Mirror Me

by Rachel Sanderson

  ‘Okay,’ I say, quickly, before I have the chance to think about it. ‘I’ll come.’

  What’s the worst that could happen?

  My lunchtime with Zeke leaves me feeling so soft and floaty and content and excited that I forget to look out for Dave Hill for long enough that I physically collide with him in the corridor on the way to biology.

  ‘Can’t keep away from me, hey?’ he says, trademark leer twisting his face. ‘Little Becky O’Reilley was just the same.’

  Suddenly there’s a blur of motion followed by a thud as Dave is slammed up against the lockers that line the corridor.

  ‘What the hell did you just say to her?’

  It’s the guy from my maths class. Mountain boy. He has Dave pinned up against the lockers, one massive forearm pressing against Dave’s neck.

  I take a step backwards. My mouth tastes of metal, my palms are slippery with sweat. I don’t want to be here. I need to get away, but there’s a small crowd of people behind me watching on and they’re blocking my exit.

  ‘I – I didn’t say anything… Duncan –’

  Dave has his hands up in a gesture of surrender and he’s not moving his head but his eyes are looking left and right like he’s hoping for a teacher to come and break this up.

  ‘Let him go,’ I hear a voice say. I’m surprised to realise, a tiny beat later, that it’s my voice. ‘Let him go,’ I say again, stronger.

  I can see Duncan’s back heaving with each breath he takes, like he’s just run up a hill. The muscles and veins in his arm are bulging. Slowly he releases the pressure and Dave rubs his throat and looks down at the ground, avoiding eye contact with Duncan, with me, with all the rest of the onlookers. The crowd disperses almost instantly.

  Duncan talks in a low voice, so low only Dave and I can hear it. ‘Leave her alone. Seriously. You don’t want to know what will happen if you don’t.’ Then he turns to me. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘I’m fine.’ I feel like I’m about to throw up.

  I turn quickly, before either of them can say anything else, and head in the direction that I hope will take me to biology.

  Chapter ten

  Even though the altercation between Duncan and Dave has left me edgy, I still get fluttery warm feelings at the sight of Zeke waiting at the gate at the end of the day. We walk along, side by side, not quite touching. I have a sudden, overwhelming urge to reach out and take his hand, but of course I don’t. I’m hopeless with stuff like that. I’ve never made the first move, despite all of Leah’s coaching and encouragement. When I think about it, I get the same feeling I got when I climbed up to the high diving board at the aquatics centre and froze, unable to jump.

  I just can’t do it.

  I also don’t tell Zeke about the Dave/Duncan incident, though he’ll probably hear about it soon enough. Half the school saw what happened. I don’t want to disturb the bubble of happiness I’m currently floating in.

  ‘You’ve got a whole hour to wait?’ Zeke says mournfully when we get to the surgery. A general miasma of sickness and boredom fills the air. I hardly even notice anymore. I’ve spent more hours sitting around in waiting rooms waiting for my mum than even her most devoted hypochondriacs.

  ‘Come for a walk with me, I’ll shout you some hot chips.’

  I look across at Mrs Lahey, the stern-faced woman who’s on the front desk. ‘I should check in with Mum.’

  ‘Will she mind?’

  ‘It’ll be fine. She just likes to know where I am.’ I go and stand at the desk.

  ‘Can I help you?’ the lady frowns over her glasses at me. ‘Your mother is with a patient. If it’s urgent I can call the room…’

  ‘That’s fine. I’ll wait,’ I say.

  I settle back next to Zeke, who’s picked up a magazine and seems engrossed in an article about the complicated love lives of marginal members of the British royal family.

  Eventually Mum emerges from her consulting room. I’d guess from looking at her that she’s worked through lunch again. She’s pale and drawn. She probably hasn’t eaten anything since that bowl of organic gluten-free muesli that she drowned in hideous bean-milk at breakfast time. Her expression brightens when she sees me.

  ‘Mum, this is my friend Zeke. We were just going to get some hot chips. I’ll be back by five. Would that be okay?’

  ‘Of course, sweetheart,’ she says. ‘I’m running late as it is, so at least that will keep you going until dinner time. And it’s lovely to meet you Zeke, I’ve heard so much about you.’

  Zeke takes me to a small take-away in the main street. There are pictures of happy fish swimming on the window, and an undersea mural featuring bikini-clad mermaids on the wall inside. There are even fish-shaped salt and pepper shakers on each of the tables.

  I’ve never felt so far from the sea.

  Zeke orders five dollars’ worth of chips and we grab a table at the window where we can see everybody walking past. A few kids are lounging about on the pavement outside conspicuously smoking, and there is a continual stream of customers ordering their end of the day burgers-with-the-lot.

  ‘I have to ask you something personal,’ Zeke says. For an instant, my heart skips in my chest.

  ‘Okay,’ I say.

  ‘It’s a really tricky topic, but I think our relationship has reached the point where we may as well talk about it.’

  ‘Sure.’

  Our relationship? I don’t know what to expect but I’m ready for anything.

  ‘So, I need to know. What do you have on your chips? Sauce? Vinegar? Gravy? And also there’s the question of salt: regular or chicken? This is a safe space. There’s no judgement here.’

  I laugh, relief and disappointment mingling.

  ‘I’m a vinegar girl, all the way,’ I say.

  ‘Snap!’ he grins. ‘I knew we could be friends. Because seriously that safe space stuff was bullshit. If you’d said gravy it’d be all over between us.’

  I feel my smile growing. Us. Is there an us?

  A hefty, red-faced woman calls ‘Number Seven!’ at the counter.

  ‘Woohoo, that’s ours,’ Zeke says.

  ‘I’ll get it,’ I say.

  A guy gets there just before me. For a moment, I think I recognise him from school, then I realise who it is. Andy the repair guy, who busted me with my glittery rainbow cow-teddy.

  ‘Hey Andy,’ I say, still coasting on my Zeke-based happiness. ‘How’s it going?’

  He looks at me, and for a moment there’s no expression at all on his face. He probably meets a dozen people every day. He has no idea who I am, I think. I feel myself blushing.

  I keep talking. ‘You did some work for my mum last Sunday. You fixed my screen. And a bunch of other stuff.’

  ‘That’s right,’ he says, and finally breaks into a smile. ‘Abbie, right?’

  I grin too, mostly because I’m relieved that the awkwardness dial has been turned back down from twelve to eight. ‘I’m pretty sure Mum’s working on another list of stuff that’s broken, so there’s a good chance you’ll see us again soon.’

  ‘Happy to help.’

  I grab the chips and the vinegar and head back to the table.

  ‘Do you know him?’ Zeke asks.

  ‘Not really. He did some work out at the house last weekend. I think the real estate agent sent him. Why?’

  Zeke shook his head. ‘No reason. He used to work for my Dad, that’s all. He was really good and he seemed to like the work, then one day he just stopped turning up. Dad was ropeable. I hadn’t seen him around for a while.’

  ‘Well he seems to be good at fixing things,’ I say.

  I shove a chip into my mouth and watch as Andy pays for a drink and leaves. He doesn’t look our way.

  Chapter eleven

  It’s two hours until the Ball. Along with the is-it-or-isn’t-it-a-date problem I’m now faced with the what-the-hell-do-I-wear problem. I try calling Leah on Skype on my laptop, hoping she’ll be able to coach me through both, but she d
oesn’t pick up. I don’t have mobile reception in my bedroom so I can’t dress and text. And I’m definitely not taking my wardrobe out onto the hillside.

  I know Leah’s been seeing a lot of Brendan, which probably means she’s mid-smooch right now. All good while it lasts, I think, not knowing whether to hope for her sake it lasts a long time or – also for her sake – that it’s over soon so the crash isn’t too bad.

  I lay a bunch of clothes out on the bed. A couple of dresses. Some skirts and tops to mix and match. I’m trying to figure out where to start when I hear a tap-tap-tap on the bedroom wall. I don’t have time for Tom right now. I hold a dress up against me to see if it still fits. There’s another tap-tap-tap. My brother is nothing if not persistent. I tap-tap-tap back, then turn back to the clothes.

  I’m thinking the short black dress with a window of lace at the neckline that I got at the Surry Hills market last year. It’s weather appropriate and fancy enough to be formal without standing out too much. A fine balance. Standing out is something I’d go for with Leah by my side. Walking into the Derro Ball alone, it’s definitely not my aim. I find myself wishing I knew what Rebecca O’Reilley would wear so I could wear something completely different. I wonder if she went to the Ball last year? Was she still alive then? Suddenly I feel sick. Imagining her as a normal girl doing exactly what I’m doing tonight with no idea of what was coming gives me shivers.

  Tap-tap-tap, I hear again. Then a pause and three double taps, which used to be our signal for needing to talk, face-to-face. I’ve forgotten the details of our wall-code beyond the basics, it’s been too long since I’ve used it, so I get up, leave my bedroom and bang directly on Tom’s door. He opens straight away.

  ‘Whatcha doing Abbie?’

  Patience, I remind myself. I smile. ‘Just trying to figure out what to wear tonight.’

  He shrugs and scrunches his freckled nose up. ‘You look nice whatever you wear.’

  I feel bad for wanting to ignore his taps. Then I see something in his expression.

  ‘Are you okay?’ I ask.

  He nods but doesn’t say anything. Which is not Tom’s style.

  ‘What’s the matter T-Bear?’

  Suddenly his face crumples and big, fat tears start to run down his cheeks. I feel a lurch in my chest – Tom hardly ever cries. It hurts to see him like this. I sit down on his bed. Unlike mine, his is always neatly made so the giant superman is spread perfectly evenly in the centre of the mattress: Tom’s doing not Mum’s. I pat the spot next to me.

  ‘Sit,’ I say. ‘Talk.’

  He sits. ‘Do you think we’re going to stay here forever?’

  I shake my head. ‘One year, remember? It seems like forever right now but we’ll make it through.’

  ‘But I don’t want to go back.’ Tom takes his glasses off and wipes his eyes on the back of his arm. For a second, when I see him without glasses, I realise he’s looking older. In my head, he’s still a little kid, incapable of looking after himself, too young to really have his own life or any significant problems. Now I see something in him – a full, separate existence outside of my power to control. He could take damage I’m no longer able to mend. Mum used to refer to my ability to calm and comfort Tom when he was little as sister-magic. I took it for granted, I realise now. One day the sister-magic will all dry up. Maybe it already has.

  ‘Why don’t you want to go back?’ I ask gently.

  He frowns at me. ‘It’s embarrassing.’

  ‘You can tell me, Tom. You can tell me anything, right?’

  He looks away. ‘I didn’t really have friends. People just thought I was an idiot. It’s different here.’

  ‘People here do seem… nice,’ I say, aware that the word fails to encompass the gorgeous weirdness that is Zeke, or the boundless happiness of Helena, or Cara’s honesty that seems to know no bounds.

  ‘But you still want to go back?’ Tom looks at me pleadingly. It’s down to me, I realise. He thinks that if I said let’s stay, we’d stay.

  ‘Sydney’s home, isn’t it Tom? And things won’t stay the same there either. You’ll be heading into high school soon and you’ll meet new people and make new friends. You just need to find your crew, right?’

  ‘But isn’t home just wherever you feel happiest? Wherever you feel most you? And I didn’t feel like me there, and here I do.’

  I swallow. I don’t know what to say. I’ve never felt less like me than since we moved to Derrington. Because I know everywhere I go people don’t see me, they see the ghost of a dead girl.

  ‘Is this really necessary?’

  Following an eye-makeup disaster that would never have happened if Leah had been here to help, I’m about twenty minutes behind schedule. I get out to the car to find Tom and Stacey are already sitting in the back and Mum’s running the engine.

  ‘Does it take all three of you to drop me into a stupid school social?’

  ‘But you look beautiful Abbie. We’re excited for you,’ Mum smiles.

  ‘Mum promised me ice-cream,’ Tom says from the back seat.

  ‘And so the truth emerges, as it always will,’ Stacey intones.

  I hitch my skirt and climb into the front seat, and we set off down the dusty road.

  The sky is all shades of golden-orange-pink, deepening to purple. The birds flit like quick shadows, moving from tree to tree. Everything else is still. It seems like the whole landscape – the big old gum trees that line the roadside, the leaning barbed-wire fence that keeps the neighbour’s cows from wandering, the distant hillside – is painted on. It’s beautiful here, I realise.

  The drive from our place to town takes fifteen minute, and most of the way we don’t see anybody – no cars, no people. I’m fiddling with the dial trying to get reception on the radio, when Mum suddenly veers and then brakes hard, skidding on the dirt. We thud to a stop.

  ‘Shit,’ she says.

  ‘What the hell was that?’ Stacey says from the back.

  I’m as shocked by Mum’s swearing as by the sudden stop.

  Mum breathes in through her nostrils then breaths out. ‘I think we hit something. Stay here.’

  ‘I’ll go,’ Stacey says.

  ‘You’re not a doctor,’ Mum says.

  ‘That wasn’t a person,’ Stacey says. ‘Sit tight guys.’

  She hops out, slamming the car door behind her, then walks into the path of the headlights. I see her frowning then bending over, out of sight, looking at something. She seems to be bent over for a long time. Finally, she stands and shakes her head. Mum winds her window down.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Wombat. It’s dead.’

  ‘Damn it. Is it a female? Did you check the pouch?’

  Stacey kneels again. When she stands up she looks excited and alarmed.

  ‘There’s a baby. I don’t think it’s injured. It’s tiny though.’

  ‘We should call the wildlife carer network,’ Tom says.

  ‘The what?’ I say.

  ‘They look after injured animals or babies whose mothers have been killed. There was a presentation at school about it. There’s a phone number you can call.’

  ‘Could call. If reception was a thing,’ I correct him.

  ‘Well we can’t just leave it,’ he says. ‘They talked about finding babies. Timing is critical to their survival.’ I can hear him recalling the speaker’s words and reciting them exactly, in that annoying way he has.

  ‘He’s right,’ Mum says, business-like. ‘We’re going to need something warm to wrap it in. We’ll have to take it with us.’

  ‘There’s a blanket in the back,’ Tom says.

  And suddenly they’re turning off the engine and hopping out of the car, and for a moment I don’t know what to do.

  Some part of me doesn’t want to be late for the Ball. Which is awful. How could I value my attendance at a social event over the life of a tiny marsupial whose mother we just killed?

  Also, I’m really bad with blood. I don’t know how Mum does
what she does, because I am seriously ready to faint at the sight of a minor paper-cut. I don’t want to see the mangalated wombat on the road. I just don’t want to see it.

  I sit tight and watch them conversing seriously, Tom passing the blanket to Stacey, Mum bending down and doing something then standing up again. It all seems to take a long time. Then Mum opens the driver’s side door again and clicks the boot and Stacey goes around and gets something out of it. I see her in the side-mirror with a shovel.

  They’re going to bury the dead wombat? Seriously, how long will that take? Don’t they know I’m late already? Shallow-Abbie and Abbie-who-cares eye each other hostilely over the bloodied lump of wombat.

  Then the back door opens and Tom climbs in.

  ‘You should see this Abbie, you’ve got to see this. Seriously!’ He sounds more excited than I’ve heard him outside of Christmas and birthdays.

  ‘I don’t know…’ I say.

  ‘Come and have a look. I’ve got it wrapped up in the blanket. It’s the tiniest little thing ever.’

  Cautiously, I open the door and walk around to Tom’s side at the back of the car.

  He shows me a bundle of maroon alpaca rug, then opens it very slightly, and in the dim light I can just make out a shape about the size of a tennis ball. It’s hairless and pink. It wriggles a little, nestling into the rug. Unexpected tears prick my eyes. We’ve just killed that little guy’s mum, which equals his or her source of food and home and protection and everything – all gone in one stupid instant. It doesn’t seem fair. How could something that small survive on its own?

  Abbie-who-cares has won.

  ‘So where do we take it?’ I ask.

  Chapter twelve

  Once we’re in range Mum looks up the number for the local wildlife carer, calls her and tells her the situation. The baby requires rapid transport and immediate attention to maximise its chance of survival, but the woman, whose name is Margaret, warns Mum not to have her hopes set too high. Margaret lives out of town, back the way we just came. The opposite direction to the Derrington Ball.