Frankie (3 page)

I sneak into the backyard; early morning dew clings to my boots as I trample through the patchy grass. I've got an hour before we're due at school for The Meeting.

Vinnie's Persian cat sits at the back gate, face like somebody rammed him into a brick wall. Which, ironically, is what I fantasise about doing to him every time I discover he's left a ‘surprise' in my boots. I hiss at him and he hisses back before squeezing his fat arse under the gate.

I grab a trowel and at the back fence I drop to my knees under the willow. I could easily dig with my hands because the earth is soft, but last time I did that there was dirt under my nails for days and Vinnie kept asking questions.

I drive the trowel in hard and cut a worm in half.

‘Shit.'

I part the dirt with the tip of the trowel and scoop up the two halves, placing them on my thigh. They don't both wriggle off like I expect them to. I guess it's a myth that cutting a worm in half makes two worms.

I dig a small hole just to the left and bury the worm, trying to match up the two halves as I lay the little guy in his grave. I grab a willow leaf and a piece of bark shaped like a cocoon. I poke the leaf through the bark to make a cross, which I push into the ground for a headstone.

Then I get back to digging.

The whole point of a time capsule is you bury it and leave it. Well, that's what Daniel, my shrink, said when he came up with the dumb idea to help ‘curb my aggressive tendencies'. You dig it up when you're divorced, fat, stressed, lonely and thinking about a nip and tuck. So far I've dug this thing up three times and I only buried it a week and a half ago. I keep finding things I want to bury.

The trowel hits wood so I scoop the mud away, slowly uncovering the pencil box I made in Year Seven woodwork.

When I slide the cover back, globs of dirt fall on top of the freezer bag inside. I shake off the dirt and open the bag, revealing the photo on top: the only picture I have of my father.

I think he's my father. Vinnie said he is and he was living with Juliet when she had me so he could be. It's not a great photo; he's half cut out. But you can see a bit of his arm and half his face. He has a nice smile. He has my dark skin and my slightly hooked nose.

I don't remember anything about him.

According to Vinnie, Juliet left me with him once when I was a baby. She went to the shops to get nappies, but she didn't come back for a couple of days and when she did he'd overdosed. I was in my cot, my nappy falling off because it was so full. I almost died.

I pull the serviette out of my back pocket and shove it on top of the photo. I figure something that reminds me of the first time I met my half-brother is something that should go in a time capsule. I don't know if Xavier saw me slide it off the table and into my back pocket yesterday. I hope not.

My phone buzzes. The screen's smashed, cracks webbing in the top right-hand corner, but I can see Cara's message:
Good luck today, babe. No pressure but do NOT stuff this up. I NEED YOU BACK HERE.

Thanks, Cara Lam, oh wise and beautiful BFF. Because I need to be reminded of The Meeting. I
so
want to blab on for hours to Principal Vukovic about why I'm such a psycho.

Especially as I don't plan on telling her the truth. All I want is to forget, forget about what happened in the corner of the library. I want to forget Steve's Dorito-smelling breath and what he said to make me so crazy angry, angry enough to slap him with the fattest hardback I could lay my hands on. A fat book for a fat head.

I get a sick taste in my mouth. Guess I can joke all I want but the closer it gets to The Meeting the harder it is to laugh. Because I know what I did to Steve was bad. Out-of-control, out-of-my-mind, out-of-this-world bad. Not that I remember much: anger does that to me. Red ink blots smear across my vision. One minute Steve's shooting his mouth off and the next there's blood and an ambulance and . . .

No. Stop thinking about it.

I slam the lid shut and dump the pencil box back into the hole. I shovel dirt from all around and pile it on top; I accidentally unearth the little worm's grave.

‘Sorry, dude,' I say.

I give him a second funeral. This time I give a speech. I tell him how all his little worm friends will miss him. I tell him that the backyard just won't be the same without him. I say how tragic it is that his life was cut short, but that's a bad choice of words.

Covering his poor little body with the last of the dirt, I tell him I'm sorry for giving him such a shitty funeral. I can't find the headstone again.

I push myself up, wiping the muddy earth from my jeans. It just rubs deeper into the fabric.

‘Frankie?' shouts Vinnie. ‘Where the hell are you?'

Busted.

I hurry inside, letting the wire door slam shut behind me. ‘I'm taking the garbage out.'

‘Garbage is still here.'

Okay. So not such a good cover.

‘I know,' I shout back. ‘I'm taking it out now.'

That's what you get for lying, Frankie. Bin duty.

Vinnie slaps my hand. ‘Stop your fidgeting.'

‘I'm allergic to this skirt.' I adjust the waistband of my winter uniform; the prickly fabric is made from sheep that rolled around in thistles.

‘Don't start that now.' Vinnie checks her watch again. ‘I closed the shop for this.'

It doesn't matter how often Vinnie checks the time, we're not being let into the principal's office until we've stewed. It's how Vukovic rolls.

With an armful of
Romeo and Juliet
s
, my former English teacher, Mr Tran, scuttles through the office foyer. When he spots me, he gives a curt nod and keeps heading to the door.

I slink down in my chair. ‘Why don't we just –'

‘This is important, Frankie,' says Vinnie. ‘You'll go in there, tell Ms Vukovic what happened and everything will be fine.' She pats my knee. ‘You just have to tell the truth.'

Over by the front entrance, Mr Tran lifts one leg, balancing the stack of books on his thigh to free a hand for the door. His corduroy pants sag around his arse. He teeters and the top few books fall to the ground. When he bends to pick them up, the whole stack topples.

Ha. It
almost
cheers me up.

‘Won't be long now, Francesca,' says the school receptionist. Except she says: ‘Fran-chess-caaaaar'.

I don't know her name; I only know her as Sponge-Bum Square-Tits. She's addicted to sniffing white-out and has the worst dress sense. The jacket she's wearing today is the colour of cud. Seriously, it's like a cow vomited on her.

‘Francesca,' calls Mr Tran. ‘Help me with these. Please.'

I sink lower in my chair.

Vinnie nudges me. ‘Get,' she says.

Mr Tran waits, hands on hips, while I drag my feet over to him.

‘Just grab those couple,' he says.

I crouch and gather books. There's a drawing of Romeo and Juliet on the covers. It's mostly black and white but there's red where Juliet stabbed herself. I don't remember reading this copy when we studied it – ours had a photo from the movie. Stupidly attractive teenagers giving gooey eyes to each other. Maybe they kept this version out of my class because they were afraid it would give me ideas.

‘So are we getting you back anytime soon?' asks Mr Tran.

I blow the fringe out of my eyes and shrug.

‘I hear you inflicted quite a bit of damage. Of course, not the way I intended for you to use Shakespeare. Did Steve bite his thumb at you?' Mr Tran laughs as he straightens up.

Shakespeare humour. Awesome.

I hold out the last book, one hand wrapped around my wrist to control the trembling.

‘Shove that on top there, please. And if you could . . .' He motions to the door with his chin.

I push it open. He steps into the drizzle, eyes to the heavens.

Does writing out a new menu for the Kebab Emporium count as English homework? I should have asked Mr Tran. I could totally drop that into The Meeting.

‘Keep the door closed, Fran-chess-caaaaar.' Square-Tits waves the white-out brush under her nose before daubing it onto the page in front of her. ‘We want the heat to stay in.'

I drag my feet back to Vinnie and slump in my seat. ‘It's already quarter past eleven. Vukovic's on a power trip.'

‘
Ms
Vukovic,' says Vinnie out the side of her mouth. ‘And I swear, if you act up in that room I'll make you clean out the meat tray for the rest of your life.'

Shudder.

Two giggling Year Sevens hurry past, delivering a note to the office. Square-Tits takes it from them and smiles. ‘Hurry back to class, now,' she says.

When the girls pass, one of them goes wide-eyed and leans in to whisper to her friend. They both look over their shoulder at me and laugh, collapsing into each other.

‘Let's just go home.' I pull the neck of my jumper over my chin and mouth.

Vinnie's bracelets tinkle as she checks her watch. ‘Not a chance. We're fighting this.'

She gives me an encouraging smile. The kind you give the scrawny nerd with two left feet as he's running onto the footy field.

I sink lower in my chair. I'm practically in nap position.

‘Ms Vukovic is ready for you now,' says Square-Tits. She points down the corridor. Like I don't know where the principal's office is.

‘Thank you, Doreen.' Vinnie stands, smoothing out the creases in her skirt.

I stay where I am. ‘Do we have to, Vinnie? Let's have a girls' day in. Let's prank call Marzoli. I'll clean my room.'

She answers with a look. It's not Shakespeare but it's effective.

With a grunt of effort I push myself to standing, untucking my shirt on one side, making sure it's hanging below my jumper line.

Vinnie grabs my underarm and drags me along. ‘Check your attitude at the door, Francesca Madalina Vega,' she whispers. ‘Or I'll check it for you.'

__________

A clipped voice summons us.

Vinnie boofs out her curls and fixes a smile to her lips (Red Bloody Murder is her colour of choice today). ‘Ms Vukovic. Thank you so much for seeing us.'

Well, she gets the first four words out.

My jaw drops as I take in the room and its occupants. Breakfast thinks real hard about making its escape. This was not what I was expecting.

First things first. Vukovic is all angles – wiry hair, pointy nose, thin lines. She's thin on humour too. She's dressed in greys and browns. Judging by the photos on the wall behind her, she's had the same haircut since the 70s. That, and she really likes horses. But none of that's new.

‘Take a seat. Please.' Vukovic points to two available seats. I say ‘available' because there are actually five seats in the room. ‘Do you know Fred Sparrow?' she adds, waving a hand at a man with salt-and-pepper hair sitting in one of the unavailable seats.

With a quickly reapplied smile, Vinnie steps forward and offers Fred Sparrow her hand.

Unlike my crappy winter skirt, the sheep that gave its wool for Fred Sparrow's suit did a lot of rolling around in candy floss and cotton wool. It ate caviar and went to the opera. His suit looks so soft and luxurious I have a weird compulsion to nestle my cheek against it. I don't (obviously).

‘We haven't met,' says Fred Sparrow, flashing a chemically whitened smile as he stands, ‘but since your niece rearranged my son's face we were bound to run into each other.' His hand's in Vinnie's for a billionth of a second before he whips it away and takes his seat again. ‘I have another meeting at twelve so I'd really like to –'

‘And Steve, of course,' says Vukovic, still smiling at Vinnie.

I don't know what Vinnie does, whether she shakes Steve's hand or not, because I'm
not
looking at Steve Sparrow. I untuck the other side of my shirt and sit.

‘I didn't know this was a group meeting,' says Vinnie.

Vukovic takes a seat behind her enormous eighteenth-century hand-crafted mahogany desk and it's like the desk eats half of her.

‘This is an informal meeting, Ms Vega,' she says, smoothing her palms in circles across the desk's surface. ‘I'm hoping we can work this all out.'

Fred Sparrow clears his throat. Loudly. ‘You mean sweep it under the carpet.'

He has the same eyes as his son but other than that they look completely different. If it wasn't for the eyes, Fred Sparrow would need to be asking his wife some uncomfortable questions – where Steve's bright-orange hair comes from would be top of that list.

‘You agreed to this meeting, Fred,' says Vukovic.

‘Did I have a choice?'

Vukovic turns to Vinnie. ‘I want today to be an open conversation. I honestly feel that –'

We don't get to hear what Vukovic honestly feels because Fred Sparrow goes off on a tirade, lecturing Vukovic for letting a ‘psychologically disturbed girl' into his son's school. Then he spends five minutes banging on about the ‘irreparable damage' I caused. He even brings out X-rays and a doctor's report. Mostly what we learn is that Steve's dad is the Chief Executive Officer of one of those businesses that are all names: Proctor, Lloyd and Hanson. Parker, Chan and Davis. Larry, Curly and Moe. How do I know this? Because he finds a way to wedge it into every sentence.

Well, Vinnie's the CEO of Terry's Kebab Emporium so we're all on the same level here, dude.

‘Can I remind you,' says Sparrow – he's talking to Vinnie but he's looking at Vukovic's desk – ‘that your niece assaulted my son? Give me one reason why this shouldn't be a criminal matter.'

Before I can say anything, Vinnie grips my knee, her nails digging in.

All right, so I won't answer the nice man's question.

‘Putting aside the fact that your son provoked my niece,' says Vinnie. Sparrow opens his mouth but Vinnie shuts him up with a Nonna Sofia. ‘Putting
that
aside, there are considerations to be taken into account here. Frankie has been through a lot in her young life. She's just found out she has a brother and that has really brought up a lot of –'

Oh hell no. She did not just say
that
. ‘Don't bring Xavier into this.'

Vinnie turns her Nonna Sofia on me. ‘I'm just saying –'

‘I know exactly what you're saying.'

She snorts. ‘Well, I'm sorry, but this kid calls you up out of the blue and the next day you're getting suspended for fighting? I don't think that's a coincidence, do you?'

‘Do you hear this, Leona?' Sparrow leans back in his chair, shirt buttons straining. ‘You bring trash into the school and then wonder why it stinks.'

This time I have to grab Vinnie's knee.

‘Frankie,' says Vukovic. She's looking at me; her expression says ‘I care' but it's like someone conducted market research into what a caring expression should look like and came up with ‘constipated'.

‘We haven't heard your side of the story yet. I'm not going to lie; we've had our issues with you, but I've never known you to act without provocation.' Steve snorts, but a look from Vukovic silences him. ‘It's time for you to explain your actions.'

Vinnie is watching me side-on. There's nothing forced or market-researched about her expression. She's willing me to open my mouth and defend myself.

Of course she is. She's Vinnie.

Fred Sparrow throws up his hands. ‘Look at my son, Leona. What more do you need to know?'

Vukovic shifts in her chair, her hands palm down on the desk. She doesn't say anything because even though Fred Sparrow is a tool, there's no denying he's right.

All you have to do is look at Steve Sparrow.

Simple.

Just look.

Look
.

I start with the floor. It's parquet – diamonds, scuffed from years of school shoes and high heels.

Up.

Steve Sparrow is wearing plimsolls. They might have been white once but now they're puddle grey.

Halfway up his trouser leg there's a grass stain.

Higher.

He taps a beat against his thigh – fingers stained a pale red. Texta, maybe? From the lame tags he scrawls around the school?

Higher.

His phone is half out of his pocket and white earphones snake up and around the back of his neck, hanging over his shoulder down the opposite side.

All the way.

Oh shit.

Steve Sparrow has bruises under each eye, deep purple and mottled – it's been a couple of days and they're already a little yellow round the edges. There are scabs of dried blood, both his cheeks are swollen, his jaw's bruised and
apparently
cracked. There's a splint on his nose so I guess I broke that too.

All I can do is look away. Like a coward. Like the kind of psycho freak who goes around hitting guys in the face with massive hardback books.

Vinnie squeezes my leg. ‘Go on, honey.'

Vukovic's thin lips are pressed tight and she's leaning forward, ready to leap over the desk and drag the words out of my throat. I guess she'd really like a reason to stick it to Fred Sparrow.

I would too, but I can't stop thinking about whether Steve's nose will be crooked forever. Because of what I did. You see people with their noses bent to one side or maybe with a bulge in the middle or a flat section. Juliet had a guy with a nose like that – I don't remember his name but he was a boxer. Not professional, just in the kitchen with Juliet.

Is that what Steve's going to look like now? Did I do that? I look down and my hands are balled into fists. I have to work hard to unlock them.

Boxer-guy used to say he was sorry. Used to feed Juliet excuses mixed with blame.

So what's my excuse?

Vinnie's leg brushes against mine. ‘Frankie?'

‘Told you she's a psycho,' says Steve. ‘She just went mental. I didn't do nothing.'

Vinnie grips my knee a little tighter. ‘Frankie?' Her voice breaks. Just a little.