by R. M. Corbet
‘He was playing his sax to show off!’ I sobbed. ‘She was there, in his room, on his bed!’
‘Boys love to show off,’ said Ella. ‘They can’t help it. That’s how they’re programmed.’
She told me all about her show-off boyfriends from art school. The poet who used big words she’d never heard of before. The webcam artist who had live cameras in every room, 24/7. The sculptor who said smashing windows was art.
Just how many boyfriends had Ella had, anyway?
We were slicing and dicing when Lou came in, looking uncertain. Jill had gone home. It had been a good lesson. He was counting the money, as if that was proof.
I put my head down so he wouldn’t see my tear-stained cheeks.
‘Are you okay, Maude?’
‘It’s just the onions,’ said Ella.
Lou glanced at his sister, then back at me.
‘Jill’s my new student. It was her first lesson.’
‘You should teach her next time, instead of just showing off.’
‘I was showing her how to breathe.’
‘Is breathing really that difficult? Do you really need to show her in your bedroom, with the curtain closed?’
Lou sighed. ‘You said you had something to ask me. Something about seeing a movie?’
‘What I said was stupid.’
‘It didn’t sound stupid.’
‘I don’t want to talk now. And I don’t want to go to the movies.’
Lou nodded sadly. ‘I’m sorry if seeing Jill made you upset.’
‘It’s just the onions,’ I sniffed.
public & private
SIMON WAS THERE ON THE bus the next morning. It wasn’t a conspiracy or a cosmic coincidence; I’d seen him on my bus before. It was public transport, after all.
Simon was seated midway to the back. When he saw me, he nudged the boy beside him to get up and give me the seat.
What choice do you have, Maude McNaughton?
As soon as I sat down, I heard hoots from the back of the bus. Simon got whacked across the back of the head, and the girls across the aisle wouldn’t stop staring at us.
Simon said hello.
I said hello back.
The bus started moving.
So far. So good.
Without something solid like a phone or an oar to hold on to, I wasn’t sure where to put my hands. Folding my arms seemed defensive. Placing my hands in my lap was too ladylike. I picked at my nails and examined my palms. My hands were like wild birds; I couldn’t control them. They wanted to flap up and sit in my hair.
In the end, I placed them on my knees, like they tell you to do for class photographs. At least that way I could keep my school dress from slipping.
Now, big smiles and everyone say ‘cheese’.
Simon said something about nothing special.
I replied with something equally obvious.
Simon responded with something forgettable.
I added something unremarkable.
We were making good progress, I thought.
‘Imagine,’ said Simon, ‘how many times we’ve been on this bus. Imagine how many times we’ve brushed past each other, or looked without seeing each other. We could have been old friends by now, if we’d known.’
Was he implying that I was unattractive? Or that he wished we were closer?
I had no idea, so I smiled and said, ‘Cheese.’
The bus stopped and Phoebe got on. She smiled briefly at me, but she stayed at the front. I didn’t know if she’d noticed the cute boy beside me. I didn’t know if stuff like that mattered to Phoebe.
Then the bus started moving again, as buses do, leaving me to make amends for my poor start to the conversation.
‘If we were old friends, would that make any difference? What I mean is, would I still be your date for the ball?’
‘Interesting question,’ said Simon.
Not quite flirting, but almost, I thought.
The bus slowed and I looked out the window. My heart sank when I saw Shauna, waiting at the bus stop.
‘Oh, help!’
‘What is it?’
The door of the bus opened and Shauna stepped on board. Phone in hand, she looked up briefly before making her way towards where we were sitting.
‘We need to talk,’ I told Simon.
‘What’s the problem?’
He hadn’t seen Shauna. Not yet.
There was no time for longwinded explanations: ‘the problem’ was coming towards us, wiggling and squeezing her way down the aisle.
‘We need to talk . . . so we can get to know each other better.’
Simon frowned. ‘Sure. If you say so.’
I stared out the window as Shauna drew even nearer, bracing myself for a full-frontal assault. But she was so busy texting, she didn’t look up. She inched slowly closer to where we both sat, until she was standing right next to me. The bus was crowded. There was nowhere to sit. But how could she not have seen us? It wasn’t possible.
Simon was lost in his thoughts for a moment. Either he hadn’t seen Shauna or he was doing his best to ignore her. I wanted to ignore her, too; to act as if nothing was happening. Sure, Shauna was right there, but what did I care? She was no threat to me. We could be civilised. We could take public transport together.
I could say, ‘Shauna!’ and she would say, ‘Maude!’ It might clear the air. It might be a fresh start. She would see Simon and that would be that. No hard feelings. Just the three of us, riding the bus. And since Simon and I were sharing a seat, it would be clear to Shauna that we were . . . a unit.
Not a couple, exactly. But something.
How could Shauna not know I was right there beside her? It was impossible. It was a trap. Shauna knew we were there. What’s more, she knew that I knew that she knew it. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see her reading a message and smiling. Who was the message from? Why was she smiling? Was it a real smile? Was it a real message? Or was it all designed to unnerve me? Should I say hello to ruin her little game? Or was that exactly what Shauna was hoping for?
You’re a paranoid mess, Maude McNaughton.
I was still weighing the pros and cons, deciding what possible action to take, when the bus took a sharp corner and Shauna fell, gracefully, effortlessly, across both our laps.
‘Woops!’
I jumped. Simon groaned. Shauna wriggled and squealed.
In the confusion of him helping her back to her feet, she ended up taking my seat.
The fallout came one hour later when, despite our howls of protest, Shauna and I were paired up for biology lab. Our task: to view ten slides of plant and animal cells through a microscope. Simple enough, so far as labs go, except that we wanted to kill each other.
‘We’re supposed to make sketches of what we can see.’
‘Don’t talk to me.’ Shauna glared.
‘Do you want to do this or leave it to me?’
‘I said, do not talk to me.’
Shauna had thrown herself into Simon’s lap and now she was angry at me? She had invaded my personal space, assaulted my boy-date and taken my seat, yet now she was acting like she was the victim? Like it was all my fault, somehow?
Perplexing.
I slid the first glass slide into place; adjusted the mirror and magnification. Onion cells, I saw, looked more like chicken wire than onions. I wrote down the name of the cell, sketched it in my workbook and labelled the different parts: cell wall, cell membrane, nucleus et cetera.
I wondered how something so tiny and insignificant could grow into something that made you cry.
‘Do you want to see this?’ I asked Shauna.
‘I told you, do not talk to me.’
One by one, I repeated the process, viewing each slide and then drawing its contents. Shauna sat brooding and making sour faces while I did the work and she copied it. When the teacher came by she pushed me aside, squinting into the eyepiece, twiddling the knobs and looking busy. As soon as Ms Webb was gone she slumped
back in her chair, all sulky and snarly again.
‘Why is Simon so messed up?’ she finally said.
‘I thought you weren’t talking to me.’
‘You are so not his type. Can’t he see that?’
‘Maybe you’re not his type. Can’t you see that?’
‘You’re talking to me. I do not want to talk.’
The last slide in the set was of brain tissue. A slither of mouse brain, to be exact. At high magnification, I thought I could make out the nerve cells – the neurons that made the mouse think like a mouse. I was amazed at the complexity of it all, but Shauna was far from impressed.
‘It’s just a dumb mouse.’ She yawned.
Doing my best to ignore her, I played around with the microscope’s settings. What might a mouse’s thoughts look like? I wondered. Was this mouse just dumb, like Shauna had said? Or was it some kind of mouse genius? Did mice only think about food and survival, or did they have other, mousy insights? Did they have worries and feelings and hopes? Did they keep secrets like we did?
‘I might just give Simon a call.’ Shauna smiled. ‘To ask him to a movie. What do you think?’
‘I think that would be embarrassing for both of you.’
‘I’m pretty sure we could get past the embarrassed stage.’
‘I’m pretty sure Simon’s not like that.’
‘Yeah? Well, I’m pretty sure he liked it when I sat in his lap this morning.’
‘Yeah? Well, I’m pretty sure he didn’t.’
‘I’m pretty sure I was in a better position to tell.’
‘You’ve had a lot of experience in that position, haven’t you, Shauna?’
‘You’re way out of your depth, aren’t you, Maude?’
It ended with words that should not have been spoken; with words that should not have been shouted. It ended with pages torn from lab books, broken glass and a trampled slither of a poor mouse’s brain. It ended with screams and severed synapses. It ended with an after-school detention for both of us.
Why was it that when you fought with someone, you became a magnified mirror image of that person?
There was no one else in detention that day; just the two of us at opposite sides of the room, with Ms Webb between us to keep us apart. Shauna spent the entire time staring into space, sending me psychic hate-mail. I spent the time returning each message of doom, unopened. Not at this address. Sender unknown.
It was the longest half-hour of my life.
When the time came, Ms Webb got up and walked out. Shauna stood up, so I stood up, too. Then, together, we moved to the door.
I felt exhausted and hollow – a wreck. I had no more strength to defend myself, but I knew Shauna would never quit. Was she planning one final surprise attack? Would my body be found by the cleaners?
Then Phoebe appeared in the doorway.
With a sniff of contempt, Shauna shouldered her bag, pushed past Phoebe into the hall, and was gone.
‘Maude! You bad girl!’
‘What are you doing here?’
She showed me her bag, which was bursting with books. ‘I’ve been to the library. See!’
Phoebe was curious about my detention. Clearly, she’d never had one. When I explained how we’d had to sit quietly reading, she only looked more confused.
‘So what is the punishment, exactly?’
The bus wasn’t crowded. We sat at the front. There were fewer kids in school uniforms. More young men in suits. I was glad that Simon and his mates weren’t there. I couldn’t have handled another scene right then. I told Phoebe about my run-in with Shauna that morning; how she had fallen across Simon’s lap.
‘Shauna’s too used to getting her own way,’ said Phoebe.
‘She’s a flirt and a tramp and I hate her!’ I said.
‘Are you flirting with him?’
‘Maybe. I’m not sure.’
Phoebe nodded. ‘Sometimes, when you feel shy, it’s easy to flirt. When it’s someone you know, it’s much harder.’
My jaw dropped. ‘How come you know so much stuff about boys?’
Phoebe was quiet. ‘Can you keep a secret?’
I nodded.
‘The reason I know about boys is because I’ve got a secret boyfriend.’
‘A secret boyfriend?’
‘Nobody knows about us,’ Phoebe confided.
‘This is a real person, right? Not a made-up one.’
Phoebe frowned. ‘We’re old friends. We grew up together.’
‘Like Lou and me?’
‘Exactly the same!’
It was a love story she hadn’t told anyone else. Phoebe’s and the boy’s fathers had a business. Their families were close. She and the boy had been best friends as kids. But then the business had gone downhill and things fell apart. The partnership ended. The dads sold the lot. There were fights about money and lawyers called in. The whole thing became very nasty.
‘We went a long time without seeing each other. Then, one day, out of the blue, he rang me,’ she said. ‘We met up again. It just happened. We couldn’t help it.’
‘It sounds so romantic.’
Phoebe sighed. ‘If my dad found out we were seeing each other, he would sell up and leave town and never come back.’
‘You can’t keep it secret forever.’
‘Maybe one day we’ll run off and get married.’
I imagined Phoebe and her mystery boy catching midnight coach rides across windswept moors. I imagined her father dressed in a long cloak, duelling her lover with pistols at dawn.
‘This is the twenty-first century, you know.’
‘It’s tragic, I know,’ she laughed. ‘But what about your secret boy, Maude? Your boy friend who isn’t your boyfriend?’
It all came out garbled and gushing: my disastrous night out at the movies with Lou. Our misunderstandings. My plans to make up and go out again. Him giving Jill saxophone lessons.
‘I never thought I’d feel so awful,’ I groaned.
‘It sounds like you’re jealous,’ said Phoebe.
‘I’m not jealous! I’m sad about losing my oldest, best friend!’
‘Not so romantic,’ said Phoebe.
I’d rung Mum to warn her I might be home late. I’d invented an elaborate (and partly true) alibi about meeting a new study buddy after school. No need to mention the detention. I knew that would only upset her.
From the bus stop, I detoured to go by Merri Creek. I knew I should have gone straight home, considering the time, but I wasn’t quite ready to face all those questions: ‘Phoebe who?’ ‘Phoebe Wu?’ ‘Where did you meet her?’ ‘What did you study?’ ‘Was it fun?’ ‘Is she nice?’ ‘Are you friends?’
I followed the bike path then slid down the bank to the path that led to the duck pool. There was no one around when I reached the stump.
I had my own questions to ponder: Was flirting a bad thing or was it a fun thing? Was it just part of friendship, or was it the opposite? Was it easier to like Simon because I didn’t know him? Did friendships get more complex the better you knew the friend? Could you start out as friends and then end up romantic? If it worked for Phoebe, could it work for me?
At least Mum’s questions had answers.
Once upon a time, everything had been easy to understand. Now it was strange and confusing. Once, the Merri Creek had been our own secret place – mine and Lou’s. We’d used to go there to hide from the world. Now the trees were gone, it felt empty. Exposed. Once it had been somewhere. Now it felt like nowhere.
By the water’s edge, I noticed a large metal U-bolt – a linkage that must have once been part of a heavy chain. I picked it up. It was caked with rust. It made a dull tone when I hit it – no volume. It was unlikely Lou would be interested. I thought about taking it home for my personal collection, but it was too big and clunky for the wooden box under my box. The U-bolt was beautiful, but useless.
I tossed it away.
All around me were the seedlings the greenies had planted. Eucalypt
s, tied to stakes, sheltered in plastic. They hadn’t grown much since the last time I’d been here. The plastic was helping protect them from the wind, but were they getting enough rain?
I cupped my hands, knelt down and scooped up some creek water. Then, one by one, I watered each of the new plants.
‘Hurry up and grow,’ I told them. ‘I can’t wait forever.’
It wasn’t their fault the old willows had been cut down.
creating a monster
THE FUNKY JUNK ORKESTRA was busy rehearsing. Their churning rhythm of crashes and clangs sounded like a clothes dryer filled up with saucepan lids. I stood at Lou’s back door and listened a while; then I sneaked down the path at the side of the barn. Through a crack in the curtains I saw them in there: Miles, three of his mates, Jill and another girl, with Lou conducting in the middle.
According to Lou, there were four parts to a junk orchestra, the same way there were strings, woodwinds, brass and percussion in a regular orchestra. The FJO was made up of things that you blew, things that you twanged, things that you hit, and things that you shook.
Besides the long line of recently made tuned hub caps, there were forty-four-gallon drum lids hammered into steel drums; a PVC pipe xylophone played with rubber thongs; small painted tin cans in pairs on wooden handles; tupperware containers of nuts, bolts and nails; coloured glass bottles filled to different levels with water; an upright tea-chest bass made with a broomstick and octopus straps; a cluster of large plastic rubbish bins; a horn-type thing made from a watering-can nozzle stuck in a looped length of garden hose; plus some more things I couldn’t make sense of.
If it made a noise, it was an instrument.
The clanging and clanking subsided until the music was honks and hoots, rumbles and rattles. It lurched from side to side like an elephant garbage truck. The musicians were swaying and lurching together, riding the elephant or holding its tail. They frowned at the sheet music Lou had prepared for them, following his instructions to the letter: A crash here. A clank there. A hoot and a tinkle.
It was crazy and funny and brilliant.
I kept out of sight as I spied through the window. Jill seemed to be looking at Lou an awful lot. Was it doubt or devotion? Was this why he didn’t want me hanging around – to keep her under his spell?