Faking Sweet (16 page)

 

I was the first out of the classroom and the first out the school gates. I was happy to walk all the way home. Anything. As long as I didn't have to look into the face of Jess Flynn, I could make it to my bedroom door, which I would close and never open again.

In the car line waiting for me was my mother. I collapsed into the front seat.

‘Holly?'

‘Just drive, Mum,' I choked.

‘What's? What's …'

‘Just drive,' I whispered. ‘Please.'

I buried my head in my knees and sobbed.

‘Holly, what is it? What's happened?'

‘I just had a really, really bad day at school.' Now I was howling. I could hear myself, something like a cross between a dog and an out-of-tune opera singer, but I couldn't stop it. ‘I, I hate myself.'

‘You mustn't say that,' Mum soothed. ‘You're a beautiful, wonderful, special …'

‘I'm NOT!' I screamed. ‘Sorry,' I whispered. ‘I'm not special. I'm scum. I am the devil's helper.'

‘Darling?'

‘I'm a Claudio, or worse, a Borachio.'

‘Are they popstars?'

‘They're … oh don't worry, Mum.'

Mum turned into a small street lined with trees and carpeted in green lawns. The car pulled up outside a two-storey sandstone house with a blue tin roof and a veranda that wrapped around the ground floor.

‘What are we doing here? I just want to go home,' I said.

‘Holly?' Mum stroked my arm. ‘I wish I could say something to make you feel better. I'm worried what I'll say will make you feel worse.'

‘Nothing could make me feel worse, Mum.'

Mum pointed out the window. ‘See that house?'

‘What about it?' I mumbled.

‘Your dad's made an offer on it. He wanted you to see it.' Mum was staring at the steering wheel. ‘I didn't know about it till this morning. It's just an offer. Apparently it didn't sell at the auction last week. It doesn't mean for sure we'll stay in Sydney. Anything could happen. It's always one big surprise with your father. I'm sorry, Hol.'

I stared at my lap, playing with the pleats of my uniform. ‘I don't care where we live.'

‘But what about,' Mum hesitated, ‘Melbourne?'

‘I don't care anymore.' But the tears gave away my lie. ‘I just don't care.'

‘Holly?' Mum let go of the steering wheel and wrapped her arms around me. ‘What is it? Tell me. Come on, you and me are a team, remember? Two peas in a pod. All for one and one for all.'

Not even the corny lines Mum usually fed me when we'd just found out we were moving helped. This felt worse than moving. Much worse.

‘Holly, has something happened with Calypso?'

I sat up straight. How could I tell my mother what I'd almost done?

‘You see, Calypso's mum rang me today,' she continued.

I swallowed. It felt like a basketball was stuck in my throat.

‘She wanted us to know that Calypso isn't allowed to use the phone, or her mobile or –'

‘I know.'

‘You know?'

‘Her little sister told me.'

‘Did … did she tell you why?'

‘Wagging, I think.'

‘That's not all of it.'

With every word my mother said, the ants dug deeper into my scalp. I wrapped my arms over my head while Mum the messenger delivered the bad news – things I never would've believed if they hadn't come from the mouth of my mother.

‘Apparently Calypso,' Mum hesitated, ‘and that girl, Miranda, have been wagging whole school days with some, well, not very nice boys they met. These boys crashed a party that the girls threw together at Calypso's house.'

‘They had that party together?'

‘Isn't Miranda that girl who –'

‘Yep.'

‘Did you know Calypso had a party?'

‘Sort of.' I tried to lift my shoulders but the effort was too much.

‘It was some tarty dress-up thing they had on a weekend when Calypso's parents were away,' said Mum.

‘Her parents were away?' I blurted. ‘She told me. She told me …' Again the tears erupted: big, fat, round tears shooting from the corners of my eyes, pouring down my face into my mouth and onto my collar. They had a life of their own and there was nothing I could do to stop them. ‘Mum, I've been very bad,' I sobbed. ‘Very, very bad.'

 

By the time we got home I'd cried another ten bucketfuls and had blown a record amount of snot out of my nose. My eyes were so puffy I looked like the boxer who'd lost the fight. And that was only what I looked like on the outside. Underneath my skin was a war zone. My insides were torn, ripped, shredded. I hurt so much I wanted to scream with agony.

Mum shook out my sheets, puffed up my pillows and tucked me into bed.

‘You're not bad, Holly,' she soothed. ‘You were silly, very silly, but you were also lucky. A lot of damage could've been done to this girl Jess. At least you came to your senses at the last minute. Better late than never, they say.'

‘But what if Jess's filling hadn't fallen out? Then I wouldn't have …'

‘Deep down inside you knew. I think you know that too.'

‘Mum, what am I going to do?' My hand sat across my chest, guarding my heart that had split into a thousand pieces. ‘I really don't know what to do.'

‘Sleep,' she replied. ‘That's what you need now.'

‘And, Mum.' I already knew the answer to this question but I still had to ask: ‘Calypso doesn't have any grandparents, does she?'

‘No grandparents. I'm so sorry, Holly.'

Mum kissed me on the forehead and crept out. For a freak, Mum wasn't bad in a crisis.

I closed my eyes, and the dark sucked me into the night's vacuum, while Borachio whispered in my ear, ‘
The devil, my master. The devil, my master
.'

The sun rose and tomorrow came. But how could it be an ordinary day when Planet Calypso had just smashed into my world? But it was.

From my bedroom, I could smell Dad's coffee brewing on the stove and hear Mum calling out the answers as she made my lunch over
The Price is Right
reruns. Dad would be sitting at the table, his face buried in the newspaper, pretending his job wasn't the reason for his wife of sixteen years going round the twist. And the quieter Dad would sit, the louder Mum would yell.

Actually, one thing was different this morning: the phone rang a couple of times, which was unusual for a household of losers such as my family.

But what was going to make this day really, really stand out from the others was that I had no intention of getting out of bed. Not today or tomorrow or next week … and very likely not the rest of the decade. I had officially given up on life.

Perhaps Mum could come in once a day and dress the bedsores festering on my bum. But that was the only time I planned on moving. Except going to the toilet of course, but that was a call of nature and didn't count.

‘Holly?' Mum peered around the door. ‘Hol, it's seven-fifteen.'

I pretended to be asleep.

‘Holly? I know you're awake.'

‘Five more minutes,' I mumbled. I wasn't quite ready for the confrontation that would follow when I announced to my parents I was staying in the horizontal position from now until kingdom come.

‘That girl Jess Flynn just rang.'

I cocked open an eye.

‘Actually she's called twice. I told her you were asleep.'

‘What did she want?'

‘She wanted to know if you were coming to school.'

‘Hey?'

‘She said she thought you seemed unwell yesterday.'

‘Why did she want to know if I was coming to school?'

‘She said she had something for you.' Mum started to take my uniform and shoes out of the cupboard. ‘It didn't sound to me like she knew what had happened yesterday. Or, I should say, what
almost
happened.'

I pictured Jess meeting me at my locker with a gun in her hand. Perhaps Calypso had informed her of our revenge plan. I knew it didn't make sense when the revenge was actually directed at her, but then not a lot made sense anymore.

‘Jess would have no idea what's been going on.' Mum read my mind. ‘So don't start stressing. It'll be fine. I promise.'

‘Ohhh.' I remembered. ‘I know she wants to give me something.'

‘What?'

‘She's obsessed with, with …' I felt embarrassed saying the next thing. Was it because of Jess's kindness or my meanness?

‘With what?'

‘With my skin. My forehead.' I swung my legs out of bed, then remembered the pact I'd made with myself and swiftly swung them back under the covers. ‘She says she's got some stuff that'll clear up my skin.'

‘Isn't that nice of her?' Mum replied. ‘You know why your skin breaks out? I figured it out last night. Stress.'

‘Stress?'

‘Whenever you go to a new school your skin breaks out for a while. So that's a good thing to think about,' Mum told me. ‘That won't happen anymore.'

‘I don't care what my skin looks like 'cause I'm never going out again. And when I say ‘out' I mean even out of this bedroom, Mum.'

‘Stop feeling sorry for yourself! Get out of bed and into the shower. It's over, right, over.' Mum pulled the doona off me. ‘It sounds to me like this girl Jess likes you. You and Calypso are lucky no one's been hurt.'

 

No one's been hurt? What about me? Early this morning I had recorded every lie Calypso told me. I had to. I had to see them for myself.

Carefully I categorised them into small lies; sub-lies within small lies; big lies; and sub-lies within the big lies. The list took me almost an hour and every single teensy-weensy fabrication of the truth hurt. I know because I felt the pain go up and down with each one I recorded. There wasn't just pain either. There was humiliation, anger, embarrassment and basically feeling like the most stupid, pathetic person ever to be put on earth.

The list started with the little lies. The white lies. The ones that didn't make sense, to me that is. I didn't give those lies a pain score. They kind of blurred into insignificance once I got started on the big ones.

Small Lie number 1: It was safe to sit up on the ledge outside the Science lab; no one had ever fallen off before.

WRONG! A girl had fallen off there this year and broken both her arms.

Sub-lie of Small Lie number 1: That's right, Calypso forgot to mention that a girl had fallen off the ledge. But the girl was the stunt queen of the school!

WRONG! It was Sarah Finch, a quiet, shy girl who had slipped off the ledge trying to save an injured pigeon.

Small Lie number 2: Jess had won the debating award two years in a row.

WRONG! Jess told me herself that she was terrified of and hopeless at debating and public speaking. She could barely read. I had witnessed that first hand as she stuffed up her lines in
Much Ado.

Sub-lie of Small Lie number 2: Jess went off at Calypso – accusing her of stealing her points in a debate they were in – and threatened her afterwards.

WRONG! It's obvious now that was a lie, and I can't figure out why Calypso bothered telling it.

Small Lie number 3: Jess's dad was an orthodontist.

WRONG! Jess's dad is a builder. Why on earth did she tell me Jess's father was a dentist???? That's totally weird.

Sub-lies of Small Lie number 3: Jess's dad ruined Tiffany's teeth.

WRONG! Builders use slightly bigger drills.

Jess's teeth had been capped and bleached.

WRONG! They certainly hadn't. I could never figure out why some days they looked so white and some days they looked like everyone else's. I guess she was like me—she just didn't brush them every day. Or maybe it was all in my head. Whatever. It was WRONG! The only thing I can figure out is that Calypso didn't like me mentioning that Jess had nice teeth.

 

Then the lies started to get bigger. The only way to tell which were worse than others was by the pain they left behind.

Big Lie number 1: Calypso won a trip to Daydream Island, and I was going with her and her grandparents. It was to be Calypso's way of saying thanks for carrying out her revenge plan.

WRONG! Calypso had not won a trip. Calypso didn't even have grandparents.

Pain score: pretty bad. Like stubbing your toe in the same spot over and over until the toenail is hanging off.

Big Lie number 2: Calypso hated Miranda because of what she did to me – cheating with my boyfriend then stealing him.

WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! Calypso had obviously become friends with Miranda. Good friends.

Sub-lies of Big Lie number 2: Calypso had texted me from Miranda's mobile because they'd been doing a Biology assignment together.

WRONG! It was so obvious now Calypso and Miranda had been planning their party.

Calypso said the only reason she was having the party was because her parents wanted to cheer her up after I'd upset her. Biatch!

WRONG! Her parents didn't even know about the party. They were away.

The party theme was her mum's idea.

WRONG! How could it be when her mum didn't even know about the party?

Pain score: probably a bit worse than removing your skin with a potato peeler.

Big Lie number 3: Jess cheated with Scott and then became his girlfriend.

OH, HOW WRONG CAN YOU GET? Jess and Scott are cousins.

Calypso's story about Jess having a thing for Scott, and then walking into her parents' bedroom to find them rolling around on the floor, was about as wrong as anything could ever get.

Pain score: equal to stubbing out cigarette butts on the soft skin of your arms.

Big Lie number 4: Calypso and Jess shoplifted together. Calypso got caught and Jess said she didn't know anything about it.

WRONG! It was just another lie.

Pain score: don't really care about that one.

 

Of course I showered, got dressed and ate my breakfast, although my stomach found it hard to accept anything. This was probably due to the fact that my heart was so swollen it was taking up most of the room inside me. Then I went to school like a good girl.

As promised, Jess gave me a bottle of homeopathic face wash and instructed me to use it morning and night. ‘Try and get a bit of sun on your face,' she added. ‘It'll help dry up the spots.' I fake smiled her, muttered a thank you and shoved her miracle cure into my bag. Then for the rest of the day I successfully avoided her.