Pip: The Story of Olive (15 page)
‘Pil-ar-tays,’ corrected Olive.
‘I rang before.’
‘Oh, yes,’ said the woman, ‘Melé mentioned it.’ She smiled again; her smile was smooth and deep and slow.
‘That’s Pil-ar-tays with Mustard Seed,’ said Pip.
The woman tucked a piece of hair behind her ear; silver rings slid about her slender fingers. Olive could smell hand cream scented with cloves and citrus.
‘Why Mustard Seed?’ She wobbled her head from side to side.
‘No reason.’ Pip smiled a smile to match her
vol-au-vent
voice.
‘I guess everybody knows that he’s good,’ said Olive, completely mesmerised.
‘She.’ The woman laughed. Her voice rang about the creamy ceilings. ‘I am Mustard Seed.’
‘I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe it,’ Pip bellowed down the street. ‘How many freaks changed their name to Mustard Seed?’
‘Mog once represented a go-go dancer called Mango-Tango.’ Olive held her arms out and whipped her hips around in a hoola-hoop loop.
‘“Mango-Tango” sounds zesty. Mustard Seed isn’t even a nice name. I just cannot believe it.’
Olive couldn’t believe that they’d just put one hundred and eighty dollars worth of Pilates lessons on the Visa Card for Emergencies. Mog would hit the roof.
‘
I
am Mustard Seed. I
am
Mustard Seed. That is so very kind of you,’ mimicked Pip, her head knocking from side to side. ‘Tell me about your journey.’ The girls stopped walking and held their tummies. They laughed until they cramped.
‘Oh well.’ Olive looked at her scruffy sister. Pip’s hem was flapping at the bottom of her uniform and her hair-band had slipped so far down her ponytail that there was more hair in her eyes than under the elastic. ‘We were completely unprepared. Mustard Seed would never have wanted us in this state.’ The battered bag with the
just like
that
top swung between them.
‘Okey Doke’s?’ the twins asked each other at exactly the same time. Throwing their heads back and laughing again, they headed down to the beach.
On Monday at lunchtime, Olive walked into the library. Pip was stuck fast to the internet. Mog had worked all weekend after all, so they hadn’t been able to get near her computer.
After the unveiling of Ms Mustard Seed, Olive had been ready to call it quits. Pip, however, had the perseverance of a marathon-runner. She had stared at their faces in the bathroom mirror, claiming she was trying to construct an identikit portrait of Mustard Seed from those features that she
knew for sure
weren’t Mog’s.
‘This forehead is definitely not Garnaut,’ Pip had said. ‘It makes our eyes look like fish in a fishbowl.’
Olive had rolled her eyes. ‘Mog’s got the forehead, too – it’s just hidden under her fringe.’
Even if the forehead was Mog’s, it was weird to think that there was somebody out there, an unknown, who shared other traits with them.
Olive pulled up a chair beside Pip. ‘I knew you were desperate to research, but I didn’t think you’d miss most of the day.’
‘Oh, hi, Ol.’ Pip leant back on her chair. ‘I only missed the morning. Anyway, one of the subjects was PE, which doesn’t really count.’
Olive tucked her hair behind her ears. ‘Did you find anything?’
‘I’m just about to do some research into the Department of Marine Assets and Biology for the lighthouse. Look . . .’
Olive peered over Pip’s shoulder.
‘Where’s the clue folder?’ Pip asked.
‘In the bag.’ Olive pulled it out and stared at the bundle of papers between them on the table.
‘It says here that there are twenty-three lighthouses in Victoria,’ said Pip. ‘Fifteen are still in use today. None were built after 1902.’
‘So that means we have to look at eight abandoned lighthouses,’ Olive cut in. ‘We’ll never find him.’ She pulled her knees up to her chest, then pulled her jumper over them and rocked.
‘No, it’s a bit easier. Of those, three are still used for “tourism”, which leaves six.’
‘Five,’ corrected Olive. ‘You should pay attention in Maths.’ Pip had taken to Maths like an Eskimo to a boogie board. She was no natural. Olive put her chin on the top of a knee that was protruding through the V-neck of her jumper. ‘So what are the lighthouses called?’
Pip rolled her eyes. ‘Can I finish?’
Olive leant forwards to peek at the screen.
‘Of the
fi
ve
remaining
. . .
’ Pip paused for emphasis, ‘. . . three are described as being bluestone.’
‘And we know, from the photo, that Mustard Seed’s lighthouse has a limestone base.’ Olive smiled.
‘Which leaves two: Port Stirling, and Port Wilson,’ Pip concluded.
Two lighthouses. Olive felt weary just thinking about it. Two was better than eight, but Olive still had blisters from the journey to the fake Mustard Seed at 222 Hunt Street. She put her feet back down on the floor, and the grey woollen bosoms that her knees had formed disappeared. ‘So which one is it?’
‘I’m not sure,’ said Pip. ‘Neither of them are on the internet – no pictures whatsoever.’
Olive clicked into the catalogue website.
‘Look, there’s a book on Australian lighthouses in the R-section of the library.’ Pip pointed at the screen. ‘Come and help me pinch it.’
‘Are you kidding?’
The R-section of the library was the reserve section. The Rs meant that the books could only be read in the library under the strict supervision of Mrs Steif.
Mrs Steif had liver-coloured hair, thick block-toed shoes and the reflexes of a panther. Shoulders square, nose twitching, she joggled in front of the reserve section, guarding the shelves and their contents like a soccer goalie. Mrs Steif was often heard boasting (in a thick German accent) that under her watch, library theft had been reduced by thirty-seven per cent per annum.
‘Come on, Olive. It will only take five minutes and I’ve got a plan.’
Olive looked over her shoulder to make sure that none of Mrs Steif’s assistants were eavesdropping. They could be hard to spot, those assistants. While girls such as Nut Allergy were obvious library recruits, it was rumoured that Mrs Steif, drawing on her experiences in the former Eastern Bloc, had library moles operating
undercover.
Mrs Steif and her hench-girls engendered no fear in Pip whatsoever. ‘Come on. I’ll start eating a banana or chewing gum or something, and she’ll get so worked up about it, you can stuff the book under your jumper and run through the door – home free.’
Olive moved over to the R-section and pulled the lighthouse book down from the shelves. She opened the index. ‘Port Stirling – page thirty-two!’ Olive turned to the right page. There wasn’t a picture of Port Stirling Lighthouse, but there was a small description that echoed the website. ‘And look – here’s Port Wilson, too!’
‘See if there’s a map.’ Pip’s voice tinkled like lemonade.
At the front of the book there was a map of Victoria. It had been cut from the rest of Australia and floated on the page like a hunk of cake. A number of lighthouses were marked on it.
The bell rang.
‘Crap.’ Pip looked up. ‘What have you got on now?’
‘Maths with Mr Hollywood. You going to come?’ Olive didn’t like to suggest that Pip’s earlier struggle with basic arithmetic implied that she ought to.
Pip paused. As one of the only two male teachers in the school, Mr Hollywood was the subject of numerous crushes, despite the blond tips in his hair. It was rumoured that Mrs Steif adored him. Pip did, too.
‘Okay, I’ll come, but I’m not sitting anywhere
near
Amelia.’ Pip handed the lighthouse book to her sister. ‘Are you ready to make a run for it?’
‘No way, Pip. I’ll copy the map. We can even do it in colour.’
Pip rolled her eyes. ‘You’re way too honest – you’d make a lousy jewel thief.’
Olive watched her sister from the photocopier and smiled. Pip was leapfrogging the metal poles that held up the velvet queue-rope in front of the borrowing desk. It was strange, thought Olive, but even though Pip loathed them, with all of her bravado and crazy ideas, Pip was exactly the sort of girl Amelia and Mathilda would like.
When the girls walked into the classroom, Mr Hollywood was swaggering about rearranging desks. Unlike Ms Stable-East, he preferred a horseshoe configuration.
Opens up the channels. Much more conducive to natter
, he said. There was a band of dust across his bottom where he had leant up against the whiteboard.
Mr Hollywood didn’t address the girls as they walked in. Pip moaned. ‘This is hopeless.’
‘Pip! He’s gross,’ said Olive. ‘He’s ancient
and
he’s married. Olive took out her Maths book. Pip pulled out the clue folder. ‘He looks straight through me.’
‘If you studied long division as hard as you study that, he might notice you.’
‘I just want the right lighthouse. It’s going to be hard enough to get there without picking the dud.’ Pip placed the map on her desk.
The afternoon buzz rose. Mr Hollywood tapped his ruler on the board. ‘Okay girls, Lunch is Over Now, so That Will Do. Let’s turn to Page Forty-Six.’ Like all teachers at the Joanne d’Arc School for Girls, Mr Hollywood had a propensity to talk in capitals.
Olive moved the map onto her Maths homework and angled her head so that Amelia was in her blind spot. She surveyed the wheat-coloured land. Port Stirling was nowhere near Port Wilson. Olive traced her finger in a line from one to the other. She’d learned from trips to junk shops with Mog that maps were tricky. On a map, a crescent of road the size of her fingernail could translate to hours along the asphalt.
‘Look,’ Olive pointed. ‘Port Fairy – just like Mog’s T-shirt. It’s not too far from Stirling.’
Pip pulled the map so close to her face that Olive was sure her breath would make it soggy. ‘You’re right, Ol. So the Port Fairy Folk Festival was not actually a fairy gathering at all.’ Pip’s cheeks were rosy. ‘Do you reckon that’s the one?’
‘That
must
be it. It makes sense.’ Olive carefully added the clue to their list:
Port Stirling
.
Suddenly the room fell still. Olive looked up to see Mathilda walk in.
‘One day? That must have been the shortest suspension on record – just a long weekend,’ Pip said and grunted.
‘They got those Saturday detentions as well.’
Mathilda walked straight past their desks to the other side of the room, where Amelia sat. The room rustled with whispers.
Mr Hollywood coughed. ‘While the purpose of the horseshoe is to encourage natter, it’s to encourage natter about mathematics. Would you care to join us, Mathilda?’
Someone tittered on the other side of the room.
Pip sighed. ‘He looks so handsome when he’s angry.’
Olive rolled her eyes and ignored her sister for the rest of the lesson.
Stirling. Stirling. He lives in a lighthouse at
Port Stirling
. She let the name tingle on the tip of her tongue. It felt silvery and romantic, but somehow regal at the same time.