Snake Bite

by Christie Thompson

  ‘I’m a different kind of jerk.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Hey!’ Lukey gave me a shove. ‘Anyway, I thought you could look out for her. For Ash. After I’m gone.’

  ‘Me?’ I wriggled away from him so I could look him in the face. ‘She’s your sister.’

  ‘As a favour. For me.’

  ‘Maybe I was gunna come with you! You asked me to come, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yeah, but that was before . . .’

  ‘Before what?’

  ‘I dunno. You’re being weird. You’ve barely even spoken to me for, like, two weeks.’

  ‘Ooooh, two whole weeks!’ I sargasmed. ‘What would happen if I didn’t see you for, like, a month! I’d be practically dead to you!’

  ‘Well, why haven’t you called me or anything?’

  ‘No credit on my phone.’

  ‘Facebook?’

  ‘Why haven’t you called me?’

  ‘’Cos you’ve been a mega bitch lately. Like fully losing your rag at me for no reason. Getting jealous if I hang out with Laura and all that.’

  ‘I’m not jealous.’

  ‘Could’ve fooled me. What’s your problem with her anyway?’

  ‘I don’t know. Nothing, I guess.’

  ‘She thinks it’s because you like me. Like, like like me.’

  ‘Oh! Sure!’ I scoffed.

  ‘She said she doesn’t want to cut your grass.’

  ‘There’s no grass!’

  ‘Yeah, well . . .’

  ‘There’s no fuckin’ grass!’

  ‘She tries hard when she’s around you, extra hard when you get all up in her stuff, talking smack.’

  ‘Talking smack?! Ha ha, where do you get this shit from?’

  ‘The internet mostly.’ Lukey grinned. ‘But serious, Jezza, she’s just trying to get you to like her.’

  ‘But why does she care?’

  ‘Because she wants friends here, and she likes you. She told me so. She said, “Jez is so fun when she isn’t losing her rag.”’

  ‘I can’t imagine Laura saying “losing her rag”.’

  ‘Something like that. Give her a chance.’

  ‘Maybe. Did I tell you we went over there for dinner last night? Me and Mum with her family?’

  ‘No shit.’ Lukey laughed. ‘How was that?’

  ‘Not as bad as I thought it was gunna be,’ I told him. ‘The food was awesome.’

  ‘So you’re thinking about coming, then? To Melbourne?’

  ‘Definitely thinking about it. I kinda wanna finish school, too.’

  ‘Serious? I didn’t know that.’

  ‘I passed all my subjects this year.’

  ‘Fuckin’ hell, Jez. You got brains, hey? That’s rad.’

  I shrugged. ‘I dunno. Like, what are you gunna do for money?’

  ‘I dunno, hey. Just anything I can get really.’

  ‘I don’t want to end up working in Woolies or something crap like that.’

  ‘Nah, me neither. Fuck that. I’ll get a job in a pub or something once I’m eighteen.’

  ‘My mum works the bar. Turns you into an alco.’

  ‘Ha ha. I wouldn’t care. Free drinks are free drinks.’

  ‘Yeah, I guess so.’

  Lukey looked at his digital Casio. ‘I gotta bounce. See if Dad and Mark have killed each other yet. Cross fingers.’

  ‘’Kay.’

  ‘Call me later?’

  ‘Yep.’

  I started to walk towards my house.

  ‘Hey, Jez!’ Lukey called, about twenty metres away. ‘Do you?’

  ‘What?’

  Lukey’s voice cracked a little. ‘Like like me?’

  My heart did little flips as I saw his hopeful eyes searching my face.

  ‘Laura should shut her fat pie hole!’ I yelled, and grinned so he could see I was joking.

  I turned around and dashed across the melting-hot tarred road.

  TWENTY-TWO

  I slept late into the night and woke up, bleary-eyed and head-fucked, to Mum rapping loudly on my bedroom door.

  ‘Fuck!’ My head pounded with dehydration. ‘Can you give it a rest?’

  ‘I’ve just had Dana on the phone.’ Mum put her hands on her hips. ‘She reckons you and Casey ditched Laura in the city last night!’

  I pulled my pillow over my face. ‘Not true,’ I mumbled into the pillow. ‘It wasn’t even like that.’

  Mum snatched the pillow off my face. ‘So you and Casey didn’t take off and leave Laura by herself? In a strange city she doesn’t know?’

  ‘She left! She said she wanted to go home!’

  ‘Oh, Jez! Why didn’t you walk her to the taxi? Apparently she was wandering around lost for half an hour, hassled out by a bunch of drunks.’

  ‘I don’t know! Is she okay?’

  ‘She’s fine. Dana isn’t too impressed with you, though, letting her daughter roam the streets by herself when she was supposed to be out with her friends!’

  ‘Oh, Mum. This is Canberra, not the ghetto. Melbourne would have been tons more dangerous.’

  ‘That’s not the point —’

  ‘Well I don’t know what the point is then.’

  ‘Just . . . The point is . . .’ Mum lost her parental nagging rhythm. ‘Look, just apologise, okay?’

  Mum threw the pillow back in my face and left the room.

  The next day I went over to apologise to Laura. I kept picturing the look on her face when Casey told her to fuck off.

  Dana answered the door.

  ‘Jez!’ Her voice sounded friendly, but her mouth was pressed into a straight line. I don’t reckon I was her favourite person in the world at that moment. ‘Laura’s just popped to the shop for some munchies. I’m all greasy hands.’ She held up her black-slicked palms as evidence. ‘We’ve been working on one of my bikes. You want to take a look?’

  ‘Sure.’ I half shrugged and followed Dana out to the backyard.

  ‘Here we go,’ Dana gestured. ‘What do you think? A vintage lowrider. Needs a new paint job and then she’ll be right to sell.’

  ‘That is awesome!’ I breathed. ‘I would totally ride that.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Dana smiled. ‘It’s a lot of fun.’

  Dana raised a hand to her short, spiked blonde hair and then remembering her dirty hands, wiped them on the back of her bib and brace overalls.

  ‘What colour are you going to do it?’

  ‘Hm . . . not sure yet. What do you think?’

  ‘Red! Or maybe electric blue and black!’

  ‘Like your hair?’ Dana smiled.

  ‘My favourite colours,’ I admitted.

  ‘I’ve always been a bike lover. Since I was a kid and me and my friends would ride around the neighbourhood together. I guess I never grew out of it.’

  ‘I’ve never had a bike,’ I told her. ‘I’m more of a walker.’

  ‘Canberra’s so spaced out, though. You need a bike.’

  ‘Maybe . . . Look, I just came to say sorry for ditching Laura the other night in the city. Well, we didn’t really ditch her. But she really wanted to go home, and I probably should have gone with her.’

  ‘I appreciate your apology, Jez. She’s my only daughter. I’d like for her to have some good friends who will watch out for her, and she can watch out for them. That’d really give me some piece of mind.’ Dana spoke in a low gruff voice, but I could tell she really cared heaps about Laura. It made me feel guilty.

  ‘Yeah . . .’ I swallowed. ‘Well, sorry.’

  ‘So who is this Casey girl who was out with you?’

  ‘My neighbour. She’s okay.’

  ‘Not according to your mum.’

  ‘Mum doesn’t like her much,’ I admitted.

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘I dunno. I guess she’s kind of loose.’

  ‘Loose? Like, sexually?’

  I felt a blush in my cheeks. ‘Nah, loose just means off tap. Like, a bit wild. But yeah, I guess sexually . . . Tha
t, too.’

  ‘Sorry.’ Dana grinned. ‘Not up on the kid lingo.’

  I shrugged. ‘I hate it when my mum tries to talk young.’

  ‘So you want to help me with this bike? I could do with an extra set of hands until Laura gets back. She’s not that into the bikes anyway.’

  ‘Yeah!’ I was pretty keen, in spite of myself. ‘What are you doing?’

  Dana showed me this ripped old banana seat that she was going to re-pad and cover with a sheet of thick sparkly silver vinyl. It looked super rad. I helped her hold the padding in place while she fitted the base back onto the seat. I was so busy asking Dana questions about how she was going to customise the bike that I didn’t notice Laura come into the yard until her shadow fell over us.

  ‘Hi,’ she said, all moody and flat, munching from a bag of Kettle chips.

  ‘Hey,’ I said.

  ‘Hey, baby-doll.’ Dana’s face softened when she spoke to her daughter. ‘Nice walk?’

  Laura shrugged and perched herself on the edge of a sun lounger near the above-ground pool. ‘It was alright. What are you doing here, Jez?’

  I straightened myself up, shaking out my leg that had gone to sleep from sitting on the grass. ‘Came to say sorry for the other night. Sorry I didn’t bail with you.’

  ‘Really?’ Laura looked from me to Dana. ‘Or is it because my mum rang your mum?’

  I shifted, mega-uncomfortable. ‘Nah . . .’

  ‘She treats me like I’m five years old!’ Laura nodded to Dana and then stood up. ‘I’ll be inside. Too hot out here.’

  ‘What are you doing now, then?’ Dana asked. ‘Why don’t you offer Jez something to drink?’

  ‘I’m just gunna watch telly,’ Laura said dully, and dangled her hand in her packet of chips. ‘If that’s alright with you.’

  The light had gone from behind Laura’s eyes. I’d seen it happen to heaps of kids that’d grown up round here. One minute they’re kids and they have a sparkle and they’re laughing and playing games and then their fire just fizzles out. Next time you see them they’re chaining durries and sinking Bundy Cokes at the Village and there’s just nothing there anymore but blank, bored, stupid expressions on their dials. I wasn’t surprised it’d happened to Laura, but I was surprised it had happened so fast. And surprised that it made me sad.

  ‘Look, Laura,’ I began. ‘I’m really sorry about ditching you, and that party being so shitty and . . .’

  ‘Did you have a good night?’ Laura didn’t sound annoyed, more distracted.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘It was really shit. I probably should have just caught the taxi home. But then I would have been ditching Case, so . . .’

  ‘You could have walked me to the taxi rank. I got lost.’

  I put my hands up in defeat.

  ‘I’ll be inside.’

  Dana and I watched as Laura crossed the yard, sandals scuffing through the dry grass, then across the patio, into the house.

  ‘She’s not coping well,’ Dana murmured, inspecting the bike seat. ‘With the move and everything else.’

  ‘It must suck for her. ’Cos in Melbourne there’s so much to do, and here it’s like . . . dead.’

  ‘It’ll be good for her. I grew up in a neighbourhood like this. I loved it. We knew all our neighbours, and I was friends with all the kids in my street.’

  ‘I think probably times have changed.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Dana gave a short laugh. ‘Maybe I’m out of touch, huh?’

  ‘No. You’re cool for a parent.’

  Dana smiled half-heartedly. ‘I wasn’t always a parent. Sometimes I forget that’s what I am.’

  ‘I’ll go cheer Laura up.’ I started towards the house.

  ‘Jez,’ Dana called after me. ‘Thanks. You’re a good kid.

  Don’t let the bastards drag you down, if you know what I mean.’

  I kind of knew.

  ‘Sure,’ I replied.

  ‘And if you ever want me to fix you up with a bike . . .’

  ‘Sweet as.’ I nodded. I locked eyes with Dana. We were kind of having one of those ‘moments’ like you see on the telly. I wondered if people had telly moments before telly was invented, or if telly had invented the moments thing and now people were trying to live like the lives of people they saw on the TV. I was no good at telly moments so I just hurried into the house extra quick, suddenly starving and hoping Laura hadn’t finished all those chips yet.

  Laura was in the kitchen pouring some Maltesers from a bag into a bowl.

  ‘You mind?’ I gestured towards them. ‘I’m wasting with hunger.’

  ‘Go ahead. I shouldn’t be eating this shit anyway.’

  ‘Cheers.’ I popped a few chocolates in my mouth and chewed thoughtfully. ‘You’re upset about what Casey said, huh?’

  ‘Casey’s a fucking bitch.’

  ‘Casey is a bitch,’ I confessed to her. ‘But she’s okay once you get to know her a bit.’

  ‘If she’s a bitch, why do you hang out with her?’

  ‘I dunno. I don’t really. I don’t really have female friends,’ I told her. ‘At school I’d just hang round with Lukey and Martin and a couple of other guys. Casey’s sort of the same. She’s not a girl’s girl. She likes hanging with the boys.’

  Laura narrowed her eyes a little. ‘You know, girls who say that, it always makes me cautious.’

  ‘Say what?’

  ‘That they don’t like other women.’ Laura folded her arms and leaned back against the kitchen counter. ‘How can you just rule out fifty percent of the population based on their gender? And then hang out with Casey even though she’s so nasty?’

  ‘I dunno.’ I was flustered. ‘Girls are just mean, hey. Guys don’t dog each other the way girls do.’

  ‘I’ve never dogged you, Jez. Not on purpose anyway.’

  She had me there. Laura had really tried to be my friend. It was mostly me who’d been a cow to her.

  ‘Start again? I am sorry, hey.’ I looked her in the eyes. I was totally sincere.

  Laura just stared. Then she grabbed the bowl of Maltesers from my hands.

  ‘It doesn’t matter, Jez,’ she muttered before she turned towards the lounge room. ‘I really don’t care anymore.’

  I let myself out the front door.

  TWENTY-THREE

  I hate Christmas. Even when I was a kid, I never got the presents I wanted, it was always hot, and while I imagined every other family crowding around one of those perfect silver-and-blue baubled trees like I saw in David Jones, oohing and ahhing over their perfectly wrapped presents, then sitting down to eat one of those turkeys the size of a VW beetle, my Christmases never turned out like that.

  I don’t even bother getting presents for people. When I was about eight, maybe nine, I saved up my pocket money for twelve weeks, a dollar a week, to buy Mum an oil burner. It was a ceramic dish with a hole underneath where you could light a tea light candle and make your house smelly. I paid four bucks for it at the Dollar Shop and then bought a tiny bottle of rose oil to go with it. I hid it in an old shoebox under my bed, and was nearly sick with anticipation and excitement to give it to my mum. I kept picturing her face light up, and then her drawing me into a big hug, saying I was the best daughter ever.

  Then about a week before Christmas me and Mum were in the Dollar Shop stocking up on plastic Christmas-themed tableware and serviettes and we walked past the shelves filled with the ceramic oil burners and I decided to test Mum out.

  ‘These are real pretty.’ I picked one up and showed it to her.

  Mum wrinkled her face and took it out of my hand and put it back on the shelf. ‘They stink. Give me migraine headaches.’

  Later that night after Mum went to bed I took the oil burner out into the backyard and threw it against the concrete, smashing it into little bits and then scooped up the pieces with my hands and put them into the outside bin along with the little bottle of oil.

  I thought about it every Christmas after that, and it always mad
e me sad. So I never bothered buying presents.

  I walked into the kitchen Christmas morning wrapped in my kimono robe. Mum was making a store-bought barbecue chicken dance while stripping off its skin and putting one bit on a plastic platter then tilting back her neck and dropping a fatty bit of chicken skin into her mouth, then smacking her shiny lips. Mum’d moved her telly from her bedroom to the kitchen table so she could watch Christmas specials while she cooked. KISS Saves Christmas was playing on a table loaded with plastic tubs of Woolies creamy potato and pasta salads.

  Mum clocked me standing in the doorway and gave me a wink.

  ‘I bought that haloumi you like!’ She held up a packet. ‘Like we had over at Dana and Joan’s. We can stick it under the grill as a starter.’

  I shrugged. ‘Yeah, it was alright. Shouldn’t you put these salads in the fridge? It must be forty degrees already.’

  ‘Fridge is too full!’

  I opened the fridge door. It was stacked with six-packs of Bundy and Coke, Vodka Cruisers, bottles of wine and cans of soft drink.

  ‘Santa’s been, love!’ Mum plopped the chicken down and wiped her hands on a teatowel. ‘Come and check under the tree!’

  I smiled in spite of myself. ‘You’re a dag,’ I told Mum.

  I knelt on the carpet next to the three-foot tall green plastic tree that Mum had put up and draped a few scraggly bits of tinsel over. There were two presents underneath, both had JEZ written in permanent black marker right across the wrapping paper.

  ‘Remember I gave you that fifty bucks at the shops the other day, so just a few small things for Chrissie morning.’

  I opened the biggest present first. It was a family-sized box of Cadbury chocolates.

  ‘Yummo.’ I faked a big smile.

  ‘We’ll share them after lunch, ay?’ Mum looked pleased as punch with herself. ‘Now open your other present. You’re gunna love this.’

  I tore the wrapping off the smaller gift.

  ‘Oh . . . wow.’ My mouth fell open.

  I lifted up a delicate silk-and-lace camisole and matching boxer shorts. They were royal blue, the same colour as the streak in my hair. They were beautiful.

  ‘Mum!’ I was speechless.

  ‘Real silk!’ Mum was dancing from one foot to the other, practically exploding.