Burnt Snow

by Van Badham

  ‘Marlina getting any better?’ Michelle asked. ‘Less … ?’

  ‘Nuh,’ said Nikki, ‘they totally whacked her in the head at that place. She went off as a rebel and came back a full-on nut. Even my parents are scared of her now.’

  ‘What do you think happened?’ asked Michelle.

  Nikki shrugged. ‘Brain damage from the drugs she used to do, and all those other people up there are weird. We visited a couple of times when she was at the deprogramming centre and, seriously, if it ever gets to the point where my brain needs to be deprogrammed, just shoot me. Shoot to kill.’

  ‘I reckon we came pretty close this morning,’ said Fran into the rear-view mirror, ‘when you were licking meat off your arms.’

  Nikki laughed. ‘I’m just glad I didn’t lose it last night with my parents or I would so be getting the electrodes wired into me right now.’

  ‘Were you weird last night?’ I asked.

  ‘Maybe. I just felt really tired – restless or something,’ Nikki said. ‘I just wrote Ryan is the hottest on a piece of cardboard a thousand times or something.’

  ‘You were way weird when we went shopping yesterday,’ said Fran, ‘you all were.’

  ‘I just thought we were all tired,’ said Kylie.

  ‘We weren’t really in the mood for trying on clothes in Babes,’ Michelle explained.

  ‘Belinda actually walked out, she was so embarrassed!’ Nikki shrieked with delight.

  I felt a pang of exclusion that I hadn’t been invited on the shopping trip. That I’d been in Sydney, of course, recovering from a night spent in hospital with Lauren, was not the point.

  ‘What did you do last night, Kyles?’ asked Michelle.

  ‘Went to bed. Had strange dreams. I’m sure my mum thinks I’m on drugs.’

  ‘Mine too,’ said Michelle. I noticed again that she didn’t mention anything about Dan Rattan.

  ‘I wonder what caused it,’ Kylie said. Her voice was sad and I knew she was thinking about Steve. ‘Nothing like that has ever happened to me before.’

  ‘All those weird oils,’ I suggested. ‘Remember, I passed out and threw up.’

  ‘Maybe …’ said Michelle.

  There was silence in the car and we were almost back at school.

  Suddenly Nikki burst out laughing again. Everyone jumped.

  ‘I had a fight with Ms Dwight,’ she chuckled, ‘the nicest person in the world! I can’t believe it!’

  Kylie didn’t respond. She was pressing buttons on her mobile phone and looking depressed. I tapped her on the knee and gave her a smile, but she just gave me an all-is-lost look and dropped her head again.

  ‘I’ll have to apologise,’ Nikki continued.

  ‘You’ll have to wait until she’s out of hospital,’ I said.

  ‘She what?’ exclaimed Nikki.

  ‘They took her out in an ambulance,’ Fran said. ‘That’s all we know.’

  ‘That’s not … because of me, is it?’ Nikki begged.

  ‘It’s probably because me pashing on with Brody Meine made her stomach explode,’ said Kylie.

  ‘You’re being ridiculous,’ Michelle said, but I went still and silent.

  I’m bad luck, I heard Brody whisper to me in the book room. Sophie, I’m bad luck.

  75

  Fran drove into the school car park and from the number of people milling around it was obvious that lunchtime hadn’t quite finished.

  ‘Looks like we’ll make English after all,’ Michelle said, climbing out of Fran’s car. ‘You coming to the labs?’

  ‘You go,’ I said, waving my mobile phone in my hand, ‘I’ve got to make some calls.’

  The first call I made was to casually put a lock on everyone’s lips about the magical rituals of the afternoon. My energy dipped as I did it; the effects of the candle, I’d learned, were no compensation for working spells without kit.

  The girls paused for a split-second before resuming their activities.

  ‘I’ve got to find Steve,’ announced Kylie, marching off without looking back.

  Nikki skipped after her. ‘I’ll come with you and find Ryan,’ she said.

  I slid into the front passenger seat and dialled Joel’s number from the comfort of the car.

  ‘Nikki, wait!’ cried Fran, running after her.

  Joel answered his phone after only a couple of rings. ‘I think I can see you,’ he said.

  Instinctively, I looked out of the car, but I couldn’t see Joel anywhere. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘You in Fran’s Corolla?’

  ‘Yep.’ I still couldn’t see him.

  ‘I’m in the main building – window at the very top of the stairwell.’

  ‘Wow,’ I said. I looked up but the glass of the window was dark. ‘You got here fast.’

  ‘It’s the bike,’ he said. ‘Get everything sorted at Nikki’s?’

  ‘Yes, thank you. The girls are all roaming the school grounds after a lot of vomiting and some refreshing showers. I couldn’t have done it without you, though. I meant what I said about that favour.’

  ‘I may yet take you up on that,’ he said. ‘How’s Fran?’

  ‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Did you have to speak to Marlina at all? Was it okay?’

  ‘It was. I don’t know why Nikki’s got issues with her. Marlina and her boyfriend seemed like good people.’

  ‘You talked to them?’

  ‘Just for a bit – thought you could use as much time as possible. The dude – Elwyn or Elwood or whatever his name was – he had a look at my brakes and almost knew what he was doing. And she’s nice. Marlina. She’s much nicer than Nikki.’

  ‘That’s not hard,’ I said, smirking, ‘but you can never quote me on that.’

  Joel laughed. ‘That may make it two favours.’

  ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ I said, stifling a yawn of intense tiredness.

  Fran opened the car door and got back into the driver’s seat. She mouthed, ‘Who are you talking to?’ and I mouthed back, ‘Joel Morland,’ and she rolled her eyes.

  ‘You could do one of them now. Tell Fran that I’m awesome,’ he said. With a chuckle, he hung up.

  As I was putting my phone back into my pocket, I noticed Fran’s eyes scanning the school building through the window.

  ‘What is it?’ I said. ‘Morland,’ she grunted. ‘He’s looking from somewhere, isn’t he?’

  ‘He’s in the upstairs window, he said. How did you know?’

  ‘He’s always somewhere. It’s like having a camera crew without the glamorous celebrity lifestyle.’ Fran sat up straight and slapped her hands on the wheel. ‘I can’t deal with him today and I can’t deal with double English. What are you thinking?’

  ‘I’m thinking that I am really tired and … Man, we have had quite a day,’ I said, allowing myself a proper yawn.

  ‘We certainly have,’ said Fran. ‘I do not believe I can perform to my peak academic capability in my present state. I must recharge, regenerate and renew.’

  All of a sudden, Fran released the park brake and slammed the car into reverse. I barely comprehended what was happening until the Corolla turned sharply and rumbled out of the school gates.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I squealed, gripping the door for safety as Fran made another sharp turn.

  ‘Environmental education,’ she said, ploughing the car down Yarrindi Road. ‘First we’re going to get burgers, then we’re going to my house.’

  76

  About ten minutes down the highway there was a Burger King with a drive-thru. Though tired, I bounced in the car seat with excitement as Fran and I handed over cash for food and ate in the car. Between taking chomps on a burger, I passed chicken nuggets and French fries to Fran, who’d wisely decided that trying to eat a burger while driving a car down a highway was a bit dumb.

  We talked rubbish to one another amidst mouthfuls of fast food and laughter – mostly about all the crazy behaviour the girls had been exhibiting since Friday. While we drove into ben
ds of the road where the view of suburban Yarrindi gave way to black and white dairy cows roaming thick green coastal fields, I texted a message to Dad asking if I could stay at Fran’s tonight.

  I suppose so, he wrote back. But make some time for your old Dad tomorrow, OK?

  I smiled when I got the message. Quality time, I promise, I sent back.

  There was another message instantly: AND CALL YOUR MOTHER IN THE MORNING!!

  My smile tightened a little but I agreed.

  As I texted, Fran was happily giggling about ‘I’ve got meat on my arms’ Nikki. I put my phone away and tentatively ventured, ‘The person I feel sorry for the most in all this craziness is Dan Rattan.’

  She shot me a quick look. ‘Who told you about that?’

  ‘I knew he was going on a date with Michelle on Saturday and when I saw him in the sick bay I guessed she must’ve freaked out.’

  ‘Man, you really do have psychic powers,’ said Fran. ‘How come I don’t know this stuff?’

  ‘I’m quiet, and quiet people listen,’ I shrugged. ‘Belinda said something about it this morning too – something about Michelle having blood under her fingernails.’

  Fran didn’t say anything for a few seconds. I sensed she was deciding how much to tell me. Her voice was low and serious when she said, ‘I’d heard that there’d been some business on Saturday night, but when I saw him in the sick bay …’ She shook her head. ‘Wow – he looked … really bad.’

  ‘What happened?’ I asked.

  Again, Fran paused. ‘He and Michelle have this history, you know? Maybe Michelle shouldn’t have gone, but she did and,’ her voice was suddenly angry, ‘I mean, what did she think he wanted when they were driving out to White Beach alone together in a car?’

  ‘He tried something?’

  ‘Dan Rattan is seriously no rapist,’ said Fran. ‘He says he and Michelle were just fooling around when she wigged out and attacked him. Not just attacked – screaming at him, saying all this stuff.’ She paused, wriggled in her seat. Taking one hand off the wheel, she used it to retrieve her mobile phone from her pocket. It rang out the song ‘Oh Yeah’ from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. ‘It’s Nikki,’ she said. ‘You answer it.’

  ‘Niks, it’s Soph. What’s wrong?’

  ‘Where’s Fran?’ she said, panicked.

  ‘Driving. We’ve run away.’

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘Fran’s,’ I said, not wanting Nikki to get burger envy. ‘What’s wrong? You sound stressed.’

  ‘I’m more than stressed,’ she said, and I tensed with anxiety. ‘I went back to the detention room, like Fran told me to,’ she babbled, ‘but the door is totally closed, locked, can’t get in – and that creepy McStrange teacher with the curly hair is still in there and he looks dead.’

  ‘He’s not dead,’ I sighed, knowing what would have to happen now.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ asked Fran, taking an anxious glance at me.

  ‘The unconscious casual teacher,’ I said to Fran, cupping my hand over the phone so Nikki, in her panic, wouldn’t cross over into abject confusion. ‘Fran, I’m gonna pass out,’ I said. ‘Are you cool to get me inside to a bed or something?’

  ‘Pass out?’ exclaimed Fran.

  ‘I feel a fainting spell coming on,’ I said, uncapping my hand from the phone. ‘Niks—’ I began.

  ‘Why are you going to pass out?’ Nikki cried.

  ‘I think I’ve got narcolepsy. Fran’s on top of it, it’s fine,’ I said, adding quickly, ‘Step away from the door, and breathe and count to three.’

  ‘The door’s totally locked!’ she said.

  ‘Are you stepping back from the door?’

  ‘Yes,’ Nikki said.

  I clicked my fingers in the car, and through the phone I heard the door of the detention room at Yarrindi High unlock. I started to feel light-headed and blurry.

  ‘Soph?’ cried Fran. ‘Is it happening – is the fainting thing happening?’

  I nodded, demonstrating to Fran that I was leaning against the passenger door of the car, and hence not likely to land on the wheel and cause an accident.

  ‘What’s Fran saying?’ asked Nikki down the phone.

  ‘Try the lock now,’ I said, voice slow.

  I heard a turn, and another click. ‘It’s open,’ Nikki said, her voice dropping to a whisper. ‘I’m closing the door behind me. I’m sitting in the chair opposite this weird guy. Soph, I seriously do not like this. I’ve been trying to get in for fifteen minutes and he has not moved—’

  ‘Sit in the chair opposite him, and once you’re off the phone, lean over and touch his arm. I guarantee he will wake up.’

  ‘What if he doesn’t?’

  My encroaching tiredness made me irritable. ‘Listen, okay? He will accuse you of heaps of stuff. All you have to do is act like it was all a dream, you’ve been doing work for hours and you only got into trouble with Ms Dwight for eating in class. Your history notes are in front of you. Use them.’

  ‘What if he doesn’t believe me?’

  ‘Ms Dwight can’t contradict you from hospital,’ I said, remembering her face, the ambulance. ‘Now get off the phone.’

  ‘What if he doesn’t wake up?’ Nikki said.

  ‘Then we’ve got one less problem,’ I said and, cranky, hung up.

  ‘She okay?’ asked Fran, worried.

  I nodded. ‘I just hope she’s as good an actress as everyone says.’

  ‘Are you okay?’ she asked, even more worried.

  ‘No,’ I said carelessly. I closed my eyes, and focused everything I had left of my concentration into visualising Jeules, the detention room, Nikki’s fearful face in the student chair. When I could see her tugging at the side of his sleeve, I coiled my Will into the room, digging invisible fingers into both of Jeules’s eye sockets and wrenching his eyelids open and awake.

  ‘Mr … Mr – are you okay?’ I saw Nikki say, snatching her hand back from his sleeve like a frightened child.

  I didn’t hear his answer. Four days of fear and flying, bears and birds, blood and casual teachers were too much for my immature magic and my battered body and mind. I felt only the glass of the car window pressed to my cheek as the fog of exhaustion melted over my brain and sent me soundly to sleep.

  PART

  FOUR

  1

  For the second morning in a row, I woke up not knowing exactly where I was.

  This time, though, I didn’t feel entrapped and lost, but comfortable and warm. A soft orange light filled the room I was in, giving my limbs an amber glow. Sunlight was peeking under the edge of an old-fashioned roll-up blind.

  I sat up and saw I was in a single bed, under a plump eiderdown. I was in my bra and underpants; my school shirt and trousers were hung neatly over the back of a white wicker chair.

  From the shelf of books mounted above a desk, the large mounted poster of Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss and the hatstand crowded with hats, belts and scarves, I guessed I was in Fran’s room. A glance next to the bed revealed a spare mattress on the floor with a Fran-sized dent in it.

  She’d slept on the floor and given me the bed. I guess she’d also needed a post-crisis nap.

  I was considering whether to put my uniform back on when the door of the room swung open and Fran walked in wearing a fluffy yellow dressing-gown. Her wet hair was piled high in a matching yellow towel. She was wearing slippers shaped like puppies.

  ‘Glad you’re out of your coma,’ she said. ‘How’d you sleep?’

  ‘If I had dreams, I don’t remember them,’ I said. ‘What’s the time?’

  Fran pointed at a digital alarm clock on a white bedside table. It read: 5:55.

  ‘I’m not much of a house guest, am I?’ I said, wiping the sleep from my eyes. ‘What have you been doing all afternoon?’

  ‘Afternoon?’ said Fran, laughing. ‘It’s five fifty-five in the morning. Dude, you were out like a light. I had to drag you in here from the car. You really should see a doctor if you keep
doing this. It’s not natural.’

  ‘Why are you up so early? Did I wake you up?’

  ‘Farmer’s daughter, remember?’ she said, laughing again. ‘We get up at four-thirty. Dad’s milking, Mum’s taken some stuff to a market and the boys aren’t here. They left us breakfast – pay special attention to the dairy because it’s from our cows. Here—,’ Fran removed a little Japanese-style silk kimono from the hatstand and threw it towards me, ‘wear this. After breakfast I’ll get out some towels for a shower. I hope you like coffee. We are all huge fans.’

  I put on the robe and slid out of bed. Fran walked over to the blind and yanked it so it wheeled open with a loud snap. Early morning sunlight flooded the room. The window revealed a bright morning sky and green pasture land, and a horizon of soft blue sea.

  2

  It was weird to think that a girl I had recently described as satanic was now wearing puppy-shaped slippers and pouring me coffee.

  I’d heard rumours – I couldn’t remember where – that Fran’s family had money. It was obviously true. The ‘breakfast room’ was off the kitchen, an anteroom to a large formal dining room that had a long antique table and cabinets full of expensive-looking porcelain. Bright morning light poured across the breakfast room’s round table. A white lace tablecloth was crowded with coffee pots, four types of cereal in neat plastic containers, three types of bread, countless varieties of jam and marmalade, and croissants.

  Fran went into the kitchen after my coffee was poured and returned with a jug of orange juice and another of grapefruit juice. Not wishing to appear greedy, I rained a handful of Coco-Pops into a porcelain bowl, splashed them with milk and put a single croissant on a plate.

  ‘Have as much as you want,’ Fran said, watching me pour grapefruit juice. ‘The boys eat like horses so there’s always plenty of food around.’

  I nibbled my croissant. ‘How many of you are there?’

  ‘My eldest brother, Dara, is studying a Masters in Business in Japan, hence the robe,’ Fran said. ‘Brendan pretends to live here but he’s going to Wollongong Uni and stays over with friends most of the week. And weekends. He must really be annoying people. Xavier is fourteen and he usually helps Mum out at the farmers’ market before she drops him at school. He goes to the Catholic school in Nowra.’