Burnt Snow

by Van Badham

  ‘I just had a moment,’ I said, embarrassed. ‘I’m okay now.’

  ‘I wish you’d told me you were all right,’ he said. ‘Was someone mean to you?’

  ‘Just a bad day. Thanks for the lift. It helps.’

  As he drove, he told me about his day cleaning the house and hosing the garden. I almost didn’t believe him that there were still cops and firefighters on our street until we reached the top of Frankston and had to pass through a police barrier to get to the house.

  Half of the street was completely unharmed, with nothing to show for the fire apart from some burnt leaves and some ash stains on the footpath. The other half of the street was behind police tape, and all the buildings, although they were all standing, had scorches of black.

  There was a mobile fire unit set up in the middle of the street and police cars parked at either end. ‘They’re trying to stop thieves and rubberneckers,’ Dad explained of the barrier. ‘And some of the houses may be unsafe – beams could fall in, anything. Some owners are still living at the hotel. It’s going to be a while before things return to normal.’

  It was a relief, given the blackened horrors on the other side of the street, to walk through the front door to a house that was unharmed. Dad had put my plastic crown in the centre of the dining room table and it gave my heart a little Brody-pang to see it. Dad started to brew some tea and told me dinner would be a couple of hours.

  I was intending to drop my bag on my bed and fossick in my chest of drawers for a nightgown to slob around in, but only a few steps into my bedroom I slowed to a stop.

  My eyes scoped the room but nothing was out of place or missing, and nothing seemed different, although the longer I stood still, the more I became convinced that something was.

  It was my nose that found it – a sweetness lingering in the air. Sniffing, I followed the scent through the room to its source. When I saw some unremarkable brown stains spattering the wall next to the wardrobe I was impressed that my olfactory powers were so acute. I squatted to inspect the stains and reached out to touch them.

  Though the stains were dry, the smell left on my fingertip was what I’d noticed in the air. The smell of blood. My face scrunched with instant disgust.

  ‘Dad!’ I yelled over my shoulder, staring at the stain for the seconds it took my father to come hurrying into my room.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked.

  I turned to look at him. He could see that I’d found the stains.

  ‘What’s for dinner, Dad?’ I said.

  ‘Roast chicken,’ he said, looking away.

  32

  Dinner was delicious but the image of Dad actually killing a rooster for it was unsettling.

  ‘Where’d you put the hazel twigs?’ I enquired over the dinner table.

  ‘Don’t be like that,’ Dad said.

  ‘You killed a chicken! What’s next – goats or babies?’

  Dad folded his arms. ‘When I learn how to roast goat, I’ll let you know.’

  ‘This is because Mum told you to?’

  ‘Because it’s your mother’s house too, and if she wants to feel safe, I will do what it takes to make her feel safe. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to eat it,’ he said in a tone that closed the conversation.

  Poor Dad. I wondered if he was thinking about going back to work the next day. I imagined Dad in his office, desktop overflowing with account statements, and it hurt me to think of him trapped there while the police worked out how much at risk from his coworkers he was. It crossed my mind that maybe killing a rooster wasn’t just a sop to Mum’s hippie superstitions. Maybe it let him release some tension.

  After dinner we made the obligatory phone call to Mum to report on the day’s events. Nanna was watching soaps, Mum reported back, which I took as a positive sign. Trying to cheer Dad up, I made popcorn and forced him to watch reality TV with me. For a couple of hours he relaxed, and I relaxed, and it was like Thursday nights used to be back in Baulkham Hills, when Mum was working late-night shopping hours at Flower Power and Dad and I had the house to ourselves.

  Only when we’d said goodnight and I crawled into bed did the things I’d shifted out of my mind shift themselves back in: Brody, the silly crow, Michelle, Belinda, Ashley, what to do, what to say, how to manage it …

  I made a deal with myself that in exchange for a solid night’s sleep I’d keep true to the promise I’d made to the mirror at the hotel, and I’d pinch myself every time I thought about Brody, or anything else that upset me, until I didn’t think about anything any more. Five pinches in, my eyes were tired enough that they started to close.

  Only when I was a few seconds from sleep did it occur to me that I’d need something much cooler than an old nightgown to wear to Nikki’s sleepover on Friday.

  33

  The bus that usually took us to school was re-routed to accommodate the temporary problems on Boronia Road, so the next morning I joined a pilgrimage of Boronia students and met Michelle at the Cawlish bus stop.

  She was in a bright mood and it was a gorgeous blue day. As the bus rumbled towards school she reported that she and Nikki were planning to bake cupcakes for Friday night.

  I asked her where I could buy some new pyjamas.

  ‘Nowhere in Yarrindi,’ she said, as we disembarked. ‘There are some good places in the mall at Shellharbour, though.’

  ‘Can I get the train there?’ I asked as we collected Nikki at the school gate.

  Michelle shook her head. ‘We’d have to drive. I could ask Fran if she’s up for it sometime this week.’ She turned to Nikki. ‘Pyjama mission,’ she explained.

  ‘That’s if Fran doesn’t have top-secret plans,’ said Nikki. ‘Has she told you what she’s doing on Friday?’

  ‘No,’ said Michelle. ‘I’ve asked, but I don’t want to push it. It must be pretty big if she’s not telling me.’

  Part of me thought, She might be planning to seduce Dan Rattan in your house if she knows you’re going to be at Nikki’s … but it occurred to me that she might just be ripping Joel Morland’s heart out of his chest and eating it instead. In that case, I figured, I could just text him and ask – so I got my phone out of my bag while Nikki chatted to Michelle, and I did text Joel. It intrigued me that Michelle hadn’t mentioned Dan since Belinda’s party, but on this subject too I kept quiet.

  34

  Tuesday’s first period was Modern History with Brody. Pinching my arm, I took my seat next to him with nothing more than a ‘Hi’. While once or twice I caught my eyes looking at his hands, another pinch – or, when the preferred spot grew bruised and painful, a squeeze of my pendant – and I could just about force myself to copy notes from the board or listen to Ms Dwight.

  The bell rang, the class ended, Brody disappeared. At recess, I made my way to the back of the Technology labs with Nikki and found the group reassembled and Belinda’s eyes unpuffed. Belinda took great delight informing everyone that she and Garth were going to a concert in Wollongong on Friday night – he’d conveniently surprised her with tickets.

  The most interesting thing that happened to me was receiving a text message from Joel Morland. No plans with Fran. Going to a movie with Scott but could meet you after? I smiled – it was nice to have a backup plan for Friday in case suitable pyjamas could not be found.

  I walked from English to Art with Ashley Ventwood, who sat next to me again while Ms Jackson talked us through surrealism, dream analysis and Sigmund Freud. William the nerd confessed he dreamed about swimming in soup.

  Everyone laughed – apart from Ashley. ‘Soup is made up of all different kinds of food, so it represents harmony,’ she told the class. ‘It’s something that you serve to people when they are sick to restore their strength, so we associate it with regeneration. William’s more adjusted than he looks.’

  ‘How do you know all this stuff?’ I asked her.

  ‘Intuition,’ Ashley said.

  My free period I spent in the library composing a guilty email to Sue,
apologising for neglecting her and giving her a summary of events that I knew she already would have heard from Lauren.

  Lunch flew by. Maths disappeared in an eighty-minute period of me staring blankly at the textbook again; having decided to drop the subject, it was liberating not to care about passing it. Catching the bus home with Michelle, I learned that Fran had no secret plans Thursday afternoon and was happy to take a car load of people to the mall at Shellharbour – provided Belinda was also invited to come along.

  By the time Dad got home, I was sitting in our garden reading Macbeth and drinking water from a glass. Already our garden had recovered from the fire, and the smell of the thyme lawn was pure and fresh in my nostrils. It was a relief to say to his tired face that, honestly, nothing had happened at school. In gratitude, perhaps, he okayed the Shellharbour trip, as well as the sleepover, and gave conditional approval, my mother’s opinion pending, to me staying the night at Lauren’s sister’s flat, although I was careful not to mention the party with the burlesque dancers.

  We had a normal dinner, watched totally normal TV and by the time I got to bed that evening I was beginning to think that I’d overdramatised my first few days in the town. The girls weren’t so bad, and Yarrindi High wasn’t an extreme event vortex; it was just a normal school with routines to be followed, books to read and assignments to do. I turned over on my pillow and used all of my concentration to remember the brightness of today’s blue sky, pushing the dark shape of Brody’s secret girlfriend back into the recesses of my mind, where it belonged.

  35

  Thursday morning arrived. Michelle was already at the Cawlish bus stop and I was surprised to see her with her dark hair in a side ponytail. ‘You inspired me,’ she said, affecting a toss of her head as I approached. ‘Got a change of clothes for Shellharbour this afternoon?’

  I nodded. The girls had been of one mind yesterday lunchtime that to be seen in our school uniforms at the mall would be social suicide, even if we didn’t see anyone we knew. Today I was wearing my sneakers with my school trousers so I wouldn’t have to carry them around with me. Michelle noticed. ‘Cute look!’

  I was still smiling in the glow of her flattery when we boarded the bus. Michelle pointed out the window to the blue ocean. ‘I’m so going to teach you to surf in the holidays,’ she said. ‘Today’s one of those days you can smell the summer coming. Yarrindi’s like a different place over Christmas – the caravan parks fill up, there are guys everywhere. If you’re over your Brody thing, we could have a lot of fun.’

  ‘Does that mean you’re over your Dan thing?’ I asked her.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘He and Tracy Taylor arrived together at Belinda’s – I thought we’d talk more, but …’ Her voice trailed off wistfully for a few seconds. ‘Anyway, Fran says that I should back off. Play hard to get for a while. You know?’

  I thought if Fran were giving her that kind of advice, I knew a lot more than Michelle did.

  Michelle turned from the window to face me. ‘Have you actually ever had a boyfriend?’

  Despite the suddenness of the question, I didn’t break eye contact, but slid my hand to my pendant. Whatever answer I gave I knew was going straight to Fran and from there into Belinda’s anti-Sophie arsenal. With the cool touch of the turquoise stone on my fingers my mind said: Be honest, and tell her nothing. ‘I’ve messed around,’ I admitted. ‘I haven’t been interested in more than that.’

  ‘Why not?’ pressed Michelle.

  ‘Move around a lot, don’t really get to know people,’ I said hazily. Something about Michelle’s eyes sharpened. Gripping the stone at my neck, I leaned in and said, ‘I don’t want to get my heart broken,’ in the most vulnerable voice I could manage.

  The look of pity in Michelle’s eyes as the bus pulled into the school stop made me feel a bit sick. ‘Soph, we’ll have an awesome summer, I promise,’ she said, putting her hand on my shoulder.

  By the time we got off the bus, I felt a shadow fall over my mood and the day ahead.

  36

  In English, the class continued with the stop-and-discuss group reading of Macbeth that we’d begun a couple of days earlier. It was a turgid forty minutes – Mrs Fendy had cast Brant Norton as Macbeth and he read so slowly that, three days in, we still hadn’t come to my scene as Lady Macduff. Michelle, I knew, had wanted to be cast as Lady Macbeth, but the part had been given to Ashley Ventwood, who spoke the words quickly and fluently. The way Michelle read her part as one of the witches was so unsure it was a blessing that we didn’t have to hear more of her.

  Ashley, I decided to myself, must be the smartest person in our year. I wondered what she and her ‘lame collective’ friends talked about at recess and lunch. I envied conjectured discussions about books and art replacing the endless dissection of clothes, boys and body weight that preoccupied Michelle and gang.

  ‘Does Ashley do Drama?’ I whispered to Michelle about halfway through the lesson.

  Michelle shook her head. ‘Nah, Ashley only does subjects she can come first in, and no one can beat Nikki at Drama.’

  That made me laugh.

  Ten minutes before the bell a knock on the door roused the class from its stupor. An awkward-looking junior student with a chubby face entered the room and handed Mrs Fendy a note.

  Dismissing the boy with a wave, Mrs Fendy made eye contact with me. ‘Sophie, Mr Tripp wants to see you in his office after class. It’s on the other side of the main door from the front office.’

  There were murmurs around the room. People stared at me and Michelle grabbed my arm. ‘Why are you being sent to Mr Tripp?’

  I shrugged, mystified.

  ‘Text me as soon as you’re out?’

  I nodded. Everyone in the classroom was still looking my way.

  ‘Attention back to your books,’ said Mrs Fendy. The class rumbled their elbows and paperbacks, and Brant started mangling the words of Macbeth again.

  As I turned the brown-edged page, I glanced up at Mrs Fendy. Her face was neutral, but she was still staring at me.

  37

  Mr Tripp was the principal of Yarrindi High, and Garth and the morons in my Art class referred to him, imaginatively, as ‘Trippy’. I hadn’t met him during the enrolment process – Mum had talked to him over the phone when she was arranging my transfer.

  There was nothing I’d done wrong since arriving at the school, and I knew the meeting had to be about something minor, but even so hairs raised on my arms and the back of my neck as I walked against the tide of kids in the class changeover. In my experience, the corridor to the principal’s office was the same in any school: noise levels always dropped and the carpets were always cleaner and plusher the closer you came to the room itself.

  As I entered Mr Tripp’s shadowy realm, a spearmint smell of efficiency mixed with dread radiated from the varnish of the office door. The standard-issue bright green chairs that were outside every principal’s office in the world were outside this office too, and I sat on one to wait. The angle of the chair raised my knees almost to the level of my sternum and I felt every bit as small and powerless as the chair had been designed to make me feel.

  The walls of the office hallway were heavily decorated with photographs under dusty glass. I was staring at the long-haired boys and girls of Year 12 1992 when the office door swung open noiselessly. A tall, fifty-something man with thick glasses and thicker brown hair said, ‘Please come in, Sophie,’ and motioned me inside the room.

  Mr Tripp sat behind a large modern desk and gestured for me to take one of the chairs in front of him. I sat down, pressing my knees together and trying to straighten my spine.

  ‘Enjoying Yarrindi, Sophie?’ asked Mr Tripp with a smile that revealed a set of silvery white teeth. ‘Settling in well?’

  I nodded, although my expression must have revealed that I didn’t believe he’d invited me here for a casual chat.

  ‘It can be daunting starting a new school, but your mother told me you’d had some prac
tice at that. You Morgans are a real band of gypsies, eh?’

  ‘Something like that,’ I said.

  His smile evaporated and his posture became businesslike. ‘Firstly, we’ve decided to erase your assessment results from your previous school. It’s been worked out that your assessments next year can have a double value while still ticking all the boxes, and we think that’s probably fairer than you getting caught up with marking transfers and things.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Tripp,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t thank me yet,’ he said. ‘The decision means that you’ll have to work twice as hard next year to maintain good results. Ms Jackson and Ms Dwight tell me you are making very good progress in their subjects, although Mr Gazzara is concerned about your ability to concentrate in class.’

  I presumed he was talking about the Maths teacher. ‘I’ll try harder,’ I said. It was what principals liked to hear.

  Mr Tripp smiled. ‘Secondly,’ he said, reclining on his chair while both hands gripped the edge of his desk, ‘it’s always a proud day in the career of a principal when our students show outstanding commitment to the welfare of their community. I’m told the whole town owes you a big thankyou for your bravery on Saturday night.’

  He was talking about the fire. My hand reached for my pendant. My mother had warned me about this: We don’t want to promote our vulnerabilities, she’d said.

  ‘I didn’t do that much,’ I said.

  ‘I know that’s not true,’ said Mr Tripp. ‘I’ve had the local fire service and a very persistent journalist on the telephone trying to track down the girl who alerted all those people about the threat to their homes.’

  ‘How did they know who I was?’

  ‘They didn’t – and they don’t. We have very strict policies on what we tell outside agencies and individuals about our students. The fire service had Brody Meine’s name and he was the one who told me about you.’