by Mo Johnson
I was happy to let him think what he wanted. I turned away, but he put his hand on my arm. His fingernails were clean. I suppose that was something. Actually, he has quite nice hands for a guy. I flicked his knuckle with my finger and said, ‘Get lost, Jack, I’m in a hurry.’
‘I’d be rushing to maths too if I was as crap as you. You can’t afford to miss a second in there.’
‘Shut up.’
‘Sam asked me to get his photos back when I returned yours.’
I smiled. Like that was going to happen.
‘Where is Sam?’
‘In PE, I think. Why?’
‘Oh…no reason.’
‘Well, do you have them?’ He sounded impatient.
I didn’t want to let them go.
‘I can give these back to Sam—’ I began, but I didn’t get to finish because he snatched them from my hands.
I made an attempt to grab them back, but he held them out of my reach. ‘Just trying to save you the hassle.’
There was nothing else I could say without seeming desperate, so I made an effort to regain my composure and tried to pretend I hadn’t just lunged at him like a crazy woman.
‘I’ll make sure he gets them at recess,’ he said, walking off.
‘Well, don’t open them, Ferris, they’re Sam’s,’ I called to his retreating back. It was a lame response, but it was all I could think of.
I was annoyed. I’d missed my chance to get to the bottom of the photos. By the time I next spoke to Sam, we’d probably both be pretending that they didn’t exist, and I’d have to wait until one of us eventually got the courage to raise the subject again.
Damn. Sam Doyle had outmanoeuvred me.
‘Learn to close your gob, Isla,
or your brain might do a runner.’
(Gran McGonnigle)
Despite keeping my eyes peeled, I didn’t get the chance to confront Sam, and by the end of the school day the whole matter was no closer to being resolved. I could see that Emma’s party was going to be my only opportunity to clear the air before our Sunday morning outing to the beach.
I caught my usual train home and killed time by having a look at Dad’s film.
They were the worst photos I’d ever seen. It was a good job Sam had bothered to seal them in an envelope, or Jack Ferris would have had something to laugh about.
Like Sam, Dad had taken twenty-four shots of the same person – ‘Fraud Man’, as I liked to call him – but they had turned out very differently.
The first few were of a man doing his shopping. He was too small in the background to be clear: great shot of some watermelons, though, and a visible ‘Bananas $3 a kilo’ sign.
By the fifth snap, Fraud Man had moved to the deli. I could just about see his face in several of them, but considering Dad already knew the identity of his subject, I couldn’t figure out what they proved.
‘Isla,’ Dad called as I walked in the door. ‘Did you…?’
‘Yeah, yeah. I’ve got them.’
‘Thanks, pet.’ He went off happy as Larry…or Fraud Man, who should be pretty pleased too, because thanks to Dad, he wasn’t getting busted any time soon.
When I went upstairs I resumed the hunt for my mobile. It hadn’t been in its usual place beside my bed this morning. In the end I’d called off the search because I’d been running late.
Now that I had time to think clearly, I marched down the corridor and threw Terry’s door open.
‘Have you seen my mobile?’
‘A silver Nokia, with the smallest phone book in teenage history? Yeah, I’ve seen it.’
Her eyes drifted in the direction of…the bed!
The little witch had either been snooping, or stealing my pre-paid call time again. I stomped across the room, pulled at the blankets and found the mobile stashed under a pillow.
‘Have you been making calls on my phone again?’ I yelled, stabbing at the keypad.
My available call credit now stood at two dollars!
‘Are you kidding me?’ I spluttered. ‘There were ten bucks left on this yesterday. Who have you been calling?’
I didn’t even give her a chance to answer. ‘Has yours run out again?’ I was pacing up and down like a human fan, wafting air around me. Her smug face told me that she wasn’t even sorry.
‘Yeah, it ran out. Right out the door. The last thing it said to me was, “I quit. You work me too hard. I need a holiday. I’m off to be your sister’s phone instead.” And I said, “That’s not a holiday, that’s retirement.” But it…’
‘Stop it!’ At times like this, when she sits there so cocky, with her perfect little ponytail and white-tipped fingernails, and her little turned-up nose, I imagine she’s shrinking until she’s as small as an ant. Then I see myself squashing her with the toe of my shoe.
‘Stop it!’ she repeated.
It was the mimicking that did it. I wanted revenge.
‘I-I know where Mitsy is.’ I was aware that it was kind of pathetic to be singing it, but I did anyway. Twice.
‘Where?’
‘I’m not telling you.’
‘Where?’
‘I gave her to Dad to take to the Salvos,’ I said, smirking.
‘You did what?’ She launched herself at me, missed and landed on her bed. ‘You gave him Mitsy? YOU GAVE HIM MITSY?’ She jumped back up. I ducked out of her reach.
‘Yeah, sorry about that. I forgot you were looking for her. The stress of finding out from Dad that he’s taking me DRIVING NEXT WEEK IS AFFECTING MY MEMORY!’
It felt good to scream. I braced myself for an explosion, but to my amazement she just seemed to crumble, and there was a long moment of nothing while I decided what to do next.
‘Are you okay?’
When she didn’t answer, I tried again. ‘Terry?’
I moved towards the bed and sat beside her, half expecting to be ambushed.
When she turned her face around, my sister was in tears.
‘Terry?’
More sobbing. She was freaking me out.
‘Hey, what’s wrong?’
I don’t think she could have spoken if she’d tried.
‘Stop it. Please. I’m sorry. If I’d thought you were going to act like this, I would have rescued her.’
The last time I’d witnessed Terry this distraught was four years ago, after Stewie McNab pulled up her school uniform in front of her whole class. Apparently he’d been trying to take her down a peg or two in front of his mates.
She didn’t cry at the time, or later when his parents came to our house and everyone apologised to her, but that night she broke down and sobbed inconsolably in the darkness. I climbed into her bed and lay shoulder to shoulder with her until the tears stopped flowing. Neither of us spoke about it in the morning.
Losing a cuddly toy was hardly on the same scale.
‘It’s just a teddy. You didn’t even like the guy who gave it to you.’
‘No, it’s a mouse…and Isla…she’s hiding my pills and a pregnancy test in her belly.’
Terry’s words hovered above her head in an absurd little speech bubble. I wanted to rub them out.
She was on the pill? ‘What pills?’
‘Duh,’ she said, rolling her eyes weakly.
I don’t know why it surprised me. Terry never waits her turn to do anything, and sex is just another experience to add to the long list of things my younger sister has tried before me.
I forced myself to concentrate.
‘What do you mean, Mitsy’s hiding them?’
‘Velcro back.’
‘Oh.’
‘She’s a pyjama case. That’s why I’ve kept her all these years.’
‘I never knew that.’
There was a long pause.
‘Why is there a pregnancy test inside?’ I asked, getting back to what was relevant.
‘I was going to use it.’
‘Why?’ I held my breath.
‘Because it seemed like a fun way to waste a mor
ning.’
I bit my lip in an effort to stay calm. ‘I mean, why do you need a pregnancy test if you’re on the pill?’
‘I’m not good with medicine. I missed a few.’
‘You missed a few? How many?’
She shrugged.
‘For god’s sake, how could you forget? I mean it’s not a case of your cold getting worse if you miss your pill…it could be your whole life ruined!’
She raised her eyebrows. ‘Thanks for pointing that out.’
I wanted to slap her. ‘What have you done?’
‘I don’t know yet,’ she whispered. Way back in the corners of her eyes, I could see fear, and it threw me. I much preferred a sarcastic sister to a scared one. I lowered my voice.
‘How late?’
‘Ten days.’
My questions all spilt out together. ‘Have you been to a doctor? Do you know for sure? Does anyone else know? Have you had sex?’
She chose to answer the last one first.
‘No, it was the Baby Fairy. She just…’ but she didn’t finish.
I was thinking furiously while she studied the wall.
‘Maybe there’s another explanation,’ I ventured hopefully. ‘I mean, girls are late for lots of reasons. You could be sick, or stressed, or not eating enough. All those things can stop a period, too.’ I searched her face for some encouragement, but I didn’t get any.
Who was the guy? I realised I probably knew already. Sean Phillips? I thought back to Molly’s comment. Is that what the kick had been about?
She broke the silence. ‘Yes, I had sex.’
I squirmed. We aren’t the kind of sisters who volunteer personal details like this. We argue and laugh together, but we’ve never done the deep-and-meaningful. We both have our close friends for that.
I guessed she was waiting for some sort of response.
‘Sean Phillips?’
She nodded. ‘It all went so fast. It was like we just couldn’t find the brakes.’
I began to pace again. ‘You shouldn’t be behind the wheel if you don’t know how to find the brakes.’ I couldn’t believe I was channelling Dad.
‘Is that why you’re too scared to learn to drive?’
A glimmer of the old Terry had returned, but she didn’t stay long.
‘A few weeks ago…when I went out that night to the movies for my birthday…’
‘You had sex at the movies?’ I was horrified.
‘No, you idiot. We didn’t get there in the end. We went back to his place instead, and it just happened.’
‘Were his parents home?’
‘As if.’
I was caught in a cruel trap. I didn’t want to hear the gory details of my sister’s sex life, but I was curious.
‘What was it like?’ I said eventually.
‘You don’t know?’
I shook my head and waited for her to scoff.
‘I’ve often wondered if you and Brian…’
She hesitated, actually choosing her words carefully for once. I even felt the need to help her out.
‘No, never.’
‘But you were seeing him, weren’t you? I mean, he was special?’
‘Yes, he was definitely special.’
‘I thought so. Was it hard to leave him?’
‘What do you think?’
‘It explains why you always acted like coming here was the worst thing in the world. Do you miss him?’
When I didn’t comment this time, she tried again. ‘Do you stay in touch with him?’
‘You should know. You’ve got my phone more than you’ve got your own.’
‘But I haven’t worked out your new email password yet, so some of your stuff could still be getting by me.’
I smiled. ‘No. We decided to drop it. It was easier. It’s not like he could jet over here every weekend in his private plane.’
‘But you could have stayed friends.’
‘No, we couldn’t,’ I said firmly.
‘Why not?’
‘Since when did this conversation become about me?’ I asked. ‘Since you asked me what sex was like.’
‘And you still haven’t answered.’
‘I’m thinking.’
I was about to tell her to forget it when she said, ‘It was nice. Fumbly and fast and kind of funny, but exciting too, because we knew we shouldn’t be doing it. We’d already talked about it – that’s why I had the pill – but we were supposed to be taking our time to make a decision. I guess that plan just got away from us.’
She sounded older than Mum.
‘I didn’t even realise you were seeing someone,’ I told her.
‘Why would you?’
There was no criticism in her tone. As if reading my thoughts, she said, ‘I suppose it would be nice if we were like a pair of storybook sisters who hung out together, but let’s face it, we always manage to piss each other off, don’t we?’
I was surprised. ‘We’re not that bad. We get on okay sometimes.’
‘True, and who says sisters have to live in each other’s pockets?’
She was letting me off the hook, and I felt guilty. I was the eldest, so maybe it was my fault we weren’t closer. I never made the effort to tell her anything about my life. Not the important stuff.
But Terry was a difficult person to trust. She was like a fire, drawing people in with her warmth but burning anyone who got too close.
‘Have you told Mum any of this?’
She shook her head.
‘Don’t be mad at me.’ She snatched my hand in a tight grip. We never hold hands. It felt a bit fake, so my first instinct was to pull away. Her eyes traced my hand’s journey back to my own lap.
‘What about Sean?’ I asked, hoping I hadn’t hurt her feelings.
‘I’ve told him, and he’s terrified. His parents will kill him.’
‘Our parents will kill him too, after they’re finished with you.’
‘I know.’
‘Does anyone else suspect?’
‘No.’
‘How come Molly Phillips hates you?’
‘She hates all of Sean’s girlfriends.’
‘How many has he got?’
She grinned. ‘Molly is just overprotective.’ She began to chew on her thumbnail. ‘You may be right about my period being late for another reason. It could be a false alarm, I guess.’
‘Well, let’s make sure. Tomorrow we’ll get another test and you can take it.’
‘I was going to wait a bit longer.’
‘Why? If you’re late, you should find out right away. Delaying the test isn’t going to change anything.’
She groaned. ‘Okay. You’re right.’
Feeling the need to escape, I turned for the door. What were we going to do if the test was positive?
Could we make it all go away without anyone else finding out? That would mean…a termination. Could Terry have one at sixteen without Mum’s permission? I swallowed hard. I’d have to research that. If Terry needed a parent’s signature, Mum would have to be told pretty soon.
What was I thinking? She’d have to be told anyway. There was just no way we could hide something like this. And would Terry even consider a termination? Would my parents let her have one if she did? What about Sean…and his parents? Did they have any say? Should they? And what…
STOP! My brain ground to a halt, controlling the avalanche of panic and flagging one last thought for my consideration: Just wait until Terry takes the test. That did seem sensible.
I was reaching for the door handle when she said, ‘You’ve got no idea what a relief it is to tell someone at last.’ She began to giggle and held her hand up in apology when I shook my head.
‘Sorry,’ she snorted. ‘I’m just thinking of the shocked mother who buys Mitsy from the Salvos for her little kid and finds a pregnancy test and the pill in there.’
Pictures flooded my mind, of a current-affairs story about a young child who almost died from eating birth-control pills. I watc
hed the footage in my head: the forlorn mother with cute little what’s-her-face in her arms; the grainy video of the pills; the disgust in the Salvo representative’s voice; and a close-up of a sinister-looking Mitsy, propped up on a chair for our parents to recognise.
‘What’s wrong, Isla?’
I grabbed her arm. ‘We’ve got to get that mouse back.’
‘If dads are the heads of their
families, Isla, mums are the feet.
It’s hard to give your kids a kick up
the bum with your noggin.’
(Gran McGonnigle)
We met at the Salvos after school the next day. Terry seemed optimistic, and her good mood made me feel less anxious. The pungent smell of the shop hit me as soon as we opened the door. ‘Hello,’ a voice called out from behind a rack of rags.
‘Check out this old duck,’ Terry whispered as an ancient woman appeared, wearing more make-up and gold jewellery than anyone I’d ever seen. A name badge announced that she was Dot.
‘Great name,’ Terry whispered. ‘Do you think it’s because she looks like a dot-to-dot picture done by some kid who hasn’t learnt to count? There have definitely been a few numbers skipped around her mouth.’
I choked back a laugh. Dot’s red lips had gone for a wander to her nostrils.
‘And what can I do for you two girls?’ she asked. Her voice was surprisingly husky. Before I could answer, Terry lied, effortlessly.
‘We were just wondering if you’ve come across a green-and-white mouse. It’s our little sister’s favourite soft toy, and Isla here was mad at her, so she snuck it into one of the boxes that Mum donated to you. Now she feels guilty so we need to get it back.’
Dot shot me a cold look. ‘That was an awful thing to do.’
Absurdly, I found myself agreeing with her as she led us to the cuddly-toy shelf. Terry had a rummage through the masses of bears, rabbits and other creatures, but there was no mouse.
‘When did your mum drop the boxes off?’ Dot asked Terry.
‘Dad delivered them on Sunday.’
‘Oh, you should have said that. None of the weekend’s donations have been sorted yet.’
‘Are they still in their boxes?’ I asked hopefully, thinking of Mum’s big letter ‘S’ on each one.