Lisdalia (2 page)

3

POEM

Outside, the sun was shining and the kids were screaming at each other across the playground. Julie Vegas scanned another sheet of stumbling, half-rhyming poetry.

“Creature Poetry”. It had seemed a good idea at the time. They were looking at mythology and monsters, so why not? But these kids watched too many videos. Their “creatures” owed far more to Stephen King and Freddy Kreuger than the ancient myths and legends she had spent the last eight weeks discussing. The imagination was there all right, but … She dropped the poem back onto the desk and scribbled a mark and a comment on the bottom of the page.

Only one more sheet. She glanced at her watch. Ten minutes to go. Another wasted lunchtime … Reaching for the final piece of work, she allowed herself a smile.

Save the best for last.

Two months into the year, and already it was more than obvious. Of all the Year Sevens that had been through the school in its twelve-year history, it was hard to imagine that there had ever been one with more flair, more natural ability. More intelligence.

SHE CALLS HIS NAME IN WHISPERS

BY
LISDALIA PETRANTONIO

There, high upon the Wall of Rock, she stands And shades her eyes,

Then runs her tired hands through tired hair And stares;

Stares out beyond the margin of the land And calls his name in whispers …

While far below (but not so far away)

He sleeps.

And dreams …

Between the soaring tower-trunks, it moves And flicks its tail,

And strikes its golden hooves on rock and stone, So powerful, so pale:

It snorts the silver air,

Shifts carelessly beneath his weight,

Then turns again for home
…

And as he dreams (from not so far away)

He hears his name

Called out in whispers …

The sand, like grains of memory.

And there, beneath the Wall of Rock, she sits,

Stares sadly at her hands;

The hands that held him, soothed the pains,

Then let him drift away

Beyond the range of whispers …

Whispers that fade

Beneath the crash of waves;

The haunting, empty cries of bickering gulls …

Breaking the surface, one brief hiss of foam.

It rises;

Shadow in the moon-path, huge, alone.

The moon looks different hanging in the air,

Half-round and shining-silver

And up there
—

Not floating on the water,

Green and shapeless

And glowing like a beacon …

Her name forms on his lips,

A whisper tangled in the crash of waves;

And still (again) he dreams …

High up, above the Wall of Rock, it soars

On outstretched wings

And holds Creation like a poem in its claws,

Turning it slowly, slowly.

King of the day and Prince of night
—

He glories in its majesty of flight;

Its mastery of creeping things.

His heart leaps skywards

As it stoops to Earth …

Falling, he cries her name

And feels it torn away;

A whisper in the rushing wind of dreams …

Creature of flame, through fire it stalks

Without a thought;

Without a fear of pain.

Beneath his questing touch, black-scaled and taut,

Its skin is cool; the waves of flame

Break, huge
—
and harmlessly,

Tamed by its Salamanda-magic

And fading, fading…

He feels her hand upon him,

Cool in his dream,

Catches her whisper; fades towards the sound …

Towards the Light …

She smiles,

And speaks his name

Aloud.

For a moment, the world disappeared. The everyday sounds beyond the window, the sun on the quad, the hot and dusty classroom where Julie Vegas sat alone. Even her own breathing.

Silently, she scanned the words on the paper before her. And wondered.

Not yet twelve years old. A small face, framed in dark hair; huge eyes, alive with intelligence … Even now, there was such a power in her words. What would she be like when she was thirteen or fourteen? Or twenty?

And yet, it was hard for her. Youngest in the school
—
only by a year, but at that age, a few months make such a difference. Cut off by her ability, by the fierce independence which had led to friction, not only with her classmates, but with a couple of her teachers. Not that she was hard to talk to; five or six interviews in eight weeks had proved that. In fact, she was sensitive and quite shy. She just refused to be pushed around, or to give in when she believed she was right
—
which she usually was. It didn't win her many friends.

Still, she was lucky in the two friends she did have. Tanja, two years older, and just one year ahead; the mouth with a heart of gold, who kept her in line and soothed some of the growing pains.

And Michael, of course.

The young teacher felt a smile tug at the comers of her mouth. It wasn't often that two kids became “an item” quite so young, but those two were just that.

“And I didn't have my first boyfriend until I was fifteen!” Her smile grew to a nostalgic grin.

Then the hooter screamed for the end of lunch, and she stood up to receive the stampede.

4

PRIDE AND PRINCIPLES

“How did you get him to change his mind?” — Michael was standing with his towel draped around his neck, dripping all over the concrete. He'd just been in for his “warm-ups”, and we were waiting for the marshalling call.

“Easy… I apologised.” Funny how easy it sounded when I said it quickly.

“Apologised? You?” He was almost laughing, but he knew me well enough to control it.

“It was Tanja's idea.” I said it as if that somehow made a difference. “I could stay mad with him; stand on my pride and watch the grass grow at home, or …”

“Apologise.”

“Exactly.”

We walked over and sat in the shade by the change-room wall. “What am I going to do with him? He doesn't want a daughter, he wants a live-in slave. John and Tony got all the time they needed to do
their
homework — and most of the time they just played computer games and listened to Heavy Metal anyway. But me …”

Michael took hold of my hand, even though Shane Thomas was looking across at him from the other side of the pool, where his mother had him sitting under her umbrella, talking his ear off — “psyching him up”. Things had never gone back to the bad old days of Year Six, when Shane, the school bully, had made Michael's life miserable for a while, but I knew Michael would cop it from “the Pain” later on, and so did he — so I appreciated the gesture.

“Look, you've got to try to ease off a bit. Your dad's not a monster, you know. He just has different ideas to you. He's from a different country and a different ….”

“Planet,” I cut in. “I know what you're trying to say, Michael, but it's just so unfair.”

Shane Thomas was making smart faces at us, and kissing the back of his hand passionately in our direction, until his mother caught on to what he was doing and slapped him viciously across the back of the head. I looked back at Michael and continued my whinge.

“I really didn't mind when he wouldn't let me go to school at Hurlstone. I'm not really sure I would have liked going to a selective school, and he was right — for once — about the travelling.”

“Maybe.” Michael slapped at a fly crawling up his leg, then continued. “But you'd have done great there. I know Stimpson was really disappointed. It's not often she's going to get one of her students topping the whole selection test.”

I had almost forgotten. Mrs Stimpson, our Primary School principal. Just a few months ago; so much had changed. I recalled the interview with my father.

It wasn't really the distance I would have to travel to Hurlstone. That was his excuse, the one he gave her — but it wasn't the real reason. I was a girl. Quite simply, that was the reason. There was no point in going to so much trouble to educate a girl. Even if she did top the selection test.

I remember Mrs S talked to Dad for almost an hour, pointing out all the advantages of a selective school education, but she couldn't break him down. He held to his guns. And I ended up at Boundary Park High.

In the end, it suited me, but it would have made no difference if it hadn't. “The General” had spoken. I know Mum and he had a fight about it; I overheard them. But while she had more control over the everyday decisions than he would ever admit, she never stood a chance on matters of “principle”. My father was always really big on “principle” and “pride”. That's what caused all the trouble between us. My father's famous pride and principles.

And mine.

Michael won his race by half a centimetre, so I guess the backdown and the apology were worth it.

5

STRIKE

I liked Maddie, but we'd never been what you might call close. I always found it hard to get close to people, but Maddie didn't. Everyone liked her.

Maddie wasn't her real name, of course. She was born in a refugee camp in Thailand, and her mother had named her Mai Linh, but she moved to Sydney when she was less than a year old, and by the time she'd started kindy it had been changed to Madeleine. I guess her uncle (the one she and her brother came to live with) figured she'd get on better with a European name, and “Madeleine” at least sounded close to Mai Linh. Over the years it became Maddie and that was the version that stuck. It suited her, too. Casual, friendly, laid-back — just like she was.

I guess I was jealous; of her popularity, of how she fitted in, apparently without trying — while I seemed to spend my life making a start then blowing it by saying something stupid.

Well, not stupid: that was the trouble. I'd say something smart. Someone would make a comment and I'd know they were wrong, so instead of shutting my mouth and letting it pass, I'd correct them, or worse … and up went the wall again.

Michael says I even froze him out the first time he talked to me, and I didn't even realise I had. I remember thinking how terrible it must be starting a new school in a new city halfway through Year Six, but he says that the way I looked at him made him feel like something that had just slithered out from under a large rock. With him, I was lucky. I got a second chance.

It was only later, when I got to know Maddie a lot better, that I realised she had problems of her own. I guess everyone does, but when yours are bashing you over the head, it's hard sometimes to recognise that fact. And just at that time I was having enough trouble staying popular at home.

Halfway through April, I went on strike.

It began with nothing. Well, nothing compared to some of the things I'd been expected to do in the past. Mum asked me to make John's bed. He'd gone out to work and left it in a complete mess as usual.

I was in the process of telling her that it was about time he learned to make it himself and that he shouldn't expect me to do his work for him, when my father walked past.

“Your mother told you to do it,” he said. “Do it!” “The General” issuing an order.

“It's not my bed. He's big enough to do it for himself.” He had spoken to me in Italian, but I answered in English. I knew it annoyed him. Perhaps that's why I made a point of doing it. I was in my “rebellious stage”. “Besides, Mum didn't
tell
me to do it, she
asked
me. There's a big difference.”

“Well,
I'm
telling you.
Capisce
?”

I understood.

I just stood there staring at him, seething. Running through in my mind all the possible things I could say. But he wasn't finished.

“Your brothers work.”
As if I didn't!
“The money they give us helps your mother and me to pay for things …”

“Good. Then
you
make John's bed!” My mouth worked more quickly than my brain — as usual. I could see his face changing colour, but this time,
I
wasn't finished. Now my brain had caught up with my words, and “the idea” hit me. “If they want a slave, they can pay for one. Ten dollars a week — each — and I'll make their beds, pick up their mess and all of the things I do now. Otherwise, they can do it themselves.”

He didn't say a word. Suddenly, I felt a stinging blow as he slapped my cheek. And I heard my mother breathe in sharply behind me with shock.

She wasn't half as shocked as me.

Tough as he was, and unfair as his attitudes had always been, my father just wasn't the violent type. I watched the anger drain from his face as he looked down at the offending hand — as if it belonged to someone else. Then he turned and just walked away down the passage without another word being spoken.

My mother simply reached out and touched my cheek, gently. What else could she do?

I felt for her. She was stuck right in the middle and she didn't know how to handle it.

I listened to her sometimes, talking to herself in Spanish as she worked, taking a sort of comfort in her own language. With Dad, she spoke Italian almost all the time — with the occasional English phrase thrown in — and with me, though I sometimes gave in and tried out my primitive Spanish, it was almost always English. In some ways, she was like a prisoner; it was easy to forget that she had chosen the prison, that no matter how tense things got at times, she wouldn't change things. Perhaps it would have been easier for her if she didn't love him, but she did. No matter how many disagreements he had with me, no matter how often he made decisions without even talking to her about them, she worshipped the man.

It took me a long time to realise just how much I was dumping my own feelings onto her. But Michael was right; they came from a different world. My mother didn't see herself as “a slave”, she didn't resent it like I did. She had the life she wanted; it just wasn't the life
I
wanted. Her sons might leave her — and me! — with all their mess, but they respected her; their father had always made sure of it! What was the use of pointing out to her that it didn't show much respect to expect someone to follow you around like a … slave. The whole argument went in circles.

Tony and John. Even their names told the story. She had done her duty; given him his boys. And he had named them. Antonino and Giovanni. Good Italian names; strong names.

It hadn't taken the boys long to translate them into English once they got to school — Tony had spent half a year as “Nino”, before the pressure got to him, but John was “John” from day one. Dad didn't mind. He didn't mind much whatever they ever did.

It's not that I don't like my name. I do, and I wouldn't change it for the world. But when I came along a few years later — a girl — he was happy to let Mum choose my name, especially after she stood up to him and rejected his only suggestion: Maria, after my grandmother. So, Lisdalia I was. A good, unusual Spanish name. The rebel of the family. The one who wouldn't fit into his nice, neat view of the world.

The one with the sore cheek and the injured pride.

The one on strike.