Blabber Mouth (2 page)

It doesn't sound as though anyone has, or if they have, they don't want to go and get it.

I don't blame them. Who'd want to walk all the way to the staff car park for the least popular girl in the school?

Dad arrived just in time.

I was getting desperate because the smell was making me feel sick and Ms Dunning pleading with me through the door was making me feel guilty and the sound of an electric drill being tested was making me feel scared.

But I couldn't bring myself to open the door and face all those horrified kids.

And angry teachers.

And Mr Fowler the principal who'd skinned his knuckles trying to force the lock with a stapler.

Not by myself.

Then I heard a truck pull up outside.

I've never been so pleased to hear a vibrating tailgate. The tailgate on our truck has vibrated ever since Dad took the old engine out and put in a turbo-powered one with twin exhausts.

There were more scurrying and muttering sounds from out in the corridor and then Ms Dunning called through the door.

‘Rowena, your father's here. If you come out now we'll try and keep him calm.'

I grinned to myself in the dark. She obviously didn't know my father.

I took a deep breath and opened the door.

The corridor was full of faces, all staring at me.

The principal, looking grim and holding a bandaged hand.

Ms Dunning, looking concerned.

The other teachers, looking annoyed.

Kids peeking out of classrooms, some horrified, some smirking.

Plus a couple of blokes in bushfire brigade overalls carrying a huge electric drill, and a man in a dustcoat with
Vic's Hardware
embroidered on the pocket holding a big bunch of keys, and an elderly woman in a yellow oilskin jacket with
State Emergency Service
printed on it.

All staring at me.

I don't think anybody said anything. But I wouldn't have heard them if they had because my heart was pounding in my ears like a stump excavator.

Then the door at the other end of the corridor swung open with a bang and all the heads turned.

It was Dad.

As he walked slowly down the corridor, taking in the situation, everyone stared at him even harder than they'd stared at me.

I didn't blame them. People usually stare at Dad the first time they see him. They're not being rude, it's just that most people have never seen an apple farmer wearing goanna-skin boots, black jeans, a studded belt with a polished metal cow's skull buckle, a black shirt with white tassels and a black cowboy hat.

Dad came up to me, looking concerned.

‘You OK, Tonto?' he asked.

He always calls me Tonto. I think it's a character from a TV show he used to watch when he was a kid. I'd be embarrassed if he said it out loud, but it's OK when he says it with his hands because nobody else can understand. Dad always talks to me with his hands. He reckons two people can have a better conversation when they're both speaking the same language.

‘I'm fine, Dad,' I replied.

Everyone was staring at our hands, wondering what we were saying.

‘Tough day, huh?' said Dad.

‘Fairly tough,' I said.

Dad gave me a sympathetic smile, then turned and met the gaze of all the people in the corridor.

Mr Fowler, the principal, stepped forward.

‘We can't have a repeat of this sort of thing, Mr Batts,' he said.

‘It was just first day nerves,' said Ms Dunning. ‘I'm sure it won't happen again.'

Dad cleared his throat.

My stomach sank.

When Dad clears his throat it usually means one thing.

It did today.

He moved slowly around the semicircle of people, looking each of them in the eye, and sang to them.

Their mouths fell open.

Mr Fowler stepped back.

The hardware bloke dropped his keys.

As usual, Dad sang a country and western number from his record collection. He's got this huge collection of records by people with names like Slim Dusty and Carla Tamworth—the big black plastic records you play on one of those old-fashioned record players with a needle.

This one was about lips like a graveyard and a heart like a fairground and I knew Dad was singing about me.

Part of me felt proud and grateful.

The other part of me wanted to creep back into the cupboard and shut the door.

Several of the teachers looked as though they wanted to as well.

Dad thinks country and western is the best music ever written and he assumes everyone else does too. They usually don't, mostly because he doesn't get many of the notes right.

When he'd finished, and the hardware bloke had picked up his keys, Dad put an arm round my shoulders.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,' he announced, ‘Rowena Batts is taking the rest of the day off. Apologies for the inconvenience, and if anyone's out of pocket, give us a hoy and I'll bung you a bag of apples.'

He steered me down the corridor.

Just before we went out the door, I glanced back. Nobody had moved. Everyone looked stunned, except Ms Dunning, who had a big grin on her face.

In the truck driving into town, I told Dad what had happened. He hardly took his eyes off my hands the whole time except when he had to swerve to avoid the war memorial. When I told him about the frog in Darryn Peck's mouth he laughed so much his hat fell off.

I didn't think any of it was funny.

What's funny about everyone thinking you're a psychopath who's cruel to frogs and not wanting to touch you with a bargepole?

Just thinking about it made my eyes hot and prickly.

Dad saw this and stopped laughing.

‘OK, Tonto,' he said, steering with his knees, ‘let's go and rot our teeth.'

We went and had chocolate milkshakes with marshmallows floating on top, and Dad did such a good imitation of Darryn Peck with the frog in his mouth that I couldn't help laughing.

Specially when the man in the milk bar thought Dad was choking on a marshmallow.

Then we played Intergalactic Ice Invaders and I was twenty-seven thousand points ahead when the milk bar man asked us to leave because Dad was making too much noise. I guess the milk bar man must have been right because as we left, a man in a brown suit glared at us from the menswear shop next door.

We went to the pub and had lemon squash and played pool. Dad slaughtered me as usual, but I didn't mind. One of the things I really like about Dad is he doesn't fake stuff just to make you feel better. So when he says good things you know he means it. Like on the pool table today when I cracked a backspin for the first time and he said how proud it made him because he hadn't done it till he was thirteen.

When we got back here the sun was going down but Dad let me drive the tractor round the orchard a few times while he stood up on the engine cover waving a branch to keep the mozzies off us.

I was feeling so good by then I didn't even mind his singing.

We came inside and made fried eggs and apple fritters, which everyone thinks sounds yukky but that's only because they don't know how to make it. You've got to leave the eggs runny.

After dinner we watched telly, then I went to bed.

Dad came in and gave me a hug.

I switched the lamp on so he could hear me.

‘If you ever get really depressed about anything,' I said, ‘feel free to use the school stationery cupboard, but take a peg for your nose.'

Dad grinned.

‘Thanks, Tonto,' he said. ‘Anyone who doesn't want to be your mate has got bubbles in the brain. Or frogs in the mouth.'

I hugged him again and thought how lucky I am to have such a great Dad.

It's true, I am.

He's a completely and totally great Dad.

Except for one little thing.

But I don't want to think about that tonight because I'm feeling too happy.

I love talking in my head.

For a start you can yak on for hours and your hands don't get tired. Plus, while you're yakking, you can use your hands for other things like making apple fritters or driving tractors or squeezing pimples.

Pretty yukky, I know, but sometimes Dad gets one on his back and can't reach it so I have to help him out.

Another good thing about conversations in your head is you can talk to whoever you like. I talk to Kylie Minogue and the federal Minister for Health and Lisa from ‘The Simpsons' and all sorts of people. You can save a fortune in phone bills.

And, if you want to, you can talk to people who've died, like Mum or Erin my best friend from my last school.

I don't do that too much, but, because it gets pretty depressing.

It's depressing me now so I'm going to stop thinking about it.

The best thing about talking in your head is you can have exactly the conversation you want.

‘G'day Dad,' you say.

‘G'day Ro,' he answers.

‘Dad,' you say, ‘do you think you could back off a bit when you meet people from my new school cause I'm really worried that even if they get over the frog incident none of them'll want to be friends with the daughter of an apple cowboy who sings at them and even if they do their parents won't let them.'

‘Right-o,' he says, ‘no problem.'

People pay attention when you talk to them in your head.

Not like in real life.

In real life, even if you're really careful not to hurt their feelings, and you just say something like ‘Dad, could you wear a dull shirt and not sing today please', people just roll their eyes and grin and nudge you in the ribs and say ‘loosen up, Tonto' and ‘the world'd be a crook place without a bit of colour and movement'.

He's yelling at me now to get out of the shower because I'll be late for school and the soap'll go squishy and the water always sprays over the top of the curtain when I stand here and think.

How come he knows when a shower's going over the top, but he doesn't know when he is?

I wish I hadn't mentioned Erin because now I'm feeling squishy myself.

It's the soap that's doing it.

It's making me think of the time Erin and me put soap in the carrot soup at our school and watched everyone dribble it down their fronts, even the kids who didn't normally dribble.

This is dumb, it's over one year and two months since she died, I shouldn't be feeling like this.

I tell you what, if I ever have another best friend I'm going to make sure she wasn't born with a dicky heart and lungs.

If I ever have another best friend I'm going to make her take a medical before we start.

If I ever have one.

Dad said today'd be better than yesterday because he reckons second days at new schools are always better than first days.

He was right.

Just.

It started off worse, but.

When I walked through the gate, all the kids stared and backed away, even the ones from other classes.

Then I had to go and see the principal, Mr Fowler, in his office.

He seemed quite tense. The skin on the top of his head was pink and when he stood up to take the tube of antiseptic cream out of his shorts pocket his knees were fairly pink too, which I've read is a danger sign for blood pressure if you're not sunburnt.

‘Rowena,' he began, rubbing some of the cream onto his grazed knuckles, ‘Ms Dunning has told me what happened in class yesterday and Darryn Peck has been spoken to. I know this move to a normal school isn't easy for you, but that does not excuse your behaviour yesterday and I do not want a repeat of it, do you understand?'

I nodded. I wanted to tell him you shouldn't use too much cream, Dad reckons it's better to let the air get to a graze and dry it out, but I didn't in case he'd studied antiseptic creams at university or something.

‘Rowena,' Mr Fowler went on, examining the graze closely, ‘if there are any problems with your father, such as, for example, him drinking too much, you know you can tell me or Ms Dunning about it, don't you?'

I got my pen and pad out of my school bag and wrote Mr Fowler a short note explaining that Dad gave up drinking four years ago after he'd had one too many and accidentally spilled seventy cases of Granny Smiths in the main street of our last town.

Mr Fowler read the note twice, and I thought he was going to criticise my spelling, but he just nodded and said, ‘That's all, Rowena'.

He still seemed pretty tense.

Perhaps he'd discovered his graze was going soggy.

In class everyone stared when I walked in, except Ms Dunning who smiled.

‘Ah, Rowena,' she said, ‘you're just in time.'

I went over to her desk and wrote a note on my pad asking if I could say something to the class.

She looked surprised, but said yes.

My hands were shaking so much I could hardly pick up the chalk, but I managed.

‘Sorry about yesterday,' I wrote on the board. “I'll pay for the frog.'

My hands were still shaking when I turned back to the class.

I was relieved to see none of the kids were backing away, and some were even smiling.

‘It's OK, Rowena,' said Ms Dunning, ‘the frog survived.'

The class laughed. Except Darryn Peck up the back who scowled at me.

‘Thank you for that, Rowena,' said Ms Dunning.

I turned back to the board and wrote ‘My friends call me Ro', and went back to my seat.

The girl next to me smiled, and suddenly I felt really good. Then I realised she was smiling at somebody over my left shoulder.

‘OK, Ro,' said Ms Dunning, ‘you're just in time for the sports carnival nominations.'

She explained about tomorrow being the school sports carnival and, because it's a small school, everyone having to take part.

‘Right,' she said, ‘who wants to be in the javelin?'

I didn't put my hand up for anything because I didn't want to seem too pushy and aggressive, not so soon after the frog. Plus you never win friends at sports carnivals. If you come first people think you're a show-off, if you come last they think you're a dork, and if you come in the middle they don't notice you.