Fury (9 page)

“If that is all then I am going to my room,” I said and went to stand up.

“Nuh-uh. Sit down.”

I sighed loudly.

“Lets have a little grown-up chat.”

My mother leaned in closer to me so that I could see her pretty green eyes and smell the alcohol on her breath.

“If I recall correctly, I had a conversation with your principal just last week, y’know, about that naughty thing you did? He asked me what punishment we should give you. I told him to sort it out himself. After all, why else am I paying him thousands of dollars?”

“That’s right, I had to do a week of canteen duty with Mrs Wally. Mummy, it was so horr—”

“It’s too late to try and
Mummy
me. As I was saying, I left the punishment to Principal Hollerings, but now I think I’ve changed my mind.”

“What?”

“I am punishing you right now,
Eliza Roberta Boans.
You are effectively banned from attending the end-of-school ball. Okay, that’s it. You can go running off to your room now.”

“What? No! You can’t! Marianne is the head of the Ball Committee and Lexi is going to be Belle of the Ball—they’re my best friends and I have to be there for them, you don’t—”

“I said
that’s it.
You wanted a bit of law and order and now you got it. This matter is non-negotiable.”

My mother relaxed into the couch and took another sip of wine.

“Fine!” I said to her as my parting words. “If you want to be vindictive instead of fair then do it! Go ahead and punish me for telling the truth!”

I grab a random white box off the dining table as I stormed across the hall toward the staircase. I may have been full of anger, but my stomach was empty. And dinner smelt excruciatingly good.

At the top of the staircase, I watched my mother. With the glass of red wine still in her hand, she steered herself toward her briefcase, grabbed a fist full of papers and went back to the living room. There on the couch, she drank her wine and worked. That is my mother’s way of coping.

I remembered the first time I heard my parents arguing. As a five-year-old, standing where I was right now. That’s when my mother started drinking. That’s when dad started coming home less, until one day he never came back at all.

He said to her, “You know I’m not so much her father as you are her mother.”

Huh. If only Dad had tried a little harder, maybe I would be with him instead of stuck here. If only my mother hadn’t been a bitch and driven him away and left him with no choice when he had done nothing. But now that my father has that new wife and new family in America, I guess that’s all ancient history. There’s no point wallowing or even thinking about it.

Up in my room I could see my beloved ocean; I was the tallest thing in East Rivermoor. I thought about how I only needed to jump out one of the windows to be free. From that height I would break every bone in my body. It made me feel better.

The box turned out to be teriyaki chicken. There was no rice and no chopsticks, but I didn’t care. I ate it with my fingers sitting on the window ledge, contemplating, well, life. Letting the breeze freeze away the feeling on my face.

I loathed the idea of having to speak to my mother the following day, but she made it easy for both of us. She went to stay in a hotel in the city for a week. She said she was working on a difficult case and needed to be close to work, but we both knew she was only telling half the truth. After she came back, we had both cooled down and gotten over it. Not that I see much of her anyway, even when she is home.

I wake up in the doctor’s office at the station. My eyes flicker open and I pull myself off the disgusting brown velour couch. It is dawn; I can still see the faint outline of the moon outside the barred window; it chills me to the bone.

The sound of a throat clearing makes me turn around. The door on the cheap cupboard behind me is open. Dr Fadden is standing in the middle of the dark office in fresh clothes, putting on a tie. Or should I say,
trying
to put on a tie.

“Here, let me do that,” I say and I brush his hands aside. I have to stand on my tippy-toes, and it’s hard trying to keep balanced when you’ve just woken up and had, like,
carbs
for dinner, but my handiwork is perfect. Just like my so-called-life.

“See? Interest in fashion is good for something. I reckon I’ll make a decent enough wife for someone one day.”

“Thanks,” Dr Fadden replies, sounding somewhat unconvinced.

“Just look at you. Don’t you look great when you put in a little effort?”

He doesn’t reply. I fiddle with his tie nervously.

“You look like my friend Neil,” I blurt out. I instantly regret it.

I watch as Dr Fadden’s fingers move across the desk to where his leather notebook is lying open. The flickering computer screen lights his face and out of the shadows he no longer looks like anything but another person who would let me down.

I turn my back on him and rip off the gross trench coat. Underneath the dried blood on my blouse has turned almost black.

Afterwards, when we all went back to my house, all I remember is crawling into bed. I didn’t want to shower. All I cared about was Lexi. She lay next to me sleeping so peacefully. I remembered the time when Lexi couldn’t wait to wash the evidence off her; this time she wanted to wear it.
Like a battle scar. Like a trophy.

“So why are you all dressed up? Are you going on a lunch date?”

“I am going to meet your mother,” Dr Fadden says flatly.

“Oh.” I purse my lips. “Why’s that? So you can bitch behind my back? So she can confirm what you already know about me? That I’m difficult, stubborn and completely unreasonable?”

“Your words, not mine,” Dr Fadden replies. “Let’s go.”

He ushers me out and down the hall. Unfortunately halfway down the stairwell, we come face to face with Dr Fadden’s porn-stached boss.

“Fadden!” growls the chief, but he looks at me instead.

“I’m just taking her back to the questioning room, sir.”

“I was under the impression that her holding cell and the questioning room are on the same floor?”

Dr Fadden’s face gives nothing away. I look at him eagerly to see how he gets out of this one.

“We came from my office upstairs. Now if you’ll excuse me.”

“Why is this girl still wearing the
evidence?
Get the clothing bagged now! Fadden, if I find your incompetence has contaminated the evidence, I’m going to send you straight back to the pseudo-voodoo-sciences you came from.”

“
Hello,”
I emphasise. “I’m here you know. And what am I supposed to wear instead? I don’t really want to change into something
generic.”

The chief leers at me. “You want to know what I think? I think you need to be shown how to shut that little mouth of yours. If there’s no available clothes I don’t care if I have to throw you naked into a cell.”

I push past him and run down the stairs. On the landing, under the green exit sign, I stop. I wait patiently for Dr Fadden to catch up. Then I vomit.

“What’s the matter?” asks Dr Fadden. He puts his hand on my shoulder.

“Nothing,” I say and I push away his touch. I look at the expression on his face. He’s trying to do it again.
Know
me.

“What are you staring at? Are you going to write this down in your book as well?”

“Let’s get you out of here,” he replies. “I’ll get the cleaners later.” He pushes open the exit door and we both stumble out.

I wrap my arms around me. I am wearing my school uniform for godsake. Not some slutty outfit. Why then do I feel that he has gone right under my skin?

First I start to feel cold. I shiver and my teeth start to chatter. Then I find that I can’t breathe. I feel like I am going to die.

Dr Fadden looks into my face. Then he strips off his jacket and throws it over my shoulders.

He hurries me down the hallway. We reach the questioning room and Dr Fadden pushes me onto a chair.

“I think I’m going to die,” I gasp.

Great.
Wouldn’t they just love if I died right now?

“You are not going to die,” replies Dr Fadden. “You are just having a panic attack. Put your head down between your knees.”

“Put my what
where?”

“Just do it.”

After a while, from somewhere between my knees, I say, “I thought I’m supposed to breathe into a paper bag.”

“Does it look like I have a paper bag?” comes the response.

I lift my head slowly back up. “I think I feel better now,” I say.

“That’s good—”

I go to take his jacket off. He stops me.

“Eliza, tell me about what happened just then.”

“I vomited. Is that a crime?”

“I think something hit a nerve just then, in that stairwell with Chief Bullen. Tell me about it.”

I’m tired. I’ve been here for such a long time.

Holding cell, questioning room, holding cell, questioning room, lawyer knocking, mother knocking, questioning room, the chief—

I’m so tired, here in my head.

“You have spoken a lot, Eliza. But you haven’t told me a single thing.”

I look away from him. He’s getting too bright to look at. Kind of glowing with a rainbow halo. Maybe he’s an Angel
after all, here to judge me and then send me to Hell. He’s so distant, all fuzzy around the edges. Yet so close, his jacket wrapped around me.

“Eliza, I’m the only person you haven’t turned away since you got here. Please, open up to me. I know you want to talk to someone. Can’t you make that someone me?”

Dr Fadden.
Brian.
The only person who has been kind to me. Doesn’t act like a pervert, took me out for dinner, let me sleep in his office. Lent me his jacket when I got cold. Dr Fadden who is kinda mean, come to think of it. Who makes fun of me at my expense; who is only doing his job, getting paid, trying to prove something to his boss. Who asked me why I think I vomited.

“Don’t you have to be somewhere with my mum?”

“That can wait.”

“Good. She would stand you up for at least an hour anyway. Someone should stand her up for once.”

I think I have reached the middle of me, my hard stone pit. It might have just left me nowhere else to go.

“Eliza, tell me about Alexandria.”

Why do we have to do this again? I have already told him about Lexi. How Lexi once lived on diet coke. I thought she was stupid to think “diet” meant it would make her skinny. But Lexi told me that in her head she imagined it coursing through her body, her bones slowly corroding and collapsing into her bloodstream, being carried away like waves carrying pieces of a cliff back to the sea. Then someone
told her diet coke was carcinogenic and she freaked out over
that.

That is Lexi, I wanted to tell him. That is such a totally Lexi thing.

But Dr Fadden doesn’t want to hear stuff like this because he doesn’t care about the person she is. He just wants to know about the person he thinks is a cold-hearted killer.

“I told you, it’s not Lexi’s fault. If you found her fingerprints on the knife it’s because she was trying to shove it away from her! Why did you let Ella go, Ella has as much to answer for as—”

“Eliza, listen to me. I
know
about what happened to Alexandria. Talk to me, Eliza. You know I will understand and that I will do something about it.”

I start panicking because the rainbow glints and the fuzzy corners I’d been seeing around Dr Fadden suddenly collapse. It takes me a while to realise that tears are falling down my face. Yes, Eliza Boans is bawling her eyes out.
I know.
I was, like, totally not expecting it either.

A white handkerchief swims in front of me. An embroidered letter ‘B’ is attached to that handkerchief which is attached to the hand of Dr Fadden. I take it and blow my nose.

The doctor comes over to my side and hugs me.

Oh. WTF Brian? That is so … that’s nice, actually.

It’s not even like Lexi was wearing a slutty dress. Like when Tori said that she dared to wear a slinky red thing. Lexi wore blue jeans and a nice black top that had little black sequins. Sure, it had spaghetti-straps, but hey, it was a hot spring night. And there was me wearing a top that had no sleeves at all. It was me who was even wearing a push-up bra. Not Lexi. And I was safe. I was fine.

“It is not about Ella, is it Eliza?” asks Dr Fadden. His voice is not hard or sarcastic. If I didn’t know better I would have mistaken it for understanding, and I would have gladly taken it.

Dr Fadden wants me to tell a short story. But it’s not that easy. If I just point my finger and shoot down each of my friends in turn, I would make them criminals. These girls are not faceless scum that can just be thrown away. They are my friends and they have blood running through their veins. Just like I have blood in my veins enough to love them.

“Why don’t you tell me a bit about yourself, Eliza?”

“It was me,” I reply. “It’s true. It was all my fault.”

“Guess what? The school library has burnt down,” said Lexi.

“You’ve got to be joking! How come I haven’t heard anything about it?”

I took out my copy of
Pride & Prejudice
and placed it in the middle of the desk, same equal distances between the two of us as I’ve been doing, for like,
always.

“I correct myself—the library is, as we speak—in the process of burning down.”

“How can the library burn down? Isn’t it made out of metal and glass?”

“Honey, the library is full of highly flammable objects,” replied Lexi. “Maybe you’ve even heard of them. They’re called books?”

I ignored her. “Who told you this?”

“They did,” replied Lexi. Marianne and Neil walked through the door at that moment, ushered in by our English teacher.

“Morning, lovely people,” announced Mr Steele. “As you
may
have heard, the library is currently on fire. We have two guests in our class today. Unfortunately their teacher, Professor McFarlane, was deep in the bowels of the library retrieving an ancient and very valuable periodic table when the accident occurred, so he is currently being treated for smoke inhalation. Not to worry. Professor McFarlane, as those close to him—or those that fear him—”

Knowing laughter rippled nervously through the class.

“—may know, is a lot tougher than to let a mere puff of smoke get the better of him. I have agreed to let his small class, who are incidentally both my students in the next period, sit in for a double class of English Lit. So suffer to them!”

The class laughed again. Marianne looked mad, then embarrassed. She pushed me to the side and I watched, unimpressed, as she deposited my bag onto the floor and parked herself on the spare seat instead.

Lexi and I sit on adjoining desks right at the front of the class, butting onto Mr Steele’s desk. We’ve always sat here. I was not ashamed to admit that I loved English Lit. And I knew that I was one of Mr Steele’s favourites, so even better.

Neil made a “V” sign in the air to a round of applause, as he headed up to the back of the class. He’s recognised his blond jock friend, Alistair Aardant. If Neil thought he was a rock star, then he’s the skinniest rock star I have ever seen, with no ass to speak of whatsoever.

On my right, Lexi had draped herself over the back of my chair and pretended to look at Neil while she checked out Aardant. I’d heard rumours that Aardant might be Beau of the Ball this year, so maybe she was hoping he would ask her to be his partner—rather than, say, his
girlfriend.

“I don’t know what Neil and Aardant see in each other.” I realised too late I wasn’t just speaking in my head.

“Alistair will always be Neil’s best boy-next-door even though Alistair’s parents moved house, like, ten years ago,” said Lexi and she grinned. “What? Jealous much?”

“Grossed out much,” I replied. “I heard a rumour they regularly hang out together in Aardant’s room writing emo poetry.”

Lexi’s face went all dreamy as if she was imaging Aardant writing emo poetry for her, so I made a face and left her at it.

“Okay class, please,” instructed Mr Steele. “Let’s get back to the learning at hand.”

“Can we go see the fire, sir?” piped up a voice from the back. I turned my head around, as did most of the class. It belonged to the guy sitting on the other side of Neil. What’s-his-face with the black hair and boots, who thinks he’s some sort of Punk or Goth or whatever. He just looked like a giant spider to me.

“No, we cannot
go and see the fire.
It is not some spectacle for you to enjoy.”

“But sir, shouldn’t we go and see if they need any help?”

“With what exactly? With your massive muscles, Mr Gauntly?” replied Mr Steele, pulling his shoulders into a dramatic shrug. “They do have people helping right this instant—they’re called fire fighters.”

“What if we need to be evacuated? We could be in danger, sir.”

“We are not in danger,” sighed Mr Steele as he locked his hands behind him. “The library, must I remind you, is isolated on the other side of the school lake. Now, in the unlikely event that the fire somehow manages to burn itself across half a kilometre of water, I am sure we will be alerted.”

“But sir—”

“Oh, Gauntly, why don’t you just shut up? Let’s just get on with the class!”

Marianne and Lexi both turned to face me. Mr Steele turned to face me. The whole class turned to face me. I realised, with a strange burning sensation, that it was me who had spoken.

A black look crossed Gauntly’s face. His lip curled into a snarl.

“Settle down, teacher’s pet,” he spat. “Do you hear me, you stuck-up lot sitting at the front? Little cheerleaders putting on a routine.”