Pan’s Whisper

by Sue Lawson

  Kylie, black smudges under her eyes and her skin sallow, wandered into the kitchen carrying her handbag and an overnight bag. She flicked the switch on the kettle. “Could have made me a coffee,” she snarled. She banged a mug on the bench and opened the cupboard above her head. “Where’s the bloody coffee?”

  “I told you,” said Morgan. “We’re out.”

  Kylie swore.

  “Kylie, do you know what day it is?”

  She spun around, her eyebrows furrowed. “Friday.”

  “And the date?”

  “I don’t know. October twenty-six? Twenty-seven?”

  “October 26. Pan’s birthday, I told you Monday,” said Morgan, fighting the anger building in her chest.

  Kylie shook her head. “No. No, you didn’t.”

  “Yeah, I did. And I reminded you yesterday. I even told you Pan wanted new swimmers and a birthday dinner. Chinese.”

  “I’m sure you didn’t, Morgan. Anyway, I have this amazing job interview, down the coast. Barmaid – it’d be the best.”

  “Yeah, ‘cos you need to be around more alcohol.”

  Kylie slapped Morgan’s face. “You just have to drag me down, don’t you? You never support me. You just whinge all the time. Well, here’s a news flash, Morgan, life isn’t all about you. I’m going down the coast for a few days. See how you cope without me.” She snatched up her bags and stormed out the door.

  Morgan stared at the kitchen floor, tears brimming in her eyes, hand over her stinging cheek. She sucked in air. “I’ll cope just fine,” she said. “Always do.”

  Morgan went through the usual pre-school routine – packed her bag, nagged Pan to hurry and walked with her to the crossroads. Once Pan was out of sight, Morgan didn’t continue to school, but instead she jogged back home, changed and caught the bus to the main shopping centre. In the surf shop sale bin she found a pair of bathers in Pan’s size. Last year’s style, but only twenty-five dollars. At Bargain Chest she bought streamers, balloons, candles and party poppers. With time getting away on her, she took a short cut through the giant department store to the supermarket, where she bought chicken, a jar of sweet and sour sauce, rice, vegies and a mud cake.

  Gifts, Chinese dinner, decorations and birthday cake sorted.

  Back at home Morgan spent the next hour decorating the lounge room and kitchen. She changed back into her school clothes at three and rushed to meet Pan at the corner.

  “How was your day, birthday girl?” she asked.

  “Not bad. Miss Williams remembered.” Pan held up a notebook with a kitten on the cover.

  “She gave you that?”

  Pan nodded. “Sure did. My only present.”

  “You haven’t been home yet.” Morgan hugged her secret close to her heart.

  Pan squealed with delight when she walked in the back door. “It all looks so cool! And presents!” She rushed to the table where Morgan had placed the wrapped swimmers and her own gift she’d bought last week. Beside them was the one she’d shoplifted from the department store earlier that day.

  She hadn’t gone in there to steal anything, but when she saw it sitting on the counter, she’d slipped the box into the bag of party items, telling herself she’d donate the price and more to the store’s charity fund. As soon as she saved the money. Morgan hadn’t been able to think about the box nestled between the party poppers and streamers until she reached home.

  “I knew Mum wouldn’t forget,” said Pan.

  Morgan swallowed the bitter taste in her mouth. “Der – she’s your mum, of course she wouldn’t forget your birthday.”

  “Where is she?” Pan looked around her, as though expecting Kylie to stroll through a door and yell “surprise” at any second.

  That morning Morgan had told Pan that Kylie was sleeping in, which wasn’t unusual. She hadn’t come up with an excuse for Kylie’s no-show tonight, yet. Morgan handed Pan her gift. “Happy birthday, little sister.”

  Pan ripped open the paper and gasped. “The last Harry Potter – oh, Morgs.” She hugged the book to her chest, only putting it down when Morgan passed her Kylie’s gift. “These are so cool.” Pan held the bathers against her school dress.

  “And this one is from me too.” Morgan handed her the last gift, wrapped in streamers. The stolen gift.

  “But you gave me the book.”

  “Yeah, and I’m giving you this too.”

  Pan held the box to her ear, shook it and grinned. She tore the streamers away to reveal a blue box with gold trim. It opened with a dull clunk. Inside sat a funky red wristwatch. Pan gasped. “How did you know?”

  Morgan had seen her mooning over the advertisement in a Dolly. “I guessed.”

  Pan ran around the table and hugged Morgan, squeezing the air from her. “Thanks, Morgs. Thanks heaps. I love it.”

  Twenty-Six

  Now Holland has banned me from hanging out near the woodwork room, I go back to spending my breaks lost in my iPod at a canteen table tucked behind a tangled vine.

  At recess I don’t hear Hunter sit in the chair opposite, but I do feel the table move when he leans on it. I open my eyes. He’s watching me.

  “Hey.” I turn off my iPod.

  “Want to tell me what I’ve done wrong?”

  What he’s done? I try to tell him it’s not him, it’s me, but I can’t find the right words.

  He sighs and stretches. “I need air.”

  We’re already outside with an icy breeze circling us.

  “Coming?” he says, standing.

  “Where?”

  “My other alone place.”

  “There’s no other place around school. I’ve looked.”

  “It’s not around here, Pan.”

  My brain wages war with itself. Do I stay? Or go and risk more trouble from Holland? Or stay and avoid what I know Hunter is going to say – that I’m a loser and a stuff-up? Or go?

  I go.

  We walk through the school gates past the homes, shops and streets I recognise from last time we walked to Hunter’s place. This time we don’t turn down his street, but keep going to a park.

  We skirt the patchy oval and turn onto a gravel path that winds through the bush. It opens out to a grassed area beside a creek. The place is secluded from the rest of the world by trees and shrubs. It smells of damp earth and eucalyptus. Birds call, hidden from sight amongst the trees. The trickle of the creek supports their song.

  Hunter lies on his back, hands behind his head, without checking if the grass is wet.

  “Is it dry?” I ask, still standing on the track.

  “Guess – can’t feel it through my jumper and school pants.”

  I touch the grass with my fingertips and decide it’s dry enough. I sit, cross-legged beside him. My shoulders drop as I let out my breath. I can’t have been holding it the entire way here, but that’s how it feels.

  Hunter speaks first. “If Dad and I wait for Mum before we eat dinner, we’ll starve. Mum died nearly two years ago.”

  His words hit me like a blow to the belly.

  The photos. The appointment card. He even talked about her in the past tense. But because I’m such a loser, I didn’t get it. A useless loser.

  He must hate me so much.

  Yeah well, good luck with that. He couldn’t hate me more than I hate myself.

  My head pounds.

  I’m up and running down the path, skidding on loose stones, stray branches whipping my arms and legs.

  “Panna!” Hunter is fast. He catches up and grabs my arm. “Wait.”

  I wrench free of his grip. “Leave me alone.”

  “Pan, I’m sorry.”

  “That was cruel, Hunter.” I’m yelling. “I stuffed up, okay? You don’t need to make fun of me.”

  “Shit, Pan. I didn’t know how to tell you. Do you even know how hard it is to say Mum died?” His arms drop to his sides. “I mean, the whole Merle approach ‘Mum has passed’ isn’t me. Passed what? A test?” He rips a piece of bark from the tree and
crumbles it in his palm. “And my friends, they’re cool, but they didn’t get it when she died. It was too hard for them. And now they act like nothing happened.” Hunter tosses the pieces of bark aside. “I should have told you before you came around to my place, but it’s just not that easy.”

  Like air rushing from a balloon, my anger is gone. “I get it, I really do.” I look at the ground, a thousand questions crowding my thoughts. I pluck one out. “Hunter, what … how do you deal with it?”

  “With Mum being … dead?”

  I nod.

  “Music. Playing it and listening to it. Come on. Are you coming?” He doesn’t wait for an answer, but heads back down the path to the creek.

  My brain screams, “Run, get out of there.” When my feet move, I’m surprised they follow Hunter.

  He’s lying on the grass again in his favourite spot, arms behind his head, eyes shut.

  I lie a metre or so from him and stare up into the trees. The sun shines on the leaves, changing them from grey-green to sparkling green, vivid against the pale blue sky.

  “Hunter, I’m sorry. About your mum …”

  “Yeah.”

  “And I’m sorry I’m kind of schizo.” Above my head, a bird flits from branch to branch as though trying to find a comfortable one. “I don’t mean to go off.”

  “I know.”

  “It’s just …” It’s there, a wrapped parcel in my hands, and all I have to do is pull the string, and it’s unwrapped. “Before … Well, it’s …” But the string is greasy and slips from my grasp. “My mum is a bit up and down …”

  “Mum ended up like that – she’d go from fussing over the roses or making playdough for my cousin to a screaming mad woman. It was impossible to figure out what set her off.”

  “Same.” I roll onto my side to face him.

  “And before I got close to working it out …” He pauses. “She died.”

  I want to tell him everything – about Morgan, about why I’m living with the McMinns. I scratch my head, itch my arm, wriggle around to ease the pressure on my hip.

  Hunter opens an eye. “Lie on your back, Pan, and listen. Just listen. It’s amazing what you hear in this place.”

  At first it seems quiet, but the sound of the water, magpies, bellbirds and the insistent twittering of small birds grow louder, as though a hand is turning a knob, increasing the volume. I can hear the flutter of the leaves and even the sound of a blade of grass by my ear flicking back to an upright position.

  The place of peace has turned into a place of noise, which presses down on me. An elephant’s foot squeezing out stuff I’ve buried deep inside.

  Morgan.

  Mum.

  Hunter.

  Mum.

  My breath in makes a shuddery sound. I sit up right, breathing fast.

  “Ride it out, Pan.” Hunter doesn’t move.

  “I can’t.” I croak. “I can, but I …”

  “Courage.”

  Stuff courage. I’m out of here.

  Hunter jolts up, facing me, and reaches out, placing his hand on my knee before I can move. “It’s okay, Panna.”

  “If I could just go back.” I make a choking sound and all that bunched up sorrow bursts. Instead of fighting it, I let it swamp me, and for the first time in forever, I cry.

  While I sniff, Hunter doesn’t say a word; he’s just there, with his hand on my knee.

  After who knows how long, the tears slow and the world comes back into focus. A tiny blue wren lands on a rock and chirps. I can hear the creek, the magpies and the other birds again.

  “Hungry?” asks Hunter.

  I shake my head. “Just thirsty.”

  “Let’s go then.”

  Hunter presses my knee before standing. I wipe my face, hoping Rose’s mascara really is waterproof.

  “No panda eyes,” says Hunter.

  “Morgan calls me Panda.” My voice whispers through the leaves.

  As we stroll back to school, we talk about the production – well, Hunter talks and I listen. Beccy is again playing Maria, Ella McGrath, the girl who Beccy caught kissing Zander, is back in the chorus and Hunter is ready to thump his bass player. It’s as though nothing happened, like I haven’t just cried my heart out in front of him. In fact, I don’t care at all that he’s seen me cry. I realise how easy it is to be with Hunter. And how much lighter I feel.

  At school everyone is trailing to class. “Ari,” I say.

  “I have music in the auditorium. I’ll talk to him.”

  “Thanks.”

  Hunter shrugs. “No drama.”

  “No, really, thanks.”

  “I know.” His smile makes my stomach leap.

  Twenty-Seven

  When I join Ari for detention that afternoon, he doesn’t mention that I didn’t turn up at lunchtime. Neither do I. We hang the backdrops on the walls and touch up the places we’ve missed. While we work, Ari chats about soccer, the house he’s renovating with his partner, and pottery by a guy called Dale. After a while I work out Dale is the partner Ari is renovating his house with.

  The only time Ari stops talking is when he’s working on fiddly bits, like outlining bricks. But the room doesn’t go silent; instead, it’s filled with the noise from the auditorium. Singing, music, shouted directions. The music, the piano, stands out the most.

  “All done,” says Ari, stepping back and crushing my toe.

  I yelp.

  “I’m so sorry, Pan.” Ari’s face is filled with concern. “You okay?”

  “Yeah it’s nothing,” I say, though pain throbs through my foot. “I should have been paying attention.”

  “Yeah, to me, not the piano.”

  Ari’s grin makes me feel awkward. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  His eyebrows shoot up and down. “Just that–”

  “Enough, okay?” I study the backdrops, hands on my hips. “So, we’re done?”

  Ari laughs. “Sure, we’re done with these, but there’s more to do. Sets, props, but they won’t be ready for a couple of days, so have lunchtime off tomorrow.”

  I’m disappointed. I like hanging out with Ari.

  “You can go watch the piano player for the rest of detention, if you like.”

  “You suck, Ari,” I say.

  Morgan,

  Get this. I cried today. Really cried. And who knew – I actually feel better for it. My chest feels more open or something.

  That stupid social worker, Gemma, would wet her pants if she knew. Imagine – “Oh Pan, I told you if you just let it all out, you’d feel so much better.”

  No way am I telling her, the McMinns or that hippy welfare woman at the Legoland school that I cried. Don’t you tell anyone either, okay?

  Imagine how bummed they’d be to hear I didn’t cry with them. All those people seem to want is for me to talk about it.

  Stuff that.

  I can’t remember the last time I cried. Maybe when Oscar ran away. Remember Oscar, the kitten? How cute was he? I reckon that grumpy old woman next door kitten-napped him. What was her name? Mrs Sherman? Sherman the German – only she wasn’t German.

  We have a bad record with pets, don’t we?

  The canary, Oscar, that puppy – Fang – and, my fish – Fish and Chips. Maybe we just aren’t pet people.

  See you, Morgan.

  Panda

  x

  Twenty-Eight

  In English we’re still working on Romeo and Juliet. Grint goes back to an early scene and makes me read Juliet’s part; Beccy, Juliet’s nurse and Hunter, Romeo, which is just plain weird. At least we only have to stand up the front, not actually act the scene. Beccy reads her lines as though she’s going through a shopping list. When Hunter reads it’s easy to imagine I am Juliet.

  At the end of class Ms Grinter clasps her hand to her chest. “Wonderful, people. Thank you.”

  I shuffle back to my seat, face burning.

  Grint hands out homework – surprise! – a Romeo and Juliet essay. “Due th
e Thursday before holidays, people. Hunter, can you stay for a moment please.”

  “Sure.” He pulls a face at me.

  “You make a good Juliet,” says Luke Kyung. He’s one of the guys Hunter hangs out with.

  “Thanks.”

  He walks along the corridor beside me. “What have you got now?”

  “Drama.”

  “Chemistry.” He stops at the doorway to the science block. “See you later, then.”

  “Yeah.” What was that all about? The only people who speak to me other than teachers are Hunter and Livia, when she wants to boss me around.

  In drama we have to pair up. Instead of Toni having to find me a partner, April Jamieson comes over. I spend the whole lesson thinking about what she wants instead of concentrating on the piece we have to present.

  At recess Hunter and I sit on the grass in the sun. “So, that friend of yours, Luke, talked to me today, and then that girl, April, offers to be my partner in drama.”

  “So?” says Hunter.

  “So, it’s weird.”

  “No, it’s not. Why wouldn’t they talk to you?”

  “Come on, Hunter, everyone thinks I’m some sort of freak.”

  “Nah – well, yeah, everyone does stay away from you, but not because you’re a freak.”

  “Why then?”

  Hunter scrunches his lips. “Because you look kind of scary.”

  My skin crawls. “Because of–”

  “Hold up.” Hunter thrusts his hand in front of me, palm out like a traffic cop. “Let me finish.”

  I fold my arms.

  “Because of the black eye make-up, hair, shoes, the holes in your stockings–”

  “So, I’m different–”

  “And you hide behind your hair. It’s like you don’t want anyone to see you or talk to you.”

  Is it that obvious? I pull at a thread on my kilt.

  “It’s like – talk to me and I’ll bite your head off – that’s what’s kind of scary. I guess everyone is just getting used to you though.”

  “I don’t want pity.”

  Hunter laughs. “You’re an idiot, you know that? Who mentioned pity?”

  The chimes of the intercom sound across the yard. “Could the following people please come to the office? Livia Lewis, Joshua Trigg, Courtney Anderson and Hunter Alessio. Thank you.”