Solo
A
LYSSA
B
RUGMAN
has worked in public relations but now writes full-time. Her earlier books,
Finding Grace
,
Walking Naked
and
Being Bindy
, are very popular with readers and critics.
Solo
is her eighth novel. Alyssa lives in rural New South Wales.
The author would like to thank the following for permission to use lyrics or quotations in the text: Bradley Dowden for an extract from ‘The Liar Paradox’, the
Internet Encyclopaedia of Philosophy
; Mushroom Music Publishing for lines from ‘Sinner’ by Neil Finn. Every reasonable attempt was made to contact copyright holders for other lyrics, and the author and publisher invite those who have not replied, or who were not successfully traced, to contact us to offer permission and request a reasonable sum for use of this material. Sources are given alongside the lyrics.
First published in 2007
Copyright © Alyssa Brugman 2007
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The
Australian Copyright Act 1968
(the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or ten per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.
Allen & Unwin
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Australia
Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100
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Web:
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National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:
Brugman, Alyssa, 1974– .
Solo.
For secondary school students.
ISBN 978 174114 742 1.
1. Teenage girls – Juvenile fiction. 2. Emotional problems in teenagers – Fiction. 3. Camps – Juvenile fiction. 4. Solitude – Juvenile fiction. 5. Life change events – Juvenile fiction. I. Title.
A823.4
Cover and text designed by Ruth Grüner
Cover photograph: Kevin Russ/
istockphoto.com
Set in 11.8pt Adobe Garamond by Ruth Grüner
Printed by McPherson’s Printing Group
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Teachers’ notes available from
www.allenandunwin.com
Contents
PART THREE: Travelling into flames
5. BACKWARDS, OR MAYBE SIDEWAYS
3. POSITIVE SCENARIO PROJECTION
I gotta right to sing the blues
I gotta right to moan inside
I gotta right to sit and cry
Down around the river.
A certain man in this little town
Keeps draggin’ my poor heart around
All I see for me is misery.
‘
I
GOT A RIGHT TO SING THE BLUES’
H
AROLD
A
RLEN AND
T
ED
K
OEHLER
VOCALS :
B
ILLIE
H
OLIDAY
My counsellor gave me the pamphlet for this camp, but I didn’t read it because I knew it would say, ‘Fun, fun, fun! Make new friends. Sing “Kumbaya”, and “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” in rounds. Do archery, rock-climbing and canoeing. Do African drumming and papier-mâché to stimulate your creative side!’ That’s what all the brochures say, but it’s never how the camps turn out.
There’s no way they’re going to give
me
a bow and arrow. Not after the bakery incident.
Everything is hype. All the ads on TV tell you your life will be better if you get a new corrugated-iron roof or granite kitchen bench. Your family will be closer and more loving if you eat fried chicken or tomato-based simmer sauces. You’ll be tougher and stronger if you drink lemon-flavoured soft drink or eat a fibrous breakfast cereal.
Asterisk conditions apply.
There’s always a catch. When I say, ‘There’s always a catch,’ my counsellor wonders aloud whether my ability to create and sustain healthy relationships is hampered by my negative attitude.
When you say I’m negative, I feel like punching somebody.
Maybe you.
She’s wrong. What I lack is the
motivation
to ‘create and sustain healthy relationships’.
It’s all crap because no product is going to make you stronger, sweeter, more attractive, or happier. You have to do it from the inside – and you’re not going to find a more positive attitude than that.
Asterisk. Except chocolate. Chocolate makes you happier.
Everyone else has read the brochure. I don’t know what I’m doing here, why I have been chosen. The camp counsellors call us ‘Youths with Potential’. At first I thought they meant potential prisoners, but some of the others are softer than me. Broken.
I do know we were all given the chance to do the Solo – twenty-four hours in the bush by ourselves – but not everyone took it. In fact, of the twenty-five of us here, only five picked it.
There was some fine print. There was an asterisk and I missed it.
Sometimes you look at someone for the first time and you think straightaway that they’re gorgeous. Other times you see just an ordinary person, and then a while later, after you see how they carry themselves and you watch their personality shimmer through their features, you suddenly realise that they are the kind of beautiful that you can’t look away from, and you wonder why you didn’t see it the first time.
I was at the kerb when Callum arrived at the camp. There was a woman in the car with him. It could have been his mother, or maybe his social worker dropped him off the way mine did. The woman spoke to him for a moment, putting her hand on his shoulder, and he nodded.
As he climbed out, he swung his bag over his shoulder. I twitched my mouth in a brief smile, but his eyes glided over me as though I was just another tree or signpost, his expression as inscrutable as a cat’s, and then he slouched down the path towards the buildings.
His face was shiny and his hair was damp at the hairline, as though he’d been in the pool, or just finished playing sport. Callum looked like he’d had a really expensive haircut about six months ago, but now it stuck out everywhere.
He wore a houndstooth vest that might have been stolen from an ancient golfer, skater boots and two leather wristbands, then some really sensible dress shorts like the ones my geography teacher wears with his socks pulled up.
He had criss-cross scars on his forearms. They looked designed, ritualistic and deliberate. It wasn’t a pattern exactly – maybe some ancient, lined script, Inca or Mayan.
He looked like an unwashed musician – one of The Strokes.
My first thought was that he was cute but not special. The outfit was borderline. Usually people who make a statement with their clothes don’t have much else to say.
I also decided to ignore him next time I saw him because he made me embarrassed about the twitch-smile when I was already nervous. Which was why I was standing on the kerb practising my breathing when the others were already gathered in the courtyard between the mess hall and the cabins, swapping names and the kind of jokes that would become had-to-be-there recurring jokes over the next few weeks.
I was trying to breathe, while inside I was imagining what would happen when I finally went down the path to join them.
The group is conversing and I stand at the edge listening. I laugh when they laugh, and then I start thinking of something to say, because you’re not officially part of the conversation until you’ve added something and somebody has acknowledged it with a reply.
I’m concentrating on what I’ve planned to say – I’m examining it for yuk-yuk value, cleverness, or sarcasm. Does it sound big-headed? Does it sound ignorant? Do I really know what I’m talking about?
I open my mouth and my heart beats faster because even if it is fun and clever they may not acknowledge me. They could skip past the comment as though it never happened, leaving me space to slink away, knowing my place.
Let even one of them try to talk to me after that! For the whole rest of camp I will wear my earphones and stick my face in a book, pretending I’m antisocial by choice. I’ll yawn in their face, or burn them with an acid smile.
Worse, there might be that long pause where they exchange glances. They could all shuffle away and form a tighter circle, leaving me on the outside.
Worse still, one of them could acknowledge my comment by giving me a gentle explanation of all the ways in which I am wrong, ignorant and not funny.
Worst of all – someone could cut me down with a quip, leaving me exposed and desperate like a tourist stranded on a coral reef.
Maybe they just won’t like me? As long as I splash around the shore of the conversation, never dipping in, I won’t have to know either way.
Another car pulled up on the other side of the street. There was a girl inside. I shook my hands and plucked at my clothing. I closed my eyes and tried to do positive scenario projection, but I couldn’t.
When I opened my eyes again, the girl was standing in front of me. Her face was white and when she spoke she let out a big whoosh of air as if she had been holding her breath too.
‘I’m so glad I don’t have to go in by myself !’