by Kim Kane
Olive picked up a leftover sheet and let the hem drop to the carpet.
‘Where is he?’
Olive held the sheet out from her body and gathered the ends together, neatly drawing edge to edge. ‘I don’t know. Mog never mentions him. It’s sort of a no-go area. Every time I try she just freezes up, so I don’t. It’s easier.’
Olive folded the sheet again and again until it was so thick it wouldn’t bend. She held it to her nose, breathing in the clean smells of cotton and washing powder. It was hard to explain to people that she wouldn’t even recognise her own father if he turned up to collect her from school.
‘What does he do?’ pressed Pip. She was leaning forwards on the spare bed, trying to catch Olive’s eye.
‘I don’t know what he does, where he lives or whether he’s even alive.’ Olive stared at the faded flyspot pattern on the sheet. ‘All I know is that he was a flaky hippy who was too liberal with his love.’ She picked at a cotton thread trailing from the sheet’s corner.
‘That’s not much to go on. There must be clues. Haven’t you checked the mail? Maybe he sends cheques or Christmas cards or something?’
Olive shrugged. ‘I don’t think so. Mog wouldn’t like that. I don’t think he cares.’
‘You’re nuts. I bet he’s gazing out at the night sky as we speak, wondering where his baby is, feeling happy that no matter what, he’s under the same moon.’
‘Babies.’ Olive shook her head. ‘That might freak him.’
Pip flipped her plaits over her shoulders and started swaying about the room. She threw her arms about theatrically, trying to reflect the gravitas of the situation (although she looked like Nut Allergy doing an impression of an elephant in Drama Dance). ‘I bet he studies every girl and tries to work out how old she is and whether she could be his daughter. Maybe he has an entire room filled to the ceiling with letters addressed to you and stamped ‘Return to Sender’ – and maybe he goes into his room every night and cries, wishing that he’d never been such a flaky hippy who was too liberal with his love.’
‘I don’t think so.’ Olive gripped the cotton thread and tugged until it snapped. ‘I’m twelve and he’s never tried to contact me. Not once.’
Pip shrugged. The air in the room had somehow flattened, lost its zest. It had become solemn and grown-up. Not grown-up in an exuberant Mog way, but grown-up in a severe discussion-about-bills, children-go-to-the-next-room, Grahams sort of way.
Olive took out a pair of pyjamas and handed them to Pip. Her mood had congealed. ‘Come on,’ she said, more primly than she’d intended. ‘It’s a school night. Let’s get ready for bed.’
Olive sounded just like Mrs Graham.
11
Plankton or Krill
When the girls woke the next morning, Mog had already come and gone. In her wake was a trail of burnt toast crusts, laddered tights and documents. Pip picked up a folder tied in pink ribbon.
In the matter of the DPP v Miss Sarah McNamara
Brief to Counsel to appear in the Supreme Court of
Victoria
Prepared for Ms Mog Garnaut QC
Instructing solicitors for the defendant, Glickfeld &
Saratchandran
‘Don’t.’ Olive tried to snatch the papers from Pip. ‘They’re Mog’s, and she doesn’t like anybody to touch them. Not even me. They’re very important and very confidential.’
‘Sorry.’ Pip put them down, a darn sight more carefully than she had put down Olive’s clothes, Olive noted. Mog set very few rules for Olive, but the one thing she was picky about was her work.
While Pip slopped chocolate spread and peanut butter onto her toast, the kitchen bench and the floor, Olive tore around the house trying to cobble together two school uniforms. The uniforms they’d had on the day before were soiled, and Olive’s school was very strict about presentation. In junior school the teachers had checked the girls’ undies every day to ensure that they were regulation green, and sent very terse notes home to the parents when they weren’t.
Uniforms sorted, Olive parted her hair in front of the bathroom mirror and bound it in two straight plaits, which hung like fish spines down her back. She carefully covered the elastics with green satin ribbons, then folded her anklet socks over twice so that the edges were neat.
Olive had put a spare uniform out on the bed for Pip, together with her old black party shoes. While they were dusty, they would have to do until she managed to fossick another pair for her sister – hopefully from lost property. Probably junior-school lost property. The patent leather party shoes were from Grade 5 and, although they were definitely not regulation, they still fitted. Olive had been medium height in Grade 4, smallish in Grade 5, tiny in Grade 6, and now, in Year 7, she was a bona fide midget.
‘It’s because she doesn’t have a mother there to cook properly for her,’ Mrs Graham had whispered to Mr Graham one night at Mathilda’s, not quite softly enough. ‘She eats like a bird.’
‘Rubbish,’ Mr Graham had replied. ‘Mog Garnaut was a late bloomer. Olive’ll grow, and if she grows into legs half as long as her mother’s, the men of Greater Melbourne will be extremely grateful.’
Despite Mr Graham’s support, Olive couldn’t be so sure. She was the smallest girl in the entire senior school, other than the dwarf.
Olive smiled. ‘The equal second smallest,’ she corrected herself, remembering Pip.
Whatever happened at school, Olive was determined not to introduce Pip to Amelia. She didn’t want Pip to wish for a moment that she was related to somebody taller or cooler, with a straighter part or a beach house. Amelia already had Mathilda.
Thirty minutes later, as Olive caught sight of the school fence, the Till–Mill saga came tumbling back in gruesome detail.
‘Pip,’ Olive called to her sister. The girls were trudging uphill towards the school gates from the spot where the taxi had dropped them. Olive always asked taxis to drop her in the lane beside the school so that nobody would see her arrive. She’d much rather have come to school on the tram like normal girls, but to do this she’d have to leave home in the sixes.
Pip was sulking because her schoolbag was heavy and she didn’t see the point in walking any further than necessary. If Pip had her way, they’d probably have been driven to the classroom door. ‘Who cares if people see?’ she had muttered. ‘They’ll just be jealous that while they have to turn up in the family wagon, we’re like movie stars.’ Olive had let her walk on ahead.
‘Pip,’ Olive called again. ‘Wait!’
Pip paused until Olive caught up, and the twins walked on for a few more steps in silence. Left, right, left.
The morning light was so strong it was crackly. Olive took a deep breath. ‘You know how there’s a food chain in every school?’
Pip nodded and re-adjusted her bag.
‘Well, Amelia – and probably Mathilda too now – are blue whales.’
Pip nodded.
‘And I’m . . . well. Well, I’m plankton.’
Olive’s heart fluttered while she waited for Pip’s response. There wasn’t one.
‘Actually, if Nut Allergy’s plankton,’ continued Olive, ‘I guess . . . I guess I’m more of your average krill.’
Olive waited for Pip to dump her. She waited for Pip to say, ‘On second thoughts, I’d rather not be your sister. In fact, I’d rather be anybody but Nut Allergy’s sister, and if she’s worked on her bladder control, I’ll even choose her.’
But she didn’t. Pip shrugged and said, ‘Whatever – I’m happy being krill.’ Olive beamed. The wider her smile spread, the more she grew to accommodate it.
Pip stopped walking and spun around to face Olive. ‘There’s a kid in your class called Nut Allergy?’
‘It’s not her real name, but her mum made her wear a sign around her neck in Prep so the teachers didn’t feed her peanut butter or anything. Apparently one tiny bit, one sniff even, and she swells up like Veruca Salt. The name sort of stuck.’
‘So wh
at’s her real name?’
‘Oh, something boring. I forget. She got her period in Grade 3, though.’
Pip kept walking and Olive bounded after her.
When Pip and Olive reached the wrought-iron gates, the school emblem with its curly scrolls and Latin writing glared down at them. Mog had once quipped that it was very appropriately shaped like a dollar sign.
‘What does it mean?’ asked Pip.
Olive couldn’t even pronounce the school motto, let alone remember what it stood for. ‘No idea. “Education, Ambition and Success for Women in Work” or something.’ The bell had rung and the grounds were deserted. Olive walked faster.
‘ “Education, Ambition and Success for Women in Green Cotton Bog-catchers”, more likely,’ said Pip, whose green knickers must have been slurping up her bottom as she kept plucking them out. ‘These undies are horri—’ Pip stopped when she saw the schoolhouse.
The Joanne d’Arc School for Girls was certainly imposing. It was a huge Gothic building, which sat high on a hill and housed a teaching institution for the elite from Melbourne and the surrounding districts.
‘Heck,’ said Pip. ‘This place looks like Hogwarts. Do you get to play Quidditch here, too?’
‘I wish,’ said Olive, thinking that she’d take her broom-stick and burn right back home again, far and away from Till–Mill.
‘Why are there bars on the windows?’
It wasn’t an unreasonable question, but Olive had never noticed. She now wondered how she’d missed the thick metal rods that were welded to the front of each window frame. Olive shrugged. ‘To make the boarders feel safe, I guess.’
The Joanne d’Arc boarders were girls who got to sleep at school in dorms and kick around on the play equipment on weekends. During the week they hung out in packs, ate pies and bonded over the knowledge that they had snuck their pyjamas in under their skirts. The boarders were special. They were always ‘in’, even when there was no doubt that as daygirls they’d have been ‘out’. The rules were somehow different for boarders. They were one big happy gaggle of accepting sisters, arms firmly linked. Olive had been desperate to be a boarder – until she’d seen the state of the showers.
‘They lock the boarders in?’ Pip looked horrified. ‘What did they do wrong?’ The romance of boarding was lost on Pip. She muttered about the inhumanity of imprisoning people all the way to the classroom.
Year 7C was deep in the throes of origami when Olive and Pip arrived. Mrs Kato, Olive’s Japanese teacher, smiled tightly from under her bun as they entered.
Olive wasn’t fooled. Mrs Kato may have looked demure, but she was an inner knuckle-caner.
‘Tardiness is the height of rudeness,’ she said at least once a week. ‘In Japan, it shows that you have very little respect for the company you are keeping. It can cost you your reputation and your friendships.’
‘Kato Sensei, ohayoo gozaimasu.’ Olive bowed her head. ‘Um, sorry. This i—’
‘Suwatte kudasai,’ said Mrs Kato, gesturing to Olive’s seat. Olive bit her lip and sat down. Pip slid into the empty desk beside her. Mrs Kato brought over a couple of pieces of red paper with a clover print, and the girls started to make paper cranes too.
‘What crap,’ said Pip. Origami required neat lines and precision. Pip’s crane was looking more like a fish-and-chip wrapper – all grubby and over-fingered.
Olive swivelled around. Directly behind Pip, Amelia was folding her paper carefully, whispering to Mathilda. Her yellow-blonde hair with its perfect north–south part gleamed in the sun that streamed through the window, and her honey tan cast a warm glow onto her desk.
‘Till, I can’t believe I forgot to tell you. Did you hear my cousin Poppy was hospitalised last night? She ate chilli because she wanted to make her lips big – sort of like collagen – and they nearly exploded.’ Amelia lived in a world in which there was always a crisis.
Olive went to turn back to her origami, but Mathilda caught her eye. ‘Why were you late?’ she asked.
‘Probably caught up doing a spot of early morning metal-detecting,’ said Amelia. ‘I know I find it hard to pull myself away.’ They both laughed.
Pip looked at Olive and raised an eyebrow in a question mark. Olive drew two big arrows on the back of her exercise book. One was marked ‘Amelia’, the other ‘Mathilda’. Pip spun around and stared. ‘That’s Amelia?’
Olive nodded.
‘Ooooh, she’s so brown. Especially her teeth.’ Pip’s mouth was pulled up on the side in a sort of snarl. ‘Hey, baby Barbie. Chilli-lips are not a calamity. Your world’s tinier than a Tic Tac.’
‘Pip! Shush!’ Olive sniggered and looked around. She had never heard a single girl sing anything other than Amelia’s praise. Neither had Amelia.
Amelia’s face had gone pale under her tan and her mouth had dropped open. Her hand shot up her side, as straight as a flagpole, waving Mrs Kato over.
‘What’s that? Some sort of Hitler Youth salute?’ hissed Pip.
‘Mrs Kato! Mrs Kato! Olive Garnaut is being extremely rude,’ said Amelia, doing her best World Vision look: wide-eyed, and up through her lashes. ‘Can you please ask her to move?’ Now Olive’s mouth dropped open. ‘I didn’t say—’
‘Shizuka ni shite kudasai!’ snapped Mrs Kato, and the class hum deadened. ‘Olive Garnaut, you have been warned. Class, open your exercise books to page thirty-four and commence practising the kanji characters for the seasons. These are to be submitted to me by recess.’
Olive felt a blush creep up her neck. Just the thought of a blush made her blush more. She looked over at her sister and glared. Pip looked straight ahead.
12
Origami Massacre
Even before the class broke for recess, it was official. Olive Garnaut had an enemy. Previously she had been nothing but a low-grade irritant to Amelia, but Amelia, clearly realising her pride was at stake, returned Pip’s insult with a bomb.
‘I’m going to get you, Olive Garnaut,’ she said, loud enough for Olive and Pip to hear (but not Mrs Kato). She kicked at Olive’s chair. Olive was working on the character for autumn, and her calligraphy pen shot up, making a thick black scar across her page.
Amelia leant right forward over Olive’s shoulder. ‘You’re such a dog, Olive Got-no-noughts, that your father took one look at you and bolted, and your mother hates you so much that, from what I hear, she can’t stand hanging around either.’
‘Amelia.’ Mathilda giggled quietly.
Olive gripped her pen so hard her fingers were white where they pressed. She kept her eyes on the desk and tore the ruined page from her book.
‘At least Mog is making something of herself, something important. Something other than muffins,’ Pip spat back.
The bell rang. The class scattered and most of the girls streamed outside. Amelia and Mathilda flowed out with them.
‘They’re awful. I can’t believe you were ever friends with them. They make me so angry, I just want to . . .’ Pip punched the air with her puny arm. She looked so silly that both girls laughed. They sat together in silence.
‘Do you think “dog” is maybe a nice term?’ asked Olive. ‘You know, cute like a puppy?’ The desk clicked as Olive’s legs swung under it.
‘Sure,’ said Pip in a tone that was kind but meant I-very-much-doubt-it.
Pip sucked her plait. Olive stared at a corner of the desk. The clicking slowed.
‘Do you think he did do that? You know . . .’ Olive paused. She picked at a strip of linoleum that was lifting from the side of the desk.
‘Bolt?’ Pip asked carefully through her plait. ‘I don’t know.’ She sucked harder, as if trying to extract the answer. ‘But I do think we have to find out more about this Custard Seed.’
‘Mustard, not Custard.’ Olive almost smiled.
‘Ah, Custard, Mustard, I bet he’s tidy.’ Pip looked at the parallel lines of pencils on Olive’s desk. ‘And probably good at origami. Judging by Mog’s bedroom, I don’t suppose she’s a natu
ral at cranes, either.’
Olive dipped her head in a half-nod.
‘I bet he’s kind and funny with twinkly eyes and whiskers that tickle when he gives hugs.’ Visions of Mustard Seed animated Pip’s face.
Olive smiled. ‘When I was little I always imagined that he chopped wood and that he had a tummy slung over his belt.’
Pip jumped out of the chair. ‘I bet he has scruffy boat shoes that are so worn down if I hopped in them, I’d walk like he does.’ Pip lolloped about the room with a wide-legged stride.
Olive laughed. The tempo of the desk-clicking increased as her legs swung faster. ‘Boat shoes? Do you think he’s a sailor?’
‘Look, I have no idea whether he’s a lawyer, a locksmith or a lobster-catcher, but we need clues, and Mog’s the only one who’s got them. I think we should ask her.’
Olive turned back to her work.
‘So, can we?’
Olive trailed the calligraphy pen up and across her page, concentrating on relaxing her shoulders, trying to let the ink glide, run free, as Mrs Kato insisted they should. ‘Well, I guess I could try tonight.’
Olive felt Pip’s smile before she saw it. Pip hooted. ‘I’ll start writing a list of questions.’
‘But only if Mog’s not too tired,’ said Olive, horrified.
‘Sure.’ Pip swung her plait back over her shoulder. ‘I’m starving, by the way.’
Olive pointed Pip in the direction of the cheesy rolls at the tuckshop. They were bright orange and the melted cheese was so perfectly cooked that you could pull it into strings a metre long. ‘Make sure you push,’ Olive called after Pip. ‘That tuckshop can be a jungle.’
‘Olive-san? How are your characters progressing?’ Mrs Kato was at the front of the room doing remedial work with Nut Allergy, who was humped over the desk. Lim May Yee and a couple of other boarders were comparing chocolate crackles down the back.
‘I’m nearly done.’ Olive went back to her calligraphy. She became so completely absorbed by the curving lines and flickering images of WilliamPetersMustardSeed that she didn’t hear anyone approaching.