Things I Don't Know

by Meredith Badger

  ‘Phew!’ says the girl, smiling again. I always notice people’s teeth. Probably because I’m self-conscious about my own mutant sticky-out canine. My older brother Marcus calls it ‘the fang’. Charming, huh? I wear a plate at night which is supposedly pushing it back into place. Maybe it is. I just wish it’d happen faster. This girl has perfect teeth.

  ‘I’m Jo, by the way,’ says the girl.

  ‘I’m Leni,’ I say, and to my surprise Jo nods. ‘Yeah, I know. I saw the photo of you on the noticeboard near the front office. Holding a massive trophy.’

  ‘That was from ages ago,’ I mutter. ‘I don’t know why it’s still up.’

  ‘Well, it’s a great photo,’ says Jo. ‘Your face is glowing.’

  This is pretty embarrassing. It crosses my mind that Jo is making fun of me, but she looks completely genuine.

  ‘Uh, I think you mean sweating!’ I say, and Jo laughs. It’s a nice laugh. Friendly and warm.

  The computer makes a beeping noise and we both turn to it hopefully. The loading bar creeps along about two millimetres and then stops again.

  Jo slouches back in her seat and sighs. ‘How about we just forget about this and make the flyer on my mum’s computer? It’s way better than this one.’ The computer’s fan starts whirring crazily, like it thinks it’s an aeroplane about to take off.

  ‘Well, if your mum’s computer is anything like her car, then I bet it’s amazing,’ I say.

  Jo looks confused.

  ‘I saw you being dropped off the other day,’ I explain. ‘In that cool red car?’

  ‘Oh, that was Tina!’ says Jo. ‘It’s my other mum who has the good computer. She works from home so she’s got this really good set-up.’

  ‘Oh,’ I say. I’m not really sure if Jo means what I think she means.

  ‘I have two mums,’ she explains, and I get the feeling she’s explained this a million times. ‘Sandy’s my birth mother, but she’s been with Tina since I was a baby, so Tina’s really my mum, too.’

  I guess I don’t really know many gay people. In fact, the only person who I know for sure is gay is a guy in Marcus’s class — and only because he told everyone he was. I’d never even thought about gay people growing up and having kids. I suppose I thought that if you were gay or lesbian that meant you didn’t want to have kids.

  The questions stack up inside me, but I manage to hold them back. I don’t want to seem nosy or rude. I’ve only just met Jo, after all. I’m also a bit worried I’ll say something that makes me look dumb. So I just say, ‘Is it confusing having two mums? Like, when you yell “Mum!” who comes?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter who comes. So long as one of them does!’ Jo grins. ‘But mostly I use their first names.’ She folds her legs up and sits like a buddha on the chair. I’m not quite sure how she does it because her legs are easily as long as mine.

  ‘Hey,’ she says, ‘in that photo of you with the trophy who is that girl hugging you? The one with all that amazing curly hair?’

  ‘That’s Anya,’ I say, feeling a little pang. At the start of the year, Anya and Soph used to come and cheer me along at all my races. They haven’t done that for ages. ‘Her hair’s not like that now,’ I add.

  And then somehow I find myself telling Jo a whole lot of stuff about my friends. About how Anya and I bonded within about ten seconds of meeting each other but how I wasn’t really sure about Soph at first, because she’s into things I’d never really thought about before I met her. Like whether the stuff I was buying from the canteen was made by little kids working in factories overseas or packaged by a company that cuts down rainforests where orangutans live. I even tell Jo about how the more I hung out with Soph, the more I got to like and understand her. How recently I’ve been feeling that I actually have more in common with Soph than Anya.

  I talk the way I run. Once I get started, it’s hard to stop. Which is probably why I end up telling Jo about the kissing competition stuff from this morning. Jo wants to know the details and when I tell her, she bursts out laughing. ‘That’s so wrong! Why would you want to kiss someone to win a competition?’

  I laugh too, but I’m starting to feel a little bit knotty inside. I probably shouldn’t be blabbing about my friends like this, especially to someone I don’t know. It feels sort of wrong. But Jo is so interested that it’s hard to stop myself.

  The computer suddenly makes a pinging noise and turns itself off with a prickle of static electricity.

  Jo looks at me and shrugs. ‘It’s a sign,’ she says. ‘How about you come to my place and we do the flyer there It’ll be way quicker.’

  ‘Good idea,’ I say. We have a fairly decent computer at our house too but I like the idea of checking out Jo’s place. It’s not often that you meet someone with two mums.

  ‘How about tonight?’

  Unfortunately I’m busy tonight. ‘Tomorrow?’ I suggest.

  Jo grabs a piece of scrap paper, scribbles down some-thing and presents it to me. It’s her address and phone number. I know the street name. It’s in what Dad calls the ‘posh bit’ of our suburb, up on the hill with a view of the city. I fold it up and put it in my pocket.

  ‘Tina picks me up on Tuesdays,’ says Jo. ‘Want a lift?’

  I picture myself in that zippy little car, taking off from school as everyone watches. It’s a pretty good picture.

  ‘A lift would be awesome,’ I say with a smile.

  Monday afternoon is Mum’s only time off during the week. When she and Dad started the pie shop, she left her lawyery job and now spends four and a half days a week managing the business and working behind the counter. Normally I love Monday afternoons because it’s my chance to hang out with her. When it’s sunny we take a blanket and chat in the back garden with some juice. Today I’m in no hurry to get home, though, because I know what’s waiting for me there. I manage to stretch the bike ride home to almost twenty minutes and then I spend another ten minutes putting my bike away in the shed. But eventually I have to go inside and do what I promised — help Mum prepare for the visit.

  My nana lives interstate but she’s recently had an operation and she’s staying with us while she recovers. Mum and I are supposed to be turning the study into a guest bedroom. Mum is stoked about it because it’s the first time she’s convinced Nana to come and stay with us. Usually we go to her, because Nana hates flying and she hates staying at other people’s houses. Personally, I’m not so sure about the visit. Nana and I don’t exactly get along.

  When I walk inside it’s obvious that Mum’s decided to get started without me. Stuff is piled up everywhere in the lounge room and, sitting on the sofa, like it’s about to watch TV, is the computer. I’ve just plonked myself down next to it, feeling gloomy, when Mum walks in. She’s wheeling the office chair before her with the printer balanced unsteadily on top of it.

  ‘Oh good, you’re home,’ Mum says brightly. ‘I bought a new bedside table today — can you put it together for me? I can’t figure it out.’

  I slowly draw a line in the dust which has collected on the back of the computer. ‘Where am I supposed to do my homework now?’ I ask.

  Mum parks the office chair in the far corner of the room. ‘I’m going to put the computer in the corner over here by the window,’ she says.

  I draw another line in the dust, parallel to the first, then add some short horizontal lines so it looks a tiny set of train tracks. ‘It’s going to be pretty distracting,’ I say. ‘Especially if someone’s watching TV.’

  Mum gives me that mum look then. ‘Your nana has had quite major surgery, Leni,’ she says. ‘She needs to be here with us while she recovers.’

  I can’t say anything to that without sounding like a total cow, so I say nothing.

  Mum’s face softens. ‘Come on,’ she says. ‘I need your help.’

  I follow Mum down the hall to the study. Or what used to be the study. It already looks totally different. Mum’s set up the spare futon and put a doona with a cover that I’ve never se
en before on it. There are matching curtains, too. New ones. Last week when I told Mum I needed new runners she told me that I’d have to make do with my old ones for the moment because money is a bit tight. Money has been ‘a bit tight’ a lot since the pie shop opened. It’s the reason why we hardly ever go to the movies anymore and why we now get scratchy toilet paper instead of the nice, soft, scented stuff we used to use. Yet suddenly we’ve got enough money to buy a brand new doona cover and curtains for Nana’s visit. It’s hard not to feel annoyed.

  The pieces of the bedside table (also new) are lying on the ground with the instructions nearby. I sit down cross-legged and start to fit them together. I don’t know why Mum finds these things so hard. All you have to do is follow the instructions. I’m happy to do it, though — it calms me down. It makes me feel like I’m a little kid again, playing with Lego. People used to give Lego to Marcus, but he wasn’t into it and always gave the sets to me.

  Mum is humming as she arranges the towel and face washer on the end of the bed. She’s folded them so they look like they do in hotels. I wonder if Mum’s planning to fold Nana’s towel and face washer like this every morning.

  ‘Mum?’ I ask. ‘How long is Nana staying for exactly?’

  It’s a totally fair enough question, I reckon. I mean, if you’re starting a race you need to know how long you’re expected to run for. A hundred metres? A kilometre? You have to be able to pace yourself.

  ‘For as long as she needs to, Leni,’ Mum says.

  I groan, silently.

  ‘It’s going to be great, sweetheart,’ Mum says, fluffing up a pillow. ‘Nana’s really looking forward to spending some time with us. She adores you kids.’

  Nana does not adore us. Nana adores Marcus. But then, Marcus is the perfect grandchild. He’s ‘handsome’ and has ‘lovely manners’ and he’s hoping to get into law next year at uni. Which he will, of course. If a committee of grannies sat down to design the perfect grandchild, they’d come up with Marcus.

  But with me, it’s different. Every time I see her, Nana finds something else wrong with me. The way I talk (too loud). The way I do my hair (too plain). Or my marks at school (not as impressive as Marcus’s). Last time we visited it was the way I sat. I tried to explain that it’s hard to sit in a ‘ladylike’ way when you’re as tall as me and she said, ‘Lauren Bacall was your height at the peak of her career and she never sat like that.’ Lauren Bacall is some movie star from ages ago that Nana worships.

  When the table is finished I turn it up the right way and put it beside the bed.

  ‘Thanks, Leni,’ Mum says. She picks up a framed photo from the floor and arranges it on the bedside table. It’s a black and white one of my nana and grandpa, taken before even Mum was born. It seems like a weird choice of decoration. Why would anyone want a picture of their dead husband right beside the bed? Wouldn’t it just make you sad?

  I sit on the bed, picking up the photo to examine it. Nana has this really happy smile, which I don’t remember ever seeing on her. One where her eyes crinkle at the corners. Both she and grandpa have cigarettes in their hands and they’re holding them up, Nana’s in her right hand and Grandpa’s in his left.

  My grandpa died when I was five — just before we moved here — and I don’t really remember him at all, except in flashes like from some old movie. Some old, really depressing movie. Apparently he never stopped smoking, even when he knew it was killing him. I just don’t get that. Why do something which you can see is killing you? What’s just as weird is that it didn’t stop Nana from smoking either.

  Mum sits beside me and looks at the photo too. ‘You were so close to them when you were little. Nana used to mind you at least twice a week while I worked. Do you remember? You used to cry when I came to pick you up.’

  Mum looks pretty sad then, so I don’t tell her I don’t remember this at all. Instead I snuggle up close to her and tell her a lie. ‘It’ll be great having her stay,’ I say. ‘I’m looking forward to it. Truly.’

  Mum nods and wraps her arm around me. ‘Thanks, sweetheart,’ she says. ‘It’s nice to hear that.’ She stands up. ‘We’ve done enough in here today. She’s not arriving till Saturday so there’s lots of time for the finishing touches. Let’s go and get dinner started.’

  I set the table while Mum ‘makes dinner’. By that I mean she takes today’s leftover pies out of a plastic container and bungs them in the oven to heat up. When Pie High first opened I loved eating this way. It was like we were having takeaway all the time. But now I’m a little sick of it. Sometimes I wish that Mum or Dad would cook something especially for us — like lasagna, or fried rice, or the other stuff we used to have — not just give us the things that no-one else wanted that day.

  What we eat might have changed, but how we eat it hasn’t. We still have to sit up at the table together. Every single freaking night. ‘Why can’t we eat in front of the TV?’ I’m always asking. ‘That’s what Anya and her mum and sister do.’ I don’t mention that Anya doesn’t have a dining-room table at her new flat (or even a dining room), because that’s not the point. The point is that I should be watching the evening news, which is educational. But Mum and Dad never go for it. They always just say something like, ‘Eating together is our chance to talk as a family.’

  I’ve just finished setting the table when Marcus emerges from his room. Perfect timing, as always. He seems to think he doesn’t have to do any of the chores these days — because of his exams. He’s such a brain, though, that I bet he could do no study for the rest of the year and still blitz his exams.

  Dad arrives home and he’s covered in flour, but he looks pretty happy. Way happier than when he came home from his accountant job. He used to look like a wilting plant — one that stayed wilted, no matter how much you watered it.

  Mum comes into the dining room with a salad in one hand and a platter of pies in the other. ‘Dinner’s ready!’

  I examine the pie selection carefully. One has a diamond shape cut into the top, one has a grid pattern, one has a pastry flower and one is plain. I see Marcus staring at them, frowning. He still hasn’t worked out what the different tops mean. But I have. Which is how I score the chicken and corn pie (diamond) and Marcus ends up with the curried cauliflower (flower). Yes! My brother might be a super-genius at school, but he sucks at pie-choosing.

  ‘So how is the guest room coming along?’ Dad asks.

  ‘It’s looking great!’ says Mum. ‘Nana will love it, don’t you think, Leni?’

  I nod, although I’m not so sure. Nana never really seems to like anything much. Except for my brother, of course.

  ‘It’s going to be great having Nana here,’ says Dad, super enthusiastic. ‘She’ll be able to spend lots of time with you kids after school when Mum and I are at the shop.’ This is not a happy thought. Marcus spends every spare minute in his room studying, so it’ll be me who Nana is spending loads of time with.

  ‘Awesome!’ I say, before I can stop myself. ‘She can teach me how to blow smoke rings.’

  Marcus does one of those cough-laughs that you do when you’ve got a mouthful of food, but Mum is not impressed.

  ‘There’ll be no smoke rings,’ she says firmly. ‘Nana’s doctor has put her on a health regime. She has given up smoking.’ Well, that’s good news at least. I was worried that our house would start to smell like Nana’s place does. And then I think of something that cheers me up even more. Two nights a week I have aths training after school and there’s the early morning session too. Plus I can probably do my homework at Soph’s or Anya’s place sometimes too. If I plan it well I might not have to spend that much time home alone with Nana at all.

  Then I remember Jo’s invitation.

  ‘Mum,’ I say, waiting until I’ve finished my mouthful. ‘Can I go and do an assignment at a friend’s house tomorrow after school?’ Of course, Mum wants to know which friend, so I tell her she’s called Jo and that she’s new. ‘She lives up on the hill,’ I say, ‘and we’ve got to get t
his flyer done for the inter-school sports carnival.’

  ‘Sure,’ says Mum. ‘I’ll be at the shop until late, so give me a call when you want to be picked up.’

  After dinner I go to my room — supposedly to do my maths homework. But first I have to call Soph and explain why I seemingly went along with Anya’s kissing competition idea. She’s a bit confused at first.

  ‘But I’m not going to do it, you know,’ she says.

  ‘You don’t have to,’ I explain. ‘You just need to pretend that you are.’ I feel a tiny bit guilty talking about Anya with Soph like this, but I figure it’s okay because we’re not being nasty or anything. We’re just trying to find ways to make Anya a bit happier than she has been recently.

  All the same, when the phone beeps after I’ve just hung up from Soph and I see that it’s a message from Anya my heart jumps a little. Has she sensed us talking about her?

  But when I open up the message it’s obvious she hasn’t.

  Wearing my kissing badge tomorrow!

  Woohoo!

  The ‘oo’s stretch on forever down the screen.

  Our PE teacher Miss Kearns has wavy blonde hair, bright blue eyes, a tiny waist and really long legs. She basically looks like a Barbie doll — a very well-toned, strong one. She has this incredibly loud voice that you can hear from miles away and she always seems to be either jogging or running. Josh reckons she probably even jogs in her sleep. There’s a rumour that before she became a teacher she was training for the Olympics at the Australian Institute of Sport, but injured herself and had to retire. I don’t know if it’s true or not, but she’s definitely pretty keen on running. She coaches the school athletics team, and she takes it very seriously.

  When I run I get this feeling. It’s almost like I’m a machine, with all the bits of me working together, pushing me forward. My legs reach out, one long stride after the other, over and over. Running feels right for me. Like it’s what I’m meant to do. I guess that’s why when I start running I never want to stop. I think everyone in aths team feels like that. It’s why we’re prepared to turn up at school an hour early on chilly mornings like this one.