by Alice Pung
‘Lauren said that you couldn’t make it to the party because you needed a lift,’ she said to Marly. ‘So I’m here. I called your parents earlier for their permission.’
Marly was torn between being annoyed that her parents hadn’t told her and dancing for joy over the surprise. No wonder Grandma had made her put on a dress! Marly’s mum came out and said hello to Lauren’s mum, and handed her a package wrapped in re-used Christmas paper. ‘For your daughter,’ she said. Then to Marly, ‘Behave yourself.’
Marly handed Michael over and dashed to the car.
On the way, Lauren’s mum was relaxed and chatty. She asked Marly about school, and about her parents. Marly felt shy but answered all her questions politely, staring outside the window as the landscape changed from factories to flats to tree-lined streets.
Forty minutes later they had arrived. Lauren’s house was older than Marly’s, but it was a good old. Not the crumbling old of the houses in Sunshine, with the uncut long grass and broken windows repaired with duct tape, but the sort of old you would find in an Anne of Green Gables book. It looked like a castle with beautiful green vines crawling all over the bricks. And it was huge!
Seven girls ran out of the house when the car arrived. Leading them was Lauren in a cool purple T-shirt with stars all over, and a black bubble skirt with black knee-length tights. Her hair was in a ponytail to one side of her head. The other girls had different versions of the same sort of outfit. Marly wore a yellow dress with a smocked front, a gift from the Smith Family charity, but she had no time to feel self-conscious, because as soon as she stepped out of the car, Lauren wrapped her in a massive bear hug.
‘So good to see you!’ squealed Lauren, and then turned Marly so she faced all the other girls. Marly was suddenly very nervous.
‘Everyone, this is my pen friend Marly!’ declared Lauren proudly.
A girl with springy red curls asked Marly, ‘Are you Lauren’s refugee pen friend from Vietnam?’
Marly didn’t know how to answer. She could barely remember Vietnam – she was only a toddler when they had left. She felt more Australian than anything else.
Lauren saved her from replying. ‘No, she’s my Australian pen friend. And she can do the moonwalk.’
Marly beamed. It was wonderful to have someone see her the way she wanted to be seen. They went into the big house, into a room at the back. Sun poured in through enormous floor-to-ceiling windows and there was music coming from a cassette player on the floor.
‘Go on, Marly, show us your moonwalk!’ coaxed Lauren. The other girls started clapping, so Marly shyly started to warm up. She shuffled across the floor and then smoothly slid backwards across the tiles.
‘Wow,’ the other girls breathed. Marly wasn’t sure whether they were just being nice to her because she was the newcomer, or whether they were really impressed, but it felt good.
They ate fairy bread and had juice boxes and sausage rolls and red-and-green jelly. The adults had their own special table with a five-layer dip, carrot, Coon cheese and celery sticks. Another table was piled high with Lauren’s presents. Marly had never seen so many gifts for one person before. When it was time to open them, Lauren tore the paper off. That would never happen at my house, Marly thought. Whenever anyone in her family received wrapped gifts they carefully peeled off all the stickytape and saved the paper to reuse later.
Lauren had received a Walkman, a new Casio calculator watch, a Glo Worm, a couple of Barbies (‘I’m too old for these!’ Lauren laughed, but Marly could tell that she secretly liked them because she held the boxes close) and a pair of rollerskates. ‘Let’s go upstairs,’ said Lauren, ‘and put these things in my room.’
‘Wait,’ her mother said. ‘You have one final present! It’s from Marly.’ Marly’s face felt red as she watched Lauren’s mum hand over the small present from Marly’s family. What made things worse was that it was wrapped in recycled, faded Christmas paper decorated with Santas. Marly didn’t know what her mum had wrapped for Lauren but she wished that it was bigger.
Lauren ripped the paper away and pulled out a black-and-pink polka dot dress with triple layered ruffles at the bottom and a big, low, loopy belt. Even Marly was surprised – it was the perfect gift.
‘Woah!’ breathed Lauren. ‘This is so amazing. You even knew my size!’
‘Mum made it herself,’ Marly said proudly. Her mother always saved the fabric scraps from her clothing orders and made her own designs with them. Marly felt secretly excited for herself – if her mum could make Lauren something so incredible, then her own Michael Jackson costume was going to rock.
When the girls finally went up to Lauren’s room, Marly was amazed. Not only did Lauren have her own room, but it was bigger than Marly’s lounge room! It was painted pale pink, with a four-poster princess bed, and a huge dollhouse on one side of the wall.
‘Where’s your brother?’ asked Marly.
‘Oh, Dad took him to the footy.’
Marly found this incredible – that Lauren’s parents separated the two of them so Lauren could have time by herself with her friends at her own party. She could never imagine her parents doing that for her. When it was time to leave, Lauren’s mum gave everyone a little party bag filled with lollies. A gift just for her, for turning up! This was some kind of fairytale world. Marly didn’t want to leave – she knew she could never invite Lauren to her tiny house in Sunshine with its broken toys and howling baby. On the way back in the car, she dreamed about living in a castle and having her very own room.
‘Did you have a good time?’ Marly’s parents asked her when she arrived home. Her mother had made her favourite prawn and snow-pea stir-fry for dinner. As they ate, Marly told them all about the party and the food and the games they played, and especially about Lauren’s massive room. Marly saw her parents look at each other, and knew she shouldn’t have mentioned it. She didn’t want her parents to feel bad.
‘Lauren loved the present, Mum,’ she said to change the topic. ‘She said it was amazing. How are you going with my costume?’
Marly’s mother was silent.
‘Mum, you have almost finished it, haven’t you?’ Marly began to panic. The concert was only one week away.
‘Well, Marly, I’ve been so busy with a new order in the last few weeks, as well as having to sew that dress for your friend, that I haven’t had much time to work on your costume,’ her mother confessed. ‘But I promise I will get started on it as soon as I can.’
Marly couldn’t help it. Tears squirmed their way out of her eyes. ‘You lied!’ she cried. ‘You promised me. It will never get done in a week. Everyone has forgotten me. It’s not fair. I’ve been practising for months!’
‘You can still dance without the costume,’ her mother told her. ‘Why don’t you wear the pretty yellow dress you have on now?’
Marly was speechless. There was no way she could wear a dress to do the moonwalk.
‘Stop pestering your mother,’ said Grandma. ‘She has a new baby to look after. You’re stressing her out. Back when I was young, I only had one dress. One! And here you are demanding your mother make you play clothes to wear for one night only in front of your friends. So spoilt!’
Marly wanted to hurl her dinner bowl across the room. No one in the household understood her! Not even Grandpa was sticking up for her, Grandpa whom she had defended to the local Council when they wanted to take away his pet goat – he was too busy clucking at Michael in the bassinet next to the dinner table.
Her dad tried to cheer her up. ‘Come on, my pirate girl, let’s see a few of your famous dance moves then.’
‘No!’ said Marly.
‘Can you give a performance for your old dad? Come on,’ he coaxed.
‘No!’ said Marly. ‘You’ll have to wait until the concert – that’s if I still decide to do it.’ Marly wasn’t sure any more. If she didn’t have a costume to make her feel like Michael Jackson, how could she dance in front of everyone?
‘He won’t be
at the concert,’ said Grandma. ‘He’s got a night shift at work next Friday.’
Marly looked at her father in shock. She had counted on both her parents being there. They knew how much this meant to her. She didn’t like being a sook, but Marly couldn’t help it. She angrily wiped tears away as she yelled, ‘No one cares about what I want! No one cares about me at all!’
‘You expect your dad to leave work just to see you dance?’ scoffed Grandma. ‘Can you believe the selfishness of this girl?’
I don’t care if Grandma is angry with me. I’m sick of her judging me all the time, thought Marly angrily. If I was Lauren, I could run into my own room and sit on my bed. But I don’t have my own room. I don’t even have my own bed. She watched as her grandparents got up from the table and sat on the sofa in front of the television.
This concert wasn’t about showing off how pretty she was, or how she could dance. It was something she needed to do for herself, to remind her that she still existed. It just seemed to Marly like no one cared about what made her excited and happy. She was just supposed to be a girl, and as long as she helped with the baby and around the house, as long as she was quiet and not the troublemaker, that was okay.
She may as well have been invisible.
AT school, Marly rehearsed ‘Daisy’ with the rest of the class, blending in as just another swaying milkmaid. Her heart really wasn’t into it, but she had decided after last night that she wasn’t going to do her moonwalk. There was just no point if no one cared, especially not her parents.
When class ended, Mrs Louden asked Marly to stay behind for a little while during lunchtime. Marly’s heart raced – was she in trouble? Did her teacher sense that Marly thought the ‘Daisy’ performance was lame? She followed Mrs Louden to the music room next door. The music room had a piano, two guitars, and six boxes filled with maracas, recorders, triangles and cymbals. It also had a cassette player on top of a metal cabinet.
‘Marly,’ smiled Mrs Louden, ‘if you’re going to perform at the school concert, you should rehearse in front of an audience first. I would love to see your dance.’
‘But I don’t want to, Miss,’ said Marly quietly.
‘Without practising in front of others, how will you be able to do it on the performance evening in front of more than a hundred people?’
‘No, I mean I don’t want to do it at all any more!’
Mrs Louden looked concerned. ‘But, Marly, why not? Yousra tells me how incredible you are, and I thought you were very brave to volunteer to do a solo act.’
‘No one cares,’ Marly replied, and suddenly and embarrassingly she started to cry. Mrs Louden opened up her arms and Marly folded into them, comforted by Mrs Louden’s kindness and warmth. She felt so disappointed by her family, and so forgotten. But after having a good cry, it felt like a relief.
‘I care,’ said Mrs Louden. ‘I would like to see you dance. I don’t want all the practice you’ve been doing to go to waste just because you are afraid.’
Marly knew that Mrs Louden was right. It was no use practising alone, dreaming of the day when she would show them all. And she was afraid. What if she clammed up or stumbled and fell? The truth was, she had no idea what she would be like in front of a real audience.
Mrs Louden pulled out a cassette tape from her handbag and put it into the cassette player. A familiar rhythm came out, and when the first beats of ‘Billie Jean’ came on, Marly knew she was doomed. She stood, frozen.
‘What’s wrong?’ asked Mrs Louden.
The whole room was wrong, Marly realised. Firstly, it was too small for her spins and leaps and moves, and secondly, she couldn’t dance on carpet in her runners.
Marly couldn’t look at Mrs Louden – she felt a bit like a failure, a bit ridiculous. Then she saw the sticker on the bottom of the music room drawers. BOARD GAMES, it read.
‘Can I use the Twister mat in there?’ she asked Mrs Louden. Mrs Louden nodded, and Marly unfolded the Twister mat and took off her shoes. Her socks slipped across the mat, and she crossed her fingers it would be like practising on the shower curtain in Grandma’s slippers.
Mrs Louden rewound the cassette tape and then started from the beginning of the song, and Marly began to dance.
Marly forgot that her teacher was watching her. She forgot everything but the music and her feet and the rhythm, and she felt her body soar. She felt as light as a feather and as sparkling as glitter. She made her body move like she was painting a massive joyous picture in the air, a painting using all of her arms and legs and head and shoulders and feet. By the time the song was over, she was puffing. She turned to Mrs Louden and took an uncertain bow.
Mrs Louden was standing silently with her mouth open. Then she started clapping loudly. ‘That was incredible!’ she cried. ‘I have never seen a student perform like that. You were like a little fireball of energy!’
When Marly walked out of the room, she felt wonderful – she had done it! She had performed in front of Mrs Louden. She thought about how Mrs Louden’s jaw had dropped, and Marly smiled to herself. She had a secret talent that nobody knew about. Not even Yousra had seen Marly really dance.
Someone tapped Marly’s shoulder and she spun around. It was Kane, the boy in her class who had given her and Grandpa a hard time earlier in the year because Grandpa wanted to keep their goat Agnes in the backyard. ‘Wow, that was amazing!’ he said to her.
Marly was confused. ‘What?’
‘I had detention in the next room.’ Kane gestured to the room next door to the music room. ‘I saw you dance like a legend in there. I saw everything! Raddest thing ever!’
Marly didn’t know whether Kane was making fun of her or being serious. It was the nicest he had ever been to her. ‘Umm, thanks,’ she said uncertainly.
‘I can’t wait till you show the other kids your moves. Can you give us a show at lunchtime?’
Marly shyly explained to him that she was actually thinking of performing it for the school concert, and wanted to keep it a secret.
‘I won’t tell anyone,’ promised Kane. ‘What a cool idea! See ya, Marly.’
He smiled and dashed off and Marly floated outside to tell Yousra all about her strangest lunchtime ever.
After school Grandma walked Marly home, and when they got into the lounge room, she handed Marly a plastic bag. ‘Here,’ she said gruffly.
Great, thought Marly, more dirty nappies to put in the laundry. She dropped it on the floor.
‘What are you doing?’ said Grandma. ‘Open it, it’s for you.’
Marly looked inside the bag. It was clothes. Grandma was still trying to shape her, she thought crossly. She pulled out the first garment – a pair of black leggings with two white stripes hand-sewn down the side. How strange, Marly thought, putting them to one side. Then she pulled out a pair of socks. But they were not ordinary socks – someone had carefully sewn silver and white sparkly beads all along the scrunchy tops so they glittered from a distance. Marly felt a tingle of excitement. Surely not . . . Next she pulled out Grandpa’s old grey fedora hat. Its ribbon had been replaced with a smart black velvet one. The final item she pulled out of the bag was the best – one single white glove, with gold sequins sewn all over the top, hundreds of tiny circles that must have taken Grandma hours and hours to do. Marly realised then why Grandma had been pulling sequins off the old handbag all those weeks ago. She had been making Marly’s costume!
‘Not sure why you want to wear such a ridiculous outfit, but your grandpa showed me a picture of the man singer who wears this costume and told me that this is what you wanted,’ said Grandma. ‘Is it?’
‘Yes!’ Marly exclaimed, happiness rising inside her chest like a big fat helium balloon. ‘Yes! It is exactly what I wanted.’
‘Good,’ grumbled Grandma. ‘Then you’d better do your best at that concert of yours, because I told your mum I would look after the baby so she can take you.’
Mum was going to come with her to the concert! She was touched by Grandm
a’s unexpected kindness. Grandma isn’t so bad after all, thought Marly. She may not agree with my dancing, but she still made a costume for me. It must have taken her days – in between cooking and cleaning and looking after the baby. Marly looked at her grandma with new eyes.
Just then, Marly’s mum came into the lounge room, carrying Michael in her arms.
‘Finally,’ she smiled. ‘I get to go out of the house. Hooray!’
IT was the evening of the concert, and Marly was backstage. She felt nervous but excited. The class had just performed ‘Daisy’, and now it was time for the individual or small group acts. Kids were getting changed out of their milkmaid and farmer outfits.
Kimberly’s mum, who smelled like cupcakes and whose powdered face reminded Marly of icing, was putting on make-up for the performers. Marly watched Kimberly, Kylie and Jessica’s faces get painted with glittery blue eyeshadow and dark pink lipstick.
Kimberly’s mum noticed Marly hovering nearby. ‘Look at you!’ she exclaimed. ‘Such beautiful olive skin.’ She picked up a palette of emerald green eyeshadow. ‘This is just your colour and will really make your eyes pop on stage.’
Marly didn’t want her eyeballs to pop on stage. She replied politely, ‘No, thanks.’
‘But you must wear a bit of make-up,’ insisted Kimberley’s mum. ‘Or else people won’t see your face under all those bright lights.’
Marly really didn’t want to go out there with her face painted like a bouquet of flowers. It would ruin her entire look. She looked disgustedly at the make-up scattered on the trestle table. Suddenly, she saw the solution! Marly pointed to the black eyeliner pencil. ‘I want this,’ she said, ‘on my eyes and eyebrows.’ She knew that Michael Jackson wore black around his eyes and brows.
