Saving Francesca

“Yeah, but that didn’t mean you had to let the Body Snatchers invade you,” she snaps.

“Can you not call my friends the Body Snatchers?”

“Let’s not make them the point of this conversation,” she says with a sigh. “Let’s just focus on Will.”

Mr. Brolin stands in front of us.

“Twenty minutes, this afternoon,” he says coldly.

“Why?” asks Siobhan.

“Detention,” he says, putting it into quotation marks with his fingers.

As usual, Jimmy Hailler is on detention, as well as Thomas for listening to his Discman in class.

“Caught smoking today,” Jimmy tells us. “With Will Trombal.”

“What?” I so don’t believe him.

“That boy’s bad,” Jimmy continues. “B-b-b-bad to the bone.”

“Will Trombal and you were sharing a cigarette? Doubt it very much.”

“Go ahead, Thomas. Live up to your name.”

“Then why isn’t he here?” I ask.

“Why would he be?”

Jimmy speaking to Will is a dangerous thing. It makes me almost break out into a sweat.

“What were you discussing?” I ask.

“Weddings.”

I’m begi

Brolin pops his head in to see if we’re working, and then he’s gone.

“I love weddings,” Jimmy explains. “I don’t go to enough, and we were looking at it from a cultural standpoint and of course the music. Trombal feels that there aren’t enough Elvis impersonators in the world.”

“Did he mention Francesca?” Siobhan asks.

“No. The world doesn’t revolve around Francesca being felt up by Will Trombal against a wall outside a toilet.”

I look at Siobhan again, this time horrified.

“Who’s got the big mouth, Siobhan?”

“Oh, like I’d tell this little shit anything.”

“Why would Will want to talk to you?” I snap.

“I offered him my cigarette and said, ‘Let’s talk women, Will. How does one sustain two at the same time?’ ”

I’m seething and Brolin’s back. The moment he disappears I lean forward and whack Jimmy across the head.

“He’s making all this up,” Thomas says.

Jimmy shrugs, rubbing his head. “People tell me stuff, what can I say. Didn’t you once tell me that you get turned on whenever a certain someone—”

Thomas almost jumps over me to get to Jimmy before he says another word. Suddenly Siobhan and I are intrigued.

“You people need to take a chill pill,” Jimmy says. “That’s what I told Trombal as well. He told me something important, which I can’t for the life of me remember, but I remember what I said. I said, ‘Trombal, you need to loosen up, man.’ And then we got busted by Mr. Portell.”

“Busted smoking?”

“So we spoke cars. Trombal’s brothers are car hoons and have a Subaru WRX, which seemed to impress Portell, so by the time the mention of detention came along, Portell did the warning finger, confiscated the cigarettes, and is probably smoking them as we speak.”

“So what are you doing here?”

“Hanging out with you guys.”

I’m shaking my head. “You are not coming home with me, Jimmy.”

“Don’t be so cruel, woman.”

We stand packed on the bus with Tara and Justine, who waited for us. Justine is squashed, further down the bus, between two very large people, and she constantly waves to remind us that she’s there.

“You are not coming home with me, Jimmy,” I tell him for the fourth time.

“Trombal’s coming to camp,” Thomas tells me. “It’ll give him a chance to cheat on his girlfriend again.”

“Camp,” Jimmy explains, totally ignoring me for the fourth time, “is one of two things I hate most in the world. The other is role-plays. Sometimes it’s a double whammy. You go to camp and you have to do a role-play. ‘Role-play a scene with conflict, gentlemen,’ ” he says, adopting a teacher’s voice. “And then you have to sit through ten role-plays where a kid comes home drunk and his parents confront him at the front door.”

“I like the idea,” Thomas says. “I’ve never been to camp with chicks before.”

“Must you always refer to us as animals? If we’re not chicks, we’re birds or dogs,” Tara complains.

“Or cows,” Thomas adds.

Tara rings the bell with an exaggerated middle finger and prepares to get off the bus.

Siobhan looks at Tara. “If you were in her shoes and Will Trombal had kissed you twice and not committed, what would you do?” she asks.

“I’m not into relationship advice,” Tara explains.

“Based on the fact that she’s never had one,” Thomas scoffs.

“Neither have you, except for the one with your hand.”

I’m impressed. So is Siobhan.

“That was a great call, Tara,” Siobhan says.

Tara is pleased with herself and gets off the bus.

People start moving down the bus and we’re packed in more than ever.

“Oh my God,” I say, pushing Thomas out of the way. “It’s the tuba guy.”

“The what?”

“This guy that Justine likes. He’s in the same youth orchestra as her, but she’s never spoken to him. He looks at her at the bus stop every morning, but there’s no way that he’ll ever know her name because she’s so tongue-tied around him.”

“Those relationships go nowhere,” Thomas says. “Six years down the track you’re still referring to her as the ‘chick with the ponytail at the bus stop.’ Tell her to stay away from it. It’ll only end in heart-break.”

The tuba guy reaches us. Up close, he’s probably less attractive than from a distance, but there’s a lovely honesty to his face.

“Justine?” Thomas calls out to where she has just managed to escape being wedged against the door. She looks over at us, smiling, and the moment the smile disappears and is replaced by a stricken stu

“There’s room over here,” he says, pushing Tuba Guy. “Oh, sorry, mate.” The apology is so earnest that I actually believe for a moment that he did it accidentally.

“No worries,” Tuba Guy says, making room.

Justine reaches us, her face flaming red.

“You looked squashed over there, Justine,” Thomas says.

She doesn’t answer him. Thomas isn’t trustworthy material. He is uncomfortably nose to nose with Tuba Guy.

“Is that a Sydney Boys uniform?” he asks.

Tuba Guy nods slowly, trying to act cool.

“Do you know Chris Hudson in Year Eleven?”

“He’s in my biology class.”

“Tell him Thomas Mackee said to say hi. And Justine and Francesca,” he says, pointing to us.

“And Jimmy,” Jimmy says, shaking his hand. “What exactly is a tuba made out of … sorry, what did you say your name was?”

“Francois.”

“Francois? French, I presume. Have you ever watched Queen Margot? There’s this fantastic St. Bartholomew Day’s massacre scene.”

Justine is pinching me on the hip and I try hard not to flinch.

“Jimmy?” I warn.

Then it’s their stop and Tuba Guy says the magical words.

“After you, Justine.”

Jimmy puts a hand to his heart and feigns an “isn’t this romantic” look. Thomas is making kissing sounds, and I can’t believe I’m stuck with them both.

“You’re not coming home with me, Jimmy.”

At home, Jimmy has a polite thing happening with my mother. She sits in the sunroom and he’s talking tea and fantasy fiction with her.

“I gave up caffeine when it started making me jittery,” he explains to her. “I’m a bit of an expert, Mia. My nan used to swear by chamomile and it helped her heaps.”

Jimmy never asks questions about Mia. Why she’s in her nightgown every time he comes over. Why she looks so thin and tired. He isn’t even curious. Just matter-of-fact and comfortable. Sometimes he has this yearning look on his face when he’s speaking to her, like a little boy.

“What can you recommend for the fantasy booklist?” she asks. She’s determined to hold on to the conferences, but the reading is hard work. Lately, I’ve taken to typing her notes out for her. She has a laptop from the university, and whatever she says I type. Then I take it to school and Tara reads it over, giving me suggestions. Siobhan, fu