Finn chokes back another giggle. Granger’s always dropping truth bombs about and to the kids. But he’s also kind and funny, so they take it pretty well.
“Zehra’s a gun,” he told Finn once. “And probably more efficient than you. But she’s needs too much validation. No one has time for that in this world.” He also said that the teachers like Finn because she’s mature and gracious without being a suck. Finn not sure if the fact that he made those two comments in the same breath is inferring that Zehra is a suck.
“Hey, so I just heard that they might be picking school captain from the Year 11s next year?”
He scratches his cheek and nods. “It’s as good as decided. After Emma Bale’s little flip-out last year, the parent-teacher group decided it would be better that the Year 12s focus on their studies without all the extra responsibilities.”
“Is next year’s group upset? I mean, Emma was…” She hunts for a polite way to say it.
He grins. “A high-maintenance stress head who never should have been put in charge of anything?”
“Uh.” Finn eyes Ms Lehrer, but she’s either utterly engrossed in her essay or pretending to be. “I was actually just going to say a special case.”
“Sometimes I think you two should swap roles,” Ms Lehrer suddenly says.
“That’s because Finn’s a far more diplomatic person than I’ll ever be.” He picks up his iPad and plucks his jacket from the back of the chair. “Anyway, you’d better get cracking with the teacher-wrangling, because Zehra’s been busting a gut since she got a whiff of this.” He gives her a wide-eyed, theatrical stare. “She’s after the crown, Harlow.”
Finn laughs and salutes him. “Yes, sir.”
“Now, get to class,” he says in his best teacher voice.
CHAPTER 8
Finn
Willa’s grandmother has laser eyes. It feels like she’s scanning Finn for any faults or irregularities as she smiles her welcome from the wide green armchair. Willa told Finn that Nan used to be a schoolteacher, and looking down the barrel of her stare, it’s not surprising.
“It’s very nice to meet you, Finn,” she says after what seems like a zillion years of scrutiny. She turns to Riley and Jack. “So, did you two enjoy the movie?”
They both nod, staring at the TV, their eyes deadened from the post-sugar comedown.
“Good. Then toilet, teeth, and bed.”
“But it’s Friday,” Riley moans, tipping her head back in protest.
“Well done. They manage to teach you something at school.” Nan swats at the back of her legs. “It’s also late. Bed.”
“Night, guys,” Willa says pointedly.
Jack rips his eyes from the TV and gives his grandmother a half-hearted hug. “G’night.”
“Good boy.”
“Night, Will.” He hugs his sister and gives Finn a timid smile as he edges past. He’s barely spoken ten words tonight. He’s adorable, though, with his little helmet of cropped black hair and his big brown eyes that stare like they’re trying to take in absolutely everything at once.
Besides, Riley more than made up for his silence. She not talking now, though. She’s standing in the middle of the living-room rug, pretending to be utterly transfixed by whatever is on.
“Night, Riles,” Willa says in her warning voice.
“Yes, goodnight, madam,” Nan adds, even firmer.
Finn would be scuttling to bed if these two were telling her to, but Riley just lets out a slow huff and drags her eyes from the screen. “Night,” she mutters, doling out an unwilling peck on Nan’s cheek. She drags her feet across the living room, the picture of despair.
“It was nice to meet you,” Finn says, trying not to grin at the theatrics.
Suddenly Riley’s all sunshine and smiles. And the next thing Finn knows, her skinny little arms are wrapped around her waist. “Night, Finn. Thanks for the movie.” She turns to Willa. “Thanks, Will,” she says, way less enthusiastically. And she’s gone.
“She seems to like one of us,” Nan says.
“Finn said she’s into some TV show Riley likes, and it was insta-love,” Willa says, rolling her eyes.
“She didn’t talk to me for the first half an hour, but then…” Finn smiles and shakes her head. “Boom.”
Nan settles back into her chair and appraises Finn again. There’s a sweetness to her stern, though. Not one you have to burrow for, like you do with Willa.
“Need the kettle on?” Willa picks up an empty cup from the table next to Nan.
“No, thank you, my girl.” She takes Willa’s wrist and shakes her arm affectionately.
The sight gives Finn this warm feeling. She likes seeing Willa in this house with her family. She seemed so alone at camp.
“I know what you can do, though.” Nan turns to Finn. “Do your parents cook?”
Finn nods.
Nan shakes Willa’s wrist again. “Take Finn out the back and cut her some of the basil and new parsley. I’ve got hoards of it, and I’m sure her mother could use it. Oh, and cut her some of the kale too.” She turns back to Finn. “It’s all one hundred per cent organic.”
“Wow. Thank you,” Finn says, because she has no idea what else to say. But then she never thought she’d be granted the gift of that leafy hipster manna from someone’s grandmother.
The back of the narrow little house opens into a kitchen and dining area. It’s lamp-lit and cosy with green walls. There’s a solid wooden table by the sliding back doors. Bunches of herbs and garlic and chillies hang from the windows.
Willa grabs a plastic bag from a drawer and shoves the sliding door open. “Nan’s got this thing about organic food. I don’t think a pesticide has darkened these doors for at least five years. She’s sure she’s going to save us all from cancer.”
“I hate kale,” Finn whispers as they step out into the night. “It’s so rabbit-y.”
“I don’t like it either, but I’m not about to admit that to Nan.” She grabs Finn’s hand and draws her into the garden.
As soon as they’re standing in the shadowy sprawl of a tree, Willa pulls Finn to her and kisses her. It’s fierce and soft at the same time and makes Finn lean hard into that silken feeling she gets when Willa’s pushed up close like this. Her eyes drift closed as Willa presses a chain of small, sweet kisses up to her ear and back before dropping another onto her lips.
“I think you’re finally all caught up.”
Willa’s answering smile is a lazy, beautiful thing.
Finn idly sketches the sweep of her cheekbone with the tip of her finger before nuzzling her face into Willa’s neck, breathing deep. She loves that Willa doesn’t wear perfume, doesn’t obscure the truth of herself with canned girl smell. Instead she’s musk, skin, and clean-clothes smell. It’s honest, like Willa.
“So, how are you feeling about seeing your dad tomorrow?” Willa asks eventually.
“Good, I guess.” The last time Finn saw her father, she was marching away from his car, struck by a storm of anger. “It’ll be weird, though.”
“Do you miss him?”
“I do,” Finn admits. Of everything, she misses just hanging out with him. Sitting around after school, chatting about whatever. Doing the things that they always did, like plotting dinner and watching the news. Now, when she gets home, the house is silent.
She elbows these thoughts out of the way and concentrates on what’s right in front of her. On the electric feeling that comes with kissing Willa.
Tinny pop music suddenly trickles out an open window, and Willa steps back, rolling her eyes. “That’s Riley. We should stop before she sees us. She likes to dance while she gets ready for bed.”
Finn has to smile. Riley’s everything Willa said she’d be and more. All sass and mouth for an eleven-year-old, but kind of sweet to boot. “I didn’t think she was going to talk to me at all at first.” When Finn met them at the park, Riley just stared curiously at Finn from the swings, and then kept her distance on the tram, sitting on the other side of Will
a. But later, by the time the movie was over, high on sugar and soft drink, she chattered at her all the way home.
“I knew she’d do that.” Willa crouches over a garden bed and then passes her a handful of leaves. “She asked a billion questions about you before you came and then went completely shy the minute you showed up.”
“Well she’s definitely over it now.” Finn inhales the cocktail of green smells and drops the bunch in the bag. “Does she know you’re gay?”
“No. I never thought of telling her. I guess because there’s been nothing to tell.” Willa holds out a handful of kale.
Finn wrinkles her nose and holds out the bag.
“It’s good for you, remember? Riley asks me why I don’t have a boyfriend sometimes, and I say I just don’t. And because she loves the sound of her own voice and because she thinks I’m socially useless, she just starts giving me advice on how to get one.”
“She’s funny.”
“Sometimes. I guess I better tell her now.”
“Not until you’re ready.”
Willa smiles and hands her another bunch of kale. “I’m ready.”
CHAPTER 9
Willa
If Willa was asked, she’d probably would have predicted that life after camp would just be more of the same. Maybe she’d have some new outdoorsy skills under her belt and a few more clues about what being a leader means. But she wouldn’t have expected anything to actually change. And not in the delicious, earthquake ways it has. Just another thing she’s gotten wrong lately.
For starters, she wasn’t expecting to have actual friends at Gandry. But apparently she does. Yesterday Ms Ikenishi announced to Willa’s Japanese class that they need to prepare five-minute dialogues in groups of three to present next term.
As soon as she was done talking, Amira nudged Eva and turned to Willa, who was sitting at the desk behind them. “We’ve so got this.”
“Hey, maybe ask Willa if she wants to work with us first,” Eva said.
“But why wouldn’t she?” Amira was a picture of disbelief.
“Yes, why wouldn’t I?” Willa added, straight-faced.
Amira grinned. “See?”
That made Willa feel a slide of relief. Group projects have always been awkward territory. It’s not that people don’t want Willa in their groups. Of course they do. She’s academic leader and top in three subjects. Willa’s pure value-added. But she’s always been a strategic choice. Before camp, no one would ever have automatically turned to her or nudged her, like working together is a given. Not just because they want to.
Then there’s the staggering (still) fact that there’s a girl in the world who likes Willa so much that she misses her when she’s not around, in the way Willa used to hope a girl might one day. And this girl is every bit the breath stealer Willa hoped she’d be. Yesterday she got a text from Finn when she was on the tram home with Kelly. It was a photo of Finn’s legs stretched high up on a rock somewhere in Tasmania, the sweeping view of ocean laid out in front of her. It said, There’s a space on this rock next to me. It’s very annoying you’re not in it. Willa smiled so hard that it made her blush and glance nervously to see if Kelly noticed.
And now there’s the fact she’s about to come out to her little sister.
Riley doesn’t even look up when Willa comes in to the bedroom. She’s on Willa’s bottom bunk, eyeballs deep in her tablet, her curtain of dark hair muting all the little bleeps and sploshes coming from whatever non-homework thing she’s doing.
Willa perches next to her. “Hey, Riles?”
“I’m going to start in a second, I swear.”
“No, it’s not that.” Willa traces the swirling purple pattern on the doona cover. “I want to talk to you.”
Riley’s eyes stay glued to the screen. “Yeah, what?”
Willa frowns. These things never go like they do on TV. Isn’t Riley supposed to recognise there’s a meaningful moment in the making and pay immediate sisterly attention? Nope. It looks like Willa’s on her own. “Um, so, you know how some people are gay?” She cringes. Wow, clumsy.
“Uh, yeah,” Riley drawls in her best ‘duh’ voice. “We’re doing a project on it at school.”
“A project on gay people?”
“I don’t know. A thing on equal rights or something.”
“Hang on, you don’t know what you’re studying at school?”
“It’s not my fault. Mrs Roland makes everything so boring. I miss Mr Majhidi.”
“I know, but even if you don’t like your teacher, you still have to concentrate. You’re in Grade Six next year. Then it’s high school.”
“I know.” Riley sighs impatiently and taps at her screen. “Because you keep telling me.”
This conversation is seriously straying. “Well, anyway, I just wanted you to know that I’m gay.”
“Really?” Riley’s small, brown eyes are suddenly bug wide. Now she’s paying attention.
“Really.” Willa’s face burns.
“Since when?”
How do you answer that? How would Willa even know? “Probably always.”
Riley keeps staring, like she’s busily rearranging her view of Willa around this. “So am I allowed to tell people?”
“Like who?”
“Like people at school. My friends.”
“I don’t know. I guess you can if you want.” Isn’t this the part in the TV show when Riley’s supposed to say something astonishingly sage and accepting for her age, not ask if she can gossip?
“Awesome.” Riley settles back over her tablet. “Brittany’s got a gay uncle, and Lefah’s neighbours are lesbians, but no one’s got a sister. They’re going to freak.”
“Right.” Trust Riley to see this little bomb-drop as beneficial to her popularity power base. She goes back to her game, like Willa’s confession is just a ripple in her day.
When Willa gets to the door, she turns. “And Riles, you know Finn?”
“Yeah?” Riley’s head springs up again. “Oh, wow, she’s your girlfriend, isn’t she?”
“Yeah.”
She bounces up and down. “That is so cool. Finn’s really cool. And cute.” She nods approvingly. “You did good, Willa.”
“Gee, thanks.” Something tells her Riley won’t catch the sarcasm. But as she trots down the steps to find Jack, Willa has to smile at her sister’s total nonchalance. If only everyone were like that.
CHAPTER 10
Finn
Finn stares, sleepily mesmerised by the water lapping at the wood below her dangling boots. The thought of its temperature makes her shiver, though. Even with her jacket zipped to the neck, it’s arctic here. Tasmania apparently has no idea that spring sprang weeks ago across the water.
A takeaway coffee cup is dangled in her face. “Double shot, no sugar.”
She clasps it reverently. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Her dad, Martin, settles on the weather-greyed wood next to her. He takes a long sip, chased by a sated sigh.
This is something they’ve always done together well: mainline coffee and ease into the morning.
“You can see the peak today,” he says, tipping his chin at the mountain.
She stares back at the city, overlooked by its hulking, rocky sentinel. They drove up there yesterday. They’d gone for the view of the city but found themselves above the clouds, unable to see anything but a sea of white.
The thrill of being higher than the weather, of sitting under a blue sky with those fluffy masses rolling below kept them there until they were chilled to the bone. And just before they left, the skies finally cleared, revealing the sweep of land and ocean below. Finn couldn’t resist taking a picture and sending it to Willa.
Afterwards, they thawed out in the gallery across the harbour and then walked on a wild, windswept beach, where both rain and sun happened in the space of an hour. They tried clumsily to catch up and to ignore the gaping hole in their conversation: the fact that he is here and she and her mum
are there. And that this state of things is an excruciating—and apparently ongoing—limbo. Still, it feels good to be with him again. A home of sorts, even if it’s not home.
The wharf is empty for once. All the other tourists have gone to the market. Finn and her dad, creatures of habit they are, woke early and wandered through as the stallholders set up. Then they read the paper together in the only open café they could find.
They’ve finally found their groove. Just two hours before her plane makes the short leap home, she can feel them coalescing again. In their own way. Finn’s mother comes at her hard, all loving nag and advice. It’s mild to very annoying, depending on the case. But with Dad, it’s always been like they’re old friends, coexisting side by side.
Maybe it was because he worked from home so much. He was the one to pick her up from kinder and primary, and so he was there to tell the day’s stories to. And he always, always talked to her like she was a grown-up. He was the one who explained the world to her.
She almost wishes they hadn’t found this place again, because now it’s going to be even harder to leave him. Especially when he seems to be liking this place so much, even if the weather’s crap and the coffee subpar. It scares her that he so obviously loves Tasmania. Every time he says something good about it, she gets this gnarl in her chest and wants to turn and snap at him, “Well, you can’t stay.” Wants to remind him he has a life elsewhere.
He’s been writing. Some kind of big project, but he won’t say what. He’s always wanted to write long-form articles. Used to talk about it with his friends, a few beers in. But he was always too busy. Not now.
He tips up his cup, draining the last drops.
“Wow, that’s got to be some kind of speed record.” Her own coffee is still a warm weight in her hand.
“Probably.” He shifts closer, his heavy brown boots hanging next to her smaller ones. “So, tell me, this girl you’ve met?”
“Mm?” Finn tips her face as the sun makes a fleeting appearance.
“You know what I’m going to ask you, don’t you?”
“Who would she vote for if she was old enough?”
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