Take My Word for It (4 page)

It was a hard life for the dogs in a lot of ways. They were kept in a row of cages, with a kennel and a concrete run in each one, and were chucked a few handfuls of meat and bones each night. They got so excited when you went near them.

Often I'd come home from the paddocks about sunset and, coming along the ridgeline opposite the house, I'd see the windmill and the old church with the red sky behind them. It'd be still and quiet, and I'd stop and look and feel how peaceful it all was. It made me realise how impossible it'd be to be a painter, because you'd never capture that light.

We always had trouble getting a good manager but the last one was good. He'd just finished doing all the fences when I came away to Warrington, and of course I never saw it again. But I heard that the new owner sacked the manager and tried to do it himself, and that now it's all run down and covered with weeds and stuff. Dad told me once I should marry the new bloke and then dump him, and that way I could get the place back. I don't think that's much of an idea.

Tomorrow's my first race with the Thirds. I'm so nervous my heart's racing already. If the boat goes as fast as my heart we should be OK. I don't want to let them down, that's the main thing. I'll never sleep tonight.

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PRIL
10

Marina's a bit of a mess again, and is back in Sick Bay. Just when you think she's getting somewhere she goes into another tail spin. I went over to visit this afternoon but it's hard—there's a limit to how long you can stand there talking at her. I took her some tuck—she never seems to have any. Actually she doesn't seem to have anything much—clothes included. She looked really sad today, huddled up in bed, sucking her thumb, wearing those off old brown PJ's that look like they came from the Salvation Army. I'm going to suggest to Cathy we put a bit of work in on her hair when she gets back to the dorm. She's got nice hair, and I reckon it'd look pretty good cut shorter, with a bit of colour, and brushed more often.

I'm meant to be organising another debate, but we'll have an all new team I think. Maybe Issy'd be good, and Sarah Venville—she's good at everything.

Had a letter from Peter Fallon-White today. He doesn't write all that well, but a letter's a letter, so I'm not complaining.

Oh, I forgot to mention the rowing! So much time seems to have passed since Saturday. Anyway it was great. It's so different in the Thirds! They get on so well together, and the standard's much higher. It's good having Tash coxing again too—she's so positive and cheerful, and she's always cracking sick jokes when we need a bit of a lift. Mr Bostock's better than I thought he would be. He tells us to row with our heads, not our muscles. We were in two races on Saturday and won them both, even with Annabel catching a crab about 300 metres from the line. Mr Bostock teaches us to time each stroke so that we catch the boat at peak momentum—‘getting the run on the boat'. Rowing's the best thing in my life right now.

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PRIL
11

Mr Ross is on duty tonight. Nice guy, but he's kind of gullible. People do pretty much what they like when he's on. For example, you say you have to test each other for French or something and he lets you go up to the dorm or in the Common Room for most of Prep. When he catches you in the wrong dorm after lights out you just put your arm around someone and say they're upset and you have to talk to them.

Last week he caught Sophie having a smoke in the Drying Room and Sophie told him her grandmother had cancer and she was so upset she'd had to have a cigarette.

We're having a Talent Quest tonight, just Year 9s, and everyone has to go in costume and do something. Cathy, Trace, Sophie and I are going as strippers and singing ‘In a Bar in Alaska'. Should be a bit of a cack. Rikki Martin's staying in our dorm, 'cos her parents are away—she's sleeping in Marina's bed. (Marina's still in Sick Bay). Rikki and Emma are singing this version of ‘Jailhouse Rock' in Japanese. I can't wait to hear it.

I had another letter from Peter today. He's getting serious. He sent a photo—I stuck it over my desk. He wants one of me. There's one Kate took a while ago, when we were waiting for the bus to go downtown, that's not as ugly as most of them—I might send him that.

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PRIL
12

Went to see Marina again this afternoon after Rowing. There was a thunderstorm about 3.30 and it was too dangerous to go on the water, so we worked out in the Gym and ran a crossie. That meant we finished early.

This Saturday's the Riverside Gold Cup Regatta, then the CMC Invitation, then the State titles on the 29th. It's getting close. I'm nervous already. It must be bad being in the Firsts—imagine what they'd be going through. They're undefeated this season, which would make it harder in a way.

I think I can hold my place in the Thirds. Dad said he'd be coming Saturday. I don't care if he does or not. He thinks I'm still in the Fourths. I never bothered to tell him I'd gone up.

Marina looked OK, a bit better even. She'd hardly eaten any of the tuck I left her—just an Aero Bar. It's depressing seeing her like that.

It's hard to concentrate at the moment—Kate and Soph are having the most ginormous bitch fight. It's over this party in the holidays that Soph's going to—some guys from St Patrick's are having it. Soph said she'd get Kate an invitation but she hasn't done anything about it, and Kate thinks that's deliberate. It's more likely to be Soph being slack, but Kate's raging like a buffalo on heat. Here's how they talk—if I can get it down fast enough:

And so it goes on. Just a typical scene from Dorm B folks!

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PRIL
13

Dad rang again tonight, said he'll have me for the last week of the holidays. I can tell he's still feeling guilty about Hawaii. Not half as bad as I feel though.

Prep's ended and nearly everyone's rushed off to catch today's episode of ‘Those Around Us'. Cathy and I are the only ones left here. Marina's still in Sick Bay—I took her over a couple of tapes tonight.

We've hardly any Prep all week, then tonight we suddenly got heaps. A page and a half of Maths, a whole chapter of Science, three ‘mini essays' in History, and a chapter of ‘Lord of the Flies' for English. I'll read ‘Lord of the Flies' in bed, which is where I'm now going.

A
PRIL
14

Mr Journal, the funny thing about chocolate is that the less I eat it myself, the more I like to see other people eat it. I'm always telling them to stuff more into their gobs. I give away practically all my own supplies. I have a chocolate calendar on my desk and a chocolate poster above my bed. But I haven't had any myself for about three weeks.

I've been sitting here reading Cathy's Journal tonight. She said I could. God it's different from mine. She writes so beautifully, and she decorates it and stuff like that. She writes about so many things—not just school, but home and about her family and how she misses them, and about things like ozone and Greenpeace and dolphins. I think those things are important too but I don't seem to write about them. This place sort of fills up your mind: being here 24 hours a day you don't seem to notice much that's happening in the outside world.

The number one leisure time activity here is gossip.

Cathy writes how she feels about things, too. It's honest. She wrote quite a lot about me. She said I'm a sort of a leader—people expect me to take charge of things, and they listen when I give an opinion. That all surprised me, but it pleased me too. She also said I'm too reserved—that I never tell anyone what I'm really feeling, and I make it hard for people to get to know me. I suppose that's like what Tracey said a while back. It's true. It's hard though. That's the way our family is. I'd never know how Chloe felt about the divorce, or ‘Connewarre', or even getting dumped over the week in Hawaii. I'm a bit scared to say how I feel about all those things. I mean, I can say I feel bad about losing ‘Connewarre', but that doesn't say anything. There was that night in the Dorm—that's the only time I opened up at all, and that was partly to show Trace that I could. I don't know whether that was a good thing to have done, or not. I suppose it was. Well, I know it was. Cathy wrote about that in her Journal. I was moved by what she said. She does care about people. I don't know if I do. I think I'm really hard. I don't know if there's anyone I love. It's frightening to say that. I know I should love my parents and my sister and my friends, but I don't think I do. After I'd been here two months last year we had the Easter break, and I went to my father's flat at South Mandrill. After I'd been there a couple of days I did something terrible, something so awful I've never been able to tell anyone. I can't, even now. The funny thing was that no-one even noticed—that was the one thing I hadn't bargained on. Life's a tricky business. It's like Sophie and her bad habit of short-sheeting beds. Every night when you check the bed, expecting that she's short-sheeted it, she hasn't, and the one night you forget and jump in, she has.

Since those first few months of last year I've changed a lot, I think. My life seems to be in a slow spin. I don't think I'm going to be the kind of adult I dreamed of being when I was a kid. I envy the way Cathy writes. If I could say what I wanted to, about losing ‘Connewarre', if I could bring it out of myself in words, this paper would be buried under the weight of it. For quite a while I wouldn't believe it had been sold—when Chloe tried to talk about it, I changed the subject, and when people at school asked where I lived, I told them it was ‘Conne'. I still kid myself I live there sometimes. I tried to talk Dad into buying it back—I offered dumb things, like giving up my pocket money, or leaving school and getting a job. See, he says he can't afford it. But I think the fees here would pay for a couple of paddocks at least. I can't see why he didn't try to share farm it, or lease it, or even sell some and keep the rest.

At least I can write about ‘Conne'. The other things I can't write about at all. It's late and I'll have to go to bed in a minute. I don't particularly want to, and I don't know if I'll sleep much, but I've got to try, with the Regatta tomorrow. God I hope we win.

A
PRIL
16

Dearest Diary, this is what happened. The weather was beautiful, the water was smooth, the wind was down. We drew lane one, which everyone said was the fastest. With everything going so perfectly I knew I'd catch a crab and fall out of the boat in the first hundred metres. We got an OK start, not as good as University, but not too bad. They had a length on us at the 600 and I was getting worried, but we were long and strong, rating 28, and c, c and c (cool, calm and collected). It was so different from the Fourths, where by this stage Rebecca would be screaming at Kate, I'd be screaming at Rebecca, and Myra would be screaming at all of us. But this time we did ten hard through the bridge and came out the other side just in front, then fought them all the way to the finish. It was great. We had so much power, rating 32 and storming home like seals on steroids. Warrington first, University second, Girls Grammar third and the water foamed around us like champagne.

A
PRIL
17

Tonight I thought I'd do something different and write about someone else. So this is my attempt to describe Sophie. Firstly, I've got to say that Sophie is incredibly funny. She's also wild, uncontrollable, unpredictable, noisy and impossible to live with. She's pretty—she's cut her hair short at the moment and she looks fantastic—and I love her voice. It's so husky, like a boy's when it's breaking. She doesn't like me very much—she thinks I'm bossy—but I can hack that. It's because she likes everything how she wants it anyway. She loves to be the centre of attention. She could be so smart if she worked, but she doesn't strain her brain—she's always telling Cathy she hates the way Cathy ‘analyses' everything. Soph's got the concentration span of a Barbie doll.

Her best friend and worst enemy is Kate.

What I like about Sophie is that even in the middle of the biggest fight or the worst depression she always stops to laugh at herself, at the way she's going on. She always says ‘Oh well' when she realises she's not acting very logically. For instance, she'll be ripping into Kate for getting us yet another extra Inspection because Kate wasn't ready on time, and Soph'll be burning up about it, and she'll say: ‘And this is the second time this week we've had a 6.30 Inspection! And who got us the last one? Oh, it was me wasn't it? Oh well.' But that doesn't stop her—then she'll say, in a voice like a teacher. ‘Anyway Kate, I just think you should have more consideration for other people', and we all crack up, but I honestly don't know if she's serious or not when she puts on that voice.