The Changeover by Margaret Mahy

openly angry.
    "Your brother!" he said. "You've come all the way here to ..." He broke off. "How did you get here?"
    "I walked, of course," Laura answered.
    "You were asking for it, weren't you?" he asked. "Think of what happened to Jacynth Close."
    "I did think, but how else could I get here?" she said. "Things like that don't happen often."
    "I expect once is enough if you happen to be the one," Sorry said. "You came here about your brother ..."
    "He's terribly sick," Laura said.
    "To hell with that!" Sorry exclaimed. "Take him to a doctor. I'll punish your enemy, cure warts, release the winds .. ." He raised his hand and a breeze actually rippled the pages of his seventh form chemistry, very eerie in the small room. "If you wanted to make a neighbour's goat have fits ... I'd be the right person then, wouldn't I?"
    Laura knew she had hurt his feelings but could not see why.
    "He's terribly sick," she said. "Sicker than anyone knows. A doctor won't help."
    Sorry was still holding her wrist. He stood up. "You should be careful, knowing what you know," he said. "I might drive a hard bargain. I might ask to drink a pint of your blood or goodness knows what. Get a doctor. They're subsidized by the government. I'll see you to the gate."
    "A doctor would be no good," said Laura, but she walked out of his room passively enough when he held the door open for her, though she felt her own anger building up in her in a gratifying way.
    "Sorensen?" called a voice. "Does Laura drink coffee?"
    "Not here she doesn't! She's on her way," said Sorry. "For eighteen months we've given one another these looks across the school playground and I thought she'd come because... well, never mind why I thought she'd come, and she thought I was a bloody witch doctor who could cure measles free."
    "Sorensen, please don't swear like that," said the older Mrs Carlisle, old Winter, who, coming forward, looked exactly like Laura's idea of a witch, for she was getting ready for bed and wearing a dressing-gown instead of the tweed skirt and twin-set she often wore, and her white hair, usually pulled severely back, hung over her shoulders in two plaits.
    "I'll tell you what," Sorry said, looking at her, speaking as if he had just had a brilliant idea, "why don't we put on the opening scene from Macbeth for Chant? You, me and Miryam.
    'When shall we three meet again
    In thunder, lightning ..."'
    "We don't do Macbeth until next year," Laura interrupted him.
    Winter ignored them. "Just how far do you have to go?" she asked Laura.
    "I can easily walk," Laura said stiffly. "It's not far."
    "She lives in Kingsford Drive," Sorry said crossly. "I'll run you home on the Vespa, Chant. Of course that might turn out to be more risky. You never know your luck."
    He was starting to look more at ease, more inquisitive again, but Laura's anger was reaching its peak. Their tempers were not synchronized.
    "Did you think I came because I liked you?" she asked indignantly, remembering, however, that she had felt jealous of another girl talking to him earlier that day.
    "Why not?" asked Sorry. "Let's be honest..."
    "Don't let's be honest!" his grandmother interrupted him. "Go and get your motorbike, Sorensen. I don't think Laura should walk home alone through these streets."
    "I came by them," she replied. "At least I live a real life in a real house, Sorry Carlisle, not shut away behind a high hedge in a sort of museum — a museum of spare time."
    It was impossible to be rude to Sorry, without being rude to his mother and grandmother, too.
    "Look— stuff real life!" Sorry said. "I've tried it out and believe me it's nothing but rubbish."
    "And double-stuff your broomstick!" Laura retorted in a low, fierce voice. "I hope you get splinters."
    "Terrific!" said Sorry, walking out through one of the doors. But in the doorway he stopped and half turned as if he might be going to say something else.
    However, if this was so, he changed his mind and walked away, shutting the door after