That morning, Mademoiselle Larsen asks me to stay back after class. A tiny splinter of panic jabs me, but I tell myself not to worry. She can’t see Fred. She doesn’t know he’s there.
Miss Larsen, if you remember, used to hate my guts, but I can’t really blame her for that. I was not very likeable. I’ve woken up to myself since then and, like most of the other teachers here at Oakholme College, Miss Larsen has given me chance after chance to redeem myself. Now, after my stellar performance in the French test, it looks like I finally have.
‘You’re going to take out the French prize this year if you’re not careful, Shauna. I haven’t handed back the Camus papers yet, but I think you’ve probably come first in that too.’
I can’t help grinning. ‘Cool.’
‘I don’t know what’s happened to you this year,’ she goes on, ‘but you’re proving to be quite the dark horse.’
I’m a portrait of modesty. ‘There’s no big secret. It’s just hard work.’
‘Well, it’s paying off, ma chérie, so keep it up.’
I can tell we haven’t quite reached the point of our little meeting, so I’m not surprised when she changes the subject.
‘Jenny Bean tells me that you two were planning a trip to Paris next year.’
‘We were talking about it, yeah.’
‘She says that you pulled out for some reason.’ She pauses, obviously waiting for me to tell her why, but of course I can’t. ‘Is it a financial problem, Shauna?’
‘Partly.’
‘The cost of accommodation in Paris is very high, isn’t it?’
‘And the flights.’
Mademoiselle Larsen sits daintily on the corner of her desk and crosses her ankles, as if this conversation might take some little time.
‘Look, if you still want to go, I might be able to help you out. Especially if you decided to stay there for a while.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, what if you did a French language course, or even got a job, or both? If you stayed there for six months or a year, it’d make the cost of the flights worthwhile. It’d be more than just an expensive holiday.’
As she continues, I smile, though I really feel like crying.
‘I have some friends who own an apartment in the fifth arrondissement,’ she says, ‘and their son’s just moved out of home. I’ve spoken to them about you, and they’ve told me that you’d be welcome to stay with them. They wouldn’t charge you board, though they might expect you to help with housework.’
As she talks, an image opens in my mind. I can see myself in Miss Larsen’s friends’ apartment. It’s on the third floor. We’re eating breakfast in the sun-filled kitchen. I’m slurping hot chocolate from a bowl. Monsieur offers me a pain au chocolat, and I take it. Madame says that there’s chocolate on my lip. I lick it off and we all laugh.
It’s tantalising, but with Fred on board, I know it’s out of my reach.
‘That’s such a nice offer,’ I tell Miss Larsen, ‘but there are other reasons I can’t go to France next year. It’s not just about the money.’
‘Something to consider, though.’
‘What about Jenny?’ I ask. ‘I’m sure she’d love to stay with your friends.’
‘Jenny’s parents can afford to keep her in Paris,’ Miss Larsen replies firmly. ‘The offer’s only open to you, okay? And it’s confidential.’
‘I won’t tell Jenny,’ I say.
Afterwards, I find Jenny waiting for me in the hallway.
‘What was that all about?’
‘The French prize. As in I’m getting it.’
‘She did not tell you that you’re getting the French prize!’
‘Nah. She just wanted to know why I don’t want to go to Paris anymore.’
‘And what did you say?’
‘Can’t afford to.’
Jenny gives me this hard, searching look, like she doesn’t quite believe me.
‘Well, I can’t!’
‘You still have options, Shauna.’
‘I know,’ I say coolly.
Frankly, I think Jenny is still miffed because Reverend Ferguson managed to withdraw me from Introduction to Legal Systems and Methods without any consequences for my academic record. Somewhere, deep down, Jenny wanted me to be punished for my decision. Well, tough luck. There’s no failure on my record. Not yet, anyway.
She asks me if I want to go to the common room for recess, but I can’t. I have a hot date with Olivia Pike.
Ugh, Olivia Pike.
After she almost got me charged with public misdemeanour offences, I honestly felt like cutting her off for good. I had visions of confronting Self-Raising Flour and telling her that I was done being Olivia’s mentor. The main reason I decided against it was to deny the little jerk the satisfaction.
This is only our second mentor/mentee meeting since the new term began. The last one went a little like this: twenty-seven minutes of silence.
Olivia: ‘Look, are you waiting for me to apologise? I’m sorry, okay?’
Me: ‘Apology not accepted.’
Olivia scoffs.
Three further minutes of silence.
Today I plan to continue the silent treatment, with some study thrown in. I’ve brought my Biology notes with me.
I’m absolutely charming to Reverend Ferguson when she arrives at the withdrawing room with Olivia, but the moment she’s gone, so is my smile. I take a seat at my usual end of the boardroom table and start reading.
This time Olivia holds out for fourteen minutes before cracking.
‘Keli Street-Hughes’s a real vile twat,’ she says.
Well, I think, like fucking duh. But this is an interesting turn of events, if it’s not a trick. Olivia has my full attention, but my eyes don’t move from my notes.
I measure my response carefully. ‘I thought you two were friends?’
‘Not anymore.’
I glance up at her to see whether I’m being had. Then I look back down. If she’s got something to say to me, I’m going to let her say it.
‘She’s telling everyone I stole from the Wish Upon A Star collection.’ Olivia’s voice cracks on the word ‘Star’, so I suspect she’s being genuine.
‘And?’
‘And she says if I don’t pay the money back by the end of the week, she’s going to report me to Mrs Green.’
‘Did you take the money?’
‘No.’
‘So what’s the problem? Tell her you didn’t take it. Go to Mrs Green now and tell her you’re being falsely accused.’
Olivia looks decidedly dissatisfied with my solution.
‘How much has gone missing?’
‘Eight hundred bucks.’ She gulps. ‘That’s what Keli says, anyway.’
‘Go and tell Mrs Green about it. You don’t have to sit on your hands while Keli Street-Hughes shakes you down.’
‘Shauna, I can’t.’
Whoa! That’s the second time Olivia has called me by my name! Then she has the nerve to ask, ‘Can you talk to Mrs Green?’
I explode into laughter, sounding much smugger and meaner than I intend to.
‘Fine. Don’t worry about it.’ She folds her arms and slumps.
‘I’m not pleading your case with Mrs Green for you. I’d rather gnaw off my own genitals.’
‘Okay. You don’t have to rub it in.’
Her gaze drifts to the side and I notice that her eyes are shining with tears.
Tant pis pour toi, Olivia. Too bad for you.
It serves her right for bargaining with the Devil, otherwise known as Keli Cailey Street-Hughes.
20
IT’S NOT THE last I hear about those pesky eight hundred bucks. And I know it’s serious business when I get a note in roll call:
Please see me and Mrs Green in Mrs G’s office. SRF
‘Has Olivia mentioned anything to you about eight hundred dollars missing from the Wish Upon A Star fundraising effort?’ Mrs Green asks me as soon as I sit down.
‘My meetings with Olivia are confidential,’ I say cautiously.
‘Actually, Shauna,’ says Self-Raising Flour, ‘they’re not. You’re not her psychologist. You’re just her mentor.’
‘Has she told you anything, Shauna?’ asks Mrs Green in a way that tells me I’d better stop mucking around.
‘She said that Keli Street-Hughes was trying to blackmail her into paying her eight hundred dollars.’ I must admit that after years of daily racist remarks, I relish sticking the dagger between Keli’s shoulderblades.
‘She said Keli’s trying to blackmail her?’ Mrs Green gives Reverend Ferguson a doubtful look.
‘That’s what she said. I told her to come and see you right away, Mrs Green. That was my advice.’
‘Well, it was Keli who came to me, and she sounds very upset and very sincere. Did Olivia sound upset to you?’
‘Kind of.’
‘Were you inclined to believe her or not?’ demands Mrs Green.
‘Well, yeah,’ I answer.
‘As disappointed as we are,’ says Reverend Ferguson, ‘we don’t know why Keli would make up a story like that.’
‘Unless she took the money?’ I suggest maliciously.
‘We’ve considered that,’ says Mrs Green, ‘and we’re as sure as we can be that that’s not what’s happened. Keli is the beneficiary of a trust fund set up by her grandparents. She also receives an ample amount of pocket money each week from her parents. She has no reason to steal.’
Wow, you wouldn’t know it from the way she dresses, I think. Typical country uniform of moleskin poocatchers and flannel shirt that you could buy at Vinnie’s.
‘Maybe she’s trying to frame Olivia to get her expelled?’
‘That’s quite an allegation, Shauna,’ says Reverend Ferguson, puffing up baking-soda-style.
Mrs Green looks interested. ‘Why do you think Keli would try to frame Olivia? They seemed like good friends.’
‘Because, as I’ve already pointed out, Keli is a racist pig from way back.’
The two women look at me agape, like I’ve dropped the biggest bombshell of the century. Oh, please. . . We’ve been over this, haven’t we? The racial slurs, the name-calling, the murmurs, the sign on my door.
Do you know what I do then? I let Keli have it. I take no prisoners. I tell them all about every nasty word that I can remember ever coming out of Keli’s freckly mouth, just to jog their faulty memories. Hell, I even exaggerate.
By the end of it, Mrs Green and Self-Raising Flour look like they’ve been caught in a tornado. Their hair’s blown back, their suits are akimbo and their mouths are opening and closing like they’re codfish.
I watch the women exchange grave looks. I think maybe they’re starting to see it my way. Or at least realise that they can’t keep letting it fly.
Mrs Green asks me to bring up the missing money with Olivia again and then report back to her. I leave her office thinking like hell I will.
It’s not Olivia I plan to confront, but Keli.
I wait until the late afternoon, because I know Keli’s usually out on the oval or in the netball courts until the hour before dinner. At about five-thirty, I take a stroll across the landing to the room that Keli shares with Annabel and two other scrubchooks. I knock on the door. Annabel opens it. She sneers when she sees it’s me.
‘What?’
God, she’s rude. ‘Is Keli here?’
‘In the shower.’
Annabel begins to shut the door in my face but I jam my foot in it.
‘Hey!’
She tries to push it from the other side, but I barge through, shoulder first.
‘You can’t just come in here!’ Annabel roars, spittle flying from the tracks of her braces.
I march into the steamy bathroom. The shower’s running in the last cubicle. With Annabel shrieking like a banshee behind me, I make a lunge for the shower curtain and haul it back, revealing Keli Street-Hughes in all her wobbly, dimply, ginger magnificence.
She lets out a blood-curdling scream. ‘Get out!’
I reach into the cubicle and grab Keli’s wet arm.
‘I’m getting Miss Maroney!’ cries Annabel, spinning on her heel.
I pull on Keli’s arm and she slides across the tiles, thrashing like a fur seal on the deck of a poaching boat.
‘Let me go! Let me go!’
Dragging her into the middle of the bathroom, I get up in her face and waggle my finger in front of her eyes, the way that cop did to me.
‘You are a lying, racist arsehole,’ I say, my voice dangerously low. ‘I’ve just come from Mrs Green’s office. I’ve told her everything about you. She suspects you’re trying to frame Olivia because she’s Aboriginal, and I wouldn’t be surprised if you got expelled this afternoon. You deserve to be.’ I’m exaggerating, of course, but I want to put the fear of God into her.
‘But I haven’t . . . I didn’t . . .’
Keli’s face is red and ravaged by a desperate frown.
‘Shut up!’ I yell in her face.
Keli whimpers and then starts crying.
‘Here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to get dressed and go down to Mrs Green’s office right now. You’re going to tell her that it was all a big mistake, and that the eight hundred bucks was never missing.’
‘But what am I gonna do about the money?’ she wails. ‘You think that Wish Upon A Star’s not going to notice it’s gone missing?’
‘Why don’t you take it out of your trust fund?’
An expression I’ve never seen before passes over Keli’s face. She looks cheated and crushed at the same time. She looks so humiliated that I actually feel sorry for her.
‘Okay,’ she says, her voice trembling.
I leave her in the bathroom, and as I walk back through the dorm room and into the corridor, I pass Olivia, who must have heard every word. We lock eyes. I expect her to be grateful, but she looks petrified. I see Miss Maroney in the hallway, walking towards me with a squawking Annabel in tow.
‘Shauna! What happened in that bathroom?’ she demands.
‘Nothing.’
‘Don’t you just walk past me! I want to talk to you.’
I stop and turn to face her. She asks me again what happened.
‘Nothing,’ comes a voice. It’s Keli. She’s dressed in a tracksuit and her wet hair is stuck to her face and neck. ‘It was a misunderstanding,’ she says flatly.
Miss Maroney looks from Keli to me and back again, unconvinced.
‘Go and get ready for dinner,’ she says coldly.
At dinner, Olivia sits at a table by herself. I keep trying to attract her attention to invite her to sit with us, but she refuses to meet my eye. She curves over her meal like a C, staring vacantly into her food as she turns it with her fork. There is something about her bearing that’s familiar to me, and I really don’t like it.
In the middle of the night I’m woken by a squeeze of my shoulder. I wake suddenly, gasping, panicking.
‘Shh!’
It’s Olivia. She crouches at my bedside. I sit up.
‘I’m going,’ she whispers.
‘Where?’
‘Home. Don’t tell anyone. Don’t try to stop me either. If you do, I’ll admit that I stole the money and I’ll be expelled anyway.’
‘Did you really take the money?’
‘Yes.’
Words can’t express how disappointed I am to hear this. ‘Why, Olivia?’
‘I don’t know.’
It’s such a shame it’s taken this long for us to speak frankly to each other. I understand how she doesn’t know, because I used to steal and I still don’t know why. I feel a flood of empathy for her.
‘Go back to bed,’ I whisper. ‘We’ll sort it out in the morning.’
‘I’m going back to Bourke. I’m catching the six o’clock train.’
‘We can keep the money a secret. I won’t tell anyone.’
‘But they know I’m a boong now. You to
ld them, Shauna.’
‘I thought they already knew! I thought that was why Keli was accusing you!’
‘They didn’t.’
‘Well, they know I’m a boong, and I’m still here. Stay at school, Olivia. It’ll be okay.’
‘I don’t belong here. I can’t stand it, pretending to be something I’m not. I’d rather be a boong in Bourke.’
‘I know how you feel.’ I take her hand and squeeze it. ‘But please don’t leave. Things will change, I promise. You’ll change, and then your feelings will change, and then people’s attitudes will change. Some of them, anyway. You have to give school a chance. Give it until the end of the year. You deserve to be here, you know.’
She squeezes my hand back. ‘Thanks for trying to help me,’ she says.
I want to tell her all kinds of things. That I know what it’s like to feel terrified and strange. That I used to hate myself, too. That I did bad things and was dishonest and unlovable. That I’ve decided that I’m going to make it in spite of my past, and that she can too.
But I let her go.
In the morning I wake up early. My first thought is that I hope Olivia has changed her mind, but then I see the envelope on my bedside table. I open it and count the money. There’s seven hundred and eighty bucks in there. Twenty’s missing. She’s planning a trip to Bourke, a sandwich and a can of Coke. She’s gone.
On the front of the envelope there’s some childish writing. It says: Here’s to you, Mr Street-Hughes!
I tiptoe up to the other end of the dorm building and push the envelope under Keli Street-Hughes’s door.
Later in the morning there’s all strains of mayhem, what with Olivia and most of her stuff missing. The police arrive. Every boarder gets interrogated. I don’t give away anything. It’s all resolved by the afternoon, of course, because she turns up at her foster parents’ place in Bourke.
I get a note from SRF and I meet her in her office. She asks me what happened, and whether it had anything to do with Keli, and I tell her that I don’t know.
Shauna's Great Expectations Page 15