Saving Francesca

Tara Finke’s theory about Thomas Mackee is that he was dropped a few times on his head as a baby. He’s the poster boy for Slobs Inc.: shirt out, pants around the thighs, and brightly colored boxer shorts that are completely obvious every time he bends down, which is quite often. I’m sure he spends copious amounts of time in front of the mirror trying to get that slept-on, feral look, popular with the surfers and skateboarders at Sebastian’s. He’s watched a few too many Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure films and likes saying things like “Hey, dude, what’s happening?” in a dead-pan voice. He’s cruel as well. Once Justine Kalinsky tripped over him, causing his beloved Discman to crash to the ground, and he called her a dumb bitch. It would have been so easy to put him in his place, but I didn’t say anything. Justine Kalinsky would have seen it as a declaration of friendship, and I’m not interested in putting in that much energy around here.

Thomas Mackee constantly burps loudly in class, and sometimes he tries to make a tune out of his burps. The song with the most requests is “Teenage Dirtbag,” and it’s actually fascinating to watch the level of appreciation for such a talent.

These guys fart a lot as well. I’m not saying that girls don’t. We just aren’t as passionate about them. The smell is sometimes overwhelming and I want to gag. They don’t just limit these attacks to the classroom—they can come at you from anywhere around the school. The corridor, the stairwell, the canteen line. There’s one area we call Fart Corridor because it belongs to the Year Eights and Nines, who are the biggest perpetrators. They make no apologies and feel no embarrassment. If a girl did one at St. Stella’s she’d be an outcast for the rest of her natural life. Here, it’s a badge of honor.

By term two, day two, period two, Tara Finke has had enough. She hands out slips to all thirty girls in the school and asks them to turn up for a lunchtime meeting where, quote, “The female proletariat are going to embark on the Revolution.”

Oh, Tara.

No one turns up, of course. Tara Finke sees it as a success because Justine Kalinsky and I are there, and I want to point out to Tara that we haven’t exactly “turned up.” It’s called having nowhere else to go. But Tara is in denial and she gets Justine Kalinsky to take the minutes. Justine makes a list of our names and then a list of all those absent, as if they’ve sent their apologies, and that takes up half our lunchtime.

“Suggestions?” Tara Finke asks.

“The most logical and persuasive one of us should go and see one of the House coordinators,” Justine says, scribbling down a list of names under the heading “L and P,” obviously for “logical and persuasive.” “Someone who can argue our case with passion and sensitivity.”

A Year Ten boy walks by and clutches his crotch.

“Don’t these people realize that their bourgeois mentality is a manifestation of two thousand years of patriarchal crap?” Tara Finke snaps, giving him the finger.

I watch Justine discreetly cross Tara Finke’s name off the “L and P” list.

We have a House meeting during period four. I’m in Kelly, which is named after a dead Brother who took in thirty boys off the streets of Sydney in the 1800s and then died of diphtheria.

The school doesn’t have a school captain. It has six House leaders in Year Twelve, and ours is William Trombal. He’s the shirt-rolled-up -to-his-elbow, no-nonsense type. He always has a frown on his face and looks slightly harassed and I think the girls-being-at-his-school thing doesn’t impress him in the slightest. He’s in charge of sports reports each week, and having to stand through such detail, spoken with such reverence, makes me want to yell, “It’s just a ball game, for crying out loud.”

My grandmother knows William Trombal’s grandmother, which I think makes him half Italian. She claims that William Trombal’s grandmother stole her S biscuit recipe and she dislikes her with a passion, although they pray together in the same Rosary group each week. Not that William Trombal and I have ever acknowledged this co

Tara Finke nudges me. “Fascism at its best here. They train them young.”

I ignore her. My theory is to lay low, and my reluctance to get involved has nothing to do with fear or shyness, contrary to popular perception. I have this belief that people hate change and, more than anything, they hate those who try to change things. I might not be interested in being in the most popular group in the world, but I’m less interested in being an outcast. Anyway, my being political would make Mia happy and I wouldn’t want that. She thinks she knows who I am because she thinks who I am is who she tells me I am.

“God they love the sound of their own voices,” Tara Finke mutters.

And you don’t?

Suddenly, I feel everyone’s gaze on us. I look up and William Trombal is glaring, his dark eyes slicing straight through me.

“Do you have a question?” he asks, totally ignoring Tara and looking straight at me.

Tara Finke is scribbling something down on the lunchtime list of complaints. She passes it to me and I skim the list. At the bottom she’s written, Ask him where he got the pole up his ass from.

The whole House is looking our way. I spot Luca, who gives me a sympathetic smile.

“We were just wondering … ,” Tara Finke begins.

I can’t believe she’s going to make things worse. I look at the coat of arms behind William Trombal’s head, which is full of Latin pretension.

“… if the P stands for pace … peace… ,” I finish off for her. I feel her glaring at me, but it is not as bad as the smug, condescending look on William Trombal’s face.

“You’re saying it in Italian,” he says, like he’s speaking to a moron. “In Latin it’s pax.” Then he deliberately turns around to look at the coat of arms and then looks back at me. “And there’s no P there, anyway. It’s a V. For veritas. ‘Truth.’ ” He pauses for emphasis after each word. “But I can understand how the V/P thing could confuse you.”

“Ripped,” Thomas Mackee behind me snickers, suggesting that William Trombal has well and truly won the point in this exchange.

When the meeting is over, Ms. Qui

“Can you come to my office?”

I sit in front of Ms. Qui

“I like this,” she says after a moment. I recognize the look in her eye. It’s that Tara Finke/Mia Spinelli look. “I think you should have issues. This must be hard on you girls. I’ll set you up with Will and he’ll work through these requests with you.”

I’m already picking up my bag. I’m not interested in dealing with William Trombal so soon after this morning’s alphabet lesson.

“Tara Finke would probably prefer to do that,” I say politely.

“According to this, Tara Finke thinks that Will has an object protruding from a part of his body,” she explains to me politely. “I don’t think she’s the right person to speak to him.”

“I don’t think I am either.”

She smiles and hands me back the list. “If he came across as gruff, it’s because he’s actually quite shy.”

I nod. It’s a blowing-her-off nod. It works, because she looks past me to the door as if to say, “You can go now.” I do the polite-smile thing and, relieved, I turn around.