Wildlife

by Fiona Wood

  “Do you want another sandwich?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure?” I want another one. But I don’t want to seem too piggy.

  “I’m sure. I’ll have a larger arse than I want if I keep stuffing these down.”

  “Isn’t that what our sweats are for: easy storage of the larger arse?”

  “You know what the Gorgon would say: Don’t let yourselves go, girls. This is an opportunity to get fit, not to get fat.” We both laugh: it is so exactly what she would say.

  “That does it; I’m going again,” I say. I slap some more ham and Swiss between two slices of bread.

  The Gorgon is Holly’s mother. Glamorous, skinny, tan, and mean. Mothers are generally either starvers or feeders; she is definitely a starver: “Would you like some extra lemon juice on your salad leaves, girls?” Whereas my mother is a feeder (thank god): “More gnocchi, girls?”

  Maybe that’s why they let us go into the wild this year: this is the age at which we have perfectly internalized our parent-messages, and so are considered to be safe alone.

  friday 19 october

  You’d think it’s silly and so do I, but it just occurred to me that we never had a Valentine’s Day.

  It’s not February 14 or anywhere near that date, but why let that worry me. Time is standing still (you) and racing by (me) in the most arbitrary way.

  So here is a little arrow from me, heading toward your still heart. Because I still heart you, get it? Too macabre? You’d appreciate it.

  Sibylla asked Michael for something, in a private aside. First he looked happy… to be confided in? Then he looked sad… or no, it was more a resigned grimace.

  Oh, and you would have loved seeing Holly trying to smile with a mouth full of bile when Sibylla told her that there is a magazine campaign that goes with the billboard.

  XXX

  saturday 20 october

  Song

  Christina Rossetti

  When I am dead, my dearest,

  Sing no sad songs for me;

  Plant thou no roses at my head,

  Nor shady cypress tree:

  Be the green grass above me

  With showers and dewdrops wet;

  And if thou wilt, remember,

  And if thou wilt, forget.

  I shall not see the shadows,

  I shall not feel the rain;

  I shall not hear the nightingale

  Sing on, as if in pain:

  And dreaming through the twilight

  That doth not rise nor set,

  Haply I may remember,

  And haply may forget.

  This is the closest one I have found to what I guess you might say to me, based on what I would want to say to you.

  I would want you to feel that there was a not-quite-consciousness, not-quite-obliteration, a release, peace.

  I can’t say it feels anything like Testing New Reality, but I have read this poem about a thousand times.

  The trees make a lacy shade canopy overhead. I’m nibbling when a horrible thought strikes me. “This wasn’t in your hiking boot, was it?”

  “Nah, I ate those first,” Ben says.

  “Bleugh.”

  “You’re supposed to like every bit of me, aren’t you?”

  “Not your foot sweat.”

  “Why not? I like yours.”

  “You don’t know my foot sweat.” Big mistake. He grabs my ankle, unties my boot, and pulls it and my sock off before I have a chance to say no. “I would really not do that if I were you…”

  I probably couldn’t have said anything more encouraging. He smiles and licks the underneath of my foot from heel to toe. It doesn’t have a chance to be erotic, which it might be in other circumstances, because it’s so ticklish. Unbearably ticklish.

  I’ve got a major case of can’t-breathe, laughter-induced powerlessness, but I manage to grab a handful of his hair and he stops with my big toe between his teeth.

  “Release!” He lets it go, grinning, delicately removing a bit of sock fluff from his tongue.

  “Delicious.”

  “Bullshit.”

  He assesses the flavor. “Like salted peanuts, but no crunch.” He crawls up to kiss me—

  “How about you stop for a Clinker before you kiss me with my own foot sweat?” When we’re alone he is easily distractible—like a puppy.

  “You know I can tell what color a Clinker is just by smelling it?”

  “No, you can’t.”

  “Try me.”

  I hand him a Clinker. He sniffs. “Pink.” He bites through the chocolate coating. It’s yellow.

  “See.”

  “Yellow is the closest flavor to pink! I call that half right.”

  “Yeah, only it’s a hundred percent wrong.”

  He takes another one. Sniffs. “Green.” It is green. “Ha! I am the Clinker psychic.”

  “You have a one-in-three chance of getting it right, and you’ve got one wrong and one right. That is not proof of being psychic. Maybe you’re just the Clinker psycho, a guy with a sniffing delusion.”

  “Have it your way—but now I get to kiss you, right?”

  I lean back with a sigh of bliss. “Right.” Yellow, pink, and green kisses are coming my way.

  sunday 21 october

  There is someone more obsessed with running than I appear to be.

  I did say appear; you know I’m not really obsessed.

  I run so I can be by myself. I usually head out with Eliza (queen of fitness) and a book and go to my cave. That is not a metaphor. I have a spot. It’s like a half-cave with a gorse bush in the front (right again, I don’t know if it’s a gorse bush, but they always hid behind and hid stuff behind gorse bushes in Enid Blyton books, so I have christened this shrubby bush thing: gorse). I have a blanket and a pillow there. It is just over a mile run from school, so I am doing some exercise. Eliza loves running with me, because I don’t run, so she gets to do her crazy super-training whatevers alone. We have each other’s backs if anything goes wrong. I know her routes. She knows my cave address. We ask no questions and tell no lies. She thinks I’m a loner who likes to read a lot, alone. Which is true.

  I can have a private howl here, too. What a relief. No crying in the house. That is self-imposed, not coming from them. They would love to feast on my drama/sorrow. I can’t tell you how minutely personal things get unpicked and examined in our house.

  The school counselor’s name is Merill. My mother cut a deal that I have to see Merill twice a week. I’ve just had session number four, if you count our day-one introduction, and I’m faking it like a trooper. She thinks I’m doing well. And I am doing as well as I expected, which is not great. I miss you. I love you.

  Because my cave is hidden, and it’s on the main northerly route back to school, I see plenty of comings and goings.

  Ben runs like a maniac. A machine. He has a different look to him when he’s running. He is unmasked. He is preoccupied, his focus dark, not at all the cool relaxed face he usually presents. Camp gossip has ensured that he and Sibylla are the worst-kept secret around. Odd, odd couple.

  But the one who runs the most is Michael. Brain boy. Sibylla’s silent protector. He, who always looks either worried or distracted in class and around campus, is free when he runs. He escapes himself somehow. We’re only allowed to run in pairs, but people are running alone all the time. I guess like me and Eliza: sign out together, and then head your own way.

  I had to, well, chose to, rescue Michael a couple of days ago. He was on his way back. Pouring sweat, really working hard. He stopped not too far from the cave and started heaving his guts out. Not sick-sick, just vomiting from the overexertion. As though he was at the end of the most grueling marathon you can imagine. He did not look good.

  And I have certain supplies in the cave: biscuits, water, glucose tablets, Tylenol, tissues. It is a regular little home away from. I’m not sure why I did it. It’s not like he was going to die or anything, but I went to him with water a
nd glucose tablets. I was a mixed blessing. First of all because I gave him a fright. And also I suppose he was embarrassed to be caught spewing and spitting like that because the first thing he did was apologize. How disgusting, he said. I am sorry you had to witness that.

  I told him not to worry and offered him the stuff. He crunched and drank and asked if I had a field hospital set up. I said, funny you should say that because I am planning to study medicine when I leave school. I’m not the squeamish type. I said, I come up here to read. He had run all the way from Lightning Gorge. That is a ten-mile run. He’d finished his water way back, and he was running too hard for such a long distance. I did not share my expert opinion with him.

  Running is a massive big deal up here. The long runs we call crossies are unlike city cross-country; here, we are actually expected to run across the countryside—up mountain, down dale, through streams. The goal for the term’s running is the equivalent distance from here to Melbourne. The serious runners will double that. There is a big chart in the dining/assembly hall foyer where runs are logged, and everyone’s progress is marked.

  If you can believe it, people even bring up their parents’ crossie cards and try to beat the older generation’s records. Ha-ha, not too hard. Why is that? Faster running shoes? I have Mum’s card from when she was here. She was a slacker. (Like mother, like daughter.) I wouldn’t show anyone her card, because I’m not into all of that, but people are getting quite competitive. Also there’s a sort of repulsive elitism that comes with being a second- or third-generation person here. And I don’t want to be in that club. The equal longest distances clocked are by Ben and Michael. Eliza and I aren’t doing too badly, either. I’m not worried about the lying, Fred, because I’m planning to scale down the false claims and make sure I come farther down the girls’ list than top ten. I wouldn’t want to rain on a serious runner’s parade.

  Michael told me he likes everything about running other than the fact that it has bashed his toenails into such bad shape (running downhill does it) that he’s losing them. Just on the big toes. He showed me. Bruised purple, dead-looking, and lifting. Gross.

  He said thank you, and asked me what my name was. I said, you know my name, we’ve got two classes together. He said, Your real name. So I told him—Louisa. And he said, Thank you, Louisa.

  He’s an unusual person, but I think of all the people up here, you’d like him the best.

  Fire.

  My heart’s on fire.

  I am smoldering.

  Burning.

  She’s hot.

  Spark.

  Sparks flying.

  Smoldering looks.

  He’s hot.

  Rush of blood to the head.

  Goes off like a cracker.

  My heart is inflamed.

  Smokin’.

  Sizzlin’.

  Heart ablaze.

  Flames licking.

  Flames leaping.

  Burning passion.

  All-consuming passion.

  Eating up the oxygen.

  Fever.

  Igniting.

  Perfect match.

  My flame.

  An old flame.

  Great balls of fire.

  Some like it hot.

  A hunk a hunk of burning love.

  Spontaneous combustion.

  Well, not the most interesting English class ever. We were not really “firing,” as Michael reflected.

  In fact, Ms. McInerney looks as though her head is about to drop off as she squeaks her almost-out marker over the whiteboard.

  We are supposed to be squeezing out some similes and metaphors using the idea of fire.

  The thing no one has mentioned about the fire/passion/love connection is that the end result—the logical conclusion—of fire is annihilation. Fire destroys. It consumes. It reduces everything in its path to ash.

  You don’t have to go far up here to see how destructive it is.

  But it’s a classic love/passion image set. I prefer it hands down to the love/romance image set—hearts and flowers and cuteness. With evil kittens inevitably lurking nearby.

  You’d imagine the whole fire thing would make you feel a tiny bit wary about jumping in, when you think about what comes after the heat. But, no. I have to regulate how often I look at Ben. It’s amazing how five minutes can drag. It’s amazing what a shocking cheat I am. From here I can see a long thigh poking out sideways from his chair, his back, and every now and then about a quarter of his face, a straight nose, a glimpse of high cheekbone.

  For the entire class, Rob Marshall and Andy Stone have been drawing stick figures having sex in different positions, and laughing with the combined maturity of one twelve-year-old boy. I don’t know how teachers can stand it. Selective blindness, maybe.

  It’s 11:11 PM again, and I’m thinking about sex all the time.

  One annoying aspect of this is that it’s something my know-it-all mother has “warned” me about—or alerted me to. Not sex itself. She’s not anti-sex by any means. Sex is her bread and butter, after all. No, it’s more that sexual attraction is a powerful thing. And, in her book, something ideally to be shared with the right person at the right time. Which, in another chapter in her book, not that she’d ever admit it, is probably the freshly packaged virgin son of one of her friends after he and I have both completed postgraduate education. But forget that—it’s all happening now. In my head, anyway. My unruly brain is so overpopulated by a thousand images of Ben—the beauty of Ben the scent of Ben the taste of Ben the touch of Ben—it’s like an all-senses photo file keeps reloading in there, and no one’s cleaning it up.

  I want a break.

  Wouldn’t mind a break from pranking, either. I am sick to death of it.

  Illawarra got us back with a disproportionate prank. They launched the attack when we were busy digging weeds out of the running track—on Grounds. (Why not call it what it is: slave labor, for which your parents pay extortionate fees.)

  We got honeyed.

  It was disgusting.

  Honey smeared over everything. Furniture, floor, every surface, and every glass, piece of cutlery, piece of crockery, and piece of cookware in our kitchen had to be washed. We had to wash shelves. The floors are still sticky after three washes. All our shoes are still sticky. They even managed to get into a couple of the beds before they were disturbed. One of them was Holly’s.

  We did our best to clean it all up, but it was really hard.

  They got into trouble for it, because we had to get help with laundry and an overnight massive ant infestation. Come on, guys, the party’s in here. Double yuck.

  Holly was so pissed off that she infiltrated Illawarra one more time and mixed dirt into their Milo tin. Each house gets a weekly ration, and it’s eaten and drunk in every possible way. On buttered toast, as a dip for bananas, eaten by the spoonful, made up as a hot drink, made up as a cold, crunchy drink. People depend on it, and if anyone ever guessed what Holly had done, she’d probably be dead by nightfall.

  Lou made one of her rare comments about it. “You started it,” she said, when Holly was fuming and stripping her bed, telling us about the Milo as she ripped off the sticky sheets, her mouth a hard line. “What did you expect? Treat them like shit, and they’d leave it at that?”

  “Honey is much worse than a flour bomb.”

  “So, suck it up. Dirt in Milo could make someone sick.”

  “Good,” said Holly. “They deserve it. They’re scum.”

  I was with Lou on this one. Holly was making me feel uncomfortable. Just like when we were kids, I had the familiar stomach knot: when her “having fun” went too far and I either went along with it, or got cast as the boring killjoy.

  But perhaps there was safety in numbers, because instead of lashing out, Holly flashed everyone her brilliant smile. “Come on, guys, let’s get rid of them one at a time, like an Agatha Christie novel.” She laughed, and it felt like we all had permission to relax.

  It reminded me o
f all the times my mother has talked to me about my friendship with Holly. She often observed that Holly seemed “unhappy.” I knew my mother well enough to know that this was health-professional code for “evil.” She also encouraged me to have a “wider group” of friends. But all my friends came via Holly. Except Michael, of course. And then there was the semi-regular don’t-jump-through-hoops warning: “You don’t always have to do what Holly wants to do.”

  When I said I didn’t, I wasn’t exactly lying. Because often Holly wanted us to do what I wanted to do. And unhappy was genuinely unhappy on certain occasions, not always simply mean.

  If Holly ever shits me—and believe me, she does—I think about her face when she’s attempting to dodge the Gorgon in full bitch-flight, and it’s pretty easy to forgive her for most things. It is a heartbreaking (to me, anyway, the one who notices) trying-not-to-care face. It is the same face she wore in grade six when all the captain roles were read out and she didn’t get one. Even I was library captain. And the face she put on in year eight when Tiff Simpson invited a group (the group) for a weekend in Sorrento and Holly didn’t make the cut. I wasn’t even on the long list.

  monday 22 october

  And that’s another session with Merill done and dusted. Woo-hoo.

  It is quite hard for me not to stand up and scream when she talks about your passing.

  No simple passing for Fred, I want to yell. He was smart. Smarter than you, Merill. He was a flying-colors, honorable honors student.

  Plus he would have hated, did hate, mealy-mouthed euphemisms for anything, but particularly important things, like death.

  Call it what it is: he died. He is dead.

  It is his death that kills me, not his freaking passing.

  To be fair, if I told her any of this, she would probably say death. She is probably being gentle. Taking the eggshell approach. It’s just that I don’t want to talk to her about Fred. Or his death.

  So I say small things about camp stuff. Yes, I’m getting to know the girls in my house. The girls are lovely. No, I don’t want to tell them anything more about my background. Yes, they are welcoming to an outsider. No! I don’t think of myself as an outsider, not really, no, it’s just an expression. I should have said, they are welcoming to a new girl. Yes, I am enjoying my classes. The teachers are excellent. No, there does not appear to be any problem with regard to work we covered at my old school being compatible with work we are covering in this year’s curriculum. And distance education, too, that’s right, for the last three terms. At my own pace. Exactly. Got lots done. Yes, absolutely; it was isolating, but the right thing for me at the time. No, I am not really ready to engage in any more extracurricular activities, but I am sure that I will feel able to participate in the end-of-term celebrations. No, I do not need extra telephone time with my parents. I am happy to comply with the usual camp restrictions. Yes, I am writing to my parents. Yes, I have received letters from my friends. Yes, I am still taking the sleeping tablets occasionally. Yes, I am still taking the beta-blockers for my pounding, racing heart. Oh, a very low dose. Yes, the meditation is slowly giving me an alternative means of relaxation.