Invisible Me

by Chrissie Keighery

  Girl v The World: Invisible Me

  Keighery, Chrissie

  Hardie Grant Egmont

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Other Girl V The World Titles

  Copyright Page

  ‘Sunday roast,’ Dad says. ‘That smells good, Vanny.’

  I look up from my school books on the kitchen table.

  Dad is standing behind Mum at the oven, wrapping his arms around her waist as she checks the roast inside.

  ‘Ew … get a room guys,’ I tease. But, inside, I feel my heart skip. It’s so nice to have Dad back. In the two weeks he was gone, staying with his sister, Kate, there was sort of a hole in my heart.

  ‘Cheeky,’ Dad says, smiling at me over his shoulder and looking back. ‘Vanny, I think we have us a teenager on our hands.’

  Cricket barks her agreement from the doorway in our hall. We got her from the pound – she’s a rescue dog and we’re the rescuers. I still can’t imagine why anyone would have wanted to get rid of her. Mum says some people like the idea of having a puppy, but when the puppy grows up they’re not so keen anymore. But I reckon she’s as cute as any puppy. Apparently, she was found wandering around without a collar, so no-one knew her name. But as soon as I saw Cricket, I knew what I wanted to call her. She jumped up to say hello. Like a little cricket.

  Even though we only got her a few months ago, it’s as though she’s been with me forever. In a way, Cricket is like the sister I used to wish for before I totally gave up hope that my parents would have another child. And Cricket has something to say about everything.

  I give Dad one of my best eye rolls. ‘I’ve been a teenager for three months, Dad,’ I remind him.

  ‘Good,’ Dad says. ‘Only six years and nine months to go.’ He starts moving towards me, his fingers twitching. The next thing I know, I’m out of my seat and enduring a tickle. Cricket jumps around beside and between us, trying to be part of the action.

  ‘Dad, I’m too … old … for this,’ I gasp, and I try to be serious so he’ll get it, but I can’t help giggling. Cricket barks again, six short barks that seem to echo my words.

  ‘Ssssh, Cricket,’ Dad says, releasing me. ‘Now sit.’

  Cricket stops barking and sits still. I can see that the sitting is killing her. She’s definitely a jumper by nature, not a sitter. Three seconds later, she’s up and racing down the hallway, as if those three seconds have given her super-energy savings that she has to use up somehow.

  ‘How long before it’s ready, Vanny?’ Dad asks.

  ‘You’ve got time to watch the news,’ Mum answers. Dad nods, grabs the local paper and goes into the lounge room.

  ‘Hey, Limps,’ Mum says when he’s gone, ‘can you come and help me choose an outfit for my party while we’re waiting?’

  Mum’s birthday is in a couple of weeks and she’s having some friends over. I’m supposed to be doing my maths homework, but I guess I can do it after dinner.

  Maybe it’s lame, but I love choosing outfits with Mum.

  I like the way she wants my opinion on things and I like that it’s girly time. But I especially like having this girly time with Mum while Dad is watching the news in the lounge room, while he’s home and settled and it seems like he’s happy.

  As Mum is looking through her wardrobe, I sneak a look in Dad’s dresser drawer. Everything that should be there is.

  His wallet and keys are perched on top of a stack of his undies. It’s a nice feeling. I slide the drawer shut quietly before Mum turns around.

  ‘Okay, Limps, these are our options.’ Mum holds her favourite little black dress up in front of her, and then switches to her red polka-dot shirt and black pants. Even though she’s wearing Vans, she manages to squish her feet halfway into her high-heeled black wedges and teeter towards me.

  ‘I reckon the little black dress,’ I say, lying back on their bed. ‘Except that it’s just a bit too plain.’

  Mum screws up her nose. ‘You’re right,’ she says. ‘Can I try your short-sleeve cardigan over the top? The red one?’

  Now it’s my turn to screw up my nose. ‘Mum, you’ll stretch it!’ I protest.

  Mum gives me one of her grins. ‘Limps, that might have been true six months ago, but not anymore. Some things have changed lately. Two things, actually.’

  I look down at my chest. She’s right. I’m definitely catching up to her in that way.

  Mum comes over. She sits on the bed and bumps me so I’ll make room for her.

  ‘I reckon you’re going to take after Dad’s side of the family,’ she giggles.

  ‘Like Aunty Kate? No way!’ I say, but I can’t help laughing too. Aunty Kate’s boobs are ginormous. It’s so weird to think that I might get bigger boobs than my mum has. I mean, Mum is pretty flat for a grown-up, and I wouldn’t mind being a bit bigger than she is eventually. But I definitely don’t want ginormous.

  ‘Maybe halfway between me and Aunty Kate?’ Mum asks, and it’s as though we’re making a bargain and I get to choose exactly how I want to turn out in the end.

  Of course, you don’t actually get to choose how you turn out. If you did, I’d put in plenty of orders, starting with the gap in my teeth closing and going right down to my legs turning browner and being less skinny. I wish that was possible.

  ‘Halfway and absolutely no more than that,’ I offer.‘Done!’ Mum says. ‘Now can you get the cardie for me to try?’

  I’m setting the table for dinner when Dad comes in from the lounge room.

  ‘Did you know your friend was in this?’ he asks, handing me the local paper. ‘The pretty, dark-haired one.’ I know straight away who Dad is referring to, because this is the sort of description people use about my best friend, Edi. Pretty. Beautiful. Stunning. Attractive. That’s Edi. Edi hasn’t mentioned anything about being in the local paper, though.

  Dad has flipped it to a page near the back. It’s a regular feature in the paper. A photographer just goes around our local shopping centre, taking random pictures of people who look good. Usually, the people photographed are much older than me and Edi, but there she is. She’s looking just her normal amount of gorgeous. If they’d taken a photo of me (which they totally wouldn’t because I just don’t stand out from the crowd), I’d probably have red eyes, or my hair sticking up, or my stomach sticking out, or I’d be opening my mouth so my gappy teeth would be showing. Or, most likely, all of the above. I feel a rush of pride that this girl is my absolute best friend.

  SUNDAY STYLE SNAPSHOT

  Edi Rhineheart

  Who are you shopping with today? My friend, Hazel.

  What are you looking for? A necklace or something for my hair. I’ll know when I see it.

  What are you wearing? My fave old yellow T-shirt with sparkles, G-Star jeans and some cowboy boots I found at a market.

  I stare at the paper. The only line I see at the moment is the first one.

  Who are you shopping with today? My friend, Hazel.

  I look at the date on the cover of the paper. The photo would have been taken last Sunday. A week ago.

  Last Sunday, I was home all day. By myself. No-one called at all.

  Something flutters inside me.

  Hazel has definitely been spending more and more time with Edi, but I think – I hope – that’s because their boyfriends are mates. None of the boys at school like me, even though when some guys posted up a ‘hot list’ of all the girls in our year, I was actually
ranked way higher than Hazel. We ripped up the list, but I still know everyone’s positions. I was number eight and Hazel ended up being number twenty-three. Of course, Edi was number one.

  I guess they could have been shopping, all four of them, but I doubt it. I don’t think you’d get Edi’s boyfriend, Archie, near shops on the weekend, since he’s always playing soccer.

  ‘She looks good, doesn’t she, Olympia?’ Dad says.

  He lifts his arm in the air, fingers out and I’m already annoyed by what he’s about to do, but here it comes anyway. ‘Yo,’ he says, moving his hand around like he thinks rappers do, ‘girl got style.’

  Yeah, Edi’s got style. And she’s also got Hazel, sticking to her like glue. Going shopping with her when it should have been me. And neither of them has even mentioned it to me all week.

  I flick Dad’s hand away and finish setting the table in silence.

  ‘Here we go,’ Mum says, putting plates on the table. ‘Lamb roast.’

  I probably could have figured that out by myself, since I’m seeing it with my own eyes.

  Dad gets a cold beer from the fridge and hoes in immediately, like he’s starving.

  ‘So good, Vanny,’ he says between mouthfuls.

  Mum smiles at him, loads up her fork and has a taste. I push the food around on my plate, about as unhungry as I can get after seeing that article. Cricket positions herself under the table. I sneak her a piece of meat.

  ‘So, what’s on tomorrow, Limps?’ Mum asks. ‘Do you have sport? I’ve got your PE uniform washed and ready to go. It’s on the bench in the laundry.’

  ‘I’ve got PE second period,’ I say. ‘Softball.’ With Edi and Hazel. Who went shopping together and didn’t even tell me.

  ‘Your dad was really good at softball,’ Mum says, giving Dad one of her flirty looks. Mum and Dad started going out together when they were still in high school, so they know this random stuff about each other. They had me when they were both nineteen. I wasn’t exactly planned.

  Dad shakes his head, but I can tell he’s pleased. Like, even though that was about a hundred years ago.

  ‘Your mum was more of a netball fiend,’ Dad says, as though the subject is interesting for me. ‘She was a very cool centre. All over the court.’

  ‘Great,’ I say. Since I’m bad at sports, I don’t know what all this has to do with me. I try to pull myself up. That was too sarcastic. I should have just gone along with them. ‘At least softball is better than aths,’ I add, to soften my ‘great’. As I say it, I sneak another piece of meat down to Cricket.

  ‘Olympia,’ Dad says, ‘are you feeding Cricket at the table?’

  As soon as she hears her name, Cricket emerges from under the table and tries to jump on my lap.

  ‘Down!’ Dad says. He takes Cricket by the collar and walks her over to the side of the kitchen.

  ‘Sit. Stay,’ he says, and then returns to his chair. ‘Olympia, Cricket obviously didn’t get much training at her last home, so it’s up to us to teach her how to behave. If you feed her at the table, you’re letting her think she’s human and equal. She needs to learn her place in the family.’

  He turns to Cricket again. She’s up and about to head back to me.

  ‘Sit. Stay,’ Dad says, his index finger pointing at her. Cricket does it, but she doesn’t look happy. She lies down and tilts her head to the side.

  ‘Aw, look at her. She’s so cute,’ Mum says.

  I am looking at her and she is so cute. But Dad shakes his head.

  ‘Naughty isn’t cute,’ he says. ‘If you let her jump all over you, she will think it’s okay to go jumping all over guests too. And I can tell you, a lot of people would find that any-thing but cute. What she needs is to go to obedience school.’

  I feel my shoulders tense up. It was the whole obedience school idea that caused things to crash around here last time, when Dad ended up moving in with Aunty Kate. Dad wanted Cricket to start straight away, but the conversation about dog training somehow morphed into an argument about stuff that has nothing to do with Cricket.

  I guess it’s kind of normal to have parents who don’t agree about everything. But I don’t think most parents argue like mine. If they have an argument about one thing, it turns into an argument about five million things all mushed in together, and they just kept going on and on and getting louder and louder. I don’t think that’s normal.

  I watch Mum take another bite of her dinner and chew silently. It’s been so good between them tonight. But now I have that horrible, familiar feeling that things are about to change.

  ‘Actually, Jim, you were going to do obedience school with Olympia, remember?’

  The tension spreads from my shoulders all the way through me.

  ‘Well, I can’t do it now. I don’t have time since I’ve got three new contracts in the pipeline.’ He pauses. My leg jiggles up and down, bumping the table. ‘Contracts I tendered for because you said we didn’t have enough money, Savannah,’ he adds.

  I switch legs. I can see the water in the jug on the table going up and down with the jiggle. Nobody notices.

  ‘I never said we didn’t have enough money,’ Mum says. She points to the fridge, where loads of bills are put up with magnets. ‘The bills on the fridge said that. And if you care to remember, I’ve also taken an extra shift at work.’

  ‘Come on, Savannah,’ Dad says. ‘You’re home by four on Thursdays. Do it then.’

  ‘Well, yes, Jim, why not?’ Mum says and now her voice is kind of high-pitched. I can’t really blame Cricket for barking because it’s probably hurting her sensitive ears. ‘As long as everyone’s happy not to have the laundry and the shopping and cleaning and cooking done.’

  Now I’m totally wishing that I didn’t freak out after seeing the article and picture of Edi, because something started changing the mood in our kitchen and it was probably me. I can’t remember how this argument even began, but if I’d just acted interested in Dad being good at softball a hundred years ago and Mum being centre in netball, maybe none of this would be happening.

  I don’t care if Mum never does another load of laundry or cooks another meal. I would eat baked beans every night and wear dirty clothes if I could stop this. But they’re firing words at each other and there’s nothing I can do.

  ‘God, you’re such a matyr, Savannah,’ Dad says sarcastically. Mr Mendes just taught us that word in English. Somebody who makes sacrifices or suffers greatly in order to advance a cause or principle. Mum is not going to like being called that.

  ‘Oh, do us all a favour and grow up, Jim,’ she hisses.

  I wish they’d look at me. If they did, they could see how sad it makes me when they fight.

  I ease myself out of my seat carefully, but it wouldn’t really matter if I did it like an elephant. Because Mum and Dad don’t even notice I exist at the moment. I’m invisible.

  When I close the door to my bedroom, I can still hear Mum and Dad arguing but I can’t hear what they’re saying.

  I get my pyjamas on, turn the volume up on the TV and grab my drawing pad. Cricket jumps in bed beside me and burrows under the doona with her head sticking out. I give her a scratch between the ears.

  After a while, Mum comes in. She sits on the end of my bed and sighs. With my bedroom door open, I can hear Dad turning on the TV in the spare room.

  ‘Can you believe your father, Olympia?’ Mum sighs. It’s not a question she wants me to answer. I know all about this. Mum just wants to let off steam.

  ‘Sometimes I wonder about him,’ she says. ‘For starters, did you see how many beers he had tonight? Did you count them, Limps?’

  I shake my head. I don’t even want to count how many beers Dad had.

  ‘Well, he had five,’ Mum continues. ‘And five beers means he’s gone stupid.’

  Cricket burrows further down the doona. I wish I could do the same.

  ‘I know he was young when you came along, but so was I.’ Now I’m hoping Mum doesn’t say anything abou
t me being a surprise. Even though she always says I was a good surprise, sometimes I wish I didn’t even know. Sometimes, it makes me feel like I was an accident instead of a surprise.

  Mum lies on the end of my bed, propped up on an elbow, like she’s making herself comfortable for a long session. I wriggle my legs under the covers so she has less room, but she just shifts around them.

  ‘He just needs to step up to the plate. It’s like, Hello, Jim! You have a family.’

  Thankfully, at least Mum skips the part about me being a surprise this time.

  ‘And a mortgage. So just get over yourself and stop – ’

  ‘Mum,’ I say. ‘I’m really tired.’ If I have to hear any more, I think I’ll scream.

  Mum looks at me and then at her watch. As though I must be saying I’m tired because it’s after my normal bedtime, not because I don’t want to have this conversation.

  ‘Oh, okay, Limps. You sleep tight. Don’t worry about any of this.’

  Yeah, right.

  I settle back down in bed and pick up my drawing. I’ve been working on it for a while now. It’s the four of us – Edi, Hazel, Jess and me – lounging around Edi’s caravan. It’s not from a photo or even my memory, just how I think the four of us might look when we’re deep in conversation at one of our caravan meetings.

  We’re on the little lime-green bench seats and I’m sitting right next to Edi, where I’m supposed to sit, though sometimes Hazel is really annoying and gets in there before me. Hazel and Jess are opposite.

  I add a few strokes with my lead pencil, but my heart’s not in it tonight. I might be sitting next to Edi in the picture, but she and Hazel have gone shopping together in real life, and they didn’t even ask me.

  It makes me feel like I don’t matter, all over again. Like I’m just as invisible to my friends as I am to my parents.

  Cricket puts her little head over the page.

  ‘You know what?’ I whisper. She pricks up her ears. ‘I’m glad you don’t just sit and stay.’

  Cricket looks up as though she’s waiting for me to explain what I mean. I can hear Dad closing the door of the spare room and then getting into the wonky single bed in there that squeaks. At least he hasn’t gone to Aunty Kate’s.