The Ongoing Reformation of Micah Johnson (3 page)

“It’s so sweet!” Emma protested.

“Seriously, Dec, we’re teenagers, and we’re meant to like sweet shit, but that stuff’s rank.”

“You guys are giving me grief about milkshakes?”

“Blue heaven definitely isn’t going to bring all the boys to your yard,” Emma said.

Dec grinned. “I already have a boy that I’m perfectly happy with, thank you very much.”

“That’s even more sickly sweet than a blue heaven milkshake.” Micah got to his feet, his chair making a horrid screeching sound against the tiled floor. “Unless maybe you’re a secret Carlton fan?”

“Oi! I was a Devils and Bombers player, remember?”

“Not everyone gets to play for the team they support!” Micah pointed out. “I probably won’t play for the Saints, will I?”

He went to the counter to order more drinks but was still close enough to eavesdrop on Dec and Emma.

“He’s worried about the draft already, isn’t he?” Dec asked Emma.

“He doesn’t want to leave Melbourne.”

“Nobody wants to leave their state. I didn’t. The first time, anyway. I was glad to leave Melbourne for Tassie when I did.”

“Why?”

“Long story,” Dec said. “But you probably read it in the book.”

“What, the hatchet job by Greg Heyward and Jasper Brunswick?”

“The very one.”

“I never read it. And never will.”

“Your loyalty touches me.”

“But it sounds like you’re worried about Micah and the draft too,” Emma said.

“I worry about all of you. I bet you’re starting to think about maybe having to move to Canberra.”

“Not yet,” Micah heard Emma lie. He knew her well enough to know when she was faking it.

It wasn’t lost on Dec, either. “We’ll talk about it later.”

When Micah returned with the sick-inducing blue concoction that Dec would guzzle down with barely restrained glee, they moved on to other subjects. It didn’t mean that any of them weren’t still dwelling on the fact their futures were in flux. Well, Declan’s future seemed to be pretty secure, as far as his protégés knew anyway, but he was worrying enough for the pair of them.

And they were happy to let him do that for the moment.

MICAH DIDN’T
tell his parents about the drama of the talk he gave that day, but he didn’t feel like he was keeping anything from them. Although it was hard to break the habit of a lifetime, he had decided he would tell them about the really big things that bothered him—and in the scheme of things, the uptight nature of one school principal didn’t bother him much.

He managed to sleep through the night, even though he had tossed and turned for ages before finally dozing off. For all his bravado, he was not looking forward to school the next day. And it came far quicker than he wanted it to.

“You’re looking a bit off colour,” his father said as he stomped through the kitchen to grab some toast.

“Rick!” his mother chided him, but frowned when she looked at Micah more carefully. “Actually, you don’t look well. Are you feeling sick?”

“I’m goodo,” Micah said, throwing bread into the toaster.

“I’m so reassured,” Rick said.

Joanne gave a small laugh. His little brother Alex, five years younger but forty years more mature, sat watching them solemnly.

It warmed Micah’s heart a little to see his parents relaxing enough around him to start giving him shit again. When he had been “retrieved” from Lorne by Simon and Dec after his short time as a runaway, they had walked on eggshells around him, as if the next time they did anything except be
Super Concerned and Super Supportive Parental Units
, he would be on the next bus out of Melbourne looking for greener pastures.

“We’re almost out of Vegemite,” he told them, frowning at the jar before scraping the remnants on his toast.

“Blame your brother,” Joanne said. “He spreads it on like a brick.”

“I do not!” Alex protested. “I just like it a little thicker than most people.”

Micah felt the urge to make an “ooh, that’s what she said!” crack, but resisted it. You had to pick your audience, and after all, Alex
was
only eleven. He was proud of himself for being so mature.

As their parents left the room to finish getting ready for work, Micah sat down across from Alex at the island bench. “So, what’s new?”

Alex regarded him suspiciously. “Nothing. Why?”

“Just being brotherly.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Don’t be such a little prick. I’m trying to be nice.”

“Last time you tried to be nice to me you
accidentally
,” and here Alex employed rather professional air quotes, “set my Hawthorn cards on fire.”

“I was just trying to save you from the shame of being a Hawthorn supporter.”

“If I supported Richmond, I’d understand. But Hawthorn’s not that bad. I mean, we’ve at least won a premiership lately.”

“Ooh, burn! You know what they say, every dog has its day.”

“Hawthorn had two back-to-back, remember? When was the last time St. Kilda won? Oh, I think it was 1966!”

“You’re awfully precocious for an eleven-year-old.”

“I don’t know what that means,” Alex said.

“It means you’re a shit. And you’re lying. Believe me, it takes one to know one.”

“Are you saying I’m a shit? Or a liar?”

“Both. I know you, of all people, know what ‘precocious’ means.”

Alex grinned. “I just didn’t want to make you feel bad by showing you how smart I am. Again.”

“See, isn’t this nice?” Micah asked. “We’re bonding!”

“I guess so. So you’ve finally forgiven me for dobbing on you when you ran away?”

“Honestly, you did me a favour, you little nark.”

Alex grinned. “I thought so. That’s why I told Simon where to find you. I guess I
must
be precocious.”

“Maybe it’s time to learn a new word.”

“Okay, I’m brilliant.”

“Ugh, you
are
a precocious shit.”

They munched in comfortable silence until Micah’s phone pinged with a Facebook alert.

Instantly his face was warm but the rest of his body was freezing cold.

He had lied to himself earlier.

There
were
big things he was keeping from his family. To stop them from their constant worrying over him.

He dreaded looking at his phone, but he didn’t want Alex to know he was avoiding it. He wanted his family, Dec, Emma,
whoever
, to think that he was back in control of his own life.

And that he was fine.

But he wasn’t. He hadn’t been.

It was his anonymous friend contacting him again. And just one word, burning the screen.

FAGGOT!!!

THREE
EXCLAMATION
marks. Whoever they were, they must really have it in for him. Overuse of punctuation was a sure sign of an unhinged mind, right?

Micah wandered the school halls aimlessly, noting with some irritation that most people immediately dropped eye contact with him if he happened to catch them looking. Scared of catching the gay, most likely.

He couldn’t believe this was happening again. Seriously, he had spent the previous day at a school that was
desperate
to start a gay-straight alliance, and yet the two schools he had been to in the past six months were full of homophobes and closet cases passing as homophobes. Could he convince his parents he needed a third go at finding a school that wouldn’t gladly throw him to the wolves?

Maybe if he talked to Dec first—his parents listened to anything Dec said. But Micah had other things to worry about right now. He had to get through this day first.

And the whole school body couldn’t be against him. There were some kids who still talked to him normally, but the only one who treated him like a proper friend rather than an acquaintance or relation one was forced to spend time with was Carl.

Poor Carl had to, as he was one of Emma’s many cousins. He was staring into his locker as if it held the secrets of the universe when Micah sidled up to him.

“Hey,” Micah said.

“Oh fuck, what’s wrong?”

“How did you know something was wrong?”

“The doom-laden tone.”

“Oh.” Micah frowned. He wasn’t pretending as hard as he thought he was, obviously. “Just some shit going down on Facebook.”

“Yeah?”

“Just a secret admirer. Telling me not to come to training today. And calling me the nicest of names.”

“So they’re dumb as well as homophobic?” Carl scoffed. He stared back into his locker. “But then, I guess they
are
footballers.”

“Hey!”

“Oh,” Carl said quickly, pushing his glasses back up his nose as he studied Micah again. “Present company excepted. I mean, that goes without saying, right?”

“What a save,” Micah said drily. “Anyway, what are you looking for?”

“I thought I’d left my calculator in here. Guess I was wrong.”

“Just use your phone.”

Carl rolled his eyes. “Yes, because my phone’s calculator can do everything my scientific one can.”

“You’re talking to the wrong person. Mine has a thick layer of dust on the plastic packet it came in.”

“What was it I said about footballers earlier?”

Micah opened his mouth to retort, but Carl was shoved from behind as Harley Buxton “accidentally” stumbled into him.

“Sorry, Johnson! Didn’t mean to knock your boyfriend! That is your boyfriend, right?”

Micah made a move to go after him, but Carl held him back.

“Hey. Harley!” Carl yelled.

When Harley turned around, Carl gave him the finger. “I should be so lucky!”

Harley shook his head in disgust but continued down the hall.

Micah smiled, the last thing he thought he would be doing in school today when he received the Facebook message. “Carl, Carl, Carl. Quoting Kylie Minogue. Are you sure you’re straight?”

“I’d rather
do
Kylie than emulate her,” Carl said.

“Sexist pig.” But he was strangely humbled by Carl’s quick defence of him. He
did
have one true ally in the school. Even Carl’s friends tried to have as little to do with Micah as possible and wondered why Carl bothered.

“Made you laugh, though.”

“Mission accomplished. Thanks.”

“What for?”

“For just talking to me. I know Emma probably makes you do it, but—”

Carl’s smile faltered. “You think I talk to you because Emma makes me?”

“Well, I mean, she probably told you about me—”

“Hey, Emma doesn’t tell me what to do. But I would be a fucking hypocrite if I had a gay cousin who I worship, but I ignore the other gay kid I know just because the rest of the school are being shitheads.”

It seemed like Micah was always putting his foot in his mouth. “Oh.”

“Emma, however,
did
tell me you tend to self-sabotage so you can feel justified when people don’t like you.”

Ouch.
“She didn’t tell you to be nice to me, but she psychoanalysed me with you?”

“That’s what Emma does.”

“And you worship her, huh?”

Carl flushed. “Okay, she told me to say I worshipped her. That’s the one thing I had to.”

Micah doubted that. Emma Goldsworthy was easy to worship. There would probably be a statue of her in Melbourne someday. Brandishing her hockey stick like Braveheart and ready to unleash hell.

“She’s okay for a cousin, though,” Carl said.

Micah still didn’t feel totally convinced. “Can I just ask one thing?”

“If you have to.”

“If Emma wasn’t gay, would you still go out of your way to help the other gay kid at school?”

To his credit, Carl actually thought about it for a minute. “I would like to say I would, but isn’t that kind of the point? They always say it’s hard to hate something or someone when you have a personal involvement.”

“Some people are just fine doing it. Otherwise there would never be any gay kids being thrown out of home.”

“True.”

“Or if they especially fear showering with the gay after a game.”

Carl gave him a sad smile, even though—as a straight nerd—he probably hadn’t any experience with what Micah was getting at. “I wish I could help you with that, but I don’t know.”

“It’s okay. It’s not up to you to solve.”

“See you at lunch?”

“Sure.” Although he didn’t say so, lunch was truly the highlight of Micah’s day lately. It was the one time he didn’t feel alone in school. Even with Carl’s friends usually staring daggers at him across the table.

MICAH PASSED
the rest of the day in a blur. For the most part, the rest of his fellow students just tended to ignore him rather than single him out for punishment. There were only a few—boys, always boys—who wanted the queer to make sure he knew the pecking order and his place in it. They were smart too. They knew not to do it too often around the girls. Girls were generally more tolerant, and the boys wanted to stay on their good side. So Micah kept their little secret just by being quiet about it. In the long run, it really wasn’t worth it. There wasn’t even a year left to go of school—it would all be over come the end of exams in November.

It was possible he was the least popular jock who ever existed in high school. Somewhere there existed an alternate universe where Straight Micah Johnson was the king of the school, with a team who worshipped him as their captain and a girlfriend who couldn’t keep her hands off him.

The thought amused Micah.

After the day ended, he raced to the change rooms so he could get into his footy gear before anybody else showed up and made an issue out of him being in there. He was already on the field practicing some kicks when the rest of the team started joining him. Not that they
joined
him: they made it perfectly clear by standing apart from him. The distance could have been measured in kilometres.

If their coach, Dale Howard, noticed the physical isolation Micah endured between plays, he didn’t say anything. He seemed to think the best way to deal with Micah was just to treat him as some unknowable and untouchable object that, although irksome, actually made his team better. But he didn’t mind giving him hell when Micah’s other football commitments, especially when it came to the semiprofessional league and the upcoming draft, clashed with the school football team.