Alana Oakley

by Poppy Inkwell

  Four drinks quickly became eight.

  It was the type of equation Ling Ling’s family would have adored. But where the Shus saw beauty and symmetry, Emma saw shifty shapes with vampire teeth.

  An hour later, the toasts made less sense.

  “To Scents of the Sea bubble bath!”

  “To talking whales!”

  “To stalking!”

  “To ducks!”

  By the second hour, the toasts made no sense at all.

  “To YouTube!”

  “To phartsmones!”

  “To twits … I mean tweets!”

  “To ducks!”

  And by the third hour, the small metal cubicle was overflowing with love.

  “You know, I love you, very the much. You are my world best friends.”

  “No, no, no, I love you!

  “I love youse. I love youse all.”

  “Rubber ducky, you’re the one. You make bath time so much fun …” a voice warbled. The singer rocked her glass as she cuddled it close.

  Emma’s final memory of the night was of her and her three best friends – Katriona, Ling Ling and James – sharing a group hug.

  Which was strange, because they had never done that before.

  CHAPTER 15

  It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s… Katriona?

  When Emma woke the next morning, her body was five steps behind her brain. Someone had replaced her head with a slab of concrete, and her tongue with a shag-pile rug. She felt stiff and uncomfortable. Her muscles ached as if she’d run a marathon, and then been run over by a truck. Or maybe been run over by a truck, and then tried running a marathon. Whatever it was, it probably had something to do with sleeping in the bath. Why was she sleeping in the bath? It must have been because of last night. What happened last night? Emma struggled to make sense of it all, but it was like solving a Rubik’s Cube in boxing gloves.

  Alana would know.

  Emma shuffled to the kitchen and sat down, noting Alana was dressed in soccer gear and eating pasta. Pasta? Pasta was not your typical breakfast food. Ah ha! Maybe it wasn’t breakfast. Maybe it was lunch time and she had slept in.

  Alana watched her mother painstakingly process one thought after another. It would have been funny if it wasn’t so sad. Her mum looked like she was in agony. To put her out of her misery, Alana described the events as she knew them, from when Emma arrived home.

  “Auntie Ling Ling is still asleep in the living room. You got home about 3 o’clock this morning. Your clothes were soaking so you slept in the bathroom, so as not to wet your bed. I don’t know where Uncle James or Auntie Katriona are, but someone’s been calling you on your cell phone; it hasn’t stopped quacking all day. When did you change your ring tone?”

  Emma took in the pieces of information one at a time. She inspected each one with care, as if looking for stains on dirty laundry. It didn’t help that she was in the machine with them on Spin Cycle.

  What ring tone?

  Emma took the hot cup of coffee from Alana with a kiss on her head and a murmur of thanks. She wandered through the living room to her study, and the source of the mysterious quacking.

  Emma slept on a massive daybed squashed into the back of her study. She used her original bedroom, the one upstairs, as more of a walk-in closet; somewhere to store her clothes, shoes and memories – Hugo tickling Alana so much she’d peed on his pillow, Hugo’s hand-drawn moustache above her lip (done while she was asleep), which she’d worn a whole day before realising, Hugo dividing the Sunday newspaper into lifestyle (Emma), entertainment (Hugo) and world news (Alana). The room was altogether too full of Hugo for her to stay there, and since she spent so much time working, it was easier to have something close by to tumble into.

  When Emma opened the door, she saw the reason for the quacking (which was more like a strangled ‘honk’), but could make no sense of it. With another backward glance to make sure, Emma shambled back to the living room to shake Ling Ling’s shoulder.

  “Ling Ling. Ling Ling! There’s a penguin in my study. What’s a penguin doing in my study?”

  Ling Ling moved reluctantly, like a sloth poked with a stick. She swiped at the imaginary branch and shuffled deeper into the covers; away from the irritation.

  “Ling Ling. Wake up! Why is there a penguin in my study?”

  Ling Ling’s response, when it came, did little to chase the fog, making it difficult to think.

  “Penguin. Duck. Same-same lah.”

  A text message broke through the uncomprehending silence.

  It was from James.

  Turn on your TV. Now!

  Emma switched on the TV like a woman in a dream. The news presenter. A good friend of hers. She’d had a haircut too. She was looking good. The new colour suited her. With a shake of her head, Emma struggled to focus.

  “Police are looking for the perpetrators in this video recently posted on YouTube. Although it is unclear as to the women’s identities owing to the pink balaclavas, what is clear is they broke into Sydney’s Aquarium, swam with the dolphins, set off a fire extinguisher in the shark tank, and stole a Little Penguin called Noodle. If anybody has information about the animal’s whereabouts, they’ve been asked to contact police immediately. Authorities warn that the animal may be suffering from trauma and in need of urgent medical attention.”

  A second text from James, more disturbing than the first, buzzed through.

  Where’s Katriona?!!!

  …

  On the highest ledge of Sydney’s most prestigious hotel, a pair of size 9 stilettos finished shuffling. The shoes were one metre apart. To balance, the person’s arms were raised above their head the same distance. The figure looked like a large X. A human X flattened against the sparkling window of the Penthouse Suite. The Penthouse occupant, swishing open the thick, luxurious curtains expected 360° views of Sydney’s Opera House, Harbour and iconic Bridge. Instead, this is what he saw. There was a bloodcurdling yell. It was the kind of yell that raises the hair on your arms, paralyses your limbs and makes your body tremble.

  Emma, James and Ling Ling had no idea where Katriona was.

  But Slam Guru did.

  CHAPTER 16

  Investigating, staking out and sleuthing.

  The first thing Alana did (after providing an Anonymous Tip to the police so Noodle could go home) was search for clues. The mystery of the missing magic eight-ball led to two suspects, but only one of them could be observed with regularity. Laura-or-Lorna turned out to be Lara, and Alana followed her like a bad smell. She did so with a flair Katriona would have envied. If anyone had suggested the similarity, Alana would have stopped immediately, but this was stalking-for-a-good-cause. In fact, it wasn’t even stalking. It was Investigating, Staking Out and Sleuthing, she reasoned, as she hid behind a too-short pot plant. She craned her neck round the corner. She was disappointed to find Lara was not doing anything suspicious. Lara was only obsessing over a poster in her locker. And since every girl at school was obsessing over the same one, Alana had to conclude it wasn’t Suspicious Behaviour at all.

  “How can you not think he’s cute, Alana?” her friends moaned.

  They had been moaning a lot lately. There was a lot of moaning and sighing, and even a bit of drooling since the centrefold of Jet Tierbert, the teen heart-throb guitarist, had been published in Tracks magazine. Cat-shaped eyes the colour of dark chocolate hid behind a long fringe of the same colour. His high cheekbones and pointed chin added to his exotic look. There was something about his twisted smile which hinted at a secret which every girl was dying to know, but he wasn’t willing to tell. All the girls in school had his poster in their locker. Everyone. Except Alana.

  “He’s not so mignon,” she said with a shrug, having added another French word to her vocabulary. “I mean he’s okay, but not truly mignon.”

  When she fell in love, it would be with someone funny and cheerful, like her dad. Not someone gloomy and mysterious in the tall-dark-handsome way Jet was.
Alana felt the familiar knot in her stomach whenever she thought of her father. But his memory seemed to be fading with every passing day; like a watercolour painting – fuzzy, faraway and out-of-focus. She worried the watercolour painting would become increasingly indistinct, so only an abstract would remain. Her dad. A Picasso-like mish-mosh of floating eyes, sharp triangles and disembodied lips. She decided to look up ‘wet mop’ in French tomorrow. Jet Tierbert, with his floppy fringe and dark, brooding eyes, was definitely of the ‘wet mop’ variety. She instantly felt better.

  When Alana shared her discoveries, or non-discoveries as it turned out, the girls were studying in the library with piles of books all over the table. This was the only part of school where the traffic and bustle of King Street didn’t penetrate. If it had, Mrs Heller the librarian would have admonished it with an emphatic “Shhhh!” as she did all noise-makers. Instead, all that could be heard was the rustle of paper and the muffled footsteps of borrowers on the thick carpet.

  Year Seven, the girls discovered, was much more interesting than Year Six, but it was much harder too. The teachers were very fond of talking about Independent Learning, and Being Responsible, and Getting Organised, and did not look kindly on the research technique of Googling.

  “But how does anybody find anything out?” Sofia protested.

  Maddie’s theory was that teachers wanted them to suffer the same way they had; before the internet and cars and running water made life so much easier. “My mum’s always going on about how-hard-it-was-back-then, and saying you-don’t-know-how-lucky-you-are-girl. I suppose teachers figure it’s not Work if you just ask a computer.”

  “Well if I had my magic eight-ball, I could ask it if the answer was ten,” Sofia said, moodily staring at her Maths book. Maybe there’s an up-side to Sofia losing the charm, thought Alana to herself, but refrained from saying so out of kindness. From now on, Sofia would have to make more of an effort to understand Maths, rather than consulting the eight-ball for every answer.

  Out loud, Alana asked if anyone had observed any suspicious behaviour. Nobody, it seemed, had, although some interesting facts about Coach Kusmuk did emerge:

  “Did you know our Maths teacher, Mr Hornby, got angry at Coach Kusmuk last week for being in the Staff Room? He said, ‘Where’s your school tie, young man? If you want a teacher you can wait outside!’” Maddie said, hands on hips, glaring at an imaginary Coach Kusmuk.

  There was a furious “Shhh!” from the library desk.

  “Yes, yes,” Sofia said more quietly. “I saw Dr Olivier tell her off the other day too, ‘What on earth are you doing out of class?’” copied Sofia, looking down the doctor’s haughty nose.

  But it was Khalilah’s impersonation of their Science teacher which had them rolling on the floor in stitches with, “I heard Mr Murray tell Coach, ‘Oi, you! (Squat). Get out of here! Don’t you know (squat) students (squat) aren’t allowed (squat) to use the copier?’” she said in perfect mimicry, right down to the way he picked at his too-tight trousers for relief.

  “Out!” came a voice, cranky and confident it would be obeyed. “I have had enough of your riff raff! If you cannot keep quiet while others study, please leave.”

  The girls trailed out, heads hung low, while Mrs Heller the librarian, watched them. “I heard her tell the coach off too. Said students weren’t allowed to borrow more than five books,” whispered Maddie.

  It seemed Coach Kusmuk was having a hard time convincing people she was a teacher at the school. But was it enough to make her want to steal a frivolous charm? Alana didn’t think so, but she had an idea of how she could find out for sure.

  CHAPTER 17

  Treading the fine line between fun, Fun and no fun at all.

  Emma loved words. It was words which first brought Emma and Hugo together. The words were: Don’t worry about it. And they were spoken by Hugo to Emma in that way he had, with an undercurrent of quiet laughter. Hugo’s friend, Oscar or Peter (she couldn’t recall which) was not so forgiving. When she scraped the paintwork of Hugo’s car with her side mirror, and then bumped it again reversing to apologise, he said a lot of words, unkind and disbelieving at the same time. But not Hugo. Hugo smiled at her Sorry’s, Terribly Sorry’s and said, Don’t worry about it. Looking as if he meant it.

  Emma didn’t know who was more shocked when the words were repeated, meeting a second time in a local pub known as The Sando. Although Oscar-or-Peter’s eyes said, Not you again?! Hugo’s were full of pleasure and surprise. Don’t worry about it, he said once more, while she hopped from foot to foot, watching the bump on his head grow after she’d crashed the door of the Ladies’ loo on his skull. (What was he doing there, lurking like that?).

  Hugo swept her Sorry’s aside with new words: Let’s get out of here.

  Hugo understood Emma’s love of words. He knew she treasured them, and coddled them, and coaxed them, as she juggled them in her head for hours. So every birthday, instead of buying her a present, he wrote words down. New words. Nonsensical words. Made-up words with silly definitions she could giggle at and marvel over. It left Emma wondering again and again how she could be so lucky, and how he could be so clever. He wrote the same number of words as her age, so a long list of them, with their quirky reflections on Life and The Universe, filled her birthday card. Year after year.

  Zestpond – a body of water which invigorates.

  Naperone – a chaperone with a sleeping disorder.

  Noxu – a poisonous toad with tutu-shaped folds of skin.

  Hexteria – a state of excitement experienced only by Goth teenagers.

  Chucknology – the technology used for throwing boys called ‘Chuck’.

  Kisserain – an area or space used exclusively for kissing.

  He’d reached twenty-eight words.

  Accident, Emma saw Doctor Hoggarth write neatly and precisely in tiny letters on his death certificate. It was perhaps the silliest word of all. As if Hugo would die on purpose and leave them all behind.

  As a freelance journalist, Emma should have been logical, organised and well-read. But as James her work partner found out, this was far from the case. While Emma was a voracious reader, what she chose to read was often off-topic. And when she did write, Emma used whatever was at hand: a napkin, the back of an electricity bill, even Alana’s homework until Alana herself said Enough Was Enough and cordoned the creativity to one area of the house. Emma’s study, as a result, filled with paper. Her solution was to use their plastic Christmas tree; a huge spiky thing too complicated to dismantle, as a three-dimensional notice board. Amongst the baubles and tinsel, odd bits of paper and serviettes hung from its branches in disjointed sentences.

  “But what about Christmas?” Alana wailed.

  “I’ll just take the paper off. We can push the tree out when we need it. See. It will be all ready to go,” Emma said chirpily. “It’s not like I’ll work over the holidays.”

  But pushing the tree ended up being too difficult to do. And pulling it, even harder. The tree was altogether too wide for the study door and too tall for the ceiling. So every December, the Oakleys made use of a small, potted pine propped up on the coffee table, and then increasingly lower heights as it grew. The plastic tree, covered in words, remained in Emma’s study, where it was forever Christmas.

  Emma shuffled around the tree, looking for the right phrase to describe Slam Guru. She found it, hidden under a reindeer whose nose had fallen off. Probably Rudolph, she thought to herself absentmindedly. Emma snatched down the words (written on the back of an unpaid parking ticket) and typed them into the computer. In the next room she could hear Katriona and Ling Ling replaying the YouTube video of their marine escapade.

  “How can you tell that’s not you?”

  “Because my butt isn’t that big.”

  Ling Ling wisely refrained from saying, Well actually it is. Instead she said, “Well it’s not my butt.”

  “It’s not mine, either.”

  “I don’t know how either
of you can tell,” Emma said, having been drawn in by their raised voices. Katriona and Ling Ling were standing side by side, staring first at their bottoms, and then the video for confirmation. “We’re in our underwear, it’s dark and we’re wearing pink balaclavas – which I told you to get rid of last time.”

  “I’m sentimental.”

  Emma harrumphed her disbelief. “What I don’t understand is how you even found Slam Guru again.”

  “You can be very chatty after a few drinks,” Katriona said with a shifty look.

  “Especially when she spikes them.”

  “You what?!”

  Katriona was very defensive. “It’s safe. They use it on horses. Or they will after the clinical trials are complete.”

  “People. Horses. Same-same, lah,” said Ling Ling.

  “Katriona, how could you? Did you see what I did? What we did, because we were drunk? And thanks, now I know I was drugged too.”

  “It was a lot of Fun. You said you wanted to have Fun, not just fun,” Katriona said somewhat peevishly.

  Emma gave up. Throwing her hands in the air, she left her friends to debate the definition of Fun (a nose piercing) versus fun (star-gazing in the park). After the other night, (once Emma had had time to recover) Alana sat her down and gave her a Good Talking To. If an alcoholic drink claimed to be eighty proof, she said, the percentage of alcohol was forty percent. If one drink referred to one shot, half a glass of wine or one beer, then four shots would make her mum feel very tipsy. Very tipsy indeed, Emma agreed. She herself could attest to it. Drinking too much, too fast, could kill you, Alana continued seriously, which was why people vomited or passed out (or both) before this could happen; this was the body’s way of protecting itself from too much alcohol. Emma didn’t need telling twice. She saw how quickly the evening had slipped from fun to Fun and then to no fun at all. She vowed never to even look at another drink.