I Am Out With Lanterns

by Emily Gale

  I can’t think about her eyes yet or I’ll get distracted, but I know where they’ll go. I find the road that the tip of her nose will touch. The shade I need for her neck is more of the river. I go back to the hair. I need to get that right. Her hair is incredible. If they ever use a goth girl in a shampoo ad, they should use Wren. It smells of almonds, but I can’t draw that. And it smells black too. Is that even possible? It does, though.

  I pause for a moment.

  Wow.

  I’m breathing as if I’ve been walking these streets this whole time instead of sitting dead still. I laugh quietly, but inside I know I’m starting to stress. I feel ridiculous. Excited. Alive! Terrified. God, what’s wrong with me? It’s just a drawing.

  Would Wren want me to draw her? I don’t know. I really, really don’t know.

  I put the sketchpad down, turn on the rainfall track and try to empty my head.

  Can you imagine if I ever tried to kiss –

  Has anyone ever successfully emptied their head?

  It’s one o’clock. I have to finish this portrait.

  I begin with the detail of her eyes, knowing I’ve started to tap out the fingers on my right hand – one two three four, one two three four. I shade the side of her nose, down to the outline of her mouth, darker shadows over the side of her face that’s farthest from me. Her eyes are still hollow. I work on her strong, dark eyebrows, the way they arch – the way the one closest to me arches even more because she’s giving me that look.

  When there’s nothing else I can do, I ball up my right fist to stop the stimming, and I give Wren thick lashes, grey irises, black pupils.

  She can see me.

  It’s Wren. Wren embedded in all the places I go.

  It’s past two. I’d forgotten what all this was for but then I see the contract on my desk. Sophie can’t take this portrait to school. No one but me can ever look at this portrait.

  I start again, switch to my right hand like Sophie said I should. Faster drawing, less thinking. Smaller, button nose, finer hair, thicker mouth. My little sister.

  At half-past two, I slide the portrait under her door.

  Back in my room, nothing feels right. The night has been taken up with something unexpected and I’m feeling the effects. My routine is messed-up. It’s a rookie error.

  I’m pacing, which is not a good sign. Then I remember the lists on the cork board above my desk and look at the one about everything I need to do each evening. I can recover the mess I’m in by laying out fresh clothes on my chair and double-checking that everything’s in my bag ready for school. I should have done this hours ago. I set my alarm for 6.30 am and put it by my bed. Check my bag again. Check my clothes. They’re fine. Check the alarm’s on. It is. You just did that, Milo. Accidentally knock it to the ground. Shit. Bash my toe on the bed frame. Fuck! I grab my sketchpad, rip out Wren and slide her into the tiny gap between the wall and wardrobe.

  I sit on the side of my bed and take deep breaths. Check the alarm again. Unzip my schoolbag, check, zip it up. Shoes under the chair.

  I lie down, turn out the light, wrap myself tight in the doona and wait for my breathing to slow.

  It hasn’t.

  It still hasn’t.

  Still.

  The last class for the day is Art. I’m the first to get in line.

  ‘Move out of the way, Sophie. I need to unlock the door,’ says Miss Marshall, so I flatten myself against the wall to make room.

  I love the smell of the Art room: paint and glue, clay and sugar paper. Whenever I walk in here I feel hopeful. I don’t know why because nothing I paint or draw ever turns out well. Miss Marshall never puts my stuff on the walls. Still, I always think, This could be the day.

  I’ve been carrying around the portrait that Milo posted under my bedroom door last night. I rolled it up and slotted it into the net on the side of my schoolbag that’s meant to hold a drink bottle. The portrait is of me. I knew it straight away, which is when I started to worry. It’s a bit too good. Even when he draws with his right hand, Milo is better than me.

  I didn’t show anyone else. Grace and the others had ‘Art club’ at recess and lunchtime, but I didn’t want to ask them if I could join; I want them to ask me.

  So I’d spent my own recess and lunchtime rubbing out bits of the portrait and redrawing them to look more authentic. The nose was too good, for a start. Even Grace can’t draw noses. Milo had done some of the shading in this crisscross way that looked very professional and must have taken hours, so I smudged it with my fingers. It still looks excellent but also like someone has worked hard on it and made some mistakes, instead of waving a magic wand over the paper.

  Grace and Eva and Shadi sit at the same table as me and put down their finished portraits. Eva has drawn Grace. Grace has drawn Shadi. Shadi has drawn Eva. Great, now I look vain.

  ‘Put up your hand if you managed to get a portrait finished over the holidays that you’d like to submit to the school Art show,’ says Miss Marshall. Just the four of us raise our hands; mine only goes halfway. Miss Marshall rolls her eyes. ‘As I suspected. Okay, we were going to be doing clay over the next fortnight, but we’ll be doing portraits now. Sit opposite someone in class and get started –’

  ‘Do you mean everyone?’ I say.

  ‘Don’t interrupt me when I’m speaking, Sophie.’

  ‘Sorry, Miss Marshall, but what about the people who spent all summer working on their portraits? We’ve finished.’ I draw an imaginary line between Grace, Eva, Shadi and me. If Miss Marshall sees me drawing in real life and then compares it to the portrait Milo did, she’ll know it’s a fake. ‘Can’t we do clay?’

  Miss Marshall’s mouth sets in a thin line. I want to vomit. I’ve been paired up with Shadi and we sit opposite each other with our paper on a small easel that tilts up towards us if we want. I tilt mine as high as it can go. I look at Shadi’s face and don’t know where to begin. I’m scared that if I draw one eye well, the other will be awful. I’m definitely not trying her nose. Her hair is black and curly and I’m sure I could make it look as pretty as it is in real life, but you can’t start with hair, can you? Isn’t that a rule? Her lips are quite thick with a defined outline – maybe I could start with those if I go very lightly and barely touch the paper until I’m sure the lines are right.

  The class is mostly quiet, which makes this even harder; I need noise and disruption to grow up around me like a wild garden. Shadi keeps talking to Grace, next to her, which means she’s moving her head a lot.

  ‘Can you stay still, Shadi?’ I whisper. ‘And shut your mouth.’

  Shadi looks at Grace and they giggle.

  ‘I didn’t mean it like that. I’m drawing your lips.’

  ‘Why are you starting with the mouth, Sophie?’ Miss Marshall says in the loudest voice.

  ‘Um, it’s what I always do. My brother taught me.’ Lies.

  ‘Is your brother teaching this class?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Haven’t I told you to start with the outline of the face, and to find the positioning of the eyes, nose and mouth, before you start on any detail?’

  I freeze.

  ‘Yes, you have, Miss Marshall,’ says Grace. I look at her portrait and see she’s got an oval with a line down the middle and three lines across.

  ‘Put up your hands if you’re starting your portrait with an outline of the head and neck,’ says Miss Marshall.

  I don’t look up, but I sense the shadows of thirty raised arms. ‘We can’t all draw the same way,’ I say, and bite the inside of my mouth. Please don’t let me cry. Please don’t let me cry. Please don’t –

  ‘That’s true,’ says Miss Marshall. ‘Now, where are these portraits you four have drawn over the summer?’

  I hand over mine, still rolled up. I can’t look while she unrolls it.

  ‘Well, well,’ she says.

  ‘Let’s see it, Miss,’ says Grace, and she, Eva and Shadi rise off their stools, lengthening their necks li
ke turtles.

  My face is literally on fire. I don’t look, but I know from the cooing noises and wows that Miss Marshall has shown the whole class.

  ‘This is very good indeed, Sophie.’

  I raise my eyes nervously to see her expression. Uh-oh.

  I had a dream last night: a kiss with Adie that seemed to last the whole dream. It was more than a kiss; it was a conversation. I’m on fire thinking about it. I get out of the sheets, smile to myself, shake my head, laugh like a dork, snort. Stop! I tell myself.

  The framed portrait of Adie leans against my wall, kind of nonchalant. Her eyes look a little smug in this light, as if she’s saying, ‘That was amazing, wasn’t it?’

  Bloody hell, I need to get a grip.

  As I get dressed I find my eyes are drawn to hers whether I like it or not. I can’t not look at her. And I’m torn between laughing at myself and feeling horribly vulnerable. This is bizarre. I feel like I know her.

  Milo takes us the longer river route towards school. He’s chattier today, more upbeat, and I wonder if he’s trying to force himself because of how bad things got yesterday. I let him talk. Half-arsed murmurs from me instead of proper switched-on replies don’t seem to alert him to my preoccupation with seeing Adie today. As we get closer to school, my heart is loudly telling me that I’m going to bump into her and to prepare – how, I don’t know. Some kind of emergency brace position. But subtle.

  Milo starts talking even louder all of a sudden.

  ‘Whoa, dude, I’m right here.’

  ‘Is the volume too much?’

  ‘It depends who you’re trying to talk to. If it’s someone in – I dunno – bloody Bondi or wherever, then no. If it’s me, then yes.’

  ‘Oh … How’s this?’

  ‘It’s fine … Carry on. What were you saying?’

  ‘I was going to tell you about the time I got stuck in a swing.’

  ‘Stuck. In a swing.’

  We leave the river behind, taking the flight of steps to the road.

  ‘Exactly. So what happened is that I climbed into one of those baby swings when I was twelve. For a dare.’

  ‘I couldn’t get one leg in one of those.’

  ‘The upside of being lanky is that you can fold yourself into small places. The downside of being lanky is that you can … fold yourself into small places.’

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘Once I realised there was no way I could get out of it, I decided to enjoy the quiet.’

  ‘For how long?’

  ‘Three hours. By that time, my mum had called the police to report me missing. Eventually, they found me, and two of them pulled me out. One held my arms and the other steadied the swing.’

  ‘You did that for a dare? That seems really unlike you.’

  ‘It’s not unlike me. I do dares. All the time.’

  ‘Wait, it was Ben who dared you, wasn’t it? He told you to get in that swing. That little runt.’

  ‘Let’s forget that story. I’ve got better stories.’

  I drop it like he asks, but my hatred for Ben Brearley is part of my system now. We walk one of Milo’s well-worn routes of sleepy back roads to avoid the high street, which we catch brief glances of down side streets, with packed trams rattling by and kids walking solo or in twos, unlike the dense afternoon packs. Milo keeps going on about a lot of other times that he got stuck, or lost, or into some scrape.

  Then I see her as we pass one of the roads that leads to the high street.

  At least, I think it’s her. If it is, I need to hurry.

  ‘I might grab some breakfast,’ I say, speeding up in that direction instead of veering off around the back way like we were supposed to.

  ‘But we’re going this way.’

  ‘I’m starving,’ I say over my shoulder. ‘You carry on. I’ll see you there.’

  I want him to leave me alone for this, but I can’t tell him that. I could never admit why I want to change course. He’d talk me down from it with logic and reason, and I like the feeling of my toes being on a ledge.

  Adie walks into Coles. I catch my own reflection in the huge windows and a secret passes between us.

  ‘Why are you walking so fast?’ says Milo.

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘You’re out of breath.’

  ‘You’re imagining things.’ I try to slow down without making it too obvious, walk through the automatic doors and stop by the first mound of food I see. I pick up a packet so it looks like I came in here for a reason. ‘Shall we share these?’

  ‘You hate cheese-and-bacon rolls. You said the cheese tastes of feet.’

  ‘So maybe today I enjoy … feet.’

  Milo starts reminding me of all the other things I’ve said about cheese-and-bacon rolls since he’s known me – turns out I’m pretty opinionated. I spot Adie at the back of the shop.

  ‘What are you looking at?’ he says.

  ‘No one.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I mean … look, that’s Adie over there. I might say hi. I’ll see you at school, okay?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I told you – she’s new.’

  ‘Is this because of your drawing again?’

  ‘Forget it, I won’t say hi. Come on.’

  ‘What about the cheese-and-bacon rolls?’

  ‘I bloody hate them, okay, Milo?’

  I walk out of Coles – fine, I storm out. My own actions are nonsensical to me. As the seconds pass, my boots feel heavier. Why am I snapping at Milo and chasing people into supermarkets? We never argue. And it’s my fault because I have an inner bitch and Milo doesn’t have a single mean bone in his body. Or was it Milo making a big deal out of it? I only wanted to say hello.

  I always wondered what lying to yourself actually felt like, and here I am attempting it. And failing. It’s disappoint ing because I’m pretty sure that’s how people let themselves get away with a range of unwise but potentially fun behaviour.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ he says, when he catches up.

  ‘Nothing. It’s just … nothing … It’s just … seriously, nothing … It’s just …’

  ‘Wren, say it.’

  ‘The drawing. And her walking into class. It’s got me spooked.’

  Milo considers this. I wait, on the precipice of one of his wisdoms.

  ‘Recently, there was a woman who found twenty-one four-leaf clovers in her backyard.’

  ‘Lucky bitch.’

  ‘No, but wait, finding one four-leaf clover is a one-in-ten-thousand chance. The chances of finding twenty-one four-leaf clovers is one in a number with eighty-four zeros.’

  ‘That’s amazing, and a number that big makes me want to hurl.’

  ‘That’s the thing – the odds are ridiculous. It wasn’t luck, it was science. Something scientific happened, but everyone wanted to believe it was something else. That doesn’t make it true or super good luck. And with your thing – it’s a drawing, that’s all. There’s a rational explanation.’

  I nod, pretending to understand, secretly still believing in the magic. But Milo’s right. So far it’s just a drawing. I’m giving it power over me that it shouldn’t have.

  The day is a total landslide that ends with Carole, the school secretary, handing me a detention slip for uniform violations. Detention takes place in the cafeteria. Christian and some of his zombie mates are there when I arrive, so it’s a relief to see Hari at one of the tables. It’s like running the gauntlet to reach her. The usual insults gets hurled my way: Whose funeral is it? I bet you cut yourself. Are you into kinky sex?

  Please, little boys, I’ve been letting that anti-goth stuff bounce off me since I was eleven.

  ‘What’s your detention for?’ Hari says, when I dump my bag and take a seat next to her.

  ‘Inappropriate piercings, inappropriate eye make-up, inappropriate footwear, inappropriate jewellery.’

  ‘That’s thorough.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘I dared our friend
Christian over there to drink half a litre of cooking oil in Food Tech.’

  ‘Oh my God, he did it?’

  ‘He’s only just stopped throwing up.’ She beams at me and it’s contagious. I laugh for the first time today.

  ‘Carole says if she catches me looking like this once more, I have to start seeing the counsellor regularly.’

  ‘I get that from her constantly. Breaking the uniform rules naturally means you’re struggling inside. If anyone’s struggling inside, it’s Carole.’

  Hari gets some books and her laptop out of her bag; I get my sketchpad. Maybe I’ll draw Hari. What are we, really, Hari and I? We hang out at school, but it’s never been more than that. To others it might look like we’re better friends than we are, but when I think about it, I hardly know anything about her. I know her politics, I know her music, I know her parents moved to Australia from Turkey when they were children, I know she has a really cute boyfriend called Luca who goes to The Hall. He looks like a catalogue model and she looks like trouble – the fun kind. She keeps her fringe short and blunt, the rest black and shoulder-length apart from a strip she shaves above her left ear and around to the back. She wears nearly as much black shit around her eyes as I do and I’ve never seen her wear the recommended school shoes. Today’s are gothic punk industrial New Rocks with a metallic heel.

  Hari’s scrolling on her phone. ‘You don’t put much on Instagram,’ she says.

  I look over and realise she’s on my page, scrolling through my random pictures of fungi and dead birds and bin liners caught up in tree branches. ‘Not into the whole selfie thing.’

  She shoots me a look. ‘Let me take a photo of you.’

  ‘No way.’

  ‘Come on, it’ll be a good one. I’m awesome at this, trust me.’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Wren, please.’

  I’ve gone too far down the track of No to turn around now. I’m not even sure why I’m so adamant. ‘I really don’t want to, okay?’