The Mouse

by Lauretta Hignett

  “That’s one thing you don’t have to worry about.”

  “No boyfriend, huh?” The mood in the kitchen lifted as he smirked at her. “Probably ‘cause you’re such a bad surfer.”

  “Ha ha,” she laughed mockingly. She was suddenly brave enough to ask, “What about you?”

  “No boyfriend either,” he replied, grinning. She put her head to one side and raised her eyebrows questioningly. “No, no girlfriend. My job makes it kinda hard.”

  “But you must date a bit?” Sunny couldn’t imagine someone as virile and handsome as Hunter being, God forbid, celibate. Annabel would have a fit.

  “Well, I used to see a couple of girls from the agency. From the same unit as me.”

  “What unit is that?”

  “Never you mind. But dating them was okay, ‘cause they understood that you couldn’t share certain parts of your life with them. And they were alright with the erratic hours I keep, and the sudden overseas trips, because they were the same.” Hunter’s eyes suddenly drifted to the ceiling, as if he was trying not to think of something. There was a pause, and he huffed out a breath. “But there was no one that stuck around. I guess I’m quite protective of my privacy, even for an operative. I don’t like to share much. I think both my parents must have bred that into me.”

  “Really? You never struck me as particularly reticent.” Sunny was being sarcastic.

  “I’m not, with you.” He looked at her thoughtfully, and her heart skipped a beat. “I guess it’s because I know that it would be useless to try. You could find out anything you wanted about me, at any time.”

  “I haven’t though, and I won’t. I did promise you that,” Sunny said. “I was quite impressed with your speech about spying on your friends and family”.

  His mouth hardened in a line. “I was speaking from personal experience. I found out a few things about my parents that I wish I didn’t know.”

  Sunny was intrigued, and sensed that he was sharing something that he wouldn’t dare tell anyone. She waited to see if he would go on. He didn’t, and she just had to fill the silence. “Well, you’ve warned me off snooping on anyone I know and love. Which is a pity; I would make the world’s best stalker.” It was a terrible joke. There was a small pause. “So,” she continued, all business-like. “The English guy is OK? And the notebook was useful?”

  “Yes, he’s going to be okay. He’s pretty messed up – he went missing almost a year ago. They worked him over for information pretty bad.” Hunter said gravely. “He’s managed to give us lots of information about the camp, so we’re organising an assault now. As for the notebook, it was more of the same that you gave us before – platoon movements, planned attacks, that sort of thing. It’s invaluable information.”

  “That’s great!” Sunny was too cheerful. She swivelled back around on her stool to face the fridge: she still didn’t want to tell Hunter what had happened when she had stolen the notebook.

  “Okay.” He turned her back around to face him. “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s just… well…” She stalled, then finally met his eye. “The guy who I stole the notebook from got shot. Right there and then. And they all carried on like nothing had happened. Two of the typists had blood splattered on them, and they were just desperately pretending like it wasn’t there.” She felt tears well up in her eyes. “It was awful. And that wasn’t the most awful part. That was before I even got to the prisoner cells.”

  Hunter sighed and put his hand on her shoulder. His palm was so warm; it distracted her immediately. She had to resist the urge to turn her head and kiss it.

  “I’m sorry,” he said sincerely. “I’m not in a rush to send you back in there, that’s for sure. People can do some horrible things to each other; I’ve seen it firsthand too.” He glanced up at her, tense. “And it’s not as simple as one side versus the other. Good versus evil. I’ve seen deadly enemies become allies overnight, oblivious to the carnage they’d wrecked on the innocent civilians around them. I’ve seen western agencies conspire to replace presidents with tyrants who torture their own people, so that they can get a particular mineral exported a little easier. The lives of so many people hinge on the whim of madmen.”

  Hunter stopped and took a deep breath. “We might have to witness suffering, we might have to bear it, but as long as we can do whatever we’re capable of to stop it, then I can live with myself.”

  They stared at each other for a long time, silent in mutual understanding. Then Hunter shrugged. “I wish I could take you out for a walk or something, get out of this apartment. But it’s not safe for you to be out with me. If anyone saw us together, they’d wonder who you were.”

  Instantly Sunny felt depressed again. There was no hope of even having a normal friendship with the guy.

  “So, tonight, Hunter continued. “We’re going to try meditation.”

  “What?”

  “Meditation. To try and alter my consciousness slightly.” Hunter grinned at her narrowed eyes. “I’ve got a cabin up in the Blue Mountains. I’m headed up there tonight. Come and find me, and we’ll see about practicing trying to take me with you.”

  “So, how will I find you?”

  “That’s the other thing I want you to practice,” he told her, grinning.

  Chapter 16

  Sunny was running late for her first class – she couldn’t believe she could be so stupid. She’d stayed at Hunter’s too long, and it was he who pointed out what the time was and suggested that she’d probably be late for school. She zoomed home, after promising to meet him in an unnamed location at an unspecified time later on that evening.

  He was kidding himself; she’d never be able to find him. At least she had his phone number.

  She had the foresight to wet her hair in the sink before she hurried off to school, texting Annabel to stall the start of the class as long as she could and distract Mrs Price, her PE teacher. When she hurried onto the field with her hockey stick in hand, the class were still in a loose circle around the Mrs Price, amused looks on their faces.

  Annabel was in fine form.

  “I was just curious, Mrs Price.” Her voice was innocent and polite. “I know it’s a personal question, but you’re always telling us about how we need to expose sexism where we see it and challenge the patriarchy. You got married last year, and you changed your name. Why did you change your name?”

  Mrs Price was sweating slightly, and the class hadn’t even started yet. “It’s a personal choice, Annabel. One of the benefits of feminism and the freedoms we have fought for is that we are able to make these choices now, and we should be able to exercise them.”

  “But that’s not actually a reason. Feminism isn’t about choice; it’s about equality. There’s nothing equal about that tradition if it’s always the woman changing her name. Changing your name upon marriage was like a bill of sale for your dad. He’s giving you as property to your husband, so you take your husband’s name, right?”

  “Well, it used to be like that. It’s not anymore. But it is a bit of a tradition that my husband and I decided to keep going.”

  “But why is it so important?”

  “Uh, it just… is.”

  Annabel just raised her eyebrows.

  “Well,” Mrs Price tried again, “we want to have children, and we’ll be a family. A team. A team has the same name.”

  “Is your sister not your sister?

  “What?”

  “You don’t have the same name anymore…”

  “That’s different,” Mrs Price snapped. “In our immediate family, we want to have the same name.”

  “So why didn’t he take yours?”

  Mrs Price squirmed. “Of course, we discussed it…” It was clear to the whole class that this was a blatant lie.

  Sunny got into Annabel’s line of sight and gave her a nod to let her know she could let up now; her job was over. She’d successfully distracted Mrs Price enough that Sunny could sneak into class late.

  Annab
el ignored her.

  “So you discussed it, but still decided to erase your identity? To keep the ‘Bill of Sale’ tradition going?

  “I’m still the same person, Annabel.”

  “No, you’re not, you changed your name. Your husband didn’t change anything.”

  “Alright, that’s enough Annabel.” Mrs Price was steaming mad now. “Unless you want to do a few laps of the field and blow off all that steam.”

  “Oh, so we’re being punished now for challenging ingrained misogyny?” Annabel’s face was a picture. The whole class was sniggering.

  Mrs Price took the only road she could and ignored her. She started numbering all the girls off, ones and twos. “Ones on this side, twos on the other!” She yelled, blowing her whistle.

  Sunny found herself right opposite Annabel on the hockey field, facing her off. She was laughing so hard she could barely keep herself upright.

  “I said stall her, not destabilize her,” she giggled. Annabel smiled back proudly.

  “I’ve always wanted to have that argument with someone. It’s never made any sense to me why anyone changes their name when they get married. Apart from my mum, that is.”

  “Hey, I’m on board with you. I still think that it’s pretty horrifying, the number of women that still sit around waiting for their boyfriends to propose to them, and they act like it’s the most amazing thing that’s ever happened to them.”

  “Don’t get me started on the whole wedding thing. Hey, let’s spend the equivalent of a house deposit on food and drink for people to witness an archaic ceremony meaningless and devoid of functionality in modern society,” said Annabel, lining up for the whistle.

  “You don’t want to be a princess for a day?” Sunny asked her, knowing the answer.

  “Fuck being a princess. They don’t do shit. I want to be a queen. They rule.”

  The whistle blew, and the girls smacked into each other. They played hard and fast – Sunny went after the opposition like a demon possessed, and Annabel was conceding nothing. The final score: 2-1 to Annabel’s team.

  Sunny had a scrape on her shin and Annabel was sporting a tiny cut lip. Despite having given each other their injuries, the girls were laughing companionably as they came off the field.

  “So, how was your surfy sexpot this morning? Annabel asked her. “What’s his name, anyway? I don’t want to always have to come up with a cute nickname for the mystery man every time we mention him.”

  “Hunter,” Sunny said. Made it easier to keep track of, giving her his real name. She sighed. “He’s good. Way, way too good. But I think I’ve come to terms with my crush a little bit. It looks like we’re going to be friends, at least. Speaking of, do you think you could cover for me this evening? If my dad asks, can I say I’m at your house doing homework and girl stuff?”

  “Only if you can tell me what you’re really going to be doing…” Annabel leered at her.

  Sunny gave a fake grimace. “Meditation. Hunter is convinced it will help me with my surfing. He wants to teach me how.”

  “That’s great!” Annabel was enthusiastic.

  “I would have thought you’d be pretty disdainful about meditation.” Sunny was surprised.

  “It’s been scientifically proven to help with mental and physiological health. And you know what I say, you can’t argue with science. Only science argues with science.”

  They continued their conversation in the back row of the science labs, while Miss Lander showed a movie about osmosis.

  “This is the most fascinating thing I’ve ever seen,” Annabel whispered sarcastically. “Sunny, you could make the most of it and practice your meditation now, while you’ve got the time.”

  “The best thing about meditation is that no one can tell how good you are at it. I might suck at meditation, but no one would know. I had this shrink once, who Dad wanted me to see, this big jolly guy, he looked like Santa had shaved is beard in the off-season.” Sunny smiled at the memory. “He was big into meditation. He taught me one way to do it – you just focus on your breath. If a thought comes into your head, you acknowledge it, and then go back to focusing on your breath… It’s really hard. Anyway, a few times I went to see him, I’d have nothing really to say, and he’d go, “oh let’s just meditate for a while then.” And we’d sit there; I’d wait until he was snoring properly and then I’d play Angry Birds on my phone”.

  The three of them snickered.

  “The worst part was that he was charging my dad one hundred and twenty bucks, to sit there and nap for an hour.”

  “You could have made him work for it, tell him your darkest thoughts or something,” Annabel said pointedly.

  “But he was so sweet! I didn’t want him to know I was thinking anything bad at all. Kind of defeats the purpose, having a shrink that you can’t confess anything to because you want them to like you.”

  The three of them giggled softly and tried to concentrate on the movie. As the tinny sound of the TV blahed on about osmosis and mitosis, Sunny surreptitiously got her tablet out and looked up the villages of the Blue Mountains, to get a feel for where Hunter’s cabin may be.

  He never said anything about not cheating.

  It was hard to keep a lid on her excitement, but she tried. Her mood couldn’t even be dulled by Jake being his obnoxious self during the scene reading they had to do for the play – luckily the whole cast was involved, and he couldn’t torture her too much.

  “What’s with him anyway?” Sunny muttered to Simon and Annabel, as they packed up their books and headed to their lockers.

  “He likes you,” said Simon simply.

  “No way!”

  “I don’t think he likes her; I think it’s more complicated than that.” Annabel chipped in. “I think he likes her, but he hates that she doesn’t like him back. He has an overblown sense of entitlement, and that’s dangerous.”

  “Oh goddamnit,” Sunny put her head in her hands, “That’s all I need. What the hell am I going to do about it?”

  “You don’t need to do anything,” Annabel stressed. “It’s his deal, his problem. Not yours.”

  “You’re right.” Sunny smiled at her, but she felt in her bones that it would escalate until it was very much her problem.

  “What does ‘misogynist’ mean?” Simon asked.

  “It’s Latin for ‘micropenis,’” Annabel told him.

  They walked outside in the bright sunshine Sunny remembered something Annabel had said. “What was your mother’s maiden name?” she asked her.

  “Wang.”

  Sunny almost exploded. “No! Oh, that’s awesome. You would have been – “

  “Don’t say it.” Annabel giggled.

  “Oh geeze, I think I peed myself a little bit.”

  “I don’t get it!” Simon looked forlorn.

  “Don’t worry about it, Si.” Sunny pulled herself together. She turned to Annabel. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Remember, we’re hanging out tonight, right? Homework, then a movie? And maybe the weekend too. Are your parent’s home this weekend?”

  “Mother yes, Father no. Mother’s new boyfriend, yes. He’s a hairdresser; I’m getting some foils done for keeping my mouth shut.”

  “Your mum is so considerate, thinking of you when she chooses her lovers.”

  They walked out the school gates with the few hundred or so other student and Sunny bid her friend's goodbye and walked home. It would be so much easier, she thought, if she could just take the Alternate home. But there were people with cameras everywhere these days. Damn this modern age.

  She wandered home, ostensibly to pack a bag to take to Annabel’s for the night. As she put her key in the front door, she heard Steph from the kitchen.

  “Hey Sunny! I’ve made you some chia muffins to take to Annabel’s with you.”

  Sunny groaned internally and stomped off towards the kitchen. It was too much to ask that she could be alone to get ready to go and see Hunter. As futile as it was, she wanted to look nice, and
had planned to dither for a while about what to wear, and try and make her hair look good.

  Steph bustled in the kitchen with an apron on. Archie giggled and squealed from his high chair by the counter, playing with a piece of muffin. Sunny gave him a kiss on the head and slumped on a stool.

  “Here,” Steph passed her a basket. “I made them with coconut sugar; let me know how they are.”

  “Thanks.” Sunny grudgingly admitted that Steph was a good cook. But it didn’t counterbalance any of her other annoying character flaws. She took a muffin from the basket and had a tiny nibble.

  “What are you girls up to tonight?” Steph asked cheerfully.

  “Nothing much. Movies, junk food, that kind of thing.”

  “Sounds great. How is the play going?”

  “Not great.” For some reason strange reason, she was compelled to tell Steph. “There’s a boy in the play that’s a total bastard.”

  “A bastard how?” Steph was unfazed by cussing. Another annoying character trait.

  “He’s just a bit of a creep. He hasn’t done anything.”

  “Well, if he’s making you uncomfortable, that’s not on. Can you tell your teacher?”

  “I have. Unfortunately, there’s nothing they can do about leering and smirks and general douchery.”

  “Well, if it escalates, let me know. I’ll do something.”

  “What can you do?” Sunny asked witheringly.

  “I’ll think of something. I know people.” Steph winked at her.

  “Don’t worry about it. I can handle myself,” Sunny reached over and plucked Archie out of his highchair for a cuddle, and, demonstrating perfectly that he can read minds and that he had Sunny’s best interests at heart, he happily mashed a huge piece of muffin into her hair.

  “Oh no!” Sunny cried. “Now I’ll have to have a shower and wash my hair!”

  And maybe blow dry and straighten it, she thought. And a bit of lip gloss wouldn’t go astray either.

  An hour later she was as dolled up as she dared, she left the house. She felt eyes on her as she walked up the path to the gate, pausing to look back she saw Steph watching her from the upstairs window.