Holy Crushamoly

by Thalia Kalkipsakis

  My hand is reaching for the doorknob when Mr Chiu calls out behind me. ‘And Phoebe? Good luck with the debate.’

  My eyebrows go up.

  ‘You clearly have a good grasp of the topic,’ he adds. ‘It’s obvious that you understand the reasons for dressing appropriately.’ A pause. ‘You were smart enough to come in here without make-up on today,’ he says with a smile.

  Straight out of Mr Chiu’s office, I stop to jot down notes. Sense of community. Family. People who break dress code and try to stand out as individuals: I guess to Mr Chiu they’re saying that they don’t want to belong.

  I’m not entirely sure where I sit with the argument now. Am I on the fence, able to see both sides? Or do I think that both sides are sometimes right, depending on the situation?

  It doesn’t really matter what I think for now because I have a debate coming up and I’ll be arguing that uniforms should be compulsory. Each side of an argument has a right to be heard. At least now I’ll be able to argue for our case without feeling like a complete fraud.

  Once I’ve finished jotting notes, I decide to search out Zara and tell her the slant that Mr Chiu gave us about uniforms being pointless unless they’re compulsory, and the other stuff he said about community. I’m not sure where she hangs out before school, but I know the main haunts for people in our year. I start by heading down the slope to the basketball courts, checking beyond them and across the oval.

  Most of the buses are here by now, all sorts of groups dotted around, catching up again after a weekend apart, smiling or cracking jokes when more people arrive. It’s the same scene every day, really, but I can’t help remembering how out of it all I felt when I was new.

  Zara’s nowhere near the oval so I head back up towards the canteen area. Larger crowds hang around the tables, and I have to scan each person to check if they’re Zara or not. Maybe it would be easier to pick her in a crowd if we were wearing our own choice of clothes …

  I’m scanning the sea of faces when one stands out among the rest. A cute and familiar face.

  Jagath reacts as soon as he sees me, breaking into a broad grin and stepping forward expectantly.

  I wave subtly. ‘Hey there.’

  ‘Hey,’ he says. ‘You look kinda different.’

  ‘Different … how?’ Then I realise what’s going on. No make-up. He thinks I’m all pale and pasty, as if I’m sick.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Jagath continues. ‘Just different. Like you’re happier or something.’

  Different good? I smile. ‘Really?’ There’s a weird pause when I think Jagath’s about to say more, but then he glances away.

  ‘So, guess who I just saw?’ I ask. ‘The Uniform Robot.’

  ‘Who?’ Jagath looks confused.

  ‘I took your advice, right? About asking someone who would agree that uniforms should be compulsory?’ He nods so I keep going. ‘Mr Chiu was really helpful. He talked about uniforms bringing people together, showing how we all belong …’

  ‘Maybe we could use that for our case statement,’ says Jagath. He holds out his arms as if preparing for a huge announcement. ‘Uniforms bring us together.’ He waits for my response.

  ‘Hey, I like that … except, we don’t have the two U’s anymore.’ I’m sort of joking, but still … I thought the first one had a good ring to it.

  ‘Uniforms are useful in bringing us together,’ Jagath mumbles, then shakes his head.

  ‘Uniforms bring us together usefully?’ My nose scrunches. Bad.

  We throw ideas around for a while, cracking up at our tongue twisters and other bad phrases.

  After a while, Jagath goes serious. ‘What about this? Uniforms unite us.’

  ‘Three U’s in a row!’ I cheer. ‘That’s it! I really like it.’

  We find Zara next, hanging out on the steps in front of C block. She likes our idea for a case statement straight away.

  ‘Hey, I can totally use that,’ she says, each nod increasing in speed. ‘I can hang my whole argument off that one idea …’

  I’m also nodding when I realise I can too. After seeing Mr Chiu and thinking about our case statement I can totally see our side of the debate. Already I can think of two clear arguments to use.

  Right until the first bell goes we discuss the debate, brainstorming ideas and helping each other with our arguments. I can feel my brain firing in ways it never has before, and it’s a complete buzz.

  I’m still buzzing at the start of recess, trying out phrases in my mind that I might be able to use. Better keep a lid on it, or someone will catch me muttering my speech to myself.

  The guy who has the locker next to mine is already here so I put my head down and get on with my usual gear swap. As I close my door I brush a hand lightly over my forearm before clicking the lock. Already spiky gorilla hair has begun to grow back. I was so keen to see Mr Chiu that I didn’t shave this morning.

  It’s only when I look up that I realise the guy’s been watching. Our eyes meet and his cheeks turn a shade pinker, as if I caught him spying. I just smile vaguely and pretend I haven’t noticed him looking at my gorilla arms, and he looks away.

  Then I see he has a poster of a model on the inside of his locker door. She’s in a bikini, but you can see her boobs bulging out of it. There’s no hint of any hair out of place. In fact, there’s no hint of hair at all on her body.

  I’ve been staring at the poster for so long now that the guy glances back my way, and it’s as if we’re both thinking the same thing, but neither of us wants to admit it. As if we’re both playing this strange sort of spot the difference. Model against Gorilla Girl.

  My smile tries to wobble, but I don’t give it permission. I just act as if I’m not remotely fussed and spin the other way. It’s not until I’m further along the corridor that my steps increase in speed.

  Erin’s the only one at our bench when I get there. I slump down and sigh.

  ‘You all right?’ she asks.

  ‘Sure.’ But I’m not, exactly. Why do I have to be a gorilla? I’m probably even hairier than Locker Guy, and he’s a guy. They’re meant to be hairy and gross.

  ‘Where’s Briana?’ I say, changing the subject.

  ‘Volleyball tryouts.’ Erin keeps watching me. ‘Sure you’re all right?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s … not as if I can do anything about it, anyway.’

  ‘What?’

  I shake my head. Erin’s not the sort of person who would get something like this. ‘You’ll just tell me I’m being dumb.’

  I’m expecting to leave it there, but Erin swivels so she’s looking right at me, one leg tucked under her bum. ‘Come on, try me.’

  Even though Erin’s not going to get it, I take a breath and tell her all about the model, and how I felt comparing myself to her.

  Erin listens intently at first. Halfway through, her face scrunches the way she does when she thinks I’m insane. Here we go.

  ‘You realise that in real life she doesn’t look like that,’ Erin says when I’ve finished. ‘They would have fixed up her freckles and pimples and stuff in Photoshop.’

  ‘Yeah, I know, but …’ I lift my arm so Erin can see and rub a finger over the black spiky hairs. ‘Look. I shaved two days ago, and now look at it …’

  ‘Yeah, so …’ Erin lifts a shoulder as if I’m being Captain Obvious. ‘It’s just your genes!’

  ‘My stupid hairy genes.’ I glare at my arm. I can almost see the hair growing.

  When I look up again, Erin’s still watching me with her mouth squashed to one side the way she does when she’s fed up with talk about clothes or make-up. Before she can say it, I get in first. ‘Yeah, all right. I know what you’re going to say … it’s who you are on the inside that counts.’

  ‘Nope.’ Erin shakes her head seriously. ‘I wasn’t going to say that at all. I was going to say that if you didn’t have your Greek genes, you wouldn’t have those big eyes or that shiny black hair,’ she says simply. ‘Look at this blonde fluff I have for hair.
’ She smiles. ‘Everyone has things they don’t like about themselves. Even models. Actually, especially models. They must be obsessed with the way they look. Every tiny imperfection would be scrutinised.’

  True, I guess. But that doesn’t stop me hating the gorilla within.

  We’re quiet for a bit, but I can tell she’s frowning my way, biting her lip. Not annoyed, exactly. More like she’s concerned.

  ‘You don’t need to stress about some poster, Phoebe,’ Erin says after a while. ‘You just need to enjoy the good parts of what you have. You have heaps of stuff going for you.’ She gives me a friendly nudge with her shoulder. ‘And you’re really smart! Annoyingly smart.’

  I definitely wasn’t expecting her to say that.

  ‘How else do you get away with doing, like, zero work, and still pass everything?’ Erin’s voice rises as she speaks, as if she’s been thinking it for a while. ‘I have to work really hard to get the marks I do. But you just coast through, hardly trying at all.’

  ‘I do so work.’ I half shrug. ‘Well, some of the time. And my marks aren’t exactly good.’

  Erin swings back around so we’re sitting side by side. ‘I bet Briana would kill to have it half as easy as you do at school.’

  We’re quiet for a bit, but it doesn’t seem weird. I think about Briana, who does try really hard, and just barely scrapes through with a pass. Erin’s right. And even though I’m still desperate to shave, I’m glad I told Erin what happened.

  Briana and Hamish are heading over when I feel another nudge from Erin.

  ‘Let’s make a deal,’ she says quietly. ‘Next time you see a picture of some model, and it makes you feel all … blah? You come and see me, okay? From now on it’s my job to tell you when you’re being dumb.’

  She lets out a chuckle, and I join in too.

  After school on Wednesday, I head to the library as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. I’m much better prepared for the debate tomorrow, if I do say so myself.

  The other two have their heads down, writing out phrases on cue cards. I spend time jotting words down too.

  I’ll start with the introduction, of course, which is boring enough to learn off by heart. Chairperson, members of the audience, etc. etc. All I write is ‘Intro’ because I know I’ll remember the rest.

  Then I move on to the ideas we came up with after I spoke to Mr Chiu. I’ve scrawled down three of the points when Zara looks up from her paper.

  ‘Shall we start?’ She turns to me. ‘Want to go first, Phoebs?’

  ‘No, you go …’ But then I change my mind. I’ll be doing this speech in front of a whole crowd of strangers tomorrow – I need all the practice I can get.

  Zara tells me to choose any place that I’ll be comfortable, so I find a spot at the end of the table and sit. Standing seems like overkill now.

  I hold my cue cards and read ‘Intro’ as a prompt for my first line: ‘Chairperson, members of the audience …’ There’s this nervous wobble in my voice. I glance up at Jagath and Zara, who both nod encouragingly.

  Ignoring the wobble, I keep going.

  The others stop me with a tip here or a suggestion there, but I feel pretty good about it. Then we go through some of the rebuttals I could use against the opposition.

  Zara goes through her speech again. It’s the same as we heard on the weekend, except this time she’s added bits into the gaps and found better ways to say other parts. At one point I stop her with an idea. She nods eagerly, adding it straight onto her cue card.

  Then the meeting finishes and my heart skips. I think I’m ready.

  Like last week, Jagath and I walk out together. When we reach the front gate, he gestures towards a white station wagon at the curb. ‘That’s Mum.’

  ‘Oh, okay.’ I try not to sound disappointed. ‘See you at the debate.’ I prop my foot against the fence.

  ‘You bet.’

  I’m checking up the street for Dad when a door slams and I turn to see Jagath returning my way. ‘Mum wants to know if you need a lift tomorrow.’

  ‘Dad’s going to drive me.’ He was fine about it last night when I checked. My eyes track a passing car as my mind ticks over. ‘But that would save him taking more time off work …’

  ‘It’s no trouble.’

  The more I think about this, the more I like the idea. A lift with Jagath means more time together. There’s another car going past; this one’s Dad’s. Good timing.

  Dad’s car slows as I wave, and then pulls into a No Parking zone.

  ‘I’ll ask. Okay?’

  Together we make our way over. Dad stays sitting in the driver’s seat and winds his window down.

  ‘Hey, Dad, this is Jagath.’

  ‘Pleased to meet you.’ Jagath moves one arm forward slightly, which Dad ignores.

  ‘And this is, ah … Stavros.’

  A pause. Dad doesn’t even respond. I decide to push through. ‘Jagath’s mum has offered to drive me to the debate tomorrow. And I thought –’

  ‘No. I’m taking you,’ Dad says straight out. ‘We discussed this already.’ It’s beginning to feel weird, because Dad still hasn’t looked at Jagath. Just slightly, Dad’s expression flickers towards him. ‘But thank you.’

  Dad looks back to me, as if everything’s normal. Like this is how my family speaks all the time.

  ‘Yeah, I just thought it would save you taking time off –’

  ‘Sta echo pee. Tora bess sto aftokinito.’ Dad says over the top of me. ‘We’ve discussed this already. Now get in the car.’

  I actually blink before focusing on Dad again. How could he do that? Speak Greek in front of someone who can’t understand? Like slamming a door in his face.

  I can’t even look at Jagath. I think about translating for him. But that would be weird and now my pause is making it worse, so I just mumble: ‘Okay.’

  I turn to Jagath, cheeks hot, but trying to act as if nothing just happened. ‘Thanks anyway.’

  ‘No problem.’ Jagath nods. ‘See you tomorrow.’

  As soon as he turns, I walk around to the passenger seat of our car. My whole body burns with anger. I can’t believe Dad just did that.

  The whole way home, I say nothing. Unless you count the single grunt I make when Dad asks about the meeting. That’s the way we answer in this family when we don’t like the question, isn’t it? I’ve learnt from the expert.

  As soon as we pile through the front door, Dad fills a pot with water to boil and sets about chopping. Tomatoes, garlic and basil.

  Lucky. If dinner were up to me, he’d be going hungry.

  Dad serves up and we all sit in the living room with bowls on knees. The news starts but Steph barely stops chatting. All she gets out of me are hmms and ah-huhs.

  The opening segment is about a demonstration in Sydney. Three people injured. There’s a clip of the organiser shaking his head, saying how frustrated he is that their protest turned violent: ‘An angry few wrecking it for everyone else.’

  I eat my pasta without tasting it. Don’t look at Dad.

  We move through more segments and come to an update about the wild berries that lower blood pressure. Another doctor this time, saying that the current medicine is just as effective as the berries, and cheaper to produce.

  This doctor is way chubby, if you ask me, fair skin and grey hair. ‘Don’t waste your time berry-hunting just yet …’ he says with a smarmy smile.

  Dad jerks his fork at the TV, chewing. ‘What did I tell you?’ he says out the side of his mouth. ‘The other one had no idea.’

  I look right at Dad. ‘Yeah, the Indian doctor had no idea. Clearly.’ But my voice is cool.

  I watch Dad’s reaction but he just keeps eating, eyes on the TV. As if the words I said were completely fine. Utterly normal.

  ‘He probably got his medical degree out of a cereal packet,’ I say, louder this time.

  Dad stops eating and turns my way. ‘What’s up with you?’

  ‘Nothing.’ But it comes out
cold.

  Dad swallows, still watching me, frowning slightly.

  ‘That’s what we do, isn’t it? Take one look at a person and make up our mind? Decide they’re not worth listening to?’

  Dad shakes his head. ‘What are you talking about?’

  The confusion in his eyes makes me nervous, because I’m not sure what to say next. I’ve never told Dad that I think he’s wrong before. But I’ve come this far. My head lifts. ‘I can’t believe you did that today,’ I say evenly.

  Dad frowns. ‘What did I do?’

  ‘You spoke Greek in front of Jagath and totally shut him out.’

  Dad’s expression darkens. ‘I was speaking to you.’

  ‘So? I speak English too, or haven’t you noticed?’

  ‘You want me to yell at you in front of your friends?’

  ‘It was so embarrassing!’

  Creases deepen on Dad’s forehead. ‘You’re embarrassed by your own father?’

  Sometimes. Yes. ‘You’d never do that to Mum. You always make sure she understands.’

  ‘That’s different.’

  Steph is staring across at us with her mouth open, a single tube of pasta jammed on her fork.

  ‘Put it this way,’ I say slowly. ‘How would you feel if Jagath’s parents didn’t like me because I’m half-Greek? If they avoided looking at me?’

  Dad snorts. ‘They can do what they like.’

  I search for situations that he’ll understand. ‘Or they decide that since you’re Greek, they’ll just call you Con.’ They’re all there, and I feel them bubbling to the surface. I don’t have to search far. ‘Or they call you a greasy Greek or … or … Gorilla Girl, and they …’

  And there, in the middle of the sentence, I stop. They laugh at your hairy arms …

  I don’t have to look far because they’re right there, in my memory. I was teased for weeks in grade five. That was before I wore make-up to school, before I started reading Glamour Girl. Before some bunch of kids came up with that name, I hadn’t even noticed how hairy I was.

  ‘Phoebe!’ Dad shakes his head, angry and maybe a little lost. ‘I’ve heard all that and then some! Been passed over when waiting to be served in shops …’