“Okay,” agreed Marbie. “Where’s Listen?”
“Well,” said Nathaniel, “I suppose she’d be at home.”
At the Night Owl Pub, they were depressed because the aeronautical engineer had not shown up. They had made airplanes out of beer-damp coasters and wanted to show him. And now Tabitha and Toni had to go to their step class, and Abi and Rhamie had their husbands waiting, so Marbie said good-bye, and she would just stay and finish her beer and take care of their coaster airplanes, and then she’d go home.
“You’ve all gone home!” It was the aeronautical engineer. Standing beside her in the Night Owl Pub.
“Have I gone home?” said Marbie rhetorically.
“May I?”
He was carrying a beer and tilting his chin at the seat opposite.
“Of course.”
He sat down and nodded to himself, as if agreeing with a thought.
“My car got towed,” he said sadly. “That’s why I was late. So now I’ll have to take the train to my meeting. And look at this, I’ve missed everybody.”
He looked around glumly at the empty beer glasses and soggy airplanes.
“Am I not somebody?” said Marbie.
“What time is it?” he asked.
“Five o’clock.”
“So late!” cried the aeronautical engineer. “I’ve got to run!”
But he moved his chair closer, and smiled.
PART 3
Friday Night
Listen peered out of the kitchen window. She had turned off the light so she could see into the moon-splashed yard: a sagging trampoline, a tangled hose, crouching trees, a vegetable patch, and hulking down by the far back fence, the Zing Family Garden Shed.
Cassie was asleep on the couch in the living room, but the rest of the Zings were hidden in that shed, and Listen was trying to see through its walls.
Today, Listen had walked to the Art rooms with Donna, where they separated for their different classes. “See you,” Donna had said, and then stared at Listen hard. Listen had had the curious feeling that Donna wanted something from her. Maybe she was upset that they were in different groups for Visual Arts? Maybe she needed more reassurance about the eternal pact? To be honest, Listen was getting a bit tired of Donna’s obsession with that pact. Get over it, she almost said. Nobody’s going to break the pact. But she only smiled in a compassionate way, and went to her own art group.
Then, after school, she had done the first spell in the Spell Book: A Spell to Make Somebody Decide to Take a Taxi.
Exactly why she had done that spell (or why anyone would ever need such a spell) was a mystery to her. Somehow, the imperious tone of the book had made her do it. Or the fact that she had waited obediently before turning pages.
She’d only just cleared the remains of the spell (lemons and banana peels) from the bathtub when her dad arrived home and took her to Grandpa and Grandma Zing’s for the Friday night dinner and meeting. Marbie met them there. She always came straight from work, and that night she had arrived late.
They had started the night in this kitchen. Gravy simmered in a saucepan on the stove; the chicken glowed golden in the oven. Grandma Zing had leaned against the counter, drinking ginger ale through a curly straw. Grandpa Zing had shown Listen’s dad how flexible his knees were, bending low and looking up in triumph. Listen’s dad had been impressed. Marbie and her sister Fancy had been sitting side by side on the edge of the table, their legs swinging in time to their chat. Fancy’s husband, Radcliffe, had been standing where Listen was now, gazing out into the backyard and shifting his jaw from side to side to make it click. Little Cassie Zing had tipped the contents of her school satchel onto the floor.
The Zings had asked Cassie a hailstorm of questions about her first week of Grade Two: whether there were any new kids (three, but all boys), exactly what she had learned that week (alphabetical order and how to make a pom-pom), details about her teacher (Ms. Murphy: She was nice). They had asked just as many questions about Listen’s first week of Grade Seven. She wondered if they were good actors. Could they really be as interested in her as they were in Cassie? She was not a Zing, so how could they be? But they seemed enthusiastic about everything she told them, and when she mentioned her school’s Walkathon next week, most of them offered to sponsor her.
Of course, she didn’t tell the Zings about the beseeching look on Donna’s face when they arrived at the Art rooms that day.
Eating dinner with the Zings that night, Listen had concentrated hard. She was very interested in how families worked. She had grown up with her dad in a campervan parked out behind the Banana Bar, and they had spent their nights mopping the café floor, or lying in their bunk beds reading books to each other, or sitting at the fold-out table outside, Listen doing her homework while her dad used an oversize calculator for his accounts. She knew that this was all irregular, and had always watched carefully when visiting friends to find out the truth about families. But the Zings seemed like the ultimate family, and she got to see them every Friday night so she could observe them closely over time.
Also, this was the first family ever to include her as one of them.
So she stared at the Zings in the same way you might stare at the stars on a clear, cold night in the country. You think to yourself, Look at them all! Who knew there were so many and so bright? Now, at last, I’ll see the constellations! But you can’t see the constellations because they’re tangled in the excess of stars. (And you don’t really know what they look like anyway.)
The family had told stories about a tennis ball that fell onto the roof of a car; about a bird that landed on a fence, tipped backward, then swiveled itself upright again, an embarrassed look (Fancy assured them) on its face; about how strong the coffee was at the Muffin Break these days; about the schoolkids at Bellbird Junior High next door (Listen looked sideways at Marbie when they talked about Bellbird, but her face stayed engaged in general chat); about the value of marshmallows; about reality TV, macrobiotic food, lemon trees, ants, and the future of photo albums.
Some of the stories were extremely dull. Grandma Zing tended to repeat the last phrases of these stories, in a voice heavy with amazement, and Listen wondered if she did this to liven up the story, or to emphasize just how dull it was.
Listen’s eyes flew from Zing to Zing, but there was an excess of conversation, and no constellations became clear.
Then, at dessert time, while she was spooning cream onto her cherry pie, she heard Radcliffe say, quite distinctly, to Fancy, “It’s getting on a bit. Shouldn’t we head out to the shed?”
She thought of all the secrets in the room. Her own small secret (a Spell Book underneath her pillow at home); the secret she shared with Marbie and her dad (midnight swims in the Bellbird Junior High pool); and, like a great tarpaulin draped across the room: the Zing Family Secret itself.
Those were just the secrets she knew about too. She looked at Fancy Zing, who was ignoring her husband and murmuring with disbelief that her glasses were lost again. (“Look on the piano,” Marbie instructed. “Whenever I lose anything here it turns up on top of the piano, and I don’t even play!” Meanwhile, Cassie was crawling around under the table in search of the missing glasses.) Fancy, Listen noticed, had a long, elegant neck that made her seem calm and poised, but she also had flighty, nervous hands. She wore almost invisible, rimless glasses, which she was always losing. No wonder, since they were almost invisible. And she had a way of gazing at her daughter, an astonished expression on her face (especially when Cassie found her glasses for her), which Listen guessed must be the way mothers gaze at daughters.
Also, there were surprising dimples at the edges of Fancy’s smile, and Listen suspected that the dimples were full of little secrets.
Maybe, she thought now in the darkened kitchen, leaning her forehead against the window glass, maybe family secrets were a sort of constellation? And now that she had a secret of her own, she herself was linked to the Zing Family Secret constellation?
>
Something occurred to her: Maybe all regular families had family secrets? All these years, her friends’ families might have been meeting in their garden sheds on Friday nights, and Listen had never noticed. Could she have missed something like that? It was possible. She had missed the fact that people got things dry-cleaned, and had once asked Sia what a dry cleaner was. It could even be that her friends knew each others‘ family secrets, forming a separate constellation amongst themselves, to which she could never belong.
Maybe that’s what Donna wanted from her? A secret.
She could tell her about the Spell Book, but wouldn’t Donna say, “Bring it in so we all get to do the spells”?
Or more likely, “Yeah, like I really believe in spell books. Power up your brain cells, I don’t think so.”
Well.
She could tell Donna about the Zing Family Secret.
But first she’d have to find out what it was.
The backyard was still and silent. The shed walls were dark and unblinking. A warm breath was touching her arm.
Cassie, in pajamas, was beside her. “You can’t see into the shed,” Cassie told her through a yawn. “I’ve tried but there aren’t any windows.”
PART 4
The First Few Weeks of Term
One
In the early light of a birthday once when she was small, Cath Murphy woke to the shapes of presents huddled by her bed. One was a short, fat, barrel-shaped present, wrapped in bright pink paper.
I know what that is. She sat up from her pillow with a whisk of excitement. That’s a pair of Rollerblades!
Only Rollerblades would come in short, fat, barrel-shaped presents like that. Under the pink wrapping, there would be a silver barrel. She would prise the lid open with her fingers and inside, wrapped in bubble paper: sleek, black Rollerblades.
Cath had never tried Rollerblading before, so she lay in bed thinking about how she could learn. On the front lawn first. Maybe her father would mow the lawn, leaving a trail of grass clippings so she could build grass castles to fall on? Then in the rose garden, because the thorns would be an incentive to stay up.
Opening her presents on the veranda that morning, Cath saved the Rollerblades until last. Her father ate his bran flakes, and her mother peeled an orange, wiping her sticky hands now and then on a roll of paper towels. They watched while Cath opened each present until there was nothing but the Rollerblades left. All the time, she had been tempering her reactions, conserving energy for this particular gift. Now she regarded its pink wrapping. What would she do when she saw the Rollerblades? She would let out a high-pierced squeal, shout, “NO WAY!”, jump to her feet, and give both parents a high five. That should do it.
She felt intensely nervous as she opened the wrapping. Then the paper fell away.
It was not Rollerblades. It was not even a silver barrel.
It was a wastepaper basket. There were plastic butterflies sewn into the straw.
Cath held the basket for a moment. It was shaped like a barrel.
“Butterflies,” she whispered. She had one of those moments of dissociation: Can this be happening? Am I really here? Is it a dream?
Then she rallied: “Butterflies! Hey, Mummy, you know how I’ve got birds on my curtains? You know what’s going to happen? The birds are going to fly off the curtains and play with the butterflies on my new basket!”
Her parents laughed happily.
Cath joined them at the table, feeling shaky at the knees. “Okay there?” said her father. “You look kind of white.”
Her mother explained that it was just the excitement.
Cath sat quietly, feeling strange and wise. She had been tested. She had passed. For here was an important lesson in life, and one she had never suspected: Sometimes you get a bad surprise, but you have to act calm and unamazed.
The first few weeks of the school year seemed to Cath to be stage lit. She was always shading her eyes from the sun, blending her squint into a smile. Often, she threw back her head in laughter, or tilted her chin as if struck by an inspired thought. She smiled warmly or ironically at children, and she told quick, quirky stories to Lenny and Suzanne, who obliged her by shrieking, “Cath! Cut it out!”
While they hooted—or while she shaded her eyes or tilted her chin, opened her car door or adjusted her rearview mirror—Cath would glance around quickly, and sometimes, there he would be: Warren Woodford.
Watching her.
He often had a single eyebrow raised.
In the first few weeks of the school year, also, Cath and Warren became friends. This was only natural—they were the Grade Two teachers and had to hold curriculum meetings after school. When they held their meetings, one of them would run across the highway in the heat to bring back iced caffe lattes. Then they would have a break, and Warren would ask Cath’s advice about difficult children. This was his first year of teaching, whereas it was her third, so she had wisdom to share. He also liked to hear about her part-time law classes, and she would memorize the best cases to describe to him. As she talked, he would gasp slightly at surprising facts, and ask innocent questions, and she would explain the law to him, feeling articulate and smart.
Meanwhile, Warren quickly gained the reputation, among teachers, as a charming and lighthearted young man, quick to give an inquisitive look whenever someone said something obtuse. “He cuts through the crap,” Lenny declared to Cath, and she nodded, feeling proud to be his friend.
Among children, Warren had a reputation as VERY funny, and you never know what he’s going to do next, and sometimes he doesn’t make sense, but he’s nice if you hurt yourself.
It was now acknowledged by Lenny and Suzanne that, as far as information was concerned, Warren Woodford belonged to Cath. “Hey, did Warren do any acting work before he became a teacher?” Lenny might say. “He’s so funny with that face of his at staff meetings!”
And Cath would explain: “No, he only did two years of drama training—then he went straight to teachers college.”
“How come?” Suzanne would ask humbly.
“Well, one day,” Cath explained, “he was doing this practical drama exercise with a bunch of kids, and he realized he loved working with them, and he thought, What if I could do MORE than entertain them?”
“Huh,” Lenny and Suzanne would say, impressed.
Sometimes, Cath would watch their faces, waiting for some hint that they expected romance between Warren and herself. Had they not noticed how he watched her? Did they not think she was good enough for him?
But there was never even a suggestion; instead, the three talked about the romance between Lenny and Frank Billson (school principal). Suzanne liked to suggest new hair colors for Lenny, to help the relationship along, and was pushing for a rich dark red to bring out Lenny’s cheekbones, but Lenny thought blonde with candy lipstick. Sometimes Cath thought wistfully, Shall I die of boredom? But she was pleased for Lenny.
The late afternoons were sultry and hot, and once all the other teachers had gone, Cath and Warren would sigh in the heat of the staff room, leaning forward over their work, elbows sliding out in either direction so their chins were low above the table. They would flick sweat from their foreheads, and open the windows. Or agree that the windows were only letting in hot air, and close them.
Once, Warren slid an ice cube along the back of Cath’s neck to cool her down.
During school days, they held joint singing or arts-and-crafts lessons, with all of Grade Two in a circle on the Assembly Hall floor. Warren had a surprisingly deep voice when he sang, which made the children stare and sometimes giggle.
One brightly lit Thursday, Cath sat on the edge of her desk in her classroom, swinging her legs and looking around at the room full of small, fidgeting people. I’m pretty happy, you know, she thought. She was the Queen of Her Own Life! She had so many little kingdoms! Her classroom, the staff room, her car, her apartment! And in between the kingdoms, she went to law classes, or had iced caffe lattes with friends.
“Let’s talk about the environment,” she said to her class happily. “Anybody here know what the environment is?”
They all nodded, and many said, “Yeah.” Anthony McMasters said contemptuously, “The enviroh-ment?” and put his fingers in his ears.
“Take your fingers out of your ears, Anthony.”
Lucinda Coulton said, “I know, Miss Murphy, because do you know why? My dad’s a biological engineer.”
“Hands up, Lucinda,” chided Cath. “Is he really?”
Marcus Ellison said, “My dad’s an astronaut.”
“He is not.” Cassie Zing turned to Marcus in a fury.
“You don’t have to put both hands in the air,” Cath explained to Lucinda.
“My dad is an astronaut. He already went to Venus, okay for now?”
Cassie Zing lifted the lid of her desk and slammed it down hard. The slam ruffled her hair and surprised her eyes.
“We’ll do careers then, shall we?” Cath said smoothly, imagining her voice through the wall between the classrooms, imagining how gentle and sensible it might sound. “We’ve had biological engineers and we’ve had astronauts. Anybody know another career?”
While the children listed careers for her, against a background of Cassie slamming her desk lid, Cath imagined a knock on the classroom door. She imagined Mr. Woodford leaning into the room and bumping his head on the door frame (he was that tall). “Ouch!” he would say quietly to himself. Then, “Word with you for a moment, Ms. Murphy?” She would nod, and explain to her class: “Keep it down, guys? I won’t be a moment,” in a firm yet casual voice. Then she would sidestep to the door, where she would look up at Warren with her short, smart hair, and say, “Hi.”
What would he say in reply?
Cassie Zing put her desk lid down and announced, “My mum is a writer of wilderness romances.”
“Anthony,” said Cath, “take your fingers out of your nose.”
The Spell Book Of Listen Taylor Page 4
