by Tiffiny Hall
At recess on Friday I catch Fleur walking out of class in different clothes to the ones she was wearing when we were dropped off at school that morning. She blinks at me in a Calvary Couture blazer and a zigzaggy scarf I can only deduce is the Parisian scarf she’s been yearning for her whole life. In one arm she carries a tablet in a custom designer case, on the other is hooked a Louis handbag — like the one Stacey has.
Grabbing her elbow, I yank her out of the river of kids flowing from classrooms. ‘What’s this?’ I point to the bag. ‘And this and this and that?’ I say, pointing out all the new stuff dripping from her.
‘I went shopping. Sue me,’ Fleur says.
‘But we are meant to record our pickings, in that little book under the tree. We are meant to let each other know so there are no surprises and no one gets suspicious. Now you’ve turned up all rags to riches! What’s everyone going to think?’ I hiss.
‘Relax, Max.’ I hate it when she says this to me. Being told to chill out always feels like an insult to the uptight worriers whose concern for minute detail makes the world go round. ‘Everyone dresses like this here. No one even looked twice at me. I stand out more in op-shop clothes than these new things.’
‘How much did you pluck from the tree?’
Fleur hushes me. ‘We shouldn’t be discussing this here,’ she says, looking around cautiously as kids begin to congregate beside their lockers.
‘How much did you take?’ I pinch her arm.
She rolls her eyes. ‘I only did a bit of light gardening.’
I pinch her again and Fleur murmurs the amount. I almost faint.
‘For the essentials,’ she says, shrugging.
I close my eyes for a Zen moment. Doesn’t work. I open them again and a boy catches my eye over Fleur’s shoulder. He has the curliest hair I’ve ever seen knotted around his face. His eyes are steel grey and his skin is olive, outdoorsy olive. I forget what I’m about to say.
Fleur turns around and spots my distraction. She smiles, then elbows me. ‘That’s Merrick Christmas, but everyone calls him Santa,’ she says. ‘He’s in my class.’
He passes us and waves to Fleur. She tips up her chin in a backwards nod, the perfect cool-beans manoeuvre. As always, I’m invisible. I give myself a mental shake and focus again on Fleur’s rule breaking.
‘I told you my secret in trust. You were meant to follow my rules,’ I say. ‘You are putting everything in danger. What if Mum finds this stuff? Sees you all dressed up?’
Fleur’s eyes are bright with confidence. ‘I told Mum it’s better if we walk home from school as you need the exercise. That way I can change a block away and she’ll never know.’
My fists ball. ‘No lift!’ I squeal, way too loudly. I hate exercise. I can never keep up with Fleur.
‘Relax, Max,’ she says again. If she says it one more time, I’ll get nasty. ‘Think of it as sister bonding time. Honest, enjoy the tree. You found it for a reason.’ She looks around at all the rich kids funnelling out for recess, then leans in and whispers, ‘This is our chance to finally be something. To be one of them.’ She saunters off.
My heart sinks. I think of my friends at my old school. None of us had any money. We all wore the same school shoes until they fell to pieces. You were doing well if your family had a car, let alone a house that you owned. We had overcrowded classrooms and a barren playground, but I loved my old school and the kids were real. Feral in some ways, but at least not fake like the kids here. Sunglasses or a scarf didn’t make a difference to who you were. But here, it’s the difference between being seen and staying invisible.
I’m settled in class and enjoying the maths app on my tablet when Stacey walks in and floats down into the seat behind me. She flashes her pearly whites in a terrible smile that’s all gums, spread between dangly earrings and way too much lip-gloss. She looks perpetually self-assured, as if someone has just paid her the world’s best compliment and she’s faking embarrassment.
‘Nup, no braces for me. The orthodontist said I’m perfect,’ she announces to her best friend Josie, who nods, agreeing with her perfection.
I can’t help but roll my eyes. They both draw a matching heart on their wrists in biro every day. It is a ‘practice’ tattoo for when they’re old enough to ink their friendship permanently. I’m about to start my next maths challenge when I feel a tap on my shoulder. I turn around reluctantly. Stacey is cocking her head to one side in the way that makes her look like a puppet.
‘Did you hear how Insecto tongued Maxi’s eyeball at the mall?’ Stacey hisses. ‘Ro-mantic. Way to get with someone on the first date.’
I burn bright red and almost die. Who saw us? And Tyler? Get with Tyler Beverage? I sink into my chair and move my eyes slowly towards Tyler, who couldn’t get any lower in his. We avoid each other’s gaze, both wishing our chairs were bottomless to slide us into oblivion.
‘K. I. S. S. I. N. Gross,’ Stacey sings and I’m impressed she can almost spell.
I scrape my chair back into Stacey’s desk and race out of class. I run faster. My heart is pounding up my throat; it’s going to choke me. In the girls’ toilets I lock myself in a cubicle and feel the burn of tears. As the first tear slugs fall, I know it’s not because I’m embarrassed, but because I saw Tyler’s face. Tyler’s face deliberately not looking at me. He was mortified that hot Stacey would think he was on my level and that his possible first kiss would be with me. Tears puddle on my bare knees. There’s a bread roll lodged in my throat. Looking down into my lap, I realise I can’t stand my shorts! I hate my top, I hate my thighs, I hate my round face and my wiry hamster-coloured hair. I’m a D minus, an F, an epic Fail. Why can’t I be like the other girls, all straight As: Attractive, Accessorised and Acceptable?
‘I’ll show you,’ I say to myself. Tonight I’m going to harvest those lucrative leaves until the branches are barren. I wipe my tears and walk out of the toilets.
Mrs Halfbottom is marching up the hall towards me with her glasses swinging on a chain around her neck. She’s puffing. A lot. I turn the corner sharply to get away from her. I stride forward and bump into someone. Slowly I look up, expecting it to be a teacher, but the eyes that meet mine are steely grey beneath a mop of hair that looks like noodles.
‘Yo,’ Santa says.
‘Yo? People don’t actually say that these days,’ I reply.
‘Hi then.’
‘Hi back,’ I say.
‘Come with me. Need to ask you something.’ He takes my hand and leads me out to the playground.
‘What? Why?’ I try to yank my hand away, but his grip is firm. I’m embarrassed to follow, but when a few girls look our way as they walk out for lunch, suddenly feeling cool takes over.
We cross the oval to an area shaded by trees. Santa looks around, then ducks behind the bushes where we find two long benches facing each other. I’ve entered the cool kids’ inner sanctum.
Santa takes a packet of chips out of his pocket and offers it to me. I take a handful. ‘I haven’t seen these for years,’ I say of the gravy-flavoured chips.
‘Mum’s a bit retro when it comes to snacks,’ he says. ‘Want to play icebreakers?’
The tears are finally drying up in my throat. ‘What’s that?’ I ask.
‘Answer my question to break the ice. How much does your dad make?’
I blush. No one has ever asked me this question before. ‘Enough,’ I lie, then blurt, ‘Like one hundred and fifty thousand dollars.’ Truth is, I have no idea what my parents make.
Unimpressed, Santa mumbles, ‘On a teacher’s salary?’
‘Nah, he does, like, motivational speaking on the side for kids and he’s writing a novel,’ I say. ‘My turn. Given your nickname, can you say “Santa’s short suit shrank” quickly three times without a mistake?’
Santa is tongue-tied on the second try and takes a bow. We laugh.
‘What superhero would you rather be?’ he asks me.
‘Batman. I like his wheels.’
&nb
sp; ‘And what’s your favourite song? Sing it!’ he says.
‘You want me to sing “Let It Go”?’ I burst out laughing. ‘Nah, just joking, I know that Frozen song gives guys the creeps.’ Then I start singing a song by the Beetroot Ponycats, my favourite indie band.
Santa leans his head to one side like Stacey. ‘Their sound suits you.’
I blush at the sort-of compliment. The Beetroot Ponycats is a rock band, so is he saying that I rock?
Out of nowhere he says, ‘Fleur told me you’re minted.’
I take a seat on the bench and bury my feet in the leaf litter. The sky is blank and white and bears down on me with a heavy limitlessness. Fleur is causing trouble. She’s dead when we get home.
‘We do okay,’ I say, lying.
‘Mr Edwards … I mean, your dad … has me for philosophy. He gave me a bad rap on the first day. I don’t want to hear about “the good life”. Snore. He keeps going on about “reason” with stuff that is totally unreasonable. We exchanged words. Now he thinks I’m trouble or, as he put it, “recalcitrant”. You reckon you could change his mind about me?’
I look up at him. His fit shoulders fill out his polo shirt and he’s the first boy I’ve ever met who wears white shoes. No scuffs.
‘If I land straight As this year, I get a new car for when I start learning to drive,’ Santa says.
I try to hide my surprise and act cool, as if my parents have always bribed me to do well at school too. ‘Sure,’ I say. ‘I can talk to him.’
‘Chip?’ He hands me the packet. ‘Gotta scram. See ya round.’
When I return to class, my tablet is sitting on my desk, but everyone is still at lunch. I pick up the iPad and slide my finger across it. A red button flashes on the screen. I press it and a voice says, ‘I’m a loser.’ The voice is familiar. I press the button again. ‘I’m a loser,’ the tablet says back to me and I know that whiny voice. Stacey.
‘Open,’ I command.
A robot’s voice interrupts. ‘Sorry, I cannot detect your voice. Please try again.’
I try to mimic Stacey’s voice, which sounds like it’s sucked on a balloon full of helium. The robot voice tells me to try again. I press the button and Stacey hisses, ‘I’m a loser.’ Tears fill my eyes.
‘I’m a loser! I’m a loser!’ I shout, then lift the tablet to throw it across the room when a gentle hand cups my wrist from behind.
Without a word, Tyler takes the iPad from me and connects it to his laptop. ‘Done,’ he says a minute later. ‘I deleted the voice-recognition app.’
I swallow my tears. ‘Want to meet Sibyl after school?’ I ask. It’s the best I can offer him as a thanks.
Tyler Beverage smiles. ‘BYO bugs!’ he says.
Chapter 10
Tyler spreads out on the green rug.
‘Santa wants me to suck up to Dad for him,’ I say.
‘He’s an idiot,’ Tyler says dismissively, watching Socrates stand black bearded and proud in the jungle of rug. Socrates has a bloated belly from too many crickets. Tyler Beverage is the guy to know if you ever need live food. Not many boys share his appreciation for insects.
Tyler picks up Socrates and hangs him in the air, then bobs the creature as if it were talking to me up on the bed. ‘Santa is Stacey’s cousin and they’re both the same — spoilt brats — and like my mum says, too much money and not enough cents,’ the lizard says to me.
‘Cousins?’ I shiver. ‘That’s scary. I don’t think I’ll be pumping him up to Dad.’
Tyler passes Socrates to me. I kiss him on the head, then return him to the enclosure, treading carefully over the rug. It was a huge risk to bring Tyler here — what if he sees some money poking out from beneath the rug? But I felt like I had to do something after he saved my tablet from Stacey’s mean password lockout.
I sit cross-legged opposite Tyler. ‘Sorry I don’t have a PlayStation,’ I say.
Tyler sighs playfully, then grins. ‘No biggie. We’ll just have to communicate the good old-fashioned way and talk.’ He looks around. ‘You buy this joint?’
‘Rent,’ I say. And I know what he’s thinking. Who’d even want to lease a place that is so run-down and falling apart?
If only he knew what grew in the basement. Tyler and I would have so much fun spending the money together — he’d know the cool places to shop and he could help me to hide the stuff we bought. Maybe Fleur would agree we need an outsider’s help with this, someone smart and sensible to keep us on track. Tyler holds up my hands and punches them lightly like a boxer.
‘Do you know female beardies store sperm?’ I ask. ‘They can keep using it to become pregnant with up to three or four clutches — no male required. Pretty awesome, huh?’
‘That’s insane,’ Tyler agrees.
‘So what do your parents do?’
‘Mum runs a label business, selling top-of-the-range labelling guns — she likes things to be tidy. Every cupboard in our house has a name. We even have different junk drawers, one called “real junk” and the other called “junky junk”.’ He gives me a jab, cross, uppercut, then leans back on his hands. ‘Her label guns are sold on TV.’
I nod slowly, trying to imagine what it would be like to live in a world where everything fits under a label. ‘And what does your dad do?’
‘Don’t know. Wears a suit, talks about markets but never brings home any fresh strawberries. Who knows?’
I think of the dark rings under my mum’s eyes. I’ve never known her without those black goggles. I plunge my knuckles into the soft rug. But soon she’ll be able to afford expensive creams to cover them up. She’ll look less wrecked and more like I’d imagine Tyler’s mum to look. Swapping the scanner at the chemist for a labelling gun to organise all the new things she’ll be able to buy. No more pink trainers with stockings.
Tyler yawns, then an idea so bright I can taste it bursts into my head. ‘Do you know where Stacey lives?’ I ask.
‘Yeah, everyone does. She’s in the flashiest house in the neighbourhood, the one on Chaucer Parade.’
‘Will you go with me? We’ll sneak into her room and leave her a present,’ I say.
Tyler looks at me, stunned. ‘That’s a crime!’ he says, way too loudly.
‘Shhh,’ I hush him. ‘Sneaking isn’t a crime.’
‘Breaking and entering is! Trespassing?’ he says, again in a loud voice.
‘Shhhhh. Come on.’
We creep out of my room to study the contents of the fridge. ‘Cheese could work, or chicken thigh,’ I say.
‘But it’ll take time to stink — if that’s where you’re heading with this — and she might find it before it starts to rot,’ Tyler points out.
I close the fridge and lean back on the benchtop. Tyler picks at a tiny pimple on his face whilst he thinks. A cockroach scurries across the floor, so big it looks like a black baby shoe. Tyler launches at it. I yell, ‘Nooo!’ but it’s too late. He slams his foot onto the floor. We hear the splat. Tyler lifts his shoe carefully and a squelch reveals a puddle of blue-black goo.
‘That was one of mine — he escaped,’ I say.
‘Yours?’
‘What’d you think Sibyl and Socrates eat for breakfast? I have a whole colony of them in the garage.’
Tyler smiles slowly. ‘Show me,’ he says.
In the garage I lead Tyler over to two large square black buckets. You smell the cockroaches before you see them. A noxious metallic taste coats your tongue and you always dry-retch when you hear them scurrying through the open egg cartons, which I’ve installed as cockroach play equipment to keep them entertained whilst they sip on wet tissues and nibble carrots.
Tyler studies the cartons and listens to the swooshing of cockroaches sliding over each other’s slick backs to scamper out of the corners. I don’t know why, but they hate corners.
He pinches his nose. ‘So this is the famous colony.’
I give him a wry smile. ‘Minus Simon, who’s dead on the kitchen floor, thanks to somebody.’<
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‘Sorry,’ he says guiltily.
‘It’s alright. You can make it up to me by taking me to Stacey’s house.’ I put on my rubber gloves, then reach into the first bucket and pull out two egg cartons. I look down at the black frenetic fuzz, then close the cartons.
‘Reeks!’ Tyler says, cupping his nose and mouth with his hand.
‘Exactly,’ I say. ‘It’s the cockroach frass.’
He looks at me blankly, his eyes tearing up with the smell.
‘Their poo,’ I explain.
Tyler gags into his T-shirt, then coughs. ‘So this is why you want to go to Stacey’s residence?’ He points to the egg cartons.
‘Residence?’ I roll my eyes.
Tyler smiles and looks over his glasses. ‘And how do you propose we land your gift inside her room?’
‘That’s your job,’ I say.
Before leaving, I re-smear Vaseline around the edges of the buckets. ‘Keeps other Simons from escaping,’ I tell Tyler.
‘Sorry I don’t have a bike,’ I say, then add ‘bike’ to my mental ‘WANT’ list.
‘They’re overrated,’ Tyler says and I almost tell him about the money tree for not mentioning he’d noticed my parents probably couldn’t afford to buy me one.
As we walk, the money tree blooms in my mind. I have the itch to use the money, but under the itch is an anxious throb. I’ve never kept anything from my parents. Maybe if I told Tyler, the throbbing would go away. Maybe he could help me deal with all this. Sweeping the secret under the rug is okay for now, but as the money tree grows, what will happen when I can no longer contain it?
As we pass house after house, they all have a luxurious identicalness about them: extravagant shutters, colourful painted doors, expansive driveways built for more than one car. And those letterboxes — too good for mail. They look like they’d choke on plain white envelopes. They surely only swallow the thickest parchment, heavy cotton paper, like wedding invites I’ve seen Mum rub between her fingers, as she would fondle expensive fabric. A buzz and crackle distracts me.
‘What’re you thinking about?’ Tyler asks. He’s carrying his insect racket and swatting flies with it. They crucify in the electric strings and the smell of singed wings fills the air.