My shoulders slump as I walk into my history class to a young substitute nervously shuffling her notes. She smiles and greets the group of girls in front of me. They give her their best, ‘why are you talking to me’ look and keep walking. The woman’s smile slips from her face. I slide unnoticed into a seat to the far left of the middle row.
The woman’s demeanour does not improve as she attempts to call the roll. There are a few students whose parents either have issues with the English language or want to draw attention to their child by giving them a unique name. The first one catches the teacher unexpectedly.
“It’s Be-ung-ca,” Bianca corrects her harshly. She started insisting on that pronunciation shortly after the new girl arrived at our school. That first name makes the teacher doubt the pronunciation of the next.
“Jenny-P-Ha,” she guesses.
“It’s pronounced Jennifer,” Jennypha states.
There are several giggles. I cringe and sink into my seat. The two girls are friends, along with Tayla. The teacher calls her name correctly. The class goes quiet in anticipation as she reaches the final member of their group.
“La’a?” More giggles from the class.
“Ladasha,” La-a explains, as if to a stupid child who should be able to pronounce a simple word. The teacher frowns at the name clearly not expecting the dash to be taken literally. She moves on.
“Lucy?” The teacher sounds hopeful my name is normal.
“Here,” I reply. She looks relieved.
“Here’s Lucy,” the girls chime.
They giggle while I pretend to be interested in something scrawled on my desk. Ms Miller would make them stop, but this woman doesn’t know what to do. It’s just harmless fun. That’s what everyone tells me. ‘Why are you so upset, Lucy?’
Sticks and stones can break my bones, but names will never hurt me. It’s a stupid rhyme. Names do hurt. The wounds just don’t show.
I didn’t begin High School this way. Mum got a new job just as I was finishing Primary School. We moved to a nearby town. Mum said it would be a good opportunity to start fresh, as everyone I knew would be attending the closer school.
The first day arrived before Mum’s pay check so I didn’t have a uniform. I wore a pair of faded jeans and my best shirt. Mum gave me a note to give to my teacher for being out of uniform.
At lunch time, I was approached by a group of girls in my year level. The leader was a blonde by the name of Alicia. Her dad was army and she moved schools some months later, but while she was here, she was the person to be seen with.
A moment of joy at being noticed was replaced by queasiness at the sight of Jennypha and Tayla. I hadn’t known they’d changed schools, but of course if Jennypha had, Tayla would too. I was planning my escape when it occurred to me they didn’t recognise me.
I’d had an awkwardly short hair cut the year before. I tried to copy one of the celebrities from the teen magazines, blonde-haired Rachael always read, but it made me look like a boy. Thankfully my hair finally grew out over the summer holidays. I guess they didn’t expect me to be here anymore than I them.
I actually believed High School would be different. It wouldn’t be a repeat of the loneliness and isolation I knew at my old school. I could be anyone I wanted to be. I could be brave and bold like Lu. I’d finally be liked and find a friend. I’d be the kind of person who hangs out with Jennypha and Tayla.
Tayla said my lunch box was cute. I picked it up from a garage sale last year, I didn’t tell her though. During the second week someone commented on my shirt. Alicia asked where I bought it. I opened my mouth without thinking. I’m sure it came from a popular store that would meet with their approval, but I couldn’t remember the name, I admitted it was second hand. Bianca wrinkled her nose.
“I wondered what that smell was.” She waved a hand in front of her face.
They all laughed. For the remainder of the day, the girls held their noses whenever they were near me. I started eating lunch on my own. Sometimes I loitered in the library reading the history books, imagining I was back in the past with Will.
After that day, the girls generally ignored me. I learned not to draw attention to myself. Most people don’t even notice if I’m around. That changed when the new girl arrived. Her name was Ladasha, spelt with a hyphen and she was slightly older than the rest of us. She and her family recently moved here from interstate.
La-a’s father works “offshore” so they have loads of money, even more than Jennypha’s family. He is away a lot, but La-a has heaps of photos of him flying in helicopters to remote places, blu-tacked to her locker. My locker door is blank.
Jennypha gravitated towards La-a, Tayla lost her best friend role to the new girl, and Bianca tried to improve her social position by picking on the unpopular girl. Me.
La-a encouraged Bianca at every opportunity. It became the group’s favourite pastime to tease me. Bianca started the phrase, “Here’s Lucy”. It stuck and I hate it. I miss the days of being ignored.
Today the substitute teacher talks about something in the curriculum. No one tells her we studied the same thing two weeks ago. Ms Miller loves history and often gets carried away, forgetting she is meant to stick to a schedule. Her enthusiasm is infectious.
I zone out, focused on sharpening my blunt pencil. It’s so short, I can barely twist it in the sharpener any more. I use it to draw in my notebook, calculating how many weeks until my sixteenth birthday. My heart rate increases thinking about it. A year is a long time to wait for something.
The bell rings for the end of class and the students rush out as though they have somewhere better to be. The expression on the teacher’s face is one I am familiar with; the look of holding onto tears until she is alone. I put my head down and pretend I haven’t noticed how close she is to losing control. I hope Ms Miller is back by next class.
A good day is one where I get through the whole day without being noticed. I make the next class without incident and slide into my seat. Someone bangs their bag against my arm as they pass, but I pretend it didn’t happen and don’t turn around to see who it was. It’s easier that way.
Our English teacher clears her voice and the class quietens down.
“Can anyone tell me what a synonym is?” Mrs Davis asks. No one responds so she scans the classroom for her first victim, settling on me. I shift uncomfortably in my seat and avoid eye contact. “Lucy?”
“It’s a word you use when you can’t spell the word you first thought of,” I reply.
“Interesting definition, give me an example.”
My mind is still on the substitute attempting to read the attendance roll. Her look as I left the room bothers me. I didn’t even smile at her. I say the first thing that pops into my head.
“Saying ‘dash’ instead of ‘hyphen’.” Someone at the back of the class snickers.
“Like Lahyphena instead of Ladasha,” one of the boys calls out. The thump of a book hitting something is followed by an ‘oomph’. I force myself not to turn around. The class erupts into laughter.
Something hits my back. I wait nervously for the bell to ring so I can disappear quietly. At one point during the class, the teacher passes my desk and places her hand over my tapping pen before moving on.
La-a catches me between classes, shoving me into the lockers and bruising my shoulder where I hit the lock. She gives a toss of her immaculately straight blonde locks, an action perfected in front of a mirror, and stalks off.
By the end of the day, my school bag has vanished. I hide in the toilets so no one sees me cry, while I wait until everyone has gone home and I can look for my bag undisturbed. I eventually find it in a bin at the far end of the corridor. I brush it off and put my books into it, but I’ve missed the bus. It’s a long walk home.
It takes a week for the bruise on my shoulder to fade, but I learn my lesson from that class. Even if I know an answer, I pretend I don’t. I also start locking the strap of my bag in my locker, so it can’t go missing again.
*
Mum works several jobs to keep the money coming in. It always seems unfair to me that she works such long hours for so little, when La-a’s father works half the year and is practically rolling in money.
To him that hath, shall be given and from him that hath not, shall be taken even that which he hath. I read that in a book once. I think it’s from the Bible. Whoever wrote it understood what it was like to have nothing.
I’ve learned to fend for myself, once spending all my paper delivery money buying a rusty old rabbit trap at a market. I took it into the bush near our house and caught a feral rabbit. I brought it home and skinned it. It was nearly cooked by the time Mum arrived home. The smell was mouth-watering, but Mum was so upset I never did it again. I think she had visions of me turning into a serial killer. She didn’t even let me keep the pelt.
I tried to talk to Mum about it once, my dream being real. She said I had an over-active imagination and I should bring friends over more often instead of being on my own all the time. She made it sound like it was my choice to be alone, like she didn’t remember my eleventh birthday.
Our battered old car sits in the driveway when I arrive home from school. It’s a rare surprise to find Mum at the house midweek and even stranger to see her in the kitchen preparing dinner.
“There you are, darling.” She dries her hands on a tea towel as she leans over to kiss my cheek. “How was your day?”
“Fine,” I say lifting the lid of the saucepan on the stove and eyeing the contents suspiciously.
“I brought you home a present.” She beams at me as I abandon my investigation of dinner.
I look at her in surprise as she squeezes past me to rummage in her handbag left on the kitchen table. She pulls out a long thin item wrapped in a sheet of newspaper and taped together.
“Open,” she says, holding it out.
I pick carefully at the tape, peeling away the paper to find three new pencils lying inside.
“2B or not 2B, that is the pencil, is it not?” She smiles at me.
“Thanks Mum.” I throw my arms around her in a brief hug.
“The boss went home early, so I had free range with the stationary cupboard,” she whispers conspiratorially to me. “By the way, Maree from work is having a birthday on Friday. Now you have new pencils, do you think you can spare a sheet of sketch paper and draw me a card for her?”
I miss Will the most when I wake, but sometimes life is okay when it’s just Mum and me.
*
We receive our history assignment at the beginning of the week. There’s an automatic groan from the class, but Ms Miller has recovered from her cold and we don’t have the substitute. I’m quietly intrigued by the project.
We have to choose a time in history and imagine we live there. The assignment requires us to describe our surroundings, what we are doing and eating. We are to write a story to tell people about this time, starting with the words “I opened my eyes and saw…”
I’m unusually excited for school the day the assignment is due. Standing outside the classroom being ignored as we wait for our teacher to appear, I feel I’ve captured my chosen time period perfectly. Two of the boys discuss the credibility of their fictional excuses for not being able to submit their work on time. I keep my head down so no one sees me smile and hug my books to my chest.
La-a shoves me into the wall, recalling me back to my surroundings and removing the expression from my face. Ms Miller arrives and I quickly slip through the door and take my seat.
“Place your assignment on the table in front of you,” Ms Miller instructs.
I lay my stapled, hand-written pages carefully upside down in front of me. I glance around, I’ve written far more than anyone else.
Ms Miller wanders the room glancing at everyone’s submission. The two boys discussing excuses outside the classroom are given detentions. When they protest that they have good reasons, she informs them they can tell her all about it during lunch. No one argues with Ms Miller. She heads back to the front of the class and studies us.
“James.” She singles out a student from the back of the class. “Come to the front and read out what you have written.”
James leaps out of his chair and swaggers to the front of the classroom. The other boys cheer him on. He shakes out his single typed page, rolls his neck, flicks his dark hair off his face and clears his throat. The class is silent, waiting for his story.
“I opened my eyes and saw the super cool paint job on the side of my time machine. A noise made me spin around. It was a tyrannosaurus…” He pauses the story to add a loud roar, “… and he was about to eat me. I grabbed my laser gun and commando rolled out of his way.” James includes some actions to highlight the story, narrowly missing the teacher.
“Thank you, James,” Ms Miller interrupts as James picks himself off the floor. “I don’t think you quite understood the point of the assignment. How about we try someone else?”
La-a raises her hand. Ms Miller waves her up to the front of the class as her friends cheer her on. She repeats James’ actions, waiting for the applause before starting her story.
“I opened my eyes and saw a naked cave man standing over me. He was very well hung and I was concerned for my safety, but he was more interested in the road kill behind me.” La-a pauses to let the laughter die down.
“I think we need someone who may have actually done some research.” Ms Miller brings the story to a halt amid groans from the class.
Ms Miller scans the room, her eyes coming to rest on my pile of pages. I pull them towards me as though that will prevent her from calling my name to read my words to the class.
“Lucy?”
I drag myself out of my seat and study the floor as I walk to the front of the class. No one cheers for me. I look at my handwriting on the first page and take a deep breath. Someone makes a rude noise and the class snickers. The teacher shushes them. I try again.
“I opened my eyes and saw the grey, cloudy sky above me, framed by grape vines to either side of my vision. The vineyard was not like the modern ones with rows stretching on uninterrupted. These were short with various trees interspersed between them. I recognised olives, figs and some type of nut.
“I stood and brushed the dark, fertile soil from my dress. Behind me a mountain loomed as though guarding the countryside. It looked out of place and for some reason I felt nervous. I dragged my eyes away. Laid out before me was a town set inside stone walls. I made my way on foot in that direction as the first drops of rain fell from the sky.
“I was following the dirt road to the town when I tripped over an object lying on the ground. I retrieved the small bronze statue of a woman. She held a ship’s rudder in one hand as though directing me to my destination. I held onto her as I continued walking in the rain.
“The muddy road became lined with monuments to the dead. They were impressive stone structures, some displaying the urns holding the ashes of their owners. I recognised Roman numerals on some of the plaques as well as a scattering of symbols like the ones we use in maths classes when we don’t know an angle of a triangle. In some places there was graffiti.
“Inside the town’s gate, I stepped up onto the raised stone sidewalk to avoid the rain water washing the filth from the streets. The stone buildings encroached on the narrow sidewalk. Many of the walls were painted in bright reds and yellows.
“When I reached an intersection, I paused to see if my bronze goddess would direct me. The mountain towered behind me and the water flowed away from me. There were large stepping stones crossing the street leaving enough room for the wheels of a cart to pass between them.
“The goddess appeared to be looking left so that was the way I headed. I passed two more side streets, but I stayed with my direction. I was looking at my statue, when I slipped on the wet stones…”
Something lands on the page, making me jump. The eraser has the name ‘Tayla’ inked onto the sides. I glance up to see Bianca and Tayla struggling over Tayla’s pink pencil case. Bianca grabs for another item to throw, while Tayla tries to protect the contents.
While I was reading, I was lost in the story. Now I am thrust back into the present where there are no interested classmates. Tears form in my eyes and I give up reading my story. I hurry back to my seat and put my head down so no one can see my face.
“Lucy, we’d like to hear the rest of your story,” Ms Miller says.
I shake my hung head and refuse to look up. A single tear falls onto my desk.
“Would anyone like to guess where or when Lucy was in her story?” Ms Miller asks the class.
“Loser land,” someone coughs into their hand.
“La-a, you can join the boys in lunchtime detention,” Ms Miller replies.
“What did I do?” La-a exclaims.
Ms Miller ignores her and moves on to the next topic.