Little Bird

by Penni Russon

  Shandra said this on average three times a week. Frankly, I thought it should be encouraged.

  ‘I’ll get the phone,’ I said. ‘Mum, what’s Damien’s number?’

  Mum ignored me and, as always, made a fuss of Shandra.

  ‘Don’t say that, Shan,’ she clucked. ‘Tell me about the dress. I can’t wait to see you in it, that’s all. And don’t pay any attention to your sister. Ruby-lee’s at a difficult age.’

  ‘I am not!’

  ‘She’s always at a difficult age,’ Shandra said, making a face.

  ‘Come on, girls,’ Mum pleaded, looking at me, expecting me to be the peace-maker as usual. ‘Let’s all get along and make this the best wedding ever?’

  I was sick of hearing about the wedding. They would talk about the dress for hours. As I went out the back the screen door slipped from my hand and slammed shut behind me. Great, now they would think I was having a tantrum. And if I called out that I hadn’t meant to slam it, I would sound even more childish.

  I sat on the porch and looked at the dry, weedy backyard. The lawn, or the scrappy bits of it that struggled to survive, was brown and faded. A month or so ago Stefan had mowed it in an attempt to prove to Shandra that, with a home-built gazebo and some landscaping, we could have the wedding at home. Shandra had cried for hours at that suggestion and Stefan had come the closest I’d seen to losing his wick about the whole idea of a wedding. Hoo-bloody-ray, I’d cheered. But between them Mum and Damien had calmed Stefan and soothed Shandra, cajoling her out of her room, promising her the wedding of her dreams. Shandra emerged, pink-eyed and triumphant. I couldn’t believe she actually expected Stefan to mortgage the house to help pay for a wedding – one measly day of her life – especially when Damien would be happy getting married on a footy pitch and then buying a round of beers at the pub. Okay, maybe he’d stretch to champagne and mini-quiches on his wedding day. But no, not good enough for Princess Shandra, so Stefan and Mum had agreed to fork out their share, and Shandra had hit Dad up for plenty too.

  Anyway, after that the lawn had given up the ghost and I couldn’t blame it. If I was stuck here forever I might lie down and die too. I didn’t understand what could possibly be appealing about marriage. The last thing I wanted to do was get tied down to a life like this. Though to be honest, I wasn’t sure what else there was for a girl like me. It wasn’t like I was a superbrain, or good at sport or music or anything. I was just ordinary. Ruby-lee. Plain, old, nothing much.

  I gazed around the drab backyard. The only thing here to love was our old plum tree. It was almost bare; the last of the autumn leaves fluttered in the breeze. It was at its best in spring, when its black branches were covered in blossoms, and late summer, when its limbs hung heavy with ripe, sweet fruit.

  A blackbird landed on the rusty gate underneath the plum tree. Once that gate had been constantly in motion. When we were kids the empty block behind our yard had been an extension of our garden, a playground, high with grass and weeds, filled with abandoned sheets of tin and flat wooden pallets, perfect for cubby building. These days the block looked more like a tip, with rusted car bodies and abandoned piles of wood. I guess it was a tip back then too, it just hadn’t seemed that way to me. We’d stopped going there when Shandra tore her shin on a rusty nail and had to get a tetanus injection. Afterwards she’d declared herself too old for hide and seek. And even my friend Tegan had decided she would rather shoplift lipstick lollies from the milkbar than build cubbies. Playing cubbies by myself just wasn’t the same.

  The little bird tilted its head and studied me with its beady, yellow-ringed eye.

  ‘What are you looking at?’ I asked.

  ‘Rubes?’ Mum said gently from behind the screen door.

  ‘I’m putting the chops on, love. Can you take a beer down to Stefan and let him know dinner’s nearly ready?’

  I sighed and stood up. I grabbed a stubby from the fridge in the back room. I slipped back out the screen door, making sure it shut quietly behind me this time, and walked across the dusty lawn to the back shed. The blackbird took off in a flutter. I wished I could be that free, lighter than air.

  ‘G’day, Ruby-lee,’ Stefan said. He was sitting on a folding chair staring at a patch of sky where the tin roof had separated from the wall. He waved the spanner in his hand; talkback radio droned in the background. I kind of liked the shed smell – petrol and potting mix and something else, something I didn’t recognise, musty and sweet. Stefan spent a lot of time out here.

  ‘Dinner’s nearly ready.’ I handed him the beer.

  ‘You’re a legend,’ Stefan said. ‘How did the big shopping trip go?’

  ‘All right. Shan found a dress.’

  ‘Yeah? A meringue?’

  Stefan was the only one who thought it was funny when I called Shandra Bridezilla, though he never laughed in front of Shandra.

  ‘Nah, it’s really pretty. Colette helped pick it out.’

  ‘Oh yeah? What about you, did you find a dress?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Your turn next.’

  For a moment I thought Stefan meant it would be my turn to get married next. No thanks! But then I realised he simply meant it was my turn to get a dress for Shandra’s wedding. I remembered that Colette had an idea about the bridesmaids’ dresses. For the first time I actually felt a twinge of excitement about the wedding. Maybe Colette could work her magic on me too; find a dress for me as perfect as Shandra’s was for her. Though – I wilted a little – I’d still be in Shandra’s shadow. That was the point, wasn’t it? No one wanted a bridesmaid to look prettier than the bride.

  Stefan and I walked up to the house together, following the smell of sizzling chop fat. Inside, I gathered up knives and forks from the cutlery drawer and thought about what a bad sister I was, secretly wishing to outshine Shandra on her wedding day. Though it wasn’t that I wanted to outshine, exactly. I just wished I could take some of Shandra’s leftover glitter and use it on myself. That wasn’t so bad, was it?

  3

  Tegan sat on the bench under the peppercorn tree where we’d sat every recess and lunch since we’d started Year 11 at Derwent Senior Secondary College at the beginning of the year. She opened a packet of chips. I stared glumly at my apple.

  ‘Want one?’ Tegan asked. The spicy barbeque smell wafted out.

  I shook my head. ‘No thanks. Shandra reckons I “have a tendency to gain a little”.’

  ‘Shandra’s full of it. Besides, carbs are part of a healthy diet,’ Tegan said. She held the packet out.

  I took one.

  ‘That’s pathetic.’ Tegan shook the packet at me, and I took a couple more.

  ‘So how did the dress-hunting go?’

  ‘Mmm. Shandra found one.’ I said with my mouth full of chip. I chewed and swallowed. ‘It’s gorgeous.’

  ‘What’s it look like?’

  ‘Sort of French. Very romantic. Tight round here,’ I gestured around my bustline. ‘Then sort of flowy and light here.’ I stroked my waist and hips. ‘Like in a fairytale. Shandra says it’s called an Empire waistline.’

  Tegan fished around for another chip, then offered the open packet to me again.

  ‘Can you believe she’s marrying the first boy she went out with?’ Tegan said.

  I shrugged. I didn’t think Shandra should marry Damien either, but I didn’t like Tegan sneering about it. We’d been best friends for years, but whenever she badmouthed Shandra, I always stuck up for my sister, even though most of the time I secretly agreed with Tegan.

  ‘I guess they’re in love,’ I said.

  Tegan snorted. ‘How does she know that he’s the one when she’s never kissed anyone else?’

  ‘Well, actually he’s not the . . .’ I began, then clapped a hand over my mouth.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing,’ I said through my hand.

  ‘Come on! What were you going to say?’

  I knew Tegan wouldn’t let up when she sniffed gossip. And to
be honest, I kind of wanted to tell someone. I’d kept the secret for ages. But I did feel dirty, as though I was breaking the sister code. ‘You have to promise not to tell,’ I said weakly.

  ‘Who am I going to tell? Who do I know who would care about your sister?’

  ‘Blake plays cricket with Damien,’ I pointed out. ‘You have to triple promise not to tell him.’

  Tegan rolled her eyes. ‘As if I would. Okay, okay. Cross my heart, hope to die. Come on. Spill, King.’

  ‘Damien’s not the only boy she’s kissed.’

  ‘What? Who? When?’

  ‘You know how we went up to the Gold Coast, when Stefan won that holiday at the Casino?’

  ‘Last year? Yeah.’ Tegan’s eyes were alight.

  ‘She kind of met this guy. I mean, it didn’t mean anything. It was, like, a holiday thing. They kissed.’

  ‘Just once?’ Tegan asked scornfully, as though once didn’t count.

  ‘Heaps of times.’

  ‘Seriously? Huh.’ Tegan scrounged for the last crumbs in her chip packet, then balled it up tightly and threw it towards the bin. She missed. ‘Does Damien know?’

  ‘No way. Shandra bawled her eyes out when the other guy went back to Sydney. She was going to break it off with Damien when we got home. She made all these plans to go and live in Sydney. But then . . . I don’t know. I guess she changed her mind.’

  ‘Wow. I never knew Shandra was such a user.’

  ‘She’s not a user!’

  ‘Well, she used that guy from Sydney. What if he was, like, waiting and waiting and she never came. And what about Damien?’

  Tegan was missing the point of the story. ‘But, don’t you see?’ I said. ‘She does know that Damien’s the one because she has kissed someone else.’

  ‘What about, you know, sex?’

  ‘She didn’t have sex with the Sydney guy. You know she’s going to be a virgin bride.’

  ‘Exactly. I meant, how can she marry someone she hasn’t had sex with? Like, what if it doesn’t work? What if he’s really bad at it? Or she is? Or if she’s like really good and he goes, “Woah, where’d you learn how to do that?”’

  ‘Eeew. As if.’

  ‘I read in this magazine that even people who love each other can be incompatible in bed. Like . . .’ Tegan lowered her voice. ‘What if he’s too big?’

  ‘Tegan!’

  ‘Or what if she finds out she doesn’t like penises?’

  ‘Do you have to say that word?’

  ‘What word? Penis?’

  ‘Tegan! Stop being gross.’

  ‘You’re so immature.’ Tegan was always calling me immature. ‘Penises aren’t gross. They’re perfectly natural. But listen, what if she’s actually a lesbian? How would she even know?’

  ‘She’s not a lesbian!’

  ‘She could be. I heard about this girl at my cousin’s school who was pretty and popular, like Shandra. Anyway it turned out that she was secretly dating a girl – a total English nerd. They even went to their school formal together!’

  ‘I think I would know if my own sister was a lesbian.’

  Tegan shrugged. ‘Can I have a bite of your apple? I’m still starving.’

  I handed it over. Tegan had been finishing my lunch since we were at kindergarten.

  ‘I can’t believe how much you eat,’ I said. ‘How come you don’t ever get fat?’

  Tegan shrugged. ‘I’ve got a fast metabolism. Anyway, you’re not fat.’

  ‘Only because you eat half my lunch.’

  Tegan wasn’t listening anymore. Her eyes had drifted over my head and I knew without turning around that Blake, her boyfriend, was approaching. It was the way Tegan’s face adjusted, like she was a television and her channel had been changed.

  ‘Where did you disappear to after Cadets?’ Tegan called out.

  Blake sat next to Tegan, his arm stretched behind her back. Blake’s legs sprawled out and Tegan seemed to shrink into herself to make room for him. Boys take up so much space.

  ‘I had to go home and do that story for English. You know, that memory thing.’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ said Tegan. ‘What memory did you do?’

  ‘First time Dad took me shooting.’

  ‘Ew,’ I said. Blake and his mates went wallaby shooting in the bush south of Hobart. A couple of times Tegan had gone with them, and told me about it in way too much graphic detail. She was totally cool with it. Said the wallabies were in danger of overpopulation, and needed to be culled. But I couldn’t hack the idea of shooting a living creature and watching it die, lifting its limp body and throwing it onto the back of a truck.

  ‘You eat bacon, don’t ya?’ Blake said now. It was the same conversation we always had. ‘You eat chops?’

  ‘But that meat comes from the supermarket,’ I squeaked, knowing how pathetic I sounded. ‘It’s shrink-wrapped.’

  ‘You know they have to kill an animal to make chops.’

  ‘Yeah, but I don’t have to kill the animal.’

  Blake shook his head and rolled his eyes. ‘Women,’ he said.

  Why did I have to be so squeamish? Tegan took it in her stride. But then Tegan was going to join the army when she finished school. She couldn’t afford to be squeamish. Not that she planned on killing anyone. She wanted to learn a trade – vehicle mechanic or aircraft technician. Something she could use in civvy life if the army didn’t work out. She’d had this planned since she was twelve years old, when her half brother Nathan joined the airforce. I still had no idea what I wanted to do when I left school next year. Thinking about the future was like staring into a big black hole. It made me feel dizzy with dread. I hadn’t found my place at Derwent College, let alone the big wide world.

  ‘Did you do it?’ Tegan asked me.

  I thought back over the conversation. Dead wallabies and bacon and shrink-wrap. ‘Oh, you mean the English assignment?’ I shrugged. ‘Forgot. Did you?’

  ‘Nah. I don’t have any memories,’ Tegan said.

  I laughed.

  ‘Seriously,’ Tegan said. ‘I couldn’t think of anything. I don’t even remember my dreams. Everything’s the same every day. Catch the bus, go to school, go to Cadets, hang out, play netball, see a movie, waste the rest of the weekend. What’s the point of writing about that stuff?’

  ‘You girls are hopeless,’ Blake said. ‘What are you going to do if you fail English? Repeat Year 11?’

  ‘Ms Betts hates me anyway,’ I said.

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘Only’ cause you’re such slackers,’ Blake said.

  Tegan poked his stomach. Blake grabbed her finger, twisted it around, and they started wrestling. Blake tickled Tegan roughly and she shrieked, allowing herself to be overcome by Blake’s strong arms. I stared politely off into the distance, knowing it would probably turn into kissing.

  I thought about Ms Betts to distract myself. She did seem to have it in for me. My first essay had scored a mark below fifty, a fail.

  Ms Betts had written:

  You’ve let yourself down, Ruby-lee.

  True, I hadn’t read the book – Pride and Prejudice – but I’d watched the movie. Tegan hadn’t read the book either and she had at least scraped in with fifty-two, and Ms Betts hadn’t said anything about her letting herself down.

  ‘You still coming to the movies on Saturday?’ Tegan asked, when she and Blake had finished with their extracurricular activities. ‘Blake’s cousin’s down from Devonport, remember?’

  I bit my lip. I’d totally forgotten about the movies. I knew Tegan would be pissed off. ‘Sorry. I promised Colette I’d babysit Maisy. Well, Shandra volunteered me.’

  Tegan pouted. ‘Well, tell her you can’t. You promised me first.’

  ‘Colette doesn’t have many people to call on. I felt sorry for her.’

  ‘I don’t know why. She was dumb enough to get pregnant. Hasn’t she heard of contraception?’

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘Is she paying you?’

&n
bsp; I shrugged. ‘We didn’t talk about money.’

  ‘Well if you’d rather spend Saturday night with a squalling brat instead of your best friend and a hot date . . . when you’re not even getting paid . . .’

  ‘I’m sorry. But I can’t leave her in the lurch.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it, Teegs,’ Blake said. ‘We can ditch Dougal.’

  Tegan smiled extra sweetly at Blake, then shot me a dark look to make it clear I wasn’t off the hook. I trailed after them as they made their way to English, not sure why Tegan had to make me feel so guilty. It wasn’t like I was abandoning her. She still had Blake. And anway, all they did on Saturday nights was kiss and grope each other in the dark cinema. It was offputting, trying to follow a movie with all those wet slurping noises, the moans and grunts and sighs. And if I went with a date – a blind date – I’d probably sit with my hands twisted together on my lap, arms sucked into my sides, and Dougal would be squashed against the opposite armrest, twisting his whole body so his back was to me, ready to make a quick getaway. Such was the state of my love life.

  4

  There was a question on the whiteboard:

  What is love?

  ‘All right class,’ Ms Betts said. ‘Free writing time. I want you to answer this question. You might want to consider your memory work, or think back to Pride and Prejudice, or draw on some other personal experiences. Same rules apply as always, write whatever comes into your head and keep your hand moving. You don’t have to share this with anyone, but what you write today may form the basis of your next creative assignment. As you do this I’m going to come around and collect your memory pieces, so put them on the front of your desk.’

  I stared at the blank page. Love? What did I know about love? I wrote the question at the top of the page. I put an extra curl into the top of the question mark and drew petals around the dot below.

  ‘Ruby-lee?’ Ms Betts said. ‘Where’s your memory assignment?’

  I looked up without raising my head. Ms Betts’ bustline was right in my line of sight. I readjusted my eyes, staring at a patch of blue shirt in the neutral territory between her waist and her boobs.