Pan’s Whisper

by Sue Lawson

  Just like when Livia and I were made to talk about our differences at the kitchen table, Rose started off by asking for my side of the story. She shifted in her seat when it became clear I had nothing to say. Ian sucked in a deep breath and launched into a lecture. While he wasted oxygen, I thought about detention with Ari and how my fury had evapourated the moment I saw Hunter hunched over the piano.

  Rose cleared her throat, bringing me back to the lecture, and patted Ian’s hand.

  Ian stopped talking. A vein in his temple pulsed.

  “Pan, we’re disappointed in your behaviour,” said Rose, “but we trust you’ll choose your actions with more care from now on.”

  Who talks like that? Especially when the person in your care is guilty of a violent and excessive reaction. A violent and excessive reaction in a library.

  “Okay.”

  I’m sure Ian’s jaw didn’t move when he asked, “Anything else you’d like to say?”

  I shrugged and looked at the door. “I have homework.”

  Ian sighed and Rose dismissed me with a tired sounding, “Go on then.”

  Which I did.

  I toss the dictionary aside and take Smocker from the bottom of my duffel bag where I hide him during the day. When I was little I smuggled him to school in my schoolbag. That stopped when I was in grade six after Gerald Mahoney opened my bag instead of his own and discovered Smocker. He and his stupid fathead friends teased me for the rest of the year.

  I unzip Smocker’s belly and pull out the first thing I feel – a piece of paper, crinkled with age and folded into a square. I smooth it flat and read.

  Dear Morgs,

  You are the best sister in the world. I love you.

  Panda

  Xxxxxxxxxxxxxooooooooo

  The writing is large and messy. Underneath is a drawing of Morgan and me playing with a doll – my Sleeping Beauty Barbie, judging by the pink and gold dress I’ve drawn.

  Sorrow swoops in my chest like a swallow. I fold the paper and shove it back inside Smocker, jamming it right down near his tail.

  Morgan,

  Remember that time I lost my Barbie – the Sleeping Beauty Barbie Grandy and Grandma gave me for Christmas – and how you found it? I could never work out how you tied those tiny ribbons back into bows for me.

  I can’t remember what they gave you for Christmas that year. You were never into Barbies, so I guess they didn’t give you one. So what did they give you?

  Anyway, I was just wondering where you found her. I mean, you never told me where she was.

  Pan

  Morgan and Pan walked home from the supermarket, plastic bags bumping against their legs and eating into their hands. Morgan carried the heavy stuff – milk, potatoes, apples, pumpkin, washing powder. Pan had the bread, pasta, tissues and toilet paper. They turned off Main Road into George Street.

  “Is he your boyfriend?” sang Pan.

  Morgan scowled. “Just because I talk to a guy from school doesn’t mean he’s my boyfriend.”

  Pan skipped around in front of her, and trotted backwards. “You love him, you love him.”

  “Shut up, Pand-dora.” Morgan knew her face had reddened.

  “You do so love him.”

  Instead of biting back, Morgan stopped in the middle of the footpath, mouth agape. Ahead, Kylie, her blond hair now black and cropped, dragged a garbage bag along the driveway. She lifted the bag by its bottom and emptied the contents onto the nature strip. Out tumbled Morgan’s doona, towels, a jumble of clothes, a headless Barbie and Pan’s Wish Bear. In front of the pile, Kylie placed a cardboard box with “Help Yourself” written in texta.

  Before Morgan could distract Pan, she’d seen what was going on. She dropped the shopping bags and sprinted forwards, snatching Wish Bear from the pile.

  Kylie looked up, her face crazed. “Put that back.”

  Pan hugged the bear to her chest.

  Morgan placed her shopping bags beside Pan’s and moved to her sister’s side.

  “Did you hear me? Put that back.” Kylie’s voice was shrill. A passing car slowed. “What are you rubbernecking at?” she screeched at the driver.

  The car picked up speed.

  Kylie grabbed Pan’s arm. “You don’t deserve the lovely things I buy you.”

  Morgan pushed Kylie back, breaking her grip. “Leave it, Kylie. You told her that her dad bought it, remember?”

  Kylie craned forward, an animal ready to pounce. “As if! Where is he? Hey? And while we’re at it, where’s your father? Gone! Both of them. It’s me who feeds you, pays the rent, cares for you. Not them. And what thanks do I get? None.”

  Morgan turned her back on Kylie’s rant and bent so her face was level with Pan’s. “We forgot to buy eggs.”

  “But …”

  “As for you, Miss High and Mighty.” Kylie’s shriek bounced off the other houses in the street.

  Morgan pushed Pan. “Come on. Let’s go.”

  “Don’t you dare walk away from me,” Kylie yelled. “Come back here. NOW.”

  Morgan clasped Pan’s hand. They ran back to the supermarket, leaving Kylie swearing and snarling in their wake.

  The girls hung around the shopping centre until a security guard suggested they leave. When they returned home, it was dusk. Morgan made Pan wait at the corner while she checked the house. Kylie had gone. The shopping bags lay abandoned near the pile of their belongings. As far as Morgan could tell, her doona, the beach towels and a few of her T-shirts were gone.

  While Pan unpacked the shopping, Morgan brought what was left of their stuff inside, except for the headless Barbie. She stuffed that in the neighbour’s bin on the kerb for collection.

  Later that night Morgan changed into her pyjamas in the bathroom and crept into the room she and Pan shared. Pan was on her knees by her bed.

  “Why aren’t you asleep?”

  Pan turned to Morgan, tears sparkling on her cheeks. “I can’t find Barbie.”

  “Bet you’ve left her in the lounge or the kitchen. I’ll find her tomorrow.” Morgan guided Pan to bed.

  With the house silent and dark, and Kylie not back, Morgan waited for Pan to fall asleep before creeping out of bed and collecting her drink bottle from her schoolbag.

  She unscrewed the lid and turned it over. Notes and coins fell to the carpet. Morgan counted it – most a Christmas gift from Grandy, the rest change from supermarket shopping which Morgan hid in case of emergencies. This was an emergency.

  Forty-seven dollars and sixty-five cents.

  She smiled and hid the money back in her drink bottle. Tomorrow she’d go to the shopping centre and buy Pan a new Sleeping Beauty Barbie.

  Nineteen

  The combination of the school detention and Ian and Rose’s discussion/lecture force me to come up with a new plan. Invisibility clearly isn’t working, so I decide to try speaking only if I have to.

  That explodes in my face before it’s twenty-four hours old. Livia complains to Rose that I’m ignoring her, which brings on another roundtable, ball-holding discussion. During the whole painful business, Livia looks like she just ate the last Tim Tam.

  I play meek and mild, apologising to Livia and explaining I just had heaps on my mind. That results in a girls’ afternoon, just me and Rose, which in fact was coffee and cake and an attempted “talk”. Strike the silent plan off as a raging failure.

  So with invisibility and silence both failures, it’s on to Plan C, which involves staying away from everyone.

  At school I stumbled across a little nook between the woodwork room and the main building. At first I thought it was just a thick hedge, but then I realised there was a grass patch between two thinner spiky bushes with weird red flowers. The perfect place to escape from everyone.

  I’m lying on my back, listening to my iPod and soaking up the winter sun. My lunch lies beside me on the grass. Something blocks the sun on my legs.

  My earbuds fall to my lap when I sit up.

  Hunter is standing over
me, frowning. He’s holding a brown paper bag, a carton of vanilla-flavoured milk and his iPod – a big sucker iPod, not a Nano like mine.

  “What’s your problem?” I ask.

  He shrugs. “Thought I was the only person who hung out here.”

  “Nope.”

  “How’d you find it?” he asks.

  “Stumbled across it.” Part of me wants to bolt, the rest of me refuses to budge.

  “Funny about that. That’s what happened to me too. Came across it when I needed time alone. Kind of like that room in Harry Potter.” He sits opposite me. “So what are you escaping from?”

  “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “You might be surprised.”

  “I doubt it.” I put my earbuds back in, almost hoping Hunter will take the hint and leave.

  He doesn’t. He peels back the paper bag to reveal a pie and squirts sauce from a plastic tub onto it. As he moves, I can see more of his tattoo. It’s definitely a Japanese or Chinese symbol.

  “Courage,” he says before taking a bite of his pie.

  I turn off my iPod, even though I heard him. “What?”

  He chews and nods at his wrist. “My tatt – it’s Japanese for courage.”

  “I wasn’t even looking at it.”

  His grin makes me shift positions. Why can’t I just stand and walk away from him?

  “Why do you need courage?” I ask.

  “Similar reasons to you, probably.”

  I compare the perfect life I just know he has to my own. “I doubt it.”

  We sit in silence, him eating his pie, me nibbling the sandwich Rose made.

  “So.” Hunter crumples the now empty paper bag and opens his vanilla milk. “What did you do to Ari?”

  My heart sinks. Great – now I’ve pissed Ari off, the only person I’ve liked being with so far. Except for Hunter. “Nothing. I just painted stuff for him. For detention.”

  “He told me. Wants you to come back and finish the backdrops with him.”

  “But I’ve done detention.”

  “Not for detention. For fun. Better than sitting here, alone. Finish your lunch and we’ll go.”

  I watch him stand, my mind a jumbled mess. Don’t go. Go. Stay. Help Ari. Don’t. Ari. Hunter. Go. Help. “May as well, I suppose.”

  Hunter laughs. “God, hope it doesn’t kill you.” He reaches out. I watch my fingers curl around his hand. It’s warm and soft. I snatch mine away and stand on my own.

  We walk side by side to the performing arts building.

  In the room off the stage, Ari squats in front of the material I painted during detention. He’s finished the basketball ring, cyclone fencing and empty posters.

  Our footsteps echo in the room. Ari turns, his face brightening when he sees us.

  “Ah, the cavalry. You’re just in time.” He turns back to the painting. “You two any good at graffiti?”

  “Nuh.” I once tagged a football clubroom. I’d had bigger plans, but had to drop them when the cops drove past. I wasn’t a full-on graffiti artist or anything. I mean, you have to like painting and be good at it, for that. I just found a can of black spray paint on my way home and decided to empty it on the wall. To make a mess.

  “I do mean doodles in my English book,” says Hunter, now standing beside Ari and scanning the backdrop.

  “So I hear. Beth was ranting about your artistic skills in the staffroom yesterday.”

  “Beth?” I look from Ari to Hunter.

  “Ms Grinter,” says Hunter. “Grint.”

  Her name sends a shiver down my spine. Our English teacher is one strange unit.

  Hunter pulls a face. “I’ve told her a billion times that doodling helps me organise my thoughts. Anyway, serves her right for snatching my work from me to ‘assess how much I’ve achieved’.” Hunter’s impression is perfect.

  Ari laughs. “Want to doodle on this?”

  “Sure – stuff about Jets and the Sharks?”

  “Absolutely,” says Ari.

  It’s like they’ve forgotten I’m here. “Sharks and Jets? What’s that about?”

  “West Side Story.” Ari says it like I should know what he’s talking about.

  “And?”

  “You haven’t heard of West Side Story?”

  I fold my arms. “Is that a crime?”

  “Not at all,” says Hunter, giving Ari a look I can’t figure out. “But you do know what it’s about.”

  That makes me prickle. Before I say something smart, Hunter continues. “It’s basically Romeo and Juliet, only a musical set in the fifties.”

  “So I’m guessing the Jets and Sharks are families or something.”

  “Gangs,” says Ari. “Jets are a white gang and the Sharks, Puerto Ricans. Juliet is Maria – Puerto Rican, and Romeo is Tony – American. Still with us?”

  “Sounds like it’s about racism more than family.”

  “Yep, but still prejudice.” Ari pours paint into smaller containers. “You catch on fast, Pan.”

  I can’t help smiling.

  “There’s a family complication too, Panna,” says Hunter.

  No one except Mum or Morgan has called me anything but Pan or Panda. Panna – it sounds strange, but okay strange.

  “You should come to rehearsals,” adds Hunter. “I mean, you like Romeo and Juliet, so you’ll like this.”

  I do my sideways check-out thing. How does he know I like Romeo and Juliet? I’ve never told anyone that. It’s a pretty geeky thing to admit to.

  “Better still,” Ari hands me a paintbrush, “help me finish this, and catch rehearsals at the same time.”

  “Maybe,” I say. But I already know I will. “So graffiti?”

  “Knock yourself out,” says Ari, starting on a poster blank on the wall.

  The three of us stand back, arms folded, and study the backdrop. I’m amazed at how Ari has transformed the blanks into a poster for the circus, a no parking sign and an advertisement for cigarettes. He’s even managed to make them look battered and curled.

  Our graffiti is pretty cool too. Ari insisted we keep it simple, no shadows or tags like modern graffiti. Hunter looked after the Jets stuff and I did the Sharks. We sprinkled the set with Sharks, Go home Spics, Jets, Jets Forever and Sharks Rule with a slash through Sharks and a scrawled Jets above it.

  Ari pats my shoulder and Hunter’s at the same time. “Good job, team. Couldn’t have done it without you.”

  Not only does my face go hot, but heat rushes through me, but not a prickly heat, a thick warmth like hot chocolate.

  “Can you come back tomorrow at lunchtime?”

  I want Hunter to answer before me.

  “Yeah, sure,” he says.

  I wait a moment then add. “I guess.”

  “Cool – you can bring lunch, Pan. See you tomorrow, Ari.” Before I can refuse, Hunter is gone. Ari’s grin makes me feel uncomfortable.

  “Just don’t blame me if you both die of food poisoning,” I snap.

  Twenty

  As I walk to the bus stop after school, my head is full of white noise. Beneath it all, two words fight to surface. Lunch. Ari. Mum. Hunter. Morgan. Hunter. McMinns. Morgan. Hunter. Mum. I’m so absorbed in trying to stop Morgan and Mum from rising and swamping me, I crash straight into something. The grunt makes me realise I’ve walked into a person.

  “Sorry,” I gush, “I was lost in …” My words drift away as I realise I’ve walked into Beccy and her mates who I’ve worked out are Mollie and Shay. Her friends stand a little behind Beccy, making her the point in their triangle.

  “Watch where you’re going, skank,” snarls Beccy.

  “Like I said, sorry.” When I go to walk around them, Mollie blocks my way.

  “Why don’t you go back to whatever slum you crawled out of?” she says.

  I straighten up, hands on my hips. I’ve faced far scarier things than her. “Nice. You make that up yourself?”

  Shay shoves my shoulder.

  I shake my head and smile. �
��Seriously, you don’t want to do that.” So, I’ve only been in one fight, and yep, I ended up with a chunk of hair ripped out of my head and a fat lip, but I figure that’s one more fight than these three have been in.

  “Or what?” says Shay, taking a step closer.

  Is she for real? “You watch too much TV.”

  “Bitch fight,” calls a male voice from over near the bus stop. Great. Just what I need. An audience.

  “Look, I copped a detention because of you lot, doesn’t that make us even?”

  Beccy snorts. “Not even close.”

  I can hear whistling. As it grows louder, I recognise the song, “Kung Fu Fighting”. I laugh out loud.

  “What’s so funny?” Shay’s so close I can see the enlarged pores on her nose.

  The whistling stops. “Girls, girls, girls. What’s going on?” It takes me a moment to recognise Hunter’s voice.

  Shay’s smile makes me want to vomit. “Oh hey, Hunter. We were just talking. You know girls’ stuff.”

  He looks past Beccy, Mollie and Shay, towards the bus stop. “Who’d have thought girls’ stuff could be so interesting.”

  I follow his gaze. Groups of people stare at us, not even trying to pretend they aren’t.

  “I don’t get why you’re so pissed with Pan, Beccy,” says Hunter. “She was right, Zander is a user and these two were after the goss.”

  Beccy’s eyes narrow. “And how would you know?”

  “How do you reckon? Mollie and Shay told me.”

  Mollie’s face turns white. Shay’s jaw goes rigid.

  “Hey, did you hear Ella McGrath is pushing for your role, Beccy?”

  I can’t work out if Beccy is going to cry, scream, or punch something. Maybe she’ll do the lot at once.

  “Playing Maria will give her a chance to be closer to Zander, I guess.” Hunter strolls around the three mute girls. “Hey, Panna, you coming?”

  As I follow, Beccy yells, “No way is that dirty cow having my role. Or my boyfriend.”

  Hunter laughs. “Saved the production and you, all in one move.”

  I slam to a halt. “What did you say?”

  Hunter turns around, the laughter vanishing from his face. “Pan…”