Yellow (14 page)

‘It's Kirra Barley, isn't it?' he asks me.

The programme. It had my name on it.

Shit.

He knows my name and can track me down.

And he knows that I know about Boogie.

Shit.

‘I think I met you briefly before, in the library. You were doing an assignment? Well, I'm looking forward to having you come back and speak to the kids here, when you're a big shot in the city, missy,' he grins.

I have a flashback of his face, so different from the expression he's wearing now. Images flash through my mind of the face he was wearing as he killed Boogie, and the look that said he was enjoying it.

If you don't kill me first, I think.

Thankfully, a teacher from a neighbouring private school saves me. She interrupts McGinty and babbles on to me about how she's going to contact all the school's alumni, and organise for them to come back and talk to the students.

I'm not used to all this attention, so as soon as the private-school teacher is distracted I slip away outside and collapse down next to the brick wall at the side of the building. I practise my breathing, trying to slow my heartbeat, my arms roped around my legs and my forehead resting on my knees.

‘Shouldn't you be basking in all the glory?'

I look up and Noah is standing next to me. He sits down and our shoulders are touching.

‘I don't think I'm the basking type. More the hyperventilating type.'

‘Overwhelmed by your own greatness?'

I roll my eyes and then look down again, embarrassed. Another bout of panic overwhelms me.

What is Noah doing here?

My voice is strained with worry. ‘Aren't you supposed to be in geography? No one's supposed to know about this . . .'

‘My mum's doing the catering for today. The programme was on the kitchen table, and I saw that you were speaking. This sure beats falling asleep to Mr Gobstopper, as much as I could do with a nap.'

‘Give me geography any day. If nerves were fatal, I'd be in a coffin by now.'

Noah shoots me a crooked smile.

‘You've got nothing to be nervous about. You killed it up there. All the politicians and stuff are going on and on about what you had to say.'

‘I may have sort of gotten the idea off this freckly kid who has a habit of saving my life.'

This time Noah looks away, embarrassed.

‘Na, I couldn't have said it in the way you said it. You're pretty unique, you know.'

Both of us are looking really hard at the ground. The ginger ants running around on the concrete have never gotten this much attention in their lives.

‘There's that word again. Unique instead of weird . . .' I joke lamely. ‘And I bet everyone teases me for being a weirdo because they wish they were as unique as me.'

Noah goes all serious and silent, and I wish to God I hadn't said that. It makes me sound like the biggest weirdo in the world.

Shit.

He turns to me, and looks into my eyes, and I wish again that he wasn't staring into the ugliest thing about me.

‘Kirra, for someone so smart you're pretty dumb sometimes.'

Noah Willis thinks I'm dumb.

I bite my lip, and think I'm going to cry. He keeps going.

‘Cassie puts you down because you're the only competition she's got. She's pretty, yeah, but in a really generic kind of way. You're a whole 'nother world of beautiful. And on top of that, you're smart and nice and interesting. And your eyes . . .'

Noah touches my fingers and I look up.

‘Cassie's awful to you because she doesn't want you to realise that you shit all over her, you idiot.'

I blush, and I smile, and I blush again, and Noah's face is doing the same. I think I'm going to vomit butterflies. His fingers are still gripping mine.

‘I mean, I've maybe had the biggest crush on you for three years, like, so badly that I couldn't talk to you anymore.'

I look up at him, surprised.

‘What?'

I was certain he'd stopped talking to me because he wasn't a little kid anymore, and he'd grown up enough to realise I was a freak. He chases away his bashful smile and attempts to be cocky.

‘I know, it sucked. I really missed whooping your arse at scissors paper rock.'

Noah Willis had a crush on me.

Noah Willis has a crush on me.

Shit!

I study his face to see if this is some horror-movie-style joke, but he's really looking at me like I'm something worth looking at.

I shake my head incredulously.

‘Liar.'

His face drops for a second.

I smile up at him through my hair.

‘I totally dominated you at scissors paper rock.'

He cocks an eyebrow at me.

‘Is that . . . is that a challenge? All right then, prepare to be humiliated.'

We sit there, laughing, as we start a scissors paper rock tournament, our hands actually touching every time rock smashes scissors, or paper beats rock.

‘There you are, blondie! Your teacher's looking for you. Everyone's leaving.'

It's the frizzy-haired girl, sweating in the sun underneath her fancy blazer.

‘Umm, okay, thanks, I'll be there in a minute.' I stand up, and Noah scuffs his shoe against the wall.

‘So I'm having a party on Saturday night. And, ummm, it'd be really great if you could come . . .'

Noah Willis is asking me to come to his party.

Shit.

I look up at him, and a smile sneaks onto my face.

‘I don't know.' I pretend to consider it. ‘It's pretty far from my place.'

He grins back, that kind of grin that's full and lovely.

‘Yeah, I understand. A whole three houses. Maybe I can organise a jumbo jet to get you home safely?'

‘Yes please. A private one with a mini bar. I'm accustomed to a certain standard of living, you know.'

He rolls his eyes.

‘She has one afternoon in the limelight and now it's all private jets and mini bars . . .'

We grin at each other.

‘I'll be there,' I tell him, biting my lip, and I race towards the car park where Mrs Thomas is waiting. This has been, by far, the best afternoon of my life.

Mrs Thomas drops me off at the front of the school, and as I'm making my way home I look around to see if anybody's watching me, and then when the coast is clear I do little skips and hops and crazy happy dances before pulling myself together and walking normally again. I think of my mum, and how I'm really going to try to be there for her. I won't step over her when she's passed out, I won't yell at her when she has a hangover, and I'll cook her dinners to try to soak up some of the alcohol in her stomach. Maybe then she'll realise that I'm worth being sober for.

I hope to God she'll realise.

When I reach our front yard she's sitting on the patio. She's wearing clean shorts and a t-shirt, and her hair has been brushed. Groceries are sitting in plastic bags around her feet, enough to fill the fridge. She's left the house today.

She's hardly left the house in months.

My heart smiles, and I'm beaming the kind of grin that makes my cheeks hurt as I go to walk up to the patio steps. And then my heart stops smiling, and so does my face, because I see the liquor bottle in my mum's hand, and I see the expression she's wearing. It's not the usual faraway expression she's been wearing for this little while, that expression like she's somewhere else and has accidentally left her skin behind.

She looks hurt.

Storm clouds gather in front of her eyes when she clocks me, and her jaw is clenched tight, like she's been waiting for something.

She's been waiting for me.

I stand, rooted to the spot as she stalks her way towards me.

‘I saw Mrs Willis in the grocery shhhtore this morning,' she slurs down to me.

I chew my lip.

‘Okay . . .'

She stands there, clenching and unclenching her jaw at the top of the steps, swaying but determined to stay upright.

‘She said to me – Judy, she said to me, she said, Judy, aren't you so proud of your daughter doing that big important speech today? She said, aren't you sooooo proud?'

I look up at Mum. The hurt is etched on every line of her face, and drips into every word. My heart is breaking.

‘Mum . . .'

She doesn't listen, she just talks over me.

‘She said, Judy, I'll see you there, and what could I say back, Kirra? What, Kirra? What? That I wasn't even invited? That I wasn't even
told
?'

Tears are pooling under my eyelids now.

‘Mum, I can explain . . .'

Mum wobbles a bit, and grabs hold of the railing.

‘I can't even be there for my own daughter. That used to be me up on that stage, getting awards, and now I can't be there for anyone when they need me. Nobody needs me because I can't be there, I'm not there, I wasn't there.'

Mum becomes confused, and stands there for a second before catching her train of thought.

‘I wasn't there because you didn't tell me, Kirra, my own daughter. Do you know how that makes me
feel
, Kirra?'

I shake my head, tears trudging down my cheeks now.

‘It makes me feel like this, Kirra. It makes me feel like this.'

With a sudden jolt, she throws herself down the stairs, tumbling once before she lands, face first, at my feet. A scream escapes from my throat, and I bend down to pick her up, thanking God that there were only five steps for her to fall down. She sits, curled in a ball, her face contorted, and her body heaving in soundless, wrenching sobs.

‘Mum!'

I reach out to her, but she suddenly stops crying and bats me away. She glares at me.

‘
That
is how it makes me feel.'

Then, not taking my hand, she pulls herself up against the railing and limps up the stairs. I follow her, crying, apologising. It's like I'm not even there. She slams her bedroom door in my face and locks it, and all I can do is curl down with my back to the door and cry.

Two hours have gone by, and Mum still hasn't unlocked her door, but from the sound of her snoring she's still alive. I can't cure her with kindness, I realise. No amount of cooked dinners could cure that. I think of Willow, and how her dad has detoxed, and how he's been sober for six months now, and as much as it feels disloyal to air our dirty laundry, I need help.

My mum needs help.

I call Willow up and we meet at the park near my house. She's sitting on a swing, smoking a cigarette, when I get there.

‘Where were you when I needed you in geography? I was so bored I was about to stab myself with a ruler.'

I look down at my nails, and shrug. ‘Mrs Thomas got me to do some extracurricular stuff for forgetting my homework last week.'

Willow rolls her eyes.

‘Ugh, old Hitler in kaftans. I'm glad you survived.'

I force a smile, and we make our way through the park and start crossing the pipe that's welded onto the side of the bridge that crosses the river. It feels like my soul is dragging so heavily below me that I'm going to trip over it with every step. Willow stops at the halfway point and turns around to face me.

‘You're severely lacking in the pep department, K. Mrs Thomas couldn't have been that bad.'

I shake my head, and despite my best efforts a tear breaks free from my eyelid, and then another one chases it down my cheek. Willow furrows her brow and looks at me hard from that one grey eye that isn't covered over with hair.

‘Do you know what my mum used to say to my dad whenever he was feeling really low?'

I shake my head again. She takes my hand in hers, and she shoots me an ironic smile.

‘She used to say – go find a bridge and jump off it!'

The next thing I know, Willow's thrown herself off the bridge, screaming and pulling me with her. It's not high, about two metres, and the water's deep below it. We crash down into the underbelly of the creek, and the coldness of it, the shock of it, pulls me out of myself. We splutter up to surface, screaming. Willow's laughing, and our clothes are filled with air and puffing up around us like jellyfish.

We swim down the river a bit, past the park, and down to where the bush flanks both banks. We take off our shoes and clothes to dry them on some arthritic tree branches, and then, in just our bras and underwear, we fling ourselves back into the water. Somebody has been fishing here on the river­bank, and there are fish scales littered across the ground from where one's been gutted and skinned. They shine in the dappled light.

Willow's floating on the surface with her eyes closed against the sun.

‘Willow?' I ask after treading water for a while. She opens one eye.

‘Mmmm hmmmm?'

‘How did you get your dad to detox?'

‘You can't
get
anyone to detox, sweet pea. He decided to detox himself. Plenty of times, in fact. I'd get mad at him when he'd relapse, and he'd just tell me that he's never been a quitter. Like it's the funniest joke in the world. Ha-de-ha-ha-ha.'

She isn't smiling. Something slimy brushes against my leg but I ignore it.

‘But do you need to go to a clinic or something?'

‘It helps. There's a couple that he went to – you can go free if you're on Centrelink. Perks of being destitute. But he did it himself last time. You just have to wean yourself off slowly, other­wise you can actually die. Dying from being sober – isn't that ironic?'

She laughs this time, that brittle, rusty laugh.

‘How exactly do you do it?'

My voice is urgent now. Willow rolls out from her floating position and joins me treading water.

‘You're serious, are you? Well, first of all, you're going to have to find yourself a thicker set of skin to wear, because if you think you've seen bad tempers, you ain't seen nothin' yet, cupcake.'

I nod.

‘I'll just hit Cassie in the back of the head and wear her skin as a jumpsuit, shall I?'

Willow smiles.

‘Capital idea. Now, if they're chronic alcoholics, they'll need lots of Gatorade to replenish the electrolyte levels in their bodies, and they'll have to start with one standard alcoholic drink an hour at the beginning. So like, if they're awake for sixteen hours, they get sixteen drinks. The next day, they take it down to a drink every hour and a half, so like, ten standard drinks, then every day after that they take it down by two, so eight drinks a day, then six and so on. Next thing you know, they're sober, and then where the hell are you going to steal that bottle of rum you wanted to drink at a party? Sober parents come at a price.'

Neither of us laugh at her joke. We just listen to the river sounds and the shushing of the trees.

‘Was your mother an alcoholic too?' I ask, after a while.

A look of disgust sweeps Willow's face.

‘Worse. A junkie, still is, and last we heard she was a prostitute to boot. Looks like I won the DNA jackpot, huh?'

I'm not sure if there are two friends in the whole world with eyes as sad as ours are right now.

‘I'm sorry,' I whisper.

‘Not as sorry as me. That's why I acted out a bit in year seven with all the boys, and attracted the wrath of Cassie. It's when I found out about the prostitute bit. But you know what, when you're going through that sort of shit, what other people think of you is the least of your worries. Here's to shittiness and perspective!'

She raises her hand as though she's holding a wine glass, and pretends to cheers me. I copy her.

‘Here's to shittiness and perspective,' I repeat.

‘Chink chink!'

I think of how she's opened up to me, and how I've hardly told her anything at all, and how the whole Boogie thing is weighing down inside me like stones in my belly. And then McGinty. He's already killed one kid who'd found out he was a murderer, and now he knows that I'm onto him, too.

I want to tell her, but it's so crazy, she'd never believe me. I don't want to be the crazy girl.

I swim under the water a bit, with only my eyes and nose peering out, mulling the situation over in my head.

‘Okay, spit it out, whatever it is. Your eyes are giving you away.'

I clench my eyes shut and she laughs but I don't laugh back. I stand up on the muddy river floor so the water laps around my shoulders.

‘It's nothing, really. I mean, it's complicated. You wouldn't understand.'

It's like whatever openness Willow had just a second ago, it's been slammed shut. Bolted. She's electrified the fence and strung barbed wire above it. There's no laughter anymore, just a hard metal gaze. I bite my lip, willing her to not be mad at me.

‘I tell you about my mother and you tell me that I wouldn't understand? You're supposed to be my best friend, and you can't even trust me?'

Willow stalks out of the water and begins to put her clothes back on. I chase after her, slipping on the muddy river floor and splashing about without even a fraction of her grace. I grab her, just as she's wriggling her school skirt on.

‘It's not you, it's just . . . it's just complicated.'

Her face is steely and unchanged. ‘Sure it is, cupcake.'

My voice is desperate. I don't know what I'd do if I lost Willow, too. I put my clothes back on, and they're hot and damp, like the day has got me in a clammy fist, and I grab her elbow as she's about to leave. She shakes me away.

‘You know what, doll, I was wrong about you. Friends are overrated, anyway. I don't need this. I don't need you.'

With that, Willow leaves, not in a huff, but in a cool, calculated, stiff-backed gait. She doesn't look back.