Fury (17 page)

“What’s that?”

“I’m going to record our next few conversations.”

“I want to talk to you. I don’t want to talk to a tape recorder.”

“Just pretend it isn’t there.”

“You’ll play the tape to other people.
No.”

“Eliza,” says Dr Fadden firmly. “I want you to tell me the truth now.”

“You think I have been lying to you all this time?”

“You know what I mean,” says Dr Fadden.

“No,” I say, and fold my arms.

Does he think that because he’s let me treat him like my own personal bitch that I now owe him? That he can just reach out and take what he wants; like Aardant thought he could take what he wanted? The thoughts in my head scream
I am not the victim. Lexi is the victim and no one helped her. I am not a victim victim VINDICTIVE—

“Do you even know what day it is?” asks Dr Fadden.

I refuse to answer.

Dr Fadden throws a paper down on the desk in front of me. It is another copy of the
East Rivermoor Eye.

“This is the latest edition. Go ahead, turn to the social pages.”

I look at Dr Fadden. His face says he means business. I take the paper and open it up.

“Your end-of-school ball was last night. Did you even know?”

I am crushed. The way he said it was so casual.

There is a four-page colour spread in the middle. I don’t think I can look at it. There are too many faces I don’t want to see, and too many faces I want to see but know won’t be there.

“Look,” says Dr Fadden and he points to the picture right in the middle so hard that his finger almost goes through the thin paper. “I believe this is the Belle of the Ball.”

I want to throw up. I make myself look at the photo of Jane Ayres. I regret it as soon as I do. Suddenly something is howling inside of me. Howling to get out and I know it can’t, because I have to keep it in.

“That’s my dress,” I say numbly.

My blue dress. The colour of a perfect blue sky. So perfect that there are no clouds. No clouds to rain on me. The dress
I wore when I stared up at Neil and he stared back down at me. He said I looked pretty strange, but in a good way. I had shed that dress onto Ellanoir’s bedroom carpet and then for the rest of the night, I glowed in my own skin.

Ellanoir gave the bitch my dress.

“I can’t deal with this,” I say and I crush up the newspaper and push it back to him.

So it comes down to this moment. I either open my mouth now and say what I have to, or keep it inside of me for the rest of my life.

He is so close. He knows he is almost under my skin. He just needs something to tip me that bit sideways. I am like his little piggy bank with the coins finally rolling out. He has worked so hard. Trying to be my friend, trying to bribe me. I should have known better than to trust anyone. Maybe I have realised too late, again.

Dr Fadden clicks on the tape recorder. “Tell me about Neil.”

“No!”

“Eliza—”

“Neil has nothing to do with it!”

“You tell me who does then.”

It was Monday and I was staying behind after History to staple trial exam papers in Mr Gubler’s classroom. I was grovelling big time because it looked like I was going to fail
the History exam miserably, since Mr Gubler hadn’t actually taught us, like,
anything
all term.

I stayed a little too late. When I lifted my head, Aardant was standing in the doorway. It looked to me like he had used his suspension to work on the highlights in his hair.

This is not good,
I remembered thinking to myself. But at least I had the privilege of knowing. Lexi got no warning.

Aardant walked up to me. I took a step back. That was probably my mistake. He knew then that I was afraid of him.

“Oh, there you are, little snitch.”

I held the stapler out. “Don’t come any closer.”

“What? Or else you’re going to staple a study guide to my forehead?”

Aardant walked up to me and yanked a strand of hair out of my head.

“
Oww!”

“Nice. If you like that colour. Although I’m kinda scared the colour’s like that below.”

How would he
eww eww eww.

“But you’re almost as pretty as Sexy Lexi.”

I was still holding the stapler, but my hand was shaking so much I couldn’t have pounded him in the face with it even if I wanted to.

“But not as pretty as Marianne. Now she’s a lively one. Problem is, which one of you do I choose first?”

“No more games, Eliza. I want you to tell me the truth now.”

“I don’t want to.”

But I do. I know I do. I want to get rid of it.

“Then it will go back on Neil. He will carry the sole blame. That’ll be easy, but I thought you said he was your friend?”

Very clever, Brian. I thought it would come to something a little more highbrow, but hey, it turns out to be blackmail. It’ll get you anywhere, anytime. Congratulations, Brian.

“I’m listening,” he says. I expect him to look all gloaty, but he doesn’t.

I look over at the tape recorder. Then I reach out and turn it off.

“Then we do it my way.”

I ran straight to Politics the next morning, hoping to get there before Marianne. My mother had left another twenty-dollar note in the fridge, but I didn’t take it. I knew I would get hungry, but I didn’t want to eat. I wanted to know what it was like to be empty.

This was the first class since Lexi got back with all three of us in it. With Aardant. And without Neil.

I found Marianne walking by herself in the corridor. Blonde hair and long legs like a gazelle. I looked desperately around, as if I expected to see a hunter aiming a rifle at her.

I wanted to protect her. The best way I felt I could was to run up and hug her.

“What’s wrong with you?” She pushed me away.

“Nothing,” I mouthed, but the words didn’t come out.

Marianne rubbed her right hand and I caught a wince passing across her face. She caught me staring and she dropped her hand.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. I stared down at the hand and she drew it sharply behind her back.

“Nothing.”

I didn’t take that as a satisfactory answer. I grabbed her arm and held it up between us. Marianne looked away.

“Who did this to you?”

Marianne’s hand bore the red marks where someone, very strong and very angry, had crushed it.

“He … he did,” she said finally. I could see her trying to force herself to say his name. She couldn’t. “He caught me when I was alone after I came out of the girl’s bathroom. He must have been following me…”

“Did anyone see it?”

“What do you reckon? I think the answer to your question is
no.
I bet I could ask every one of those people who were there if they saw anything and they would say no.”

“Why would Aardant do this?” I demanded.

Marianne looked down at the ground.

“He wasn’t happy with … you know, after English yesterday? He said next time I did something like that again he would break my finger.”

“Aardant is not a law!”

Marianne laughed.

“Yes he is,” she replied and looked me straight in the eye. “
See Yourself. Reward Yourself. Punish Yourself.
You wonder why he got a one-week suspension? Because he thought that was all he deserved. And they agreed with him.”

I grabbed Marianne’s other hand and tugged her toward the classroom. Lexi was already there, sitting in our spot, waiting for us. I watched her chest heave as she spotted us.

“Have you gone through the latest test exam? I completed all the questions except for the last essay, I have no idea how to even start answering it—do you mind if I—”

“It’s okay, Lex,” I said. “We’re here now. It’s okay.”

Lexi quit talking and tears pooled in her eyes.

I looked out the window. On the lawn, sprawled under the old ghost-gum beside the school lake, Neil was reading a thick textbook. I watched as he tossed it aside and took out a comic instead. I rolled my eyes and couldn’t help but smile. I turned back to the classroom and stopped smiling. Daniel Smalls, Jeremy Biggins and Aardant walked in. Luckily, Mr Chifley was following directly behind them.

“Please take out the trial exam papers. I am allowing this period to be an open lesson. I know most of you will be spending the entire session slouching, gossiping and wasting my time, but even if none of you care about Politics, you might just care if you
fail.”

He’s such a Mr Meanie. I so hated this class. I took out my file and looked over toward Lexi, trying to see the question
that was bugging her. I could feel the breeze and the ruffling of my papers as Aardant walked past me to the front of the room. Lexi quivered.

I watched as he bent over in front of Mr Chifley so that our Politics teacher was completely blocked from our view. I shook my head and leaned back toward Lexi.

I heard the giggles from the back of the classroom when they first started, but I ignored them. It was probably Kerry Croft and her fangirls, making fun of the back of people’s heads or giggling about some boy.

The giggles didn’t go away. If anything they seemed to get closer until someone sitting directly behind me sniggered. I looked toward the front of the class. Aardant had said something to make Mr Chifley get on his high horse. I was thinking that Mr Chifley should probably be asking the class to tone it down, but then I realised that our Politics teacher probably couldn’t hear anything over his own pompous voice. I felt a tap on my shoulder.

Cathy-Ann Moss was sitting behind me. She held a folded piece of paper toward me with a big smile on her face. I stared at her face long and hard. I should have known better than to accept another note from her. I didn’t see the eager look in her eye. I didn’t know that what she was handing me was bait.

Marianne and I had talked to Miss Bailoutte. Miss Bailoutte had talked to Principal Hollerings. Aardant had got suspended, had signed off agreeing that his suspension was
what he deserved. It wasn’t the outcome I wanted, but it was the best I could do for Lexi. I was past it. Lexi wanted to be past it. It should have been
over.

I unfolded the paper. I folded it back up again and scrunched it in my fist, but it was too late.

“What’s that?” asked Lexi.

“Nothing,” I replied and I tried to catch Marianne’s attention on the other side of Lexi.

Lexi caught that as well.

“Hand me the note,” she said.

“No.”

The same word a girl would say when there’s a guy standing above her with his pants undone. The word wouldn’t work this time either.

“If everyone else has read it and thinks it’s funny then I want to see it as well. Hand it over.”

I thought about Lexi sitting on Jane’s bed. What did Aardant say to her when she said no? What about the girl whose lifeless body was rolled down into that ditch. How many times did she say “no” as she pleaded for her life?

Lexi snatched the note from me. Marianne sat stiffly on the other side, not knowing what to do.

There was nothing to read on that note. It was only a crude boy’s drawing that didn’t even look like the people it was supposed to show. That’s why the arrow pointing to one of the figures was labelled
Lexi
and the other
Alistair.
Marianne peered over at the drawing and turned away.

Lexi’s hand started to shake. Then she squashed the note back into a ball.

“Thi—this is not funny,” she stuttered.

She stood up and she turned around to face the class behind her. The students in front caught on quickly and turned their heads eagerly.

“Who drew this?” she demanded. “You fucking show yourself to me!”

There was an audible intake of breath. Then everyone went quiet. When Lexi repeated herself, this time louder, no one dared to make a sound. Except Jeremy Biggins. Biggins looked straight at Lexi and sniggered.

I couldn’t stand it. Sorry, but I
couldn’t.
I was looking at Jeremy Biggins, staring at us with that snarling face and his ugly, crooked teeth. I could hear Mr Chifley still arguing some point a dead politician had once made and that no longer mattered to anyone, Aardant purposely egging him on so that our Politics teacher had no idea what was happening behind his back.

My father once told me that the hardest thing in this world was learning to say “no”. Well, stuff him. He didn’t know how to say “no”, did he, when my mother forced him out of my life?

I got Mr Chifley’s attention when I walked to the back of the class and punched that little runt Jeremy Biggins in the face. It was only when Mr Chifley heard Biggins’ screams that he stood up and pushed Aardant aside. By the time he made it
to the back of the classroom, Biggins was already writhing on the ground, dripping blood all over the new cream-coloured wool carpet the school paid a fortune for. What a shame.

I stood back and observed my work like I was an artist and Jeremy Biggins was my masterpiece. I’ve learnt a thing or two from Neil. And my new friend, Jane Mutton. Maybe I learnt a little something from Aardant as well—certain things aren’t effective, but then, certain things are.

Biggins’ blood was all over my hands. I turned to my right and through the window I could see Neil still sitting under the ghost-gum.

Neil look at me Neil look at me Neil look at me
I repeated over and over in my head as I stared at him.

Maybe it’s because we’d known each other before we were born. When our pregnant mothers used to sit with their swollen bellies facing each other, maybe we talked to each other as well and didn’t need words. Otherwise, I didn’t have any other explanation.

Neil suddenly lifted his head and looked straight at me. I walked up to the window, raised my palm and pressed it against the pane. It left a bloodied handprint. Through the red shape—my red flag, my riot sign—I could see Neil staring at me.

“Go get the nurse,” Mr Chifley shouted at one of the other students.

Someone raced off and Mr Chifley turned his attention to me.

“You! Principal’s office. Now!”

“Sir, I’m going as well. I was in on it.”

It was Marianne. With her head bowed, she came to stand next to me.