Burnt Snow

by Van Badham

  By the end of Maths, Kylie had started rubbing her legs furiously and Fran and I resorted to crushing each of her hands against the table to stop her doing it. When the bell rang, I panicked in my seat. I was going to Modern History, I was going to Brody – and Kylie knew it.

  ‘I might crash Modern,’ she told me, accidentally scattering all her Maths stuff from her desk as she got to her feet.

  Fran scraped Kylie’s things from the floor and slid them into her bag. ‘We’ve got Geography, K,’ said Fran. ‘And I think we should go to the canteen and get you something to drink.’

  ‘I’m hungry, not thirsty,’ said Kylie.

  ‘Hey, Fran,’ said a voice from the door, ‘maybe I could take Kylie to the canteen.’ It was Joel Morland. He’d taken his hair out of his ponytail and it hung on his shoulders like black seaweed.

  Fran stopped where she was standing.

  ‘I said I was hungry,’ grunted Kylie.

  Joel moved towards her, firmly wrapping an arm around her shoulders. ‘Then we’ll get you something to eat too,’ he said. ‘You coming, Fran?’

  Fran looked at me desperately. ‘She’s got to get home!’ she said in a loud whisper. ‘Seriously, if she gets sent to Tripp like this they’ll have the cops in for drugs.’

  ‘We’ll sort it at recess,’ I said in the most confident voice I had. ‘Just get through Geography as best you can.’

  ‘Let’s go to the canteen,’ said Joel, squeezing Kylie’s shoulders and shoving her towards the door. ‘Coming, Fran?’ he said, turning his head.

  Fran’s eyes were still on mine. I nodded at her.

  ‘Okay,’ said Fran, walking awkwardly after Joel, staring at the ground.

  51

  School had been going for less than an hour and already I was more than ready to go home. Walking towards Modern, I tried to find a spell that could wish me back to Baulkham Hills and erase the last two weeks – but even thinking about time spells stretched the edge of my consciousness and made me feel weak. At least, I realised, I was so panicked and worried about Kylie acting like a freak that I didn’t notice how much my bruises hurt.

  For the first time since I’d met Brody, I wasn’t thinking about him as I walked into Modern History – only because I was desperate to see Ashley Ventwood and beg her for some help.

  A glance around the room as I walked in revealed Ashley wasn’t here yet. I hurried to my desk, ignoring Brody ignoring me, and ripped a page out of a lecture pad before I’d even sat down. I was scribbling Ashley a note that I was going to drop on her desk the second she turned up when Ms Dwight entered the room and stood rather pointedly before the class.

  ‘I have some sad news today, Year 11,’ she said, leaning on her desk. ‘I’ve just learned that Ashley Ventwood has left us, indefinitely. Her father has become very ill and Ashley took a flight to Europe this morning. I’m sure you’ll miss her as much as I will … I’m very sad that we didn’t get to say goodbye.’

  To my side, I heard Brody grunt, ‘That definitely downs the freak factor.’

  I didn’t respond to him – there were now too many other things to panic about than keeping up our rapport. I scrunched the note I was writing into a ball and shoved it into my eye socket out of sheer frustration. Thirty points of light flew towards Yarrindi. Ashley’s had her only warning, Izek said. If the Finders come for her again, they will put her to death.

  With a sigh, I opened the eye that didn’t have my fist in it just in time to watch Brody turn towards me. The wry cynicism of his remark vanished from his expression. I so wanted to be cool, I so wanted to play it like a tough girl, but before I had a chance to say a single cool or tough word, my attention snapped to the classroom doorway.

  Nikki walked into Modern History, licking her arms from her wrists to her elbows like some kind of demented puppy. Belinda and Matt were behind her, their faces pained. The noise Nikki made sounded like a dog licking a bowl. Everyone stared at her.

  ‘I’ve got meat pie smeared all over my arms!’ Nikki cried. ‘It’s so great! It’s great!’

  52

  A collective groan of disgust erupted in the classroom. It was almost loud enough to drown out the sound of Nikki licking her arms.

  Nikki’s bleached-blonde hair was a halo of electrified hay around her head and her eyes were as mad as Kylie’s. Her pink tongue darted around her elbows with the sound of a slurping dog.

  ‘Nikki, that’s revolting,’ said Ms Dwight. ‘Go to the tap and clean yourself up, please. Be quick – I want you all to complete these worksheets today.’

  Nikki continued licking herself as she wandered towards her regular seat. ‘I taste as good as a pie!’ she said.

  My heart raced as I sensed Brody leaning towards me. ‘Someone’s been into a big supply of complete whack,’ he said into my ear.

  ‘That arm thing is so gross!’ said Louise Parker as Nikki sat down.

  ‘What would you know?’ spat Nikki. ‘Getting it on with Greg Shoal – that’s gross.’

  ‘Nikki, leave Louise alone—’ began Ms Dwight.

  ‘She started it,’ barked Nikki.

  ‘—and go to a tap, please,’ Ms Dwight said, raising her voice – everyone in the room was talking loudly amongst themselves. ‘I will not have you disrupt the class like this.’

  ‘She did start it,’ Nikki said, gnawing on her own skin. ‘She’s a stuck-up bitch.’

  ‘Nikki!’ cried Ms Dwight.

  ‘At least I don’t lick my own arms,’ Louise said, Greg Shoal’s hand on her elbow.

  ‘You wouldn’t want to,’ said Nikki.

  ‘Girls, everyone – that’s enough,’ said Ms Dwight over the building noise. ‘Nikki, step outside the classroom into the corridor.’

  ‘What for?’ Nikki asked defiantly.

  ‘For your first and last warning,’ said Ms Dwight.

  ‘Come on, just go,’ Belinda pleaded in Nikki’s ear.

  ‘Doesn’t sound like much fun,’ said Nikki.

  ‘Nikki Cipri, get into the corridor immediately!’ said Ms Dwight. There was such force in her voice even meatheaded Matt looked scared. Nikki just shrugged, put her arm back into her mouth and walked out of the room.

  ‘Class, continue with those sheets, please!’ hollered Ms Dwight as she shut the room door behind her.

  Of course, the noise level in the classroom only increased. Belinda and Matt raced over and stuck their ears to the door to try to hear the confrontation that was taking place outside. Most other people gossiped about Nikki – her name bounced off the walls of the room like a ping-pong ball. Greg Shoal comforted Louise Parker as if she were a wounded kitten.

  My eyes were watering and I didn’t want to look at anything any more. My mobile phone vibrated in my pocket. I blindly removed it and dropped it on the desk, shutting my eyes.

  I heard a worksheet ripple in the air to my side.

  ‘Thing I love about this school is the academic discipline,’ said Brody Meine. ‘That and the arm-licking.’ He had his worksheet in front of his face but not so close I couldn’t see him smirking. ‘You gonna answer that?’ he asked.

  It took me a couple of seconds to register that he was referring to my mobile phone. It was vibrating again, flashing a blue light on its screen and edging itself across my desk. I gave the screen a quick look. It read: FRAN.

  Breathing out, I leaned forward to pick up the phone, but was distracted by the sudden presence of Gretchen Eighfield, standing in front of my desk. Her long straight hair, I noticed, was in a side ponytail.

  She wore a friendly smile. ‘Are you blanking me or just not checking your email?’ she said.

  Through the classroom door I could hear the voices of Ms Dwight and Nikki growing louder. ‘Blanking you?’ I said.

  Gretchen’s smile got wider. ‘Facebook,’ she said. ‘I’ve been trying to friend you but I didn’t know your email address. There are like five hundred Sophie Morgans on Facebook but I was pretty sure I’d found you. Do you know about my part
y?’

  My phone was buzzing again. This time it read JOEL.

  I looked up at Gretchen and shook my head.

  ‘Yeah, it’s kind of last-minute because we wanted to be sure we could get the band,’ she said, looking at Brody and smiling. ‘I mean, people in our year check their Facebook every day, so everyone else knows and has RSVP’ed already – your whole group’s coming.’

  This last comment made me cringe but I tried to hide it with a neutral smile. My phone was vibrating again. JOEL flashed blue on the screen. ‘I’ve just been really busy lately,’ I said.

  There was now a large group of people congregating around the classroom door, but Gretchen clearly didn’t care.

  ‘It’s Friday night,’ she said, adding proudly, ‘at South Yarrindi Surf Club. Halloween theme. Starts at seven and there’ll be a band, food and drinks and a bonfire. It’s my seventeenth, but you don’t have to get me a present or anything. The party is the present. From my mum and dad. You know.’

  I smiled. ‘Thanks for inviting me,’ I said, seeing FRAN flash on the phone again. ‘I’ll be there.’

  Gretchen breathed what seemed like an excited sigh of relief. ‘That’s great,’ she said, beaming. ‘Seriously, it’s great that your whole group can come. I was worried that you personally hated parties or something, because you weren’t even at Belinda’s.’

  ‘No, I just had other plans,’ I said, trying to ignore Brody smiling behind his raised worksheet.

  Now my phone flashed a number I didn’t recognise. I reached for it, my thumb prepared to flip the phone to answer as soon as Gretchen went away.

  ‘Like I said, everyone’s coming,’ said Gretchen, hovering on the other side of my desk. ‘Even Brody,’ she added, winking at me.

  I stared at Gretchen, aware that my cheeks were suddenly burning hot. FRAN flashed on my phone again. I barely noticed the door of the classroom open and the bodies against it scatter around the desks. ‘Gretchen,’ I said, gripping my vibrating phone, trying to will away the blush from my face, ‘I said I’d come. Whatever Brody’s doing – I don’t care.’

  ‘Is that so?’ said Brody with a green-eyed glare.

  Before the scowl had time to spread across my face, Kylie emerged from the crowd of uniforms in the centre of the room and stood in front of Brody’s desk.

  I vaguely heard Ms Dwight shout something. Behind her, I thought I heard Nikki laugh. I very clearly heard Kylie say, ‘You smell so hot, Brody,’ before she leaned down over the desk … and kissed him.

  The world went into slow motion. Kylie was kissing Brody Meine. It was a passionate kiss, a kiss to set a street on fire.

  And Brody was kissing Kylie back.

  Kissing. Kylie. Mundine.

  53

  The growl silenced everything in the room.

  Kylie’s head snapped back from Brody’s face. The whole room went still. I was breathing in air so cold that it tasted like liquid ice, and my heart was beating with the pace of a ticking bomb. I couldn’t move.

  Worksheets were on the desks with textbooks. There was a whiteboard with some blue handwriting on it in whiteboard marker. Nothing moved – nothing apart from Brody, who was wiping his mouth on his arm.

  ‘What the hell was that?’ asked Greg Shoal, searching around the room for the source of the growl.

  In a sudden panic, I realised the growl had come from me. I looked frantically at my hands, terrified that they’d turned into bear claws. When I saw my own hands in front of me I almost cried with relief. On instinct, I rubbed my throat, as if I could somehow massage the bear out of my voice box.

  As I did, Ms Dwight strode into the room. One of her hands was shoved into her stomach and her mouth was so contorted with anger it looked almost painful. ‘Year 11, this is a circus,’ she said. ‘Kylie Mundine, you are coming with me to Mr Tripp’s office immediately. Nikki, you are coming too. I don’t know what you girls have been doing but it’s a disgrace to yourselves and the school. Brody, you are on report – one more incident today and you will also be going to Mr Tripp. Do I make myself clear?’

  ‘But, Ms Dwight,’ he said, grinning, ‘she started it.’

  ‘That’s your last warning, Brody,’ hissed Ms Dwight. ‘Everyone else get back in your seats. I will have no hesitation about putting the lot of you on report.’ A glimmer of pain crossed her face.

  Brody put his hands behind his head, leaned back in his chair and smiled.

  ‘Ms Dwight,’ I managed, aware my knuckles were turning white around the phone clenched in my fist, ‘please – Kylie was in a car accident – she got hit on the head, she’s been acting strangely all day. Mr Gazzara knows.’ I stood up and put my arm around Kylie, half in a solidarity gesture, half to prevent her from throwing herself back on Brody’s face.

  ‘Car accident? Why didn’t he send her to the nurse?’ demanded Ms Dwight. Her fist didn’t move from her stomach.

  I shrugged, arranging my face into the most innocent expression I could muster. ‘Please – I think she needs the nurse and maybe needs to go to hospital or something. This isn’t her. Everyone knows she’s not like this.’

  Kylie moved, as if she was going to say something, but I popped my mother’s lock spell around her lips. The spell confused her – all she could do was wriggle in my arms.

  Across the classroom, Belinda shot me a look that said: You are the biggest fake in the world.

  ‘What happened in the accident, Kylie?’ asked Ms Dwight with pure disbelief.

  A song on my lips spelled out the word blackout. Unconscious, Kylie collapsed to the floor.

  54

  I was still in the school sick bay with Kylie when the bell rang for recess. She lay on the sickbed in a deep sleep but her body was trembling. The blackout spell I’d cast was like a blanket over her body, but the loose energy from the unclosed Circle was moving beneath that blanket like a horde of restless ants. She looked so troubled that I almost felt sorry for her, but each time I leaned forward to touch her hair or say, ‘You’re going to be all right,’ the sharp recollection of her pressing her lips to Brody’s mouth knotted my stomach and my hand withdrew, the unsaid words burning in my throat.

  It seemed like it was only a few seconds after the bell that Fran bundled into the sick bay.

  ‘Did she really kiss Brody Meine?’ were the first words out of her mouth.

  I nodded.

  ‘Are they getting her mum?’

  ‘They’ve been calling but she’s not answering.’

  ‘I tried to phone and warn you she was coming but I guess things were nuts with Nikki by then. You know Nikki lost it with Tripp and they’ve put her in the detention room?’ Fran said, sitting on a chair, staring at Kylie’s face. ‘I don’t even want to think what they’re going to do with Michelle.’

  I sat up. ‘What happened with Michelle?’

  ‘You don’t know?’ Fran’s eyes were wide with disbelief. ‘Oh man,’ she said, leaning forward and stroking Kylie’s forehead, ‘you are going to have to tell me what you took on Friday night.’

  ‘We didn’t take anything!’ I protested. ‘I’m telling you—’

  ‘The school knows they’re all on drugs. Everyone’s parents are going to get called. Nikki’s will kill her. They will actually kill her. Or they’ll send her to convent school where she might as well be dead. They are totally strict and totally religious and—’

  ‘Fran,’ I interrupted, ‘we have to get the three of them back to Nikki’s place. I think I know what’s caused them to freak out.’

  ‘What?’

  I swallowed, buying myself time to choose my words. ‘You ever done a Tell-All at Nikki’s?’

  ‘Yeah, “under the rose” and all that stuff. What did they tell?’

  I shook my head. ‘Not what was said. The Tell-All got a little more elaborate. On Friday night we were messing around with candles and oil and …’ I breathed in. ‘I know it sounds really stupid, but Nikki was … It was witchcraft. Casting spells and stuff.’


  ‘She’s been doing that for ages,’ said Fran. ‘It’s just Nikki being, you know, dramatic.’

  ‘I threw up. And I hallucinated. The whole thing was really, really weird. We opened this Circle but because Nikki’s parents came home, we didn’t close it. I think me being sick saved me—’

  ‘It’s just pretend,’ Fran said. ‘I’ve done things like that at Nikki’s a heap of times.’

  ‘Yeah, but you didn’t lick meat off your arms afterwards or kiss Brody Meine. Look, it’s probably psychological. We had a group freak-out or something. But if the girls are behaving like crazies because they’re strung out the Circle wasn’t closed, to get them back we have to go to Nikki’s and close it. Maybe that’s all they need to calm down.’

  Fran thought. ‘Yeah, but you’d have to do it, like, right now, or you’re not going to be able to do it for weeks.’

  ‘Why not?’ I said.

  ‘Nikki’s sister’s coming down today. That’s why Nikki had to get all her crystal crap to my place on the weekend. If her sister found anything like that in the Cipris they’d have Nikki in a full-on exorcism, never mind convent school.’

  ‘I thought all the crystals belonged to—,’ even saying the name made me nervous, ‘Marlina.’

  ‘Yeah, before she got reprogrammed,’ Fran said. ‘Marlina was two years ahead of us at school and a real wild child. Man, you think Nikki’s crazy – Marlina was fourteen and seeing this guy who was twenty-five. She ran away to Melbourne once and Mr Cipri had to drive down there and get her out of some kind of hostel or something. She always looked heaps older than she was and she was smart and got away with heaps of other things her parents never found out about. She was into guys and bands and drugs and then got into, you know, black magic or whatever. I mean, I reckon all of that occult business is lame, and she was only doing it because she was living in a house that looks like some kind of South American religious museum, but something happened … something went down and the Cipris took her to a priest and suddenly she was up in Sydney at this full-on anti-cult centre. From what Nikki said it sounded heaps more culty there than waving crystals around in your bedroom – fasting and chanting and praying and not being allowed to leave. Now Marlina’s converted – totally different person. They totally washed her brain. Nikki says she freaks out if someone says “goddamn” at the dinner table. Yeah, sure, closing this Circle thing might sort out Nikki and Kylie and Michelle, but I am not joking about the exorcism. Marlina is only friends with those people from the cult place now and Nikki was really panicking on Saturday that her sister would find the box of her old witchcraft things and all hell would break loose. She got Michelle to drive her down to my house so we could hide it in the cheese cellar. It was pretty funny, actually. Maybe the cows could have a Tell-All.’