IB: I see.
NC: Mum says she’s tired from getting up for Tim so much and she really needs to sleep. She says I need to stop calling out for her. She says I’m doing it for attention.
IB: Your mum said that?
NC: To Dad. I heard her. She says I’m acting out.
IB: Do you know what “acting out” means?
NC: Not really. I know what “attention” means. It’s when you want everyone to look at you and fuss over you and stuff.
IB: Do you think you do or say things sometimes to get attention from your mum and dad?
NC: Maybe sometimes.
IB: What kind of things might you do to get attention?
NC: I say, “Excuse me, Mum” so I can ask her a question.
IB: Do you tell her when something bad has happened? So she can listen to you and give you a hug?
NC: I do, but she doesn’t give me a hug. She says I need to stop making things up.
IB: Do you sometimes make things up?
NC: I’m not sure …
IB: You’re not?
NC: No, because some things happened that were real and no one believed me, and now I think they might not have been real. I didn’t make them up, though.
IB: You mentioned earlier that if your mum didn’t look after Tim he might starve to death. That’s quite a grown-up expression, isn’t it? “Starve to death”? Where have you heard that said before? Did you hear your mum say it?
NC: No. He said it to me.
IB: Your dad?
NC: No, he did.
IB: Your visitor at Aunty Ally’s?
NC: Yes. He said mean stuff sometimes.
IB: What kind of mean stuff did he say?
NC: He told me if I didn’t do what he said he’d lock me in a box and no one would find me and I’d starve to death.
IB: That doesn’t seem nice at all. Why do you think he said something like that?
NC: Because he wanted me to do things.
IB: What sort of things, Natasha?
NC: I’m not supposed to tell you.
IB: Why not?
NC: He didn’t want any grown-ups finding out.
9
NOW
News of my panic attack at the Fishers’ party made it all over school less than thirty-six hours after it happened. Now it’s like every weird little public breakdown I’ve ever had has bobbed to the surface in everyone’s minds. A guy in Monday’s rollcall muttered “Drama queen” behind my back and the week went downhill from there. In Tuesday’s PE class, Rachael’s fangirls made exaggerated whimpering noises when I left the netball court with a twisted ankle. And by Friday a group of smirking Year Eight boys asked me point-blank if I’m that “crazy chick who’s scared of the dark”.
Even now, a full week after the laundry incident, my face still burns at the memory. I shouldn’t be surprised that Rachael kickstarted the rumour mill again. Gossip is her currency at school; the crueller she is with it, the more powerful the reminder that people had better stay on her good side. She doesn’t get top marks like her brother, and she’s not gifted with social eloquence like her mum. She plays to her strengths and her talent is manipulation.
So while I expect it of Rachael, I can’t help feeling a twinge of betrayal at Morgan for sharing with her what happened in his laundry.
He didn’t have to tell her – he didn’t have to tell anyone – even if he doesn’t know Rachael very well yet or how she’d exploit it. It’s like I have this silly notion that because we shared a sandwich once in Year Two, Morgan has some kind of allegiance to me.
“You gonna eat that?” Tim says, leaning across the kitchen table.
I glance at my plate to find his fingers pinching my last pancake. We normally eat cereal at opposite ends of the couch on Saturday mornings, but today I insisted on a sit-down breakfast. Two weeks into school and I already feel like I don’t see enough of his grubby little face.
“Not now it has boy germs all over it,” I tell him and nudge my plate in his direction. He’s already dangling the pancake in midair. His grin is all mischief and maple syrup, and I feel a sudden swell of affection for him.
“Aww, what a shame,” he says as he tips his head back to lower the pancake into his mouth. A strawberry slides off his chin and slops down the front of his T-shirt. He side-eyes me making mmm and yummm noises, so I dip my fingers into my water glass and flick them at his face.
“Really, Natasha,” Mum says, striding into the kitchen. She dumps two shopping bags on the benchtop. “I have trouble determining which one is the child. I mean, honestly.”
She tsks at the water droplets all over the table, prompting her to seek out a disaster zone in the sink. Her eyes hunt for a dirty frypan or flour and milk spread from one end of the benchtop to the other. I won’t pretend I don’t feel smug when she finds everything pristine. I almost imagine an approving eyebrow arch, a small noise in the back of her throat to show she’s impressed.
Instead, she yanks open the dishwasher and mumbles, “Well, this will all have to be restacked.”
My chair screeches as I stand to collect our plates. Tim gives me a secret eye roll and I attempt to smile back.
“We need to go shopping for shoes today,” Mum says, while she unpacks the groceries. Jars and tins knock together in the cupboard as she corrals them into rows. “You both need new sneakers. We’ll drive over to Watergardens as soon as Tim’s changed his T-shirt.”
“I was going to head down to the old mill to take photos,” I tell her. I feel like I haven’t photographed anything in months even though it’s really only been a couple of weeks. “The light’s no good in the middle of the day.”
“This is the only chance I have, Natasha. I have to go to Gayle Simpson’s this afternoon to organise the school fundraiser. God knows when I’ll have time to sew Tim’s scout badges onto his uniform before tonight’s barbecue.”
“Why don’t I take Tim shoe shopping?” I suggest. “I can do it this afternoon while you’re over at the Simpsons’ place. That way you can sew the badges on now and I can head down to the mill.”
Tim nods eagerly at this. If it’s just the two of us, we can go to the churros place and he can spend some of his pocket money at the arcade. We can have some actual fun.
Mum doesn’t even pretend to consider. “No. We’ll go now. Change your T-shirt, Tim. I’ll meet you both out the front.”
My brother groans loudly and drags himself to the stairs as though his limbs are made of lead. I snatch up my bag and shrug it over my shoulder as sulkily as I can. Mum doesn’t register our protests. She’s bent over something on the front doorstep.
“What is …?” She straightens quickly and backs up a step. “Ugh.”
“What’s wrong?” I move to the doorway and peer over her shoulder. A small grey and brown object is sitting in the centre of the doormat.
“Bloody cat,” Mum mutters, jiggling her keys nervously. “Do me a favour and get rid of it before Tim sees. It might upset him.”
She takes an exaggerated step over the doormat like she’s traversing a crocodile tank, and I can finally see what she was looking at.
A tiny dead sparrow.
Who’s she kidding? Tim’s a nine-year-old boy – icky things like this are what he lives for. The only person who gets squeamish about this type of stuff is Mum. It’s her phobia, I suppose, having to handle dead things, or worse, having to kill something with her own two hands. Dad finds it funny how Mum will crawl up the back of the couch and call for help rather than whack a cockroach with a shoe. Even more amusing to Dad is how I can manage to dispatch spiders and dead mice, yet I can’t ride through a car wash or spend longer than three minutes in a toilet cubicle.
But it’s not like we pick and choose what to be afraid of.
It’s like our fears pick us.
I crouch in front of the sparrow, nudging it with my finger in case it’s merely stunned. Tim clomps down the staircase behind me, so I straighten to a stand and block
the dead bird from his view.
“Mum’s favourite,” I say dryly, nodding at his black Darth Vader T-shirt. “You know she’ll make you come back inside to change.”
He gives me a cheeky grin. “There’s not enough time.” I snigger as he wanders over to the car.
Once the coast is clear, I dash back into the kitchen for a plastic bag, returning to the doormat with it over one hand like a glove. I gingerly pick up the sparrow, distracted by how its head flops unnaturally to one side. I flick my wrist left and right, and the sparrow’s head lolls like its neck is made of rubber.
Can a cat do that? Twist a bird’s neck until it breaks?
As soon as the thought surfaces I realise what should have been obvious as soon as I spotted it over Mum’s shoulder: the bird doesn’t have a scratch on it. Not a spot of blood, not a feather out of place, no evidence at all it met with Mouse’s teeth or claws.
And as I place it in the wheelie bin among a graveyard of garbage bags, something even more unnerving registers.
Its body is still warm.
*
An hour later I’m still thinking about it as we wander around Watergardens. I’ve almost convinced myself that sparrow flew into our screen door and shattered its body. Birds fly into windows all the time so it’s not a stretch to think this one might have misjudged its flight path too. But a niggling thought fuels my paranoia: is it merely coincidence a dead sparrow appears on my doorstep only two weeks after Rachael broadcast my imaginary friend’s name to her clique at the Seaspray? Those girls would do anything to please her. Rachael could be trolling me without even getting her manicured hands dirty.
Mum drags us from store to store like a woman on a mission. Tim soon grows frustrated about being ordered which shoes to try on without being given a choice.
“No one wears these,” he complains about a pair of fluorescent sneakers. His growing resentment about being babied results in a flat No to three more pairs I know he’d dearly love to own. Mum’s oblivious to the tug-of-war of independence going on, and in some ways I blame myself. At Tim’s age I was behaving helplessly, unpredictably. Mum had no choice but to take control.
However, Tim’s not needy and erratic like I was. He’s level-headed and reliable. He’s given Mum no cause to think he can’t be trusted. I pull Mum aside while Tim’s sulking by the sports socks.
“How about I take him up to the food court for something to eat?” I say. “You do the other things on your list and we’ll meet you in an hour.” I don’t mention that I’ll take Tim back to the sports store after lunch to pick out his own shoes. I still have fifty bucks from last Saturday’s catering gig in my purse.
Mum doesn’t argue. She actually concedes with a grateful sigh. It makes me feel good that I’ve found a way to help her out. And, more importantly, she’s going to trust me to do it.
Tim becomes animated again as soon as Mum’s gone. We hit the arcade before lunch, playing pinball and air hockey until we’re out of coins. As we make our way up to the food court, I’m so caught up in Tim’s game of Spot-the-Secret-Superhero I almost walk into someone at the pick-up counter of Caffeined.
It takes me a second to realise he’s walked into my path on purpose.
“Uh, hey, Tash.”
I swerve around him, taking in his round green eyes and tousled bed hair. Morgan gives me an awkward wave.
“Oh, hi.” I stop abruptly and Tim wanders ahead before he realises I’m no longer beside him.
“How are you?” Morgan says, rocking on his heels. “You know, it occurred to me we should have swapped phone numbers last Saturday. I haven’t been able to call and check in with how you’re doing after … Well, you know, after the party.”
His words tumble out so quickly I’m not sure I heard him correctly. “You want my number?”
“Well, yeah. If that’s cool? Except now you’re looking at me like it’s weird.”
“No, it’s just–” I glance over my shoulder to find Tim peering into the display case of the bakery next door. I lower my voice. “Sometimes I get a little haywire, I guess you could say.”
Morgan smiles, leaning in conspiratorially. “We’ve all got a few defects though, right? I mean, faulty is my favourite kind of people.”
Eyeing him for a moment, I’m unsure of how to reply. He might be referring to his sister, and I don’t know if I should acknowledge that or if it would come across as rude. He catches my look and his face reddens. My brain only now catches up.
Wait. I’m his favourite kind of people?
“I’m sorry,” he says, reading my stunned look as offence. “I don’t mean that you’re – I mean, you’re not defective. I’m just mucking around.”
If only he knew how accurate he really is.
“Can we erase all of that and start again?” he asks sheepishly.
I laugh. “Consider it done.”
Morgan fills me in on his week of shopping for his schoolbooks and uniform, the online cartooning course he’s just signed up for, how he wiggled out of unpacking boxes at home by helping his Dad paint the walls of the orthodontic practice.
“God, sorry. I’ve barely taken a breath,” he says. “I think I’m a bit wired.”
“You really need that coffee?”
“Probably not.” He smiles. “I only had a few hours’ sleep though. Late-night gaming with Chris Tan.”
“Oh, right. So you guys are friends?”
“Yeah, it seems so. He’s a pretty cool guy. Different to my mates in Brisbane.”
“Different how?”
“Chris is pretty switched on and he’s got a lot of similar interests with the tech and creative stuff,” he says. “Most of my Brissy mates were either revheads or footy fanatics. We moved houses and schools a lot, so I just tried to fit in wherever I could.”
“I didn’t realise you’d moved around so much.”
“It’s Mum – she gets restless,” he says. “I think the whole time we lived up there she just wanted to be back here in Port Bellamy.”
“It must be hard changing schools so often.”
“Yeah. I learned to develop hobbies that didn’t require me to be in one place for any length of time,” he says. “Like drawing and stop motion animation. My parents have paid for me to do a lot of online courses.”
“I’ve done a couple of those myself for photography.”
“Really? I’d love to see some of your work sometime.”
“You can check out my Instagram. Only if you promise to scroll past any goofy selfies with Sadie.”
Morgan chuckles. “And who’s this?” he says, peering round me at Tim who’s been amusing himself with the bakery’s free samples. “Cool T-shirt.”
I’m just about to call Tim over to introduce him when Morgan’s name is called by the cafe’s barista.
“Guess that’s you,” I say.
“Yeah.” He glances over his shoulder but doesn’t move. I feel that little flutter of anticipation again, like I did in his front yard last Saturday. The barista repeats his name, louder this time. “Okay, I’d better go and get that.”
“So I’ll see you at school on Monday then?”
“You will indeed,” he says, jogging over to retrieve his coffee.
*
In the food court Tim orders a greasy burger with the lot, plus extra fried onions and pickles. It’s inevitable half of it will end up in his lap. I make a mental note to grab more serviettes from the sushi place when I go over there to buy my lunch.
“Don’t leave the table, okay?” I tell Tim, uncapping his bottle of water for him. He’s busy licking a trail of tomato sauce from his wrist. “I’m just going to grab some sushi from that place over there. Wait here for me, okay? Tim? Are you listening?”
“Mm-hmm,” he grunts. His gaze is dancing over store signage and spinning mobiles.
People swarm around the food outlets like angry bees and it takes some effort to push my way through. When I finally reach the sushi shop I can still spot Tim th
rough the crowd. The line for sushi is five people deep so I let my gaze wander to a nearby bookshop, then onto a homewares store with some plastic flamingos Sadie would think are cool. My attention is drifting over the crowded walkway when it snags.
A figure is standing in front of the escalators.
Watching me.
He could almost be just another scruffy dark hoodie in the crowd. A little strange to wear the hood up indoors, although teenagers do it all the time. He’d be completely unremarkable standing outside the music store, or even passing by me in the arcade.
But in a stream of shoppers pouring off the escalator, he’s a jagged rock disrupting the flow. People trickle past him, around him, accommodating his presence without actually seeing him.
I see him.
Like I’ve zoomed in with a camera lens and everything else has blurred into the background.
His hands are shoved into the pockets of baggy jeans, his hoodie swimming on a scrawny frame. His head is tilted to one side, watchful. Calculating. The shadow from his hood erases the top half of his face, and his lips peel back in the rotten sneer I know all too well from my nightmares.
“Do you want to play a game?”
I crush my eyelids shut.
Stop this, Tash. It’s not him.
I suck in a deep breath, release it. When I open my eyes, he’s gone.
I glance across to our table in the food court. Tim’s still happily shoving burger into his face. Pressing the balls of my hands into my temples, I rotate them in rough circles until pain throbs behind my eyes.
Why is this happening again?
Over at the escalators it’s business as usual: people tussling with shopping trolleys, teenagers texting, dads piggybacking toddlers. I try to keep my attention on the sushi menu board, willing myself not to look over my shoulder. Instinct gnaws at my common sense, though, and I can’t help combing the crowded walkways in a macabre game of Where’s Wally?. I feel myself drifting away from the sushi line, too distracted to care that my spot fills quickly in my absence.
My eyes dart from one gleaming shop window to the next, from this person to that one. Seeking, scouring, hunting.
Small Spaces Page 6