Deb stared hard at them all. One by one.
‘Frankly, I don’t have the words to describe how disappointed I am. With all of you.’
Anna stood up. The party had been her idea and she’d decided to take the fall. ‘It’s not their fault, it’s mine. I promised Simmo the party wouldn’t get out of hand.’ She looked down at her hands. ‘But then I got nervous it wouldn’t be any good and so I just kept inviting people – and then we couldn’t get rid of them.’
Deb wasn’t listening anymore. She’d stopped listening right after the part where Anna had said she’d promised Simmo. She was glaring at him like she was going to pop a valve. ‘You knew about this?’
It was only then that everyone realised that Deb hadn’t known about the party at all. Simmo let out a long, whistling kind of breath. He hadn’t told Deb about the party because he knew she wouldn’t have come at it. No way, no day. So, foolishly, he’d told her he was inviting her out to dinner and a movie as a way to try and get their working relationship onto a better level.
Deb took some deep breaths, stared back at the mess. ‘I don’t want to see anyone in bed until this place is spick and span.’ She turned to Simmo. ‘We need to talk. Now.’ Fly cleaned like it was an Olympic sport. While the others tackled the backyard Fly lingered as close as she could to Simmo’s office. She knew she shouldn’t be there, but she couldn’t help it, she needed to know.
‘We sit through a whole meal, and a movie, and I talk about being worried about leaving the kids alone and you don’t mention they’re having a party?’
Fly could tell that Deb was angry because Simmo had lied to her, but that wasn’t what she was angriest about. She was talking about something in her contract which meant she had to report all ‘major incidents’ to Solar Blue. If Heath and Fly were charged with vandalism or wilful destruction of property there would be no way of hiding it …
‘And now, because you’re too busy being “friends” with the kids, I have to make a call in the morning that will, in all likelihood, lose you your job.’
Fly stood there dumbfounded. Simmo could lose his job?
She turned around and moved towards the couch, her head reeling. She absent-mindedly reached down and picked up a cushion with half a container of dip dripping off the sides. It was then that she saw the cake. It was a mud cake with hot pink writing across it. She peered down at the smeared letters and finally she was able to make out the words: HAPPY BIRTHDAY FLY …
She looked up and found Heath in the doorway.
‘The party was for me?’ she asked.
Heath nodded.
‘That’s why you got off the bus to come back and get me.’
Heath nodded again.
‘My mission was to make sure the guest of honour didn’t miss her own party.’
Fly wished she hadn’t gotten up that morning at all.
At 3.30 am Deb decided the house was in reasonable enough shape for them to go to bed. They could finish it off in the morning. The truth was she was sick of the sight of them.
Fly didn’t sleep. She sat on her bed desperately trying to think of something to do. She told the others about Simmo at breakfast, but they couldn’t think of anything either.
Just when things seemed to be at their worst, Edge appeared in the doorway holding an antique rocking chair. One of the arms had been smashed to pieces and the bend in one of the legs now made it rock like a horse with three of its legs tied together. The chair had been Jilly’s grandmother’s and it was Jilly’s pride and joy.
‘Please, someone slap me if I ever suggest having a party again,’ said Anna.
‘What are we going to do?’ asked Perri.
‘I thought about fixing it, but it’s pretty trashed,’said Edge. ‘Maybe we can try and find another one.’
Anna lifted her head from the table.
‘No,’ she said. ‘As uncomfortable as it will be, I think Jilly deserves the truth.’
The simplicity of what she said nearly floored Fly. This was what she needed to hear. This was why she had sat up half the night. Finally, she knew what she had to do.
The conference room at the police station had six chairs set up when they arrived. They were the most uncomfortable chairs Fly had ever sat in, but she guessed they weren’t meant to make you feel relaxed. Two uniformed constables sat on one side of the table, and Fly, Heath, Deb and Simmo sat on the other. It’d been horribly silent in the car on the way there. Simmo’s driving was worse than ever.
One of the police officers got their note-taking gear ready, but Fly interrupted. ‘Can I say something before you start taking notes?’
Everyone stared in surprise. Fly took a deep breath and launched into that big scary space people like school counsellors called ‘owning stuff’.
She looked first to Deb and Simmo.
‘The only reason they had the party in the first place was because I made a fuss about being treated like a kid. I’m the reason Anna asked Simmo to bend the rules, so I could feel like I was having a grown-up party without adult supervision. So that bit’s definitely my fault.’
She took a breath and pushed on. ‘And we only missed the bus because … because I didn’t want to …’ She took another breath. ‘I didn’t want to be alone with Heath.’
Heath’s head shot up. ‘What?’
Brave as it was to have said it, Fly wasn’t up to looking at Heath yet.
The policewoman cleared her throat. ‘Fiona, I’m not sure how all this is relevant to the incident with the caravan.’
Fly took yet another breath. Now for the really crunchy bit. She closed her eyes and plunged on in. ‘Believe me, I wish it wasn’t, but it is … I had a dream. An … inappropriate dream where Heath – well, he kissed me and so all day I was trying to avoid him, ‘cause it made me feel … confused, and that’s why we missed the bus, and that’s when everything started to go wrong.’
Without even seeing it, Fly felt the look pass between Deb and Simmo.
‘If I was half as grown up as I thought I was, I would’ve gotten over myself, and we’d’ve gone to the movies for my birthday, we wouldn’t have missed the bus in the first place and Simmo wouldn’t have to lose his job.’
It would be fair to say there was stunned silence all round.
The police asked Heath and Fly to wait outside so they could talk to Deb and Simmo in private. They sat on another pair of hard chairs in the waiting room, surrounded by posters warning about the dangers of drink driving and smuggling birds. Fly thought they should have one about reckless emotions. A great big one with her face on it.
After a long time, Heath looked up at her. ‘So I was just wondering … how the real kiss stacked up to the dream one. Or whether maybe it wasn’t so good, and that’s why you freaked out.’
Fly didn’t know what to say. She felt like she’d run out of puff on the adult stuff and here he was, asking for more. ‘I don’t know,’ she mumbled.
Heath nodded, but Fly could see he was actually hurt. He suddenly seemed unusually interested in the finer details of bird smuggling.
At home, the rest of the crew were following Jilly around as she wandered through the house. They were definitely going to tell her, they just hadn’t nailed down when.
‘Neat as a pin,’ said Jilly. ‘Which can only mean one thing. You had a party.’
Bec complained. ‘Oh, Jilly. You didn’t even give us a chance to confess.’
‘We did have a party, Jilly.’ Anna bit the bullet. ‘And your beautiful chair was broken.’
Jilly didn’t look so friendly anymore. ‘How broken?’
‘Think smithereens,’ said Matt.
Jilly thought on smithereens for a moment.
‘I wish we could turn back the clock and make it right, but we can’t. All we can do is say how sorry we are,’ Anna said.
Jilly let out a sigh. ‘If one of you had come into my room and sat on it yesterday, it would’ve broken then too. It was on its way out …’ Jilly picked up the odd
cushion, double-checking on their cleaning job.
‘But given it was broken in less than honest circumstances … You all do woodwork – you can make me a new one.’
Edge was the first to protest. ‘But it was all curved and curly and stuff!’
‘I don’t care how it looks, Edge – I’m interested in effort. And you’ve all got off very lightly, if you ask me.’
They did all, in fact, know this to be true.
‘Yeah, well, Deb hasn’t even started with us yet.’ Anna grimaced.
Right on cue, Deb, Simmo, Fly and Heath walked through the door. Everyone stared, waiting for a verdict.
‘The jails are all full apparently,’ said Simmo, ‘so we were allowed to bring them home.’
There was relief all round, but it still left one question unanswered, and Fly was the only one brave enough to ask it.
‘What about you, Simmo?’
When he didn’t give her an answer, Fly looked to Deb. She didn’t look happy. She stared at Fly and then at Simmo.
‘When would I have had the chance to report him, Fly, given that I’ve been up half the night dealing with all this?’
Which, in Deb’s hardcore way, meant Simmo was off the hook too. Fly could’ve jumped up on the lounge and sung at the top of her lungs. Jilly would possibly have stabbed her but she felt so relieved she almost did it anyway. She was getting the hang of this ‘meet stuff in the face’ business. Just one face left to meet; better do it before the courage deserted her. ‘Can I talk to you for a minute, Heath?’
She led him out to the lawn and waited for him to sit. A couple of deep breaths and then on with the truth. Now they were alone she could feel the shakes creeping up her legs.
‘Um, Heath? It was – it was as good as in the dream.’
There! She’d said it.
Heath stared at her. ‘Beg yours?’
She said it again. ‘It was as good as in the dream.’
‘What was as good?’
Why was he making her say it so many times?
‘The kiss. The kiss was as good as in the dream. Just so you know.’
Heath allowed himself a small smile. ‘Cool.’
And then, because she hadn’t thought it through, and because this conversation was supposed to be about tidying things up and she could feel the whole thing threatening to go messy again, she pushed on.
‘Not that I’d know. Having had no experience or anything. Who knows? It might’ve been terrible.’
It sounded worse than she’d meant it to, but now it was out, she couldn’t reel it back in.
Heath swallowed hard on the kick in the kisser. He nodded and gave her one of those sad half-smiles, the kind that only makes it up one side of your face. He stood there hunting for the kind of wisecrack which would bring things back to normal. Fly held her breath, willing him to find the line, but it didn’t come.
‘I’m going to head back in.’
It was the most boring thing Heath had said to her since they’d met, and it made her feel like a cockroach.
Fly sat on the grass, playing that boring line over and over again, and wishing a huge can of insect spray would comes down out of the sky and squirt her fair in the head.
Chapter 16
Although Fly knew she’d completely stuffed things up with Heath, there wasn’t exactly a lot of time to dwell on it. When Deb and Simmo had drawn up the schedule for the year they hadn’t left many blank spaces for ‘Sit and Contemplate Hurting Someone You Really Like or the Last Time You Felt Like an Emotional Psycho’. So at least the days were taken care of.
And if anything, they just seemed to be getting busier. Monday morning rolled around and, just like many Monday mornings lately, Deb added one more ‘to do’ to their lists.
Deb was very keen on the idea of capacity. She reckoned that, ever so slowly, without them even noticing, they were building their physical and emotional capacity. That’s what she said every time she doubled their number of laps in the pool. That’s what she said every time she refused to cancel training when they all had major assignments due. She reckoned they’d be able to look back at where they were when they started and be amazed at what they could handle now.
And now that she thought about it, Fly realised Deb was probably right. In spite of the kissing caravan debacle, Fly was actually managing to stay on top of most other things. She wasn’t shaping up to be a Nobel Prize winner, but she was doing well in school – not As, but above average. Not bad for the youngest in the year, thanks very much, Mr Exeter. And she wasn’t coming last in the water either. She was winning her fair share of the weekly comps and she danced between second and third of the girls on Simmo’s whiteboard.
Bec and Perri took turns in the top slot. Anna mostly sat in fourth, but every now and then she’d shock the pants off them all by pulling out something so good it was scary. Deb and Simmo were a long way from writing Anna off as a serious contender and they warned the other girls it would be stupid to think this was a three-horse race.
The boys were a three horse race – well, there were only three of them, weren’t there? Matt was the only consistent corner of that triangle. Heath and Edge ran hot and cold for different reasons. With Heath, it was as if when the great big chef in the sky was making him, they left out a vital ingredient – they forgot to add the ‘getting your act together’ gene. Heath was always running late, he brought the wrong boards, he turned up at the wrong breaks. When he did get it together he was awesome. He just needed to get it together more than one day in a row. Not that it was any of her business anymore. She’d kind of made sure of that.
Edge was inconsistent for a different reason. He just couldn’t manage to follow the rules of competition – they made him feel like he was wearing a straitjacket. Instead of doing what he was told and ticking all the boxes, Edge would use the whole wave to generate enough speed to pull off one spectacular aerial and score twos and threes. Simmo tried to talk to him about what the judges wanted, but Edge just couldn’t be told anything. He needed life to push him on his backside before he learned anything – and maybe that’s why the shark picked him …
Autumn is well known for being shark time. As Mother Nature starts to make the southern seas a bit nippy, lots of her critters decide it’s time for a summer holiday. Fly knew it well, because she came from Great White country. In third class her year had done a huge project about sharks. The local marine authority had got them involved in a satellite tagging project. They’d been allocated a shark, which they named Neville, and they logged onto their computers each week for a whole year to follow that twelve-foot fish along the coast. She was on the other side of the country now, but she knew the sharks trawled north along the east coast too, chasing a trail of spawning salmon and tailor and sea mullet.
Surfers generally hate sharks. They know it’s an odds game – you can only dangle your legs in their kitchen for so long before you end up on the menu. But that year with Neville had softened Fly. She remembered getting strangely upset at all the bad press sharks copped. They weren’t that different from whales. But no-one chartered boats and stood on headlands with binoculars waiting for a tiny glimpse of tail or got the warm fuzzies at the very mention of their name. Why was that? That’s right, whales don’t eat people.
So it was autumn, it was twilight – and they all knew twilight was dinner time. Bec and Perri reckoned they should head in, but Edge wouldn’t hear of it. The conditions were just too good. And he was right, there was a magic in the air, a stillness that touched them all as they sat out the back waiting for the next set to rock in. It was one of those afternoons that made them want to pinch themselves at just how good their lives were turning out.
Then Edge jumped like someone had plugged him with a cow prod. His leg shot up out of the water and onto his board. His smile had vanished. He swung around wildly, staring at Heath as he cruised past.
‘Did you touch my leg?’
They’re the words you never want to hear in the
water, especially when you know you did no such thing.
‘I did not touch your leg.’
Edge’s head snapped one way, staring down into the murky water, then across to the other side. Was that a shadow sweeping by? Edge abandoned any need to be cool and screamed at the top of his lungs: …’ SHARK!’
He turned and started paddling like a torpedo. It didn’t take much to convince the rest of them to follow suit.
Even with the dry sand under his toes, Edge had the post-scare shakes bad. His hands trembled and his voice jittered. They felt for him – they’d all thought they’d seen sharks before, but none of them had done the skin-to-skin thing.
‘It – it was like … I dunno … being f-felt up by a wad of s-sandpaper.’
They couldn’t keep their eyes off him, entranced by the thrilling horror of the possibility …
‘I don’t even want to think how l-long it was … four or five metres. Just cruising along beneath me.’
Another ripple of thrill. Thanks to the Neville project Fly knew the big sharks could grow this long – they were talking about the size of a family car here. Then Fly frowned.
‘Matt heard you, didn’t he, Edge?’
They all turned to see Matt carefully slipping off his board and into the water. No-one breathed. They all just stared at the space on the surface where Matt used to be. Why would anyone in their right mind stay in the water with an animal known to chow down on human beings?
Matt surfaced again after a moment, and then very slowly, very casually, swam towards shore, pushing his board along in front of him. By the time he waded through the white water Fly was starting to feel kind of cranky with him.
‘Are you mad?’ she said.
Matt just shook his head. ‘I was making sure I didn’t look like a turtle until I worked out if there was a shark or not.’
Edge exploded. ‘What do you mean if there was a shark?!’
Matt shrugged. ‘If there was a shark I’d be the last one out of all of us to get the chomp.’
Blue Water High Page 11
