Screw Loose (8 page)

Zeynep could see Matilda making her way back, having failed to hunt down Chelsea's feral cat. She looked angry.

Zeynep and Georgia moved up to give her space on the now crowded seat. Chelsea made a small noise of protest and didn't move.

Georgia patted the seat and Matilda sat down. ‘Even Matilda has problems, don't you?'

‘Ha!' said Chelsea. ‘Did you get the cat?'

Matilda shook her head and looked across at Chelsea suspiciously. ‘I'm on
60 Minutes
tomorrow and I'm going to talk about you.'

Chelsea shrieked. ‘As if, Matilda. Go and chase cars. We're discussing important issues.'

‘I can say one thing for sure about Angelo,' Georgia said to Zeynep. ‘I'd stop boiling his shoelaces. You're not his wife.'

‘Your problem is your kissing technique, Zeynep,' Chelsea said confidently. ‘You need to get on the internet and check out kissing sites.'

‘You should lick him,' Matilda announced.

Zeynep pondered her friends' words of wisdom as the bell went for class.

A BIT OF A
PROBLEM AT
BARBECUES

C
RAIG
R
YAN WAS
in his lounge room with his mate Khiem Dao waiting for
60 Minutes
to come on. He was stretched out on the floor because his back was sore after their first rowing lesson. Khiem sat in the spare chair. Craig's father was stretched out on the couch in his overalls, sucking on a VB.

‘The founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus, were reputed to
have been brought up by a she-wolf. We in Australia have our own
story to compete with that legend. Now sixteen-year-old Matilda
Grey, whose mother claims she was brought up by dingoes, is
speaking publicly for the first time.

‘Matilda was found a little over a decade ago just south of Katherine
in the unforgiving Top End. She and her mother claim she
was accidentally left behind at a camping site as a two-year-old,
then found by dingoes who cared for her over a four-year period –
a claim a number of eminent scientists, and her father, dispute.
You make up your mind.'

The anchorwoman raised an eyebrow then looked off camera and suddenly there she was, Matilda, his girlfriend, blinking as she lay sprawled under a tree. The camera zoomed in close. She looked really pretty on screen – big blue eyes, nice smile – and he felt proud.

‘Hey!' said Khiem. ‘She looks all right.'

Khiem and Matilda had once gone out together, but it hadn't lasted. Khiem had dumped her when she'd said they were very compatible because dingoes came from Asia, in canoes.

‘They did something to her hair,' Khiem said.

‘Washed it,' Craig's father responded and burped.

The interviewer spoke softly. ‘Matilda, what makes you so certain you were brought up by dingoes?'

‘I remember them. And my mum told me. It's in the book.'

‘Some people say the book is fiction; that your mother wrote it.'

‘It's fact! People can read the police reports and look at the photos of me when they found me. I was brown as a berry and I had fleas!'

His old man guffawed and Khiem chuckled. Craig hoped she wouldn't make too many comments like that.

The front cover of
Dingo Girl
flashed up – a picture of Matilda with a rabbit in her mouth. She had given Craig a copy, but Craig didn't read books, so he'd passed it on to Khiem to read for him. It had been written by a journalist and Mrs Grey together. Khiem said it was probably all true.

‘Do you remember how you felt when your mother and father left you behind in the desert?'

‘No. I was just a pup … baby.'

The interviewer smiled. ‘Do you still think of yourself as a dingo, or do you think of yourself as a girl?'

‘A girl.' Matilda looked agitated. ‘But I had dingo brothers and sisters, so I'm loyal to the pack. You have to be.'

‘How did you communicate with your brothers and sisters?'

‘You just know things together. You don't talk. You see things, you get a sense that there's food, and you go after it.

Sniffing and stuff. You know their smells. I know your smell.'

The interviewer laughed uneasily.

‘Did you bark?'

‘Dingoes don't bark. I can howl, but.'

‘Would you give us a demonstration?'

She laughed, looked off screen, then shook her head.

‘Did you ever think to yourself,
Maybe I'm not like these
dogs – I look different, I feel different
?'

‘Not really. Sometimes I wished I had fur. And a tail. I like tails.'

Craig groaned. It was going to be a tough day at school tomorrow.

‘And what did you eat?' the interviewer asked.

Matilda flicked her fringe. She had once told Craig she'd eaten a camel. You couldn't tell how true this was, of course.

‘I've eaten a horse, sheep' – she was counting them off on her fingers – ‘kangaroo, feral cat, fox, rat, wallaby and camel.

Da-dah!' She laughed.

Craig's father laughed, too. ‘No wonder you had trouble with her in Subway,' he said.

‘What was the hardest thing for you to adjust to once you were found?'

It seemed to Craig that the interviewer was trying to get Matilda to say something stupid.

‘Toilets and knives and forks were pretty hard. Cats every- where, too – little bastards. And I like raw meat, so I can be a bit of a problem at barbeques. I can catch tennis balls in my mouth.' She beamed.

Craig slapped his forehead and banged his head on the floor.

Khiem was avoiding eye contact.

‘And I don't like lookers and pointers and tourists.'

Matilda was often mobbed by tourists who tried to stand next to her while their friends took pictures. A Dingo Girl cult had exploded in Japan, and many young girls had begun acting like Matilda; some had started wearing false tails to school.

‘What's the best thing about living in a city?' asked the interviewer.

Matilda rolled her eyes upwards, bit her bottom lip and let her head fall back. ‘No more fleas!' she announced.

‘You idiot,' Craig whispered.

His old man was laughing and banging the back of the couch.

‘Shut up,' he hissed at his father.

‘Do you have a boyfriend?' the interviewer laughed.

‘Please no!' Craig cried. The basketball guys would never let him forget this.

‘There was one dog used to sniff me a lot, I was pretty keen on him.'

‘
SHUT UP
!' Craig yelled at both his dad and Matilda.

‘I wouldn't take that, Craig,' his father said, throwing his empty can into the
KFC
wrappings. ‘I'd find that dog and have a little discussion.'

‘Do you have a human boyfriend?' asked the interviewer.

‘I've got one now.'

‘Please God ...' Craig felt sick. Matilda was nodding vigorously.

‘And how does he cope with having such a … special girlfriend?'

Craig held his breath. His whole body was taut.

‘He warns me when I'm doing dingo stuff to act human.

But he's proud I'm the Dingo Girl. Only one of my breed in Australia.' She was getting excited. ‘He's got reddish-brown hair like an Irish setter.'

Beer spurted out of his father's mouth.

‘This girl at my school wants him to be her boyfriend, but I got him first.'

‘Chelsea!' Khiem laughed.

Matilda was smiling broadly. ‘His name's Craig,' she announced to Australia, ‘and he's got a gi-normous tongue.'

Craig's father howled. Craig curled himself into the foetal position.

‘It's okay,' he could hear Khiem saying.

But it really wasn't.

JUST LIKE
THE PERSON
SITTING
NEXT TO YOU

I
T WAS A COLD
July morning and Georgia Delahunty was sitting with all the other Vistaview students waiting for Darryl Dunn to address the school assembly. This was held on the first Monday of each month. Chelsea Dean, abhorrent little style empress, was fidgeting beside her.

Georgia's eyes wandered to the school's crest suspended above the stage.
Vistaview Secondary College
was written in large blue lettering, and below it was a shield divided by a river.

A computer sat on one bank and a stop sign on the other, symbolising information technology and driver education.

Below the crest, in an undulating banner, was the school's motto:
Strive, thrive and get ahead
.

The best way for Georgia to embrace the school's creed would be to leave it. She couldn't wait for her Mary Magdalene interview next week.

‘Complete shoosh, Vistaviewers! Quiet now!'

She sighed.
Here we go.
With a bit of luck, this would be her last assembly at Vistaview.

Darryl Dunn stood at the microphone dressed in a darkblue suit, his thinning hair in a gelled comb-over, the stage lights reflected in his glasses. He peered down at his school benevolently as the babble subsided to one isolated explosion of Year 10 laughter, which faded swiftly to a self-conscious silence. Around the walls, the staff stood like chained Rottweilers, ready to attack.

Georgia shut her eyes. Of course she could still fulfil her parents' pleas: choose India over Mary Magdalene. All she'd need to do was hop on a plane, and in no time she'd be in New Delhi. From there they'd motor to the Fort. There would be servants, a swimming pool and her own elephant. It was tempting. Might she just leave her aunt and uncle to their prayers, wrap herself in a sari and become a Hindu? Or should she stay here in Australia, play hockey and look for a girlfriend at Mary Magdalene?

Darryl cleared his throat. ‘A breathless hush in the close tonight, ten to make and the last man in.' His eyes moved slowly around the assembly hall. ‘Sir Henry Newbolt!' There were quiet groans from some Year 12 students, and some of the Rottweilers stirred. ‘I'm sure your English teachers will explain the significance of that quotation.'

Georgia shot a look at her English teacher, Phillip Ireland, a middle-aged man with an Afro, who was leaning against the wall. He looked confused.

‘It's a fine morning, and our school motto tells us to
thrive,
strive and get ahead
. I hope this is what is uppermost in your minds right now.'

Silence.

‘This morning I have an unpleasantness, a celebration, some good news from the
SRC
, and I want to tell you about a very special week we have coming up.'

‘Get on with it!' Chelsea whispered.

‘The unpleasantness first. What is black? Some boys and some girls have been wearing trousers that are not true black!

To rectify this, I have issued all staff with a black card. If your trousers do not match the black on this card, you will be sent home. We will not truck with shades of black! When I was your age, the Rolling Stones used to say that black was black and they wanted their baby back. In this school, we are going to live by that lyric. Black is black!'

He waited in silence for the school to absorb the message.

‘Next, something pleasant. I would like Angelo Tarano to come up on stage.'

There was a spontaneous roar and then thunderous stamping as Angelo got up and walked down the aisle to the stage.

Georgia could barely look at him. Everyone thought he was so wonderful, but not her. It was those pleading eyes. She still looked away whenever she saw him coming. Angelo leapt up the steps and stood beside Darryl Dunn, looking bashful as the cheering washed around the hall.

‘Angelo, as I'm sure everyone knows, was selected in the National Draft to play for the Hobart Cockatoos. I saw his face on the front page of the paper following his first game recently, and I'm sure you did, too.'

Another cheer.

‘I remember Angelo, in Year 8, crying outside my office because someone had taken his football. Now look at him! No crying now. No one is going to take his football today.' Darryl laughed to himself.

‘But remember, in our school Angelo Tarano is just an ordinary Year 11 student who lives an ordinary life. The fact that he is earning more money than me does not mean you can ask him for a loan.' Darryl laughed again and a few Year 7s did, too.

‘So I want us all to wish Angelo's little finger a very speedy recovery.'

Darryl clapped as the school cheered once more. Angelo raised his little finger, then jogged off the stage, head down and grinning. Georgia rolled her eyes.

‘Now, three exciting new
SRC
initiatives: firstly, Vistaview Secondary College is going to have a rowing team. Chelsea Dean, your president, has kindly volunteered to coach a rowing team and has already procured the boats and started to train our group. But she needs more boys! She'll be running a meeting for interested young men at lunchtime today in Room 27. Vistaview Secondary College is a school that is striving and thriving, as you can see. We are certainly going to get ahead.'