Burnt Snow

by Van Badham

  ‘Why didn’t he go to Yarrindi?’

  ‘Because it gets attacked by birds and the popular girls are arm-licking, face-scratching psychos,’ Fran laughed, chewing a piece of toast. ‘No, Mum and Dad always let us choose where we go to school. Xavier plays rugby and his school’s got a good coach. You’re an only child, aren’t you?’

  I nodded. The croissant was so amazing I didn’t want to ruin it by speaking. Everything in the Kelly home was so nice I felt slightly cheated for having been asleep for the past fifteen hours and not getting to enjoy it.

  ‘Can I ask you a question?’ I said to Fran, swallowing my last mouthful of croissant.

  ‘Only if you ask me out on the verandah,’ she said. ‘It’s really pretty out there when it’s clear. Come on.’

  3

  She wasn’t lying about the verandah being pretty. Jasmine vines that coiled around the verandah beams framed the view of pasture, sea and sky I’d seen from Fran’s bedroom window. A small grove of orange trees nestled between the house and a white picket fence. The smell was incredible.

  ‘I’ve got jasmine too,’ I said to Fran. I didn’t tell her that it was because my mother was a witch.

  ‘What was your question?’ Fran asked, blowing the steam from the black coffee in her hand.

  I brought my cup to my lips. ‘What’s going on with you and Dan Rattan?’

  ‘Nothing. Why do you think that?’

  Nikki may have been a great actress, but Fran was not even an amateur. I could see her lip tremble. ‘Because you said you spoke to him about what happened with Michelle on Saturday night,’ I said. ‘Because you tripped over when he turned up behind the Technology labs the other day. Because when you saw him in sick bay yesterday you completely freaked out.’ I watched her for a couple of seconds. She sipped her coffee really nervously. ‘Hey, it’s none of my business … But if there is something going on with Dan, and if Michelle is your best friend, I just worry he’ll get more than facial injuries if Michelle finds out.’

  I turned and leaned on the verandah rail. The sky had a sun-up orange tinge to it that I was watching bloom into clear, morning blue.

  ‘And what could Michelle find out?’ Fran said.

  ‘Fran, she’s not stupid. She already knows something’s up and I’m pretty sure that’s why whatever happened on Saturday resulted in her almost ripping one of Dan’s eyebrows off. And even if Michelle is stupid, other people aren’t. Nikki’s got the biggest mouth in the universe.’

  ‘You can say that again.’ She glanced at me over her coffee. ‘She would have shared some hot insider information in the Tell-All – she always does. I was sorry I had to miss it.’

  ‘Yeah, but you were on a date with Dan, weren’t you?’

  Fran coughed on a mouthful of coffee.

  ‘I haven’t said anything,’ I said, ‘and I won’t – I am really good at keeping secrets, Fran. It’s just Michelle is my friend. I don’t want her to get hurt. Or go to jail for killing someone.’

  Fran sighed, but I was enjoying this conversation. It was so much more fun than dealing with some kind of supernatural crisis. Her voice was soft. ‘I just wanted … someone to like me.’

  ‘Everyone likes you. There are guys willing to offer a thousand bucks for videos of you and Michelle making out.’

  ‘People say that,’ she said. She looked over the rail. ‘It doesn’t mean anything. Soph, okay, you are literally the best listener in the world. Remind me to never lie to you. But if I tell you things, and they get around, people will get hurt. There will be some serious hurt going down.’

  I rolled over onto my elbow, faced her, and listened.

  4

  ‘Michelle and I became best friends when I stopped hanging out with Louise Parker,’ said Fran. ‘Michelle taught me all about makeup and clothes, girl things. I have three brothers, I live on a dairy farm, I had to learn somewhere. Thing is, about hanging out with Michelle – she’s so beautiful she soaks up everyone’s attention wherever you go.’

  ‘You’re pretty too.’

  ‘But boys like Michelle. They ask her out all the time. They even did that when she and Dan were properly together. Guys in our year, the year above, the year above that. And that’s the way it is and you get used to it. But Kylie was already with Steve, and then Nikki hooked up with Ryan, and Belinda got together with Garth. No one ever asks me out.’

  ‘You went out with Rob.’

  ‘I was seen out with Rob,’ grimaced Fran. ‘We sat together at lunchtime and when we were doing things with the group he’d put his arm around me or hold my hand in front of everyone. We went to the Year 10 formal together and it was one of the worst nights of my life. I was like, “Why won’t this guy ever kiss me?” Am I ugly, am I fat, am I a really hideously unattractive goose-monster? Am I just not as beautiful as my best friend and that’s why no one in the whole school wants me?’

  ‘That’s paranoid.’

  ‘You go out with a guy for four months who doesn’t kiss you and you’d be paranoid too.’

  ‘After four months,’ I said, ‘I’d say the issue is definitely with him.’

  ‘I broke up with him the day after the formal – the situation was making me hate myself,’ said Fran. ‘But to the whole school I was still Rob’s woman. Because Rob’s popular and best friends with Garth, no one would go near me. Dan told me this. Because I did the breaking, I had to pay.’

  ‘He didn’t kiss you in four whole months. What did you have to pay for?’

  ‘There were kissing attempts, but I don’t count them.’ Fran frowned, sipping coffee and looking to the horizon. ‘I had no idea what I was doing and I certainly wasn’t going to learn anything from Rob. So I became the only girl in the whole group without a boyfriend. Not having sex, not even knowing how to kiss properly.’ She gave a sigh. ‘I just want to be like everyone else.’

  Frances Kelly. Beautiful, popular Frances Kelly. Miserable, unhappy and as insecure as the rest of us. I considered using a glamour to make myself forty and staying that way for the next twenty years.

  ‘So I got my car and I’m driving back and forth between here and Yarrindi every day. Michelle and Dan are still together and she asks me will I give him a lift to some surf training camp down this way. Dan’s going a couple of times a week and we’re spending all this time in the car … And, right, I know this guy is into me but he’s going out with my best friend, so again nothing happens. Then they break up – miracle. It’s not like I get on the phone immediately, but Dan calls me. We go on this picnic and finally, finally I get to properly kiss a guy and realise, yes, the problem is with Rob. And I think, Right, all we have to do is keep it secret from Michelle until she moves on and everything will be good. Except Michelle turns up at school one day hysterical because Dan is seeing someone else and it’s made her realise she loves him. I’m about to confess that it’s me when she announces it’s Tracy. Tracy Taylor! Dan tells me that nothing’s going on, Tracy’s just stalking him … Then Michelle says she and Dan are talking about getting back together. The whole time Dan and I are on the phone every day and he’s all “you know they mean nothing to me, you’re the one I want”.’

  ‘You should cut him dead,’ I said. ‘I don’t think he deserves any of you and I don’t even know Tracy Taylor.’

  ‘What’s the alternative?’ said Fran, staring into the dregs of her cup. ‘Five minutes of his time is still five minutes.’

  ‘They’re five minutes that are wrecking your relationship with your best friend.’

  Fran gave a brittle laugh. ‘You know, I don’t even like him that much. When he talks about surfing I completely tune out and the guy has very, very few other interests. But he’s really good-looking, he’s a really good kisser … and I keep going back.’

  ‘That’s enough for you?’

  ‘It’s better than nothing,’ she said, smiling weakly.

  ‘There are better guys out there.’

  ‘If you see any in Yarrindi, make sure yo
u let me know.’

  ‘What’s the deal with Joel Morland?’

  Fran grunted. ‘Maybe he’s the reason no one will go near me – they’re frightened that Stalker-the-Metal-Head will stab them to death. Joel asked me to the movies in Year 8. I wanted to go on a date so I went. He sat there the whole time staring at me like a zombie and it was, as Nikki would say, creepy, creepy creep-world. He’s invented this psychotic fantasy that I’m his girlfriend and I’m lucky I have the car so I can get away from him. You really shouldn’t hang out with him. He’ll think you’re interested and he’ll be following you around for the next three years. It’s all that road-biking or mountain-biking or whatever it is he does. Overexercise stripped the fat from his brain and turned him into a complete la-la case.’

  We were quiet for a couple of minutes, but Fran’s face remained troubled the whole time.

  ‘You know I won’t say anything,’ I said. ‘About any of it.’

  ‘Please, please stay away from Joel Morland,’ Fran said. ‘For your own sake.’

  ‘I can handle Joel. It’s whether any of us will be able to handle a Fran-Michelle-Dan World War that’s the worry.’

  ‘Well, at least in fourteen months we’ll all be leaving school and we’ll never have to see each other again!’ she said with sarcastic glee. ‘But enough about me.’ She smiled. ‘Who gave you that huge hickey you’ve had on your neck for days and days?’

  5

  My cheeks went red. ‘Did you see it?’

  ‘Heard about it. Nikki really does have the biggest mouth in the universe.’

  ‘Fran, I never do things like that—’

  ‘I’ve spent three years trying to do things like that,’ she giggled.

  ‘I mean it. Because of that dumb situation with Garth, Belinda thinks I’m a complete slut and this getting around really would not change her mind. Does she know about it?’

  Fran nodded.

  ‘Nikki again?’

  ‘She has the biggest mouth in the universe, Soph.’

  I sighed. ‘What did Belinda say?’

  Fran dropped her gaze into her cup again. ‘Belinda doesn’t really hate you … You guys just have a personality clash …’

  Now I frowned. ‘Great – and so who does Belinda think gave me the hickey?’

  ‘You’ll laugh,’ Fran said.

  ‘Brody Meine?’ I asked, tasting my own bitterness.

  ‘Actually, she thought it was Scott Moss.’

  ‘Scott? He’s with Gretchen Eighfield!’

  ‘Belinda was … making a joke about “Nerd Pride”. It wasn’t very nice – I shouldn’t have brought it up.’

  Guilty seconds passed. ‘Is it Brody Meine?’ she asked. Her tone sounded not only curious but also a little impressed.

  ‘We both know that’s impossible,’ I said, a much better liar than she was.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because he’s Brody Meine, Mr Untouchable, Mr No Friends … Mr I-Kissed-Kylie.’ I hadn’t meant to say the last part, but it slipped out.

  Fran smiled. ‘He’s got friends, just not in school. He lives with that older guy. They look like they’re buddies when I see them around Yarrindi.’

  ‘Brody and I don’t even talk to one another.’

  ‘Neither do me and Dan, really,’ confessed Fran, a smile then breaking across her face. ‘I know you like him, Sophie. You told Michelle and Michelle told me. It’s okay, you know – the rumour is he also likes you.’

  I saw his lips against Kylie’s, kissing her. Kissing the crazy girl on the mouth. I shook my head. ‘He really doesn’t. He kissed Kylie. I was there – Brody Meine was no passive victim of a random kiss attack.’

  ‘Maybe he was trying to make you jealous.’

  My face was cold with the effort of restraint.

  ‘You forget,’ Fran said, smiling, ‘in Modern History you and Brody sit straight across from Nikki. People see things. Little notes. Necklace touching. Diving-to-save-the-girl-from-the-glass-explosion.’

  I fixed a neutral smile to my face. Why not tell her? Why not let one person in Yarrindi know about the ecstasy and torture of addiction to Brody Meine?

  I stared at my hands on the railing of the verandah. The railing was iron lacework, matching the colonial style of the house. It was painted dark green, and its metal was cold under my palms.

  ‘Has this rail always looked this way?’ I asked Fran, pointing to it.

  ‘Since 1887, but that’s an awesome attempt to change the conversation.’

  ‘It’s never been made out of wood? Or had palings?’

  ‘Ah, no,’ said Fran, looking confused.

  We were at her parents’ house, Joel Morland had said, and they have this big balcony and I was so angry I just kicked out this paling – splintered it.

  You can’t splinter metal. Not even if you’re Joel Morland and you’re really good at riding bikes.

  I shuddered.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ asked Fran.

  ‘I’m just interested in colonial detailing,’ I said, trying to sound offhand.

  Fran burst out laughing. ‘Who gave you the hickey?’ she demanded, grabbing the lapels of my kimono.

  I laughed back, very deliberately. ‘That emo guy from the shopping mall – the guy in black,’ I lied. ‘He looks older but he’s only seventeen. I’ve known him since I moved in and he came to my house later that night to watch TV.’

  ‘He was stalking you at the mall!’

  ‘A bad idea to make out with him but, no – he was just randomly there and decided to freak me out. Weird, yes, but not a stalker,’ I said thinly. ‘Not a Joel Morland, anyway.’

  I drained my last mouthful of coffee, swirling the bitter liquid round my mouth.

  6

  Fran and I went back into the house, she got me some towels and I had a shower. My brain kept flicking back and forth between Fran’s story and what Joel Morland had said that night at Noah’s. It was clear that Joel was telling lies about something, but whether he made exaggerated claims about kicking in palings or the whole thing was a fabrication, I didn’t know. My instinct was to believe Fran, but the implication that Joel was delusional didn’t hold up to the pained sincerity of the person I’d bonded with after the fire.

  Rationally, both stories had to be half-true and half-false; maybe both parties believed their version of events, and just added false details to convince me.

  Fran was already dressed by the time I came out of the shower. She offered me one of her clean shirts to wear, and I took it.

  When Fran came back into her room, she asked me what I was going to wear to Gretchen’s party on Friday night.

  I confessed I hadn’t thought about it, and Fran looked shocked.

  ‘You know it’s a Halloween theme,’ she reminded me. ‘She’s got a band, and the surf club is a great place for a party. She’s obviously trying to make a big impression.’

  ‘What are you going as?’

  ‘Haven’t decided. Whatever it is, we’re doing it as a group. Belinda wants us to wear tutus and go as fairies, but I think that’s a bit lame.’

  ‘I’ll have to buy something,’ I said. ‘I have nothing to make a costume out of.’

  ‘But you are gonna wear what we wear?’ she asked, sounding almost worried.

  I had a vision of myself dressed as a fairy and the thought terrified me. ‘Not if it’s a tutu. What are the other suggestions?’

  ‘I want us to go as a coven of witches!’

  I actually burst out laughing.

  ‘The whole issue is not to go as vampires – everyone else will, I guarantee,’ Fran said. ‘Got something black?’

  ‘Only a jacket. All I’ve got is what we bought that day at Babes,’ I said.

  ‘That pink dress is beautiful but it’s not really witchy,’ Fran said. ‘I wonder if I’ve got something black I could lend you …’

  She walked over to her wardrobe. The doors swung open to reveal the largest amount of clothes I’d ever seen crammed into
one space.

  ‘Where did you get all these?’ I asked, as Fran darted her hands towards a black section in a rainbow of coats and jackets, dresses and everything else.

  ‘If I go with Mum or Dad when they’re doing a tourist market, I usually manage to find a vintage clothing stall.’ She flicked through coathangers. ‘You could have this.’

  From the wardrobe, she pulled out something that looked like a negligee. It was a short, black slip with purple lace straps and matching purple lace trim at the neckline and hem.

  I stared at it – it didn’t look long enough to reach my thighs. ‘Isn’t that underwear?’ I asked, running my hand down the silky material.

  ‘Maybe,’ said Fran, ‘but it only cost me three dollars so you can keep it. If Belinda forces us to go as fairies, all you’ll need is a pair of black wings. You got shoes for this?’

  I nodded. I still had the borrowed pair of Lucy’s I’d worn home from the disastrous party in Sydney.

  ‘Take it,’ Fran said, holding out the dress.

  I slipped the dress off the hanger and stared at it. I tried to imagine myself in something so skimpy. I couldn’t.

  ‘It’s a pity that Ashley Ventwood’s gone to Europe,’ said Fran, ‘her range of black outfits is truly extensive. She could costume the whole party – vampires, witches, freaks …’ A sudden glow came into Fran’s eyes. ‘That’s it! It’s bad – I know it’s bad but it’s brilliant! I’ve just solved our group costume crisis!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’ll be the funniest thing ever. I’ll text all the girls,’ Fran said, immediately searching for her mobile. ‘Let’s all go as Ashley Ventwood!’

  7

  Fran and I were in the Corolla on the way to school before I finally remembered my promise to Dad and fished my mobile phone out of my pocket. I texted Dad: Had a great time at Fran’s, see you at home, which was technically true, even if I did spend most of my stay asleep.