“Aww,” Hayley said, “we love you, too.”
All the girls stood in a circle around Kirsty, who raised the candle to Ramona’s face and said, “Yeah!” when she blew it out. She handed Ramona the cupcake as the second bell rang, then grabbed her free hand as they rushed toward the main school building.
“I can’t believe you got molested,” Kirsty said as she stopped in front of her locker, out of breath. “I feel so bad for you.”
“Thanks.” Ramona spun the dial on her combination lock. She felt so happy she didn’t even care that she was on her way to a double period of maths.
—
Dowling Boys finished fifteen minutes after Kenley, so Ramona was waiting out front when the guys started coming through the gates. Adil kissed her on the cheek when he found her.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey. Hey Jules.” She reached over and gave Adil’s best friend an awkward hug, one arm around the back of his neck. He was red-faced when she pulled away.
“Miss MacKenzie,” he said. “What are you doing here? Didn’t know you were moonlighting as a safety monitor.”
“Yeah, LOLsies,” she said. Jules could be a smartass but, Ramona had noticed, he never looked her in the eyes when he spoke to her.
“Should we go?” Adil put an arm around her, and the three of them headed to the station.
On the train, the guys talked about something that had happened at school. A substitute teacher had told the class about a brief stint he’d done in a Malaysian jail for drug possession. He’d ignored the teacher’s lesson plan and answered their questions for the entire period.
“He didn’t even ask us not to tell the principal or the other teachers or anything,” Jules said. “Some people have a death wish, I guess.”
Adil shrugged. “Maybe he just trusts us.”
Jules got off at Clifton Hill, and Ramona and Adil rode on together.
“How was your day?” he asked as they stepped onto the platform at Northcote. “Anything special happen?”
“Nothing at all.” She shook her head. “Same old same as.”
—
His mum was in the living room, spoon-feeding baby Zahra, when they came in.
“Hey, guys.” She smiled up at them. “Please don’t tell me you’re hungry. All I’ve got in the fridge is baby food and baby formula. Don’s gonna do a shop on his way home.”
“I’m fine,” Ramona told her, stroking baby Zahra’s head. It felt like a warm coconut.
“Me too,” Adil said.
“You’re never not hungry.” His mum laughed. “Take heed, Ramona. He has two settings: starving and ravenous. Just pray he’s grown out of this stage before you two get married.”
“Umi!” he said. “You’re gonna scare her off. It was hard enough just getting her number.”
Ramona smiled at Adil’s mum, then followed him to his room. Once inside, she closed the door, raised her hands up to his shoulders, and pushed him against the wall, standing on tiptoe until she could reach his mouth with hers.
“Geez, girl,” he said. “You gonna at least let me get my jacket off first?” He pulled it off and they lay down. Adil had a double bed—Ramona still had her old single—and she loved the feeling of being able to open her legs and still have both feet on the mattress.
Adil was her second boyfriend, and not as big as her first. They’d been sleeping together for a month now but she still wasn’t used to the difference. She lay there, arched her back, and concentrated on his scent. He worked weekends boxing pastries at his uncle’s bakery, and she could swear he smelled like cinnamon all through the week.
“Oh God,” she whispered after a few minutes. “I love that.”
“Wait. Wait.” He stopped moving and closed his eyes in concentration. She held herself as still as she could. A slick of his hair was stuck to his forehead and she brushed it aside with a finger. “Wait,” he said. She pulled her hand away. After another minute he opened his eyes and nodded. “Okay.”
He leaned his forearms on either side of her head and started to move again. “Can you say something?” Ramona whispered.
“Like what?”
“I dunno. Something sexy.”
“You’re so sexy and beautiful,” he said. “You feel so good. And warm.”
“No!” Ramona scrunched up her nose.
“What?”
“Just, warm isn’t a sexy temperature.”
“Sorry,” he said. “I guess I’m just not that into talking during.”
Ramona turned her head and looked at his wristwatch, then at the fish swimming around in the aquarium on his desk. His closet door was open a crack and inside she could see something—a backpack or a pile of clothes—and she looked at it for a while. Then she squinted her eyes almost shut and pretended the object was Jules—Jules crouched on the floor of the wardrobe watching them fucking, Jules waiting for them to finish so he could have his turn with her. He was jealous, she imagined, crazy jealous, and also a bit ashamed, but mostly he was just turned on. And ready to have her as soon as his best friend was done.
“Oh my God,” she said, turning to face Adil, who was watching her, his eyes wide above her. “Oh my God,” she said again, her head falling back.
“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, me too.”
—
“Your mother called,” Dr. Carvden told her the following week. “She mentioned what’s been happening at home. She and Tony are very upset. They think I’m putting ideas in your head. She said they’re considering discontinuing your therapy.”
“They can’t do that,” Ramona said.
“Well, they’re the ones paying for our sessions.”
Ramona stared at the tissue box on the table next to her. Last week it had been silver with pink and blue dots on it. This week there was a new one sitting there, green flowers on a peach background. A lot of people must cry in here, she thought. She had never cried in the therapist’s presence and she wondered if there was something wrong with her because she hadn’t. For a moment she considered forcing herself to produce a few tears, just so Dr. Carvden might like her more, just to be like the other clients. But then the therapist said, “I do hope they’ll continue to let us work together,” and Ramona realized that she must like her already.
“Did I do the right thing?” Ramona asked. “By telling.”
“That’s not my call to make, Ramona.”
“So, you think I shouldn’t have said anything?”
“I would support you, no matter what you decided,” Dr. Carvden said. “It’s your experience to share, or not share, as you see fit.”
Ramona waited for her to say something more, but she didn’t. The therapist’s response was like an algebra problem that was so hard, it seemed to have no answer.
—
Her mother made shepherd’s pie for dinner that night. Afterward, Tony stood at the kitchen sink, washing dishes and passing them to Ramona, who dried them with a tea towel and put them away. Behind them, her mother sat at the kitchen table with Lockie and helped him with his schoolwork.
“No, darling, Scotland has no u in it,” she told him.
“Oh, I thought it was called Scoutland.” Lockie leaned over the page, his tongue pressing into his lower lip as he fixed his mistake.
“So,” Tony said. He was using the rough side of a sponge to work at the mashed potato stuck to the bottom of a pot. “Your mum thinks this whole thing has to do with boarding school.”
“It doesn’t,” Ramona said.
“It’s just too expensive,” her mother said from the table.
“We’d have to cut right back,” Tony said. “Stop paying your mobile bill. And your psychologist. You’d have to get a job over the summer holidays.”
“I don’t want to go to boarding school anymore,” Ramona said. “I like it at Kenley.”
“Since when?” her mum asked.
“Since recently.”
“That’s great news, hon.”
“What�
�s Steve’s middle name?” Lockie asked.
“Frank,” their mother said. “F-R-A—”
Tony rinsed out the pot and placed it on the dish rack. Ramona picked it up.
“Well, if this isn’t about boarding school, I don’t know what it is you want.”
“I didn’t say I want anything.”
“It’s not very nice having someone make up stories about you and go around telling them,” he said. “I’ll tell you that much.”
“That’s not what I’m doing.”
“I just don’t understand where this is coming from. I thought we were sending you to the psychologist to talk about what happened with the heater.”
“We are talking about that. But we’re talking about other stuff, too.”
“All right. Well.” Tony squeezed out the sponge and dropped it into the empty sink. He sounded annoyed but when he turned to face her, his forehead was all creased up, as though it pained him to look at her. “I hope she can help you, Ramona.”
“Thanks, Tony. Me too.”
“Because your mum and I are upset, but we’re also extremely worried about you.”
“Don’t be.”
It was hard to keep looking at him. His sad droopy eyes, the dark patches beneath them. He looked like he actually was worrying about her, like he thought she was doing this specifically to hurt him and he couldn’t understand why.
He turned to her mother. “I’m all done here, love. Think I’ll head out for a bit.”
“Where you going?”
“Just for a drive.”
“Can I come?” Lockie asked.
“I don’t think so, mate.” Tony left the kitchen. Out in the hallway, there was the sound of keys, and then the front door shutting behind him.
Ramona’s mother smiled over at her. “I’m glad you two had that talk. Now maybe things can return to normal around here.”
“I’d hardly call it a talk.”
“Well, you know Tony. He tries.”
Ramona did know Tony. She remembered a joke someone had made at the wedding, about how the longest sentence he’d ever spoken was “Will you marry me?”
“I’ve finished most of the dishes,” Ramona said. “Can I leave the rest?”
“Can you just dry them and put them away?” her mum said. “A full rack of dishes is the last thing I need to deal with first thing in the morning.” She stood up and ruffled Lockie’s hair. “Come on, you,” she said. “Let’s get you changed and into bed.”
—
All the girls except Minyung came to Ramona’s slumber party on Saturday night. They ate pizza in the living room and watched Napoleon Dynamite on DVD. Most of them knew it by heart. Every time someone walked past to the kitchen, the girls turned their heads to see if it was Tony. But he didn’t appear—he’d gone for a drive as he had most nights that week—and the only person who came by was Steve, who stuck his finger up at Ramona and said hi to the other girls.
“Hi,” they said, looking at one another to check if anyone was flirting with him. Nobody was.
After they’d watched the special features, Kirsty said, “Let’s go to Ramona’s room.” The girls followed her upstairs, where Kirsty shut Ramona’s door and told everyone to sit in a circle on the floor. She switched the light off and turned on a torch. “The reason Minyung isn’t here,” she said, sitting down, “is because she told her mum about Ramona being molested, and her mum wouldn’t let her come. Here.” She handed the torch to Ramona. “Hold this under your face and tell us exactly what happened with you and Tony.”
“I don’t know,” Ramona said. The girls were all sitting cross-legged, watching her. “He’d, like, rub me down. He never touched me with his hands. He always used the towel.”
“Did he, like, use his fingers?” Skye’s eyes were shiny in the low light.
“Not right inside,” Ramona said, the heat from the torch warming her chin. “But almost. Like outside, in between.”
Kirsty reached out and took the torch from Ramona. She held it under her face and looked around the circle. “Once, a few years ago, I was at the movies with my mum, and this guy sitting two seats away from us had these running shorts on, you know? They were all pushed up to his thighs and his dick was hanging out of them. I saw it as soon as we sat down but it took my mum a few minutes to notice. Then straight away she grabbed my hand and pulled me into another row, far away. I thought it was a mistake, and the guy didn’t know. But my mum told me later that the guy was a sicko and he was doing it on purpose.”
“Hey, that happened to me once!” Hayley said.
“You can’t talk unless you have the torch,” Kirsty said.
Hayley took it from her and began to speak. “That happened to me once, in Princes Park. I was waiting with my sister for our brother to finish footy practice, and this guy was sitting near us under a tree and he was hanging out of his shorts. We didn’t move. It was weird. Jodie wanted to leave but I felt like it would be mean to the guy. Like he’d be angry or something. Or maybe he’d follow us.”
“Yeah.” Skye reached for the torch. “Like sometimes on a crowded tram, a guy will pass me and I’ll feel him brush up against my bum. But I can’t do anything about it because, like, who would I tell? And anyway, it’s impossible to know if he did it on purpose or not.”
Amber was next. “When I was going out with that guy Tyler last year, he made me give him blow jobs all the time. Like every time we were together. We’d be kissing and stuff, and then he’d put his hand on my head and push me down there.”
“This isn’t about me,” Danielle said, “but my cousin Marnie was raped once. It was by a guy she was going out with but they hadn’t done it before, and that’s how she lost her virginity.”
“I once saw a prostitute doing it doggy-style in an alleyway in St. Kilda. The guy was just, like, a business guy in a suit.”
“My brother downloads this porn with these guys being really mean to women, calling them bitches and forcing them to do stuff. I don’t think his girlfriend knows about it.”
“About a month ago—” Kirsty was whispering now. The torch batteries were dying and the light was dimmer than before. “Me and Jeremy got really stoned with some of his friends. We were all in his room watching a movie and he pulled his pants down under the blanket and I gave him a hand job. And the others could see what was going on under there and they didn’t say anything. I felt weird about it but I kept going. For, like, ages. Maybe it was because he was stoned, but he didn’t come.” She looked at Ramona. “One of the guys in the room was Adil.” Just then the torch flickered and the bedroom door creaked open.
“Aaaah!” All the girls screamed.
“Girls?” Ramona’s mother stood in the doorway with a plate in her hands.
“God, you scared us,” said Skye.
“Yeah,” said Kirsty. “We thought you were a man coming to get us.”
“Don’t be silly,” said Ramona’s mum. “It’s just me. I thought you might like some Anzac biscuits.”
“What’s happening?” Steve appeared behind her in the doorway, craning his neck to try to see into the room.
“None of your business,” their mother said. “Good night, girls. Don’t forget to brush your teeth. There’s quite a bit of sugar in those.” She pushed Steve away from the doorway and turned on the light in Ramona’s room before she closed the door.
—
In assembly Monday morning, during the singing of the national anthem, Amber put her hand to her forehead and collapsed into the aisle. The teachers found an empty bottle of liquid laxative in her bag. They called her father and sent her to the nurse’s office. At first recess, the girls stood in the corridor exchanging hugs. When Ramona asked if anyone could come keep watch for her behind the gym, they shook their heads and went off to visit Amber, with an oversized get-well card they’d made in art class.
“Hi,” Ramona whispered when Adil picked up. “I was just thinking about you.”
“Really?” he a
sked. “Is that why you called?”
“No, that’s got nothing to do with it.”
He took a moment to answer. “Sure. Umm. You know, Jules’s sister is in eleventh grade. She goes to Kenley.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Yeah, she, um. She told him the rumor about you and what happened, with Tony. Is it true?”
Ramona fidgeted with the zip on her uniform. “Yeah.”
“Like, when did it happen?”
“Last year, when my leg was bandaged. Before I met you.”
“Man. I want to kill him. Could I kill him? I guess I can’t kill him.” There was another silence and then he asked, “So, do you want to talk about it?”
“I thought we were talking about it.”
“Did he do that thing to your leg, too?”
“No,” she said. “That was the heater.”
“Well, if you don’t want to, you know, have sex with me anymore, that’s okay. I mean, I think I’d feel bad about it. If I hurt you or something.”
Ramona rolled her eyes. “Whatever,” she said. She wished he were there so he could see her roll her eyes. “Hey, Kirsty told me you were at Jeremy’s place once when they were fooling around in his bed.”
“Oh yeah,” Adil said. “Yeah, I remember that. It was weird.”
“Why? Were you turned on by it or something?”
“No,” he said, “oh my God, no. I just felt, I don’t know, sorry for her, I guess. It was embarrassing.”
“Ramona MacKenzie.” Ramona looked up to see Mrs. Parker coming toward her. For a second she thought about running. “Hand over that phone immediately.” The teacher put her hand out. “And come with me. The principal’s looking for you.”
—
The phone had rung twice by the time they got to the principal’s door. Mrs. Parker didn’t know how to turn it off, so she handed it to Ramona and instructed her to do so.
“Can I just tell the person that I can’t talk?”
“No,” Mrs. Parker said. “No phone use on school property. Isn’t that right, Principal Valetti?” The principal’s door swung open and Ramona could see into her office: to the principal’s desk and filing cabinet, to the armchair, the coffee table, and the couch on which sat, Ramona could see now, her mother.
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