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  Without Alison, who was that?

  Eating lunch the first week at Fernwood Secondary, I discovered my wonderful self – I was a freak.

  A pretty blonde girl looked in my lunch box and said, ‘Oh.’ Then she smiled at me and said, ‘Oh well. I’m Katie. Katie Marshall. What’s your name?’

  ‘Clover,’ I said. ‘Jones.’

  Katie’s face gently wrinkled with confusion.

  ‘Clover? Is that a name?’

  Then beautiful, beautiful Rob Marcello with his perfect swept-over hair and deep, chocolaty eyes, sat next to me and said, ‘Right. So, Jones, did you watch the footy or what?’

  With all the force of my wishes (that I had watched the footy; that Rob and I barracked for the same team; that Rob Marcello would sit next to me at lunch for ever and ever and ever) my voice tumbled out in a gush. ‘No – but I love footy and would’ve watched it, but I couldn’t because we don’t have a television. Mum reckons it rots your brain.’

  ‘You don’t have a TV?’ Rob said it so loudly, other kids came over to check me out.

  One of them was the scariest girl in Year Seven. Her name was Rosemary Daniels, her big brother was a star footy player for Fernwood and she had every SingStar DVD there was and always won because she was ‘amazing’.

  ‘What kind of weirdo doesn’t have a television?’ she said, looking me up and down as if I were a slug, and the other kids laughed.

  ‘She has green turds in her lunch box,’ said Katie, and the laughing got louder.

  ‘They’re dolmades,’ I said, and ran to the toilets, and stayed there until the PE teacher found me and made me go to class.

  I was a Steiner-freak who ate home-baked bread and brown rice and didn’t have a television.

  For the first seven long weeks of high school, I tried to convince Mum that TV was essential to my development as a socially functioning adolescent, but she didn’t give in until I said, ‘I have no friends,’ and cried.

  It remains the most disappointing, embarrassing TV ever – not even as big as her stupid dictionary – and is treated like something dangerous, addictive; kept in a cupboard with her favourite anti-TV book, Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television. Mum still acts like having it in the house is some great sacrifice.

  ‘Light a candle. Keep this crystal beside it,’ she said when we plugged it in. ‘It’ll help with the radiation.’

  I wouldn’t have thought anything about the home-baked bread, dolmades and protection from radiation, but at high school I realised that what you ate, what brand you wore and what you watched means everything – ‘beeswax candles’ and ‘biodynamics’ signified only one thing at Fernwood Secondary College: weirdo.

  But Al and I hadn’t known. We’d thought I was normal.

  Mum had to get the internet for work when I was in Year Nine, but she refused to let me have Facebook. Halfway through the same year, Alison Larder came back from Canberra, but by then we weren’t little kids anymore. Everything had changed. Well, I’d changed. Alison looked almost the same, flat-chested and short, as if puberty had somehow passed her by.

  ‘Say hello to your mum for me,’ she said on her first day, after our awkward hello in the milling, noisy school corridor.

  I restrained myself from saying, ‘Sure, and you say hi to Jesus for me,’ and mumbled ‘Yeah,’ instead.

  We haven’t really said much to each other, since.

  But I don’t want to say any of this to Philip McKenzie. I change the subject. ‘What did you do?’

  He shakes back his curls, longer now. ‘Rode my bike in the hallway.’

  ‘Jeez, Philip, is that all?’

  He stretches his legs and crosses them at the ankle. ‘No one calls me Philip, except teachers and my mum and dad.’

  ‘What do people call you then?’

  ‘Keek. Keeksie. Kenzo. Any of them names will do.’

  ‘Those.’

  ‘What?’

  I shake my head at myself. ‘Sorry. My mum always does that.’

  ‘Does what?’

  ‘Corrects my grammar.’

  ‘Oh, right.’

  There is a weird little silence. ‘You said them names instead of those names,’ I explain.

  ‘Oh.’ He shrugs off my grammar correction. ‘Well, your mother is definitely weird.’

  ‘It’s true.’

  ‘I know. I’ve seen her.’

  ‘You should try living with her.’

  ‘You should try living with my parents.’

  ‘What’s wrong with them?’

  ‘They hate each other.’

  The door opens and the principal beckons Philip inside. Keek. I can probably get used to that.

  It’s not long before the door shoots open and he’s ushered out again with a terse, ‘Wait there.’

  Philip – Keeksie – slumps on the bench with an audible sigh. ‘Have fun, CB,’ he says as I follow the principal into his office.

  CB. Do I actually like this acronym of Clover-bomb?

  Mr Alberto launches in. ‘No mother wants to hear that her daughter is guilty of such foul language and disrespectful attitude. What have you got to say for yourself?’

  Mum reckons Berty ‘isn’t a bad-looking man’, but I can’t see the attraction. And I’m quite sure he doesn’t like the looks of me.

  ‘Sorry.’

  Berty looks unimpressed. ‘You’ll write an apology to Mrs Sutcliff, of course. And . . .’ he emphasises the ‘and’ as if I were resisting ‘. . . you’re suspended for three days. I know Clover Jones fancies herself as “above the law” but this kind of behaviour is not tolerated at Fernwood Secondary College.’ He shows me to the door.

  What is it with him referring to me as if I’m some other person, some third-party Clover Jones? I should confront him about that, but the thought of more trouble makes me nauseous. Three days of legitimate freedom is excellent, but he’s right about Mum; she will not be pleased.

  ‘Wait here. Mrs Fitzpatrick will take you two to the locker bay. It’s your lucky day, Phil. Clover is going to help you scrub the floor.’

  ‘What the hell? You can’t make us scrub the floor.’

  ‘Unless you want a Saturday morning detention as well, Philip, I suggest you watch your attitude. And yes, I can.’

  And he does.

  Keek hasn’t only ridden in the halls, he’s left a massive skid-mark letter K on the locker-bay lino. It’s a mighty achievement and tragic that no one is going to see it.

  Mrs Fitzpatrick supervises so we can’t even slack off. She’s the art teacher for the lower school and always seems frazzled. I like her, but she used to be Miss Bell and back then we did charcoal drawing, and perspective and vanishing point and how to create shadows with shading, but since she married Mr Fitz the upper-school drama teacher all we ever do in art is paint sets for his productions. Sometimes I think I’m cursed by amateur theatre.

  Using steel wool without rubber gloves is disgusting, but there’s an upside because eventually it becomes clear that we have scratched a giant letter K into the lino. Keek and I crack up. After a moment of trying to look serious, Fitzy laughs too. I laugh so hard I swear I can feel the black stuff coming off my soul.

  I walk home after school and Keek rides his bike painfully slowly so I can keep up with him.

  ‘Mrs Fitzpatrick is cool,’ I say.

  ‘Yeah, Fitzy’s all right.’

  ‘Wish she was my Home Group teacher.’

  ‘Yeah, she’s all right.’

  He lifts up the front wheel with a little hop. ‘Maybe you could get transferred or something? Sutcliff’d probably be glad to get rid of you.’

  ‘Whose Home Group are you in?’

  ‘Fitzy’s.’

  I can’t breathe. Keek rides forward at speed, then slides to a halt. If Keek thinks I should be in his Home Group, does that mean . . .? He rides back to circle around me slowly. ‘I can’t believe she married Mr Fitz,’ I say, my voice still starved of oxygen.

  ‘
Mr Fitz’s pretty funny – d’ya remember when he wore a skirt?’ He turns and rides in a circle the other way.

  ‘It was a kilt, not a skirt.’

  ‘It looked like a skirt to me.’

  ‘Ranga bastard!’ A rock tied up in a grotty headband hits Keek in the back, making his bike wobble. Across the street, footy boys jog by in a sweaty clump. Pete Tsaparis gives us the finger.

  Robbo yells out, ‘You were kickin’ goals today, Jones – thought Sutcliff was gonna pop a blood vessel. What happened?’

  ‘Suspended,’ I call back.

  ‘Good one.’

  And they’re gone, jogging off round a corner.

  My Robbo-burning-cheeks must be practically glowing, but when the wave of elation of being in Rob’s line of vision – of having him talk directly to me – ebbs off, they turn another kind of red. ‘Pete’s an idiot,’ I say. ‘Are you all right?’

  Keek kicks the headband into the gutter. ‘They all are.’ The rock pings loose and clatters down the drain.

  I suppress the blurt of ‘Rob’s not’ and there’s an awkward pause.

  ‘I turn off here.’ I point. ‘I live down there.’

  He points. ‘I live up there.’

  We don’t live that far apart. I’ve seen Keek race away from school on his pushbike, but I’ve never spoken to him on the way home before.

  He sits on his bike, one foot on the nature strip. ‘Do you smoke?’ he says.

  I rearrange my electric-shock eyebrows and have to clear my throat before the word comes out properly. ‘No.’ A strange thrill stirs inside me and I think of Marilyn Lepace, suspended three times for smoking before she went so magnificently too far and they expelled her. ‘Do you?’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about it.’

  ‘Where would we get them?’

  ‘Easy. My mum smokes. It’s one of the things my dad hates about her.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So . . . I could steal some from her, dopey.’

  We look each other in the eye.

  ‘When?’ I ask.

  ‘I’ll meet you here. Tomorrow.’

  ‘Where will we go?’

  ‘I dunno. The park?’

  ‘What time do you want to meet?’

  ‘Half-past ten.’

  ‘What if my mum won’t let me?’

  He gets out his phone. ‘Give me your number.’

  ‘My mother doesn’t believe in mobile phones. She thinks they give you cancer. We have a landline.’

  Keek gives me a look, no doubt recalculating how strange I actually am. ‘Nah. We can do it old-school: if you’re not here, I’ll know your mum didn’t let you.’

  ‘What if your mum won’t let you?’

  He pushes off on his bike. ‘My mum won’t know.’

  ‘Yes she will.’

  A little shake of his curls. ‘No, she won’t.’

  ‘Yes she will.’

  ‘I’ll see ya tomorrow, CB.’ He and his bike dwindle as he rides up the hill.

  ‘Okay. See ya, Keek.’

  There, I’ve said it out loud. Maybe now it will stick.

  Mum paces in the kitchen, banging things. ‘I’ve been on the phone with Mr Alberto.’ She throws a spoon into the sink. Something breaks – sounds like glass. She rounds on me. ‘How dare you speak to people that way? Every person deserves to be treated with respect.’

  Oh yeah, the world’s full to the brim with people respecting each other. ‘What about me then?’ I drop my bag and take off my school shoes. ‘What about Mrs Sutcliff respecting me?’

  ‘I think I’ve heard enough about you, Clover.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘I’m serious. I’ve been pushing your side of the story for years. I’ve heard enough. Get to your room and have a good long think about whether it’s honouring the best self you can be to treat people with the lack of respect you exhibited today.’

  ‘Yeah? Well what the hell do you think you’re exhibiting?’ I throw my shoe. The moment it leaves my hand, I wish I could snatch it back. It glances off her chest on its way to taking out an indoor plant.

  She says, ‘Ow,’ and stares at me with eyes of thunder.

  ‘Mum—’

  ‘Go to your room.’

  My mum doesn’t yell often but when she does, it’s scary. I go to my room.

  Later, she comes in with a cup of hot milk and honey. ‘Thought you might need something warm and sweet.’ She shifts the angle of the page to see what I’m drawing; radiated skeletons crawl from the fractured earth and an onion-angel escapes through a crack in the sky.

  I sit up and reach for the milk. ‘I didn’t mean to throw that shoe.’

  ‘Yes, you did. And I’ve left the worst of the mess for you to clean up.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘It hurt, you know.’

  ‘I am sorry, Mum. But it doesn’t matter what I do, they hate me. Alberto and Sutcliff. It’s not fair.’

  ‘I know.’ She sighs, deeply. ‘Life is rarely fair, but swearing at Mrs Sutcliff isn’t the answer.’

  Lucille climbs up and settles herself with three turns and a sigh. Mum puts her arms around me and my hot milk.

  ‘Well, what’s done can’t be undone,’ she says. ‘What are we going to do with you for three school days? I’m running that creative writing course for new mums at the Community House this week. I guess you’ll have to hang out with us. Or shall I see what Mrs T is doing?’

  Our family is Mrs Theopopolous’s pet project; technically, she’s our neighbour, but in reality, she’s Yiayia, which means grandmother. She keeps us stocked with jams and preserved fruits and dolmades, homemade from the leaves of her grapevine. She used to try to set my mother up with her married children’s unmarried cousins, until (to Mum’s great relief) they ran out. All Yiayia’s children have moved into their own houses and she complains about how lonely it is since Mr Theopopolous died, but he’s been dead for as long as I can remember and her five grown-up children and their spouses always seem to be at her house with their thousand children.

  ‘Yiayia is next door. I’ll be fine.’

  ‘I won’t be home until about three-thirty. What will you do with yourself?’ Mum sounds dubious.

  ‘I dunno. Draw.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Mum, do you remember Philip McKenzie?’

  ‘Yes, of course I do. His dad and I went to school together. His mum too, for that matter. They’ve been going out since, gee—’

  ‘What?’

  ‘God, younger than you. Year Nine.’

  ‘Philip reckons they hate each other’s guts.’

  ‘Don’t tell me that, Clover.’

  I crane my neck to see my mother’s face, but it’s awkward with the milk and she turns away, which doesn’t help. ‘Why not?’

  ‘It’s none of my business.’

  There’s something weird about that, but I’m not in a position to push it and the thought of anybody’s parents being at high school, especially my own, is vaguely vomit-making, so I press on. ‘Anyway, we hung out together at school today.’ I’m glad she can’t see my face.

  ‘I thought you didn’t like each other? But it’s good you’re finally making friends. I’ve always thought it was a pity you fell out with Alison, the two of you were such fun when you were little; oh love . . .’ And she hugs me tighter because I’m crying again, which makes me feel better but guiltier about the smoking. She lets go when Lucille slurps from my half-empty cup.

  Keek looks weird out of school uniform. We are dressed strangely alike, in hoodies and black jeans. His connies are black and mine are orange – a present from Aunty Jean.

  ‘Did you bring them?’

  ‘Yep.’

  And there they are, up his sleeve: half a packet of smokes.

  ‘Won’t your mum know?’

  A visible ache floats over Keek’s face. ‘She doesn’t remember stuff. She won’t know if she smoked them or not.’

  ‘My mother remembers ever
ything – she remembers what I ate at my seventh birthday party because it was the first time I had potato chips.’

  Keek gives me a look.

  Why is my mother such a freak? Has she passed her freakish genes on to me?

  ‘Where is your mother?’ he asks.

  ‘Working till three.’

  ‘Then we could go to your house.’

  The thought of going to my house with Philip McKenzie and smoking cigarettes stolen from his mother sends shudders up my spine. Mrs T looms. ‘It’s too risky,’ I say, and try to explain, but Keek shrugs me off.

  ‘Yeah, yeah, it’s cool, whatever. Let’s go to the skate park. Get your bike.’

  ‘I don’t have a bike.’

  Keek looks at me as if I’m from outer space. ‘I’ve got a mountain bike. You could ride that.’

  I don’t know what to say. It’s like confessing that you can’t read, or swim. The words come out slowly, like I’m speaking underwater. ‘I can’t ride a bike.’

  Keek says, ‘God, you are a freak.’

  God. It’s true.

  I nearly run home, but Keek pats the handlebars and says, ‘Oh well, who cares. I’ll dink you.’

  ‘Dink me?’

  ‘Don’t look like that, CB. It’ll be fine.’

  ‘No way.’

  ‘It’s about six k’s from here to the bowl. Do you want to walk?’

  I don’t want to walk.

  ‘Right, hop up, then.’

  The bike isn’t high off the ground, but it’s as if I’ve tripled my gravity – I’m as heavy as lead and can’t even jump, let alone hop up backwards. I use a retaining wall to get up on the handlebars. Once I’m there, I feel Keek’s breath on my neck. I wobble, and jump off.

  He shakes his head. ‘You’ve got to trust me.’

  It isn’t comfortable, being dinked on Keek’s bike. Apart from being scared to death, my legs ache. Grey fur streaks in front of us and I panic. Keek nearly runs us into a tree.

  ‘That cat was freakin’ miles away!’

  ‘Forget it, I’ll walk.’

  ‘Come on Clover, relax and it’ll be fine.’ He pats the handlebars again. ‘Use that brick letterbox. And this time, lean back further and stick your legs out. But not out, out – down out.’