The boys left far too quickly as well, leaving us to eat our dessert by ourselves.
‘So what happens tomorrow?’ I asked. I hadn’t had time to read my information yet.
‘Parade at seven,’ Linda, a tall red head, said.
We were meant to wear office attire for the first few months so I had come well prepared. I inspected myself the next morning, smoothing down my black skirt, admiring the way it set off my red high heels.
There was already a group of students clustered near the edge of the parade ground when I turned up. I joined them, looking around for the girls from the night before.
Before I could find them a man in uniform marched towards us from the other side of the parade. He was big, in a tall, solid way, and sported a bristling moustache. ‘Well don’t just stand there,’ he yelled, his moustache quivering, ‘form up.’
We staggered onto the bitumen and made two lines.
‘You look like a group of lost hikers,’ he bellowed. ‘Form up, 10 abreast, five deep.’
I rushed to the back of the pack – quite a feat in my high heels – and was standing there feeling smug when the students in front peeled away like some sort of organised bomb burst, regrouping behind me until I was standing smack bang in the middle of the front row.
Bugger . The man walked up and down in front of us, ominously slapping a short stick into one hand.
‘I’ve seen packs of monkeys form up faster than you lot,’ he growled. ‘From now on you will form up in the same order, every day until training has finished.’
‘Even weekends?’ I blurted out before I could stop myself.
‘Miss…’ He stared at me, smacking his stick into his left hand more and more vigorously until I realised what he was after.
‘Smith,’ I supplied.
‘Miss Smith, you will form up here every morning, in rain, hail and snow, until I tell you you can stop.’
It snowed in Goulburn? Good grief, I was going to have to get some fur-lined boots.
He turned his attention back to the group. ‘I am Sergeant Moores. I will be your training sergeant for the duration of your stay here. If I say jump, you will jump. Do I make myself clear?’
‘Yes, Sergeant,’ Nastacia said in a militant voice.
‘Do I make myself clear?’ he asked louder.
‘Yes Sergeant,’ the rest of us echoed.
He went on for about half an hour, advising us what he expected of us as police officers in training – parade every morning, room inspections and marching practice. I breathed a sigh of relief when he finally said, ‘dismissed.’ But then he added, ‘Miss Smith come here.’
The rest of the students fled the parade ground heading for our first class, while I hobbled over to him. I hadn’t expected to have to stand for so long in my killer heels.
‘What are you wearing?’ he said.
‘Office attire Sergeant.’
‘That’s not office attire,’ he snarled, pointing his stick at me. ‘You look like you’ve gone under cover in the red light district.’
I would have been pretty offended if I hadn’t seen all the Police Academy movies. I knew what he was up to with all his blustering and wielding of the blunt weapon; he was trying to break my spirit.
‘What would you prefer me to wear Sergeant?’ I asked, glancing nervously at his stick. Was it legal for him to use that thing on me? I was going to have to read my information pack.
‘Pants and sensible shoes.’
‘Aye aye Sergeant.’ I gave him one of my friendliest smile.
He didn’t return it. Instead, one of his eyes twitched a few times as he scowled at me and his face started to turn red.
A vast amount of experience has taught me that when people’s faces go red they’re normally about to start screaming at me. I tried to think of a way to stop the imminent onslaught but there was nowhere to go from my aye aye comment. So instead I braced, as if in a gale force wind, and waited. He let out a low growl, his moustache bristling with the movement of his mouth, and I noticed something yellow – egg yolk? – matted into the hair.
I know I wouldn’t want to walk around all day with food on my face and everybody sniggering behind my back so I said, ‘You’ve got some food in your moustache.’ I pointed to the left side of my mouth hoping he would realise I meant his right not his left. That can get pretty confusing.
His eye twitched harder as his lips worked around words that didn’t make it out of his mouth. I was starting to wonder if he was having an epileptic episode when he snarled, ‘Get to class Miss Smith.’ He had an impressive ability to make my name sound like a rude word.
The rest of the day passed uneventfully apart from when I fell asleep after lunch during a documentary on the history of the Police Force, and the trainer humiliated me in front of the group. I mean seriously, I defy anyone to stay awake through an hour of that drivel, especially with a full stomach.
The next day I wore black pants and flat shoes. Sergeant Moores made some snide comments about the shoes but the boys, who seemed to have two left feet, preoccupied most of his wrath with their inability to stay in step during marching practice.
After lunch we had physical education. I wasn’t looking forward to it at all, but at least I wasn’t dreading it like Susie. Nastacia was stretching when we showed up at the gym. I watched her for a while and then started to copy her, hoping I looked like I knew what I was doing. Susie joined me, leaning as far forwards as her stomach would allow, stretching her fingers optimistically towards the ground.
Nastacia looked over and rolled her eyes. ‘I don’t know why you’re bothering,’ she said.
‘I don’t want to pull a muscle,’ Susie replied.
‘The only muscle you’re ever going to pull is your tongue.’
I walked over to her and said, ‘That’s not very nice.’
‘I don’t know why you’re bothering either,’ she said, eyeing me up and down. ‘Why don’t you just go home and look pretty.’
‘Pardon? What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘It’s obvious all you care about is how you look.’
‘That’s not true at all,’ I said. It wasn’t. I cared about a lot of things: my Mum, Cocoa, world peace.
‘So why do you want to be a police officer?’
‘To make the world a better place.’ I’d said it so many times I was almost starting to believe it.
Nastacia obviously didn’t buy it. She snorted and turned her back on me and continued her stretching.
‘All right Miss Smarty Pants,’ I said, ‘why do you want to be a police officer?’
She stopped and looked at me with steel grey eyes. ‘You wouldn’t understand.’
‘Try me,’ I said, instead of my preferable alternative of ‘bite me’.
‘My father was a police officer, as was his father, and his father before that.’
‘So…. it’s a family tradition?’
‘I knew you wouldn’t understand.’
‘What’s there to understand? You’re trying to make them proud of you. I don’t see how that is any better than our reasons for being here.’
She shot me a venomous look, but before she could retort someone called us into the gym. That someone was riot squad Rick. Hmmm, maybe this physical education wasn’t going to be so bad after all.
An hour later I lay on the ground, sweating and panting and wishing Rick had gotten me to this state using a totally different form of exercise. It was official. P.E. sucked big time. The only person more unfit than me was Susie. She’d thrown up half an hour in and been sent to the first aid section for rehydration. Nasty had breezed through the one hour torture session with a smirk on her face.
The only positive thing about the whole experience had been watching Rick demonstrate the exercises for us. That man was a serious chunk of hunk.
***
Susie was looking better when I caught up with her after class, but she seemed glum. I tried to cheer her up through dinner by telling he
r how disgracefully I had performed for the last half of the exercise program.
‘What’s up?’ I finally asked when we were sitting on my bed after dinner.
A lone tear rolled down her plump cheek. ‘I’m never going to be a policewoman.’
‘Of course you are,’ I said. ‘In eight months.’
‘No,’ she shook her head, ‘they’ll fail me.’
‘You can fail?’
She smiled sadly. ‘Of course we can dummy.’
It was a sobering thought. ‘Well you still haven’t told me why you’re going to fail.’
‘I’ll never pass the physical exam.’
‘There’s a physical exam?’ Well that bit of news had balls on it.
She shook her head and said, ‘Oh Chanel, did you read the course information at all?’
I shifted uncomfortably. ‘I started to, but I fell asleep.’
She chuckled. ‘Chanel, why do you want to be a police officer?’
I was about to rote my standard answer of making the world a better place but I stopped. I liked Susie and I didn’t want to lie to her, so I told her the truth, about Lenny and Hickery.
She sighed wistfully when I had finished and said, ‘What are we going to do?
‘We are going to train.’
‘Really?’
‘Yup. After dinner. We’ll go to the gym and work out.’
She sat upright with a hopeful look on her face. ‘We could, couldn’t we.’
‘I promise,’ I said, putting my hand on my heart, ‘that I will get you through your physical.’ The words were out of my mouth before my brain had time to edit them.
‘Do you? Do you really promise?’
‘Of course,’ I said, looking down to see if my nose had gotten bigger.
God I hoped I wasn’t telling a porky. As things stood unless the physical exam consisted of a fast food crawl followed by a movie marathon she was going to fail. I would do my best to help her, I really would, but there’s only so much a barely five foot munchkin was capable of. If we were required to do something ridiculous like climb over a three metre wall we were going to need divine help. I just hoped Susie’s hotline to heaven worked better than mine.
3
Lucky Schmucky
After the first week at the Academy our training fell into a rhythm. Parade, lessons, lunch, more lessons then P.E. After dinner Susie and I went to the gym and tried to train. The problem was neither of us had ever worked out before so we weren’t sure what we were doing. But after the first couple of weeks Susie stopped throwing up during P.E. so I figured we were doing something right.
I had two big problems – Sergeant Moores and Nasty Nastacia. (Well three if you considered not being able to get Riot Squad Rick alone a problem.)
Sergeant Moores was just doing his job – I think. As I’d never been exposed to bastardisation before I wasn’t sure what was acceptable and what was not. I couldn’t do anything right. Even my ugly shoes became too fancy for him and I resented the money I had to spend on ones that could only be described as homely.
During room inspection my room was too dirty, untidy or dusty. My clothes were too crushed, too short, too tight. After a few weeks it began to wear me down. My theory that he was just doing his job was flawed by the fact that he didn’t pick on the others with the same level of ferocity. It was becoming obvious that I should never have mentioned the egg yolk.
And Nasty? Well the name said it all. Mostly she just smirked as Sergeant Moores picked on me or made snide comments when I spoke. But a few things happened that made me suspicious that she was sneakier than she looked.
Firstly, three spiders found their way into my room. I’ve never been a fan of spiders. And that’s probably the understatement of the year. I once sat on my bed for two hours waiting for Mum to come home from the shops to save me from a hair ball I’d thought was a Daddy-long-legs. You can imagine how excited I was to have three of the little darlings in my room. And these weren’t your ordinary garden variety of spider. These were huge with visible fangs, and they were hairy. I’m not sure what it is about the hair that makes them extra creepy. I mean, I’ve dated a few hairy men in my time and that didn’t seem to bother me, but when it’s hair on a spider, all bets are off.
I noticed them lurking near my door as they decided which part of my room they were going to inhabit. Given they had cut off my escape route I did the only thing possible. I stood on the bed and screamed until help (Susie brandishing a broom) showed up. I had no proof but I was pretty sure Nasty had been instrumental in the spiders’ choice of which door to crawl under. I had seen her lurking in the corridor when I had gone to the toilet, and it seemed a little coincidental that there were three of them. I mean since when did spiders start travelling in packs?
And then a pen appeared in my bag with its end missing and emptied its ink all over my study books. Initially I thought it was my own stupid fault but the pen’s hot pink logo had the outline of a topless woman and the words ‘We want you to come inside’. I know there was no way I put that pen in my bag. I would remember a pen like that.
But the sneakiest, the lowest, the most damning of them all was the pair of men’s undies that was shoved into the bottom of my wardrobe. If I had spent more time tidying up before room inspection I may have noticed them. But I didn’t, so it was a huge shock to me when Sergeant Moores dragged them out on the end of his stick and waved them in my face.
It was against Academy rules to have persons of the opposite sex in our rooms, so I stood there staring straight ahead, while Sergeant Moores yelled till his head resembled a giant, saliva flecked tomato. More embarrassing though, I was summoned for an interview with the head of the Base, Superintendent Wolfe. Now that was an interesting conversation. I am sure that Nasty thought she had seen the last of me, but I managed to convince him that I wore men’s underwear to prevent chaffing, and it all went away after that.
It certainly wasn’t a high moment in my life, and between that and Sergeant Moores’ bullying I found myself questioning my urge to join the Police Force. I mean, why was I trying so damned hard when it was evident I wasn’t wanted?
I was in silent contemplation, lying on my bed in the few minutes before lunch officially started, when I was once again summoned to Superintendent Wolfe’s office.
‘For goodness sake,’ I grumbled to Susie as I climbed off the bed, ‘I wonder what I’ve done this time.’
I could tell by the look on her face that she was worried. I, however, was getting to the point where I didn’t give a damn. I think that was what had Susie so worried.
‘You promised to get me through the physical,’ she whispered as I opened the door.
I stopped and sighed. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll behave myself,’ I finally said.
I childishly dragged my feet all the way to his office, but I still got there way too soon for my liking. His assistant told me to have a seat and asked me in a kind voice if I wanted anything.
Oh Boy . The assistant was being sweet. That’s it, I was a goner!
I sat and stewed and tried to work out on what grounds they would kick me out. I was doing well in my exams. Maybe I wasn’t the most coordinated when it came to marching, but I was exercising and studying hard, and trying hard to clean my room enough to satisfy Sergeant Moores – something I had begun to suspect was impossible. I didn’t know what else I could do to make them happy. I sighed. Maybe it wasn’t meant to be.
By the time Superintendent Wolfe finally called me into his office I had already mentally dealt with being kicked out of the Academy and moved on to deciding what I was going to do with my life. I was having trouble with that part.
He sat me down across from him and apologised for keeping me waiting. Why was he being so nice? Was he trying to let me down gently?
‘I have some bad news my dear,’ he said.
I sighed.
‘It’s your mother.’
‘My mother?’ I stood up in surprise.
He
gestured for me to sit back down. ‘Don’t be alarmed. She’s fine.’
‘Fine?’
‘In a stable condition.’
Now I was scared. ‘What happened?’
‘She was mugged on her way home from work and broke her leg.’
‘They beat her up?’
‘No. She chased the perpetrator and was hit by a car.’
Christ . My mother had been hit by a car. I felt sick.
‘Seeing as this weekend is a long weekend I thought you could have a few days off to go and visit her.’
I was still too stunned to speak.
‘Chanel, are you all right?’
‘I think I’m in shock,’ I said. My mother mugged in Hickery? The town was so quiet it almost didn’t need a police station. ‘When can I leave?’
‘Right away.’
‘Thank you,’ I said, standing.
‘Oh and Chanel,’ I paused in the doorway and turned back to look at him, ‘she’s still in hospital. Sounds like she will be for a while.’
I threw some clothes into a bag and with Susie’s, ‘Drive safely,’ in my ears I headed for my car. I had been tempted to pack all my stuff and not come back, but Susie had been watching me like a hawk.
The temperature in Goulburn had plummeted in the last week and it wasn’t till I opened the door to the chilly air that I realised I had left my coat in my room. I debated not taking it, but the heater in my car didn’t work very well, and I was going to need it. I placed my bag in the car and went back up to my room for my coat.
Everyone had gone to the mess for lunch and the building was eerily empty. If it hadn’t been, I probably wouldn’t have heard the whispered voices coming from Nastacia’s room through the slightly ajar door.
‘I love you.’
‘I love you too.’
I froze, fascinated by the conversation. Nasty in love?
The speaking stopped for a while and I could just make out the sound of skin moving on skin. A low moan and then the kiss broke off.
‘I have to go.’
Donna Joy Usher - Chanel 01 - Cocoa and Chanel Page 3