Bugs

by Whiti Hereaka

  It’s hard to be real, in a place like this. Stone Cold had to get stone cold drunk to break through. To break through our wall. But what if this isn’t real either? What if tomorrow, when the alcohol and tears fade, the wall has built back up? If she circles me with suspicion because she’s let too much go? The balance is off and she’ll want my tears, my confessions to make things right again. But I don’t even tell that stuff to Jez any more. I don’t even tell that stuff to me. I throw a couple of lemons at the hedge, and get a couple of good hits. Red leaves fall on the grass below. Maybe it wasn’t when the eggs hit Jez’s place that we were free, but when we decided to throw them; when we opened our hands and let them go.

  I look at Stone Cold from the deck for a while, until it gets too cold and I realise that I’ve been standing here like a stalker. I ease the door open and tiptoe across the floor like Stone Cold is a fussy baby that I don’t want to wake. I pull the curtains shut, and put the heat pump on low – startled by its beep as it comes to life, and the heavy sigh it makes.

  Everything in this frickin’ room is emo.

  If we were at the farm I would build us a fire to keep warm. I reckon the firelight keeps you warm too; the soft orange glow kinda soaks into your skin, makes you feel, I don’t know, happy. Happier than the invisible heat of a pristine unit mounted on a wall, which whines as it works.

  I check to see if she’s still breathing, worried about those stories you hear about people dying from being too drunk. She’s OK, grumbling in her sleep; she even manages to bat my hand away, so I guess she still has some control. I put a lamp on just so I don’t disturb her when I come in again, crashing about as my eyes adjust. I close the door quietly and go to the kitchen.

  I help myself to a lemonade, thinking that it might be better to grab some Dutch courage – but we can’t both be wasted. She needs someone here for her, and when you drinking you’re not really there, are you? Sip, sip, sip, hoping the sugar will hit my system, make me brave. Maybe I need a cup of tea? That’s what people do in situations. Make tea. I fill the kettle and put it on. I have to walk past the phone several times to do this, but I don’t want to pick it up. Not yet.

  The tea has barely had time to brew before I stir in some milk. It is tasteless and too hot but I keep sipping, hoping that it is some sort of magic elixir: the magic potion the Gauls lined up for before they whooped the Romans’ arses. But it has no effect on me, like I was dropped in the cauldron as a baby.

  I pick up the phone and just hold it. Like they make people do with spiders when they’re shit scared of them. I should just get it over and done with, like peas on my dinner plate or a sticky plaster that needs to come off. I dial and wait for her to pick up.

  ‘Mum?’

  ‘Bugs? What’s wrong? Why are you calling me at work?’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with me. I’m at Char’s.’

  ‘You’re not supposed to be around there.’

  ‘I know, I’m grounded.’

  ‘Not just grounded; they don’t want you to hang out with each other.’

  ‘I know, but we’re friends …’

  ‘Let me talk to Shelley.’ Mum is clipped, impatient. ‘To apologise …’

  ‘They’re not here; they’ve gone to the Mount.’

  ‘Oh God, Bugs, did you break in? Are you in trouble?’

  ‘I didn’t break in. God, why would you think that?’ Why does she think that? ‘Char’s here, her olds have gone …’

  ‘Parents, Bugs …’ Seriously? She’s worried about what I call them?

  ‘“Parents”, whatever. They’ve gone. And Char’s alone.’

  ‘So she’s alone. Tell her to watch a movie or do her homework.’ I can see her at work, rolling her eyes and flicking her hand like Stone Cold is an annoying mosquito.

  ‘Mum just, God, just … she’s alone, OK.’ I take a breath so I can slow my words down, forget the stuff between me and Mum, because this is important, because Mum has to understand. ‘She needs me, Mum. She’s in trouble.’

  ‘You will be too, when you get home.’

  ‘No, Mum. Like emotional trouble.’

  Mum is quiet. I stand there with the phone pressed hard against my ear, so hard that I think Mum could probably hear my thoughts; know how worried I am.

  ‘She hasn’t … she hasn’t done anything … stupid?’

  ‘No. Not stupid stupid. She just got drunk, cut her hair.’ But it could still happen. ‘Mum, she can’t be on her own right now. ‘

  ‘Do you need me to come around?’ Mum sounds worried. ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘I’m OK. She’s just sleeping it off.’ I trace my fingers over the veins in the stone of the kitchen bench: dark grey against white. They make it look as if the stone is living; as if it would bleed if I cut it, even though it is cold to the touch.

  Mum is silent. She must be calculating how many extra hours of punishment this will get me. ‘You’re a good friend, Bugs. Call me if you need me, OK? You don’t have to do this by yourself.’

  You’re lucky Bugs, so lucky. They’ve left me here, alone.

  ‘I know, I will.’ I wish she was here right now, I really do, but I push what I’m feeling, whatever it is, away. ‘She needs me Mum, OK? She needs me.’

  ‘She’s lucky to have you.’

  Lucky, so lucky.

  And I hang up the phone and cry.

  13

  It’s really spring, and sex is everywhere. This is the time of year when people get together, fall in love. When we did bio in year ten, at this time of the year the teacher, sick of the sighing and hand-holding and meaningful looks, told us that it was just the longer days awakening our hormones – I could make a whore moan, Sir – from the dull of winter. It was just the sun and the heat and the endorphins tricking us into thinking we were in love. But he was only talking about one kind of love: the crushing, exciting, hot kind. The kind that’s all about reproduction – because he probably thought that we were too young to know any other. That’s what they think: that we don’t know how to love a person, really love someone. Because nothing we feel can be serious. Nothing we feel can be real – it’s just our chemistry, our bodies, our urges. Like those things can be separated from us, as easily as petals are pulled from a daisy – He loves me, he loves me not. It’s all about sex. That’s what flowers are for. If you think about it, when you give someone a bouquet, you’re just giving them a bunch of vaginas and cocks. Can you be more obvious?

  Stone Cold is sitting in her usual seat in English, behind me. Funny, somehow I thought that she’d be sitting next to me, even though that’s not her seat. I haven’t seen her since she freaked out and she hasn’t called or texted for a few days, because of the ‘parental guidance necessary’ ban. I’m sure she was OK: I stayed with her until she had sobered up, and she said her olds would be back that day. She was all worn out. You know that kind of dazed look people do in the movies after the funeral of someone they love – when they pull their sleeves over their hands and wrap their cardigan tightly around their waist and look into the distance. So, I think she’s OK – but you never really know. I raise my eyebrows at her and she rubs her hand against the back of her head and blushes. Her hair has been cut short – after the butcher job she did to it, what else could they do?

  ‘I like it. It brings out your features.’

  ‘Hello? Who are you, and what have you done with Bugs?’

  ‘I mean, it just brings out …’

  ‘Don’t you dare go Top Model on me.’

  ‘It brings out your bad-arse, OK?’ I point my fingers to my head. ‘Princess?’ And I blow the brains out of that hooped-skirt, pink and purple sparkly bitch.

  ‘You think?’ Stone Cold is like a little kid, unsure and pleading. I really don’t know what to say; then, thank God, Miss Shaw walks in with a huge bunch of daffodils.

  ‘Welcome back, class!’

  ‘Did you get those from your boyfriend, Miss?’ Rumour has it that Miss Shaw is seeing the tech teacher, bu
t I reckon that’s only so people can make jokes about him giving her wood.

  ‘No.’ I swear Miss Shaw is blushing. ‘These are for you. Inspiration, because today we are starting our poetry module.’

  You can hear the groans of excitement.

  Because it’s spring and Miss Shaw loves a theme, we’re reading ‘Daffodils’. Wordsworth; I know. Miss must have been cleaning out a cupboard or her attic or something and found her degree. After she blew the dust from it, wiped the glass with her sleeve, she must have read it and thought Oh right! English literature.

  Even though I’m stoked to be actually studying literature, I can’t get too excited about Wordsworth because have you read the poem? Dude thinks he’s a cloud and then goes gay over some daffodils. And yes I know ‘gay’ meant happy back then, but it doesn’t now, so when I hear it, hell when everyone at school hears it, we just think of gay gay. And whoever called gay people gay first must have dug irony, because from what I can see, for most of history being gay meant being a miserable mo-fo.

  There in the closet

  A lonely cloud blissfully

  Fucking daffodils

  Crack up: me and Wordsworth on the same page. I like how it looks, the smudge of my pen next to the crisp, printed poem.

  Miss Shaw is having trouble with the class. She’s asked us how the poem makes us feel. And the boys who have latched onto ‘gay’ and ‘feel’ are demonstrating exactly how they feel at the front of the class. It would be so funny if that pollen rubbed off on their shorts and they had to spend the rest of the day with yellow stains on their dicks. Miss Shaw has let it go on for far too long, really. I think she’s getting off on it as much as they are. It’s revolting.

  My eyes are itching from the pollen. I rub my nose with the palm of my hand. What does it say about me, that I’m allergic to flowers? That they make my nose twitch, my eyes water and my head muddy? That I can’t stand to be in the same room as the universal symbols of love and sex?

  I turn around in my seat to face Stone Cold. She’s reading the poem, ignoring the rest of the world.

  ‘Do you like it? The poem?’

  ‘We learnt it in primary; didn’t you?’

  I don’t remember the poem, but I do remember the daffodils. We coloured in some cardboard with crayons; I wanted to use blue but the teacher said we needed to use yellow or orange. I took the orange crayon and just slashed it over the paper so bits of white shone out in the gaps. Jez used yellow and drew very slowly, thickly covering the whole piece of card. We cut out the petals, joined in the middle like a starfish, and in the very centre we glued the cupcake cases our teacher handed out to us. The daffodils bloomed on the classroom wall until the holidays, when we pulled them down to take home. I was going to take mine home to Mum. Jez gave his to me, and because I was a kid – because his was better than mine – I screwed up the one I’d made and gave Jez’s to Mum instead. She hugged me when I gave it to her at the gate; she said that it was beautiful and I was clever and that she’d save it with her special things. Where’s yours, Jez? she said, and he just shrugged. I didn’t say anything, and waved at him as me and Mum walked away. And Jez went home with nothing.

  ‘I don’t remember.’

  ‘God, I do. They made us learn it off by heart and our class had to recite it in assembly. I hated it.’

  ‘Then why are you reading it?’

  ‘I didn’t get it then.’

  ‘And you do now?’

  She looks up from the poem and straight at me, lifting her chin. ‘Don’t you?’ And normally that would piss me right off, but today it’s cool. Because now I know that Stone Cold is fine; that she’s going to be OK.

  We meet Jez outside the common room on the way to chem.

  ‘Jez!’ Stone Cold throws her arms around him like she hasn’t see him for years. She almost flattens him, she’s so OTT.

  ‘Hey.’ He kind of pushes her off him so he has some breathing space. ‘What happened to your hair?’

  I’m behind Stone Cold, furiously shaking my head no!

  Stone Cold touches her hair, like she’s trying to cover it up.

  ‘I mean, it looks good. It brings out your …’

  ‘God, not you too.’

  And she storms off.

  ‘What did I say?’ I just shrug at him, and I notice Mrs Lee standing at the door of her office. Her arms are folded and she’s staring at me and Jez. It gives me the creeps. I must be staring hard out back at her, because Jez turns around to have a look too. He turns back to me and makes a face.

  ‘We should get to class.’ I say it in a loud voice so the eaves can hear.

  ‘Can you tell her I’m sorry?’

  ‘Tell her yourself; we’ll meet you on the field after chem.’

  He raises his eyebrows at me and we part. I look back as I’m walking down the hall to chem, and see that the door to Mrs Lee’s office is closed.

  Stone Cold is already at our desk in chem, head propped up by one arm, her other hand drumming her pen: tap tap tap.

  ‘You took your time. You and Jez having a big laugh at me.’

  ‘We weren’t laughing.’

  ‘Yeah, right. What about the thing about my hair? You put him up to it.’

  ‘He really does like it …’

  ‘Yeah, it brings out my eyes. Whatever. You told him to say it.’

  ‘Like Jez would do anything I say.’

  She looks at me like I’m the dumbest chick in the world, a little smile on her lips. ‘Seriously? You think he doesn’t?’

  To be honest I haven’t even thought of it at all. I’m not the kind of bitch who would snap my fingers to see how high I could make him jump. I’m not like that. Am I?

  ‘That’s not true at all.’ She just rolls her eyes, and my relief that she’s back to herself is wearing off fast. ‘Jez might be Jez, but he’s still a guy. And guys don’t say stuff like that unless they mean it.’

  ‘Unless they’re told to.’

  ‘It was totally unscripted.’ I cross my chest and hold up my fingers like in a scout salute. ‘Just like reality TV.’

  ‘Bitch.’ She whacks me with her pen. ‘You’re meant to be making me feel better.’

  ‘You’re laughing, aren’t you?’

  Mr Young knocks on his desk with a full-on metal bar, and it sounds like the class is being ram-raided by the Armed Offenders Squad. How long has he been there? The laughter and the gossip die down and Mr Young waits for us to take our seats; waits for all eyes to be on him.

  ‘Now that you’ve all had a powwow.’ So racist, Sir. ‘Can we turn our minds to chemistry?’

  ‘We were, Sir.’ Justin: not a fan of the rhetorical question. ‘We were hard-out thinking about chemistry.’

  ‘Really? Then please tell the rest of us,’ Mr Young says, in a voice that makes it clear to the rest of us that he doesn’t really want to hear it at all. But Justin, as usual, doesn’t get it.

  ‘’Cos it’s Guy Fawkes soon, Sir. We were talking about fireworks and shit, because that’s chemistry, eh?’

  ‘Fireworks, yes. Shit, I think you’ll find, is more biology.’

  ‘What, Sir?’

  Mr Young sighs. ‘Oh, young man. You’re just not good-looking enough to get by without a sense of humour.’ Mr Young opens his arms out to the class. ‘But yes, Justin here is correct. “Remember, remember, the fifth of November”! Ah, the smell of saltpetre, sulphur and charcoal, otherwise known as, class?’

  We all mumble, ‘Gunpowder,’ in case it’s a trick question.

  ‘Yes, gunpowder: the stuff that makes those little crackers go Bang! Or powers the skyrocket up.’ Mr Young likes to walk whiles he talks, like his thoughts and memories are physical. ‘When I was a lad, we’d pull off the little crackers from their string, light them and throw them at each other. We’d use skyrockets like guns, shooting flame balls, Boom! Boom! Across the street, across enemy lines. Silly little buggers we were. That’s probably why you children have never had the pleasure: we ne
ed to save you from yourselves. Ah, gunpowder. But that’s not the really interesting thing; the really interesting chemistry is in the colours. How do you think that they make each firework a different colour?’

  ‘I thought they used dye, Sir.’

  ‘Justin.’ Mr Young stands still. ‘Should I just fail you now? Dye? Do you think the sparkles that fall are glitter too?’

  You can tell that Justin does think that fireworks are packed with glitter, but he shakes his head no.

  ‘No, of course not. Chemical reactions, my boy. Reactions that we’ve observed in this very classroom. We have the components to make quite a magnificent firework in this classroom. Quite magnificent.’ Mr Young is up by the board, writing out formulas and weights. ‘Back in my university days …’ Mr Young chuckles.

  The class is leaning forward. This is the kind of thing you hope for. That a teacher gets carried away and shows you something actually interesting. And if we’re all cool – if none of us break the spell – we might just learn something awesome.

  ‘Seriously Sir?’ Shut up Justin, shut up! ‘You’re gonna teach us how to make fireworks?’

  Mr Young turns around, and his university days have fallen away. He rubs out what he’s written on the board.

  ‘No. No, of course not. And do you know why?’

  ‘Because fireworks are dangerous?’ We sing-song the lesson that we’ve been taught every November since primary school.

  ‘No. They have the potential to be, if someone lights their fuse – but in and of themselves, no.’ Mr Young goes to his supply closet and comes out with a plastic tray like supermarkets have for bread. It is covered with a cloth and jingles with the sound of glass. ‘No, we will not be learning to make fireworks because fireworks and –’ he lifts the cloth to reveal the beakers of fermenting fruit juice from last term – ‘alcohol don’t mix.’

  Funny how something that was cool suddenly doesn’t seem it when you’ve been shown something even cooler. Thanks Justin, for making alcohol suck.