P is for Pearl

by Eliza Henry Jones

  We reached Songbrooke and went into the house. I put down the load of things on the kitchen table to be sorted. Amber was sitting at the other end of the table with a bowl of fruit in front of her. She was picking at the pieces. Ben raised his eyebrows at her when we came in and she scowled and sat on her hands.

  ‘I need to go,’ Amber snapped at Elsa.

  Elsa ignored her. ‘Wow – you got heaps! Brilliant.’ She checked her watch. ‘I’ll show you how to do the morning routine with the animals.’

  Ben came out with us. The horses needed a bucket of feed each and some hay. The goats needed pellets, the chickens had to be let out and the cow had to be thrown a couple of biscuits of lucerne.

  All their feed was in the biggest of the sheds, labelled clearly and neatly organised. ‘It’s pretty easy,’ Elsa said. ‘But it means I can just wake up and get working. Sometimes I have my best ideas when I’m still waking up.’

  ‘This is just what I need,’ I said. ‘After the café thing and everything. Thank you so much.’

  She smiled. ‘It’s just what I need, too. This has worked out great, hasn’t it?’

  ‘Sure has,’ I said, not looking at Ben.

  I double-checked the animals and wrote down a list for the next day while it was still fresh in my head. Ben cleared his throat, waiting for me to finish. ‘Want to walk to school together?’

  I raised an eyebrow. ‘With Amber?’

  ‘Amber’s meeting Ruby May and Nina in town first. She’s organising before-school training for the surf squad.’ He pulled a face.

  ‘There’s a surf squad?’

  ‘There is now.’ He stared back at the house.

  ‘Does Amber surf?’

  ‘About as much as Tyrone does.’

  ‘I have to stop in at home to get changed,’ I said, glancing at my phone for the tenth time. ‘I’ll only make you late.’

  He shrugged. ‘We should go on another run.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I promise not to accidentally grope you.’

  I snorted. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Or knock you over.’

  ‘It just won’t feel right without you groping me or knocking me over.’ I dusted my hands. ‘Or pulling my hair. C’mon, let’s go.’

  ***

  I guess even though Ben still knocked the breath out of me, I was sort of used to hanging out with him. It didn’t feel un-real anymore. He was nice and clever and didn’t mind being quiet. He didn’t treat me like someone crazy or someone invisible or someone breakable. I liked him and I liked being with him.

  We walked into school together and Loretta strolled up, still limping a bit on her ankle. She looked positively gleeful. ‘Mr Hounds liked his brownie.’

  ‘You didn’t!’

  ‘Hey, he’s way worse than Tyrone, so don’t you get up on your high horse.’

  Ben raised an eyebrow. ‘Brownie?’

  ‘We’ll be getting out of PE today. I guarantee it.’ Loretta closed her eyes. ‘Oh, this is what heaven feels like.’

  I elbowed her and she opened her eyes and grinned. ‘Oh, man! And did you see the look on Ruby May’s face when you guys walked in together? Priceless!’

  ‘Ben knocked me over,’ I mumbled.

  ‘It was an accident,’ Ben said.

  ‘Sounds to me like you just can’t keep your hands off her,’ Loretta said, waggling her eyebrows. I suddenly wanted very badly to hit her. She grinned and hobbled away. ‘See you in chem!’

  I glanced sideways at Ben, who looked very red in the face. ‘Um, right,’ he murmured, sitting across the room in his usual seat. I sat down next to Gordon, who was sketching a picture that looked a lot like Loretta.

  ‘I’m going to throttle Loretta,’ I said, trying not to look at Ben, who was still super flushed.

  ‘Yeah, me too,’ Gordon said, very mildly, holding out his drawing to look at from a distance. ‘Maybe we can join forces. Make a day of it.’

  ‘Deal. It’d probably take two of us to bring her down.’

  ‘Oh, definitely,’ said Gordon, tucking away his drawing. ‘She’s little but mighty.’

  ***

  We were scheduled to have PE after recess, but apparently Mr Hounds had had to go home sick. Loretta looked so happy I thought she’d choke.

  There were no teachers available, so in came Mau Fischer with a CD player and too many beads.

  ‘We’re going to do some meditation,’ she announced. We all stared at her.

  She clapped her hands. ‘Go and get some mats out!’

  We did as we were told, everyone a little too shocked by the sight of her in the middle of the hall to argue.

  We lay down on the floor. I was expecting people to giggle and whisper and fidget, but we were all completely still, except for the staccato sound of Mau’s high heels as she wandered between the mats.

  ‘Focus on each breath,’ Mau murmured. She’d brought the scent of her shop with her. Metal, oils, tea and velvet. It reminded me of my mother, but I couldn’t work out if this was a happy or a sad thing.

  I peered through my half-closed eyelids. Ben had somehow ended up next to me. Loretta was on my other side and Gordon was next to her. Ben was lying close. If I just inched my hand over a little bit, I’d be touching his hand.

  The deep voice on the CD told us to visualise a place that made us happy. And I visualised my cove, but then my stomach tightened and I thought of Mum and drowning and everything else.

  I panicked. Where was my happy place?

  It started to rain, loud on the tin roof.

  Loretta grabbed my hand, while Mau kept pacing and murmuring. And I realised that maybe this was my happy place. Lying on a manky old mat in the manky old hall at the bottom of the world. Listening to Mau, sandwiched between Ben and Loretta and Gordon. I felt myself relax.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  When Loretta and I got home from school, Dad was whistling to himself at the kitchen bench while he typed at his laptop with two fingers.

  ‘I met Elsa the other day,’ I told him, sitting down at the bench next to him. Loretta turned on the kettle.

  ‘Right,’ he said, not looking up. ‘That’s great.’

  ‘Are you listening to me?’

  He looked up. ‘Elsa? As in the lady who rides up and down the beach?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘She’s selling a whole lot of jewellery at Mau’s shop,’ Loretta said. ‘Mau’s thrilled.’

  ‘Oh, is she?’ I said. ‘That’s nice of her.’

  ‘Good for you,’ Dad said, looking at his laptop once more.

  ‘She’s given me a job.’

  ‘Oh.’ Dad blinked and closed his laptop. ‘What sort of job?’

  ‘She’s an artist. She wants me to collect things from the beach – shells, driftwood, glass, that sort of thing – and bring it to her every morning and feed all her animals at Songbrooke.’

  ‘What are you . . .?’ His phone rang. He sighed. ‘Sorry, Gwennie. I’ve gotta get this. But that sounds great! Good work!’

  I got up. ‘Thanks.’

  But he was already talking on his phone. I could tell it was Biddy. And it didn’t sound urgent to me.

  I sat scowling for a bit and when Loretta finished making tea, I pulled a face at her and she pulled one back at me and handed me a cup. I sniffed. She’d made it just how I like it. A tiny bit of milk and lots of honey.

  When Tyrone waltzed into the kitchen, he saw Loretta and groaned.

  ‘Not you,’ he said.

  Loretta sipped her tea. ‘You know, you really need to shave. That bum-fluff straggling-beard thing you’re trying to go for is depressing.’

  Tyrone’s hand shot up to his chin. ‘Hey,’ he said.

  ‘Seriously – I’ll even go buy you a razor. It’d be a public service.’

  Tyrone cracked open a beer and sat down at the bench. ‘Gunna have a few pre-drinks then head out with the boys,’ he said.

  I groaned. ‘C’mon, Rets. That’s code for “I’m go
ing to get drunk and annoying”. Let’s get out of here.’

  Outside, a sharp wind had kicked up. It was chilly and smelled somehow solid. A storm was coming. You could taste it. ‘He’s such a pain,’ Loretta said, as we walked to Gordon’s house. ‘If you’ve got to put up with a stepbrother, it would’ve been so much better if he wasn’t such a pain.’

  Chris, Gordon’s mum, answered the door, nearly choking on the Butter Menthol she was sucking on.

  ‘Gwen! Loretta! How are you?’ Her voice was throaty and her eyes were pink-rimmed.

  ‘Better than you, by the sound of it!’ I replied.

  ‘Got that cold that’s been floating around.’ She sniffed. ‘Gord’s in his room.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  I swung open Gordon’s bedroom door and Loretta and I sat down on the floor. Gordon shut his laptop and looked at us with narrowed eyes. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Your skin is looking luminous today.’

  He crossed his arms, looking suspiciously from me to Loretta. ‘What do you want?’ he asked again.

  ‘Tyrone’s having pre-drinks.’

  ‘By himself,’ added Loretta.

  ‘Enough said.’

  There was a long pause while he got up to shut his window against the building gale outside and trudged back over to his unmade bed.

  ‘You hungry?’ he asked.

  Loretta clapped. ‘Sure am! What’ve you got?’

  ‘Scones.’

  We went out to the kitchen and laid everything out. Gordon’s mum took hers to eat in bed and everything was quiet for a while as we munched away. Then there was a knock on the front door.

  ‘Gord? Can you get it?’ his mum called.

  Gordon grumbled and got up to answer it.

  ‘Little friend, I’m really sorry!’ bellowed Tyrone.

  ‘Oh, crap,’ I cursed, hurrying towards the front door, where Gordon was standing, gazing up at Tyrone in astonishment.

  I put my hands on my hips. ‘I leave you alone for ten minutes . . .’

  ‘Forty,’ Gordon corrected diplomatically.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s been forty minutes. Nearly forty-five.’

  ‘Shut it, Gordon. I leave him alone for forty minutes and look at him!’

  Tyrone smiled at me benignly and nudged his way past us into the house. He took himself into the living room with a garbled, ‘Wow!’ and sat down cross-legged on the floor gazing imploringly up at Gordon.

  ‘You’re such a lovely human!’ he said, his voice catching.

  Gordon frowned, his mouth hanging open, apparently lost for words.

  Loretta was shaking with silent laughter. ‘Oh, this is gold!’

  I could smell Tyrone from four metres away. He smelled like cheap whisky. ‘Sorry, Gordon. I’ll take him home.’

  ‘Home!’ Tyrone agreed jovially.

  ‘He’s happy when he’s drunk,’ Gordon observed dryly, helping me haul Tyrone to his feet, but Tyrone had other ideas. He looped his arms around our necks and started swaying and murmuring the song We are Australian under his breath with what he evidently considered to be a solemn and patriotic air.

  ‘Tyrone! Move it!’ I said. ‘If you get Gordon’s mum out of bed, I’ll kill you.’

  ‘Ha-ha, like the fish, remember that, little Pearlie? Wasn’t that funny? Remember when I got food poisoning from that flake? That had half a slug in the batter at San Remo beach? How funny was that, Gwennie? Eh?’ He nudged Gordon cheerfully, nearly sending him sprawling.

  ‘This isn’t working,’ Gordon panted, trying to support Tyrone around the middle.

  Tyrone nodded vigorously. ‘That’s right. I’m an apologising Sylvester, an Sapoliging Peppelvestera, good morning sir, my name’s Mr Pepper-Vest . . .’

  I was nearly in tears from the physical effort. ‘You wait,’ I hissed. ‘I’m telling Biddy about this. You’ve left Evie all alone!’

  ‘Nah, I haven’t. Tubs is there.’

  ‘Bubs.’

  ‘Yeah – that one.’

  ‘He’s the same age as her!’

  Tyrone gazed at me, nonplussed.

  ‘She’s alone!’

  ‘And Ben called.’

  ‘Well, why didn’t you tell me?’ I exploded. ‘Why didn’t you come get me?’

  ‘Whatcha think I’m doing, Pepperlvester?’

  ‘Come on, Ty. Bed time.’

  ‘No!’ He looked at me. ‘Why’s Ben calling?’

  Loretta nudged him with her boot. ‘None of your business.’

  He crossed his arms and frowned.

  ‘Oh, come on!’ I exploded again, not bothering to lower my voice. ‘Fine, but we’ve got to go now. Come on, move it! Or we’ll pick you up and drag you out!’

  Tyrone immediately went limp so that we had to drop him. He then started babbling gleefully about getting carried.

  ‘This is a delightful adventure, Sir Pepperlvester,’ he said, laughing to himself for two solid minutes before he rolled over and appeared to be asleep.

  Gordon glanced towards his mother’s bedroom door. ‘She’s had some of her sleeping tablets or she would’ve been up and yelling by now.’

  Tyrone opened his eyes again and used his fingers as guns to shoot the ceiling.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ I said. ‘He normally doesn’t . . .’ I stopped. He was a big drinker, but ordinarily his drinking escapades didn’t involve ambushing neighbouring houses and calling people Sir Pepperlvester.

  ‘You know, if there were no chairs in the world we’d all have to sit on our feet,’ he said solemnly, and suddenly I felt hysterical laughter building up behind my pursed lips.

  Gordon grabbed his keys and locked the front door. We managed to coax Tyrone into the front yard and then he sat down and refused to move. I kicked at his bum. ‘Get up!’

  ‘No!’

  I kicked harder. ‘Tyrone Banks, get up!’

  ‘Gwen!’

  I turned. Please. No. Please don’t let that be Handsome Ben. Please don’t let Handsome Ben have seen me kicking my stepbrother up the bum.

  ‘He, um, sounded a little drunk on the phone,’ Ben said, stopping halfway through the front gate. ‘Thought I’d see if you needed a hand.’

  Gordon stared lovingly at Ben. ‘You’re my hero.’

  Ben glanced at me a little uncertainly. ‘Right.’

  ‘My mum’s sick in bed and if we wake her she’ll murder me and he’s too much of a potato for the three of us to move him.’

  ‘Not a potato,’ Tyrone slurred.

  ‘Okay,’ said Ben, rolling up his sleeves. ‘Why can’t we just leave him out here?’

  ‘He’s too loud,’ I said.

  ‘He’ll wake my mum,’ Gordon added.

  ‘I’m hungry,’ said Loretta.

  ‘Alright. If me and Gwen take his legs and you both take an arm each, that should do it? Where do you want him?’

  ‘Somewhere inside my house,’ I said. ‘Anywhere. Tyrone, I’m going to kill you.’

  Tyrone blinked at me. We heaved him up. As we got him in through the front door he started kicking like a maniac and Ben and I got knocked together. In the mad clamour that followed, I felt his lips on mine. I felt him kind of freeze, like it was an accident, then I felt him kiss me. An actual kiss. Then he sprang away and managed to shut the front door.

  Loretta was panting and looking very grumpy. She kicked Tyrone’s leg. ‘Idiot,’ she muttered.

  But Gordon was looking at me and Ben with a delighted expression on his face. I drew a finger across my neck, warning him not to say anything to Loretta, and he held his hands up in agreement.

  ‘I’m hungry,’ Loretta said again.

  ‘There’ll be something in the fridge,’ I said, feeling faint. I touched my lips and then quickly pulled my hand away. I didn’t want Loretta to see. She was frighteningly good at putting two and two together. It started to rain. A big boom of thunder sounded and the lights in all the rooms flickered.

  ‘Think we should all hunker
down here for a bit,’ Gordon said, glancing out at the sheets of rain. ‘It’ll clear soon.’

  Loretta shrugged. She’d pulled on the slippers she kept at our place, which meant she wasn’t planning on moving anytime soon. Gordon and I got some pizza out of the freezer, while Tyrone fell asleep in the hallway, snoring loudly until Loretta tried to smother him with a couch cushion. Ben sat down at the kitchen bench and whenever I looked at him, he looked away and cleared his throat.

  Glen called to make sure our roof was okay. And Tori called to see if our power was still on. And Loretta’s parents called to make sure she was here, and Biddy called to make sure Evie and Bubs were okay.

  As the storm hit and the house clattered and groaned in the wind and the wet, we ate heated pizza and I was still smiling. I couldn’t stop touching my tingling lips.

  ***

  FROM THE DIARY OF GWENDOLYN P. PEARSON

  It was summertime and I was living at Biddy’s place. Dad said Mum was still not well, but I was going home in a week. It had been four months.

  I wanted my mum, I wanted my dad.

  Biddy was kind to me. She treated me with the same warm politeness that she’d treated me with at school, and it made me uneasy because I’d expected different treatment. Perhaps I’d expected her to be like my mum at home, maybe that was why I’d liked her so much. Because if she could put a face on it, maybe my mum could learn to, as well.

  We were taking our time in the supermarket, because the air conditioner and fan had broken at Biddy’s and all that was left was a portable one that Tyrone had bagsed weeks earlier. We ambled along the aisles, Biddy looking tired and hot and not saying much.

  ‘Only one pack of toilet paper?’ my dad’s voice sounded just behind us.

  I squealed with delight. He winced at the high-pitched sound but scooped me up, kissing my head and pinching me affectionately just below my ribs so that I giggled.

  Biddy smiled tiredly at him and propped the toilet paper in the trolley between the two cartons of eggs and soymilk. ‘I like to live dangerously.’

  He smiled back at her. Up close he looked so much older than he had that, for a moment, I stiffened, unsure whether he was my dad or perhaps some child-napping stranger in a white van with flashing lights . . .

  But then he kissed me on the head again and, reassured, I didn’t protest as he put me back down in the aisle next to the sour-looking Tyrone, who glanced slyly at the two of them before slipping a couple of packs of chocolate biscuits from the other side of the aisle into the trolley. He gave me a sharp look, daring me to tell, but I just shrugged and pulled a face.