It was Friday night, and we had agreed to meet Toya and Leah outside the community center at eight-thirty, but between drinking Baileys, burning toasted sandwiches, and redoing Rana's hair to make it wavy, Chrissy, Rana and I were late. When we arrived, they were waiting for us by the arched red door of the converted church, shivering and scowling.

"What took you so long?" Leah snapped. "We're freezing our bums off out here!" She was wearing her mum's clingy, leopard-skin trousers and pointy high heels without tights, which considering the 5 °C situation, wasn't the wisest choice.

Chrissy apologized, unlinked herself from me, and went to hug them.

"If Louise lives down the road from here, why are you so late?"

"Gorgeous earrings," Chrissy said. She stroked one of the silky feathers drifting in Leah's golden-ginger hair. "You look amazing. You both do. Come on, let's go inside. Girl's night out, remember? No moody cows allowed."

Toya grabbed on to my arm and pulled at the hem of her burgundy skirt, which barely inched below her leather jacket. Along with Rana, we followed Chrissy and Leah into the Gothic church.

Christmas lights decorated the reception desk and an empty bar. Drums thrashed and pounded behind closed doors. We paid five pounds each to enter and passed two guys in ripped jeans who emerged from the concert hall doors in a haze of machine smoke.

The small hall had mirrors along one side and a plywood stage raised on beer barrels at the far end. Red and blue spotlights moved overhead. The drummer smashed out a heavy-metal gallop, the guitarist hammered up and down his fretboard, and the singer sang like he was mid-argument with someone.

Chrissy looked back at me and grinned. She was the only one who knew my long-term crush, Luke, played drums for Electric Cloud.

"Why are they all dressed as girls?" Toya shouted.

"Holy cow!" Leah unscrewed the lid from a bottle of peach schnapps, which she'd snuck through in her bag. "They're actually worse than their video. Where on earth did you hear about these freaks, Louise?"

The five of us stood at the back of the hall, staring. For a moment it was as if we were all too dumbstruck to do anything.

"The drummer used to live on Louise's street," Chrissy shouted.

"Bet you're glad he moved!" Toya grabbed the bottle of schnapps from Leah and took a large swig. Chrissy began headbanging. Leah laughed and seemed to forget the music was crap. The two of them thrashed their hair while the smoke machine pumped its apocalyptic haze.

"This isn't the guy that used to live on your street, is it?" Toya shouted at me. "Oh my God, this is that guy!"

History, geography, and French teachers at East Hill would have been amazed to learn of Toya's elephantine memory. Unfortunately, it only covered the boys, celebrities, and embarrassing-moments spectrum of facts. Toya couldn't give you a date for the Battle of Hastings, or name any of the cities the Nile flowed through, but she remembered the name of every guy any of us had ever spoken to at a party. Proof: I hadn't mentioned Luke to anyone but Chrissy for at least two years.

Aware denial was hopeless, I folded my lips together, smiled, and waited for Toya to get distracted. She ran a hand over her coiled hair and squinted at the band through the smoke. Blue light shone on Luke at the back where he drummed and sweated.

Luke wasn't normal good-looking. He was more like a Calvin Klein model. Even dressed in a skirt and a pink wig.

Toya turned. "You have impeccable taste, Louise Doors," she said, raising the schnapps bottle in a salute. "Definitely not a stiff." Then she took a swig and passed it to me. I took it and handed it on to Rana.

The stiff reference was disconcerting. I'd turned sixteen two months ago, and I was the oldest in our group. But I was the only one who'd never had a boyfriend, so Leah tirelessly questioned my sexuality. She jokingly threw around names like stiff, frigid, and virgin. We were all virgins, so I knew she was just after a reaction, but I still didn't like it.

The heavy-metal brawl came to a sudden halt. The singer fell to the floor as though someone had shot him, and then the guitarist collapsed, knocking into a guy holding a glass of beer, which splashed everywhere. Luke sat poised at the back of the stage, head lowered, drumsticks twirling up beside his ears. He leaned slowly into a mic.

"We're Electric Cloud," he said. "And we'll be back after a quick break." He lifted his head, and his eyes roamed the crowd. The guy covered in beer pushed the guitarist. The guitarist threw a half-hearted punch. Luke jumped down from the stage and walked into the crowd. I pulled Rana along with me so as not to lose sight of him. Then I stopped. He'd just bumped into Chrissy and Leah.

Rana prodded me in the back. "Go!"

At that moment I realized two things: Rana knew about Luke, and Chrissy was planning something. I hesitated, raising my hand to my throat. "I need water."

"After," Rana said. "This is your chance."

I hadn't spoken to Luke for three years. If you defined a conversation in its narrowest terms as an interchange of feelings, opinions, or ideas, well, we'd never actually had one. I wasn't sure he would recognize me. Adrenalin churned up my insides. I turned to Rana.

"All you have to do," she said, squeezing my shoulder, "is go over and say 'hi'."

Chrissy now peered at me through wreaths of smoke, her silky, long hair touching Luke's cheek. She pointed in my direction. Luke nodded. A smile curved the sides of his lips as he waved me over. Clutching Rana's arm, I surfed forward, my head feeling detached from my body.

"Louise!" Luke said. "Hey, Louise Doors, you haven't changed a bit."

Ouch, that was worse than not being recognized. I stuffed my hands in my pockets and smiled. Chrissy stood beside him, beaming, while Leah fluffed up her hair.

"Hi," I said.

"Small world. Haven't seen you for years. So, these are your friends?" Yeah, apart from the fact that I'm going to kill Chrissy and Leah as soon as you've gone! My brain got tangled up with ironic retorts, so I smiled harder, nodding. "What did you think of my band?"

"Good?"

He laughed. "Come on, Louise Doors and Louise Doors' friends. I'll give you guys the private, backstage tour."

* * *

If backstage was a country, it would be a tiny place no one had ever heard about. Jackets strewed three plastic chairs, a school table stood against the wall, and a half-empty case of beer held open a door to a back alley.

Luke cleared the chairs and began offering around cans of beer. The singer followed us in, gulping down a bottle of water. Rana and I leaned against the wall, Chrissy and Leah perched on the table, and Toya threw herself into a plastic chair beside Luke.

"Toby's fighting again," the singer said.

Luke shook his head in disapproval. "He'll end up breaking something and won't be able to play anymore." Luke produced Rizla paper and broke a cigarette into it.

"Who's this lot then?"

"My old neighbor." Luke didn't look up, so the singer was left to guess which of us was the neighbor. He scanned the five of us, taking his time with Leah and Chrissy. Luke unwrapped a lump of foil and burned off some puff, then he crumbled it into the Rizla paper.

"So why are you dressed as girls?" Leah asked.

"It's anti-establishmentarianism," the singer said, removing his wig and swopping his water for a can of Amstel. "We're anarchists."

"What, dressing up as girls is your glorious stand against authority?"

"Hell yeah!"

Toya laughed. Leah grabbed the purple wig and tried it on.

"That's hilarious!" Toya squealed. "I want a go." She snatched the wig, and they fought over it. Luke moved to get out of the way, settling in beside Chrissy.

"Hey," he said.

"Hi." Chrissy caught his eye then dipped her head.

"So who are you?"

She twisted her ponytail around her finger. "Chrissy."

"How d'you like the gig so far?"

Leah and Toya's screeching drowned out Chrissy's response.

"Hey Pixie Ears, stop hogging the schnapps!" Leah pulled the schnapps bottle from Rana. Rana blushed. She was self-conscious about the pointed tips of her ears, and Leah knew it.

"Oh my God," I said. "I think the schnapps is causing an allergic reaction to your nose, Leah."

She scowled at me. "What?"

"Your nose." I touched my nose to show her what I meant. It was getting harder to hear over the noise in the hallway. Rana stifled a laugh.

"Who's coming outside for a smoke?" Luke pushed to his feet and held up the rolled spliff. He raised an eyebrow at Chrissy.

My best friend smiled. "Sure."

Leah slunk towards me, pulling off the purple wig and pouting. "What did you say about my nose?"

"Nothing." Avoiding her glare, I watched Chrissy leave with Luke. So that was that. I knew how the evening would end before it even got started. Well, apart from the whole blacking out and waking up six days later thing, that is.

"You did. You said something about my nose."

Rana widened her eyes and hand-signaled I should go outside with Chrissy and Luke. Toya heckled the singer who'd begun a lame magic trick with the ring pull of a beer can.

"I've just got to—" I made an incomprehensible gesture, darted around Leah, and slipped into the alley.

Drizzle seeped into my hair. A smell of pot wafted on the air. I stood in the doorway's shadow, hugging my arms against the cold, and wondering how I'd explain coming out to join them without smoking the joint.

This was a terrible idea. I wasn't like Chrissy. My best friend exuded confidence and was always pushing the boundaries, experimenting, taking risks. Out of the two of us, she'd done everything first. She was the first to French kiss a guy, first to smoke a cigarette, and first to get drunk. I tagged along with most things eventually, but I didn't want to smoke pot.

"She's got a thing for you," Chrissy said. "I wondered if you're interested?"

Wait, who were they talking about? I peered around the wall and saw Luke take off his pink wig and rake his fingers through his wavy blonde hair, which fell in tufts over his eyes.

"She's sweet. But she's kind of like a sister. You know, I still remember her with pigtails, nine years old, playing in the park type thing." He paused. "Louise isn't my type."

Breath shot from my chest as though I'd fallen backward and landed with a hard bump.

"What's your type?"

"You." His voice came out low and cracked. "So?"

"So what?"

"How are my chances looking?" He stepped closer to her, and I shrank into the darkness, quickly returning the way I'd come.

Despite my anger at Chrissy, all I could think about was how I'd never had pigtails. My mother began bob-cutting my hair when I was six and I still wore it a few centimeters below my ears. Luke clearly thought I hadn't changed in the last three years because he'd never properly looked at me.

I slipped through the backstage door and locked myself in the toilet. When the band returned to the stage for their second set, Chrissy came bouncing over, chatting about some party Luke had invited us all to. She really wanted to go. Of course, my mum's curfew meant that I couldn't, but I didn't mind if she did, did I? She could sleep over next weekend.

After that, I forced myself to stay for another ten minutes so Rana wouldn't think I was upset and badger me with questions about what had happened outside, and then, when they were all dancing, I put on my green parka and left.

* * *

I walked fast, grasping the point of my door key in numb fingers and listening for footsteps from behind. It wasn't even ten o'clock but the wintry drizzle kept people indoors and the streets were empty. I puffed up the hill to a narrow slip lane that cut through towards the high street. My face burned with the icy wind, and my neck burned for no reason I could think of. Electric Cloud had left me half-deaf, Chrissy had left me smoldering, and Luke had left me humiliated. I was an idiot to have thought he could be interested in me. Guys like Luke went out with girls like Chrissy.

Highgate village glistened, slick with rain. Christmas lights blinked on and off in closed shops. Music clawed out from a crack in the tinted window of a passing vehicle, its drumbeat the first distinct noise in my head since the muffle of leaving the gig. My feet grew heavy. Liquid warmth climbed my neck and spread through the base of my skull. I took another step forward, but the pavement vanished.

I'm falling.

I reached out to grab hold of something. My arms flailed through the air. There was nothing to hold on to. My face was going to smash hard into the pavement. My whole body squeezed tight, preparing for impact.

Far off, there came the sound of a loud click. And then I was upright again. As though I'd dreamed of falling and suddenly jerked awake. I looked around in confusion. Everything appeared exactly as it had done a moment ago, except I had the impression that I was somewhere else.

The drizzle turned to rain. Drops plopped on my hair, my nose, and my jeans. In the back of my mind, I thought I should be getting home, but the crystal-cut quality of the rain fascinated me. I held out my hand, cupping my fingers, no longer sensing the cold.

Across the road, beyond the light of the zebra crossing, glass bottles clinked. A man in a white shirt hauled a rubbish bag into an industrial-sized dustbin. The lid banged shut. He turned and walked to the front of the restaurant while peering back across the road. All at once, his shoulders hunched up, and he sprinted straight for me.

I clutched my key tighter and strode towards the restaurant a few doors down. When I checked back, I saw the man drop to his knees beside a girl. She lay sprawled on her side, one leg caught up behind her, the other dangling into the gutter. Rain dripped on her blue lips.

My blue lips.

"Hey," he said. "Can you hear me?" He gently shook her shoulder.

My shoulder.

"Hey, can you hear me?" I wanted to speak, but surprise stole my breath. I took a step closer. Streetlight struck his long face, illuminating pale skin and a crooked nose. The boy—because I'd seen now, he couldn't even be eighteen—pushed my hair to one side and pressed two fingers against my neck. Panic leaped through me as I realized I might not have a pulse. I rushed over and knelt by the other side of my limp figure, searching the boy's face for answers. Had my heart stopped beating?

He rubbed the back of his head, eyes flicking to the restaurant, considering his options.

"Am I breathing?" I asked. He didn't answer, didn't even look at me.

Headlights of an approaching car flooded us. The boy ran into the road and hailed the vehicle. A woman unrolled her window.

"What's happened?"

"Could you call an ambulance?" Hazard lights began to flash. When the woman spoke into her phone, the panic in her voice made me tremble. The boy shuffled up beside me. He lifted my head, forced open my mouth, and slid his fingers inside, swiping back and forth. I felt a stinging prick of gratitude that he knew what he was doing.

"An ambulance is on its way," he said. "What's your name? Can you hear me?"

"Louise," I croaked. "My name is Louise."

He tapped my shoulder, unaware I'd spoken. "What's your name?"

The woman got out of her car, the clitter clatter of heels audible above the running engine. "Is she drunk?"

I focused on the senses of my ghost body—the rain in my hair, the bitter wind on my face. If I concentrated hard enough, perhaps I'd feel the touch of his hand shaking my real body, then I could reforge the link. I noted how my calves were sore from gym class, and cigarette and machine smoke glutted my chest. My feet... I couldn't feel my feet. My gaze shot down. The bottom of my jeans scuffed the wet pavement, no boots, no ankles, and no toes.

"Come on," the boy said. "Wake up!"

"She's turning blue," the woman said. "I don't think she's breathing."

"Have you got a blanket or a coat?"

The woman bustled to the boot of her car, returning with a scruffy throw full of dog hair. "Oh God, oh God. I did a CPR class. I can't remember any of it!" The boy balled up the blanket and tucked it under the feet I did still have. He raised my cheek in his palms, revealing scratch marks and a few streaks of blood.

"Come on," he hissed, tapping me. "Wake up."

Tears of panic squeezed against my eyes. I'm not dying! I refuse to die. I stood shakily and staggered around my body. Crushing my shoulders and crossing my arms over my chest so I didn't touch the woman or the boy, I sat on top of my collapsed self. Nausea rolled over me. I was going to faint. If that was even possible when my actual body was already unconscious. Concentrate!

I aligned my missing feet with my real boots. The desire to vomit got worse. Fire licked up my neck into my skull. I lowered my spine to the pavement and twisted on to my side. For a fraction of a second, I thought I felt the boy's hands on my head, but then the pain wiped everything out.