Calli’s phone alarm chirped softly by the side of Jase’s bed where she carefully arranged it, as always. The little boy stirred as she withdrew her body from behind him, almost falling backwards out of the bed in her rush to get back to her room before the rest of the house stirred. Jase whinged and Calli scowled at him, putting her finger up to her lips in warning. He knew the score. If he made a fuss and their parents found out, then Calli would stop coming. Sometimes the girl wished they would find out and ban her. A good night’s sleep began to feel like the Holy Grail, out there somewhere but unattainable. Calli’s arm was smarting badly and as she got to her bedroom unassailed, she saw the length of tissue must have come off in Jase’s bed.
Washed, dressed and in the kitchen, trying to make the gluten free bread into half decent toast, Calli remembered the blood-stained tissue again. Too late.
“What’s this?” Marcia entered the kitchen just as Calli took her first bite of the leathery toast. The girl looked away quickly. The length of white toilet roll dangled from her finger and thumb, partially torn in places but bearing streaks of blood over large parts of it. Calli tugged at the cuff of her school blouse, dragging it painfully over her forearm and recoiling slightly at the unanticipated viciousness of the sting it administered, a timely reminder of her stupidity. A part of her suddenly regretted the action. Calli concentrated on the margarine running along a furrow in the toast particles on her plate, like a controlled yellow river. The sight of the vivid yellowness made the bile rise into her throat and the chewing motion became more challenging as the act of swallowing loomed.
“S’blood,” Jase said helpfully, climbing up onto his chair to reach the bowl of cornflakes Calli poured for him. The little boy used both hands to slop the milk into them like a sudden tsunami.
“What from?” Marcia sounded a little concerned. Jase put his first mouthful in and then laid his spoon carefully in his bowl. Putting up the index finger of his right hand, he thrust his digit forward towards his mother’s frowning face.
“Cut it, look,” he invited. Marcia peered at the almost non-existent spec of an old cut on his finger, still suspicious.
“That’s tiny and this is heaps of blood,” she persisted, her attention turned fully now onto her last born.
“Picked it,” Jase concluded, picking up his spoon in small, delicate fingers and resuming his breakfast. Baffled, Marcia was forced to accept his explanation, tumbling the tissue into the bin under the sink and looking panicked towards the clock.
“Well, don’t pick things,” she said crossly, her attention already elsewhere. “I’m in court all day again. Calli, take the little kids to school, please. And they finish early today as it’s the last day of term, so can you get them home as well?”
Calli felt immediately defensive, “No, I can’t. What the hell’s going on here? It’s the childminder’s job to do the school runs. Why am I suddenly having to do it all? It’s miles from my school to theirs. I can’t do it.”
“The childminder quit,” Marcia said, anger burgeoning in her face and body language. She seemed to bristle like a hedgehog. “I’ll get another one during the holidays but for today, just do it will you?”
“Calli, please,” Simon walked into the kitchen buttoning up his work shirt. “Do what your mother asks.” He sounded tired and it temporarily diffused the situation.
“Fine!” Calli stated huffily. “Then we need to go in five minutes, so tell Sadie to be ready, otherwise she can stay here alone all day. I’m not getting a late mark for her again.”
Simon retreated down the hallway and apparently found his subject as Sadie’s frustrated complaints wafted down towards the kitchen, bleating on about not wanting to go early and not being ready yet.
“Ready Jase?” Calli asked her brother as he scraped the remnants from his bowl. Marcia blasted back to her bedroom to finish getting dressed. He nodded, clearing his spoon and bowl into the dishwasher and closing the lid a little too hard.
“Do my sandals up?” he asked his sister as he skipped down to his bedroom to fetch his school things.
Sadie only emerged from the empty house when Calli pretended to slam the front door and leave without her. She had a face like a slapped backside and dragged her feet as much as she dared. The older girl gripped Jase’s hand and power walked, purposely putting distance between herself and the stubborn blonde sister behind her. Jase found it hard to walk at that pace and trotted next to Calli, his backpack bouncing along on his shoulders. “Where was the blood from?” he asked, glancing back at Sadie as though innately aware the answer would be a secret.
“I hurt my arm,” Calli responded, deciding the truth would be better than a lie. Not the whole truth, however. “It just bled a bit.”
“How did you cut it?” Jase asked; his little face turned up towards his sister’s with utter concern and sincerity. It made Calli feel dirty somehow.
“I did something silly and it got cut and now it’s sore,” she said, regret leaking out of her spirit through her voice.
“Ah,” Jase replied sweetly and bobbed to kiss the back of Calli’s hand in sympathy. She closed her eyes and gritted her teeth as a familiar feeling rose up and bit at her emotions.
How can I walk away from this gorgeous little boy? Calli chided herself all the way to the primary school. University at these times seemed like a faint hope. She felt so attached to Jase, fiercely protective and maternal and the thought of leaving him was overwhelmingly painful. You have to, she told herself. You need to get away from them.
Sadie was miles behind as Calli reached the gates with Jase. He reached up to kiss his big sister on the lips and ran off into the school happily. Calli could see her sister in the distance, trudging down the straight road, still with a nasty face distorting her pretty features. The older girl debated furiously with herself. She needed to get to school, but was it safe to leave her sister outside the primary school gates? She could potentially do anything, not that Calli particularly cared if she spent all day sitting in a hedge, but the blame would fall squarely on her shoulders. Even from that distance, Sadie sensed Calli’s dilemma and dragged her feet, practically taking fairy steps deliberately to annoy her.
“Get a move on!” Declan’s male voice from behind startled the little girl and she jumped and flushed red. “You can see your sister’s waiting for you, so get!” he said roughly. Levi clumped alongside his brother, dwarfed by the man-boy’s size, swinging his leg out in the peculiar gait that seemed to get him to and from school each day quite happily. Sadie sped up, swilled along like a surfer trying to avoid being crushed by a huge and unexpected wave. In seconds she reached Calli, surging through the gate and completely ignoring her sister waiting there.
“I hate you,” Calli muttered under her breath, turning away towards the road and the high school.
“No, you don’t,” came Declan’s reasonable voice. He kissed Levi on the top of his dark head and watched him lope into the front of the school, negotiating the steps with concentration etched into his little face.
“I do,” Calli retorted crossly.
“Come the quick way,” Declan said, ignoring her spiteful rebuttal and turning to walk towards the gate to the paddock. Calli hoisted her bag higher on her shoulder and followed.
They walked in silence across the stubbly, spiked grass, avoiding the huge platters of cow muck splatted at intervals, weaving over the distance like drunkards. Eventually Calli spoke, “You never seem fed up with your brother,” she said.
Declan’s reply came quickly, “You never seem fed up of yours.”
Calli thought for a moment about the small, blonde, freckled child. Declan was right; she was rarely cross with Jase, not seriously anyway. It was Sadie who was the problem. She said so.
“Maybe she’s jealous, of you and Jase,” Declan declared and Calli shook her head instantly.
“No. There were three years before Jase came along and she’s always been like that with me. Even as a baby she wouldn’t let me pick her up or help her. It’s like she came out hating me. She worked out quickly that her tantrums and complaints could get me into big trouble and she’s milked it ever since. I’ve lost count of the number of unfair punishments I’ve had because of her.” Realising she sounded pitiful, Calli strived to change the focus of the conversation. Declan seemed like a good listener, but it was no excuse to bleat on like a loser. “Levi seems sweet. Your mum must have been pregnant at the same time as mine, Jase told me their birthdays are a week apart.”
Declan navigated another cow pat and shook his head. “He’s not my actual brother. Mum works at the hospital in pediatrics, but she did a year in a special baby care unit. His mother was a teenager and left him there when he was born. Mum looked after him for two months in the hospital and then applied to adopt him. Dad couldn’t have any more kids after his illness and was fine about it, so we got him when he was ten weeks old. We were allowed to foster him first and we officially adopted him after that.”
“Oh,” Calli hadn’t expected that. “I thought it was harder to adopt babies because everyone wanted them.” She felt stupid as soon as the words were out of her mouth. What did she know about adopting children, apart from what she’d seen on the TV?
“I think it is,” Declan said, his eyes smiling kindly, “but those are perfect babies, not little skinny things with a gimpy leg and possible brain damage. I think the authorities were just glad somebody wanted him.”
“I didn’t know Levi was brain damaged,” Calli said sadly.
“Oh, he’s not, he manages fine. Sometimes he’s a bit slow on the uptake socially, but he’s doing fine in school. He’s a bright cookie, it’s just his leg and the angle of his foot that gives him problems.”
“I think he’s amazing how he beetles around with so much determination,” Calli smiled, thinking of how the tiny child navigated the hazardous front steps with a look of such concentration and verve. Declan nodded, appreciative of the solidarity,
“Yeah, he’s pretty awesome. He has a trip up to Starship Hospital in Auckland this afternoon. He loves it. He and Mum stay at Ronald Macdonald House and he has a great time. The doctors are making him a new caliper and changing the way his foot sits in it.”
“Aren’t you going?” Calli asked, curious.
“Na, I go off into the bush most holidays. I’m going to spend a week climbing Pirongia and messing about in that area. There’s this cool stream I found last time. I’m planning to set up camp and just hang there for a few days.”
“By yourself?” Calli tried not to sound as astounded as she felt. Declan laughed it off,
“My dad was an awesome bushman. He taught me everything. After his last lot of chemo, we walked around Lake Waikaremoana in the Ureweras and then we were going to go back the next holiday with Mum and Levi. We also found this neat clearing on Pirongia too and we were going to explore that another time. He died, so we couldn’t.”
Sadness washed over the two teenagers like a sudden rising tide, drenching them in the misery of an unfulfilled dream. It was powerful and relentless, resonating with the emotional mess inside Calli and causing tears to prick the backs of her eyelids. They were quiet for a while, Declan reaching up to unlock the inner bolt and open the gate in silence. Trudging over the school field, the silence enveloped them until Calli couldn’t bear it anymore and knew she needed to break it.
“How do you get there?” she asked, “To Pirongia. It’s quite far, isn’t it?”
“I’m dropping Mum and Levi at the bus station in town after school. Then I’ll come home and load up the car. They don’t bother taking the car to Auckland; they don’t need it, so I’ve got it all week. As long as I’m somewhere with a good phone signal by next Sunday and can pick them up again from the bus, it’s fine.”
“Have you got your full licence then?” Calli asked enviously. Simon took her for her learner’s test and promised to give her lessons, but never seemed to make the time.
Declan nodded with a hint of pride in his face. “Yeah, just. I managed to do my learners at fifteen before they changed the rules. So it meant I could get my full after I did the Defensive Driving class.”
“Lucky,” Calli breathed, feeling a new respect for the young man walking beside her. “I’m sorry about last night,” she ventured, filled with a sudden need to make things right. “Lorna obviously thinks she has some claim on you. I’m sorry the Year 13’s spat at her, but also sort of not. She hurt me just for smiling at you.”
Declan nodded with a serious expression. “I didn’t appreciate...about her maybe feeling that way. I should have, I suppose. We’re not like that as a group - we don’t go out with each other usually. Most of our families had a ‘no-dating-policy’ until we were sixteen, so it was never a problem.”
“A no-dating-policy!” Calli scoffed, unable to help herself. “That’s archaic. Do people still do that?”
Declan looked hurt. “Yes. My parents did and I’ve respected it.”
“Why?” Calli laughed, “What good does it do?”
Declan stopped and turned to face her, his eyes narrowed and anger pricked at the surface of his composure. He seemed bothered by Calli’s ridicule, even though he must have had this same debate with many of his peers. “It’s stopped me having meaningless flirtations with girls who deserve much better. It’s also stopped me becoming emotionally screwed up by relationships that are never going to last.”
“But it’s...well, it’s life,” Calli stated, trying not to giggle. “That’s how you learn what you want, by finding out what’s out there. Isn’t it?”
Declan rounded on her, “So how many boyfriends have you had?”
His question shocked her. It was personal and Calli knew her answer would play into his hands. “A few.”
“Serious ones?”
It was unfair. He knew she hadn’t dated anyone serious. It was a few meaningless flirtations that made her feel good while they lasted, the longest being a week. Calli shook her head, but Declan hadn’t finished with her yet. “And when Paul Rowe dumped you after that school social in Year 10, how did it help your little experimentation any? Was it fulfilling? What did you learn?”
Calli felt humiliated; the smile firmly wiped from her face. She looked up at Declan with such hatred he automatically took a step back. Paul Rowe kissed her at the social and showed her real attention. She was on top of the world thinking somebody liked her. He flattered her, told her he liked her long, dark hair and that she had lovely eyes. But Paul was pushy and forward and wanted more than a simple kiss. He tried to put his hand up her skirt and Calli reacted badly, pushing him away and looking shaken. He sneered at her and made a derogatory comment about her mother, finding some other girl willing to be groped and manhandled for the rest of the night. How did Declan know about that? Did everyone know? Did they all have a laugh at her stupidity? Did they think she should have let him do what he wanted?
Calli’s face was blank and waxen as she processed her memories. She stopped dead, her bag hanging next to her hip, still swinging slightly. Declan looked ashen and guilty. He dropped his bag on the grass and came back to her, putting his arms around her small figure and pulling her in close. She heard him say, “Sorry, sorry, forgive me,” into her hair.
The fleeting thought went through her head that he must cuddle his mother a lot. He seemed so easy with physical contact and his hold was so masculine and comforting he must do it heaps. Being held felt strange, but nice. Calli was aware of her own wooden body against his and wondered what it was she was supposed to do next. She moved her free left hand upwards and around Declan’s back, feeling the firm muscles under her hand. He felt safe and somehow real, in a tangible, solid way and a bud of attraction began in the pit of Calli’s stomach. He smelled of washing powder and male deodorant, surrounding Calli’s head in a haze of pleasant scents so she didn’t want to move ever again, but stay here, being held and feeling someone else’s heartbeat juddering through her body. She knew suddenly what she was missing from her parents, the unfilled gap. They hugged Sadie and Jase but never Calli. Why? Am I so awful a person?
The sound of the bell for tutor group shocked them apart simultaneously. Practicalities flooded both their brains as ensuing classes and registration washed away whatever else was between them. Calli felt awkward, but Declan seemed at ease. He smiled and waved airily at her as he retrieved his bag and set off towards his tutor class near the gym. “See ya later, alligator.”
Calli gathered her wits about her and headed to where she was meant to be, a static building behind the art block. It was tired and elderly, the paint peeling and flaking more with the passing of each season. Calli had been in the same tutor class since Year 9 and she worried that one year she might return and find the old building replaced. The school management threatened it continually, but buildings were expensive and Calli hoped fervently this one outlasted her time at the school. It was like a friendly pullover, well past its usefulness but familiar and comforting. Once inside the door, Calli felt enfolded by the history of the room, worn and rounded by generations of kids like her. She knew every inch of its faulty interior and sensed herself relax in it.
But Declan’s embrace, both today and yesterday stirred something up for Calli and it dawned on her what it was.
Mum and Dad don’t like me. That’s why my room is away from everyone else. That’s why they never hug me. They don’t like me.