by Tiffiny Hall
‘I win. Awesomeness!’ Fleur laughs in her tiny voice, spreading her arms and twirling. She lands in a tangle of giggles.
‘Romeo’s good-looking, but does he have to talk like that?’ I ask, breathless, when we have settled down to resume the movie.
Fleur glares at me. ‘It’s Shakespearean,’ she says. ‘You’ll get him in Year Seven. Do not repeat what you said to Dad because he’ll be reading it to us day and night.’
We both roll onto our backs and watch the film flicker across the ceiling in clouds of colour. I lift the bowl onto my stomach, feeling the pressure of Fleur’s hand dive in and rustle for the last handful of popcorn.
‘Do you want me to give you a makeover for school tomorrow?’ Fleur asks.
‘No. Definitely not. You need a makeunder. Why are you wearing yellow eyeshadow all of a sudden?’
‘Yellow is the new smoky eye. It’s about to happen,’ she says.
‘Well, make it stop. You look ill.’
Then Fleur says out of nowhere, ‘You know I’ve got your back tomorrow, yeah?’
I sigh, ‘I know.’ That’s what I love most about Fleur: she’s always got my back, my front and my sides.
Chapter 2
The night spreads its heavy wings across the walls. It’s super late as I lie in bed under the window, staring at Sibyl and Socrates asleep on the branches in their enclosures. My incubator mists a blue light across the floor. The constant cavity in my gut starts throbbing. I’m nearly out of crickets. Though there’s my cockroach colony, no lizard wants to live on cockroaches eight days a week! There are still crickets, mealworms, silkworms and grasshoppers to buy. Plus, Sybil is hungrier than ever because she is pregnant. I’ll have to take my lizards to the pet shop if I can’t afford to keep them.
Then thoughts of starting a new school tomorrow press themselves into my temples. I begin counting sheep, but each sheep has the face of a new kid who doesn’t like me. I roll over and stare at the floorboards. In the darkness they form a ladder of gritty shadow and smooth sapphire light. Counting the floorboards from my bed to the five-storey lizard house, I try to summon sleep. Nine, ten. New faces float around my head. Fifteen, sixteen. They’re laughing at me, pointing, talking about me behind my back. Twenty, twenty-one. I’m in the school toilets, holding back tears.
A flash of movement distracts me. Peering into the darkness, I see something waving in the draught above the floor. When I sit up on my elbows and blink hard, the object does not disappear.
Quietly I push aside my diary and slide out of bed, creeping over to the object in sock feet. I bend down cautiously onto my knees and reach out. At first touch it feels like a crisp leaf of plastic suspended from a branch that is poking up through a crack in the floorboards. Pinching the leaf, I wrestle with it until one very forceful yank plucks the thing free from its post. In the velvety darkness, I can just make out that the object is a perfect rectangle — maybe a shopping list, a letter or a receipt?
Flicking on the light at the wall makes my eyes see purple spots. I have to wait a moment for them to adjust before I can look down at my palm. The air sucks out of my lungs. There, in my hand, is a fifty-dollar note. I can’t breathe. Holding the note up to the light, the hologram flashes. Then I press the note to my nose, exhale and inhale. Although the corners are shabby and the note is old and decrepit, the money feels and smells legit.
‘Yes,’ I say, fist pumping the note above my head. I look back at the floorboards. The previous tenants must have dropped it. How did I miss this when I was cleaning? Then I remember the money was attached to something.
Back at the crack in the floorboards, I drop to the floor. Poking through the planks is a small stick. The spiky protrusion is no bigger than a newborn lizard’s tail. I pull on the tiny stick, but it too seems to be anchored to something below. I peer down between the floorboards, but the crack is too narrow to see into the darkness.
An odour puffs between the boards, a distinct smell but one I’m not that familiar with. Suddenly the smell conjures a memory. I’m eight and standing in the playground of St Flintbarns Primary. I’m wearing my old school uniform and it’s three sizes too big. Mum said I will grow into it and we can’t afford to buy one that fits. My shoes are scuffed, the shirt comes down to my knees and my shorts nearly nip at my ankles. The kids are calling me names.
When the canteen lady turns her back, I run to the cash register and open it. The scent hits my nostrils. I’m going to buy a new uniform with the money in that till. I pick up a fifty-dollar note and a handful of coins and whiff hard. Then I put the money back. Tears come thick and fast as I realise it’s wrong and I’ll never hold a fifty-dollar note of my own and we’ll never be able to afford clothes that actually fit like the other kids.
Something inside me snaps in the here and now. The tears return; glassy balloon-like droplets rain down onto the floorboards and smash. Soon I don’t know if it’s the memory of feeling so miserable that is making me cry or the nerves of starting at a new school, fearing being trapped, teased and not good enough. My tears flow down my cheeks. I watch them fall, seep and spread between the floorboards, then drip down to water whatever lies beneath …
Minutes pass and I still can’t compose myself. I’m an ugly crier and I sniff and snort the tears, wiping them with the back of my hand. Diverting my attention to the stick, I rub it between my fingers, waiting for the tears to dry up, then with a violent tug snap it off. If Mum found a weed growing in my room, I’d be in trouble.
Sibyl limply dangles her front legs over the sides of her branch. She is awake now and looks sad for me. Or is it what Dad calls it? Anthropomorphism? When Mum says a dog waiting outside a café on a leash looks ‘churned up’, Dad gently reminds her that there’s no such thing and it’s only us projecting human emotion onto animals. I don’t agree with him. I think animals definitely have emotions and I know when Sibyl or Socrates is frustrated or depressed.
Opening the cabinet door quietly, I reach my hand into her enclosure and rest the stick against the glass. I stare at it for a moment as I try to understand how no one noticed the money before.
‘Night, Sibyl,’ I finally whisper, then wipe my wet cheeks dry on my pyjama top. ‘Night, Socrates.’
I slip the money into the pocket of my denim jacket. Once in a mess of sheets, I glance at the floorboards one last time, then wrestle deeper into my bed. I roll over and look out the open window. The curtains billow towards my face as I take in the stars firing over the house. The first day of school is looking up, I think. I can buy Sibyl and Socrates food after school. And even if it’s the worst day of my life, at least I’ll be able to drown my sadness at the canteen. I can afford the canteen every day for two weeks!
As my eyes grow heavy and I begin to slide into sleep, it suddenly hits me — that rare scent streaming through the floorboards, I smelt it at the till in the canteen and last year when my uncle sent me a birthday card. I opened the envelope and was hit by the foreign perfume: the smell of crisp new banknotes.
I try to go to sleep, to count my blinks, breaths and heartbeats. None of my usual tricks work. I can’t stop thinking about the money stuck to that twig.
Throwing off my sheets, I step onto the cold floorboards and pull on my slippers. My torch is up on the bookshelf because I shine it on my lizard eggs every day. (The baby lizards move in their shells under the light, that’s how I know they’re okay.) I take a deep breath, then slowly open my door. A creak thunders down the corridor. I freeze, then after a few exhales, open the door wider and slip into the corridor. I walk to the kitchen, glide past the Laminex bench and into the living room.
Unlocking the front door is hard. The door is old and heavy and clunks when it unlocks, then swings open with a loud yawn — it’s times like these I wish I could flash invisible! I slip out the front door and thump it gently behind me, waiting for a moment to see if anyone wakes up. I’ll be dead if Mum and Dad catch me outside on my own at this hour.
I tiptoe dow
n the verandah steps, then follow the light of my torch around to the side of the house. I remember seeing the hatch that leads down to the basement; it was embedded in the ground like a forgotten coin and made out of the same blue wood as the house.
Reaching the hatch, I bend down and flinch at the ice-cold circular handle, then yank as hard as I can. My skin burns on the rusty steel. The door feels welded shut. Heaving again, nothing happens. I stomp on the hatch, then pull the handle. Still nothing.
After giving myself one of Dad’s motivational speeches, I say, ‘Yes, I can,’ then grasp the handle firmly and wrench with every fibre of muscle in my arms, locking my stomach tight and heaving with the power in my thighs. I count from zero to four and on the fifth lurch, the door swings open, landing flat in a pillow of grass. I stare down into the black hole. My torch does little to light its darkness. One foot dips into the basement as if checking the temperature of a bath. I jerk my toe out.
‘Yes, I can,’ I say again. I’ve come this far; I have to go in there, even if it’s scary. I step down into the dark, finding a ladder. I count three rungs until my stomach and shoulders are enveloped in the blackness. My head pokes out of the hatch as I try to talk myself into going under. I take another step in, but sensing that I’m not alone, I scurry back out and into the dim light of the street lamps.
‘You’re a wimp,’ I say, slamming the hatch closed.
Chapter 3
So, this is how you grow muscles. At dawn I grip the handle of the hatch. The light softly sips the corners of the blue wood. I couldn’t sleep last night, thinking about how much I need to toughen up and stop being a scaredy-cat. On the third breathless heave, the hatch swings open and lands with a thud on the grass. The darkness is fuzzy with the morning light as I slip down into the hole with my torch. My heart pulsates into the blackness. The feeling that I’m not alone combs every hair on my body, slowing down my movements.
‘C’mon,’ I whisper. Knees wobbling, I force myself down three more rungs and feel around in the darkness for a light. A string tangles in my fingers and I yank on it. The basement brightens slowly and I let out a sigh of relief.
The room is smaller than my bedroom, woven with cobwebs and smells of old photos, the kind that used to be printed and put in albums. Junk is everywhere: dank furniture half-covered in sheets, like bad ghosts, haunting broken exercise equipment; an antique wardrobe dominating the corner; stacks of boxes surrounding three black office chairs with foam bubbling out of their cracks; and a bile-green corduroy armchair blocking an empty vending machine. I shuffle around the boxes. When I lift them, they leave perfect stencils of dust on the floor. Mum will love exploring this stuff. Imagine the garage sale we could have!
Inspecting the ceiling, I find there are no weeds or twigs growing into the next level of the house. I manage to walk to the end of the room, then count my steps to the back wall. Five long steps add up to approximately five metres. That’s not even the length of the living room, let alone the kitchen. I sit on a box to think and glare at the back wall. The only wall in the entire weatherboard house built out of fresh red bricks. I stare up at the ceiling. Maybe I’m mistaken; maybe that is my room up there. Perhaps I pulled out the only weed that was growing. But then the smell hits me again. The odour of money is thick, and rather than old and stale, it’s fresh, bank fresh.
I leap off my box and tear open the lid. Inside I find a bag of dirty clothes, a vacuum cleaner, a toaster and a kid’s lunchbox containing mouldy black sandwiches, but no money. The next box is filled to the brim with old lottery tickets and fridge magnets. I pull down three more boxes and there is a washing machine lodged behind them, full of dirty clothes. Whoever last lived here left in a real hurry. Looks like they stashed everything they owned down here.
Nothing leads to the scent. I shine my torch all over the ceiling, trying to see through the cracks, but there is no way of telling which room is above. I need to find out where my bedroom is in relation to this tiny basement.
A sound. Goosebumps explode into shivers across my skin. My name is being called. I leap up the ladder, turning off the light as I go, then pull the hatch closed behind me and run back into the house to answer my parents. I’ll figure out which room is above the basement. If I think that I’ll never make the discovery, the discovery will turn up. The way you lose your sunglasses … As soon as you declare them lost, they appear on your head.
I was mistaken, Mum was calling Fleur, but it’s time to fan my lizard eggs before school anyway. I have to gently remove the plastic lid from each container and wave it over the eggs to oxygenate them so they don’t overheat. I do this every three days for thirty-five seconds. But I must do it without moving the eggs; the slightest bump will kill the babies. Mum’s not happy about her kitchen containers being filled with so many unborns, but I had no choice.
I peel up the lip of the lid on the first container. It’s not easy holding twelve lives in your hands. The vermiculite, the special mineral sand-like substance that keeps the eggs warm and dry, vibrates around the rows of eggs. I stick my nose in the container and observe them. White wisps of morning light swirl in the eggs’ bald reflections. They are the perfect colour: cappuccino-froth white. As long as they don’t turn yellow, we’re okay.
I think about cappuccinos as I fan the lid over the eggs. I’ve never had one, but I tried some of Mum’s froth once and thought one day I’ll buy four cappuccinos at the same time just to sip the froth.
I count to thirty-five, then press the lid onto the container, apply pressure and snap it locked. I float the container on my fingertips and place it back in the incubator next to the other four containers of eggs. I’ll die if I can’t keep them. It’s only been a few weeks, but I’ve fallen head over heels in love with my lizard family and will do whatever it takes to protect the children. Even if it means waking up at 4:30am to do the paper round next week so I can afford to feed them crickets.
I peer between a crack in the floorboards, but still, all I can see is deep blackness and lostness. The wind gives the trees a chiropractic workout in the yard as morning stretches itself awake on the windowsill. The air is heavy. I can sense rain brewing in the clouds. My curtains have swallowed the wind and reach for me with turquoise fingers. I try to ignore them. Those curtains are always frightening me with shapes that morph in the shadows. I swear I could see someone standing behind them last night and they keep tapping me out of my dreams right when I’m about to take off in flight or win a sash. The curtains spin. The walls shudder. I’m still not accustomed to this new house, the way it doesn’t stand up for itself against the wind. That tiny basement makes no sense.
I’m beginning to know my room at least, how light plays on the walls and the personality of every floorboard that I mop each day to keep up my end of the deal with Mum. She said I could have Uncle Colin’s lizards on one condition: my room is spotless. I inherited the lizards from Uncle Colin when he died, as well as the incubator and the lizard house. I wake up thirty minutes earlier every day to clean; there is not a fuzz of dust in sight, which is why that weed made the hours last night unsleepable. I bow down to look between the floorboards again when I sense my older sister approaching. She is so tall that her shadow is cast on you some time before you see her, like a storm cloud.
‘What are you doing?’ she asks from the doorway.
‘Out!’ I yell. ‘I’m trying to fan eggs!’
At 7:30am in the morning, Fleur stands in a pale blue nightie that slides like the ocean down her legs with a towel turbaned on her head.
‘Mum says you have to give me the bigger room because I’m the eldest,’ Fleur whispers. ‘I deserve privacy downstairs.’
‘Mum did not say that,’ I say. ‘I’m the one with a pregnant lizard. Am I supposed to carry the incubator upstairs? It won’t even fit through the door.’ Fair enough, Fleur’s room is what they used to call a sewing room. It’s no bigger than a laundry and only fits a chest of drawers and her bed, whereas my room has my bed, a boo
kshelf, the five-storey lizard house and a desk.
‘You had the bigger room in our old house,’ I continue. ‘It’s only right the youngest has a go now.’ I pick up another container of eggs out of the incubator, carefully peel off the lid and fan them. I look up at Sibyl basking in the artificial light behind the glass, her stomach bloated with eggs, beard sagging, skin jaundiced. She watches me anxiously. I continue to oxygenate her eggs.
‘A person only lives an average of thirty thousand days,’ Fleur says. ‘None of those days should be wasted on lizards.’
I glare at her. At least I’m doing something important, not trying to be a pop star. She’s kidding herself about a singing career. She can hardly talk, let alone belt out a number. If I press my ear against her door, I often hear her airy voice rising like steam in a shower.
‘I can’t believe Uncle Col trusted you with his pets. It would have been nice of him to trust me with some moolah. I’d have preferred money over the cracked tea set he left to me,’ she says and I nearly have a go at her singing, but know she couldn’t take it. She’s all crème brûlée, whereas my skin is thicker, like a reptile’s. It has to be … when you look like me. It’s okay for Fleur to crack and be all gooey in the middle — she has a doll face, legs like stilts and mahogany hair that twists and curls in a Hollywood mane over her freckle-free shoulders. Unlike me, as mousy as it gets, with freckles that join across my cheeks as if someone went nuts in Mum’s womb flicking dirt. At least the lizards never point that out. They are very diplomatic, even if they think our skins are similar. They never stare or sneer the way the kids did at my old school. I press the lid back onto the container of eggs. Maybe today will be different.
