by Leanne Hall
And there it is again. The me me me-nologue. Sarah is sparking with manufactured outrage.
‘Teaghan said that Rochelle saw a folder on Tyrone’s laptop that was called “Sports Day Cuties”,’ Marley says. ‘He had close-ups of all these girls’ faces and was going to take them home, you know, to fantasise over.’
‘Fantasise?’ I say. ‘Don’t you mean “masturbate”? Also, you know that Teaghan lies for attention, remember?’
There’s no way that Rochelle could get access to that computer. Marley blinks at me, but Sarah takes up the thread.
‘We remember, Tal. But maybe Tyrone’s got a pervert room at his house with photos of Balmoral students covering the walls and that’s how he plans who he’s going to take next. It’s his special collection of favourite girls.’
‘You got that idea from Devil Creek,’ I say.
They’re squashing the buzz I built up during lunch, the fuzz that crowded out the bad thoughts.
I see I’m going to have to jog their memories. ‘That happened at the end of the first episode, remember? When they found that creepy shed in the bush? It was for only a split second before the credits. They’ll come back to it later.’
We binged three episodes of Devil Creek together on Saturday night, not together as in the same room, but messaging each other from our separate houses. No one else picks up any of the clues, though.
The small country town of Devil Creek—where everyone is suspiciously buff and good looking and totally not inbred or married to their cousins—is rocked by the murder of the prettiest girl in town, Emily Blake, and of course she’s the nicest person too. Only after she’s dead do her secrets come out—and not just hers. Everyone in town is a suspect and the police still haven’t found the murderer, and conveniently probably won’t until the very last moments of season one.
Mere hours after the first season of the show dropped, Yin went missing.
I’m pretty sure they’re setting it up to reveal that lovely dead ginger Emily Blake was slutting it up with both of the two hot-but-ignorant brothers, each without the other knowing, and if they’re thinking that has anything to do with anything in the real world then they need to get a grip.
Yin doesn’t talk to guys. Maybe she talks to them once a year when our orchestra joins our brother school’s orchestra for two weeks of orgiastic rehearsals and they compare their reeds or work on their embouchures or whatever.
I feel sick all of a sudden and that’s not only an expression, because bile rises up into my mouth, acid and putrid, and I have to bend at the waist to stop things going further.
I’m a terrible human being for entertaining myself with thoughts about a fake show about a fake murder while Yin was getting ripped out of her ordinary life. When I try to imagine the first moment she realised there was a strange man in her house, I can’t breathe.
I pretend to be sure that she’s gone for good because isn’t it better to think the worst? Deep down, though, there’s stubborn hope that I wish I could wipe away forever, just for some certainty.
I push it all down and straighten up, once I’m sure I won’t puke.
‘Hello, are you listening to anything I’m saying?’ Sarah waves her hand in my face. ‘Are we going to Moose Juice on the way home?’
We’re the only three people left in the hallway, but pre-weekend electricity still crackles in the air; the normal kind plus extra nasty electricity because girls go missing on weekends and don’t come back to school on Monday morning. I realise that I don’t want to do anything this weekend but lock myself in my bedroom and stay in bed.
‘Maybe,’ I say.
We get the announcement at lunchtime that they’ve cancelled our classes for periods five and six and instead our entire year level crams into the gym and we spend the final hours of the school week trying to maim each other.
‘Ladies!’ hollers our new self-defence teacher, a blonde-haired, blue-eyed woman who used to be on TV and calls herself the Ninja Trainer. ‘I’m going to teach you to use your natural feminine strengths to defeat attackers who are bigger! And heavier! Than you! Get into sparring pairs!’
I’ve read that ‘In the Unlikely Event’ email three times and I’m pretty sure peeing myself will not be considered a natural feminine strength.
I put up my hand. ‘Why do we have to learn to defend ourselves? Maybe men should have classes about not assaulting and killing us?’
But my voice gets lost in the chaos of everyone trying to pair off for the ticklefest and I consider going over to Mrs Benjamin to ask her, but I can see that Audrey is already monopolising Benjo’s attention to complain about the Ninja Trainer’s name on the grounds of cultural appropriation.
A wide circle devoid of all human lifeform has opened up around me, but luckily I find Petra hiding behind the vaulting horse.
‘You are the Chosen One!’ I say, but instead of looking ecstatic, as she well should be, Petra looks terrified. She’ll change her tune. I’m a natural actress and she’s really going to benefit from fending off my believable attacks.
Chloe from my Art class has been left with no partner, so when Audrey finishes complaining to Mrs Benjamin she comes over to try and manipulate the pairings.
‘Can we switch so I can go with Petra and you go with her?’ Audrey asks me. Rude.
‘Absolutely not,’ I say. ‘And she has a name, by the way; it’s Chloe.’
Chloe is tall and big and broad like an Amazon, with long long hair down to her butt and square black glasses. I suspect she’s good-looking under those two things, but you’d never know it. Audrey, on the other hand, looks like a movie star from the silent era. Her natural setting is a satin-sheeted boudoir where two half-naked manservants fan her with palm leaves. I’m positive Chloe can take her. I sincerely hope she sits on Audrey’s face repeatedly.
White Ninja has us doing warm-ups, then drills, then combat situations. Petra and Audrey gaze across the two-metre gap between them with yearning, although surely trying to beat up your best friend isn’t great, right? They should thank me, truly.
Mrs Benjamin leans against the climbing wall and everything in her body language indicates her extremely low expectations.
I prove her completely wrong by pinning Petra against the wall before she even has a chance to yelp.
‘You win, you win!’ she gasps.
‘Balls, Petra.’ I release her and point to my eyeballs and then my groin. ‘Balls and balls. I had you easily. If you don’t find a way to get pissed off, you’ll find yourself tied up in someone’s van.’
‘Well, I don’t think she should be encouraging us to get angry,’ Petra says. ‘If we’re in a dangerous situation, it’s better to stay calm.’
‘Switch roles!’ White Ninja calls out. ‘Remember, he won’t want you if you’re loud and strong. If he gets within striking distance, shred him.’
The gym fills with yelps and shouting and laughter. Audrey strolls over to Chloe and taps her on the shoulder.
Chloe sighs and looks at me.
I take a deep breath. ‘HEY! CAN I HELP YOU? ARE YOU FOLLOWING ME, PRICK?’
Petra pushes her hands out but I’m already rushing her and then she’s flat on the ground with her arms cradling her head. I crouch over her, miming all of the moves we’ve been shown—jabbing her in the throat, poking her eyes, play-pulling ears and hair.
‘Ow!’ Petra yelps loudly. ‘You got my eye!’
I sit down on her chest, attack over. ‘Oh, come on, it was a mistake, Petra. I slipped. I barely touched you.’
I prise Petra’s hands away from her face. Her eye looks fine. Maybe it’s watering a little bit. I guess her cheeks are quite red, too.
‘Why are you so angry all the time, Natalia?’ she asks.
If anyone sounds angry, it’s her. I’m not angry. That was controlled technique right there.
‘Are you okay?’ Chloe comes over. White Ninja is making Audrey do punishment sit-ups for not trying hard enough.
I stan
d up and hold out my hand to help Petra up, but she closes her eyes and shakes her head. Sarah and Ally are laughing like I planned this; that suck Teaghan is in hysterics too. I wish she would stop trying to get back into our group.
‘Suit yourself,’ I say. I find my water bottle and suck on it. I won’t apologise, then.
Chloe and Petra whisper to each other, and then they both go off to the change rooms. Audrey watches them go.
I don’t hang out after school, despite what I’ve sort-of promised Sarah. Instead I throw my blazer on over my PE uniform and sprint the secret shortcut through the Junior School to get the jump on my friends and am rewarded with an almost-empty tram.
I hang off the handle, lifting my feet and spinning as if I’m still a kid. My dress hikes up, my arms ache, I scrape my school shoes along the floor and I grease off any man that dares look in my direction, even the pensioners.
Don’t they know I could shred their balls right now?
The look on Chloe’s face as she led Petra away sticks in my mind. For some reason I would prefer that Chloe doesn’t think I’m the kind of person who pokes people in the eye deliberately. I don’t know why everyone always assumes the worst of me.
The Junction races past the dirty tram windows and still I don’t get off. Instead I wind up near the train station and the shopping centre.
I should be thinking about Sarah and Marley’s theory about Mr Martell, but now I can’t stop thinking about whether I went too hard on Petra. A restless itch sits under my skin. What do I hear all the time, from Mum, Dad, teachers? Natalia, you always go too far.
I buy a handful of red liquorice twists at the sell-everything kiosk by the station, and the old guy there says, ‘You’re too pretty to look so sad. Why don’t you smile?’
So I smile, and while I’m smiling I drop a pack of chewing gum into my school bag, down low where he can’t see it. Smile, smile, white teeth, fresh breath, smile.
‘And you’re way too ugly to look so happy,’ I say in my sweetest voice, only I don’t say it for real.
When I look down I see Yin’s Year Seven school photo smiling back at me from a tabloid front page. KIDNAP VICTIM FEARS, it says. Every muscle on my face tenses.
Was he following Yin for weeks without her noticing? Is he watching us all from a distance now, checking our reactions, feeling superior? Is he someone I know?
I go into the heat of the shopping centre and trawl the shops, liquorice twist dangling from my lips. Touching candles and buddha heads and prayer flags in the hippy shop, saucepans and cupcake trays and Thermomixes in the kitchen shop, memory-foam pillows and bamboo sheets in bedbathland. I stare through the window at the blonde ladies getting their toenails painted by Thai women, until one of the customers looks uncomfortable. She has a smooth bob and could be my mum.
The next shop has dance music pulsing into every crevice and I trail my hands over the racks of clothes. Stretchy leggings with mesh panels, crop tops, yeti jumpers, my fingers stick to everything they touch.
The assistant smiles at me, and picks at her phone like a chicken pecking at the ground.
I take an armful of clothes to the change room and they’re not what I’d usually wear, but I dutifully squeeze into them, zip and button and pull into place.
All of it is cheap and horrible but when I slip into a satin bomber jacket with a dragon embroidered on the back and a light sprinkle of plastic jewels, I can’t help but pause. I look at myself in the mirror. Plain schoolday face, tinted-moisturiser-only face.
The jacket isn’t me, but it’s something Yin should want to wear half-ironically, half-defiantly, on account of it being so blingy and Oriental. She never did have any fashion sense.
I zip up the jacket and put my school dress on over the top, arranging the collar carefully. Woollen school jumper next, even my blazer.
Saunter out, put things back, pretend to look for one minute more.
‘Thank you!’ I call out to the shop assistant as I leave, but she doesn’t even lift her head. She’s swiping her phone left and right, left left left left left left HOT. I hope none of the dudes she meets is a serial killer.
The side gate is open and the back door ajar when I get home and the prophecy unfolds right before my eyes. I leave my school bag on the back step and creep through the laundry. My feet won’t stop moving forwards, it’s as predictable as a B-grade horror movie, until I grab the squeegee my dad uses to keep his precious windscreen pristine.
I didn’t think I was worried but all of a sudden I’m close to being a complete mess.
Our cat Dylan Thomas wraps himself around my ankles and together we flow towards our doom.
Dylan Thomas: Your squeegee will save my fluffy little tail.
Me: I will smash their brains out. I will.
The cogs in my brain start turning over but my panic levels plummet when I see Liv parked in front of the open pantry doors, scooping giant wads of peanut butter out of the jar with her fingers. Making a big spoon out of her hand and ladling it in. Disgusting. I drop my weapon.
On the kitchen bench lies an unwrapped block of cheese, a jar of olives and an open packet of chocolate biscuits.
‘Where do you put those calories?’
Liv jumps. She’s rake thin and always has been, always will be. Even now, the only thing keeping her jeans on her bony hips is a studded belt.
‘Anywhere I can, little sis.’ Liv wipes crumbs from her face and sloppy kisses my cheek, and I pretend I hate it and don’t want her anywhere near me. I catch a whiff of comforting menthol smoke through the peanut butter haze and stare at her head. Just when I think Liv can’t choose an uglier hairstyle, there she goes, with the shaved bits and the spikes.
‘I’ve been waiting, so bored and hungry. What’s this?’ She points to the photo pinned to the fridge.
‘It’s my abduction photo.’
She doesn’t get it so I have to explain it to her like she’s a child.
‘It’s so if I get abducted Mum and Dad don’t give the police an awful photo of me that winds up on the news. That one’s a good one.’
Mum keeps taking the picture down and I keep sticking it back up again because I had no idea it would bother her and it’s a genuine superpower being able to irritate her this much. It’s up-to-date, unlike Yin’s photo. It was taken on my birthday earlier this year, and I look hot.
No one seems to be able to tell us if it’s safer to look good and be noticed, or whether it’s better to be forgettable and fly under the radar.
Instead of laughing, which you’d think she’d be generous enough to do, Liv’s face twists into something I’m horrified to see is pity.
‘I should have come much earlier, Tal. I’ve been flat out this week. I’m so sorry.’
I turn my face away, quicksmart. ‘He doesn’t take the pretty ones, don’t you know? So I think I’m going to be safe.’
I don’t count the moment a minute ago when I knew for a fact that I wasn’t going to be safe.
‘It’s not about you getting kidnapped. That’s clearly not going to happen, so it’s not what I meant,’ she says.
I pick up the biscuits. The stolen jacket under my school clothes is scratchy. Liv’s duffel bag is on the floor. ‘Are you staying the night?’
‘I thought we could do a movie marathon.’
I’m sensing pity in everything she’s saying and doing now and I won’t have it. I can’t let her crack me open.
‘Well, that’s a shame, Liv, because I’m going out tonight,’ I lie. ‘Dad’s working late and Mum’s at the Parkers’ for book club. So you’ll be hanging out on your own. It’s going to be sad for you.’
I line all the unbroken biscuits from the packet along the bench. ‘Mmmm.’ I pop the first one in my trap, planning to eat them one by one until she leaves me alone.
‘Stay home with me.’
‘No.’
Liv gets down on her hands and knees and clutches my ankles. She looks up with her puppy-dog eyes. I can see she�
�s got a brand new tattoo on her forearm, shiny and furious-red, plastered with greasy lotion.
‘Pleeeeeaaassse, stay home. Pleeeaaasse.’
I look down at my sister and try to feel nothing. I can feel nothing about most things, but not Liv, unfortunately. A diversion is what’s needed.
‘Is that a hickey?’
I point to the red blotch next to the flower tattooed on her neck.
‘Yes. I have several, if you want to see them.’ Liv lifts her t-shirt. A black sports crop flattens her boobs.
‘You’re such a slut, Liv. Do you even know who gave that to you?’
Liv works at a bar in the city, and as far as I can tell, between the customers and the hornbag staff, it’s a good place for finding hookups.
‘That’s the little underage pot calling the consenting adult kettle black, isn’t it, Tal?’
I narrow my eyes, but my traitorous mouth turns up at the corners. Liv tugs on my bunched-down school socks, tugs on the invisible strings between us. She’s good at reeling me in when she wants to.
‘I miss you, Tal,’ she says and there’s no way you can doubt her sincerity. ‘I want to know if you’re okay.’
I play it like a soap opera, tossing my hair about, because all the world’s a stage et cetera. I’ve been acting for my life ever since Yin was taken.
‘I take pity on you, my sister. I will stay home.’
After Liv has tortured me with me one of her favourite Japanese horror movies I torture her with episode six of Devil Creek. Even though I’m pretty sure I hate the show, I have secretly watched two more episodes on my own, breaking a sacred promise to only watch it with my friends.
We fall quiet as the opening credits start.
A beautiful pale redhead in a nightie runs through the bush barefoot; everything around her blurred and streaky. The soundtrack is composed of ragged breathing and a pulsing drumbeat.
‘Nope, no, no way, we’re not doing this.’ Liv tries to pause the computer and I grab her hand.
‘Don’t be silly, I’ve already watched half the season, it’s fine.’
