Have You Seen Ally Queen? (14 page)

‘Blabber!’ I call out.

‘Aren’t you going to give me a note from school about it, or something? Presumably, students
do
still have to get their parents’ permission before they can run amok.’

I pretend to concentrate on my homework. ‘Yeah, but I lost it.’

‘Was it the dog?’

I look at him with my
yeah, funny
look. ‘Do we have a dog, Dad?’

‘Well, bring another note home from school
tomorrow and I’ll sign it—if you want to go, that is.’

‘I don’t give a toss about school camp,’ I say. Except that Rel’s going. ‘It sounds boring. They’re pretty poxy, normally.’

Dad spins his mug around and around on the spot for so long that the sky shifts a few notches of blue before he finally speaks. ‘I think you should go—just for a break. Things haven’t been ... much fun around here lately. Go on, Ally. It’s only a few days, in any case.’

‘But what about you and Jerry?’

‘What about us?’

‘Will you be ... okay?’

Dad laughs. ‘Ally! Who does the best barbies this side of the Equator?’

‘Yeah ... you do,’ I mumble. He really does do a mean barbie, even if he can’t do a risotto to save his life.

‘So what’s the problem? Jez and I’ll have heaps of fun, just the boys, won’t we, Jez? Bring the note home and I’ll sign it and write you a cheque, or whatever. Okay?’

‘It’s not too ... expensive?’

Dad does a double-take. ‘Expensive? Ally, no, it’s not. Don’t you give that side of things another thought.’ He leans forward. ‘I’d love you to go. Bring the note home, okay?’

Jerry walks back in looking ridiculously innocent. I direct my reply to him, even though he pretends not to notice.
‘May
be,’ I say, but something rushes in my stomach.

I can’t sleep. I open my door as quietly as I can, trying to lift it on its hinges slightly to stop the groan it does midway. Doesn’t make any difference. There’s light glowing from under the shed door, like a scene from
CSI.
I squint at my watch for the longest time before I can actually see it: 2.30 am. Psycho hour.

I tap Dad’s door and push my head in. He’s
writing.
He’s at one of his workbenches, with a vice in the way, a power drill next to his elbow and wood shavings all over the joint. I’m telling you, Dad never writes anything, except
tea
or
cheese
on the shopping list, so this is unusual, to say the least.

‘I’d get told off if I did my homework at a desk like that,’ I whisper, trying to grin but knowing this is all part of our life at the moment, all this odd nocturnal activity.

He swings around, reaches out an arm to me. I feel like I’m about five again, and want to go and sit on his lap, sit quietly, just be with him while he goes on with
what he was doing. But I can’t, because I’m fifteen, and so I shuffle over there blearily and lean against his chair instead.

‘Whatcha doin?’

‘Not much,’ he sighs. ‘Can’t sleep?’

‘Nup.’

He looks tired. His face is kind of slack.

I’m embarrassed, but I manage, ‘Wanna hug?’

He reaches over and squeezes me to him. My arms are pinned down against my sides, so I can’t hug him back, but I just press into him instead.

‘There might be a good sky tonight,’ he says, letting me go. His voice sounds funny. ‘Let’s go and get some fresh air, hey?’

He swings open the door onto the night.

It’s perfect. I love that. Windy all day, then, when no one’s around, it’s still and black and the stars are awesome. You can see the sky any night, but mostly we’re asleep then. What a waste. Standing out here, there’s something about the whole scene that makes me feel better—and Dad, too, I think—but I don’t know what it is, or how it’s working.

There’s no sound except the gravel when we move our feet, and the odd rustling in the bushes. We stay standing there for a while, Dad and me.

Rel’s Mum and I are picking mulberries, dropping the chubby black things into a big glass bowl. We’re not saying much, just moving around to the best berry positions and slowly filling that bowl. Rel’s inside, making us a mango juice.

When I’m not rustling the tree too much, I listen for the surf, that over and over sound that’s there somewhere in the background. Sometimes you don’t even notice it. One thing I’ve decided I do like about being down here is that you can’t hear any cars where we live. Only the beach, the wind, the birds.

Mrs Anderson breaks into my thoughts.

‘So, are you going on this camp Rel’s been talking about, Alison?’

I must look about as thrilled as I feel.

‘Not that excited by it?’

‘Nah. Well, no, it’ll be okay. I don’t get into group stuff much. A lot of the kids are pretty poxy, you know.’

She seems to get what I mean, so I say, ‘But Dad really wants me to go, so I might.’

She nods slowly, plops a handful of berries in the bowl. ‘And your mum?’

I’m proud of myself: while I blanch inside, I’m a cool, smooth cucumber on the outside. ‘Well, yeah, Mum too, of course,’ I say, jumping off the chair I’ve been using. ‘They both always agree about stuff like that.’
Yeah, sure, Ally,
I think.

‘Well, Rel will be there, too. If everyone else is boring, at least you can hang out with each other.’

Man, how cool is she? It’s true—if Rel wasn’t going, I just wouldn’t go, full stop.

I’m holding the bowl of wine-dark mulberries in my lap, looking down into them. They’re hairy, like old men’s chins.

‘Where did you get all your cats from?’ I say.

She looks surprised. ‘My cats?’

I nod.

‘Well, Rel’s dad and I loved to travel when we were younger—before we had Rel, you know. I’ve always loved cats and it seemed that everywhere we went, there were groovy cats to take home as a souvenir. Then it became a kind of collection—we’d
look
for them, you know, the way people collect teapots or
stamps or butterflies. I just like cats.’

‘My mum and dad travelled a lot, too,’ I tell her. ‘In Latin America.’

She looks interested and nods and says, ‘Really? We never made it there. We decided to stop and have kids.’ She looks towards the house. ‘We’re so lucky to have Rel. The doctors didn’t think we could have any children at all, so Rellard was just a blessing.’

The clouds are thinning back, flat as the sea. They reflect on her face, or she reflects the tint of the water—I don’t know which. She looks sad but peaceful. Kind of calm. She keeps picking the mulberries. Rel makes glass-chinking noises in the kitchen.

Maybe everyone’s sad, I think, for something different.

At least he does it when no one else is around. Well, no one who counts, anyway. You’re never really on your own at school; there’s always some schmuck hanging around like a bad smell. He (Mr Tosser, er, sorry,
MrTaylor)
comes up to me and asks me to ‘drop by’ his office this arvo.

‘We can pick up where we left off last week.’

‘I’m too busy,’ I say.

‘You’ve got a double period of English in 6 and 7, haven’t you?’

How does he know this shit? What is he, the FBI?

‘I’ve spoken to Ms Carey. Come at the start of period 6,’ he says, and then he smiles and heads off down the corridor.

I’m left feeling kind of limp. My bag fairly scrapes on the ground as I walk to my locker and wonder just what I’ve done or said to deserve this guy hassling me
all the time. And this many heavy talks with mental health professionals, all of a sudden.

All through maths, I think about what I can say to Mr Taylor to get him off my back. I mean, can I just say,
Idon’t want to see you, okay? I’m not coming anymore.
Or do kids
have
to see him when they’re summoned? I wonder what Dad’d think about this, given all the other stuff that’s going down right now. He said it, the other day: things haven’t exactly been cool lately—that’s why he wants me to go on camp. I might tell him, I reckon, that this dickfeatures is on my case and I just don’t need it. He’ll know what to do.

‘Okay, Alison, I want to do some role-playing with you today, so it’s gunna be a bit more active than last week.’

Role
-playing? I did that in drama in Grade 7! That’s it, that’s
it!
I think. I can feel the blood flooding into my face and I just wanna let rip at this guy.

I push my chair back, way back—it slides right back into his door. ‘There’s no
way
I’m doing role-playing with you. I don’t even know what I’m doing here and I definitely don’t want to
be
here, okay?’

I pick up my bag. These deep-and-meaningful doctor types are like vultures, just waiting for people
like me to trip up, and then
boom,
they’re there, picking over the scraps. ‘I’m going back to class.’

‘Okay. Fine.’

I spin back to him.
‘Fine?
If it’s
fine,
then why make me come here in the first place?’

He leans back in his chair in that patronising teacher way that makes me want to really chuck something at him.

‘The school has a counsellor to help students who are having difficulties in any areas of their lives, Alison. But I know from experience that there’s no point insisting that students come to me when they don’t want to. I’m only of use to kids who want to help themselves. That’s all.’

I can’t believe this whole thing. ‘But ... what am I meant to be helping myself
do,
exactly?’

‘Just get through a hard time.’

I nearly say WHAT
hard time?
but realise there’s no point.

I take a breath then. I don’t know how the school knows this stuff but somehow they’re on to me. It’s just that I don’t think I need professional help to
get through
this. I stop moving towards the door and turn back to him.

‘Everyone has problems, Mr Taylor—everyone,
right? I reckon we just have to get on with them, do our best. Whatever problems you think I’m having ... well, I’ll take a guess that they’re totally insignificant compared with other people’s dramas.’

‘What do you mean by that?’ he says, looking interested.

‘Well, like that Toby kid in Year 9. I’ve heard his folks punch each other up most nights. Apparently, he’s got a little brother, too—I reckon they could do with some of your help more than I could. And what about Jason, who gets the shit kicked out of him every lunchtime out on the oval?’

I’m surprised he’s not taking notes, or something. He might actually be of some use if he did.

‘Oh, don’t you know about him? Maybe you should look harder for your lost puppies, Mr Taylor. Some of us aren’t lost at all, if you really want to know.’

There’s a loud silence then.

That was possibly a tad harsh of me. A tad LAM.

‘Well, now I know, don’t I?’ He purses his lips and looks at a file on his desk. ‘I won’t interfere where I’m not needed.’

I force out, ‘Thanks for ... you know, offering. I guess I know where to come if...’ and I nod at the gap.

He nods. He looks at me. ‘Just make me a promise
that you
will
come by my office if you want to talk about
any
thing, okay? While you may not think that sitting around talking is “helping”, it really is true that just getting things off your chest can relieve a lot of pressure.’

It’s not a smile, not even nearly, but my lips pull into a straight line. I hoist my bag over my shoulder and walk out of his office for the last time. I hope.

No one escapes my mood this afternoon.

‘How did it go with Mr Taylor yesterday?’ Ms Carey asks as I’m heading out to the bus stop.