Wildlife (24 page)

sunday 2 december

The lunar eclipse, finally.

Sibylla and I are the last ones out, standing in the alien orange moonlight.

There is a line for the telescopes, an orderly procession of nerd-wonder. My name’s on the list, too. I want to see the shadow moving away from the moon’s surface. There is plenty of time.

The non–science fiends are happy enough to stand around, looking with their naked eyes, and passing around several pairs of binoculars.

Holly is so “cold,” and snuggling up to people. The girlie shit she carries on with annoys me. Truly, if you are cold: get a jacket.

The moon is slowly being obscured by the earth’s shadow as the light dims and the stab of each star’s light brightens.

As the night darkens further, and everyone else is busy gluing their awe to the sky with ooohs and wows, I see Holly tipping her face up toward Ben’s.

In the lunar eclipse we, the earth, obscure what is right before our eyes, the moon.

Lou and I almost miss it; we were cleaning up the Bennett kitchen after some cake-eating. It’s not worth leaving even one sticky fork in the house kitchens, the ants up here are intrepid. They must have read all the school PR material—they make the most of opportunities, take initiative, they are leaders, they work cooperatively together as a group, they enjoy the architect-designed facilities.

Lou and I are sharing a pair of really strong binoculars. Soon she’s got a turn booked at the Meade telescope on the oval with the other math nerds. They haven’t been overstating things—this is totally awesome. The moon is glowing red-orange, and it’s like we’re standing on a new planet. I feel a rush of trust and hopefulness that I’ll be able to figure
stuff out. It’s as though I am exhaling properly for the first time in a couple of weeks. Against everything I thought, I have almost survived my time in the wilderness.

I glance around to find Ben, and the first thing I see is Michael enjoying prime telescope time. He and Mr. Epstein are yapping away together in astro-science heaven. Michael comes over to tell us he saw the Copernicus crater, and that the eclipse makes the moon look like someone’s taken a fuzzy-edged bite out of it. As the shadow slips farther from the face of the gleaming moon, the light level lifts slightly and I see Ben—I lift my hand to wave him over, but in the half light and the crowd, he doesn’t see me. He’s standing next to Holly, tilting his head down toward her.

Jealousy bites; it can make you totally paranoid.

Holly smiles up at Ben. They’re just talking. But still I feel a little ping of disappointment—I should have been the one standing next to him.

One moment before I wake up at 2
AM
, I know it for certain. I know it in the adrenaline rush. I know it in the heartache.

Jealousy bites; it can make you totally paranoid.

Holly smiled up at Ben. They were just talking. Only, as she stepped away from him, she let go of his hand.

Somehow that peripheral picture was there burned into my brain, even though I didn’t register it at the time.

Nay, we must think men are not gods.

I catch Ben right before breakfast. And, call me cheap, but I use Holly’s trick on him. Unfair? Sure, only I don’t care about fairness right now.

“She told you? Why would she do that?” He has the grace to look ashamed somewhere in there with the incredulity at Holly giving the game away. “I don’t know what was going on. It was stupid. How come she told you?”

“You agreed not to tell me?”

“Well, yeah.”

“You two have so much in common, what with deciding to tell me stuff, or not tell me stuff, assessing my failings as a girlfriend…”

“Okay, fine, get snarky, but can we get over it then? Move on?”

“And
she
kissed
you
, right?”

“Definitely.”

“And you kissed her back.” I say it firmly, rhetorically, as though I know it to be true, and wait for the blow.

“She told you that? Gee… gotta say, I’m surprised.”

“Not as much as I am.”

“No, I guess not.” He won’t meet my eye, and it’s just as well, because there’s no way I’m letting him see what a sucker punch he has landed.

If I could breathe enough to scream right now, the sound would be gulped down in one mouthful by a black hole of disappointment. I turn away.

He says, “It meant nothing. You know you just have to say the word, Sib.”

The word is good-bye.

“What? Nothing happened! Who told you?” Holly’s eyes are sparkling. I know the look. She’s the center of attention. Just the two of us here, but her being at the center is important.

“Who told me ‘nothing’?”

“I mean—it meant
nothing
, it was a little eclipse kiss. Little slip of the tongue.”

She’s making jokes about it? Really?

Seeing as how I already know it’s true, I am not quite sure why I want to press it, burning, into my flesh. Mark the betrayal, I suppose. Mark its significance. Make her say the words. “You kissed my boyfriend?”

“Didn’t you kind of just tell him you didn’t want him anymore? He’s basically semi-available, isn’t he?”

“He reported our conversation to you, and you thought
it was a good time to make a move on him? What else has happened?”

But I realize I don’t want to know.

It’s time to stop calling this girl a friend.

“It’s not like you even really appreciate him, Sib. Be honest.”

Be honest? I’m shaking with the honesty of this moment. “Okay. I might not deserve it, but I need a better friend than you. And I feel sorry for you.”

I look at her. If I say another word, I’ll cry.

It’s past time to walk away.

I turn from her, thankful that we have a day of assessment tasks and no one will be in the mood for chitchat; no one will notice that I am walking around with a knife handle sticking out between my shoulder blades.

The Mount Fairweather experience culminates in the solo hike. Survival, self-reliance, and new life skills allow each student to take on this significant individual challenge. The “solo” is frequently cited as the high point of the term.

I’m doing it. I hope I don’t regret changing my mind.

I pick the closest possible site. If something drastic happens I can run back to school in a couple of hours. I choose the teacher food-drop-off option. I choose the walkie-talkie plus backup-sat-phone option. I am as un-solo as it is possible to be on the solo. But I will be alone, away from Holly and Ben, and as much as I want not to do it, I have to do it. “I’m calling the shots now,” trying-to-be-brave me tells wimpy me.

I’ve brought up a piece of fresh salmon for my dinner. Four minutes on the first side, two on the second. The bliss of not having it overcooked by Priscilla. I eat it with an avocado and tomato and red onion salad, and a fresh roll with lots of butter.

I have a chocolate pudding, and some actual chocolate, for later.

As though they have competing gravitational pull, my big scaredy-cat terror of being alone in the wilderness is keeping my big boyfriend heartbreak and girlfriend betrayal at bay. And the food is a welcome distraction from both.

I eat outside the tent, feeling as brave as a sore-hearted wimp can feel. Which is very scared, because here they are, familiar fears, joining me around the edge of the fire. You can walk as fast as you like, in any direction you like, as far as you like, but they can always keep up with you.

Strange man, or men, rape, abduction.

Crazy anyone, murder.

Drunken hunters, accidental death by getting into the line of fire.

Snake bite, die before help can arrive.

Lose concentration and miss footing while having a wee in the night. Agonizing compound fracture, jagged bone sticking up through skin, fainting, sat phone out of reach. Gnawed by wild beasts (attracted by scent of blood) in the dark. Help arrives too late to save the limb.

Feral cattle stampeding through campsite, kicked in head, die of head injury before help arrives, or worse, live on, able to communicate only via blinking. One eye.

Late-onset asthma. (First time for everything.) Die from attack. No puffer, obviously, having never had asthma until tonight.

Is that it? Are we all here? All finished? Anyone else due to arrive? No? I take some deep breaths, tell the assembled guests that they are all highly improbable, and I don’t want to spend the night in their company. Sadly, they don’t leave, but at least I said it.

I let myself think about Holly, blinking away the streaming tears.

You were not always like this, Hol.

The summer after grade six you came with us to the beach, we said we’d be best friends forever.

We had three perfect weeks. Dad took us into deep water “out the back” and helped us catch proper waves, and showed us how to read the water. I already knew about rips and stuff, but it was all news to you.

Mom let us not wash our hair. We said we were the wild girls of Santa Casa Beach, and we loved the bushy
Hermione Granger effect we got after days of sun and salt and no washing.

We sculpted sand mermaids, with flowing seaweed hair and shell-encrusted tails.

We checked out boys surreptitiously but were unimpressed with what the tide brought in. Besides, we were deeply in love with Harry Potter that summer, and what living boy could compete with the boy who lived? I did everything I could to try to forget that I was already taller than Daniel Radcliffe.

We stood at the green ocean’s edge in soft wet sand, giggling and wiggling till we sank down ankle-deep, shin-deep.

You couldn’t believe your luck at our holiday food policy of takeout at least twice a week, and variety packs of the sorts of cereal we were usually never allowed. We were starving at every meal. Reluctant to go home for our two hours out of the sun, but wolfing down our salad rolls. Growling and prowling for our dinner by seven o’clock. Easy to talk my parents into a drive to Queenscliff for after-dinner ice-cream cones.

We shared dreams and secrets in the dark, warm faces close on cool cotton pillowcases in the few minutes before we were sucked under the dark whirlpool of the exhausted sleep that only comes after a day on the beach.

You had fun with us, and I didn’t have to compete for your attention. Even Charlotte, who longed to have someone more like you than me for a sister, was with our Sydney grandparents.

*     *     *

When we started back at school, and Tiff arrived, your attention was always half on the group that quickly gathered around her. They were okay, I thought, but too cool for me. And even a little too cool for you till now. Pimples, glasses, zero sophistication, lack of designer clothes, nose that grew before the rest of my face, deathly white skin—still not the right look, despite the vampire books—friends with Michael… wow, I thought I was lucky that you still spoke to me at all.

Now when I look at the kids in grade six, I think, they’re babies. But back then, I had this idea that as long as we’d had our perfect summer together, it meant something, and that as long as we’d been so close, at least a kernel of our friendship would remain.

I thought of it as an invisible golden thread that connected us. I never told you that: you’d think it was so sappy. It is sappy. All the other stuff, I let slide. I didn’t get offended at my demotions because I really believed in us, and I knew you’d come back.

And you always did.

But, boy, was I wrong about the golden thread.

Nothing connects us anymore.

It’s just taken me a little while to figure that out.

To me that summer was magical. To you, it was just the best thing on offer at the time.

I can’t feel any sicker about it all.

I can’t feel any more afraid of the dark, and what I can’t see.

I can’t feel any sadder about what I did see.

I have a big, sturdy stick—more of a branch, really—to break over someone’s head if I have to defend myself.

I’m not even going to pretend I’m brave. I’m just going to sit it out.

Sometime deep in the hours past midnight, I crawl into the tent and go to sleep. In the new light of a new day, things look shittier than ever.

One more day to get through, and then home.

There is a “last night” tradition here. We get to spend all night in the assembly hall. Boys and girls together. Something that has been totally forbidden all term. Forget the one-foot rule. It seems like a thousand years ago that I was looking forward to spending this night with Ben.

Everyone brings a duvet or sleeping bag and pillows. The hall is soon transformed into a giant squirming seething mass settling into friendship nests. There is a little bit of surreptitious make-out activity, but it’s mostly a large and innocent interwoven snuggle.

The screen is set up; the lights are down. There are some awards to give out, a few people have prepared “entertainment,”
there are movies to watch, and we have “our” song and a slide show of the term. We have argued over and voted on the theme song; it’s been a hot issue for some people.

Our song is “Changes.” David Bowie has ended up infiltrating and becoming indispensible. And he was the perfect compromise to the irreconcilable argument between hard-core and mainstream mush. Because his fans also happen to be the smart political people, they managed an effective promotional campaign for the song.

The photos show everyone in their respective house groups, dressed in aths gear, in pj’s, people dressed up for plays, all of us as human glue following the flour-bomb water-gun fight, people running back down the home trail from the final six-mile run, as “Changes” runs over these bits and snips of our time here.

As everyone watches, we pour our own memories and experiences and emotions into the little gaps between all those pixels, and we choke up a bit and become sentimental about the time here as it winds down. And despite all the words we have written to our parents complaining about absolutely everything expected of us up here, we will, most of us, come to believe that this was a term quite out of the ordinary, a time to grow up and become ourselves a bit more. Breathe the air of a place away from our families. Learn to be independent.

So there are a lot of damp eyes around. As our experience unfolds, revealing itself via this set of color-saturated
panoramic dissolving frames, a shot of me and Ben sitting together eating lunch elicits a wave of sighs and
awww
s, a lament at something that no one—except, briefly, the two of us—particularly wanted or endorsed at the time, our aberrant relationship that broke the rules of cool and uncool. But the five-minute nostalgia loop has already tightened around us.

I can’t help but look for Ben. He is sitting with his rowing boys, carefully (diplomatically?) not with Holly. He’s looking at me, gives me the backward nod, smiles, and shrugs. His look says,
hey, we had some fun. But dudes don’t rewind with the sex thing
. Or maybe it is still saying,
you just have to say the word
. As usual, I have no idea.

My look back to him is situated somewhere between neutral and
screw you
, I hope. I fold myself into a thousand pleats to hide the wrenching disappointment—you were my beautiful boy for half a minute.

The lights come up a bit at the end of this digi-digestible mouthful guaranteed to warm parental heart-cockles, and Lou walks onstage. Another song? No.

“I promised a friend who is a filmmaker that I’d do something for her this term that would make her laugh. And so this is for Janie, who is somewhere else.”

And the lights are down again.

We’re in Bennett House. In stop-motion animation a blob of Blu Tack gathers itself into a ball shape, then a sausage shape, then is followed by a second, smaller ball doing
the same thing. Girls appear and disappear in the background of shots, light flickers back and forth from morning to afternoon, but the determined Blu Tack sausages inch, roll, wriggle and squirm their way across the space from the kitchen, along the tabletop, down a chair leg, and across the floor to our sleeping quarters. They are cute; the way they move gives them real character; people are engrossed. As the shapes move along, they pick up bits of fluff and hair and fibers and grass till they finally take on a raggedy, dirty, furry look as they inch up a bedpost and along a rumpled duvet toward a sleeping—Holly? She looks funny, mouth sagging open sideways, a little trail of drool down her cheek, sound asleep. One caterpillar positions itself along the length of her eyebrows, forming a large, grubby unibrow. Now people are really laughing.

I look around to find Holly; she is sitting with Tiff, her face like thunder, till she sees me looking at her. It triggers her response. She has to get on the inside of this joke. Not be the butt of it.

The second, smaller caterpillar now forms itself as a mustache across Holly’s top lip, her face twitching and contorting slightly as she sleepily half feels it. The mustache ends curl up.

Laughter is building from bubbles to a roar, and I keep an eye on Holly, who is forced to match her amusement level to that of the room. It’s killing her. She hates looking foolish.

Lou’s little film ends.

And Lou says, “I have two comments: Beauty is as beauty does. And if you are planning to make a stop-motion film, it takes ten times longer than you think it will. So, be warned.”

While Lou is up there, someone asks her to sing.

She sings a wistful song, something about betrayal, and I’m pretty sure she is singing it for me. I look at Michael giving a slow nod to the stage, and I can see he’s pretty sure Lou is singing it for him. Holly is staring at Ben, looking hungry, being ignored, the song’s working for her, too.

So we’re all happy.

A few more people get up and do comedy sketches, sing, play their music, but I’ve zoned out.

The buses are coming at ten tomorrow morning to take us back to the city, back to civilization, and before that I’ve got a date to see the sunrise.