The Slightly Bruised Glory of Cedar B. Hartley (7 page)

We all walked home together, except for Oscar and his family, because they don't live in our street. Mum and Ricci walked with Mr and Mrs Zito, and Aunt Squeezy walked with Barnaby. Caramella and I lagged behind.

The sky was black and clear, but in Melbourne the stars don't shine out because there's too much light coming from the city and the stars just can't compete. They look like smudged dots of white. But the houses have a golden light glowing through the windows, which makes you want to look inside. It makes it seem as if there are a lot of soft welcoming couches in the world; even if there aren't, it makes it seem as if there are. Still, I sighed a big sigh since I knew I wasn't going to see Kite again for a long time. Caramella said, ‘Don't worry, you'll think of something. You always do.'

Do I? I wondered. I looked at Caramella trudging along, steadfast and solid and sweet, and I suddenly realised that somehow it wasn't just me who needed me to think; it was also Caramella, and maybe Oscar too. Maybe they were expecting me to think us out of this, or at least into something else. Boy, what a responsibility. I shivered and looked up into the sky as if it would have an answer, it being so much bigger than me. But if it answered I didn't hear, because instead my ears were filled with the faintly disturbing sound of a snigger and then a giggle. It didn't exactly surprise me, since we'd just walked past Harold Barton's house, but I'd been staring into the sky and not noticed who was sitting on the wall.

Not only Harold but also Marnie, Aileen Shelby and one or two other tall guys I'd never even seen before. A whole gang of them, smoking, sniggering and whispering.

‘Night out with the family, Cedar? Paint the town red?' said Harold, now that he had my attention. Marnie and Aileen acted like this was a hilarious joke and started to smirk. Caramella sighed and looked at the ground. I folded my arms across my chest.

‘Harold,' I said in an exasperated way, ‘haven't you got a new act yet? Because we're really bored of your superior one.' Harold snorted, pushed out his lower lip at me, and since he obviously couldn't think of a comeback he leaned over to whisper something to one of the tall guys.

‘Who's your brother talking to, anyway?' said Marnie. ‘He didn't even introduce us.' She had her special sneery girl voice on, which makes her sound like she's not quite real, like she's just saying some lines she learnt from a bad teen movie.

‘Maybe he didn't notice you, Marnie,' I said, because if there's one thing Marnie puts a lot of energy into it's getting noticed. I walked off, dragging Caramella with me. I wasn't going to tell them who Aunt Squeezy was. Let them wonder, I thought.

‘See ya, Zit-face,' yelled Harold, once we were a safe distance away.

He's such a coward. He just had to hurl one last witless insult so he could look as if he'd been victorious or something. But it kills me when he says something hurtful to Caramella because she has no confidence; she dies a little inside when he says stuff like that. Whereas I, I just get mad. I looked at her, but she was already tugging at my arm and pointing at something else.

‘Hey, look at that,' she said.

A van had pulled up outside the Abutula's house and out of the van came three people: first a girl, then a woman and last a small boy. It appeared to be a mother and two children, but it was dark and they were on the opposite side of the street so it was hard to see them, and they seemed not to want to be seen. The girl was thin and taller than me and she turned away from us. Her younger brother, however, stood and faced us. He didn't smile; he just looked and stuck his finger in his mouth. The mother kept her face lowered, but glanced quickly at us and then ushered her children towards the house. Mr Abutula had picked up the suitcase and was leading the way.

‘See,' said Caramella, triumphantly, ‘something
is
going on there.'

‘Sure is,' I said, and already I was getting ideas. The thing about the mother and her children was that you could tell they came from somewhere else. They weren't from here. They were different.

Chapter 10

The thing is, I understand what it's like to be different because I'm just slightly different myself. In some ways I'm exactly the same, of course. For instance, I've got skin and it hurts when someone pokes it. And the main way I'm exactly like everybody else alive and breathing and pooing is that I don't like it when I'm sad or lonely or angry – I much prefer to be excited. If I had it my way, I'd always be just about to do something lovely, like a cartwheel.

Also, if I had it my way, everyone, absolutely everyone, would love me. Not up-close, and not in the way the big guns like Jesus and Saint Francis of Assisi and Gough Whitlam were loved; not even as much as Cathy Freeman is loved for being a fast runner who doesn't show off and who carries the flag for Aborigines. I just want the people who know me to love me just for being me, in an everyday kind of way. They don't have to sing songs about it.

Aunt Squeezy says that doesn't make me any different from anyone else, because all people want to be loved, even if they wear safety pins in odd places. Even if they say mean things or forget to take a bath, they still want to be loved.

But I don't have it my way, and so some people don't love me at all. Like Harold Barton. He doesn't love me; he thinks I'm a no-hoper. And Marnie thinks I'm so uncool, absolutely in every way, and sometimes Barnaby thinks I'm a pain. And Kite can't be sure if he loves me or not, because he just went off and left.

But no one has it all their way. Aunt Squeezy says we think we're steering the ship, but really the ship is steering us, so we may as well let go of the wheel. You can't
make
people like you, you can only try to like people. Even Harold.

So, in that way I'm still exactly the same as everybody.

But I'm sure I'm different in some way. I feel as if I am. I told Aunt Squeezy that I was and she just looked at me with her owl eyes and grinned. We were in the kitchen, and she was cooking. She had a pale green scarf tied in her hair and she looked like an exotic bird, because of the way she hopped from one position to the next.

‘Everyone thinks they're different.' She waved a wooden spoon at me and then dunked it in a pot. I was lurking and leaning in the doorway, not quite ready to go or stay. To tell you the truth it was beginning to bug me that she kept pointing out how I was just like everybody else.

I stood up straight and said, ‘No, but I really am different. I'm slightly unusual. I'm not in the main swell, I'm in a puddle.'

‘Oh, you mean you feel left out. You feel like you don't fit in.'

‘No, I feel like I make my own puddle because I like it better there.'

‘I know that feeling.' She sighed a big earth-moving sigh.

I was suspicious. I felt she was stealing my feelings. My unique feelings. She was flouncing round, tipping spices into a big pot of lentils and stealing my feelings. It was kind of great having her around because she cooked food all the time, and since Mum was always at work and too tired to cook, and Barnaby only knew how to make spaghetti with a can of tomatoes, and I only made cheese and tomato Brevilles, it was exciting to have someone making a big deal about meals. She even made porridge in the morning, with dates in it and grated apple and almonds on top. But, best of all, she was always up for a talk. And I mean a
real
talk. A chewing and burrowing and blazing-up kind of talk, not just a how-was-your-day kind of talk. She and I got to talking about real things. I'd never met someone who wanted to talk about life as much as I did; about the big stuff like love and difference and hope and lentils and the nervous system and bigotry. And if you don't know what that means (I didn't either), you should find out because there's a lot of it going round and I believe it's catchy, and if you get it you become very mean spirited, especially towards people who are different.

‘But I've always been slightly unusual. Ask anyone. Mrs Duffel said it on my school report.' Mrs Duffel was my grade four teacher and she had red hair too, and she wore short dresses covered in swirly patterns. She was lovely.

Aunt Squeezy said, ‘Oh Lord, Cedar, we're all slightly unusual.' And she giggled.

I bit my lip and sulked for a moment. I plonked myself down at the kitchen table as I could tell we were heading for a session. Sometimes she really got me thinking in ways I didn't want to have to be thinking.

‘So who is
usual
then, if everybody is slightly unusual?' I was quite pleased with that bit of logic. I felt I had laid a very fine trap. In fact I was so pleased with the excellence of my trap that I forgot that my slightly unusual life was under siege, and I sat back and grinned.

Aunt Squeezy stopped moving for a minute.

‘Hmmm. Maybe
you
can be. Then you'll be the only usual one and you'll be special, for your usualness. Imagine that?' She laughed. ‘Cedar B. Hartley, the only person in the world who is usual.'

‘I'd be an outcast!' I pronounced.

She laughed again but she didn't say anything, and I knew I was meant to do the thinking. Just as I got going she butted in.

‘Oh, but really, don't you think it's the most perfectly beautiful thing in the world to discover the tiny singularities that are stitched into the seams of our souls?' She sat down opposite me and her eyes lit up as if she was seized by a great excitement. ‘There's nothing more necessary and beautiful than the differences between us.' She gazed through the window and her eyes flickered out. I knew her mind was floating back to something else, something that made her quiet, maybe the same something that had made her stay on with us. When Mum had told her we'd love her to live with us as long as she liked, Aunt Squeezy got tears in her eyes and hugged my mum, and since then it just seemed as if she'd always lived with us, even though it was only a month. I knew it was a month because I was counting the days that I hadn't heard from Kite. Every time the mail came I was disappointed. I'd even tried to pretend to myself that I wasn't expecting anything, but that didn't work.

So Aunt Squeezy was gazing out the window and I was gazing inwards at my tiny singularities when Barnaby and Ada walked in.

‘What's going on, ladies?' said Barnaby. He had his arm around Ada, but she didn't have her arm around him. She leant into him and smiled at us, just a tiny smile.

‘Cedar's trying to work out how she's unusual and I'm cooking lentil soup. Are you two in for dinner?'

Barnaby looked at Ada, who shrugged. She never stayed for dinner, so it was hard to read the shrug. Maybe it meant she didn't care. I liked her long black hair, which went all the way to her elbows and spread out like a curtain over her red jumper. Somehow she always managed to look dramatic, to look like tragedy and glamour.

‘Maybe,' said Barnaby.‘We're just going to rehearse a few songs in my room first.'

Typical, I thought. Non-committal. I hardly ever tried to talk to Ada. In some way she scared me. She didn't appear to love me at all, and that made me feel bad around her, so I didn't care if they weren't in for dinner anyway. Well, maybe I did. I liked it when everyone sat down together. It made me feel like we were a gang.

Of course I quizzed Barnaby on what he was talking about with Kite, but he claimed not to remember. I don't believe him, but I've had to give up because if there's anyone who can match my persistence with resistance it's Barnaby. I think it actually amuses him to beat me.

He ruffled my hair, even though that also annoys me, and as he was walking out he said, ‘You were just born unusual, Cedy. You came out upside-down.'

‘At least I didn't come out with a big mouth,' I yelled after them, and I think I heard Ada let out a little laugh. I was glad about that. I was glad she laughed because she sometimes seems to be made of glass instead of skin. But see, we all have skin and it hurts when you poke it. Even Ada. Even Harold and Marnie. Even that strange family that arrived in the night at the Abutulas. I was thinking about them, when I wasn't thinking about Kite, that is; when I wasn't ‘moping', as Mum said, or limping around lovesick, as Barnaby said. I was thinking about that family and I didn't even know why. I started to figure that maybe I had to find out who they were and then I'd know why I was thinking about them.

But for once it wasn't me who worked it out.

Chapter 11

Actually, all of a sudden there was a lot of secret stuff going on around our house. It had something to do with Aunt Squeezy, I could tell that much, but I couldn't tell if Barnaby was in on it or not because he was also acting a bit weird. Or maybe he was acting a bit normal, which was weird because he's not normal; he's half wizard and half zebra. Not really. He's just like the bit of wood on a fence that juts out. But, lately, even he was quiet or in-place somehow.