Lucy and Linh (31 page)

I'd seen how the top-performing girls at Laurinda were cultivated like hothouse strawberries—bright and lush. Out in the real world, they would bruise. I wanted to see how the Cabinet would cope in two years' time, when they would be in the same classes as my most driven and hardworking Christ Our Savior friends, and the most tenacious and gifted public school students, the hardy evergreens and olive trees and root vegetables that would last all through winter.

In Stanley, we all knew that going to university guaranteed that we would never have to work like our parents did in the factories or garages. Yet I still think about that day on the 406 bus and how we backstabbed that poor girl with teeth like brittle toffee who gave her bag its own seat. When Tully had turned and muttered, “Look at her, Linh. So selfish,” an older woman behind you had yelled, “Stop speaking your own bloody language on a public bus—youse don't belong here!”

“Of course I don't,” Tully had calmly said in our secret language. We knew you couldn't put someone like that in their place by yelling back. “One day I'm going to be out of here, out of Stanley, and I'll pull my parents out too, and we'll never look back.”

But it was I who got out, and Tully who stayed.

So, this is my last letter to you, Linh. See, I promised it would be a long one. It's the last one because you've been with me a year longer than I thought you'd be, and for that I am grateful. I learned that to have integrity means piecing together all the separate parts of yourself and your life.

So goodbye, my constant friend. I am grateful that I carry a little piece of Stanley with me wherever I go, wherever I end up.

Love always,

Lucy

Please provide a written response in argumentative, expository or imaginative style to the image below:

There are colors everywhere. Although it seems dark in this room, the woman and the baby who spend most of their day here know where to look for the colors. Down on the floor there are sweeping traces of a hundred gowns in multitudinous hues. Up against the metal sides of the shed there are rolls and rolls stacked like wallpaper.

The woman must make sure that the baby does not crawl on the concrete and swallow seed pearls or inhale an emerald sequin from the floor. But these days they are seeing less and less of the sequins. These days they get boxes and boxes of polar fleece or rolls of stretch material because now people want pants to salute the sun. The window is high and bolted shut so thieves can't come in and steal the colors.

Beneath a fluorescent bulb glowing like an upside-down mushroom, dust motes rain down like furry spores. The woman is turning a collar-shaped piece of iron-on interfacing over in her hands. This woman has never picked up a book in her life, but that piece of man-made fiber is her special script.

She is an olden-day smith of trade and skill, and she can tell the difference between silk and nylon-blend satin without needing to conduct the burn test that we are taught in science. She knows how to cut across the grain with her eyes closed. She knows what kind of stitch is needed for denim if the overlocker breaks down. She knows how a piece of jersey will drape across a chest, and she can cut a winter coat from a piece of wool weave without a pattern. What she does is classified by those who have authority to classify jobs as “unskilled labor,” but only the second half of that is true.

People think that if you sit in a dark and silent shed all day working, your internal universe must be equally dark. It is quiet in this room, but it is a good life, because the woman and her baby get to spend the whole day together every day, surrounded by all these colors.

Thank you to Chris Feik, my editor of thirteen years: as always, the silent alchemist behind all my books.

Thanks to Julian Welch for his extraordinary attention to detail in making sure
Lucy and Linh
is the best version of itself.

Thanks to the wonderful team at Black Inc. for all their enthusiasm, their hard work and the perfect cover, and thanks to Clare Forster at Curtis Brown for her support and encouragement.

To all the resilient teenagers in the western suburbs I've known over the years, who were the inspiration for Linh: thank you for letting me into your lives. Thanks also to the countless teachers who good-humoredly shared their horror stories with me, yet continue to dedicate themselves to their profession. They are true unsung heroes.

Thanks to the staff and students of Janet Clarke Hall for creating a culture opposite to that of Laurinda, for proving it can be done and for showing this writer so many examples of kindness and integrity every day.

Thank you to John Marsden and Melina Marchetta, whose books guided me safely through my own teenage years, and whose hard-won wisdom I still carry with me as I write. I know I stand on the shoulders of giants.

Thank you, KBH, my friend, for being my first reader and the one person who I knew would “get” it. Finally, there will never be enough thanks for my love, Nick, who is an oasis of patience and calm, who listened to the plot unfold for over two years and who watched
Mean Girls
with me in celebration—you are a champ.