White Ninja (2 page)

My stomach flips. I have never felt like this before. It's no longer nausea, more a restlessness. I can hear my heart
beating, feel the blood pumping around my body, my chest rising with every breath then collapsing as I exhale. I am hyper-aware of every pore rinsing oxygen and filtering dust. That Hulk juice must have been off. I try to walk away from Elecktra, but she holds me firmly until I relent.

‘Dark-wash jeans, ballet flats, your red T-shirt, the cocktail ring you gave me to add …' I forget the word I'm meant to use.

‘Flair,' she says.

‘And this eye patch.' I point to it. ‘Oh, and hair and make-up by Elecktricity.'

‘Elecktrafied,' she corrects me. ‘It's my brand. Repeat.'

‘Elecktra! We'll be late for school and I'm feeling wrong.' I try to tug my arm away, but she's strong. She drinks more Hulk juice than me.

I sigh. ‘Elecktrafied.' She releases her grip.

‘The patch adds mystery. If you want to be famous and popular, you have to create mystique,' she says.

‘Where's your patch then?'

‘I go MIA on Facebook once a month. I don't need a patch any more,' she says.

Suddenly, a hand grasps my shoulder. I freeze.

Elecktra's heeled boot flies past my face, a hand blocks it and I see my sister's clutch purse spin in the air as she steps into a deep tiger stance and blocks an incoming spear-hand strike.

‘Mum! Seriously!' Elecktra yells, letting go her submission hold on our mother and bending to retrieve her fallen purse. ‘You could have broken my phone!' She strokes it like a pet.

Mum stretches out her arm. She looks at me and shakes her head. ‘Disappointing, Roxy.'

I roll my eyes. Having to walk to school with Elecktra every day is tough enough without Mum's surprise attacks to make sure we can defend ourselves. I can't believe I froze! All those Sunday afternoons of practice with Mum's blue noodle — a stick of foam she uses to make us block — and no real improvement. I'd love to tell Mum about the bullying at school. But being a ninja — I don't think she'd understand. She's probably never felt intimidated in her whole life.

Mum's wearing black running tights that show the definition in her strong, greyhound-like quads and a black puffer jacket with a hood. Her hair is tied up in a bun. She's not even sweating.

‘We'll talk about this later,' she says to me. ‘You'll be late for school — off you go.'

She sprints off, leaving us in a cloud of her perfume. ‘Great roundhouse kick!' she yells over her shoulder to Elecktra.

‘You know it,' Elecktra calls back. She bends down to gather the other contents of her clutch purse: a lip
gloss, breath mints, worry dolls, a piece of quartz stone Art gave her and the doorknob to her bedroom. It's her very own security system; she carries it around so no one can get into her room.

‘Want a bean?' she asks me. She's acting like nothing happened, just another episode in the reality TV series she's starring in, in her mind.

‘Adzuki bean?' I ask.

Elecktra rolls her eyes. ‘Adzuki beans are for losers. Jelly bean — here have the black one, I hate them.'

‘Don't let Mum catch you eating sugar for breakfast. You know the rule.'

‘Yeah, slows down my reflexes, blah, blah, blah. They were pretty good back there.'

She snaps her head back to elongate her neck and pops a handful of jelly beans into her mouth. I watch them slide down her throat. My mouth waters.

Elecktra shakes her head with a sugar buzz. ‘So do you think Jarrod will like my hair?' she asks.

‘What do you care if Jarrod likes your hair? He wants to leave Year Twelve to go full time at the car wash.'

I hate listening to her stories about boys. I know she only tells me as a rehearsal before telling her friends.

Elecktra stops walking for a second, throws another handful of jelly beans in her mouth and chews while thinking.

‘It's like, the other day he said to visit him at work. So I went casual — flat boots, not heels.'

‘What happened?' I ask.

‘Well, nothing. But I told him what I wanted. I said, hey, I think we should act like grown-ups and if you want to be my boyfriend, just say so and I'll tell everyone. Make it official.'

‘You did not say that.'

‘No. But can you help me break up with Jarrod?' She grabs my arm and tugs on it. ‘I'm
going
to say it to him.'

‘Jarrod the car-washer?'

‘I have another version with “loser” in it,' she offers.

‘Are you even dating? And how many boys have I helped you break up with?'

‘He walks in the gate with me every day. You know you don't walk through Gate One with just anyone.'

My heart folds in on itself as I think of the school gates. I dread going to school. It's exhausting. Not because of classes or PE, but because I'm nervous all day. I never feel completely comfortable. Sometimes I walk through the common area like I'm going somewhere really important and then just wait in the toilet for twenty minutes. If I look like I've got something important to do, I feel like people won't notice I don't have anyone to talk to. Other times I'll pretend to forget the combination to my locker. I'll look at the kids around
me like,
Great — of all days!
, then I'll shrink my world to that tiny dial and lock out the laughter and the looks. If I'm dealing with my locker, I don't have to deal with them. The library is an option, but I can't go there every day. On really cold days the popular girls claim top spot in front of the heaters.

‘Are you listening to me?' Elecktra shakes me gently.

I turn to her. ‘Elecktra, do you ever feel like hiding?'

‘Only if my mouthwash isn't doing its job.'

We reach the letterbox that flags we're only three blocks away from school. My hands begin to sweat and slide off the straps of my school bag. My stomach squirms. My tongue swells and grows bark. I stop and lean on the letterbox. The garage door slides down my forehead again, shuttering out light, air and sound.

‘Not again!' Elecktra squeezes her clutch under her armpit, grabs my hands and puts them on the letterbox under my chin. ‘Breathe,' she instructs.

I take a deep breath, but it strangles in my throat.

‘Panic attacks just getting to school and you're only in Year Seven. How are you going to deal with senior school?' She rubs my back.

I squint my eyes and wish to be invisible. If I was invisible, I could walk through Gate One with Elecktra and it would be like I was popular and beautiful.

‘I don't want to go. I look dumb.'

‘You look like you.'

‘That's the problem,' I squeak.

Elecktra pushes her water bottle under my nose and I take a sip.

‘Soft drink!' I look at her, shocked. ‘How'd you get that?'

‘Chantell brings it to school for me. Her mum buys heaps of the stuff. Mum won't know. She's kidding herself with all that reflex food.'

The sugar bites the front of my brain and I feel it needle up my veins and into my neck.

‘Good, huh?' Elecktra twirls on the spot. ‘I'm going to get Chantell to bring me chocolate bars too! Imagine!'

The thought of seeing Hero and his mates, and me having nowhere to hide, makes my head too heavy to lift up off the letterbox. My hands grow piping hot under my forehead. My skin feels sunburned.

‘C'mon, Rox, we'll be late again and I want to make an entrance.'

I turn my cheek onto the back of my hand. ‘Will you walk in with me?' I ask, then close my eyes because I can't handle seeing her response.

‘Stop asking me that. You know the answer. I'm going!' She pulls up her socks and walks off.

I slowly lift my head and look at my hands. They're burning with the same fire as when I gripped the bench
in the playground. I shake my hands in front of me and something happens. I must have blinked. I shake them again — they disappear, then reappear. I shake them a third time and they go invisible for three seconds, then come back.

‘Elecktra!' I shriek. ‘Elecktra, my hands are invisible! I can't go to school with invisible hands!'

She is ten steps ahead. She turns slowly and sashays back to me. She flips up my eye patch, then takes my hands in hers and squeezes them tight.

‘You're hurting me!' I gasp.

‘Enough! Your hands are not invisible — they're right here, see?' She squeezes them again. ‘You can feel this, can't you? It's just your eye patch playing tricks on you.'

I nod fervently. The eye patch — of course.

‘It'd help if you walked through the gate with me,' I say, but Elecktra cuts me off.

‘You know the rule!' She walks off, then yells back, ‘Today of all days!'

As always, I walk the final three blocks to school alone.

Staring at Gate Two, I feel the quiver under my tongue. A torrent of thick saliva fills my mouth with the bitter taste of terror and a trickle of nervous sweat runs down my back. All the things I hate — Chinese burns, pimples, cheese, answering questions in class — are Christmas compared with having to walk through the gate to school.

I concentrate on my breathing like Mum does when she meditates. A calm spirit is the only way to stop myself puking my Hulk juice all over the outfit Elecktra's made me wear. Ever since I was little she's dressed me up like a doll. I've never worn an outfit that felt like ‘me'; I always try to look like
her
and fail. I wanted to wear my own clothes today, but she said if anyone found out we were related and I was dressed as myself, then her ‘social reputation' would be over.

Kids are pouring through Gate One, all dressed in casual clothes instead of our usual navy uniform. I watch Elecktra prepare to make her entrance. She hangs
up her phone, bends over so her hair's hanging down and runs her hands through it to ‘volumise' it, then stands and smiles with neon-white teeth. Her routine is mesmerising, if a little too practised.

Jarrod meets her at the gate. She ignores him and he follows her in. She strides in a straight line, as if walking a tightrope or a catwalk, the whole performance seeming in slow motion. It feels like the world stops for Elecktra. That's what happens when you're so pretty you look like you belong in a box. Unlike me. My messy hair isn't bright yellow like Elecktra's, but jet black, so black it's almost navy blue. I'm short for my age and have to wear glasses to see the whiteboard. Mum says it's a matter of time before I land the double whammy and get braces too.

‘Roxy!' Cinnamon rests a hand on my shoulder to catch her breath. She has an energy drink in her other hand. Although her mum drops her off every morning, she gets breathless walking from the car to the gate. For casual clothes day, she is wearing baggy tracksuit pants and a loose pink kaftan. Her hair is as wild as ever, as though on fire.

‘Hey! Nice tent!' Hero yells at her as he walks through Gate One.

Cinnamon tugs the bottom of her kaftan and doesn't look up. Suddenly, I see her pants wriggle.

‘What's that?' I point to her right pocket, but my hand has disappeared again. I shake it, but still it's completely invisible.
It's my eye patch
, I remind myself, and stuff my hand in my pocket before Cinnamon notices anything.

‘Look,' she says, her voice thick with hurt.

I peer into her pocket and two yellow eyes stare up at me.

‘Cute kitten,' I say.

‘Cute eye patch,' Cinnamon replies without looking up. ‘Pirate chic,' I say. Two pointed black ears poke up and she smiles.

‘Mum and I found him on the highway on the way to school. She said I can keep him.' Cinnamon's voice becomes light again. ‘I'm going to call him Rescue.'

‘How will you look after him at school?' I ask.

‘He fits in my pocket, and I'll give him half my lunch. Mum thinks he's still in the back seat.' She looks down adoringly at the kitten, then surveys our surroundings. ‘Don't tell,' she pleads.

‘I won't,' I promise.

We both look through Gate Two. Hero and his friends have assembled at the other end of the drive. They love to start the day by taunting Gate Twoers. Hero is wearing fingerless gloves and a puffer jacket. He
looks taller today, as if he's had a growth spurt. Great. Just what the world needs.

‘I hate casual clothes day,' I say. ‘Zigzag it?'

Cinnamon and I have a few different gateway patterns that we alternate to avoid spit bombs. The older kids like to fill straws with chewed white paper, which they spit at Gate Twoers in hard, wet darts. The paper sticks like glue in your hair and to your clothes. Spit bombs are guaranteed on casual clothes day because the bullies know kids have gone to some trouble to look good.

‘What are you waiting for, Sweat Queen?' Hero yells.

Cinnamon and I break away to opposite sides of the gate. Elecktra is surrounded by her friends, but glances over at me to eye the sweat patches under my arms that are ruining her T-shirt.

‘On three,' I say.

‘Three!' I yell.

We run through the gate, crossing paths once then twice in a figure-eight motion. Today my feet feel light and I speed past Cinnamon. All the sugar she eats has made her slow. She's clutching at her pocket to keep the kitten safe and heaves for air as she tries to keep up with me and not spill her energy drink.

I'm too quick for the spit bombs and they miss me, speckling the path behind me, but Cinnamon cops it.
Her red afro fills with white darts, like hail on a scarlet bush. Her eyes shine with tears.

Hero and his friends laugh as we regain our composure inside the gate.

‘Not here,' I tell Cinnamon and she holds back her tears. ‘We'll get him back one day.'

‘How? We don't have any friends here,' she says. ‘We've got no backup.' Her eyes moisten again.

I take my eye patch off and fold it over her eye. ‘No crying,' I say.

‘Got any goggles?' Cinnamon asks, wiping a tear from her unpatched eye.

We laugh. I pick a spit bomb out of her hair. ‘It's a good look — think of it as lucky fairy dust,' I say.

A heavy hand falls on Cinnamon's backpack and her unpatched eye widens as she's forcefully spun around.

‘What's in your pocket?' Hero asks. His eyes are molten black. His friends encircle us. If Hero gets hold of the kitten, he'll kill it.

Cinnamon's grip tightens on her pocket and I hope the kitten has enough air to breathe. ‘Nothing,' she says in a trembling voice.

‘Nothing doesn't move!' Hero says.

‘She's got nothing in her pocket,' I say.

His eyes shift to me without his head moving. It's a creepy way to look at people. I put a hand across
Cinnamon's chest to protect her, but my skin burns and when I look down, my hand's flashing between visible and invisible. I retract it quickly and hide it in my pocket, but it's too late. Hero's eyes are now on my pocket. Why does this invisible thing happen? Cinnamon hasn't noticed, but Hero's definitely seen something. He licks his lips. I brace for spit bombs in the eyes.

‘Pizza's here!' someone yells.

Gate One kids often have pizza delivered before school and eat it in front of everyone else. The smell wafting from Gate One is tormenting. Hero glares at me for what seems like forever, then sprints off after the others.

‘Saved by the smell,' I say. ‘Now hide Rescue.'

 

Cinnamon and I take our places at the front of the geography classroom. Hero and the TCs (Too Cool kids) sprawl along the back row.

The class is hysterical. Casual clothes day makes everyone a little nuts. Despite my warning, Cinnamon still has Rescue in her pocket. He has curled up against her warm thigh and gone to sleep. He is black with white spots and under his nose he has two brown markings like a moustache.

‘Who's your friend?' Hero calls out to Cinnamon, one boxing-boot heel on his desk.

Cinnamon stops breathing and her porcelain skin washes grey. She tightens her grip on her pocket.

‘Your only friend!' Hero yells.

Cinnamon shuts her eyes, the way I do when I'm wishing I'm invisible.

Hero persists. ‘Who's your friend?'

The class silences. Cinnamon doesn't answer.

‘On ya face!' He laughs and the class joins in.

Cinnamon lets go of her pocket and leans her cheek into her hand to hide her pimple. I turn slowly to meet Hero's dark eyes. His brow pinches with a hateful thought, ready to fly at me.

Sergeant Major stomps into the classroom and everyone, even Hero, falls silent. Sergeant Major's wearing his regular uniform: commando laced-up boots, army camouflage pants and a tucked-in tight black T-shirt that seems to cut off the circulation to the bright blue veins strangling his shoulders and neck. Sergeant Major was in the war and he talks about it all the time. No one knows what war, or why everything reminds him of digging a hole and sleeping in it or slugging bullets, but it does. We went to the zoo once and saw an echidna, and he said it reminded him of the war and having to carry ‘lots of stuff on his back'.

Sergeant Major is more entertaining than the other teachers, who are rusty gnomes in comparison and
drone on about uniforms and rules. They all wear old people's clothes — cardigans, tweed jackets, knee-length shorts, slacks, pearls — but Sergeant Major gets away with wearing his army gear as Hindley Hall was once a boys-only school and cadets were popular.

Sergeant Major is new to Year Seven teaching. After injuring himself in the army, he said he wanted to influence new recruits. We do a lot of physical education along with geography. He says all we need to learn is where we're going and be fit enough to get there. He runs our classroom like a sleek military operation. There isn't a pen or desk out of order.

‘Morning, Sergeant Major,' we chorus.

‘Prepare for inspection!' Sergeant Major shouts.

We hurry, tidying our pencils, stacking our school books, straightening our belongings inside our desks, cleaning our shoes and resting them against the first right leg of our desks in a five-past-one position.

‘Attention!' he orders.

Each kid snaps into a rigid position next to his or her metal-framed desk: ankles together, eyes forwards, shoulders back.

He nods in approval as he passes the first line of desks.

The classroom bin captures his attention. He stomps his right foot, rattling our desks, and strides over to the bin. He bends from his hips, with his hands in fists by
his sides, to inspect its interior, then reaches in and pulls out a soft-drink can.

‘Why is there an unidentified object in the bin?' he yells.

We freeze. No one owns up.

He throws the can in the recycling basket, then, on second thoughts, retrieves it. ‘You know the drill!' he barks.

We do know the drill. We push our desks out in front of us by exactly half a ruler's length, sit on our hands, walk our feet out, then drop our bums to the floor, dipping our body weight from our elbows.

‘One. Two. Three. Four,' Sergeant Major yells.

At ten body dips no one has owned up. My arms are beginning to burn. Cinnamon is struggling to keep her pocket to the ceiling so as not to disturb her sleeping kitten. Sergeant Major will make us all do desk squats if he discovers she's brought a pet to school.

‘Nose to the plank,' Sergeant Major commands.

No one dares complain. We sit back on our chairs, pull our desks in, fold our hands behind our heads and crunch our stomachs down until our noses touch our desks, like a sit-up. Many of the kids wheeze, practically pass out, but I have always found Sergeant Major's exercises easy. I'm a natural at sport, like my mother. Our surname means ‘orchid' in Japanese, but
Mum always says we live up to the meaning in English, since the Rans have always been fast. The problem is that I lack the confidence to join any of the sporting teams or even compete. I try to hide my ability from the other kids.

Dennis, a notorious soft-drink addict, is exhausted from the dips and desk crunches. He waves his white ruler and surrenders. Sergeant Major strides over to him and holds the soft-drink can at arm's length.

‘Duck,' he orders.

Dennis stands under his arm and then, like a boxer, weaves to the left and right of the soft-drink can with his guard up.

‘Open your books to page thirty. First one to solve the problem won't get laps,' Sergeant Major orders.

Dennis continues weaving under the can.

I notice Cinnamon wrestling with her pocket. Small beads of sweat drip from her hairline. Her bright afro swirls around her neck. Cinnamon is the most striking girl I have ever seen. If only she realised that too.

‘Stop it,' I hiss.

‘He wants to get out,' she whispers.

‘Take him to the toilet. Let him walk around for a minute,' I whisper.

Sergeant Major doesn't notice Cinnamon slip out of class. But Hero notices. His eyes laser onto her pocket.

Dennis gives up, puts the can in the recycling basket and class begins.

‘Bruce, Krew, hold up that map.' Sergeant Major indicates the rolled map leaning against the pinboard.

The boys, members of Hero's group, slouch their way to the front of the classroom. Even they don't dare to mess with Sergeant Major. They unfold the map and hold it up against the pinboard. Sergeant Major opens the top drawer of his teaching desk, takes out a handful of nuts and dried goji berries and guzzles them, then shoves his paw into his pocket. He retrieves a small staple gun and aims it at the left-hand corner of the map, still chewing, and shoots. A pin staples the map to the board and Sergeant Major shoots pins at the remaining corners.

We stare at the map of Tasmania on the board, waiting for Sergeant Major to speak.

I can feel Hero's eyes on the back of my neck. But when I turn around, he's disappeared. I can't relax.

Cinnamon slips back into the classroom with slick cheeks and swollen eyes. She takes a paintbrush from an immaculate row of bristles lined up against a pile of alphabetised folders and shoves it into Rescue's pocket, which she pats as she sits down. ‘I can't find him,' she whispers in a quivering voice.

I can't risk searching for Rescue while Sergeant Major is taking class. If I get caught with the kitten, I'll get into
trouble. Sergeant Major will make me run fifty laps of the oval and even though my last name is ‘Ran', no one's that fit. I turn my attention to my notebook to take my mind off Rescue until after class.

Things that make me feel good
, I write.