Dreaming of Amelia (47 page)

But after a while I started to think it was embarrassing, especially as I got older. I asked him to stop. He laughed and said he couldn't stop now that he'd started. Then I felt stupid because I thought I should have said no in the first place. I thought it was my fault for thinking I was pretty and posing and so on.

I didn't tell anyone because I felt so embarrassed.

But then I did tell my mother, on my thirteenth birthday. She didn't believe me, and I ran away.

I didn't mean to run away forever. I thought my mum would come and find me and bring me home.

Since then I've never let anybody else be my swimming coach.

Also, I never let anybody take photos of me.

In the last year I've started to wonder what Patrick was doing with the photos. I started to get scared that he might have let other people see them.

Two days ago, I went to my stepfather's house, about 6 o'clock in the evening. There was nobody home, but I still have my house key so I let myself in.

Patrick's computer was on his desk. I looked at his emails and files for a while. It wasn't too difficult to find the old photographs of me. I also found that he had emailed some of the photos to a lot of different addresses.

I unplugged the computer and took it home with me.

I kept it in my drawer the last two days. I didn't want anybody else to see the photos, so I was just going to delete them. But then I started worrying that they might be on a website or something.

So I decided to bring the computer to the police. The photos of me are in a file called AGD. They were taken between the ages of 11 and 13. I hope that the police have experts who can find out if Patrick has the photos on a website, and if so shut it down.

I am prepared to give a more detailed statement, but for now I would like to stop.

Amelia G Damaski

Friday 19 December, 7.00 am

To the Members of the KL Mason Patterson Scholarship
Committee

Toby here.

Mr B suggested that I say what I have to say to my dad and get him to pass it on, but I'm putting it in writing instead. You'll see why.

I hear that you're making a decision about Amelia and Riley tonight, and I know you've got an issue about Amelia and her exam.

Some people think she didn't go to that exam cos she felt too depressed. If that's the reason, it's harsh of you to be calling her on it.

But I hear it's complicated because Amelia's got her own excuse for not going. She told you she had to see a buddy in a mental institution, and you're not buying that, on account of, there is no mental institution.

I have two main points to make in this letter.

First, Amelia is telling the truth.

Second, I myself did not tell the truth when I talked to you earlier. You might recall I said I had no memory of what happened when I ran towards Amelia in the park?

That was a lie. I did have a memory. Still do.

If I could have your patience please, I need to go back in time to the start of the year.

That was the point I started hanging out in the Castle Hill Heritage Park.

I told you about the convict Tom? Seems I got a bit obsessed with him. I had some low moments, this last year, what with my future heading down the drain, and it kinda cheered me up, hangin' with my buddy Tom. His story was sadder than mine — you know, dead without ever seeing Maggie again — so sitting there, where Tom once sat, was kind of like heavy metal music. It felt so dark it got a hold of my darkness for me.

Anyhow, I started running into Amelia in the park.

I know there's a story around that Amelia and I had something going. It breaks my heart to say this, but that's not true. We got to be buddies. That was it.

I first saw Amelia and Riley play at the Goose and Thistle last year. The manager lets them do late shows sometimes. They're good — they're very good. But people are past it by the time they come on, so nobody notices their talent.

I knew they were a couple, the first time I saw them. Their connection is more than just music. So I never would have tried to make a play for her. You don't take another man's girl.

Anyway, she's out of my league.

I drove her home one night earlier this year. She needed some air on the way, and we happened to be near Castlebrook Cemetery, so I pulled over. It's where the battle happened, that Tom was in, and I told Amelia about it.

I don't think she heard a word. She was trashed. Still, it felt like we had a moment: we're both looking out over that moonlit graveyard, Amelia's red-gold hair flying sideways in
the wind — an ant crawled onto her arm, I remember, and she crushed it as I talked. I felt like I
saw
that battle that night. The shock on Tom's face, watching his friend Phillip, betrayed by that soldier, a gun pressed to his back. Soldiers on horseback all in red.

I think she'd forgotten the whole thing by the next day. She looked at me like she didn't recognise me.

But then, like I said, I started seeing her in the park. Used to go at night sometimes, cos it seemed like I could get closer to the darkness in the dark. And Amelia would be there too.

So, we started chatting. Told her the story of Tom all over again.

She'd tell me she was on her way to meet a friend. A girl who lived in a mental institution by the park. And she'd tell me stories about that friend.

I can't remember when this idea occurred to me, I think it crept up slowly.

Amelia would tell me about the institution, and the things she said washed over me. It was an old stone building, she said, with a vegetable garden where they grew cabbages and potatoes. Also, the friend said they only got clean clothes once a week, and that the other residents were stealing from her — that made Amelia mad, she wanted to write to the authorities. The friend said she was only pretending to be mad. And so on.

And then one day Amelia said there'd been a murder — one of the patients had killed another one with an axe.

If the other facts were slowly washing over me, well that bit — the axe murder — that was like a splash of hot water in my face. I looked back at her other facts and realised that they'd formed a pool of truth.

This is the bit where I'm going to lose you.

See, I did a lot of reading about Tom and his life. I read about what the land was like before the convicts got there — the Darug Aboriginal people, and how they got smallpox from the invaders. I read about the convict farm, and the stone barracks that Phillip built. How the crops went to hell and they shut down the farm. I read about how, while Tom was hiding out in the bush, a new governor came to the colony, nice guy named Macquarie, who wanted to make this country great. He built hospitals, orphanages, roads.

This is all to get to my point — that when Tom did come back, he got as far as the old stone barracks, but by then Macquarie had turned it into a lunatic asylum. The first one in this country.

I had read a bit about this asylum.

I read that it had a vegetable garden. They grew potatoes and cabbages. They got clean clothes once a week. Stole rations from each other. That some convicts there had pretended to be mad, cos it was a better option, or easier to escape.

I also read that they used to send the residents out to chop firewood. And one day, one resident hacked another to death with the axe.

So. Like I said. That was the splash of hot water.

Amelia tells me there'd been an axe murder, and the pool of truth shines up.

I'll be straight with you, folks.

It's my belief that Amelia spent the last year making friends with a girl who lived in a lunatic asylum around 1812.

Okay, if you can stop laughing for a moment, I'll wrap this up.

I never told Amelia my theory. Didn't want her writing me off the way you just have.

The last few weeks before the exam, I'd see Amelia there sometimes and she was upset. She was worried about her friend, so I'd try to comfort her. Might have even given her a hug one night, which maybe somebody saw and that's why the misunderstanding? Anyhow, the night before the exam, she told me she thought her friend was seriously ill — wasn't eating, getting depressed, lost hope.

There's Amelia in the moonlight — pale and thin, purple shadows under her eyes — and I think she's describing herself.

‘She says she's going to dance on air tomorrow,' Amelia said. ‘That's a good thing, right? I don't get it.'

I didn't get it either, and we both went home.

But I kept thinking —
dance on air
— and there was something familiar about it. I was almost asleep when it came to me. An Irish convict had used those words in a story I once read —
you'll not get any music from me, for others to dance on air
.

Dance on air
means to hang.

I thought Amelia should know that.

I wrote it on a piece of paper, slipped it to her just before the exam.

Could be that's why she left. She read my note, realised what her friend was planning, and so she ran.

Later that day — when I'm running across the park in the rain — well, like I said, I do know what I saw.

A flash of white, like a rush of water or light, and behind that light I saw this: a girl was standing on a log, a rope around her neck, like a noose. It looked like Amelia from behind; her red-gold hair.

I felt something behind me, made me turn around a second — and everything had changed.

Lydia was gone. So was Emily. The trees had changed. They
were bigger, taller, different shapes, more shrubs, longer grass. It was still pouring rain but through the rain I could see a big stone building.

Next moment things were back — the building gone, Lyd and Em running, and Amelia was in my arms.

You know, this last year of high school, it's what you might call a crazy time. It's like we're charged up, revved up, emotional freaks. It feels like we're all on the brink of something — we're standing on some fine, fine line between our future and our past.

Could be that standing on that line makes us more susceptible to slipping back and forward in time?

Maybe that's why Amelia's been visiting the past? Why I got that glimpse of it that moment in the rain?

If that's not scientific enough for you, please recall that black holes can bend time.

And that's a technical truth.

So, in conclusion, don't take Amelia's scholarship away on account of her not having an excuse. She did have one. She was chillin' with a ghost.

Thanks for your time.

Toby Mazzerati

PS You will now see why I didn't just get my dad to pass this on to you. He'd have laughed at me for the next few years and the message would not have got across.

Termination Meeting — The Committee for the Administration of the KL Mason Patterson Scholarship — Minutes

6.00 pm — 9.00 pm, Friday 19 December

Conference Room 2B, the KL Mason Patterson Centre for the Arts

 

 

Participants

Constance Milligan (Ashbury Alumni Association)
Patricia Aganovic (Parent Representative 1)
Jacob Mazzerati (Parent Representative 2)
Lucy Wexford (Music Coordinator, Ashbury)
Bill Ludovico (Ashbury School Principal/Economics Teacher)

AGENDA ITEMS

Roberto Garcia (Chair) welcomed Bill Ludovico, explaining that Bill had been too busy with his duties as principal to attend meetings for most of the year. ‘Yes,' said Bill. ‘Seems that if you want to get something done right, you've got to do it yourself.' A loaded silence. Roberto then explained that the only agenda item for today was the termination of Amelia and Riley's scholarships. Bill cleared his throat sharply. Roberto turned the floor over to Bill who, he said, had some news for us.

•   Last night (Bill said), the police had notified him that all criminal charges against Riley have been dropped. The stepfather had withdrawn his complaint.

•   ‘What?!' ‘Really?!' and so on. That is, everyone was surprised and mystified. Much discussion about what might have happened — maybe Amelia's parents had realised Riley's connection with their daughter, and had withdrawn the complaint as a gesture of goodwill towards Amelia? Or maybe —

•   Here, Constance Milligan (Ashbury Alumni Association) made a noise like a snuffling pig. ‘Why are we wasting our time
?
' she cried. ‘I have
read
the transcript of the interviews! They did not have an answer to
any
of the grounds for termination! Let's get this thing signed and stamped and put the whole sorry fiasco behind us. I'll make a point of not saying
I told you so
, and we'll all go home to bed!'

•   There was a subdued silence. Some sighs. Everyone was aware that Constance was right — not so much about going home to bed, it was only 6 pm — but clearly, termination
was
the only option. Nevertheless, it was very depressing. Our first scholarship winners: they had shone like stars, and now, oh, how they had fallen.

•   Bill said that he agreed 100 per cent with Constance, and was glad there was at least one other person with some sense on this committee.

•   ‘We have to at least talk through each ground,' Jacob Mazzerati (Parent Rep 2) said firmly.

•   ‘What about your Toby's letter?' Patricia Aganovic (Parent Rep 1) looked at Jacob. ‘It was kind of — interesting. The time travel theory.'

•   ‘The time travel theory,' agreed Jacob, deadpan, meeting Patricia's eye. She tried to maintain a thoughtful expression, but could not resist her own smile, at which Jacob also smiled. General laughter and joking at Toby's expense.