I made my escape. I wasn’t after a hairbrush at all. I wanted something else entirely. And with a little bit of digging and looking in bags and boxes, I found what I was after. I put it in my pocket for later, before ducking into my room and closing the door.
At dinner, I made Mum confused once more.
‘So, I probably won’t keep doing singing lessons with Francesca,’ I said, through bites of spinach, pasta and cheese.
‘What?’ said Dad.
I shrugged at him. ‘I don’t want to do singing anymore.’
Mum made a face at him and the two of them raised their eyebrows at each other. I pretended not to notice.
‘Is this a new thing?’ he said.
‘She also said she didn’t want to go to Baker,’ said Mum, her voice worried. ‘I mean, not that I particularly want her to go to Baker, but ...’ Her voice trailed off and she looked questioningly at me, her head tilted to one side. ‘All of this is very strange, Abby.’
‘It’s not strange,’ I said, louder than I intended. And then, surprisingly, I felt my throat get really tight. ‘I just don’t want to do it anymore.’
‘Well,’ said Dad, with a sip of his drink, ‘I mean, we want you to be happy, but are you sure?’
‘Yes,’ I said, super-firmly. ‘I’m sure. I want to go to school with my friends.’
‘You haven’t seemed to see them very much recently,’ said Mum. ‘They haven’t been around here a lot. Are you sure you want to change schools for them?’
‘I’m sure,’ I said. It’s the only way, I thought. But I didn’t say it out loud.
After dinner I went to my room, closed the door, threw myself on the bed and stared at the ceiling. A spider moved from its cobweb high in the corner but I ignored it. Why make its life miserable? It didn’t do anything to me. My leg itched, so I kind of half-turned onto my hip to reach down and scratch it but there was a bump in my pocket making it uncomfortable.
Oh, right.
I dug in with my other hand and wedged it out of the crease that my shorts were making on my leg. It was smooth, so it came out easily, but it was warm in my hand.
Mascara.
Stolen from Mum’s drawer. I didn’t care about that part. She’d never notice, and anyway, she never wore it. I didn’t think I’d seen her wear it more than once in about four years. In fact, I remembered the last time she wore it: to Buzz’s mum’s birthday party when she’d turned 40. I remembered her coming out of her room looking totally unlike herself, in a dress with shiny material on the skirt part and shoes that were all matchy-matchy. I’d stood there, my eyes wide with wonder.
‘Are you secretly a princess?’ I’d asked and Mum had done a half-laugh, all awkward, with her hand reaching up to her eyes at the mirror, mascara held gently between her fingers.
‘Me? Ha. If you only knew,’ she’d said, turning towards me, her face smoother and pinker than usual, and one eye ringed in black. ‘I’d rather be wearing jeans and gumboots.’ She turned back to the mirror and put her hand down in frustration. ‘See? I’ve smudged it again.’
Now I swung my legs over the side of the bed and sat up. Ziggy was nudging at the door, trying to get in, but for probably the first time in my life, I ignored him. Instead, I walked over to the mirror that Dad had hung on the inside of my cupboard, back when I was six—pink framed and still sporting a giraffe sticker I’d carefully stuck to the glass. I looked at my face, all freckly and brown, and my uneven pigtails bouncing on each side.
That’s what I look like, I thought. That’s me.
Ziggy scratched at the door and whined.
‘Bad dog,’ I said fiercely. ‘Not now.’ And then my eyes went hard. I took the mascara in my hands, unwound it into two pieces and held the brush part up in front of my eyes. It was smaller than I’d imagined. Black. And sticky.
I took a breath.
If this is what it takes to get my friends back.
I dabbed the mascara at my eyelashes—too hard at first, and then more gently, trying not to get the stuff on my eyeball. It was trickier than I’d thought. Black clumps kept collecting on the ends of the lashes and whenever I blinked—which was often—I ended up with black marks under my eyes.
‘Really?’ I asked myself, out loud, in the mirror when I was done. ‘Honestly?’
Ziggy was still pushing at the door. I batted my eyelids at my reflection, trying out a Stella-type look. She made it seem easy. I looked like a ring-tailed possum caught on the road at night, blinking in the headlights of an oncoming car.
There was a door slam and a rush of air into the room. I turned around to see Ziggy burst in and jump up, his paws on my chest. I dropped the mascara and hugged him back.
‘Clever dog,’ I said, rubbing his face with mine. ‘Good dog. I love you.’ I threw myself down on the floor so we were at the same level, put my arms around him and buried my eyes in his fur. He tried to turn his head to lick my face and it made me laugh, but at the same time I realised something.
I was crying too. And the black of the mascara had become stains on Ziggy’s face.
Chapter 29
That night I slept with Ziggy on my bed and the mascara under my pillow. In the morning my face looked black-blotchy, as opposed to just sleep-blotchy, so I had an early shower, waking up Miles. He groaned at me from his bedroom.
‘The water’s too noisy.’
‘Put a pillow over your ears.’
‘Kids!’ came Dad’s voice from the parents’ room. ‘Go back to sleep.’
But I couldn’t. This was the day I’d be getting my friends back. My arms felt twitchy with excitement and my stomach was refusing to eat breakfast, or at least it was until I offered it cake instead of just boring old Weetbix and milk.
‘What’s up with you?’ asked Miles. ‘You’re humming Annie songs, like, non-stop.’
‘Am I?’ I stopped, guilty. I’d have to find other songs to hum. Well, if I was going to be allowed to hum at all. They said no singing. Surely that didn’t include humming?
‘Are you cleaning up your room today?’ I asked Miles. ‘You should, you know. Friends like people with clean rooms, and if you want to be popular ...’ I gave him a one-eyebrow-up look. ‘I’m cleaning mine.’
‘Yeah,’ he said scornfully. ‘Like, nah.’
I cleaned, sorted and filled box after empty box from the garage until I could actually see both the carpet and the flat surface of my desk.
‘See, Ziggy?’ I said to him. ‘This is what it takes. You should clean up your doggy things too.’ At the sound of his name, Ziggy wagged his tail, which was sweet of him.
‘You’re a good buddy,’ I told him.
When Mum and Dad finally got up and had breakfast, I was already dressed, in my best jeans and a new t-shirt some aunt or cousin had given me at Christmas. It was white and had a silver horse on it, with sequins on its ears. I’d looked at it and laughed when I’d opened it. Not out loud, obviously—Mum would have made me apologise—but definitely internally. Now, though, it looked like the most suitable option for a girl who was under instructions to try harder with her looks.
‘Can I go into town after lunch?’ I asked. ‘I’m meeting Buzz and Jessie at the lolly shop.’
Mum looked up from the Good Weekend magazine. Her face was pleased.
‘Sure,’ she said. ‘That’s good. You should.’
‘Take your bike?’ asked Dad, not actually moving his head from the sports section.
‘Yeah, I’ll ride in.’
He shrugged his approval and then the rest of the morning was a waiting game. I bounced on the trampoline, ran down to the river and back, moved boxes from my room into the garage and ate a lot of cake. When Mum was settled on the couch with her magazine, I snuck into my room and pulled the mascara tube out from under my pillow. I dabbed it on—still shuddering but determined—and tried har
d to avoid the blotchy result of last night. My eyelids felt sticky and heavy. I had to blink carefully, kind of stretching my face out as I did, so the lashes wouldn’t touch my skin.
I grabbed a hairbrush, shoved it through my hair and went to put it into my usual pigtails, but then stopped. I imagined Buzz’s face when she saw me. She’d look at my face and nod and smile. But then her eyes would travel to my hair and she’d shake her head.
No pigtails. Try again.
I racked my brain to think. What other kinds of hairstyles were there? A pony tail? Would that be good enough? Or braids maybe? Maybe I should just leave it out.
I stared at myself in the mirror. This was way too confusing. Did everyone else make this many decisions in one day? How did they ever have time for the fun things? I took a deep breath in and left my hair alone. If they had a problem with it, they’d have to figure it out themselves. Now it was time to go.
I opened my door just a fraction and peeked out through the gap. Mum was still on the couch, facing away from me. From the banging sounds, I guessed Miles was in his room. There was no clue as to where Dad was; I’d just have to risk it and hope that he didn’t see my face as I left.
I stepped out of my room and headed down the hall for the front door. ‘I’m going now, okay?’ I sang out to Mum. ‘Back later.’
‘Oh, sure,’ said Mum. ‘Have fun ...’ but I didn’t hear the rest. I was out the door and on my bike before anyone else caught sight of me and my mascara.
I had to ride slower than usual, just because my eyes felt weird and I was worried about getting dirt on my new shirt. The lack of speed made my stomach feel weird. Tight, but at the same time, totally full of butterflies.
‘I’m nervous,’ I said, out loud, because it didn’t matter. No one could hear me and the wind whisked my words away as soon as they fell out of my mouth. ‘I’m really, really nervous.’
The butterflies beat harder as I got to the edge of town, and as I rode in, dodging tourists, bikers and all the other ‘drive-through people’ who took over our town every weekend, I felt worse and worse.
And then, I was there—the lolly shop, with its pink signs and flags out the front, and tables and chairs on the balcony. It was already crowded with families and kids eating ice cream as it dripped on their noses and chins. I dropped my bike on the side of the path and took a deep breath.
This was it.
This was when I’d get my friends back.
I scanned the tables for a sight of Buzz or Jessie, but they weren’t sitting at the front. I nosed around to the side of the building and just as I was heading out to the back part of the verandah, I heard Stella’s laugh. Ringing and tinkling. I steeled myself. Put up with her. It’s worth it to not be lonely.
I put my head around the side of the building. There they were, the three of them, sitting around a small round table. With ice creams in their hands already.
‘Hi,’ I said. ‘Hi, you guys.’
There was a small silence and then three heads swung around to look in my direction. I swallowed.
‘Can I sit with you?’ I didn’t mean to do it, but my voice went small and my arms went tight, pressed into my body.
Stella looked at me hard. Her eyes travelled from my hair to my face to my sequinned horse, right down to my feet. I was glad I’d left my old crocs at home and worn a pair of Converse, even if they were dirty.
‘Yeah,’ she said slowly. ‘Okay.’
Jessie’s face broke out into a smile, and even Buzz looked like she wasn’t too upset for once. I moved in a step and waited. There were only three chairs around the table, but they weren’t doing anything to move or find me a seat.
Buzz saw me waiting and shrugged. ‘You’ll have to get a chair, Abby.’
I looked around but couldn’t see one. I bit my lip. ‘Um, where?’
‘You’ve got to go get one,’ Stella broke in, a little impatient. ‘Around the corner? Over there?’ Her voice went up at the end like a question, even though it wasn’t one. I held my stomach tight and went around the corner to find a stack of chairs. I detangled the top one from its friends and carried it back to the table. Stella and Buzz stayed exactly where they were, but Jessie moved her chair a little so I could fit mine in. We made a question mark shape, the three of them in the curvy bit, spaced around the table, and me as the straight bit on the end, not quite in line with the others.
‘Shall I get an ice cream?’ I asked, but Stella ignored me and Buzz kept on talking. Only Jessie responded, mouthing ‘if you want to’ at me. I looked at her, still slowly licking her two scoops and then at the other girls, who were at cone-crunching stage. If I got one now, I’d be the last to finish, which might be weird, especially if they decided to move on and walk down the street. For the first time in my life, I said no to my taste buds. They protested, inside my mouth, so I bit my tongue to keep them quiet and sat on my hands to stop them reaching for the five dollars in my pocket.
Stella interrupted Buzz’s speech—something about Ollie—and stared at me.
‘Are you getting something, Abby?’ she said. ‘You like ice cream, don’t you?’
I bit my lip again.
‘Um, no,’ I said. My mouth went dry. ‘I’m good.’ I shrugged and put on a trying-to-be-friendly smile. ‘What have you guys been talking about?’
‘Boys,’ said Buzz. She looked at me sideways. ‘Which ones are cute.’
‘And which aren’t,’ laughed Stella. Jessie joined in, but I could tell it was her nervous laugh. I blinked. And then swallowed. And then sat on my hands even harder. ‘Oh, well, I think ...’
But I didn’t even get to finish my sentence. Buzz had interrupted me. ‘I just think that if Ollie grew his hair out, he’d be even hotter. Like, he’s okay now, but if his hair was longer and he did it all messy, and maybe even bleached it’—she looked up like she was thinking—‘or got highlights. Yeah, highlights. That would make him really cute.’
‘I mean, he’s nothing like the guys back where I used to live,’ said Stella. ‘City guys are just, well, they’ve got something else. Kind of like sophistication. They’ve seen a lot more than guys in the country.’
Buzz shrugged in apparent agreement. ‘I mean, of course, our guys here aren’t like yours back home, but some of them are alright.’
‘I know someone who thinks Ollie’s alright,’ said Stella, winking at Jessie, who promptly turned bright red. ‘Ooh, look. You really do love him.’
‘I don’t,’ said Jessie, ducking her head. ‘I just like him as a friend.’
‘Yeah,’ laughed Buzz. ‘A very good friend. Woot-woo.’
I opened my mouth to defend Jessie, but then I closed it again. My heart beat loudly in my chest and I felt like I couldn’t see clearly.
Stella spoke again. ‘Don’t worry, Jessie. I’m just teasing. Anyway, at least you don’t like Sam. You’ve got better taste than I had.’
Buzz laughed again, this time like she was sharing a private joke. ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘That was a mistake.’
Stella tossed her head and smiled. ‘It wasn’t a mistake. I knew what I was doing. Too bad for him, he fell for it.’
‘He’s always been a bit dumb,’ agreed Buzz. ‘And his family is really kind of hippy-ish, you know?’
Stella raised her eyebrows. ‘I figured as much. I can’t stand all that hippy rubbish. Like, “we’re so much better than you because we’re all green and environmental and vegetarian and everything”.’
‘I know, right?’ laughed Buzz.
There was a silence, and then Stella looked over at me and smiled sweetly. ‘You look nice today, Abby. I like your t-shirt. Horses are cute.’
My hands were hurting, still pressed into the chair. ‘Thanks,’ I said.
‘I’ll show you how to put on mascara sometime, so it doesn’t clump,’ she said.
‘Okay,’ I
said. And then, for some reason, I just stood up. I stretched my fingers out.
‘I’m going to go now,’ I said, and then my mouth opened again. ‘I probably won’t come back.’ I turned around and walked right out of the lolly shop like a robot. Without even pausing, I picked up my bike and in one swift movement I threw myself on and began pedalling home as fast as I could. Not once did I worry about dirt on my t-shirt or the way I blinked. The wind rushing into my face made tears come from my eyes. I reached up to wipe them, and then I couldn’t stop wiping them because they came faster and faster, rolling down my cheeks and washing my eyes so there were no more black clumps left.
Chapter 30
‘How was it?’ asked Mum, as I charged through the front door on my way to my room. I couldn’t answer. Instead, I shut the door behind me and threw myself on my bed, staring at the picture of Buzz, Jessie and me on Show night after we’d won—all triumphant, sparkling and delighted. I’d never actually put it in a frame in the end. And now I didn’t need one. I pulled it off the wall, grabbed my scissors and in three sharp bites, cut the picture in two. Me in one bit; Buzz and Jessie in the other.
‘It’s your fault,’ I said to my picture. ‘You’re the stupid one. There’s something wrong with you.’
I dropped down to the floor, exhausted, and with no tears left to cry.
There was a knock at the door. I ignored it, but it sounded again, this time louder and a little more forceful.
‘Abby?’ It was Mum’s voice. ‘Are you okay?’
I chewed my lip. And then answered. ‘I’m okay.’ My voice was small.
Mum’s voice tried again. ‘It doesn’t sound like you’re okay. It sounds like you’re miserable.’
I opened my mouth and tried to answer, but nothing came out except a sound like, Eehhhrmmm. Which wasn’t at all what I had meant to say.
This time Mum came in, her head sticking around the door first, eyes all anxious and inquiring, and then bringing her whole body in. Her eyes found me, curled up on the floor and she came to sit on the bed.
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