On the Jellicoe Road

I sat with him and he showed me how to make a placemat out of thistles. We let the thistles prick our fingers to make them bleed because they made us feel alive.

Then we spoke about our dreams and how we always felt safe in them, no matter how bad everything else seemed. He told me it was one of the best days of his life and then he took out his gun. A .22 rifle. And he leaned forward and whispered, “Forgive me, Taylor Markham.” Before I could ask him how he knew my name and what I was to forgive him for he said, “Take care of my little girl.”

And then he told me to close my eyes.

And I think I’ve been frightened to do just that ever since.

Chapter 20

Finally we came to an agreement about the Club House and a week before the Cadets are due to leave, we have the opening. My heart’s not really in it and the only people who seem enthusiastic are Ben and Anson Choi and the Mullet Brothers, who have spent every possible moment with each other pretending they are a band.

It amazes me that we’ve got this far, so I suppose that’s something to celebrate. But the thing is we don’t know how to. Thirty people from each faction, ninety people all up, stand around staring at one another with absolutely nothing to say. There’s a stage, a drink machine, and a few tables and chairs but apart from that, there’s nothing else. No personality. No conversation. No atmosphere. Nicht. Nix.

Raffy stands next to me, commiserating, and for once I wish someone would start a fight just to introduce noise to the place. On the other side of the room, Griggs is standing against the wall with that stony look on his face while the rest of the Cadets are huddled in his corner. One of the guys next to him is even clutching a chessboard, like he was forced here in the middle of a game. In another corner Santangelo looks slightly bored, even with his girlfriend hanging off him, and behind me I can feel Richard’s eyes drilling into me as if I am the creator of this hell.

But then I catch Griggs’s eye and he looks at me in a way that tells me exactly what he’s feeling and I love that look. Suddenly I want to yell out to everyone, “It’s a game, these territory wars. They loved each other.”

Instead I turn to Raffy. “See the guy standing next to Jonah Griggs?” I say. “Their chess champ. Apparently no one can beat him.”

She looks at me as if to say, Who cares?

“As if,” I hear Richard say.

“It’s true. Jonah Griggs reckons he’s a freak and that they’ve beaten every GPS School in Sydney.”

“You know what I heard,” Raffy says, catching on. “That he thinks that no one in this area could possibly beat anyone from the city.”

Richard glares at the guy, and I see the challenge in his eye.

“It’d be great if someone took him down a peg or two,” I say, walking away. I approach Griggs, watching as he lifts himself off the wall, not quite sure what he has to prepare himself for, but with a look of relief on his face.

“What?” he asks. There’s vulnerability in his face and I sense that our last session together affected him just as badly as it did me. There are a million things I want to say to him but in the end it seems safer talking about this debacle.

I lean in, trying not to seem too friendly to the rest of the world. “This is a disaster,” I whisper.

“Seen bigger and better ones.” He makes room between him and the chess guy and I feel our fingers touch slightly but neither of us moves away.

“See the guy you punched out the other day?” I say a bit louder. “He’s our chess champ. He thinks no one can beat him.”

He looks at me as if to say, Who cares?

“As if,” I hear the guy with the chessboard say.

“It’s true. He’s a freak and his team has beaten every school in the country comp.”

“He’s up himself,” Griggs says, catching on. “Choi reckons he heard him say that no GPS School from the city is ever going to beat him and his team.”

The guy with the chessboard glares at Richard and I see that challenge in his eye. He moves away from us and stands huddled with some other guys, who follow his gaze towards Richard.

“I reckon I could take them all on,” I tell Griggs quietly.

“You play chess?”

“I can beat him with my eyes closed. Why do you think Richard hates me so much?”

“Because you turn him on and it kills him that he doesn’t turn you on,” he says, looking at me.

“How do you know?” I grin. “That he doesn’t turn me on, that is?”

He laughs and I see that people are watching us. “What do you think would happen if we kissed right here, right now?” he asks, digging his hands into the pockets of his khaki pants, gri

“I think it would cause a riot.”

“Well, you know me,” he says, lowering his head towards me. “Causing a riot is what I do best.”

Santangelo approaches before Griggs gets any closer and pulls him away. “Are you guys insane?” he says, irritated.

“It’s called peaceful coexistence, Santangelo. You should try it and if it works we may sell the idea to the Israelis and Palestinians,” I say, throwing his own words back at him.

“This isn’t peaceful coexistence. This is the worst idea I’ve ever come up with. Everyone’s miserable.”

“I’m not,” Griggs says. “It’s easy.” He beckons over some of the Cadets and introduces me to the first two. “They guarded the hostages,” he tells me. Santangelo already seems to know them. Some of the Townies, who I recognise from the night at the party, come over and shake hands with Griggs and his guys.

I see Trini from Darling House in the crowd and wave her over. She looks hesitant so I drag two Cadets over to her. “These are the guys who looked after our year-seven trio,” I say, looking at them with slightly exaggerated gratitude. “Guarded them with their lives.”

The boys blush in unison.

“Griggs was telling me how it keeps him awake at night thinking of the fear he put in the hearts of those girls,” I say, looking at Griggs.

Trini and her friend look shocked at this news and Griggs gives a shrug. “I presume you are the one responsible for how brilliantly they composed themselves in such a harrowing situation,” he says with such charm. He even accompanies it with a disarming smile.

The girls beam. “We are very strict but fair. Would you like to come and meet the other House seniors?” Trini asks the two Cadets. They nod and another five or six guys follow them across the room.

“We are so sick of each other’s company,” Griggs tells us, watching his guys being introduced to the Darling House girls. “Everyone’s hanging to go home.”

I look at him and feel a sick twist in my stomach. In ten days’ time I will never see Jonah Griggs again. Ever. He looks at me as if he knows what I’m thinking.

Even Santangelo seems flat. “I regret the no-alcohol rule,” he says as we make our way to where some guy is making espressos.

By the time we’ve had our second coffee, the chess game between the Murrumbidgee guys and the Cadets is well and truly underway in one corner. On the other side of the room the Darling girls are surrounded by Cadets while the girls from Hastings House look on in total envy. Then the band comes on and I hate to admit it but they kind of make everything worthwhile. It’s hard to explain what happens when jazz and punk fuse with a violin twist but it works. Probably because Anson Choi takes off his shirt while he’s playing the saxophone. Whoever’s not chatting up a Cadet or a girl from Darling House or playing chess with the guys is watching the band. I turn into a groupie.

Ben plays his violin like a madman and even the Mullet Brothers look cool, having grown sideburns for the occasion. One stares into space in that vacuous way most bass guitarists do and the other does these pirouettes in the air every time he jumps. Unfortunately they only have three songs but the music helps break the ice.