"Will you be watching the final episode of The OC?" Melbourne Train Girl's middle sister asked with a smile and raise of her eyebrow.

Melbourne Train Girl knew the look. She and her two sisters shared very few physical features. But mannerisms: all three were perfect reflections of each other.

"No, I can't say I was planning on it," Melbourne Train Girl returned the jocular smile. The Middle Sister knew very well that she didn't watch any of the episodes, let alone make plans in advance to do so.

"Well, if you change your mind, the Baby Sister and I will be downstairs. You can join the party."

Melbourne Train Girl laughed and went back to her work and red wine. She sat at the kitchen table for three minutes before deciding upstairs alone was much too quiet. She collected up her work, and her wine, and joined the two of them on the floor of the Middle Sister's bedroom.

"So, she decides to watch too," said the Baby Sister to the Middle Sister. She too ended her observation with the droll smile.

"Upstairs was too boring," replied Melbourne Train Girl, placing her wine carefully on the floor where she would not knock it over. The last glass of red wine she had taken into the Middle Sister's bedroom had ended up on the carpet.

"Oh no!" Melbourne Train Girl had cried that night, as the red stain had spread rapidly.

"Oh no...quick, clean it!" the Middle Sister had said from her bed.

Unable to find any carpet shampoo, Melbourne Train Girl had poured a very liberal amount of baking soda onto the dark red circle. The white baking soda had instantly turned an inky black that reminded Melbourne Train Girl of gangrenous flesh.

"That colour looks so foul..." the Middle Sister had observed, peering at the baking soda as she knelt beside Melbourne Train Girl.

"Maybe it needs more..." the two had watched as the black seeped up to colour Melbourne Train Girl's second pouring of baking soda.

"That didn't work so well..." the Middle Sister had said after Melbourne Train Girl had vaccuumed it up.

"No it didn't...I will buy carpet shampoo tomorrow."

Melbourne Train Girl never had bought carpet shampoo. Tonight she sat next to the pale pink stain still on the carpet.

"How long has she got?" the Baby Sister asked.

"Twenty five minutes," replied the Middle Sister.

The only thing Melbourne Train Girl knew about the show was that Marissa would die that episode. Her sisters were counting down the minutes she had left alive.

"Where is she supposed to be going?" Melbourne Train Girl asked, as they watched her say goodbye to her mother.

"To die," replied the Baby Sister. She was very matter of fact.

"I know she's going to die, but where is she supposed to be going?"

"It doesn't matter. She's going to die," the Middle Sister was just as matter of fact.

"If I didn't know she was going to die, where would I think she was going?"

"Sailing. On her dad's boat."

"Yes, she will be part of the crew."

The last time Melbourne Train Girl had seen an episode of The OC Marissa's father had not had a boat. In fact, she vaguely remembered him owning a restaurant. Melbourne Train Girl does not watch a lot of television.

"How long?" the Baby Sister asked as her mobile phone vibrated for the third time in five minutes.

"Only ten minutes left..." the Middle Sister replied.

Three collective cringes, two collective laughs, and one collective eyebrow raise later, it happened.

Melbourne Train Girl looked over at the Baby Sister's face, "was it really that distressing? Your face looks very distraught..."

"It's not distraught. It was more like this:" the Baby Sister pulled an odd confused face that looked nothing like that she had made when Marissa had died.

Melbourne Train Girl frowned, and then laughed.

The Middle Sister got up from her bed and left her bedroom. The Baby Sister followed suit, and Melbourne Train Girl thought she should do the same. The Middle Sister went to her computer, the Baby Sister to call her boyfriend who had been sending SMS's all through the episode. Melbourne Train Girl sat at her own computer to finish her work and her wine, wondering how exactly Marissa had actually died. There had not been any blood. Not even a scratch on her perfect face. And her lips had been in the most perfect shape. Melbourne Train Girl was quite positive that no one died that perfectly in a car accident.

It was several hours later, while her sisters talked to their boyfriends online and on the phone, that her phone beeped from upstairs. She couldn't think who would send an SMS at 11pm on a Tuesday.

The Short Boy, that is who.

Melbourne Train Girl, on her second glass of wine, skipped to tell her sisters, not minding one bit that they wouldn't be so interested.