Six

by Karen Tayleur

  Every time I practised my driving, I made sure to drive slowly past Finn’s house, just in case I could catch a glimpse of him. I spent a lot of time on Facebook keeping tabs on whoever he was talking to. In short, I was becoming a stalker.

  I composed a love song for Finn.

  I wrote endless bad poetry that sometimes rhymed but mostly didn’t.

  I wrote about my life in a journal that I hid in my bookcase with my old picture books. I figured it was safe there. I wrote about my feelings and my life and my friends — anything that came to me.

  It was like I had a fever.

  It was like being infected with a disease.

  It was like finding another part of myself that I’d never met before.

  I know Poppy was amused by this new me. She asked me once if I wanted her to use her Power to get some extra information on Finn, and for a moment I was tempted. But I was the sensible one. The one who had no time for boys. I thanked her briskly and said no.

  Sometimes I wished I could just go back to being the predictable Sarah Lum that I knew and understood. The practical Sarah, interested in world events and the extra study questions in the back of the Maths textbook.

  But I think I waved her goodbye in Year 12 on that first day back at school. The day I realised I might just have a chance with Finn Cashin.

  6

  SARAH

  Polly called for the doctor

  to be quick, quick, quick

  YEAR 12 JOURNAL, DAY 1, PART ONE

  10.15 a.m.

  You are the one

  You are mine

  You

  It is the second day of school for Year 12 and I have just found out that Finn Cashin is in my English class. I am so happy I feel sick. He brushes past me as I sit and write a letter to him that I know I will never send. He knocks a book from my desk and reaches down to get it. I cover the loose sheet that I’ve been writing Finn Cashin poetry on and he hands me the book.

  ‘Thanks,’ I say.

  And he gives me a smile like it means something and suddenly I think that maybe I have a chance with him.

  It’s the first time I’ve seen him since the day in The Woods. He shows no sign that he is remembering that day as he looks at me. I want to ask him about the bedroom in his house that I wasn’t supposed to go into, but know I don’t dare. We both know why it’s empty.

  My heart races. A slick of sweat pops up on the palms of my hands. I stop to consider what illness this symptom could indicate. Hypertension is the first thing that comes to mind. I wonder if I have a fever. I know the symptoms of many illnesses because of a game Dad and I used to play with our Reader’s Digest Family Health Guide Book when I was little. He would read out a set of symptoms and I would guess the illness. Which sounds really lame, but at the time it was nice having his full attention.

  I want to say so much more than thanks to Finn for picking up my book, but he’s already gone and who am I kidding anyway? I don’t have words for him. How can that be? I can stand in front of 500 people and debate the merits of wind power, or thank a visitor at school assembly, but I can’t tell the one person I lust over about how I feel.

  ‘HEY,’ SAID POPPY, as she plonked down in the seat next to mine.

  I slipped my journal under my textbook. Poppy knew about my obsession with Finn, but still…

  Poppy.

  My gorgeous, crazy, dreamy best friend did not understand. Poppy thought you should tackle love head-on. She was constantly in love — in and out and back again. We made a strange pair, even she could see that, but Poppy chose me on Orientation Day for Year 7s, and who was I to un-choose?

  Remembering that day can still make me cringe.

  YEAR 12 JOURNAL, DAY 1, PART ONE

  9.15 p.m.

  The day I met Poppy it was free dress for Orientation Day, but my parents decided that I should wear my primary school uniform.

  ‘You come from a very good school,’ insisted my father. ‘The teachers should see that. It is never too early to make a good impression.’

  I had matching ribbons in my hair and when we got to the high school auditorium, early of course, my parents marched me up to the front seats near the stage.

  ‘You can go now,’ I pleaded as other students trickled into the building.

  ‘We will stay,’ my mother said and I didn’t bother trying to change her mind.

  At least they moved away from me.

  The hall seemed much larger then. The velvet of the stage curtains hung with heavy importance. I didn’t notice that the stitching had come away from some of the hems or that the velvet was worn in places. Dusty photos of past principals adorned the walls — there was one woman but the rest were dark-suited men with stern faces. Tasseled sports house banners hung from the ceiling. I wondered what house I would belong to, though it didn’t really matter as I was not a sporty person.

  Most of the arriving students sat up the back of the hall. A few moved halfway down the rows of seats. Even less came near the front, where I was sitting. I felt my face turning red, matching the colour of the ribbons in my hair. It was happening again. I thought I could start fresh in a new school. Create a new me. Sure, there’d be kids here that would know me, but there would be some who wouldn’t. But no. It seemed I would still be the geek. The girl wearing a school uniform when everyone else was in free dress. The girl whose parents hovered at the back of the hall, instead of walking back to their car and leaving her for a couple of hours.

  As I sat looking into my bleak future, a girl with hair the colour of autumn, and a long flowing skirt to match, marched past me. Then she doubled back and sat in the seat next to mine.

  ‘I’m Poppy,’ she said.

  She placed a hand on my shoulder and I remember thinking that was a bit… well, forward.

  ‘You’ve got a very strong aura,’ she said. ‘Logical tan.’

  I knew then that she was unlike any other person I’d ever met. A total crackpot. Auras and ESP and people on the other side. I knew that my parents would disapprove. Still, they were going to disapprove of anyone I made friends with at school. In their eyes, school was for study, not for socialising. School was for improving the mind, laying down the foundations for my future, pushing myself to be the best person I could be.

  They wanted me to be a doctor.

  ‘Have you seen the boys up the back?’ she asked. ‘I think I’m in love.’

  ‘With who?’ I asked, turning around for a peek.

  ‘All of them,’ she said with a shrug.

  I didn’t know what to say.

  ‘I’m Sarah,’ I said finally. ‘My parents are still here, standing up the back. Like it’s my first day of Prep or something.’

  I didn’t know why I told her that. I was expecting her to get up and walk away.

  ‘You’re lucky,’ she said. ‘My step-dad dropped me off right at the front gate in his mid-life crisis car. He had to rev it a couple of times so that people would notice him.’

  I laughed. Then Poppy looked deep into my eyes and held out the little finger on her right hand.

  ‘Let’s make a pact,’ she said. ‘Let’s never turn into boring adults.’

  I held out my own pinkie and we solemnly shook.

  AT THE END OF the short first week of Year 12 I’d already had three English classes with Finn, but I still hadn’t said a sentence to him.

  ‘You should just ask him,’ said Poppy, flipping through her textbook. ‘Just ask Fish to go to the Formal with you.’

  ‘His name is Finn,’ I snapped.

  Poppy could do that. She had a way of knowing that was scary. Sometimes she could tap into that place where I was hurting most and it was like a burglar had invaded my personal space. It wasn’t always easy having Poppy as a best friend.

  Poppy ignored my outburst and I pretended it didn’t happen. I talked instead about the Education Supplement in that day’s paper, then Mr Zable came in and my heart stopped racing. I settled back in my chair and I forget about e
verything except English Language Unit 3. Sociolects and phonology and semantics were things I could control. I felt a calm settle over me like a warm cloak as Mr Zable began to drone.

  After class I stayed behind to have a word with Mr Zable about getting hold of some past exams for practice. The shuffle of feet exiting the room, the scrape of chairs and the babble of conversation unsettled me again. I watched Finn out of the corner of one eye, then he hesitated near me and touched my back to get my attention.

  ‘See you, Sarah,’ he said and my heart started up its thumping and bumping until it felt like I was having a heart attack.

  YEAR 12 JOURNAL, DAY 4

  1.15 p.m.

  I know the symptoms of heart failure.

  It’s not like I haven’t said this before.

  I, Sarah Lum, am going to be a doctor.

  My grandmother had a heart attack one day while I was playing in the kitchen at home. She was making my favourite meal — dumplings — when she clutched at her arm and cried out in pain. I thought she’d cut herself and I screamed for my mother who came running. Mother said Grandmother was having a heart attack. I thought she was wrong. I was six, but even I knew that your heart lived somewhere inside your chest, not your arm.

  ‘We need a doctor,’ sobbed my mother, wringing her hands. ‘A doctor.’

  She grabbed the phone. I thought she was going to ring the police or an ambulance or even the fire brigade, but it was her sister, Elya, that she called. It was Elya who called the ambulance. My aunts lived close by and Mum never did anything of major consequence without first consulting with them.

  The ambulance came and it was Elya who sent me outside to play while the adults milled around and spoke in hushed voices. There was nothing much to do outside. My young brother was only a baby. My cousins had stayed at home. I followed the trails of the sugar ants as they marched to their nest outside the kitchen window. I moved clumps of dirt and twigs and leaves out of their path to make their journey easier.

  Then I saw the next-door-neighbour, Mr Wilson, making his way to his car.

  ‘Grandmother has had a heart attack,’ I explained.

  ‘I am sorry to hear that,’ he said.

  I didn’t know what else to say. I watched a white moth settle on my mother’s favourite rose bush. As always, I tried to fill up the silence. ‘When I grow up I’m going to be a doctor.’

  ‘Good for you,’ he said. I could see that he wanted to say something else. Instead, he finally just got into his car and drove away.

  I told the cat at the bottom of the garden.

  ‘I am going to be a doctor.’

  I told the sky, just in case Grandfather was up there watching me. I’d never met my grandfather, but I had it on good authority that he lived in heaven with his brother and my three pet fish that had died for no apparent reason.

  Maybe if I’d been a doctor they never would have died?

  After things settled down that day, I visited Grandmother happily sitting up in a hospital bed surrounded by her family, and I told my parents that I would be a doctor when I grew up. They were pleased.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ they said. ‘You will make a fine doctor, Sarah.’

  And so it was written on destiny’s ledger that I was to be a doctor. It had been a spur of the moment idea. A flitting white moth that had strayed into my mind and turned into a beautiful shining butterfly. Every time I told someone of my decision, the butterfly’s colours grew stronger and more defined.

  ‘A doctor?’ they would say. ‘Clever girl.’

  YEAR 12 JOURNAL, DAY 4

  7.20 p.m.

  My cousins are all high achievers. My mother recites their successes whenever she returns from her sisters’ homes.

  ‘Barbara has just had her third child,’ she might say.

  Or, ‘Andrew has bought a plasma TV. It is bigger than Aunt Aisah’s.’

  Or, ‘Melissa came top of her class again in Physics.’

  Just last week she said, ‘Michael is now a junior partner at his law firm,’ her head nodding as if she had played some part in his success.

  I doubt she even knew what being a junior partner meant.

  ‘He has new business cards.’ She fingered the card like it was a precious jewel. The gold lettering glinted in the afternoon sunlight. Then she placed it on the fridge, stuck there by a magnet that read ‘PJ’s Plumbing — no service too big or wet’.

  ‘He will be earning much more money now.’ My mother nodded again. ‘All that hard work has paid off.’

  I don’t know why she didn’t just take a sledgehammer and knock me over the head. As if she needed to remind me to keep working hard at school.

  ‘That’s nice,’ I said.

  I don’t remind her of the great catastrophe when Michael came out two years ago. The sisters gathered in our kitchen and there was much wailing and rattling of teacups. My father stayed in his study pretending to work on the computer.

  I tried to stay out of it, but the one time I ducked into the kitchen to get something to eat, I was grabbed and stroked and pinched on the cheek as the aunts said hello. Although my mother was wearing her woeful face, there was a glint in her eye that told me she was enjoying the misfortune of Elya, her elder sister.

  ‘I will never be a grandmother,’ wailed Aunt Elya, which was ridiculous, because she had three other children, all straight as far as we knew. And there was always the possibility of adoption.

  ‘And how is school?’ asked Lili, the youngest aunt, trying to change the subject.

  ‘Sarah is going to be a doctor,’ my mother said, as if they hadn’t heard this before.

  The aunts nodded their approval, and Aunt Elya, aware that the focus had shifted from her troubles, burst into a fresh set of tears and declared, ‘My son will probably be fired from his job and become a hobo…maybe even a drug addict.’

  This led to more patting of her back and a fresh brew of tea. The sisters’ favourite show was NCIS and they gathered at Aunt Aisah’s to watch it every Tuesday evening. To them, danger lurked in every shadow. They were obsessed with good girls who turned bad, men with guns and the D word — drugs. I know for a fact that my mother checked my room for drugs when I wasn’t at home. I know this because one day when I got home she was sobbing at the kitchen table, convinced a sprinkle of talcum powder I’d left on my bedroom floor belonged to the D word.

  At times my family was ridiculous.

  And yet…

  I didn’t want to disappoint them.

  So there I was, the centre of attention among my aunts, when my little brother marched in, demanding something to eat. The aunts then turned their attention on him. They cooed and petted him and told him how big he was growing, even though they had only seen him the day before.

  ‘And what will you be, Jefri, when you grow up?’ asked Aunt Lili.

  ‘A soccer player,’ he announced. ‘And I will have a big house in America and a sports car.’

  The aunts tittered. Aunt Aisah asked if she could visit him when he was a star soccer player, and Jefri tilted his head in consideration then finally agreed. He stuffed his mouth with cake then marched out of the room again.

  ‘Soccer?’ said Aunt Elya.

  There was a moment’s silence in the kitchen as the sisters looked at my mother.

  ‘David Beckham,’ she said.

  ‘Ahhh.’ There was more nodding and the kettle was filled and put on to boil again.

  So my brother was allowed to be a soccer player while I had to be a doctor.

  If someone asked me what I wanted to do when I left school, I’d say I want to be a doctor. It was automatic.

  But I didn’t want to be a doctor. I was tired of the idea. There were so many other things — so many — that it made me dizzy sometimes, just thinking about it. When I woke each morning I could feel the blood just fizzing in my veins with the possibilities.

  In dreams I remembered that I could fly. Like it was a natural thing that I had just forgotten I could do. I would f
ly over snow-capped mountains — no plane, just me — with outstretched arms, soaring and dipping over a foreign landscape. Below me were people I knew, and some I didn’t, so small they looked like ants scurrying about their business, unaware that I was looking down on them. There were so many places I hadn’t seen. So many people I had yet to meet. I wasn’t sure how I was going to fit everything I wanted to do into just one life.

  And then there was Finn.

  YEAR 12 JOURNAL, DAY 8

  1.20 p.m.

  I love English Language class.

  Today Finn talked to me. He touched me and talked to me and asked me for help with a question that he seemed to know the answer to. I don’t know if I made this up but I think he may have even smiled at me. Something’s changed and the idea of Finn and me is not just an unattainable dream anymore.

  On our way to the next class, Poppy said, ‘Maybe you should see the careers counsellor.’

  ‘Do you mean the nurse?’ I asked. I felt like I had Finn fever.

  ‘The careers counsellor,’ she repeated.

  ‘Why do I need to see the careers counsellor?’ I asked. ‘I’m going to be a doctor. I know what I have to do to be a doctor.’

  ‘Oh, Sarah.’ Poppy shook her head with a laugh. ‘You’re not going to be a doctor.’

  Then she skipped the rest of the way to class, like a five-year-old.

  And just for a moment I hated her.

  I hated that she thought I had a choice.

  7

  SARAH

  Autumn leaves are

  falling down

  falling down, falling down

  Autumn leaves are

  falling down

  my fair lady

  SOMETIMES YOU CAN miss autumn here in the ’burbs, for the warm days can stretch on forever. A sure sign that summer has gone is the end-of-season sales at Silver Valley Shopping Mall where prices are slashed, slashed, slashed to the bone. The days are still long in autumn, but the sun loses its kick and the light is kinder to the eyes. Here and there a timid red leaf will wave a flag of surrender before it drops to the ground, but mostly the trees are still green and the summer flowers are giving it one last fling. Some girls start draping their school scarf around their necks from the first day of autumn, but that’s usually more in an effort to hide make-out hickeys than to keep warm.