For the whole of tutor group, Calli had to contend with a barrage of questions from her curious girlfriends, who inadvertently saw her and Declan walking across the field together. “Did he kiss ya,” Sally asked, pushing Calli in a shove that was half mischief, half jealousy. Calli felt peculiarly shy about their encounter, mainly because it meant divulging her meltdown over Danny and for some other reason she couldn’t quite catch.
Calli’s friends were sympathetic when Danny died at the start of Year 10, cosseting and enfolding her in a cushion of care as only teenage girls can. But it was short lived and outside of that first, dreadful year, no other displays of grief would be tolerated. It was the way of the world, it seemed.
Their love had in truth been conditional, containing a clause at which the sympathy timed out, but it was the only acknowledgement of the tumultuous rupture in Calli’s sanity and the practical cessation of her childhood. With internal agony such as that came womanhood, her first period and an end to all pretence at play. Danny was gone, unreachable and lost. Calli felt as desolate emotionally, as her brother’s broken body was physically. Following Danny’s heartrending funeral, Simon and Marcia reeled understandably as the world tipped on its edge and the natural order of death turned on its head. It was the wrong way round - no parent should have to watch their child’s coffin sinking into the soft, silty earth. It was as though all pretence at being a regular family ended that day. It was game over for each of them.
For the first time, Declan acknowledged Calli in English, tilting his head upwards and smiling at her as she entered the classroom shrouded by her friends. She smiled back cautiously, noting how one of the girls sitting behind him raised her eyebrows and looked distressed. The Christian girl was slightly plump, not unattractive but relatively dull in appearance. Her teeth hung like wonky farm gates but then she rarely opened her mouth, hence avoiding the issue. She was in possession of one of those forgettable faces but had never been unkind to Calli. Well, not before today anyway. Calli felt her pulse quicken as the girl’s brown eyes narrowed and fired virtual daggers at her. Reacting as though shot, Calli took a step backwards in alarm as the girl’s jealous anger came at her like a wave. So much for being a group of Christians, Calli thought to herself judgmentally, justifiable disdain showing on her pretty features. The retaliatory look which Calli shot back at Declan’s admirer must have contained vibes that were equally disturbing, because the girl, Lorna, averted her eyes hurriedly.
Yeah, you look away, Calli thought smugly, finding her seat in the middle of the classroom and slumping down into it. She allowed her heavy school bag to slide to the dusty floor, spewing books out from what presented itself as a broken zipper. Calli groaned inwardly. She was making the bag last as long as she possibly could, not wanting the pain of having to ask Marcia for money to buy another one. The bag had a garish variety of poorly done stitches adulterating its fabric surface. Calli had kept it going since the end of Year 10, when Marcia screamed at her over the state of the old one, forcing her to carry it with a broken strap for almost a term. Simon took pity on Calli and given her cash to get a new one, having seen her struggling home with it. It was such a relief for the girl to have a bag with a handle, to be able to sling her school gear over her shoulder instead of carrying it out front like a small, awkwardly shaped and lumpy child.
Calli fingered the short metal catch, doing an excellent job until then of pulling the zip open and closed but seemingly now retired. “Stupid thing!” She punched it and heard the thunk of books inside. The wave of anger washed over her and she fought to control it as a male teacher entered the room and instantly demanded silence. Her mind wandered to a time when the bag was only a week old and some older boys decided to use it like a rugby ball, snatching it from her shoulder in the corridor and hurling it above her head to one another. Desperate to retrieve it, Calli bounced like a small, clockwork toy, betrayal prickling the tears behind her eyelids as her friends stood around and watched her as though she was the interval entertainment. Calli ran shaking fingers over her face. A wave of anger and disappointment returned. She could almost taste the blood in her mouth at the memory of the cut lip as she lost her temper and charged the boy nearest to her. He was so surprised, even Calli’s slight frame barrelled him over and her slight fists pounded his face and chest in fury. A hot flush lit her cheeks at the embarrassment of the scene, followed by a week of lunchtime detentions and a night of pricking her fingers on the only needle sharp enough to sew up the ripped pocket on the front of the no-longer-new bag. The anger was like a ferociously burning ball of pain in her chest, alarming even her mild natured self and Calli wondered fleetingly if that was what she channelled through her eyes into Lorna just a few moments ago.
“Earth to Miss Rhodes!” The teacher yelled in her direction and with a jolt, Calli grasped that everyone was looking at her, their books out on the desks in front of them. Flustered, Calli rifled around in her sagging bag and retrieved the current novel the class was reading. She loved books and had already steamed ahead and finished it, which meant going at the same snail’s pace as the rest of the class whilst some poor fool stumbled over the words out loud, was infinitely boring. Unfortunately, it also meant she had no idea where the last person finished off reading, as the steady droning formed background vibration to her inner turmoil. Calli hadn’t even registered the class beginning. Heat rose up the unfortunate girl’s neck as she fumbled with the tatty school library copy of To Kill a Mockingbird, with absolutely no idea where to start reading from. As the English teacher, a portly man in his early sixties who possessed not a single molecule of patience or compassion in his genetic makeup, opened his mouth to blast her off the face of the planet, another voice began reading. Declan was a scientist at heart, able to digest the most complicated formulas in chemistry, biology and even math classes, but he was a poor out-loud reader, stumbling over his words painfully.
Calli quickly found the page Declan struggled with, tears of humiliation dripping unbidden down her nose and plopping off into the centre fold. His kindness was almost worse than the punishment the bellicose Phil Bader would have been planning for her inattention and it pricked at something in the girl’s soul. Why did the sweetest acts of generosity cause as much emotion as overt cruelty? Calli concentrated on tracing the boy’s words with her finger, willing the tears to dry quickly before Bader called for her to continue.
Declan’s halting speech always wound the English teacher up and the man terminated the torturous journey through the text after only a few pages, adding a sharp, “In future, speak when you’re spoken to, boy! You read like a Year 8.” Bader’s gimlet eyes roved across the room in his florid face and the bowed heads in front of him. To Calli’s utmost relief, he didn’t return to her, imposing his authority on other unwilling victims. She hadn’t realised she was sniffing until Bader’s voice cut across the more somber one of the boy reading next to her. The blonde boy in the seat next to Calli stopped reading immediately, flicking his overly long hair out of his neatly proportioned face and cringing. “Miss Rhodes, kindly take your things and go to the school nurse, please.”
It was an order, not a request and for Bader, a surprisingly insightful one. Calli could almost hear the silence humming and fizzing like an electrical current, the inner thoughts of thirty-one adolescents combining to create a mental hum that undercut every other sound in her ears. “Yes, sir.” She snatched her dilapidated school bag with its patchwork of dreadful darning and fled, the copy of the class book clutched so hard in her left hand it bent awkwardly. The door clicked shut behind her.
The cessation of the unreal hum was a physical and mental relief as Calli obediently made her way to the office of the school nurse. What do I say? Why am I here? The worries paralysed her as she entered the sickbay, a large room equipped with hospital beds and a full time nurse. Fortunately, there were no unwell occupants in the room and the door was already flung wide open.
“How can I help you?” the short English nurse asked, beaming a genuine smile with her eyes in Calli’s direction as she stood up from her computer chair.
“I...I don’t know,” Calli ventured pathetically. “Mr Bader sent me here.”
“Did he now?” the nurse asked, a flicker of sympathy in her eyes. “Well, why don’t you take your bag and blazer off and let’s try and work out what the problem is.
“I’m not pregnant,” Calli said. The statement came out defensively and more than a little rudely and the nurse looked at her with interest. “I just thought I’d save you some time.” Calli qualified the sentence, putting her bag on the floor and tutting as two textbooks piled out. She slipped her blazer off and slung it over a chair before plonking herself down. “It’s the first thing doctors always think, that all teenage girls must automatically be at it all the time, so whenever you go to the doctor for anything, it’s the first thing he asks.”
“Is it indeed?” the nurse replied, keeping her voice low and conversational, pulling Calli’s sleeve smoothly over her arm and fitting a blood pressure cuff over the top. “And why do you suppose they think that?”
“Probably because most teenage girls are at it all the time, I guess,” Calli conceded.
The nurse smiled. “Quite possibly,” she replied, her face professionally neutral. “Your blood pressure is a little high, but that’s probably because you’ve gotten yourself all upset.” The nurse took Calli’s wrist and placed her fingers over the artery, silent whilst she read the petite fob watch attached to the top pocket of her uniform. “Pulse is high too.”
“I’m not upset,” denied Calli, biting her lip and trying not to look quite so unhappy.
The nurse came and sat down next to her on another chair, reaching backwards for a packet of wipes at the same time as drawing one of the small white pieces of fabric out through the hole in the top. “Sweetheart,” she said, “your mascara’s run all down your cheeks and you look like you’re bottling up something frightful inside that head of yours. I think you’ve strayed beyond the realms of upset and more into distraught.”
Calli put her head down and looked away. The nurse took her wrist again and the girl thought she was going to repeat the pulse measurement, surprised when the woman’s other hand lay over the top. It wasn’t uncomfortable or awkward, but strangely comforting as though the nurse cared about Calli. It felt unusual and oddly agreeable. “How about you wipe your face while I make us a nice cup of English breakfast tea and run some blood tests. I’ve got a little suspicion I wouldn’t mind having confirmed. And no...” the nurse held her hand up as Calli opened her mouth to speak, “I don’t think you’re pregnant, love.”
Calli didn’t usually drink tea, but the hot liquid was surprisingly comforting and the nurse companionable. The drawing of blood was a painful as Calli’s body seemed reluctant to give any up, but the nurse recovered two adequately full vials of it, which she neatly labelled and got ready to go to the pathology laboratory in town. “I think your Celiac Disease might have made you iron deficient and lacking in vitamin B12.”
Calli observed her checking the computer records for her new patient. It was written next to Calli’s student photograph in bright red: Student has proven Celiac Disease. “Is that dangerous? Low iron and B12.” Calli winced involuntarily. “Can I die?”
The nurse smiled, a sweet, gentle expression crossing her face like a burst of sunshine. “Not nowadays sweetheart. Untreated, it can cause lots of problems, but it’s so easy to sort out.”
“With pills?” Calli concluded, her voice sounding flat as she lowered her eyes. Everything in her life recently seemed to be fixed with pills, not that the anti-depressants seem to have made much difference to her mother’s temper.
“Not necessarily,” the nurse replied, placing the vials of blood into a fridge in the corner of the sick bay. She didn’t elucidate and Calli concluded it was better not to ask. Perhaps it involved needles and she hated those with a passion. She rubbed at the pinprick inside her elbow from the blood test and scowled. “What did you have for breakfast?” the woman asked and Calli blanched. Marcia wanted her to finish up the ageing box of rice-bubble things that had cost almost ten dollars for a single, small box, but it tasted like cardboard and plaster rolled into one inedible sea of tiny, threatening, white pellets.
“I can’t remember,” she lied and looked shifty.
“What about lunch?” the nurse persisted. She asked half-heartedly, fiddling around on a work surface with some paperwork, but Calli felt guilty under the woman’s perceptive microscope.
“Plenty of...different things...” Calli bit her lip and swigged the last of her tea, knowing she had to leave before the nurse became any more inquisitive and asked to see her lunchbox. It would give her away, containing an apple from yesterday and a gluten free muesli bar she probably wouldn’t eat. Calli placed her cup carefully down on the work surface and excused herself politely, “Thank you. I feel much better now. I should go to class.” Calli reached down for her broken bag, a frown creasing her bonny face for a second as everything slid to one end and threatened to climb out.
“Oh, did it break?” the nurse asked, her fluffy, mouse coloured hair moving in a calm halo around her face and Calli felt tears of disappointment and anger with the bag, rise unbidden again. She kept her eyes looking downwards and nodded, her dark ponytail falling sideways and rocking with the motion of her head. “Let me see?” The woman held out her hand for the bag and Calli turned to display the yawning mouth of her heavy-duty khaki companion. “Mmnn,” the nurse muttered thoughtfully. She took the awkward bag from Calli’s hands and plonked it on the work surface. There was a clunk as one of the hard backed textbooks resettled itself.
Within seconds, the nurse identified the bulge in the zip that had caused it to come off its track and managed to get the zipper to close by coercing its tag over the lumpy teeth. Producing a staple gun - the upholstery kind - from a drawer, she fired a couple of sturdy staples into the zipper. She aimed for just after the point where it broke and the teeth gaped, making a dull thud on the plastic board underneath the bag. Inverting the zip, she then used a pair of pliers from the same drawer to crush the protruding ends down around the metal teeth. The nurse ran the zip a few times, impressed with her handy work. “Kiwi ingenuity,” she grinned, winking at Calli. Fortunately the broken teeth were near to one end and not slap-bang in the middle of the opening. That would have been awkward. “There you go.” She handed Calli her bag casually, with a smile. “That should hold for a wee bit longer.”
Calli peered down at her bag, undisguised relief flooding her face. “Thanks!” the girl gushed, genuinely appreciative.
The nurse beamed at her. “That’s all right love. I’ll get these bloods off to the lab at lunchtime, but with us breaking up for the holidays tomorrow, it might be next term before I get the results. I’ll contact you through your tutor teacher. Ok?”
Calli nodded, enthusiastic about life for the first time in months. She didn’t care about blood results or cures for iron deficiency. This woman had mended her bag and effectively removed a dreadful scene at home from Calli’s immediate future. The girl reached her next class, maths, with a much happier outlook and settled next to her study partner with an absurd degree of excitement. Calli didn’t like maths but kept her subject base broad, not absolutely sure what she wanted to do at university, just that she had to leave every possible passageway open to that particular escape route.
“What was wrong earlier?” her friend, Mel asked her outright.
“Just home stuff,” Calli replied, knowing her friend wouldn’t probe for more details. Mel’s own home life was far too complicated and embarrassing for that. A sharing of confidences by Calli would require reciprocation and Mel’s home included a lesbian mother and her girlfriend, which Mel would probably rather not have to explain to her group of friends. Calli eyed her friend sideways and felt pity for her. She was perfectly aware of why Mel wouldn’t pump her for details, but compassion made her steer clear of the site of her friend’s pain.
The day passed reasonably happily. Lunchtime forced Calli to face the fake fruit bar thing in her bag and the wrinkled apple, which left her still hungry and dissatisfied, but it didn’t dampen her spirits any. In the girls’ toilets after lunch, the usual little knot of smokers were congregated over by the window and Calli nodded amicably to them as she used the cubicle. “Hey, Call. How ya doin’?”
“Good thanks, Sal,” she called back with a smile. “Hold your breath. I don’t want none of that crap on me. My dad will kill me.”
The older girl laughed. “That’s what ya get for having a cop for a da.”
They held no fear for Calli. The day the little Year 10 girl flattened the Year 12 boy, earned Calli enough kudos to guarantee her survival, right through school. She washed her hands in comparative safety, unmolested by a group who terrified every other female in the building. The fog from their cigarettes was overpowering, hanging around the wide space in a choking haze, getting unavoidably into Calli’s hair and onto her uniform. She usually made sure she got to the toilet before the toxic group, fearful of unbearable interrogations at home from Simon and Marcia, who wouldn’t believe she hadn’t taken up the habit for herself. They’d done that argument already, more than once.
As Calli approached the exit, feeling for the handle amidst the grey, drifting stench, the hardwood pushed inwards, knocking her violently backwards against the sinks. “Ow! Oh, crap!” Winded, Calli struggled to catch her breath as Lorna sauntered confidently past without apology, flanked by a couple of her friends. One of them, Jess, looked at Lorna’s retreating back with horror, halting next to Calli and asking if she was all right. Calli nodded, rubbing the base of her spine where the edge of the sink caught her hardest.
“Lorna!” Jess exclaimed, “You’ve hurt her.”
Lorna shrugged and went into one of the cubicles, seeming totally unrepentant.
“I’m so sorry. Are you ok?” Jess asked, her red curly hair flopping into her eyes as she leaned into Calli’s face. Calli nodded, not wanting to show weakness and limped away, her bag feeling unbearably heavy and unwieldy against her hip. Her back was agonisingly tight and tender at the bottom. Calli left the toilets feeling stiff and a little sick.
Biology was straight after lunch and although Calli found it difficult to get comfortable on the hard plastic chair, the pain did begin to dull to a steady throb. Lorna appeared late, soaked through to her skin, her uniform hanging limply on her body and her blonde hair plastered to her head. Calli saw Declan’s brow furrow as Lorna made her way to the desk in front of him and he shot an inquiring look at Jess. The other girl shrugged and looked uncomfortable. There were four boys and five girls in their close-knit, elite Christian youth club and each of them watched as Lorna settled herself and got her books out. She looked as though she tried not to cry, but shot a lethal look across at Calli, who couldn’t help but smirk. She assumed the group of smokers had pelted Lorna with mouthfuls of water over the top of the cubicle door, unappreciative of her treatment of someone who had street-cred in their eyes. Lorna caught Calli smirking, indignation forming her facial features into a mask of hatred, even as water dripped off her fringe and onto her book. The saturated girl narrowed her eyes and gritted her teeth, issuing an unspoken declaration of war to the attractive dark haired girl. Calli returned her glare with a grin and mouthed ‘Bring it on bitch,’ at her. Lorna blanched and the colour drained from her flushed cheeks as she suddenly comprehended that her rash jealousy had caused her to bite off more than she could realistically chew.
Unfortunately, Declan intercepted Calli’s mouthed threat and his gorgeous face became shrouded in dismay. Shame cut through Calli’s body like a knife, surprising her with its intensity.
Why do you care what he thinks? Calli questioned herself crossly, not understanding what the issue was. Declan was a nobody. Her mother hated his whole family, their stupid dead dog and prostitute mother. Why should his disgust bother her? But it did. Calli cared acutely, allowing shame to sear a scorching space in her chest for the rest of the afternoon.
During the last lesson, Calli felt her mobile phone vibrate gently in her blazer pocket. When her Classics teacher turned around, writing something illegible on the whiteboard, Calli pulled the phone out and read the text underneath her desk. It was Simon, asking her to fetch the little kids from school as the childminder was unable to get them. He was stuck at a road accident and Marcia was in court. Calli sighed and her shoulders slumped in annoyance. There was no way she could finish school at the same time as them and manage to be at the primary school gates waiting when they came out. It was impossible. She texted Simon back, saying as much, irritated when he responded almost immediately.
‘Just do it. I’ve rung their school and they can wait inside for you.’
At no point had Simon said please or thank you. Calli was just expected to do as she was told. She was distracted for the rest of the class, scribbling down the homework as she bolted out of the door. Remembering Declan’s quick way across the field, she jogged the distance towards the hidden gate, feeling the painful pull in the base of her spine as her feet assaulted the hard ground and scorched grass underfoot. To her misery, the thick bolt at the top wouldn’t move under the tug of her tiny fingers. She pulled and pushed and panicked as it swivelled around in its housing but wouldn’t budge backward. “Move, damn you!” she screamed at it finally, allowing her aching arm to fall to her side. It would take ages to retrace her steps across the field and round by road, ensuring the little kids would be left at school much longer than they should and possibly causing their teacher to call Simon on his mobile. There would be heaps of trouble and it would all land at her door. Simon would assume Calli was being deliberately problematic and if he complained to Marcia, her mother would be sure to pile on the chores as punishment.
Calli stamped her feet and tried to alleviate the pressure building in her chest, the result of a familiar sense of desperation. She stared helplessly at the bolt, wondering when it was going to be her turn to get some good luck, if ever.
“S’cuse,” the male voice said coldly, reaching over Calli’s shoulder and wrenching the bolt back. Calli turned to face Declan, her jaw dropping unattractively.
“How did you do that?” she challenged him furiously.
“Just gotta hold your lips a certain way and wiggle it.” Despite his palpable disgust at her behaviour towards his friend, he couldn’t help the boyish impulse to have fun at Calli’s expense.
“Thanks.” Calli tried to hide her gratitude, hoisting her bag higher onto her shoulder and setting off at a trot. Declan locked the gate from the outside and then pounded after her, much to Calli’s dismay. She still stung from the look he gave her earlier. He made a grab for her right arm as she got up speed, managing to hold on tightly and spin Calli’s slight body in a full circle until she banged hard against his body. “Ow!”
The snapping action as Calli’s body contacted Declan’s, caused the bruised bones in her back to jar horribly and the cry escaped her lips before she could prevent it. The boy looked mortified as she placed her other hand on the sore spot and tried to rub the pain away, swearing prolifically. “I’m sorry, what happened?”
“Your bloody girlfriend, that’s what happened!” Calli bit back, catching her breath and surging onwards, the need to get to Sadie and Jase overriding any other pressing need in her itinerary.
Declan released her wrist as she pulled away, his hand falling uselessly to his side. “I don’t have a girlfriend,” he muttered, as much to himself as to Calli’s retreating back.