by Sue Lawson
The voices moved towards the back of the annexe.
“Pan. Panda. Wake up,” she squeezed her sister’s shoulder. “Open your eyes, Pan.” She knew Kylie and Grandy’s argument wouldn’t stay quiet for long.
Pan moaned and surfaced from sleep. “What?” She yawned.
“Want to come look for fairy penguins on the beach?”
“Now?”
“Uh-huh,” said Morgan, unzipping the sleeping-bag. “Remember, they come to shore to their nests at night.”
Pan’s current “thing” was penguins. She cut photos of them from magazines and borrowed library books about them, which she kept at Grandy’s home.
Pan sat up and rubbed her eyes. “Okay. Let’s go.”
Morgan helped Pan into her jacket and tracksuit pants. “Now thongs.”
The voices out the back grew louder and angrier.
“Is Grandy outside?” asked Pan.
“He went to the toilet block,” lied Morgan. “He must be talking to Jacka. You know, the old man in that tent up a bit.”
“Where’s Mummy?” asked Pan, looking up at the empty bunk above her bed.
“Do you want to see the penguins, or not?”
Yelling. Swearing.
Pan’s face crumpled in fear.
“Party out the back. We’re going the other way.” Morgan took her sister’s hand. They crept out of the tent and through the gloomy park, lit by weak lights, to the road. Here Morgan turned on her torch. They scuttled across the bitumen into the scrub and followed a sand-covered path.
“It’s spooky,” said Pan, fear lacing her words.
The dark and the sigh of the waves freaked Morgan too, but it was better than the scene she knew was developing behind them. “I’m here, Panda.”
A rabbit broke cover in front of them, making both girls squeal.
“I want to go back, Morgs.” Pan gripped Morgan’s hand with both of hers. “I’m scared.”
Morgan ignored her own thudding heart and tried to sound brave. “Scared? Of what? A fairy messenger?”
“It was a rabbit.”
“Sure, it looked like a rabbit, but he’s really the fairies’ messenger.”
“There aren’t any fairies.”
“Pan, are you for real?” Morgan looked around her. The bushes twisted by the ocean wind took on a sinister shape in the dark. “See those? Scary, right?”
“Yeah.”
Morgan bent to Pan’s ear. “Don’t tell anyone, but they’re beach fairies.”
“They’re too big.”
Morgan smiled at the eagerness in her sister’s voice. “Nuh, uh! Fairies have to be big around here or the wind’ll blow them away. They look like bushes because of their magic.”
“You’re making this up,” said Pan.
“Suit yourself.”
Morgan kept going up the dune. Pan followed. Dry sand squeaked under their feet. Twigs and dry grass stabbed their toes. At the top of the dune, the ocean lay before them, a rippling piece of velvet. The waves rolled white and foaming to the shore, a lace edge to the velvet. The moon’s light was a thin strip of silver ribbon.
Morgan and Pan skidded down the dune to the beach and followed a line of damp sand to the rocks.
“We’ll stop here, Panda,” said Morgan, sitting on the sand. Pan snuggled under her sister’s arm. “We have to be quiet, or we’ll scare them.”
Pan nodded.
While Pan scanned the water and rocks for penguins, Morgan’s mind drifted back to the caravan park. She could pick the signs now. Always different, but somehow similar. Kylie pacing the annexe floor all night, skipping along the beach with her sarong flying from her outstretched hands, and flirting with those surfers, years younger than her. All signs. And not long after the signs, the weird stuff started and the crash came.
Pan gasped. “Look.”
Morgan shone the torch where Pan pointed. At first she thought it was kelp, then the lump stood, shook itself and waddled up the beach. When she hugged Pan, she could feel the excitement ripple through her.
After the eleventh penguin, they waited in the dark for ages, before deciding to head back to the caravan park. As they followed the winding path, Morgan prayed everything would be calm.
The caravan light was on. Morgan braced herself for trouble and she made sure she came through the annexe door first. Grandy was sitting on her bed, sipping a mug of tea. He looked up and smiled. Morgan’s shoulders dropped.
Pan pushed past her. “Grandy, we saw eleven penguins.”
He smiled. “Really, Panda? Jump back into bed and tell me about it.”
When he moved, Morgan saw the red welt across his face and the scratch marks on his bare arms.
“Where’s Mummy? I want to tell her too,” said Pan, dumping her jacket on the annexe floor.
“She’ll be back in a couple days,” Grandy said, his voice flat.
Ten
Sun pours through the school cafeteria window, spilling onto the table where I sit alone. I chew my sandwich and listen. The girls on the table behind me are making sympathetic noises.
“It’s horrible.”
“Yeah, really bad, Beccy.”
“What a cheat! He doesn’t deserve you.”
Loud sniffs punctuate the words.
I wonder if it’s the same Beccy from my English class. No matter which Beccy it is, I know her face will be tear streaked, her mascara smudged and her hair askew. The other girls will be gathered close, maybe holding her hand or rubbing her forearm. As one speaks, the others will nod and tut, faces sincere and caring.
Sincere. Caring.
Right.
Last year, at Deakin Bay, I was pathetic like Beccy, sure the sincere, caring girls surrounding me were my friends, my real friends.
I saw Kira, Tamz and Danni on my first day at Deakin Bay, sitting cross-legged in a circle – a triangle really – in the middle of the football oval. They talked and laughed, ignoring the balls scudding above their dyed black hair. When a group of boys loomed over them, Kira flipped them the bird and continued talking. The boys shrugged and backed off.
For about a week, I full-on stalked them, sucking up every tiny detail. Like me, they wore black eyeliner, string and plaited bracelets and hoodies instead of school jumpers. They scowled more than smiled and kept well away from the kids with ironed shirts and scuff-free shoes. They curled their noses at teachers and marched through groups of senior students without being challenged. Unlike me, they laughed and wore confidence around their shoulders like a cloak.
The three girls hung out with a group of older guys, year tens, who wore skinny-leg jeans, hooded sweatshirts and skate shoes. There was this one guy, with matted brown hair and clear skin, whose T-shirt was never tucked in and shoes were covered in graffiti. His laugh was loud.
One lunchtime I was eating near the fountain when Ms Naura bellowed from the front office. “Mason Walker.”
I looked up to see the clear-skinned guy with the big laugh holding his open chocolate milk over another boy’s head. I’d sat next to that kid during ancient history and had the feeling he was special.
Mason smiled at Ms Naura, skolled the drink and crumpled the empty carton under his foot.
“Mason Walker,” yelled Ms Naura, her face white, “you’re on notice.”
That’s how I knew his name. Mason Walker.
Kira first spoke to me during PE. A day later she asked me to sit with her and the others at their table. Okay, so it was a picnic table outside the canteen, but no one sat there without an invitation from Kira.
From then on three became four. We gatecrashed parties, hung out at the skate park and caught the train into the city. It was Kira who introduced me to Mason. Kira who encouraged us to hook up at some party near the beach. I don’t even know whose party it was.
Everything was perfect, until Tamz’s party. Kira asked me to stay at her place for the weekend. On Friday night, we hung out in her bedroom. We watched DVDs and painted each other’s nails.
I figured this was all the girlie stuff that real friends did. When we were lying in the dark, I talked to Kira about things I’ve never told anyone before, not even Morgan – about Grandy dying, how I hated moving all the time, how she, Tamz and Danni were my first real friends, and how being with Mason was special – the best thing that had ever happened to me. Basically, I ripped out my own heart and handed it to her.
Saturday night, after dinner with her parents where Kira raved about Mason and I being the cutest couple ever, her dad dropped us at Tamz’s party. Danni, Mason and the others were already there. At first everything was great – Mason held my hand. But then everything went weird.
Kira took off to talk to someone. Not long after, Mason went to find the toilet. He was gone for ages, and I went to look for him. When I found him, it took me a moment to make sense of what I was seeing. There he was pressed against Kira. Kira’s T-shirt was hitched up and her back was up against the wall of the garden shed. Mason was all over her.
Something snapped in my head. I punched Mason’s shoulders and I just ran.
Tamz and Danni came around the next morning. We went to the burger place up the road and while I cried, they shook their heads, tutted and hugged me.
Monday morning they were sitting cross-legged on the grass with Kira. As I walked through the school gates, the three of them looked up and laughed at me. The sound shredded my skin and burned their faces into my memory.
Turns out, Kira was just using me. Kira’s father had banned her from seeing Mason, her boyfriend, so she and Mason picked me as the perfect cover. People – friends – suck.
Listening to those girls talk to Beccy, the anger and hurt from what Kira did swamps me like a wave. With that comes another feeling which swirls from my toes to the tips of my hair.
Do. Not. Trust. Anyone. Ever. Again.
I push back from the table. The chair smashes into one of the “caring” girls behind me.
The girl glares. “Watch it, loser.”
I scan the faces at the table. Beccy is the same girl who spoke to me that first day, and the caring friends are the ones who watched from the other end of the courtyard. Beccy’s mascara is smudged and her face is blotchy.
I lean towards her. “Wake up, idiot. The guy is a user, and your friends,” I spit the word, “don’t give a stuff about how you feel. All they want is the goss.”
I kick the chair as I storm off, their gasps of horror floating behind me.
I’m on my way to maths, holding my folder, book and pencil case, when someone slams into me, knocking me off balance. My shoulder crunches into the brick wall. The air rushes from with me with an oof. Searing pain fills my leg.
“Watch where you’re …” My words die. Two of the girls from the cafeteria stand in front of me, shoulder to shoulder, arms crossed. Crashing into me wasn’t an accident.
“What’s your problem?” says the shorter one.
“My problem?” I laugh, snort really, and pick up my pencil case and textbook, which have fallen to the ground.
The other girl takes a step towards me. “Beccy had to go home because of you!”
“Yeah, because Beccy was so happy before I told her the truth.” I smooth my uniform and stalk away, head high.
Eleven
After dinner I escape to my room to avoid having to talk to anyone. Just as I’ve made myself comfortable on the floor, there’s a knock on my closed door. I grit my teeth. I am not in the mood for a “Rose chat”.
Before I can speak, the door bursts open and Livia is standing over me, hands on her hips.
I reach for my English folder. “What?”
“Do you have any idea what you have done?” she snarls.
“No, but I’m sure you’re about to tell me.”
Livia scrunches up her face. “You have totally, completely ruined our production.”
“Cool, how did I do that?”
“As if you don’t know.”
With a shake of my head, I look down at my open folder. “Know what, Livia? I don’t have time for your fun little guessing game. Get to the point or leave.”
“You deliberately upset Bec to hurt me.”
I look up. Her face is swollen, almost purple, ready to explode. “What are you talking about?”
“Don’t act like you don’t know.”
Then it dawns on me. The girl from English, the one crying in the canteen. “Oh. Is Beccy a friend of yours?”
“No. Yes. Kind of. Bec is the production’s lead. Well she was. She pulled out this afternoon and no one else can sing Maria, so the whole production is stuffed, all because of you.”
“Because of me? How is it my fault?”
“Are you trying to be funny or are you just stupid?”
I raise an eyebrow, but say nothing.
“You so knew her boyfriend, Zander, is playing Tony, the male lead.”
“So the guy who two-timed Beccy is the star in your fantastic production.” I can’t help it, I laugh.
“It’s not funny,” screeches Livia.
“Yeah, it is, actually. And Beccy pulling out has nothing to do with me and everything to do with the scumbag who cheated on her.”
Livia growls then explodes into a wall of words. Bogan. Loser. Blah, blah, blah. Nothing I haven’t been called before. The words bounce off me like tiny rubber balls, until she says, “No wonder no one wants you here.”
A swirling rage rushes through me and spews out at Livia.
“Shut up. Just shut up, you psycho!” I’m on my feet, screaming. “You don’t know the first thing–”
“What on earth is going on in here?” Rose is in the doorway, hands on her hips.
“She’s ruined everything,” bellows Livia. “I hate her.”
Rose’s eyes and mouth go round for a moment, then she regroups. “Go to your room, Livia.”
“But she–”
“Now, Livia.”
Livia stomps out, knocking my jeans off the bed as she goes.
I fold my arms and stare up at Rose.
“Stay in here and compose yourself while I–”
“Take her side,” I spit.
“No, Pan, while I take Nate to soccer practice. We’ll discuss this when I return.”
The door closes. I punch the pillow. Twice.
Twelve
Ian summons me to the kitchen table, where he guides me to sit beside him and opposite Rose and Livia. Livia’s eyes are red and her face white. Rose has a notebook and pen in front of her. Ian holds one of those squishy stress balls.
This is going to be worse than any counselling session I’ve had to go to; I just know it. I slump in the chair.
Rose clears her throat. “Pan, this is your first family meeting, so I’ll explain the rules.”
Rules?
Ian rolls the ball across the table to Rose, who picks it up and continues. “The person who has the ball is the only one to speak. The rest of us must listen.”
Is this for real?
“And we speak with respect. No put-downs. Okay?” Rose stares straight at me.
I’m too stunned to form words.
Rose isn’t happy with my silence. “Understand, Pan?”
“Yeah.”
“Right, you start.” Rose rolls the ball at me.
I squeeze it in my left hand. “Me?”
Rose nods.
Great. “So I’m in my room and Livia storms in, seriously pi … annoyed.”
Rose scribbles something in the notebook and waits for more. When it’s clear I have nothing to add, she speaks. Without the ball. “Anything else?”
“Nuh. Except, I hate being yelled at.”
“I didn’t yell at–” Ian silences Livia with a raised hand. Her breath in is loud.
“Okay, so let me get this straight. You don’t understand why Livia was angry?” says Rose.
“That’s what I said.” I look to the ceiling, begging it to collapse and end this.
“We’re just making sure–”
&
nbsp; Rose clears her throat. Ian stops and holds out his hand for the ball. “Pan, we’re just making sure we understand you.”
“Does it matter?”
Rose’s hand shoots up to silence me.
If you’d have told me a month ago that there was something more annoying than Morgan bossing me around, I’d have laughed in your face. I sigh and slump further in my seat.
“Your turn, Livia,” says Ian, handing the ball across the table.
Words flow from her mouth in a torrent. I snatch hold of a few. Beccy. Zander. Fight. Interfered. Livia’s pointed finger makes it clear she means me. “Heartbroken. West Side Story ruined.”
“So, Livia, the problem is …” Rose repeats everything Livia has just said.
“Do you understand now, Pan?”
Kill me. Now.
“I’m not retarded.”
Rose doesn’t react. “Have I understood you, Livia?”
Livia sniffs and nods. “All our hard work is ruined because of her.” She spits out “her” as though the word is broken glass in her mouth.
“Look, I–”
Rose glares at me. I sigh and snatch the ball from Livia. “All I said was her friends didn’t mean that stuff they were saying. All that ‘He doesn’t deserve you, you’re too good for him … blah-blah-blah crap.’ They were so fake. I didn’t know she was in your play.”
Rose, face earnest, speaks again. “So, Pan, you–”
“Enough! Please. Enough,” I say. “Can we just cut the crap? I didn’t mean to wreck the play, okay? I’m sorry, Livia.” I stare at Rose. “Are we done? Can I go?”
Rose tucks her hair behind her ears. “Livia? Are we done?” There’s an edge to Rose’s voice, like she’s urging Livia to say something.
Livia sighs and folds her arms. “Does it matter?” Her voice and the tilt of her head remind me of Morgan.
I push back from the table. “You know what, Livia, if my apology isn’t good enough for you, shove it.”
At least they leave me alone. If someone had come running after me and dragged me back to that table, I’d have punched them. Instead of being violent, I can be alone and think. I sit on the floor, back against the bed, and focus on the fountain trickling outside the window. I hate the thing in the morning. It’s impossible to ignore a full bladder with that noise going on, but now, when I’m feeling blah, there’s something soothing about the noise and the way the water bubbles silver.