Life in Outer Space

by Melissa Keil

  ‘How did you know that?’ I type quickly.

  ‘Well, you’re hiding a copy of The Screenwriter’s Handbook underneath your Macbeth. And, you get very animated when you talk to Mike about old Halloween versus new. I’m in your English class as well, remember?’

  Jesus. How the hell did she notice that?

  ‘Crap. Sorry, Sam. Something’s come up. Play another time?’

  ‘Sure,’ I manage to type. My fingers feel a little numb. ‘Another time.’

  She types a smiley face and logs off.

  I stare at the chat window. I swap the old Halloween for the new version in my DVD player. I think about fitting, and making things fit. I wait for an hour and seventeen minutes, but her dwarf doesn’t reappear.

  I’m not sure, but I think I’m a tiny bit disappointed.

  •

  Monday morning, it’s not Mike waiting by my locker, but Allison. She’s holding her Japanese textbook tightly against her chest. A couple of girl minions are sticking a new Spring Dance poster to the opposite wall, and I can hear their conversation as I walk closer; they’re talking about Camilla, and the bass guitarist who is, apparently, hot. There is a plethora of exclamation marks in their speech. Allison is wearing a purple dress that almost matches their poster. From a distance, she looks like she might have wandered in from a primary school.

  ‘Allison?’

  ‘Hey, Sam,’ she says, jumping a little. ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘Okay. Monday excitement. I see that an asteroid didn’t crush the school into a crater over the weekend. How are you?’

  She smiles. ‘Great? I went with Nate and Bill to see that anime double feature at the Kino on Saturday. It was cool. You should have come?’

  Nathan and Bill are Allison’s brothers. Bill is doing a Masters in English, and Nathan is studying Art History, and most of their conversations are peppered with references to Foucault and existentialism and stuff. The Kino is one of my top five favourite cinemas, but I tend to get a brain-ache after more than three minutes around Allison’s brothers.

  ‘Maybe next time,’ I say.

  Allison smiles. ‘Cool.’

  ‘So … what’s up? Everything okay?’

  ‘Yeah. Except, I wanted to talk to you alone. Have you noticed anything weird with Mike lately?’

  I slam my locker closed. ‘Why? Has he said something?’

  ‘Well, no. But the karate thing is weird, isn’t it? And I know he’s always quiet, but this quiet seems more meaningfully quiet, don’t you think?’

  ‘I think … something’s up with him. I have no idea what, though.’

  ‘But do you think it’s a guy thing? I mean, a gay thing,’ she whispers.

  I glance at the poster-girls again. Mike may not broadcast himself to the entire school, but I know he’s not ashamed of who he is. And Mike knows he can tell me anything. But he also knows that if he really is having a problem with his love life, the drinks machine in the teacher’s lounge might be of more use to him than me.

  ‘I don’t know, Allison. We’ll keep an eye on him, okay? If it seems like it’s something serious, then – I dunno. I’ll think of something.’

  Allison looks thoughtfully down the corridor. She threads a strand of hair through her lips.

  I don’t exactly consider Allison attractive – not in a real-girl way or anything – but she does, objectively, have nice eyes. They’re blue-green and mega-expressive. And right now they’re peering at the girl minions. They’re looking troubled, and a little wistful. They remind me that I have decided to conduct a small social experiment of my own this morning.

  ‘Hey, Allison? Meet you in English? I have something I need to do.’

  She grimaces. ‘Um, sure. Okay?’

  I sneak behind the minions as silently as I can, and duck around the corner near the art rooms where the second set of year-eleven lockers are. And I see her straight away. Camilla is standing against her locker with Michelle Argus and another chick who I think might be Susan, or Sophie. Or maybe Sandra. Camilla is saying something to them, her hands gesturing wildly.

  I take a deep breath and, with a brief, stealthy survey of my surroundings, I walk up to them. ‘Um, hi, Camilla.’

  ‘Oh, hiya, Sam,’ she says brightly.

  I ignore Michelle and Susan/Sophie/Sandra. ‘So … was everything okay last night?’

  Michelle and Susan/Sophie/Sandra look at each other, then at Camilla, then at me. Michelle’s eyebrows shoot skyward. Score one for the surprise factor.

  I watch Camilla’s face. She doesn’t shoot them any loaded looks. She just sighs. ‘Yeah. I forgot I was supposed to Skype with my mum. She gets a bit angsty if I mess with her schedule.’

  ‘Oh. Okay. I just thought … you disappeared pretty quickly. Just wanted to make sure everything was okay?’

  She smiles. ‘Thanks, Sam. Everything’s fine. Trying to keep two parents in different countries happy is sometimes a bit traumatic, though.’ Camilla swings her satchel onto her shoulder. ‘Heading to English? I’ll come.’

  Michelle glares at me before turning back to Camilla. ‘I guess we’ll see you at break, CC?’

  ‘Yeah, great. Bye, guys!’

  Camilla trots off down the corridor. I stand where I am for four more seconds, until Susan/Sophie/Sandra points in the opposite direction and says, ‘Dude, are you lost? I think the hobbit village is that way.’

  I consider telling her that if I was looking for the hobbit village it would be because I’d just completed a quest that has saved the known world, and, also, that she has lipstick on her teeth, but then I think about my testicles and how I am somewhat attached to them, so I scramble after Camilla without saying anything.

  ‘CC?’

  Camilla wrinkles her nose. ‘Yeah. Apparently I have a nickname.’

  ‘That’s … not a nickname. That’s a corn chip.’

  She snorts. ‘Well, it’s better than Coco. Or Cammie. Or Millie. Jesus, I hated Millie.’

  ‘Who called you that?’

  She thinks for a moment. ‘Three schools ago. Chicago. I don’t even know how that one stuck. Lucky we were only there a couple of months.’

  ‘Right. Millie.’

  ‘Yeah. Great name for a cat. Or a weird aunt who lives in a caravan.’

  She looks up at me and grins. She must have a really expensive dentist, because she pretty much has perfect teeth. As yet I am uncertain of the results of my social experiment. I focus down the corridor where our English classroom is looming. Justin Zigoni is hovering in the doorway. My intestines knot.

  Random people smile at Camilla, and nod, and wave. She doesn’t seem embarrassed to be seen walking next to me. Surely she knows by now that the four of us are the social equivalent of weedkiller? Maybe all that stuff about reading the environment quickly was a bunch of crap.

  We reach our classroom. Justin’s face breaks into a slow, maniacal smile. He looks at me, then Camilla, and his eyes narrow. I have a sudden urge to shield my groin, on the off-chance that one of Justin’s arbitrary nut-slaps is forthcoming. He opens his mouth.

  ‘Hey, Justin,’ Camilla says cheerfully. ‘Good weekend?’

  Justin looks momentarily bewildered. ‘Uh, yeah, good. Football practice. We kicked arse. Uh … how was yours?’

  ‘Same old. Hung out with Dad. Skyped with my boyfriend.’ She shrugs. ‘So, football? Steve said your first away game is in Brighton – that’s near the beach, right? I haven’t been to the beach in ages. Winter in New York and all.’

  Justin tries to frown and smile and look at her and me all at the same time. He ends up looking like he’s been stuck with a cattle prod. ‘Yeah, it is,’ he says. ‘Near the beach, I mean. Hey, we should have a beach party. Will sort it out with the guys?’

  ‘Sounds cool,’ Camilla says with a smile.

  I glance into the classroom. Mike and Allison are in their seats, eyeballing me through the doorway. Justin’s eyes remain on Camilla. I’m not willing to turn my back on him, but
I’ve braced myself, and I’m waiting for it. That thing he’s stored up, the thing that will humiliate me, and possibly Mike and Allison as well. The thing that will make Camilla look around her and think, Oh, right, so that’s who those guys are. The quarantined end of the social queue. Duh. That was a close call.

  Justin seems to recover, because the mask of smarm is suddenly back in place. He pushes past me as if I’m part of the classroom furniture. ‘So, sit with us, CC. I wanna hear about Sydney. I love Starfig Soles.’

  Camilla brandishes her glasses in the air. ‘I need to sit close to the board,’ she says mildly. ‘I have little-old-lady eyesight. I’ll see you at lunch, though!’

  She waves at a couple of people in the back of the room, and waves at Mike and Allison, and then she takes the desk in the second row, right in front of mine.

  Mike looks at me as I slide into my seat. I raise my shoulders in a vague shrug. Justin bypasses my table without so much as a glance in my direction. Camilla digs out her books and doodles in her notebook for the entire double period.

  I don’t get her at all.

  •

  As social experiments go, the Camilla-test is, at best, inconclusive. I am not sure I’m equipped for involving myself in any further Saw-like death-trap situations. So I figure the only logical course of action is to restore the four of us to our status quo as quickly as possible.

  We eat lunch in Alessandro’s office. We avoid the Vessels and minions, but the Vessels and minions seem to have forgotten that we exist.

  I stick my head up long enough to notice that weird things are happening in year eleven. Stupid headphones the size of small cars suddenly become commonplace. Mismatched vintage clothes creep into the standard Vessel uniform. The day Sharni Vane showed up in leopard-print pants and a Nirvana T-shirt, Mike almost wet himself trying not to laugh. I can’t decide why it works for Camilla, when everyone else looks like they’ve tripped and fallen headfirst into a Salvation Army bin.

  On Friday, I think I figure it out. Adrian and I are hovering near Mike’s chem class. The bell for morning break rang five minutes ago, but Mr Francavelli appears to be having one of his psychotic episodes, and his muffled yelling filters through the walls. Eventually the class dribbles out. Most looked drained of the will to live.

  ‘What inspired today’s meltdown?’ I ask as Mike pushes his way through the crowd.

  Mike sighs. ‘The usual. Only half the class did their homework. Chris DeCruise set fire to his sleeve, again.’

  ‘Again? Dude, learn to use a Bunsen burner!’ Adrian calls out as Chris and his blackened sleeve shoot past us.

  ‘Apparently the concept of fire escapes some people,’ Mike says. ‘And now we have double homework as punishment for the slack percentile of the class.’

  ‘Ouch. So are we still on for Minotaur tomorrow?’ I ask.

  Mike shrugs. ‘Dunno. Maybe.’

  Adrian glances at me. This is not good.

  There is a casual indifference that Mike has mastered, which I know is typically cover for various levels of interest and/or excitement. Mike is usually happy to spend hours poring over the comic-book bins and bookshelves at Minotaur. But I don’t think this is just casual indifference. Mike looks distracted and vague. He looks like he genuinely does not care about Minotaur. Unfortunately, my Mike train of thought lasts all of four seconds.

  Adrian waves at someone over my shoulder, and I turn around to see Camilla bounding up the corridor in a long-sleeved yellow dress that looks like something my grandma might have worn in the 70s. And she’s done something weird to her hair. It’s split in the middle and scooped up in intricate twists on both sides of her head, just behind her –

  Jesus. She has her hair in goddamned Princess Leia buns.

  ‘Hey guys,’ she says breathlessly. ‘Have you bought your tickets yet?’

  ‘Tickets?’ I manage to stutter.

  ‘For the Spring Dance? I don’t know why we’re selling them so early, only I think the committee needs more money for glitter or something.’ She winks at me. I have not processed a single word that she has said. ‘So they’re only twenty each, because the school is subsidising the cost. Anyway – six?’

  ‘Six?’ Mike mumbles.

  ‘Riiight,’ Camilla says slowly. ‘For the three of you and your dates? I assume you’re doing the chivalrous thing and paying for your dates?’

  I pause for a moment to backtrack over the last thirty seconds, and am suddenly aware of how far this conversation has gone off track. I want to laugh, as the phrase, You’re kidding, right? floats to mind.

  But before I can say anything, Adrian – with his stupid Willy Wonka hair, and his monkey-like chin fuzz, and his faded Lord of the Rings T-shirt – Adrian, who has never spoken to a girl other than Allison and his sisters in his entire life and who is destined to die a virgin surrounded by nothing but Doctor Who DVDs, says:

  ‘Sure. Six tickets. Can we buy them now?’

  Camilla rifles through her things. ‘Yup. If you have cash that’s great. If not, you can give me an IOU. I know where you live.’

  Adrian looks at me. ‘I don’t have my wallet. Sam?’

  I have seventy-five dollars in my wallet that was earmarked for a Dario Argento box set from Minotaur. My mouth is trying to say this, as well as a lot of other stuff, but Camilla is looking at me with her Princess Leia hair and that cheerful smile, and my consciousness detaches from my body and floats somewhere onto the ceiling. I see myself from a great distance away as my hand opens up my wallet and hands over the money. Mike looks at me and tugs out his own wallet. Ceiling-me sees him hand over the rest of the notes. The expression on his face does not change. I know, however, that he is horrified.

  Camilla tears off a bunch of pink slips from the stack in her hand. ‘Cool. It’ll be fun. Start working on those dates. And we’re still on for study group tonight, right? I brought chips.’ She smiles and skips on her way without waiting for a response.

  I stare at the glittery cards in my hand. My consciousness crash-lands back into my body.

  What just happened?

  Seriously, what just happened?

  We are now three people with six tickets to a dance not one of us is planning to attend. I am supposed to be a nerd. But I cannot work out the maths behind this equation.

  Adrian grabs two tickets from me. ‘I have dibs on Allison,’ he says quickly.

  Mike takes another two. ‘I’m meant to bring a date? This is going to be problematic.’

  Am I going to the Spring Dance? I am not going to the Spring Dance.

  I really wanted to buy those DVDs.

  I am blaming the hair.

  The X-Men had an invisible chick, but still …

  Adrian and I met in kinder when we were four. At least, that’s what Mum tells me. It’s not like I can remember the actual day he walked into my life. I don’t remember a montage of conversations in the sandpit that would change our lives forever or anything like that. I just can’t remember a time when Adrian wasn’t around.

  If Mike is the brother I never had, then Adrian Radley is the possibly inbred cousin who came for a visit and never left. I guess some people enter your orbit and get stuck, and there’s nothing either of you can do about it.

  ‘Yo,’ he says as he walks up to me at the school gates, his orange hoodie weaving through the crowds like a hazard beacon. Friday’s final bell rang approximately eight minutes ago, but as yet no-one else has shown up. Normally I’d be feeling the stomach-deep relief that comes from knowing I’m one week closer to getting out of this place. Today, all I feel is an inexplicable sense of panic.

  Adrian heaves himself onto the wall beside me. ‘So I think we should visit Mike’s karate school.’

  ‘What? Why?’

  ‘Cos Mike doesn’t want to go to Minotaur! Dude, something is seriously amiss. What if Mike’s gone all manic-depressive over some guy? What if –’

  ‘Man, first Allison and now you? Did you ever think that maybe Mike i
s sick of being kicked in the face eighteen times a week? Maybe he’s just bored?’

  But even as I’m saying it, I know it’s not true. I know that my best friend is hiding something. Something serious enough to make him give up his favourite thing in the world, and something he feels he can’t tell me about. And I’m thinking it’s my job, whether he likes it or not, to find out what the problem is. I’m also thinking that leftover lasagne for lunch was not a good idea, cos my stomach is churning.

  Allison and Mike push their way through a bunch of year sevens who are scrambling to catch the bus.

  ‘Heya,’ Allison says. ‘Where’s Camilla?’

  This is really stupid. Who even has study groups, outside of American high school musicals? And what made me think she would remember we –

  ‘There she is,’ Adrian says, leaping down from the wall.

  She’s tapping at her mobile as she races out of school, her forehead creased in a frown. It’s weird; I don’t think I’ve actually seen Camilla frown before.

  ‘Hey, guys,’ she says, shoving the phone into her satchel. She smiles, the frown disappearing as if it were never part of her face. ‘Sorry I’m late. I think Mr Nicholas might have a great big man-crush on my dad. Kinda hard to make a polite exit.’

  I peer aimlessly at her for five seconds.

  ‘So. I assume you know the way home?’ she says lightly.

  Jesus. What am I doing? ‘Um, yeah. If you’re ready?’

  ‘Ready as I’ll ever be for “Pastoral Expansion in the Port Phillip District”. I’m already nodding off.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ Adrian says. ‘Nothing even a bit interesting has happened in this country in the last two hundred years. It’s like, we found gold, woo hoo! And then some guys went to war.’

  Camilla nods sagely. ‘Right. We need a revolution. Or a plague.’

  Adrian grins. Mike nudges Allison and the two of them start walking down the road. Adrian and Camilla follow. And somehow, my feet make their way after them.

  Walking at a normal human pace, it is approximately twenty-two minutes from the school to my door. This evening, the walk seems to take something like eighty-four hours. Camilla seems to be keeping up with Adrian’s stream-of-consciousness conversation: American history, which leads to cowboys and Indians, which leads to the Village People, which almost leads to the Extremely Gay Weekend, at which point Allison casually asks Camilla about New York, and then, thankfully, we’re at my house.