Little Sister

by Aimee Said

  “What would you know about Josh? You think if a guy wants to hang out with me, he must just be after sex? You’re pathetic.”

  Beth reached over, patted Larrie’s hand and shook her head slightly. Larrie scowled but didn’t say anything. I couldn’t think why Beth would want to stick up for me against her best friend, but I was grateful that for once someone was taking my side.

  Mitch and his mates were standing in a dark corner of the car park, probably passing around a hip flask.

  “Catch ya later, Lezza,” shouted one of them as we drove past. A chorus of “Heh-heh, it’s the Lezzomobile” and “See ya, Lesbos” followed.

  I had no idea what Larrie had done to make herself so unpopular with the guys in her year (after all, when she dumped Mitch they were lining up behind his back to ask her out), but I couldn’t help smirking a little to myself. I waited for Larrie to yell something back, but she kept her eyes fixed on the road ahead. She probably thought she was being dignified and mature. Either that or she couldn’t think of a clever comeback.

  The three of us drove home in tense silence. I wanted to ask Larrie what the scene with Mitch had been about and what was up with the name-calling, but I figured at best she’d tell me to mind my own business, and at worst she’d make me get out and walk. I opened my door before the car had even come to a complete stop and let myself into the house without waiting for Larrie. Mum and Dad were watching Lateline and pretending not to wait up for me.

  “I’m home,” I called, already halfway to my room before they could respond. I knew I should go and say hello and answer their questions about how my night had been, but I wasn’t in the mood to listen to them congratulate Larrie on getting me home by my curfew. And, if I’m being completely honest, I wanted to try to recapture the feeling of Josh’s skin against mine before it faded from my memory.

  When I got into bed I was exhausted, but I couldn’t sleep. Partly because my mind was fizzing like a sherbet fountain, thinking about Josh, and partly because Larrie’s phone was brrring-ing with text messages every two minutes. I banged on the wall between our bedrooms in protest. Ordinarily, Larrie would’ve banged back but she must’ve been too busy texting ranting replies to Beth to notice.

  Obviously, she was riled by the thought of me and Josh together. Until now, she’d had a monopoly on the hottest guys at Whitlam, and I guessed it was tough for her to accept that only a week after finishing school she’d lost her grip. Perhaps my being with Josh would be the best revenge of all.

  Al Miller is ready to shake things up.

  18

  I had to force myself out of bed the next morning, bleary-eyed and porridge-brained from lack of sleep. Larrie’s phone had finally stopped buzzing at around 3.00, by which time I was so deliriously tired I couldn’t even concentrate on thinking about Josh any more.

  Mum took my silence in the car as a sign that I was sulking and used the five-minute drive to give me a lecture about how I should make more of an effort at home. Mentally, I was going ballistic about the fact that I was the one being told off when it was Larrie’s fault I’d had so little sleep, but I didn’t have the energy to put my thoughts into words.

  “Big night?” asked Dylan when he saw me inspecting the bags under my eyes in the prep-room mirror.

  “I wish.” I filled him in on Larrie’s quest to sabotage my possibly blossoming love-life.

  “Sounds like someone’s worried that her little sister might be taking her place as Kingston’s most sought-after girl,” said Dylan, who’d always lent a sympathetic ear when I needed to vent about Larrie. “How much longer have you got?”

  I checked the calendar above the sink. “Two weeks and four days.”

  “Hang in there, kiddo.”

  I was rotating the wheels of parmesan in the coolroom and contemplating a third coffee when I felt my phone buzz with an incoming message.

  Sorry you had to go. Hope I didn’t get you in the poo last night. xo Josh

  My stomach flipped. Josh texting me meant that he liked me enough to get my mobile number from someone. And he’d signed off with a kiss and a hug! I couldn’t help thinking that if Larrie hadn’t butted in last night, those might have been real instead of virtual.

  I tried to think of a casual but cool reply, but everything I came up with sounded either lame, boring or far too keen. Another text arrived before I had a chance to send even a “Yeah, let’s do it again sometime”. For a lightheaded moment I thought perhaps it was Josh again, wanting to know whether I was free tonight (yes, yes, absolutely), but it was just Maz.

  You left before they announced the finalists – Vertigo Pony is in! Come over tonight to plan our victory.

  I messaged back that I might be busy, clinging to the fantasy that Josh was going to make me an offer I couldn’t refuse. Maz called a minute later.

  “I think you missed the bit in the fan club president job description where it says you’re our number one fan. You didn’t even hang out with us last night.”

  “Sorry, Mazzle. That’s the effect Josh has on me. When he’s around I forget everything else.”

  “And everyone else. You can make up for it tonight. Vertigo Pony needs a kickarse backdrop for the final and I’ve got the perfect idea for it. Come to my place at seven. And wear something you can paint in.” She hung up before I could object.

  I spent the rest of the work day composing and recomposing my reply to Josh, eventually settling on:

  S’ok, am used to big sis poo. HAHA. xo Al

  The moment I hit “Send” I knew the chances of him replying with a romantic invitation were zero. Big. Sis. Poo. Three words that should never be used together in a message to someone you want to ask you out.

  “Start filling in the letters,” said Maz. She handed me a paintbrush and pointed to the king-size sheet that she’d already drawn an outline of the band’s name on. “And try not to go outside the lines like you usually do.”

  Having assisted on many of Maz’s art projects over the years, I did as I was told. She got to work painting the background image – a winged horse standing at the edge of a cliff – and we soon fell into an easy rhythm of painting and chatting. I told her how mortified I was about sending Josh the “poo” text.

  “Do you think it’ll put him off me forever?”

  Maz looked up from the intricately detailed wing-feathers she was painting and paused for a moment, choosing her words with care.

  “I reckon anyone who’s turned off by one badly worded text message isn’t really worth bothering with,” she said finally.

  “That’s easy for you to say when Nicko’s practically falling at your feet. Josh is the first guy who’s shown any interest in me since Pete Kelly asked me to the movies at Easter – and you remember how that ended.”

  I raised my right eyebrow to indicate that, even though I’d brought it up, I still wasn’t ready to discuss the Incident at the Movies (as Maz had dubbed it after I threatened to never speak to her again if she told anyone I’d accidentally tongue-kissed Pete’s left nostril in a dark cinema).

  “That’s not true,” said Maz, trying not to laugh. “Simon shows interest in you every day.”

  “Ugh. Please don’t start on about Simon again. I really want Josh to like me.”

  “Yeah, I noticed that when you took off with him last night without even saying goodbye.”

  “Josh had nothing to do with me leaving early! That was all Larrie’s fault. She said I had to go home with her and Beth. She was jealous that a cute guy was more interested in me than her.”

  Maz’s expression turned to sympathy. “Okay, in that case I withdraw the charge. Hopefully, by the SkoolDaze final Larissa Miller will be a distant memory at Whitlam. I bet by the time the new school year starts, no one’ll even remember who she was.”

  “Or they’ll know what she’s really like. It may be starting already – her own year seems to be turning against her.” I told her about the names Mitch’s mates had called Larrie in the car park.
>
  I expected Maz to share my schadenfreude (the one word I remember from my semester of German in Year Seven – it means taking pleasure in the misfortune of others) at the guys’ play on Mitch’s pet name for Larrie. Instead, her eyes went wide and she inhaled sharply, like her lungs were constricting.

  “Maz, what’s wrong?”

  She studied the paintbrush in her hand. “It’s just … I mean … I didn’t think you knew … I didn’t want to say …” she rambled when she found her voice.

  It wasn’t like Maz to be lost for words, especially with me. Panic (and the stir-fry Maz had made for dinner) rose in my throat. I took a couple of deep breaths to try to push it back down.

  “Didn’t want to say what? What don’t I know?”

  “I – I really didn’t want it to be me who you heard it from.”

  Maz sounded apologetic, another very un-Maz quality. Whatever she hadn’t told me, it must be bad. I couldn’t stand it any longer.

  “Heard what, Maz? Tell me!”

  “The lezzo thing,” she whispered. “I mean, I knew it would get back to you eventually, but …”

  I stared at her in disbelief. “Let me get this straight: my sister has an unflattering nickname at school and you didn’t want to tell me because – why?”

  “Because even though Larrie gives you the irrits she’s still your sister and I thought you’d be upset about it.” She paused before adding, “And from what people are saying it’s not just a nickname.”

  “And what exactly are people saying?”

  Maz studied her paintbrush again. “I’m only going on what I hear, okay, and it’s just a rumour, but word is that Larrie and Beth are more than best friends. If you know what I mean.”

  “Larrie and Beth?” It sounded so ridiculous that I almost shouted it. I mean, a) most of Whitlam’s male students were tripping over their lolling tongues to ask Larrie out, and b) Beth/Velma/Pugsley? If my sister was gay, surely she’d have better taste in women.

  “Who did you hear it from?” I demanded.

  Maz closed her eyes and tilted her head, like she did when she was trying to recall key dates in history tests. “I think it was Tracy who first told me. Or maybe it was Lily. Or was it Nicko?”

  “So basically our whole year is spreading this rumour and you didn’t think you should mention it to me?”

  “Oh, it’s not just our year,” said Maz before realising she was making things worse. “I’m sorry, Al. I didn’t know how to tell you. I mean, it’s a bit of an awkward topic, isn’t it?”

  “Is there anything else you haven’t been telling me that I should know about?” I asked, expecting a hasty and emphatic “No!” in response.

  “Umm … Larrie’s not denying it.”

  Al Miller can’t believe her ears.

  19

  I usually slept as late as Mum would let me on Sundays, but I’d woken before sunrise, my head exploding with questions. Even a year ago I might’ve been able to ask Larrie about the rumours, but now things between us were so stressed that just the thought of trying to bring it up made the muscles in my neck tense in anticipation of the screaming match that would inevitably follow.

  I searched my memory for any signs that Larrie might be a “woman-identifying woman”, as Patchouli would say. Sure, she’d cut her hair short, but, as she tried to explain when Mum went off about it, that was just a practical measure for swimming season. And yes, she’d stopped wearing the ultra-girly stuff Mum liked, but there’s a difference between not wanting to look like you’ve stepped out of a Laura Ashley catalogue and using your clothes to make a statement about your sexuality. After all, she’d worn a minidress to Mitch’s party last week.

  Then there was the nagging question of Beth. I just couldn’t picture it. I mean, if Larrie was gay, surely she’d either be with some ruggedly handsome woman, like k.d. lang, or a drop-dead gorgeous lipstick lesbian, like Portia de Rossi? The thought of her going out with Beth was about as believable as Angelina Jolie hooking up with Napoleon Dynamite. It was true that the two of them spent hours and hours in Larrie’s bedroom, but that was because they were ubernerd study buddies. Besides, until she split up with Mitch, Larrie hadn’t been without a boyfriend for more than a week since she hit puberty.

  But if Maz was right and Larrie knew that people were talking about her, why wasn’t she stopping them? All she’d have had to do was go out with one of the umpteen guys who asked her out all the time and that’d put an end to it.

  Not that I cared if Larrie preferred girls, but it was like finding out someone wasn’t who you thought they were. Like the cute guy in the horror film who you think is going to save the babysitter from the evil thing outside, but then he slices her up instead. (Without the blood and guts and evil, obviously.) And unlike everyone who was taken in by her Princess Perfect persona, I was pretty sure I knew exactly what Larrie was like.

  No matter how I looked at it, it didn’t make sense.

  No one was around when I dragged myself out of bed at midday. Mum had left a note saying she and Dad had a brunch date, and Larrie’s bedroom was empty, which meant she was probably at Beth’s.

  I made myself a sandwich and logged on to Celebrity Meltdown for some welcome distraction. Surely somewhere in Tinseltown someone was hearing worse rumours about their siblings than I was.

  A chat window popped up before I could even read the headlines.

  MazzyStar: You ok?

  Al-oha: Me? I’m fabulous! Terrific! Never better!

  MazzyStar: Sorry, bad call.

  Al-oha: I’ve been thinking about it all day and it doesn’t add up.

  MazzyStar: ?

  Al-oha: Larrie and Beth. There’s no way they’re a couple.

  MazzyStar: Then why the rumours?

  Al-oha: Mitch.

  MazzyStar: ?

  Al-oha: It’s got to be his way of getting revenge. Think about it: everyone in the school loves Larrie, except the guy she doesn’t love any more. It’s a classic case of the jilted lover.

  MazzyStar: But how does it make Mitch look better that Larrie’s with Beth? Wouldn’t he want to keep it to himself if he’s put her off guys all together?

  Al-oha: Hmmm, good point. Mitch’s ego could never admit he’d come second to a girl, especially not in the snogging department. Okay, Nancy Drew, who do you think it is?

  MazzyStar: How about Richie Horne? He’s in line for the Science trophy if Larrie bombs out in her exams, so he’s got incentive …

  I couldn’t imagine anyone going to such extremes for the sake of a stupid school prize, but I didn’t have any better ideas.

  Al-oha: Whoever it is, if I find them, they’ll pay for stuffing everything up just when things were starting to improve for me at school.

  MazzyStar: Perhaps it hasn’t spread that far.

  Al-oha: Maz, you already told me it’s all over Whitlam!

  MazzyStar: Okay, well who cares if Larrie IS gay? Like Patchouli always says, love doesn’t recognise gender-based sexual constructs.

  Al-oha: IF Larrie’s gay (which she’s not). And Patchouli’s not the one they’ll be calling Larrie-the-lezzo’s little sister!!!

  “We’re home,” said Mum, sticking her head round my bedroom door.

  I slammed my laptop closed even though there was no way she could read the screen from that distance. For a moment I was worried that I’d dobbed myself in by my reaction, but Mum just wrinkled her nose. “If you break that computer, you’ll pay for the next one yourself.”

  She knocked on Larrie’s door and sighed when there was no response.

  I tried to convince Dad to let me eat a ham and tomato toastie at my desk for dinner, on the grounds that I still had so much homework to do, but Mum chucked one of her all-I-do-is-slave-for-this-family tantrums. (Which was clearly not true, given that my name appeared twice as often on the chore roster as hers did.) Larrie was excused from the family meal because she and Beth were having a History study marathon. To be honest, I was relieved not to have
to sit across the table from her, pretending I didn’t know what people were saying. Not that Larrie’s absence stopped the entire dinner conversation revolving around her.

  “I’m worried about Larissa,” said Mum. “She’s been even moodier than usual this week.”

  If only you knew how much there was to be worried about, I thought. If Mum found out that people were talking about Larrie for any reason other than to praise and adore her, I wasn’t sure what she’d do. Luckily for Mum, the possibility of Larrie’s private business being bandied about – whether it was fact or fiction – was not on her radar of reasons to be concerned about her firstborn.

  “Leave her be, Colette. She’s studying hard, that’s all. You know how conscientious she is about her schoolwork.”

  “I’ve been studying hard too,” I said, hoping they’d take the hint. “I have to work out our family’s genetic profile.”

  Mum and Dad both turned to stare at me, as if they’d forgotten I was there.

  “One Science assignment hardly compares to university entrance exams, Allison,” said Mum. “Frankly, you’re not making things any easier around here by sulking and picking fights with your sister.”

  “Me?” I spluttered. “I’m not the one–”

  “We’re not having this discussion again,” interrupted Dad before I could tell them that Larrie’s reputation at school was circling the drain. “We all know Larrie’s being a bit full-on at the moment, but can’t you cut her a little slack? It’s only for a couple more weeks.”

  I knew if I told them about the rumours after receiving a lecture, they’d think I was making it up out of spite, so I kept my mouth shut and cleared the table. As I headed upstairs to finish my homework, I heard Mum say she was going to book Larrie in for a massage before her exams. Like she needed any more pandering to.

  The more I thought about Mum dismissing my assignment, the angrier I was. I’d show her – and Ms Morales – that I was every bit as capable as Larrie. I may not have been able to get my sister to sit down and answer the questions on the worksheet, but surely I knew her well enough by now to make a pretty decent guess.