Evie Cochrane doesn't.
Evie is the heroine of my novel, 'Sealsong', and she's just been forced to swap her chilled-out life in Australia for Innesfillan, a remote island off the west coast of Scotland. All she knows is that there's no way she belongs in this backward and unsettling place where they don't have TV or cars and the church minister forbids any kind of fun.
Life gets even worse when Evie discovers she is a selkie - one of Scotland's legendary half-human, half-seal folk. Helpless to stop herself from transforming into a seal at night, she begins to live a freakish double-life in which the people she meets on land by day might also be the seals she swims with by night. And what about Alec, the fisherman's son, the seal with the blue eyes? Is he flirting or do all seals behave like that?
Unfortunately Evie has come to Innesfillan at a time when the bonds that tie the community together and protect the secret world of the selkies are fraying. The minister is whipping up resentment that threatens the selkies on land - and with full-blood seals whipping up a fight in the sea, Evie isn't safe there either.
Despite this, it seems like everyone is trying to persuade Evie that she belongs on Innesfillan. Like she'd want to commit to life as a flabby fish-eater. No thanks. The sooner she gets off this island the better. Maybe Alec can help. Or, if he won't, how about his rebellious cousin, Robbie? Survival's not about flirting. It's about escaping.
Read the first chapter below!
Chapter 1: 'The difference half an hour makes'.
My memory didn't start properly again until a couple of weeks after the accident, around the time I left hospital. I didn't ask questions, like why am I going with you, or who packed my bag, which was full of my daggiest clothes. Questions didn't matter. The answers mattered, but I was afraid of hearing them.
Even without questions, I understood I was going to live with my godparents for a while. The only question I did ask was: what happened to the brand new Billabong jeans I had been wearing that day? Auntie Anna mumbled something like 'we'll have to find out', but she never did, and I didn't ask again, or even allow myself to think about what 'we'll have to find out' might mean.
The doctor said I'd hit my head on a tree when I was thrown out of the car and when he first took the bandages off I half-expected to see the imprint of the bark on my forehead, but I didn't, just a big, bloody scab that I could hide under my hair. Maybe it was the concussion that made my brain feel numb and woolly. I didn't seem able to think about much at all, even the major things like how long have I been in hospital, or what is going to happen to me? My brain had shut down and I preferred it that way.
Just before I left, the doctor told me I was a very lucky girl, and then breathed in sharply and said he was sorry for the loss of my parents. I didn't mind. Part of the shut down brain thing was that I didn't mind about much at the moment. Not even about missing the funeral, which had apparently been held a week before I left hospital, which meant that I hadn't been there for the couple of days I vaguely remembered, but for at least two weeks.
I did have to explain some things to myself. In my head, I pretended I was staying with the Balduccis for a long weekend. A very long weekend, because nobody mentioned school and neither did I. Auntie Anna and Uncle Carlo were kind and let me watch what I wanted on TV and stay up late. In return, I chatted brightly, I ate what was put in front of me, even the fattening things, and I said please and thank you in all the right places. I would be all right living like this; not really thinking about things. I was proud of how I was dealing with this major tragedy. Maybe I should write a book about how the best way to deal with grief was simply not to think about things, but writing a book might mean thinking, so that made it a bad idea.
The only problem was Marco. He had to go to school, which was good, because it kept him out of my way during the day. At night, however, I couldn't escape him. Every evening he would go on and on about playing computer games, like we had on the day of the accident. I said no, no, no. He said, go on, go on, go on. You weren't bad for a girl. I'll let you be whichever character you like. What if I let you have the rocket launcher or the laser gun? I said no, no, no. Maybe we could resume our interrupted 'discussion' about whether you looked better with your swimming costume wet or dry? Maybe a little 'exercise' to get rid of that muffin top? You were into it, weren't you? After all, you were the one that wanted to stay the extra half hour that day... No, no, no.
He played the games anyway, with his door open, releasing the roar of the monsters, the sharp retort of the guns and the sounds like watermelons dropped from a height onto a hard surface when the shots hit their targets. Gobbets of bloody light slid down the walls of the hallway outside my room. I threatened to break his computer if he kept playing. Then Auntie Anna told him to stop. The next evening I caught him playing again, so obviously I did have to break his computer. I used his cricket bat, which was handily propped up against his bed. As I hit the screen it made a satisfying crunching noise and glass and sparks showered the room with splinters of light. The processor wasn't so much fun, but I hit it three times to make sure it would never work again.
I felt better.
Marco gaped at me. I threw the cricket bat on to his bed and walked to my room, shutting the door. Auntie Anna knocked on the door and called out my name. I ignored her. Auntie Anna waggled the handle, but she couldn't get in because I had put a chair under it.
I lay on the bed, staring at the pink ceiling, but it was so nothingy that it made me think and I didn't want to think. I sat up on the bed. A faint blue light shone through the window, making swirling patterns on the walls. The leaves of the gum tree chattered in the breeze like little voices calling me to come outside. I got up and drifted to the window and flung it open. The screen was in my way, but one good shove popped it out and sent it skittering down the wall to splash into the pool below. I wriggled through the gap to sit on the sill, with my legs dangling over the edge, like I was ready to jump into the pool. The warm air clung to my skin. The screen floated on the surface of the pool, turning slowly on the gleaming water, following the sparkling pathway of light streaming from the window. I stared down at the blue, shimmering surface, following the tiny ripples the breeze made. Underneath the water would be cool and quiet; blue and still, like the bottom of the sea. My muscles relaxed and I slumped against the wall. Why not just drop from the window and into the pool? Close my eyes and sink into its cool blue embrace. Let the water wash over me and into me. Stop breathing so it would be over for me, like Mum and Dad.
The day after I broke Marco's computer, Mum and Dad's lawyer came.