Up Over Down Under

by Micol Ostow

  The next several days followed a pattern. Each morning Frank or Estelle would drive her down to the village of Sorrento from the beach house. The house was on a small hill and had a nice view of the bay. The ride into town was only ten minutes or so, but Estelle pointed out that in the high season the traffic could stretch the trip into half an hour.

  Eliza would get an hour or so on the beach before she had to come in for the lunch rush. Then she would work through until around five or six, when the sun would start to fade and they would shut the shack down. Steve would usually give her a lift back to the Echolses’ on his way to night classes.

  In the evenings, Eliza would watch TV with the twins, who, for two people with identical DNA, had remarkably different interests—they would argue as Nick insisted on animal programs and Sam demanded the Naked Brothers Band or the animated show Kid Kelly. If Eliza didn’t feel like negotiating the TV viewing, she would chat on her computer and she would usually talk with Jess or Macca for a bit each night after everyone else had gone to bed. All in all, things weren’t horrendous, but she was definitely missing some normal teenage company and was sorry not to be off having some amazing adventure like everyone else was.

  “Eh, it’s not so bad, I get to spend some time on the beach. I just miss the girls,” she told Macca one night late that first week. She was actually looking forward to the end of break so she could at least be back with her friends.

  “And me, too, right?”

  Eliza could almost hear the laughter in his voice.

  “Yes, and you, too,” she admitted. They’d been talking regularly every day since the formal and by now were fairly well established as a couple. Which made the timing of this trip even more inauspicious.

  “What about your penguin thing?”

  “Right, that. It actually sounds fun—we’re going to be tagging and monitoring baby penguins to make sure their population is growing the way that it’s supposed to. We’re going down there next week. Probably Thursday, but man, it’s going to be a long bunch of days between now and then.” She sighed, thinking of the fry baskets at the Fishy Wishy.

  “Hey, listen, we have an expression down here: ‘no worries. ’ Stay positive, okay?”

  “Yeah, yeah. That’s me—Polly Positive. But you guys also have a silly thing like an emu for a national animal, so I don’t know how much I trust you.”

  Macca laughed at that one, and hearing him laugh, Eliza laughed, too. Funny, she thought, how just the sound of his laughing made her entire outlook brighten in an instant.

  No worries, she decided. None at all. For now, anyway…

  “Yes sir, I understand. The meal is seven dollars and fifty cents, not seven hundred and fifty dollars. I’ll just reenter that.”

  Okay, so Eliza hadn’t fully gotten the swing of the register, but she was improving. The customer paid and walked away.

  Eliza leaned against the front counter of the Fishy Wishy and watched the people come and go from the tables outside. It was a Thursday, and she’d been told that the crowd didn’t really pick up until Friday and the weekend. Then it got so crazy she wouldn’t have a chance to rest, but for now she was just standing and watching people pass back and forth.

  She glanced idly down the street and noticed a pack of guys her age walking along the boulevard. They were joking with one another and appeared to be headed toward the fish shack.

  As they got closer she realized that one of the guys looked awfully familiar. Something about his gait…Way too familiar.

  Is that? No way!

  It was.

  Macca.

  It was Macca, and he was grinning so widely at her she thought he was going to swallow his own face. Eliza struggled to keep her cool, biting the inside of her lips so she wouldn’t smile like a goon. Then she remembered the polyester stripes and the hat and just gave up. Cool was clearly out of the question.

  Suddenly Macca was standing right in front of her. She broke into a huge smile almost involuntarily.

  “Excuse me, miss, you got anything good?”

  “Depends. What are you looking for?” It was hard to be flirtatious while wearing an enormous french fry hat on her head, but she gave it her all.

  “Howsabout a cute American in a fry-basket hat?”

  Eliza blushed. “You’re in luck, then. But what are you doing here?”

  “Some of my mates and I were going for a surf out at Portsea, and I told them we had to stop by on our way.”

  “There’s no surfing in Sorrento?” As excited as she was by Macca’s unexpected drop-in, it was too sad that he was headed right out.

  “Nah, you got Buckley’s chance of catching a wave here. You’re on the bay side of the peninsula. Head out to Portsea for the real breaks.”

  Eliza had no idea what he’d just said, but that didn’t matter. She was thrilled to see him.

  “What time do you get out of here?” he continued.

  “I’m on until six, but then I have to be home by seven for dinner. The manager usually gives me a lift up there. I’m still on curfew from the Trinity Affair.” Eliza managed to speak in capital letters to get her point across.

  “Yeah, again, I’m real sorry about that.”

  “No! Don’t be. I had a great time, and it was totally worth it. But you know, actions, consequences, etc., etc....”

  “Well, tell you what, how about I pick you up at six and I can give you a lift back to the Echolses’ place, if that’s all right with you and Mr. Bossman over there?”

  “That’d be great,” Eliza said. She tried not to appear too enthusiastic.

  As expected, she failed utterly. But to be entirely truthful, she didn’t much mind.

  The rest of the afternoon went by in a flash, and before she knew it she was standing out front waiting for Macca to show. She was wiping down the outdoor tables with a sponge that had definitely seen better days when she saw a funky old dune buggy with a surfboard strapped across the open top cruise down the street. It pulled to a stop in front of her. Macca sat in the front seat and waved her in.

  “This thing is so cool,” she squealed, piling into the passenger’s side eagerly. The wind rushed through her hair as they pulled out and headed off.

  “It was my pop’s back in the sixties when he started surfing, and we’ve kept it in running shape ever since. It’s an old VW.” Macca was proud of the buggy, she could tell. It was totally adorable.

  “Doesn’t look like any VW I’ve ever seen.” Not that she was an expert on cars—not hardly—but she could recognize retro when she saw it. “I like it,” she decided.

  “We’ve got a bit of time before seven—want to go for a drive?”

  “I don’t know. If I’m late because I was riding around with you, I’m toast.” The last thing she needed was more marks against her while she was struggling to get back into the Echolses’ good graces.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll have you back, I promise!”

  Eliza thought for a moment…but only for a moment. When it came to Macca, she was completely and totally powerless to resist.

  “Just make sure I’m back home on time, or it’ll be both our butts, okay?”

  “Trust me,” and he turned up the radio and sped onto the main road toward Portsea.

  A short time later they were parked overlooking a long stretch of beach with waves rolling in and a few sunset surfers trying to catch last rides. The air had finally become warm, and she was now getting a sense of how nice the weather could be. She’d been able to work in short sleeves, and when the sun was out, she could even squeeze in some power tanning at the beach. Now the air was cooling as the late-afternoon rays began to fade to multicolored streaks on the horizon.

  “It’s beautiful. It looks so peaceful out there.” Eliza thought she could sit there, in the car, drinking in the view indefinitely. If only that were an option.

  “It is. But don’t get fooled. There are some nasty rips. Harold Holt went missing just a couple beaches up.”

  �
�That’s so sad. Was he a friend of yours?”

  Macca smiled and shook his head. “Nope. He was a prime minister back in the sixties. Went for a swim one afternoon and then ‘poof.’” He made a wavy gesture with his hands to demonstrate what “poof” meant.

  “Wait. You mean to tell me that a prime minister just disappeared? What happened?” Eliza couldn’t imagine something like that happening in D.C. Americans couldn’t stand an unsolved mystery. That was why forensics shows were so popular.

  “Nobody knows.”

  “Talk about ‘no worries’! You guys really are relaxed down here! If the president went missing, there’d be years of investigations and movies and books and everything. Here? Nothing.”

  “Yep, no worries, and she’ll be ’right, mate.”

  They sat quietly for a bit and just watched the waves roll in. It was nice to be with Macca. For a moment she could forget about having to be the proper daughter to her parents, or the proper houseguest to the Echolses’. For now, “no worries” was a philosophy that Eliza could definitely embrace.

  Eventually time got the best of them, and they had to turn around and make their way back to the Echolses’. As they raced back along the road, Macca glanced quickly over at her and smiled.

  “So, some mates and I are going down to Bells next week for a couple nights, and I was thinking, you should come.”

  “What’s Bells?” Whatever it was, it sounded great.

  “Bells Beach is some of the greatest surfing on the planet. It’s down the great ocean road between Torquay and Lorne. If you come, I’ll teach you to surf.”

  “Who says I don’t already know how to surf?” she teased.

  “You do?”

  “There are lots of things you don’t know about me,” she said, poking him in the ribs. “But, no, I don’t surf,” she admitted. “I’d love a lesson from the master.”

  “Well, how about it, then? Can you get away for a couple days? We’re going on Sunday afternoon, and I’ll have you back for your field trip on Thursday.” Macca’s eyes twinkled in such a way that it almost killed her to have to decline.

  “I really want to, but the Echolses would end me. I feel bad about everything that happened before and all, so I’m trying to be on my best behavior.” She bit her lip. She hated the idea of missing out on prime one-on-one time with Macca. And learning to surf, too! Wasn’t that the whole point of going abroad—to try her hand at new experiences?

  She frowned, deep in thought. Finally, she continued. “I don’t know. How about we talk Saturday, and I’ll let you know for sure then? In the meantime, if you’re staying down here, you can pick me up from work if you’re free.”

  “It’s not surfing,” Macca said, conceding, “but I reckon it will have to do, for now.”

  It definitely wasn’t surfing, though. And surfing was starting to sound like an opportunity not to be missed.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Billie knew from all of her S.A.S.S. guidebooks and supplementary materials that Georgetown was a historic area of D.C., but she was pleasantly surprised to discover, as she and Parker hopped off the bright red-and-silver Circulator bus—the bus spewing extremely un-eco-friendly fumes in every direction—that it was upscale and hip, as well. Trendy boutiques lined the cobblestone streets, and she could just imagine Eliza on a shopping spree after school or on the weekend.

  For a moment, Billie had a small rush of self-doubt: the area was quite posh and she herself more the natural type, but then she decided that any group calling itself the Green Gorillas was probably pretty low-key. She glanced down at the note she’d scrawled to herself with the address of the group’s meeting place. It was a coffeehouse called Drip, and if she was reading her Yahoo Maps printout correctly, it was right…over…

  There! She gave herself a little mental high five. Slowly but surely, this Earth Mama was learning to adjust to life in the big city. “We found it,” she said, grinning breathlessly at Parker.

  He arched an eyebrow at her. “Was there any doubt?”

  She laughed, and shrugged, not wanting to admit that her sense of direction was hardly her strongest quality. “Never mind,” she said, starting forward.

  She looked both ways before crossing the street—so confusing how Americans insisted on driving on the wrong side of the road—and they darted into the coffee shop, Billie ducking her head down to avoid a collision course with the oversized wooden coffee-mug sign swinging ominously over the doorway.

  Upon stumbling into the shop, she realized she needn’t have worried about being too “natural” for the Green Gorillas. Her eyes scanned the place—rickety, mismatched wooden furniture painted in bright primary colors, framed old-fashioned record covers hanging askew across the walls—and lit on a cluster of people about her own age huddled in the far corner. One guy in particular seemed to be holding court at the makeshift “head” of two round tables that had been pushed together. He had dreadlocks sprouting off in every direction and was wearing a worn-in long-sleeved T-shirt that read I ♥ RECYCLING.

  From alongside her, Parker poked her in the ribs. “Your kind of people, right?”

  She didn’t turn to look at him, but nodded her head just the same, wondering briefly if Parker, in fact, felt vaguely out of place in his typical preppy uniform of jeans and a pocket T-shirt. Never mind that he actually wears “prep” well, she thought.

  The group at the table had to be the Green Gorillas, but just to be on the safe side, Billie nodded in the direction of a passing waitress. The woman looked briefly irked (or that could have just been the effect of her glaring eyebrow stud).

  “Is that the—”

  “Green Gorillas. They meet here every week,” the waitress said shortly, then tottered off on matchstick legs in a blur of tattoos and black hair dye.

  “Friendly,” Parker murmured, mostly to himself. It made Billie smile.

  Swallowing hard and gathering her courage, Billie made her way toward the back table. Any hopes she’d had of sidling up subtly, however, were dashed as she tripped on an uneven plank of flooring and careened directly into Mr. Dreadlocks himself.

  She extricated herself from the arms of his chair and willed her face to return from tomato red to its natural hue. “Erm. Hi.”

  “Were you actually looking for the Green Gorillas, or did I just happen to sweep you off your feet without even trying?”

  Dreadlocks grinned winningly, and Billie grew even more flustered. “Yes. I mean, no. I mean, sorry.” She took a deep breath. “I didn’t mean to crash into you. But I was looking for your group. A friend of mine at school—well, he’s an exchange student and we do this internship together—I mean, I should explain, I’m from Melbourne—” Suddenly every word in the English language that Billie had ever known was spewing from her mouth at once. It wasn’t pretty.

  “Why don’t we just start with the basics?” Dreadlocks asked, mercifully cutting her off. “I’m Adam.” He stuck out a hand for her to shake.

  “I’m Billie. And usually I’m a little more together than this. Not a lot, but a little.” She smiled. “I’m doing the S.A.S.S. exchange program, and I intern for the Ritter campaign. But we haven’t had the chance to do a whole lot of hands-on kind of stuff, so a friend suggested that I come by and check you guys out.”

  “Your friend is very wise,” Adam said, his hair bobbing in time with his words.

  “Thanks,” Parker said loudly, stepping forward and extending his own hand for Adam to shake. “I’m Parker. Otherwise known as Billie’s ‘friend.’”

  Billie winced. She couldn’t believe that she’d been so rude as to forget all about Parker in her tongue-twisted spazz-out. Thankfully, he seemed to be taking it okay.

  Adam shook Parker’s hand, then tilted backward and swept his hand across the table in a general sort of introduction. “This is Lisi, Meredith, Jordan, and Cal,” he said, as a petite blonde in pigtails, a tall, cool brunette, a steel-jawed boy with blazing green eyes, and a tall, lanky guy whose frec
kles formed constellations across his cheeks shook their heads at her and otherwise waved their hellos in turn.

  “Don’t worry,” Lisi said, smiling. “There won’t be a test or anything.”

  “Thank goodness for that, mate!” Billie exclaimed, causing the table to break out in good-natured laughter.

  Adam twisted in his seat and reached for a stray chair from a nearby table. “Sit,” he said, dragging the chair over and pulling his own seat back to make room for Billie. He patted at the chairs invitingly.

  After a brief glance at Parker and a questioning shrug of their respective shoulders, Billie and Parker decided to do just that, and happily.

  As it turned out, Adam had mainly been crowned head of the Green Gorillas via family lineage, like a sort of ecoroyalty. His older brother was big into environmentalism at Georgetown, where he was a freshman, and he had essentially appointed Adam leader of the 2.0 pack as a means of maintaining forward momentum.

  The group’s big plan for the spring was to stage a massive sit-in to protest the postponement of Proposition Seven. They were firm believers that putting the proposition on the back burner was just the first step in a bottomless pool of red tape that would result in nothing being done to clean the bay. For his part, Adam had been doing this for long enough that he knew how to pull in support from local media to maximize the impact and the attention that the group’s protest would achieve.

  “So you’re pro-protest?” Billie asked. She was definitely starting to feel that she was, too, after all she’d learned through her research, but she wanted to hear Adam’s take on the matter. Unlike Iris and everyone else she’d met at Ritter’s office, he seemed like someone who cared about the environment on a pragmatic level. In other words, less talk-y, more do-y.

  “It’s the most immediate and impactful way of making our voices heard,” Adam explained.

  “And like I told you at school, the Green Gorillas are all about making their voices heard,” Parker chimed in. “Some of the college outposts of the group have made waves for some particularly high-profile efforts.”