by Pip Harry
‘Between eight and ten pm the Year Seven to Ten girls meet here to do their homework,’ says Gabby.
‘I suppose it will make a change from the tram,’ says Dad.
It’s true. I usually finish assignments on the way to school, scribbling madly and hoping I can get it done before my stop.
‘We monitor internet use very closely,’ Gabby says. ‘There’s a security device installed on all the computers, just in case. No laptops outside of study times. No smart phones during school or study hours either.’
‘What?’ I gasp.
How am I going to stay in touch with my mates? Carrier pigeon? Annie and I text all day long, and I chat online with Annie and Nate every night after school.
*
I met Annie at a festival last year – seven days’ grounding for that. Mum reckons I need to be ‘at least eighteen to handle that sort of atmosphere’. That’s over two years away.
I tried to explain that everyone goes to see bands.
‘Why do you want to be like everyone else?’ Mum said.
‘Like there’s any chance of that, Mum. Have a good look at me.’
Anyway, Annie was waiting in the portaloo line and she gave me a tissue because the loos were completely toilet paper free as usual. Turned out we had exactly the same taste in music and we spent the rest of the day together. I wish Annie went to Norris so I could hang out with her on weekdays. She goes to an alternative college – a school kids go to when they don’t want to go to school. She gets to wear casual clothes, there are no bells and she calls the teachers by their first names. If Norris was like that I wouldn’t even mind turning up every day.
Annie started talking to Nate in a line for drinks. He’d lost all his mates (or maybe they’d lost him), so we said he could come with us. We all just clicked. Pretty soon we started hanging out together all the time.
Nate is only seventeen but he lives out of home and has a full-time job. He dropped out of school after Year Ten and worked his way up the fast-food ladder to become KFC Footscray’s assistant manager. His skin is always greasy from the chip fat but he gets free food and they pay him every week, so it’s a pretty cool job until his Goth band, Violent Glitter, gets signed.
*
Gabby continues our little walking tour. She points out a communal laundry.
‘It’s a good life skill for the girls,’ says Gabby as she demonstrates how the machines work, pushing buttons and twirling knobs. She does it so fast I will never remember.
‘Got it, Kate?’ she asks.
I nod, just so we can get this over with.
I don’t know how things can get any worse until Gabby reveals the bathroom area. There are six shower stalls with doors and six toilet cubicles. The mirrors are open to the whole area, so there’s pretty much no privacy for putting on make-up or squeezing zits.
‘Shower time is limited to five minutes,’ says Gabby. ‘We’ve got timers in every cubicle. We find the girls are very conscious of the environment and saving water. We also have a recycling program in the house.’
The tour over, I reunite with my suitcase and drag it up three flights of stairs to the dorm rooms. I still won’t let Dad help me, even though he tries to look chivalrous. Liv skips along next to me, saying hello to strange girls and acting cute like she always does.
We walk down a hallway of rooms full of girls lying on beds, talking, eating, unpacking and playing music. I just want to put my things away and be by myself for a while. There doesn’t seem to be a quiet place in the whole house. Everything hums like a beehive.
Room 4D is my cell for the next term. I follow Gabby in and see four beds lined up – two on each side.
‘Aren’t I . . . I mean . . . don’t I have a private room?’ I say to Dad.
‘Nobody has a private room,’ laughs Gabby and I feel my neck rash flare up again. ‘This isn’t the Hilton.’
So here is the horrifying truth: I’ll be sharing a dorm with three other people. And two of those people are staring at me right now, their mouths slightly open, eyes wide. No surprise – they don’t want me here either.
I’ve never shared a bedroom in my life. I want to kick the other girls out into the hall, drag their beds out and lock the door.
‘Harriet and Jess are your roommates this term,’ says Gabby.
The girls have resumed unpacking as if I am invisible.
‘Maddy Minogue is your fourth.’ Gabby looks at her watch. ‘Yes, late as usual.’
I know Maddy is here and I wonder where she is. Already she is the most promising of my three roommates.
Jess Pervis is butch, with a freckled face and thick, yellow braids. She’s on the swimming team. No. She is the swimming team. Harriet Barker is pretty – that’s obvious – but there’s a mean streak lurking in her eyes. You wouldn’t want to cross her.
‘Kate’s joining us as a boarder for the rest of the year,’ Gabby says, her voice rising up an octave, trying to break the toxic mood.
‘Why?’ asks Harriet. ‘Don’t you live in the city?’
I feel a flash of anger and shame. Gabby comes to my rescue.
‘She aaah . . . wants to try out boarding life, don’t you, Kate?’
‘Yes. That’s right. I’m desperate to be a boarder,’ I say, deadpan.
‘Well, anyway, girls, I’m sure you’ll make her feel welcome and show her the ropes.’
The ropes. I imagine an abseiling rope hanging directly out of the window with me in a hard hat and carabineer. Escaping.
Jess shrugs and says, ‘Sure,’ and then there’s a very awkward silence that even cute Liv can’t fill up.
I’ve never talked to either of them, even though Harriet is in my science class and Jess and I have lockers two doors apart. Boarders tend to herd themselves away from the day girls most of the time, sitting in their own groups and eating lunch together.
‘Right, Kate, you’re all set. Just choose a bed and unpack,’ says Gabby.
I dump my bag on an unclaimed single bed. It’s smaller than the one Liv sleeps in. At home I have a huge double bed, my own TV and an iPod dock. My bedroom is my whole universe and I love everything in it. I wasn’t even allowed to bring posters here – there’s a strict no Blu-tack policy. All I have are a few photos of my dog, Chilli, Annie and Nate, and a clean pinboard that Gabby says I can ‘personalise’.
‘We like to keep the rooms nice and tidy,’ says Gabby. Will she ever stop talking? ‘That just means make your own bed in the morning and keep your personal belongings neat and out of the way.’
Dad gives me a look. We both know what my room looks like at home. Mum likes to describe it as ‘the pit’. Or sometimes ‘the black hole’.
Liv bounces on my bed, overexcited. ‘You’re so lucky, Kate!’ she says. ‘I wish I could go to boarding school.’
‘Okay, Liv, you can stay and I’ll go home.’
Liv gives me a gappy smile. One of her teeth is about to fall out. ‘Can I, Dad?’
Dad pulls Liv off the bed. ‘We should let Kate settle in.’
Liv’s top lip wobbles. Dad gives me a look that means I should give her a hug and make her feel better. But really, she’s better off without me in the house. I’m a dodgy older sister. My parents don’t even let me babysit her anymore. Last month I stole sixty bucks from her money jar to go out. She’d been saving for ages. When she found her jar was empty she didn’t even tell Mum and Dad, because I swore I would pay her back. I haven’t yet.
‘Don’t cry, Liv,’ I say, giving her an awkward pat on the head. She buries her head into my stomach and squeezes me. I feel my eyes start to tingle. They’ll have to leave before I lose it.
‘Bye, Kate, we’ll see you soon,’ says Dad, hustling Liv out of the room. He’s almost out the door when he comes back and sits next to me on my bed.
‘You’ll be fine here, Kate. Don’t forget how amazing and original you are. You’ll be home soon. Mum will come round. I’ll make you a playlist for your next trip home. Okay?’
‘Dad, please,’ I whisper. ‘Don’t leave me here. I’ll be good. I promise. I’ve been better lately, haven’t I?’
I notice Harriet and Jess listening in from across the room – they’ve even stopped pretending to unpack.
Dad hugs me tightly. I let the guilty feeling I’ve been carrying around for weeks drop to the ground like a heavy rock.
‘This is tough on us too. But we don’t know what else to do. We just want the old Kate back.’
‘You can have me back. I swear. I’ll be different.’
My nice-girl act isn’t working. Normally I can talk him around but his face is hard and smooth. He won’t be changing his mind, no matter how good my sob story is. Mum won’t be talked out of this crazy plan either. She doesn’t want me in the house. This is really her decision. Not Dad’s.
‘This isn’t forever,’ he says. ‘You might actually enjoy having a break from us for a while.’
‘You mean you’ll enjoy having a break from me,’ I say quietly. ‘Just abandon me then.’
He sighs deeply, his shoulders slumping. Suddenly he looks like an old man – crumpled and creased. He kisses my cheek and I immediately wipe it off with the back of my hand. I watch him go, closing the door and not even looking back. I realise this is really happening. To me. Right now. My own parents have ditched me.
I lie back on the bed and close my eyes. I have never felt more alone.
2
It was a Sunday so it was family day. Dad had organised for us all to go to the zoo. Liv was the only one who really wanted to look at kangaroos scratch themselves in the shade, but Dad was so enthusiastic it was hard not to get caught up in his excitement. The house was a shambles as usual, the breakfast plates were still on the bench and sticky cereal crawled across the kitchen table. Dad was trying to find the picnic basket in the hall cupboard and had pulled the entire contents out on the floor. Tennis rackets, dusty ski gear, even his old skateboard.
I picked up the skateboard and took it for a spin down the hall.
‘You used to ride this?’ I asked, skidding over the polished floorboards. ‘Back when you were young?’
‘I can still ride it,’ Dad said. ‘Give me a go. I’ll show you your old man’s moves.’
Yep, we all had it coming really.
Mum slammed the door to her home office.
‘Really?’ she shouted at Dad. ‘I told you I had to log on this morning just for a few hours. And you’re what? Letting the kids skate around inside and turning the entire house upside down. Can’t you keep things together, just for a few hours, so I can get some work done?’
Dad ignored her and kept taking things out of the cupboard and chucking them on the floor. Liv put a pair of old goggles on and squealed with delight. She loved the whirling chaos that surrounded my dad.
‘David? I’m talking to you . . . can you stop?’ Mum waited for Dad to pay her some attention but he didn’t even look at her.
‘We’re going to the zoo today,’ he said to the cupboard. ‘We agreed. Sunday is family day. No work, Isabel. Remember?’
Mum’s a politician so she spends most of her week in her Canberra office – she flies out Monday morning and we don’t see her until late Thursday night. On Fridays she rushes off to see her Melbourne team and most weekends she has even more work – a party meeting, conference or function. She says that her job isn’t nine to five. That she has to talk to people when they have the time. I like that she has a job that’s a bit different and she’s passionate about helping people, but the problem is we never see her anymore.
When I was a kid I went with her and hung out with all the other politicians’ kids – there were babysitters who took us to the movies, the aquarium or the park. It was pretty fun. Liv still adores it but I’m not seven and I don’t want to be babysat or spend all day with a bunch of people talking politics – it’s not my scene.
Now my parents try to keep Sundays just for family, otherwise all our time together would be swallowed up by Mum’s job. For a few weeks it was really great – all of us hanging out together. But gradually Mum started letting family day become work catch-up day. It was inevitable. She has only one true love in her life. And it’s not Dad. It’s her work.
I spun the board around and accidentally banged into the side table, knocking a bunch of papers and bills off it. I tried to pick them up but it was too late.
Mum turned around, her laser ray of anger now beaming down on me.
‘Kate! Please, stop!’
Annoyed at being yelled at like a kid, I kicked the board down the hall towards her. Didn’t she get it? How hard was it to turn off her phone and her computer for one day and pretend to be interested in the zoo? It would’ve made Dad and Liv happy. I guess it would’ve made me happy too.
The board banged into her ankles. I can’t say I didn’t mean for that to happen.
‘Ouch. Kate, that hurt.’ Mum rubbed her foot and picked the board up. Fun over.
I slunk over to the couch and pretended to read a magazine. I felt that familiar anxious knot in my gut. They’d been fighting a lot lately so my stomach often ached.
‘Are you coming?’ asked Dad.
‘I can’t.’
‘You don’t want to.’
‘No, David. I said I can’t. I’ve got an early flight in the morning. I’ll be in Parliament until ten at night. I have no other time to finish this presentation. Somebody has to pay the mortgage.’
Dad stopped his search and looked at Mum with a frown.
‘It was your idea to seek pre-selection. To work the hours that you do. To be in Canberra all week long. Why don’t you retire? I’ll happily get back into the workforce if that’s what you want. Just say the word. Just say it, go on.’
Mum glared at Dad.
‘Yeah, I thought so. It isn’t about being the breadwinner, Isabel. It’s about your ambition. Just admit it.’
‘I love my job, you know that. I know it’s tough on you guys sometimes. But I’ve done the hard yards, David. Where were you when I was changing nappies? Making playdough? Taking Kate to playgroup? Oh that’s right. Surfing. With your mates. At uni. Pretending you hadn’t become a father.’
‘I was twenty-two, what did you expect?’
‘Oh, I dunno. A little responsibility? I expected it then and I’m still waiting . . .’
‘I look after our kids all week long so you don’t get to lecture me about responsibility. Now I’m taking Kate and Liv to the zoo. If you want to get that bloody phone out of your ear and come with us, we’ll be leaving as soon as I find the picnic basket.’
Dad returned to the cupboard and chucked a load of clean towels onto the floor. Towels that I had seen Mum fold the day before.
Mum stomped down the hall and came back with the lost basket.
She handed it to Dad silently. Then she went back to her office and closed the door.
And that was the start of the current cold war.
*
Dad was reading Liv a Roald Dahl book and I was pretending to do my homework, but really I was sketching a picture of a boy’s eye – it was green with a black teardrop. I was going to post it on Sketchfu, a cool website where you can draw stuff and post it up.
We were eating pad thai straight out of the plastic containers, twirling glassy noodles around our forks. Liv had sauce down the front of her dress. We were full and happy until Mum blew in like a frosty wind.
‘Did you all have a good time?’ she asked.
As she talked she was collecting things from the floor. She was obsessed with cleaning up the mess. Dad ignored her and so did I.
‘We saw a red panda,’ said Liv. ‘It was so cute. You should’ve seen it, Mum.’
‘Yes, you should’ve seen it, Isabel,’ I said, giving Mum a dirty look.
‘Call me Mum,’ she said, rubbing her eyes. They were bloodshot and she looked exhausted.
‘So, David, this is dinner?’
Dad shrugged. ‘You were at home all day, you could’ve cooked something nutritious.’
‘Yes, I had so much time to cook.’
She looked at Liv’s dirty dress.
‘Olivia, you are filthy. Time for your bath please.’
Liv clung to my dad’s neck and burrowed into him. ‘Noooo. We are at the good part. Daddy said I could skip the bath tonight.’
‘You can’t. You have school tomorrow. Come on. Now.’
Dad untangled himself from Liv’s grasp. ‘Come on, Monkey. Go have a bath like your mum says.’
Mum got Liv off to bed and then made a big batch of spaghetti sauce. She did it every Sunday night and froze it in little packets for us to eat during the week. Sometimes she made curries and soups as well. It saved us from Dad’s cooking or takeaway. She was big on organisation, always leaving us colour-coded weekly activity spreadsheets, handwritten notes and chore sheets. She tried to make sense of the chaos while Dad just embraced it.
Dad grabbed a piece of fruit from the bowl, careful not to touch Mum. She didn’t look at him. This could go on for days.
I sat in front of the TV, still pretending to be doing my geography assignment. This time I was IMing with Annie. Pinging messages back and forth like a tennis match.
‘My press sec thinks it’s a good idea if we get a family photo done,’ Mum said to Dad, who was still ignoring her. She packaged up the sauce and put it in the freezer.
‘Did you hear me? Are you free on Friday afternoon? David? Hello?’
Dad shrugged and turned away from her to make himself a cup of tea.
‘Kate. How about you?’
I shake my head. ‘Nuh, I’ve got something on.’