Something More (Girlfriend Fiction 11) (6 page)

Terry nodded.

‘How come his kids go to your school? Isn't it a bit far for them?'

‘They moved to Coledale after they'd already started high school in Sydney and they didn't want to switch schools either.'

I searched her face. How come she knew so much about Molly Phillips' family?

‘That's good for you, Isla. There's a friend you could be making in the area. And let's face it, pet, if she's good at maths, you need her.' He hooted at his dumb joke.

‘Maybe we ought to take a leaf out of this Allen Phillips' book, Jim,' Mum said. ‘Perhaps we should be pushing this pair a little harder.'

I groaned, but Terry remained silent. She began to clear the teacups.

‘How do you know him?' Mum asked Dad.

‘I met him down at the RSL. Nice enough bloke, but he doesn't smile much. His wife teaches at the uni, I think. He's got a son as well, hasn't he, Isla?'

‘I haven't got a clue, Dad.'

‘Isn't there a boy in your year, Terry?' Dad continued. ‘What's his name?'

‘Sean.' She was barely audible.

‘So how come you two aren't hanging around with the Phillips kids?'

I certainly wasn't about to reveal that Molly Phillips was my worst enemy. Terry didn't bother to answer, either. Dad's query hung heavily in the air, until Terry smashed a cup.

We all jumped.

‘That better not have been my Celtic mug,' Dad said.

‘Sorry.' She faced him. Both Mum and I took the chance to escape the scene. Neither of us wanted to watch a grown man sob as he tried to complete a mug jigsaw.

I caught Terry's expression as I snuck away. She didn't look remotely sorry. She looked relieved.

I went to school the following day armed with the snapshots, but with no clear plan for returning them.

Obviously the important thing was to get Dad's photos back. I had to get some answers from Sam.

The first person I saw turning into the corridor was Molly Phillips, maths genius. She moved in front of me, blocking my way.

‘Alice Greystains reckons you're meeting Sam on Sunday morning at the beach. Is that right?'

I stepped round her, but she put her hand on my backpack.

‘What's it to you?'

‘Other people are interested in Sam and they were here first, okay?' She was wearing a scary smile.

‘You mean, you?' I attempted to go round her again. She stood her ground. ‘Don't worry, Molly, I have to meet him for our art assignment. Okay?'

I strode past her but she continued to shadow me.

‘As long as that's all it is. Sam Doyle is not available to you.' Then, with a quick glance around, she hissed, ‘So you can take your scraggy face out of the picture.'

I thought about my ‘scraggy face' in twenty-four pictures.

‘What if Sam Doyle just happens to like my face better than yours?'

‘Get real. You and your ugly sister are ferals.'

‘Leave my sister out of this.' What did Terry have to do with anything?

‘Yeah, if only that were possible,' Molly snapped.

I thought back to Terry's odd manner at dinner. Was this about Molly's brother, what's-his-name? Before I could ask, she kicked me on the ankle and zoomed off.

I was dumbfounded. I'd just been assaulted at school. It wasn't even painful, but that wasn't the point. What had driven her to such outrageous behaviour? It had to be jealousy. She must know about the photos. Sam liked me and she couldn't cope.

The idea sent me floating along the corridor, vaguely aware that I should be in maths, but in no hurry to get there.

Then I bumped into something, which is why I'm normally not much of a floater, and I came out of my daze to find Jack Ferris grinning at me.

‘Hey, Elephant Feet, watch where you're going,' he said, falling into step beside me.

‘Sorry,' I said, speeding up, determined to outpace him.

‘Why are we walking so fast?' he asked, managing to keep up.

‘Well, I can't speak for you, Jack, but I'm trying to get away from someone.'

‘Oh…right,' he sympathised. ‘Molly Phillips?'

‘No. You, stupid!'

‘Molly must be getting to you.' Before I could deny it, he continued, ‘It's understandable after your train-station incident yesterday. What a classic. Molly and her mates laughed all the way to school.'

‘I'm
really
glad you told me.'

‘No sweat,' he said. ‘I thought it was pretty funny myself.'

‘How come you were at Coledale station?'

His smile disappeared. ‘Visiting my dad.'

‘Does your dad live down there?' I was surprised.

He closed his mouth, which was unlike him.

‘Well?'

‘He sometimes stays at a mate's place. They catch lobsters off Coledale Beach. They've got permits.'

He needn't have bothered being so defensive. I couldn't give a stuff about him, his father, or their dumb lobsters.

He stopped in his tracks.

‘Was there something you wanted, Jack?' I wondered why it was taking him so long to get the words out.

‘Achoooo,' he whooshed, covering me with spray.

‘Yuck! Ferris, you're gross!' I snatched his jumper from his shoulder and wiped myself down.

‘Sorry.' His face crinkled like he was going to do it again. I chucked his jumper back at him. He caught it and then, holding up a hand to stop me from running off, he tossed me an envelope.

‘What's this?' I asked, catching it. It was sealed.

‘Sam asked me to give you these when I saw you in maths. It's your photos. How come they're sealed? Are they for your Major Work? Are you still keeping it a big secret?'

Dad's missing photos.

‘Yes.' I couldn't be bothered telling him about the mix-up, and I certainly wasn't going to tell him about Sam's photos of me. They were private.

‘I can't see what the big deal is. It's not like I'm going to steal your idea. I've already presented mine to Miss Reid and she loves it. Talk about paranoid.' He pointed to the envelope. ‘I suppose you asked Sam for his expert opinion?'

I was happy to let him think what he wanted. I turned away, but he put his hand on my arm. His fingernails were clean. I suppose that was something. Actually, he has quite nice hands for a guy. I flicked his knuckle with my finger and said, ‘Get lost, Jack, I'm in a hurry.'

‘I'd be rushing to maths too if I was as crap as you. You can't afford to miss a second in there.'

‘Shut up.'

‘Sam asked me to get his photos back when I returned yours.'

I smiled. Like that was going to happen.

‘Where is Sam?'

‘In PE, I think. Why?'

‘Oh…no reason.'

‘Well, do you have them?' He sounded impatient.

I didn't want to let them go.

‘I can give these back to Sam—' I began, but I didn't get to finish because he snatched them from my hands.

I made an attempt to grab them back, but he held them out of my reach. ‘Just trying to save you the hassle.'

There was nothing else I could say without seeming desperate, so I made an effort to regain my composure and tried to pretend I hadn't just lunged at him like a crazy woman.

‘I'll make sure he gets them at recess,' he said, walking off.

‘Well, don't open them, Ferris, they're Sam's,' I called to his retreating back. It was a lame response, but it was all I could think of.

I was annoyed. I'd missed my chance to get to the bottom of the photos. By the time I next spoke to Sam, we'd probably both be pretending that they didn't exist, and I'd have to wait until one of us eventually got the courage to raise the subject again.

Damn. Sam Doyle had outmanoeuvred me.

‘Learn to close your gob, Isla,
or your brain might do a runner.'

(Gran McGonnigle)

Despite keeping my eyes peeled, I didn't get the chance to confront Sam, and by the end of the school day the whole matter was no closer to being resolved. I could see that Emma's party was going to be my only opportunity to clear the air before our Sunday morning outing to the beach.

I caught my usual train home and killed time by having a look at Dad's film.

They were the worst photos I'd ever seen. It was a good job Sam had bothered to seal them in an envelope, or Jack Ferris would have had something to laugh about.

Like Sam, Dad had taken twenty-four shots of the same person – ‘Fraud Man', as I liked to call him – but they had turned out very differently.

The first few were of a man doing his shopping. He was too small in the background to be clear: great shot of some watermelons, though, and a visible ‘Bananas $3 a kilo' sign.

By the fifth snap, Fraud Man had moved to the deli. I could just about see his face in several of them, but considering Dad already knew the identity of his subject, I couldn't figure out what they proved.

‘Isla,' Dad called as I walked in the door. ‘Did you…?'

‘Yeah, yeah. I've got them.'

‘Thanks, pet.' He went off happy as Larry…or Fraud Man, who should be pretty pleased too, because thanks to Dad, he wasn't getting busted any time soon.

When I went upstairs I resumed the hunt for my mobile. It hadn't been in its usual place beside my bed this morning. In the end I'd called off the search because I'd been running late.

Now that I had time to think clearly, I marched down the corridor and threw Terry's door open.

‘Have you seen my mobile?'

‘A silver Nokia, with the smallest phone book in teenage history? Yeah, I've seen it.'

Her eyes drifted in the direction of…the
bed
!

The little witch had either been snooping, or stealing my pre-paid call time again. I stomped across the room, pulled at the blankets and found the mobile stashed under a pillow.

‘Have you been making calls on my phone again?' I yelled, stabbing at the keypad.

My available call credit now stood at two dollars!

‘Are you kidding me?' I spluttered. ‘There were ten bucks left on this yesterday. Who have you been calling?'

I didn't even give her a chance to answer. ‘Has yours run out again?' I was pacing up and down like a human fan, wafting air around me. Her smug face told me that she wasn't even sorry.

‘Yeah, it ran out. Right out the door. The last thing it said to me was, “I quit. You work me too hard. I need a holiday. I'm off to be your sister's phone instead.” And I said, “That's not a holiday, that's retirement.” But it…'

‘Stop it!' At times like this, when she sits there so cocky, with her perfect little ponytail and white-tipped fingernails, and her little turned-up nose, I imagine she's shrinking until she's as small as an ant. Then I see myself squashing her with the toe of my shoe.

‘Stop it!' she repeated.

It was the mimicking that did it. I wanted revenge.

‘
I-I know where Mitsy is.
' I was aware that it was kind of pathetic to be singing it, but I did anyway. Twice.

‘Where?'

‘I'm not telling you.'

‘Where?'

‘I gave her to Dad to take to the Salvos,' I said, smirking.

‘You did what?' She launched herself at me, missed and landed on her bed. ‘You
gave
him Mitsy? YOU GAVE HIM MITSY?' She jumped back up. I ducked out of her reach.

‘Yeah, sorry about that. I forgot you were looking for her. The stress of finding out from Dad that he's taking me DRIVING NEXT WEEK IS AFFECTING MY MEMORY!'

It felt good to scream. I braced myself for an explosion, but to my amazement she just seemed to crumble, and there was a long moment of nothing while I decided what to do next.

‘Are you okay?'

When she didn't answer, I tried again. ‘Terry?'

I moved towards the bed and sat beside her, half expecting to be ambushed.

When she turned her face around, my sister was in tears.

‘Terry?'

More sobbing. She was freaking me out.

‘Hey, what's wrong?'

I don't think she could have spoken if she'd tried.

‘Stop it. Please. I'm sorry. If I'd thought you were going to act like this, I would have rescued her.'

The last time I'd witnessed Terry this distraught was four years ago, after Stewie McNab pulled up her school uniform in front of her whole class. Apparently he'd been trying to take her down a peg or two in front of his mates.

She didn't cry at the time, or later when his parents came to our house and everyone apologised to her, but that night she broke down and sobbed inconsolably in the darkness. I climbed into her bed and lay shoulder to shoulder with her until the tears stopped flowing. Neither of us spoke about it in the morning.

Losing a cuddly toy was hardly on the same scale.

‘It's just a teddy. You didn't even like the guy who gave it to you.'

‘No, it's a mouse…and Isla…she's hiding my pills and a pregnancy test in her belly.'

Terry's words hovered above her head in an absurd little speech bubble. I wanted to rub them out.

She was on the pill? ‘What pills?'

‘Duh,' she said, rolling her eyes weakly.

I don't know why it surprised me. Terry never waits her turn to do anything, and sex is just another experience to add to the long list of things my younger sister has tried before me.

I forced myself to concentrate.

‘What do you mean, Mitsy's hiding them?'

‘Velcro back.'

‘Oh.'

‘She's a pyjama case. That's why I've kept her all these years.'

‘I never knew that.'

There was a long pause.

‘Why is there a pregnancy test inside?' I asked, getting back to what was relevant.

‘I was going to use it.'