Tales from the Tower, Volume 2

by Isobelle Carmody

  Designer plush toys, Mum says, reading from her pattern page. They’re just for fun. I’m going to sell them in that shop with the cushions and teak furniture in the mall, that Asian one.

  Are they the scissors? is all Ellie says. The ones that cost 45 bucks?

  Mum says I told you I would pay you back so lose the attitude. She lines up material on the table and Ellie just turns away rolling her eyes.

  Mum tells me the scissors are just for special sewing, not for my school stuff or craft things. She says that will wreck them. There is a special tag that gets sewn on to the dolls when they’re finished, with a card tied on it that says: Glamour Plushies are soft, loveable critters that teach us that beauty is only skin-deep. When you adopt one of these adorable soft monsters you are showing your warm-hearted side, a valuable lesson presented by cutely irresistible toys designed and created with great care. Mum says you will have to help me round the house more Tyler so I can get my first order finished for the assessment. I have to make twelve.

  So I cook the chicken with the simmer sauce while she cuts out the pieces and says we will eat dinner on our laps tonight so I can leave the overlocker and all my work on the table OK? And I say OK even though we always eat dinner on our laps anyway because Mum is hooked on Survivor.

  The stuff for the Glamour Plushies takes up all the room on the table so I have to do my project on the glories of Ancient Greece on my bed after dinner. It’s hard to write neatly.

  Mum hears me snipping and rustling when she comes down the hall to her room and calls out they better not be the good scissors.

  They’re not. They’re the plastic ones that don’t cut. Pic- tures stuck down with the glue that doesn’t stick, coloured in with the pencils that don’t colour. Sorry, Mrs Carlyle.

  Mum had nearly finished two whole dolls today when I got home from school. She said the overlocker doesn’t really work properly on the felt so she’s worked out how to do the blanket stitch by hand. The dolls have big round eyes and little mouths like cats or big open mouths with teeth and they stick their arms straight out the side like they’re running towards you afraid. Out of like a fire or away from a scary thing. They are not dolls, they are more like cartoon monsters. Ellie was doing her homework in her room and I went in there. Her room is nice and she bought some curtains for herself at Spotlight and a hot-pink mosquito net. I looked at Ellie’s homework which is so hard because she is in Year 10. It was science and she had written red blood cells plus white blood cells plus platelets plus water equals blood. There was a picture of platelets and they looked like biscuits. When I get to high school I want to do art in the art room where they have easels. I saw them when we went to Ellie’s school for parent–teacher. You stand up and paint and they have huge pieces of paper you’re allowed to use, as many as you like. And also a pottery wheel. It’s those things that make me want to go to the secondary school even though there’s hundreds and hundreds of kids there. I get worried I might forget where my locker is in all those corridors. You get a locker with a combination so that only you can open it. Maybe the other kids want to steal your stuff. You would never know who because there are so many kids there is no way a teacher would notice that or even remember everyone’s names. Ellie says she just does the subjects that are going to get her good marks, not art, so that she can do something at TAFE or uni. That is why she works part- time too, to save all her money. When she and Mum fight Mum says set your sister a good example, and Ellie says I’m setting her the best example I can, which is how to get the fuck out of here.

  When we went back into the lounge room for dinner Shane was there. He said here they both are how are you Tyler babe? All the cans of beer he has brought are stacked in the fridge when I get out the cheese for the spaghetti. He is in a mean mood I can tell because even though he is smiling his mouth is wrong.

  He picks one of Mum’s dolls out of the box and looks at it and says you’ve got to be fucken kidding me.

  People pay $40 for these, says my mum without looking at him and he laughs and says jeez they saw you coming didn’t they. She just keeps sewing the hair on one of her dolls and says you wait.

  When I go to bed I hear him and Mum laughing and bumping into the walls as they come down the hall and my mum sounds happy but it makes the stones feeling come back to my stomach. I must have fallen asleep because I feel a hand on my shoulder shaking me and I come awake and my stomach is squeezing so suddenly like when you’re sick. It is Ellie and I feel her hair brush my face as she leans over me and says get up and come and sleep in my room. I say why and she whispers just come on.

  In her bed she lets me have the purple heart-shaped pillow. She shows me a little smooth stone in a box she puts under the pillow and I ask her what it’s for and she says bad dreams.

  I didn’t know Ellie has bad dreams too. Sometimes I dream of a wolf. He’s coming for me and his eyes are on fire and he’s looking everywhere for me but he can’t find me. I don’t tell Ellie about this but I say sometimes I feel like I have a stone inside my stomach. Ellie doesn’t say anything for a while then she says hey what are those pencils called that you like? I tell her Derwents and she says we’ll get those, you wait.

  Today we did mammals. Mrs Carlyle said she got a puppy once that was homesick leaving its mother and it cried. She said she wrapped up an old clock inside an old fur collar she had and tucked it into the puppy’s basket with a hot-water bottle. The puppy thought the clock ticking was its mother’s heart beating and the fur was her warm furry coat next to it. It seemed like a mean trick but Mrs Carlyle said soon the puppy went to sleep and learned to sleep by itself after that. She said it seems cruel but all animals have to learn that and some leave their parents the day they are born, but not mammals because they have to drink milk. That puppy used to like to sleep in the laundry basket full of dirty clothes. When the bell rang she said whoops we forgot to do our worksheets, all I’ve ended up doing is telling you stories because you are such good listeners.

  That puppy thought the clock and the fur and the hot-water bottle was his mum. And maybe the clothes in the clothes basket had a smell that made him feel better. The Plushie dolls are supposed to make you feel warm-hearted too, so maybe people will buy them to cuddle like a puppy. Birds like budgies can’t be cuddled but they must still know you love them. Ellie says we used to have a cat when Dylan and Zac were still here before I was born but it ran away. Ellie says, I don’t blame it.

  My mum is still sewing the Plushies. She says she has a deadline and she has to prove she can do it so she’ll be accepted on the job-creation program. She said if Shane thinks he’s so shit-hot why doesn’t he fix her car and do something useful? Shane is nearly living at our place now and she said if he thinks all he has to do is turn up with pizzas and five weekly DVDs he’s got another think coming. But then when he comes she goes quickly into her room and comes out with perfume on.

  While she is in there Shane beckons at me and when I go over he leans down close to me and whispers I’ve got something for you, but don’t tell the others, hold out your hand. He gives me a Mars Bar. His voice is so different when he is telling a secret. It is all soft and like you’re best friends and I want to believe everything he tells me. He says don’t tell Ellie because she will get jealous. Next time I might put it under your pillow, so always check when you go to bed OK? In case I’ve left a surprise for you. Then when Mum walks back in again he says sshh, here she comes and I can’t help it, I smile. I hide the Mars Bar in my bag.

  Ellie did a magic thing tonight. Mum had the five Plushies she had finished laid out on the table and she was painting their lips red like in the photo and Ellie said do you want a cup of tea? Mum was just sitting there not saying anything and I realised she had stopped painting and was scratching at her hair like it was itchy just scratching and pulling, not answering. Shane was in the living room watching TV and Mum was just sitting there with her chin tucked down all hunched and sad with the dolls lined up. Her hand scratching harde
r and harder in her hair. I felt like when I turn the key in my music box until it’s really tight and if you kept turning one more time it would snap and break, just one more twist. But Ellie came over very quietly and looked down at the monster dolls that were meant to make you feel warm-hearted. They all had big black eyes that just stared and I could tell Mum was thinking they looked creepy or dead and it’s true, they did.

  Ellie put a brush in the white paint and put a little dot of white in the dolls’ eyes. I don’t know how she did it but it changed everything. It was like a little speck of shine. I heard Mum sigh then her hand came down and felt around for her cigarettes. I felt loose again like remembering that inside the music box the ballerina is waiting to dance to the whole song and it will just get slower and calmer all the way to the end.

  Just before when I was going to bed Mum said let’s have a secret you don’t have to go to school tomorrow Tyler, I will ring up and tell them you are sick and you can stay here and help me finish the Plushies. It is the same as when Shane leans down and whispers, grown-ups can make their voices go all soft and excited like it’s a big special secret to share just with you, they know just how to make kids feel happy but it’s never what you think.

  I felt the stones in my stomach because I remembered that tomorrow is the first orientation day for year sixes to go over to the senior campus to visit but I just said yes. Mum still has five dolls to make and she said she will show me how to do the blanket stitch.

  I woke up in the night and I saw someone was standing in my doorway and at first I thought it was my mum. Then I heard a sniff and I got a shock because it was Shane. When I said what, he pretended he’d been sleepwalking and said sorry, wrong room.

  Ellie was mad at Mum today when she went to school she said you’re supposed to have a doctor’s certificate if you’re sick and Mum said she has a temperature so mind your own business. Ellie said is Shane going to be hanging round all day? and Mum said of course not he’s going to his job with the house painters and Ellie said he’d better. Mum got really angry and said who are you to talk you’ve got that gormless bloke who can’t do anything better than work at a takeaway and Ellie said if you mean Luke he’s store manager and he’s going to uni next year. Her voice was trembling but I never see Ellie cry. Mum just said oh uni is it? That’s typical you’d pick him, now you can both be up yourselves together. When she gets angry she just says things that don’t make any sense. Ellie just said he’s a smart, nice guy who likes me so no wonder you don’t get it. And since your useless boyfriend ruined your car, it’s Luke that’s been driving me home, so thank goodness someone’s there to make sure I make it home OK, not that you’d care about that.

  Mum just went red as a beetroot and said just get out and get yourself to school so you can do what you’re good at and that’s show off.

  Ellie just looked at her and said is that the best you can do? Like she was tired. On her way out she said to me use the phone I got for you to text me at school if anything goes wrong, OK? I said, like what and she said if you get the stones feeling.

  Shane was still in bed when Mum got onto the phone to my school after Ellie had gone. She could swap straight away from shouting at Ellie to putting on a phone voice. I had to unpick one of the Plushies and put more stuffing in when I finished because its arms were too floppy. We sewed them in front of the TV and Mum kept going back to check the instructions to make sure we were doing them right even though she’s made five already. She said you don’t understand Tyler it just keeps slipping out of my brain. We watched The Morning Show and Dr Phil while we sewed. Shane went out at lunchtime but he didn’t say anything about going to work. By four o’clock we’d finished six more Plushies and my fingers were all pricked and tingly but the dolls all had different personalities now because we were getting better at adding little bits and making them different. Their arms looked like they were about to hug you rather than sticking out straight because they were scared. Mum laid them out in a line when they were finished and said you put the little dot in their eyes Ty, my hand is shaking too much. So I did Ellie’s magic trick and the Plushies stopped being scary and all of a sudden looked alive. Mum will take them to the shop tomorrow while I am at school and maybe somebody will buy one who wants a cutely irresistible toy.

  I was in bed when Ellie came home and she woke me up. She said do you want some of this meatball sub and I said no then she said well you can sleep in my bed if you like. I said I wanted to sleep in my own bed and she said well how about I get in with you.

  When I made room she sat down and I whispered who is Luke? and she laughed a bit and whispered back oh just this guy. I asked is he good-looking? and she said I think he is, I’ll show you a photo of him tomorrow on my phone. I think she was going to tell me more but then she stopped and said hey did Shane do or say anything weird today? I said he just sits with me when the cartoons are on and she said does he get you to sit in his lap? If he does anything like that you come and tell me straight away. I said why not Mum and I could see Ellie’s face go sad and tired and she said no, just tell me.

  She said Zac and Dylan went to live with other families because they had police records when they were just kids and they ran away thinking they wanted to live with their dad but they didn’t really because their dad was hopeless, but Tegan went because of Ian, Mum’s old boyfriend before Garry. Mum had a screaming fight with Child Protection and said everyone was lying but it didn’t stop Tegan going. She got taken away and Mum didn’t stop it. I felt the heavy, heavy weight in my stomach as she whispered. Like when you sit in the bath and all the water drains out. Ellie said you have to be careful of him and I said but I’m just a kid and Ellie said that’s why, Ty, that’s why.

  There wasn’t much room in my bed when she’d squeezed in and I smelled her hair which smelled like the bread in Subway and I said that’s why you’re saving up isn’t it so you can go too, and she didn’t answer for so long I thought she must’ve started going to sleep. Then I heard her say Tyler, she might have left me but I’m not leaving you, not ever.

  I asked Mum if she would drive me to the mall today. Georgia told me at school that at the arts supply shop there they have Derwents and she thought you can buy them just one at a time. Mum drove me there and it was a bit scary driving in the car because she had to keep revving it up at the traffic lights to keep it from conking out. What Ellie said is true – it’s not going well since Shane fixed it. Mum said never mind Tyler it’s still good having a guy around the place isn’t it and I said yes and she said it makes you feel safe doesn’t it and I said yes again. She said he’s going to be on the straight and narrow now but he’s had his problems like all of us. At the mall she said she would meet me in half an hour and I went to the art supply shop and I had enough money to buy five pencils. I couldn’t decide which colours I wanted first. Finally I picked out my five. Scarlet Lake, Oriental Blue, Deep Cadmium, Lemon Yellow and Cloud Blue. If I did a picture of a blue budgie it would be Cloud Blue and Iced Blue with extra grey on the feathers. When I close my eyes I can see exactly how that drawing would look, like the picture I did of the running horse I drew in science and the teacher said where did you copy this and I said I didn’t copy it, it just came out of my head. It was Mr Godfrey and he said are you saying you did this freehand? I said yes, even though I wasn’t sure what freehand was, and he said OK then let’s see you draw one now on the whiteboard, in a voice like I was in trouble. I felt angry instead of nervous because he didn’t believe me so I just started drawing a horse with two huge wings coming out of its back, right to the edge of the whiteboard. He didn’t say sorry for not believing you he just said well then, I think I’ve found the student who’s going to decorate the board for parent–teacher night. Except for Mrs Carlyle I never want to tell the teachers if I like something because this is what happens, they use it to make you do something they want.

  I think sometimes about what you would have to do to be an artist, for example how would you make mone
y. My pencils have ‘student quality’ written on the packet but the Derwent pencils are for real artists and that is why they’re special. I would feel special and proud to have them, like when Aunty Jacinta wrote in her letter ‘we think you’re wonderful’.

  It’s like you’re not really allowed to feel proud. I said to Mum I wanted to look at our Plushies in the gift shop and first she didn’t want to. She said she’d be too embarrassed and the lady would think she was a loser, hanging round looking at them only a few days after she’d dropped them off. She said it would be more professional to stay away until she got a phone call or something. But I wanted to see something I had made for sale in a real shop.

  Finally we went up there and looked in the display window which looked so nice with embroidered cushions and wooden carved elephants and Mum said it’s not here, it was right here in front of that basket and she’s taken it out.

  Her voice had gone flat and far off and she was chewing on her lips and breathing hard. She said she must have only left it there to shut me up for a while, it was the good one I made Tyler, with the stripy shirt. I said I want to go in and see if they’re inside sitting in a basket or something and Mum said no don’t, we’re wasting our time here. I thought about all that sewing and Centrelink giving Mum the test and suddenly the lady who owned the shop saw us and her face changed when she saw Mum and Mum said come on we’re out of here.

  But the lady came running out calling Mum’s name and said I was about to call you and tell you. Mum said: are they inside? and I could tell how much she tried to keep her voice normal. Because my little girl here helped me make those things, if you didn’t want them you should have just said. But the lady said they’re not inside, they’re all gone. We both just looked at her and she said it’s amazing the whole lot have sold out in three days, I was going to ring you to tell you to come in and I’d pay you.