Bone Song

by Sherryl Clark

  OK, I’ll play along, but what could she really know? ‘The shrink wanted to put me on tranquillisers for a while but I said no. Maybe I should say yes. What do you think? You sound like an expert.’ Did she catch the sarcasm? I kept it minimal.

  ‘Yeah, I am a bit. Say no. Better to face the dragon.’

  ‘You’ve met my mother, have you? Tell me, what do you do with dragons that’re undefeatable?’

  ‘They’re always in it to win, at all costs. And usually better at battle tactics. You have to be trickier, faster, plan your moves, like in chess. They’re cunning with words too, and use them to try and crush resistance.’

  I think about what she said, and something happens inside my head, like a door opening so that I catch a glimpse of sunlight.

  ‘Um, I think maybe I’ve got two dragons. One inside and one outside. And I’m not sure which one is bigger and meaner.’

  Ow! She’s grabbed me by the arm and is dragging me back inside. ‘Hornsby!’ she hisses, ‘Heading across from his office.’ We start running, our feet thumping down the corridor. Too bad if he hears us. By the time he gets to the detention room, we’ll be sitting like little mice, studying and finishing our homework. The Hornsby dragon is barely knee-high, easy to kick aside.

  CHAPTER 9

  Melissa

  I’m still puffing a bit when Hornsby opens the door and peers in suspiciously, but it’s more my red face I’m worried about. I keep my head down, pretending the algebra is so fascinating that I’m really on Planet Maths. He must’ve heard us running.

  ‘Have you two left this room?’

  Like we’re going to admit it. I stare up at him, acting like I’ve only just realised he’s there. ‘Pardon, sir?’

  ‘Perhaps I should sit in here and keep an eye on you.’

  Hornsby’s trying to sound in control but I can see his big nose twitching as he takes in the smell. He’s not staying, no way. Sure enough, he rabbits on about detention teaching us blah blah blah, then he gets out before the smell chokes him.

  I open my mouth to crack some joke about him but stop myself. I don’t want to talk to Dobie right now. I put my head down again and glare at the algebra. There’s a whole jumble of things in my head – her drenching me with the hose, her hate-filled face when she saw me in here yesterday, her smile when I balanced on the beam. Who is she? Which person is she? The one who thinks I’m scum, or the one who helped me? I can’t afford to open up to someone like Dobie. What if she saw my mother in one of her demented times, shaking and crying and trying to hide in the wardrobe? She’d drop me like a hot biscuit.

  See, now she’s ignoring me. She doesn’t know when she’s well off. Never had to run from anything. Probably the only time she’s ever been in hospital is to visit some relative.

  The ER is the worst place, like some of the descriptions I’ve read of Hell. All these dying, injured bodies everywhere; people shouting and pushing trolleys; sitting in the hard, plastic chairs with the man next to you coughing his guts out, being told you’ll have to wait because your mum’s injuries aren’t serious and they’ve just had a triple car pile-up in. I could write scripts for one of those TV shows.

  I still remember Mum clinging to me, sobbing her heart out at the same time as she’s saying, ‘I’m OK, Lissy, let’s just go home, I don’t want to cause any bother,’ while I’m fighting the urge to shake her until her head rattles clear and she sees what she’s doing. Giving in again. Letting him get away with it. When we finally saw a doctor, she stitched up the cut on Mum’s cheek, checked the huge lump on her head and tried to talk to her about reporting the attack, but Mum wouldn’t listen. She kept shaking her head, then she said, ‘I fell down the stairs.’

  Yeah, well, she could tell herself the stairs story all she liked (she kept alternating that with the ‘walked into a door’ one) until the day Dad actually cut her with the hunting knife he kept in his desk drawer, sharpened like a meat worker’s. He sliced a neat line across one breast, over her heart. That’s when he told her that if she ever left, he’d finish the job by cutting her throat.

  If he knew I listened outside their door, he probably would’ve said the same to me. But he always acted like he was the best father in the world. I had every toy I wanted, the latest fashions, big hugs all the time. It got so every time he cuddled me, I had to keep swallowing so as not to throw up.

  After that first time in the ER, I had to eavesdrop. I knew Mum wouldn’t protect herself. I had to do it. When he cut her breast, I nearly burst into the bedroom to try to kill him. I thought hard about the gun he hid in the drawer on his side of the bed, but I was pretty sure he didn’t keep it loaded. After that, I couldn’t get the knife out of my head. It’s my fault we ran and it’s me who has to keep Mum going, hold her up. If I let her down, she’ll crumble and go back to him. And eventually she’ll be dead.

  There’s a cracking, splintering noise and I look down at the pen in my hand, or what’s left of it.

  I shouldn’t have said anything about dragons. What was I doing? Looking for sympathy?

  I can feel Dobie watching me. Doesn’t matter what she says, I’m going to shut her out. She’ll soon get the message, then she’ll go back to being horrible. That’s safer, easier.

  CHAPTER 10

  Dobie

  Something’s changed. I can feel it, like something died in here and the smell’s just got worse. Hey, Goody’s just smashed her pen. Weird. Why did she do that? That algebra must really be getting to her. I could help, but… I don’t do that kind of thing. Especially for someone as weedy as her. She always looks so pale and skinny. Must have a bit of strength, though. That pen is history.

  ‘You want to borrow a pen?’

  ‘No, thanks.’

  Goody’s acting like I offered her arsenic. What is going on in her head? Man, it stinks in here!

  I’ll have a go at opening that miniscule window up there. I climb on a desk, flick the catch and push as hard as I can. It’s stuck. Maybe if I thump it. It shudders and the paint along the sill cracks so I thump it harder and it moves. Some dickhead has painted it shut. By the time I finish pushing and banging, it’s open about four inches. The glass is cracked, but that’s too bad. I can actually smell fresh air seeping in.

  I jump down off the desk, bending my knees to land, and hear a sound. Shit! I know exactly what’s happened. I’ve split my jeans, right down the back seam. What undies did I put on today? Have to be black. Hope they’re clean. For a second I hear Mother’s voice saying, ‘Diet, diet, diet.’ If I ever get home without the whole world noticing and laughing themselves stupid, I’d better find a way to get up to my room without Mother seeing my cringing embarrassment. I haven’t even got a sweatshirt I can tie around my waist.

  ‘Um, you haven’t got a sweatshirt in your locker, have you?’ It’s worth a try.

  ‘No.’

  Goody’s either blind or she’s pretending I don’t exist again. ‘What’s your problem?’ I ask, snappier than I planned.

  ‘People bugging me.’ Her voice sounds choked.

  ‘Hey, I didn’t ask you to be in here. You did that all on your own. Although how you’d have the guts to do anything worth a detention is beyond me.’

  ‘What would you know? You don’t know anything. Little rich girl playing stupid games. You wouldn’t know real life if it walked up and spat in your face.’

  Her face has gone red and her eyes are all dark and glittery. God, what if she ups and hits me?

  ‘You don’t know anything about me –’ I start, but she cuts in.

  ‘And you don’t know anything about me, so butt out!’

  One part of me is really mad at her, but another part is suddenly curious. She’s so useless most of the time, then she turns into this fiery monster. I think about what she just said and start laughing.

  ‘Butt out, that’s great. That’s exactly what I’ve done, my butt’s hanging out in a big way.’ It’s not that funny but laughing helps whatever is going on here. I t
urn around and show her my jeans. When I turn back she’s trying hard not to smile. At least she’s polite.

  CHAPTER 11

  Melissa

  I can’t help it, I have to laugh. How embarrassing. I’d die if it was me. Dobie swings her bum around like she doesn’t care. When she smiles like that, it’s infectious; I have to smile too, even if I don’t want to.

  ‘My sweatshirt’s at home. Sorry.’

  ‘That’s OK, maybe I can walk all the way home like this.’ She squeezes her bum in and waddles around the room.

  It won’t hurt to be a little bit nice to her, I guess. After all, we’ve got another day in here yet. It’s nearly 4.30, only half an hour to go. I suddenly think about the kitten crying in the bathtub, Mum coming home and finding it, and I’m itching to get out of here. ‘You think Hornsby will come back again?’

  ‘For sure. Mrs Gregson has gone home so he’ll waste time annoying us instead.’

  ‘Are they really on together?’ I try to imagine it and screw up my nose.

  ‘Yeah. Gross, isn’t it? They do it in his office, on that green leather couch he’s got in there.’ Dobie sits on a desk near me and examines her fingernails, which are blue today.

  ‘How do you know? You’re making it up.’

  ‘Would I make up something like that? I heard them, panting and groaning, then she walked out with her hair all messed up, shoving her pantyhose in her bag.’

  ‘Sex is so disgusting, the way adults do it.’ Oops, I didn’t mean to say that. She’ll think I’m Miss Prim.

  ‘From what I can tell, they only do it with people they’re not married to.’

  ‘If only. My dad should’ve had a girlfriend. It might’ve…’ There I go again, opening my big mouth, letting out stuff that’s totally secret. She’s sneaky, getting me to talk like this. No, she’s not. I can’t blame her. That’s me being childish now.

  Dobie picks at her thumbnail and little bits of blue paint flick into the air. ‘What did you have to go and see Hornsby for? You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, I’m just nosy, that’s all.’

  I line up all the bits of pen in a nice, neat pattern. ‘He wanted to tell me all about the school benevolence fund.’

  ‘What – does he want you to donate some money or something?’

  ‘No. He wanted to give me some. Ms Rogers has been bugging him about me being a fucking charity case.’ I glare at her. ‘Thanks to you.’

  ‘Me? I never said anything to anyone.’

  Is she really surprised or is she faking it? ‘It was you who hosed me so I had to change my clothes. Ms Rogers…’ I can’t say it, can’t even think about it without going berko.

  ‘Hey, I told you I didn’t mean to get you. It was supposed to be Spike coming around that corner. Truly.’ She does look sorry. I don’t think she’s putting on an act. I’m not sure what to say. ‘Is that why you copped detention? Did you do something to Ms Rogers?’

  I shake my head, remembering Hornsby’s face again, how my words seemed to hang in the air then splatter all over him. In about two seconds, he went from being all nice and sympathetic, which was making me sick anyway, to having a red-nosed hissy fit. Enough like Dad to freak me right out. Three days in detention was nothing.

  Dobie doesn’t get it at all so I explain, keeping it short. Hornsby’s first little concerned lecture about how I wasn’t settling in to the school, would I like to see the counsellor? Perhaps if my mother wasn’t able to help then could he talk to my father..? Which was when I’d lost it and said all those nasty words. She grins when I recite them but doesn’t interrupt, so I go on to the second lecture today, the offer of funds, ‘A little helping hand…’ I was very well-behaved, I didn’t curse today; I just stared at him until he gave up.

  ‘I see Ms Rogers looking at you sometimes,’ Dobie says. ‘I wondered what that was about.’

  ‘I don’t need help. I need people to leave us alone.’

  All at once, I wish it wasn’t true, I wish that I could have friends, a normal family, long sessions on the phone every night. Fun, for God’s sake. At the very least, a mother who could hold it together better, who could look after me. I used to have friends around after school every day. She baked biscuits for us, bought a trampoline for the back yard, watched us swimming while she lay on the banana lounge. She was so normal before Dad came home at night.

  ‘Does your mother laugh? With you, I mean.’

  ‘Er, no way.’ Dobie frowns. ‘She has this smile she uses a lot. It looks nice but it’s not real. It disappears very quickly when no one’s around.’

  My bones feel heavy but my head’s buzzing. I stand and walk up and down the row of desks a couple of times, then I open the door. ‘It’s like a prison in here. I wish it was five o’clock.’

  ‘Only fifteen minutes to go. Did you do your algebra?’

  ‘I can’t. It’s driving me nuts.’ The book is lying open on the desk but I can’t bear to try again.

  Dobie walks over and reads my hopeless attempts at the first problem. ‘I thought you were good at maths.’

  I shrug. ‘Usually it’s cool. I guess my brain isn’t working right now. The harder I try, the more I mess it up.’

  ‘In this one, you’ve tried to work out y first. If you start with a and then multiply here…’ She bends over the page with the ink tube from inside my pen, trying to write with it.

  ‘How come you know how to do it?’ I scrabble around in my bag and find another pen, hand it to her and watch as she neatly writes out the workings of the problem.

  ‘I told you, I fail the tests on purpose. Yeah, I know, dumb thing to do.’

  ‘Mr Canto thinks you are really dumb. So do all the other kids. Doesn’t that bug you?’

  ‘It didn’t at first, but now… yeah, it does, a lot. I hate people thinking I’m stupid.’

  I check over the problem she’s just finished. ‘How did you do that? I still don’t get it – sorry.’

  ‘Don’t keep saying sorry! Uh… sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude.’ Dobie smiles at me and the angry words that were on the tip of my tongue slide away. ‘Sit down,’ she says. ‘Let’s cruise through these and then we can get out of here.’

  I wonder if Mum’s home yet. Panic starts to flutter in my stomach and something must show on my face.

  ‘It’s only algebra,’ Dobie says, laughing, then she waits. The silence is too big to leave empty.

  ‘It’s my mum. She, um, I hope she got home from work OK. I…’ No, I can’t go there, it’s too hard to explain. ‘I found a kitten this morning, behind a garbage can. I left it in the bathtub.’

  ‘Without water in it, I hope.’

  I think of the kitten’s big eyes, gazing up at me, and I smile, just a little bit. ‘I left it some milk, but it’s crawling with fleas. Mum’ll freak when she sees it.’

  ‘Is it cute? What colour is it?’

  ‘All black. I thought I could name it Midnight, but Mum won’t let me keep it.’

  ‘I know the feeling. None of us have ever been allowed pets.’ She taps her pen on the desk. ‘Worry about that later. Algebra first. Like forcing down your Brussels sprouts so you can enjoy your French fries.’

  I watch and listen as she works through another problem, explaining each step. At first it’s like in class, the words spinning around my head but none going in, then I start to see what she’s doing, and how she’s doing it. It’s just like the exercises we did last week, except harder, with more steps. Why couldn’t I see that before?

  ‘Now you do the next one,’ she says, handing me the pen. I freeze. What on earth is wrong with me? ‘What’s the first step?’ She’s much more patient than Mr Canto. He gets irritated if you don’t catch on fast, and gives you more exercises to do. As if that helps, when you don’t get it in the first place.

  ‘Um, start with a again?’

  ‘Yep. And then what?’

  In three minutes, I have that problem whipped. The answer glares up at me. ‘Is it right?�
�

  ‘Sure is. Do the next one.’

  I tackle them one at a time, and each one gets easier. It’s like I always knew how to do it, but I’d forgotten for some reason. I want to hug her.

  ‘This is just brilliant. Thank you so much.’ I don’t think she’ll go for a hug so I squeeze her arm instead. She looks kind of surprised and a bit embarrassed.

  ‘Hey, no big deal.’

  The door has opened and we didn’t even notice. Hornsby stands there, arms folded. ‘Gossiping or working?’ he says.

  ‘Working,’ says Dobie. ‘Algebra. Do you want to check?’

  ‘No, er, that’s fine.’ He clears his throat. ‘It’s five past five. You can go now.’

  We grab our bags and get out of the room as fast as we can. At the school gates, I ask, ‘Which way do you go?’

  Dobie frowns. ‘I catch the 420 bus over there to downtown, then the 17 home.’

  ‘You live miles away! Weren’t there bad schools your mother could put you in closer to home?’

  She’s fidgeting with her jeans, pulling at the seams. ‘This school had just been in the newspapers, some survey about learning standards. Actually, I selected it. I thought it would be the one that got up her nose the most. Hey, what am I going to do about these jeans? This is mega-embarrassing.’ She turns around and I have to agree – the bit where they’ve ripped open is showing all her undies. There’s no way she can pretend it’s deliberately trendy.

  ‘Um, I guess you could come home with me and try to sew them up. I mean, we don’t have a sewing machine, just needle and thread.’ I know I don’t sound very inviting. It’s the thought of her seeing our scummy apartment and the lifts with pee in them – if she thinks the school is bad, it’s got nothing on where I live.

  ‘I wouldn’t know how to use a sewing machine anyway. That’d be great – if you don’t mind.’

  It’s not me who’s going to mind. It’s Dobie when she sees our place. ‘Sure. Don’t you have to be home though?’