Ocean Pearl (2 page)

One of the best feelings in the world would have to be
snuggling under the doona while your school friends
are about to start the first period of the day – especially
when it's double maths with Mr Lloyd and his smelly
breath.

Sucked in, friends, 'cause today was that day.

The fact that we had convinced four mothers – well,
three mothers plus Micki's dad – to let us have the day
off was unbelieeeevable! I had been positive my mum
would be the one to let us down. Usually I had to have
a temperature and an appointment with the funeral
director before Mum would even consider me not
putting on my school uniform.

Finally, after psyching up for about a week, I had
asked if I could have today off so that me and Kia and
Ace and Micki could have Friday and Saturday
together before camp started on Sunday. Drum
roll . . . Mum said, 'That sounds great, darling.'

I had stood there for about two minutes with my
mouth wide open while my brain tried to convince
my throat that it was okay to scream. And did I scream!

My mobile said 8.47 am. The other thing about today
was that it was my last chance to have a decent sleep-in.
From Monday onwards we'd be up at six am every
day for almost two whole weeks. Except on the
weekend, when we'd possibly be allowed to sleep in
until the outrageous hour of eight am –
wow
, aren't we
the lucky ones!

My phone beeped. It was a message from Ace.

'Leaving in 15mins. Prob c u 12. Ur place or Kia's? So
xcited. Luv u Axx'

'Kia's', I typed. 'Cant w8. Luv u 2.'

As I stared at Ace's reply – 'Starfish sisters r back!' –
that heavy feeling, aka 'the brick', settled inside my
tummy.

Still, I sent back, 'Go team starfish!' 'cause I couldn't
send nothing.

Ace not making the team hadn't got any easier.

I'd played out every moment of surf camp in my
head at least ten thousand times but I always reached
the same conclusion. Ace had stuffed up and there was
nothing we could've done about it.

While the rest of us had surfed and trained until
every muscle in our body felt like it'd been pulled and
stretched until we'd never feel normal again, Ace had
been sunbaking by the pool, running off to meet her
loverboy, Jules, or just playing the role of the only
sponsored Ocean Pearl surfer and model superior.

It didn't make me feel good thinking like that but
it was the truth. Sometimes it made me feel so mad
with her, like I wanted to scream and shake her
and tell her that she ruined everything, that she
single-handedly destroyed the Starfish Sisters. And
we'd warned her!

But I couldn't turn against her like that. I was the
only one who knew how badly she'd beaten herself up
over it. I even knew that her own body had turned
against her.

About two months after camp, Ace called me in a
real state. I was going through some heavy stuff with
Kia and when my phone went off and I saw Ace's name
I was like,
Thank God, someone I can talk to without having
to watch everything I say.

'I am so glad it's you,' I'd blurted. 'Don't you feel
like sometimes you're the only normal person in
the world?'

But when her voice answered mine with, 'Oh?' –
just one word – I realised this was a different kind of
phone call.

Ace's voice was so soft. Way back in her throat I
could hear the tiniest tremble.

'Are you . . . okay?'

'No,' she whispered. 'Not really. I bumped into Tim
tonight, at this Ocean Pearl promo thing.'

'And?' I swallowed.

'He said to me, he said' – Ace's voice turned sharp
and stinging – '"Heard you weren't selected for the
training team." But it was the way he looked at me.'
Her whispering tremble was back. 'He looked at me
like . . . like . . .'

'Like what, Ace?'

'Like I was some kind of loser.'

Silence.

'And it's true. It's –'

'Ace, who cares what Tim thinks! He's out of your
life now,' I said, banging the bed with my fist. 'You are
not a loser. You're –'

'Georgie, I am. I totally, totally stuffed up. You know
it too.'

'Ace?'

'Last Sunday I stayed out in the surf till my lips were
blue and my fingers and toes looked like shrivelled-up
sultanas, 'cause I kept thinking how Jake said that the
reserve had to prepare mentally and physically in case
they were called up.' Ace made a noise. It was something
between a moan and a squeak. 'But who am I
kidding? Huh? It's not going to happen. I'm not going
to be called up suddenly to join the team. I blew it and
you guys tried to tell me.'

'Oh Ace, I'm sorry. I wish it wasn't like this.'

'Do you have any idea how bad I felt that day? Do
you know what it was like to have everyone watching
you because you weren't selected? It's like they were
waiting for me to have some tantrum so they could run
off and ring all their friends.' The sharp sting returned,
this time louder. 'Oooh, guess what, Courtney McFarlane
didn't get picked for the Australian Training Team!'

'It wasn't like that, Ace.'

But I may as well have said nothing. 'You don't
know what it's like, Georgie,' she spat. 'People
watching you, rubbing their hands together waiting for
you to fall.'

'Well, they're the losers if that's the way they think.'

'They don't see it like that.'

'Well, who cares what they think?'

'I do!' Ace shouted.

Silence.

'And yet I hate myself for caring about it 'cause the
worst thing about not making the training team isn't
people talking about me. The worst thing – and this is
God's honest truth, Georgie – is not being with you
guys. I'll never forgive myself for letting you all down.
Never.'

Her tears started. It was like weeks worth of choking
anger and spluttering regret suddenly burst through
the phone in one big whoosh.

'Ace,' I soothed, 'hey, don't cry. It's okay.'

I couldn't hug her. I couldn't push tissues through
the phone so she could blow her nose. I had to sit there
and listen to sobbing that screamed louder than any
words ever could. It was horrible. Really, really
horrible. Ace was the girl who had everything – looks,
the best figure, a boyfriend, a surfing sponsor. It wasn't
meant to be like this.

'And Georgie, there's, there's something else I have
to tell you. My hair,' she whispered, 'my hair has
started falling out.'

It sounds dumb, but at first I didn't get what she was
talking about. 'Your hair's what?'

'My hair is falling out, like handfuls of it.'

I got it now. 'You're not – sick, are you?'

'No.' The tremble in Ace's voice was back. 'I told my
mum and we went and saw the doctor. She said it was
probably stress and that it should settle down.'

But it hadn't. Ace'd told me that it was already so
bad she'd started wearing a hat whenever she could. I
could tell from her voice that she wasn't exaggerating
either.

'Lucky I'm tall.' She'd bravely attemped a joke.
'Andy Wallace was at the OP promo party too. I'm sure
you've heard of him, he's the OP regional manager.'

'Uh-huh.' Everyone had heard of Andy Wallace but
they couldn't just throw his name into a conversation
like Ace could.

'The whole time I was with Andy I was saying to
myself, "It's okay, it's okay, he's shorter than me, he's
shorter than me, he can't see my bald patch.'' Georgie,
my OP contract runs out at the end of the year and I'm
getting paranoid. He didn't give Mum and me the
impression he was going to dump me but – '

'As if!'

'But Georgie, if he knew my hair was falling out it
would be one more black mark against my name on top
of not making the training camp and I cannot afford
that.' Then Ace had added: 'I told Mum that I trust you
with my life and that you won't tell anyone.'

'You'll be fine. I know you will.' Bad things didn't
happen to Ace. Not being selected for the training team
was as bad as bad luck went for girls like Ace. So I
totally meant it when I said, 'Ocean Pearl would never
dump you. You are Courtney McFarlane, remember.
You're hot, the sexiest bikini model ever, with slim legs
that go forever and you're an awesome, awesome
surfer. So get over yourself!'

Now, I pulled the doona over my head and groaned.
Nothing good could come out of Ace not making the
team. In fact, things had got potentially worse, much
worse.

Yesterday – like, it would have to be the day before
I'm about to see Ace – Andy Wallace called and left a
message on our answering machine. He didn't
say much, just that he was interested in 'talking' some
time.

Mum and Dad got all excited and said stuff like
'About time you got a call from a sponsor' and 'You
really deserve this'. But me? I was busy doing battle
with my skin, which was trying to drain the colour
from my face. Andy Wallace was possibly, no, definitely,
the last person in the world I wanted to hear
from. Saddam Hussein would've been preferable, if he
was still alive.

'Why does my life have to be so complicated?' I said
out loud under the doona. 'Why? Why couldn't the
four of us have all made the training team and gone on
being the simple old fun Starfish Sisters?'

Well, one of those things was true. We weren't old
and we certainly weren't simple. But we were fun. This
weekend was going to be the best. Nothing was going
to ruin it.

Everything was good. Kia had forgiven me and we
were speaking again; we'd used the money we raised
at last camp's fashion parade to buy Micki a two-hundred-dollar voucher at the best surf shop here at
Lennox. Kia, Ace and I were totally pumped about
giving it to her. Kia had made a fantastic card out of
heaps of photos from camp. Plus, good swell was
predicted and we were off to camp on Sunday, which
meant missing the last two weeks of term. Could it
really get any better?

All that bad, complicated stuff could take a big, long
hike. I wasn't going to think about stupid Andy Wallace
and whatever he wanted to 'talk' about. I was going to
try really, reeeaaally hard not to think about saying
goodbye to Ace on Sunday morning. Just thinking
about it had my throat choking up almost as much as it
did when I imagined my own funeral.

Camp was not going to be the same without her.
That didn't mean that I liked Ace more than Kia and
Micki. But Ace and I had a special bond, which was
kind of funny 'cause Ace and I really were nothing
alike. Starting from the outside in!

My phone beeped with a message from Kia.

'Should Micki or Ace have blow-up mattress?? I
can't decide.'

'Ace 2 tall. Give it to M,' I texted back and jumped
out of bed.

We were the Starfish Sisters and we had been
hanging out for this weekend.

I jogged around my bedroom punching the air. The
girl coming to camp instead of Ace was a freak surfer
called Megan de Raile. Megan was the kind of girl I
loved to hate. She made me want to win. She made me
hungry. That was the only good thing about her being
there.

'Bring it on!' I shouted to the mirror, thumping my
chest with my fists. 'Starfish Sisters number one!'

'Kia, I found the blow-up mattress in the garage.'

'I want to do the pumping, Mum,' Charlie said,
jumping on the sofa bed we had squeezed into my
room. 'I'm the pumper!'

Only my five-year-old brother would think
pumping up a mattress was the most exciting thing
ever. The problem was that it took both his chubby little
legs to make the foot pump work so I knew that job
was going to be mine. Good exercise, I s'pose.

'So, honey, have you worked out who's sleeping
where?' Mum asked. Again.

'Yep.'

'And – and you're feeling okay about everyone
coming and –'

'Mum, do I look like I'm not feeling okay? You know
I've been counting down the days for this.'

'I know, I know,' she sighed back. 'I'm being silly. I'm
just starting to feel a bit – a bit – funny about you being
away for two weeks.'

'Mum!' I tried very, very hard not to groan. 'Mum,
I'll be fine.'

Mum wrapped her fingers around her neck, her
second finger doing this kind of rubbing stroke against
her chin. I watched, knowing in a few seconds her
whole hand would grasp tightly around her neck. The
first few times I'd waited, terrified that her face would
turn bright purple. It never did. I knew that now 'cause
I'd seen her do it so many times at the psychiatrist's.

I wasn't mad at Georgie anymore. But for a while I'd
hated her.

The pact we'd made that January night at camp, that
moment when the four of us had placed our hands on
top of one another's and shouted 'To the Starfish
Sisters', had been broken – by me and only by me. If
anything, Georgie had protected me by not telling the
others. But because of that I knew she felt like she had
broken the pact too.

'Are you going to tell Ace and Micki?' Looking back,
it was so pathetic that straight after, that was the only
thing I'd said to Georgie. But I couldn't help it. I was
scared they'd be angry with me and hate me.

'I'm not going to tell them,' Georgie had replied, her
bottom lip quivering. 'Because you need time to get
better, Kia. You need help.'

'What would you know!' I spat those words out at her.

After I said that to Georgie I didn't speak to her for
almost three months. And I was good at it too.

She'd see me walking towards her at school or the
beach and her eyebrows would rise and she would
half smile or even open her mouth to say something –
but she would be cut to pieces by my razor-sharp
glare.

I'd keep walking. Not a flinch. Not a millisecond's
hesitation in my step. Instead, I'd stride away feeling
powerful and feeling the hate burn through the ridges
on my thighs.

She dobbed me in
, I'd say to myself.
She dobbed me in
and ruined my life.

But I'd been an idiot. I'd got caught. Or, as I started
to think as time went on, maybe I hadn't been. Maybe I
knew exactly what would happen. I wasn't strong
enough to do it but Georgie was.

Getting a product sponsor was meant to be the
greatest thing ever. It's what I'd wanted. It's what I'd
dreamt about. But this product sponsor, which made a
'surprise' arrangement with my dad to come and
watch me surf in round one of the regional titles, was
Seahorse Girl, one of Australia's leading manufacturers
of – bikinis.

That's when everything started to spin out of
control. Or rather, that's when I started spinning out of
control.

Dad was beyond excited. He couldn't stop hugging
me. I could barely cope with him, let alone the overly
bubbly, in-your-face Fiona, Seahorse Girl's surf scout,
and her offsider, Rebecca, who kept saying she had 'big
plans' for me.

So a week later when I walked into the Seahorse Girl
office in Brisbane to be welcomed by Fiona's and
Rebecca's big smiles plus a desk overflowing with
bikinis, it was more, much more, than I could take.

Ten seconds later, I was charging down the corridor,
kicking open the toilet door and spewing so hard I had
to press my hands into the walls to stop myself from
falling.

I couldn't help it.

At least it got me out of having to try on any
swimming costumes.

Dad drove me back to Lennox with an ice-cream
container on my lap and a beach towel draped over my
front. But I wasn't going to spew again. I was going to
do something else. I just had to wait till I got home.

Now I understand why I picked Georgie's place. But
at the time it felt like I was simply trying to get away
from Dad. His crinkly frown confused me.

Did it say, 'I'm disappointed in you'? Did it say, 'I
hope Kia's okay and that it's just a bug and not cancer'?
Or did it say, 'You stupid idiot. You stuffed up and now
they'll go and find someone else to sponsor'?

At the front door, with my schoolbag slung over my
shoulder and my toiletry bag safely packed inside, I
stood there and lied to my father.

'I'm going to Georgie's 'cause we have to finish an
assignment that's due tomorrow.'

'Well, how does your stomach feel? Are you up to
going out? Can't Georgie come here?'

'She hurt her ankle at soccer.' The lie slipped easily
through my teeth. 'That's why I said I'd go to her place.'

'Oh? Is she okay?'

'Yeah.' I lied again: 'It's mostly just bruising.'

'Well, be home by six-thirty, okay?'

'I won't be that long.' That was the truth.

Georgie's place was only a ten-minute walk. But
when I got there I was sweating, shaking and panting
like a dog that could smell a bone at the bottom of a
deep hole.

'Hey!' Georgie opened the door. 'I was just about to
ring you. How did today go? You didn't answer any of
my texts, slacko. But I guess now you're about to be a
famous Seahorse Girl you don't have to –'

I pushed past her.

'Whoa, it has gone to your head,' she laughed.

But I was busy scanning the house. There was a
bathroom downstairs and a smaller one upstairs. I
mostly used the one upstairs so that was the safest
option.

'What are you looking for?' Georgie asked, following
my eyes up the stairs.

'Nothing, nothing,' I answered. 'I just thought I
heard Brittany laughing.'

'It's Monday, dummy. The girls are at ballet with
Mum,' Georgie said. 'You know how I live for Monday
arvos. I get the house to myself for two whole hours
before the pains get home and make me watch one of
their concerts.'

'Can I have a glass of water?'

Georgie started to walk towards the kitchen. 'Since
when have you started asking?' she called behind her.
'Now, come on. Tell us what happened in Brissie. I was
getting worried.'

'In a sec. I'm just going to the toilet.'

I had one foot on the stairs when Georgie came
back. 'Use the downstairs loo.'

Perhaps she was frowning. Perhaps I didn't notice.
Perhaps I didn't care.

But when I was almost at the top I heard Georgie
call, 'How come you've got your schoolbag?'

I didn't answer. At the time and for weeks and
weeks after, I thought that'd been my biggest mistake.

My right leg felt like it needed to be amputated it was
so sore from pumping up the mattress. Every now and
then Charlie would nag me so badly that I'd let him
have a try but then the last thirty seconds of air I'd just
sweated over would hiss out of the hole.

'Kia, are you ready?' Dad called from the kitchen.
'We've got ten minutes to get to the station. Come on! I
don't want Micki getting off the train and finding we're
not there to meet her.'

'Well, neither do I!' I snapped.

I was nervous. This day had been coming for
months and now it had landed whack bang in our laps.
I wanted it to be perfect. For so many reasons. Not just
for me and the other girls but I wanted Mum and Dad
to see that I was just a regular girl having a sleepover
like all their friends' daughters did.

The schedule rushed through my head as I fumbled
to jam the peg into the mattress.
Micki and Georgie would
be here before Ace, so we'd wait till Ace arrived to give Micki
her voucher. In the afternoon it was surfing, as the local paper
wanted to take photos of Georgie and me before we left for camp.

'Kia!' Dad roared this time. 'I am leaving in thirty
seconds with or without you!'

I ripped off my T-shirt and pyjama pants.
Georgie
was scamming to get Micki and Ace in the photo. I told her
that was her job. She could be the mistress of scamming when
she put her mind to it so there were no worries there.
My
skinny-leg jeans had of course disappeared so I was
chucking everything out of my cupboard.
Tonight it
was out for dinner at Thai the Knot then home to watch
DVDs –

The mirror on my cupboard door trapped me. It did
that when I least expected, exposing the ugly reflection
of my thighs – raised lines and deep crevices that crisscrossed
and traversed each other like a river system in
my geography book.

'Your skin.' My mother had choked when she'd seen
them. She'd run her cool fingertips across my thighs.
'Your skin, Kia. Your beautiful skin.'

There were only three sets of traffic lights between our
place and the railway station but we got a red on every
single one. Dad huffed and thumped the steering
wheel each time.

'Chill, Dad.'

'I really don't want Micki to be waiting there on her
own! I forgot to ask if she was just bringing her camp
stuff or everything else too.'

'Isn't she going home for a few days after camp?'

'I guess that depends on how things go while she's
away.'

'You mean how he goes,' I snapped. 'You always
protect him.'

Dad zoomed off as the light went green.

'Hey, speed demon!'

Suddenly Dad started chuckling. 'Oh Kia, the day's
here, hey? The Starfish Sisters are going to be together
again. You must be happy about that?'

Dad had been rocked by what I'd done. Of course,
Mum had too but maybe she'd handled it better 'cause
she was a nurse.

There were times – not doing anything special, just
normal stuff like eating breakfast or rinsing off my
board after a surf – when I'd catch Dad looking at me.
His frown had lots more crinkles and it made me feel so
guilty.

I wanted to tell him that I was okay, that I was
getting better. That was the truth too. My mouth'd
open but then I'd chicken out and pretend he'd been
looking at me for some other reason and I'd do something
lame like smile.

Besides, my dad was an action man. His big motto
was 'Actions speak louder than words'. The way he
dropped everything to look after Davo and Micki
showed that he lived by it too. So I knew that's what I
had to do. I had to show Dad that I was getting better.
That I was a 'normal', regular person.

We parked the car, just as Micki's train came around
the bend and into view.

'Just made it,' Dad said, taking off his seatbelt,
putting up the window and opening the car door, all at
the same time.

'Dad,' I laughed. 'Relax.'

'Don't be ridiculous! I am perfectly relaxed,' he said,
almost tripping up the first stair to the platform. 'I just
want to get there before she gets off.'

'It's not the prime minister,' I muttered, jogging
behind, trying to keep up with him the way I had to
when I was a little girl. And yet I understood why he
was doing this. I felt the same too.

The first thing to appear out the train door was a
surfboard, then a giant bag and finally, Micki.

Luckily Dad grabbed the surfboard 'cause Micki just
about threw herself at me. We hugged and squealed
and danced around in a little circle before I actually
registered her face, properly that is.

Micki was crying. I'd seen her cry before, on the last
day of camp, but this was different crying. It wasn't
very loud. It wasn't all sniffs like Ace did. It definitely
wasn't hiccuping, spluttering, snorting sobs like
Georgie was prone to.

I'd call it something like 'shy' crying, if there was
such a thing. That's what it was like, shy. It was almost
as though Micki was too embarrassed to lift up her face.