by Nova Weetman
Nova Weetman’s prose has appeared in various literary magazines including Kill Your Darlings, Island, Tirra Lirra, Wet Ink, Mslexia, Overland and Island. She has written for the children’s television series Pixel Pinkie and Buzz Bumble and wrote the short films Ripples and Mr Wasinski’s Song for which she received an AWGIE nomination for best short screenplay, and the Best Short Film Award from the Melbourne International Film Festival. Nova lives with her partner, a playwright, and their two children in a falling-down house in Melbourne. Frankie and Joely is her second novel for young adults. Her first, The Haunting of Lily Frost, was shortlisted in the 2014 Aurealis Awards for Best Young Adult Novel.
www.novaweetman.com.au
@NovaWeetman
Also by Nova Weetman
The Haunting of Lily Frost
To Aidan, Evie and Arlo. And to Mum. Wish you could have seen this one in print.
Chapter 1
Frankie leans forward, clasps Joely’s hand and squeezes it. ‘We’re going on a holiday, a holiday, a holiday,’ sings Frankie to her best friend who is sitting in the front seat of her mother’s car, while Frankie sits in the back like a little forgotten kid.
Joely laughs, and then falls silent as her mum opens the car door. She lets go of Frankie’s hand and straightens up.
Mrs Walker hands over a wad of twenty-dollar notes to her daughter. ‘If you need more, Joelene, just call,’ she says.
‘Yes, Mum,’ says Joely.
Frankie watches Joely slide the money into her purse, and wonders how much is there.
‘And call me when you get there, Joelene.’
‘Yes, Mum.’
‘And make sure you listen to your aunt and uncle.’
‘Yes, Mum.’
‘And don’t spend too long in the sun.’
‘No, Mum.’
As Joely’s mum starts the car, Frankie stares out the window, wondering how her friend can be so calm and mannered. Frankie thinks about her own mum and how indifferent she is, how little she cares where Frankie is or what she does. She probably doesn’t even know that Frankie’s going away for a week and, if she does, she probably won’t actually miss her. Frankie isn’t sure what’s better: having a mum who controls everything you do or one who doesn’t even notice you’re gone.
Closing her eyes, Frankie wishes the train station closer. When she opens them, they’re pulling up. She smiles, happy that for once her magic skills have actually worked.
‘Thanks again, Mrs Walker.’ Frankie doesn’t wait for her to answer. She steps out of the car and stands on the footpath, watching Joely be fussed over. She sees Joely kiss her mother awkwardly on the cheek, and Frankie’s strangely pleased it’s so similar to the awkward farewell kiss she gave her own mum. Then Joely is waving goodbye and they are free.
As soon as the car drives off, Frankie and Joely collapse into each other hugging. They both giggle at the same time.
Suddenly, Joely pulls away and grabs her phone from her pocket.
‘Oh my God, run! We’re going to miss the train.’ Joely takes the stairs in groups of two, reaching the top in a second.
Still laughing, Frankie chases after her. If they miss this train they’ll have to wait for hours in the Melbourne sun for the next one. It’s not like trains run often where they’re going.
‘What platform?’ Frankie yells.
‘Nine,’ Joely calls back. ‘It’s down on the regional bit.’
Joely runs straight towards a lady with a pram. Frankie expects her to dodge it at the last minute, but instead, she clips the rear pram wheel and falls across the grey concrete. Her things get tossed out of her bag as she falls.
Frankie runs over, helps Joely up and then scoops everything back into her friend’s bag, pleased to see Joely remembered to buy them chips.
‘You okay?’ Frankie asks as she places Joely’s bag firmly back on her shoulder.
‘Yes,’ manages Joely.
Frankie nods. Satisfied things are right again, she takes Joely’s hand, and starts running, forcing her friend to keep up. Laughing, Joely pulls Frankie to the left and they run down onto platform nine.
They burst into the carriage and look around for seats, the last to board the train. Faces look up. Joely blushes, but Frankie smiles, not minding that rows of strangers are staring. A loud whistle shrieks and, as the train takes off, they lurch forward, bumping the knees of a businessman trying to work. He glares and Frankie shrugs at him, not caring that he’s twice her age.
‘Sorry,’ whispers Joely, but the man ignores her.
Frankie grabs Joely’s arm and pulls her towards the back of the carriage, where graffiti welcomes them.
Frankie takes the forward-facing seat. She always does. She told Joely it’s a superstitious thing. She wants to see death coming if there’s a crash. Joely told Frankie she’d rather die without knowing, so she always travels backwards, not seeing where she’s going, only where she’s been.
Frankie looks at Joely and grins.
Joely grins back. Then she squeals, ‘Oh my God! You did it!’
‘What?’ says Frankie, pretending she doesn’t know what Joely’s talking about.
‘Your nose!’
Frankie shrugs and touches the tiny stud.
‘What’d your mum say?’ says Joely.
‘I made sure she stayed on the other side of me so she hasn’t seen it yet.’
‘Really?’
Frankie laughs like it’s the funniest thing in the world. ‘Nah. She doesn’t care. She didn’t have to pay for it. It was my Christmas present to myself.’
‘Did it hurt?’
‘Not as much as the dentist. Now you have to get one, too.’ Frankie checks out her nose stud in the window.
‘Yes, wouldn’t my mum love that?’
Frankie looks back and shrugs. ‘Just blame me. She already hates me.’
‘She doesn’t.’
‘She does,’ says Frankie.
When Frankie first met Joely’s mum two years ago, Frankie really wanted Mrs Walker to like her. She tried hard, at first, making sure her clothes were clean, her pierced bellybutton hidden and her hair brushed, but it didn’t seem to make any difference. It was like she’d sussed Frankie with one glance. After that, Frankie decided she might as well play at being the wild one, letting Mrs Walker believe that her judgement was accurate. At least her own mum never judged anyone. Although, sometimes Frankie wished that she did. Maybe then her mum wouldn’t get into so much trouble with men and jobs.
‘I’m starving,’ says Frankie.
‘You’re always—’
‘Don’t. You sound like Mum.’
‘Your mum doesn’t sound like that.’
‘She used to,’ says Frankie.
Joely pulls out two packets of chips. She keeps the barbecue-flavoured ones and holds out the other packet to Frankie.
Instead of taking the one offered, Frankie looks at Joely’s chip bag and says, ‘But I want the barbecue ones.’
‘Good. Cos I actually want chicken,’ replies Joely, tossing Frankie the packet of barbecue chips.
Frankie tears open the bag and pulls out a chip. She holds it up. ‘These aren’t chips. More like … barbecue crumbs.’ She turns the piece over and over. ‘I think you landed on them when you fell. But it doesn’t matter, Joely, it’ll still taste the same.’
Joely’s annoyed but she doesn’t say anything. She knows it’s Frankie’s way of showing Joely that she messed up, and then trying to be magnanimous by offering her a way out. Usually it doesn’t bother her when Frankie plays these games, but after getting up super early
, listening to her mum going on and on about eating healthy at Jill’s, and then buying the snacks in the first place, it pisses Joely off that Frankie is now picking fault with them. If she were more like Frankie, she’d say all that. Instead, she sucks it all down and watches her friend tip the chip crumbs into her mouth.
‘Do they still taste like chips?’ says Joely.
Frankie shrugs, pissing Joely off even further. Then Joely sees Frankie eyeing her bag of chicken chips and she knows what’s coming next.
‘They don’t taste like barbecue flavour,’ Frankie says.
‘So now you want chicken, Frank?’
Frankie smiles at Joely and holds out the barbeque chip packet. ‘Swap?’
Joely takes back the chips and picks at the crumbs. She feels like she’s with her mum and she’s been bullied into buying a dress she hates instead of the one she wanted in the first place. Terrified she’s going to cry, Joely looks out the window at the endless rows of houses built too close to the train line. They speed past a backyard where a girl is bouncing on a trampoline and Joely wishes it was her.
All month she’s been excited about this holiday and now Frankie is doing what she always does and is making things difficult. Joely decides not to buy them snacks anymore. She doesn’t even really like chips. She was just trying to do the right thing and make their holiday good from the start.
Frankie kicks her leg. Joely moves hers away.
Frankie leans over and holds out her packet. ‘How come the chicken ones aren’t broken?’
Joely wonders why Frankie keeps pushing things long past when anyone else would. She decides not to answer.
‘Joel? Did you hear me?’
Another kick of her foot and Joely sighs. Nobody else ever calls her Joel. Only Frankie. Joely can still remember the thrill of hearing Frankie shorten her name for the first time in that way only someone who really loves you can do. It felt like the point where their friendship crossed into something else, something special.
Amazed at how easily Frankie can draw her out of her mood, Joely answers, ‘I don’t know. Maybe I only fell on the other packet.’
‘You could take back the broken ones.’
‘But they’re open. And besides, I don’t think they’ll last a week.’
‘They might.’
‘I don’t mind broken chips,’ says Joely.
‘These ones are really good,’ says Frankie, shoving in a mouthful.
Even eating as fast as Frankie eats, she still looks beautiful. Frankie grins, chip crumbs around her mouth. Joely almost smiles back, then remembers she’s supposed to be cross and looks out the window.
‘I thought vegetarians didn’t eat chicken,’ says Joely, watching her friend in the window’s reflection.
‘It’s just chicken flavouring.’
‘Yes, but it still tastes like chicken.’
Frankie shrugs. ‘Chemical chicken.’
‘And that’s okay?’
Frankie shrugs again, and then asks, ‘How much further?’
‘We haven’t even left the city.’
‘But is it much further?’
Joely wants to shrug an answer, but that gesture belongs to Frankie. ‘We’ll be there by lunchtime.’
‘That’s ages.’
‘Yep, about three and a half hours.’
‘What’s the place called again?’
‘Payne.’
‘And is it? A pain?’
Joely doesn’t answer. She watches as Frankie drains the chicken chips into her mouth, then leans over and sneaks her hand into Joely’s barbecue ones.
‘What are you doing?’ says Joely.
‘Sharing.’
Joely snatches away the packet and stuffs the chips into her mouth as fast she can.
‘Didn’t your mum teach you to share?’ Frankie says.
There are so many crumbs in Joely’s mouth, she’s having trouble chewing. The pieces jab her gums. She wishes she’d just handed them over and eaten something else. But she didn’t want Frankie to have any.
‘What are they like?’ asks Frankie.
Joely points to her mouth. She tries to swallow, but little bits of chip wedge in her throat.
‘What? The chips?’ Joely manages as she chews.
‘No. Your cousins.’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Are they tall? Fat? Short? Ugly?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Come on, Joely.’
‘I don’t know. They’re just guys.’
‘Well, I didn’t exactly think they were girls.’
‘Mack’s nearly two years older than us. He’s seventeen. And Thommo’s a year younger so he’s fourteen.’
‘And?’
‘And they’re my cousins. That’s all.’
Joely’s heart beats faster. She doesn’t want anymore questions. She doesn’t want to doubt her decision to bring her friend. She knows Frankie is watching, waiting for her to say something. But she can’t. She can’t tell her that Thommo used to wet his bed or that Mack used to play with himself when he was in his bathers. She won’t tell her about the time she kissed Thommo in the bath when they were little or when she stole Mack’s favourite racing car and buried it out by the shed because she didn’t want to go home.
‘Are they cute? Or country daggy?’ says Frankie in a voice that makes Joely look away.
Sometimes Frankie scares her. The way she knows how to play people, how to get answers. She doesn’t want Frankie to steal her cousins. She wishes, just for a moment, that she’d kept them to herself. But now they were only a few hours away from Frankie entering their lives.
Ever since she asked Frankie to come, before she’d even checked with her aunt to make sure it would be okay, she’d played out the scene in her head, wondering what her relatives would make of Frankie with her flyaway hair and eyes that made you feel special just by seeing you. She didn’t expect Frankie to say yes, but Frankie seemed almost relieved by the idea of escaping to the country for a week. And that’s something Joely understands. She looks forward to this holiday every summer because it means getting away from her mum. No nagging. No endless questions. Just freedom.
Chapter 2
Joely scrunches up the chip packet and shoves it into her bag.
‘What’s the matter?’ asks Frankie.
‘Nothing,’ says Joely.
‘Yes, there is.’
‘No, there isn’t.’
Frankie shrugs. She knows something’s up, but she isn’t going to pry.
Finally Joely says, ‘I just don’t want to talk about my cousins.’
‘Okay.’
‘They aren’t like the boys we know.’
‘Whatever.’
‘They’re different.’
‘Fine.’
‘Fine then, Frank,’ Joely laughs.
Tired of playing Joely’s games, Frankie hunts around in her bag and drags out her novel. It’s thin and the spine is cracked because it’s been read a hundred times before. Frankie doesn’t know why Joely can’t just tell her about her cousins. Joely was the one who invited her, and now she’s being all moody. Frankie wishes Joely would understand that she wants to know what she’s walking into.
Opening the book, Frankie breathes in its musty smell. She finds the most recent bent corner and starts reading. She’s already read this page, but she likes re-reading the same bits over and over, studying each sentence so she can try to understand the author. Sometimes she imagines how the story would read if she wrote it. How different it would be.
Frankie found this book in an op shop’s free box near her last house. She always takes books if they’re free even if she doesn’t think she’ll like them. It’s not only because they’re free. She likes leaving it up to the universe to choose what she’s going to rea
d, and picking up whatever crosses her path is the most random way to select a book.
She’s been in this world with Miranda and Irma for some time now, wondering if she would have followed them through the crack in the rock or stayed behind screaming like Edith with her great, trembling fear.
It’s much sadder than she imagined. When she first started, she thought it was about a time before she was born that would have no relation to her life. But she was wrong. Now she was desperate to know what happened to the girls and if they’d ever come back. She worried mostly for Miranda. There was just something about her, and Frankie feared the author would sacrifice her for the good of the story.
She’d like to talk to Joely about it, but doubts her friend would have much interest. And it’s hard to explain a book like this. Frankie feels lost in it when she’s reading, like she’s actually there, walking off from the picnic and to the rock because it’s calling to her, luring her in, forever. She’s not sure Joely would get that because she’s so sensible, she even carries a sewing kit in case a button falls off.
Joely sits watching Frankie, but she doesn’t want to be quiet. She wants to talk, laugh, prepare for their big adventure. But she wants Frankie to start it and Frankie won’t. Now she’s reading, deliberately shutting her out. Frankie always has books in her bag, books nobody else has read. Joely would like to read them too. She wants Frankie to offer to lend one, but she never has. There’s no way Joely will ask because she doesn’t want to seem too interested. That’s just what Frankie wants and, sometimes, Joely thinks it’s better for her friend to believe that not everything she does is noticed by the world.
So Joely opens her bag, takes out her mobile and considers ringing Tess or Lucy. But then she’d have to talk, and she doesn’t want to do that, not here, not on a train with Frankie pretending not to listen. Anyway, Frankie isn’t impressed by any of Joely’s old friends. Frankie’s a loner. She doesn’t act like the other girls Joely’s known since primary school, the ones she used to hang out with, more because they were just there rather than because she actually liked them. Joely was even part of their weekly baking club, where they’d rotate houses and host cook-offs. Frankie lives on canned soup, broken Saladas and pasta with Vegemite.
