Authors: Carole Wilkinson
Stagefright
Velvet S Pye stood outside the gates of Yarrabank High and a creeping feeling came over her. This was going to be the worst day, the beginning of a miserable year. In fact, the rest of her life was destined to be a complete write-off. She used to have it all – private school, luxury holidays, loads of friends – but then her world fell apart, sending her crashing to grubby, sports-mad Yarrabank High
.
Could things get any worse?
Sure they could
.
Velvet is yet to meet her cultural studies class
.
C
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1
Velvet S Pye stood outside the gates of Yarrabank High. She was certain of one thing: this was going to be the worst day ever, the beginning of a miserable year, in fact the rest of her life was totally ruined. A group of boys smoking by the front gate eyed her up and down – obviously checking out her breasts. One of them spat onto the bitumen. Velvet ignored them. She hitched her schoolbag over her shoulder and pushed her earbuds into her ears. Her music was on shuffle. As she walked through the gates, her phone chose that moment to play “The Point of No Return” from
The Phantom of the Opera
.
The garden bed alongside the driveway was a rectangle of trampled earth with one stunted shrub growing in it. Empty drink cans and screwed-up chip packets provided the only colour. The school building was crumbling red brick, not old enough to be historical, just faded and ugly. Paint peeled from the window frames, and the cracked glass was held together with masking tape. Two students leaning on a car were locked in a passionate embrace. They both wore grey pants and had matching asymmetrical haircuts. Velvet thought they were a boy and a girl. Their tongues explored each other’s mouths. She didn’t want to look, but she couldn’t help it. She felt queasy. It was only 8.35 in the morning.
A group of girls, the hems of their uniforms millimetres away from showing their underpants, stopped talking to stare at her. They sniggered as she walked past. Velvet ignored them too. At least she wasn’t wearing the ugly polyester green and white check Yarrabank dress. Her uniform, from her old school, was a lovely charcoal-grey woollen tunic, and she wore it below the knee. She patted her hair, which was pulled back in a neat ponytail, touched the school badge (an arrow-pierced heart) pinned to her maroon tie and took a deep breath (a mistake as someone was spraying chemicals on the walls to remove the tagging from the previous night). She entered the building.
The doors closed behind her with an ominous thud. Clumps of fluff swirled around in corners. Velvet went up to the office window where a sign informed her that Mrs Mangalis was the Office Manager. Someone had written “Arvi is a dickbrain” on it. Velvet closed her eyes and imagined that she was an exiled princess living in secret among peasants. She was hoping for immediate rescue.
Velvet opened her mouth to speak to Mrs Mangalis, but a girl with blue-streaked hair pushed in front of her.
“I forgot my excursion money at home, Miss,” the girl said.
She had the sort of Australian accent that set Velvet’s teeth on edge.
“Bring it tomorrow, Roula.”
“I can’t.” The girl posted three sticks of chewing gum into her mouth. “Next-door’s dog ate it.”
“Ate your $12.50?”
“Yes, Miss. The dog ate the lot, coins and everything. It’s a huge Rottweiler, with yellow eyes. Seriously, it’s got teeth like a shark.”
“You better report to your class anyway.”
“Yes, Miss.”
Roula walked off, leaving behind a cloud of body fragrance and a chewy packet.
Mrs Mangalis looked over her glasses at Velvet. “Yes?”
Velvet pulled herself up to her full height. “My name is Velvet S Pye.”
“You must be new,” Mrs Mangalis said.
Velvet’s eyes filled with tears. “I shouldn’t be here.” Her voice started to waver. “If fate hadn’t dealt me such an unkind blow, I’d still be at St Theresa’s Anglican Ladies College – where I belong.”
A small thin man in trackpants and a polar fleece vest jogged into the foyer.
“Mr Kislinski will show you to your classroom, dear.” Mrs Mangalis turned to the man. “This is Velvet. She’s … new.”
“Welcome to Yarrabank, Velvet. What sports do you play?”
“I don’t play sport.”
Mr Kislinski winked at Mrs Mangalis. “We’ll see about that,” he said and jogged out through a door.
Velvet followed Mr Kislinski into the school hall. Glass cabinets lined every wall, each one filled with trophies. Above them, the walls were festooned with plaques and pennants. The honour board didn’t record school duxes or past head prefects, it listed the best and fairest from 1938, when the school was built, up to the present day. The last name, in fresh gold paint, was Jesus Mbele.
The principal opened a door that led into a quadrangle where rows of students were doing pre-school aerobics and a dozen intense, sweaty boys were playing basketball as if they were competing in the Olympics. There he stopped to do some calf stretches before jogging into a classroom on the other side of the quadrangle. Velvet followed him. The noise level was unbelievable. Not a single student was in their seat. Two boys were playing football with a coke can at the front of the class, while another boy gave a continuous commentary.
It was just three years since Yarrabank had changed from an all-boys school, and there were only four girls in this class. Two of them were sharing iPod earbuds and singing along to a song. There wasn’t a teacher in sight.
“Settle down, 9C,” said Mr Kislinski. “Where’s Miss Ryan?”
A harassed-looking woman wearing a purple floral blouse and a shapeless khaki skirt rushed into the room. She dropped her crocheted bag onto the teacher’s table. Two apples and a well-used handkerchief fell out.
“Ah, Miss Ryan, this is Velvet. She’ll be joining your class.”
“Lovely to meet you. Welcome to Yarrabank.” Miss Ryan patted Velvet on the arm. She smelled of patchouli and bacon.
Behind Miss Ryan’s back, a boy with a swastika stud in his eyebrow was making obscene gestures. Velvet smiled feebly, and considered joining a convent.
“There’s been a mistake,” she said. “I need to speak to the principal.”
Mr Kislinski smiled at her. “I am the principal.”
That evening, Velvet begged her parents to let her go back to St Theresa’s. She offered to take three after-school jobs to help with fees. She pleaded with them to let her apply for a scholarship to any private school, but her parents’ new poverty had transformed them into keen supporters of state schools. She did her best to cry all night and came to breakfast the next morning looking haggard and tear-stained.
“Mother, I’ll die if I have to stay at that school.”
“We’re all having to make sacrifices, darling. You’ll get used to it.”
Velvet was horrified by the way her parents were adjusting to being poor. Her father had a job mowing lawns for the local council, and claimed he was happier since he’d lost his high-powered, well-paid job as a merchant banker. Her mother seemed to actually enjoy being thrifty and devising budget meals.
“There’s no music program.”
“That is unfortunate.”
“No one speaks English. They’re all ethnic.”
“It will be a cultural experience. You’ll learn from it.”
“Learn what? How to swear in a hundred and twenty-two languages?”
“I might organise a multicultural evening so that we can get to know the other parents. Everyone could bring one of their national dishes.”
“Mother, Yarrabank isn’t that sort of school.”
As far as a different school was concerned, the subject was closed.
The rest of the week was just as awful. The English text 9C was studying was a book about a dragon that Velvet had read in Grade 5. The science teacher was Russian and his accent was incomprehensible. Technology was a bizarre subject that consisted of alternating classes of information technology and food technology. Velvet had studied French at St Theresa’s, but Yarrabank’s Year 9 French class was already overcrowded, and she had been forced to take up Mandarin. Everyone else in the class had been doing Mandarin for two years and even the dumbest boy could scrawl a few Chinese characters and understand most of what the teacher said. There were other strange subjects that Velvet had never heard of before – sports science and sports history.
But worse was yet to come. Thursday was sports day. Every day of the week students at Yarrabank had phys. ed., but on Thursday afternoons the entire school focused on sporting pursuits. There was a special timetable designed to make Thursday afternoons as long as possible. In the morning there were two forty-minute periods followed by recess. The entire school was expected to be in sports uniform and on the oval by 10.45. Then there were four hours of competitive sport, interrupted only by a brief break for a high-protein lunch provided by the school.
Velvet made sure she left her (secondhand) sports uniform at home, but Mr Kislinski found her a spare pair of shorts and personally ran her through a sports aptitude test.