Pip: The Story of Olive (19 page)

‘Thanks,’ said Olive, but nothing could ruin this moment. She wanted to savour it. Mog may never see her work, but Olive wanted to keep living the time when her paintings were up there, centre-front.

‘Well, you do talk to people’s knees,’ said Pip. ‘Still, well done. It’s just like in a proper gallery. Can I get your autograph?’ Pip thumped her sister on the arm.

The bell rang and a bunch of Year 9s, as tall as Mog, burst in from the gym.

‘Take them down, take them down! I don’t want them to see.’ Olive grated her nail along her bottom teeth.

‘Olive, you’re nuts. You were gloating twenty seconds ago.’

‘That was with family, and I was not gloating.’ At that moment, Olive would rather have been back in front of Mathilda and Amelia than waiting for the approaching big girls. ‘I love my pictures being here, but I don’t want anyone to see them. I can’t explain it.’ Olive ducked behind the display board.

Pip followed. ‘Don’t worry about it. They’re great, I promise.’

Olive put her index finger to her mouth in a desperate shush. The big girls were now directly in front of the display. Olive could see their racehorse calves under the board.

‘Hey, check this out,’ said one of the Year 9 girls. ‘Can you believe that was done by a Year 7?’

‘Not bad,’ said another.

‘Olive Garnaut,’ said a third, pronouncing it ‘Gar-nort’ instead of ‘Gar-no’. ‘Who’s that?’

Olive froze. She felt sick. She waited for them to say,
Oh, that’s the skinny runt with bee-sting boobs and no friends.
A real Nut Allergy.

‘No idea.’

Olive bit down on her finger. One of the big girls shifted her weight from one foot to the other. There was silence for a second; the sort of silence that suggested the others probably shrugged.

‘Cute blonde girl. Tiny. Sort of albino,’ said one. ‘In Burnett.’

‘She looks like her self-portrait!’ shrieked another, shrill with her own cleverness.

‘A hobbit, but a talented hobbit.’

They all laughed.

‘Hey, check out Tamsin’s stuff,’ called a girl further along the board, and the row of shaved legs and scuffed T-bars inched up to join her.

Olive flushed. Her blood soared. They liked her pictures.
They
liked them. The big girls thought
she
was talented. Olive Garnaut: talented
and
cute.

‘Let’s go to the tuckshop.’ Pip took Olive’s hand.

‘No thanks, I’m going back to the gym.’

‘Oh. Do you want anything? Cheesy roll?’

Olive shook her head.

‘Okay,’ said Pip. ‘It is a weird colour, anyway, that cheese.’

Olive smiled and, squeezing her art victory hard to her chest, she drifted back to find May and the boarder who looked just like a Knitting Nancy.

When the girls got home from school that afternoon, the electricity was still buzzing in Olive’s bones. She lay in the bath and relaxed as her hips bobbed on the surface. Her hair floated out around her face like a lion’s mane. Olive felt wonderful; she had an almost new friend and she was
talented
.

‘Hey.’ Pip strolled into the bathroom. Olive snapped up and hung her chin on the edge of the bath. She angled her body towards the wall. ‘Pip, it’s polite to knock.’

‘Sorry, but we forgot something.’

‘What?’ asked Olive, convinced that nothing could destroy this day.

‘Money,’ said Pip, destroying it in one word.

Olive sighed. In all of her euphoria, she had forgotten that tomorrow was Thursday. D-Day. Well, W-Day – WilliamPetersMustardSeed-Day.

Pip sat on the edge of the bath
.
Olive groped for a flannel.

‘Do we have to go tomorrow?’ Olive drew the flannel over her face, breathing its distinctive soggy smell.

‘Yes, we do. You promised.’

Olive frowned and twisted the flannel. She couldn’t articulate her anxiety to Pip. She couldn’t express that she was worried about seeing her father because she was scared that she’d evaporate; that to see him could mean being consumed by him. That he – that it all – felt too big. She was Olive Garnaut, daughter of Mog, sister of Pip, a hobbit but good at art. Despite all her imaginings, Mustard Seed was an unknown ingredient. He could rupture that.

‘Maybe we can ask Mog for some money for a school excursion – say we’re going to the zoo for Science or something.’ Pip plucked the flannel from Olive’s face, put it on the soap dish, and passed Olive the phone. ‘Go on, Ol. You can tell her about the exhibition, too.’

‘Are you sure we can’t do it in the holidays?’ The discussion had bleached Olive’s art display excitement.

‘I’m sure. Mog might miss us then. We planned for tomorrow, so we should stick to it,’ Pip said firmly. She pressed the talk button and Olive could hear the dial tone hammer. ‘Besides, it’s a good time because Mog will be out.’

Olive closed her eyes and saw Mog bubbling over a glass of wine and pesto with the Attorney-General while all the other parents bubbled over Olive’s pictures at school. ‘Pass me a hand-towel.’

Pip smiled. ‘So we’re back on?’

Olive dialled Mog’s number. Mog agreed to leave some money out on the bench later that night. ‘Oooh, how fun. Make sure you get a photo of the white tiger for me. One of my clients was saying that the new enclosure is fantastic. Really realistic.’

Olive felt dreadful again. She wanted to tell Mog that the money wasn’t for the zoo, but for WilliamPetersMustardSeed, whom she was travelling to see with
just
Pip on a school day, even though she knew Mog would be worried and livid and hurt, and that there was a real risk of Stranger Danger, even on a train; in fact rural Stranger Danger, which might just be worse.

But Olive caught Pip’s eye and didn’t say a word.

24

Upwardly Mobile

Early the next morning, Olive and Pip lay awake in bed waiting for Mog to leave. Olive breathed into the sheets and snuggled in the reflected warmth of her breath. The clock clicked forwards and Mog scrambled out the door. As soon as they heard it snip shut, Pip jumped up. ‘Come on. Get dressed.’

‘How is it that I have to drag you out of bed every morning for school, and you make me late anyway, but now, on a not-school day, you’re up before the possums have gone to bed?’

Pip ignored Olive and bounced around the bedroom filling a backpack with their supplies.

Olive buttoned her skirt. It was her favourite – navy with cream velvet trim. She looked up at Pip, who was strutting about the bedroom. ‘You can’t wear that!’

Pip had on a very short skirt, which she had teamed with the
just like that
top and a pair of Mog’s high heels. There was an inch of gap at the back of the shoes because her feet were too short and had slipped forwards.

Olive tucked in her shirt. ‘Pip, we’re going to meet our father. We should look like us. Besides, I thought it might be quite nice if we dressed the same – you know, like proper twins.’

Pip pulled a face and tugged the
just like that
top down over her shoulder. It dunked so low that Olive could see the skin on her chest, which had marbled in the cold.

‘Okay, I’ll pick something else. I’m too chilly anyway. But I don’t want to wear the same stuff. We do that every day, and it’s geeky. Girls in middle school should not wear matching gear.’ Pip looked at Olive’s skirt. ‘Please don’t tell me you’ve got two of those . . .’

As Pip changed into a denim dress, Olive double-checked the provisions. She added the photo of Mog and the saffron-robed babies, together with a lovely picture of Mog on the front page of a law journal. She was in her wig and gown, shaking the Prime Minister’s hand for being a woman and a successful barrister. In her heels, she had to bend her knees to reach him, but she looked slender and stylish and smiley. She looked a success.

Olive picked up the Brass Eye and tucked it in the front pocket of the backpack.

‘What are you bringing that for?’ Pip did up her dress. ‘You’re not going to give it to him, are you?’ She looked shocked.

‘No. No of course not.’ Olive zipped up the pocket and patted it twice. ‘For joss.’

‘Joss?’

‘Luck.’

The twins walked into the kitchen to make breakfast. Instead of excursion money, Mog had left a note on the table, sticky with drops of butter and jam.

Pip read the note and scrunched it up. ‘Bugger. So much for joss.’

‘She’s right. They do always stick it on the account – I forgot. Guess we can’t go.’ Olive put the backpack down.

‘Don’t be dumb, Ol. We have to go. We’re all organised.’

Olive looked at her toes. Pip had managed to ladder her best socks. ‘I don’t know. I feel really uncomfortable about—’

‘Olive Garnaut, you’re a freak. You marched right up to the fake Mustard Seed without thinking, and
now
there’s a problem?’

‘I did not. I just didn’t have time to think it thr—’

‘For your information, this is not just about you, Olive. This is
our
father. We have a right to know who he is, and if you don’t want to go, I’ll go by myself.’

Pip stared at Olive with a starched face. Olive looked at the clock. It wasn’t even seven o’clock. They’d run out of time if they didn’t leave soon, though. ‘But what about money?’

‘We’ve got about twenty-two dollars. We’re taking food. If it’s not enough, we can put the tickets on Visa – I don’t think Mog’s going to know. The statement won’t say “two return tickets to Noglarrat”. Look.’ Pip picked up a statement that was on the bench and flapped it at Olive. It only listed the place of purchase and the relevant company. If Mog commented on the train company, they could say they’d bought tickets for school.

‘Okay, okay.’ Olive sighed. In a way, she felt solid with Pip there. Pip was like a brace. No matter how big their father was, he could never consume Pip too. ‘I’ll go, but we’d better be quick. I want to be home before Mog is.’

Pip whooped as Olive collected the backpack. Olive headed out the front door with Pip at her heels.

The morning was wet and cool. The streets were as black and shiny as an oil slick. The twins picked their way between hamburger wrappers and discarded pickles flecked with sauce. They had even beaten the street-cleaners.

The tram they had to catch wasn’t difficult, as Olive had been on it before. It was even easier at this hour, because it was too early for the wise-crack schoolboys with tags scribbled all over their bags.

Olive walked towards the ticket machine. She could tell that Pip didn’t want her to buy a ticket. It was
in-tu-ition
again, and Olive knew it as surely as she knew that Mog would throttle her if she found out what they were doing. She looked back at her sister and started poking coins in the slot. It wasn’t worth the stress. Olive was stressed about enough things already without being sprung by an inspector in disguise. Besides, they’d got sneaky lately. The girls at school said that they’d even started dressing up as students and knit-one-purl-one grannies. You just never knew where an inspector was going to spring from.

Olive poked another coin into the slot and thought of Macca, with her blue streaks and Birkenstocks. Ministers didn’t look like ministers these days, and ticket inspectors didn’t look like ticket inspectors. Life was all very tricky.

They arrived at the station to discover that the train had been delayed. By almost two hours. The girls camped in what was once the
Ladies Only
waiting room. Olive looked out the window. The station was striped with grey-faced businesspeople walking in lines.

Olive’s phone buzzed to signal a text.

‘Is that Mog already? It’s only 9.30 a.m. – I thought she only called at night.’ The wait was making Pip jittery.

‘She does, usually.’ Olive trawled through the backpack.

Pip paced the room. ‘I hadn’t thought about the phone. If Mog calls and it’s on, she’ll know where we are. She’ll only know later, when the bill comes in, but still . . .’