disappear verb: to leave from sight (if
you’re lucky, that is)
‘I’m not going back to school, Mum. Ever.’
‘I love you, Gracie Faltrain, but get your backside out of that bed. You won’t solve anything by staying there.’
‘Everyone’s talking about me.’
‘In a week they’ll be talking about someone else. Remember to walk on the sunny side of the street,’ she says, and I want to yell at her, what if there’s no sunny side, Mum? What if it’s pissing down on both sides of the street?
‘I wish Dad was here,’ I say. I have cut my reply neatly out from her heart.
Mum’s face looked kind of like one of my old shirts when I mentioned Dad. All crumpled and grey around the edges. I hate that I made her look like that, but I can’t believe she wants me to go back to school. ‘I just need to lie low for about a month, Mum,’ I explained but she wouldn’t listen. Sometimes I think she enjoys seeing me embarrassed.
Take last month, for example. We went to Myer to buy me a new bra. Her first words to the saleswoman were, ‘I’m not sure if you’ve got one small enough for her.’ Thanks, Mum. I mean, maybe we should just pop into the chemist’s and buy me two bandaids for support. Mum and the woman were laughing about the fact that I’d be ‘popping out all over the place soon’, when I decided to grab a few bras and try them on.
This is when it started to get ugly. And all because of two little words: swinging doors. They should be illegal in change rooms. Mum sees them and her reflexes take over. ‘Order is very important, Mum,’ I yelled as she flung open the door. ‘First, you ask, “How are you going in there?” Then you wait. That gives me time to say, “I’m NAKED in here.” ’
If she doesn’t get that frontal nudity is embarrassing, then what hope have I got of convincing her that ear cleaning with a tongue is definitely a quick drop, head first, down the social ladder?
Gracie, no one saw anything. I mean, what’s there to see?
You see what I’m dealing with here?