For the rest of the evening, we just hung out in Amelia's room, chatting about different things and listening to music and watching TV and checking Amelia's MySpace and yelling at Mystery to stop singing and yelling at Artemis to stop playing his guitar and then yelling at him to stop crying or he'd make his eyeliner run. All part of a typical night at the Meyer's house. At one point, after we'd been banging on Mystery's door to tell her to be quiet, Dream wandered up the stairs completely naked.



"Mum!" Amelia cried, shocked. "We have a guest, remember!?"
Dream didn't seem to hear. I wondered what on Earth had been going on downstairs.
"Don't worry, nothing's happened," Amelia hissed, reading my mind. "I think she's just been to a ceremony in the woods."
"Naked?" I exclaimed.
Amelia nodded. "To be 'closer to nature'," she explained, rolling her eyes again.
"Right," I said. "Maybe we should just stay in your room from now on."
And that's where we were when I heard it. We were sitting in Amelia's room, talking away and listening to the radio, when I heard the familiar empty fifths being played gently on a piano.
I sat up suddenly, frozen, and listening. "Oh my gosh!" I cried to Amelia.
"What?" she said, perplexed.
"Turn up the volume!" I exclaimed, taking out my mobile at the same time. "It's our song!"
I was still dialling my Dad's phone number as the singer began to sing:
"I'll be your shelter in a storm,
And in the dark, I'll be your light…"
Dad answered on the second ring. "Hello?"
"Dad, tune your radio to 104.1 right now!" I said excitedly. "It's our song!"



"Really?" he exclaimed, and a few seconds later, I heard the same music in the background over the phone.
"It is!" he cried happily. "Well, who would've thought…"
He started singing along, and I joined him over the phone as Amelia watched me, now completely confused.
"Did your Dad write this, or something?" she asked, and I nodded. "Me too," I said between words.
As the music built up to the chorus, both Dad and I sang with gusto the lyrics I'd penned:
"Take a look, deep inside yourself,
Hear what your heart has to say,
Look above, reach up to the stars,
You can move mountains today,
Just keep moving forward, open the door,
I'll be right beside you if you start to fall,
Together…
Together we can make it through."
Amelia groaned. "That's so bad!"
"I know!" I grinned. "And I wrote it!"
Dad and I sang to each other until the song finished. I listened carefully to the DJ as she spoke about the song.
"And at number one this week, that's our new Australian Idol, Rhiannon Turner, with 'Together'. We'll be catching up with Rhiannon tomorrow on our breakfast show…"
"Did you hear that!?" I cried to Dad. "Number one! Just like you said!"
"That's astonishing!" Dad exclaimed. "Although, obviously it was mostly due to your brilliant, heartwarming chorus lyrics…"
"Yeah right, Dad," I laughed. "You wrote it."
"That's amazing," Dad said again. "I have to call George. Have a good night."
"I will. Bye."
I pressed the 'off' button on my phone and looked at Amelia, an ecstatic expression etched across my face. She smiled in return.
"Number one, eh?" she said. "And do you get to share the royalty payments for every copy sold?"
My jaw dropped. "Oh, my gosh," I said. "Yes. I do."
Amelia smiled again. "That's awesome," she said.
"At least, I think I do," I said, thinking. "Dad said he was going to call his agent, George, but I'm not sure if he'll remember to ask about that…technically, I should, because I helped write the song…"
Something about Amelia's face distracted me. "What?" I asked, my smile fading.
Amelia shook her head. "Nothing."
"Not 'nothing'," I insisted. "What?"
"Nah…" Amelia looked hesitant, then seemed to make up her mind and continued in a rush. "It's just that…sometimes, you don't know how much I envy you. Here I am, stuck in this place with fruitloops for family, spending my afternoons trying to stop my brother killing himself and my sister from ruining her voice box and my mother from blowing up the house trying out 'spells' and thinking up creative ways to avoid steamed asparagus and tripe for dinner, for God's sake. And then, there you are, the wonderful best friend with awesome parents and a normal house, eating normal food, and now you're going to be raking in the money to boot. Plus, you always get brilliant marks in everything you do, and you've got parents who care about you, and you're excellent at writing, and, God…what I wouldn't give to be you sometimes."
My jaw dropped again, and I stared at her, stunned. "Amelia," I said.
"What?" She wasn't smiling now.
"My brother locked me in a store room with the person I hate as a little prank," I began. "My mother spends so much time in her lab, or out in the greenhouse with her plants, that I only really see her for a few hours in the evenings. My father's always getting distracted in the middle of conversations, and he keeps dashing off to jot down the latest melody or song lyric or idea that's entered his mind. I spend so much time in my room, reading, because my family are always too busy to talk to. Plus, how do you think I get those 'brilliant marks'? I have to spend hours and hours, nearly tearing my hair out, studying and working hard to get those. And look at you! Even though you say I'm good at writing – although I don't think I'm very good at all – I'm hopeless at art. You're an amazing photographer, and you can capture stuff as it is, not how it's imagined, the way I do with writing. Plus," I added, "you have your driving license, which no other teenager here has got. To top it all off, you're the most caring, loyal and honest person I've ever met, and I think if you weren't my best friend, I might be a lot less sarcastic and a lot more like Artemis."
Amelia looked tearily at me. "Do you really mean all that?" she asked.
I nodded. "Of course I do," I said, giving her a hug.



We stayed like that for a moment, and when we broke away, Amelia was smiling through her tears. "That was quite a speech," she said approvingly.
I shrugged. "You're lucky it was coherent," I said.
After that, we both decided it was time to go to sleep. After we had quick showers and changed into our pyjamas, we went back in Amelia's room for the rest of the night. Amelia turned off the lights and got into her bed while I lay down on a spare bed she'd set up for me.
I figured it was about time to voice something that had been concerning me – and it would also serve a double purpose in distracting Amelia from her ridiculous notions of jealousy. "Amelia?" I began.
"Mmm?"
"I think I like someone."
Amelia sounded interested. "Who? Someone I know?"
"Yeah. Julian."
Amelia let out a snort. "Good one, Ellie," she said. "So do you actually like someone?"
She thinks I'm being sarcastic, I realised. Steeling myself, I tried to correct her. "No, really. I think I like Julian."
Amelia sat up. "Are you being serious?"
"Yeah."
Silence.
"What were you guys talking about outside bowling that time?" she asked, intrigued.
"Stuff," I said evasively. "What do you think I should do?"
"I don't know. I thought you couldn't stand him!"
"I thought so too! But now…I'm not so sure."
"Are you insane, woman?"
"Possibly."
Silence again. Amelia shifted around under the covers.
"How do you know that you like him?" she asked.
"I keep feeling like I want to give him a big hug," I said lamely, addressing the ceiling.



Amelia snorted again. "A big hug?"
"It's how I feel whenever I like someone," I explained, slightly embarrassed. "Like you know David Tennant? Doctor Who?"
"Yeah."
"I want to hug him. Nothing more."
Amelia sighed. "I have to say, most people want to do something more than just hugging when they like someone."
"I know, but I'm different. And I hate it when guys take their shirts off. I prefer guys when they're fully clothed."
"So, on your honeymoon night, you plan to just hug your husband while he's got all his clothing still on," Amelia said.
"Well, it'll probably be different by then…"
More silence.
"You never cease to amaze me, El," Amelia said, sighing. Pause. "Should I tell Julian that you want to hug him?"
"No!" I exclaimed loudly. "Don't tell him anything!"
Amelia laughed softly. "I won't," she said. "But it is pretty funny. I'm going to be interested to see what happens."
"Me too," I said, yawning. "Me too."