Girl Saves Boy (9 page)

Or perhaps, regardless of whether her father had died when she was nine, she would have become the same goal-driven, tunnel-visioned girl that she was.

One morning, True was called to the principal’s office. Everyone thought it was just another of True’s ‘special meetings’ that she had because she was so far ahead of the other students and the staff didn’t know how to deal with her.

True did not return for the rest of the day.

I particularly noticed her absence because I was always by her side, so I had no idea what to do when school ended that afternoon, as I usually walked home with her. I hung around outside the principal’s office (thinking maybe True was still in there) until the reception lady very kindly called my mum to pick me up.

That evening, Mum and Dad sat me down at the dinner table after the meal and gave me some bread and butter pudding with ice-cream. This was a very special treat in our house, so I thought maybe something big was going to happen, like me getting the brother I kept asking for. (I was going to name him Davin. He was going to be awesome and we were going to play Spider Man. I had it all figured out.)

Dad said, ‘Sacha, True’s dad has died.’

I said. ‘Oh. How?’

Mum’s eyes filled up with tears. ‘He was just old, darling.’

That made sense at the time, since he did seem exceedingly old; True’s parents were ten years older than mine. I know now that forty-four isn’t that old at all.

Everyone was upset, including me, even though I hardly knew him, but especially True and her mother. By the time True returned to school a month later, I’d already gone into hospital for my first bout of chemo.

That was not a good year for anyone.

Sacha’s list of places where it would be nicer to live than on the ground
In the clouds: they always seem like fairy floss when you’re on a plane, dipping through them, and if you could avoid eating them all, there’d be pleasant views and (on the higher clouds) constant sunshine
Under the sea: once you got around the whole unable-to-breathe thing, it would be quite nice, if a little wet
Venus: it’s a mostly gas planet, so you’d just float around a bit. This would allow for a lot of time to think, and no one would worry very much about their weight due to the whole thing of weightlessness (they’d be concentrating more on the fact that they were unable to breathe)
What all these places have in common: quiet

After an uneventful day of school on Wednesday ( Jewel didn’t even glance in my direction during Art, and I couldn’t bring myself to go over and talk to her), True’s mother, Geraldine, dropped True and me off outside Lucky House.

‘Have you got enough money?’ Geraldine asked.

True leant in the window and kissed her mum on the cheek. ‘We’ll be fine.’

Geraldine blew me a kiss and left, calling out the window to True as she drove off. ‘Have you got your phone? Call me when you want me to pick you up.’

‘I need to get a car,’ True said once her mother had driven off.

‘Why?’ I asked. ‘You’d just be killing the environment. How much driving do you do anyway?’

‘I’m way too dependent on her,’ she said. ‘And I’d get something with eco stamped all over it, so I wouldn’t feel bad.’

‘Whatever helps you sleep at night.’

My lips were chapped and the wind bit at them. True pulled her beige cardigan tighter around herself. ‘Come on, let’s get inside.’

Lucky House was crowded and the smell was overpowering. We sat in the covered outdoor area, heaters hanging above and clear plastic protecting us from the wind. There were candles on the tables, and lanterns and fake greenery hung everywhere.

True shrugged off her cardigan and hung it on the back of her chair. She sat down and sighed. ‘I am so relieved.’

‘Why?’ I asked.

‘I was concerned that this was a set-up and, you know, Michael would
coincidentally
be here and join us for dinner.’

I laughed. ‘Oh, yeah, is that him over there?’

True shook her head. ‘He needs to get over it.’

‘You’re aware that he’s an actual person with real feelings, right?’ I asked.

True’s mouth fell open. ‘Was that an
accusatory
tone? Sacha, I’m not going out with someone just because of the way
he
feels about
me
. That would be a stupid thing to do.’

The waitress paused at our table with a trolley full of dishes and smiled at us. ‘Pork dumpling?’

‘Have you got any prawn dumplings?’ I asked.

‘Prawn and chives,’ said the waitress.

‘Perfect, thanks. Two serves of them. And those ones. Yep.’

The waitress set the food down, then drew three crosses on the form on our table.

After she left, I whispered to True, ‘You know, I think that’s the girl Al’s brother likes.’

True sighed and placed a dumpling in her bowl, ignoring me.

I looked at the form on our table. ‘You could just white-out those crosses, you know, save yourself a bit of money. Actually, do you happen to have any liquid paper on you?’

‘No,’ said True, her voice flat. ‘What was it you had to tell me?’

I gestured at the food. ‘Shall we eat first?’

True picked up her chopsticks, as another waitress came round and poured us tea.

‘You know what this reminds me of?’ I grinned at True. ‘That song. “Turning Japanese.”’

True’s mouth became a straight line as I started to sing the song.

She cut me off. ‘This is a
Chinese
restaurant.’

‘I know that,’ I laughed. ‘I was just having a bit of fun. You know what that is, True? You need to learn to have fun. Relax. Enjoy life.’

‘I hate to say this to you, Sacha,’ she replied, ‘but “fun”’—the way she said fun it sounded dirty and possibly illegal—‘isn’t going to get me, or you, anywhere in this life.’

I laughed again. ‘You do realise you’re saying this to a childhood cancer patient whose mother died last year?’

True’s mouth disappeared completely. ‘Don’t bring her into this. Besides, you’re not the only one who’s lost a parent.’

I didn’t say anything to that.

‘You know what are nice?’ I finally said. ‘Those sweet pork buns. Let’s get a few serves of those.’

When I turned to call over a waitress, I spotted the fish tank. It was tucked away near the entrance, with a lone lobster bobbing inside.

‘I’m going to rescue that lobster,’ I told True— too loudly, apparently, because the family at the table nearest us looked at me, probably thinking I
was
crazy.

I probably was crazy, but that didn’t give them the right to look at me like that.

I flashed a quick smile in their direction, and then stared at my dim sim for a little too long.

‘Trying to remember the lyrics to “Rock Lobster”?’ True asked.

I smiled at her. ‘You should consider joining the comedy circuit.’

True made a
tut
noise like a disapproving English teacher, or someone else’s parents when they hear you swear.

‘I’m serious, you know.’ I leant across the table and whispered to her, ‘I can’t let it be eaten by one of these
monsters
.’ I eyed off the family next to us, now enjoying custard tarts.

‘It was bred for eating,’ groaned True. ‘It’s probably lived in tiny tanks its whole life. It’ll die painlessly. It has a three-second memory span.’

‘Goldfish have a three-second memory span,’ I said. ‘Though I’m not sure whether that’s true, because all the goldfish
I’ve
had always remembered me. Anyway—’ I turned and looked over my shoulder at the lobster in its tank, ‘see its haunted expression? That pleading look in its eyes?’

‘I should never have come out to dinner with you.’

I continued as if she hadn’t spoken, turning back around to face her. ‘It’s our duty to save that poor, defenceless creature.’

True snorted. ‘Defenceless? Did you not notice its nippers?’

‘Defenceless against
us
, I mean.’ I stared at her in what I hoped was an imploring way.

She sighed. ‘How are we going to do this then?’ She gestured around the busy restaurant.

‘You pay the bill, distract them, then I grab the lobster and bolt.’

‘That plan has many flaws, including the fact that we’ll never be able to come back here, you realise.’

I shrugged. ‘There are plenty of Chinese restaurants around here.’

‘As good as Lucky House?’ True was looking unconvinced.

‘I don’t know. But you’ll be moving to the inner city at the end of the year anyway.’

‘You’re right. Why don’t we come back at the end of the year and steal the lobster then?’

‘Shh, you’re too loud. And the term is “emancipate”, not “steal”.’ I shook my head. ‘Besides, this lobster will be boiled up, ripped limb from limb and devoured by the end of the year. It’s now or never.’

‘What’s so special about that lobster in particular?’ True was clearly trying to stall proceedings.

I turned and looked over my shoulder again, contemplating the lobster.

‘It’s my mother reincarnated,’ I announced.

‘My God, you really have lost your mind.’ She sighed again and rubbed her forehead.

I leant towards her. ‘I was kidding, you idiot!’

True sucked her teeth. ‘Do you want to get a custard tart before we…’ she frowned, ‘steal this lobster?’

There were a lot more flaws to the plan than I realised, including: what the hell were we going to do with a lobster? Not to mention that we didn’t know how long a lobster stays alive out of water. (God forbid we’d saved its life only for it to suffocate twenty minutes later.)

Had I planned ahead, knowing I was going to steal a lobster, I would have looked these things up on Wikipedia. That’s the problem with spur-of-the-moment things. They’re spur-of-the-moment.

True and I had bolted down several streets, and I was clutching the spiky lobster, and it was moving a bit, and True was gasping for breath and laughing and laughing and laughing.

‘We actually stole a lobster,’ she laughed. ‘I can’t believe it.’

‘We need to take it to the ocean,’ I told her.

True stopped laughing. ‘We’re too far from the ocean, from both our houses,
and
we don’t have a car.’ She paused. ‘Also, I’m not sure how my mother would feel about having a live crustacean in her new car.’

I was still holding the lobster away from me, and it was really awkward to get a good grip on it without hurting my hands. The lobster looked like an alien up close.

I glanced up at the street sign. Then I grinned at True. ‘Guess who lives around here?’

Jewel

Late on Wednesday afternoon, I fell asleep in my room with my iPod blaring in my ears. When I woke up, the battery was dead, it was night-time and the smoke alarm was squealing hysterically.

I got up and covered my ears as I walked into the kitchen, where my mother was waving a tea-towel at the alarm mounted on the ceiling. Finally the noise stopped, and she tossed the tea-towel beside the sink. Sighing, she leant against the bench and crossed her arms, frowning at me.

Between us, on the bench, was what I assumed was the same tray of chicken nuggets I’d put in the oven hours ago. Except now they looked a lot more like charcoal briquettes.

‘Jewel,’ she said.

‘I fell asleep.’

Her eyes slid away from me, looking instead towards the parquet beneath our feet, as she sighed again, her shoulders sagging.

‘I think we need to have a sit-down chat,’ she said. ‘We’ve barely talked since you’ve been back.’ She didn’t look up as she spoke, as if she was addressing the parquetry, not me.

‘Standing’s just as good, really,’ I replied. ‘If you think about it, it counts as incidental exercise. What with the obesity epidemic and all, the difference between standing and sitting is an important one.’

‘Jewel?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you depressed, Jewel?’

‘Oh, God,’ I huffed. ‘I’m going back to my room.’

As I went to walk out, she caught my arm. Not firmly, just reaching over to me. I could have kept walking, but I stopped and turned towards her.

‘You can talk to me, you know,’ she said softly.

‘I haven’t seen you in years, Rachel—’

On the outside, I was fierce and angry. But inside I melted. There was anger there, yeah, but the sadness and loneliness swallowed it.

‘Please call me Mum,’ she whispered.

‘Mum.’ I took a deep breath. ‘I’ve grown up without you. You hardly ever called me. Grandma and Grandpa were my parents. I don’t want to hurt you, but it’s true.’ As I spoke my body twisted away from her. We probably looked like statues, frozen there in the ugly kitchen.

She let go of my arm. ‘I thought it would be better for you.’

‘Better for me? Fantastic parenting there!’ I said.

‘Don’t be like that,’ she snapped. She turned and fumbled for her packet of cigarettes and a lighter. ‘I thought it would be better for you because you were young enough not to remember—’

‘I remember all right!’

She got out a cigarette and waved it as she spoke. ‘I had my own things to sort out. You know that, Jewel.’ Her tone was almost apologetic.

‘And you’ve sorted them out?’ I spoke quietly now, the words slow. Maybe I was hopeful.

She frowned again, and the lines on her forehead deepened. ‘It’s an ongoing process. But I wasn’t able to be a very good parent to you for a few years there.’

She flicked on the lighter and I held up my hand. ‘Don’t smoke in the house!’

‘You do realise that I’ve lived here for a lot of years on my own, Jewel? That I’ve got my own life and my own friends and a job?’ She shook her head. ‘God, how could I forget what it was like having kids?’

‘I’m eighteen now.’

‘You’re the same little girl,’ she said. ‘And I’m still your mum.’

‘Not really. A lot of things have changed since—’ ‘Let’s not talk about that.’

‘I thought you wanted to talk?’ I said. ‘Jesus—I just don’t get you.’

‘Oh, Jewel, I’m sorry. Please don’t yell.’ Her mouth curled into a grimace.

‘You offer to talk to me, but you don’t actually want to,’ I said. ‘You want to seem like you’re supportive, without actually giving me any support.’

‘Jewel, it’s been tough on everyone—’