The Protected (3 page)

FIVE

Names the Clones called me:

* Pig dog

* Lesbian

* Lesbefriends

* Han the man

* Smart-arse bitch

PE. My own personal hell. My reasons for hating PE are far too many to list here, but you can probably guess the basics: the uniform, the change rooms, the fact that on dry land I have the coordination of a brain-damaged, three-legged baby cow.

I've hated PE since kindergarten, when we had to do a ridiculous exercise called The Barrel. The teacher would stand this big plastic barrel up and the kids would gather around it, holding it to keep it steady. Then each kid, one at a time, would be put in the barrel. The idea was you had to try to get back out by somehow climbing up the sides and hoisting yourself out of the top. You did this while the others laughed and occasionally pinched the backs of your hands while the teacher wasn't looking. The whole thing seemed designed to torment students, rather than actually teach them anything. Like, at least if you don't learn anything else at school, if you ever get trapped in a barrel, you'll know how to get out. I understand that it was supposed to be fun and character building or something, but when I was five the whole barrel exercise was scary to the point I never wanted to go to school on PE day.

Ten years later I still get the same twist in my stomach at the start of every PE lesson, when we all have to sit on the basketball courts while the teacher reveals what variety of humiliation we are about to be subjected to. Going from the darkly familiar shape of the equipment bags that lie before us, it seems today's special treat is cricket. I pray my team will be fielding.

‘Listen up, guys!' Ms Thorne bellows. ‘There's some information you need to hear about next week's program.'

Further along from me sit Tara Metcalf and Amy Brooks. They both wear tiny shorts that blur the line between underwear and outerwear and sit with their legs outstretched so the guys can get a really clear view. They are discussing how pale they are, despite both of them having smooth golden skin.

Ms Thorne stops talking and looks at them pointedly. They are oblivious.

‘Amy, Tara, is there something you'd like to share?'

Ms Thorne is about five foot tall and the colour of a nicely roasted chicken. She used to be a sprinter and was headed for the Olympics until an injury forced her to retire to teaching. That's how the story goes anyway. Tara especially likes to ask her lots of questions about her sprinting career, punctuated loudly with comments like, ‘Wow, miss, you must have been really fit before you were a teacher. Like, you must have been heaps skinny before.'

Now, Tara smiles and says, ‘Sorry, miss!' in a sing-song voice.

Ms Thorne narrows her eyes but continues.
‘The swimming carnival is coming up in six weeks' time,' she says.

No, no, no, no.

‘You will all be swimming. Starting next week we will be heading to the pool to train. I'll have the sheet then, so you can sign up for your events.'

I will not be heading to the pool to train. They can expel me, they can do what they like. But I will not be heading to the pool.

And here I was thinking I'd never have to get out of that barrel again.

***

We grouped up at the end of the lane, caps and goggles off, hair slick from the water, steam playing on the pool surface. Our coach called out the names of people who'd improved their PB times at that morning's training session. For the first time in six months my name was on the list. Katie wrapped her slippery fish arms around my neck and jumped on my back. ‘Span-nah! Smashing it.'

Later in the change rooms she was as effortless as usual getting ready for school. She stood in her bra and undies, talking to the other girls by the fogged-up mirror. Her long hair hung over one shoulder and she untangled it with her fingers. I retreated to a toilet cubicle – towel wrapped around me – to change into my school uniform.

I don't know how we could have come from the same parents. Katie never appeared to try. She could wear a garbage bag and it would look like a well-executed fashion statement. I, on the other hand, was usually running late because I had spent fifteen minutes trying to get my hair right, as if going to school with a different hairstyle would change everything. Like they would turn their heads and stare at me as I walked down the corridor. My God, Tara Metcalf would think. How could I have not noticed how unbelievably cool Hannah McCann is? Look at her incredibly awesome hair!

Once dressed I ventured out of the toilet cubicle and started to sort out my hair. I was almost satisfied with it and halfway believing I might just make it through the day without an ‘incident' when Katie stopped her conversation and sighed in a way that was more performative than it needed to be.

‘Step away from the hairbrush, Hannah. Am I going to have to confiscate it?'

She strode over to me, wrestled the brush from
my hand and threw it – a bit melodramatically in my opinion – over her shoulder. She pushed my head forwards and proceeded to violently mess up my hair.

‘Got to admit,' she said, ‘I can understand why you struggle with this.' She pulled my head back again, took an elastic from her wrist and performed a quick, complex movement which resulted in my hair being anchored in a messy knot on the top of my head.

‘There.'

‘Now I just look like everyone else.'

She patted me like you would an obedient dog. ‘Exactly.'

The others trickled out of the change rooms until it was just Katie and me. She leant over the basin, mouth slightly open and applied mascara to her long eyelashes.

‘How's Jensen?' I asked her in my most carefully casual voice.

‘You tell Mum and Dad about him and I will kill you. I will. In your sleep probably.'

‘Obviously … he's not at school, is he?'

‘No Hannah, he's not at school. He's nineteen.'

‘Nineteen?'

‘Shhh!'

‘He's nineteen?'

‘Yeah. He's nineteen.'

‘What? Is he at uni?'

‘Yes. Modern American literature. Or something.'

I knew it. I laughed. ‘What do you talk about?'

She gave me a look. ‘Some of us don't have to spend all our time talking.'

***

The short walk home from the bus stop feels like a marathon in the oven-dry air. There is the distant sound of sirens on the highway. I let my shoes scuff on the asphalt and watch the little grey pebbles scatter. A car turns onto our street, I feel it approach and slow down, the pulse of music thudding from the stereo. I look over expecting it to be a P-plater. But it is my grandmother's pink hatchback. She stops next to me, lowers the window. The throaty wail of Dolly Parton floats from her car: ‘Jolene! Jolene!'

‘Hannah!' As if she should be the one to be surprised to see me. ‘In you hop.' It is literally fifty metres to my house. ‘Come on!'

I walk to the passenger door and get in.

She reaches over and turns down the stereo. ‘How about this dreadful heat! It's a disgrace,' she says, as if there is someone to be blamed. I notice the back seat laden with grocery bags.

‘Thought I would drop some things over. Help your mum out. Was going to come Saturday, but your dad said …' She waved her hand instead of using words to finish.

Over the past few months Nanna has made a habit of randomly turning up with groceries and doing things around the house like cleaning the toilet and vacuuming. At first she was nothing but warm and supportive toward my mother. But at some point the expiry date for accepted grief passed and Mum's behaviour has slipped from natural to indulgent in Nanna's eyes. She's troubled that our house hasn't returned to its former
Vogue Living
standard. My mother has lost her passion for finding the perfect throw cushion and to Nanna this is equivalent to losing the will to live. Her remedy is frozen meals and Mr Sheen.

In case it isn't obvious, Nanna is my mother's mother. I have no idea how old she is as her appearance hasn't changed in my lifetime. I have never seen a grey hair on her head or her fingernails unlacquered. She is the sort of person who takes other people's lack of grooming as a personal affront. There is nothing that can't be achieved, in her opinion, with the right hairstyle and a well-ironed pants suit.

She turns into our driveway and parks the car. She looks over at me, lips pursed.

‘Well, how is she?' Meaning my mother.

‘The same.'

Nanna sighs and opens her door. ‘Have you had your colours done yet?' she asks, referring to the gift voucher she got me for a session with a colour consultant whose job is to tell you what season your complexion is and how to dress accordingly. Nanna is evangelical in her attitude toward the practice.

‘No.'

‘You should, it will make the world of difference.'

Inside, the house is as quiet as if it were empty. Nanna bustles past me and down the hallway.

‘Yoo-hoo! Paula!'

‘She might be asleep, Nan,' I say. But then this possibility is the very reason Nanna is here. She lets herself into Mum's bedroom and I hear Mum raising her voice. I start unpacking the groceries. A few minutes later Nanna re-emerges.

‘She's not doing anyone any favours carrying on like this,' she mutters. She pulls a bottle of disinfectant from the cupboard and heads for the bathroom.

I should point out that Nanna isn't intentionally callous. It's not that she doesn't mourn for her eldest granddaughter. Nanna adored Katie. She loved her sharp remarks and her attitude and the fact that she carefully plucked her eyebrows. But she believes in proactivity as if it were a religion. It's like she has decided that crying is a waste of time because it won't achieve anything. Or maybe her grief is an energy that she just doesn't know how to deal with, so she has channelled everything into getting Mum back on track.

When the bathroom is presumably back to hospital standards of cleanliness, Nanna raps sharply on my bedroom door and lets herself in. She finds me sitting on the floor, reading.

‘That a schoolbook?' she asks, suspicion in her voice.

‘Um. No.'

She raises her left eyebrow. ‘Do you have homework?'

‘Not really.'

‘You're not a very good liar, Hannah.'

‘Sorry.'

She throws a small pink box onto my bed. ‘I got you those. Wax strips. For your legs, you'll find it better than shaving.'

It's that – not Katie's photos or her empty bedroom or the spare seat at the dinner table – it's that small moment that pulls a lump into my throat.

SIX

Items I needed to replace after high school started:

* School shirts (x 4)

* Backpack (stolen)

* Pencil case (vandalised)

* Phone (screen smashed)

The fruit is bullet hard and bursts in a cold fright between my shoulders. It is recess, I am on my way to my spot when it hits me, the shock of it halts me there in the middle of the yard. I turn around in time to see Josh's face freeze when he realises he's hit the wrong target. There are a few laughs and then silence. Tara and Charlotte are standing not far away talking to a year twelve guy. Tara's mouth drops open and she tries to stop herself from laughing. Charlotte just looks worried. I stand there stunned for a few seconds, I feel my stomach turn and my pulse starts to thud in my temples. I turn and walk quickly to the toilet block. Everyone's eyes are on me but no one says a word. I rush into a cubicle and lock the door behind me as all my breath escapes from my lungs. I close my eyes and crouch down low to the ground. Soon the bell sounds, signalling the end of recess and I hear the rabble of voices and feet scuffs as everyone else moves on the current to third period. But I am stuck, caught there, crouched low with my knees to my chin as I feel the juice seep through my white shirt. Eventually I reach around and touch the goo on my back. It is plum, I'm pretty sure. My history class is probably starting a discussion on the downfall of the Russian Empire. But I can't move.

There are footsteps. ‘Hannah? Hannah? It's Ms Thorne.' Her voice is on the other side of the door. ‘Charlotte said something happened. Are you okay? I'm here with Anne, the counsellor. Sweetie, there's no one else here. Can you open the door? We just want to help you out. Are you okay?'

‘I'm okay,' I whisper.

I hear Anne. ‘Hannah, we just need to see that you're okay. Otherwise I might have to kick down the door and I'm not sure I'm up for that. I've got my good shoes on.'

My legs wobble as I stand. I turn the lock on the door and let it swing open.

‘Good work, Hannah,' says Ms Thorne.

Anne puts her hand on my shoulder. ‘Come up and have a chat?'

I nod.

She makes me a cup of tea. ‘Chamomile,' she says. ‘French for camel piss because, let's face it, that's what it tastes like. Better for you than caffeine, though.'

I sip the tea.

Anne sits down. ‘What happened?'

Katie is there, of course.
Yeah, Hannah? Because from my perspective, a cute guy giving you any sort of attention has got to be a good thing.

I can't get my breathing right. I close my eyes.

‘Hannah, can you open your eyes? Look at that picture on the wall. Tell me about it.'

I can't get the information from the picture to translate into words.

‘You don't even have to use a sentence, just list what you see.'

‘Blue, um, water, sky, sand.'

‘Okay. Can you take a slow breath in, while I count? One, two, three, four, five. And out for five.'

She counts and I try to do what she says.

‘We're going to do that three more times.'

I breathe while she counts and I can feel the fizz behind my forehead settle.

‘You were having a panic attack, Hannah,' she says. ‘It's okay, there's nothing wrong with you. That's what we're programmed to do when we feel threatened, basic flight or fight response. It's the reason humans still exist, it stopped us all getting eaten by saber-toothed tigers. That's why you get chest pain, increase in heart rate, feel tingly in your arms and hands, it's the blood moving to your muscles so you're ready to run. That's all.'

‘Okay.'

‘You can override it. Next time I want you to take a few minutes, keep your eyes open if you can. Then you need to take some very slow deep breaths, breaths right into your diaphragm. Here.' She lays her flat palm on her stomach and closes her eyes. ‘When you breathe in you should feel your hand move, that's your diaphragm pushing your stomach out. That controlled breathing is going to help switch the adrenaline response off, help you think more clearly. Stop the panic.

‘I have to do a few things in my office. I'm going to let you sit here and practise slowing that breathing down.'

She disappears for about ten minutes and then comes back with an armful of manila folders. She sits down and starts sorting through them, putting piles on the floor.

‘Can I ask what you like to do? Any hobbies?' She keeps her focus on the folders as if it's just a casual conversation and she's not going to analyse my response.

‘There's nothing really. Anymore.'

‘What did you used to like to do?'

I swallow. ‘Swim.'

‘Good. Where do you like to swim? Ultimate destination: beach or pool?'

‘Either. Anywhere. I just, I like being in the water.'

‘Have you been swimming lately?'

I close my eyes and shake my head.

‘No, Hannah. Open your eyes. Come on, stay with me. Open them.'

I take a deep breath and do as she tells me.

‘We don't have to talk about that. We'll come back to it. What else do you like to do?'

I shrug my shoulders and she smiles and shrugs her shoulders back at me.

‘What's something you do a lot?'

Another deep breath. ‘I like to make lists.'

Anne widens her eyes. ‘Oooh good. What do you make lists of?'

I look at the carpet. ‘Just … stuff.'

‘Stuff, hey?'

‘Do you think it's a problem that I do that? Like, is there something … wrong with me?'

‘No, I don't think there's something wrong with you. Do you make lists obsessively? Like are you always listing things in your head? Do you feel anxious and making lists is the only thing that makes you feel better?'

I shake my head.

‘Then it's probably a good thing. Maybe it's helping you process things.'

‘Okay.'

‘Now. It's going to be the end of the period soon. I'm going to go and find you another shirt from lost property. Your job is to sit here and breathe. Then, when you feel ready you can go to your next class, okay?'

I agree because I know today it won't get any worse. And I am right. When I walk into Biology class Tara looks up but no one says a word about me. No one hands me a note with a drawing of something obscene. No one even makes a comment about me being in the girls' toilets with Ms Thorne.

Later my dad pulls the shirt out of the dirty clothes basket and holds it at arm's length.

‘Han? What happened?' he asks.

It's the first time something like this has happened since Katie died.

‘It was an accident.'

That is true. It was an accident. The fruit wasn't meant for me.

‘Did someone do this? Did something get thrown at you?' He looks at the shirt. ‘Obviously someone threw something at you. Who? Who was it?'

‘Just some guy … He didn't mean to hit me.'

‘I thought school was going okay.'

‘It is. It's nothing, Dad. It was an accident.'

***

I wish I could rewind and start high school again, go back and do things differently – just small, seemingly insignificant things. Details. I'm not talking about what happened to Katie, either. The worst thing that could happen would be for my life to go back to how it was before Katie died. That fact is a horrible silent thing that hangs in my head and seeps into everything like thick black silt.

Before the accident it was nearly every day that I'd have to sneak into the laundry and scrub food or pen marks from my shirt. I would tell Mum I got paint on them in art class.

But there's always someone at the bottom of the pile isn't there?

From the moment you walk through the front gates of a school you are judged. Assessments of your worth are made by your peers and once they are made you can't shift them. We are meat-eating pack animals, us humans. The weakest are identified and when food is scarce they are the first to be eaten by their peers.

Both Katie and Mum gave me a pep talk the night before I started high school. Mum was first. She sat next to me on my bed.

‘Hannah, I know you're nervous, but you have to think of this as the first part of a wonderful adventure.'

She handed me a flat square box. I opened it and inside was a scrapbook that she'd covered in vintage floral fabric. She'd screen-printed ‘Schooldays' on the front cover. On the first page, in her florid handwriting were the words: ‘The best person you can be is yourself'. I didn't know there was an alternative. Each blank page had a stamped border, ready for me to fill with wonderful memories of high school.

She put her arm around me. ‘I still keep in touch with my high school friends. Everything you need you will find in here.' She pointed to my heart. ‘You just have to be willing to give. So proud of you, honey.'

Next up was Katie. She closed the door after Mum left.

‘Hannah. You have to know it's not personal, right? But from the time we leave the house in the morning, until we come home in the afternoon, I don't know you.'

‘What? Why?'

She sighed and rolled her eyes. ‘Because, you will be a year sevener, as in automatic loser. Like, total toxic dweebsville loser. I have worked hard to establish myself and I don't need you coming and screwing it all up. Like I said, it's not personal. Oh and when you get to school, first thing you need to do is roll your skirt at the waistband to make it shorter. And make sure you shave your legs and pits.'

‘But it's blonde hair, Katie. You can't even see it.'

‘It's not negotiable.' She handed me a razor.

I didn't know how to do it. I certainly didn't know you were supposed to wet your skin and use soap to lather it up. So I stood in the middle of my bedroom and dragged the razor over my dry skin. I nicked the back of my ankles, the back of my knees, the front of my knees. Bright red blood trickled down my pale legs. Fighting tears, I blotted at it with tissues and my skin got all raised and bumpy so it looked like I had a horrible rash.

Mum drove Charlotte and me to school the next day, partly for the ceremonial aspect, partly because I spent the night throwing up with nerves. (Katie refused to come with us, saying she didn't want people to know we were related.) Mum stopped amongst the clot of cars out the front of the school. There were parents fawning over their kids like they were marching off to war. She jumped out, holding the camera and made us stand in front of the gates while she took multiple pictures from various angles before she let us go.

Despite our best efforts to appear as sophisticated as possible, the damage was already done by the fact that, as Katie predicted, my skirt was about thirty centimetres longer than everyone else's (it did mostly hide the disaster that was my legs, however) and my backpack made me look like a turtle. My dad had insisted that I buy the school-issue backpack with its fifteen pockets and night-safe reflector patches. (Did it not occur to the designers that school finished at three in the afternoon?)

I plastered on a smile and waved to Mum as she drove away.

‘I need to go to the toilet,' I said.

Charlotte must have heard the waver in my voice because she put her arm around me and steered me towards the girls' toilets. I left my backpack with her and went inside. The smell of body spray was so strong it stung the back of my throat. There were girls clustered around the mirror, straining and leaning over each other, fixing their hair, smearing gloss over their lips. One of them was tall with long blonde hair like in a shampoo commercial and she looked over to me when I walked in. That was the first time I met Tara Metcalf. It's actually stupid to say that I met her, because meeting someone is supposed to mean you introduce yourselves in a civil sort of manner. Tara didn't introduce herself, she just looked at me as if I was some sort of alien that she found both repulsive and really uncool.

I went into a cubicle and rolled my skirt the way Katie had told me. When I came out Tara and a girl with a pixie haircut were talking to Charlotte. It's worth pointing out that Charlotte didn't have to shorten her skirt because her mum had a way better idea of what was cool than mine. She'd also given Charlotte more detailed leg-shaving instructions. Charlotte was smiling and laughing like they were the friendliest people she had ever met.

‘Oh, Hannah! There you are,' she said. ‘This is Tara and Amy.'

Tara and Amy both made a face that looked as though they were trying to smile while someone was stabbing them with hot pins. They turned back to Charlotte and kept talking like I wasn't even there. I didn't know what to do, so I just stood next to Charlotte like some stupid, loyal pet and waited for them to finish. Luckily the bell rang. I picked up my backpack and made to leave, Charlotte kept talking with them.

‘Um, Charlotte,' I said. ‘We should probably go, there's that assembly thing and …'

Tara, who was mid sentence, paused and turned to me.

‘Is that your bag?' she said, looking at my backpack like it was a dead animal that I had picked up and thrown over my shoulder.

‘Yeah.'

‘Oh,' she said. Amy started giggling.

Tara looked down at my legs. ‘Oh my God! Gross! Have you got scabies or something? Amy, look at her legs!'

‘Um, no,' I said. ‘It's just from shaving.'

Amy was in hysterics by this point.

‘Yeah, sure,' said Tara. ‘Good luck with that.'

Tara Metcalf was crowned queen of our year that first day. She climbed to the top of the pile by scaring the crap out of all the other girls. She barely had to say anything to do it, she just flicked her hair and looked you up and down, or asked questions like, ‘Is that how you do your hair?', ‘Don't you wear deodorant?' That sort of thing. Girls who were lesser variations of her own appearance became her ‘friends': an army of perfectly preened Tara Clones. Everyone else was either ignored or subjected to random acts of cruelty in order to set an example to anyone who dared challenge her reign.