You Don't Even Know (2 page)

Mum sighed.

Christina glances around the four-bed high dependency ward. People sit beside the two beds nearest the door. The patient opposite Alex is alone.

“I hate hospitals,” says Ethan. His face twists in disgust. “They stink.”

“I'm sure Alex doesn't love them either.” His mother reaches out to hold Alex's hand.

“Why are you even touching him? It's not like he knows we're here or anything.”

Christina glares at Ethan.

“I've got stuff to do for uni,” says Ethan. “I'll come back later.”

“Sit down, Ethan.” Christina's voice is sharp in the hospital hush. “Your brother needs you.”

“What he needs,” says her husband, Dylan, back pressed against the window, “is to harden up.”

Christina's head snaps in Dylan's direction. “That's enough.”

“He's weak, Christina. A coward. That's why this happened.”

“Dylan, please–”

“He stepped in front of a bloody bus.” Dylan pushes off the wall. “I need air.”

Christina scrambles from the seat to the end of the bed. She reaches for Dylan's hand. “Please. Don't walk out on him.”

Dylan brushes past her and out of the room. Ethan stalks after him.

Christina kneads the handkerchief bunched in her fist.

From another bed, the buzzer sounds – three short bursts …

Three short bursts of the school bell sounded through the locker room. I gathered my books and walked to the door.

“Hey, Alex. Wait up.” Bash's voice crashed through the banter and slamming locker doors.

I waved but kept walking.

Bashir and Cooper had been my friends since we started school. We'd had sleepovers at each other's houses, played on the same cricket and basketball teams, and basically had each other's backs. Until this year when Coop and Bash were picked for the school's senior footy team. Ethan was vice captain of the team, and another guy from our year, Amado, was a legend on the forward line.

Bash and Coop caught up with me at the rose bed, which looked more like sticks in the dirt than a flower bed after the school gardener, Brother Johansson, had pruned them.

“So, Huddo, what's the deal with that new guy in home room?” asked Coop.

I prickled. Huddo was Dad and Ethan's nickname, not mine. “How should I know?”

“According to Amado and Zane he tried out for the swim team,” added Bash.

“Serious?” asked Coop, his voice cracking. “I didn't think Africans could swim.”

“Are you for real?” I asked.

“Well, Africa's all desert and lions and tigers and stuff, isn't it?”

“Tigers?” I shook my head. “Look it up on Google, idiot. Anyway, hanging out at the pool doesn't make me the oracle of everything that happens there.”

“Just asking,” said Coop with a shrug.

“I reckon I saw him Thursday,” said Bash, narrowing his eyes as though trying to remember. “Yeah, Thursday. He was in the science wing with The Skull.”

“Guided tour with the principal?” I tried not to roll my eyes. “I mean, no other new kid is given the guided tour, is he?”

Bash glared. “All I'm saying is, he looked pretty confident, you know? Too confident for a reffo.”

“Reffo? From a guy whose parents left Pakistan because of some war?”

“That's different.”

Coop chipped in. “Wouldn't a reffo be better at rowing than swimming? I mean, they arrive in boats, don't they?”

Bash howled with laughter.

“You two are idiots.” I started to move away from them. Coop shoved my shoulder. “Joking, Huddo. Where's your sense of humour?”

The push was harder than I expected. I stumbled off the path into the garden bed. Pulse thudding in my ears, I shouldered Coop, who lurched into a year seven about half his size. As the kid fell on his bum, his books scattered on the ground. Coop grabbed me by the shirt with both hands.

“Go, Coop,” hooted Bash.

I broke free of Coop's grip.

“Hudson!”

I groaned. Why was it that anytime I did the smallest thing wrong, our year coordinator Mr De Jong always caught me?

“Up here, Hudson.” De Jong stood on the first floor balcony, holding the metal rail.

“Morning, sir.”

“Brilliant observation, Hudson. What's going on?”

I looked to Bash and Coop, but they'd bolted, leaving me to face De Jong alone.

“Checking the garden bed, sir. It looks a bit dry. I think Brother Johansson might need to mulch.”

“Indeed, Mr Hudson. Where should you be?”

“English, sir.”

His index finger tapped the balcony rail. “Then move it, Hudson, or you'll be helping Brother mulch after school.”

“Yes, sir.” I trudged towards English class.

I used to wonder why De Jong made such a big deal out of anything I did wrong. Graffitiing the whiteboard and stirring up the weird kid in year eight weren't worth phone calls to Dad and detention. Not compared with setting fire to lockers and punching teachers, which were the type of things Amado did on a regular basis.

One night, when Dad and Wortho were having beers by the pool in our backyard, right beneath my open bedroom window, I discovered why De Jong hated me. As usual, Dad and Wortho started talking about work then they moved on to rowing and horseracing. After a couple of beers, they ended up laughing about the stuff they had done at school – St James, the same school that Ethan, Harvey and I went to. They kept mentioning Simon the Hymen, who they said was a “complete loser” who “lunched on encyclopaedias.” They used to do this lame stuff to him – stink bombs in his locker, stupid nicknames and, the funniest of the lot according to Dad and Wortho, a prank involving dog poo.

This particular night, instead of reliving old pranks, Dad and Wortho moaned about the hard time Simon the Hymen was giving two guys from my year in the school's rowing squad.

Talk about puzzle pieces tumbling into place.

From what Dad and Wortho said, Simon the Hymen could only be my year coordinator, Simon De Jong.

What sort of loser ends up a teacher at his old school? The same kind who sends his kids to his old school, I guess.

At least now I knew why De Jong hated me.

When I reached English class, Mr Anderson was writing on the white board, bum jiggling. He was too engrossed in what he was writing to notice me.

The new kid Bash and Coop had talked about sat at a front table in the middle row, hands either side of his pens, ruler, textbook and folder.

Coop and Bash were up the back with Amado and Zane. Amado was a legend, ask him and he'd tell you so himself. I wasn't a big fan. Sure Amado was a gun athlete and great at any sport he tried, but he wasn't someone I wanted to hang out with. Coop and Bash used to feel the same way, but since footy started, they spent way more time with Amado and Zane. “Sit with us, Huddo,” called Amado. Dad and Ethan's nickname again. The skin on the back of my neck felt icy. I dumped my stuff on the empty desk nearest the door.

“Suit yourself,” said Amado with a shrug. He turned his attention to the new kid. “Hey, boat boy. Where'd you drift in from?”

The new kid twisted to face him. “I arrived by aeroplane actually.” His voice was crisp and his English better than mine.

Amado leaned back, knees jiggling either side of the desk. “Is that right, reffo?”

“Right, boys.” Anderson stopped writing. “These chapter questions are to be finished by the end of class.”

Groans scuttled around the room.

“Thought that might take the sting out of you.” Anderson waddled to his desk. “I have marking and don't wish to be disturbed.”

Celie's walk is brisk as she enters the high dependency room, pulling a trolley laden with cleaning equipment behind her. Her rubber soles make no sound on the vinyl.

“Good morning. It's good day,” she says, opening the curtains. She surveys the sky and city before her. “Beautiful. Such sunshine. No cloud. Good day,” she adds, nodding. “How you doing?” She speaks as though the unconscious figures in the beds are as bright and fresh as the day outside. “Look the mess in the sink.” She shakes her head, sprays and wipes. “No good.”

Celie weaves her cleaning cloth between the flower arrangements on the boy's bedside cabinet. Lilies, orchids, roses and flowers Celie can't name. Beautiful. Cards hang from the metal bar over the boy's bandaged head, so she doesn't bother cleaning there.

She wipes the overbed table at the foot of the boy's bed and moves to the other side of the room to the next bed. She wipes the bare table, cabinet and floor with vigour. At the shelf, Celie lifts the coffee jar filled with drooping gerberas. Petals drop to the floor. She tuts and scoops them up.

Celie pats the lump that is the girl's foot. “Where's your family, eh? Your friends?” With a sigh, Celie moves to clean around the next patient. “See you after.”

After English, I decided to ditch study and hang out in the locker room. Coop and Bash sitting with Amado again and calling me Huddo had bugged me. I tossed a tennis ball at the lockers. The ball whomped on the carpet and smacked against the metal lockers, again and again.

A shadow passed over my legs. I looked up. De Jong stood over me, hands on his hips. I fumbled the ball, which rolled to a stop against De Jong's polished shoes.

His gaze glided over me, sleek as a shark and as ready to attack. “Care to explain, Mr Hudson?”

I kept my eyes on the locker ahead of me. “I have a headache, sir.”

“So instead of seeing Matron for a painkiller, you came to the locker room?”

“Don't like taking drugs, sir.”

“I'll have that in writing for future reference, Hudson.”

De Jong picked up my ball and tossed it from hand to hand. He cruised around the room. The image of a shark swimming around its prey in an ever-shrinking circle flickered through my mind.

De Jong stopped in front of me and smiled. His teeth were small and yellowing. “There's no headache, is there, Hudson?”

“I … well …” Clearly ditching for the locker room wasn't my smartest move. “I needed …”

With a flick of his tail, the shark attacked. “Hudson, if you are going to lie, at least make it believable,” he sneered. “I wonder how your father will react when I tell him his son displays aggressive behaviour towards others and skips classes?”

“What?”

“Daniel Peterson, the year seven boy you sent sprawling this morning.”

I pressed my thumbs into my thighs. “Oh, come on, sir.”

De Jong's eyes sparkled. “I wouldn't like to be you when you get home, Hudson.”

My stomach plummeted.

“Which, will be in about …” He flicked his wrist to read his watch. “Fifteen minutes.”

“What?”

“You're suspended for the rest of the day.”

Red-hot anger raged through me. “For ditching study?”

“For that and bullying younger students.” De Jong folded his arms. “I'll email you school work to complete at home and return, signed, by
both
parents, first thing tomorrow.” He straightened his tie. “Pack your belongings and leave.”

Ears ringing, I shoved my books in my schoolbag.

I was sitting on a yellow chair, sipping invisible blossom tea from a plastic cup, the fairy-wing elastic digging into my shoulders, when Dad burst into the rumpus room. Mia, dressed in a Snow White dress, Batman mask and cowboy belt and holster, looked up at him and smiled. “Daddy, be a fairy like Alex.”

“Alex seems to be handling the fairy thing well, Poss.”

For the first time I noticed how small the chair was beneath me and how much my knees towered over Mia's table.

“So if we can't tempt you with blossom tea, how about strawberry sausages?” I nodded at the wooden blocks arranged on the plate between Mia and me.

“Don't be bloody ridiculous.” His phone buzzed in his pocket. He took it out, poked the screen a few times and swore.

“Daddy,” said Mia, shaking her head. “You're squaring.”

Mum and Dad corrected Mia every time she said square instead of swear, but I kind of liked it.

Not even Mia's serious voice softened Dad. “All hell has broken loose at work, and what do I have to deal with, Alex?”

“Clearly not strawberry sausages or the agony that is fairy wings,” I said, adjusting the elastic straps.