by Alice Pung
I tried not to think of Joe – he would’ve hated what I’d done. Joe was just a boy. He didn’t belong in the fighting and he never came home from it. I still think about my brother a lot. But now, I find myself struggling to recall whether he had a gap between those two front teeth, and whether he really did sing with such a soft, sweet pureness.
But on that day, as I promised Abigail that I would be her friend, I just stared at her neat braids and carefully ironed blue and white dress as she tore off the petals. I didn’t dare look her in the eyes. I focused on the care and love that her mother gave her each morning. It helped fuel my anger. It helped keep my shame at bay.
THE BENCH
Olivia Dimovski
I was sitting on the bench, anger brewing as I watched the other girls swiftly glide across the court. Passing the ball to one another, protecting it as if it was a prize. They waved their long arms and shouted, “Ashley, Ashley, I’m open!” Ashley lobbed the ball across the court, where it landed in the hands of the star shooter. Positioning herself, the young prodigy raised her arms. She held the netball in her hands as Atlas held the world on his shoulders. Her eyes glimmered with focus. She bent her long, slender legs and then launched herself into the air. The world slowed down for a moment as the ball shot through the air. Perfectly arcing towards the hoop, the ball didn’t even touch the side of the ring. It fell straight through and an almighty roar swept through the court. “Yes!” shouted Miss Watts, fist pumping the air. I swung my legs back and forth. Staring down at my dowdy Big W sneakers, tears gathered in my eyes. “Good job, girls!” said Miss Watts, gathering everyone up for a huddle. I slowly unpeeled myself from the bench. “Three cheers for netball, rah, rah, rah! Three cheers for the umpire, rah, rah, rah!”
I never wanted to move to the country. The thought of wide open spaces and thousands of black and white cows chewing green grass made me feel sick to my stomach. My parents tried to encourage me to change my view. They promised I would grow tall in all that sunshine. They insisted that I would get to meet some real and honest types of people, which, according to Mum, were much easier to find in the country. “You’ll make new friends at school!” she said, as if the ones I already had didn’t matter. I flew into a desperate rage, the night they told me we were moving to the country.
Eventually I came to realise that my parents were not going to change their mind – we were moving to the country and never coming back. I distinctly remember the first day at my new school. The children stared at me as if I was something foreign. Like any novelty, I initially engaged their interest and the popular crowd soon embraced me with open arms. It seemed like everyone wanted to be my best friend. They all wanted to play with Olivia, the new girl. Everywhere I went I was welcomed. I was getting invitations to birthday parties, and the girls encouraged me to join the school netball team. “It will be fun!” they promised, their positivity overflowing. It was only a matter of time before the “novelty” became just another blow-in. Birthday invites dried up. Enthusiastic calls of “Hi Olivia” became muffled grunts. I discovered that the cliques that defined the yard were formed well before my classmates were even born.
One lunchtime, I was filled with dread as I approached a group of girls huddled near the sports shed. They were lazily texting, oblivious to the new girl. I awkwardly squeezed into the huddle.
“Hey guys,” I said, with a weak smile. Silence. “How is everybody?” I said, a bit louder. Ashley gave me the thumbs up while continuing to stare down at her phone screen.
“Did you guys go to Becca’s party last night?” someone said.
“Becca had a party!” I shouted with surprise. “Awesome – why didn’t you tell me?”
“Why don’t you just get Facebook?” Jade muttered in an annoyed tone. Jade: tall and athletic, the pride of the school netball team. She always seemed annoyed, unless she was shooting a ball through a hoop.
That night I asked Mum nervously, hopping from foot to foot, “Can I please get Facebook?”
“No,” she replied sternly.
“But why?” I wailed. “All my friends have it. What about Instagram and Snapchat? Can I get Snapchat instead?”
“I’ve already told you,” Mum insisted, “you’re not getting any form of social media and that’s final!” My teacher parents would never elaborate as to why I wasn’t allowed to have any social media.
It was funny how as soon as my friends discovered social media, they became a little less social. It seemed that all they wanted to talk about at recess was what they’d texted the night before. Everything was arranged on Facebook. Everything was discussed on Facebook. Social order was constructed on Facebook. I felt as if I was fading into the background. Suddenly my friends were acting like Miss Watts: “Bench, Olivia.”
I didn’t like the netballers’ “game plan”. Deep down I knew that true friends were inclusive. I wanted to express myself. I wanted to be true. I soon realised that you cannot show your talent when you’re sitting on the bench. It was time to play.
I found new friends, a social group where social media is not a prerequisite. Our group celebrates life. We are a raucous democracy that does not believe in hierarchies and pecking orders. It took me a while but I think I finally passed my first lesson. True friendships aren’t formed on shallow foundations. I now believe that if your friends are ignoring you or treating you as a second-class citizen just because you are different, stand up for what you believe in and get off the bench.
WORDS ON THE BACK OF BATHROOM DOORS
Claudia Connelly
High school is this weird place where we are expected to fit in and “find” ourselves at the same time. I’ve never been able to do either of these things, let alone simultaneously, so I’ve ended up neither fully fitting in nor finding myself. I’ve always wondered how people do it, how they are so confident and sure of themselves and thus able to fit into any situation with most, if not all, people. It wasn’t until I started decoding messages scribbled around the place – particularly the bathroom – that I realised how they did it.
I sit on the toilet in the bathroom, deciphering the scribbled messages left behind by the students of today and yesterday. I think about the lovesick girl who scrawled “Adam and Lucy 4 eva” with a blue pen one day, only for it to be crossed out with a permanent black marker the next. I think about the discriminatory words thrown at me by a student I probably have never crossed paths with: “your a teachers pet”. I don’t know what’s sadder: the lame derogatory use of “teacher’s pet”, or the imperfect grammar. I keep sitting there, lost in this world of graffiti and its emotional messages. There’s still so much to read, but it’ll have to wait for the next bathroom excursion before I have time to analyse it all.
I sit in class now, looking around at my classmates, who are preoccupied by their learning, and realise that I can only pick two kids who I know to be the graffiti artists of those bathroom doors. But they can’t be held responsible for all of it – they wouldn’t have had enough time. I look at Lucy, who has just had a messy break-up with Adam. We all thought they would be together forever, but now they don’t even sit next to each other. I wouldn’t have pinned Lucy as a graffiti artist; she’s too sweet. But who else would’ve professed her and Adam’s love in the girls’ bathroom?
It’s in the hallways during transition time that you get a glimpse of who people are – hollering at their friends, walking with their heads down, whispering the latest gossip with a group of girls in the corner, and, if you’re lucky, you’ll actually catch someone taking their blue pen away from the wall and smugly placing the cap back on.
I finally make it to my next class. I have already learned that some people aren’t who they appear to be. That makes me sad. After four years of playing “get to know you” games and moving between friendship groups, I still don’t know who these people are. I feel like I’m still playing “get to know you” games with the people I thought I had all figured out.
Back in the bathroom,
I close one of the cubicle doors and sit down. I study the handwriting, the spelling mistakes, the incorrect punctuation, the tone of the messages; I’m desperate to find out who these people are – not to expose them, but to know them. It’s impossible, they could be anyone; a whole school history is written on the backs of these doors. I read of Anonymity’s hate for Mrs Ashbury, and Ambiguity’s saddening poetry. I see the stupidity of Calista, the first-time graffiti artist who signed her name beneath her distressing words of loathing and sorrow. I recognise Calista’s handwriting and realise that this is the same Calista who I’ve been friends with since primary school. Yet I thought she was happy and content, not compelled to turn to vandalism to communicate despondency.
Calista had always fit in: she was in the debate team, played netball and loved group work, something I despised. She got along with most people and seemed to know her place, so it was bizarre to recognise her forlorn handwriting on the back of a bathroom door. Vandalism must be another way to express emotion, in a way that is both public and private, protected by the publicity of the toilet door, only slightly exposed through one’s calligraphy. You could be anyone without everyone knowing, you could find anyone, you could find yourself. Just like that, while numbly analysing Calista’s graffiti, I realised why she did it – she could be anyone without anyone knowing who she was trying to be. It was a way of experimenting, trying before you buy, an effort to figure out who she was and filter out anything she wasn’t. It was the same for everyone else: re-reading the messages that meant nothing to me, I realised that they were everything to someone else; they were someone’s being.
Every time I visit the bathroom now, it’s like reading the messages through different, more understanding eyes. I laugh instead of roll my eyes at the anonymous jokes, probably made up by a kid who has never had the guts to speak the words. I knit my eyebrows in worry as I read harmful ideas, and hope that writing it down privately in a public place helped their authors resolve the silent battle of self-revelation they were facing.
Before I left the bathroom, I had only one thing to write, an excerpt from an F. Scott Fitzgerald quote: “It’s never too late to be whoever you want to be. I hope you live a life you’re proud of, and if you find that you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start over.” It was a bit longer than the other messages written on the door but it was something that reassured me, and I hoped it would reassure others trying to find themselves in a place where we all had to fit in. I hadn’t found myself through the graffiti on the bathroom doors, but I found others; and with the help of F. Scott Fitzgerald, I knew that was okay.
“WHAT DID YOU LEARN?”
Neve Traynor
I didn’t have an aisle seat. I don’t like the bustle of people moving along the passageways. Night engulfed the plane, my window full of darkness.
On Monday, I would be back at school. Another semester of beef, boredom and business. Another semester of Ms Chester. She, who seemed to know everything about the world, wouldn’t faff around with anything like, “Oh, how did you enjoy it?” It would be straight to: “Now, Mandy, what did you learn on your trip to Africa?”
My first African lesson? The struggle of being planted in an unknown environment, softened by the welcoming faces of the staff in our first lodging.
Nairobi’s winding streets were hot and dusty. “We were thinking of changing some details of our itinerary … can we swap the giraffe centre with the elephant orphanage?” Mum queried the driver.
“Of course. How about we organise to visit both?” He grinned.
“Great!” There was nothing to worry about. Mum slipped her itinerary into her bag.
The staff unburdened us of our luggage, greeting us with a banquet on the lawn.
“Mark, pass the salad,” Aunty Beth called.
Remaining silent, Mark ungraciously moved the salad closer to his mum.
“Honey-lemon tea for you.” A smiling waiter placed a hot mug next to my plate.
“Thank you.” The sweet smell enticed me. Mmm … the best tea I had ever tasted.
We woke to sunlight filtering into our tree house. In the breakfast area, I found a small pot of honey, some lemon slices and a steamy tea. “You like honey-lemon tea?” our waiter asked me, beaming. The mug was set there, just for me.
The safari began with a flight in a Cessna Caravan, the smallest plane I’ve journeyed in. Located on the red arid plains, our destination “airport” was simply a landing strip. A regiment of zebras stood to attention, their ears pricked up as if awaiting commands.
“Wow!” Leo nudged Mark, his constantly mute older brother.
Within the first few minutes aboard the safari Land Rover, we experienced the kindness of our guide. We were surprised at his name: Harlequin. He didn’t share many characteristics with his namesake, the comic servant clown from the commedia dell’arte. Funny, yes, but not nimble or deceptive.
“Is it true that you ride kangaroos to work?” Harlequin’s expression was serious.
Mark scoffed.
“Tembo!” Leo pointed to the distant elephants.
“Correct,” Harlequin said, grinning.
“Punda milia!” Leo gestured at the zebras.
“Right again!”
The animal-spotting game sharpened our attention and improved our Swahili.
“Twiga!” I pointed out the giraffe.
“You speak like a native!” Harlequin was enjoying the Swahili tournament. “What about you, brother?” Harlequin looked at Mark, who was slumped in the back seat.
Harlequin gestured to the left. “Just here, we are passing an abandoned building, but it’s not as uninhabited as it seems. Look through the long grass and you’ll spot tombstones.”
“Tombstones?” Leo turned his gaze.
“Yes. Crosses – but no names.”
Mark looked out the window. “What happened?”
“A couple of years back there was a massacre, very tragic.”
“Who did it?”
Harlequin told the story of the American missionaries and the rebel army.
“Were they caught and punished?” Mark asked.
Harlequin shook his head.
A few days later, on our hot air balloon flight, we came across an American tourist whom we named “Lens-man”. He was unable to focus on life outside of the huge lens on his fancy camera. In the cramped basket, the 30-centimetre lens was squeezed in beside me on my right, knocking my head. The wind blasted from the left.
Lens-man let out an exasperated groan. “Girlie, your hair just ruined my shot! Can’t you move somewhere else?”
“What a brute!” said Mark. We looked at him, and he pointed to the riverbank below.
“It’s a crocodile!” Leo exclaimed, leaning over the basket rail. “It’s eating a baby hippo!”
Lens-man lunged forward with his camera. “Just got to get this shot.”
At the Baobab Lodge, an elephant wandered near our tents to chew on a large bush.
“Stay back, please,” Harlequin warned.
“Watch out!” Mark called to Lens-man, as the American shoved his way through the onlookers.
“Just got to get this shot.”
He looked up from his lens. His face was centimetres away from the elephant’s bottom. As if on cue, something profane emerged from within. Lens-man hollered.
We tried to restrain ourselves. Mark cracked first, starting a chain reaction of laughter.
“Get this grot off me,” Lens-man whined.
“I’ll give you a hand,” Mark offered.
“Thanks,” Harlequin said, smiling. He and Mark both rolled their eyes.
*
Like drawing lines between the stars outside my plane window, I traced the connections between these incidents. The people looking after us were so happy. They had nothing compared to us, but they went out of their way to please tourists, who have everything. Yes, it was their job. But they could have completed their tasks in a diffident manner. Our guides listened t
o us, taught us and befriended us. Mark may have spent the journey in silence if it wasn’t for Harlequin and the mischievous elephant. Mark even exchanged email addresses with Harlequin to keep in touch. This Harlequin definitely wasn’t a devious trickster. Lens-man, with his obsession with material objects and physical evidence instead of memories and experiences, had shown us the ill effects of money on people. But Harlequin had shown us his country and his culture, and, more than that, he had willingly shared it with us.
*
School was the usual. I avoided involvement in my peers’ petty dramatised dilemmas of teenage life, dealing with parents, body image, and how Sally said Isabel told Claire yada yada yada.
First period: geography. Ms Chester’s eyes scanned the room and stopped when they came to me. Seriously, I should have made a bet on this.
“Now, Mandy, what did you learn on your trip to Africa?”
GLASSES
Sanna Wei
Lugubrious faces sat across from and beside me – our marks were back. Being the “dumb” group, my friends and I were almost first out when the bell rang, but my predicted escape was cut short as Ms Hartley expropriated my freedom with a metre-long ruler.
The other students took their cue, the nerds disgruntled.
“Angie, why do you keep doing this?”
I gazed at the floor and stayed silent. The acquiescent, ashamed approach was best.
She sighed. “Your steps are all correct. You use the right formulas. You always set yourself up perfectly. I can’t teach you any better. But with every question, you deliberately make silly mistakes.”
More reticence. Perhaps I should have glanced up with sorrowful eyes. But then she might have let me resit the test, simply prolonging the cycle.
