by Karen Wood
The hospital was a short walk from the school. ‘I’ll find it,’ said Zoe. ‘What time?’
‘Four-thirty. You’d better get up if you’re going. Bus leaves soon.’
Zoe was the first to step onto the bus because Jen and Fred lived so far up the valley – they were the first stop. Habit took her to the second-last row of seats on the left and she waved out the window to Jen, who leaned on the front fence, watching the bus roll away.
She was relieved when she recognised most of the other kids as they took their seats. Samantha and Tracey waved and took a seat together near the front of the bus. No potholes so far. Everything seemed normal. Yet she felt oddly nervous when she saw Caitlin get on and flash her pass at the driver.
‘Caitlin!’
Caity looked like a wallaby caught in headlights, momentarily stunned, but then walked down the aisle and sat next to Zoe.
‘Hi, Zoe. How’s your head? Are you okay?’ She fumbled in her bag for something.
‘Still a bit sore, but I’m good,’ Zoe assured her. ‘So good to be out of that asylum,’ she laughed, stealing Josh’s joke.
‘Yeah, I bet it is.’
‘Did you come and see me in hospital?’ Zoe asked, suddenly edgy, but trying to sound light. Maybe she didn’t want to know the answer to that? ‘I can’t even remember. My head was thoroughly smashed.’
‘Of course we did,’ said Caitlin in a clipped tone. ‘You were unconscious.’
‘We?’
Other school friends? How embarrassing.
‘Me and . . .’ She hesitated before finishing. ‘Scott.’
Scott? No one called Scotty ‘Scott’.
So Scotty had come to see her – that was a good thing. He’d come with Caity – fair enough. Or, the thought suddenly struck her, maybe not so good.
A sudden vision flashed before her eyes – of Scotty and Caitlin grinning at each other across her comatose body. She shook it off. This was no time to be having paranoid thoughts. She really needed some answers. ‘So, what actually happened? I don’t remember much of it.’
‘I know you don’t.’ Caitlin seemed troubled. ‘I don’t either. I didn’t see what happened. You were off chasing some strays, while Scott and I watered the mob.’ She looked straight ahead, not at Zoe. Why was she being so weird?
‘Wasn’t I the one holding the mob?’
‘We were three head short when we counted them off the lease – you went back looking for them,’ said Caitlin, still not looking at Zoe.
Zoe sat there, blank. Then it came to her. ‘That’s right. They were down in Dirty Hollow. I brought them back.’ A vision of her walking the last three bullocks towards the home gate came to her. ‘So we counted off the full one-twenty. I remember now, clear as day. One-seventeen, then three more stragglers. One-twenty. Job done. So how did we end up with twelve bullocks missing? Dad said we were twelve down.’
The air thickened between them. Zoe was aware of Caitlin sitting rigidly uncomfortable beside her.
‘Don’t ask me,’ she answered in a tight voice. ‘You just said they were all accounted for. One-twenty counted through. Job done.’
‘We had a fight, didn’t we?’
Caitlin nodded.
‘It was a bad one, wasn’t it?’
Caitlin’s eyes met Zoe’s for the first time that day. ’What can you remember?’
There was a weird moment while they both looked and assessed each other, neither game to be the first to speak.
‘I remember the kiss,’ said Zoe, intentionally vague about Josh’s part in the whole thing.
Caitlin’s response was unexpected. She sighed deeply. ‘Well, now you know,’ she said, getting up. ‘Sorry, Zoe.’
What the hell was she talking about? Why was she sorry? Sorry that they could no longer be friends? Sorry because she was so disappointed in her? Sorry for what, exactly? Zoe stared after her, confused.
Then she realised that if Caitlin knew about the kiss with Josh – then Scotty must know too. Maybe that’s why she hadn’t heard from them lately. She inwardly groaned. What a mess.
When the bus reached the school, Caitlin couldn’t get out quickly enough. Zoe watched her step off the bus and get swallowed by the surge of dark blue uniforms being sucked through the school gate.
Oh man, this was not going to be a good day. She hadn’t even got through the front gate and she was nearly in tears already. Although she didn’t yet know the exact reasons, she knew her friendship with Caitlin had probably just ended in a very final sort of a way.
She stayed by the front gate, waiting for Mike to bring her uniform. Josh loped along beside him, hands half tucked into his pockets, schoolbag over one shoulder and his hair all messy and soft-looking. His tie was loose around his neck. Damn. She had planned to stay well clear of him.
If he winks at me, I’m gonna give him the biggest finger.
But it turned out to be easier than she thought to avoid Josh, because he in return had gone back to ignoring her. He didn’t even look at her as he mumbled a quick goodbye to Mike and slipped through the front gate.
Mike also looked straight past her with a hard face. He was glaring at someone. She looked over her shoulder and gasped. ‘Scotty!’
He had a black eye. Not a huge one, but the last hues of purple and yellow still framed his left eye and there were stitches across his eyebrow.
‘Scotty! What happened?’ She rushed to him, only to feel her brother take her by the arm and yank her back.
Scotty looked warily at Mike rather than at her. ‘Slow ducker,’ he said. He hitched his schoolbag further up his shoulder and filed in through the front gate.
No hello? Was this the guy that used to text her all the time saying he missed her? Oh god, she had really blown it.
Just ahead of him, in the under-cover area, Caitlin waited for him. She walked out and Zoe watched, dumb-struck, as they walked away hand in hand. What was going on?
Mike wrapped his arms around her and put his chin on top of her head. ‘Don’t sweat it, little sis. He’s not worth it.’
‘What happened to his face?’ she asked.
‘I punched him.’
‘Why?’
‘I caught him doing something he shouldn’t have been doing. While you were in hospital unconscious.’ Mike’s voice was flat. ‘I didn’t know how to tell you.’
This couldn’t have happened. Scotty dumped her for Caitlin? Zoe could not believe it.
How did her entire life become such a train wreck? The last thing she remembered, all the cattle were counted off the lease, she was still free to ride around the farm, Caitlin was still her bestie and Scotty her boyfriend.
‘Man, I can’t believe how bad my life sucks right now.’ Zoe’s voice crumbled and all of a sudden she was sobbing her heart out, right in the front gateway of the school, while the entire student population filed past her.
Mike held her until her sobs lessened, then gently guided her through the school gate and towards the girls’ toilet so she could get changed. Inside, once she had calmed down, she looked at herself in the mirror, willing herself to remember more of the accident.
Zoe trotted back and forth along the edge of the mob. She was beyond angry. She needed to get these cattle through that gate; otherwise they would try to bolt back to the water trough. They were in a fence corner now, next to the gate. All she had to do was open it up and count them through. But she would need to let them through carefully, in small groups so they could be counted properly. She mustn’t leave any behind or Dad would lose his lease.
More than a hundred cattle bellowed restlessly and she could see the leaders eyeing the open grassy space behind her. She pulled out her whip, gave it a good crack and was relieved when they got back to grazing.
Frankie trotted quietly along the edges, panting heavily. Every now and then when a beast tried to break away, she spurred Blackjack after it and pushed it back. Her anger stewed in the heat. Where the hell were Caitlin and Scotty? This was gett
ing ridiculous.
After an interminable wait she heard Scotty’s laughter, and saw him and Caitlin behind some ambling bullocks. ‘About bloody time,’ she cursed. ‘Hurry up, guys!’ she yelled out to them from a parched throat. ‘I can hardly hold them. They’re starting to break out!’
Finally, as the last few bullocks joined the mob, Zoe opened the gate and carefully counted as the cattle streamed through and headed along the wide dirt track towards the home yards.
‘A hundred and seventeen,’ she said aloud, as she closed the gate behind them. ‘There are still a few missing. We need one-twenty.’ She knew where they would be – down in Dirty Hollow. It was a small, muddy patch of the creek where the cattle liked to go and roll when they got itchy with ticks. It was tucked away and easy to miss if you didn’t know it was there. Sometimes the cattle got stuck in there after a big rain. It was a half-hour ride away.
‘Someone will have to go back for them,’ said Scotty, making it clear it wouldn’t be him.
‘We were hoping to go for a swim at the waterfall,’ said Caitlin. ‘It’s so hot today.’
Zoe didn’t answer that. ‘We’ll rest the horses for a while before we go back,’ she said, knowing it would be her that would have to retrieve the missing cattle. ‘Blackjack’s tired. He needs a break.’ She swung out of the saddle and yanked at the girth, loosening it right off to give her horse a breather. She slapped him on his neck, which was slick with sweat and white froth. ‘Come on, buddy, let’s get you to the dam for a drink.’ She walked her horse after the cattle without looking at Scotty and Caitlin. She was too angry.
9
Zoe spent the school day in a blur. Trying to focus on anything academic was hopeless. She could barely answer to her name, let alone come up with any sane contribution in class.
At one stage she couldn’t work out where her next class was even meant to be and she stopped, eyes closed, trying to remember where the science labs were. When she opened her eyes she caught Josh, by the stairwell, staring at her. She turned and hurriedly made for the girls’ toilets, because a) she knew how to get there, and b) he couldn’t follow her in.
Or so she thought.
As she stood with her head over the sink, and splashed cold water on her face to try to stop herself from crying, she heard his voice behind her. ‘Zoe.’
She banged her head on the tap when she looked up. ‘What are you doing in here?’ she shot angrily. ‘This is the girls’ toilet!’
He stood, just inside the cornered doorway with his hands half tucked in his pockets. ‘I don’t care.’
‘What do you want?’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. You just look really . . . upset. You looked lost out there.’
‘Well, I am, okay,’ she snapped at him. ‘No thanks to you. You . . . home-wrecker! You’ve ruined my life, and made a complete fool out of me, are you happy?’
Josh kept staring at her, his brow deeply furrowed. ‘No.’
‘Go away,’ she said.
‘No.’ He pushed his hands deeper into his pockets and stood his ground, blocking the exit.
‘Why not?’
‘Because you’re not okay.’
She snorted a laugh through her tears. ‘Clearly.’
Outside the second bell rang, loud and harsh, making her wince. The relaxed voices and sounds of lunchtime switched into another gear as students bustled and rushed to their next class.
‘Can you let me through, please,’ she said, trying to push past him.
He put an arm out. ‘Zoe, I didn’t make a fool of you, he did.’
The look in his eyes was the same as it was the other night, in the kitchen at Jen’s place, and it made the memory of that kiss even clearer; the way his hands had curled around the back of her neck and then run through her hair. She had clung to him, with both hands around him, kissing him back . . .
Like a total desperado. Oh God. How did that ever happen?
She held her arms tensely in front of her, letting him know she didn’t want to be touched. With him standing so close there was nowhere else to put them but on his chest and there was no way she was doing that. ‘You broke us up, you kissed me and Scotty found out.’
Josh pulled back his arm and used it to rub the back of his neck. ‘That’s not how it happened,’ he said.
‘Yes it is,’ she said, trying not to remember it. ‘You told me you did, and now I’ve lost Scotty.’
Josh gave a mocking snort. ‘He’s no big loss.’
‘He was my boyfriend and you had no right to break us up!’ She stood there, angry, but for some reason she couldn’t step away from him.
Josh reached out and gently touched the last traces of the graze on the side of her face with his thumb. ‘You deserve someone who would jump fences to be with you, Zoe. Not some jerk who can’t make up his mind.’
‘What do you mean by that?’ she said, pushing his hand away.
He took a step back, looking suddenly frustrated, and sighed. ‘You work it out.’
Zoe took her chance and shot through the gap he left in the doorway. She marched along the wide covered path that led between buildings, merging in with another hundred or so other kids. What did he mean by that? Scotty had been playing up with Caitlin before the accident happened? Before Josh kissed her? And everyone else knew?
She couldn’t believe it when he appeared beside her again. ‘Let me walk you to your next class.’
She wrapped her arms around her books and kept her eyes down. ‘I can find it on my own, thanks.’
‘Science labs are back that way.’
She stopped and looked up. Everything looked the same; a sea of dark-blue uniforms and rows of paths and buildings. She was adrift, in a sea of humiliation. ‘Okay,’ she said stiffly. ‘Just don’t touch me!’
‘This way,’ said Josh, heading down the narrow concrete path between two portable buildings. She walked alongside him in stony silence. At the end of the path he stopped. ‘The science labs are in that building, through that door and to the left. Yours is the second door. You’ve got English after that. Same building but down the other end.’
How did he know that?
‘Thanks,’ Zoe mumbled.
‘And for the record,’ Josh said, before turning and walking away, ‘you kissed me.’
Zoe took a seat at the back of the science lab and flipped an exercise book open. She kept her eyes down and doodled on her page, praying that they would be doing theory today and she could just hide at the back of the room. Scotty and Caitlin were both in this class. Would they sit together? Would they sit next to her?
Caitlin walked in first. She went straight to the front row, put her books down and took a seat. Scotty came in moments later and sat in a middle row on the other side. It was so bizarre, it almost made her laugh. Other kids looked around questioningly. Until now the three of them had been inseparable.
Zoe looked down and kept doodling, somehow satisfied that at least the other two had the decency to look a bit guilty. But as the lesson progressed, it started to do her head in. Were they together or not?
When the teacher wasn’t looking she saw Scotty pull his phone out of his pocket, thumb a quick message and then slip it back into his pocket again. Who was he texting? She watched Caitlin like a hawk but she didn’t check her phone. Her own was in her bag, switched off. She fought the urge to check it and won.
At the end of the class, she sat and watched them both disappear out of the door before gathering her things and heading to the next lesson. English. Neither of them was in that class, thank goodness.
But Josh was. What the . . .???
He plonked his books on the table and pulled out the chair next to her. ‘Make-up class,’ he said, by way of explanation. ‘I had scholarship exams yesterday, teacher said I could make up the class today instead.’ He gave her a huge grin.
‘You’re a pest.’
He slid a dog-eared paperback across the table. ‘One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest. I got
you a spare copy from the library.’
Surely he was kidding. This was the set text for the year? Wasn’t that some story about a guy who lost his mind? She looked around the room and saw everyone else had the same book. ‘How appropriate,’ she said in a droll voice. She slapped her hand on it, slid it across the desk until it was in front of her and then flipped it open. ‘Thanks, I forgot mine.’
‘Thought you would; you seem to forget a lot of things lately.’ He opened his own book and began flipping through the pages. ‘Figures; I finally get to kiss you and you have post-traumatic amnesia. Page one-twenty-nine is where we’re up to.’
Zoe felt fire march up her face. If the teacher hadn’t walked in right at that moment, she’d have gathered everything and left the room. ‘Can you please stop talking about that?’
‘Was it really that bad?’
‘Well, it gave me post-traumatic amnesia,’ she hissed through her teeth.
‘Maybe that was Wispy’s kiss – you’re getting it mixed up with mine.’ Josh grinned.
When the home bell finally rang and she managed to escape from him, she waited outside the school gate for Mike.
People streamed through the front gates and she saw Scotty and Caitlin again. Scotty walked with his thumbs hooked through the straps of his school backpack. Scotty. Her Scotty. With his sleeves rolled up and his blonde-brown hair. Next to him, walked Caitlin. Both had sober faces. They hardly looked loved-up. What was going on?
She thought of them; sitting separately in science class; Scotty sending text messages. She decided to check her phone. There was a message from him.
We need to talk.
Talk? It was a bit late for that! She flicked back a quick reply.
About what?
That kiss.
Zoe froze.
Which kiss was he talking about? Her kiss with Josh? Had he seen that? She hurriedly texted back.
Yes. We need to talk.
She had to explain.
She watched as he milled around the bus stop, knowing his phone was in his pocket, knowing it was switched on, hoping he would pull it out and read it. Then she lost him in the swarm of heads and schoolbags. Buses came, one after the other and cleared them all away.
