Six (6 page)

YEAR 12 JOURNAL, DAY 1, PART ONE

9.15 p.m.

The day I met Poppy it was free dress for Orientation Day, but my parents decided that I should wear my primary school uniform.

‘You come from a very good school,’ insisted my father. ‘The teachers should see that. It is never too early to make a good impression.’

I had matching ribbons in my hair and when we got to the high school auditorium, early of course, my parents marched me up to the front seats near the stage.

‘You can go now,’ I pleaded as other students trickled into the building.

‘We will stay,’ my mother said and I didn’t bother trying to change her mind.

At least they moved away from me.

The hall seemed much larger then. The velvet of the stage curtains hung with heavy importance. I didn’t notice that the stitching had come away from some of the hems or that the velvet was worn in places. Dusty photos of past principals adorned the walls — there was one woman but the rest were dark-suited men with stern faces. Tasseled sports house banners hung from the ceiling. I wondered what house I would belong to, though it didn’t really matter as I was not a sporty person.

Most of the arriving students sat up the back of the hall. A few moved halfway down the rows of seats. Even less came near the front, where I was sitting. I felt my face turning red, matching the colour of the ribbons in my hair. It was happening again. I thought I could start fresh in a new school. Create a new me. Sure, there’d be kids here that would know me, but there would be some who wouldn’t. But no. It seemed I would still be the geek. The girl wearing a school uniform when everyone else was in free dress. The girl whose parents hovered at the back of the hall, instead of walking back to their car and leaving her for a couple of hours.

As I sat looking into my bleak future, a girl with hair the colour of autumn, and a long flowing skirt to match, marched past me. Then she doubled back and sat in the seat next to mine.

‘I’m Poppy,’ she said.

She placed a hand on my shoulder and I remember thinking that was a bit… well, forward.

‘You’ve got a very strong aura,’ she said. ‘Logical tan.’

I knew then that she was unlike any other person I’d ever met. A total crackpot. Auras and ESP and people on the other side. I knew that my parents would disapprove. Still, they were going to disapprove of anyone I made friends with at school. In their eyes, school was for study, not for socialising. School was for improving the mind, laying down the foundations for my future, pushing myself to be the best person I could be.

They wanted me to be a doctor.

‘Have you seen the boys up the back?’ she asked. ‘I think I’m in love.’

‘With who?’ I asked, turning around for a peek.

‘All of them,’ she said with a shrug.

I didn’t know what to say.

‘I’m Sarah,’ I said finally. ‘My parents are still here, standing up the back. Like it’s my first day of Prep or something.’

I didn’t know why I told her that. I was expecting her to get up and walk away.

‘You’re lucky,’ she said. ‘My step-dad dropped me off right at the front gate in his mid-life crisis car. He had to rev it a couple of times so that people would notice him.’

I laughed. Then Poppy looked deep into my eyes and held out the little finger on her right hand.

‘Let’s make a pact,’ she said. ‘Let’s never turn into boring adults.’

I held out my own pinkie and we solemnly shook.

AT THE END OF the short first week of Year 12 I’d already had three English classes with Finn, but I still hadn’t said a sentence to him.

‘You should just ask him,’ said Poppy, flipping through her textbook. ‘Just ask Fish to go to the Formal with you.’

‘His name is Finn,’ I snapped.

Poppy could do that. She had a way of knowing that was scary. Sometimes she could tap into that place where I was hurting most and it was like a burglar had invaded my personal space. It wasn’t always easy having Poppy as a best friend.

Poppy ignored my outburst and I pretended it didn’t happen. I talked instead about the Education Supplement in that day’s paper, then Mr Zable came in and my heart stopped racing. I settled back in my chair and I forget about everything except English Language Unit 3. Sociolects and phonology and semantics were things I could control. I felt a calm settle over me like a warm cloak as Mr Zable began to drone.

After class I stayed behind to have a word with Mr Zable about getting hold of some past exams for practice. The shuffle of feet exiting the room, the scrape of chairs and the babble of conversation unsettled me again. I watched Finn out of the corner of one eye, then he hesitated near me and touched my back to get my attention.

‘See you, Sarah,’ he said and my heart started up its thumping and bumping until it felt like I was having a heart attack.

YEAR 12 JOURNAL, DAY 4

1.15 p.m.

I know the symptoms of heart failure.

It’s not like I haven’t said this before.

I, Sarah Lum, am going to be a doctor.

My grandmother had a heart attack one day while I was playing in the kitchen at home. She was making my favourite meal — dumplings — when she clutched at her arm and cried out in pain. I thought she’d cut herself and I screamed for my mother who came running. Mother said Grandmother was having a heart attack. I thought she was wrong. I was six, but even I knew that your heart lived somewhere inside your chest, not your arm.

‘We need a doctor,’ sobbed my mother, wringing her hands. ‘A doctor.’

She grabbed the phone. I thought she was going to ring the police or an ambulance or even the fire brigade, but it was her sister, Elya, that she called. It was Elya who called the ambulance. My aunts lived close by and Mum never did anything of major consequence without first consulting with them.

The ambulance came and it was Elya who sent me outside to play while the adults milled around and spoke in hushed voices. There was nothing much to do outside. My young brother was only a baby. My cousins had stayed at home. I followed the trails of the sugar ants as they marched to their nest outside the kitchen window. I moved clumps of dirt and twigs and leaves out of their path to make their journey easier.

Then I saw the next-door-neighbour, Mr Wilson, making his way to his car.

‘Grandmother has had a heart attack,’ I explained.

‘I am sorry to hear that,’ he said.

I didn’t know what else to say. I watched a white moth settle on my mother’s favourite rose bush. As always, I tried to fill up the silence. ‘When I grow up I’m going to be a doctor.’

‘Good for you,’ he said. I could see that he wanted to say something else. Instead, he finally just got into his car and drove away.

I told the cat at the bottom of the garden.

‘I am going to be a doctor.’

I told the sky, just in case Grandfather was up there watching me. I’d never met my grandfather, but I had it on good authority that he lived in heaven with his brother and my three pet fish that had died for no apparent reason.

Maybe if I’d been a doctor they never would have died?

After things settled down that day, I visited Grandmother happily sitting up in a hospital bed surrounded by her family, and I told my parents that I would be a doctor when I grew up. They were pleased.

‘Yes, yes,’ they said. ‘You will make a fine doctor, Sarah.’

And so it was written on destiny’s ledger that I was to be a doctor. It had been a spur of the moment idea. A flitting white moth that had strayed into my mind and turned into a beautiful shining butterfly. Every time I told someone of my decision, the butterfly’s colours grew stronger and more defined.

‘A doctor?’ they would say. ‘Clever girl.’

YEAR 12 JOURNAL, DAY 4

7.20 p.m.

My cousins are all high achievers. My mother recites their successes whenever she returns from her sisters’ homes.

‘Barbara has just had her third child,’ she might say.

Or, ‘Andrew has bought a plasma TV. It is bigger than Aunt Aisah’s.’

Or, ‘Melissa came top of her class again in Physics.’

Just last week she said, ‘Michael is now a junior partner at his law firm,’ her head nodding as if she had played some part in his success.

I doubt she even knew what being a junior partner meant.

‘He has new business cards.’ She fingered the card like it was a precious jewel. The gold lettering glinted in the afternoon sunlight. Then she placed it on the fridge, stuck there by a magnet that read ‘PJ’s Plumbing — no service too big or wet’.

‘He will be earning much more money now.’ My mother nodded again. ‘All that hard work has paid off.’

I don’t know why she didn’t just take a sledgehammer and knock me over the head. As if she needed to remind me to keep working hard at school.

‘That’s nice,’ I said.

I don’t remind her of the great catastrophe when Michael came out two years ago. The sisters gathered in our kitchen and there was much wailing and rattling of teacups. My father stayed in his study pretending to work on the computer.

I tried to stay out of it, but the one time I ducked into the kitchen to get something to eat, I was grabbed and stroked and pinched on the cheek as the aunts said hello. Although my mother was wearing her woeful face, there was a glint in her eye that told me she was enjoying the misfortune of Elya, her elder sister.

‘I will never be a grandmother,’ wailed Aunt Elya, which was
r
idiculous, because she had three other children, all straight as far as we knew. And there was always the possibility of adoption.

‘And how is school?’ asked Lili, the youngest aunt, trying to change the subject.

‘Sarah is going to be a doctor,’ my mother said, as if they hadn’t heard this before.

The aunts nodded their approval, and Aunt Elya, aware that the focus had shifted from her troubles, burst into a fresh set of tears and declared, ‘My son will probably be fired from his job and become a hobo…maybe even a drug addict.’

This led to more patting of her back and a fresh brew of tea. The sisters’ favourite show was NCIS and they gathered at Aunt Aisah’s to watch it every Tuesday evening. To them, danger lurked in every shadow. They were obsessed with good girls who turned bad, men with guns and the D word — drugs. I know for a fact that my mother checked my room for drugs when I wasn’t at home. I know this because one day when I got home she was sobbing at the kitchen table, convinced a sprinkle of talcum powder I’d left on my bedroom floor belonged to the D word.

At times my family was ridiculous.

And yet…

I didn’t want to disappoint them.

So there I was, the centre of attention among my aunts, when my little brother marched in, demanding something to eat. The aunts then turned their attention on him. They cooed and petted him and told him how big he was growing, even though they had only seen him the day before.

‘And what will you be, Jefri, when you grow up?’ asked Aunt Lili.

‘A soccer player,’ he announced. ‘And I will have a big house in America and a sports car.’

The aunts tittered. Aunt Aisah asked if she could visit him when he was a star soccer player, and Jefri tilted his head in consideration then finally agreed. He stuffed his mouth with cake then marched out of the room again.