Saving Francesca

Next to me, Thomas Mackee is doing his own thing, scribbling away. Whatever he’s doing makes him grunt with frustration, but we’ve got an agreement. I come up with “our” ideal community and he stays out of my hair.

I watch Jimmy Hailler terrorize the kid next to him. Not that he’s doing anything but speaking to him, but that is his form of terror. I’ve seen him do it to the introverted math geniuses in our year, who at times find themselves unable to escape his grasp.

“How are you, man?” he’ll ask them, although he’s never spoken a word to them all their lives.

They smile politely, wanting him to go away.

“Is that the new calculator you’ve got there?”

The questions are not threatening. The voice is not menacing. But one is suspicious, and relieved when he stops. He knows quite well that he’s intimidating. The tapping on the desk with his pen, the tune he plays along to on his knee with his hand. He’s like a time bomb waiting to explode and you don’t want him anywhere near you.

Sometimes I think that Jimmy Hailler is a tool planted by teachers to stop students from getting into trouble. The juniors are more frightened by the prospect of having to sit next to him than anything else, and I’m sure troublemaking could be halved if they advertised the fact that he was on detention for the afternoon.

He catches me looking at him and gives me a grin. I’m unimpressed and he can sense it, and I stare down at the page in front of me.

My ideal community?

My mum is fine and can get out of bed.

St. Stella’s goes to Year Twelve and I’m still with my friends.

No boy bands.

No Tara Finkes or Justine Kalinskys or Siobhan Sullivans.

Buffy slays teenage boys who burp and fart.

People on power trips are prohibited from being teachers.

Italy wins the World Cup (that one’s for Luca).

I write it all down in my head, but not on the sheet in front of me. Because I don’t want Thomas Mackee or Mr. Brolin to know anything about my ideal world. Because I know they’ll do everything to mock it.

I scribble something down and lean back in my seat. Thomas Mackee is listening to his Discman, as usual, and writing what looks like music notes, and it’s driving him crazy, which is a pleasure to see.

I look at him.

“It’s odious,” he says.

“Detention?” I ask, confused.

“Huh?”

We have no idea what the other is talking about.

“What’s odious?” I ask.

“O.D.S.,” he says, pointing to his Discman and obviously referring to some loser band.

Like I really care.

Mr. Brolin walks down to us and looks at the sheet and then at me and Thomas Mackee. “Your ideal community has”—he squints his eyes, reading my writing—“no butcher’s paper?”

Thomas Mackee looks at me as if I’ve lost it. Jimmy Hailler turns around and grins his little evil grin. Mr. Brolin gives us a week of detentions.

I’ve turned into a delinquent.

My father looks at my school diary when I get home. I have to get it signed and show it to Mr. Brolin. School diaries have always been Mia’s area.

We’re down in the laundry room trying to find Luca’s spare school shirt.

“Don’t start getting into trouble, Frankie. Not now,” he says, looking through the laundry basket.

“I hate this school. I want to go to Pius.”

“That’s not possible.”

“Why? It’s not too late.”

“Mia wants you at St. Sebastian’s.”

“It’s ruining my life.”

He finds the shirt.

“Do you know how to use the washing machine?”

“Papa, are you listening to me?”

He bangs on the back window and I can see Luca playing soccer outside with some neighborhood kids.

“Homework,” he shouts.

Luca pretends he can’t hear. He’s too busy being Mark Viduka, scoring a goal and then dropping to his knees and holding his hands up. Luca takes after Mia. He’s very dramatic and emotional.

My father starts the washing machine, and after a moment it begins making its way toward us like something out of a sci-fi film.

I watch my father trying to deal with the possessed washing machine. We have no idea what to do because one part of Mia’s doctrine is to teach us independence while the other is to keep us dependent on her. It drives me crazy, because it’s such a fantastic ploy—she can complain and make us look like the bad guys while she’s the martyr.

I decide I’m going to tell Mia what I think. That what she’s doing is selfish and it’s ruining all our lives and that I’m going to go to Pius with my Stella friends because she can’t go around making decisions about my life, removing me from my security blankets and then leaving me hanging on my own.

I go upstairs and stand in Mia’s doorway. That’s where most of our conversations tend to take place these days.

“I’m going to wash the clothes,” I tell her.

“I’ll do it.” She tries to sit up.

You said that yesterday, I want to yell at her.

“Come in here and sit with me.”

“I can’t. Luca doesn’t have any school shirts and Daddy doesn’t know how to use the washing machine.”

I step into the room anyway. It smells unhealthy. Not like the sandalwood and rosemary scents I’m used to. I get closer to the bed and she smiles weakly. Her skin, usually rich and smooth, looks pasty. Her dark eyes are huge and bloodshot, and she looks kind of old. Not the Mia who thinks it’s a crime to leave the house without lipstick and who still has guys perving at her although she’s forty.

I edge to the side of the bed and she sits up.

“Don’t fight with Daddy,” she tells me tiredly.

I nod. I want to crawl into bed next to her but I’m scared I won’t want to get out.

“I’m going to try to be better tomorrow. I promise,” she says.

Her voice is pitiful. Who is this person? I can’t help thinking how strange her words are. Does it mean she has control over this thing, whatever it is?

“I’ve got a week’s detention,” I tell her miserably.

“What did you do?”

“I made a protest about butcher’s paper.”

She tries to make a joke. “I knew I brought you up well.”

She can hardly speak. It’s as if she has absolutely no energy and I’m tiring her out.

Later, my father gives up on Luca and homework, and I can’t be bothered doing mine either. We watch television until 11:30 and eat all the junk food in the cupboard. I could feel guilty about taking advantage of the situation, but I can’t be bothered. I can’t be bothered about anything. Later, in bed, I put my Discman in my ear and, like every night of my life, I let the music put me to sleep.

Left alone with a dial tone … excuse me, operator, why is no one listening?

chapter 4

ON SATURDAY NIGHT, I meet up with the ex–Stella girls. We try to do this as often as possible, so when I rang them during the week they invited me to a party at Maroubra, which is out in the eastern suburbs, near the beach.

“Everyone will be there,” Michaela said.

At Pius, the ex–Stella girls have got into the swing of things easily. They seem to know everyone at the party, and it all seems so effortless to them, as if they’ve known these people all their lives. But they’ve always been good at fitting in and getting on with as many people as possible. At Stella’s, the teachers and other girls loved them, while I seemed to make enemies without even trying. I was either talking too much in Year Seven, or not talking enough in Year Eight. I was too smart for my own good, or not working to my potential. One year they’d tell me that I needed to be put in my place, the next year I’d be told to find a place of my own, rather than letting the girls find it for me.

When my dad drops me off, they scream hysterically.

“Look at your hair,” they say. I’m confused, because my hair looks exactly the same as it has for the last five years. Shoulder-length, brown, straight.