Six Impossible Things (3 page)

Fred gets on the floor and looks underneath the desk.

‘It’s not finished very well. It’s really rough,’ he says.

‘A telltale sign of authenticity. The reproductions are smoother underneath.’

‘What’s it worth?’

‘More than fifty grand.’

I see Fred’s fiendish mind cranking over.

‘So we could flog this, substitute a copy and get fake ID, plane tickets to LA, fake drivers’ licences, and drive across America to New York, have ourselves a time, and be back in time for Year Ten. What do you say?’

‘Yeah, one little flaw – we can’t fake drive.’

‘We’d learn how in the wide open spaces.’

‘Do you want to see my room?’

‘Sure.’

We head upstairs. Howard trots up after us.

My bedroom is on the top floor, at the back of the house. It has two sets of tall casement windows, with a tree right outside. While Fred canvasses Howard’s range of tricks – sit and roll over – and gets to know him, I’m thinking if I were in a film, there would come a time I’d swing out the window and climb down the tree. But this is life and I’m not that keen to break my neck so I use the stairs. And it’s not as though my social life is so hectic I have to sneak out or anything. My mother would be relieved if I got asked out anywhere – she’d help me get there. She’s consumed with guilt about me having to leave my school because of our financial crash. Because I’m smart and whatever. Extension this, acceleration that. You know the drill.

But in all the time I’ve spent hibernating in that creaking iron bed, buried under piles of old paisley eiderdowns whose faded colours have sopped up my sorry tears, I’ve realised this is my big chance to renovate the old image and keep it on the down low about being so smart. I can always do my accelerating in private, or just slow down for a bit. Cruise, coast, tread water – stop, preferably not sink . . .

Fred is snapping his fingers in my face.

‘Come back, you’ve got the retarded zombie look,’ he says.

‘What?’

‘I asked you how you’re feeling about tomorrow.’

‘Like crap.’

Fred nods. ‘I’m sorry I had to go away when I did. Have you spoken to your dad yet?’

I shake my head. ‘It’s not because he’s gay; it’s because he’s shot through and upset Mum . . .’

Fred understands. ‘I know you’re not some redneck homophobe, Dan.’

‘It’s just so weird – my dad.’

‘I know.’

‘My dad is gay.’ I hear the disbelief in my own voice. It still hasn’t properly sunk in, but it’s a relief saying it out loud.

‘I did a bit of research in London. It’s more common than you’d think. The apparently heterosexual parent . . . you know.’

There’s no topic that Fred is squeamish about. He’s a scientist. Always happy to apply the chloroform and start dissecting. This is still too raw for me, though, and I can tell he gets that. He’s opening the door, but not barging in.

‘Come round after school if you feel like it. I don’t start till Tuesday. Plan B reckons I need a haircut.’

‘She’s wrong,’ I say.

‘I brought you back something. Don’t hyperventilate, it’s a British Museum pencil.’

I smile, but now I’m starting to feel seriously sick about tomorrow. I know because of seeing her that first time in her uniform that Estelle goes to my new school. What if I’m in her class? What if I’m not? What’s better: terror or disappointment?

I
T FEELS AS THOUGH
I’m thinking about Estelle most of the time. As though someone has changed my default setting to ‘Estelle’ without my permission, or she’s become my brain’s screen saver. Desire has merged with a (completely alien) noble feeling of wanting to be able to offer Estelle my absolutely best self. The power of this is undercut by not really knowing what my best self is. But it’s got to be more than the current sum of parts.

All this churning and I haven’t even met her. What’s she going to think about me? Uncool me? Trying-to-hide-the-nerd me?

It’s worse than just not being cool. As well as that I’m going through an awkward transitional stage. It’s not that I’m ugly. I’m pretty sure I’m not. I’m tall and on the thin side. And I’ve grown a lot lately but haven’t exactly filled out. I’ve asked my mother for protein powder but you can imagine, what with the family budget – zero – and her short fuse these days, I didn’t get a positive response. Then there’s the fact that my girl experience is on the low side – or, more accurately, zero. I’ve never even kissed a girl. And I’m nearly fifteen.

My mother hands me a lunch bag, looks up – yeah, I’m taller than she is – and says, worried, ‘Just be yourself.’ Myself. My ‘self ’? I don’t really have a clue who that self is. It’s like some kind of amorphous blob I’m trying to make into a better shape. I just know the bits I don’t want to broadcast to a group of strangers.

1 Loser.

2 Nerd.

3 Gay dad.

4 Single mum, question mark over mental stability.

5 No cash.

6 Private school refugee.

I don’t want to be judged or pitied, I just want to stay under the radar while I look around.

At my old school there was the usual assortment of jocks, try-hards, nerds, hard-cores and cool groups. Then there were the odd socks, like me. Technically, I qualified for the nerds, but no way was I going to dock there.

Being left over is not a hugely bonding characteristic, so it’s pure good luck that me and Fred turned out to be friends.

You probably think if I’m so smart, why did I even have to leave the school, why wasn’t I on a scholarship? I was, but it only paid for half the fees. My mother went to explain the family situation and see if they’d like to give me a full scholarship. They declined.

‘Their loss,’ she said. But I could tell she was cut up about it.

The headmaster said they’d only be able to give a full scholarship to an all-rounder. He may have been referring obliquely to my lack of sporting prowess. Also, private schools are big on you contributing to ‘school life’, stuff like music and debating. And I don’t talk that much at school.

I’m here way too soon.

Walking in is gruelling. I don’t know a single person. I feel like a lemon rolling down the apple chute. I feel like turning around and going home.

But I brace myself. Not everyone gets a shot at the fresh start. I can be anyone I want to be. ‘Shy’, ‘uncool’, ‘nerd’ – I can peel those labels off and flick them into the past. Who knows, maybe I’ll fit right in? I can be an apple.

I hear someone yell out, ‘Dickhead. Hey, you. Dickhead.’

I look around.

Why? Why would I do that?

There is an eruption of hysteria from the person who yelled out and his friends.

‘Yeah, just checking it was you, dickhead.’

They are amused. It’s a good start to their day. There’s hooting and back slapping all round.

Don’t react. Don’t give them the satisfaction.

It could have been worse, I figure, Estelle could have seen it. And right on cue, as I turn and head for the main building, there she is, with two friends. No way they could have missed it.

So it’s terror, not disappointment. Estelle is in my Year Nine homeroom. So is the dickhead guy. His name is Jason Doyle, with the nauseating nickname ‘Jayzo’.

The class has divided itself into legible groups: Jayzo and his crew, the alpha males; the cool group – creative interpretation of uniform, ignoring the new boy; some friendly-looking freaks who nod their welcome – lots of time spent on torturing hair, and piercings; a cluster of nerds talking about maths; the blondes, in a teen-America time warp. Why hasn’t anyone told them that’s (no way) (omigod) (only) (like) (so) (totally) (random) (gay) and (way) (not) (cool) or (whatever)? I’ve tuned in. They use about twenty transposable words in all – quite efficient, I guess. The last pod is beautiful Estelle and her two beautiful friends floating above the rabble with their detached expressions and quiet, vital chat. And there are plenty of plasma kids – first-impression: nondescript filler.

No matter how hard they try to be different, all the groups have one thing in common – each-otherness – something I’m conspicuously lacking in.

In the post-bell, pre-teacher squall, I watch Jayzo offering up an admittedly impressive wall of abdominal muscles to be punched. What a pitiful show-off. I think of my own flat, but lacking-in-definition abs with a pang of gaping inadequacy. I have to do something about that.

‘Nuh, didn’t feel it,’ he says to Dannii, one of the transposable bracket girls. ‘Put your shoulder into it.’

‘No way,’ she giggles.

‘Hard as you can. What are you scared of – breaking your hand?’

She does another pathetic little punch and giggle routine.

‘You are like so totally buff!’

‘Go on, harder.’ He notices me looking at them. ‘What are you looking at, faggot? Never seen a six-pack before?’

I turn away.

‘Dickhead, I’m talking to you.’

As if I’m going to fall for that one twice.

The homeroom teacher hurries in at this opportune moment. He scans the group, not looking at all sure that he recognises any of them.

‘We have a new student starting today. Are you here . . .’ he consults a note, ‘Dan Cereal?’

Some sniggers at the name.

‘Cereill,’ I say. ‘It’s pronounced “surreal”.’

He touches his tongue to the trim under-edge of his moustache and sizes me up. Am I a troublemaker? Am I ridiculing him? He can’t decide.

‘If you prefer,’ he says. ‘Cereill it is.’

Yes, I prefer my name pronounced properly. Call me crazy.

He nasal drones his way through the roll. Estelle’s friends are called Uyen Nguyen and Janie Bacon.

There’s more to my social failures than not having kissed a girl and having no discernible abs. I don’t even know any girls. And even way back in primary school when I did know some, I was never on their wavelength.

I was shy and my mother used to tell me to ‘just join in’. But that didn’t work so well for me. It still embarrasses me remembering some of my terminal clangers. One time in grade five I was sitting next to a girl I liked, psyching myself to say something, anything, when
she
started speaking to
me
.

‘There’s this sky I really like,’ she whispered. We were supposed to be drawing a map of national park areas in the Northern Territory.

‘There’s this sky I like too,’ I said,
joining in
. ‘It’s right after a storm, with the sun behind rain clouds, and the colour is like dark grey trying to be purple.’

‘
Guy
. Not sky. He’s a friend of yours.’

‘Oh. Who?’

But clearly the time for sharing was over.

‘Just forget it.’

She turned her back to me, pointing her knees out to the aisle. Neither of us could believe how stupid I was.

It’s been pretty much all downhill from there.