The Mimosa Tree (8 page)

‘Nah. I'm on a break. I was sitting under a tree back there when I saw you go by. I watched you turn down this path,' he says, pausing to lick his cigarette closed. He holds up the cigarette he has rolled and inspects it. It's fat in the middle and thin at either end. He shrugs and puts it into another coat pocket without smoking it.

I stare at him, try to take in what he has said. ‘So you followed me?' I say.

He shrugs. ‘I guess I did.' He leans back on his hands and looks around appreciatively then lies down using his backpack as a pillow. ‘So who's the preppie girl I've been seeing you with?'

‘What?'

‘The girl with the Celica. She doesn't seem like your type.'

I go bright red. I can't even pretend to hide it. Firstly, he's so close, I don't want to breathe because he will feel it; secondly, he has been following me, and thirdly, he has seen me in that stupid car with Princess Felicia.

‘She just drives me to school,' I say quickly, and he laughs.

‘That's cute.'

‘What?' I say, scratching at my ear nervously.

‘You called it school.'

Damn my family again! Why can't they learn to speak English properly instead of using these half-right words? He reaches into his coat and pulls out the cigarette he rolled earlier and a Zippo, which he lights with a flick of his fingers.

‘You smoke?' he says, lighter poised and burning.

I have never smoked in my life but it's impossible to admit this to him, so I just smile. He lights the end of his bulging cigarette. It flames like a candle before smouldering and ribboning white smoke. After a couple of deep inhalations, he offers it to me. Without pausing, I take a drag. I end up taking a much bigger lungful than first intended, and the smoke seers the back of my throat. My virgin lungs clench and splutter helplessly.

‘You all right?' he says.

I nod because the smoke has seized up my vocal chords. I am beginning to feel a little strange.

‘Probably should have warned you. I like a strong mix.' He takes another long drag himself before offering it to me again.

‘Mix?' I rasp, then suddenly, stupidly, I realise I have just smoked marijuana. Here I was thinking how bad it was that I was going to have a cigarette! What is wrong with me? He keeps smoking, staring into the distance and looking perfectly relaxed. I sit rigidly still as I wait in terror for madness to engulf me. I never imagined I would become a drug addict so unwittingly. What am I going to tell my parents? Will I need to go to detox now? My jaw is clenched, and I can feel fear beginning to shake me.

Then he turns to me and takes his sunglasses off. As I gaze into his green, kohl-lined eyes, I am fuzzily, dreamily, meltingly hypnotised. I think I smile.

‘You look stoned,' he whispers.

‘Do I?' I say.

‘You've never smoked weed before have you?'

‘Nope.' And I start to get the giggles.

‘So I've corrupted you,' he says smiling. ‘You will forever remember me as the one that initiated you into a bad world.' And he pretends like he is opening a door for me. ‘It's a big responsibility you know.'

He offers me the cigarette again, and I take it. The next drag is a little easier, and it only takes a second for me to feel even fuzzier.

‘That's better,' he says smiling as he lies down on the grass, hands behind his head. ‘You're a quick learner.'

‘Top of my class,' I say lying down too, mainly because I am not sure I can stop myself from falling over. ‘At least, I used to be.'

‘Cool,' he says, turning to look at me through long blades of grass. ‘I like a smart girl.' And I turn away so he can't see me blush.

My breathing is slow and shallow, and I feel elated. I laugh out loud when I realise how in just a matter of minutes I have gone from depressed to euphoric, and probably the happiest I have felt in my life. For a moment I think I understand what it must feel like to not have a single thing to worry about, and I am about to open my mouth and say so when I hear the familiar, dreadful rumble of a warplane flying overhead.

I sit up suddenly. It's a bit silly, but I can't help it. As soon as I hear one of those flying monsters I start to count in case it's a sign that they've finally dropped a bomb and started the war. I suppose it's like counting after you hear thunder, to see how close the lightning hit. The blast zone of a nuclear explosion is kilometres wide and I need to count to
at least a minute before I know I'm clear. The roar is so loud I have trouble working out where the plane is. I whip my head around trying to locate it, but the drug has made my vision short and blurry, and my mind feels slow and clumsy and unable to think. The roar is getting louder, and I can almost feel it crushing in on me. I give up trying to find it and just push my hands into my eyes and brace myself for an explosion.

Twenty seconds.

Thirty seconds.

Forty seconds.

I feel something brush against my arm and jump in terror.

‘Hey,' says Student-number-eight and I realise he is the one touching me. ‘They're over there, see?' He points up to the sky and suddenly I see them, three planes flying in formation. They are flying away from the city, towards the coast. ‘It looks like a training exercise.'

As soon as he says it I know he's right. Three planes flying in formation over the ocean. Of course it's just a training exercise. Just some young guns getting shown the ropes. There is no immediate danger.

He touches me lightly on the arm again. ‘Are you okay?'

‘Sorry,' I say feeling like a complete idiot. ‘I have a thing. About the planes.'

He nods earnestly without a hint of mockery, then his hand moves from my arm to my cheek. His palm is warm and I am aware that now I am feeling a completely different kind of terror, though this one is harder to explain.

‘Don't tell anyone,' he says, ‘but when I hear the planes I
worry that it means the war has started.' He laughs and drops his hand. ‘Crazy right?'

‘Not really,' I say, and suddenly I am smiling again. I am staring and smiling like a dopey dog, and I know I must look demented but I can't stop myself.

‘You know,' he says lying back with his hands behind his head. ‘I read somewhere that we are the first generation to grow up believing that we don't have a future, and that's why we are all a bunch of underachieving, drug-taking misfits.'

‘I've never thought of it that way,' I say as I lie down beside him. ‘But I think it makes a lot of sense.'

‘Well,' he says turning on his side and beginning to roll another joint. ‘We better live up to our reputation.' When he's done we pass it to each other, smoking quietly until it's finished. We don't speak, but it doesn't feel uncomfortable. In fact, everything feels great. I stare with fascination at the eucalypts, awed by the way the leaves glitter and flutter like silvery butterflies. I close my eyes and immerse myself in the soft crackling of leaves being crunched between fingers. After what seems like a very long time I hear him speak.

‘I like your hair,' he says, but so softly I am not sure.

I like your eyes, I think back to him.

He props himself up on one elbow, looks down at me with a serious look on his face. ‘But do you like ducks?'

‘Don't know,' I say, propping myself up to meet him. ‘I've never eaten one.'

And we fall back into the grass and laugh and laugh.

Suddenly, the family of ducks takes off from the water, flies over our heads. We gasp simultaneously. They are close enough
to touch. He turns his head to look at me, wet grass tickling his chin.

‘My name is Hamish,' he says. ‘But they call me Harm.'

‘My name is Mirabella,' I say. ‘But you can call me Mira.'

Time passes slowly, quickly. I am not sure which. We talk about nothing, and understand everything. We merge ourselves with the air, and we fly our minds like kites for each other's amusement. I have the most amazing afternoon of my life and as I lie here now, woolly-headed and face burning in the afternoon sun, I am having trouble remembering the precise point at which I fell asleep.

Harm is gone. I don't feel stoned anymore but I am disoriented. I am so preoccupied by his wordless departure that it takes me a while to realise I am late, really late, for my lift home. I jump up and pull my backpack over my shoulder in one move and start to walk before I have actually oriented myself so that I turn an almost full circle before I'm going the right way. I start running. I am not sure what to expect, but feel enormous relief when I see Felicia standing in her meerkat manner by the car.

‘Where have you been?' she says, rushing to meet me.

‘Thank God. I wasn't sure you'd still be here.'

She picks some leaves from my hair, and I am suddenly aware of how I must look. ‘Mira, what have you been doing?'

‘Art project,' I say, brushing brown grass clippings from my jeans. ‘Nature collage thing, you know.'

‘What happened to your face?'

‘What?' I say, wiping my cheeks. There seems to be a little heat coming from them. I bend over to look at myself in the side mirror of the car and am horrified to see that I have sunburn on one side of my face.

‘Didn't you notice you were getting burnt?'

‘I was concentrating. On my art, you know.' I am mortified. How long will this take to fade? Am I going to blister? I look like a strawberry and vanilla ice-cream.

‘I've been really worried,' she says with her hands on her hips and I am expecting a wagging finger next but she restrains herself.

‘I just lost track of time. Sorry.'

She looks at me suspiciously, waiting for me to say more, but I offer nothing. I am expecting her to start nagging me for more information, but she just shakes her head and gets into the car. I suppress a laugh. If she thinks sulking is going to get me to start spilling my guts then she has really underestimated me! I take my time getting in, pushing my backpack into the floor well and shaking my sandy boots before dragging them in after me. I lean away from her and stare out of the window, but it's impossible not to see that she is constantly looking at me, waiting for me to say something. I stay firm, pretending I don't notice, so then she starts clearing her throat. She scratches at her head, then looks at me again. I am a wall. She begins to hum an unidentifiable tune, and then looks at me again. It's hard and it feels unnatural, but I keep my eyes on the road, focus on passing trees and bus stops. Finally, she reaches past me to the glove box, hits the button hard so that it drops open
with a clank of rattling cassettes. Still ignoring her, I listen to her flick through until she finds what she is looking for. There's a click as the tape engages, then a whirr of the heads turning. Seconds later, I am assaulted by the hideous aberration which is Italian pop music.

‘All right, all right!' I say, slamming the stop button. ‘I was with a boy, okay? Now can we please listen to some real music?'

Felicia smiles in a jaw-hanging-open kind of way. She begins to laugh and I try to hide my embarrassment by flicking through the tapes, but I am not really looking at them. ‘Way to go, Mira!'

I stare at her in irritation.

‘Oh come on,' she says pushing my hand away from the glove box and fishing out a Joy Division cassette. She puts it in and hits play. ‘You made me wait for an hour. The least you can do is tell me something!'

I scrunch my face up in disgust. The idea of talking about my feelings with anyone, let alone Princess Felicia, makes me feel constipated. ‘There's not much to tell.'

She looks at me with annoyance, reaches back for the Italian pop music, but I stop her hand before she gets to it.

‘What do you want to know?'

‘Where did you meet him?'

Groan. ‘He's in one of my classes.'

‘And what's his name,' she says, developing a little singsong girlishness in her voice.

‘Harm,' I say, keeping my own voice as straight as possible.

‘That's a name?'

‘Hamish. He gets called Harm.'

Thankfully, she decides to let it go. ‘And what does he look like?'

‘Oh come on! He looks boy like.'

She laughs. ‘Okay. One more and I'll let you off the hook for today.' She leans towards me while keeping her eyes on the road. ‘Did you kiss him?'

I rub my eyes which are beginning to feel a little dry and stingy from too long in the sun. ‘No, Felicia. We just hung out.'

She makes a sad face. ‘Oh well. Maybe next time?'

‘I don't think there's going to be a next time.'

‘Why?' she says raising an eyebrow at me. ‘Because the world is going to blow up?'

‘Very funny,' I say shifting in my seat so I can look out the window and hide my face. ‘I don't know. It's just not like that.'

Truthfully, I am still trying to work out why Harm left without saying anything. We were having such a good time, surely it's not too much to expect him to say goodbye, or even leave me a note? Waking up alone has left me feeling abandoned, and I am looking forward to just getting back to my room and locking myself in for a few hours so I can reflect back on everything and try to work out what went wrong.

‘Well,' she says leaning back into her seat and getting on with the business of driving. ‘That turned out to be a disappointing story.'

‘Gee. Sorry my life isn't entertaining enough for you.'

‘I did expect more from you. You've got a bad reputation, remember?' she says. ‘Never mind, there's always next time. Hopefully you can do something to restore my faith in your badness.'

When we arrive home Mum is standing on the driveway waiting for us. She smiles broadly as we pull in, but her hand goes up to her chest and stays there and I know she's been worrying about me.

‘Where have you been?' she cries as she opens my door. She takes my backpack then grasps both my hands to pull me out of the car. She starts patting me up and down like she is checking for wounds.