Have You Seen Ally Queen? (19 page)

‘Ally.’

The voice surprises me.

‘Rel!’ I blurt out before I realise Dad and Jerry are here in the room, listening.
Idiot.

Jerry turns around and widens his eyes at Dad. ‘It’s a
guy!’

Dad nods and makes a funny face.

I take the phone around the corner, which is as far away as I can go without losing reception here. At least they can’t see me.

‘What’s happening?’

‘Err, not much,’ I bumble, trying to breathe. ‘What about you? And why’d you call me on the
land
line?’

‘Oh, I just—I don’t have a mobile—by choice, I mean. I can’t stand them.’

Oh, God, Ally! LAM! I try to recover. ‘Oh, cool. So, anyway, what’s up?’

‘Nothing much. Just made a mulberry smoothie.’

‘A mulberry smoothie?’ The sound of it wakes up my salivary glands. I have to swallow. ‘Yum! What do you put in them?’

‘Oh, just mulberries, mainly, and some milk, yoghurt, honey, then blitz it in the blender.’

‘Aw, yum, I’m jealous,’ I laugh.

‘There’s heaps left over,’ he says. ‘I was wondering if you wanted to come over and have one?’

There’s a long, embarrassing pause when I have no idea what to say. I’d love to, but I’ve never been round to his place at
night.
Would I even be allowed? It’s a school day tomorrow. Should I say no, or ask Dad, or just say yes, or what?

‘Oh, no, I can’t, I mean, we’ve got school tomorrow and Dad’ll probably say no—’

‘I give you full permission to go,’ Dad says loudly from the kitchen, stopping the conversation again.

‘I heard that,’ says Rel. ‘See, it’s fine. Come on over.’

‘O-kay,’ I say, fuming at Dad for listening but stoked that he’s said yes. ‘Okay, I’ll get my torch and be round in a bit.’

‘Cool,’ he says. ‘I’ve got something...’ And he stops and says again, ‘Cool. I’ll see you soon.’

I sit there on the floor for a minute, not wanting to show my sunburn-red face to Dad and Jerry. I know they heard every word.

I eventually return the phone to the family room, only to find both of them grinning like little kids.

‘Do you two mind not eavesdropping
quite
so obviously? I mean, don’t bother
pretending
or anything.’

‘Oh, Ally, come on. We weren’t doing any harm, were we, Jezza? We think it’s great that you’ve got a boyfriend.’

Jerry snorts with laughter.

‘Shut up! I
do not
have a boyfriend, all right? Just because a guy rings me up does not mean I’m going out with him. God! You two ... you are so
not
with the program.’

I’m so infuriated, I can’t think of anything really punchy to say. Talk about the bloody Spanish Inquisition!

I turn around to go downstairs. ‘Just
don’t
listen to my phone calls, all right?’ I glare at Dad.

He’s trying to keep down a smile. ‘Okay,’ he manages. ‘10.30, Ally, okay?’

I look at him. He’s
so
annoying. ‘Okay,’ I say. ‘Whatever.’

‘And Ally?’

‘What?’

‘Thanks a lot. For the other day. The picnic.’

‘That’s okay,’ I mumble. ‘Anytime.’

As I head down the stairs, I hear Jerry whine, ‘Why can’t
I
stay up till 10.30? I always have to go to bed at
eight.
It
sucks.’

I have to concentrate on this thing with Rel now. I wonder if I should change my clothes. For a minute, I feel kind of
older,
going out at night to some guy’s house, even if it is only to drink mulberry smoothies.

I pocket my key and check that my torch batteries are still bright. I decide to stay in what I’m wearing and pull on my Chucks. My hair’s messy and I leave it that way—it looks too neat when I brush it; I always have to mess it up again, anyway. In the mirror, I make sure I haven’t got any oregano stuck in my teeth and pull my shirt so it sits right. I then decide to brush my teeth, anyway, in case of bad breath. I catch sight of my wrist, and the shell looks really cute. I adjust it so you can see it better and then shut my door in case McNerd decides to
explore
while I’m out.

‘Bye,’ I call up the stairs.

Dad sticks his head down and smiles at me. ‘Have fun,’ he says. ‘What’s his name again?’

I roll my eyes. ‘God, Dad, you’re being such a pain.’

‘That’s my job,’ he says, a little too cheerily.

‘It’s Rel,’ I say, and before he can quiz me on that, I slip out the door.

The night’s cool and we sit on his verandah, checking out the sky and hoping for possums. My mulberry smoothie is going down fast. It’s the best colour I’ve ever seen. Milky purple.

The sky’s got rock salt sprinkled in it and I scan for any constellations I recognise, which is about three. The southern cross, the saucepan and ... one other. Jerry knows them all. The moon’s just a sliver off full.

Rel’s pretty quiet, just in a mellow way.

‘Camp on Tuesday.’

‘Yeah.’

‘All packed?’

‘Nah.’

I laugh. ‘Jeez, you’d better get on to it. When are you gunna start?’

‘Dunno. Depends.’

I look over at him. ‘On what?’

He looks back. ‘On you.’

My own personal sunrise is creeping up my face. Lucky it’s dark. ‘Whaddya mean?’ I manage.

‘Are you still skipping to Perth?’

‘I guess,’ I say.

He doesn’t say anything then.

‘Haven’t you paid and everything?’ I say. ‘For camp?’

‘Yeah.’ He nods.

The sky is completely still but the bush scratches away in the breeze like it’s got an itch it can’t reach.

‘They’re hardly gunna give your oldies a refund, Rel. It’s too late.’

‘Yeah, well, the money’s not important.’

There’s a gap then.

‘I might come with you,’ he says finally, kind of loudly.

He’s looking over at me and I’m not returning the favour.

Shite. I don’t know what to do. I don’t
want
him to come. I don’t even know what I’m gunna be doing there yet. I’m not even really sure if
I
still wanna go.

He’s twisting his shell really tight. ‘What do you think?’

‘I dunno.’ I look at him. ‘I don’t even know where I’ll be staying or anything, Rel. I was planning to go to
my friend Shelly’s, but there’s no way you’d be able to stay there, too.’

He leans back into his chair.

I’m not sure if that was what I was meant to say.

‘Come on camp, then.’

‘Are there any places left?’

‘A couple, I think.’

I sigh. ‘I dunno.’
All those kids.

He leans towards me all of a sudden. His eyes are shining. ‘It’ll be
cool,
Ally! We don’t have to hang out with anyone else much. We’ll just blow them off, hang out on our own.’

All this
we
talk is a bit ... full-on. It’s okay, actually. Kind of a nice change, after hanging out on my own so much the last couple of months.

‘I dunno. What about ... the kids from English?’

‘What about them? All I wanna do is the ridge walk. Ally, we get to sleep in a cave on the top of Bluff Knoll on the first night—can you believe that? Half the kids won’t even wanna do the whole walk; it’s three days, or something. They’re just gunna go on day walks around the Stirlings with another teacher, so there are going to be two separate groups. You can’t go up to Perth and miss this, Ally. You can go to Perth any weekend.’

He takes a break for a moment, and I try to take it
all in. Talk about pressure!

Rel leans out into the night. ‘I know which I’d rather do,’ he says, without looking at me.

We’re both quiet then.

The thinnest cloud ever scuds across the moon, making it dark for a moment.

‘Go on, Queenster, it’ll be cool.’ He pokes me in the side.

I come to the end of my smoothie and suck too hard and make a loud, rude sound into the night.

‘I’ll tell you tomorrow,’ I say.

‘Yeah, well, don’t leave it too long. You have to
pack,
you know.’

I look at him and try not to grin.

I don’t go straight home. It’s only ten o’clock and the batteries in my torch are strong, so I feel okay about being out here on my own at night. Rel offers to walk me home, but how fifties is that? Next he’ll be asking me out to a
movie
or something.

It’s such a clear, clean night and there’s so much for me to sort out
in my own mind,
as Mum always says. Always used to say. Don’t go there, Ally. That’s a whole other thing.

I push off my Chucks and the dune sand is cold on my feet. The sand is almost pure white under the moon. I climb up my favourite dune, the highest, and make indents in the sand for my bum to nestle into.

The water’s black and white like the night and making the same sound over and over. The sand hisses each time the water slides back into the ocean. There are little scurrying and bustling sounds in the scrub around me. Whenever I’m out here at night, I wish for
the same thing: infra-red goggles to see what’s going on in the bush. Dad reckons he’s gunna attach a camera to a roo one of these days, like
roo-cam
or something, and then play it back and see what the hell they get up to and where they hang out all day and stuff.

Mum, of course, said the RSPCA would be on to him in no time.

One thing I’m glad of: I didn’t tell Shelly I was planning to come up to stay.
Not
that I’ve changed my mind, or anything, but it just means that my options are open.

The ridge walk does sound cool, and most of the pus-head kids won’t go the full distance, I’m sure of that. I’ve heard it’s a pretty killer hike. I dunno which teachers are going, apart from Ms Carey, but I guess there’ll be some from phys. ed., like Miss Main and Mr Roberts. They’re okay. The main thing is Rel being there. It
would
be a bummer to miss out, especially if everyone comes back raving about how awesome it was. And I guess getting out of here, going back home, doesn’t seem so all-important now.

Telling Dad’s gunna be fun. I think he’s forgotten all about camp, too.

‘What?’

‘Year 10 camp—you wanted me to go, remember?’

‘Yeah, but this Tuesday? Wasn’t I meant to sign something, or
pay,
or something?’

Poor Dad, he’s totally confused.

I pull the form from my bag.
So
lucky: I found it last night in my maths file. ‘I forgot about it, sorry. It got squashed under my lunch box.’

He looks at me as though if there was an axe in the room, he’d use it.

‘Tuesday!
That’s tomorrow, Ally. Tomorrow!’

‘Sorry, Dad. I know. I forgot.’
And I’m praying thatyou’ll believe that.

He rubs his neck and I keep quiet for a change.

‘I don’t know if there’ll be enough time for you to get ready now. I mean, you’ll need a sleeping-bag—this is a camping trip, right?’

I nod.