I've taken info from the main site and what ppl have told me and given the background stories of H&A's earliest characters. Hope you like it!

chapter 10

"When we gonna stop, Scotty? Deefa needs some water."

Scott, who had been stomping down on the sand, furious at their constantly being turfed out of their miserable home, turned. "Who the ---- is Deefa?"

Despite his thirst and exhaustion and banging headache, Kane's face brightened. He'd been dying for just such an opportunity to introduce everyone. Wasn't very cool of Scotty to keep ignoring his invisible mates.

"He's my pet dog. Called Deefa 'cos it's short for D for dog, get it? And Fred's my pet dragon - wasn't meant to be stayin' but nodody'd have the guy 'cos of his fire-breathin' but Milko was..."

He stopped abruptly and watched bemused (fortunately, he was at a safe enough distance behind) as Scott turned purple and gave out a roar of fury.

"Will you ------- well stop doing that?" Scotty finally said.

"What?" Kane asked nervously.

"Actin' like Milko and everyone else ------- well exists. 'Cos it's p------ me off. And 'cos if you do it once more I got no choice, I'll have to ------- kill ya. You got that, drongo?"

"Ye-eh," Kane said, digging a random line in the wet sand with the heel of his trainers while he thought about it. Scotty was already spitting the dummy. In for a penny, in for a pound, as Mum always said when she'd decided to fight it out with Dad and was staggering all round the room, the booze giving her a false courage. It prob'ly wasn't a good idea, but Kane had promised Milko. "But I don't want Milko to drown," he sighed, saying what was on his mind at last. "He's a good mate. Can't we kinda...well, just push him in a bit if the dork lags?"

"No, we ------- well can't!"

"Sorry, mate. Tried my best." Kane shrugged at Milko, unwittingly spooking Scotty.

Kane could see Milko, clear as day, walking along the sand dunes with Fred, Deefa, Scotty and himself. Tall, skinny and pale, dressed all in white save for the hat (it was red again today) just as the weirdo newbie had described him. Except Milko had begun wearing his hats backwards. Kane wasn't sure if this was a fashion statement or whether Milko thought it made him look tough and therefore less likely to be pushed in the water. He had tried asking Scotty what he thought but Scotty said he was talking rubbish because nobody was there and whacked him for his trouble. Kane sighed at Milko, Deefa and Fred. It genuinely mystified him why his brother couldn't see anyone.

And it was that which protected him, if only he knew. Scott's natural reaction would have been to bash his kid bro and put an end to the Milko, Deefa and Fred nonsense there and then but, against his better judgement, he was beginning to freak. Scott was burning to bash someone and take out his anger with the world, but it was a bit nerve-racking when his usual punchbag was having whole conversations with people who didn't exist. But someone had to get hurt today.

And someone would.

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Lynn fingered the silver crucifix around her neck and giggled at something Carly had just told her in a whisper (so Sally wouldn't hear) about boys. Lynn hadn't known that about boys and it was...rude. But Carly knew heaps. She was sooo sophisticated.

Lynn was flattered that the older girl had chosen her as a confidant and flattered that she assumed Lynn must have often giggled with her friends about something a boy had said or done or, at the very least, flirted innocently with a boy or two. But she had never done either. Unlike other girls her age, Lynn wasn't used to talking about the opposite sex.

Although she'd lived in the Home for over three years, she'd made no friends there, apart from timid little Sally and old Lizzie, who worked in the laundry and had worked there, so the rumour went, since the 1930s when, so the rumour machine churned again (especially in the dead of night when it was fun to scare some newbie) six kids who tried to break out were bricked up alive and Lizzie had been sworn to secrecy under pain of death herself if she ever dared reveal the horrible truth.

The other kids had thought Lynn strange and old-fashioned, going, as she did, to Mass every Sunday, decorating her personal wall space in the dorm with holy pictures and a cross, and keeping a Bible, prayer book, a pretty blue and white ornament of Mary holding baby Jesus and set of black plastic rosary beads on top of her locker.

Lynn, who'd bought the rosary beads at a religious stall at a garden fete, had originally thought they were called "Rosemary's Beads" and, as she didn't know what they were for and didn't want to lose face on her first day, told anyone who asked that they were named after a holy lady called Rosemary, who'd always worn a ballgown and long black necklace when she went out curing the sick, so now "Rosemary's Beads" were sold as lucky charms. (Until Lizzie, who was a devout Catholic, explained to her that they were rosary beads and were meant for counting out prayers.)

Lynn had even considered becoming a nun. She thought nuns mysterious and interesting and reckoned she would look quite good in black, gliding through the polished corridors of the convent. And a convent was a great place to get away from people you didn't like (at the time Lynn was being picked on). But Lizzie had said, with an amused smile, that they weren't exactly the right reasons for taking her vows.

"What vows?" Lynn asked worriedly, which made Lizzie laugh till she cried.

So Lynn ditched the nun idea. She still found great comfort in her strong beliefs and she loved nothing more than to sit in the cool, quiet chapel, feeling like at last she belonged somewhere (and belonging was very important to Lynn, who had several times run away from her own home and nine brothers and sisters because she felt overlooked and under-loved). But she ditched the nun idea. Black wasn't really her colour anyway.

"That's a bit daggy," Carly remarked, noticing the crucifix.

"What?" Lynn asked innocently, though she knew perfectly well what.

Carly raised her sunnies above her nose and looked at Lynn shrewdly. "The cross. You're not into all that praying rubbish, are you? I hate religious freaks!"

"As if! It's just I've had this like...forever. Sheesh! As if I'd be praying!" Lynn glanced guiltily at Sally while at the same time silently praying Please, God, don't let Sal dob me in, please, God, don't let Sal dob me in.

Sally gasped and looked at Lynn wide-eyed. But she had been sitting cross-legged on the beach mat, her chin resting on Mrs Martha's newly-stitched-on head, watching Carly and Lynn wide-eyed for a while now. Ever since they had taken the mysterious package out of the beach bag and begun totally transforming themselves. Pippa and Tom didn't mind them wearing some make-up but Carly and Lynn had really gone to town and looked much older.

"Good," Carly said, busy smoothing gel through her long curly hair. 'Cos religion is strictly for weirdos and wrinklies. Not for people like us who know how to have a good time. Hey, Sal," she added. "Look, there's Milko! Down there! He's having a great time kicking the water!"

Sally's heart twanged and she looked swiftly down to the shore only to have her hopes cruelly dashed. There was no Milko. She sighed sadly. It had been silly to even think there would be. And, anyway, even if Milko had escaped from his kidnappers, he'd have come over to talk, whether or not he was mates with the Phillips brothers. He knew Sally would never go near the terrible sea.

"Wow! That was an awesome splash!" Carly sounded hugely impressed and Sally stared at her, wondering if Carly and Lynn were alright. Perhaps the heat was getting to them. It was strange how they both kept imagining they saw Milko when he wasn't there.

"You not gonna go join him?" Carly prompted.

Sally shook her head and gave Mrs Martha an extra tight hug. She had explained to the rag doll that this day out had only happened because Carly threw her in the bag and that Sally didn't like Mrs Martha at all. It was awful having to lie but Mrs Martha would be left behind when she ran away and, remembering how she had cried herself to sleep every night when yet another person left her, Sally didn't want Mrs Martha to be sad and miss her. But the fragile world was crumbling around them both. Poor Mrs Martha had had her head ripped off and had spent the night on a cold, hard window-sill. Sally's very, very best friend Milko had been kidnapped and Lynn, her nearly-best-friend, was behaving very oddly and nothing like the Lynn she knew anymore.

"Weird kid," Carly sighed, lowering her sunglasses Hollywood style.
"Yeh. Weird," Lynn agreed.

"Anyways..." Carly drawled, and deciding she didn't really care if Sally were there or not, grinning at Lynn as she pulled the last two items out of the extra bag.

"Ripper!" Lynn grinned back, hoping Carly wouldn't suspect she'd never tried alcohol before, as Carly dug in the corkscrew and expertly twisted the cork so that it slid out of the neck of the bottle with a loud pop that made Sally jump. The little girl's mouth dropped open in horror as her eldest foster sister took a long gulp of the red wine.

"Are you going to sit there watching me all day?" Carly asked, unnerved by her stares.

The sarcasm went completely over Sally's head.

"I'm not quite sure, Carly," she answered politely, wondering why she was asking when Carly was the one who would decide how long they all stayed on the beach. "Will you be here all day, do you think?"

"Dill," Carly said, loud enough for Sally to hear, and vindictively enough for tears to spring to Sally's eyes, as she wiped the bottle and passed it on to Lynn.

She didn't really want to upset the kid but hurting people - and alcohol - was the only way Carly could get by. If she hurt people, nobody would ever know how much Carly herself was hurting inside. Simple, see?

She knew how much Lynn's faith meant to her and, even if she hadn't, the wounded expression on Lynn's face when Carly called her a religious freak would have been enough to tell her. But actually, and perhaps surprisingly, Carly didn't have any strong views on the subject.

She wished she could share Lynn's overwhelming conviction that there was something more (Carly had been sunbathing in the garden once and secretly overheard a deep conversation between Pippa and Lynn about God) but, as far as she was concerned, death was a great empty nothingness. Churches freaked her out, all that talk of death and dying and all those peculiar rituals. She had frozen to the spot when the first thing she saw as they entered the church for Mum's funeral was a gruesome statue of Christ with blood pouring from his heart.

Dad dug her in the ribs more forcibly than he needed to and hissed for her not to embarrass the whole family again (apparently Carly had embarrassed the whole family when she'd sobbed uncontrollably at the hospital after being told her mother had passed away) and Samantha, her twin sister, smirked. Never losing a chance to score points against Carly even at a time like this. And, you know, that was the part Carly would never understand. She wasn't mad, was she, not to understand?

Dad and Sam had each other, would always have each other, but Mum had just died, in agony after suffering a burst appendix, and still they thought it more important to keep up appearances and put on a united family front, as Dad called it. But the family had never been united.

The wealthy three-car Morrises, with their luxury home, company director father and mother who had nothing to do with her long days other than shop for things she didn't need, meet shallow, like-minded friends for lunch, become addicted to tranquillisers and have a seven-month-affair out of sheer, mind-numbing boredom; the Morrises with their holiday home in hot, sultry Malaysia, with their gardener, charlady and succession of au pairs when the twins were small, had always been ripped and torn.

Samantha, beautiful, clever Samantha, first born, first loved, most precious, was the favoured child while Carly, second born, second best, came screaming furiously into this world, healthy and strong, and Sam fighting with slow, tiny breaths for her small, pitiful scrap of life, and Carly breathing huge gulps of air into strong lungs and screaming lustily, and all tears and all eyes and all love for Sam, and Carly, who all but stole the life of her twin, wanting more, screaming with attention-seeking fury...

And, as they grew, Carly turned out to be always ungrateful, spoilt, wilful, a brat. The more adjectives heaped on Carly's head the more she felt she ought to live up to them. So the stormy years rolled by, with only a brief interlude of semi-calm when Mrs Morris, acting on her therapist's advice and for the good of her health, began making more of an effort with Carly in order to avoid further upsets (Sharon Morris being prone to headaches and dizzy spells when upset). George Morris disagreed with the therapist's "ridiculous advice" on the basis his daughter was "spoilt rotten", and Sam, being Daddy's girl, took his side, but for a handful of weeks Carly found she almost liked her mother. Until thunderclouds gathered anew.

News of the affair broke; Sharon Morris hastily ended the relationship in order to avoid a costly divorce and losing her luxury lifestyle, and the Morrises went back to their illusions of a happy, united family. And Carly was second best all over again.

The last few months before her mother died, Carly ran wild, shoplifting, joyriding, experimenting with soft drugs, drinking and boys, and, while Mum and Sam turned a blind eye, her father began locking her in her room and occasionally even dosing her with her mother's tranquillisers to stop her going out. The week before her mother's death, and for the second time in her life, Carly was rushed to hospital with alcohol poisoning and to have her stomach pumped. The night her mother died, and knowing it was too late now to ever recapture the vague dream of a mother's love, Carly screamed "murderer" at her father over and over and over, kicking at the locked bedroom door until the bottom half of the soft wooden panel gave way and she gashed her leg badly, but, despite the pain and the profuse pouring of blood, she kept right on kicking and screaming because it was all his fault, his petty revenge for the affair, that Mum didn't get to hospital in time.

Oh, but no more tears. Carly had made up her mind she would never cry again. For anyone.