by Paul Collins
‘So how come I didn’t get the adjustment thingy, too?’
‘You did. But you have obviously resisted and rejected it. An extremely rare thing. You must have a very strong mind.’
Woohoo! Chalk up a win for Team Pig-headed! Take that, Nan. Looks like it pays sometimes to do the opposite of what you’re told. I restrained myself from pumping a fist into the air, but I couldn’t stop myself from blushing, just a little.
‘So what do you alien types do when the old
Temporary Memory Adjustment has an epic fail?’ Darvan smiled.
‘We do a one-on-one,’ he said and his beautiful eyes met mine.
All at once all the confusion, anger and fear I’d been feeling just evaporated and I was completely calm. Darvan’s pupils were shining back at me like opals, full of light and fire and hidden layers. They were drawing me in, leading me gently but firmly further and further down a long hallway deep into his mind.
A thousand memories began to fill my head and file themselves away like books in a library. Birthday parties. Holidays. The beach. Sandcastles. Me and my brother playing together. Jason laughing at me and digging in the sand with his spade.
But I wasn’t about to be sucked in by the old Temporary Reality Adjustment trick. No way! I had a ‘very strong mind’, remember. Darvan had no idea who he was up against!
Concentrating with all my strength I pulled back against the force that was trying to suck me in. Too easy! I was beating it! I could feel my real memories returning as I withdrew more and more from the grip of Darvan’s mind.
I was almost totally free when I saw it - or rather sensed it.
It was like a wormhole or a doorway to another part of Darvan’s consciousness, but it was locked and bolted with a big STAY OUT! THIS MEANS YOU! sign nailed on the front. I hesitated for a moment then moved my own mind towards it. It pushed me away. Something was hidden in Darvan’s alien mind that he definitely didn’t want me to know about.
Maybe Darvan wasn’t all he seemed? Maybe there was another layer to his Subatomic Shell thingy and he wasn’t so hot-looking after all? Maybe he and his
‘people’ were really scaly lizard creatures with gross, pointy teeth, beady eyes and ugly flicking tongues?
And what if he’d lied and he and all his mates weren’t really here to learn and help like he claimed? What if they were here for lunch and to help them selves - to us! What if thwere the bad guys we needed protection from?
The truth had to be hidden somewhere behind that imaginary door in Darvan’s mind, but he was holding me back and forcing me away. He was telling me I had to leave. He was telling me I was forbidden to enter.
Well, hard luck, Space Boy. Like Nan will tell you, no one makes Teagan Carter do something she doesn’t want to do!
I summoned all my powers of pig-headedness and in one final effort, willed myself forward. Just as I did, all resistance gave way and I plunged through the door and deep into Darvan’s mind.
Suddenly everything was revealed to me and I finally knew the truth. I had been right all along. He was lying!
It was Dad’s voice that finally brought me back to the bedroom.
‘What’s this then? A good old-fashioned staring competition or are you two just giving each other the silent treatment?’
I turned away from the freckled face and the mop of hair I’d been gazing at to find Mum, Dad and
Nan all squeezed around my doorway.
‘Here,’ Mum said stepping forward and placing a plate on my desk, ‘these are guaranteed to help bring about a truce. A bunch of Nan’s homemade gingerbread men for both of you to share nicely.’
‘Gingerbread men and women,’ Nan added. ‘I didn’t burn my bra back in the sixties for nothing.’ just hope you remembered to take it off first,
Nan!’
Everybody laughed. I laughed, too.
‘Yeah, good one, Jason ...’ I began to say, but stopped. I turned back to the dopey face that was grinning back at me. And I remembered. He was a liar. And soon his own words were going to help me prove it!
I whipped the Dictaphone out from under the pil low on my lap and rewound it to just the right spot. I smiled up at the confused face sitting opposite me.
‘Thought you were going to get away with it, didn’t you?’
After turning the volume up high, I held the
Dictaphone towards my parents and Nan.
‘Listen up everyone,’ I said and stabbed ‘play’. The Dictaphone crackled into life. My voice came on first.
‘Well, go on,’ I heard myself say. ‘lfyou really want us to be friends,you have to tell me the truth. All if it.’
I waited eagerly for the reply that I knew was commg.
‘Fine. If you want the truth, then this is it. You were right of course about me lying.’
I beamed a triumphant smile around the room.
‘But wait, there’s more!’ I said and the confession on the voice recorder continued.
‘I did break your camera. But it was an accident, Sis. I borrowed it to take some shots.for my Facebook profile and sort qf dropped it on the floor. I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d go nuts about it. But I thought it would be okay, honest.’
A deathly silence settled around the room. I was the one who shattered it.
‘See! I told you he took my camera, but you wouldn’t believe me! I told you he broke it! I told you he was lying!’
Mum and Dad and Nan were now all frowning daggers atJason. It was awesome! Dad looked grim.
‘Well, mate, on the positive side I suppose you did
‘fess up ... eventually. But I’ll still expect you to pay for the repairs out of your own pocket money and as for the lying part - consider yourself grounded for two weeks.’
Jason groaned and slumped down in his chair.
‘Now, no more fighting, you two,’ Mum said as she and Dad and Nan filed out of the room. ‘It’s about time you showed a bit more maturity - both of you.’
When they’d gone I looked at my brother. You know, maybe Mum was right. Maybe it was time to show some maturity. I moved to the edge of the bed and reached out to Jason. Then I punched him hard on the arm.
‘Grrrounded, suckerrr!’ I laughed. ‘That’ll teach you to mess with me.’
Jason held up his hands in surrender as he leaned back on the chair and stuck his dirty feet on the end of my bed.
‘All right T-bum, you win- this round at least. You really got me with that recorder thing.’
‘Tell me about it. Sucked. You. Right. In!’
That made my brother laugh for some reason. Then he gave his shoulders a shrug and grabbed one of the gingerbread women from the plate and looked at it closely.
‘Oh well, it’s only for two weeks. I’ll survive. After all,’ he said with a typical, Jason Carter know-it-all smirk, ‘it’s not like it’s ... the end of the world.’
Then he chomped the head clean off his ginger bread biscuit and shoved the rest in his mouth before adding, ‘Not yet, anyway.’
I shook my head as Jason munched away loudly. When he saw me watching he narrowed his beady eyes and flicked a revolting biscuit-covered tongue my way.
My brother can be so weird and disgusting that I find it hard to believe that we’re related.
Sometimes I wonder if we’re even from the same planet!
‘How much is the concert?’
‘Eighty-five dollars.’
‘Eighty-five dollars?! It’s not priced for us then.’
‘It’s not meant to be - it’s to raise money for the new pool.’
The five of them sat on a bench in the courtyard watching the choir adjust their robes. They were a real gospel choir from a real church in Harlem and their accents slapped the night. Katya studied the skin
ny ankles of one woman; so skinny her pale tights bagged about them and her too-big shoes were like dress-ups. While other people noticed the whole picture, Katya was only ever interested in detail. It was why she could never describe her response to a book or a film or even a football game properly. Everyone else could talk about the storyline and the themes, but Katya would focus on something tiny and insignificant, like the lead character’s hatpin. Her best friend, Priyanka, had become quite skilled in interpreting the detail for a broader audience. Katya looked around the circle of fair-haired, light eyed kids.
There were no girls called Priyanka here.
The choir had filed indoors, and the organ started to play, muted through the solid stone.
‘Another heady Saturday night in rural Victoria.
We’re even barred from the school chapel,’ Lilly said.
Through the walls they could hear voices and clapping. Just. Everything was overpowered by the organ, which was flush against the Quad wall. However it was hard to feel anything other than mild irritation, for it was a warm night, thick with the scent of jasmine and the promise of summer. Katya pulled her feet up under her skirt. Her good shoes pinched, but they dressed up for dinner on Saturday nights. They also got ice-cream for dessert and that called for some sort of recognition. Across the Quad, the clock chimed seven times, one gong short.
‘Come on,’ said Will. ‘This is tragic, we can’t even hear from out here.’
‘If we climbed the scaffolding on the other side we’d hear better,’ said Sam.
‘If we what?’ Lilly voiced what everybody was thinking.
‘If we climbed up on the other side of the chapel where they’re doing the restoration work we’d get a better view. We’d get to see in through the windows and hear the choir rather than the organ.’
Sam had leapt up and was bobbing around on one foot. Sam was bright, but too bouncy to concentrate in his seat for long. Even as he spoke he was stripping leaves from a piece of ivy and whipping the stalk through the air until it hummed. He looked around the circle, eyes shiny gold and excited.
‘Nahh,’ saidjames.
‘Nahh,’ said Will.
‘Nahh,’ said Lilly.
This was the group’s dynamic. Sam suggested things, andjames, Will and Lilly rejected the sugges tions (at best) or ridiculed them (frequendy). Katya was new and still quiet.
‘Oh, come on guys, it will be amazing. We’ll climb up the scaffolding and peek through the stained glass. House seats.’
‘Until they collapse. It’s a building site, Sam, not an adventure park. You’ll be chucked out if you’re caught.’
Sam tugged at the brim of his cap, pushing his fringe up under it. He did this when he was thinking.
James picked at a loose stitch on his cricket ball.
‘Don’t forget the CCTV cameras. The porters will have the whole thing recorded.’
Sam slunk back onto the seat next to Katya and stretched out his legs. He was wearing shorts and the hairs on his legs were exacdy the same colour as his skin. He was gilded; he shone in a way that Katya had never seen a person shine before. There was vim and irreverence to Sam that made him the sort of person people warmed to immediately. He energised a room through his sheer exuberance; people could even overlook the fact he wore a cap backwards at night.
‘Forget it.’James stood, scooping up his bat. ‘Hey, Willo, you up for a hit before it gets too dark?’
‘Sure.’
James and Will wandered off, tossing a scuffed ball between them. Lilly started drawing a pattern on Sam’s hand with a black biro. Katya admired Lilly’s ease. There was a stiffness in herself she couldn’t overcome. A formality. Katya was not the sort of girl other girls threaded their arms through. People kept their distance. She noticed it most acutely when people pulled out their cameras. There she would be with her fingers and jaw clenched, smiling, but isolated while everybody else slung their arms about each other - as loose and casual as jumpers on the shoulders of Country Road models.
Katya’s gloom was interupted by the porter pass ing them on his nightly circuit. ‘Evening,’ he said. He had a thick face and a thicker stomach from too many Butternut Snaps dunked in instant coffee.
Sam extracted himself from Lilly and her biro.
‘Whistle when he passes again.’
‘What?’
‘Whistle when he comes back.’
‘Why?’
‘I’m going into his office to check out the CCTV monitors. If the cameras aren’t beamed onto the scaffolding, I’m going up.’
‘You’re mad.’ Lilly stopped clicking the nib of her pen. Silence made the still evening tense.
‘Oh, come on, help me out here.’
Lilly had switched pens and was drawing on the instep of her black boot. The ink was strangely pink and iridescent where she coloured. She didn’t look up. ‘Okay, but hurry. This is your plan and I don’t want to be part of it.’ For someone so relaxed, Lilly sounded uptight.
Sam sprinted off around the Quad. Katya watched his calves split into upside-down hearts with each step.
‘He’s mad. One of these days he’s going to get busted and he’ll be thrown out of school. Life in Staircase Seven may not be fancy, but it’s got to be better than Melbourne High.’
‘Where?’ Katya made herself look back at Lilly.
‘Melbourne High. It’s one of those elective high schools. Mum’s always threatening to send me there whenever I complain. It’s her version of a State school but I don’t think she realises I couldn’t actu ally get in.’
‘Why couldn’t you get in?’
‘I don’t meet either criteria: I’m no brain and my voice hasn’t broken - and isn’t going to. I hope.’
‘Sheesh, Lilly, look!’
Lilly was interrupted by the sight of the porter rounding the corner on the other side of the quad rangle with a bar of chocolate and a steaming mug.
A wad of keys jangled against his belt.
Lilly pulled her fingers to her lips to whistle and then laughed. Katya looked at her in horror: the porter was almost back at the entrance to his sur veillance room. Katya tried to whistle too, but her tongue jammed. She looked over her shoulder. Sam was walking towards them, jauntier than usual, hands deep in his pockets. ‘Thanks for your help. You guys left me high and dry.’
‘We told the porter what you were up to.’
‘I’d believe it. Well I could believe it from you, Lilly Hanson, but I expect more of Katya.’
Katya blushed when he said her name. He said it nicely. Not quite as Russian as her mother, who rammed her tongue against the back of her front teeth, but he’d made an effort with the pronuncia tion and, well, it was charming.
‘Okay, so here’s where we’re at. I’ve done recon. There are four TVsin the porters’ bolthole and eight cameras. There is a camera in the back courtyard right near the scaffolding, but it’s focused on the fishpond.’
‘So what are you going to do, GIJoe? Pause the video?’
‘No, I’m not going to pause the video.’ Sam rolled his eyes. ‘If we walk across to Stairway Nine and then duck off near the bikes we should be out of sight.’
‘Well that’s fine, except you’ve managed to forget that your plan does not involve us. The only one of us in “we” is you.’
‘Oh, come on. Don’t be such a spoilsport. This is culture, Lil. Imagine how amazing it will be to see them. Listen to it.’ In all of the tension they had managed to forget about the gospel music. Behind them the choir’s song rose. Katya suspected that for Sam, the music was secondary to the exploit.
Lilly stood up. ‘No way. I’m not coming. I got enough detentions last time you had a great idea. Big Sam and his Big Plans.’
‘What idea was that? I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘What was it, Lil?’ Katya liked hearing about Sam. She stored the anecdotes like her mother stored recipes - somewhere between her heart and head, rather than on files or cards.
Lilly started on the other boot. ‘Sam got us to sneak into the Harry Potter movie without paying. He walked ahead and I got sprung. I can’t believe you’ve managed to forget, Sam. If only my parents had your memory.’
‘Whatever.’ Sam looked at his chunky sneakers and then at Katya. ‘What about you?’ The question sat there, quivering on the palm of his outstretched hand.
‘Gallant.’ Lilly poked Sam with the nib of her biro.
‘Ow, don’t. I’m waiting for an answer.’
The problem with being new, thought Katya, is that she didn’t have good-behaviour credits. Nobody knew Katya from the next delinquent or the next prefect. There was a freedom in that, even if on appearance, Katya was heading towards prefect. She was quiet, neat, elegant in her casual clothes. She wished she could look fit-cool in a rowing hoodie and faded trackies like Lilly, but it didn’t work like that. It was the formality thing and Katya could feel herself being shut into a box in which she was not particularly comfortable. She wanted to be funny, spontaneous, bold - ‘Okay.’
‘Are you serious?’ Lilly stopped drawing on her boot.
‘Wooohooo!’ Sam clapped.
‘Why not?’ Katya savoured the freedom-surge.
‘You don’t have to do this. It’s the fast track to suspension.’ Lilly looked worried.
‘Yes she does. She’s my partner in crime.’
Katya shrugged, embarrassed by the attention. The freedom was souring. She turned to face Lilly, ignoring Sam. It was an unfortunate habit. The peo ple Katya liked the most, she ignored. Lilly would never make that mistake. Lilly liked Charlie Britcliffe in Year Eleven. Did she ignore him? No, she flirted with him, taking provocative bites of his muesli bar, looking at him intensely while she stretched after cross-country, responding to things he offered with
American superlatives: Super, Awesome and Teeerrijic.
She was a natural.
Lilly rubbed at a biro mark on her thumb until it smeared. ‘Well, if you’re going to go through with this, at least take off your cap or turn it the other way. Nobody else wears a cap like that. And here, put this on.’ Lilly tossed Sam her hoodie.