Anyway, it shouldn’t surprise you to hear that this week of all weeks, I presumed Kitty would take some serious tolerating from the nine strangers (including staff) in the Brownie pack.
Yet, she came bounding out of the hall beaming. “Tawny Owl says I’m good as gold!” she announced, proudly producing from her pocket a novelty sew-on badge with exactly that written on it. All the proof I could ask for that things were going at least as well as I could ever have expected.
“Oh yes,” said Tawny. “Kitty taught us all the words to ‘Chim Chim Cher-ee’ tonight.”
Ah, so. The classic Guiding song about chim-chimney sweeping. It was nothing like it had been three years ago. Whatever happened to “Barges”?
“And she tidied up all the juggling beanbags,” added Brown Owl.
Juggling beanbags indeed! Oh well, at least Kitty seemed to be enjoying herself in a friendly, all-girl environment where badgework apparently involved a great deal of musical theatre and light circus tricks.
I would have to retire to my room to ascertain how much of my ambivalence actually came from jealousy alone…
#16 Italy Suspicious
Something pestoey was going on.
It was Thursday, Lioum’s ninth birthday (and his first in Australia of course), so we’d all got ready for school a little early so we could sing him the birthday song and each take a turn on the phone for a quick catchup.
The phone rang on and on until I thought we’d get the answer machine, but I wasn’t worried because Auntie Sharon had always liked to leave it ’til the message to save on answering for anyone unnecessary. Surprisingly, the phone was picked up on the last ring. Zak hit speakerphone for us.
“Hi!” (Lioum.)
“HI!” (All of us.) “HAP-PY BIRTH-DAY TO YOU, HAP-PY BIRTH-DAY TO YOU!! HAP-PY BIRTH-DAY DEAR LI-OUM… HA-PPY BIRTH-DAY TO YOU!!”
“Thanks everybody!” (Lioum.) “Wow, it must be really early in England. It’s dinnertime here, and I’ve had all my presents. Dad’s taking us all to a water park on Saturday! A water park in January. Imagine!”
I was already imagining. What to us Brits sounded like the frozen cousin of Hell, was probably an amazing day out in Australia. He certainly sounded excited. Or something…
We could hear someone talking in the background, who turned out to be Sharon as she came nearer to the mouthpiece. “The family? We mustn’t keep them on the phone, sweetheart, it has to be costing a fortune!”
“Honestly, Shaz, it’s quite alright!” said Mum, though it wasn’t, and if me and Charlie hung around much longer we’d be late.
“Can I talk to Lioum for a bit?” asked Zak. “I want to tell him about my-”
“I think we should let the twins go first,” Mum interrupted. “Sharon, are you still there? Would you mind putting Shelley on for the twins?”
“Shelley’s at her friend’s at the moment,” said Sharon, without hesitation. “I can tell her you called. Well, we’d better get on. We have a dinner reservation at eight to be getting ready for. What a pity you don’t email – I could waffle for hours about this Italian restaurant. But I won’t! Ta-raa!”
A dinner reservation. That was believable. Prying Aussies should note that every single family birthday, Auntie Sharon forks out for a semi-posh meal. Because our family’s quite big, this one particular restaurant down by the shingle beach is about the only place we ever eat out apart from McDonald’s. But that still didn’t explain Lioum talking like his voice box didn’t want to stand still. Nine wasn’t quite old enough for that to start playing up yet, so what was the reason?
And as for you being out on your own brother’s birthday, so close to the special dinner trip – well, maybe that was the reason he sounded so antsy. But you’d have known we’d call on his special day!
Mulling things over on the brisk walk to school, I couldn’t make any sense of it. I was walking with Charlie because Andy and even Kay had left without us, thanks to our uneventful catchup session, and it didn’t help that he was insistent not to join me in my scepticism. As far as he was concerned, there was nothing at all strange about the circumstances, and it made me wonder if he’d forgotten what a homebody you are already. Or whether you had…
#17 All In The Name Of…
“You have emo hair!”
“No I don’t!” whined Charlie, uselessly. Had I twinnishly sensed his mind silently whirring a “Not so much emo hair anymore, but you’re not to know…”
Obviously not. “Fag!” snorted Justin, derisively. One of the cockiest chav boys from our class had taken to picking on Charlie much like Asta does to me, and there was little we could do about it. “Everyone knows you shave your legs!”
“I waxed them, thank you very much!” Charlie corrected. “What sort of wimp do you take me for?”
“The sort who likes to take it u-”
Justin didn’t manage to finish his sentence, because Andy was in there with his hourly helping of horrendous humour: “I’m sure his hair’s not emo, Justin. If it was, it’d have cut itself by now!”
For the probable millionth time in Charlie’s life, Andy had been to the rescue with the sort of line that it’d take bullies half the afternoon to figure out whether was meant to belittle him or them.
“Maybe it needs a little help,” suggested Justin’s mate Scott, rootling in his pencilcase. He retrieved a pair of scissors.
“Leave me alone!” yelled Charlie. “I’m not gay! I only waxed my legs for charity. We’d like to see you come up with anything so selfless.”
“Who’s ‘we’?” teased Justin. “I don’t see anyone backing you up.”
“Obverz it’s Charlie’s wee!” snickered Scott. “Here, I’ve got an idea. We can be selfless by getting rid of all that manky grunger mop so that no one has to look at it or smell it.”
Charlie visibly quaked. I wanted to tell them to leave him alone, but I knew no boy would ever listen to me. I couldn’t even get a hall full of newbie Girl Guides to shut up, and so I bottled it and left.
“Wreyyyy! Scott said ‘wee’!” chortled Justin. “Posh-o!”
The second the group of boys descended on Scott for his supposed linguistic faux-pa, our teacher re-entered the room and bums mysteriously found seats in under a minute. Such is life in the top set at the worst school in the area…
* * *
“Umm…” I mumbled, eyeing what was scrawled on the back of Charlie’s shirt.
“Bongo?” giggled Charlie, who’d got into his nervous-stupid mood from the adrenaline of classroom banter and stayed there.
“Your back. It says ‘I love men – property of Jordy Johnson.”
“You what…?” he said, sickly.
“It does,” Kay established. “It says you’re Jordy’s gay property.”
“Jordy’s not gay!” Charlie protested. “It’s a joke.”
“Glad to hear it,” I heard myself say. Jordy was mine, and the sooner he realised that the better. “I’d love a T-shirt that says that…”
“You’re welcome to it,” he groaned, starting to peel it off right there in the corridor. “Urgh, in Tipp-Ex, too!”
Of course, it was non-school-uniform day, and Charlie was wearing his (black) “Long Live The Black Parade” T-shirt – the one I thought I’d never see again after what happened with Malice.
“You can’t go round like that,” I warned. “It’s non-school-uniform, not come-to-school-naked.”
“Well, I’ll have yours, you silly mare,” he gobbed, thrusting his top at me.
I glanced down at my own T-shirt. Was this a good swap? To wear a shirt that said “Property of Jordy” in his own handwriting, I had to give up the custom made Christmas present I’d had less than a month to the likely peril of Charlie spilling an entire bottle of shaken up Pepsi all over it.
It was a white tee with special iron-on letters spelling out “This average outer-casing is here to protect the gorgeous girl inside”, and I’d elected to wear it because I had to be dressed appropriate
ly for the Fun Run I barely wanted to take part in.
Now that I thought about it, had the slogan been a shrouded snipe from Rachel? I was still slightly suspicious she’d never quite got over what happened to her white cargo pants that one time I borrowed them, even though I did my best to lend her my brand new trainers to make up for the damage.
On second thoughts, I totally hoped Charlie would spill as many soft drinks as money could buy all over the wretched thing. I didn’t even really mind that the band shirt he’d just tossed me was warm off his back, because I’d be out on the field dying of hypothermia in under half an hour.
I shook on it and ducked inside the girls’ loos to make the swap, leaving my brother and so-called best mate (today dressed in all-over patchwork dungarees and a purple turtleneck to combat the cold weather) out in the hallway, Charlie shivering already because the student-baking system had finally spluttered to a halt, replacing the indoor heatwave with an intolerable chilliness.
“Hey, one minute I’m gay, and the next I’m a tough outer casing with a girl inside!” Charlie was squeaking excitably when I emerged moments later. “Nice going for one day!”
I grimaced. “Well, you think I’m entirely happy? All I can feel is your sweat!”
Kay turned on me again, clutching her cold Charlie. “Aww, don’t be mean, Harley! I’d wear your shirt any day babes…”
“If you were actually chilly, I’d let you,” he teased.
She broke away and hastily stuffed the granny cardigan she’d been wearing into a handbag of TARDIS proportions and opened her eyes really wide. (It was kinda scary if you ask me, what with yet another set of monstrous false lashes fluttering along with her eyelids like zombie spiders.) “Now I’m cold!”
“Yeah, yeah,” mumbled Charlie, tossing her the Bullet For My Valentine hoodie he’d huddled up in while waiting for the awful gift T-shirt. “You’re gonna have to give over the cardi though or I’ll die!”
“That’s not the spirit,” I reminded him. He couldn’t subject me to a university-grade analysis on why the band whose logo I now sported kept him chirpy, and then expect it not to be used against him. “I thought you weren’t afraid to keep on living?”
He reached out to biff me, but I was too fast and dashed through the side door into the canteen, leaving them both behind. I was in dire need of a sandwich or two and a few moments’ digestion time before I hit the marshy fields and icy alleys all in the name of making my five sponsors proud, and… whatever Ryan’s charity was called, again.
#18 Once More Into The Paddock
There was one upside to choosing the Fun Run activity over anything safe and comfortable and indoors, and I’d be lying if I claimed it wasn’t calculated.
Even better than the fact that cold-recovering Kay and stalker Charlie had needed to stay inside lest they become pneumonic, was the enticing presence of the one and only Jordy Johnson.
Call it my carrot-on-a-stick in this whole operation. I was determined to finish – well, not first, not by a long shot, but – somewhere in the middle. As opposed to joint last as me and my friends had arranged it during every cross country ever.
I wasn’t even sure how well I could run. Not fast. I could still vividly remember my lungs burning after the short-distance sprint during Junior Sports Day. They still did if I ever needed to catch an impatient bus on my way to school. I would need to shut off my whizzing brain and focus on Jordy, even if all I could see was the shape of his sportsman’s shoulders threatening to disappear over the horizon.
Us Fun-Runners had collected in the paddock immediately behind the PE block to absorb the dos and don’ts of charity cross country. Mr Ball and Mrs Winterbottom were taking turns to bark these inane rules at us, although the majority of participants were paying even less attention than I was, plugged into their mp3 players.
I longed for an mp3 player right then. So what if I wouldn’t “use it properly” as Zak once claimed, because I’d stay clear of the law and merely copy my ancient S Club CDs onto it for a musical pep talk in case I needed it? Cross country was a legitimate use for portable music players in school if there ever was one.
Reach! For the stars! I sang in my head as we warmed up. Climb every mountain higher! Reach! For the stars… follow Jordy’s… man…gina?
OK, the motivational music wasn’t off to a great start, but I found that when my row received the signal to go, just the simple tune in my head was enough to get a decent pace on. It wasn’t long before the group behind us caught up and overtook me (we’d been let go in the staggered order of most hopeless first), but at least I’d made it nearly to the exit gate by the time that happened.
Next, we’d turn the corner and peg it right back round the perimeter of the field on the outside, trying not to tumble into the road, and run past the youth club and the front gates of the school. I’d done it all before! It’s just that I’d mostly been walking all those times.
We must’ve been halfway to the gates before Ballsy and Windybum thought it safe to let the fasties go, because I still had no Jordy to focus on as we approached the youthy. Then all of a sudden there was a stampede of super-fast runners. I and the two other people going at my exact S Club pace had to stop and hang back against the railing while what seemed to be the entirety of the boys’ sports teams thundered past us and off towards the cycle track. They’d turned the corner before I even got my breath back, and I thought I’d been going at a safe pace. No Jordy to focus on after all.
I got the stupid idea round about then, to push myself harder and not stop until I was over the cycle track and into the big muddy field where I could see him perfectly. Preferably I wouldn’t stop then, but I wasn’t completely deluded.
I barely got past the gates before I had to rest again. Even the pair of slowpokes who had been with me were nearly at the corner. Tempted as I was, quitting wasn’t an option where charity came into it. I didn’t have any cash of my own to contribute, so I was counting on those five sponsors – Mum, Harry, Zak (with all his pocket money), Andy’s dad and Kay’s gran. The only choice I had was to take it slow and hope I got back to the changing rooms for my bag before they locked up the building for the weekend.
It was bitterly cold, which didn’t help my efforts to take Windy’s advice about breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth. Or was it in through my mouth and out through my nose? Both seared dreadfully, but I slogged on.
When I got to the cornfields, I could still see quite a few of the middling runners approaching the exit gate – and my two companions had become three as another person fell behind and into step with them. I even caught up as they had trouble manoeuvring themselves across a particularly yucky patch of mud. It was a completely horrible day to choose for a charity jog – no, a completely horrible month. When it started spitting, I reminded myself sternly how it had bucketed over the past fortnight.
The three people lolloping along beside me tried to strike up a conversation, though they sounded so out of breath that it was difficult to make out what was being said. I couldn’t see the point, personally, and slipped ahead out of the field and into the equally mucky alley. I was more than halfway back! So what if I couldn’t actually see anyone who was supposed to be up ahead of me? They probably had fifty names on their sponsor sheets because of how sure their neighbours were of their abilities.
I had five. Five people were willing to bet a few bob that I could – no, couldn’t finish the course at all. I slowed down as everything started burning again. I could hear my feet slapping rhythmically against the soggy leaves on the pavement. I was on the pavement now! I went through “Never Had A Dream Come True” in my head, and thought about Jordy. So it was nuts? It was probably going to get me back to school a little sooner if I used this to pace myself so I wouldn’t need to stop again.
I stayed ahead of the other three people, all the way down the road and back inside the gates of the field, right to the finish line (i.e. back into the paddock). So it turned out that the
final three had ended up walking the rest of the way after one of them nearly collapsed? My case wasn’t so much a textbook “slow and steady wins the race”, as a “single and desperate barely escapes with her life”, but I did leave with a nice blue rosette (which they had the tact not to have printed “57th place” on, or whatever), before the end of fifth lesson.
I came, I ran, I contributed! The fact that I was far from fit in the first place made me feel all the more specially helpful for raising that twenty bob. Just the one squat pigeon loomed ominously over my good mood – Charlie and Kay never had let on about what their Charity Day activity had been…
#19 The Mysterious Empty Cage Feeling
Three minutes after the Fun Run, I’d breathlessly made it to the Sports Hall where the less inspired of my friends were meant to have joined the congregation of others who hadn’t signed up for anything.
Constantly High’s version of Charity Day basically consisted of a lackadaisical collection at the gates in exchange for freedom of expression in the clothes department, and one measly period at the end of the day set aside for bland activities.
The Sports Hall activity looked like exercise time at a battery chicken farm. It was five minutes from hometime, and for a moment or so I couldn’t even pick out one of my friends from the packed out room. I spotted Keisha first, because she was slumped against the nearest wall texting, out of sight of the couple of college sport students organising star jumps and push ups.
Next I noticed Fern and Rindi. Fern was holding a stopwatch while Rindi jogged on the spot, looking pretty uncomfortable in her brand new skinny jeans. Every single person in this room had come overdressed for the occasion, obviously not believing that the PE department would have the cheek to set all the non-doers an extra hour of sport whether they were in trackies or trussed up to the nines.
It wasn’t that most of my friends were trying not to participate out of spite – more because most of the activities weren’t even useful or sponsorable. There’d been a notice up about unseasonable Christmas-card designing (the charity wanted to stamp its name and the student’s name on the back and sell them for funds), and another about needing sponsors for one of the least attractive female teachers to take a bath in baked beans (needless to say, most of the boys went to that in case of a glimpse of her boobs), but most of the choices were so completely useless that I could swear they only came up with them as a place to put one thousand six hundred pupils between half one and half two.