Ocean Pearl (8 page)

'They're still having a go at her,' I said, sitting up on
my board, facing the beach. 'I wish I had bionic ears. I'd
love to know what they're saying.'

'I'd love to know what Megan's saying back,'
Georgie replied. 'I nearly died when she spat that gum
out at Shyan. She has grown balls, I swear it.'

'I'll tell you what's grown. Her eyeballs,' I add.
'They're humungous.'

'Yeah.' Georgie slapped the water. 'I noticed that too.'

'Hey, she's putting on her leg rope,' I announced. 'I
think. She's bending down doing something. No. No,
she's standing up again.'

'Hmm, I wonder what she's up to.' Georgie's
mission was to be one step ahead of Megan. 'She's
pretty confident. Do you reckon she's pulling some
stunt to try and make us lose focus? You know how like
sometimes Kelly Slater doesn't turn up for a contest
until the absolute last second?'

'I don't know,' I answered. 'But aren't we meant to
be acting like a team? Isn't that the whole reason we're
here?'

Micki had been so quiet. I wasn't sure if she'd been
listening but then she mumbled, 'You wouldn't want to
be in a team with her.'

'I don't know about that, Micki. She's training hard
and taking it seriously,' Georgie said. 'But it's turned
her into a psycho.'

A new set was lifting out of the horizon. Georgie
began to spin around. I lay down and got ready too.

'I think she's taking drugs.' Micki spoke again just as
Georgie began to paddle.

'What!' Georgie shouted behind her. 'How would
you know?'

Micki muttered something but I didn't hear it 'cause
I was following Georgie's call.

Georgie could pick a wave for the taking even with
her eyes closed. She reckoned it was the sound they
made. This instinct of hers used to really piss me off.
Now, well, now I tried not to take it personally.

Two blonde hairs still clung to the page where I'd written
about arriving at Kia's. I'd found them on Monday afternoon
just before Georgie came back from meeting Jules.
The strange thing was, I made my discovery just as
Georgie's mobile rang for the first time. It was Ace
calling, the owner of the hairs. There was no way I could
answer it.

Last Saturday, when I rolled up my sleeping bag, I
noticed that my diary wasn't way down the bottom
where it usually was. I thought it'd probably been
shoved or kicked out of place, 'cause everyone had to
step over my sleeping bag to get in and out of Kia's
room. That's why I rolled it up every day, in case one of
the girls trod on it and got curious.

That must've been what happened. Ace went back
to the house before us. She must've stepped on it. It's
not like she would've gone looking for it. Was it?

I was trying really, really hard to keep it together.
But this felt as bad as I'd always imagined it would.
Finding out that someone has been through your diary
is like being turned inside out. Suddenly this person
has a totally different view of you because they've seen
the things they weren't mean to see: your most private,
private thoughts. Now they know every layer of you
and every space in between: your fears and fantasies,
your darkest secrets, every little tiny bit of you. There is
even worse to come because now they can spread that
information to other people.

If I found a diary, would I read it? Or would I put it
back knowing that it wasn't for me to see? Reading
someone's diary is a low thing to do. Maybe even the
lowest. It isn't the sort of thing you do to a friend, especially
a special friend.

But had Ace and I really ever had that type of
friendship?

Now I felt like I'd been fooling myself. Us four had
held hands and made pacts and promises. We'd sworn
loyalty and friendship. But that was back then, when
we were the Starfish Sisters and I was Miss Micki.
Stupid, stupid Miss Micki, thinking I could be like
everybody else.

Kia came bursting into the kitchen.

'You're not meant to be in here!' Brian shouted.
'Micki's on lunch duty. Not you.'

'I just have to tell Micki something. I'll be quick, I
promise.'

I was carefully drying the salad leaves 'cause Brian
said I had to 'pat' them, not 'wipe' them or they'd
bruise. Part of me wanted say, 'Brian, go shove this
lettuce up your arse. If the biggest drama in your life is
bruised lettuce leaves then you're doing okay.'

But I didn't like that part of me. I'd met enough kids
at support groups to understand that bitterness and
anger was only around the corner. The I-hate-everyone-
because-my-life's-not-like-yours disease was
easy for kids like me to come down with.

I had worked hard to stay free of that disease. Yet
thanks to Ace, I could feel it now, just footsteps behind
me. I wanted it to go away. But how?

Not even the sure cure of surfing had worked. In
this morning's expression session, I'd done a doughnut
then nosedived into the wave and got badly chundered
around like a sock in the wash. Not even that beat it out
of me.

I could hear the change in my voice. I could feel how
hard my face had become. I could sense how silent I
was being and I knew Georgie and Kia sensed it too.

'Oh, Brian, you have to save Georgie's lunch for her,'
Kia told him.

'Why?'

She began to giggle. 'Because she's got an engagement.'

Brian opened his mouth to complain but Kia got in
first. 'Carla knows about it.'

'Tell her it'll be in the dining room,' he said. 'And tell
her to wash up afterwards.'

'Micki?'

'What?'

'Don't you want to know what Georgie's engagement
is?'

'Um?'

'She's giving Jules a surfing lesson. Right now.'

'Out, Kia.' Brian shooed me away. 'You've delivered
your message, off you go.'

'Go and spy on them.' I forced my voice to sound
lighter around Kia.

She hadn't been the one to read my diary. Neither
had Georgie. But I had a feeling that Georgie knew my
stuff now. The way she'd sat on my bed and squeezed
my foot while asking me about Dad made my antennae
spring up on high alert. But was that because I knew
what Ace had done? It was hard not to jump to conclusions
and get paranoid.

I hated anyone – the neighbours or the teachers,
anyone – even asking me how Dad was. At least in that
situation I could make up my own story. But if Georgie
already knew the answer then what could I say back?

Georgie did know. It was obvious. I saw her trying
to whisper something to Kia at breakfast. When I asked
what the secret was, Georgie went bright red and
wiggled around in her chair.

Just say Georgie had already asked Kia? Just say Kia
was like, 'The truth's out now, I might as well tell her
everything'? Right now, Georgie was probably out in
the surf telling Jules. She'd be saying –

'Micki!'

I had dropped the salad bowl. Tiny pieces of glass
scattered all over the floor.

'Don't move,' instructed Brian. 'You'll crunch glass
all through the kitchen.'

'I'm so sorry, Brian.'

'Accidents happen. Don't worry. Megan just about
chopped her hand off this morning. You're just out of
practice. You probably haven't had a tea towel in your
hand since you were here last.'

My new best friends, my tears, bubbled up and
exploded from my eyes and again I couldn't stop them.

I bolted out the kitchen door and along the
walkways across the lawns and into the Starfish
Bungalow.

There was only one way to stop this. I had managed
to protect myself all these years. Lies, lies, hundreds of
them I'd told. And now everyone knew!

I roared as I charged towards my bed, my hands
grabbing at the pillow, tearing off its pink spotted case.
My diary dive-bombed to the ground.

I threw myself on it, clawing at the pages as I ripped
them from the spine. All the pathetic words of my
pathetic life scattered and skipped across the floor.

'Micki!' Kia's voice came hurtling through the room.
'Micki! What are you doing?'

'I hate my life!' I choked. 'I hate, hate' – at each 'hate'
I tore out another page – 'hate my life.'

Kia wrestled me to the ground. My arms and legs
flapped and kicked but she managed to hold me firmly
until I stopped shouting and started to breathe.

'That's right, Micki,' she whispered. 'Breathe. In and
out. In and out. Just make it to the next minute. The
pain will start to go. It's okay. It's okay.'

There was a gentle tapping on the door of the
bungalow. It snapped me to my feet. I'd heard that
thoughtful 'Don't want to interfere but is everything all
right?' knock on the door at home many times.

'Yes, thank you. Everything's fine,' I would say to
the nosey lady across the street.

But I couldn't play that here because Ace had ruined
the game.

Kia tiptoed over to the door, opening it enough to
stick her head out. I paced around listening to voices,
all female, whispering on the other side.

Kia shut the door and without a word came up to
me, took my hand and guided me into bed. I let her too
'cause I suddenly felt so tired.

'Come on,' she said, squeezing in next to me
and puffing the doona around us. 'It was just Carla and
Shyan. They said we can do our evaluation later.'

'Did they ask what was wrong?'

'No,' answered Kia. 'They just wanted to know if
you were okay.'

'Carla and Jake know,' I said and yawned, 'about my
dad.'

'Shh. It's okay.'

I snuggled into Kia's shoulder. My eyelids felt like
they had giant weights on top of them.

'You still want to come and live with us, don't you?'

'Yes. I do.'

'What happened? Just then?'

'I lost it,' I whispered. 'I snapped.'

'Don't worry,' Kia said. 'I used to do that all the
time.'

'You're a natural, Jules!'

'Yeah?'

'At surfing, I mean. Actually, you're really a goofy
'cause you put your left foot in front,' I explained.
'Natural footers surf with their right one in front.'

'What are you?'

'I'm a natural, of course, sweetie!'

'Whatever you are, you're an awesome instructor,
Georgie,' Jules said. 'Or as you guys say, a "heaps good"
instructor.'

Jules and I were walking back along the beach. The
gooey sand felt cold as it oozed between my toes. We'd
had to surf down the southern end of Coolina, almost
in front of the rock, 'cause Jake said I wasn't allowed to
take Jules out in front because that was reserved for
elite surf institute surfers only. La-di-da!

For a second I'd contemplated arguing with Jake.
Number one, how would anyone know that Jules
wasn't from here? He looked fit enough. But just as I
was coming up with number two, I realised that it was
better for everyone, namely me, if we surfed as far
away as possible.

Imagine Megan spotting us! She'd be out there
snaking and hassling us on the waves. She'd be shouting
out rude things to Jules like she did that night at the
sushi-train restaurant. It would be totally humiliating.

And if Kia and Micki got the bright idea to paddle
out and join us they'd probably turn into giggling
idiots, which'd make Jules think that because I was
their friend I was a giggling idiot too.

The south end of Coolina beach didn't have the
beautiful long peeling left that the north end had but
there was still heaps of fun to be had out there. Jules
wasn't too bad. He'd ridden the first couple of waves
on his knees. Then he got nailed over and over for
about the next twenty minutes. But he hung in there
and didn't give up. By the end he was on his feet. No
turns or anything but he was heaps stoked.

'I want to get tubed or barrelled as you guys say.' He
was talking fast. 'Ace reckons it's the best feeling ever.'

'She's right. It's unbelievable,' I replied. 'The first
time you're so scared but so pumped and excited. I
remember I had my eyes closed, like squeezed really
tight closed. Then I opened them and I was inside this
green tunnel of water and I could see this little hole at
the end that I had to squeeze out of. Getting barrelled is
like everything they say it is.'

'Wow.' Jules was smiling. 'Even when you were
talking about it your face was like, I don't know, lit up
or something.'

'Was it?'

'I get that adrenaline rush if I'm pitching really well.'

'Yeah? I don't know much about baseball.'

'But you know what I'm talking about. It's when
your heart starts thumping and –'

'Yeah, and the hairs on your skin are standing up to
attention,' I said. 'When I play soccer –'

'Hey! Do you play soccer?'

'
Did
play soccer,' I corrected myself. 'I had to choose
between that and surfing. Surfing won. I preferred the
outfit, you see. Looks beautiful on me, doesn't it?'

Jules was grinning and nodding. 'Seriously, do you
miss playing soccer?'

'I still play a bit for fun. But yeah, I do miss it. Heaps
sometimes.'

'Is it odd competing for yourself, you know, after
being in a team?' When Jules spoke to you, he really,
really looked at your face. It was distracting. It meant
I had to concentrate on every word he said in case I
slipped into a Jules trance. 'I only know team sport.
That's all I've ever played. Sometimes I wonder what
it'd be like being out there on your own.'

'Yeah. I had to forget the "there's no 'I' in team" line,'
I laughed.

He nudged me with his shoulder. 'You don't strike
me as an "it's all about me" kind of girl.'

'I had to learn it. That was the big breakthrough for
me last camp. Ace helped me. She was great.'

'I bet she was.' But just as I felt those words slice my
insides Jules said, 'She hasn't got the personality for
team sport.'

Now I was too scared to look at his face. Did I want
to hear the sting in his voice? Had I imagined it? Or did
I hear it because it was there?

'So now I think of my opponents as a team.' The best
thing to do was to stop thinking and keep talking. 'I'm
one team and they're another team. When I played
soccer our absolute enemies were the Coolangatta Cats.
We hated them and they were hard to beat. So I think of
this girl, Megan, like she's one of the Cats. I don't like
her as a person; she's seriously not nice. But I admire
her. She's got big talent and she's so gutsy. I love
competing against her. She makes me want to win all
the more.'

'Do you think you make her feel like that?'

'Doubt it,' I answered. 'Megan's pretty cocky. But
she's got a reason to be.'

Jules was nodding. 'But you need someone like that
to bring the fire out in you.'

As the camp buildings came into view he slowed his
walk. Or did I?

'Georgie, can we go out again tomorrow?'

'I can try,' I answered. 'It depends what the schedule
is. We're not guaranteed a free surfing session every
day. It feels a lot stricter this time.'

'Can you do it at lunchtime again?'

'What's this, an enforced diet?' I joked.

'No way!' Jules laughed. 'You're not obsessed about
everything you put in your mouth like Ace, are you?'

'Do I look like I am?'

'You're good,' Jules told me. 'I'd say you're perfect.'

Did he just say I was perfect?

'I'm not into skinny girls,' he said. 'When I'm
visiting the States I see girls that are either really, really
skinny or really, really fat.'

I wasn't totally comfortable with where this conversation
was going. At the same time I had a sick curiosity
to take it further. Maybe Jules would tell me exactly
what he meant when he'd said I was 'perfect'. Was it
because I wasn't some scrawn bag? But then I hated
it when people said I was cuddly. Because I wasn't. I
was big framed; that's different to being cuddly.

'So, um, what do you think about the girls here, in
Australia?' I pried.

'They're probably more like the girls from home.'

'From Canada, you mean?'

'That's where I call home.'

'Do you miss it?'

'I do at the moment,' Jules answered. 'It's summer
holidays there. All my friends are partying, going away.
Every day there's a new story about something crazy
they've been up to.'

'And you wish you were there?'

'I do, but then I wanted this. I wanted to come to
Australia. I mean, how cool.'

'But it's not home,' I told him.

'It's not home.' Jules stopped walking and started
doing some squats. Up down, up down. I stood there
waiting for him to finish. Random!

'Sorry,' he said and laughed. 'There's a bit of chafing
going on. Probably 'cause I'm in a chick's wetsuit.'

'Too much information,' I muttered under my
breath.

He grinned back.

I had purposely given Jules my spring wetsuit to
wear and kept my winter one for myself. Mostly, it was
'cause I wanted to cover my legs but also my spring suit
was a size smaller. My wettie being baggy on Jules was
more than my self-esteem could take.

'Haven't you got a cossie on underneath?' I asked,
trying to swallow the giggles that were creeping up my
throat. Jules looked ridiculous bending up and down
like a total unco.

'Do I look like I'm doing ballet?' Jules said, doing
embarrassingly stupid arm movements.

'Really, really bad ballet.'

'I was wearing boxers but I took them off. Not such a
good idea, huh? Next time I'll keep them on. I promise.'

Next time. Next time? What was that meant to
mean?

So many things were different about camp. For a start,
it didn't look as pretty but that was 'cause it was winter
and it was like seeing everything through grey goggles.
There was the obvious difference: Ace not being here.
The disastrous one, which was Megan living in the
Starfish Bungalow. The serious one, in that it was
much, much stricter. To be truthful, I was even missing
Jake's bad jokes. And the quietness. I didn't even know
how to describe that.

In January this place had been chock-a-block with
girls shouting, laughing, singing, running up and
down the walkways, visiting one another's bungalows.
But now it was quiet. Like, so quiet that the silence was
echoing through the corridor, making it 'loud quiet' if
there was such a thing.

'Hello?' I popped my head into the dining room.
The only thing in there was my lunch, covered in
plastic wrap, and a note that said 'Please wash, dry and
return plate to kitchen.'

I took my sandwich and wandered down the
corridor.

'Hello?' I called again.

The timetable had said '2 pm – 4 pm skills evaluation/video/discussion. Meeting Room 4'.

But it was 2.35 pm and no one was in meeting
room 4. Or 1, 2 or 3.

I went back to the timetable pinned up outside the
dining room to check I'd read it properly.

'Georgie?'

Carla came out of the kitchen with two cups of what
smelt like hot chocolate.

'Don't you know where you're meant to be, darl?'

'Well, it says meeting room 4 but no one's there.'

Slowly I walked along with Carla as she balanced
the steaming drinks.

'They didn't leave a note?' she asked.

'Who?'

'Jake was going to put a note on the door to say they
were in the gym.'

'Okay.'

'How was your student?' she asked me with a tiny
smirk.

'He stood up,' I answered. Surely I could talk about
my friend's boyfriend without the tomato face making
an appearance. But it didn't feel like it!

Carla and I stopped outside the entrance to the gym.
Inside, Megan bellowed in time with the clunk of a
weight machine. I took a deep breath and told myself it
was good Megan was here. As Jules said, I need
'someone like that'. She pushed me to be a better surfer.
It was just a bummer that she pushed me when we
were out of the surf as well.

'Have you been up to the bungalow?' Carla asked me.

'No. I got changed in the surf shed. Too much of a
trek going up and down all the time.'

Carla stood by the double glass doors. 'Can you
open them for me, Georgie?'

'Sure.'

Carla stepped out and chucked a left towards the
walkway to the bungalows. It seemed odd that she'd be
taking the cleaners a drink each. She was always
complaining that either they were slack or we were too
messy.

But when I went into the gym to find only Megan
and Jake, it suddenly seemed more than odd that Carla
was heading up there with two cups of hot chocolate.

'Where are the others?' I asked Jake.

'Your Starfish Sisters?' Megan answered. 'They've
abandoned you.'

'Get stuffed, Megan.'

'They'll be down soon,' Jake said as he passed me a
set of hand weights. 'Okay, fifteen of the upper body
repetitions, three sets, thirty-second break between
each set.'

'Aye, aye, captain,' I replied.

'Shyan spotted a shark right out the front of here,'
Megan and her freaky eyeballs told me. 'She pissed her
pants and paddled straight back in. I wonder if she
counts pissing in the water as environmentally
unfriendly?'

'Give it a rest, Megan,' Jake snapped.

At least now Megan was pissing Jake off.

'Was there really a shark?' I asked Jake.

'Shyan didn't get a good look at it. She saw the fin
and was out of there.'

'Scary.'

'I was just reminding Megan about the new shark
rule in case it visits us again.'

'I know it,' I told him. 'You wave your hands and
point at the water.'

'And paddle in to shore,' Jake said.

'Quickly,' I added.

Through the far window you could see the small
section of walkway that led from our bungalow. I
watched it, waiting for Kia's and Micki's heads to
appear.

I did my three sets of upper body work with exactly
thirty seconds' rest in between, but still no sign of
them. Next I climbed onto the bike for forty minutes'
cardio training. By 13:09 minutes in, I realised Micki
and Kia were going to be a no show.

For the entire time Megan had not shut up. If she
wasn't talking she was groaning; if she wasn't groaning
she was singing; if she wasn't singing she was talking –
on and on and on it went until I wanted to gag her
with my shoes. The only reason I didn't was because
her mouth was full of gum and my trainers were
brand new.

So I had nothing left to do but think about my surf
with Jules. It was going to be tricky taking him out
again but maybe I could make an arrangement with
Carla. I'd use the angle that Jules was an elite sportsman
and it was good experience for me teaching
someone like him how to surf.

Really, I didn't hold out much hope. In fact, I held
none. Carla'd even said to me, 'This is a one off,
Georgie, don't make me regret it.' Then she'd explained
the only reason she was letting me go for a surf with
him at all was because she'd met Jules in January at the
end of camp and knew he was a solid citizen. Plus,
she'd added, 'He's Ace's boyfriend. It's not like you'll
be getting up to anything. I wouldn't be letting Ace go!'

What that meant was that Ace couldn't be trusted
with the opposite sex or rather the opposite sex couldn't
be trusted with Ace. But me? No! It was a totally different
situation for Georgie, the eternal spinster or maybe
even a candidate for the convent. A boy, be tempted by
Georgie? What a ridiculous thought!

'Hey, Georgie, you and the bike are going to fly out
the window if you don't slow down!'

'Huh?'

I looked up. Jake was standing at the handlebars.
The sweat was dripping off my face and hair.

'You're going to blow a valve, girl,' he said.

'Sorry. Just got carried away.'