It's Not You, It's Me Page 8

  Mr O’Farrell walked the aisles of the classroom, collecting homework. Holly flipped frantically through her folder. There was nothing in there. No homework. Not even a page that looked like an attempt at homework. O’Farrell got to her desk and looked down at her, hand out.

  ‘I …’ Holly scrambled around inside her head. ‘I left it at home.’

  ‘Sorry, Legs,’ he said, ‘but you used that one last week. If you’re not going to try with your homework, the least you can do is try with your excuses.’

  Holly looked up at him, shocked. Legs? It was so openly sexist; she couldn’t believe he’d just called her that. Sexist and inappropriate, and she was sure it violated at least [insert number] teacher/student codes. She’d never been the type to call someone out on bad behaviour but with the whole #metoo movement, she felt an obligation to say something. She couldn’t let a thing like this slide.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘what did you just call me?’

  ‘Legs.’ He didn’t even have the good grace to look ashamed of himself.

  ‘You can’t call me that.’

  ‘Okay.’ He went on good-humouredly: ‘I’m terribly sorry. Please accept my apology, Miss Byrne.’ He bowed from the waist. ‘And now, let’s get back to the matter at hand. Your homework. You left it at home, you were saying?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right,’ she said, not willing to relinquish her indignance just yet. ‘I did the whole thing, all of it, and it’s on my desk at home. I just forgot to bring it. That’s all.’

  She suspected that wasn’t the case – she hadn’t seen anything even vaguely resembling maths homework when she’d been sifting through Trinity’s papers – but when you were taking the high moral ground, it didn’t do to give an inch, much less concede that you hadn’t even attempted your homework.

  ‘Excellent. In that case, I expect you’ll hand it in to me first thing tomorrow morning.’ O’Farrell looked down at her with a smile. ‘Or Wednesday morning at the latest.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Holly said. ‘It’ll be there on your desk, first thing tomorrow morning, because it’s at home. Like I said. All done, all completed,’ and she could hear a vague sing-song tone in her voice that she recognised from the girls she taught, the ones who didn’t do their work, who put zero effort in, who didn’t care.

  Turned out, she was one of those.

  10.43 am

  English class.

  Holly was sitting at a desk right up the front, centre aisle, pointed out to her by the teacher, Mrs Grimwade, when she’d walked into class. Teaching 101: put disruptive students where you could keep an eye on them.

  Mrs Grimwade had her back to the class, writing on the blackboard (blackboard!), the fresh chalk letters (chalk!) stark against the green-black background.

  Holly felt a tap on her shoulder, and a girl (name: Mandy; status: not a friend, just a girl in the classroom) passed over a note, indicating with a backwards tilt of the head that it had come from someone behind her. Holly took it, unfolded the note – Sooz says you nearly got kidnaped on Friday. True? – then glanced back around the room to see who’d posted it.

  ‘The answer isn’t behind you,’ she heard someone say at her elbow. Holly shifted around to face forward again, and found Mrs Grimwade standing in front of her desk. ‘The answer should be here’ – and the teacher tapped at her own temple – ‘inside your brain. So please, if you’d be so kind. We were discussing Asher Lev. Illuminate us.’

  Holly stared blankly. She couldn’t illuminate anyone, because she didn’t know what the question was and had no recollection of having read the book.

  The Grim Reaper. That was what they called this woman, all bony elbows and no sense of humour.

  ‘It’s reasonable for me to assume,’ the Grim Reaper continued, ‘that when you’re looking around the classroom, it’s because you already have the answer. So tell me: why are Asher Lev’s paintings considered to be less respectable than other religious paintings?’ And she spread her hands wide, as if to catch Holly’s wisdom in her palms.

  Silence. Holly could feel the classroom watching her back. ‘I don’t know,’ she finally mumbled.

  ‘Excuse me?’ Mrs Grimwade said, tipping her ear towards Holly and cupping it theatrically with her hand.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Holly repeated. She’d dealt with enough disengaged students to know that humiliating them in front of an entire room of their peers was guaranteed to put them offside. Forever. Cupping your hand sarcastically to your ear definitely fell into that category.

  ‘Maybe it would help if you paid more attention to what I’m writing on the blackboard, rather than what your friends are writing.’ The Grim Reaper held out her hand. ‘The note, please.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Hand me the note, please, Miss Byrne.’

  And yes, this ‘Miss Byrne’ was especially sarcastic. Holly thought back to maths class. At least Mr O’Farrell’s ‘Miss Byrne’ had held a note of humour and warmth in it. But Mrs Grimwade’s held none. This woman didn’t want engagement. She wanted to break Trinity.

  ‘The note, please,’ the Grim Reaper repeated, clicking her fingers impatiently.

  Which was when the gut instinct of Trinity kicked in, and a steely defiance settled into her bones. ‘There’s no note,’ Holly said, her arms folding in front of her body.

  The Grim Reaper stood there, palm still out, waiting.

  Holly shrugged, all innocent face and insolent shoulders. ‘There’s no note,’ she repeated.

  Mrs Grimwade simply pointed over at the door.

  Holly stood up, gathered her books to her chest, and, as she walked out of the classroom, lobbed an unexpected grenade over her shoulder at Mrs Grimwade. ‘I’ll probably learn more out there than I would in here with you anyway.’

  Holly’s eyes widened a fraction, shocked at the words that had come out of her mouth. She couldn’t take credit, of course; that had been pure Trinity right there. The teacher in her knew there’d be no wins on the board for being insolent, but the human being in her, the one who never called out bad behaviour, had to admire Trinity for standing up to the bully.

  ‘And that’ll be a Friday detention right there for you, young lady,’ the Grim Reaper said with what could only be described as immense satisfaction.

  12.27 pm

  Holly sat on the bleachers overlooking the oval, fuming about Mrs Grimwade. ‘Apart from anything else, it’s really poor teaching method,’ she said.

  Susie Sioux laughed, her eyes following a group of guys running laps around the oval, her cigarette hidden under the bench. ‘Poor teaching method? Seriously?’ Then she scanned for teachers, took a quick drag, blew the smoke out, and hid her hand back under the bench.

  Okay, maybe Holly could have rephrased it slightly, but she stood by her assessment. It was terrible teaching method, and clearly this woman had been getting away with it for years.

  ‘I’m going to speak to the principal,’ she decided. ‘We shouldn’t have to put up with this type of thing.’

  ‘Oh yeah, for sure,’ Aprilmayjune said, drawing in her notebook next to Heather, who had her eyes closed, face up towards the sun. ‘You should definitely speak to the principal. They’ll definitely listen to you. She’ll be outta here so fast, her head’ll spin.’

  And she and Susie Sioux and Heather laughed at the very idea.

  ‘She’s been tormenting kids for years,’ Heather added lazily. ‘That’s her MO. Why would they get rid of her? That’s probably what they pay her the big bucks for. Chief Tormentor and Child Abuser.’

  Holly couldn’t believe these children of the seventies would accept this type of thing. Wasn’t this the era of Vietnam War protests? Didn’t this generation stick up for themselves?

  ‘Okay sure, but also’ – and here she was certain they’d be on her side – ‘Mr O’Farrell calling me Legs is completely inappropriate.’

  If either of these teachers were at Holly’s school, they’d have been hauled before the Ed
ucation Board by now.

  ‘You know what,’ said Heather, ‘you’re right. To be honest, I’m always slightly offended when he calls me Farrah.’ She whipped her hair around, clearly not at all offended to be compared to Farrah Fawcett.

  ‘Now that you mention it,’ said Susie Sioux, ‘I’m really upset that he calls me Boss.’

  Again, not even slightly upset. Not even mildly bemused. Holly couldn’t help but laugh, though. You only had to look at Susie Sioux to know why O’Farrell would call her Boss.

  A ball came flying in their direction. Holly felt her reflexes reacting before she had a chance to think about it, stretching up and catching it firmly in her hand.

  Susie Sioux laughed. ‘Nice catch – you still got it.’

  Holly looked down at the baseball in her hand. She’d never been a ball sports kind of girl, but obviously Trinity had some pretty solid skills in that area.

  The pleasure of the long reach into the air, the ball finding her glove, the other fielders whooping and cheering, the hitter taking the long cold walk out of the diamond.

  She shrugged as if to say no biggie and then threw it back to the guy down on the oval, who was looking up at her, well impressed.

  Lewis.

  1.56 pm

  Typing class.

  Mrs Dodd was a short, round little-old-lady type, wearing a woollen cardigan and sack-style skirt over thick tights with sensible shoes. She was a dead spit for one of Grannie Aileen’s friends, the ones who’d come over each week and played mahjong. Or was it poker? Bridge?

  Memories from Trinity’s life were intruding more strongly every hour, while the memories from her own life seemed to be getting more and more remote. Like Loolah had said happened in The Neverending Story. Every time you made a wish, you lost a memory.

  Mrs Dodd walked down the aisles of students, handing out a typewritten sheet with information about the history of chocolate in Mayan culture. ‘Today, girls,’ she began, because yes, everyone in the class was a girl; because yes, this was 1980 and no, boys didn’t take typing classes, ‘we’re doing a touch-typing speed and accuracy test. I don’t want anyone to worry too much about it, it’s just a practice test. Simply to see how we’re all going along. This doesn’t go towards any grades, so just try your best. That’s all I ever expect from any of you.’

  Holly sat at the large clunky gunmetal-grey typewriter, her hands propped, wrists held high as if she was holding a ball under both of her hands, back straight, posture perfect. A metal barrier, like a small version of a tray for breakfast in bed, obscured the keys, just in case a student was tempted to look down at the letters instead of using the little raised nodes on the ‘F’ and ‘J’ keys to find the correct finger position. Trinity’s body knew this. Same as with the guitar, the memory was in the fingers, in the arms, in the very spinal cord.

  Mrs Dodd’s timer went off and the entire classroom started typing text, going as quickly and as accurately as they could. There was nothing scary about this typewriter – it wasn’t going to start hammering words up onto the page all by itself. It was simply typing along with her, each letter following the jab of her fingers on the obscured keys. Each full stop, each comma, exactly as she intended.

  After a full minute, Mrs Dodd’s timer went off for a second time and they all stopped, took their paper out of the typewriter and swapped with the girl next to them.

  Holly’s competitive streak felt the thrill of the point-score as she noticed that she’d done better than her neighbour. And then it occurred to her that maybe it wasn’t her competitive streak: maybe it was Trinity’s. This had been the only class all day that Trinity had done well in; where the body had been paying attention. In fact, it was the only class all day where Trinity’s behaviour had synced up with Holly’s naturally obedient nature.

  For the first time, she had a glimpse of the two of them together. Blondie. Parallel lives.

  3.14 pm

  Holly walked out the school gates with Susie Sioux and Aprilmayjune and Heather and Lewis and Scott and Kevin and Eric and the entire cohort of students from all year levels. Freshmen siphoned out together, sophomores bunched up with sophomores. Being Australian, Holly would never have known the difference between a freshman and a sophomore, a junior and a senior, and yet here she was, instinctively able to distinguish them just by looking.

  The formless mass slowly thinned out further as they walked on, until there was just her, Susie Sioux, April and Heather.

  It turned out they were going shopping. Like they did every Monday. Holly wasn’t sure why they went on Mondays, when most teenagers would presumably have gone shopping together on the weekend, but apparently it was their regular thing.

  Holly wondered whether Trinity had replied to her letter yet, but when shopping every Monday with her best friends was what she did, she couldn’t very well get out of it. In any case, she liked hanging out with these girls. They had good energy. Especially Susie Sioux, with all the ways she reminded Holly of Zoe. She missed Zoe so much, and if this was an opportunity to feel as if she was spending precious time with Zoe, she was going to take it. Trinity’s letter would be sitting in the typewriter, ready to read when she got home.

  But Holly found herself only half-listening to her friends’ chatter. She was too distracted. What was going on back in 2020? Had Trinity received Holly’s letter in the first place? Had she carried out her threat and destroyed Brother Orange? Had all communication between them ceased? Maybe Holly should have gone home, there was still—

  A hand reached out and pulled Holly back, stopping her from walking out onto the road and getting bowled over by a car coming up from the left. ‘Whoa. You trying to get yourself killed?’ Susie Sioux said.

  Holly felt her heart thrumming at the close call she’d just had. She needed to concentrate, needed to remember that cars came from the left here, not the right.

  A bus pulled over and all four of them got on. Holly spent the ride looking out the window like the tourist she was – it was her first time in LA, after all – and after a few blocks, the bus pulled over and the four of them got off and walked into an enormous building, the daylight outside replaced by windowless walls and escalators and a storeys-high ceiling.

  Shopping at the mall. Couldn’t get more American than that.

  A throw-down tantrum was being unleashed in front of a KB Toys while the mom tried to shush the kid. An old businessman was sitting on a bench watching young girls walk past. There was a ‘Win a New Car!’ competition, with the New Car! parked at the bottom of the escalators. There was a Sears, and an Aladdin’s Castle game parlour that was all dings and flashing lights; a Camelot music shop, and a Kinney Shoes shop. There were moms holding kids’ hands, and old ladies holding old husbands’ hands, and arms bent at the elbows carrying shopping bags. And bad hairdos? There were a ton of them.

  … old lady with bad hair and terrible clothes …

  Excuse me, Holly felt like saying to Trinity, but this, here, is bad hair and terrible clothes. Not my haircut circa 2020, very modern, very low-key, very stylish.

  They walked into a JCPenneys and the four of them fanned out, idly running their hands across the racked clothes. Holly noticed Susie Sioux slip a chunky black belt with silver studs into her schoolbag. Which was when Holly realised that this wasn’t strictly a shopping expedition: it was a shoplifting expedition.

  At the beginning of Grade 4, Holly, Evie and Zoe had been loitering in the comics section of a newsagent, building up to the moment when they would each put a comic in their schoolbags. But Holly worried that a whole comic would be too obvious, the difficulty rating too high for a novice. She slowly walked towards the exit, her heart thudding in her ears. But she felt like such a goody-goody that as she walked past a box of party poppers, she grabbed one and shoved it in her pocket.

  The owner of the newsagent followed her outside the shop and said, ‘I’d like you to turn out your pockets for me.’

  Even now, in a whole other body, Holly coul
d feel the anxiety of that day rise from her stomach to her chest. She ran her hand over her forehead. It felt clammy, hot. She needed to get out of here. She didn’t want to shoplift. It wasn’t her.

  ‘What do you think of this?’ Susie Sioux came over, holding up a short red dress.

  ‘What are you gonna do?’ Holly hissed at her. ‘You’re just going to put that in your bag?’

  Susie Sioux frowned at her. ‘What are you talking about?’ she said, all innocent. She took in Holly’s pale face. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘I think I’m going to faint. I don’t feel good.’

  ‘Sit down here, put your head down. Wiggle your toes.’

  Holly plonked down in the aisle, her arms folded across her knees, her head resting on her arms, her eyes closed. She heard Aprilmayjune and Heather come over and ask if she was okay, and when she reassured them that she was fine, they went back to rifling through the racks and holding skirts and T-shirts against their bodies. ‘What do you think?’ ‘I’m gonna try this on.’ ‘This is cute.’ All of them, apparently, with no intention of paying for any of it.

  The shop assistant came over. ‘Are you okay?’ she asked.

  ‘She feels sick,’ Susie Sioux said.

  Holly looked up into the young assistant’s face. She was probably only twenty or something. She seemed genuinely concerned. Kind.

  ‘I’m going to go and sit outside,’ Holly said, to Susie Sioux, to the girl, to herself. She didn’t want any part of it.

  She sat on a bench next to the escalators, next to the Win a New Car! The mall wasn’t terribly busy. And suddenly Holly had a flash of why they went shopping on Mondays instead of the weekend. Fewer customers meant fewer staff. Fewer staff meant four girls shoplifting was like shooting fish in a barrel.

  After a short time, Susie Sioux came out with a shopping bag in her hand, April and Heather following. ‘You feeling better?’ Susie Sioux asked, putting her arm around Holly’s shoulders.

  Holly kept her eyes focused on her fingers, feeling slightly annoyed with these girls.