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really distraught. Brown-curls boy was playing Puck, and he caught my eye more than once, smirking gnomishly to himself, or lifting his fingers in gestures that mocked the girls’ earnest arguments.
    Carla floated around in front of her Lysander in a pretty useless attempt to stop him duelling, then turned on Carrie, launching into the speech about their comparative heights. It came off oddly, since they were almost the same size, but I grimaced when she scorned Carrie’s ‘tall personage’.
    â€˜I am not yet so low but that my nails can reach unto thine eyes!’ she declared in a rising shriek, and then stopped, looking expectantly at me. ‘And then we fight.’
    I nodded. ‘Just speak the lines you say during.’
    She looked disappointed, but they continued until the boys stormed off to duel and the girls followed in bemusement. Iris twisted to smile at me. ‘Any ideas?’
    To my surprise, I did have a few. It wouldn’t be real training, but I could make them look a little less like actors and a little more like girls who genuinely wanted to hurt each other. ‘I think so. Is there someplace I can take them to try it?’
    â€˜The greenroom is back there,’ she said, pointing to the right wing.
    Kevin tagged along, either to offer support or out of boredom. Backstage was dimly lit, and we walked cautiously around untidy piles of wood cut-offs and rolls of canvas. The chill air smelled of paint and sawdust, simultaneously sharp and musty. I shivered and tucked my numbing fingers into my coat pockets.
    â€˜How old are you, Ellie?’ Carrie asked.
    â€˜Seventeen.’
    â€˜Really? I thought you might be older. You’re so tall.’
    â€˜I noticed that myself,’ I said blandly, and watched her cover her fluster by reaching for the greenroom door.
    The handle yanked out of her grip as the door swung abruptly back. Carrie stumbled forward, narrowly avoiding collision with the red-haired woman on the other side.
    â€˜Careful,’ she snapped, and strode through. She looked ready to move right through us, before she spotted Kevin and her whole demeanour changed. From the cool scorn of her lovely face she produced a beautiful smile, and aimed it directly at him.
    Reflexively, Kevin smiled back.
    The moment hung in the dusty air, and then the woman made a neat quarter-turn on the heel of her ankle boots and stepped surely onto the stage. The bare lighting edged her red hair with gold before she moved into the auditorium and out of sight.
    Kevin stared after her.
    â€˜Is that Reka?’ Carla wondered.
    I was staring myself, but with the shock of recognition. In the fog she’d looked no age at all, and now she looked in her early twenties, just a few years older than me. But all the mystery of that odd encounter was explained – clearly an involvement in student theatre was sufficient reason for strange clothes and weird contacts. Although she must have taken them out. The light from the green room had shown two perfectly normal pupils in her dark-green eyes.
    â€˜She must be,’ I said. ‘Let’s get started.’

SITTING INSIDE MY HEAD
    T HE GREENROOM WASN’T green. One of the sagging couches was, though, a sort of greenish-brown that I hoped was just faded upholstery, and not mold. The walls had once been off-white, now much more off than white, and the ragged curtains over the dressing-room windows were black hessian, clearly there to ward off prying eyes during costume changes, and not as decoration. The three small dressing rooms didn’t have doors, though, so apparently it was only outside eyes they were worried about. Or maybe shy people changed in the bathrooms.
    It smelled comfortingly similar to the backstage of my Napier school hall-and-theatre – closed air and old sweat, sweet baby powder and the sharp scent of cold cream. I took a deep whiff and tried to stop the irritation from showing on my face.