Starfish Sisters

by J. C. Burke

  'Braid your hair like that.'

  'It's easy,' Ace said. 'Come over here, I'll do it on you. You've got the perfect hair for it.'

  'Do I?'

  Ace's fingers gently worked at my scalp. It was soothing. I closed my eyes and pretended I was sitting on my bed at home while my mother plaited my hair for school. It wasn't my real mother I imagined. It was a lady, a pretty lady in a flowery dressing gown with long pink fingernails and soft tanned skin. That's what I'd want her to look like.

  'Oh my God,' Georgie squealed. 'That looks so pretty, Micki.'

  Ace turned my head and inspected her work. 'Hey, Georgie, go and get some frangipanis, will you?'

  'Hey yeah,' Georgie agreed. 'Are you going to loop them through?'

  I couldn't believe Ace was going to all this trouble.

  'I'm hopeless at doing hair,' I said. 'That's why I always have it in a ponytail.'

  'I'll teach you how to do braids. I wear one to school all the time.' Ace popped her face around to face mine. 'Have you ever had a French plait?'

  I shook my head. To Ace that may have seemed incredible but I'd be too unco to braid my own hair and I couldn't exactly imagine Dad doing it. Besides, once I got back from my morning surf it was always a big rush to get out the door.

  I had to make my lunch. Then some days there'd be a load of washing to put on or hang out and the garbage seemed to always need emptying. But my biggest challenge of the morning plus the one that took the longest was making sure Dad was organised for getting to the clinic on time.

  I wasn't going to swap my early morning surf for a hairdo.

  Georgie brought in a handful of frangipanis. 'You are not going to want to take it out,' Georgie said. 'You wait, it looks so pretty.'

  The girls sat there, one on either side of me, threading the flowers into my braids. There was no talking – just silence and the soft touch of their fingertips.

  Suddenly, Ace leapt off the bed and threw open the bathroom door. 'Come and check your do out, Miss Micki.'

  Jake had been calling me Miss Micki and now the others were starting to. I liked it. It made me feel like I had a place.

  'Come on, don't be shy,' laughed Ace. 'You won't want to take it out.'

  I peered out from under my eyelashes. That was me, in the bathroom mirror staring back? Me? I couldn't believe it. I actually looked . . . pretty.

  'Say something!' Georgie clapped.

  'Do you like it?' Ace asked my reflection.

  'It's . . . good.' The face in the glass grinned back at them. 'Really good. I love it!'

  'Can you do mine now, Ace?' Georgie asked. 'Or is it too short?'

  Ace picked up bits of Georgie's hair, inspecting it between her fingers.

  'I reckon it'll work. But if you want to put frangipanis in it as well then we should probably just do the front bit.'

  'Cool.'

  'I'll finish mine and put flowers in too,' Ace said. 'Then we can all go to dinner looking the same.'

  'We'll look like a bunch of bridesmaids,' Georgie scoffed.

  'Oh please, can we?' I blurted.

  The three of us looked at each other and perhaps for three completely different reasons we all burst out laughing.

  Thursday 11 January, 10.20 pm. Day seven!!!!!!!!

  It was the best, hanging out with those two. Except the bit when Ace was braiding George's hair and she said to me, 'You've got to teach your mum how to . . .' Then she stopped and there was a looooong awwwwwkward silence. I could see Georgie's eyes had gone big and wide.

  For a second I thought, who am I kidding, I'm NOT 'Miss Micki', I'm 'Micki the charity case'.

  But Ace was cool. Straightaway she said, 'Sorry, Micki. I forgot that you don't have a mum. That was really stupid of me.'

  At least now it's out there. I actually didn't feel that bad and the pretending just clicked in like normal!

  I told them she died when I was 3 from breast cancer.

  Yeeeez, they were silent again but I expected that coz of the big story Kia spun them. But the reeeeal truth would spin them even more. Just like the way my dad spins people out all the time.

  If I'd grown up with Ace and Georgie, I know their parents woulda been like all the other parents who didn't want their kidz to play over at my house. So I'm hardly gonna start telling them my real stories, even though I really, really like them and reckon they're the nicest. You just learn these things.

  Yeah, yeah, I promised I wasn't going to write bad stuff in here but this isn't really bad stuff. This is like a record of the conversations I had and thatz all part of being at surf camp. So I'm gonna tell the next thing too.

  As Georgie and I were walking down to dinner duty, looking all glamorous in our braids and frangipanis, she asked me what my dad does.

  I told the truth. I said, 'He's on sickness benefits.'

  Then, of course, Georgie asked if my dad was sick and what was wrong with him.

  I could feel her looking at me, feeling sorry for me all over again.

  I've still gotta come up with a good answer to this question but I said something like, he needs drugs to keep him well but it makes it hard for him to work.

  She then told some random story about how one of the girls in her soccer team's brother is addicted to drugs and how disgusting he is and how she gets the shivers whenever she sees him. Then she kept saying, 'Oh, I'm not saying your dad's a drug addict.' And I kept shaking my head and saying, 'No, no.' And I sure was glad I hadn't told her the truth.

  Kitchen duty was a good laugh and I needed one. Brian freaked out at our hairdos and made us wear paper caps. Every time Georgie looked at me in my hat she burst out laughing. She let out a humungous snort and Brian went ballistic and threatened to throw her out of the kitchen.

  It was cool too when we came out to have our dinner coz all the girls told me I looked really pretty. Kia looked me up and down and said my hair looked okay but that Georgie's was ridiculous. Then she said something like 'Maybe you should tell Georgie how stupid she looks coz I'm not speaking to her.'

  'Get a life', I wanted to say. Kia didn't know how lucky she was.

  And now I'm going to bed coz we have yoga at 6 am!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Aggghhhh, I'm sooooooooo bad at it.

  Goodnight Miss Mickixx

  ACE

  Because it was a Friday night, Carla organised for us to go to a sushi train for dinner. Boy, would it be good getting out of camp and back around people. Not that the people out and about at 5.45 pm were going to be that interesting. Still, there was always the chance of the odd cute one having dinner with his family.

  Of course, after yesterday, Kia and Natasha asked me to French braid their hair. Then Natasha fully got stuck into my make-up and used almost half of my foundation.

  Just as I was in the middle of smuggling my phone into the loo, to check if Tim had left me a message, like maybe a 'sorry', Tahlia popped in to our bungalow to see if I could braid her hair too.

  Tahlia's hair was like steel wool. Now I was sure I had splinters in my fingertips.

  But it was a distraction and that's what I needed. Inside, I knew there'd be no message from Tim. I was scared that if I stopped to think about that I'd crumble into a thousand pieces and wouldn't be able to put myself together again.

  *

  'How come we're going to this restaurant so early?' Kia grumbled as we piled into the minibus.

  The sound of her voice was really starting to get up my nose. She was negative about everything.

  'Hunter Stevenson is talking to us tonight,' Micki said. 'I think that's why they made dinner early.'

  'Aren't you hungry?' Georgie asked Kia.

  But Kia, who I had decided acted a thousand years younger than Micki, didn't answer because she was still ignoring her. Georgie shrugged at me and went back to looking out the window.

  'Anyway, who is Hunter Stevenson when he's at home?' Georgie asked.

  Suddenly Kia decided to speak to her. 'You don't know who Hunter Stevenson is
!' This was the first thing Kia had said, or rather spat, to Georgie in almost two days. 'He's a sports motivator. A total guru. He's worked with Layne Beachley, Nicola Atherton –'

  'Chelsea Hedges,' Micki added.

  'Heaps and heaps,' Kia had the last word. 'I can't believe you haven't heard of him.'

  'Okay, okay, forgive me,' Georgie muttered. 'I do have other things in my life besides surfing.'

  'Yeah, like what?' Kia mumbled back.

  I was going to look like a complete loser, walking into the restaurant in one long conga line. No thank you. I was not going to do that to myself.

  'I'm going to the bathroom,' I told Micki.

  At least then I would avoid being seated with everyone. Plus, I'd only had three seconds to put on my foundation after Natasha had hogged it and I hadn't checked if it was streaky. The way I looked in public was very important. It was almost part of the job.

  My foundation was flawless. So I put some more lip gloss on, gave my hair a bit of a tease and counted to fifty. Then I walked out of the bathroom and crashed, like almost redid my shoulder injury crashed, into one of the hottest-looking guys I had ever seen in my whole entire life.

  'Whoa, I'm sorry, I'm sorry,' he said, holding on to my arm to stop me from falling to the ground. 'Are you okay? I'm so sorry.'

  I wasn't okay. I was far from okay. My legs were like jelly and I felt like I was about to melt into the floor. This guy had an accent!

  'Are you all right?' he asked me again.

  'Yeah, yeah.'

  'That bathroom door is dangerous.'

  'Hmm.'

  'Well, I'm glad you're okay,' he said, smiling, and walked into the men's loo.

  I ducked into the end seat next to Georgie. 'Retouched your lip gloss, hey? Careful with the sushi or it'll slip right off and into your lap.'

  'Shut up, Georgie.' I tried to calm my voice but I wasn't very successful. 'I have' – I took a deep breath – 'just met the hottest, like the absolute hottest guy you have ever, I mean ever, ever seen.'

  'Well, it's a shame you're taken.'

  Another gasp escaped through my mouth.

  'Is he here in the restaurant?' Georgie mumbled through a mouthful.

  Directly opposite us, on the other side of the sushi bar, Mr To Die For was taking a seat next to a woman who could not have been his girlfriend unless he had some older-woman sickness like Ashton Kutcher.

  'Ohhhh, I see.' Georgie went to point her chopsticks.

  'Don't!' I whispered through a closed mouth. 'You're making it obvious.'

  'He is hot. Very, very hot.'

  I stared into my miso soup wondering how I was going to deal with this sticky situation.

  'Courtney McFarlane,' Georgie sang. 'He's looking at you.'

  I looked up, pretending I was studying the sushi train selection. He gave me a little wave. I waved back.

  'Ace, you are almost married.'

  'So?'

  'So you're not meant to wave back.'

  'Oh my God, he's coming over. Is my foundation streaky?' I gulped.

  My heart started going crazy. Suddenly I wished I'd – oh, I didn't know what I wished for! 'Georgie, promise you won't mention I have a boyfriend. Nothing's going to happen. It's just some fun.'

  A guy who looks like that just didn't get to walk around an entire sushi bar without being noticed. So by the time he got to where I was sitting every one of the girls had seen him. Megan whistled. Typical.

  'Hey.' He crouched down next to me. Georgie elbowed me in the ribs. Why did I have to be in this big embarrassing group? I could feel every eye of every female watching me and could almost hear them hissing.

  'I thought I better come and say hello, check you're in one piece.' He grinned. My pulse went up by one hundred. 'I'm Jules, by the way.'

  'I'm Courtney.' Now the question I had to ask. 'Where's your . . . accent from?'

  'Canada. I'm here on an exchange program.'

  'Oh wow.'

  'She's taken!' Megan suddenly shouted. 'Come and talk to me!'

  The girls were hysterical now. Georgie did one of her huge trumpeting snorts that cracked everyone up even more. Jules was smiling and having a laugh too.

  'These are your friends?'

  'Sort of.' I was dying a slow and painful death. 'We're all on a surf camp. I think they're a bit excited about being let out for the night. We've been locked up for a week.'

  'Does that mean I can't ask you out?'

  'Um, no.'

  'No, I didn't mean that,' Jules whispered. 'I meant, are you taken?'

  Three seconds was possibly all I had before Georgie looked at me. I tapped my leg against Jules's and on my knee I traced the letters 'N–O' then made a little sshhh signal with my lips.

  'Okay,' he mouthed and winked. Then he got up and went back to his seat.

  Little dishes of sushi that Georgie had saved for me were lined up in a row. But I didn't have the stomach for food. Now, I wasn't sure if it was because of Tim or Jules.

  Saturday was a sleep-in but I was up and down at the beach by seven am.

  There was no text from Tim when we got back from the restaurant and still nothing after we returned from Hunter Stevenson's lecture on 'being the best'.

  'Good morning.' It was a guy's voice but with the wrong accent. 'This is the first morning you've been out here early.'

  'I feel like a bit of a beach run this morning,' I told Jake. 'I totally pigged out last night.'

  'Are we talking about the food or the Canadian?' I swear Jake was looking me up and down. 'Find a girl your own age,' I felt like saying.

  'Funny joke,' I said and took off down the beach.

  It was true, I did need a run. A run might clear my head of all the thoughts that were spinning out of control. Should I have told the truth, and now I hadn't was it too late to?

  I'd managed to come up with an excuse for why Tim's texts had suddenly stopped. But how much longer could I keep it going?

  A few times I had gone to tell Georgie but Kia or Micki always seemed to turn up and now too much time, too many lies had escaped. Would they hate me if they found out that Tim had dumped me? Or would they hate me more if they thought Tim and I were still together and I was cheating with Jules?

  I couldn't believe I had got myself into this situation. This sort of thing didn't happen to me.

  And was I even going to see Jules again? I didn't get to finish telling him where the camp was, and how would he know where to find me? He was from Canada! But he'd only have to ask one person and they'd tell him.

  Every guy with brown hair who ran past was Jules until I got up close and saw he was too short or his nose was too big or he was lacking perfect sparkling blue eyes.

  Maybe Jules believed Megan. Maybe he thought I was taken. Maybe he thought I was really sly and dishonest because I didn't actually say out loud that I didn't have a boyfriend like I had something to hide. But that was the problem. I did have something to hide.

  Micki was reading Saturday's timetable.

  'What's on after breakfast?' I asked.

  'It says, "surf session-drill specific plus video", whatever that means.'

  'Then what?'

  'Um, a pool-gym session, free time . . .'

  Free time! Free time, that's what I wanted to hear.

  '. . . eleven-thirty am.' Micki was still reading. 'Then lunch; Hunter Stevenson sports psychology evaluation; surf expression session –'

  'How long is free time?'

  'An hour. Eleven-thirty am till twelve-thirty pm.'

  One hour to search the beach, maybe even try to get up to the shops. There was the lagoon too, but he didn't seem like the type who went fishing.

  'You were up early this morning.' Georgie came up behind me.

  'There was absolutely no surf so I went for a run.'

  'Jake told me it'll pick up with the tide this afternoon,' Micki said as we followed her into the dining room. 'That's when our expression session is. Do you think they score us on that to
o?'

  Georgie and I shrugged. That was the furthest thought in my head.

  'Ace?' Georgie whispered, letting Micki go ahead in the queue. 'There's free time at eleven-thirty am. I reckon we should see if we can talk to Carla then about the parade.'

  How could I tell Georgie I had other plans for that hour – like Jules detection. What a shame you couldn't hire a machine, like a metal detector that you could program to find 'hot Canadian guy, answers to the name Jules'.

  'I was going to have a lie down,' I lied. 'I feel like I'm getting my period. I've been getting the worst cramps all morning.'

  'You shouldn't have gone for a run, you idiot.'

  'Oh, they started after that.' I swallowed. 'I probably pushed it too hard.'

  'Don't flush your tampons down the toilet,' Georgie told me. 'Apparently one of the Seahorse girls has already blocked the system.'

  'Don't worry, I'll try to have better hygiene habits than Kia.'

  'Hey?'

  'Kia is disgusting with her periods. I knocked the lid off the bin and she'd left this bloody, disgusting . . .'

  Georgie stopped suddenly. I almost tripped on her heels. 'Kia doesn't have her periods!'

  'But she must.'

  'She doesn't.' Georgie frowned. 'She'd tell me. I'm her best friend.'

  'She must've got them here at camp.'

  'That's why she's been so weird.' Georgie put her second piece of bread back in the basket. 'I feel awful now.'

  'You weren't to know.'

  'Okay, don't worry about us speaking to Carla today,' said Georgie. 'I'll spend that free time with Kia. We're obviously due for a D and M.'

  'Absolutely,' I encouraged.

  Hello Jules!

  GEORGIE

  All morning I tried to catch Kia's attention so I could give her a smile but she was looking everywhere except at me. It felt stupid seeing we were virtually sleeping in the same bed. But my oldies could go for days without talking to each other and they slept together.

  At eleven-thirty I saw Kia heading back to the bungalow.

  I told Ace to tell Micki not to go up there. But Ace was acting so vague and giggly that I wasn't sure she took any of it in.

  Kia was sitting on the bed. It almost looked like she was hugging her wetsuit.