Read Thyla for Free Online Page B

if I have a boyfriend,’ I replied, truthfully. I had not remembered a boyfriend. I could not remember any boys. But, like my feeling about Cat, I had a sense that perhaps there had been someone. Dancing around my brain was a hint of a musky smell; the feeling of lips brushing against mine. Maybe this was just a dream, though. After all, I had seen myself in the mirror after I was rescued. What boy would have wanted me?
    ‘Right,’ said Inga, her eyes narrowing. ‘Weird.’
    I felt my cheeks colour. It was weird to not know if you had a suitor. I chastised myself and vowed to be more mindful in my future conversations.
    ‘It’s not weird,’ said Claudia, soothingly. ‘There have been heaps of times in my life when I haven’t really known if a boy was my boyfriend. They can be pigs sometimes, can’t they, Tessa?’
    I nodded, yawning as I did so and Amy snapped, ‘Sorry for keeping you up, Tessa.’ She flicked her streaky blonde hair over her shoulder and looked at Inga, who rolled her eyes.
    ‘She’s had a big day,’ Claudia said, touching me gently on the arm.
    It was true. I’d had a big day. I was tired. But, later, when I was lying on my side on my new bed, in my new room, in my new school, sleep seemed a million miles away.
    My new roommate was not in her bed. She was away on a bushwalking trip. Ms Hindmarsh had told me this when she showed me to my room, earlier in the evening, but still, I was disappointed. I wanted to meet her.
    Ms Hindmarsh told me that her name was Rhiannah. This cheered me. I assumed (and secretly hoped), that there was only one Rhiannah, the one Charlotte had introduced me to, the one with the black hair and the pretty bangle. I remembered Charlotte calling her strange, but Rhiannah seemed nice to me. I thought she would make a pleasant roommate.
    ‘Rhiannah is a bit of a nature nut,’ Ms Hindmarsh had explained. ‘Loves the bush.’
    ‘Me too,’ I said, again without thinking, and the next words to come into my mind were, How do you know that, Tessa?
    Ms Hindmarsh didn’t ask how I knew that, though. She just squeezed my shoulder and said, ‘Great! Well, you’ll have lots to talk about, won’t you? I really hope you get along. I would, ideally, have liked you to bunk down with one of the prefects, but they all have roommates already, and I wouldn’t like to cause disruptions to their lives and routines. They’re all very conscientious students, and I’m aware that disruption can be detrimental to academic progress.’
    ‘Rhiannah didn’t mind being disrupted?’ I asked. ‘She didn’t mind her other roommate moving out?’
    ‘Her other roommate had … already gone,’ said Ms Hindmarsh, and a curious darkness settled on her face. I remembered what you said, Connolly, about Ms Hindmarsh’s husband being ‘gone’. You hadn’t said ‘dead’. Just ‘gone’. There seemed to be so much uncertainty in that word – so much emptiness, as though the word was made of air. Rhiannah’s roommate was ‘gone’. Ms Hindmarsh’s husband was ‘gone’. My parents were ‘gone’. Cat was ‘gone’. They were like leaves, blown quietly away by a summer breeze. I didn’t know what to say to Ms Hindmarsh. I wanted to tell her I would help to find her husband too, but I knew my first priority was to find Cat. Maybe one would lead to the other.
    As quickly as the darkness appeared, brightness came again and Ms Hindmarsh smiled. ‘Anyway, Tessa, make yourself at home,’ she said, as she opened the door to room 36. ‘I know you don’t have many things with you but I’m sure you’ll settle in soon and find some way to make it yours.’
    I looked around the room. ‘Does Rhiannah not have many “things” either?’ I asked.
    The room looked very comfortable, but its furniture and decorations were decidedly minimal. The furniture consisted of two beds with thick charcoal-coloured quilts and dark pillows, two armchairs, a black box which I took to be some sort of