I Heart You, Archie de Souza

by Chrissie Keighery

  Girl V the World: I Heart You, Archie de Souza

  Chrissie Keighery

  Hardie Grant Egmont

  Contents

  Title Page

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Copyright Page

  ‘Who are we seeing first, Edi?’ Dad asks.

  I look at my sheet, then around the hall. All the teachers are sitting at desks with name placards in front of them.

  ‘Mr Cartwright is first,’ I say. ‘Maths.’ I point to where Mr C is sitting with a parent in front of him. Dad frowns and looks at his watch. He’s about the only dad here in a suit and tie.

  ‘Time?’ he asks.

  ‘Five-thirty until five-forty,’ I say.

  Dad shakes his head. Mr Cartwright’s a bit behind schedule. Four minutes behind, so far, but that’s enough to get Dad annoyed.

  ‘Hey, Edi!’ Hazel calls from across the room. She’s with her mum and her mum’s boyfriend. Hazel reckons he’s always trying to take an interest in her and she wishes he would leave it alone — but I think it’s cute. He has long dreadlocks and he’s wearing purple pants. As they walk towards us, I see that his pants are covered in paint splatters. I try to imagine my dad dressed like that and it almost makes me laugh.

  ‘Hi, Edi,’ says Hazel’s mum. ‘Hi,’ she says to Dad. ‘I’m Diana.’

  ‘This is my dad,’ I say to Hazel’s mum.

  ‘Hi, Edi’s dad,’ Hazel’s mum says, smiling and holding out her hand.

  ‘Graeme,’ Dad says with a handshake.

  ‘Jason,’ the boyfriend joins in. He holds out his hand and I can tell he’s surprised by how firm Dad’s handshake is.

  ‘So, how’s Edi going at school?’ Hazel’s mum asks. ‘Is she keeping out of trouble?’

  She says it lightly, to be funny, but my dad doesn’t get that kind of thing. He pulls my report out of the pocket inside his suit coat and looks over his shoulder. Mr Cartwright is still talking to the same parent.

  ‘Hmm,’ is all Dad says. My report wasn’t so great. Well, it was less than perfect. Which, in my house, means no good. My family are all brainiacs. Dad is a surgeon, Mum’s a lawyer. I have a brother, Jai, who’s way older than me. He’s studying medicine. No pressure.

  ‘Come on, Edi,’ Dad says. I follow him. I don’t have a good feeling about this. Mr C is running seven minutes behind schedule now.

  ‘Excuse me,’ Dad interrupts the conversation Mr C is having with Alice’s parents. ‘I believe my interview was for five-thirty.’

  ‘I’ll just finish up here,’ Mr C replies calmly. ‘I’m sure we won’t be long.’

  Dad steps away. ‘Not good enough,’ he says under his breath.

  I cringe and hope Mr C didn’t hear. He does a double take, like he thought he heard what Dad said, and then decided he must have been wrong. I can see Hazel, her mum and Jason introducing themselves to Mr Brennan, our SOSE teacher. Hazel’s mum is smiling and nodding, like a normal parent.

  ‘Hello, Mr Rhineheart,’ says a voice.

  I turn and see it’s Pip, my drama teacher. My favourite teacher. She’s really into her subject. Half our other teachers basically hate students, but Pip actually seems to like us.

  ‘I can see you while you’re waiting for Mr Cartwright, if you like,’ she offers.

  Dad crosses his arms. ‘What subject do you teach?’ he asks.

  ‘Drama,’ she replies. She points over to her table, indicating that we should go and sit down.

  Dad doesn’t move. ‘Hmmm, I’ll come over if we have time,’ he says. Translated from Dadspeak, that means, Why would I bother talking to you about a useless subject like drama?

  I got the top marks for drama in our whole class, but that’s not counted in our house. I’d like to make myself disappear.

  Pip tilts her head to the side and gives me a little smile. ‘Edi is showing quite a talent for drama. She has real presence, and an ability to inhabit a character with depth and feeling. I think she has a good chance of getting a lead role in the school play next year.’

  I cringe a little, but I guess it’s nice Pip said that. And it’s funny to watch Dad’s reaction. His eyebrows go so high they’re practically off his face. Jai can imitate that face perfectly. He even put a photo of himself doing it on Facebook, captioned ‘Dadface’. Just for me.

  ‘Yes, well,’ Dad says. ‘She’s quite the drama queen at home too.’

  Pip smiles like she thinks Dad has made a joke, but he hasn’t, of course. He was being serious. She opens her mouth to say something more, but Dad’s spotted that the parent Mr C was busy with is now getting up to go. I smile apologetically at Pip as we head over to Mr C’s table.

  ‘Sorry to keep you waiting,’ Mr C says as we sit down. Dad doesn’t say anything to this. Mr C looks at his book, which has all my marks for tests and whatever. ‘Edi has performed quite solidly this year,’ he begins.

  Dad studies my report card. ‘Not solidly enough,’ he counters.

  Mr C nods. ‘It’s true that Edi could do better with a bit more application,’ he says. ‘She does tend to get distracted by …’ Mr C looks like he’s about to go on. I shoot him my very best, most dramatic pleading look. If he tells Dad about how Hazel and I got a detention for writing notes in class, or even worse, writing notes about boys in class, I’m a goner. ‘… things,’ Mr C finishes, and even though he’s strict I like him more now than I ever have. He’s actually quite nice, I suddenly decide. ‘Edi seems to have established some good friendsh—’

  ‘Should we get her a tutor?’ Dad interrupts. He wants to get back on track. Friendships are not what school’s for.

  ‘Oh, I don’t think that’s necessary,’ Mr C replies. ‘Edi is in the top twenty-five per cent of the class. I believe she will be able to do better than that with a bit more application.’

  Dad taps his mouth with the index finger of his left hand, like he’s trying to decide whether to say more. The top twenty-five per cent means nothing to him. Jai was at the top, full stop.

  Mr C continues talking. I see Jess waving at me from in front of Pip’s table. I wave back. Jess is one of our crew, along with Olympia, Hazel and me. Her mum is laughing at something Pip’s said, and I notice that she’s rubbing Jess’s back as she chats to Pip.

  Dad’s sitting next to me, but the thirty centimetres between us might as well have been measured with a ruler.

  We move on to my science teacher, who says pretty much the same things Mr C said about me getting distracted. Then English. Dad cuts that one short, because there’s nothing much to say when my marks are good. Only when they’re not so good.

  As soon as we get into the car to go home, Dad starts on me.

  ‘It’s a matter of focus, Edi,’ he says. ‘Nobody ever got anywhere by allowing themselves to be distracted when they should have been paying attention. We’ll make a study timetable at home, so you can fit in homework around your rostered chores.’

  ‘Mmm,’ I say.

  There’s no point arguing with Dad. I already do more chores than any of my friends. At least when Jai still lived at home he used to make it fun to cook or put the rubbish out. Our driveway is really long and on bin night, I’d get a head start with the regular bin while he took the recycling. It was basically anything goes. You could trip the other one up, or freak them out with stories of zombies hiding in the bushes. The winner was whoever got their bin to the road first.

  Mostly, I won.

  Mostly, Jai l
et me win.

  ‘You don’t get anywhere in life unless you …’

  I tap the Clock app on my iPhone. It’s beside my knee so Dad can’t see. It’s 4 a.m. this morning — Wednesday morning — in New York. It’s so weird that Jai wouldn’t have started his day yet while mine’s nearly over.

  ‘… no excuse for getting distracted …’ It’s a relief when Dad’s phone rings. It’s the hospital. Surprise, surprise. Dad takes the call on speakerphone. It’s something about a patient of his who’s in intensive care. I look out the window.

  It’s true that I’ve been distracted in class a lot lately, but I have a good reason. Archie de Souza. He’s so hot and I know he likes me. I can tell by the way he looks at me. Other people have told me, too. The thing is, he’s liked me for ages and he still hasn’t done anything about it. So, just about every day, I have to plan how to run into him accidentally — which can be distracting. If I was actually going out with him, I wouldn’t have to do that anymore. It’s seriously frustrating. Especially now that Hazel is going out with his friend Leo.

  Archie and Leo are both in the year above us. A while ago, Archie asked me and Hazel to his birthday party. It was pretty cool, but nothing really happened between Archie and me at the party, except that I got to sit on his knee for a round of truth or dare. Ever since then, I’ve been waiting for something to happen — for him to ask me out. Honestly, I thought Archie would ask me before Leo asked Hazel. But I’m still waiting.

  Dad goes on about medications and stuff. The world passes by my window.

  Maybe I should stop waiting? Maybe I should be the one to ask him? Archie is hot, but I think he’s also shy. It could take him forever to ask me.

  It’s tradition that the boy asks the girl. But it’s not like I’m really into tradition.

  It’s possible that he could say no, I guess. But maybe he’s thinking the same thing — that I could say no.

  My mind keeps swinging between the alternatives.

  Ask him. Wait. Ask him. Wait.

  It’s really annoying. Normally, I’m pretty quick to make decisions. I totally hate waiting.

  I guess it’s one of those things that might become clearer if I talk about it with my friends. If he hasn’t done anything by Friday, I’ll ask the caravan crew what they think.

  By Friday afternoon, I’ve hardly even seen Archie. Unless seeing him at a distance while he’s playing soccer counts.

  When I get home from school, I check the roster of chores on the fridge. It’s my turn to tidy the kitchen so Mum has a clean bench to start dinner when she gets home. Plus, even though it’s not on the roster, I have to do a load of washing or I’ll be undie-less for the weekend.

  I’m cleaning up the caravan when Olympia arrives. She’s fifteen minutes early.

  ‘Hi, Limps,’ I say over my shoulder. I’m putting up the picture I found at the op shop yesterday. ‘Can you hold this for me?’

  I hammer in the picture hook while Olympia holds the picture.

  We step back to look at it after I’ve finished. It’s a white cloud in the shape of a heart, floating through a blue sky. I wanted to have it up before everyone came.

  ‘It looks great, Edi,‘ Olympia says, nudging me. ‘Just like I knew it would. I can’t wait to get mine up above my bed. It looks so romantic.’

  Olympia went to the op shop with me, and she walked straight past the picture. It was only when I picked it up that she paid any attention to it. Then she came over and saw it was one of a pair. The second picture had the same cloud floating in the opposite direction. Limps started talking about how cool it would be to have one each, so in the end we both bought one. But I totally remember she said she was going to put hers above her desk. I know I should just forget about it, but sometimes her copying does annoy me.

  She’s right, though. It does look great above my bed. We’re both still looking at it when I hear footsteps. It’s Hazel and Jess.

  ‘Oh my god,’ Jess says, peeking her head into the caravan. ‘That looks awesome!’ She walks up the steps and flings herself on the bed. ‘I’m so glad we’ve got the meeting tonight,’ she says. ‘Luke has about a thousand stinky little mates over at our place. Honestly, the whole house pongs. There’s nowhere to get away from them.’

  ‘We got the picture from the op shop down the road,’ Olympia says, even though no-one’s asked about it. ‘It was one of a pair, and I got the other one.’

  I have a feeling Olympia wants the others to know that we did something together, just the two of us. And that we have matching pictures to prove it. Limps is funny like that.

  ‘It’s cool,’ Hazel says vaguely. She sits down next to Jess. ‘It’s good to get out of my place as well. Jason and Mum are meditating. Right in the middle of the lounge room. I can’t even watch TV!’ She puts her hands out to either side, her index finger and thumb touching. Then she goes cross-eyed. ‘Om, om, om,’ she chants.

  Hazel always makes us laugh.

  I try to imagine my parents sitting on the lounge room floor, going ommm. It’s higher up the unlikely-to-ever-happen list than Dad wearing purple pants and growing dreadlocks. You’d think, with Mum being Indian and all, that she might be into meditating. But her work is her life. She’s as boring as Dad.

  ‘Honestly, Edi,’ Jess says, sitting up on my bed. ‘You’re so lucky to have this caravan.’

  ‘Well,’ Olympia replies, though Jess was talking to me, ‘Edi’s parents respect her privacy.’

  I just shrug. My parents bought the caravan about the time Jai decided to go to New York to study. He won a scholarship to study medicine there. As you do.

  When he left, I felt as if there was a giant hole in our family. But at least the caravan was there, promising something good to come. As soon as I finished primary school, Mum, Dad and I were going to take off. Mum and Dad were finally going to take holidays, and we were going to roam around. Explore. Spend time at the beach or in funny little towns. I told myself, I convinced myself, that my brother moving out didn’t mean the end of our family.

  But three days into our trip, Dad got called into work. He resisted. Then five days in, Mum got a similar call. I was really upset and I let them know, but there was no real debate. They both chose their jobs.

  Since then, the caravan has just sunk into the backyard. We’ve never even pretended to plan another trip. I don’t mention the idea. There’s a lot I don’t mention to my parents. There’s no point. So, in a way, Olympia is right. I certainly get plenty of privacy these days. If that’s what you want to call it.

  I try to think about something else, something I might be able to change. I clap my hands. ‘We have an agenda,’ I say brightly.

  ‘Oh good!’ Jess says. ‘I love agendas.’

  Hazel’s grin is contagious. ‘Depending on what they are, of course,’ she says.

  Jess giggles. ‘Yep, depending on what they are.’ But I don’t think she actually knows what Hazel means.

  The three of them squeeze into the lime-green bench seats around the kitchen table. I stand.

  ‘Point one,’ I say. ‘Do you think Archie de Souza likes me?’

  ‘Totally,’ Olympia says.

  Jess nods so enthusiastically that her ringlets bounce up and down.

  ‘He does,’ Hazel says. ‘Leo told me.’

  ‘Oh my god,’ Jess says suddenly. ‘If you two got together, you’d be the hottest couple around!’

  ‘Thanks, Jess,’ Hazel says.

  ‘Oh, soz! No offence,’ Jess says quickly.

  Since Hazel and Leo are definitely a couple and they’ve been together for three whole weeks, it’s not the smartest comment in the world. But I can tell Hazel’s not really offended. That’s just Jess.

  ‘Okay, point two,’ I continue. I take a deep breath. ‘He still hasn’t asked me out.’ Everyone nods, so I move on to the next point. ‘Point three. I’m wondering whether I should ask him. If I don’t, it might never happen.’

  ‘Totally!’ Olympia practicall
y yells it and it’s way before she’s had time to really think about it properly.

  I watch Hazel’s face. She screws up her nose and bites her lip but she doesn’t say anything.

  ‘You should, Edi,’ Jess says. ‘It would be like in this movie I saw where the guy thought he wasn’t good enough for the girl because he’d done something wrong and I can’t remember what he did wrong but he couldn’t get up the guts to ask her to marry him, so the girl waits for a leap year, which is when it’s okay to break tradition and a girl can ask a guy out, and she gets down on her knees, and I think they were at the beach but they might have been —’

  Olympia and Hazel both put their right hand up in a stop-right-there gesture. We’ve had to develop a quick way to get Jess back onto the planet when she goes off course.

  ‘Oops,’ Jess says, running her index finger and thumb over her lips and zipping them.

  ‘Actually,’ Hazel says slowly, ‘Jess has a point with that story.’

  ‘Do I?’ Jess says with a grin.

  ‘Well, I just mean it is sort of traditional that the boy asks the girl.’ I know Hazel is weighing up the argument aloud, in her balanced way. She’s about to continue when Olympia interrupts her.

  ‘Yeah, in the olden days!’ Olympia says sharply.

  ‘Girls can ask boys out now. Can’t we?’ Jess ventures.

  ‘The boy might say no,’ I interject.

  ‘So? How is that different to when a boy asks a girl?’ Jess says, looking confused.

  Hazel nods. ‘That’s true,’ she says. ‘Boys must feel bad when they ask a girl out and she says no.’

  ‘This is stupid,’ Olympia says really loudly. ‘As if Archie would say no to Edi. Like, who wouldn’t want to go out with the number one —’

  Olympia stops herself, but we all know what she was about to say. We made a pact to never mention the ‘hot list’ that some guys at school made a while back. It was a list of the hottest girls in our year. We don’t talk about it partly because it was just stupid, but also because this loser Nelson wrote something nasty next to Hazel’s name on the list. I’m sure Hazel’s over it now, but Limps is still a bit obsessed. Anyway, it really has nothing to do with this since Archie wasn’t even involved in making the list.