“If a boy makes fun of you, does that mean he likes you?”
“Of course it does. Everyone knows that.”
I was sitting at Andrew and Hayley’s kitchen bench, waiting for Dad to pick me up after my lesson. Hayley grinned at me as she washed a strainer of lettuce.
“So who’s making fun of you?”
“No-one,” I said, suddenly embarrassed.
She smiled. “An amant secret, hey?”
“What?”
“It’s French,” she said, emerging from the fridge with a handful of vegetables. “It means, like, secret lover or something.”
Justin was certainly no French lover.
“Geeky girl with her Mozart music.”
“Don’t be such a dickwad.”
“I know you are, but what am I?”
The taunts were endless and, if Hayley was right, it scared me a little. This was Justin, my best friend, my Shipwreck buddy, who I punched and tickled and teased without consequence. Something was changing between us and I wasn’t sure I wanted it to. I felt powerless to stop it like I was caught in a rip I couldn’t swim out of. I tried to push my thoughts of Justin away by focusing on my music.
“I’m going to be a concert violinist,” I announced to everyone I saw, drilling Andrew with endless questions and raiding his CD rack for anything that contained a string section. I rested my chin in my hand and sighed contentedly.
“You are a little love-sick aren’t you,” Hayley giggled as she sliced a carrot. Her red nails flashed like Christmas tree lights.
“What are you making?”
“Just salad. Want some? I have the best dressing.”
“I can’t. Mum will be mad if I eat before dinner.”
"Okay." She held a stick of celery under the tap. Her yellow skirt bounced around her thighs like a cheerleading dress. I pulled a pile of CDs out of my violin case and began to read the back covers.
“What are you looking at?”
“Andrew lent them to me. This is a Ravel violin sonata and this is Tchaikovsky Serenade for Strings and this one’s Bach. Andrew says he’s very happy to have someone in this town to share them with.”
“You know you’re sounding really good on the violin,” said Hayley. “I can hear you in the basement. Sometimes I can’t tell if it’s you or Andrew playing.”
I didn’t believe her. “I don’t know. My double stops are really bad.”
“You musicians are all the same,” she said. “You’re never happy. You always have to be better.”
“Of course. Isn’t a good thing to want to improve?”
She shrugged. “I suppose. I just don’t think you should stress so much about sounding perfect. You have to have a life as well.”
“Music is my life,” I said. “At least, it will be soon when I become a concert violinist.”
“Well,” said Hayley, tossing the vegetables into a bowl. “I’m impressed. When I was your age, the biggest thing in my life was deciding which boy I was going to have lunch with.”
I wasn’t surprised.
On the first weekend of our school holidays, Justin’s parents took us out in their boat. It was a trawler Justin’s dad used mainly for fishing, but he had added a glass bottom to the stern deck so he could take tourists out to the reef. I sat with my legs dangling over the side, green water licking my toes. A thin yellow haze rose from the sea. I inhaled deeply and let the salty air fill my lungs.
Justin climbed onto the railing beside me. “Nice hat,” he teased.
I had found a wide straw sunhat in my mum’s wardrobe and tied it under my chin with a ribbon. I thought I looked like Anne of Green Gables.
“I’m protecting my complexion,” I snapped. “I’m getting freckles.”
Justin jumped off the rail. “You are getting freckles!” He poked a bony finger under my hat. “There’s one, two, three, four-”
I smacked his hand away.
“Stop teasing Abby,” said Justin’s mum, Michelle. She was stretched out behind us on a beach towel, reading a book and drinking some lumpy green health juice that looked like toxic waste. My mother called our neighbours ‘new age’ and ‘burnt out hippies’. Michelle was wearing bathers and a cheesecloth blouse with flowers embroidered on the sleeve. Her hair was tied back with a scarf and she wore big hoop earrings. I didn’t think she looked burnt out at all.
My dad said that if Michelle ever tried to make him drink that wheat-grass malarky he’d chuck a mental. I thought he could be a little more open-minded about the whole thing. When I’d tried to tell him this, Mum had said:
“Don’t talk back to your father, Abigail.”
My mother’s name was Sarah-Marie, which always sounded to me like a good name for a glamorous movie star. Mum wasn’t glamorous though, not by any stretch of the imagination. She always wore shorts and long denim shirts, which were faded under the arms where she had scrubbed out the sweat marks. I wished my mum would try to be a bit more exciting, like Michelle was. Maybe not with the hoop earrings and stuff, but a glass of toxic waste wouldn’t hurt her every now and then. Maybe sometimes Sarah could try to be a little more like her neighbours.
“My dad’s getting a new boat,” said Justin. “It’s, like, twice as big as this one. I’m going to get my boat license as soon as I turn sixteen. Dad already told me what some of the questions on the test are.” His eyes were sparkling. I tried to sound interested.
“Cool.”
I wandered into the cockpit and watched Justin’s dad guide the boat through the shallow water.
“What’s out that way?” I asked, pointing across the hazy ocean.
Justin’s dad chuckled. “More water. Some islands.”
I leapt onto a bench. “Yeah, but if you just kept going, what country would you get to?”
He pushed his lips to one side of his mouth so I could tell he was thinking. “Well eventually you’d get to Vanuatu and places like that,” he said. “The Solomons…”
“Fiji?”
Justin’s dad nodded. “Yeah, Fiji’s out that way.”
“And then?”
He laughed his gravelly laugh. “You thinking about running off with my boat, Ab?”
“I just want to know,” I said edgily. Apart from the Shipwreck extravaganzas, I had never been any further than Townsville, when Dad had driven his Ute down there to buy new sheet metal for the caravan roofs.
“Why would you ever want to leave this place?” my mum always said. “You’ve got beautiful beaches, and sun and lots of peace and quiet… Why go anywhere else?”
“Can I have a go at steering the boat?” I asked. Justin’s dad wiped his forehead with the back of his wrist.
“Maybe on the way back. Anyway, I’m about to stop. Why don’t you kids go get your snorkelling gear ready?”
For someone who had grown up on the reef, I was total crap at snorkelling. I always breathed through my nose and inhaled the seawater that kept filling up inside my mask. Justin was much better. He could dive under the surface, then blow the water out his snorkel when he got back up. He and his brother Hugh knew the names of all the fish too.
“I saw a red emperor.”
“I saw a parrotfish.”
“Oh yeah, well I saw some copepod plankton.”
Justin swam up behind me. “I saw a shark!” He poked my waist. I emptied the water out of my mask while Rachel shrieked and thrashed her way back to the boat.
“You did not,” I said.
“Yes I did.”
“It was a gummy shark!” cried Hugh, folding his lips over his teeth and paddling towards me with a throaty groan. I splashed him in the face and hoped he’d swallowed a decent amount of copepod plankton.
“Stop scaring the girls,” said Justin’s dad from the deck.
I swam back to the boat, where Rachel was cowering in her Little Miss Naughty towel. I took off the canvas shoes I wore on the coral. They made a squelching sound as I peeled them off my feet.
“Can we go?” I aske
d. “I have a violin lesson.”
“Soon,” said Justin’s dad. He disappeared into the cockpit. Rachel and I flopped onto the deck and I pushed my hat back over my sticky hair.
“What’s with the weird hat?” asked Rachel.
“I don’t want to get freckles,” I said abruptly. “If that’s okay with you.”
“You’ve got freckles already.”
I huffed.
“I shaved my legs,” Rachel announced, admiring the shiny calves poking out the bottom of her towel. “Don’t they look good?”
I shrugged irritably. They looked like the same round, blotchy legs she had always had.
“What’s wrong?”
I pouted. “I want to go. I have violin.”
“You always have violin.”
I raced into Andrew’s house, my wet ponytail dangling down my neck and my bathers clinging to the back of my shorts.
“Sorry I’m late,” I huffed. “I had to go on this dumb boat trip and they took forever looking at the coral and then we had to go find some stupid island, then they wouldn’t listen when I said I had violin…”
“Nice hat,” said Andrew. I ripped it off my head and threw it on the floor. I clicked open my violin case in silence.
“Guess what?” Andrew was perched on the edge of the piano seat and was tossing his pencil in the air. “Me and Hayley are having a baby.”
“Hey, cool!” I spun around. “When?”
“December.” He pounded a few random chords on the piano.
“Can I baby-sit?” I asked hopefully.
“Um, I guess.”
“I’m very responsible,” I said. “Just ask my dad. I pick up all the pegs off the ground in the caravan park every day for my pocket money. Besides, by December, I’ll be nearly thirteen.”
Andrew raised his eyebrows. “Thirteen? You’re growing up, Abs.”
I grinned. “Yep. So can I baby-sit?”
He leaned back against the piano. “Where are you going to high school?”
“Acacia High,” I told him. “Where else would I go?”
“I don’t know.” He leapt up and tapped his pencil on the edge of my music stand. “Show me some scales.”
“Why did you ask that?” I pushed, as I tucked my violin under my chin.
Andrew shook his head. “It’s not important. Let’s hear B flat major.”
THREE
“Andrew and Hayley are having a baby,” I announced at dinner that night.
“Jesus Christ,” Nick snorted.
“How irresponsible,” said Mum, slopping a puddle of tuna casserole onto my plate. “Those two are far too young to even consider raising a child. I bet it was an accident.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
Mum told me to eat my casserole.
“Jesus Christ,” Nick said again. He had been in Hayley’s class at school. I decided he was just pissed because she hadn’t married him.
I picked out the peas with my fork. “I don’t like tuna.”
“I don’t care.”
“How was the boat trip, Ab?” asked Dad.
I shrugged. “It was okay. Justin’s dad showed me where Vanuatu was.”
“Vanuatu,” Dad repeated. “We talked about going there, didn’t we, Sarah?”
My eyes lit up. “Can we go?”
“Why would you want to go to Vanuatu?” Mum scoffed. “Everything you’d find there, you’ve got right here. Money doesn’t grow on trees, you know.”
I wriggled in my damp bathers. The sand in the lining was making me itch. I could hear kids from the caravan park playing on my mini trampoline again. It had been left out in the rain and now the springs squeaked every time someone jumped on it.
“Da-ad, go tell them to leave my stuff alone.”
“Take that annoying whine out of your voice, Abigail,” snapped Mum. “They’re not doing any harm.”
I huffed loudly and squashed my tuna between the prongs of my fork. I wondered if kids had to eat casserole in Vanuatu.
Rachel walked me home from school.
“Anyone interesting staying at your place?” she asked hopefully. I picked up a stick and ran it along a picket fence. It rattled like carriages across a train track.
“No-one interesting ever stays at our place,” I said. “Anyway, what kind of interesting?”
Rachel smoothed her wiry blonde fringe. “You know, hot guys.”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t look really.”
“Have you ever kissed a guy?” asked Rachel.
“No. Have you?”
“What do you think?” Rachel was always alluding to wild love affairs from her mysterious life down south. She called herself a city girl, even though she hated the city. “Everyone’s so mean there,” she said once. “And you have to wear shoes on the beach in case you stand on a needle.”
“Who puts needles on the beach?” I snorted. “That’s just dumb.”
“Druggies. My dad says they’re the scum of the earth.”
“There’s no needles on our beach,” I said.
Rachel was full of disgust for the city; though I found out later it had more to do with the grade six bullies than any needles that might have been on the beach.
“You have to queue for, like, ten minutes just to get served at the supermarket. And you can never find a car park. And you know that Opera House? Yeah well it’s not even that big…”
When she had arrived in Acacia Beach a year earlier, with her heart frame glasses and Madonna pencil case, our teacher had sat her in the empty desk beside me.
“She’ll show you the ropes,” Miss Lucas said. “She’s Acacia Beach born and bred, aren’t you, Abby?”
You don’t have to freakin advertise it, I had thought.
I tossed the stick onto the road. “Look at the haunted house. Doesn’t it look scary?”
The old mansion across the road from my house was covered in chipped grey weatherboards. Its broken windows peered over the street like eyes. The fading light glowed through the cracked glass and the front of the house was bathed in a dark purple shadow. I shivered.
“It is kind of creepy,” Rachel admitted.
Justin called the house ‘Psycho George’s’ and told me some guy had gone crazy in there; slaughtering his wife in the bathtub before hanging himself and proceeding to haunt the place for all eternity. Despite the fact that there was zero evidence to back up his story, the house intrigued the hell out of me. I lived in a constant mix of fear and excitement that Psycho George might one day show himself.
Rachel nudged me. “Hey, isn’t that your violin teacher?”
I peered across the road to see Andrew standing on our front step. When I got to the door, he was already inside. I let myself into the house quietly, pushing my messy brown hair out of my eyes. Through the closed lounge door I could hear Andrew’s voice.
“Your daughter’s a very promising musician, Mrs Austin. I’m sure you know that.”
I pressed my ear against the keyhole.
“Her talent deserves much better training than I’m able to give her.”
Rachel burst in breathlessly. “What’s going on?”
“Shh!” I leant back against the door.
“Well what are you suggesting?” asked Mum. “I thought you were the only music teacher in Acacia Beach.”
“I am,” said Andrew. “And I’m not a specialist violinist. I think Abby should audition for a high school in the city. One with a proper music program.”
My heart began to hammer against my ribs.
“Are you serious?” Sarah’s voice was cold and critical.
“Yes,” said Andrew. “Abby’s a brilliant violinist for her age. And I’m sure she’s told you how much she wants to be a performer.”
“Oh please. She’s twelve years old. She doesn’t have a clue what she wants.”
Andrew hesitated. “Still, Abby’s very talented. She deserves to have a great teacher. There are a lot of fantastic music schools all
around Australia. Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney… If money is an issue most schools have scholarships-”
“Money isn’t the issue!” Mum interrupted. “Her age is the issue! She’s just a little girl! She’s not going anywhere!”
“Please think about it. For Abby’s sake.”
“For Abby’s sake?” Mum repeated. “How dare you suggest I be doing this for any other reason!” The floorboards creaked as Sarah herded Andrew towards the door. I snatched Rachel’s arm and leapt across the hallway into my brother’s bedroom. I pulled the door shut.
“Oh my God!” Rachel’s blue eyes were bulging. “Can you believe that guy?”
I peered through the keyhole. The hallway was empty. I could hear muffled voices on the veranda. Rachel pressed her head against the window.
“He’s going,” she reported, a pink circle forming on her forehead. She flopped onto her stomach across the bed. “I can’t believe he tried to make you go to the city!” she exclaimed, swinging her legs.
I forced a smile. “I know…”
“You know your violin teacher’s really hot,” said Rachel.
“Gross! He’s my teacher!”
“Yeah well he’s not my teacher. I’d do him.”
I glared at her. “You’re sick. He’s way too old for you. And he’s married. And what exactly would you do to him anyway?”
Rachel shrugged. “I don’t know. Just stuff I guess.”
Nick and his friends from the farm decided to go camping in Byron Bay for a week. Sarah said she hated to imagine how much four boys would smell after a week in a tent. Dad said he’d bet they’d drink the pubs dry.
“Can I come?” I begged. “I won’t get in the way. And I’ll pay for myself.”
Nick laughed and stomped on his cigarette. “With what, your peg money?”
I folded my arms. “I saved ninety-seven dollars!”
He slapped my back patronisingly, the way I did to our little brother Tim. “I’ll bring you back some sand.”
Music From Standing Waves Page 2