Invincible (Invisible 2)

by Cecily Anne Paterson

  We’ve got to visit Grandma.

  But, oh.

  The pictures fall away, the excitement dissolves and it’s just me again, in my room, standing in blue monkey pyjamas next to a pile of dirty clothes on a cloudy Thursday morning.

  Mum.

  She doesn’t have to say it, but I know anyway. She’s angry with Grandma. She’s been angry since the funeral. Since the big family talk after it. Since we moved. That’s why she sent back cards and didn’t take calls. She won’t do you any good, she told me when I asked. Who knows? Maybe she was angry before Dad’s suicide. Maybe she and Grandma never got on. In-laws don’t sometimes. I don’t know. She doesn’t talk about it. All I know is that every time I’ve asked, the answer has been ‘no’. But you can’t say no forever, right?

  I go out to the kitchen for breakfast. Mum’s there already. She’s made her tea; the cereal’s out on the bench and she’s checking her email on her phone.

  “Hey,” I say.

  She jumps a little, looks up and quickly swipes her phone screen so the emails have gone.

  “Jaz, I didn’t hear you.” She smiles. A little too wide for this time of the morning. “Sleep well?”

  I take a breath to steady me. “Yeah. Good, thanks.”

  “No bad dreams?”

  “No. Not bad ones,” I say, slowly. I narrow my eyes slightly. I’ll have to face it sometime. It might as well be now. “Really weird ones though.”

  She tilts her head and sips her tea, waiting for me to continue.

  “Yeah. I mean, so weird. You won’t believe it. I actually dreamt about Grandma.”

  I watch Mum’s face as I say her name. There’s a slight flinch there, a small flicker of her eyes, twitch of her mouth.

  “Really?” she says. It sounds a little strained. Or maybe I’m reading too much into it. It’s hard to know. I carry on, regardless. Reckless.

  “It was so real. We were just, like, in the garden together, having a normal kind of chat about school.”

  “Hmdghmgf,” says Mum, taking a bite of her cereal. It’s one of those all-purpose mouth noises that means nothing and everything all at the same time.

  I turn around so I’m deliberately not looking at her when I go to ask the all-important question. I don’t want to see her face if she says no.

  “So. It got me thinking. I’d like to visit Grandma sometime. You know. Go back. It’s been, like, years.”

  Behind me, there is either a long silence or my hearing aids aren’t turned up enough and I’ve totally missed Mum’s reply.

  Awkward.

  I grab the bread out of the fridge and turn around again. “I said I’d quite like to visit Grandma.”

  Mum’s facing the sink. She’s sort of gripping it with her fingers. Which look white.

  “I’ll have to think about it, Jaz,” she says, still turned away from me. Her voice is small. Faraway. “It’s not something I can answer straight away. Especially not at breakfast.”

  She fumbles with the dishes, clean in the rack. I can see her phone poking out of her pocket. She throws the cutlery, clinking and clanking, into the drawer and then crashes the plates into the cupboard. I feel the tension in the room, decide that toast doesn’t matter and go back to my room with unbuttered bread. It’ll do. Later I’ll buy a hot chocolate at the canteen. Maybe an apple as well. But right now I’ll just get dressed and go to school.

  Which turns out to be a pretty good plan, actually. I have to walk because I’m way too early for the bus and I get to the school gate before it even arrives. In fact, I’m there before most people have arrived. There’s a Year 7 kid spread out on the concrete playing his iPod and some Year 11 girls bunched in a tight group exclaiming over something, but the path, usually buzzing with energy and full of people, is clear. Empty. Almost peaceful.

  And, something else.

  Liam isn’t at the gate.

  I’m surprised at how much lighter I feel when I see he’s not there. Like I can breathe. Like my bag weighs less. Which is stupid, I know. I mean, I like that he meets me here every day. I like that we walk down the path together. I like him.

  Today, though, it’s just one less thing to think about. Maybe if I manage to stick with Gabby or the twins and Erin most of the day I’ll avoid the potentially awkward conversations. Maybe we’ll be able to just hang out comfortably. Like we used to.

  I sit on our usual picnic table and watch the school fill up in front of me. It’s like one of those time lapse photography things they do in nature docos. The quadrangle goes from being a concrete desert to a hustling, scurrying jungle in half an hour. It brings a smile to my face. I used to arrive at school and try to hide. It was just all too much for me. These days I feel like I’m okay. At least mostly. I’ve got friends I hang with, I’m polite to everyone else and I seem to manage okay, as long as no one gets in my face, especially not Angela and her crowd, who still seem to have something against me from when the drama production was on.

  Dan’s the first of our group to arrive, followed by Erin and the twins. They throw their bags down and say hi.

  “You’re early,” says Dan, looking confused.

  “I walked,” I say.

  “All that way?” gasps Olivia.

  “Don’t your feet hurt?” asks Caitlin.

  “It’s not that far,” I say.

  “Where’s Liam?” asks Dan. He cranes his head to see behind me, as if I’m hiding him somewhere.

  I shrug. “Not here yet.”

  “Is Gabby going to wear that sock again today?” asks Erin. She shakes her head. “She’s nuts.”

  “She’s funny,” I say. “But no. She texted me. Something about wombats.”

  “Wombats?” Caitlin and Olivia say it together and in exactly the same high-pitched tone.

  Identicals, I grin to myself. It’s what Gabby started calling them after they turned up at a sleepover at her place in the holidays with matching pyjamas and teddy bears. When I first met them I had to wait until they were smiling to be able to tell them apart. Olivia has a tiny gap in her front teeth but Caitlin’s teeth are perfectly straight and even. But they really are as identical as identical twins can be. Thankfully I don’t have to wait until their mouths are open to figure out who is who because at the moment they have slightly different haircuts. Olivia’s is down to the middle of her back while Caitlin’s sits an inch below her shoulders. Sometimes she even wears it up, but always with a ribbon.

  Thinking of ribbons reminds me of socks… I squint into the distance. There’s Gabby, walking up in the way that only she can do. Confident. I own the world. It looks like she’s brought her dog. To school? Surely not. But it’s brown. And furry. And it’s on a leash. I blink a few times.

  “Is that a wombat?” I ask. Erin and the twins turn to look too.

  “No. Wombats are bigger than that,” says Erin. “We had one under our house once. It was huge.”

  More kids in the quad are starting to look now. I can practically see Angela’s eye-roll from here. Her friends are looking at each other, like, what is going on there? Across the way, a group of boys from my Science class are following Gabby’s progress up the path. One, a messy-haired, taller boy, laughs and points, but not in a mean way.

  Gabby sees us looking. She waves. And then she begins to run. The whatever-it-is is dangling wildly from the end of the leash which seems firm now, rather than rope-like. A little like a fishing rod, maybe? The twins scream. Together, of course.

  “Gabby! Don’t!”

  But Gabby keeps going, completely ignoring the animal being tossed around. I put my hands to my mouth and hold my breath.

  “Don’t be stupid, you guys,” says Dan. “It’s stuffed.”

  “Are you kidding me?” yells Olivia. She hits Dan on the arm. “I thought it was real.”

  “I thought it was going to die,” says Caitlin. She sits heavily on the bench and takes a deep breath.

  Gabby arrives with a burst, breathless and smiling. “I just have to sh
ow you. Look. It’s my pet wombat.”

  She holds out a stuffed, brown furry toy which is neither strangled nor dead. In fact, it looks pretty good. Very wombatish. And with a red ribbon around its neck.

  “What is this?” I ask. I’m smiling because I can’t help smiling when Gabby’s around. I shake my head like I can’t believe it. “A wombat?”

  “It’s cute,” she says, pouting slightly. She perks up again. “I just thought it would be funny to bring him to school. His name’s Wally.” She grabs him around the belly and snuggles him up to her face.

  “Wally the Wombat?” says Dan. “Real original Gabby.”

  “I don’t see you bringing your wombat to school, Mr I’m-So-Original.” She throws him a look that’s half smiling, half mock-offended. “I’ll let you pat him. But only if you’re nice.”

  Dan holds his hands out. “I’ll be nice,” he says, but as soon as Gabby hands Wally over Dan gives him a kick out into the grass.

  “No way!” yells Gabby and she pushes Dan over and runs to retrieve Wally. She’s slightly too late though. Liam has picked him up.

  “Is this your wombat?” he says, bowing and holding it out.

  “Thank you!” says Gabby with a big roll of the eyes towards Dan. She walks back to the seat, fussing over Wally and brushing dry bits of grass off him. Liam watches Gabby’s dramatics with amusement, raising his eyebrows slightly. Then he slides in close, next to me on the seat.

  “Hey,” he says.

  My heart is pounding slightly but I keep it together and put on a smile for him. Not too much, but more than just polite. “Hey,” I say. “How are you?“

  “You weren’t on the bus,” he says. “I was waiting for you at the gate.”

  “Oh.” I say. “Sorry about that.” I sound confused. “Um. I walked today.”

  “What time?” he says. “It must have been early. I’ve been at the gate for like 30 minutes. By myself.” He seems hurt. “You could at least have called me or texted me or something.”

  I feel slightly guilty. He’s right. I should have told him I wouldn’t be there at the normal time. “Sorry,” I say. “I didn’t really think.”

  “What were you doing?” he asks. He moves back from me, still upset.

  “Just sitting here,” I say. I lean towards him a little, just so the space between us isn’t so big. “Watching everyone.”

  “Who?” he says. It’s a quick, strong question. Bam. I’m slightly taken aback.

  “No-one,” I say. “Just, you know,” I shrug. “All the people coming in.”

  He looks around the quadrangle. There are groups of kids, all sizes, sitting and standing; chatting and playing handball. I can see the messy-haired boy and his friends from my Science class, shirts tucked out, exclaiming over some kind of comic book. Standing away from them are Angela and her blonde clones, the girls I try to avoid. They look mean, skirts hiked up, all cake-faced and wearing exactly the same hairstyle. Then there are the rest; big kids, smaller ones, pairs and groups from other years I’ve never even met. Liam’s eyes scan it all. He’s looking for something, but I’m not sure what.

  And then his eyes stop on a group of Year 10 boys.

  He frowns and opens his mouth to say something and I’m horrified because it’s occurred to me that maybe he thinks I was watching them, muscular and laughing and kicking their footy around. I look back at him. His face, which is normally relaxed and happy seems tight and pinched. His hands are clenching up, just slightly, not that anyone else would notice, but I recognise it as the same reaction he gave his mum that one time that she asked him to take out the rubbish.

  He did it.

  But he wasn’t happy.

  He’s not happy now. And my heart is stretching inside my chest. It feels like fear, but it couldn’t be. I mean, I’m not scared of Liam. Why should I be?

  I just really don’t like it when he’s mad at me.

  Chapter 5

  The first lesson of the day is drama. Gabby and I are back with Miss Fraser this term again. The person who changed my life. I’m pleased, obviously. But it is strange to now not be getting all of her attention. We must have spent four hours every day together for most of last term, what with practices and fittings and meetings about the play. Now she’s just a regular teacher.

  A nice one, yeah. But just a regular one.

  And I am just a regular student again.

  Which is weird.

  I can’t really tell Gabby how I feel. She’s not really a person who enjoys hanging out with teachers, no matter who they are. For her, teachers are only there to torture her with pointless work she doesn’t understand, to make her tone down her creative efforts at making people laugh and to tell her to keep her voice down. Constantly.

  Because apparently she’s loud. Like, really loud. Like, all the time. It’s good for me. I never have to lip read or ask her what she said. Maybe it’s not so good for class management, but I’m not a teacher, so I don’t have to worry.

  It’s not just teachers who tell her to be quiet. Angela is sitting in front of us today and she’s in a mood. I just take it as a given that she hates me, I guess because I was given her part in the play in the end, but I always just try to avoid her and hope she’ll forget about it eventually. Now, for some reason she’s got something against Gabby too. She’s already given her about five dirties since we walked into class. I’ll admit it. If you didn’t ‘get’ the whole wombat thing, Gabby could possibly come across as annoying today. She has Wally on her lap and is patting it, cooing to it and making it into her pet.

  Angela turns around.

  “What is that thing?” she says. “Are you bringing your teddies to preschool now?”

  Britney and Katie giggle next to her. They are pretty much carbon copies of Angela. They roll their eyes at Gabby and shake their hair over their shoulders. I can feel a blush rising up my neck at being singled out, but Gabby just laughs.

  “It’s ‘bring a pet day’ today, Angela. Didn’t you know?” she says. “Oh, hang on—you did bring one—it’s Britney.”

  Britney makes a face at her and turns away. Angela makes a frustrated noise, huffs and stalks over to the other side of the room with her friends where they stand whispering to each other. I can’t hear them but I don’t need to. I know they’re hating on Gabby and probably me too.

  I pass a note to Gabby. Are you okay?

  She scribbles back a quick reply. Why wouldn’t I be? And looks at me with genuine curiosity on her face.

  Well, you know… I gesture with my head towards Angela and make a worried face.

  “Her?” Gabby yelps. It’s seriously loud. I look around anxiously, hoping nobody has noticed.

  “I don’t care what she thinks.” She laughs. “She can’t even touch me.”

  But she’s mean, I write. I’m nervous about everyone listening. Gabby raises her eyebrows. “You’ve just got to surprise her,” she says. “That’s all it is. She’s a bully. So get her before she gets you.” She shrugs. “I’ve dealt with people like her before. It’s no issue.”

  Gabby’s confidence isn’t comforting. It’s hard to ignore the curious looks of everyone else sitting around us. The more friends I have, the more I’m seeing—all around me—that everyone loves it when other people fight. Even just last week Erin was buzzing with news about a massive argument between Sophie and Phoebe, two girls from my roll call class.

  “Phoebe totally dissed her on Facebook. Plus she took a screen shot of an old conversation they had about who she liked and then sent it to the guy she was talking about,” she said.

  “Who was it?” asked Dan.

  “This guy at Morton High,” said Erin. ‘Full of glee’ were the only words I could think of to describe what her face looked like. “I think they catch the same bus. And now half the girls who sit on the benches are on Sophie’s side, but most of the guys are with Phoebe because they reckon Sophie had it coming to her.”

  “You don’t even talk to Sophie,” said G
abby to Dan. “Why do you care?“

  He shrugged. “I just like to know what’s going on,” he said.

  I told Mum about it when I got home that night. She shook her head. “Why can’t everyone just keep their heads out of everyone else’s business?”

  Gabby might be confident but I’m not. I can see a fight looming. We’re going to get out of drama and all of our Year is going to be talking about how Gabby called Britney an animal. I can see people already getting their phones out under their desks. Quietly, so Miss Fraser won’t notice.

  You don’t need guns to start a war. A mobile phone will do.

  My stomach is churning while Gabby looks totally unconcerned. She even whistles in class until Miss Fraser tells her to stop.

  Angela and her friends sit sulking with the newly-made-up besties Sophie and Phoebe, darting evil looks at us through recess and lunch. But nothing else happens. My fears are for nothing. At least for now.

  I breathe a little sigh of relief as I walk to the front gate with Liam and Gabby as the final bell goes. Perhaps it will all die down. Everyone might have forgotten about it by tomorrow. Even Liam seems to be over his sulks. He’s light-hearted again, running ahead with Dan and looking back at me and laughing as he tries to grab Dan’s phone out of his hand. I grin and share the joke. I’m glad he’s in a good mood with me. One less thing to worry about. A random thought occurs to me. Maybe I’m dreaming and having nightmares because I’m too anxious? I’ll have to look that up on the net.

  Dear Dr Google. Do I have nightmares because I’m stressed at school?

  Later. Maybe. Because this afternoon I’m going to Gabby’s place. Where there are never any worries.

  Her mum is always there whenever we bang through the front door. Gabby drops her bag and kicks off her shoes immediately, yelling hello. I’m always more cautious, but it’s only because of habit.

  “Hi Mrs Smeeton,” I say, tiptoeing around the corner to where she’s pulling apart a chicken. I try to push down the shudder at the sight of raw meat. Dinner, I suppose. I wouldn’t really know. My mum cooks things from packets.