I'll Tell You Mine Read online

  ‘What?’

  ‘Um. Netball practice.’

  ‘You hate netball.’

  ‘Yeah, but . . .’

  ‘This is non-negotiable, Kate. And I don’t want you to wear that bizarre Goth stuff. I’ll pick out an outfit for you and for Olivia.’

  ‘I’m not wearing anything you’ve picked out. I’ll wear my own clothes, thanks very much.’

  ‘You will not,’ said Mum. ‘I’m not having a family photo standing next to Morticia Addams. No make-up, my outfit.’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘NO?’

  ‘You heard me.’

  Mum shook with anger. ‘Okay, fine. Then you can forget going out with your friends for the next two weeks.’

  Dad flung his apple core into the sink like he was bowling for Australia.

  ‘Kate’s an individual, Isabel. She’s got her own style, you can’t just dress her your way so you can look good in a staged photo.’

  ‘Style? She looks like a circus freak, David. Whatever. I’m too tired for this,’ said Mum. ‘We’ll talk about it later.’

  Mum wiped down the benches like a woman possessed, then she looked around at the kitchen, frowning. The garbage was overflowing, there were bottles and cans spilling out of the recycling, the floor was covered in crushed cereal and dog hair. We should’ve ducked for cover because the heavy artillery was about to come out.

  ‘This kitchen’s a mess,’ Mum said. ‘Who’s meant to be cleaning up today?’ She looked at the chore sheet on the fridge. We didn’t bother with it when she was not around.

  ‘Well, Kate, you’ve done a bang-up job,’ she said sarcastically.

  I packed up my computer and tried to make an escape to my room, but it was too late.

  ‘Kate! Dishwasher!’ said Mum.

  I scowled at her. ‘I have homework.’

  ‘We all know you’re mucking around talking to your friends online. Just do it. Now.’

  I chucked my laptop on the couch and stormed into the kitchen in a blaze of anger.

  ‘Why can’t you do it?’ I shouted.

  ‘Because I can’t do everything!’ she shouted back. ‘There were three other members of this family the last time I checked.’

  ‘I’ll do it tomorrow.’

  ‘No, Kate. Now. I’ve got lunches to make for tomorrow. Did you pick up my shirts from the drycleaners, David?

  Dad ignored her.

  ‘No, of course not. Because I have to work and support you all and do everything.’

  I elbowed Mum out of the way and started clattering around with the plates.

  ‘You don’t do everything,’ I said. ‘Where were you today? Didn’t see you at the zoo. It’s family day, remember? There were four members of this family the last time I checked.’

  ‘I don’t like the attitude, Kate. We’ve talked about this. Drop it.’

  ‘The truth hurts, doesn’t it, Mum? Can’t take it, can you?

  ‘Forget about doing the dishwasher. Just go to your room.’

  ‘No, I’ll do it.’

  ‘Kate – just get out of here. I mean it,’ Mum said in a low, threatening tone.

  I think about that moment a lot. Those few slow seconds when I could’ve walked away, gone to my room, lay down on my bed and just slept.

  Instead, I stayed in that kitchen. And that’s the moment when everything in my life went totally and completely pear shaped. That’s the moment I landed myself a boarding house gaol term with no bail and the very dim possibility of parole.

  3

  I unpack my school clothes into a drawer – three checked summer dresses, seven pairs of white socks, two blue jumpers with white trim, a blazer and two pairs of black shoes.

  At Norris the more decorated your school clothes, the more important you think you are. Some of the Year Twelves can hardly walk they’re so weighed down with silver excellence shields and embroidered prefect pockets, captain letters and house colours all hanging off their blazers, like they’re war veterans.

  My school clothes are like a Christmas tree with no ornaments.

  I don’t bother to fold or hang anything and it gives me a small feeling of satisfaction to know I won’t get pulled up on it by my parents.

  ‘Isn’t your mum that politician, Isabel Elliot?’ asks Jess from across the room. ‘She was on telly last week, wasn’t she? On that debate on the ABC? My parents were watching it.’

  ‘Yeah, so what?’ I say, trying to find a spot for my black leather boots with silver clips and thick rubber soles. I bought them with two months worth of pocket money.

  ‘I thought so. I was just trying to make conversation.’

  Harriet adds, ‘She must be disappointed in you. Were you kicked out of home? That’s what everyone is saying.’

  ‘Yeah. I crashed my dad’s car into the Yarra,’ I say. Might as well put some briquettes on the fire.

  After that Jess and Harriet ignore me. They gossip about Harriet kissing Grant Skenner on her holidays at Portsea. Grant is the most evil of the Holston College guys. Tall and well built, he has a habit of getting blind and getting into fights. Rumour is he’s on steroids for rowing. It makes sense – he looks like he’s twenty-five not seventeen.

  ‘Grant’s like so hot,’ says Jess.

  ‘The hottest,’ agrees Harriet. ‘His breath tasted like garlic though. He’d been eating a hot dog.’

  The last guy I kissed tasted like bourbon and cigarettes – but I won’t be sharing that with the class.

  ‘Did you kiss anyone on your hols?’ Harriet asks Jess.

  ‘Um, sure . . .’ says Jess in a way that makes me doubt she’s ever been with anyone in her life. ‘No one you’d know. Just a guy from home.’

  Jess throws a grey striped doona onto her bed and carefully places matching cushions around the pillow. Her things are plain but carefully chosen. She wants to fit in.

  Harriet sets up a white iPod dock and presses play. A bland pop song fills the room. She puts an antique box onto her side table, filled with mini chocolate bars.

  ‘Jess, you want one?’ she asks.

  ‘I shouldn’t, I’m getting skin folds this week.’

  Jess pinches a microscopic piece of fat from her washboard abs.

  Harriet throws one at her, no doubt trying to sabotage Jess’s swimming career.

  ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Skin folds. Where they pinch the flab from your body with a claw and give you a fat percentage, ever heard of those?’ Jess says to Harriet, cradling the chocolate lovingly.

  ‘Don’t be so uptight,’ says Harriet. ‘It’s not the Olympics.’

  Jess gives in and rips the wrapping off like a hungry animal, biting into it, a strand of caramel lacing her chin. ‘Oh my God. I miss chocolate.’

  I realise I’m starving too.

  Harriet looks my way and hesitates, her fingers hovering over the tiny treats, before deciding I’m not worth wasting confectionery on.

  I make a point of taking out my own packet of jelly snakes and stretch one out until it breaks in half, then I bite off its head.

  ‘Feral,’ mutters Harriet.

  More girls pile into our room and stare at me.

  ‘Hey Harry!’ says Emma Cobb, flopping onto Jess’s just-made bed, chucking aside one of the cushions. Jess quietly picks it up and hugs it to her chest.

  Emma is captain of the middle school debating team, winner of the most school prizes last year – eight in total. Everyone’s hands got tired clapping for her during speech night. She also volunteers with the homeless once a fortnight and was the lead in the school play. A classic overachiever.

  Behind Emma, Louise Southerden edges quietly into the room and slides down onto the floor. Tubby and gi
nger-haired, she plays goalie in the C hockey team and sits down the front in assembly. I’ve seen her eating the icing from strawberry doughnuts by herself in the tuckshop, sucking her sticky fingers clean. She’s out of her league trying to hang out with Harriet and her mates.

  ‘How was Portsea?’ Emma asks Harriet.

  ‘Awesome. I kissed Grant Skenner. We’re going out now.’

  ‘No way. Grant? Isn’t he captain of boats this year?’

  ‘He’s stroking the firsts. I’m going down to the river on Wednesday to see him,’ Harriet says to Emma. ‘You want to come with me?’

  ‘I know Grant. He used to go to my primary school back in Shep,’ says Louise. ‘Can I come with you guys?’

  Harriet looks at Emma and they shake their heads almost imperceptibly.

  ‘Um. I don’t think he’d remember you, Louise,’ says Harriet. ‘Anyway, it’s just going to be me, Em and Jess. Travis Noakes likes Jess and Emma’s with Whitey. It’s sort of a couples’ thing.’

  Louise says ‘Oh’ really quietly and looks so sad I want to smack some sense into her. She doesn’t need to be sucking up to someone like Harriet.

  ‘Are you going to the social on Saturday?’ Emma asks Harriet.

  Harriet looks at her nails and acts uninterested. ‘Maybe. What’s the theme?’

  ‘Punks and princesses,’ says Louise.

  I’ve heard about the boarding socials. All the boys come over from Holston Boarding House across the gardens. They hold a dance party in the afternoon in the dining hall. Let me say that again – in the afternoon, when it’s light outside. Sad. Sad. Sad.

  ‘I think I’m going to come as a punk,’ Emma decides. ‘Rip my jeans, spike my hair and get a fake tat, like a dagger or a dragon or something. Which one is more punk?’

  Emma wouldn’t know punk if it stage-dived into her arms. I look at her smooth auburn bob and knee-length floral skirt and imagine her hanging out with Siouxsie Sioux or Patti Smith. Before I got into my own music – back when I was a Top 40 loser – my dad taught me all about old-school punk. He said that’s where Goth comes from originally. Turns out he was right.

  He downloaded loads of old albums onto my iPod as part of my ‘music education’, and we play them at home when Mum is at work. If it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t have discovered Bauhaus, Sisters of Mercy, The Mission, Christian Death, The Birthday Party or The Wreckery. All wicked bands. And I’ve gotten him into some of my music. He reckons my stuff is good. Unlike Mum, who calls it ‘noise’. Hard to believe Mum once drove around Australia with Dad in a Kombi, going to music festivals. They took a photo of me as a toddler at the Byron Bay Bluesfest wearing tiny headphones and sitting with a dribbly grin on Dad’s shoulders. Dad likes to tell a story about how Mum got them into the VIP tent by pretending to be the lead singer in a Swedish girl folk band and how they survived the trip on a few hundred dollars and two-minute noodles.

  ‘You should get a rose tattoo or an angel. That’s much cuter,’ says Harriet.

  I let out a snort-laugh and Harriet gives me a death look.

  ‘What are you laughing about?’ asks Emma in a haughty debating voice.

  ‘Nothing,’ I mutter. Then before I can shut my mouth I add, ‘Punk isn’t meant to be cute.’

  ‘Um, I think we can make it cute if we want,’ Emma says, rolling her eyes. ‘But maybe let’s just go as princesses. I can wear the Jimmy Choos Mum bought me in Singapore.’

  The table beside my bed is bare, except for a plastic lamp. I arrange a few photo frames on it and a square brown candle that smells like chocolate. A gift from Annie. I take out my cigarette lighter and light it.

  ‘You’re not allowed to burn that in here,’ pipes up Harriet.

  ‘Really? Why is that, Harry?’ I say.

  ‘Fire hazard. You could burn the boarding house down.’

  ‘I could, couldn’t I?’ I muse, thinking of the cheap blue curtains catching alight, the flames licking along the synthetic carpet, Harriet’s box of chocolates burning into a pool of goo. The candle burns for a few seconds. Before they run off and tell Gabby I blow it out with a short, violent puff and rub the smouldering wick between my forefinger and thumb, enjoying the sting of the heat on my skin.

  ‘Besides pyromaniac girl, who else have you got in here?’ asks Emma.

  ‘Maddy Minogue,’ groans Jess.

  ‘Dud room,’ declares Emma. ‘Let’s go to mine. I’ll show you my shoes. They are so gorgeous.’

  Once I’m alone I start contemplating escape. Could I dig myself a tunnel using a plastic spoon? Learn how to climb walls with my bare hands like Spiderman? Decode the alarm system or disconnect it with wire cutters?

  It gets dark quickly and the cold seeps through the cracks of the old walls, even through the floor. I press my face up to the glass and look out to the brick science labs. When I strain my neck I can just make out the lights of the city and the red Nylex clock blinking over the freeway. It’s 6.26 pm. My first boarding house dinner is just a few minutes away.

  If I was at home I’d be eating an egg sandwich with tomato sauce, sitting in my beanbag in front of the TV, with Chilli in my lap, licking my hand and snuggling into my curves.

  I’m a million miles away when a hand rests lightly on my shoulder.

  ‘Hey.’ Maddy Minogue is standing next to me, smiling. It’s not like we’re friends. I’ve seen her once or twice in the city, usually hanging off some guy. Always a different loser shoving his tongue in her mouth and copping a feel. She’s got a bad rep around school for stealing Amber Johnson’s boyfriend Stu McKenzie. They’d been going out for like, six weeks, and were practically engaged. But Maddy was up for it and Amber was holding onto her V Plates for dear life. It must have been a tough choice for him. Amber and her sorority sisters tried to get back at Maddy and wrote SLUT on her locker in permanent red texta.

  The weird thing is Maddy didn’t try to scrub it off. She just left it there for weeks until the cleaners finally got out the turps because Open Day was coming up. She didn’t even cry – just walked around like nothing had happened. That made me wonder if there was more to her. She’s got to be tougher than most of the girls at school.

  ‘You’re Kate, right?’ Maddy asks. Spaghetti-limbed and fidgety, she’s wearing the shortest denim skirt I have ever seen – it just skims the top of her thighs – and a tight green T-shirt. It’s so tiny I can see her lower belly and two sticky-out hipbones. Just looking at her makes me feel fatter.

  ‘Yeah. Last time I checked.’

  ‘I’m Maddy. I think we’re sleeping next to each other.’

  She waves behind her. There’s an enormous bag on her bed haemorrhaging shoes, clothes and make-up. ‘I’m a total pack rat. I still have clothes from when I was in Year Five. Sorry, I’ll try to fit it all in the cupboard somehow.’

  She surveys me, frowning at my dress, boots and ripped stockings. She seems to relax, realising I won’t be fighting her for wardrobe or mirror space.

  ‘So, you’re, like, one of those Emos or something?’ She wrinkles her nose as if she’s smelt something rotten.

  I’m used to getting comments from people like Maddy who have no idea what they’re talking about. I get asked if I’m Emo all the time.

  ‘No. I’m Goth,’ I say. ‘Some of my friends are Emo, they’re okay too. But we’re not the same.’

  The differences between Goths and Emos are too huge to even go into with Maddy. And I suspect she really doesn’t care.

  ‘I was an Emo. For a few weeks. It didn’t suit me.’

  ‘Right. But I’m a Goth.’

  ‘Same diff.’

  I sigh and just give up.

  I find it hard to picture Maddy dressed in tight jeans, a band T-shirt and a jagged fringe over her gorgeous face. Maddy is much more aspiring teen model than sad Emo girl. She
made it into the Melbourne call-backs for Australia’s Next Top Model but they threw her out because she wasn’t tall enough. Since then, she holds her shoulders back and lifts her nose slightly in the air as if she’s trying to stretch herself those few extra centimetres.

  ‘At the moment I’m going for a glam rock look,’ she continues, doing a little pose for me with her leg out and her head cocked to the side.

  The only glam rock thing about Maddy is her hair, which used to be blonde but is now a strange shade of pinkish-red I’m sure she’ll have to fix once the teachers get a good look at it. I reckon it’s freshly done because I can still see smudges of the dye on the edges of her hairline and on her fingers. She runs her hands through it constantly, teasing it upwards.

  ‘I like your hair,’ I say. ‘Did you just do it?’

  ‘Yep – I left the bathroom in a huge mess and my dad went nuts at me – red dye everywhere. Looked like I’d done a murder. He didn’t speak to me for, like, the whole drive down here. Now I just want to talk like a crazy person because I’ve been holding it in stuck in the car with my dad and brother!’

  Her phone twitches, demanding her attention. She studies the screen with a scowl, punches aggressively at the keys and throws it on the bed so hard it threatens to bounce onto the floor. ‘I really regret teaching my dad how to text.’

  A bell rings in the hall and she grabs my hand. I’m so shocked I just look at it for a moment – rubber and silver bangles dangling from her thin wrists, next to my studded leather band and chunky garnet ring.

  ‘Well, come on,’ she says, pulling me away from the window. The skin on her palm is cold and dry. ‘You don’t want to miss out on the pig slop, do you?’

  The dining hall is crammed with girls scraping back their chairs, scuffing their shoes along the wood floors and rapping knives and forks on the tabletops like drumsticks. Jugs of water are poured into big plastic glasses, like the ones I used to drink from when I was a little kid.

  Smells of fat and gravy fill the room in a rich fog. The dinner ladies and some of the girls carry out heavy silver trays of meat and vegetables. A roster has already been posted up on the noticeboard announcing who’s helping in the kitchen. I’m on duty next week. I’m really part of this army.