The Protected (10 page)

Seventeen

My role models:

* Jane Austen

* Charlotte Bronte

* Emily Bronte

* Miles Franklin

* Virginia Woolf

* Mary Shelley

* Elizabeth Bennet (do fictional people count?)

If I could change one thing, just one, what would I change?

It's the question that keeps me awake at night. I can't even be honest with myself. The answer should be so obvious.

What kind of person does that make me?

*

Lunch. I am sitting on the veranda down at the ag plot, same as usual. The air is oven-dry. The cicadas are going nuts and I can't even drown them out with Katie's iPod. Today I am listening to song number five-hundred and thirty-eight, The Cure, ‘
Boys Don't Cry'
while I contemplate a particularly unappealing sandwich.

Ten minutes later I feel the vibration of the veranda moving. Josh wanders around the corner, drops his bag next to mine.

‘Afternoon, Jane.'

‘Hello.' I pull an earphone out.

‘Jeez, what have you got there?' he asks, eyeing my ham sandwich. ‘That looks delicious.'

The butter has seeped into the bread and dried to a pus-yellow. I'm pretty sure the ham is almost a week old. Josh pulls a juice box from his bag, tosses it in my direction. The swirly purple writing declares the juice to be ‘The Taste of Summer'. I thank him, pierce the straw through the hole and take a sip.

‘I already had a pie with my mates. You should come sit with us. Not all guys, there's girls too.' Josh picks up a pebble, squints, pulls his arm back and pelts it into the paddock. ‘Hey, haven't seen you at the pool for PE. You been wagging?'

‘No. I had something else on.'

He frowns.

I hesitate. ‘I have to … um, I have to go see the school … the school counsellor.'

‘Ohhhh, because you're crazy … I'm joking. That's a fair excuse.' He picks up another pebble, pitches it towards the paddock. It arcs high into the sky and lands in the grass without a sound. ‘You ever caught a yabby?'

‘Can't say I have.'

‘There's a dam down there,' he nods towards the gully. ‘Full of yabbies.'

‘How do you know?'

‘It's common knowledge amongst truants. Some say the success of the yabby population is due to the dedicated feeding of the yabbies by the truants.'

‘Okay.'

‘We should go catch some.'

‘Truants?'

He laughs. ‘Yabbies. You can catch them with string.'

‘And do what with them?'

‘Nothing. Just catch 'em.'

‘The bell's going to go in five minutes. I've got History.'

He makes a face and puts on a ridiculously high voice, ‘Oh no! I mustn't miss History class. Oh! Oh!'

I throw a twig at him and miss pathetically. He stands up and lifts his bag over his shoulder.

‘Well, see ya, Jane. I'm goin' a yabby huntin'.'

Without even a glance at me he jumps off the ledge of the veranda and begins to stride away, towards the taut wire fence of the paddock. He ducks down, swings his legs through, keeps walking.

‘Wait.' I stand up. ‘I'm coming, okay? I'm coming.'

‘Hurry up then,' he yells over his shoulder.

It is cooler down amongst the trees. And shrill with the sound of cicadas. March flies, their backs gleaming purple, dot the clay banks of the dam. Dragonflies dip at the surface of the flat milky-brown water. It's only when I hear the bell sound that I remember how close we still are to the school.

‘You still got that sandwich?' Josh asks, taking a length of string from his pocket.

‘Yes.'

‘Perfect, can I have it?'

He makes a loop in the end of the string, holds his hand out for the sandwich.

‘Are you going to catch yabbies with my ham sandwich?'

‘We'll see. They might not go for it. Wouldn't be surprised.'

I hand it to him, he fiddles with the string and then tosses the bait out into the middle of the pond. He crouches down at the water's edge, the end of the string between his thumb and forefinger. I sit down further back from the bank. Josh niggles at the line. He has very long fingers with clean, clipped nails. I can imagine him making things, sanding wood.

‘I'm supposed to go up and stay with my dad next holidays, he lives in Queensland.'

‘How long have your parents been divorced?'

‘Two years. Dad lives on the Gold Coast with some woman called Sonia. Total bitch. I don't see them much, but. Last time I went up I totally pissed Dad off and he told me not to come back.'

‘He probably doesn't mean it.'

‘He totally does.'

He doesn't say anything for a minute, but his ears turn pink. We sit in silence and watch the water.

‘You don't understand,' he says eventually. ‘Sonia is an absolute bitch. Like, literally a total bitch.'

‘Literally? Your dad's girlfriend is a female dog?'

‘Ha. You know what? You're a smart-arse.'

‘Literally?'

He throws a pebble at me, grins. ‘Get stuffed.'

A cool breeze winds up from the bottom of the gully, dislodging stray gum leaves. They sail down to the ground, speckle the dam.

‘My sister's been dead a year next week,' I say, without really knowing why.

Josh pulls at the line ever so gently. He hooks a stray lock of hair behind his ear. ‘Must feel weird,' he says.

‘It does. It feels like a really long and a really short time. I don't know how that works.'

‘I've never known anyone who has died. Even my grandparents are all still kicking on. Guess I'm lucky.'

‘Your parents got divorced. That's like somebody dying. I think, anyway.'

He looks at me. Green eyes. He nods. ‘You know, you are exactly right. No one ever says that, though. They just spin you all this bullshit about how they're actually splitting so you'll be more happy.'

The string in his hand tugs and goes taut. Slowly Josh stands up. He starts to reel it in, eyes on the water. ‘Were you hurt, in the accident?'

‘Whiplash, a broken ankle. I was in the back.'

‘Yeah. Right.'

He raises his right arm high above his head, gently pulls a slippery blue yabby clear of the water's surface. The yabby squirms, swinging. Its claws wave about as if it's signalling for help. With a delicate, assured grip, Josh takes it between his thumb and forefinger, holding it just behind the claws. He holds it up in front of his face and grins at it.

‘Check out his pincers. Man. Could do some damage. Wanna have a cuddle with Hannah, little fella?'

‘Don't even think about it.'

‘Oh, rejected. So harsh. And she doesn't even know you.' Josh tosses the yabby back into the pond. He tears off another bit of sandwich and fastens it to the end of the line.

‘You're going to catch another one? So you can just throw it back?'

‘What do you want to do? Eat them?'

‘Just seems kind of weird, that's all.'

‘Well, so do you, but you don't hear me going on about it.' He flashes me a smile, double-checking I know he's joking. He throws the line into the water and settles back down into position on the bank. We sit there quietly for a few moments, flicking at the flies, watching the pond's surface.

‘I knew her, you know. Your sister.' Josh says.

Somewhere above us a whipbird calls, its voice a smooth bell note, a drop of cool water.

‘How?'

‘Oh, you know, parties and that. Would see her around. Everyone thought she was hot, but I guess you know that.'

‘Hmmm.'

‘She wasn't my type, if it means anything.'

‘Okay.'

‘I mean, I didn't know her real well. Just knew people who were mates with her. I didn't know she had a sister, that's for sure.'

‘She kept me pretty separate from the rest of her life.'

‘You weren't close?'

‘No. She was different to me. I don't think she … understood me. She didn't take any crap from anyone. I actually think most people were a bit scared of her.'

‘You used to take a bit of crap around here, yeah?'

I nod.

‘When I got here I saw you on your own all the time and I was like, “Who is that?” and everyone's like, “Oh no one hangs out with Hannah”. And I'm like, “Why the fuck not?
”
'

‘You said that?'

‘Ahhh, yeah I did. Because I don't get it. Katie was a swimmer, wasn't she?'

‘Yeah.'

‘Do you swim?'

‘I did. I wasn't as good as her.'

‘I'm crap in the water.'

I laugh.

‘Probably drown at the carnival. I'm serious. Don't get too attached. You a good swimmer?'

‘Yeah, I guess. I mean, I used to be.'

‘You should race. Thorne will make everyone anyway.'

‘Yeah, no thanks.'

‘You know, there's this waterhole down the bottom of the gully, really big. We should go there …'

‘What, now?'

‘Yeah. Go for a swim. Hot enough.'

I look back in the direction of the school. ‘I don't know. I've got English next. I should go …'

‘I bet you always do what you're supposed to.'

‘I'm here aren't I?'

‘Yeah, whatever. I know where I'd rather be.'

‘I should go.'

‘Yeah, yeah.' He waves at me dismissively.

‘See you later.' I stand, brush myself off.

As I am walking away, Josh calls after me. ‘See ya, Jane.'

***

When I got off the bus in the afternoon, Katie was waiting for me. She noticed that I was using a plastic bag from Jay Jays instead of my schoolbag.

‘Where's your bag?' she asked.

‘They took it.'

‘What? They took your schoolbag?'

‘No, I'm just carrying my stuff like this for fun.'

‘Hey, don't get shitty with me about it.'

We walked the rest of the way home in silence. I hoped to sneak in past Mum without her noticing my lack of schoolbag, but it was the first thing she asked me when I walked in the door.

‘It broke? I don't understand how it could break so catastrophically that you had to use a plastic bag.' She was standing at the juicer making us fresh apple, watermelon and ginger juice.

‘Well, it did.'

‘Some kids stole it,' said Katie.

She put down the apple she had poised over the juicer. ‘Stole it? Who? What happened?' Her tone was more compassionate than I'd expected and it was enough to bring me undone. I turned away so she wouldn't see my face.

‘Hannah? What's going on?'

I went to my room and closed the door. She followed me.

‘Can you just leave it? I have homework.'

‘Hannah, talk to me. What's happening at school?'

‘It's nothing.'

‘It's something. What's going on?'

‘Nothing. It was a prank. Some kid took my bag, that's it.'

‘Did you ask for it back?'

I didn't answer her. I took my History textbook out of the Jay Jays bag and turned back to my desk.

‘Who are you friends with at school?'

‘No one.'

She laughed. ‘You must be friends with someone. What about Charlotte? You two have had fights before and sorted it out. What's so bad this time?'

‘It's complicated.'

‘Well. Is there another sporting group you can join? An activity group at school? Somewhere you can extend your friendship base?'

‘I don't play sport. I swim.'

‘I know you do. I'm just trying to think of some strategies we can use here. If you're in a tricky situation, I'd be looking at changes I could make within myself.'

I opened the textbook and uncapped my pen.

‘Are you being cyber-bullied?'

The way she said it made it sound like I was being victimised by a group of robots.

‘No.'

‘Well, you have to help me help you, Hannah. A “woe is me” attitude isn't going to help. Trust me.'

She left the room, closing the door behind her. The tears fell on my page, bleeding the ink from my notes.

Later, when he got home from work, Dad knocked softly on my door. I let him in and he sat on my bed, arms folded.

‘Having a crap time at school, Span?'

‘I just … I don't fit anymore.'

‘It'll pass. I'm not saying it's not crap and I'm not saying that it's easy, but it will pass.'

The tears started again.

‘Hey, Hannah. Hey, hey.' He put his arm around me and I sobbed for what felt like ages. When there was nothing left he smoothed the hair back from my forehead with his palm.

‘Can you tell me what's going on?'

I shook my head.

‘You being picked on?'

I didn't answer him.

‘All right. Well, I'm here when you're ready to talk.'

Katie didn't knock, but she did close the door behind her – so I guess that's something. She sat on my bed, picked up my paperback of
Great Expectations
and opened it.

‘“We had looked forward to my one-and-twentieth birthday, with a crowd of speculations and anticipations”,' she read aloud. ‘Seriously, Hannah. How can you read this stuff? Why doesn't he just say, “I was excited about turning twenty-one.”'

‘He's not excited, he's speculative.'

‘Speculative.'

‘Yeah.'


She gave a deep sigh and tossed the book aside. ‘Was it really awful?'

‘Yes.'

We sat there with a warm silence around us that I hadn't quite felt with her before. Her gaze didn't go beyond her toes.

‘He broke up with me,' she said eventually.

‘Jensen?'