Then suddenly the exams that have been looming for weeks are here. Sammy is busy every moment of every day and Tara, devastated over her break-up with Christian, throws herself into her work. But I just can’t bring myself to care about my own Normal School exams. For the life of me I can’t plot an axis of symmetry on a parabola curve, nor can I care. I can’t picture any situation ever arising where I will be called on to do this in the real world. It all seems so pointless. Somewhere in the very back of my tiny mind I am aware that I am repeating the same pointless self-sabotaging behaviour that got me kicked out of the Academy. But the thought depresses rather than motivates me.
Eventually I decide my problem is sitting. So much sitting. I am kinetic. I learn better if I’m on my feet. So I grab Ethan’s old skateboard and my helmet and catch a bus to the city. I tell myself that outside the Academy is the best place to practise, but I am totally aware that my pathetic attempt to casually bump into my friends knows no bounds. Still, at least I am learning something. Even if it is to ollie. But ollying makes more practical sense than parabola curves.
‘Those skills are white hot.’
I turn around to catch Christian’s famous smirk. I don’t smile.
‘Begone with your compliments,’ I tell him. ‘We’re not on speaking terms.’
He frowns, ‘What?’
‘You broke up with Tara. Under Article 107 of the BFF Code I’m on her side for the rest of eternity.’
‘I’d hate to contravene Girl Code but is there a loophole if I double as your skating tutor?’
He’s masking it, but I realise he’s hurting, too.
‘I thought you said my skills were hot?’
He grins. ‘Lied.’
We hang together through the long afternoon. I notice his phone keeps beeping with messages but he ignores it. I fall off a lot, but it’s good to be out of the house and it’s so good to have company. Part of me feels that I am betraying Tara, hanging out with Christian like this. But (I tell myself) it wouldn’t be fair for Tara to make me choose.
We walk together along the harbour. The lights of Luna Park sparkle in the background. I am suddenly quiet. Shy. But I don’t think Christian notices.
I rub my palm where I’ve scraped the skin off.
‘My mum used to tell me off for picking my scabs,’ he says, unromantically.
‘Ethan used to eat his.’
Christian laughs. Then he continues, more seriously, ‘She said I was being unfair, undoing all their work, when they were just trying to make me better.’
I flick him a sideways glance. ‘Kind of like Tara?’
He gazes at me. ‘You think I need fixing, too?’
His eyes pierce through me. ‘No,’ I tell him, honestly. But I can’t hold his eyes, the moment is too intense.
I glance away and see a giant poster: it’s Christian, magnified, staring down at me. I laugh. ‘But then I’ve always known, deep down, you were the pin-up boy of the Academy.’
‘They never told me they were going to do that. This place is unbelievable.’
‘Hey, it’s just exam blues. If you want to feel seriously depressed you should try failing vegie maths. I mean what’s even below that?’
‘Tofu?’ He takes a moment. ‘Did you see what I just did there?’
I grimace. We keep walking.
I stare down at my history exam paper and fidget anxiously in my seat. The clock ticks angrily.
Elke next to me has already filled a whole page, while I’ve barely scratched out four sentences. When she catches me watching she covers her work. Hopelessly, I look at my own paper again.
There’s a knock on the classroom door. It’s Lexie. ‘Miss? Kat’s brother’s here. Family emergency.’
‘Ethan?’ I say.
But it’s Christian who steps into the doorway.
As I step out of the classroom he hisses, ‘I’m busting you out.’
‘What?’ I ask, following him down the corridor.
‘I suddenly got the urge to do something fun. And I couldn’t think of a more worthy wingman.’
I stop in my tracks, feeling the smile fade from my face.
‘Okay, but aren’t you meant to be in pas de deux this morning?’
Christian refuses to let me spoil his buzz. ‘You’re right. Exams are depressing.’
‘You can’t listen to me. My life’s a mess. They could kick you out for ditching.’
‘Maybe they should.’
I shake my head. ‘Go back. I’m serious. I don’t want you on my conscience.’
I turn on my heel. I don’t look back but I can feel him watching me walk away.
When I finally get out of the exam, bleary-eyed and depressed from the experience, I see Christian in the grounds, waiting for me. Lexie is hovering beside him, giggling and batting her eyelashes.
‘Don’t feel special,’ I tell Christian, ignoring Lexie. ‘They’re boy starved here.’
‘Bye, Kat’s brother,’ Lexie chirrups.
‘So what are we doing now?’ Christian asks.
‘Taking you back to the Academy?’
He pretends to consider it. ‘What else you got?’
‘Work. You’d have to help though and I don’t think you’d be into it.’
His phone rings. He glances at it, and terminates the call. ‘Lead the way.’
I drop in to Party Party Party, a small business that Anne Black has got me a gig with, to pick up my costume.
‘This is Christian my, um, work experience student,’ I tell them. ‘Do you have a costume that will fit him, too?’ I lean in closer and whisper, ‘He’s classically trained.’ Beryl, who smells of chewing gum and cigarette smoke, eyes Christian up and down, then heaves herself off her feet and goes into the back room. She comes back with a costume, slams it down on the counter and goes back to watching her soap opera.
‘There’s a little bit of fairy dust in the air,’ I whisper to Christian, who snorts laughter through his nose.
Christian pulls at his eye patch, distinctly uncomfortable.
‘Why are we doing this again?’ he asks me.
‘I have to take my opportunities to dance where I find them. Now I’m not at the Academy.’ I grin. ‘Did you like how subtle that was?’
Christian flinches. ‘You should go into life coaching.’
It’s easy to find the right house, we just follow the trail of balloons and streamers and the sound of pre-schoolers squealing. The garden is beautifully decorated, and there’s about twenty little girls wearing fairy dresses.
‘Is anyone here called Charlotte?’ Three-year-old Charlotte and her friends run over. ‘Fairies of old. Fairies of new. Sprinkle on fairy dust and you’ll be one, too.’ I sprinkle glitter over the little girls. ‘I’m Lilac, the Birthday Fairy. And this is my sidekick, Captain Backflip.’
Christian shoots me a withering look. I hit play on my mp3 player. ‘Who wants to become part of the magical fairy club?’
‘Me! Me! Me!’
I go through the script, trying to put as much life and fun into it as I can. ‘Fairy wings up, fairy wings down …’ I lead the kids through the garden. Under my smile I feel the strain of the exams, and a building grief. Anne Black told me that every audition, every job, would be a chance to dance. But every time I do dance I feel torn between worlds, the one I have to live in on a daily basis, and the world of dance – a world of couldabeens.
To his credit, Christian stays for the whole party, and ends up teaching Charlotte’s brother how to do a backflip on the trampoline. I notice how patient he is with the kid. He’s a good teacher.
But I don’t want him to end up like me. Even if he doesn’t want to dance with the Company, he owes it to himself to keep the door open, just in case he changes his mind. So I am relieved to find, when the party is finished, that Captain Backflip has slipped away, back to the Academy to dance his pas de deux exam.