I wake up at 6.50 the next morning. The house is quiet. I get up to check and find it’s empty. Mum’s gone to work.
Now it’s just me.
I grab the sedatives out of my drawer but don’t take one. As needed. That was the instruction.
I have breakfast, shower, and the closer it gets to the time I leave, the quicker my heart thumps and the clammier my palms get. I go back to the sedatives and break off the cellophane so I can grab two tablets. One I take immediately in the kitchen, and the other I thrust in my pocket. Then I lock up.
Ash waits on the corner. ‘How’re you doing?’
‘I’m okay, I guess.’
But the sedative hasn’t taken effect. I feel a mild agitation as we walk and it triples once we get to school. Kids are everywhere. They’re always everywhere. But now they’re suffocating.
In the courtyard, Riley sits with Felicia. He waves to us but doesn’t get up, so there’s no morning cigarette. Samantha strolls past with Lachlan, close enough to suggest they’re together, which brings up that jealousy again. Samantha glances at me, haughtily maybe – if I’m not going to do anything, then it’s my loss. Deanne – now wearing tight jeans and a body-hugging sweater – bounces on the way to class. While her friends are still the same timid, nameless group, she beams.
My chest tightens in that way that it feels like I can’t take a deep breath. I go into the toilets with Ash to have a smoke but don’t end up smoking much because it makes me dizzy. So I let it burn out, then flick it into the urinal.
Once the bell rings, we go back into the courtyard. Kids scatter, heading to their classes. I want to hide back in the toilet or tell Ash I need to go. It’s too risky being out here. I’ll blow out here. Somebody will see it. Everybody will see it. They’ll think that I’m a freak. That I’m weak. That I’m crazy. Then, a tiny, desperate thought questions why the sedative isn’t working.
I follow Ash into English class, sit in our usual place at the back – although I almost expect Riley to go sit with Felicia – and fidget with my books.
Mr Baker holds up a stack of homework. ‘I’m handing back your book reports for I Am the Cheese today,’ he says. ‘As I do so, please hand in your book reports for To Kill a Mockingbird.’
He must’ve put the homework in order because he moves systematically, working his way from the front to the back. Ash, Riley and me are the last to get our book reports back. It’s easy enough to see what marks we got, since Mr Baker always uses a thick red pen and marks homework in the top right corner, along with ticks or some comments. Ash gets a B- and three ticks, Riley a D with the comment You can do better than this! and I get an A+, with a Well done.
Mr Baker smiles at me. ‘Excellent work,’ he says.
As he heads to the front of the class, Riley scrunches up his homework and shoves it in his folder. Mr Baker would hear it because half the class turns to us, but he sits on his desk as he always does, grabs a novel and holds it in his lap.
‘Final book for the year,’ he says, holding up the novel. ‘The Catcher in the Rye. A classic in literature and, arguably, a book some of you will feel you’ll be able to relate to.’ He puts the novel back on his desk. ‘But let’s talk about To Kill a Mockingbird. What themes does Mockingbird explore?’
Suggestions are thrown out – racism, justice, family. Mr Baker nods as the class descends into discussion. I don’t say anything, instead only listening. But in listening, something happens. I forget that I’m meant to be panicked. Or maybe the sedative kicks in. Whatever happens, it gives me confidence that this is going to be all right.
When the bell rings, everybody stuffs their bags and Mr Baker dismisses us. But then his voice cuts through the noise of everybody leaving.
‘Riley,’ he says, ‘may I speak to you please?’
Ash and me look at each other, then hurry over to Computers. Mr Tan waits until we’ve settled. He’s only a small man, and often you forget he’s there because most of the students are taller than him. But there is always this tremendous sense of patience with him. He’s one of the few teachers who never raises his voice – his face will twist into disapproval, but he’ll just wait out anything that happens.
‘Before we move onto the computers,’ he says, ‘a homework assignment.’
Everybody groans. Computers is meant to be one of the easy subjects where we don’t have homework. Everything’s done in class because it’s the only place that everybody has access to these computers.
‘Computers are becoming an accessible, everyday item – just like a toaster,’ Mr Tan says. ‘I want one-thousand words on how you think computers will look in ten and twenty years. What technological advancements do you foresee? How will that impact other everyday technology, like televisions, refrigerators, cars and all those things we use in day-to-day life?’
Riley comes in. ‘Mr Baker needed to talk to me,’ he says as he slumps into his chair.
Mr Tan nods, repeats the homework assignment, then proceeds with the class as normal, teaching us the programming language Turbo Pascal. He gets us to write a few small programs that use variables and ask the user for their name. There’s a logic to it that there isn’t in real life. It keeps my mind occupied, although a few times I gasp for breath just to prove to myself that I can breathe.
At recess, we spill from the class and mushroom out into the courtyard. Felicia, Kat, Rachel and Gabriella mill about, chatting as we approach.
‘What happened with Mr Baker?’ Ash asks.
‘Said he didn’t like my attitude and if it happened again, he’d send me to see the vice-principal.’ Riley snorts. ‘I think he’s got it in for me.’
‘Sure you haven’t got it in for him?’ I ask.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘You always seem so angry at him.’
‘Just because you love him doesn’t mean I have to.’
‘I don’t–’
‘He’s a fag, okay? Probably pissed I don’t worship him like you do.’
I bite back on my anger. ‘Don’t get–’
‘Forget it. I’ll see you later.’
Felicia detaches from her friends, grabs Riley’s hand and they head off to the canteen. Kat and Rachel sit on one of the benches in the atrium. But Gabriella keeps standing there, waiting for me. Ash reads the situation straight away.
‘I’ll see you…’ He gestures in the direction of the toilets.
‘Sure.’
‘What happened to you the other night?’ Gabriella says, once Ash is out of earshot.
‘I had a bad headache,’ I say.
‘Not surprised with how much you drank.’
‘I had it for a few days.’
‘A migraine?’
‘Yeah. I guess.’
‘You think the assignment Mr Tan gave us is for the Boland?’ Gabriella asks.
I think about the other essays, then shake my head.
‘Why not?’ Gabriella asks.
‘I went and looked at the other essays – they have them framed in the office.’
‘Oh! That’s such a good idea! I should do that, too.’
‘They’re all about how we can make an impact on the future. The Computers thing is more about something else making an impact on our future.’
‘But we don’t know what the future is, right? It could be anything. So it might be about how we see the future.’
‘Maybe.’
I’m worried something will happen – that I’ll freak and she’ll see it. I could tell her the truth. She might understand, but who wants to be laden with somebody who has so many problems? I could apologise for leaving Ethan’s party so abruptly. I could ask her to the canteen, to sit and have a drink. I could compliment her on the way she looks. The options pour into my head.
And what comes out is frightened silence.
‘Okay,’ Gabriella says. ‘I’ll leave you to it.’
Or I think that’s what she says and I think her voice even breaks, but I can’t tell for sure because she’s already spun and moving away halfway through her sentence. She rushes off to join Kat and Rachel on the bench.
Lachlan and Samantha walk past. Lachlan leers at me, then throws an arm out around Samantha and pulls her close. He grins this stupid grin. Samantha doesn’t see it and she’s stiff at his side. But then she notices me and melts into him. He says something – I don’t hear it. Samantha laughs. It’s not fair how easy things come for some.
I hurry off to the toilets to have a cigarette.