Loretta’s portrait was the biggest of anyone’s. I had to help her lug it to the front of the room.
Loretta wrapped her green scarf around her neck. It was patterned with broccoli and kale and lettuce leaves, and she loved it more than any other item of clothing she owned. ‘This one time my grandma made me eat eggplants and I vomited all over her shoes.’
Everyone stared at Loretta and she stared back at them. The teacher cleared her throat. ‘Loretta, this talk is meant to be five minutes.’
‘That’s the only thing I remember about her.’
‘What about stories about her you’ve heard from your parents? Can you remember any of those?’
‘No.’
‘Keeping in mind you need to talk for five minutes to pass the assignment, is there anything you’d like to add?’
Loretta sighed in great disappointment. ‘There was this one time she found an owl on the footpath and we don’t even have owls around here! So, she put the owl in a box and . . .’
Loretta droned on and on. Her grandmother joined a bikie gang and found a Tassie tiger, but they let it go to live with the owl. She kept going on and on until I wanted to put my hands over my ears. When she finished, everyone clapped. I think they were as relieved as I was that she’d finished.
‘Was a single word of that real?’ I whispered, helping her drag the portrait back to our table.
‘Of course not!’
‘Didn’t think so.’
Ms Handson smiled at me. ‘Your turn, Gwen.’
I swallowed hard and walked slowly up to the front of the class. Living in such a small town, I’d known most of the kids in the class since we all started kindergarten. Somehow, it just made presenting even worse than it would otherwise be. I hated talking in front of people. But even though I was panicking about this presentation, I felt sort of sleepy at the same time. I stifled a yawn as I held up the photo. I had no idea what to say.
‘Um, this is my stepmother’s grandmother. So I guess, my step-great-grandmother?’ I said.
Dad’s parents had moved to northern Queensland when they retired and I’d only seem them a couple of times since then. Mum’s family weren’t really around, either. My uncle was out there, somewhere, although I’d never met him. He worked in finance in Perth, according to Dad. Mum’s dad had never been on the scene and my nanna had died just before Mum had. A stroke, which I hadn’t understood, at the time.
People were doing the head-tilt thing. That thing people did without realising it when they felt sorry for you. Poor Gwen. The girl with the ghost family. Not even her dad was really hers, anymore. Even the new girl, Amber, was looking at me with her head tilted.
‘Biddy grew up inland a bit. And her mother and grandmother came from Sicily, I think?’ I bit my lip. I could feel myself starting to sweat. ‘She’s got this huge vegetable garden. You could live out there for the rest of your life and be fine.’
I made the mistake of looking at Ben. He wasn’t looking at me, he was very carefully glancing around at everyone else’s expressions. Their sad faces and tilted heads. He looked back up at me curiously and any words I might’ve been able to fish out of my brain darted away. I stared out at the sea of faces and swallowed.
‘Thanks, Gwen,’ said Ms Handson.
‘No fair!’ Loretta grouched at me when I went back to my seat. ‘You didn’t speak for long enough!’ She play punched my arm and shook her head in disgust.
I could still feel the head tilting happening behind me. I stared up at the clock and willed it to be recess. Lunchtime. Home time. Any other time than the middle of the school day, sitting in front of a whole room of people feeling sorry for me and my broken family.
***
Under the paperbark, we huddled against the wind and Gordon and Loretta shared a tub of yoghurt and whinged about how much they hated Mr Hounds.
‘Biddy’s making turnip soup tonight,’ I said. ‘With broccoli.’
‘You got Glenned again?’
‘Yup.’
‘Gross. Like, I know he’s just being kind – but turnips? At least you can do something with broccoli,’ said Gordon.
Loretta was still frowning, her yoghurt spoon in midair. ‘And remember that time Mr Hounds said he didn’t believe you had the plague?’
‘It was brutal,’ said Gordon. ‘And after you’d spent all that time forging that note for me.’
Loretta started coughing and spluttering yoghurt everywhere. Gordon patted her back and grimaced at the yoghurt all over his hands. ‘Handsome Ben!’ Loretta wheezed, just as Ben sat down next to me, pulling out his earphones.
‘That was an interesting class,’ he said. ‘History, I mean.’
‘History sucks,’ Loretta said, rubbing the yoghurt off her neck. ‘Gordon, that was your fault.’
Gordon looked bewildered. ‘What was?’
‘You knocked my yoghurt spoon!’
‘I did not knock your yoghurt spoon!’
Loretta knocked his spoon and Gordon stared at her, apparently too appalled for words.
‘They’re always like this,’ I said to Ben. ‘Best thing to do is ignore them. You like the Pixies?’
‘I love them.’ He grinned. ‘You know the Pixies?’
‘My mum used to listen to them. And The Smiths. She loved The Smiths.’
‘Well, she sounds awesome.’ Ben fiddled with his shoelace as Loretta and Gordon started fighting over the yoghurt tub. ‘So, you live with your stepmum, right?’
‘Yup,’ I said. I made eyes at Loretta. The eyes I made when I needed her to save me. We called them my Emergency Eyes. She relinquished the yoghurt tub, which sent Gordon sprawling. ‘Is western Sydney as lovely as everyone says?’ she asked, very sweetly.
Ben glanced at her. ‘Um, what?’
‘Western Sydney.’
‘It’s alright. Not as cool as this town, though.’
‘Ben!’ Amber came hurrying over from Ruby May and the rest of the surfer girls. Gordon had been half-right about them being taken in by the surfer crowd. ‘Come over here!’
‘I’m busy,’ said Ben.
‘I need help,’ she said.
They stared at each other for a moment and then Ben sighed and stood up. ‘Alright,’ he said. He smiled at the three of us, all a little bit splattered with yoghurt. ‘See you later.’
As they walked away, Amber glanced back at us. At me. And her expression wasn’t friendly, anymore.
‘Why do I get the feeling,’ said Loretta, wiping her sticky hands on Gordon’s pant leg, ‘that she doesn’t want you talking to Ben?’
‘She knows,’ I said.
‘She knows knows?’ asked Loretta.
‘Ruby May and the others must’ve told her. I’d bet my life on it. She knows all about Mum.’ I swallowed. ‘And Jamie.’
***
Later that day, Loretta decided to sort out her locker. Which meant I just had to hang around and wait for her to finish up, because there was no way I was going to waste time cleaning out mine. Her mother had swung by at lunchtime to pick up the giant portrait of her grandmother and everyone had laughed watching her grandmother bobbing out of the school gates to the car. Loretta had had drama class last period, which always put her in a good mood. She was planning to be a lawyer, but I mostly expected her to end up as an actor.
‘Amber looked so ragey!’ Loretta shut her locker and rested against it, looking thoughtful.
‘I don’t get it,’ I said. ‘Most people give me sad face, not angry face.’
‘Well, we might get it in a moment,’ Loretta said, nodding behind me. I spun around to see Amber walking up to me. She cleared her throat. For a moment, we just stared at each other and she gave me the head-tilty sad face. Then she seemed to steel herself. She went back to angry face. ‘Um, just letting you know, you need to, like, get some new shoes.’
I felt my eyebrows shoot up. ‘What? Why?’
She leaned in, so no one else could hear. ‘Because they stink, Gwen.’
/> I blinked. ‘They do not!’
‘Run along, Amber,’ Loretta said, making a shooing motion with her hands.
Amber looked at me for a moment. Half-sad again. She opened her mouth, like she was about to apologise, then seemed to catch herself and stalked back over to Nina and Ruby May, who were fighting over an iPhone and squealing.
‘How old is she?’ Loretta was outraged. ‘Is she twelve? Who tells someone they have stinky shoes?’
I shut my locker and we walked quickly out of the gates. As soon as we were out of sight of the school, I held my foot up and Loretta bent down and sniffed at it.
‘Is it okay?’
‘Yeah, it’s fine! It’s not like you’re wearing those gross old beach shoes. What’s her problem?’
‘The other one too, please.’
Loretta rolled her eyes, but smelled my other shoe and shrugged. ‘It’s a mystery.’
‘You’re not lying?’ I asked. ‘Like, if someone has really bad breath but you don’t want to hurt their feelings so you say it smells fine?’
‘Your shoes smell one hundred per cent fine. You know how I am about stinky stuff – I can’t stand your grotty beach shoes. I make you leave them at the gate when you visit ’cause they make the house smell of seaweed if you leave them on the porch.’
‘Why would she say that, then?’ I thought about the weird, vulnerable expression that had chased itself across Amber’s face. I didn’t mention it to Loretta, though. She’d think I imagined it.
Loretta frowned. ‘I don’t know. But I intend to find out.’
***
After school, Loretta and I wandered along the beach for a bit, not saying much. There were seagulls gathered on the edge of the water, watching us. Hoping for chips or pieces of potato cake.
‘Creeps,’ Loretta muttered.
‘Mermaid,’ I said, pointing at a frothing arc of wave way out at sea.
Loretta nodded and pointed a bit more to the left. ‘Another one.’ We watched the wave crash.
‘I wish they were real,’ I said, kicking at a piece of heavily weathered driftwood.
Loretta grinned. ‘Who says they’re not?’
Later, Loretta went back to her house to get her advanced maths homework done and I headed home by myself.
Evie was sitting on the lounge-room floor, staring open-mouthed at a cartoon series with foxes and mice that I’d never watched before.
‘Evie?’ I asked.
She jumped. ‘Yeah?’
‘Do my shoes smell?’
‘Which ones?’ she asked, coming over. ‘Your dirty beach ones? They stink super bad.’
‘No, the ones I’m wearing.’
If I’d been impressed by Loretta’s commitment to shoe sniffing, she had nothing on Evie, who immediately got down on her hands and knees and inhaled deeply. ‘Just normal shoe smell! Why?’
‘Do I stink? Like, not my feet?’
She obligingly sniffed me and shook her head. ‘No. You smell like shampoo. You smell nice.’
‘Huh. Thanks.’
‘Why’re you asking?’
‘Just because.’
‘Because why?’
I didn’t want to talk about Amber, particularly with Evie. I thought about making a cup of coffee and watching some television or trying to do my homework, but I felt restless. So I did what I always did. I headed out onto the beach in my stinky, ratty shoes and I ran.
***
We had assembly at school the next day. Which, aside from PE, was Loretta’s least favourite thing in the whole world. We sat up the back. Only the year twelves sat behind us and all the other years sat in the rows in front. The hall was always cold, and the teachers always talked for too long. Loretta said it was because they were allowed to wear parkas and thick jackets. We had to make do with just our woollen V-neck jumpers.
‘We’d like to extend a special welcome to our two new students, Ben and Amber Carr.’
The teacher started reeling off all the awards they’d won. Science awards for Ben and English awards for Amber.
I watched Amber flicking the hair tie on her wrist. Flicking and flicking. It reminded me of my mother. My mother felt things too deeply. That’s what Dad always said in a voice that made it hard to work out if he thought this was a good or terrible thing.
My mother had always worn her hair out, sometimes cutting it impatiently with the kitchen scissors. She had never had hair bands on her wrist. But she’d bang them, on the edges of tables and against the door of the fridge. When she was upset. When she was feeling something too deeply.
I watched Amber and it was like watching my mother. Her straight back, the tension in her jaw. Flick. Flick. Flick.
I glanced around. Loretta was nattering about a whole lot of wool she’d found at the op shop and Gordon was handwriting an essay on his knee and nobody seemed to think that Amber flicking the hair tie on her wrist was something worth noticing.
And then I saw Ben, who was watching Amber and frowning, his fists clenched as though he was stopping himself from jumping up and wrenching the band off her wrist.
Then he saw me and his expression shifted. He looked suddenly very, very sad.
***
‘It has to snow,’ Loretta said as we hunkered down in English that afternoon. ‘It’s a scientific inevitability.’
Gordon rolled his eyes. We were meant to be working in groups of three to come up with a debate about the ethics of burning wood. It was amazing how much of the stuff we did at school ended up coming back to the pine forests or the ocean.
Loretta poked me. ‘You’ve been really quiet since assembly. What’s up?’
‘Nothing,’ I said. Everything kept reminding me of Mum. I hadn’t thought about Mum banging her wrists for years. Why now? Why couldn’t I go back to thinking about her when I wanted to? Why couldn’t I keep her contained? It was as though her memory had shifted; becoming as overwhelming as she’d been when she was alive.
Loretta leaned in really close to us. ‘Guess what.’
‘What?’ asked Gordon, flatly.
‘I found Amber and Ben on Facebook.’
I groaned.
‘Of course you did,’ Gordon said. ‘Of course you tracked them down on Facebook. Because you’re terrifying.’
‘They have brand-new profiles.’
Gordon frowned. ‘How do you mean?’
‘I mean like, two profile pictures each, accounts-created-two-weeks-ago new.’
‘It’s like they’ve dropped from the sky,’ Gordon said in wonder.
Loretta nodded. ‘There’s something going on. They’re hiding something. Maybe they’re on the run from the law.’
‘Wouldn’t be the first time a fugitive hid down here,’ Gordon said. ‘Although, to be honest, Elsa-the-artist doesn’t seem like the harbouring fugitives type.’
Loretta waved her pen around. ‘Honestly, she keeps to herself so much, how do we even know?’
‘Because everyone she’s ever said anything to says she’s the loveliest lady on earth,’ Gordon replied.
‘They probably just wanted a fresh start,’ I said, my chin resting in my hands. ‘What’s wrong with that?’
Gordon patted my head. ‘What’s your view on the ethics of burning wood?’ he asked.
‘We’re affirmative. Pro-burning,’ I said, turning onto a new page of my workbook. ‘We should try to get some work done.’
Loretta was gazing out the window, though. Frowning over Amber and Ben and their Facebook profiles. Wishing and wishing for snow.
***
Later, I came home and stared at my school bag. I had homework. Lots of homework. But I really couldn’t be bothered doing any of it.
Instead, I pulled on a maroon shawl that Loretta had knitted for me a few birthdays ago and then I tracked down Evie. ‘Wanna go for a walk?’ I asked. Evie immediately hurtled out onto the verandah without saying a word. I swapped my school shoes for my favourite stinky ones and we headed off.
‘We n
eed to get back at Tyrone,’ I said as we kicked along the shoreline. I counted the frothing waves as we walked, but in my head. Evie would think there was something wrong with me if I told her I was pretending they were mermaids.
Evie danced as we walked, wheeling her arms around her body and shimmying like the dancers did on television. ‘For what?’
‘Hiding my shoes.’
Evie scowled and dropped her arms. ‘Yeah, that was bull.’
‘Short sheet his bed?’
Evie shook her head. ‘No. I’ll come up with a better idea.’
As I opened my mouth to ask her what her better idea was, I noticed that someone else was running along the beach and I hissed when I recognised him. ‘Oh no! Evie! It’s Handsome Ben!’
‘Who?’
‘The boy from Songbrooke! Quick! Hide!’
Evie looked at me scornfully. ‘There’s nowhere to hide, idiot. We’re in the middle of a beach and he’s already seen us.’
‘I’m wearing my stinky shoes!’ I yelled.
‘Quick! Throw them away!’
‘I can’t, Evie!’
‘Stand downwind,’ she said, but the wind felt like it was blowing in from every direction.
Ben made a beeline to where we were walking near the tide line.
‘Hey,’ he said, jogging over. He was sweaty and sandy and red-cheeked from the cold wind.
‘Um. This is my sister,’ I said, shoving Evie in front of me.
‘You’re very tall,’ Evie said. She considered him for a moment. ‘Like a building.’
Ben gazed at her, like he was trying to figure her out.
As Evie was watching Ben and Ben was staring at Evie and I was watching both of them, Biddy parped her horn at us from the road and waved out the window. She always did that when she was driving home if she saw us on the beach.
‘Hi, Mum!’ Evie yelled so loudly that I jumped away from her.
P is for Pearl Page 5