Prologue

~ Liz

TEEN POWER INC.

Five responsible, mature teenagers will tackle any jobs around your house, garden, shop or business. Typing OK, computer OK, children, pets OK. Raven Hill area only. Cheap hourly rate. No job too small. We'll do anything!

It's funny how we forget about things. Homework, birthdays, names; the list goes on; but you'd think that with friends it would be a different story. I mean, you have these people that you grew up with; you shared your lunch with them when they didn't have any, you cried on their shoulders when your life fell apart, maybe you put a couple of big time criminals in jail and fought for your life with these people.

Ok, so that last one probably doesn't happen so often, but when I saw the ad for the job agency my friends and I had started years ago, it's the first thing that came to mind.

I suppose I'm getting ahead of myself though. My name is Liz Free, Elizabeth if you want to get technical. I live with my parents and little brother Pete in Raven Hill; I go to school at Raven Hill High, and work part time as a waitress at the Black Cat Cafe. I'm seventeen, and scarily close to graduating – but this isn't a personal ad, it's an explanation.

You see, it was a Sunday afternoon sometime around the start of December. School would be finishing in a few days, and my mother was on the warpath. I had the day off work and was sitting at my desk finishing up some last minute History homework – the kind that the teachers think up to keep you from thinking it's holidays already.

"Liz, honey, I'm just running up to the shops to get some milk," my mother's voice floated closer as she walked up the hallway to my room, "did you need any...Elizabeth!"

My mother's head of flyaway brown hair poked around the door and her eyes widened, taking in the mess of clothes at the foot of my bed and the pile of craft tools and fabric on my desk.

"Look at this place!" she cried, throwing her arms up, "it's a pigsty! I think it's time for you to stop doing whatever that is and start cleaning, missy"

"But mu-um it's homework!" I groaned, but was secretly pleased - 'it's homework' is pretty much as cast-iron excuse where parents are concerned

Not this time though, my mother put a hand on her hip and pursed her lips, "Don't think you can get out of this, Liz; the second you finish that report I want this mess sorted, understand? And don't think there'll be any TV or phone calls until it's done!"

I opened my mouth to protest, but the look in her eyes stopped me and I just nodded. She strode out down the hall and I heart the front door slam. I chewed my pen cape for a minute then pushed Ancient Greece aside, moving my attention instead to the overflowing 'storage' boxes lining my bedroom wall. I hadn't realised how long ago I had given up on storing things neatly but it looked like it had been years – school books and papers were jumbled on top of one another, pens and pencils, an old teddy bear and a whole lot of shells and gumnuts and knitting wool. I remembered all the times my mother had told me to clean my desk and, in a hurry to go out, I had shoved everything in sight into these boxes. Well, I was sure paying for it now.

An hour in; I had one box sorted, a huge garbage bag at my feet, and a serious case of boredom setting in. That is, until I found it. A huge old scrapbook with glitter letters on the cover spelling out words I hadn't seen in years – Teen Power Inc.

Let me backtrack – Teen Power Inc. was the name we gave to our part time job agency when we were younger. We, of course, being me and my friends at the time; Sunny Chan, Nick Kontellis, Tom Moysten, Richelle Brinkley and Elmo Zimmer. We basically advertised ourselves as a group of energetic teens wanting work – and work we got, mixed in with a healthy dose of mystery and adventure, much to our dismay at times.

I settled down on my bed and cracked the cover – on the first page was a yellowing newspaper clipping – our first ad. The pages that followed were a mixture of newspaper clippings, photographs and random things I had glued down. Pictures of the gang in the Glen, our old hangout, and sitting around a table at Burger Joe's; stories cut out from the Pen and a whole lot of other stuff. Napkins from the Black Cat, a label from Glissant nail polish, a mask that looked suspiciously like it came from Sid's Magic Shop. Memories were pouring back into my mind before I had a chance to stop them, and for the first time in a long time I let myself feel the rush of sadness I always felt when I thought about the gang's breaking up.

Well, not exactly breaking up, I mean, it's not as if we ever had a fight or made the decision to stop Teen Power Inc., it just sort of happened.

Richelle got taller and more beautiful, if that was even possible, and started dating an older boy, a friend of her sister's named Sam; and she got a job at Hot Chix – one of those stores that sell skimpy, glam clothes that are in fashion for about a week and cost a fortune. In short, Richelle got popular – she was never unpopular before but all of a sudden she was hanging out with Lauren King and Kate Wainwright – her fellow 'Hot Chix', and spending her lunch times tanning on the oval and squealing over the football team. She was never mean to me, and we still talked when we ran into each other, but we had definitely drifted apart.

Tom shocked us all by moving away to Banyan Bay – his dad had made him an offer a while before, but he turned it down. Six months after that though, he had a World War 3 style blow-out with his stepfather Brian, and had his bags packed before the dust could settle. Of course, his mother was distraught, but there was no changing his mind. We still chat over the internet of course, but no one from the gang, or anywhere in Raven Hill for that matter, has seen Tom since he was an awkward fourteen-year-old with braces on his teeth and perpetually messy clothes.

Nick left as well, but only to the city, to go to some elite private school – St. Johns Grammar School. Apparently his father had always planned to send Nick somewhere more exclusive when he got a bit older – to prepare him for his exams and successful future. I still saw Nick around sometimes, after all he still lived in Raven Hill, but his new school handed out assignments like they were going out of style and he was working part time for his father as well.

Elmo still worked with his father too, running the Pen, but obviously that meant that he wasn't heading out of Raven Hill anytime soon. In fact, Elmo and I are still pretty good friends – we take the same History and English classes at school, but usually he's finishing up homework at lunchtime and writing small articles in his spare time, so we don't spend a lot of time together. We grab coffee every month or so, just like I do with Sunny.

Sunny stayed in Raven Hill, even though her father offered to take her to America several times a year. She had a good job at the gym, and her sister Cathie just had a baby with her husband Lindsay, so she babysat every Thursday afternoon. Sunny used to be my best friend, but now she spends more time with the other fitness-mad kids around school. They eat salads together and compare jogging times and muscle strains. She calls from time to time, and we smile in the hall, but really, what would we talk about now?

And me?

Well I spend most of my time alone, as hard as it is to admit. Sometimes I go to Melanie Grubber's house after we waitress together, but mostly I spend time at home working on craft projects. I'm hoping to make a whole lot of things and have a stall at the Raven Hill Markets sometime soon.

All this to say that Teen Power Inc. is a long faded memory; but for some reason when I flipped through those ancient pictures of our smiling faces, I had a feeling that would change very soon...