Frankie

by Shivaun Plozza

  So when I rocked up half an hour late, Vukovic was waiting for me, sitting with her palms facedown on her antique desk, a steaming mug of coffee in front of her. Not the only thing steaming.

  ‘I’ve been waiting,’ she said.

  ‘That’s bonus free time for you,’ I said. ‘To do whatever it is that you do outside of school. Actually, what do you do? I’m betting it’s got something to do with horses.’

  ‘I take my job very seriously,’ she snapped. ‘You should take your future seriously.’

  ‘I said I was sorry.’

  ‘Sorry only works the first few times, Frankie. But you keep making the same mistakes.’

  I thought hard about climbing across Vukovic’s desk, grabbing one of her stupid horse pictures and throwing it across the room. It would have smashed through the window and sailed into the quad. It might have landed on someone’s head. Ava Devar’s, if I was lucky.

  I didn’t do it. But I thought about it. In graphic detail.

  ‘I called you in today because I’m not sure I can trust that you’ll say the right thing at the meeting on Monday,’ she said. ‘When the board calls on you to explain your actions.’

  I didn’t say anything. In my head I was busy doing the conga around Ava Devar’s lifeless body.

  ‘So I’m asking you to write a statement. I suggest you take this seriously. I don’t think you understand how close you are to losing your place at this school.’ She waved me toward the door. Dismissed. ‘Doreen on reception will set you up with a pen and paper.’

  So for the second time this week I’m being made to write something and I’ve got an audience while I’m doing it. If Square-Tits looks down her nose at me one more time I’ll insert my pencil up it.

  She clears her throat loudly and reaches for the white-out.

  I check my phone but Cara hasn’t responded to my latest text.

  I raise my hand. ‘Miss? Reception lady? Can I go to the toilet, please?’

  ‘Have you finished your statement?’

  I look down at the page full of scribbles and crossing out. ‘Yes.’

  She laughs. ‘You can’t leave until your done. Really done. Ms Vukovic’s rules.’

  The glass doors open and in walks Steve Sparrow. He’s got a bucket and sponge in one hand, his school bag in the other. His white shirt is soaked through. He dumps the bucket in front of reception and shoves in his earphones.

  ‘Done,’ he says. ‘It’s child labour. Wait till my dad hears about this.’

  Square-Tits’ nails clicketty clack against the keyboard. ‘Sit,’ she says.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Sit.’ She points a narrow, silver nail over his shoulder at the chairs behind him. My chairs.

  I sink lower and let a curtain of black hair hide my face.

  Steve coughs ‘bitch’ and turns around. He takes about two steps before he sees me.

  ‘Shit no,’ he says. ‘You can’t make me sit near her. She’s psycho.’

  Square-Tits points again. ‘You’re in enough trouble as it is, young man. Take a seat and wait for your father to get here.’

  Steve does a massive loop around the room, shuffling with his back against the wall, keeping his eyes on me the whole time. He lowers himself into the chair furthest from me; there are only three chairs to pick from and I’m in one of them. He presses his white earphones in deeper.

  ‘Keep your hands to yourself,’ he says. He dumps his bag on the chair between us.

  I start my statement again: Steve Sparrow is a prick. I did the world a favour. The end.

  Steve beats his palms against his thighs. He can’t sit still. He keeps shifting in the chair – every time he shifts, the whole bank of chairs wobbles. ‘What are you even doing here? Didn’t you get expelled?’ he says.

  I scribble out ‘the end’: If you let me back into this school I promise I will make it my life’s mission to hurt, annoy, piss off and maim Steve Sparrow. The end.

  ‘You’re such a freak,’ he says.

  Square-Tits shushes him. The homework club kids giggle from inside the stationery cupboard.

  Steve loops his finger in circles beside his head. ‘Freakie.’

  I grip my pencil tight in my fist. This is so going to end badly.

  ‘I’m not even supposed to be here,’ says Steve. ‘Your stupid lesbo mate dobbed on me, but I didn’t do it. My dad is going to sue these bastards.’

  He says ‘bastards’ loud enough to earn a tsk from Square-Tits.

  Don’t get sucked in, don’t get sucked in, don’t get –

  ‘Dobbed you in for what?’

  He scowls at me – the bruising on his face has turned all sorts of crazy colours and shapes. It looks like one of those ink blot tests, the kind that reveal how crazy you are. ‘Why are you talking to me, freak?’

  ‘Because you won’t shut up.’

  ‘You shut up.’

  I scribble out ‘maim’ and write ‘kill’.

  Steve unzips his bag and gets out his pencil case. He rummages through it loudly before pulling out an oversized texta. He zips up the bag and plonks it on his lap. He’s got a half-finished drawing on the side.

  We sit in silence.

  The homework club kids are pretending the rulers are lightsabers and they’re Jedis. There’s a loud slap as one of the Jedis gets whacked. There’s giggling and sucking in air, trying to breathe but laughing instead.

  The texta zips and hums as Steve slides it across the rough school bag fabric, blacking out a letter. E, I think.

  I scratch out everything I just wrote. Half a page of scribbled-out bullshit. Vukovic is not going to like it.

  I hold my pen against the paper but nothing comes: I have nothing to say. I could tell them about Ava and that first day of school. I could tell them about every one of Steve’s insults. It gets boring after a while, though – slut, whore, freak, whore, diseased whore, freak, weirdo, whore, blah, blah, blah. They wouldn’t like all the swearing so maybe I shouldn’t tell them. I could tell them about Mark and Ava behind the science block. Bill Green, Xavier, Juliet. . .

  I don’t write a thing.

  How messed up is that?

  Even Steve’s got something to say. Something he’s prepared to display on the side of his school bag. He’s got his tongue sticking out and he’s totally focused. The E is almost completely blacked-in now. It’s the last letter in a single word. In the middle of the word, two Ks stand back to back, the top of each of them is a bloodied knife, dripping.

  ‘Holy shit!’

  ‘Shhhh.’ Square-Tits frowns at me.

  I cover my mouth and swear again. ‘You’re Jackknife?’

  Steve’s eyes go wide and he looks as though he’d like to jump across the chair between us and shove his texta down my throat. ‘Are you high? What the hell are you on about?’

  I point at his bag.

  He dumps it at his feet. ‘You’re full of shit.’

  ‘I’ve seen your stuff.’

  ‘Stop talking to me.’

  ‘I live in the flat above the Emporium. The alley beside the shop?’

  He clicks the pen lid on and off as he stares at his feet. ‘I told you, shut up.’

  I throw my head back and laugh. ‘Man, I could get you arrested.’

  ‘You don’t have any evidence. No one would believe you.’

  I wipe my eyes. ‘Yeah. I know. I’m not going to. I don’t care what you do.’ I pull the lid off the pen and write: Because I felt like it.

  ‘Don’t tell my dad,’ says Steve and it’s the first time I’ve heard him say anything without a sneer in his voice. He takes out one of the earphones. ‘What do you know about it anyway?’

  I draw smiley faces over the top of both ‘i’s. ‘I know you covered a much better piece with your stupid tag.’

  ‘You’re full of shit. No way is that Skid-Mark guy better than me.’

  ‘X Marks.’

  ‘Whatever.’

  He shoves the earphone back in and squeez
es his hand into his pocket, turning his music up. A fuzzy, screamy, drummy drone.

  The smiley faces get pigtails and a sombrero each.

  ‘He’s been doing it longer than me is all,’ says Steve. He sinks down in his chair. ‘What do you know anyway?’

  I give one smiley face a cigar and the other angry brows.

  ‘He’s my brother,’ I say, drawing a distinctly middle-finger-shaped poof of smoke wafting from the cigar.

  Steve yanks out an earphone. ‘What?’

  He watches me drawing. Maybe he’s wondering how I’m related to Xavier if I’m such a shit artist. It looks like poo, not smoke, wafting from the cigar (which also looks like poo).

  ‘You don’t have a brother,’ he says. The sneer is back.

  ‘Correction. I didn’t have a brother until two weeks ago when I learnt I have a half-brother. My mum, as you’ve pointed out more than once, is far from a nun. So it’s possible I have many half brothers but X Marks – Xavier – is definitely one of them.’

  ‘I don’t understand half the shit you say,’ Steve says. ‘But it’s cool X Marks is your brother. His stuff is pretty awesome.’

  Well, how about that. Steve saying something that doesn’t make me want to maim him. Shame it’s about Xavier.

  ‘Pity he’s a lying, thieving prick.’ I scrunch up the paper and shove it deep into my backpack, way down the bottom with all the pens, receipts, Maths homework sheets and muesli bar wrappers that live there.

  The homework club kids hurry out of the stationery cupboard, rubbing the red marks on their arms and grinning at each other. ‘Done, Miss,’ they say at the same time. Square-Tits waves them into the office where she gives them another mind-numbing bunch of busy-work. They’d be better off wandering the streets, joining gangs.

  ‘I saw him the other day,’ says Steve. He’s not grinning or sneering. He’s serious. He shrugs. ‘Doing a piece along the river. There’s this awesome wall, ripe for it.’

  I gape at him; he doesn’t look like he knows he’s just dropped a life-altering piece of info.

  ‘When?’ The armrest digs into my stomach as I lean over it.

  ‘Maybe a couple of Sundays ago? Some black-and-white thing. Not his usual but pretty good, I guess.’

  ‘What time?’

  ‘Dunno.’

  ‘Was anyone with him?’

  He shrugs.

  ‘You don’t know who was with him or you don’t know if there was anyone there?’

  ‘Chill, Freakie,’ says Steve. ‘I was just passing but I saw him with –’

  A loud voice barks Steve’s name from the front entrance. Both of us jump in our seats. Steve stands as his dad marches over to us.

  ‘I didn’t do it,’ says Steve. There’s a clink as his dad boots the school bag at Steve’s feet. Fred Sparrow grips his son by the shirt, lifting him and pushing him up against the wall.

  ‘Do you know who I had to cancel to come here?’ says Sparrow.

  Behind reception, Square-Tits holds a hand to her mouth. She doesn’t say anything, though. She doesn’t even get up.

  Steve’s blinking his eyes heaps. ‘But I didn’t do it.’

  Sparrow pushes Steve in the chest as he lets go of the shirt. ‘Defacing school property? The same damn thing every time. You’re a waste of space.’

  As Sparrow bends, grabbing Steve’s school bag in the middle, he glances at me. I’m not sure he recognises me but he sneers anyway. Talk about resting bitch face. I open my mouth – there are twenty different smart-arsed things I could say but I don’t say any of them. The bag strap catches on the armrest and Sparrow yanks it hard to free it, rocking my chair.

  ‘We’re going.’ He doesn’t even look at Steve as he says it.

  Steve watches his dad march out, the glass door rattling as he slams it shut behind him. Steve stands there, hands balled into fists by his side, breathing hard.

  Nobody says anything.

  Steve pushes his hair out of his eyes, sniffing loudly. Then he looks at me. ‘What the fuck you staring at, Freakie?’ He sounds like a five-year-old.

  I shake my head. Twenty different things I could say.

  He walks away, punching open the doors.

  Square-Tits gawks at me.

  I don’t know if I sit there for half an hour or half a second but eventually I get up and walk to the reception desk.

  ‘You have something for me, Fran-chess-caaar?’ She holds out her hand.

  I place the pen in her palm.

  ‘And the –’

  I walk away.

  I ring the front doorbell.

  There’s a tumble of thumping and shouting as Cara’s brothers rush to answer the door.

  Lawrence gets there first, elbowing Aaron as he flings it open.

  He looks excited for all of about three seconds and then his face crumples. ‘It’s only Freakie,’ he yells.

  Aaron shoots me a glare. ‘We’re waiting on pizza,’ he says.

  ‘Take a look in the mirror,’ I tell him.

  Lawrence grabs his gut and laughs. ‘Oh my god. Burn.’

  Aaron kicks Lawrence in the shins. ‘Shut up. At least I don’t have a pizza arse.’

  ‘Do not!’

  Cara appears halfway down the entrance hall, coming from the lounge. Her smile is wiped the second she sees me.

  I’ve seen her give that look to Ava about a billion times and it’s always made me laugh. Because I wasn’t on the receiving end. Because she was giving that look to Ava out of loyalty to me. Having her death stare turned on me is a massive kick in the guts.

  This isn’t going to be easy.

  ‘You two, get back in the lounge,’ she snaps. The twins are kicking and punching each other. Cara boots one of them up the behind, I can’t tell which from here. ‘What did I tell you?’

  ‘You said you’re a loser.’

  ‘You said we could read your diary. Oh wait, we already did.’

  She kicks out, but they’re already running for the lounge, snorting with laughter.

  ‘Boys, huh?’ I say with a plastered-on grin.

  Cara juts out her chin. ‘What do you want?’

  Okay, Frankie. You never expected this to be easy. Just do it. I shift my weight and chew on my lip.

  ‘I’m here to say sorry.’

  ‘You said that already. I wasn’t impressed the first time.’

  ‘I know. But this time I’m saying sorry with Spanish donuts.’ I hold out the paper bag. It’s almost completely translucent, the fat having seeped through the paper. Most of the sugar is shuffling round the bottom of the bag.

  ‘And I’ve got another lead. About Xavier. I thought we could go together. I’m not really supposed to leave the house without asking Vinnie first but if we hurry . . .’

  She leans against the doorframe and watches me, arms folded, paying no attention to my bribe. She’s kind of frowning, kind of pissed off, kind of worried.

  ‘What’s the name of the guy my mum’s dating?’ she asks.

  ‘Huh?’ I open the bag to make sure the donut-y smell can waft seductively up to her nose.

  She blinks, slowly enough that her eyes are closed for a couple of seconds. Blotting me out of her vision, I guess. When she speaks there’s a pause between each of her words. The way you talk to someone you think is mentally challenged. ‘What’s the name of the guy my mum’s dating?’

  ‘Your mum’s dating someone?’

  ‘What happened to Paul at work a week ago?’

  ‘Your older brother?’

  She nods. Again, it’s slow and deliberate. ‘You know, six foot, shoulder-length black hair, you’ve met him about a hundred times.’

  ‘I don’t know what happened to him.’

  ‘How about me? Do you know how my date with Truc went?’

  ‘You had a date?’

  She looks away. ‘Exactly.’

  I shuffle from foot to foot. Waiting. I don’t think this is going very well.

  ‘You don’t know anything beca
use you haven’t asked,’ says Cara.

  ‘I’ve been distracted but –’

  ‘Yeah, Frankie. I know you’ve had a shit time of it, but seriously. Get over it. We’ve all got sob stories. Yours isn’t even the worst one around.’

  I step back. I guess the depth of her anger has caught me off guard. Even when she’s standing on the top step and I’m at the bottom, I’m still taller. So how come I feel so damn small?

  ‘You could just tell me stuff,’ I say. ‘You don’t have to wait for me to ask.’

  She laughs. ‘If I waited I’d be wetting myself in an old people’s home before you took an interest in my life. But it isn’t even about that.’ She folds her arms. ‘I can get over the fact that you’re self-absorbed. You always have been. I can even forgive you flaking on me over a boy but I don’t think I can get over you lying to me. You lied to me. I thought we were in it together.’

  I lower the donuts, my cheeks burning. How stupid am I? This isn’t like the time I spilt coke on her favourite t-shirt after borrowing it without asking first. That took me ten Spanish donuts and two English essays to fix. And here I am with a bag of donuts – cold now – and a bunch of half-arsed excuses.

  ‘I mean, you’re not even going to tell me what you and that burglar were really doing, are you?’

  I grip the bag tightly. The only sounds are passing traffic, a really loud cartoon blaring from inside the house, and Lawrence and Aaron screaming insults at each other. The perfect soundtrack to a perfect moment.

  ‘I’m so bored with this. You never tell me anything. You won’t even tell me why you hit Steve and I’m supposed to be your best friend.’

  I drop the donuts at her feet and stick up my finger. I’ve never done that to Cara but there’s a first time for everything. ‘Screw you,’ I say. ‘I don’t need this.’ I stomp on the donuts.

  ‘Real mature, Frankie.’

  I charge down the front path and wrestle with the front gate. ‘If everything about me is so damn annoying then I don’t know why you even bother.’

  ‘That makes two of us.’

  I finally win the war with the gate, slamming it shut behind me and stalking up the street. I don’t look over my shoulder even though all I want to do is go running back, begging for a second shot. A third shot. A gazillionth shot.