I peer over the edge. Emma is standing at the bottom, hands on hips. ‘I’ve saved you a spot here,’ she calls.
‘See?’ Portia says. ‘Your friends are down there.’
My knees buckle and I shift the weight of my pack. Sarah has positioned her sleeping bag next to Portia. ‘It’ll be you soon,’ I say to her—what do I have to lose now? ‘And then someone else, and someone else. And then no one will be left.’
From the corner Briohny sniggers, twirling a finger around her ear. Portia covers her mouth, eyebrows lost in her fringe. She’s laughing at me.
~
Dinner is jaffles and tinned spaghetti. After the utensils are washed and dried, Miss Lacey gets the fire going. A few girls sit at the table near the door, drinking cocoa and telling stories. For some reason Simone has coloured her face with black soot from the hearth. A white shoelace is tied around her head.
I sit in front of the fire. Later we’re going to roast marshmallows. I’d been looking forward to it.
Miss Lacey rummages in the woodbin for another large log, tossing it on the fire, then takes a seat beside me, resting her chin in her hands. Her hair smells of strawberries. ‘What’s the matter, Bec?’ she asks. ‘You’ve hardly said a word the whole hike.’
Her eyes are soft in the firelight. I fiddle with my watch, glancing around the hut. Everyone is having a good time—even Kendall, perched at the bottom of the ladder, is chuckling at soot-faced Simone.
‘I’m fine,’ I say, staring at the flames. ‘Just tired.’
Miss Lacey frowns, her mouth a straight line. ‘Are you sure?’ she asks, searching out my eyes. But she doesn’t push it.
~
I lie awake for hours, watching the light glow green at the window. Once or twice a few girls shift in their sleep. Just as I’m drifting off, a long, low fart rumbles around the alcove. I’m sure it was Simone—I’d know her farts anywhere—and when I start laughing tears come too.
I wake around dawn, alert and claustrophobic. Grabbing my boots, I creep out of the hut and head towards a crop of rocks nestled beneath a few eucalypts. With the mist clearing I can see across the valley to the Razorback Road, the range of knolls jagged like teeth, and Hell’s Kitchen beside it, with a rock face descending into thousands of tangled blackberry bushes at the base of the mountain. All of a sudden there is an eruption of pink and orange and red as the sun rises, so enormous I feel like I could reach out and touch it.
I hear a twig snap. Portia is walking towards me, her camera slung over her shoulder. She looks like a convict with her wild hair and striped pyjama pants.
‘Hey, loner,’ she calls.
I wait for the others to join her. But she is alone. She scrambles up the boulder and we sit together in silence. I sense her fidgeting beside me, her thermals scratching at my arm, and then I hear the shutter click as she takes a photo of me. I don’t know what to do or say, but somehow I manage to give her a withering look.
She lowers the camera, frowning. ‘What?’ she says. And then: ‘Wish you’d been up in the loft last night.’
My heart flickers at this, my palms growing sweaty against the cool moss. I almost turn to her, to see if she means it. But I am starting to understand that knowing Portia is a bit like grasping at smoke.
I tilt my face towards the sun, feeling something leech out of me. Behind us come voices. I take a deep breath. If only I could have a few more minutes sitting like this, with Portia quietly at my side. If only I could hold on to this moment where for once I feel like I am in control. But now I hear footsteps on the verandah and the steps, and I turn back to the sunlight as girls begin making their way through the tall grass.
The cold is relentless. More girls get sick, and a few are even sent home for long stretches. Everyone is gaunt and miserable-looking, with runny noses. During the day my lower back aches, right where my tailbone nudges against the chair.
One night, as we lie in bed with our breath hanging above our faces, Miss McKinney scolds us for talking. Since I was sent to the science labs, Miss McKinney—or Butterball as we now call her—always seems to be telling us off for misdeeds such as taking too long in the showers or not tidying our beds. I’m looking forward to a new assistant arriving from France next week. Her name is Miss Sagnier and she will help out in my French class.
‘Not another peep,’ Miss McKinney says, flashing her torch over the beds. ‘Got it?’
‘Sure,’ I call in a high-pitched voice. ‘Butterball.’
Miss McKinney freezes in the doorway. ‘Who said that?’
Girls are laughing now, shamelessly. I roll on my side and close my eyes. Give it a minute and she’ll go. But she doesn’t. Instead she says, ‘Right. If that’s the way it’s going to be, get out of bed, all of you.’
‘What? No way!’
Miss McKinney switches on the dorm lights. ‘I said get out now or I’ll send the lot of you to Mr Pegg.’ She raises a hand to her forehead, like a salute. ‘I’ve had it up to here. You girls need to be taught a lesson.’
She marches us outside, ordering us to stand in a line on the road. I’m only wearing an old T-shirt and a pair of long johns.
‘Now,’ Miss McKinney says, ‘let’s see how you like it out here for a while.’
‘Are you crazy? It’s the middle of winter!’
Miss McKinney comes over, sizing me up. Up close her face is actually rather pretty, with small dark freckles and sharp green eyes. ‘Well, Starford,’ she says, ‘maybe you need to learn when to shut the fuck up.’
She walks off, down the road, and disappears into the gloom. Minutes drag by. When we realise she isn’t coming back, girls crouch over their knees, blowing into cupped hands. Further up the line I hear someone crying.
‘Why didn’t you just own up, Bec?’ Briohny says. ‘You’re so selfish.’
I stare into the black and starry sky, grinding my teeth until my jaw aches. Maybe I should have owned up? I shake my head. No one else would have. I glance along the road. It’s laughable, this situation—sixteen girls standing on the road in the middle of the night, in the middle of winter—but I can only marvel at my own rage, my blistering desire to pick up a rock and sink it into Miss McKinney’s fat head.
Finally we are allowed back to bed, but no one sleeps well. The next morning my cough has returned; it’s deep in my chest now, dry and rasping.
~
Each Thursday that term we have electives. I sign up for the cross-country ski team. There are eight of us—four girls and four boys. No one else from Red House is in the squad and I don’t know the other girls. But they seem to know each other, and huddle together in a friendly trio.
The squad trains at the foot of Mount Franklin. Miss Constantine is our coach. She is strict with the exercises, screeching during time trials and reproaching us whenever we lag behind.
‘So how are things in Red House?’ she squawks during a break one afternoon. ‘Planning any more dorm raids?’
She laughs. It’s a horrible sound, like nails down a blackboard. The rest of the squad rearrange their skis, not looking at me. I’m not likely to get any sympathy—Red House’s exploits haven’t exactly made us popular around the campus.
I gaze behind Miss Constantine to the cluster of pines behind a wire fence, curling and uncurling my fingers inside my gloves. I’d love to say all kinds of nasty things to her, but I’m dwelling on how stupid it is to have barely spoken a word to anyone all afternoon. I’ll never make any new friends if I keep up like this. I hadn’t realised until now that this was something that I wanted, and for a moment the loneliness stings like a cut. Then I smile to myself. After being so desperate to get away, I’m now looking forward to seeing the Red House girls when I get back to school.
~
Mr Pegg visits the house. He stands in the doorway, so tall his head nearly touches the frame. Miss McKinney has told him about the other night.
‘I’m disappointed, girls,’ he says. He thought our childish behaviour would have come to an end by now.
‘And as punishment you’ll all camp for a night on Dusty Hill.’
‘That’s really all they’ve got, isn’t it?’ Emma sighs. ‘Sleeping in tents.’
But another surprise awaits us. The next morning Miss Lacey gets everyone out of bed early, and leads us to a damp and slightly metallic-smelling classroom beside the science labs.
Father Wilson stands at the front of the room. When everyone has taken a seat, he hands around sheets of paper, which are in fact photocopies of recent death notices in the newspaper.
‘Now,’ he says, rocking back on his heels, ‘I’ve got a task for misbehaving girls like you. I want you to take your pencils and I want you to circle every letter e in these notices. Every mistake means you must do it again, and no one leaves until the last girl is finished.’
I glance down and wince. A lot of people died last week.
I start scratching away at the paper. Next to me Simone doodles in the corner of the page. Feeling a nudge, I look sideways and see her giving me one of her crafty smiles. I nod and her pencil soon clatters to the floor.
‘Oh my God! I can’t believe it!’
She pushes her chair away, stands up, then sits down, throwing her arms across the desk.
‘Simone,’ I say in my best actress voice, ‘what on earth is the matter?’
‘That’s my uncle,’ she cries. ‘Edward Martin. I knew he was sick. The doctors said he had longer—a year, maybe more. But he hasn’t made it. And now . . . and now you’re making me circle letters in his name . . .’
Briohny jumps to her feet. ‘This is crazy!’ She takes the sheet of paper and scrunches it into a ball. ‘I’m going to tell my parents about what you’ve made us do. This is like . . . child abuse.’
‘Now look here . . .’ The colour is draining fast from Father Wilson’s face.
There is a knock at the door and he strides across the room. Through the doorway I glimpse Miss Lacey. When Father Wilson returns to the blackboard, he looks sheepish.
‘I think we’ll finish up the exercise there,’ he says quietly. ‘So you can get to breakfast.’
But I’ve lost my appetite. I toss my paper aside, pocketing the pencil. ‘What a crock,’ I sigh.
Simone nods, handing Father Wilson her sheet. There’s a sketch of a penis in the corner.
‘I just want you to know,’ she says, twirling a lock of dark hair around her ear, ‘I was only kidding about my uncle.’
Father Wilson peers down at the paper, his mouth opening a fraction. But before he can say anything Simone has fled, grabbing my hand as she streaks past, our laughter rattling down the stairs.
~
It is a free afternoon. Unused to spare time, most girls lounge around the dorm. I think about writing a few letters, but my pencil and paper sit untouched on my desk. My letters home have grown infrequent: whenever I sit down to write I can never think of an original thing to say. Went for a run today. Had a pretty gross dinner tonight. It’s cold up here, still . . . Mum and Dad must be bored to death by them.
Someone suggests going for a walk behind the house. Portia, I notice with some alarm, brings along the axe. We stop after ten minutes of bush bashing, and while a few girls sit in the dirt and smoke a cigarette I kick through the tall grass, bending over to peer at rocks and flowers and pellets of animal poo on the ground. I breathe in the nature smell, feel it cold and expanding in my throat.
There are, of course, things I could write home about, things my parents wouldn’t really understand. Like how quiet and unmoving it is out here, in a way it never is in the city, and how this means you can hear everything, especially your own thoughts, clear as a penny down a well. How my senses have sharpened, grown keen. How I feel more liberated and ungoverned and irresponsible, because we’re in the middle of the bush, while the rest of the world, in offices and shops and schools, keeps turning without us. How rules and discipline just seem pointless when you feel more animal.
Portia comes up beside me, still brandishing the axe. ‘It’s so great out here,’ I say. ‘Don’t you think? Peaceful.’
Our bare arms touch. Her skin is soft and warm, and I can smell her sweat, which always reminds me of meat left out of the fridge. She picks at a piece of bark, studies it. ‘I never really like being in the bush on my own,’ she says. ‘When I was little, my family went camping by a river, and my brothers found a wombat hole. They told me there was a present inside, so I got down on my tummy and wriggled in. I got stuck, of course. Then my brothers thought it would be funny to tell me to keep still because a snake was slithering towards me . . .’
She lights a cigarette, squinting at the end. This is the first time she has confided in me in ages. I wait for her to go on, but she doesn’t.
‘That’s not very nice,’ I say carefully.
Portia glances at me before her eyes slide back towards the bush. ‘It was a long time ago.’
‘I’m terrified of snakes too,’ I say. ‘Ever since I was a girl.’
She smiles. ‘Yeah?’ Then she points. ‘I want to chop down a tree.’
I blink at this non sequitur. Sometimes, talking to Portia, I feel like I am falling down a crevasse—she is so unpredictable. ‘For firewood?’ I say.
She laughs, slapping me on the back. ‘No, dickhead. For fun.’
I stand under some wattle while she searches for the best tree. From this distance the girls look different, as if for the first time I’m seeing them in full size. Everyone is filthy, hair lank and dull in the grey light.
At last Portia selects a mid-sized white gum, about ten metres tall, with smooth and weirdly skin-like bark. She sizes up the tree, half squatting with her legs apart, before drawing the axe over her shoulder and bringing it down with a tremendous thunk.
‘Your turn, Bec,’ she calls.
I stay under the wattle, hands deep in my pockets. There is something not right about chopping down a gum.
‘What are you scared of?’ Portia laughs. ‘It’s just a tree.’
The girls are watching me. ‘I’m not scared,’ I sigh, edging forward.
Portia hands me the axe. It is warm in the smooth groove where her hands have been. ‘Just give it a few chops,’ she says.
The axe is heavy, and old. A few times I’ve been chopping wood and the head has flown right off. Usually I enjoy cutting the firewood. It is calming, methodical, splitting down the centre, on the line.
I draw back and swing. The trunk is thin but surprisingly sturdy, and the tree reverberates like a tremor through my body. I drop the axe and the girls laugh. I expect Portia to make fun of me, but she gestures for me to come closer.
‘Your technique is wrong,’ she says. ‘You need to stand with your legs further apart, side on, and make sure you bend your knees. Here.’
She stands behind me, grasping the axe in front, indicating for me to put my hands on the handle too. We strike at the tree a few times. She is so near I can feel her breath on my neck. Why is she standing so close?
I’m aware of the other girls watching us, their faces strange. For so long—the whole year, just about—I’ve wanted this nearness, this proximity, but now having it only makes me want to scream.
Briohny sniffs, spits. ‘That’s so gay,’ she says, which earns a laugh.
After other girls have had a turn, Portia makes the final strike. The tree shudders, tilting. We all watch, hands on hips.
‘Timber!’
The gum arcs and plummets like an explosion, bringing down half-a-dozen other small trees and shrubs. Birds scatter from everywhere, shrieking across the sky.
‘Fuck,’ Portia breathes. Then we’re jumping up and down. We’ve cut down a tree. Jubilant, I pump my fist in the air until I feel her again at my side, reaching up to grab my hand.
~
I tell Emma I like Rich Browne. I make her swear not to tell anyone. I don’t know why—it’s not true. He is smarmy and skinny and not very bright. When I write in my diary I love RB my hand feels heavy. But I suppose I should start li
king boys more and Rich Browne seems like a safe choice: I know he has absolutely no interest in me. Still, I do wonder what it must be like to go out with someone. To like them enough to want to kiss them all the time, and talk to them in your free time.
Next to the chapel is a cluster of bushes where couples go to kiss after dinner. It’s right near the path leading to Red House. We all know how the girl and boy stand together under the orange light near the doors, looking shifty, before slinking into the shadows. I can’t understand why it’s such a popular spot—there isn’t even anywhere to sit. If I wanted to kiss someone, I would take them to the platform above the dam, where it’s quiet and you can see the moonlight on the water, and the old gum tree creaks in the reeds.
One night Simone and I spy on some kissing. Lately it seems all Simone can talk about is boys and kissing. The current obsession is Greg, a sandy-haired boy in her Japanese class. I don’t see the appeal, but what do I know? I’ve kissed only two boys in my life. My first was an unpleasant kiss inside a cupboard during school camp and the second was after a date with a boy named Stephen to the Hoyts Megaplex followed by a value meal at McDonald’s.
Simone and I hide behind a bush. A moment later the boy and girl come into view. Leila from Jade House and Tom from Blue House. Beneath the halo of light, they make an attractive couple. Leila has dark hair and olive skin, while Tom is tall and blond. Tom shuffles his boots, looking past her to the stone wall with strange intent. Then they come together, arms loose around one another’s waists, and begin kissing. It seems effortless, this desire.
‘He’s so hot,’ Simone whispers, wriggling closer. ‘Look at his arms!’
‘Mmm,’ I say. But I’m not looking at him. I’m looking at Leila. It’s like I am in a trance; I can’t take my eyes off her. How have I never noticed how shiny her hair is, draped long and loose down her back? Or the soft line of her jaw? It’s freezing, but she is wearing a T-shirt, which clings to her—to the swell of her breasts—as her thin wrists loop tighter around Tom’s waist. Wondering what it would feel like to be pressed against her, I immediately blush.
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