Outside In

by Chrissie Keighery

  The night dragged on and on. This would be her forever. Her future.

  She wondered who wrote that note. She hated whoever it was, hated herself for not following the most important tips on that website. Erase your site history! Don’t get caught!

  It was suffocating in her room. Cecilia opened a window, but it didn’t help. It was her life that was suffocating. Trying to control everything. Squashing her feelings deep inside her. Creating a web of lies.

  Her friends should mind their own business. They shouldn’t be judging her. She was surviving.

  But she knew that surviving was different to living.

  The digital clock told her it was 3 a.m. The time brought Meredith’s comment back to her, and it was strange how it was Meredith who’d found those words. The new Meredith.

  You’re not just your body, Cec.

  The torch was where it was supposed to be. Top drawer, left-hand side. The floorboards creaked as Cecilia walked through the kitchen and out into the night. The moon was a crescent, hovering above her. She lifted the lid of the bin and opened the plastic bag on top.

  The cards were there. She fished them out. There was a little damage, a tear, a stain, but essentially they were intact. Grace. Courage. Cecilia.

  Cecilia leant against the bin. Was this really her? She knew she wasn’t angry with her friends. Or even with whoever wrote the note. She knew what she wasn’t. But what was she?

  Afraid.

  How had she started down this path? Where would it lead?

  Back in her room, the digital clock said 4.15 a.m.

  She tried to put the cards back on her desk. Courage wouldn’t stand up. As she leant it against the others, she saw the business card Lee had given her. It had escaped her clean-up.

  At 6.15 a.m. the birds were awake. They weren’t singing. There was a rhythm in their calls, but it wasn’t song. Short, shrill bursts, one call answered by another. Obviously not all mornings were meant for singing.

  But it was still morning. It was still a fresh start.

  Cecilia got out of bed and walked to her desk. She picked up the business card. There was a name and a phone number on one side.

  On the other side, in Lee’s beautiful handwriting, was one line:

  We love you. We just want you to love you too.

  Cecilia dialled. For help.

  renee

  Mr Moulton stands outside the classroom, stopping kids from going inside as they arrive from their last classes. I have to be careful with Mr Moulton. He is a special teacher. He gets the best out of me. But it’s risky because he sees my work. On some level, he sees me.

  I hover around the back wall, waiting until everyone arrives.

  There is something even more intense about Mr Moulton today. He’s in his grey-and-red checked shirt, his faded cowboy boots, his slicked-back hair. His wrist, when he holds it up, jiggles a giant gold watch.

  ‘We are detouring today, guys,’ he calls out. ‘Everyone to the Art room. Pronto.’

  I walk at the back of the herd, down the long corridor, out of the building and into the art block. And I am worried, even then, that something is going to happen. I can feel it in my gut like a knotted rope.

  There is movement inside the art room. I can hear footsteps, though I can’t see anything behind the drawn blinds. The door slides open and the art teacher, Carina, steps into the corridor, and next to Mr Moulton. The two of them nod to each other, like conspirators.

  ‘All right, gang,’ Mr Moulton says, and sometimes he drives you crazy, using words like ‘gang’, even though he is the best. ‘Carina and I have been working with the art students to create an exhibition. And you guys have been the impetus for this exhibition, even though you’re not aware of it. We were inspired by the work you handed in a few weeks back. You’ll see what work I’m referring to when you enter this room.’

  I gulp. I feel dizzy and light-headed. I assure myself it’s not the piece of work that leaps into my mind.

  ‘We have tried to create a mood inside these doors,’ Carina says, her voice low and soothing.

  She screams art teacher with that voice, and what her voice doesn’t tell me, her clothes make up for. Long and flowing.

  ‘What we ask of you all is to stay quiet in there,’ she continues. ‘Try to soak up the experience, the atmosphere, and use this time to connect with yourselves and each other.’

  ‘Yes, oh noble teachers, we shall be yen,’ Dylan blurts, prompting laughs that ring around the corridor.

  ‘You mean zen, idiot,’ Meredith says, giving Dylan a friendly whack in the arm.

  And it’s pretty funny how Sam rubs his own arm in sympathy. Kind of cute how Meredith gives him a whack too, so as not to leave him out.

  Meredith has pulled back in some ways lately. She isn’t quite as loud, isn’t quite as over the top, but it seems that she has found a balance. She has kept her sense of humour.

  I wonder how she did it.

  Carina and Mr Moulton wait for everyone to recover. Then Carina slides the door open slowly, theatrically.

  It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust to the darkness, for my ears to adjust to Mr Moulton’s trademark classical music.

  The art students are in year 12. They are scattered around the room, some seated, some standing. They are all looking very zen. In the centre of the room there are four whiteboards on rollers. At the base of each whiteboard is a spotlight, which shines upwards to highlight each …

  Each poem.

  I shuffle around the room in a trance, trying not to look. But I can’t help myself. It’s like witnessing a car crash. I have to look. The first poem I see confirms my fears. I know whose poem it is, though there’s no name on the page. I quickly scan the other poems in view and I am relieved that at least they are all anonymous.

  Kindness leaps out from those blue eyes

  Accidental. She doesn’t know

  Her beauty, but it’s there

  For itself. Not for show.

  Cecilia’s poem has been printed out in giant, flowing type. Next to it is an amazing picture, an oil painting. The painting shows two girls with their arms around each other. One of them has hazel eyes, the other blue. At first glance I think they are ordinary girls, ordinary though beautiful. But, when I look more carefully, I notice that there were gossamer wings, almost transparent, poking up over the shoulders of the blue-eyed girl.

  I am transfixed for a moment. I stand directly in front of the work, forgetting myself until Cecilia and Lee move next to me. Then I step backwards, maybe a little too quickly. Suspiciously. For a fleeting moment I wonder if they suspect it was me who put the note in Lee’s locker. I wonder if they thought it was creepy, and whether it had hurt, or helped …

  They don’t notice the sudden movement. They don’t notice. Of course.

  The sound of boys’ laughter interrupts my thoughts. Stepping sideways, I can see what’s causing the laughter. The picture next to the poem they are looking at is of a pair of skinny legs in work boots. There’s a giant ruler about to whack the legs. The poem’s title is ‘Faster, you Fool’. I can tell straight away that it’s Dylan’s, because Jack and Sam are teasing him about his part-time job on a building site. Teasing him about the boss who calls him a fool and a cretin.

  I watch the boys as Carina tells them to calm down. I can see she isn’t as cross as she’s making out. The edges of her mouth are turned upwards in amusement as the boys carry on, giving each other sly corkies and spurting bursts of laughter just when you think they’ll finally stop.

  Carina looks at me then, eyebrows raised as though we share the mixture of humour and impatience at their behaviour. I don’t know what look to shoot back. I never quite know, can never quite trust myself. I start walking around the whiteboards, looking, reading.

  Mr Moulton is right. A lot of the poems are good. So are the pictures that back them. They add depth, enhance the meaning of the words.

  I immerse myself.

  By the time I look around
again, I see heaps of kids gathered together. And more kids are walking towards the whiteboard in the centre of the room. Other than footsteps, the room is quiet. I walk over too, stand behind the crowd.

  My heart thumps.

  It’s my poem everybody’s looking at. ‘Outside In.’

  My eyes water as I study the picture next to it.

  It’s watercolour, and the shades are muted, delicate. There are splashes of colour. It’s a girl in a dress coloured by the sun. She’s crouching down. But it’s her eyes that draw me in. It’s those eyes that echo my poem. Soulful. Haunted. Hopeful.

  Whoever drew that picture had understood exactly what I wanted to say.

  I notice that Cecilia’s shoulders are shaking. Jordan wraps her arms around her. I notice that Lee and Meredith also stick close to Cecilia. It makes me think that they have done something with the note. Maybe they confronted Cecilia? Maybe I sparked some reaction in her? But I’m guessing. I’m always guessing.

  ‘Mr M, I absolutely have to know who wrote this,’ Meredith says. ‘Who was it?’

  I freeze as Mr Moulton replies.

  ‘It’s up to the person whether they want to reveal themselves,’ he says, and I can feel his body turn in my direction, but he doesn’t look at me.

  When I look back at the girls, I see that Jordan is holding hands with Lee. It has never occurred to me before that Jordan might be anything less than bulletproof. But it hits me now. And it fills my head with wonder.

  What else has never occurred to me?

  What else might I have missed?

  I cross my arms tightly. I feel like I did when I was a little girl, after I’d spun around and around and I was about to fall down.

  Because I am going to do it.

  I am the one. I am the girl at the back of the room that no-one looks at, that no-one notices.

  ‘It’s my poem,’ I say. ‘My name’s Renee.’

  ‘Hi, Renny. How was your day?’

  ‘It was fine,’ I say, but I am wary. Dad’s home very early. He and Mum are sitting at the kitchen table. ‘How come you’re home, Dad?’

  ‘Dad’s been offered another job,’ Mum says. ‘In Sydney. He’s home so we can all talk about it.’

  I touch my forehead. This is déjà vu.

  ‘It’s quite a big job, Renny,’ Dad says. ‘It’s a promotion, and it would mean more money. Also, a house on the harbour, so we could really live it up –’

  ‘No,’ I say, interrupting.

  And I know that I have to find the words to explain myself. I know that Dad will require an argument, an essay, to convince him. It will have to be logical and ordered because that’s how his mind works.

  But I am going to give him something different.

  ‘I can’t move again,’ I say. ‘Every time it happens, it shakes my world. Shakes me, and then I don’t know who I am for the longest time. But I’m starting to find out, Dad, I’m finally finding out, and it’s hard and it’s exciting and it’s terrifying, but I need to stay put to figure me out. I need to stay put to give other people a chance to figure me out.’

  He was shocked, at first. The debate rang around the table. After a while I took a break and went up to my room. I sat on my bed. But there had been too many beds and too many bedrooms, and I went downstairs for round two.

  It was late that night when we decided.

  To stay.

  Outside In

  Feels like everyone else’s got the answers

  You got shadows, they got light

  You just got a heap of questions

  While they got everything right

  Feels like someone made your body

  Somebody else made your mind

  A mismatch in so many ways

  You were always one step behind

  While the others found each other

  You were left alone

  A magic ring around their world

  That kept you from their zone

  You try to settle in your shadow life

  Don’t know where you end, or begin

  But you wonder, sometimes, if they feel it too?

  Inside out and outside in.

  author’s acknowledgements

  Thank you to my brilliant editor, Hilary Rogers, for her

  eagle-eye skill, support and humour. Working with Hilary

  still feels a privilege and a delight. To Alice Barker and the

  team at Hardie Grant Egmont, for all their honest

  feedback and emotional involvement.

  To Nan McNab, for her smarts, her generosity and

  encouragement at various draft stages of Outside In, and

  Nicole Maher, our local champion of books and authors.

  Thanks also to my parents, Mavis and Frank, who are

  always there for me with unconditional love and bookshop

  inventories of my stories.

  Finally, to my beautiful husband, Marty, our sons Jack

  and Hugo, and daughter, Billie: thank you for letting me

  dream, and for dreaming with me. I love you from the

  inside out, and the outside in.

  Chrissie Keighery is the author of many

  successful books for children and young adults,

  including her stories in the Go Girl! series.

  The former high school English teacher lives down on

  the Great Ocean Road in Fairhaven with her husband and

  three children. There is a beautiful view of the coastline

  from the living area, so Chrissie tucks herself away in a

  room with shut-out blinds to concentrate on her stories.

  She finds that she needs a cocoon like this to dive deep inside

  her characters; to bring to life the physical and emotional ups

  and downs of teen life. Her teenage daughter has been a big

  part of the process, helping to build and expand the cast of

  Outside In until the characters became part of the family.