‘Let’s talk about conformity,’ he announced. ‘What role does it play in the Salem community?’
I could have answered if he’d called on me and I pretty much agreed with the comments from the eager beavers.
‘But aren’t Americans always on about freedom?’ Svenson asked, as though he was confused himself. ‘Didn’t the pilgrims come from England to get away from persecution? Yet Salem’s like a police state.’
He spread his hands wide, inviting comment and Chloe jumped right in.
‘The pilgrims didn’t want freedom for everyone, just themselves. They went to America so they could live by their own rules and persecute anyone who didn’t fit in.’
What grabbed me about Chloe was the way she spoke with such confidence that she was right. I couldn’t do that and yet the urge to match her was there inside me and not for the first time, either.
While I was daydreaming, the discussion of conformity had somehow come round to vegetarians. Chloe was one, apparently.
‘It shouldn’t be such a big deal,’ she was saying. ‘I don’t want to stop anyone else eating meat, I just don’t want to eat meat myself. I mean, it’s my choice, isn’t it?’
She’d picked an awkward analogy for Palmerston.
‘Why don’t you like meat?’ asked one of the guys.
His question was the tip of an iceberg and underneath lay how much Palmerston relied on our meatworks. To say you didn’t eat meat was like saying you didn’t care about the town. Chloe had sensed the hostility by this time, making her answer sound apologetic. ‘I just don’t want to eat anything with a brain,’ she said meekly.
‘You’d get by as a cannibal in Palmerston then,’ I said and everyone joined in the laughter, especially Svenson. On a roll, I started a list of all the brainless characters around town who could be herded into the meatworks and soon others joined in, complete with suggested menus. Each new suggestion drew hoots of agreement and by the time Svenson guided us back to the play Chloe was no longer the centre of attention.
After I’d been caught on the stairs at morning tea, I was careful to hang around until the rush was over, and when I finally reached ground level, I saw Chloe and Soraya sitting around the agapanthus garden that more or less marked the middle of the school. What the heck, I headed towards them at tortoise-warp speed. Chloe saw me coming and looked pleased.
‘Hey, thanks for saving me from the meat eaters.’
‘Yeah, that was clever,’ added Soraya and she hit me with the kind of smile that makes you grin right back.
‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘I haven’t really met you before, have I? I’m Jacob.’
Another smile, even warmer this time. ‘I know. Hey, I like the things you say in Mr Svenson’s class. You should say more so Chloe doesn’t hog the limelight all the time.’
‘I do not,’ cried Chloe, trying to look outraged, and she pushed Soraya gently on the shoulder. The easy laughter between them was what I’d seen in the classroom whenever Svenson wasn’t there and I wondered why she switched it off so completely once lessons started.
Then it happened right in front me at the agapanthus garden. Without another word from me, or Chloe for that matter, Soraya’s face lost its friendly welcome and she stood up, stepping to the side in a deliberate fashion as though she was worried she’d knock me over. Oh come on, I thought. I’m not that unsteady on my feet.
‘I’ve got to go,’ she said to Chloe, but to me she said nothing, didn’t even glance in my direction.
‘What did I say?’ I asked Chloe when she was gone.
‘Nothing. You were fine,’ she answered, and rather than explain in words she nodded behind me.
I turned to follow Soraya with my eyes as she headed for a figure waiting for her on the bitumen of the quad. The black hair and the features of the boy’s face told me who he was, even before Chloe said, ‘That’s her brother, Mahmoud.’
Soraya had reached him by now and, without breaking stride, she kept going, forcing the brother into step beside her. With their backs to us, I couldn’t tell if what the brother said to her was heated, but he was certainly having his say. I couldn’t help noticing, too, the way Soraya walked with stiffened shoulders and her head high, like a no-nonsense soldier on parade.
It didn’t happen on the same day. Must have been Wednesday, or even Thursday that I was sitting with the girls and playing games with Amy under the table, letting my leg stray against hers. She’d break into a giggle that had Bec wanting to know why and all the time I fought to keep a straight face.
Luke Keating was heading towards us. I didn’t think anything of it until he called my name, then everything fell into place like a slot machine – three lemons in a row.
‘Dan wants you,’ said Luke, looking important. Yes, I knew where this was going.
The girls started to get up.
‘No, better you don’t come,’ I said.
I didn’t want to go, either. ‘Whereabouts?’ I asked Luke.
Every school has its blind spots, I guess, where the teachers forget to roam on yard duty. Luke led me to one of ours, behind the groundsman’s shed. Against the wall, with his head slumped forwards was the arsehole who’d hassled me in the toilets. On his left stood Dan, on his right, Mitch, each with one arm hooked beneath the boy’s shoulders.
‘Here he comes,’ Dan called brightly. ‘We’ve got a friend of yours here, Jacob.’
Bending low to place his lips close by the boy’s ear, he said in the same jolly voice, ‘Hey, come on, say hello,’ and when he didn’t respond Dan hauled his head back by the hair. The boy’s mouth was lipsticked with blood and a thin trickle escaped from one corner, the way saliva sometimes did on mine.
‘What’s it feel like when you can’t fight back?’ said Mitch, dispensing with Dan’s false bonhomie.
The arsehole could have struggled, he could have tried for a swing at them for that matter, but he knew damned well what would happen if he did. The fear he’d looked for in my face stained his own like piss.
Mitch and Dan stood back, their hands still gripping their prisoner firmly. The boy flinched, waiting for me to cuff him and I saw no reason to set him at ease. I shuffled closer and said, ‘You thought you had me, didn’t you? A pitiful spastic, easy to shove around. But I don’t need two good legs when I’ve got these guys. Evens things up, doesn’t it?’
The boy glared miserably into my face. He was still dazed after the smack in the mouth and he didn’t want another one. Bullies never did.
I softened my voice, copying the tone of pompous parents talking to a little kid. ‘We don’t use the word “spastic” anymore. It’s called Cerebral Palsy. I was lucky, there are plenty worse than me, but the fact is, you’re the lucky one because your legs work fine and your mouth doesn’t clog with spit when you speak, so I’m going to ask you, as a favour just for me, to put those privileges to better use. Will you do that?’
It was my standard speech and I’ll admit I enjoyed the power in my voice when I delivered it. The boy remained defiant until Dan shaped to thump him in the guts.
‘All right!’ he shouted, contorting himself to avoid the blow that never came.
‘Okay, new boy,’ said Dan. ‘We’re going to let you go now, so you can wash the blood off your filthy mouth. But don’t get any ideas, ’cause next time you’ll end up in hospital and, believe me, no one in this town will see a thing, or say a thing, or do a thing about it.’
They released him then and he almost fell, righting himself quickly in a way I could never do, and scurried around the corner like a rat.
‘I thought we weren’t going to do this anymore,’ I said to Dan.
‘Old times’ sake,’ he answered.
‘No, I’m serious. No more, okay? I can take care of myself.’
‘That’s not what Luke told us,’ said Mitch. ‘We only did it for you.’
I looked at Mitch. Did he really believe that?
‘You better come with us, Jake, in case that newbie didn�
�t get the message. Let him see you with us,’ he said.
I shrugged. These were my friends, especially Mitch, even if we didn’t talk as much as we used to. The three of us drifted towards the oval that stretched all the way to the back fence and the Ag farm off to the left. Year Eights and Nines were playing touch footy, others just chasing each other or having the odd wrestling match, and near the Ag farm some boys had a scratch game of soccer going, with a bin and a school bag as the goal posts. One stood out from the rest for the fluid way he dribbled the ball and shot for goal.
‘That’s the Muslim kid,’ said Mitch, who’d noticed him as well. ‘You know, brother to that girl we were talking about.’
‘He’s good. Manchester United material, what do you reckon?’ said Dan.
We watched the boy weave spells around the other players.
‘How come the girls have to wear a scarf and the guys get around like the rest of us?’ asked Mitch.
‘I wouldn’t mind seeing under his sister’s scarf,’ said Dan.
I could have told him the girl’s name, but I let the moment pass without quite knowing why.
5
charlotte
My body knew the way to school out of pure repetition; it tensed in time for the bumps and the little shimmies, and it knew when the aging Astra would jerk to a halt – handy things when my muscles took a while to react. Because we lived on one side of town and the school lay on the other, Mum had been piercing the bullseye every morning for twelve years straight. She did it again to start the second week of term, our last term, as we kept reminding ourselves.
Palmerston had been named after an English Prime Minister, a quirk of history it shared with Melbourne, I’d learned in Year Six – not that anyone in Palmerston cared much for Melbourne, which was huge and far away and so unlike our town in the bush. Oddly, our streets were wider than any I’d seen in Brisbane, which was a city I knew better because of all the doctors I’d been taken to. Palmerston’s widest was Meredith Street, which made it our street.
A few cars were about, also taking kids to school mostly, plus a half dozen parked arse-ways to the kerb near the newsagency. We were heading towards the T-junction that counted as the centre of town because the post office stood on one corner, next door to the cops and the courthouse. Beyond the T-junction lay the railway station that was a museum these days, open three afternoons a week for the oldies in campervans who seemed to find the grainy photos and pioneer bric-a-brac worth an hour or two. Just visible above its corrugated roof was the high white wall of the meatworks, even though it was a long way off on the edge of town.
Mum stopped at the pedestrian crossing for some kids, all dressed like me and drawn towards the school by a herding instinct I obeyed in my own way. I’d prefer to get myself to school, but my back ached like a beaten dog whenever I walked that far. Mum turned left and barely had to adjust the wheel again before we pulled up outside Palmerston High.
Early in the year I’d groaned at having Svenson first up on Mondays, but that had changed without me noticing. My last assignment had come back with a big red A and a smirk from Svenson that said, Gotcha!
‘How many days to go?’ he asked that morning. He seemed eager for a bit of chat, as though he didn’t want to start the lesson, and even asked where kids were going for Schoolies, which seemed odd until we discovered where Svenson was going with all this easy talk of good times.
‘You’re on the countdown to exams. These next weeks are going to make or break a lot of you, not just in this subject, across the whole kabana. I’m talking especially to those who want to go to uni and I hope that’s a good number of you.’
Oh shit, he was looking straight at me. Uni! I hadn’t even thought about it until a few months ago, when he’d first called me aside to ask what I was going to do next year. Now Svenson was rocking me on my unsteady legs like that dickhead in the toilets and I half-wondered if he was doing it for the same reason – to see the fear in my eyes. I hadn’t told him I was staying here to work at Merediths with Mum.
He was speaking again and only when I listened did I pick a change in the room.
‘Palmerston’s limited,’ he said. ‘I’m not saying it’s not an easy place to live, but you’ve got to be careful its limits don’t become yours. Do you know what I’m saying? I know a few of you are busting to get away because you’ve told me as much.’
More than one face turned towards Chloe. That was unfair, though. She didn’t belong here in the first place and it was only right that she’d wanted to go back to Brisbane. Svenson wound up his pep talk and put us to work on The Crucible until late in the period when voices invaded from the playground below. Sharp, urgent and adult, they drew Svenson from his desk to investigate and kids close by the windows did the same.
‘You’re not Year Eights,’ said Svenson, but half-heartedly at best.
‘Cops,’ someone said.
This brought more of us to the window. I arrived in time to see two young constables disappear beyond E block. Hurrying after them Mrs Schwartz and the Deputy, Mr Thurbray, with Sergeant Wallace who leaned in towards them to say something. All three deepened their frowns and fell, lock step, into that pace people adopt when, really, they want to run.
‘Maybe it’s a school invasion, you know, some nutter with a gun, like in America.’
‘Kieran, you’re a dingbat,’ said Svenson. He preferred old fashioned slap-downs in place of genuine abuse, which had made it all the more galling when he’d simply called me lazy.
We knew Kieran was off the mark – the bells would be ringing for a lockdown. Every eye in the classroom watched the three figures disappear beyond D Block.
‘Going to the Ag farm, don’t you reckon?’
‘Someone’s been hurt, crushed under the tractor.’
Silence greeted this suggestion. Some in the room had brothers, sisters, cousins in the Ag classes.
‘Won’t be that. There’d be an ambulance,’ said Chloe.
We listened for a siren in the distance and heard only the crows waiting impatiently for morning tea to fill the bins with goodies. Then, the bell did start up, making a few jump, and we hung anxiously on the sound in case we were in lockdown after all.
The bell stopped; just the end of First Period. Svenson waited until we’d filed out and then hurried off himself, his face showing he wanted to know like the rest of us. When I did finally make it downstairs, I found kids from the entire block milling on the concrete apron around the building, reluctant to go to their next classes while others arriving from B Block and the library were told what had happened by friends whose eyes darted nervously left and right. Why coppers? How serious was it if the Principal and Deputy both went to investigate?
Nobody knew.
Then a sighting. Two boys rounded the end of D Block, their shoulders weighed down by knowledge.
Voices called to them. ‘What’s happened?’
The pair altered course and came close enough to reply. ‘It’s Charlotte. Someone cut her up like that horse.’
We sucked in the news like a single lung and around me I sensed the first, involuntary response of every mind around me: the horse had been mutilated kilometres out of town, but this was the school. None of us had seen Kibble’s horse either and, perversely, that meant we had no defence against the gruesome pictures each of us was projecting onto the inside of our skulls. Beside me a girl started to cry.
‘Poor Charlotte,’ said another.
Teachers began to herd us towards our next classes, raising their voices when so many lingered in small circles. No, not circles, these were huddles tightly bound against the horror. Amy would be freaking out and I looked for her face among the rest. No luck, but I did spot the white headscarves of Soraya and her sister standing apart with Chloe.
Chloe saw me and, to my surprise, she strode my way with that easy sway of the hips I envied. ‘What’s going on, Jacob? I keep hearing about someone named Charlotte.’
At least I could put
her at ease about that. ‘Charlotte’s a pig.’
Years ago, the Ag kids had named their first pig Charlotte in one of those deliberate mistakes that gets a laugh from anyone who works it out. The name came from a film about a little pig saved from the bacon factory by a clever spider, only the pig had a boy’s name which didn’t seem right for a sow so they used the spider’s name instead. Maybe the grandness of it added a pinch of mockery, but, whatever the reason, the name had been passed down to every sow since.
The death of this particular Charlotte was too much for the Palmerston police, especially when our local newspaper ran the headline SERIAL KILLER ON THE LOOSE, and the big city papers started referring to ‘The Palmerston Case’. On Tuesday morning a dusty Commodore pulled up outside the police station and a kid who was late for school saw two men wearing ties head up the stairs. By morning tea we all knew there were detectives in town.
After lunch, they showed up at school, drawing more faces to classroom windows when they went to inspect the sow’s stall. On TV, detectives solved this kind of thing in an hour and it was hard not to expect the same in Palmerston, but these guys were painstaking and methodical and after Tuesday gave way to Wednesday, and still no breaking news from the police station, I could just about see the frustration on street corners as I headed home.
I was in my room when Mum came in just after five.
‘Homework before dinner! I haven’t seen that since primary,’ she said with heavy sarcasm.
‘Last assignment for Svenson. Thought I’d try to nail it.’
‘There’s a first time for everything,’ she said, still having a go at me. She didn’t know about the A’s I’d strung together lately and not just in English.
‘Might surprise the lot of you,’ I replied through a cool smile and I leaned back in my chair with hands behind my head, pretending quiet confidence. I was thinking of Svenson and Chloe, more than Mum. I definitely wanted to beat Chloe. ‘Wouldn’t hurt to be first at something for once,’ I said and meant it in a way that had to be spoken out loud.
At five-thirty my phone came alive with Amy’s name on the screen. ‘They’ve arrested someone,’ she told me breathlessly. ‘It’s all over Facebook. They brought a guy in an hour ago. He’s been in hospital for people with problems like this, you know, a phobia about animals or whatever.’
The Beauty Is in the Walking Page 4
