Whatever Maz said to Prad must’ve scared him because when I got to rehearsal he acted as if he hadn’t even seen the photo, as did Nicko. Only Simon was insensitive enough to bring it up.
He sidled over to me during a break and said, “Don’t worry about it, Al. Anyone who has a problem with Larrie and Beth isn’t worth knowing anyway.”
Maz must’ve guessed from my expression that I was about to tell him exactly how much I appreciated his reassurance because she called an abrupt end to the break, clapping her hands and telling the guys to get back to their instruments NOW.
I managed to keep it together until they started playing “You Don’t Know” and I remembered being wrapped in Josh’s arms the last time I’d heard it. Now that the photo was out, I doubted he’d ever be seen with me in public again, especially on school grounds. I slipped out of the room, hoping the others were too engrossed in their playing to notice my teary eyes or running nose.
Maz found me in her bedroom after the guys left, lying face down on her bed with Ziggy and Major Tom snuggled on either side of me.
“You know what you need?” she asked when she saw my bloodshot eyes.
“To be placed in a witness relocation program?”
“The ice-cream cure – effective in treating ninety-nine per cent of cases of stress, depression, anxiety and extreme little-sister blues.”
I took the hand she held out to me and went with her to the kitchen.
“I’m sorry I ditched my presidential duties last night,” I said, piling my bowl high with scoops of hokey-pokey and mocha fudge ripple. “Being with Josh takes my mind off … you know what.”
Maz squeezed a stream of choc-fudge topping over my bowl. “I know. That’s why I’m trying not to tell you what I really think of him.”
Fuelled by sugar (Maz) and anxiety (me), we stayed up for hours talking about the Josh situation, and the Nicko situation and, finally, the Larrie situation.
“What do you think Larrie sees in Beth?”
“Well, she’s smart, for starters – way smarter than Mitch. And she’s always been pretty nice. Remember that time she saved us when we used Larrie’s hair straightener on your old Barbie?”
How could I forget? If Beth hadn’t thrown herself between us, I reckon Larrie would’ve gone for my eyes when she saw Barbie’s face melted onto her most prized possession. “But that still doesn’t explain it. There are plenty of nice, smart boys Larrie could go out with. Why can’t she and Beth just be best friends?”
Maz stopped scratching Ziggy’s chin to think about it. “I guess you can’t choose who you’re attracted to,” she said finally. “Like you can’t help being attracted to Josh, even though he’s a pretty-boy jock.” She threw a pillow at my head.
I returned fire with a cuddly toy. “And like you can’t help being attracted to a guy whose greatest ambition in life is to play Guitar Hero for a living.”
“Touché,” she said, lobbing her teddy bear at me. “And like Simon can’t help–”
I didn’t let her finish her sentence. “Time to change the subject, before I throw something breakable. What are you wearing for the SkoolDaze final?”
Maz didn’t need any further encouragement to start raving about all the ideas she’d had. I was happy to lie in the dark and just listen to her. It made me realise how much I’d missed her over the past few weeks. Between Josh and Nicko and Poor Simon and the band and Larrie’s dramas, things had been a little tense between us lately, but tonight we were back to being Al and Maz, and it felt good.
Eventually, Maz came down from her sugar high and passed out mid-sentence, but I still couldn’t sleep. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the photo of Larrie and Beth, as if it was etched onto the inside of my eyelids. I lay staring into the darkness, trying not to think about how many other people I knew also couldn’t get the image out of their heads.
No one was less surprised than me when Larrie phoned home the next afternoon to say she was staying at Beth’s again. Her first exam wasn’t until Tuesday, so Dad said it was okay, even though Mum had planned a roast dinner.
For a second I expected Mum to go ballistic about it, but instead she sighed and said, “I can’t wait till these exams are over.”
To cheer her up, I set the table without being told to and put some daisies from the garden in a vase, even though the scent of daisies reminds me of wee. It was worth it when Mum smiled and thanked me.
“How’s school?” asked Dad as he helped himself to seconds. “Did you get that Science assignment finished?”
“I’m, uh, still working on it,” I said, wincing at the thought of the blank worksheet that had been sitting on my desk all week. “Actually, if you’ve got time after dinner, could I ask you some questions for it?”
While I cleared the table Dad drove to Kingston Shopping Village and picked up a tub of chocolate gelato.
“I’m afraid we’ll have to finish it tonight,” he said with a wink, “so Larrie doesn’t get upset.”
As we ate, we worked through Ms Morales’s list of genetic traits and variations.
“Hair colour?” I asked.
“Blond,” said Mum.
“Grey,” said Dad. “But it used to be brown before I had kids.”
“Eyes?”
“Blue,” said Mum.
“Two,” said Dad, cracking himself up.
“Dad! You wouldn’t joke around if this was Larrie’s assignment.”
Mum shot him one of her fierce scowls, and he instantly stopped laughing. “Okay, sorry. I’ll take it seriously from now on.”
We worked through the rest of the questions about tongue curling and “mid-digital hair” (which Mum explained meant hairy fingers, ew) and earlobe shape, until we came to the final one.
“Any known allergies?” I asked.
“Does mowing the lawn count?” asked Dad. “Sorry. I mean, none.”
“Nor me,” said Mum. “It doesn’t seem fair, does it? Neither of us having any allergies at all and poor Larrie suffering so much.”
Dad patted her hand. “Come on, Colette, you can’t blame yourself. It’s the luck of the genetic draw, right Al?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said, annoyed that the conversation had somehow come back to Larrie.
“Larrie’s lactose intolerance. She inherited it from us,” said Mum. “I couldn’t believe it when the doctor told me. I mean, when your dad and I were growing up, kids drank milk every day – they used to give it to us at school, even – and we never had any reaction to it.”
Dad had told me before about being forced to drink milk at school. He reckoned it was always warm and usually on the turn by the time it got to the classrooms. Even now, his face screwed up at the memory of it.
Mum continued. “When Larrie was diagnosed, after all those weeks of being such a sick little baby, the doctor told us that it was because we both carry a recessive gene for it. That’s why it’s called congenital lactase deficiency.”
“And that’s why you thought I had it too?”
Mum nodded. “I wasn’t taking any chances. You two were so alike in every other way – the way you looked, the way you acted, the way you thought about things – that it didn’t seem impossible.”
Later, I thought about what Mum had said. She’d told me before that people used to ask her if Larrie and I were twins, because we both had blond hair and green eyes – and if Mum had dressed us we were probably wearing coordinating outfits – but she’d never mentioned anything about us acting or thinking alike before.
I wondered whether it was true. And, if it was, what had happened to make us so different now?
Al Miller doesn’t fit into her genes.