I nod.
‘Good girl. Now off you go. And be careful where you walk.’
Jarrod follows me to the door, and as we step through it I hear Pecs’s sarcastic voice trail behind, ‘Be careful, pretty boy. Watch out for Scary Face. Don’t follow her into any broom closets! Oooh, I’m scared, I’m scared.’
Ha ha. Gee, I’m laughing.
Typically, the class roars with laughter. They have no thoughts of their own. He leads them like a pack of brainless sheep. An embarrassing chorus of wolf whistles follows us down the corridor.
Jarrod
I think I’ve been hit by a truck. My head is throbbing and my arm is aching with a sharp sting. I’m supposed to follow this girl to sick bay, but that’s not where she’s taking me.
And what was that comment Pecs made about a broom closet? I shrug it off, the guy’s a halfwit.
I want to ask where this girl is heading, but can’t remember her name. Mr Garret called her something, but at the time I felt as if I was living in dreamland. Well, not exactly in it, but like I was watching the whole thing from the outside. Strange, yet not really surprising. I’m kind of used to weird things happening to me. And to my family, come to think of it. That’s how we ended up here, in this godforsaken isolated mountain community in the middle of nowhere. They call it Ashpeak. I don’t want to ask why. Fires probably once devastated the rainforests. I’ve had my gutful of fires, and floods too actually.
A new start, Dad had said. That’s what he says every time we move. I’ve grown to hate my life. I just want to stay put for a change. Making new friends has never been easy. I used to think, what was the point? But it gets lonely hanging around by myself, being labelled a loser. By the time I finally get settled into a new school, manage to make some all right friends, we’re moving again. Dad hasn’t had a steady job for sixteen years. Two years is the longest we ever stayed anywhere. That time I even made a couple of good friends. But we moved eventually, a freak flood washed away the house we were renting, even took the business that had drained our savings. The following year we went bankrupt. Sometimes it seems our problems never end. And now, after the accident that damaged Dad’s leg, he’ll be incapacitated for the rest of his life. He’s dosed up most days on morphine for chronic pain, has to use crutches when he walks and will end up losing his leg, the doctors tell us.
It’s up to Mum now, but what can she do? She had a lot of ill health the first ten years of their married life and never developed any work-related skills. They don’t often talk about it, but I know it took ten years of trying before I was born. She’s good with her hands though, has an artistic flair. She makes these clothes, girls’ things, with hand-stitched beads and coloured stones, jewellery too. Cowboy stuff I call it. It’ll never sell.
My head starts clearing just as we leave the school building. I’m still following the girl and can’t help noticing things. Like how she walks, casual yet determined. She knows exactly where we’re going. She’s wearing a grey school skirt midway down her thighs. Not short but high enough to see she has brilliant legs. Her skin is pasty white, like she’s anaemic or something. It’s odd because her hair is completely black. Long too, all the way to her waist. It’s attractive though, quite unique. I noticed her eyes earlier in the classroom – blue, yet so incredibly light they were almost see-through, like crystal grey. That was a strange thing, come to think of it. The hairs on the back of my neck had stood on end as an eerie feeling of invasion throbbed inside my head.
Kate. Finally, it comes to me. ‘Of course, Kate. Good idea,’ Mr Garret had said. We start heading into the scrub. At this rate, we won’t even get close enough to sick bay to smell the antiseptic. ‘Hey,’ I call.
She stops a few paces in front of me and swings around. ‘Yeah?’
This whole scene is getting weirder by the second. I shrug a little, my bleeding arm bent at the elbow, the makeshift bandage stained red with blood. I tip my head towards it. ‘You’re supposed to be taking me to sick bay.’
She scoffs. ‘Why? They don’t know anything about healing there.’
As if that’s enough explanation she spins around again, giving me her back.
I lunge forward and with my good hand grab her arm, losing the makeshift bandage in the process. Her eyes look really strange for a second, the blue-grey almost disappearing into black, their unusual almond shape rounding out to that of an egg. ‘Are you kidnapping me?’
She glares for a second, and I think she’s taking me seriously. Then her eyes drift to the bandage at my feet. She picks it up, gives it a little shake and wraps it around my arm again. While she does this she starts laughing, and her face transforms. I stare at her sudden beauty. I swear it, the girl is truly unique. And her laugh is like music, an enthralling melody. She stops laughing and I shake my head, amazed at what I’ve been thinking. It has to be stress. Either that, or I’m losing my sanity. No girl has ever affected me this way.