Little Sister

by Aimee Said

  And of course Larrie did. She was wearing a sixties-style minidress that showed off her long, slim legs, and loads of black eyeliner. Beth, on the other hand, was channelling the love child of Pugsley Addams and Velma from Scooby-Doo – complete with knee socks. I wondered whether the real reason Larrie hung around with her was to appear even more stunning by comparison.

  Mum wrinkled her nose. “Is that dress second-hand?”

  “It’s vintage, Mum. We found it in an amazing little op shop in the city this afternoon. Don’t you love it?”

  “This afternoon?” Mum’s nose reached maximum wrinkle density. “You mean you haven’t even washed it?”

  “Relax, Colette,” said Dad. “I’m sure the shop washes everything before they sell it. And it really suits you, Larrie. Goes perfectly with the Twiggy haircut.”

  Now it was Dad’s turn to score a tight-lipped glare from Mum, who still hadn’t forgiven Larrie for cutting her waist-length hair into a short, pixyish style without consulting her. She turned back to Larrie. “What’s wrong with the wardrobe full of clothes you never wear any more?”

  And they were off. While Larrie told Mum that she had her own style these days, and Mum said that she didn’t want people to think that Larrie had to buy second-hand stuff, and Dad kept his eyes on his plate so he couldn’t be accused of taking sides, and Beth looked like she wanted the floor to open up and swallow her, I shovelled the last of my salad into my mouth, muttered, “May I be excused?” under my breath and headed for my room, taking the cordless phone with me.

  I pushed a pile of clothes off the bed to make room to lie down. My now-solid school uniform landed with a thunk on a pile of old magazines I’d used for a collage assignment a couple of weeks ago, and sent the empty cup that had been perched on top of them flying. Personally, I don’t subscribe to Mum’s “tidy room, tidy mind” theory. If you ask me, people who keep their rooms immaculate do it because a) they’re avoiding something they don’t want to do and cleaning is an acceptable form of procrastination, or b) they’ve got nothing else to occupy their time because they have no life. Besides, I do enough cleaning in the rest of the house; I should be allowed to keep my own space how I want it. That’s not how Mum sees it though, especially if she comes into my bedroom straight after being in Larrie’s, with its alphabetised bookshelf and spotless desk.

  Maz answered on the second ring. “What took you so long? I’ve been waiting hours to hear what happened this afternoon!”

  “Well,” I said, wanting to string her along for a while before getting to the exciting bit. “It was a pretty typical tasting: the usual middle-aged mums stuffing their faces and whingeing to each other about their cellulite, and their husbands talking smugly about how much the Kingston property market went up in the last quarter. Oh, and Josh Turner came in to get–”

  “Not at work, after school! Don’t tell me you’ve already forgotten being set upon by a gang of wild youths?”

  “Oh. That. It was just Mitch.”

  “I know!” Maz gushed. “I saw it from the detention room. I wanted to rescue you, but Morales wouldn’t let me come down until I’d finished my essay on why punctuality is the cornerstone of civilisation.”

  “If you already know then what are you waiting for me to tell you?”

  “Come on, Al! If I was the centre of a muck-up day prank by the hottest group of guys in school, I’d share all of the gory details with you. That’s what friends do.”

  She had a point. But after the excitement of my encounter with Josh, Mitch and Co. seemed like a distant memory, and not nearly as interesting.

  “There’s not much to tell. They sprayed me with water pistols and threw flour at me. It lasted about five seconds and then Larrie came along and pulled her school-president act. You’d think she’d take it down a notch on her last day of school, but no.”

  “Look on the bright side,” said Maz, who claims there’s a bright side to everything, “in four more weeks Larrie’s out of Whitlam forever.”

  “Three weeks and six days,” I corrected her. “And then I can stop being Larrie’s little sister once and for all.”

  The sound of the front door slamming told me that Larrie had stormed out in her usual melodramatic fashion. There’d been so much door slamming in our house since she started Year Twelve that some of the hinges were coming loose. I took the phone to the window and watched her and Beth walk down the driveway. From the way she was stabbing the air with her finger, I figured Larrie was on a bender about Mum. Beth’s long-suffering expression was not unlike the one Mitch used to get when Larrie was moaning to him about how bad she had it.

  “Allison, come and clear the table. Right now!” screeched Mum from the other side of my closed door.

  “Sounds like trouble’s brewing at the Old Miller Place,” said Maz. “You’d better go before that vein above your mum’s left eye starts throbbing.”

  Three weeks and six days, I repeated to myself as I stacked the dishwasher.

  Al Miller is counting down to freedom.

  14

  Mum must’ve felt guilty about taking out her fight with Larrie on me because on the drive to work the next morning she suggested we go out after school on Wednesday.

  “We could try the new Spanish cafe near Parkville Metro,” she said. “I hear they make excellent churros con chocolate.”

  Mum knew how to win me over: Spanish donuts dipped in creamy, melted milk chocolate. I took it as a good omen that, less than twenty-four hours since Larrie finished school, things were already improving for me.

  Jay and Dylan were rearranging the display in the chiller cabinet when I arrived. I tipped my head for Jay to inspect my spotlessly clean hair.

  “Your boyfriend was outside earlier,” said Dylan, handing me a clean apron.

  “I’ve told you before, Simon’s not my boyfriend.”

  “Not Simon. The other one – the blond.”

  “From last night?”

  Dylan nodded, but I didn’t get to quiz him any more about Josh because customers started arriving as soon as Jay flipped the sign on the door to “Open”.

  Mrs Ng was first through the door. She asked me to help her choose a selection for a cheese platter. “Nothing too strong!” she ordered.

  I went to the corner of the chiller cabinet Jay refers to as “Bland Land” and selected three differently textured but equally tasteless specimens for her to sample, each of which she declared “delicious”.

  After Mrs Ng, I got stuck serving Mr Reymond, who thinks being French makes him a cheese expert. He always demands to taste every new cheese we have, and criticises all of them except the French ones. Then he buys the thinnest sliver of whichever is the ripest, stinkiest washed rind in stock.

  “Time waster,” I muttered when Mr Reymond left with two dollars’ worth of Reblochon.

  Jay overheard me. “I’ll take ten of him over twenty customers who won’t taste anything outside Bland Land. We cheese lovers have to stick together, you know.”

  Things quietened down in the afternoon and Dylan suggested that he and Jay go for a late lunch while I minded the shop. Without many customers to serve, I soon had the shelves restocked and displays tidied, so I pulled the ancient laptop Jay used for online banking from under the prep bench and logged on to Facebook, keeping an eye on the door in the mirror in case any customers came in.

  As usual, all Facebook did was confirm that everyone else’s lives were more interesting than mine. According to their updates, in the twenty-odd hours since school finished:

  Prad Chandarama hopes the pain of getting his eyebrow pierced was worth it.

  Lily Ng needs to sleep till Monday – thanks for a fun night, girls!!

  Tracy Green thinks guys with eyebrow piercings are HOT!!!

  Nicko Nickson thinks Maz Dekker has mad skillz (happy now, Maz?).

  Simon Lutz is alphabetising his record collection.

  Long live vinyl!

  Okay, so I wasn’t as much of a loser as Simon
, but you get the picture. I was about to log off in a huff when I got a new friend invitation. I almost squealed when I saw it was from Josh Turner, clicking “Accept” immediately in case he changed his mind. I’d just clicked on his profile to check his pertinent details (star sign, relationship status – all the crucial facts) when I spotted Jay and Dylan approaching. I stowed the laptop back on the shelf as the door opened.

  While I busied myself re-tidying shelves under Jay’s watchful gaze, my mind raced. Could Dylan have been right about Josh liking me? Or was Josh trying to make himself appear popular by friending anyone he’d ever met?

  I texted Maz to ask her opinion.

  She phoned less than ten minutes later. “According to his profile he’s single and looking.”

  “Thank you, Mata Hari.”

  “Isn’t that what you wanted to know?”

  “Just because he’s looking doesn’t mean he’s looking for me. I bet he’s got loads of Facebook friends.”

  “One hundred and ninety-three,” confirmed Maz. “But you’re the only one in Year Ten.”

  I was about to tell her that I didn’t want to get my hopes up when Jay caught my eye in the mirror. I swear Mum’s given him lessons in how to make me feel guilty.

  “Gotta go,” I said, grabbing the broom.

  “See you at Prad’s for rehearsal tonight. Don’t be late!”

  Prad greeted me at the door, tilting his head so I could admire the silver barbell running through the outer edge of his left eyebrow.

  “Pretty cool, eh? I had to forge Mum’s signature on the consent form to get it.”

  “Great,” I said, trying not to inspect the red, swollen piercing too closely. “But what’s she going to say when she sees it?”

  “Meh. I’ll deal with that when it happens.”

  I took my shoes off before entering the house, which had recently been carpeted in a pale green shagpile. Prad led me to the soundproof basement studio his dad installed when it became obvious that Prad’s dreams of a career in music weren’t going away. The insulation made the room feel very still and airless. (Not a good thing when Prad had his shoes off.) I was the last to arrive, as usual.

  “The first thing we need to do is decide which two songs we’re going to play at the tryouts next week,” said Maz. “My vote’s for ‘Queen Bee’ and ‘You Don’t Know’.”

  “Too safe,” said Prad. “I reckon we should do ‘Burn it Down’ and ‘Kick Me in the Guts’.”

  “‘Burn it Down’ could go over well if there are a lot of guys in the audience,” agreed Nicko.

  Maz shook her head. “We are not doing the song about burning down the school. At least not at the tryouts. The point of this set is to get the judges – who, may I remind you, are all teachers or student council reps – to choose Vertigo Pony for the final competition. Safe is good.”

  “Why don’t we let Al choose?” suggested Simon. “At least she’ll be objective, since she didn’t write any of the songs.”

  Prad and Nicko agreed warily. I could tell Maz was annoyed that they hadn’t gone with her suggestions.

  “Fine,” she sighed. “But remember, Al, you’re choosing the songs that will most appeal to the judges, not necessarily the ones you like best. To keep things fair, we won’t tell you the titles, you can number them in the order they’re played. That way you won’t know which songs we each voted for.”

  It was a good idea in theory, but unfortunately for Maz it was disproved the moment Prad got to the first chorus (“You kick me in the guts/You kick me in the guts”, etc.). In the end two songs really stood out: a pop-sounding tune with very dark lyrics, and a down-beat love song that started off sad and ended on a hopeful note.

  “Song two and song six,” I said when Maz asked for my verdict.

  Maz checked the playlist. “‘Lock Up the Sell Out’ and ‘You Don’t Know’. At least one of my choices got in there.”

  Prad wasn’t convinced. “I’m not sure about the soppy one–”

  Maz cut him off. “The jury has spoken!”

  Maz made the guys run through the songs I’d chosen a few more times. I had to concede that they were really starting to come together as a group. Prad and Nicko had been writing songs and jamming together for years and were completely at home performing, and Maz was in her element, dancing and playing her keyboard, as well as singing backup vocals. Even Simon almost managed to look cool behind his drum kit, helped a lot by the rolled-up sleeves of his shirt revealing some unexpectedly well-developed biceps. For a moment I was quite distracted. Unfortunately, it was the exact moment Maz turned my way.

  I whipped my head in the other direction and tried to appear equally interested in the foam insulation that covered the studio’s walls, but Maz called a break and was by my side faster than you could say “sprung”.

  “See something you like?” she asked in a whisper loud enough for me to worry about the guys hearing her.

  I rolled my eyes at the suggestion. “No offence to your ginger ninja over there, but I’ve only got eyes for Josh.”

  “Hmmm, if you like your guys straight out of a World of Preppies catalogue, he’s all right.”

  “Josh is more than a pretty face; he’s also an excellent soccer player.”

  “So he’s pretty and he’s a jock …”

  “And he has a great smile, and he’s charming, and he–”

  “Okay, you win! But you have to admit, musicians are sexier than athletes.” She glanced in Nicko’s direction.

  “Especially bass players?” I asked.

  “Maybe.”

  After rehearsal wrapped up, Maz’s mum gave me a lift home. Neither of us said anything more about Josh or Nicko, but I could tell from Maz’s moony expression that she was falling hard.

  I checked Facebook the moment I got to my room and no less than twenty more times before leaving for school on Monday morning, but there were no messages from Josh. (I also pored over every photo in his online albums, every comment written on his wall and every status update he’d made in the past month, but that’s a story to save for the Stalkers Anonymous meeting.)

  Al Miller is a little bit hopeful.

  15

  My first Larrie-free day at school was every bit as sweet as I’d imagined it would be, beginning with assembly, at which Larrie was not on stage making announcements about the environment group’s fundraising dinner or the swimming team’s gold medal in the state championships. When Mr Dempster asked for a volunteer to cover Whitlam’s A-grade soccer team’s semifinal games, I took it as an omen, for both my career and Josh aspirations.

  “I’ll do it,” I offered before anyone else could put up their hand.

  “I didn’t know you were a sports fan,” said Mr Dempster when he gave me the game schedule at the end of class.

  “A journalist has to be prepared to report on anything, don’t they? Besides, Ms Brand can’t possibly object to sports stories, unlike my other posts.”

  “Let’s hope not. Just make sure you submit your stories by 10.00 on the night of the match, so that Ms Brand can approve them.”

  “Are you joking?” said Maz when I asked her to come with me to Wednesday’s soccer game against Whitlam’s arch rival, St Spiridian’s. “You know I hate sports.”

  “Please, Maz, everyone’ll think I’m a complete loser if I go alone. I went to your rehearsal on Saturday, didn’t I? And I’m sure Mum won’t mind if you come for churros with us afterwards.”

  Maz considered my proposition. “Does this churros come with dipping chocolate?”

  “Milk and dark.”

  “Okay,” she sighed. “But I expect to see you at every single Vertigo Pony rehearsal between now and the battle of the bands.”

  I held up my right hand and placed it on my heart – our sign that we’ll keep our word to each other. She echoed the gesture with a grin.

  “Bringing out the big guns?” asked Maz as we changed after PE on Wednesday afternoon.

  I checked my push-up-bra-e
nhanced cleavage. “Too much?”

  “There’s no such thing,” said Tracy Green, pausing on her way out of the change rooms. “Whose attention are you trying to get with those, anyway?”

  “Josh Turner’s,” answered Maz, before I could raise my eyebrow to keep her mouth shut.

  “You’re right on the money then, Al. But be careful – Josh’s left a trail of broken hearts behind him.”

  “You’ve been warned,” said Maz after Tracy left.

  I refused to let anything burst my shiny Josh-bubble. “She’s probably jealous because Josh turned her down at some party,” I said.

  Maz looked less than convinced.

  A decent crowd had turned out for the game. Whitlam’s students sat on one side of the field and St Spiro’s supporters on the other, trying to out shout each other. I dragged Maz to the front row of the stands, clutching a notepad and my camera. When the whistle blew for kick-off everyone except Maz cheered.

  “So the point of this exercise is to chase the ball from one end of the field to the other?” she asked, as if she’d never seen a soccer game before. “It’s a bit unproductive, isn’t it?”

  “There’s more to it than that,” I said, trying to sound as if I knew what I was talking about. “You need amazing coordination, and game strategy, and–”

  “St Spiro’s are a bunch of poofters!” shouted a guy behind us as their captain lined up a penalty kick after Josh was given a foul for tripping someone.

  Maz turned to give the culprit the greasy eyeball. “Jamie Butcher, I should’ve guessed. It’s neanderthal throwbacks like him that put me off sports.” She applauded heartily when the ball flew over the Whitlam goalie’s head into the net.

  “He was just trying to psych the guy out so he’d miss the goal,” I hissed. “Stop clapping before we get beaten up by our own classmates.”

  Maz folded her hands in her lap. “Fine, but remember, I’m only doing this for you. And churros.”

  The game was a Whitlam victory, mainly thanks to Josh and his superior ball skills. After the full-time whistle blew, I made Maz come with me to ask him for a photo to go with my story.