The Mouse Read online

  The Mouse

  Lauretta Hignett

  Published in 2017 by LP Publishing Pty Ltd

  Text copyright © Lauretta Hignett 2017

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written consent of the publisher.

  Chapter 1

  “The situation in North Korea is getting worse. Hazy reports coming out of the conflict zone suggest that more than one hundred members of the Allied Forces have been captured and taken to unknown locations as prisoners of war by the North Korean army. But we can’t know for sure, and we don’t know where they’ve gone…”

  Sunny O’Sullivan sat at her desk in the corner and tuned out the voice of her teacher without much difficulty. The sunshine outside was a powerful distraction, brilliant golden rays of the afternoon sun hit the trees that bordered the school and their dappled shadows danced on the lush green grass below. A gentle breeze was blowing through the window of the classroom, and coming with it was the scent of cut grass and a hint of the sea which lay two streets to the west of the school. The closeness to the ocean was something that Sunny had considered a bonus when she first saw the school. It now seemed like a cruel joke – she was so close to the sweet oblivion of the surf, yet still so far away. Sunny sighed and turned back towards Mr Evans. Only half an hour until the final bell.

  “Can anyone tell me what the consequences of this electrical black-out over Korea might be? Anyone?”

  Mr Evans was kidding himself if he thought he was going to get any class participation. Korea was so far away it might as well be in outer space. No one cared.

  “Camilla,” Mr Evans pointed at a blonde girl in the front row. “What do you think might happen differently in this war?”

  “Uh, they… um… no Snapchat?”

  Mr Evans frowned. “I was thinking more in terms of warfare, Camilla. Anyone else?”

  Sunny could hear Jake Henderson murmuring something to his friends behind her, not loud enough for Mr Evans to hear but she thought she caught the word “Pornhub.”

  Sunny rolled her eyes and tried to concentrate on Mr Evans, but she couldn’t ignore Jake sniggering behind her. Mr Evans glanced over towards him, but there was no chance that Jake would get into trouble. Jake was big and handsome and generally regarded as a good-natured larrikin. It was less effort to ignore him and wiser not to shine a spotlight on him.

  He gave Sunny the creeps. He seemed to always be sitting right behind her in every class, and she thought she’d heard him bragging about being the first to ‘pound the fresh meat’ on her first day here at Forster High. Luckily Annabel had taken her under her wing. She never let him get away with anything. But Annabel was too engrossed in the class right now, and far enough away from Jake that she couldn’t hear him.

  Sunny ground her teeth and tried to ignore him. She glanced up at the clock. Twenty-five minutes to go.

  It seemed like Sunny was always waiting for the bell to ring, or the penny to drop, or the tide to turn. She only had eight months left of high school, and she was simultaneously itching for it to be over, and dreading the point where she would be expected to be a responsible adult. Technically, in a month or so she would be classified an adult anyway, and she was more than mature enough to deal with whatever life threw at her. But she was mourning the end of her adolescent freedom, while at the same time looking forward to having complete control of her destiny. She was ready for it; she was a grown woman.

  Not that you would know it, she thought, looking down at her flat-ish chest.

  Sunny O’Sullivan was a little short for her age, not quite the shortest in her class but she had a slight figure which emphasised her smallness. Her icy blue-green eyes were too big for her face, and she always seemed wide-eyed and innocent-looking. Her looks always worked in her favour when she was up to no good, and, in the company of her new best friend Annabel, it seemed like she was up to no good far more often these days. A cinnamon sprinkling of freckles decorated her nose, and she had a wild tangle of almost waist-length hair. It used to be just plain mousy, but the salt water and sunshine on the mid-north coast had streaked it auburn and golden. Annabel, with a shudder, had predicted white-girl dreadlocks in her future.

  Sunny turned her head slightly to squint at her new best friend who sat beside her, the only person completely absorbed by Mr Evan’s monologue. Annabel Andros was dark, dramatic and whiplash-smart, with almond eyes that could shoot lazer beams and a big pouty mouth that she put to good use arguing about anything that took her fancy. Social warrior, overachiever, Eurasian beauty, she was a complete whirlwind, Sunny thought affectionately, and the first person to befriend her when Sunny started at Forster High four months ago.

  Beside Annabel sat Simon – tall, blond and gorgeous, and with eyes alternatively rolling in the back of his head in sleep and jerking back to attention. Simon was built like a linebacker; muscular and broad-shouldered, but he was very sweet and very gentle. At five years old, Simon had found himself being bullied mercilessly by the other boys in his class simply because he was the biggest. The teachers who were supposed to protect him ended up shaming him for not fighting back. Annabel had no such qualms; she beat the crap out of anyone who touched him. She befriended him and defended him all throughout their junior years.

  Not much had changed through high school. Simon was ignored by the other boys because of his sweet nature, and because of his friendship with Annabel, who intimidated everyone. So it was Simon and Annabel against the world.

  Until Sunny came along, and Annabel had adopted her in the same way she had Simon. Sunny had been totally lost when she arrived in Forster, alone but desperate to keep a low profile. She dreaded the pity that inevitably came when people found out that her mother had died.

  Almost worse was the morbid fascination that came after, when people discovered how her mother had died.

  “Sorry Mr Evans, but that’s bollocks,” Annabel’s insistent shouty-voice interrupted Sunny’s thoughts. “If they had the intelligence that the North Koreans had taken the hostages somewhere, they’d know where they were. They’ve got the best surveillance technology on the planet. These days you can’t hide anything. Even this morning, I tracked down my phone down the back of the massage chairs in the domestic terminal at Sydney Airport.” Annabel was always losing her cell.

  “You have to remember that the North Koreans have completely blacked out the entire area since the conflict began, Annabel.” Mr Evans was enthusiastic and excited, totally at odds with the subject matter. “No one knows how they’re doing it, and it’s terrifying. It’s as if they are fighting a war in the dark ages – no internet, no surveillance equipment, no drones. The best they can do at this stage is radio, and that’s very sketchy at best. North Korea is now the stuff of Bond nightmares – a megalomaniac supervillain is out there but not in his volcano lair or icy fortress planning the destruction of the world, he’s got a complete stranglehold on an entire country and millions of people…”

  The final bell sounded, and everybody, including Mr Evans, breathed a sigh of relief.

  Sunny raised her eyebrows at her friend and gathered up her books. “Who’s going to pick up your phone for you?”

  “One of Daddy’s minions again?” Simon asked as he gestured Sunny ahead of him to exit the classroom.

  “Actually, one of Mummy’s boyfriends.” Annabel was flippant. Her father owned the largest construction company on the mid-north coast. He was a huge raging bull of a man, accustomed to throwing his weight around in the boardroom as well as in his private life. His exquisite Chinese ex-pat wife got her own back by being notoriously unfaithful. “She’s
got a new one – she found him at a Donna Karen store opening. Apparently, he’s a real fashionista.”

  “What does ‘fashionista’ mean?” Simon asked her.

  “It’s Italian for ‘ugly naked,'” Annabel told him.

  “Oh.”

  Sunny hid her smile as the three of them strolled out the hallway into the bright afternoon sunshine. It was a perfect mid-autumn day, quite warm and with a gentle breeze that promised good waves when they got to the beach. They reached the carpark around the back of the school and piled into to Annabel’s old beat-up Camry, two boards sticking out the hatchback.

  Annabel was still talking about the war, apparently finding the topic fascinating.

  “It’s just so unbelievable that the North Koreans could do this. You know, black out an entire country electronically. I know that they’ve been dodgy things for years, censoring their internet and that kind of stuff, but this is too much.”

  The information coming out of North Korea had always been sporadic and profoundly warped by the government’s propaganda departments, but in the last eight months something had been confirmed: Kim Jong Un was dead. It appeared that he died of natural causes without naming an heir, and in the complicated power-manoeuvring that followed, a distant cousin named Kim Min-Jun came to seize ultimate power. It scandalized the whole world, as Kim Min-

  The country had shut down; nothing went in or out. Then, abruptly, the new North Korean Army had started moving through the demilitarised zone, blasting everything in their path. The South Koreans who were close to the border suddenly found that their electronic devices didn’t work. The aggressive North Korean army was using World War One tactics, trench warfare and using brute force to push down to South Korean territory. The border was moving slowly further down, and it was clear that Kim Min-Jun’s plan was to dominate the entire country, then maybe, the world.

  Annabel was still talking. “…But a device that can put the whole territory into the dark ages? What are they doing in there? Are we all about to be blown up? No wonder the Yanks decided to head in there. Fat lot of good it’s doing. All that’s happening is that the commandos are going missing. How can we not be hearing anything out of North Korea? They barely even have the internet. They’re still using VHS and cassettes. I can’t believe that they have that technology.”

  “They’ve got it, alright.” Simon’s lazy drawl interrupted Annabel’s ranting, and she looked at him in surprise. His face was still uniformly blank, as usual. “They just don’t know what it is, and how the Koreans got hold of it.”

  “You know?” Sunny was intrigued.

  “I hear stuff.”

  Simon had an uncle that was very high-up in the military, some kind of commander or general. Sunny had never met him, but he sounded terrifying. He came to visit his sister in Forster occasionally, and inexplicably Simon got on with him very well. Sunny had assumed that a warmongering old general wouldn’t have much time for his kind and placid nephew, but he appeared to be quite fond of him.

  They drove the thirty-second distance to the beach, and Sunny felt her heart lift when she spotted the waves. One hour of salty oblivion, she thought happily.

  Her arms began to tingle again, a delicious soft tickly buzzing.

  It didn’t worry her. It happened all the time. She had started to notice a pattern; it usually started when she was calm and happy. It was hard to be worried about it when it made her feel so good.

  The three of them clattered happily down the dunes, and Sunny’s contented feeling disappeared. Jake Henderson was there at the bottom of the dunes with his usual gang. The boys were waxing their boards and zipping up their wetsuits. They stopped and ogled Sunny and her friends with interest as they walked past.

  “Hey, Sunshine!” Jake called out, a smirk on his face. “Are you surfing today, or is Annabel using you as a board?”

  It was a stupid joke about her lack of boobs. She rounded on Jake, glaring. “Yeah, well, better than using… the board… that you’re using…” She trailed off and turned away before he could see her face going red.

  Annabel was a lot quicker of wit, and sneered at him she walked past.

  “When are you getting your asshole fixed, Jake? It must be annoying to have shit coming out of your mouth all the time.”

  Jake did what most boys did with Annabel, and ignored her. He turned his attention to Simon, who was trying to shuffle past unnoticed.

  “How’s life in the friend-zone, Stephenson?”

  Simon cringed but stayed silent. They left the boys behind and made their way down the beach.

  Annabel turned to stare at Sunny, exaggeratedly disappointed. “Dude, that was awful.”

  “I know! I’m so shit at comebacks. I’ll think of a really awesome one later on, after my shower and before bed.”

  “But you’re good when it’s just you and me, ribbing on each other.”

  “That’s different. I think when someone is intentionally cruel… well, I think my psyche just gets too shocked that someone would want to be horrible, you know, just for the sake of it.”

  “You’re lucky that I’ve got you covered.” Annabel zipped up her wetsuit.

  “You could have defended me on the flat-chested comment.”

  “Ah, I can’t argue with the truth,” Annabel gave her a cheeky wink, and Sunny turned her attention to Simon.

  “And you, you coward…” Sunny started. Both girls looked down at Simon, already playing happily in the sand at their feet.

  “What?”

  Sunny sighed. “Nevermind.”

  Jake wasn’t worth it. Not worth taking up space in my brain, anyway, Sunny mused as she paddled out into the waves. She banished all thoughts from her mind, and her arms started to tingle again.

  She knew what caused her arms to tingle like that. It went back to the day she was born.

  Seventeen years ago, on a stormy afternoon in her home in Surry Hills, a hugely pregnant Beth O’Sullivan had waddled outside to bring in the laundry before the rain started and had been struck by lightning. It had stopped her heart instantly. Her husband Ben had been pulling into the driveway at that very moment, and - without knowing what had happened - had felt his heart stop too. He crashed into the yard and pulled his dead wife into his arms, howling with rage and grief.

  When the ambulance officers gently prised his arms away from the dead woman, they were stunned to feel a soft kicking within her round belly. Sunny was born twenty minutes later, her little Winston Churchill face screwed up and screeching in astonished rage. She was perfect, and completely and surprisingly unaffected by the bolt of lightning that had killed her mother. Her father was in enough shock to do what he swore would happen over his dead body – he bent to his late wife’s wishes and named his daughter Sunshine.

  It was over her dead body instead.

  Having never known her father any other way, Sunny was unaware that he had ever been anything other than the quiet, sad and gentle man that she grew up with. He had continued working at his architecture firm, busy growing the business as he had done before his wife’s death. The twinkle in his eye was long gone, and a deep well of sadness lay within him.

  But he was Sunny’s whole world, and she loved having him all to herself.

  So Sunny grew up as normal as possible in the inner suburbs of Sydney. She turned into a bit of a tomboy and a drama geek, enjoying her childhood and then her early teen years as innocently as city life would allow, riding her BMX with her friends, throwing rocks at the windows of abandoned warehouses, playing dodge-the-hypodermic-needle in the playgrounds, and having rap battles with local alcoholics.

  Shortly after her fifteenth birthday, she was outraged to discover that her cosy world with Ben at the centre of it was about to be destroyed.

  Steph Drummond had moved down to Sydney from her hometown Forster, a cute little surfy town about two hours north of Newcastle on the mid-north coast of Australia. She had come down to open a surfwear shop in Surry Hills. She had a lean, athl
etic body, a result of regular yoga and surfing on the weekend, and she had long, straight auburn hair with a mirror-like shine. Sunny and her friends despised her for her easy athleticism and confidence. Her new store was a shoplifting haunt for some of Sunny’s dodgier friends, and in a weaker moment, Sunny had been peer-pressured into pocketing a pretty bracelet near the counter.

  Never having shoplifted before, Sunny had promptly been caught by Steph. Her father was called, and he stormed into the back room of the shop to collect her. Instead of fiercely defending his daughter as Sunny had expected, she was dumbfounded to see him wide-eyed and babbling in Steph’s presence.

  Sunny despised Steph and dismissed her as a monstrous bossy bitch masquerading as a bleeding-hearted hippy. She had been determined to sabotage the relationship, but her heart wasn’t in it. Ben was suddenly giddy with love. She could hardly begrudge him his happiness. Steph and Ben were married four months later, and within the year, Steph was pregnant.

  When little Archie came into the world, Sunny braced herself to despise her little brother as completely as she hated his mother. But strangely, Sunny fell completely in love with him. He had bright blue-grey eyes and perfect skin, and he grasped her finger with his whole hand like he never wanted to let go. He stirred something deep within her, and she spent hours cuddling and playing with him.

  And shortly after Archie was born, the destruction of her world was completed. Her father announced that he’d decided to move the family up to Steph’s hometown of Forster to be closer to her aging mother. There was plenty of building work to be had up there, he explained, and a new boutique architecture business should thrive. They’d be in a small town right on the beach; something Sunny had always dreamed of. She loved to swim and always wanted to learn how to surf.

  But to move to a small town? Everyone in Surry Hills either already knew about her mother’s death and Sunny’s miraculous survival, or they didn’t really care that much. She was terrified of scrutiny, of being the new kid in town - but to be the new kid with a fascinating and grotesque backstory was even worse.