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There's only one thing you can do when your little brother is missing: you go out and you find him.

That's where I am now. It's after dark, the streets are full of strangers and all I want to do is find Mimic and get back to the safety of the Academy.

How am I going to find him in this crowd? I'm surrounded by gaggles of females on a night out, their outfits sparkling and shimmering; males in groups of two or three, shoving each other and bellowing with hilarity at the results; couples in each others' arms or arguing or doing that not-arguing thing where you just know they're both angry; shifty, scruffy young adult males in loose clothing who are eyeing other members of the crowd for somebody to sell drugs to; fashionistas sporting intricately-shaved and dyed fur; groups of friends standing and drinking because there's nowhere else to sit; it's like everybody on Palantis is here.

The worst thing about it is, Mimic might not even be in this crowd.

Take a left and go down Hookwing Road, the street that bisects Darkskin Street. Between them, they're the main two streets in town. Almost walk into a male chout who's tapping a message into his Communicata. Looks up in shock, swerves around me and carries on his way, swinging his long, orange-furred tail behind him. Yeah, I'm sure he'll start looking where he's going after that.

The view down Hookwing Road gives me a clear sight of the ocean and I head down that way. Maybe, just maybe, Mimic's down by the sea.

xXx

It's been like this for a couple of years, and it's getting worse. We're brother and sister, you know. The only ones left in our family. Mum and dad died in an accident two and a half years ago when I was fifteen and a half and Mimic was thirteen, and it left us both devastated for a few months. Eventually we both started to come out of ourselves, but I realised then that we were cast in new roles, roles that I've been trying to break us both out of for what seems like forever.

Well, no actually, that's not quite how it is: I'm trying to break him out of the self-imposed role he's in.

Get down to the sea front and decide that the upper level of the pathway is probably a good place to start. I can see Palanteans up here and look down over the railings to the lower path at the same time. A good vantage point. If he's here then all I have to do is walk up and down the several miles of coast. Too many possibilities for if he's down there and being held out of view, under the path. Can't think about that now. Have to find him.

A few of the shops are still open, it's possible he could be in one of those. Stop by a too-well-lit snackshop where a short, fractured line of Palanteans wait for greasy, crispy batterchunks to be cooked to order. Behind the waiting customers is a ceiling-high mirror. Catch a glance at myself in it. I'm a virtual shadow against the lit pavement behind me. Black leathery skin, a long-muzzled face with that worried expression I haven't been able to shift for months, tail - quite short; inherited from dad - curled tight at the end from nervous tension, fluorescent patches invisible because I'm obviously not going to bother luminescing at the moment. Flash my spots briefly anyway - another nervous reaction - and darken again. Maybe I should try not to look so scared. It can't be good to look scared when you're a young female out on your own at night.

Shudder; move on.

Oh god, where is he?

My brother decided, once mum and dad had been buried for long enough for us both to get used to the idea, that I blame him. I don't. I never have done. He's my little baby brother, I've always loved him. But he can't see that. He thinks I blame him for their deaths. But not a reassuring talk, nor loving actions, nor support or nonchalance or getting friends to talk to him or blatant pleading or anything else I could think of, have successfully convinced him. My little brother Mimic is unreachable. I miss him.

Especially when I'm alone out at night. I'm not sure I'm that safe out here. I want my brother with me, even if he is younger than me. Two is better than one.

I'd love to say that I'd never treat another person the way he treats me. Not that I resent it, I don't. I don't. In lots of ways I can understand how he feels. But he's run away and now I feel personally responsible for his safety and I need to find him before he gets hurt. And the worst thing about it is, I know I've done exactly the same thing to someone else by coming out here tonight.

xXx

Give up trying the upper level, trot hurriedly down the stone steps to the bottom, closer to the sea. The smell of salt is stronger down here, along with the rotten scent of seaweed and rubbish and old urine. Feel even less safe down here. But he might be down here, so I have to try.

Try to run - but am thwarted and have to walk, side-step and dodge - through a section of the lower seaside pathway congested with people who don't seem to know where they want to go. A middle-aged couple, all grizzled green skin and sagging wing leather, waddle along. They seem to have all the time in the world. Please, just let me through! Past the shop selling beach tat and cheap clothes and hats made by children halfway across the world, and break through the group of disinterested strangers to run further down the path.

Oh please, Mimic, where did you go? If I were you, where would I go? I don't know what Mimic likes any more. He's changed since before. He used to like sitting near heaters and the colour purple and that transparent boiled sugar stuff they always dye red for some reason, and tickle fights and duo bands. I never quite got why he liked them, but there you go.

Is that where he might have gone? To the show stadium to see whether anyone he likes is playing? It's back up the stairs. Find another set of steps and run back up. If he's back down there on the lower path and he's only found tomorrow or the day after, dead from cold or from some parasite-furred nutcase with a knife I'll never forgive myself for running up here and leaving him alone. But I don't know what else to do. I don't know where...

Cross the road and get to the stadium. Posters outside, lots of them. A few Palanteans milling about: rolls of fuzzy, beige fat and striking, piebald lines and ginger fur dulled by the night-time and smooth, tarm tails. A small group of smokers, shoulders clenched and arms across their bodies to fend off the cold, sucking tensely from their cigarettes and keen to get their hit as quickly as possible so they can go back indoors. Funny, I don't feel that cold. He's not here.

Maybe he's around the other side, so I go and have a look, dodging even more people as I go.

I wonder whether any of the mentors are out here looking for me? I suppose they'll be worried. If they feel anything like I do right now... But there are four of them and only one of me, so it's more likely they'll find me than I'll find Mimic, even if only two of them came out here to search. And that's how I'd have planned it if I were Mr. Leathermann.

What will I do if they find me? I've no idea. They'll want me to come home. I can already hear the conversation now: "Mosaic, what are you doing out here?" "You know what I'm doing (I say). I'm looking for Mimic." "There's no sense in looking for him, there are too many people. He might have already gone back to his foster parents. Come on Mosaic, it's too dangerous for you to be out here." And then I'll try to find some way to argue the logic, and they'll say, "It wouldn't do for you to both to come to harm, would it?" And I won't be able to say anything else. Because there isn't anything you can say to that, is there?

But how do you say it? How do you say that that's your baby brother, and that no matter how unlikely it is you'll find him in all this crowd, all this danger, all this mess, he's still your baby and he's still all the family you have left and it doesn't matter if you're in danger and... It doesn't make sense to search like this, and that's why I won't be able to justify it.

But I'm still searching. Please, Mimic, don't do this to me.

Surely they've loved somebody enough to do this? They can't have not done. But they're as trapped as I am, aren't they? They can't just smile, pat me on the shoulder and wish me good luck. I'll have to go back with them.

Unless I can convince them to search with me.

xXx

And it happens. As I stand by the huge shoe shop in Fruitgatherer Street Mr. Greyback - the least impulsive of the lot, the hardest to talk into searching with me - speaks in my ear, and I know the search is over.

And so agoniSingly not over at the same time.

"Mosaic," he says in his deep rumble of a voice. So reassuring to most, but for me, now, so crushing. Then stays silent as I turn to look at him, surprised to see him there. Consider breaking for it and running, but that's idiocy. I can't do that. What is it about Mr. Greyback that makes you as logical as him? Despite my best attempt, I can't break eye contact with him. I'm sure he's aware I could run, but he just... grounds you. He might as well have his own gravitational pull. Damn. My brother's still...

Without another word, he puts an arm around my shoulder and guides me in the direction of the Academy. My god, I'm being drawn away from Mimic. Am I? Is he still out here? I may be too paralysed by Mr. Greyback's sensibility to run, but at least I can scan the faces, every black back and face I see on the way, to make one final attempt at finding my brother.

A ball of hot salt grows in my chest and I know I'm powerless. I don't think I can be bothered to hide it. I sob, hide my face in one hand, and feel his own, fuzzy palm tighten in silent sympathy around my own, much skinnier shoulder. I can't leave Mimic. I can't.

In the dark and with my eyes full of thick tears, I'm virtually blind. But he guides me and protects me. And, perhaps, condemns my brother to death by taking me out of town. But I still can't blame him, because I've been doing what Mimic did tonight. And he's probably as relieved as I would be to have found me out here. Did any of the others come searching? Will they be angry? Or will they be as stoic as I am with Mimic? I'm not their sister.

I think to ask, to get Mr. Greyback to reassure me, but I'm still sobbing too heavily to be able to. I must look emotionally unstable to everyone else on the street, just another reptile female bawling her eyes out in public. I swear, I'll never look at caudals publicly crying with disdain ever again.

THE END.

Copyright © Hayley Deakin