We See the Stars Page 5

  ***

  At recess, I went and sat on the step out the front of the staffroom even though I didn’t have detention. From there you could see the whole quadrangle and halfway to the oval, so you could watch what the other kids were playing without having to be part of it. I kept my head down and pretended to be a statue, and Superman sat next to me with his Vita-Weats and tried to crunch them without getting any crumbs on his cape. When he chewed it sounded like cracking bones under your neck when you roll your shoulders around. I felt the noise of it get stuck up around the back of my ears.

  Under the brim of my hat I could suddenly see a pair of black school shoes with the socks falling down and the shoelaces undone on the left.

  G’day, Numpty,’ Cassie said. She pulled my hat off my head and stuck it on hers. ‘Don’t tell me you scored a det, too?’

  That morning we’d started the new project, and it was on the war. Cassie and me had been the last ones left without a partner, so Ms Hilcombe had put us together. Before she did it, though, she’d looked at me to make sure it was okay, and I’d nodded. The book with the koala on the front had had the words ‘Ages 6 and up!’ printed across it in bright red letters.

  ‘So, like, are you any good at writing or are you dumb as well as mute?’ Cassie asked.

  I shrugged my shoulders and felt my tummy shift and roll.

  Cassie watched me with her eyes bright and wide, and she smiled at me when I looked at her.

  ‘You got any more food?’ she asked.

  I thought about getting up and walking away, but I didn’t know for sure if my legs would actually work. I looked back at her and she pulled my hat off and started twisting the brim so that it was all bent. I shook my head, and then shrugged my shoulders, and then hoped that she would give me my hat back.

  ‘You wanna know how I got this?’ She pointed to her hand.

  I stared at it, and then looked back at her. Her eyes were big enough that I could see my reflection in the black of them, and I watched as I nodded my head.

  ‘Dad’s in the army, and when I was little we used to live overseas. In Africa? And one day I was hanging around out the front of our house playing and some guy came and pulled me off the road and kidnapped me. He put me in a van. A white one. And then they wrote to my dad and said he could have me back if he gave them money, and obviously he did right away, but before they gave me back they burnt me so he’d never forget them.’

  Cassie looked at me for a long time, and I thought maybe she was waiting for me to say something, but I just stared out over the quadrangle and watched the other kids playing. If you got a chair and put it at the back of the classroom, you’d be able to see what it was like when Cassie sat in the desk behind me. You could see the way the other kids watched her, sometimes without turning their heads. You could see the way she kicked the back of the desk in front of her, which was mine, and you could see the way the skin on the back of my neck rippled and rubbed together from the shock waves. You could see the way the other girls wouldn’t walk through the door next to her if she was going through it, and the way they pulled back and yelled about catching the disease.

  ‘It doesn’t freak you out?’ Cassie said. She waved her hand in my face, and the purple of it curled around and underneath her finger, which was still bent and stuck into the middle of her palm. ‘Aren’t you worried you’ll catch the mong?’

  A kid fell over on the quadrangle and grazed his knee on the concrete, and everyone turned to look when he started to howl.

  ‘I tell them it’s contagious but it’s not—I just want them to piss off sometimes,’ Cassie said. She didn’t look me in the eyes, but she leant in so that her voice was hot and winding around inside my ear. ‘Even if I could give it to them I don’t reckon I would.’

  Mr Newman, who was on yard duty, went over and picked up the kid who was still screaming from his graze. From where we were sitting you could see the red patches starting to form on his knee.

  ‘Poor bugger,’ Cassie said, when Mr Newman had carried him off to sickbay. ‘He’d have been better off bleeding to death on the concrete than going with Newman.’

  Once he was inside you couldn’t hear the howls anymore. Most of the kids got back to playing kickball. Cassie twisted the brim of my hat with her good hand.

  If you feel along the inside of the desk with your fingertips, with the lid lifted up on its hinges and resting on your knuckles, you can push the little bits of dirt and grit around in the ridges of the wood. If you press your fingers in hard enough, so that the bits of your skin press right into the gaps, you can pull your hand away and see the lines where the wood was, and where your fingers have been, and where it stopped, and where you started.

  Ms Hilcombe’s desk is a lot smoother, because the wood is just painted on and the top is really made out of lino, like on the kitchen floor. If you press your fingers there you won’t get anything except a ring of sweat, and the feeling of your fingertips squashed flat on the end of your hands.

  ‘So, you can write, yeah?’ Cassie asked, and I nodded. ‘Read?’ she said, and I nodded again. ‘You like wars?’ she said. This time I shrugged. ‘Jesus, Numpty, it’s like talking to a sheepdog.’

  Ms Hilcombe had handed me a book with a big koala on the front, and the words ‘Ages 6 and up!’, and my blood had turned to nearly all honey, and if I tried to clear my throat I was worried I would choke on it.

  ‘Listen, bark once for yes and twice for no,’ Cassie said, but she was laughing. ‘Do you reckon you can sort this project?’

  In the quadrangle Sarah and Nick were playing foursquare with Nicole and Jeremy, and every time Nick scored he’d yell, ‘Howzat!’ so loud that it bounced off the brick of the classrooms, and he’d run around with his pointer fingers straight up in the air, and crash into Jeremy, who laughed even though Nick had done it at least ten times already.

  I looked at Cassie and I nodded my head.

  ‘Good man,’ she said, and she clapped me on the back hard enough that I felt it roll around inside my chest and up through my hands and out my fingers. She sighed and stood up. It was still a few minutes before the bell. I felt the sweat on my fingertips when she bent over me.

  ‘Tell Hilcombe I was here the whole recess, will ya?’ She put my hat back on my head, and pulled it so far down that it covered my eyes and my nose got a little bit squeezed, and the whole world went muffled and quiet and golden.

  ‘Oi, and don’t forget to put my name on the project, Numpty!’ I heard her yell. ‘But put mine first, yeah? So I look good, hey.’

  With the hat over my eyes I couldn’t see where she was, but I knew from the way her voice faded that she was moving away. I didn’t lift the hat back up until I knew she was gone.

  Seven

  The carpet at the library is blue and green swirls, and it’s made of little knots all tied together in a line. It looks like it’d be soft, but when you get down on top of it and try to push in, it’s hard to get your fingers through. If you get down on the ground and put your nose right up to it, the swirls will turn into the bottom of the ocean, where the salt and the water all catches in with the seaweed and the green of it, and if you blur your eyes and look down along the edge of your nose the swirls switch in and out of focus, and the blues and the greens are all mixed in, and you can take a breath and smell the dust in it, and the little bits of fish skeletons tied up in the knots.

  There weren’t many books about Vietnam in the history section yet, so Miss Sullivan took me around to look at the newspapers, which were kept in a special room that had to be cool so the paper didn’t fall apart, which meant it was up the back away from the windows. Even from in there I could hear Davey complaining in the kids section, and Grandma telling him to be quiet and that we’d go to the hospital when she said it was time. Davey was due to get his cast off, which was good, because Dad said if he kept hopping everywhere he was going to put a hole in the floor.

  ‘Do you know what you actually want to write about?’ Mis
s Sullivan asked, and she flipped over pages in a big album full of articles.

  I saw a picture of a man standing up to his knees in the mud, with his helmet low over his eyes and a gun up over his shoulders. Davey would probably have liked to see it, for when he played soldiers in the backyard with Rohan.

  ‘I mean, do you just have to say when everything happened?’ When Miss Sullivan leant over me I could feel the heat from her body down my back, and it made the ends of my fingers sweaty. She sighed loudly, and her breath smelt like bushfires when I felt it down the back of my arms.

  Miss Sullivan had been the librarian since last year. She’d come from the city, where she’d done a course at university, and when we did class visits you could hardly get anywhere near her for all the girls asking her what it was like there, and if she’d met many boys. She had long hair down to her waist and she wore it out even when it was summer, but sometimes, if she thought you weren’t watching, you could see her lift it up off her neck and pile it onto her head, and stand in front of the desk fan to dry the sweat off from underneath.

  ‘Maybe you could write about the birthday thing,’ Miss Sullivan said. ‘You had to go to war if they called out your birthday in this lottery draw. It was all random, but my boyfriend Rick reckons it was a conspiracy to get rid of Menzies’ enemies—as in, they always made sure to pick the birthdate of someone he didn’t like.’

  ‘Simon?’ Grandma called, and then she was standing at the door with Davey leaning on the wall behind her. ‘Are you alright here, love? I’ll take Davey now if you’re busy.’

  Davey nodded his head at me behind Grandma and mouthed, ‘Please,’ but without making a sound.

  ‘Yeah, we’ll be right,’ Miss Sullivan said, and she put her hand on the back of my shoulder. I felt the burn of it down through the skin and into the bone. ‘If he gets bored he can help me shelve the returns.’

  After Grandma and Davey had gone, Miss Sullivan walked over to the fan. ‘Do you mind if I turn this on?’ she asked, and when I shook my head she flicked it so that it started whirring, and the pages of the newspaper bent over in the breeze.

  ‘I keep asking them for aircon,’ Miss Sullivan said, but with her back turned I couldn’t tell if she was talking to me. ‘They keep saying it’s too expensive for a shitty regional like this.’

  ‘Language, thank you,’ a voice said, and when I looked up Mrs Freeman was standing at the door. I felt lightning bolts shoot up and down my elbows, and when I checked the clouds were gathering over my shoulders. I could hear the rumble of the thunder coming up from my legs into my chest. Little sparks in my eyes made it hard to see.

  ‘Sorry,’ Miss Sullivan said. ‘Didn’t see you.’

  ‘What are you reading, Simon?’ Mrs Freeman asked. ‘Clipping from the paper?’ She came over to the table and looked over my shoulder, at the picture of a man with a gun. He was pointing it into a village.

  ‘It’s for school,’ Miss Sullivan said, when Mrs Freeman didn’t say anything. ‘For history.’

  Mrs Freeman turned the pages over, until the album was closed. ‘That hardly seems appropriate,’ she said.

  Miss Sullivan’s mouth went into a tight straight line. ‘Guess that’s not your call anymore,’ she said, and she walked away so that it was just me and Mrs Freeman, and I felt the thunder clap low and heavy across my belly, and another flash of lightning sent sparks into my hands.

  Mrs Freeman’s last year at school was my grade five, and when she left Ms Hilcombe came to teach her classes. Mrs Freeman had been teaching for so long that after she left they put her name on the wall outside the principal’s office, where they normally only have the names of boys who’ve done well in sport, as well as her picture in the newsletter. Grandma kept a copy of it on her coffee table at home; she and Mrs Freeman had known each other since they were little kids.

  ‘Have much to say lately, Simon?’ Mrs Freeman asked. She put her hand on my arm, and smiled at me when I let her hold it, even though I could feel the burn. ‘How are things at home?’ she whispered, and I felt a crack of lightning down my other arm and into my hand. I could feel the bees waking up from the noise of it, and there was enough of them now that they’d made a whole swarm.

  ‘Will you tell your gran I want to speak to her?’ Mrs Freeman whispered. She kept looking up to see if Miss Sullivan was watching, but the librarian had her back to us.

  Superman pulled his cape over his shoulder, so that he was wrapped up tight in it and you couldn’t see his skin, and I wanted to be quiet so as not to wake up all the bees, but when I breathed in through my mouth I took in dust from the carpet, and it felt like I wanted to wheeze. The air got tight under my chest and I felt the skin catch under my ribs when I sucked in a breath.

  ‘Tell her I still think about that afternoon. Every day.’ Mrs Freeman grabbed at my shoulder, and I felt the nails sharp in my skin. ‘You tell her it was all of us, not just me,’ she said.

  I looked around the room to count, but she kept putting her face in front of mine.

  ‘Will you tell her that?’

  I felt a wheeze burn up the inside of my throat. I swallowed it down.

  ‘Everything alright there?’ Miss Sullivan called from the loans desk, and Mrs Freeman let go in a rush.

  ‘Of course,’ she called back. ‘Just having a chat with my favourite former pupil.’

  ‘Doubt it,’ Miss Sullivan said, and turned her back to us again.

  ***

  After Mrs Freeman left, and I’d counted all the red things, and the blue and the green, I started to look through the newspapers by myself. I started in 1965 and had got through to 1969 when I heard laughing coming from the loans desk. I looked up and it was Miss Sullivan who was laughing, and when I leant out of the chair to see who she was talking to, it was Ms Hilcombe, with her hair all frizzy and a bag over her shoulder. Superman stood up and went to the door, but he hid himself in his cape so they couldn’t see that he was listening.

  ‘I swear to God, she was just here!’ Miss Sullivan said, and her voice was all mixed up with the air coming out of her chest in her laughter, and the happiness in it made some of the squeeze come out of mine. ‘Please tell me you told her to bugger off.’

  Ms Hilcombe laughed as well. ‘I told her that her suggestions were noted, but since she’d left and it was my class now I’d get final say on what I taught them.’

  ‘Oh, she would have loved that,’ Miss Sullivan said, and Ms Hilcombe snorted.

  ‘I know country towns. I grew up in one just like this. But even so, she’s something else.’

  ‘So you wanted to come here?’ Miss Sullivan asked.

  Ms Hilcombe shifted her bag off her shoulder and dropped it at her feet. Superman couldn’t make out what the books were, but they were nearly spilling out onto the floor.

  ‘Well, I mean, the department posted me.’

  ‘Same here,’ Miss Sullivan said.

  ‘But it’s okay,’ Ms Hilcombe said. ‘It came at just the right time…and I love the kids.’

  Superman smiled then, and all the colours of his costume and his cape caught the sunlight, and he glowed so bright that you had to cover your eyes just to look at him.

  ‘You dropping these back?’ Miss Sullivan said, pointing to the books on the floor.

  Ms Hilcombe lifted her bag up onto the loans desk. ‘Yeah, thanks,’ she said. ‘Still not quite right, but it’s a start.’

  ***

  The hospital wouldn’t let Davey keep his cast once they took it off, so when Grandma drove us home he wouldn’t look at either of us and just stared out the window. Grandma played with the channels on the radio, but wouldn’t settle on anything for more than a few minutes. She kept turning it up and down again, but the further out we drove the more the voices kept dropping. After a while she just turned it off and I let my window down, and the sound in the car was just that of the wind. Davey’s leg was white where the cast had been, and it looked funny next to the tan of his good one. He kept runn
ing his hands over the skin to the knee. Sometimes he’d say it still hurt a little, and he’d rub where the cast had made little dents in the skin.

  ‘You’re alright,’ Grandma said. ‘Doctor says it was a good recovery. You did well not to get it wet.’ Davey had a chocolate bar in his hand that he got for being brave when they cut the cast off, and when he saw me turn around to look at him, he gave me a massive grin then bit off a big chunk of chocolate and chewed it.

  ‘Plus it was good we got it off before the holidays,’ Grandma said. ‘You can practise your batting with Rohan.’

  ‘Cricket’s over and I don’t like Rohan anymore,’ Davey said. It had started getting cold in the mornings, and even though it was still hot during the day, as soon as it started getting dark before dinner you knew that was it.

  We drove back along the highway, where the paddocks thinned out and there were more trees. On the left, you could see the mountains, which got thicker and higher the further you went from town. If you climbed to the top of one of them you’d be able to see straight across the town and all the way to the horizon, and then a bit further along to where the ground fell off into the sea. Davey started kicking the back seat with his good leg, and it made Grandma’s head bounce backwards on her neck.

  ‘Davey!’ she yelled.

  ‘When’s Grandpa coming home?’ Davey asked. He put his fingers in his mouth to lick the chocolate off, and Grandma sighed when he made a slurp.

  ‘When he’s better,’ Grandma said.

  ‘But when though?’

  ‘When he’s better,’ Grandma repeated. ‘That’s when.’

  ‘’S’not fair,’ Davey said. He rubbed at the white skin. I reached for the door handle and tapped out B-E-T-T-E-R into the metal.

  ‘Stop it, please, Simon,’ Grandma said.

  Sometimes I went and sat outside Mum’s bedroom door and listened for her breathing. Sometimes I tapped out S-I-M-O-N on the wall. Sometimes I heard her moving around in there. Sometimes I didn’t.