Mirror Me

by Rachel Sanderson

  ‘The Ball can wait,’ I say.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Mum squints back at me. ‘I feel terrible about this.’

  ‘It’s life or death Mum. What sort of person do you think I am?’

  ‘Go Abbie,’ Stacey cheers. Stacey is even less of a fan of school socials than I am, on even stronger principle.

  ‘Thanks,’ Mum breathes. She flicks the high beams on, turns and drives back out of town.

  I text Zeke quickly while there’s still coverage. What to say?

  Running late. Sorry.

  I send it then think I should have been more specific. I go to give him some more details but the bars are all gone. Damn it. Well hopefully this won’t take too long.

  As it turns out, it takes us forty minutes just to find the woman’s house.

  Finally Stacey spots it. There’s a Wildlife Carers Network sign on the front fence, and lots of bushy shrubs hiding the house. At the end of a long driveway we can just see that a porch light is on. As we turn down the drive, Mum drops the headlights off high beam and drives extra-slowly. We pull up under a tree and as soon as Mum turns the engine off I hear a ruckus of barking. In a large yard beside the house a dozen or so dogs are running excitedly along the high fence-line, sticking their noses through, jumping to try and get a better look at us. There are dogs of all shapes and sizes, though mostly, from what I can see, of fairly indeterminate breeding.

  Then the front door opens and Margaret approaches the car. She’s a big woman in her sixties, tall and solid, with close-cut grey hair and glasses and a no-nonsense expression on her face.

  We all get out of the car.

  ‘I’m so sorry to trouble you…’ Mum begins.

  Margaret shakes her head. ‘Don’t worry about me, let’s take a look at this little guy.’

  And Tom passes over the bundle. Margaret lifts the flap and examines the squirming contents.

  ‘I’ll be honest with you, I’ve never had a survival at this weight. Would you bring it in for me?’ she asks Tom, who’s looking miserable now. He nods and she returns the bundle to his arms.

  ‘Are they all your dogs?’ he asks as we pass closer to the fence and the volume of the barking increases.

  Margaret laughs, a sudden guffaw that seems to come from deep in her belly.

  ‘Please god no! Those are rescue dogs. I look after them until I can re-home them. As if wombats and possums and flying foxes and wallabies weren’t enough for one woman to deal with.’

  ‘Wow that must be a lot of work,’ Tom says, and I can hear the awe in his voice.

  ‘Not to mention bloody expensive,’ Margaret says.

  ‘And noisy,’ Stacey adds.

  We follow her into the house.

  Organised chaos would be the best way to describe it. There are cages and big bags of food, heaters and blankets, two fridges running side by side in what looks like it was once meant to be the lounge-room.

  ‘Margaret’s menagerie,’ she says, waving at it all. ‘Righto, let’s see to this little guy.’

  She takes the wombat from the blanket and places it in what looks like a bundle of fuzzy softness which sits in a small box near an oil heater.

  ‘A baby of this size needs to be kept warm,’ she says. ‘This is my attempt to replicate the environment of the mother’s pouch. Now let’s see if we can encourage it to have a drink.’

  She has a cup of something prepared on a bench, and she sucks some of the liquid up with an eyedropper.

  Tom and I lean in to try and get a view of what’s happening.

  At first the baby doesn’t respond to the gentle prodding, then finally we see it open its mouth.

  ‘That’s good, right?’ Tom says.

  ‘Hmm,’ Margaret says thoughtfully. I look across at her and her face is full of intense concentration. All that energy focused on one small creature. Surely if the pure power of attention could help it survive, it’s come to the right place.

  She continues for a few more minutes, then says. ‘That’s probably enough for now. I’ll set a timer. I’ll be up all night with this one.’

  ‘Really?’ Tom says.

  ‘Oh yes. It’s just like a human baby, only this little wombat needs to feed even more often than a human baby, because it’s tummy is so small.’

  ‘Wow,’ Tom breathes. Margaret has made a fan for life.

  ‘Is there anything else we can do?’ Mum asks.

  Margaret shakes her head. ‘Thank you for making the effort,’ she says. ‘A lot of people would have left it to die in the pouch. It takes guts to face an animal that you’ve killed or injured.’

  ‘Mum’s a doctor,’ Tom says brightly, as though that’s a perfectly sound explanation.

  ‘Is she now?’

  ‘Anna Fray,’ Mum reaches a hand out. When Margaret takes it, her own dirt-engrained hand seems to engulf Mum’s and make it look small and delicate as a child’s. ‘And this is my partner Stacey, and Tom, and Abbie.’

  ‘Well if you want to hear how the wombat’s going, feel free to call in a day or two. As I said, I’ll do my best, but it will take something pretty special for this little guy to pull through.’

  Chapter thirteen

  By the time we’re finished, it’s almost eight thirty. Before we get in the car, Mum turns to me and gives me a big hug.

  ‘Thank you, Abbie. Hopefully we’ve given it a fighting chance. Now, a fashionably late entrance to the Ball?’

  I imagine it. Everyone’s been there for an hour and a half already. They’ve been dancing and checking one another out. Huddles have formed, and couples have broken off from the huddles to make out, like some weird process of cellular division. I think of Zeke and my heart sinks. He’ll have given up on me by now.

  ‘Let’s just go home,’ I say.

  ‘But you’re all dressed up sweetheart –’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘But what about my ice-cream?’ Tom says.

  ‘Everything will be shut by now, won’t it?’ I say.

  Tom shakes his head. ‘Derrington Delish is open until late on Fridays and Saturdays. I checked.’

  ‘How about we all get ice-cream?’ Stacey says. ‘We’ve earned it.’

  I want to go home. Heading into town means entering the vicinity of the Ball, and since I can’t face showing up late, the last thing I want is to see someone from school after having failed to show at all. But I know Tom will be devastated if the promised ice-cream is not delivered. And I remember how upset he was earlier in the night. I want to see Happy Tom, and I know that ice-cream is a sure bet at cheering him up.

  ‘Alright, let’s do it,’ I say.

  Derrington Delish is a long, narrow space full of tall bookshelves, mismatched furniture and trailing vines. An open door leads to a courtyard garden out the back, strung with fairy lights. At the centre of each table, a little candle glows in a coloured glass jar. Music from the fifties is playing over the stereo system.

  We check out the long display of ice-cream that stretches along one side of the counter. It looks amazing, huge tubs of vibrantly glowing colours – red raspberry, golden mango, bright green pistachio, pink strawberry, creamy vanilla. There’s one called ‘Death By Chocolate’ that’s basically black.

  ‘Whoa,’ Stacey says when she spots it. ‘We’ll be coming back here for sure.’

  ‘How about we make it a thing? Every Thursday?’ Tom says, eyes widening at too many options.

  ‘I’m in,’ Stacey says.

  We order our ice creams. I get stuck deciding and end up getting a triple plate: raspberry, macadamia and honeycomb. Then Tom takes the number the girl gives us and we head out the back. As we’re walking, we pass a couple sitting at one of the tables. It takes me a second to register. It’s Zeke and Cara. They must have left the Ball early together. He’s leaning in close to her and she’s whispering something. She has her hand on his thigh and her mouth to his ear. She looks amazing. She’s all cleavage and glitter and lavender-silk covered curves. Zeke loo
ks so different to usual. He looks… handsome. He’s wearing a dark suit and a bow-tie and his hair is all slicked, like he’s in an old movie. Then Cara moves her mouth from his ear to his mouth. She’s kissing him. My stomach drops. I look away, and walk faster, a feeling of shame rising in my throat, burning my cheeks.

  Zeke and Cara. Of course Zeke and Cara. In all likelihood, Zeke had just been his usual thoughtful self, trying to include me, inviting me to come to the Ball, not with him, with them. And I’d thought –

  My face flushes.

  Well that answers that question anyway.

  When I get up the next morning my head hurts and I feel achy, like I might be getting a flu or something. My memories of the night before are patchy. The accident, the baby wombat, Margaret, Derrington Delish. Strange the way some nights are so different to how you plan them. I stagger out of bed and head to the bathroom. I’d forgotten to take my makeup off before I went to sleep, so now I have panda eyes and pillow marks as well as hair that’s taking up about three times as much space as normal due to the residual effects of the goop I’d applied. I splash myself with cold water and pat my hair down, but I still look like I’m in fancy dress for Halloween.

  The house is quiet. Instead of heading back to my room to catch some more sleep like I normally would, I go to the kitchen, fill the kettle and put it on. Zeke and Cara. Cara and Zeke. I practise pairing their names in my head, trying to soften the sting of disappointment, or at least numb it by repeated exposure to the source of the pain. I look out the window. It’s just after dawn. The sky is huge, filled with puffy white clouds, and the light has that golden glow that promises a hot day ahead. I make myself a tea then open the sliding door and step out onto the veranda and take a deep breath. The air tastes good here, fresh and sweet, nothing like in Sydney. A few birds have begun to call. I recognise the melodic warble of a magpie, and the harsh squawking of a gang of sulphur-crested cockatoos, which is the noise I’ve been waking up to since we moved here.

  As I turn to go back inside, I spot something.

  The sculpture I bought for Mum’s fiftieth birthday earlier in the year is broken. I’d found it at an awesome little shop in Newtown. The figure was hand-made out of clay by an artist with a German-sounding name. It reminded me of the monsters in Where the Wild Things Are, a book Mum used to read me when I was a kid. I hadn’t been sure about it but had bought it on an impulse and Mum loved it. We’d had it on a table in our tiny back courtyard in Surry Hills. She even talked to it sometimes when she was doing the watering or sitting out with her glass of wine in the evening.

  I kneel and assess the damage. It’s broken into four or five large pieces which could possibly be glued back together again. It’ll probably look wonky though. I wonder if I could do it without Mum knowing? Because I don’t want to see Mum’s disappointment. I know she’ll be philosophical about it – ‘things break’ is what she’ll say – but still, it was for her fiftieth. I grab one of the boxes that’s piled in the laundry from the move, and carefully place the pieces into it, then stash the box in my bedroom.

  When I come out of my bedroom there’s movement in the house. Mum’s in the kitchen putting some toast on and Stacey’s in the bathroom. I hear the hiss of the water running then a yell.

  ‘Bloody hell Anna, the hot’s out.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Mum calls back. ‘Sometimes it just takes a while to heat.’

  A few minutes later the hiss turns to silence and Stacey comes out with spiky wet hair. She’s wrapped in a big blue towel.

  ‘Well that was invigorating.’

  ‘No hot?’

  ‘Not a drop.’

  ‘Better call Andy. His number’s on the fridge,’ Mum’s scraping the last of her organic almond paste onto a slice of rye. ‘See if he can come by this afternoon and take a look.’

  ‘Can you do it Anna? I have to get ready for the interview.’

  There’s a position going at the local newspaper and Stacey grit her teeth and applied. I’m not sure if self-publishing three books of feminist poetry necessarily equals the right preparation for writing about local sporting events, car accidents, and prize-winning scones, but good on her for branching out. Stacey’s smart and she works hard and she loves talking to people, so she’d probably be great at the job.

  ‘I’ll see if he can come by tonight,’ Mum takes his card off the fridge.

  I feel a tiny shimmer of excitement. I’m curious about Andy. I don’t know why exactly, but at least the thought that I’ll see him at the end of the day gives me something to focus on other than having to face Zeke and Cara at school, which I’m dreading.

  Chapter fourteen

  The closer I get to school, the sicker I feel. Cara and Zeke. Zeke and Cara. Their names play over and over in my head. When I think of them, all I can see is that kiss.

  Helena pounces on me not far from the front gate. ‘Abbie! How was the Ball? What’s the goss?’

  ‘Sorry?’ I say, then realise she mustn’t know that I didn’t make it.

  I should tell her the full story. The baby wombat. The trip out to Margaret’s place. Cara and Zeke. But suddenly it all seems too hard. I don’t want to admit that my mum, a city driver who’s not used to driving on dirt or without streetlights, killed a wombat on the road. I don’t want to admit that I’d got my hopes up about Zeke and now know better.

  ‘I actually didn’t make it, some family stuff came up,’ I say, looking away and hoping my cheeks aren’t as pink as they feel. ‘How about you?’

  ‘Oh suckaroni, I couldn’t go either. I had an asthma attack and Dad said I wasn’t well enough. I would have been absolutely fine, of course.’

  ‘Oh no, that’s a shame,’ I say but while the words are coming out of my mouth, my mind is racing.

  So I didn’t turn up. And Helena didn’t turn up. And it ended up being just Cara and Zeke, which had never been Zeke’s intention. But then I see the kiss again in my head. I file the previous thought as interesting but irrelevant.

  Helena loops an arm through mine. ‘Come on then, let’s find the others. We need to know what we missed. Last year Tania Brady punched Lucy Wan and gave her a black eye because Lucy kissed Tania’s boyfriend right in front of her. Surely some mega-drama must have gone down…’

  I pull away. ‘I’m so sorry, I’ve got something due this morning, I have to head to the library. I’ll see you at lunchtime though. Please tell the others I’m really sorry I didn’t make it. And I’m glad you’re feeling better.’

  And without waiting for her to protest, I turn and almost run in the direction of the library.

  The morning goes smoothly enough, in a relative sense.

  Dave Hill glowers at me in home room but the encounter with Duncan seems to have shut him down, for now at least. I get my test back in maths. I get a terrible, horrible, embarrassingly bad mark, a mark that makes me want to cry. The teacher, Ms Dearing, has written Please See Me on the top of the paper. I wait around at the end of class, prepared to be berated and humiliated, but she tells me that if I choose to, she will let me re-sit the test later in the week since I’m in a ‘unique position’ having come from a different school and not covered all the curriculum yet. We make a time for one lunchtime next week and she says she’ll supervise the test and I say thank you thank you thank you, though probably one thank you would have been enough.

  A second chance. I swear to myself that whatever else happens between now and then, I won’t waste it. I’ll be so prepared, so focused, I’ll blitz the bloody test. I’m walking along the corridor, lost in thoughts of mathematical glory and training montages of myself surrounded by text books and graph paper with motivational music playing, Rocky-style.

  ‘Hey,’ someone says behind me. ‘Abbie, wait up.’

  It’s Duncan.

  ‘What?’ I snap. Even though I’m grateful that Dave’s leaving me alone now, I wouldn’t tell Duncan that in a million years. I hate the kind of macho-aggro behaviour that he displayed, and I certa
inly never asked for his help.

  ‘I need to talk to you.’

  ‘Sure,’ I say, crossing my arms over my chest.

  ‘Um, somewhere else maybe?’

  ‘You can walk me to my next class.’

  He tags along beside me as we exit the building. I don’t make any small talk. I have no intention of making this easy for him.

  Finally he sighs. ‘Abbie I’m sorry. I hope I didn’t upset you the other day. I just had to do something about Dave.’

  ‘Actually, you didn’t have to do anything. I could have handled it myself, without all the grunting.’ I turn away and keep walking.

  ‘Has he bothered you since then?’ he says, keeping step with me.

  ‘No,’ I admit. ‘But you’re bothering me,’ I add. ‘Right now.’

  He stops. I keep walking.

  ‘Rebecca O’Reilley was my cousin,’ he calls after me.

  I freeze. All the blood rushes to my face. His cousin? Oh god, I had no idea… I never thought… I feel sick. I force myself to turn and look at him.

  ‘Dave Hill was like that with her too. I think he had the hots for her and he knew she’d never be interested so he dealt with it by being a complete fuckwit. Made her life hell. You’d think that after she died –’ I see a shudder move through him but he draws himself up and continues. ‘You’d think he’d show some respect. You’d think he’d have learnt something.’ He shakes his head.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ I say. ‘I didn’t know.’

  ‘And now you do. So, I didn’t do anything for you, okay? I did it for Becky.’ He starts to walk away.

  ‘Duncan… wait,’ I call after him. He stops. Turns. I swallow. There’s so much I want to say, so much I want to ask.

  ‘What was she like?’

  ‘Becky?’

  I nod.

  ‘You really want to know?’

  I nod.

  ‘How long have you got?’ he asks.

  I think about Australian history, which is my next class. I think about another boring hour talking about the bloody Constitution. I think about sitting next to Zeke after what I saw last night. I think Becky O’Reilley’s profile picture: her long caramel hair, her bright, ready-for-anything smile. I think about her twenty-seven stab wounds.