by Melissa Keil
‘I never claimed to be anything other than a huge wuss. And you know my theory. I think your presence here might be unbalancing the natural order of the universe.’
‘Well, guess it’s lucky I’m not going anywhere.’ She’s looking sideways at me with a giant grin.
‘Well … glad to hear it.’
I bury my feet in the sand again. I don’t know if it’s the clear sky, or the crashing water, or the fact that I have my very own evil-repelling forcefield lying right next to me – but I am actually not having an awful time. The idea that I could be not having an awful time in any BLS-related context is somewhat mind-boggling.
I close my eyes. I’m half-thinking about a new movie idea that’s a hybrid between Jaws and Resident Evil, when I hear a sharp gasp from someone. I sit up. Camilla sits up beside me. Even she looks a little surprised.
I can see the guys passing the football along the sand. Jonah Warrington kicks the ball in Mike’s direction. Mike has clearly succumbed to the heat and taken his T-shirt off. It’s dangling from the back pocket of his pants like a flag.
Oh. I see.
My best friend might live in a uniform of thick hoodies, but he has also spent the majority of the last four years doing push-ups and sit-ups and whatever other stuff they get yelled at to do in karate classes. Maybe I look like a prepubescent girl with my shirt off. But Mike – well, Mike looks exactly like he has spent the last four years at the gym.
‘Where has that been hiding?’ I hear Becky say. There is much muttering from the other girls.
‘Um. Mike’s probably not going to appreciate all the girl-attention,’ I murmur.
Camilla laughs quietly. ‘Well, he should probably keep his shirt on then.’ She lies back on her towel and looks up at me through shaded eyes.
The eyes of the other girls are still firmly locked on Mike. I’m starting to feel somewhat hot and stupid, so I tug off my hoodie. No-one throws anything at me. I will accept this as a good sign.
Camilla gives me a short, sharp clap. ‘See? Painless.’
I lie down with my jumper squashed under my head. ‘Compared to a killer-bee invasion or zombie apocalypse – guess not. But I’m not the one being blinded by my pallid spaghetti arms.’
Camilla looks sideways at me again. ‘As an impartial observer, Sam, I can safely say that your spaghetti arms are significantly less painful than a zombie apocalypse. And probably less spaghetti-ish than you think as well.’
‘Um … thanks?’
Camilla nods. ‘You’re welcome.’ She waves her hands lazily above her head. ‘Although, the beach is probably the last place you’d want to be caught in a zombie apocalypse. Can zombies swim?’
I squint into the sun. ‘I’m not sure it’s been scientifically tested. But yeah, a beach wouldn’t feature in any sensible zombie survival plan. For one, it’s impossible to run quickly on sand.’
‘True,’ she says with a yawn. ‘Might slow the zombies down, though?’
‘Well, true. But unless you happen to have your Uzi, you’re also going to be out of luck with weapons. And weapons are mandatory for zombie apocalypse survival.’
Camilla is silent for a moment. ‘You couldn’t just beat them to death with Tupperware? That stuff’s tough.’
I grin. ‘Maybe if it’s filled with Adrian’s grandma’s cupcakes. I think those are a valuable addition to any arsenal.’
She rolls onto her stomach, laughing. ‘Right. I need to update my zombie survival plan. I am so going to be the first bimbo devoured by the hordes.’
‘Nah. You’d survive at least the first act of any movie. The pretty brunettes rarely get bumped off first.’ I realise what I’ve said the second the words leave my mouth. I’m wondering if her sunglasses also block the crimson that I know is creeping up my face.
‘Aw. You think I’m purr-ty,’ she says in a singsong voice.
‘Well, you know, objectively …’ I clear my throat.
Camilla kicks some sand over my towel. ‘I shall take that as a compliment,’ she says, giggling.
There is a bloodcurdling scream from somewhere near the water. I sit up again, half-expecting to see zombie hordes marching across the beach. Steve Stanton has gathered Michelle Argus in a fireman’s hold and is ambling towards the sea. Michelle squeals and smacks her hands ineffectually against his arms as Steve tosses her into the surf. I can hear her yell combined with a laugh, even from here.
Camilla sits up quickly. ‘Listen, Sam – I cannot, under any circumstances, be thrown into the water.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I can’t swim!’ she hisses.
I stare at her. ‘Are you serious?’
She shoves my shoulder. ‘Don’t look at me like that! It’s not considered a vital skill everywhere in the world.’
Justin is walking languidly towards us. He is smiling and I think it’s supposed to look teasing, but really he looks like he might have a dripping axe or severed human head hidden behind his back.
‘Camilllllaaaaaa,’ he calls in a low voice.
I leap up. Camilla leaps up beside me. I shuffle in front of her. She shuffles behind me. I may have fantasised about some heroic moment where I stand up to Justin and perform a perfect roundhouse kick to his stupid square jaw, but I am not sure this is that moment. I am uncertain of the physics of performing a roundhouse kick on sand, for one.
‘Bugger,’ Camilla whispers.
‘Yeah, okay, we’re going for ice-cream,’ I say loudly.
Justin looks momentarily disappointed, but turns his attention to Becky, who squeals hysterically before bolting directly towards the water. Clearly, Becky is the movie-chick who will never make it past the opening credits.
Camilla grabs my arm and pulls me along the sand. Her hand relaxes only when we are out of earshot of the group. She looks at me sheepishly. ‘Sorry, Sam. Didn’t mean to imply that I needed a bodyguard.’
‘Noted. Anyway, you’re in serious trouble if you’re expecting a bodyguard service from me. I’m still waiting for my radioactive spider-bite.’
She grins. ‘Lucky I can fight my own battles. Most of the time. Lemme know when that spider makes an appearance.’
‘Sure. I promise you’ll be the first person I take for a spin on my web.’
She laughs. ‘That sounds slightly gross. But okay, I’ll hold you to that.’
We walk lazily in the direction of the confetti-coloured bathing boxes. The sand is burning my feet, but I can’t seem to make my legs move faster. Camilla turns her face to the sun and sighs. ‘I can’t believe it’s autumn and still so beautiful. How is it you guys don’t take advantage of living in this place?’
‘Melanoma, for one,’ I say. But I’m looking around at the people laughing and hanging out, and I’m kind of asking myself the same question.
Camilla kicks her feet along the sand distractedly. ‘Hey, Sam? Can I ask you something?’
‘Um, okay?’
‘Well … why screenwriting? I mean, I thought all movie nerds dream about directing their own stuff. All those guys you like are directors.’
‘Not all of them. All the great horror directors have written stuff for other people – and did you just call me a movie nerd?’
She nudges my hip with hers. ‘You know you are. But I’m serious. Why screenwriting?’
‘I think, because … well, I like the idea of coming up with a story that never existed before, but I don’t really want to be in charge. I don’t want to be famous. I guess I like the idea of sitting in the dark and knowing that I created the thing on screen, that it’s my story, but, like, no-one else has to know it was me. Does that make sense?’
I’m not even sure if it makes sense to me. The thought of being the guy with the megaphone – the one who everyone is looking at to tell them what to do – just makes me want to crawl under my bed and hide. I want to do something with the stories in my head. But I’m happy to hand them over and let someone else make them real.
Camilla is silent
for a long time. Actually, she is silent for approximately eighteen seconds, which is the time it takes us to walk across the sand and onto the path that leads to the ice-cream vans.
‘You’re going to tell me I’m a huge wuss, aren’t you?’ I mumble.
Camilla turns around to face me. The sun is behind her so I can’t see her face at all.
And then she does the weirdest thing.
She takes a step towards me, and she kisses me on the cheek. It’s not even for half a second; it’s so quick that I think maybe I imagined it. Then she skips off in the direction of the Esplanade.
‘I don’t think you’re a wuss, Sam!’ she yells over her shoulder. People turn and stare. My feet are starting to burn again. I think my face is burning too. ‘I don’t think you’re a wuss at all!’
When punching people in the face is a great idea
Maybe I have fallen through a wormhole into another universe. Maybe I have acquired a talisman and now have protection against evil. Whatever the reason, I make it through the beach party without being humiliated or drowned. Actually, we all do.
Adrian’s poker knowledge has come in handy. Allison’s hair has come in handy. Even Mike’s abs have come in handy. The girls seem genuinely disappointed that we are leaving early, though I think the disappointment was mostly because Mike put his shirt back on. Justin Zigoni ignores me. Camilla waves at Justin and skips away before he can kiss her goodbye, leaving his lips hovering in midair.
It is not the greatest day of my life. But it is, by no means, the suckiest.
Now, Camilla’s bare feet are propped up next to me on the train seat. She’s humming something under her breath, her head resting against the opposite window. The sun is dipping as we chug slowly back home. I’m feeling oddly serene, despite having sand lodged in places where sand does not belong. I glance at Camilla’s small feet, which are nestled in the space between the window and my thigh. Her toes are still dusted with brown and gold grains. I brush the sand off them absently.
Allison yawns. ‘How am I supposed to work now? I’m soooo tired.’
‘Shame,’ Camilla says with a matching yawn. ‘We could have done something. No-one else has plans?’
Adrian leans over the aisle with a box of biscuits in hand. ‘Roxy has friends over, so I’ll probably be banished to my room.’
‘Anyone want to come back to mine?’ Camilla says. ‘We can order pizza?’
Adrian brightens. ‘That sounds awesome, I –’
Mike clears his throat. ‘We can’t. We have that legal assignment we’re supposed to be working on.’
‘Yeah, but it’s not due for another –’
‘Dude, do you not remember anything? It’s my nana’s birthday next weekend. This is the only time I have. And we’re already behind. I told you we’re gonna work on it tonight.’
‘I … guess. I must have forgotten.’
‘You must have,’ Mike says mildly.
Camilla nudges me with her foot. ‘What about you? Big plans tonight?’
My immediate plans are a de-sandifying shower, but I have to admit, I’m more than a bit curious to see Camilla’s house. ‘No. I guess I’m free.’
Mike is staring vacantly out of the window on the other side of the aisle. I toss a Barbecue Shape at his head. ‘Hey, Mike, guys, you should come. It’s only legal – the assignment won’t take that long.’
Mike turns around and glares at me. He actually glares. Mike never glares. Mike has never actually been pissed off with me – not since that one time when we were eleven and I accidentally dropped his Optimus Prime toothbrush in the toilet.
‘We need to work on it. Tonight. It’s important.’
‘Really? It’s vital to the universe that your legal assignment is done tonight?’
Behind his glasses, Mike’s eyes narrow. ‘Maybe it is. Maybe the universe doesn’t know how vital it is. Is that okay with you?’
That doesn’t even make sense. I don’t know why I’m snapping at him, or why he’s being so goddamned frosty with me. ‘Sure. Whatever.’
Allison’s and Adrian’s eyes are ping-ponging between us. When I glance at Camilla, she is frowning at me. Then Allison starts talking about the new haircut she has settled on, and the weird moment passes. At least, I think it does. When we reach Camilla’s stop and the two of us jump off the train, Mike gives me a sort-of wave. I kind of wave back. My hand feels weird and mechanical.
Camilla lives on the edge of my neighbourhood, where the old suburbs end and Bowen Lakes begins. It’s like there’s an invisible line dividing this place with knotted trees and ancient houses from my neighbourhood, which looks like it was beamed in from the suburb-making equivalent of an Ikea.
Her house is all high ceilings and creaking everything – a total serial-killer house, which is cool beyond cool. Camilla tosses her bag onto the floor and wanders through an archway into what I guess is their lounge room. It’s just a guess, because the only things that indicate lounge-roomness are a couple of leather couches and a flat screen sitting on a coffee table. Every other part of the room is covered with boxes, most of which are spilling records and CDs. It looks like a record store walked in and exploded.
‘Sorry ’bout the mess,’ Camilla says. ‘Dad hasn’t unpacked.’
‘How many months have you been here?’
She grimaces. ‘Yeah. I know.’ She squints into the darkness. ‘Dad! Hey, we have company!’
My eyes adjust to the dimness. At the far end of the room, in a leather armchair that looks somewhat throne-like, sits the guy whose face I’ve seen all over the net. He’s leaning back with his eyes half-closed, his head connected by headphones to a stereo the size and complexity of a smallish space shuttle.
If I lived to be seven hundred years old, and spent most of those seven hundred years searching for the elixir of coolness, I might possibly attain one-eighth of the coolness of Henry Carter. He’s wearing jeans and a frayed black T-shirt, and his dark hair is longish, but not in that sad way that makes old guys look like they’re from a Doctor Who convention or something. He has wriggly tribal tattoos underneath leather bands on both wrists. He does not look like anyone’s dad that I know.
‘Hey, baby,’ he says, tugging the headphones off his head. Then he glances at me, and I think, for all of three seconds, his face registers surprise. ‘Who’s the boy?’
‘A friend,’ Camilla says. ‘Henry, Sam, Sam, Henry.’
Henry Carter doesn’t look like he’s in any rush to stand up. I’m not sure of the protocol of crossing the obstacle course of their lounge room to shake his hand. In the end I settle for a half-arsed wave and a mumbled ‘nice to meet you’. But I have a feeling he’s already lost interest in me.
‘Check this out,’ he says, brandishing the headphones at Camilla.
She leaps over the couch and lands with a thump next to his armchair. Camilla presses an earpiece to her ear. ‘This is the new Sinking Wormholes?’
‘Yup,’ he says with a kind of smug look on his face. ‘Demo came today. Whaddaya think?’
She closes her eyes. ‘Well … ooh, I like the violin arrangement. It’s different to their first album, though –’
‘Yeah, it’s crap. It’s like they’ve taken the glimmer of originality their first record had and mashed it into the ground with this pop garbage masquerading as indie. Completely ripped off early Pulp as well, don’t you think?’
Camilla frowns. ‘Sounds like they’re experimenting. Adding a couple more instruments –’
Her dad takes the headphones from her hand. ‘It’s so completely derivative, I almost wanna contact Pulp’s management and tell them to get their copyright lawyers onto it. I mean, listen to the bridge on that track!’
Camilla shakes her head. ‘Guess I’m going to have to give it a closer listen later.’
‘Don’t bother. My ears are about to bleed.’ He tosses the headphones aside and reaches for the laptop on the armrest next to him.
Camilla turns around and smiles r
uefully at me. I know basically nothing about music, and I’m guessing the couple of bits of Foals trivia I do know are not going to impress Henry Carter. I pretend to be extremely interested in the Turkish rug on the floor until Camilla picks her way through the detritus towards me again.
‘Dad, Sam and I are gonna be upstairs. You home long?’
Her dad is focused on whatever he’s typing. He doesn’t even look up. ‘Nah, I’m out. You need dinner?’
Camilla shakes her head. ‘I’ll sort something.’
‘Cool. Have fun.’
‘Kay. You too, Dad.’
She smiles at me again. I can’t be certain, but I think it might be a different smile to her usual one. I don’t think I’m a huge fan of Camilla’s dad.
I follow her up the groaning stairs. I am not sure if going to a real girl’s bedroom for the first time should be considered a momentous occasion or not. I know it’s only Camilla, but still, I can’t help feeling just a little bit weirdly nervous.
Camilla takes the dark doorway that leads from the first landing. I follow her cautiously, hovering near the door as my eyes adjust. She bounds over to the window and yanks across her heavy curtains.
‘Whoa – this is your room?’
‘Yeah. It’s a bit of a sty, I know.’
Camilla’s room looks like – well, like no other place I’ve ever seen, not even in any of the movies I know. For a start, it’s huge. Her ceiling is twice the height of mine, and the entire wall behind her futon is covered from floor to ceiling with music posters, most of which look like gig ads for the kind of obscure bands that Allison’s brothers listen to. The opposite side around her door and dresser is plastered with photographs and pictures torn from magazines; only a few squares of purple paint peek out between them.
Her window reaches all the way to the floor and opens onto a balcony. And in front of the window, lined along the edge of the room, is an array of instruments. There are a few guitars, a keyboard and a violin, and a bunch of other things that I’m sure must have proper names but just look like those foreign instruments I sometimes see on the World Movies channel. Everything is jumbled in a mass of wires and headphones and endless piles of paper.