After (2 page)

Catch!’ A rubber rocketed into CJ’s head. He spun around to the back of the room where Nic now sat. ‘Watch it, Nicco.’

Nic shrugged and grinned. ‘I said “catch”. Thanks for the lend, dude.’

‘Any time.’ CJ bent to pick up the rubber. The stoppers on the stool legs squealed.

‘What’s going on, CJ?’ asked Ms Callaghan. She stood beside Spew, pencil in her hand. Spew stared at his book.

‘Nothing, Miss. Just picking up my rubber.’ CJ held the rubber, covered in writing, in the air.

‘I made a mistake with my genetics, Miss. CJ very kindly leant me his rubber so I could fix it,’ said Nic, his hands clasped on the edge of the desk. ‘I was just returning it, with my thanks.’

Ms Callaghan’s eyes darted from CJ to Nic. She fiddled with her watch buckle.

‘You could have borrowed Emily’s rubber, Nic.’

‘But she was using it, Miss.’

‘It’s all sorted, Miss,’ said CJ. ‘You go back to helping Spew.’

Spew scowled. CJ winked at him.

‘His name is Stu, CJ.’ Ms Callaghan folded her arms. ‘Remember, you two, if separating you doesn’t settle you both down, your next move will be to Mr Franchini’s office.’

An ‘ooooh’ ran around the classroom.

CJ took an exaggerated bow.

‘That will do,’ said Ms Callaghan, her voice shrill.

The jeers grew.

Nic and CJ leapt off their stools and sprinted towards each other. They bumped chests, high-fived and sprinted back to their seats.

‘Stop it,’ yelled the teacher, her hands clenched in fists by her side. ‘I mean it.’ Tears made her eyes twinkle.

CJ sat back in his seat.

A motor started somewhere in the blackness. I rolled onto my back and checked my watch. I’d been in a dreamless sleep for about an hour. Outside the window, Grandpa sat on the ride-on mower, a green cap pulled over his wiry hair. The mower looked tiny under his long legs. Nan pushed the wheelbarrow towards the bed of roses the drive looped around. It was as if I didn’t exist.

Maybe it was better for everyone if I didn’t.

I scratched my head, nails scraping my scalp. Fresh air, that’s what I needed. Just not the same air they were breathing. On my way outside, I grabbed a slice of bread from the pantry. Someone had cleared the kitchen table and benches.

On the veranda, gumboots hung upside down on a wooden rack. I picked a pair that looked about my size and wiggled my feet inside. The boots were loose and clumpier than shoes. I took a bite of bread and clomped past the clothes line to the back gate.

Beyond the gate and grass was a gravel road. On the edge of that, facing the house, were three sheds. Inside the largest shed with no doors was a tractor, bits of fierce-looking machinery and a red quad bike.

A couple of months ago, I’d have taken the quad bike for a ride. Not now.

Wedged up against the large shed was a smaller building with a wooden door. A padlock hung from the latch.

There was a gap of about a metre between the padlocked shed and a monster chook yard, five times the size of the one Mum, Chris and I had built in the backyard last summer. Our chooks, Posh and Peck, were Rhodesian reds. Plump, strutting chooks with evil eyes. This chook yard was like a United Nations meeting. There were chooks of all sizes, white, brown and black hens, three different types of roosters, fluffy chooks with feathered feet, white ducks with orange bills and black-and-white spotted birds that clacked like the old typewriter Chris owned.

Forehead pressed against the chicken wire, I lobbed the last piece of crust over the top. There was a flurry of feathers as the birds charged for it. The winning hen raced across the yard with the bread in its beak.

A white chook strutted out of the hen house and into the yard, neck outstretched and squawking. There was only one reason a chook carried on like that—she’d laid an egg. As I turned away from the chooks, I noticed a mural painted on the side of the shed with the locked door.

In it, a woman wearing gumboots held secateurs and a basket of roses. Beside her stood a tall man, cap on his head, shirt sleeves rolled up. A golden dog lay at his feet, its pink tongue hanging out. They were in a garden filled with pink and purple flowers, watching a girl riding a black pony. Painted beneath the green grass was ‘Our family—Pat, Jim, Maeve, Floss and Zebedee Alexander.’

I reached out to touch the girl’s flowing brown hair.

‘She was younger than you when she painted that.’

I jumped.

Grandpa stood on the gravel road, arms folded, cap in his hand. ‘She always had a pencil or paintbrush in her hand.’

‘Did she lose them all the time?’

Grandpa laughed through his nose. ‘She lost everything.’

‘Drives me nuts,’ I said.

We stared at the mural until the silence became too heavy. I turned back to the chookyard. ’What’s the go with the chooks with fluffy legs?’

‘They’re silky bantams. Champion little bird. Great mothers. And the white ones are leghorns. Good layers.’ Grandpa’s hands on the chicken wire were like an eagle’s talons.

‘We’ve got two Rhodesian reds. Had a rooster too for a while, but it was feral,’ I said.

‘They tend to be.’

‘What are the spotty ones?’

‘Guinea fowl. Flighty things,’ said Grandpa. ‘Your grandmother loves them.’

We watched the birds scratch and peck in the dirt. The ducks shovelled under the water trough.

Grandpa pulled his cap back on his head. ‘Better get that mower fuel.’

I listened to the thuds and scrapes coming from the huge shed.

Grandpa returned holding a metal tin that smelt of petrol. ‘Want to give us a hand out the front?’

‘I guess so.’

I bit into the toast and home-made strawberry jam. It tasted like cardboard. Nan wrapped two Vegemite and cheese sandwiches in plastic.

‘Winter Creek is a lovely little school, Callum.’

Little? ‘How big is it?’

Nan frowned. ‘There are about eight classrooms I think. No. There must be more than that.’

A chill spread into my chest. ‘I meant, how many students?’

‘Well, your grandfather would know for sure, he’s on the school council, but I think there are about 130 students.’

She slipped the sandwiches into a lunch box.

Last year, when we went on camp to the Grampians, our year level had filled four buses. Four! This whole school would only fill three. It sounded so small. I would be so exposed.

‘How many students at your old school?’ she asked.

‘About nine hundred. And it’s not my old school. I still go there.’

Nan’s smile was almost a sneer. ‘Winter Creek will be ... more personal.’

I pushed my plate away.

‘Put that in the dishwasher, thank you.’

I shoved the plate on the top rack, not sure if I needed to spew or scream.

My grandmother handed me the lunch box. ‘Your grandfather is in his office. He’ll drive you to school.

Suited me. The less time I had to spend with her, the better.

Grandpa talked the whole way to school.

Apparently, nobody around here owned farms; they had ‘properties’. My grandparent’s property was called Marrook. There were heaps of different breeds of sheep. I said they all looked the same to me—dirty and woolly. Grandpa told me his family had bred Corriedales at Marrook for three generations. Judging by the look on Grandpa’s face, Corriedales were never to be confused with merinos.

As the huge paddocks dotted with sheep and gum trees shrank to smaller paddocks with tree-lined drives and modern homes, he started talking about evenness of fleece and microns. As if I cared.

The pine trees and church steeple that marked Winter Creek loomed closer. It would have been so easy to undo my seatbelt and leap from the car. The asphalt biting into my skin, ripping chunks of flesh from my body would have been less painful than starting a new school. Grandpa turned a corner. Ahead were cream box buildings, basketball and tennis courts, a large shed and toilet block—the school.

Grandpa turned into the school entrance and the car vibrated.

I looked out the window. ‘What the—?’

‘Cattle-grid. Like the one at our front gate.’

‘What for?’

‘The gaps and the pit underneath stop the stock—cattle and sheep—from walking over it. Works like a gate without needing one,’ said Grandpa, parking under the pine trees.

‘I know that. But why do they have one at a school?’

He took the keys from the ignition, holding them in his hand as though he was trying to gauge their weight. ‘I have no idea.’

I waited on a vinyl chair opposite the door labelled ‘Principal’. To my right, the school secretary sat behind a sliding glass window, frowning at her computer screen. Stuck to the window was a poster of a blue sky covered in butterflies. Underneath in big black letters was ‘Count Your Blessings.’ I wanted to rip it to pieces.

To pass the time, I read the anti-bullying and head-lice posters, counted the trophies in the cabinet—49—and studied the photos of kids stuck to the noticeboard with T-pins. Most of the kids wore aqua polo shirts with a yellow logo. At my old school our uniform was navy jumper, white shirt, tie and blazer, grey pants and black shoes. We only wore polo shirts for PE.

I read the names under the photos, stopping at Jack Frewen, the kid Nan wanted me to meet. Jack Frewen had spiky blond hair and blue eyes. His confident smile and the angle of his head reminded me of my school photo that Mum had in a frame on her bedside table. Last time I had looked at it, I didn’t recognise myself. It was taken before...

I shifted in my seat and the vinyl squeaked. At last the door opened. ‘You must be Callum.’ The woman walked towards me, hand outstretched. ‘I’m Elizabeth Gray.’

Her hair, face and jumper were pale grey. She withdrew her hand when she realised I wasn’t going to shake it. She motioned for me to enter her office. ‘Please join us, Callum,’ she said.

I perched on the chair beside Grandpa opposite Mrs Gray’s desk. Grandpa still held his car keys. I watched him rub the Rotary key ring between his thumb and finger.

‘You’ll enjoy Winter Creek P to ten,’ said Mrs Gray, settling behind the huge desk.

‘P to ten ... you mean there are preps—primary kids—here?’

‘Is that a problem, Callum?’

I slumped against the chair back. ‘Nuh.’

Mrs Gray straightened the pen and notes on her desk-pad. ‘We pride ourselves on our caring community, Callum. We are quite different from a large city school.’

I folded my arms. She could shove her caring community.

‘We’ll need to organise a transfer.’

‘I don’t need a transfer. I won’t be here long.’

Mrs Gray glanced quickly at Grandpa. ‘I understood...’

‘It’s just a legal requirement, Callum,’ said Grandpa. ‘It’ll be fine, Elizabeth.’

‘I’ll contact your old principal...’ Mrs Gray peered at her notes. ‘Mr Franchini...’ Her eyes lit up. ‘Dom Franchini?’

I grunted a yes.

‘What a small world. Dom attended university with my sister.’ When Mrs Gray smiled, I noticed her teeth were grey too.

A bitter taste filled my mouth. If Gray knew Franger, it wouldn’t be long before she knew.

‘Well, there’s a coincidence for you,’ said Grandpa, smiling as if this gem was a massive diamond, not a cruddy piece of coal.

‘Callum, are you all right? You’re looking rather grey,’ said Mrs Gray, leaning forward.

I laughed through my nose.

Grandpa glared at me. ‘Callum’s been through ... well, he’s just...’

A list of words he could use to describe me rolled through my mind.

Worthless?

Useless?

A waste of space?

What was that word Michael Pham’s father had used to describe me? Abhorrent. I didn’t need a dictionary to work out what that meant. The meaning had been written in his eyes and in the twist of his mouth.

Grandpa shifted in his seat. ‘He’s just been through a lot of changes, that’s all.’

Whatever that meant.

‘Perhaps you’ll find it more comfortable in the classroom, Callum,’ said Mrs Gray, standing. ‘Shall we?’ She led the way outside.

The office and classrooms beside it were ancient. From the outside, they looked more like a church than a school. Opposite the old building were two sets of cream portables, separated by an area filled with cream-and-red pavers. The cream ones were printed with names, messages and drawings, just like the one I’d done at primary school. I remember mine had my name and a soccer ball on it. It was by the sandpit, next to Nic’s.

‘The classes to the right are the senior rooms,’ said Mrs Gray, stopping by a garden. She nodded at the third group of portables beside the admin building. ‘And those are our library, science and art rooms.’

‘Great,’ I said.

A kid strolled out of a classroom, down the ramp towards us. He beamed when he saw Grandpa. ‘Hi, Mr A. What are you doing here?’

‘Matt, how are you?’ Grandpa smiled. This is my grandson, Callum.’

Matt’s eyes widened. ‘Serious?’ He looked me up and down.

‘Where are you off to, Matthew?’ asked Mrs Gray, arms folded.

He nodded to his right. ‘Toilet.’

‘Right’ Mrs Gray frowned. ‘Hurry up, then.’

‘See you Wednesday, Mr A,’ said Matt, jogging away.

‘Jim, I’ll take it from here,’ said Mrs Gray. ‘School finishes at 3.25. We’ll see you then.’

Grandpa nodded to where he’d parked his ute. ‘I’ll meet you over there, Callum.’

‘Yeah,’ I said, not looking at him.

Grandpa strode off. Mrs Gray glanced at her watch. ‘Our students have just started their second lesson for the day. We may be a small school, but we stick to a strict timetable. Helps prepare our students for when they move on to Millington College, Our Lady’s or The Ranges.’ Faces peered out the classroom windows as we passed. I felt like a monkey at the zoo.

At the last portable, I recognised a face. Unlike the others, this guy didn’t look away when I caught his eye. The kid in the photo—Jack Frewen. I held his stare as I walked up the ramp.

‘Excuse me, Mr Agar,’ said Mrs Gray from the alcove inside the door.

Mr Agar strolled towards us, hands in his pockets. He was tall and block-shaped. His shirt was too tight, his hair too spiky and his walk too casual to be natural. A try-hard.

‘Dan, this is our new student, Callum Alexander.’

He shook my hand. ‘Cool. Dan Agar.’

Yep, a try-hard who thought saying ‘cool’ made him cool.

‘Callum?’

‘What?’

Mrs Gray’s sigh was short and sharp. ‘I was saying Mr Agar will be your homeroom teacher and will also take your for English, SOSE and PE.’ She clasped her hands under her chest. ‘You’ll enjoy our school, Callum.’

It sounded like an order.

Her lips stayed together when she smiled. ‘I’ll leave you with Mr Agar.’ She spoke to Mr Agar in a low voice. ‘We’ll chat at recess, Dan.’

The weight of the words settled on my shoulders. As Mrs Gray walked away, the noise from inside the classroom increased. Mr Agar smiled and tutted.

‘Come meet the ferals.’

Ferals? At my old school, feral was a put down. He used it like a nickname. I hung back in the alcove and counted the students. Twelve—I’d make thirteen. Lucky? Nah—unlucky.

‘Settle, thank you,’ bellowed Mr Agar. ‘Back in your seats. Frewen, give Luke back his book, now. Shelley, lip-gloss away.’ He motioned for me to join him.

Eyes focused on the whiteboard covered in algebra equations, I slunk inside. The class’s stares burnt into my green windcheater. Like all the T-shirts and windcheaters Mum bought me, this one was printed with the slogan ‘Stop Global Warming’ over a cartoon of the earth melting. I folded my arms.

‘This is Callum Alexander, I’d like—’

‘Alexander Beetle,’ bellowed a voice from the back corner.

The gales of laughter seared my skin.