Faking Sweet (24 page)

The author would like to thank:

 

Victoria Shehadie

Shakti Burke

Louis Burke-Xie

Tara Wynne

Zoe Walton

Anne Perkins

Read on for an extract from

The Red Cardigan

She searches for the smell. She finds it – the sweet perfume of a Murraya bush in summer. It's the only memory of her grandfather and it's still exactly as it was. She is sitting on his knee in an old green kitchen. A loose thread hangs from his singlet. Winding it around her finger, she listens to him speak.

‘Your gran knows things, Evie.'

She nods.

‘Sometimes,' his voice drops to a whisper, ‘sometimes she knows things before they've even happened.'

 

Today, Evie turns this memory over and over, trying to hear each word as if for the first time. She needs to fill in the gaps, make sense of something she knows she cannot ask others. Somehow she understands dark times lie ahead. This is who she is. This is her curse.

At recess Alex watches her. ‘Are you okay, Evie?'

‘Yeah,' agrees Poppy. ‘You look kind of – weird.'

Evie sees Alex mouth ‘shut up', but doesn't care. She wants to go home. She needs to be alone. ‘I feel like I'm going to spew.'

Poppy jumps behind Alex. ‘What? Now?'

‘I think I'll go up to the office and see if I can go home.'

Alex and Poppy glance at each other.

‘Do you really think that's, um – a good idea?'

‘You're sounding like my mother, Alex.' Evie fiddles with the buttons on her cuff. It's best not to look at them. ‘I'm okay. I just feel sick.'

‘Want us to come to the office with you?'

‘I'll be fine. See you tomorrow.'

Evie walks briskly through a draughty corridor leading to the school office. ‘The walk of shame' the students call it. Shivering, she pulls her cardigan around her chest. The cardigan is crimson red and made from the softest wool. Her dad brought it back from Adelaide, last week. He'd picked it up at a vintage store near where he'd stayed. ‘Impulse buying,' he'd grinned. Evie never lets on, but she understands why he spoils her. It helps relieve his guilt.

Usually she feels good wearing the cardigan to school. Red is the regulation colour for jumpers at Goulburn Street Girls' High but Evie's cardigan is vintage. She saw the ‘cool girls' or, as Alex calls them, ‘the CGs' eyeing it off at morning assembly. But now she wants to escape their prying eyes, in case they notice, too.

Outside, heavy black clouds sit low in the sky. Evie doesn't have to look up; she feels them crowding her space, sucking her air. She wishes she could push them away, up where they belong. But today she lacks the strength. It's all she can do just to keep it together.

 

‘Thank god,' she sighs, closing the front door. ‘Home and alone.'

Thursday is her mum's university teaching day. If it wasn't, Evie would have stayed at school – anything to avoid her mother's frown and pursed lips. It's been ages since Evie's had a bad day. She figures no one needs to know about this one.

She climbs the stairs to her bedroom, takes off her cardigan and goes to hang it over the chair. Hiding inside the shoulder seam is a tiny knot of hair. She pulls it out and holds it up to the light. It's the colour of dark copper.

A sharp pain strikes the back of Evie's head. She slumps onto the bed trying to catch her breath. Her throat is making a rasping noise that sounds like it's coming from the other side of the room. She buries herself under the doona. It's safer in the dark.

‘Not again,' she moans. ‘Pleeease, not again.'

 

‘Muuum?' Evie calls from the laundry. ‘I can't find any socks and I need you to sign a note.'

‘Evie! Don't just chuck everything out of the clean washing basket.' Her mum sighs. ‘What do you want? Socks?'

‘There's none here.' Evie stuffs the clothes back in the basket.

‘Give me the basket. I folded all this stuff last night and I'm not doing it again.'

‘Come on, Evie,' her dad calls from the kitchen. ‘We've got to go.'

‘Okay, okay.'

‘Have you looked in the dryer?' her mother snaps.

‘No. I haven't,' she snaps back.

‘Hurry up, Evie. I've got a press conference this morning.'

‘Hang on, Dad. I'm coming.'

‘Here.' Evie's mother thrusts a pair of socks in her face.

Evie hops to the kitchen trying to put the socks on while her mother stuffs things into her school bag.

‘For godsakes, Evie. Sit down and put your socks on properly.'

If there's one piece of public knowledge in the Simmons's household, it's that Nick Simmons, Evie's father and Executive Producer of Radio News, cannot under any circumstances be late for a press conference.

‘What was the other thing you needed?' Her mother is fighting with the bag's zipper and isn't winning.

‘Evie, you've got to be more organised.' Now her dad's on the case. ‘You're in Year 12 next year. You know, final exams and all that stuff.'

‘Nick, be quiet,' her mum says. ‘Evie, did you say I had to sign something?'

‘Yeah.'

Evie takes the note out of her pocket. She has folded it, just to show the dotted line where a signature is required.

She points, ‘Just sign there.'

Nick is walking to the front door. Evie picks up her bag with one hand, still holding the note firmly in the other. Her mother takes the corner of the note but Evie won't let go. She tugs at it and Evie's grip tightens.

‘Evie!' Her mother prises it out from her daughter's fingers, unfolding her secret.

‘What?' She watches her mother's expression slide down her face into her jaw. ‘You what? You left school at recess?'

‘Yeah.'

Evie reaches out her hand but her mother holds the note to her chest.

‘Were you – sick?'

Evie nods.

‘You didn't tell us that last night.' Nick has put down his briefcase and is walking towards her. ‘Are you okay?'

‘I'm fine.'

‘Sure?'

‘Yes, Dad, I'm sure.'

‘She looks okay to me. Don't you think, Nick?' Her mother's knuckles turn white as she crumples the note in her hand.

Evie looks at her shoes. ‘Can we – um – go now?'

‘Sure you don't want to tell us anything?'

‘No, Dad. For the one billionth time, I'm fine. Okay?'

‘Great.' He puts his hand on her shoulder. ‘The cardigan suits you. Doesn't it, Robin?'

‘Thanks, Dad.'

Her mother smooths out the note and hands it back. ‘Next time, I'd appreciate it if you called me. I thought we agreed you'd tell us if anything was … going on.'

‘I will. I just felt sick. No big deal.'

Her mother nods. ‘Good.'

But Evie knows her mother doesn't believe her.