as she had grown to Aster, even she didn’t know as much about Indigo as Liam now did. But there was still one thing she kept to herself.

On her breaks at school, she sat with Aster on the grass, laughing about nothing. She went to visit Xavier and Hollyhock down by the fence of his house.

She went to the library and helped Miss Carnevale with her displays.

She told her secrets to beetles in the grass.

And then, one day, when Aster was on an excursion with her creative writing class, and Xavier was having an inside day, and she couldn’t find Liam anywhere, she decided to go to her special shed, to do some art, just by herself.

But when she opened the door, there was somebody in there.

And he was looking at her art.

Her secret art.

He was looking at her soul.

And that was the moment when everything broke. Because when you let someone in, past all the bricks and walls and drawbridges, nothing feels as bad as being betrayed.

Indigo didn’t think twice about it. She didn’t think of Aster. She didn’t think of Noni.

She didn’t think of anything but the hurt inside her that made her soul ache, and her heels burn to run.

She screamed, because she couldn’t do anything else. She screamed because if she didn’t the thunder within her would fill her up and burst out of her and destroy her and Liam too.

She screamed.

Loud and broken and terrible.

And then she ran.

Chapter Twenty-Five

It wasn’t the first time Indigo had been to hospital. The first time, she nearly destroyed Noni’s house.

But Noni forgave her.

The first time she went to hospital, it felt like her world was ending. But Noni and Aster came and visited her every day. And she stared at the trees outside the hospital window. And she opened the window and she breathed in their scent. And a butterfly flew through the window and landed on her hand.

And she told it all her secrets. And the world didn’t end.

And then, when she was released from the hospital, she hugged some sheep. And there was glue there, now, between the cracks, but the cracks weren’t completely gone.

Liam had opened them all back up again.

The doctors had told Noni that the tablets would make everything smaller and softer and more manageable.

He told her, too, that the tablets would not make Indigo less Indigo.

He also said—and this is the part that Indigo did not overhear—that there might still be breakdowns. There might still be moments when Indigo spun out of control. Even if she took the tablets religiously, every day, part of the old storm of her, the old problem of her, could still break through.

If the hurt and the anger was big enough.

“What are you doing?” Indigo cried. “Why are you in here? This is my space. It’s mine! They are my pictures. They’re not for…walls. They’re not public. They are not to be seen. They are mine.”

Maybe Liam began to say that he was sorry. Maybe he began to walk towards her, to hold out his arms, to calm her down, to profess his friendship, to show her his soul.

It didn’t matter.

She didn’t care.

He had ripped everything apart.

She tore the pictures from his hands, and she scrunched them up and she threw them on the ground and she ran, and she ran, and she ran, all the way to the fence next to Xavier’s house, and she clambered over it, not caring that her jeans tore, that her skin tore.

She ran to his bedroom window, and she knocked and she knocked until he appeared, sleep-messy and bleary-eyed and half in his Frozen pyjamas and half in a checked dress shirt and when he opened the window, when he asked, “What’s wrong?”

She said…“Everything.”

And when he said, “What can I do?”

All she could think to reply was, “Help me.”

“I thought you were okay,” said Xavier, as he pulled her in through his bedroom window. As he took in her ripped jeans and the blood on her palms. He shook his head. “But we never really are, are we? Only sometimes, and those moments are beautiful but they’re not...” He trailed off, “...forever.” he finished.

“I think I need a doctor,” Indigo whispered. And then, more quietly still, “I think I need my mum.”

And then, in a voice so almost silent that Xavier wasn’t sure she’d said it at all:

“I am so tired, Xavier. I need to go to sleep now.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

“I didn’t want to end up back here,” Indigo said.

“I know,” Noni said quietly. They sat side by side on hard plastic chairs, outside Dr Sutherland’s office.

Indigo lifted a shoulder. “There’s been a lot going on, you know? I made a friend…I found out about this environmental issue, and I was trying to help fix it. Then we were working on sheep soap. I was helping in the library. The tablets were working. I felt…happy. All of it made me really happy.”

Noni gently rubbed her back.

“Maybe I let myself get too happy,” Indigo mumbled. She looked at her fingers. “I don’t think I deserve to be happy.”

“Why do you say that?”

Indigo shook her head. Her stomach lurched. She felt so tired.

So very tired.

“My mum left because she wasn’t happy. I wasn’t happy when she left. I shouldn’t be happy now. But…” She scrunched up her face, remembering. “I think I haven’t felt like I deserved happiness for a long time. So, I haven’t felt it. I’ve only felt anger and sadness because that was all I felt like I should have. But I’ve felt happy, lately, but…it was a trap.”

“Do you feel able to tell me what happened?” Noni asked, her face calm and unlined. Indigo felt safe with her. Safe to tell her everything.

“Liam…did something he shouldn’t have. He looked at my art. My secret art, in my secret shed.”

“Oh, Poss. I know how much that must have hurt you.”

Indigo nodded. “I was starting to…show myself to him. My secrets. Who I really was. But I wanted…”

“To keep some things secret,” Noni squeezed her arm, nodding like she understood.

Indigo nodded. “I wanted to keep my pictures secret. They were mine. I wanted to…” she sighed. “I wanted to be the one who decided what I showed. I wanted to keep… some of my bricks. Some of my walls. I wanted to be…in control.”

“Do you feel like that often? Like you’re not in control?”

Indigo nodded. “Never,” she whispered. “I never feel in control.”

“That must feel pretty bad.”

She nodded again. “I couldn’t control what Mum did and I…couldn’t control…” Her throat closed. She croaked when she spoke again, “I couldn’t control myself. My anger. I can now, a bit, but I still…felt…”

“What Liam did was wrong. You couldn’t control that. It’s only normal that you feel like this.”

“It’s…normal?” Indigo whispered.

Noni nodded. She kissed Indigo’s forehead. “We’re all trying to work out a way to navigate the storm,” she said, softly. “The storm inside of ourselves and the storm outside of ourselves. We try to douse it with calming water. We try to set fire to everything. We try everything we can to calm the winds and the rain. Some things work. Some things only make the clouds darker. It’s normal, Indigo.”

Indigo blinked back tears.

“My life has been a storm since I was born,” she said.

Noni nodded. “I know.”

“I want my mum,” Indigo whispered. “I’m sorry. I really like being with you but I still…I need Mum.”

“She calmed your storm?”

Indigo smiled. “Sometimes she was the storm. She made me feel…everything. Happy and sad and angry and chaos all at once. But I still want her”

“Indigo,” said Noni, smiling gently. “Mothers aren’t supposed to make us feel all of those things.”

“Indigo?”

Dr Sutherland stood in the doorway of her office. “Are you ready to come in?”

Indigo looked over at Noni. “Um…” She looked back at Dr Sutherland, “is it okay if Noni comes in too? I’d—
I like it when she’s there.”

“Of course,” said Dr Sutherland. “If she helps you.”

Indigo nodded. “She does,” she whispered. “She helps calm my storm.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Aster, Xavier and Esme came to visit her that night, after her appointment with Dr Sutherland. Noni had been with her all day and slipped out to get “coffee and a family-sized block of Caramilk”, so she could spend time with her friends.

Liam didn’t come with them.

“I told him to stay away,” said Aster, darkly. “He told me what he did. That’s unacceptable.”

“Wow,” said Indigo, her eyebrows rising. “That’s very brave of you.”

“You should have seen her,” said Xavier, proudly. “My girl raised her voice.”

“He did give me a note to give to you,” said Aster. “I said I would deliver it, but you absolutely didn’t have to read it and you didn’t have to reply.”

Indigo sighed. “Just put it there,” she said, pointing at the nightstand. Aster passed her the note. It was in the shape of a paper plane.

Indigo looked down at her knees, bunched up at her chest. “I’m sorry for running, Aster,” she said. “I promised I’d never run.”

“It’s okay,” said Aster, gently. “I would have run, too. I would have run forever. And the point is, you ran in the right direction. You ran to Xavier. You ran the right way, to get help.”

“So, when do you get out?” asked Esme. She fished around in her oversized tote bag and pulled out a white box. She opened it. It was full of cupcakes.

“Tomorrow, probably,” said Indigo. “They’ve adjusted my medication a little bit and they’re just checking there are no bad side effects.”

“Do you feel okay?”

“Little bit sleepy.” Indigo yawned, despite herself, and everyone laughed.

“If you’re out tomorrow, you’ll be able to help us make the first batch of soap,” said Xavier, clapping his hands together. “And we wanted to ask if…you would design the labels. Just you. Not Liam.”

Indigo felt her cheeks heat up. “I’m…not sure if I can do it by myself,” she said. “I’m not as good as…Liam.”

“Yes, you are,” said Aster, taking Indigo’s hand.

Indigo remembered Liam taking her hand, just like that. She shook the memory away.

“You’re better,” said Xavier.

“We still need a name,” said Esme. “For the soaps. Nobody likes my idea.”

“What was your idea?” asked Indigo.

“Sheepy McSoapface?” said Esme. They all laughed. “What? It’s iconic,” she grinned.

Indigo thought for a moment.

Then, she took her sketchbook from the nightstand and began drawing. Her friends waited silently while she completed her design.

When she was finished, she clutched the sketchbook to her chest, too shy to show it.

“You don’t have to,” said Aster, gently. “But if you’d like to, I’d love to see it.”

Indigo froze.

I am in control, she thought.

I am in complete control of this.

Then she nodded.

And she turned the sketchbook around.

There was a moment of silence, and then Xavier said, “Perfect.”

“Through the Storm Soap Company,” Aster said. She reached out and traced Indigo’s design with her fingertips.

A sheep, standing in a paddock, heavy storm clouds above its head. And yet, the sheep still looked calm and peaceful. Happy.

And it had a butterfly on its head.

“I love it,” Aster said. She leaned forward and took Indigo into her arms. “I love you,” she whispered.

Indigo felt everything, then.

Everything.

And then there was a knock at the door.

“Am I interrupting?”

Indigo looked up.

Noni stood at the door. And something in her face…something in her eyes…

Indigo blinked back tears. “Is it about Mum?” she asked.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Indigo’s mum was not hurt.

She was not sick.

She was not…the worst things Indigo had imagined.

She was just…

She had only…

Gone.

She had left Indigo, for this guy.

And this guy had money.

And this guy had children of his own.

And Indigo’s mum was living with them.

And she was going to marry this guy.

And she was going to be a stepmum. And live in a big house. And wear fancy clothes. And have a whole new life.

And she had left Indigo behind.

Indigo lay on the grass, on the hospital lawns, watching tiny midges float above her head, so slow and calm and lazy.

And she said, “I hate her.”

She said it, for the very first time.

Maybe she meant it.

Probably she didn’t.

Maybe she loved her mum and would always love her mum, but…

Now it was time for bigger things.

Her own life.

Her own revolution.

She would make art of it all.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

When everyone had gone, when it was dark outside and tea had been served—something grey that might have been lamb, and jelly that tasted of air—Indigo reached across to her nightstand.

She was only going to grab her sketchbook, to make some tweaks to the soap design, but her fingers grazed the edge of a paper plane, and…

She wasn’t going to open it, but…

It had been a good day, in the end. It had also been the saddest day of Indigo’s life, but it was more than that.

It was a day of moving on.

A day of new beginnings, and…

And it was a paper plane.

She could just throw it far away, if she hated what it said inside.

She opened it, carefully.

“Look out the window,” she murmured to herself.

She got up from her bed and padded across the room.

She pulled back the musk-coloured curtains that smelled of Pine O Cleen.

Her hand flew to her mouth.

It took her a long time to read it. The quote was long—it took up most of the wall—and the script it was written in was beautiful but complicated. It was all swirls of gold and green and there were silver clouds all around it.

It was astonishing.

It was…obviously illegal but so, so, beautiful.

She looked back down at the note.

These aren’t my words. They’re from one of my favourite books - Jasper Jones by Craig Silvey. My dad gave it to me. These are my words: I should never have betrayed your trust. I should never have looked at your pictures. I wanted to do it because I knew they would be beautiful, and I like beautiful things. But beautiful things that are secret should still, always, be secret. Now, read the quote again. It’s better.

Indigo looked back out the window.

She looked at the note, one more time.

Do you accept my gift?

If you don’t, that’s your call. It’s all your call, Indigo. It’s all under your control.

Chapter Thirty

Indigo, Aster and Xavier sat on the tray of Xavier’s dad’s ute, under the wide, blue sky. They each held a scone, made pretty and delicious with blood red jam and cream so thick it barely moved. The day was warm and still. The sheep wandered lazily around the paddocks, as if they had all the time in the world and not one care to think of. Indigo thought they looked much happier, these days—fatter and woollier and less prone to skittishness. It was as if they knew they weren’t going to be eaten. They were only going to be milked and shorn, and the milk from their teats and the lanolin from their wool was going to be all that was taken from them.

And the milk and the lanolin were going to be made into soap and the money from the soap was going to help to save a forest.

In this moment, Indigo thought there could be nothing more perfect than that.

They had spent the morning making it—mixing and melting and pouring and breathing in air that smelled of gum tree leaves and mint and lemon and wattle and native pepper. Indigo’s arms were sore, from lifting heavy pots and mixing for hours.

The first batch came out an unattractive khaki, so they tweaked the colours and the second batch was a much prettier teal. They swirled the top layer into peaks and dusted it with gold and it looked…well, not quite as professional as the soaps in shops, but nearly.

The thing was the smell.

Indigo had, somehow, been put in charge of the scent of it all and she had found herself surprisingly—wonderfully—capable.

While they waited for the last batch to cool, they came outside with a plate of Xavier’s dad’s scones, and warmed their shoulders under the sun.

“You just have a nose for it,” Aster said, squeezing her shoulder. She held her fingertips to Indigo’s nose. She breathed in the aroma of leatherwood and tea tree. “How do you do it?”

Indigo shrugged. “I don’t know why but somehow
I just know,” she said. “I’m not smart at most things, but maybe I’m smart at this.”

Aster pulled her into a tight hug.

Indigo was getting almost used to these hugs.

She almost liked them.

“You’re good at lots of things,” Aster said. “This, and art, and library stuff, and generally being a brave and resilient and awesome person. You’re so much braver than I am.”

“I think we’re all brave,” Indigo said. She peered at Aster. “You think I’m good at library stuff?”

Aster grinned. “Ms Carnevale says so. She says you could be a librarian after school, if you wanted to.”

“Huh,” said Indigo. “I mean, I haven’t yelled or broken anything for a while—which are probably pre…pre… What was that word you used, that time?”

Aster laughed. “You’ve got a good memory. Prerequisites. And yes, I think not yelling and not smashing are prerequisites for being a librarian. But so is being kind and loving learning…”

“And being able to read well.”

“You’re getting better at that. And look! You didn’t say being able to read good. You’re learning heaps.”

“Yeah,” said Indigo. “I guess I am.”

She looked over at the farmhouse. Aster’s dad was in there, and Noni, and Xavier’s mum and dad.

She was thinking of them more and more as her family. It was weird. Even weirder, now, than before. But it was good.

Indigo wasn’t back at school, yet. Aster brought her work home and she did it with Noni, who was one of the smartest people she’d ever known.

And Indigo, herself, found that she was smart in ways she hadn’t known.

“You’re a visual learner,” Noni told Indigo.

“I’ve never heard that before,” Indigo said.

Noni grinned. “Apparently, I am, too. We’re both visual learners.”

“We’re pretty alike,” Indigo admitted.

“Yeah,” said Noni, cupping her cheek. “We are.”

Indigo got her first ever A, on an assignment about refugees.

Her teacher called to congratulate her.

“I’m a visual learner,” Indigo told her, proudly. “I also respond well to rewards of chocolate.”

Indigo was a visual learner.

Indigo could design soap logos.

Indigo could make soap.

Indigo was good at working in the library.

She could research and write and do fractions and learn.

She was even good at street art.

Indigo had never been good at anything. Now, she was good at lots of things.

And it wasn’t the medication that made her that way—although it did drive away the black, breaking clouds so the real Indigo could emerge.

It was knowing that people believed in her. Noni and Aster and Xavier and Esme.

And she believed in herself.

It was the perfect storm.

It felt as if all her leaves had been blown off and she was left with only buds there, and who knew what different leaves, what beautiful flowers, the buds would grow?

After school, she met up with Xavier and Aster and Esme at Esme’s café, and they drank freak shakes—Esme’s new passion—and worked on Indigo’s new masterpiece.

And then they went to the farm and checked on their soap and planned for the launch day fundraiser, where they would sell their first batch and raise money to save the forest.

And then, when everyone else went home, Indigo and Noni went back to check on Indigo’s work, at the café.

Noni held her tightly and said, “I love it more than anything. You clever thing.”

“You really think I’m clever?” Indigo asked her.

“I really do,” said Noni. “and brave and sweet and kind and talented. You believe me?”

Indigo nodded. Because she did.

And then Noni said, “You can stay with me for as long as you want. We can make it official…if you’d like that.”

Indigo was surprised to feel tears, rolling down her cheeks.

“Yeah,” she said. “I’d like that.”

So.

Maybe this was what belonging felt like.

Chapter Thirty-One

The last time Indigo went to her old house, she didn’t know it would be the last.

She went with her sketchbook, thinking she might do a drawing of a snail or a beetle, or maybe even a butterfly. Butterflies were fun to draw, but more complicated than you’d think.

And she liked what they symbolised.

Bravery.

Freedom.

Hope.

Metamorphosis.

That was a word that Noni had taught her. It meant transformation, from one thing to another. From one life stage to another. Like a caterpillar to a butterfly or a moth.

Indigo felt a bit as if she were going through a metamorphosis now. She’d always thought she was a certain type of kid—angry, messy, stupid, broken. But now she didn’t know exactly what kind of kid she was, and maybe that was okay. To not know. To grow and change every day, on your way to your final form. Maybe she was in her chrysalis now, waiting to find out what she would become.

She knew that drawing would be a part of it. Drawing made her soul feel calm and wide-open—boundless. That’s why it was the perfect distraction from her fundraiser nerves.

What she hadn’t expected was that she would turn up to the house—her house—and find that it was no longer empty.

The little girl had hair as black as currawong feathers, and cool brown skin. She was dressed nicely, in a corduroy pinafore over a pink gingham shirt, thick ribbed stockings on her chubby little legs. She was playing on the front step with a wooden truck toy.

The boy beside her wore cargo shorts and a button up shirt. He held a book with a dragon on its cover—Indigo recognized it from the library—and was reading it with wide eyes, transfixed and fascinated. Behind them, leaning on the doorway, was a woman Indigo assumed was their mother. She had the same skin, same night-black hair. She had big eyes and a wide, soft smile. She wore a floral dress that looked like summer.

She was beautiful.

They all were.

A beautiful little family.

The woman must have sensed Indigo watching because she looked, suddenly, in her direction. Indigo’s face flushed. She made to move away but, to her surprise, the woman beckoned her over.

Indigo’s first instinct, of course, was to run. But then the little girl looked up. And she smiled, gap-toothed and open. “Hi, hi!” she called out, a hand cupped like a megaphone. “This is our home.”

She didn’t say new home, Indigo realised. Only home. Indigo wondered if it was the only home the little girl had ever known.

“That’s great,” Indigo called back.

“I am Farah,” the girl yelled. She pointed at her brother. “This is Asadi. He does not talk much, only reads.”

The mother, laughing, beckoned Indigo over again. “Come,” she said, lifting up the mug she was holding. “You look thirsty. I’ve just made tea.”

Indigo shook her head. “Another time.”

The lady nodded. “You’re busy with your drawing,
I see. Another time, please. My name is Yashfa.”

“I’m Indigo.”

Yashfa nodded. “Pleased to meet you, Indigo. Our home is yours.”

“It’s not,” Farah said, crossing her arms. “It’s mine.”

Indigo couldn’t help smiling. “You’re right, Farah,” she said. “It’s all yours. And I hope you love it.”

She looked at each of them—this new family.

In her house.

In their house.

They were the gold.

They were the flowers.

There’s a crack, a crack in everything…

They were the light.

Indigo reached into her pocket. She found the drawing she’d made, of the house. She passed it to Farah.

“I’d like you to have this,” she told her. “Maybe you could put it up in your room?”

The little girl opened the folded page and looked up at Indigo. “You drew this? Of my house?”

Indigo nodded.

“You’re clever.”

Indigo smiled. “Thank you,” she said.

As she turned to walk away, Indigo saw a bright blue butterfly, flitting across the sky.

Chapter Thirty-Two

On the morning of the soap launch fundraiser, Indigo got up early. She took her tablet and she got dressed, in jeans and her favourite hoodie.

Noni was already sitting at the breakfast table, eating Vegemite toast.

Indigo told her where she wanted to go.

Noni raised an eyebrow.

Indigo promised not to run.

“I believe you,” Noni said, pulling her close. She kissed Indigo on the cheek. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” Indigo replied.

She found him, where she knew she would, sitting behind the music room, holding a spray can.

On the wall, he had painted a tree, branches twisted and coiled, like snakes, curling in on themselves, forever and eternal.

And under the tree, there was another quote:

Landscapes of great wonder and beauty lie
under our feet and all around us.

- Walt Disney

“I like that one,” said Indigo.

He didn’t seem surprised to see her.

He put down his can and grinned at her, lopsided and a little bit sad.

“Something to remember me by,” he said.

“You’re leaving?” Indigo said, the shake in her voice giving her away. “You…only just got here.”

He shrugged. “Mum got a permanent job, down south. Her family lives there, so, yup, we’re moving again. Shame. I liked it here. But there are lots of forests to fight for down that way as well, and lots of walls to paint and…”

He avoided her eye. “And I might not mess up the best friendship I make, in the next place. I might not hurt the person I like the best.”

Indigo blinked back tears. “I forgive you,” she said.

Liam smiled. “Thanks,” he said.

“Will you come to the fundraiser?” Indigo asked.

Liam nodded. “Wouldn’t miss it. But I can only stay a little while. We’re going today.”

“That’s…really quick,” Indigo breathed.

Liam nodded. “There’s a storm forecast this week. Mum wanted to move before it hit.”

Indigo couldn’t help laughing at the irony.

“At least the weather’s fine today,” she said.

Liam nodded. “At least it’s fine today. Hey, thanks for forgiving me.”

“That’s okay,” said Indigo. “It feels good.”

Liam passed over the spray can. “You want to write anything?” he said. “Something big? Something revolutionary? Something to set fire to the world?”

Indigo took the can. She thought for a moment. And then she smiled. “Noni-Mum gave me this book,” she said. She pulled the book out of her bag. She’d been carrying it everywhere.

And then she began to write.

Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind.

“Pooh!” he whispered.

“Yes, Piglet?”

“Nothing,” said Piglet, taking Pooh’s paw. “I just wanted to be sure of you.”

― A.A. Milne, The House at Pooh Corner

Liam held out his hand. She took it. She didn’t argue. And it felt good—to hold the hand of a friend.

And the storm might have been coming, soon, but for the moment, this was nice.

And sometimes nice is the best there is.

Epilogue

They sold all the soap.

And with the money from that and some unexpected donations, they raised a thousand dollars.

It might not have been enough—not by a long shot—but the whole town came, and everyone signed the petition. And that might be enough, to make a difference.

At the very least, it was a start.

The little things…

The sheep came, too, on Xavier’s dad’s ute. They were the guests of honour.

They held the fundraiser outside Esme’s shop.

It looked a little bit different, now.

Indigo’s masterpiece adorned its front wall.

It was enormous and bright and dazzling and loud and revolutionary.

And it didn’t bring her mum back. But that wasn’t the point, in the end.

It was a picture of some sheep and some trees and, small, in the bottom corner, four figures.

Indigo, Aster, Esme, Xavier.

Her forever friends.

Full of fire and storm and peace and love.

In the other corner, she drew Noni and Aster’s dad and her mum, hugging and laughing.

In the middle of it all, above the door, she wrote a quote:

We are the storm and the stillness.

“Who wrote that?” Aster asked, slinging her arm through Indigo’s.

“I did,” said Indigo.

“Maybe you should be a writer, when you grow up,” said Aster.

Indigo grinned. “Maybe. But for now, I’m just going to be me.”

She watched as, in the distance, Liam and his mum unlocked the doors of a little blue car. He raised his hand and waved. She waved back. He turned his blue cap backwards and climbed inside.

It had been such a small, quiet thing, being friends with Liam. And yet it had been revolutionary.

He was completely annoying but great, too. He betrayed her but he also taught her a lot.

Everybody is more than one thing. Most people are trees with a thousand branches, and a thousand roots. Most people are the sky—blue some days and grey on others.

Nobody is just one thing.

Indigo Michael was born during a storm.

She had been born screaming, born noisy and wild. As she grew, she became even more so.

Now, she was quieter, but she was more powerful, too.

She was broken.

She was mending.

With gold.

With flowers.

That’s how the light gets in …

She reached out a hand, pressed it to the paint—
to the image she had made.

“I am here,” she whispered.

“I am here to stay.”