The Mouse

by Lauretta Hignett

  “Oh shit!” She dropped her arms and scrambled around the couch, confirming that the time on the clock was 10.45pm. “I’m so freaking late, I’m a dead woman!” She turned back to Hunter, who raised his eyebrows.

  “Missed curfew?”

  “Uh, yeah. Listen, I gotta go. Like, now. Can we catch up, I don’t know, tomorrow afternoon? After…” She had been about to say ‘after school,' but she was trying seriously hard to stay as anonymous as possible. As anonymouse, it seemed.

  “What time can you get away?”

  “I don’t know; I might be grounded after this. Ah, I guess I could just come find you?” She was suddenly desperate to get home.

  “I’d rather you didn’t. Listen, you said something about wanting to have someone to keep you honest, and to help you not abuse your powers.”

  “Yeah, I did say that.” Hunter seemed so solemn that Sunny stopped her pacing to listen to him.

  He leaned forward and put his hands on her shoulders and looked right in the eye.

  She went very still.

  “Take it from me, from someone with access to the means to spy on a lot of people. You don’t want to snoop on your friends. You don’t want to spy on your family. You won’t always like what you see, and it can hurt you and your relationships. People in your life deserve their privacy, and you need to be the kind of person that can let them have it.”

  “I guess you’re right,” Sunny said softly.

  “And I’d like you to accord me the same privilege. If you want me, please call me first.” He stepped back from her and reached into his back pocket. He drew out a small brown leather wallet and rifled through it.

  “Here’s my card, my mobile number is on there. Just text me tomorrow when you can get away, and I’ll meet you here.”

  She took the card from him and looked at it. It just had a name, Hunter Katze, and a mobile number on it. It didn’t even have an army insignia. She carefully tucked it into her hand. She didn’t have any pockets on her skirt, and she was damned if she was going to shove anything down her shirt again while he was watching.

  “Alright. Uh, goodnight.” She pulled the vibrations through her body and disappeared. She was about to take off when he spoke again.

  “Hey. Mouse?” He said. She quickly became visible again.

  “Yeah?”

  “Can you use the door? Just for my sanity. I know you could come back and watch me cook dinner later and I’d never know, but I’d like to pretend that you’re a normal person who has to have my permission to come and go from my apartment. This is kind of my sanctuary, you know.”

  “I understand. It’s a really great apartment. And I’ll respect your privacy, I promise. I’ll message you tomorrow when I can meet you.”

  He walked her to the door and opened it for her. “There’s no cameras until you get to the top of the stairwell, so you can come and go from right outside the door and no one will know.”

  “Thanks. Uh, goodnight, again.” She turned and walked a few steps down the hallway, then disappeared.

  She knew he was watching her leave.

  As she flew through the air towards Forster, panic reared its ugly head again. Her dad would be ringing her mobile, wondering where she was. God forbid he call Annabel or anyone from the English class, then she’d be well and truly busted. And she didn’t have a cover story either. What was she going to say?

  Annabel and Simon thought she was having family time – her family thought she was with the drama kids – the drama kids were mostly morons who wouldn’t care where she was but would happily watch the consequences of her getting her stories mixed up.

  She needed a cover story, and one that had her doing something naughty so it would be believable. She wasn’t keen on any of the boys from school or around town; everyone knew that, so she could hardly pretend that she’d been out snogging in the dunes around One Mile Beach. None of the shops were open, so she could hardly have been out shopping. Or shoplifting. Not that she’d attempted that ever again. Last time she’d shoplifted, she’d ended up with her evil stepmother instead of a cute bracelet.

  Talk about instant Karma.

  Drugs, Sunny decided, as she whizzed through the air. She was going to have to pretend to be stoned or something. She’d admit to having experimented with some older kids from school, then cry because it made her feel so horrible, then sob to her dad that she’d made a terrible mistake and she would never ever do that ever again; then he’d forgive her.

  She was practicing the conversation in her head when she got home. She came back to reality under the cover of the bushes near the front gate and sneaked up the path. She was a full hour past her curfew and not answering her mobile, which was still stuffed in her backpack behind the elm tree at school. She scurried, like the little mouse she was, up the front gate, and tried the door. It creaked open, and she peeked inside.

  Steph was sitting at the kitchen table in her fluffy purple dressing gown, her hands around a mug of herbal tea. Oh fuck…

  Steph spotted her and lifted a finger to her lips. “Shhhhh,” she whispered, and beckoned Sunny closer.

  Sunny tiptoed over. What did Steph want? Private time to gloat that Sunny was about to get killed by her dad?

  “I told him that you’d come home while he was in the shower over an hour ago,” Steph whispered to her. “I said you’d had a fight with Annabel or something and that you were crying, and wanted to be left alone. He thinks you’re in bed.”

  Sunny raised her eyebrows, startled. She watched Steph for a second, waiting for her to drop the bomb. Steph just smiled benignly at her, looking slightly mad with her long glossy hair loose around her shoulders, in her fluffy purple robe.

  “Uh, thanks,” she finally whispered back.

  Steph must want something on Sunny to use as leverage later. Or, maybe she was just trying to curry favour with her again, to suck up to her dad. She must want something. Sunny turned towards the staircase that led up to the bedrooms.

  “Sunny?”

  She turned back. “Yeah?”

  “I’m not the enemy,” Steph whispered. Then she smiled.

  “Okay…” What the hell was that supposed to mean?

  She was too tired for this. She snuck up the stairs and into her room, softly closing her bedroom door.

  Even with her surprise nap on Hunter’s sofa, she was exhausted. She should have nipped back to school to pick up her bag, but instead, she took off her uniform and lay down, staring at the construction mobile that was pinned above her bed.

  Her dad had made it for her when she was a baby; it consisted of miniature steel girders and lumber and tiles and window frames and other random building materials. When it was perfectly aligned, it made a cute little house; she found it hard to sleep unless she was underneath it. All the events of the past couple of days swirled around in her head, but it wasn’t enough to keep her from sleep. She closed her eyes and surrendered to oblivion gladly.

  The next morning Sunny woke up with a dull aching cramp in her abdomen. Just her luck, she’d gotten her period on the day she was due to start training with Hunter.

  She shrugged herself out of bed with difficulty, feeling at least five kilos heavier than she did before she went to bed. She stomped down the hallway into the small bathroom opposite and took a quick shower. Feeling slightly more human, she went back to her room to dress.

  It was late autumn, but still mostly summer in the mid-north coast of New South Wales and still nice most days, but out the bedroom window the day looked grim and bleak. The grey and the wind outside did nothing for Sunny’s mood.

  Then she spotted something even worse. Eric – her goldfish – floated upside down in the bowl on her desk.

  The tears came immediately. “Ohhh, Eeerrrriicccc!” she wailed, walking over to the bowl. The poor little fish had been her friend for the past two years, a bit of a record for a goldfish. He had seemed perfectly healthy the day before. And now he was gone. Sunny stood for a while, silently
composing a eulogy to him.

  Thanks for being my friend, she thought stoically. Thanks for listening when I talked, and thanks for being the one stable thing in my life while everything with Dad and Steph was turning my life upside down. I hope you get a sweet girlfriend in fish heaven. Or boyfriend. I’m not judgemental.

  Rummaging around on her desk, she found an empty matchbox and scooped Eric up into it. She took him into the bathroom, said a little prayer over the toilet bowl, and flushed him.

  She went down the stairs to breakfast still wiping away tears. Her dad was standing in the kitchen, a mug of coffee in his hand, reading the paper.

  “Sunshine! Good morning, darling.” And then, seeing her tearstained face – “Are you okay, honey? I hear you had a fight with Annabel.”

  “Naw, we’re okay now.” She wanted to get that one out of the way before Annabel heard it. This was a small town… “It’s Eric. He’s gone to the big shiny fishbowl in the sky.” She grabbed a mug and filled it with milk, and sat down at the breakfast bar.

  “I’m sorry to hear that.” He gave her a big hug. She sighed into his shoulder. “Anything else bothering you?”

  “Oh, lots of stuff. Loads of things,” she sniffed. She could almost feel her hormones zipping about inside her, making her all weepy.

  “You’re not just being dramatic?”

  She thought of the little Colombian girl and the cocaine, she thought of North Korea and the prisoners of war, and she thought of the perfect shape of Hunter’s arms underneath that crisp white t-shirt.

  “Yeah, I guess I am just being dramatic,” she sighed, stepping back.

  She finished her breakfast and headed to school, picking up her schoolbag from behind the elm tree in the bushes near the front gate on the way. Annabel was waiting for her at the main entrance, Simon beside her as usual, tall and sturdy like an elm tree himself.

  “Did you sleep in your clothes or something?”

  “What? No… that’s a weird opener, even for you, Annabel.”

  “You just look a bit scruffy.”

  “I had a bad night,” Sunny screwed up her face. “And Eric died.” Tears came to her eyes again as she remembered.

  “Awww! I’m sorry…” Annabel awkwardly pawed Sunny’s hand. They turned and walked into the school’s entrance together.

  Sunny’s heart sank as she walked through the doors, but she perked up when she realised she only had six hours before she could see Hunter again.

  She wiped her eyes quickly as they headed to their lockers. “So, what do we have first?”

  “English,” Simon said. “You’ll have your first reading of Othello, I think.

  “Oh God, I’m going to have to deal with Jerkoff Jake Henderson in the first period of the day?”

  “He’s not the worst thing. The worst thing in English is how all the Drama geeks get all excited about Shakespeare. It’s like Christmas for them. No offence, Sunny.”

  “None taken. Everyone’s a nerd about something. You’re a math nerd, I’m a drama nerd. You could even say that the jocks are sports nerds.”

  They wandered down the hallway to class.

  “I think the hard-core drama nerds are the funniest. They are just so daggy. No offence, again. You’re one of the exceptions, maybe because you’re also a bit of a sports nerd too. Maybe the crossover dilutes the daggyness a bit.”

  “Well, thanks.”

  “So you have to think about the drama nerds, right. Sooo painfully uncool, how they get all enthused about acting. And they’re even worse if they carry on with it after school. Amateur theatre productions, going to commercial auditions, that sort of thing. You know, like all the dorks in the Forster Theatre Company?”

  It was a tiny group of adults in the small town that put on a pantomime at Christmas, and the occasional big production of The Wizard of Oz or Oklahoma. They were all, without exception, earnest, fashionably challenged, and dorky in the extreme.

  “Which leads me to my next point,” Annabel went on. “Who is the coolest person on the planet?”

  “Tilda Swinton,” Sunny said without hesitation.

  “Tom Hardy,” Annabel said.

  “Jennifer Lawrence,” chimed in Simon.

  “Exactly! All actors! They must have been drama geeks once upon a time too. All the people we admire, even if it’s not for their acting, more for their charity work or UN contributions, like Emma Watson or Angelina. Can you imagine all these people as drama geeks in our class?”

  It was hard to imagine.

  “Think about Steve Buscemi. He’s an actor, and pretty weird and ugly too. But he’s totally cool, right? Now, think about Toby Squire.”

  Toby was playing Iago; he was the quintessential drama geek – spotty, skinny, enthusiastic and so excited about the play Sunny imagined he would have a hard-on for the three months of rehearsals and the final performance.

  “What’s your point?”

  “Toby could be the next Steve Buscemi. Makes you think, doesn’t it? We should really be kind to the painfully, unbearably dorky drama types. Just in case they become the next Steve Buscemi.”

  “Annabel, no one is mean to them. Except you, maybe.” Sunny pointed out. They reached the classroom and took their seats.

  “I bet Hugh Jackman was a total geek. Nicole Kidman would have been one too; she’s still a bit dorky.”

  The three of them were quiet for a minute, thinking.

  Sunny spoke. “Not the Hemsworth brothers though.”

  “Yeah, they skipped the nerdy, for sure,” Annabel agreed.

  Annabel pulled out her books and found the right pages in her notebook. She then reached over and got the correct book out for Simon, turned to the right play in his book, and stuck a post-it on the page so he could find his spot again.

  Mr Cresants stomped into the room, dingy in a brown checked suit. “Alright, quiet in the room. Get out Othello, read Act One. In silence!”

  Annabel leaned over to Sunny’s desk. “My dad told me that he went to school with this guy, a major band geek,” she whispered. “He learned percussion, cowbells, snare drums, he played the bass drum in the school marching band. The worst weirdo. Dad said that the other guys used to steal his drumsticks and shoved them up their bums, then crack up when they saw him play at assembly.”

  “What’s your point?” Sunny whispered back.

  “He’s now the drummer for Dead Wait.”

  They were the hottest indie band around. She had a good point.

  “Annabel, I’m not mean to any of the geeks. If I were, I’d be mean to you, you stupid math nerd.” Sunny hissed at her.

  “Quiet! Miss O’Sullivan, I’m assuming you know your role of Desdemona backwards? Shall we have a little reading, right now?”

  Slightly startled, Sunny was caught off guard. “Sure, Mr Creep – I mean Mr Cresants. Let’s do it.”

  She wasn’t going to let this jerk make her day any more miserable than it already was.

  As it turns out, he could try.

  “Act five, scene two,” he spat out.

  It was the scene where Othello smothers Desdemona. Sunny swallowed a lump in her throat and dutifully flicked to the right page.

  Jake started reading woodenly. “It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul…” As soon as he got to the direction where Othello kisses a sleeping Desdemona, he looked up and leered at Sunny. He started miming a disgusting tongue pash. “Mmmm. Oooooh. Uhhhhh…”

  Sunny threw Mr Cresants a disbelieving look, but he was watching Jake. And laughing.

  She almost missed her cue she was so disgusted.

  “Who’s there? Othello?”

  “Ay. Desdemona.” Jake flicked out his tongue at her again, and she shuddered but carried on.

  “Will you come to bed, my lord?”

  This line was too much for Jake. “Ooooh, baby!” He whooped before he carried on. “Have you pray’d tonight, Desdemona?”

  Sunny felt humiliated. She carried on the reading, casting incredul
ous glances at Mr Cresants, who was still grinning. Jake read his lines to her, waggling his eyes suggestively or thrusting in time to his words when he could perceive a double entendre.

  Sunny could feel Annabel about to explode next to her, but she gritted her teeth and continued, ignoring Jake’s performance, reciting as if she were the devoted wife, confused by the cruel treatment of the husband she loved dearly.

  “That’s enough.” Cresants eventually called. He’d embarrassed Sunny enough for one day. “Everyone turn to 104 to read Sampson’s take on the themes of racism within the play. In silence!”

  Annabel wrote on the paper next to her: You need to complain about this. He was letting Jake sexually harass you.

  Was that what that was? Jake’s behaviour was gross, but it was just words… wasn’t it? Sunny sighed inwardly. Annabel was right, as usual. Jake would continue to harass and intimidate as long as he was allowed to. Someone ought to say something.

  After class, she worked up the courage and approached Mr Cresants. “Sir, I’m sorry but I have to complain.”

  Annabel and Simon stood behind her with her arms crossed, silently backing her up.

  “Complain, O’Sullivan?” Cresants turned to her with contempt.

  “Jake’s behaviour in that reading was unacceptable. He was trying to intimidate me with rude gestures and insinuations. He was making me very uncomfortable,” Sunny said, the courage leaching out of her under Cresant’s nasty stare. “It will make playing Desdemona a nightmare if he carries on like that,” she added lamely.

  “He was just reading his lines and getting into the character, just like you were. You need to recognise artistic licence better. If you can’t handle it, maybe we should give Desdemona to someone else.”

  It wasn’t anything less than what she was expecting, but at least she said something. “I just wanted to register my complaint with you formally, so you can… take it from there,” Sunny said awkwardly.

  Cresants just sneered at her. He didn’t say another word.

  “Okay then. Well… thanks.” Sunny shook herself, mentally slapping herself for saying “thanks” to that disgusting man. She was never very good at awkward silences. She turned and walked out of the room, Annabel frothing behind her.