Dust

by Christine Bongers

Dolly showed us our port-racks and herded us into our home room, a hot, louvred temporary block that Hairs reckoned was built when the school opened in 1963 and was more permanent than Mum’s hair.

  My heart thumped as a familiar shape swung into the room: Janeen Kapernicky, lumbering in with a pile of handouts and a teacher’s aide with a face like a scrunchedup bag. She dumped them on the teacher’s desk then slid into a seat up the front. We nodded at each other like old people do in church, my hands stamping sweaty prints on the laminex desk.

  A second rollcall helped fix names to faces. Or it would have if Dolly didn’t go so fast, racing through without waiting for the barely audible Heres that hitched a ride on each name.

  ‘Anna Antonia, Helen Brykreutz, David Byrnes, Michael Galliano, Susan Johnson –’

  ‘Johnston!’ she leapt in before Dolly could race past. ‘With a T.’

  The teacher nodded and moved on just as I realised I’d seen Susan before. At church in Bilo, on the rare occasions that we went there. Midnight Mass maybe, or big Communion days.

  Her eyes rested on me for a second before flitting away. I pushed down a stupid rush of disappointment. We hardly ever went to church in Bilo; why would she remember me?

  Now I’d missed half the alphabet. The teacher’s voice had picked up pace. She wanted to get it over with and ran the next two names together in her haste.

  ‘Frank Roots. Glenda Simpson.’

  ‘Not in this life.’

  The line earned Glenda a laugh and a second look: disapproving from the teacher, admiring from the rest of us. She was relaxed. Turning a pencil end-to-end on the desktop. Full lips smiling. Blue eyes knowing under a thick black fringe.

  Finally it was my turn. Last on the roll.

  Here.

  ‘Hey, you! Pick up that ice-block paper! Yes, YOU!’

  It took me a minute to realise he was talking to me. He looked like a teacher, with his great muscled calves and a stubbly face. But the uniform and badge gave him away: a prefect. Maybe he could help me find my port-racks. I was hopelessly lost after a visit to the girls’ toilets.

  ‘It’s not mine. I haven’t had an ice-block.’

  ‘I didn’t ask if it was yours. I’m telling you to pick it up, so just do it!’

  The heat flooded up from my neck, flushing tears into my eyes.

  He waited till I picked up the wrapper and binned it, before sauntering away.

  ‘Don’t worry about it.’ Janeen Kapernicky slid her lunch bag into the bin beside me. ‘He’s been bossing Grade Eights around all day. He’ll get sick of it soon.’

  I latched on to the quiet certainty in her tone, something solid to cling to in the turmoil of the day.

  ‘I can’t find our port-racks. I don’t know where anything is –’

  She half-turned and pointed over to her right. ‘That’s B Block. We’re up there.’

  She glanced back my way as if about to say something more.

  ‘There you are!’ Hayley and Valda and Jenny ran up panting. ‘We’ve been looking everywhere for you!’

  They sounded a bit panicky too and they were together.

  A bubble of resentment mixed with relief gurgled up through my chest. By the time I finished abusing them for abandoning me, Janeen had gone.

  ‘Hey, isn’t that your brother?’

  Hayley pointed over my shoulder. We’d agreed to meet every break at the grass quadrangle between the science and commercial blocks.

  Big Hairs strode towards the boys’ toilets, shoulder to shoulder with the big Reiken kid from Goovigen who took up a whole seat by himself on our bus. He had shocking acne scars and everyone called him Scrote behind his back.

  A stream of boys tumbled in their wake. Punk stood out from the pack, the only one not taking a wolfish pleasure in whatever was going down.

  I charged across the grass and caught Punk at the doorway as Hairs and Scrote disappeared inside.

  ‘What’s going on? You all got the runs or something?’

  ‘Fight.’ Punk wasn’t enjoying this. ‘Scrote picked Hairs and they’re having it out in the dunny where the teachers won’t see them.’

  ‘What’d he pick him for?’

  ‘Dunno. Scrote was in the gang that tried to flush Hairs last year. He put up a helluva fight and ever since, people keep picking him.’

  ‘That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard!’

  A cheer erupted from inside the block. I tried to barge past, but Punk jerked me back.

  ‘You can’t go in there. It’s the boys’ dunny!’

  ‘I’m not going to stand here while they bash up Big Hairs!’

  He gave me a funny look. ‘Hairs doesn’t need your help. Stay out of it.’

  Before I could argue, Big Hairs exploded out of the doorway.

  ‘Shit, Sis! What are you doing here?’

  He was angry, but as far as I could see, he was OK. ‘This is the boys’ dunny. Don’t hang around here!’

  ‘I was just making sure you were all right.’

  He gave me the same look that Punk had, before striding away. Punk shrugged and sloped off after him.

  Hayley sauntered up behind me. ‘Can you smell that?’

  ‘It’s the boys’ toilet. What did you expect?’

  ‘No, not that –’ She turned away from the toilets and took a few steps towards the end of the block. She sniffed the air. ‘That.’

  I could. We followed the faint whiff to the end of the building, where it grew stronger, wafting up from the oval and the cluster of blue shirts and blue and white-striped uniforms huddled on the grandstand.

  ‘Coming down for a smoke?’ Glenda Simpson leaned up against the end of the block, her uniform hitched high and bloused over her belt.

  ‘NO!’ Hayley looked horrified. ‘Of course not!’

  Glenda pushed off the wall, her eyes on me.

  ‘How about you? You want to come down, Cecilia?’

  She tapped a hollow drum roll on something rectangular wedged into the front of her bra. ‘Happy to share.’

  I smiled and shook my head.

  ‘Suit yourself. Offer’s open if you change your mind.’

  She adjusted the rectangle and sauntered off down the stands in her high-sided gym boots.

  I’d taken two steps after her before I realised I had already said no.

  chapter 23

  Our septic tank was private. Tucked round the least used side of the house, invisible from the driveway, wash line and living areas.

  Last time anyone had been near it was a year ago when the elephant man arrived in his Tony’s Takeaways van to siphon it out. The six of us had watched in silence until Punk broke the spell.

  ‘When you were a kid, did you know this was what you wanted to do when you grew up?’

  Tony didn’t answer the question, just wobbled the hose at him. ‘You want to give it a go, matey?’

  Urky.

  The domed concrete cover was supposed to be sealed, the underground tank leak-proof. But since the rains, an occasional whiff of a dank and turbid darkness discouraged casual strayers.

  I patted the pocket of my jarmies with a sweaty palm. The early morning sun promised another hottie.

  Glenda Simpson never sweated. Too cool to sweat. That’s what I wanted to be.

  I fished in my pocket. Might as well get it over with, before Mum dragged her ballooning belly out of bed and I missed my chance completely.

  I straightened the bend in the middle, moistened my lips and struck a match, cupping it in my hands like Dad. The tip of the Craven A Special Filter caught and crackled, the acrid smoke hitting my lungs and ricocheting straight back up in a choking cough.

  Jesus.

  I tried again, a bit more cautiously, the taste hot and dirty in my mouth. I managed to exhale with only a few muffled coughs. On my third drag, my hands and knees started to shake. I leaned up against the least used side of our house and took a fourth drag, sweat erupting from my pores.

  I couldn’t t
ake the fifth. My guts reared up, bending me over the septic tank, the sound of helpless retching echoing through the morning still.

  ‘Who’s that? Is someone sick?’

  Shit.

  Mum thumped through the house. My hand shook as I tossed the half-finished cigarette and ground it into the grass under my heel. I fell back against the house, sweaty and shocked at Dad’s ability to put away a pack a day without spewing.

  The back door snicked open. I saw the belly first and knew what was coming. She took in my bloodless stagger.

  ‘What are you doing outside at this hour? You look terrible. What’s the matter?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ A trembling hand passed over my face. ‘I felt sick and I didn’t want to vomit in the house. I think I’ve got a bug.’

  ‘Come back inside and hop into bed. I’ll get you a bucket.’

  I tried to lean away from her as she steered me inside, then gave up. Dad smoked in bed, for Pete’s sake, she must be immune to the smell by now.

  My insides trembled at the thought of having to go through it again. But I was my father’s daughter: anything worth having, was worth working for.

  ‘Sis, what are you doing?’

  Punk looked disapproving; Big Hairs, disinterested.

  ‘I’m practising. So that I can go down the stands with all the cool kids.’

  Punk snorted. ‘All the losers, you mean.’

  I ignored him and concentrated on my style, keeping most of the smoke in my mouth until I was ready to shoot it out in a precision display.

  I had started on a cigarette a day – nothing that Dad would notice out of his pack-a-day habit – and had upped the ante to two a day now that the nausea and dizziness had mostly passed. I had to ditch Dad’s deep drag – too risky – but had kept his match-strike-and-flame-cupping technique.

  Punk and Big Hairs were unimpressed, but that was OK. I wasn’t doing it for them.

  ‘Bus’s coming.’

  I took one last quick pull and flicked the butt into the gravel. Had been practising that too. First time, I nearly set my hair on fire. Now I could shoot a toad between the forehead ridges at five paces.

  That was the thing with starting from a low base … you really noticed the improvements.

  ‘Want to have lunch with us? I saved you a seat.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  I grabbed my sandwiches, tossed the lunchbox onto the wooden bench near the water fountains and plonked down next to Hayley.

  She nudged my leg. Hers was so white, I could see through the skin to the purple mottled network of veins beneath.

  ‘I really wish you were in Eight Two with the rest of us.’

  ‘I don’t mind. Eight One’s all right.’

  I adjusted the rectangle in the middle of my Fibs bra, courtesy of Dad’s wardrobe carton, and attacked my corned beef sandwiches.

  ‘Glenda Simpson is fun.’

  ‘Is she?’ Hayley’s voice wavered. Her eyes locked onto the water fountains, where a pair of tanned legs capped by purple clown jocks stared brazenly out from a hitched-high skirt as its owner dipped and bowed over a drink.

  ‘She’s very confident, isn’t she?’

  I wasn’t used to this new Hayley. She seemed a paler version of her former self, washed out, somehow forlorn. As though high school was too big a stage for her and the spotlight, unkind.

  Freckles leapt out of a too-pallid complexion; her lips were dry and pale, only a shade darker than her skin. The auburn hair looked limp, plastering her forehead. It was as though someone had flicked a switch and extinguished the light that used to radiate out from her.

  How could anyone change so much between primary school and high school?

  Her eyes stayed on the clown jocks as they shimmied back under the striped hemline. Their owner straightened and turned towards us.

  Glenda’s waist was tiny, even with six inches of uniform skirt bunched under her belt. Her shoulders were back, emphasising an impressive bust for an Eighth Grader. Glossy dark hair framed creamy clear skin; her lips were pink, curving round a wide, wide smile.

  Hayley was right. The confidence drew me like a starving eel to crumbs on the waters. Glenda cocked a hip.

  ‘Coming down the stands?’

  I smoothed down my pleats and glanced at Hayley. ‘Mind my lunchbox?’

  She nodded but I was already moving away. Away from her. Away from the tiny stage that was Jambin State School. Away to the bright light that beckoned at the end of Glenda Simpson’s Dunhill cigarette.

  chapter 24

  ‘What are you doing, y’idiot? That’s my English assignment!’

  ‘No, it’s not.’ I kept cutting. ‘It’s just an old piece of cardboard I found on the floor.’

  I had to make a cube for Maths and finally had the dimensions right. All the sides were equal. Not wonky, like the last three attempts.

  ‘No, it’s not. It’s my English assignment.’

  Punk yanked it out from under me.

  ‘Hey!’

  ‘Look! On the other side!’

  ‘What? This bit of scribble?’

  ‘That’s not scribble, smart aleck. That’s a scale drawing of the Kon-Tiki.’ He paused and dealt the next words out like a winning hand. ‘My English assignment. For the Gorgon. Due tomorrow.’

  I looked down at the giant cross I’d cut and folded. Half a raft was still visible on the back. Not seaworthy. But recognisable. Just.

  ‘Pretty crappy assignment – probably just as well you’ll have to do it again –’

  ‘No way! You wrecked it. You do it again!’

  ‘Me? I haven’t even read The Kon-Tiki Expedition yet. We don’t do it till the second half of the term.’

  ‘Yeah? Well you better get going then.’ He slapped a slim volume into my chest. ‘English is first up.’

  A cricket ball materialised in his hand. He flipped it up out of the side of his wrist, grinned and jogged out, banging the screen door behind him.

  I looked at what he’d given me.

  Kon-Tiki: By raft across the South Seas by Thor Heyerdahl. The true story of six men sailing a balsam raft 4300 nautical miles across the Pacific … recreating the epic journey of mythical Incan hero Kon-Tiki.

  Bugger.

  At least it was fairly short. I’d finished my cube and my poem for English. Might as well get started.

  The screen door banged again and Punk’s diabolical grin appeared in the opening.

  ‘By the way, there’s a part in there somewhere that describes how big it is, how it’s built, that sort of thing. You don’t have to read the whole thing.’

  ‘Oh great. Thanks for letting me know.’

  ‘No problems.’ The idiot was enjoying himself. ‘And Sis –’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Make it good, OK? The Gorgon’s a really hard marker.’

  ‘Anything I do will be better than the piece of crap you did.’

  ‘Righto, then. See ya!’ One last bang and he was gone.

  I shook my head. I couldn’t believe I was doing his homework. This was so wrong.

  I flipped the pages slowly, scanning for the elusive dimensions. Right. He said scale drawing, didn’t he? Now, where’s my ruler?

  Glenda Simpson and I moved in tandem down to the grandstands.

  I’d cut a fringe into the front of my hair, hitched my uniform just below the level of my orange and black tiger jocks and hidden my own supplies behind the second-highest button of my shirt-waister uniform.

  It was our twice-daily exercise. The only other Grade Eights venturing down there were Michael Mastonio and Kevin Mudge from Eight Four. They were both already fourteen because they’d been expelled from the convent in Grade One and had to repeat at the state school.

  Everyone else was in Grade Nine or Ten except for Roderick Slade who was expelled from Rocky Grammar for smoking pot and had to come here for Grade Eleven.

  There were no Grade Twelves at all; they took their senior responsibilities seriously
and didn’t want to set a bad example for the younger kids, so they purposefully didn’t smoke at school.

  ‘OK – who wants some?’ Murray Noonan waved a bottle of banana cocktail in the air. ‘Stella’s shout!’

  Glenda shook her head, concentrating instead on running a kohl stick inside my bottom lashes.

  Murray’s antics were just visible out of the corner of my eye. ‘Who’s Stella?’

  Glenda sat back, staring from one eye to the other, critically evaluating her artwork. ‘His mum.’

  Sometimes it was hard to believe she was only in Grade Eight. I wondered if her older sister, Desley, who’d left school last year to have a baby, had given her the drill. It was hard to tell, because she didn’t talk about Desley too much. Though she was happy, right now, to talk about Stella.

  ‘She’s a barmaid down the bottom pub. Brings home all the specials. Got so much, she doesn’t notice when Murray and his big brother Russell flog something.’

  She pulled down the corner of my left eye and added a little more black. ‘You know Russell Noonan? The guy with the long blond hair who drives a hotted-up gold panel van?’

  I shook my head, blinking my eyes rapidly at the unfamiliar handling.

  Glenda gave me a pitying look. ‘You are so out of things at Jambin.’

  She slipped the lid back on the kohl; apparently I was done.

  ‘Russell got his apprenticeship out at the mine straight out of Grade Ten. When he finished they gave him the four years worth of coal bonus that they bank for all the apprentices and he bought the van.’

  It suddenly clicked.

  ‘That panel van that’s always hanging around after school. The one with the curtains in the back and the stickers all over it. Don’t laugh, your daughter might be inside.’

  ‘Yeah – If it’s rockin’ don’t bother knockin’ – that’s the one. Russell usually loads up from Stella’s supplies, then takes a pack of guys out to the dam on Saturday nights.’

  ‘That’s right!’ Murray looked as though he’d had a lot of the banana cocktail. ‘You girls should come out. Have some fun.’

  Glenda grabbed the bottle. ‘In your dreams, Mutty. Half a dozen ugly buggers like you isn’t my idea of fun.’