Sky

by Ondine Sherman

  A message flashes ‘lots of sunlight is helpful’. It’s WildRider. ‘And maybe Vitamin D drops, I’ll check some more and let you know.’

  ‘Thanks a trillion,’ I text back.

  I rub my tummy, the spot I’ve chosen for Mum’s tattoo. I take a deep breath, feeling my stomach rise and fall. It helps a little.

  I want to save Chirp and the other chickens at the farm.

  But what can I do?

  Chapter 17

  School this morning? Total disaster.

  Three of Andrew’s rubber bands hit my head during morning classes. Marissa and Kristy won’t make eye contact, let alone talk to me. Jules gives me a weak smile before turning away. I watch them at recess, from the safety of the big fig tree, passing around Marissa’s latest modelling catalogue. They laugh as they plait each other’s hair and then Andrew sits next to Marissa, whispering something in her ear.

  It’s official. I’m back where I started, alone and unpopular. I’m sick of waiting for WildRider to reject me too, so I send another message asking why he’s answering all my other questions but ignoring the one about meeting each other; I just want it over. This time he writes back straight away but says he can’t meet me. He doesn’t even give a lame excuse.

  I’m feeling sick by lunch time, at least I have Landcare to keep me busy. Gathering my things at my locker, my phone beeps with a text. I’m hoping it’s WildRider again, maybe he’s changed his mind or can explain. But it’s a long text from Paula. She says we haven’t spoken for a long while, she wants to spend time with me and doesn’t understand why I’m angry. She asks if I’m lonely. ‘When I moved to West Creek to be with Dave, I was lonely for the longest time,’ she writes, ‘cried myself to sleep every night. As well as everything else you have gone through, it’s hard to adjust to a small town. I know it has to be difficult for you, too. But I’m not a mind reader, and if you don’t tell me what’s happening in your life, I can’t help. And I want to, really, really want to. Please, sweetie, don’t shut me out. Write back, okay?’

  After a horrible day, it’s really nice to know someone cares. I don’t know what to say back, I’ll think about it and reply later. As I walk to Landcare I spot Marissa, Kristy and Andrew sharing a smoke by the woodwork shed. Oliver is there, too, but as usual, he doesn’t participate. Lucy is standing in the searing sun putting on her gloves as I join her. There are pots of saplings beside us waiting to be planted.

  ‘Chirp’s getting so big,’ I say. ‘

  ‘It’s like she’s growing before our eyes,’ Lucy adds. ‘The extra weight must be so bad for her legs.’

  ‘But we can’t starve her; I couldn’t bear it if she was hungry …’ I sigh, turning one of the pots upside-down and massaging the roots.

  For a moment I wish Paula could see me; she’d be proud of how good I’ve become at gardening.

  ‘Dad drove to town last night to get the prescription,’ Lucy digs her spade into the ground.

  ‘Has she taken the tablet yet?’ I ask, putting the sapling inside a hole then shaking my top to cool myself. I’m melting into a hot puddle.

  ‘Yes, this morning. We crushed it into pureed tomato,’ Lucy says.

  ‘She won’t be in pain anymore, which is a relief,’ I say.

  ‘I wanted to ask you something,’ Lucy stops digging to look at me.

  ‘About Chirp?’ I ask.

  ‘No. Well. It’s …’ she stumbles. ‘Are you going to the …?’

  ‘Hold on. Oh no,’ I whisper, catching a glimpse of Oliver waving to me from the woodwork sheds. Despite my heart fluttering, I pull my hat down over my eyes and pretend to be invisible.

  ‘What were you asking?’ I say after I’m sure he’s gone.

  ‘The gala,’ she says, ‘Are you …?’

  ‘No way,’ I say. I can’t bear to see Oliver and Marissa together. And I’m frozen out of Marissa’s group. It would be too humiliating.

  ‘You?’ I ask, readjusting my hat.

  ‘I guess not.’ Lucy turns away to pat the dirt around the new sapling.

  After lunch, we hand in our Celebrate Agriculture projects to Mr Peterson. Mine is chock-a-block full of facts, figures, references and colourful graphs. To add the ‘extraordinary’, I have edited a video of Chirp blinking and a montage of chicken faces, with a cool soundtrack I downloaded for free. I wrote the interview with Greg in reporter-style, adding a subtle shady tone to his answers. That hardly makes up for the fact that I didn’t write a thing about the reality of Greg’s farm. But slamming him for cruelty and deceit doesn’t fit the notion of ‘celebrating’, does it? And what will it achieve if I do anyway? Nothing. I think the project will get me a good grade and if I win or not, it’s not important. I’m not going to the gala so I don’t need money for a dress. A car, on the other hand …

  We finish school a little early and I catch the bus home. My phone beeps with a text from Jules – a sad face with one word ‘sorry’. But what good does that do? She’s scared of Queen Marissa.

  The bus lets me off by our gate and instead of walking, I break into a serious run, my backpack thumping on my spine. I’ve never been so happy to get home.

  Paula’s message is still in my head; I never replied, and feel bad. Now’s a good time to hang out. I could even help. She’s been asking me for weeks to give her a hand covering the fruit trees with fly-netting. My fingernails are already filthy from Landcare and I’m desperate to stop my brain fretting about stuff I can’t control. I spent Sunday stressing out and today wasn’t any better.

  ‘Paula?’ I call out, putting my bag by the door. ‘Anyone home?’

  There’s no answer. She must be in the garden.

  I walk through the kitchen to the backyard, ‘Do you want to cover those trees now?’ I really feel like gardening with her. Paula really is a green thumb; Mum couldn’t keep a thing alive, she even managed to kill our cactus.

  No answer. ‘Paula?’

  Her car is parked in the drive, so she’s definitely home. I knock on the door to her bedroom and even peek into the garage where David keeps his landscaping stuff. No sign. I’m getting worried and am about to dial David’s number when I hear a muffled sound coming from the pantry.

  I push the door open, praying she’s not passed out, had a heart attack, epilepsy, diabetes … I have no idea what the state of her health is. Bee-sting allergies? I really should ask. I can’t believe I haven’t been more interested in what goes on with her.

  Paula is sitting cross-legged, with a can of beans in one hand, and the other is holding her bowed head. Her back is to me and her shoulders are heaving. She’s crying, which isn’t unusual, but this time it looks serious.

  ‘Are you okay?’ I ask, and she turns around, her eyes bloodshot, nose red, wisps of hair stuck to her wet face. It’s scary seeing her like this, totally unravelled.

  ‘You didn’t reply to my text, and I just …’ Paula sniffs. I wait for her to continue, but she just starts crying again.

  I feel terrible. ‘I’m sorry, I was going to,’ I sit down next to her, the grey tiles cooling my bare legs. Around us are shelves filled with cans, cereal boxes, rice, pasta and flour. She’s still holding the beans and I wonder what she was planning for dinner. Tentatively, I put a hand on her shoulder, to show her I care. I do. I really do.

  ‘I’m mucking it up with you,’ she wipes her hair from her face and pulls out a scrunched up paper towel. ‘I love you so much but I’m a terrible mother and somehow I’ve made you hate me. I promised my little sis,’ she hiccups back a cry and blows her nose, ‘that I’d look after you, and I miss her so much …’ She’s overtaken by tears again.

  I wait next to her, letting her words sink in rather than rejecting them as I normally do. My throat is hurting, my eyes stinging and I can’t fight it. We sit without talking for a while with a soundtrack of her crying and my yoga breathing, and slowly allowing my own tears to soften my heart, to wash away the resentment.

  ‘I should have told you about getting
pregnant earlier,’ she says.

  So that’s why she’s crying. She’s pregnant. ‘Are you?’ I clench my teeth, my resentment resurfacing again. Even though I know I’m overreacting, my mind goes to the worst-case scenario. She’s kicking me out.

  ‘No, not yet.’ She wipes her eyes on her sleeve and looks at me. ‘You are upset that I’m trying, aren’t you?’

  ‘Honestly?’ I ask.

  She nods, her eyes wide and kind and gleaming all sweet and Bambi-like. I can’t lie to her. I can’t lie anymore about anything.

  ‘Kind of.’ I wipe my eyes. ‘I just thought maybe you wouldn’t want me anymore once you have your own child. Will I still live here when you have a baby? Will there be room?’

  ‘My goodness, sweetie!’ Paula puts the can down and squeezes me into a hug. I feel myself melting into her arms. ‘How can you even think that? You are our first priority, my number one,’ she says. ‘And you’re not going anywhere, I won’t even let you out of the house to go to university, I want you here so much!’

  We both giggle.

  ‘If we are finally blessed with a baby,’ she continues her voice heavy with longing, ‘then he or she will sleep in our room, and after that, well, Dave and I have been planning house extensions for years, an extra room and office,’ she takes a breath, ‘they’re already approved by council; we were just waiting for the right time.’

  Now I feel totally stupid.

  ‘I’m so sorry you felt …’ she looks at me, ‘… unsafe here, or not loved enough. You are my daughter now too and you will always be our family and this will always be your home.’

  We smile at each other for a moment as her words hang between us. I feel a mocktail of happy things – relief, gratitude and even a rush of love. But I still don’t know why Paula was fighting with Mum for so long, and a speck of doubt still lingers, did she really want me? Or is she making the best of it?

  ‘I was planning a pie tonight,’ she rubs her eyes. ‘Pass me the can of cream on your left?’

  I reach up but it’s behind the six-pack of tuna just out of my grasp. I move my hand closer when I feel the shelf tilt towards me. Twenty cans teeter on the edge deciding what to do.

  Boom, crash bang, they fall to the ground by my knee. We both jump, laughing again, and return them to their shelf.

  ‘Now, I have to tell you something,’ I say handing her the can of cream.

  ‘I … umm …’ I start as we get comfortable again, our backs leaning against the wall. This is hard. I chew my nails, ‘It’s just …’ I can’t get it out.

  ‘Whatever it is, we’ll work it out,’ Paula encourages me.

  ‘I went to the farm over there and—’ I point to the general direction.

  ‘Alone?’ Paula interrupts. ‘The one I told you not to? Marissa’s family farm?’

  ‘I didn’t know that it was hers!’ I say.

  ‘I told you,’ she replied.

  ‘No, you definitely didn’t, 100 per cent no. And I wanted to win the competition’ I say, ‘to get the prize money to buy a dress for the gala. I thought it would help if I had some behind-the-scenes pictures, the farmer told me I couldn’t but I interviewed him and everything was cool but then …’

  Here it comes. Time for my confession. ‘I saw an open door and I …’

  Paula’s lips are slightly pursed. Maybe telling her is a bad idea, but know I must.

  ‘I snuck in. Nobody was there. The place was hell, it smelt gross, horrible; it was nothing like the farmer said. I held a little chick and I couldn’t leave her there, so I took her.’ No, I have to finish this properly.

  ‘I stole her,’ I say firmly.

  ‘And when I found out the farmer was Marissa’s father,’ I continue, ‘I argued with him at father–daughter day, accused him of being a liar, and now she won’t talk to me and has told all my friends to ignore me’. I stifle a sob.

  ‘Where is the chicken now?’ Paula frowns, putting fingers around the bridge of her nose, squeezing hard. ‘Did anyone see you?’

  ‘She’s at Lucy’s house in their rehabilitation cages, and no, no one saw.’ I look at Paula’s face, totally drained of colour, a pale beige.

  Paula slips her hand into mine and squeezes. ‘Just wish you had told me.’

  ‘Me too,’ I say, blowing my nose with a paper towel from the shelf. But there is more I need to say. ‘And …’ I feel my chin wobble. ‘I felt Mum there with me. I know if she’d seen it …’ but I can’t go on.

  Paula says gently. ‘She was a wonderfully compassionate woman; she felt everyone’s pain like it was her own.’

  We sit silently for a few moments, letting the memory of Mum seep through our skins. Just the two of us, me and Paula. It feels strange but right to share this with her. We’ve both lost her. Not just me. Not just her. We’re both grieving and don’t they say everyone grieves differently? I know that now.

  ‘Her name is Chirp,’ I offer. ‘The chicken. But she’s sick now. She was growing up healthy and happy and I hung out with her all the time at Lucy’s place. She’s like a friend, smart and loyal, but …’

  ‘You mean when you were supposed to be at the library?’ she asks and I nod guiltily. ‘So what’s happened to Chirp?’

  I explain to her what the vet said, about TD, all the things I’ve learnt online and from WildRider and our plan to help Chirp with pain relief and vitamins.

  ‘One more thing …’ I say. This is turning out to be a monster confession. I hadn’t realised how much I’d been lying to her. But it’s better to get it all over and done with, like ripping off a Band-Aid, and sharing with someone rather than it all sitting in my head.

  ‘I’m a vegan or I was, anyway. For a year, and before that a vegetarian.’

  ‘Oh no!’ Paula gasps. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘I did last year at Christmas,’ I say. ‘Remember I only ate the salads? Guess you forgot.’

  ‘I’m very sorry,’ she hugs me again.

  ‘I’m sorry for all the lies,’ I say, and mean it, too.

  This time we huddle closer, keeping our arms around each other and gazing out the window at the fading light.

  Suddenly the garden lights turn on. They sparkle like fairy lights in the dusk.

  ‘Everything will be okay,’ she says.

  And for a moment, I believe her.

  Chapter 18

  ‘What?’ David’s eyes widen as Paula and I recount the entire story over vegan pancakes at breakfast. Bella sits on my feet. I’d given Paula Mum’s recipe. Dave had come in in late last night and Paula had waited until this morning so we could tell him together.

  ‘You’re a dark horse, aren’t you?’ Dave squeezes a mass of maple syrup on his pancakes. ‘I knew there was something fishy going on with that birdseed.’

  ‘Birdseed?’ Paula raises an eyebrow.

  ‘I know I shouldn’t be,’ David says, ‘but I’m proud of you, Sky.’ He reaches across the table and ruffles my hair playfully as if I am a naughty toddler. But it makes me smile. ‘You did something wrong for the right reasons,’ he says. ‘Someone said it’s better to be bad, no …’ he scratches his chin. ‘It’s better to be wrong than …’

  ‘It’s better to be irresponsible and right,’ Paula interjects, ‘than responsible and wrong. Winston Churchill.’

  ‘Churchill, right. Anyway, next time wear a balaclava and take some wire cutters,’ he says. Paula fake-punches him in the shoulder. We all laugh.

  My phone beeps and I excuse myself to go to the bathroom. It’s WildRider with some more chicken tips. He has been nothing but helpful, but now I’m hurt and have to put an end to this unreal relationship.

  I write, ‘If you don’t want to meet me, just say so. It’s fine. Thanks for all your help, really. But I’m good now. No need to keep messaging.’

  That feels good. You Go Girl! I want to shout, or rather, sing, just like the pop divas sing on the radio.

  When I head back to the table, David looks at Paula meaningfully
. ‘I think it’s time, do you?’

  ‘Good thinking, no more secrets in the house,’ Paula puts her teacup on the table and disappears to their bedroom.

  Time for what? I look at David, but he shrugs, not giving anything away. Paula returns with an old brown leather suitcase.

  It looks familiar.

  ‘Eleanor left it for you,’ Paula says, putting the case on the lounge room floor. ‘She told me to wait until the New Year, but now seems right’.

  Mum never surprised me. It wasn’t her thing.

  I hold my breath and open the suitcase slowly, Bella by my side sniffing curiously. It’s full of stuff. First, I pull out a jewellery box which holds beaded necklaces and five Indian bracelets, the ones she wore to the beach that day we found the pebble. My favourite day ever. They are mirrored, multi-coloured and hippy just like Mum.

  I take off my Marissa-club bracelet and put Mum’s on. They chime together, flooding me with memories. Next, I inspect all the necklaces. One is strung with small black beads around a silver crescent moon. It’s beautiful. Then I find Mum’s favourite rainbow scarf and wrap it around my neck, and I’m enveloped in her smell. Just in time, as her scent has finally faded from her Sea Shepherd top. My eyes are brimming with tears.

  ‘Is that a dress?’ I uncover some shimmering black fabric. ‘I never saw Mum wear this.’

  ‘She wore it to her high school formal,’ Paula says. ‘She had a brilliant time that night.’ Paula laughs with the memory. ‘Wow, she had this major crush on some guy.’

  I hold the dress up against my body. It’s a halter-neck, tapered around the bust and flowing down into folds of soft silk. The fabric is embroidered with tiny silver moons. I feel a mix of happy and sad, because the dress would be perfect for the gala. But that was if I was going, which I’m not.