Saving Francesca

I thank her and hang up the phone and I feel like crap. I don’t remember the last time anyone used my name, except for Ms. Qui

I miss the Stella girls telling me what I am. That I’m sweet and placid and accommodating and loyal and nonthreatening and good to have around. And Mia. I want her to say, “Frankie, you’re silly, you’re lazy, you’re talented, you’re passionate, you’re restrained, you’re blossoming, you’re contrary.”

I want to be an adjective again.

But I’m a noun.

A nothing. A nobody. A no one.

chapter 6

LUCA AND I are late again and, as usual, we have to face William Trombal. Yet another role of the House leaders is to stand in the foyer and record the names of those in their House who are late. From the look on William Trombal’s face each morning, I can tell it’s his least favorite job.

He asks me my name for the fourth time this week. He knows I know he knows it, but he insists on this charade.

“Katarina Esperante,” I tell him.

Luca looks from me to him and then back again as if I’ve gone insane.

William Trombal glances up from the late book in his hands. “That’s not your name.”

I don’t answer and he looks at Luca and rolls his eyes.

“Luca Spinelli,” Luca says politely, “and she’s …”

I give him the Spinelli death stare.

“… she’s my sister.”

William Trombal gives in and writes in my name. “You’ve been late four times this week,” he says, stating the obvious.

I can sense Luca smiling politely next to me. He wants everyone to be happy and hates any kind of conflict. I pull him away and we walk down the stairs that lead to the quadrangle.

“You’re not to talk to that guy,” I tell him.

“He looks after Year Five, Katarina.”

“What does that make him? God?”

He rolls his eyes. I pinch him and he pinches me back. That’s how we do the affection thing in public.

For the rest of the day, I feel out of it. Not that I’ve ever felt into it around here. It’s like I lose track of time. One minute I’m in English and when I next open my eyes I’m in legal studies, but I don’t remember how I got there. On the page in front of me I’ve written stuff down, but I can’t remember holding the pen. I want to rest my head on the desk and just sleep, and for most of the day I kind of do. I can tell the teachers don’t like me. I remember the way they used to look at the apathetic girls at St. Stella’s. I think teachers can even handle the troublemakers, but they hate the slackers and that’s how they see me.

“Just ask me how I’m feeling,” I want to say. “Just ask and I may tell you.”

But no one does.

At lunchtime, I feel Justine Kalinsky watching me and when I look at her, she smiles, and I walk away and hide out in the toilets. Not the greatest place to spend forty minutes, but I just can’t deal with Tara Finke and Justine Kalinsky today. I just want to have a rest from all of that. I just want to lie down and not get up.

After ten minutes, I’ve had enough and I walk out of the toilets and across the courtyard and am beckoned over by the group who sit against the wall. These guys are European, and I know it’s time to do the cultural-bond thing. Sometimes they nod at me. A you-and-me-are-the-same nod. I wonder if they ever nod at William Trombal.

“You Italian?” they ask.

I nod.

They pat the space next to them and I make myself comfortable.

“Portuguese,” I’m told by the guy who called me over. His name is Javier, pronounced “Havier,” and every time one of the teachers pronounces his name with a J in class, there’s a booing sound.

“She’s Italian,” Javier tells one of the guys who joins them from the canteen.

“Third in the World Cup ranking,” the guy says.

“Behind Brazil,” another pipes up

“What’s your team?” Javier asks.

It’s a soccer thing. I think of Luca’s bedroom. “Inter Milan.”

Approval. Good choice.

The others are Diego, Tiago, and Travis, who they call a wa

“You shy, Francesca?” Javier asks me later on.

I shake my head. “Not really.” I’m just sad, I want to say. And I’m lonely.

When Javier speaks, he uses his middle fingers to point down, as if he’s singing some hip-hop song. It’s like the spirit of some rap singer has taken over his body.

“I like you, Francesca. I like the way you treat your brother. Like he’s your friend, and that’s why I’m telling you this. Guys don’t like chicks who are down all the time.”

I thank him for the advice. I’ll make a point of telling my mum that tonight. I’ll say, “Mum, guys don’t go for sad chicks and you’re making me incredibly sad and because of that you’re curtailing my social life, so could you please get out of bed.”

And then she’ll get out of bed and we’ll live happily ever after.

They call out to a guy on the basketball courts. I recognize him from my biology class. He’s got a massive smile with big white teeth.

“Shaheen, what’s happening?” Javier asks him.

“Did you see that shot? Did ya? Huh?” Shaheen asks.

“You’re a legend, Shaheen.”

“Lebs rule!”

Shaheen says that about five times a day.

“Where, mate? Where do the Lebs rule? How are they doing in soccer? Did they rule in the Olympics? How about te

The bantering is good-natured.

“What do you reckon, Francesca?” Javier asks me. “Do Lebs rule?”

I look at Shaheen, who’s gri

Shaheen shakes my hand.

Suddenly I’m a girl with attitude.

Attitude is everything with these guys. I have no chance of being their goddess because Eva Rodriguez is. She’s upbeat and positive. But somehow I’m allowed to be part of them, based purely on the fact that my grandparents and theirs belong to a minority. I’m back in complacency land and I’m loving it.

They give me advice. Keep away from the SAS, they tell me. They’re the guys who sit on the quadrangle stairs who have an obsession with the military. On non-uniform days they come to school wearing camouflage.

The bell rings and Shaheen walks me up to class and we sit together and he gives me a rundown on his hero, Tupac.

“He’s not really dead,” he tells me.

I have no idea who he’s talking about, but I find the whole conspiracy theory surrounding a supposedly dead rapper more intriguing than biology.

And somehow, yet again, I’ve managed to get through another day.

My dad arrives home and goes straight to their room to see how she is. At the moment, my dad can only be Mia’s husband, not Francesca and Luca’s father.

Luca looks at me. “Do you think Mummy speaks to Papa at night?”

I don’t know what to say to him.

“Because it’s okay if she can’t speak to us, but Papa would be so sad if she didn’t speak to him.”

“It’s not as if she doesn’t want to speak to us,” I explain.

“It’s just that Papa likes speaking to Mummy,” he says, almost in tears. “He always wants to speak to her. Sometimes more than he wants to speak to us, so if she doesn’t speak to him …”

Being Mia’s husband has always been my dad’s priority, even at the best of times, so now I feel as if we’re orphans.

“Do you want to do your homework on my bed?” I ask.

He nods. I know he’ll fall asleep there and I let him.

Later, I lie down next to him while he sleeps with Pinocchio snug up against him. Squashed up on the end of the bed, I try to think back to the day before my mum didn’t get out of bed. What was the last thing she said to us? What clues did she leave that we didn’t respond to? We own all this, and while we’re owning this ugly sickness that turns off the lights in a person’s head, those around us who think they know us best observe and comment.