I usually had the kitchen to myself before school, but Mum was flapping around in her dressing gown when I got downstairs the next morning.
“You can’t do an exam on an empty stomach,” she said, putting a plate of scrambled eggs in front of Larrie, who was already dressed in her uniform even though Beth wasn’t picking her up for another two hours.
“I’m really not hungry,” Larrie said, deleting the text message she’d just received without replying to it.
Mum’s nose wrinkled. “Who’s sending you messages this early in the morning?”
“Just a friend wishing me luck.”
“I think you should turn your phone off until after the exam,” said Mum as she swatted my hand away from the toast that had popped up. “The last thing you need now is to be distracted.”
I gave up hope of getting any breakfast and grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl. “See ya.”
“Aren’t you going to wish your sister luck?”
“Break a leg, Larrie,” I said. I gave Mum an are-you-happy-now face and left before she could respond.
The school was covered in posters wishing Year Twelve luck and reminding the rest of us not to make any noise around the Humanities building during exam times. Even the Whit’s Wit home page was dominated by a graphic that said “Ssssh!”, as I discovered when I logged on in the New Media Studies lab. Technically, we weren’t supposed to use the computers there outside of class time, but the PCs in the library were snail-slow and they didn’t have any of the design software we needed, so Mr Dempster turned a blind eye to us working there.
“What brings you in so early?” asked Simon when he sat down next to me half an hour later.
“It’s the first day of Larrie’s exams. I had to get out of the house before Mum imploded with vicarious nerves.”
“Smart move. Are you feeling better? Maz said you went to sick bay yesterday.”
“Oh … yeah, I’m fine now.” I turned back to the Hot or Not photo gallery I’d been perusing on Celebrity Meltdown. Not that being ignored by the person you’re speaking to has ever stopped Simon.
“I came in to work on the graphics for my genetics assignment. I’m using Illustrator to show the colour combinations that might result from each finch pairing. If there’s one thing Ms Morales likes, it’s plenty of colour.”
I nodded automatically and clicked through to the next photo.
“Have you thought about how you’re going to illustrate your report? I could help if you need some ideas.”
Now he had my interest. “Thanks,” I said, rewarding him with a smile. “When do you think you can do it – I mean, help?”
Simon consulted his online calendar. “Maz has us rehearsing flat out until the SkoolDaze final on Friday, but we could work on it over the weekend. It won’t take long if you’ve got all your data ready – we can bling it up a bit with a few pie charts and punnet squares.”
The bell for rollcall rang.
I logged off and gathered my stuff. “Sounds great. Email me about a time.”
At least Ms Morales’s assignment was one thing I could cross off my list of things to stress about.
I didn’t tell Maz about Simon’s offer, knowing it would trigger a lecture about taking advantage of him. Unfortunately for me, Simon had mentioned it to Nicko in rollcall, and Nicko blabbed to Maz in English.
“I accepted Simon’s help with an assignment, not an invitation for a candlelit dinner,” I protested when she called me on it on the way to the canteen. “Anyway, he loves showing off how good he is at Science.”
“All I’m saying is don’t get the guy’s hopes–” Maz stopped abruptly in front of a crowd gathered in the car park. “What’s going on?”
“Someone’s car got covered in shaving cream,” a boy standing on the outskirts of the crowd told us. “They’re trying to get it cleaned off.”
We pushed through to see for ourselves. The boy was right: the old station wagon looked like it had been caught in a blizzard. Its front and back windscreens were covered in a thick layer of frothy white foam, which had also been used to write on the doors and bonnet. Two figures in white-spattered school dresses were trying to scrape the windscreen clean. When I saw them I knew it was Beth’s car. Someone must’ve got to it during her exam.
“Should we go and help?” asked Maz.
If it had been anyone – seriously, anyone – but my sister trying to scrape off that shaving cream, I would’ve said yes in an instant. In fact, part of me was furious with all the other kids who were standing around watching instead of giving Beth and Larrie a hand. But I knew they weren’t helping for the same reason I wasn’t going to: guilt by association.
“You can if you want. I’m staying out of it.” I didn’t wait to see whether Maz was staying or coming with me, walking as fast and as far from the scene as I could.
When I reached the door of the Chill Out Room, I was tempted to turn and run, but Patchouli must have excellent hearing because she opened it before I’d even knocked.
“Allison, how nice to see you,” she said without a hint of surprise. “Cup of chai?”
I took a seat on the lumpy couch and clutched a patchwork cushion to my chest.
“Is this a social visit or did you want to talk about something in particular?” she asked, handing me the “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” mug.
I studied the slogan for a minute before answering. “You know my sister, don’t you?”
She smiled. “Everyone at Whitlam knows Larissa.”
“But you really know her. I mean, she came to see you – that’s how you know she takes soy milk.”
Patchouli was still smiling, but her face was less open now. “Who comes to me and what they come about is strictly confidential. I have enough trouble convincing students they can trust me without getting a reputation for having a big mouth. I can’t talk to you about anyone but yourself.”
“Fine,” I said, determined to get the truth out of her one way or another. “I want to talk to you about me and my sister. Confidentially.”
“Okay.” Patchouli took a sip of her chai. “Let’s talk.”
True to her word, Patchouli wouldn’t answer any of my questions about what Larrie had come to her about, or when, but none of what I was saying seemed like news to her. I didn’t mention the photo directly, but I did tell her about Larrie refusing to fix the situation.
“So what do I do about it?” I asked.
“If you have proof, you can ask the student council and the school board to investigate it under Whitlam’s anti-bullying policy. It doesn’t cover homophobia specifically, but they might be able to–”
I interrupted her. “There’s no proof – Camille doesn’t even exist. What I mean is, what can I do to make people stop talking about it?”
“What do you think you should do?”
“Personally, I think it’s only fair that Larrie deals with it. After all, it’s her problem.”
“So you’re saying that Larrie’s sexual preference is a problem for you?”
“No! I’m saying that Larrie is a problem for me.”
Patchouli was still confused, so I tried to clarify the situation by explaining how sick I was of being compared to Larrie by all my teachers, and about the all-chores-no-life-until-after-Larrie’s-exams regime at home, and how everything was meant to get better for me once Larrie left Whitlam and it had become worse.
When I finally shut up for long enough to take a tissue from the box Patchouli held out to me, I realised what I sounded like: a self-centred, self-absorbed drama queen. I waited for Patchouli to launch into the inevitable defence of Larrie.
“Allison, do you think you also compare yourself to your sister?”
“What? What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Do you think some of the pressure you feel to measure up to your sister comes from yourself?”
I smacked the mug down on the table between us. “Can you stop with the cryptic counsellor questions and just talk to me?”
Patchouli flinched, but her voice remained as calm as ever. “I’m trying to help you arrive at your own conclusions, but, okay, I’ll tell you what I think. I think you’re having a hard time dealing with what’s happening to Larrie because you’re so much like her – whether you want to be or not – so when bad things happen to her, it feels like they’re happening to you too. But you feel torn between helping your sister and keeping as much distance between you and what she’s going through as possible, because you’ve always thought that once Larrie left Whitlam you’d step into her shoes, and now you’re not sure you want to be in them.” She looked at me expectantly. “Am I right?”
“Not even close.” I said picked up my bag before she could ask me any more stupid questions. “But thanks for the chai.”
“Drop by any time,” Patchouli called to my departing back.
Al Miller doesn’t want to wear anyone’s stinky old shoes.