Maddie in the Middle Read online

‘Mads!’ Dad calls. ‘You are being derelict in your duty, daughter!’

  ‘Coming!’ I throw the tablet on the bed and return to the kitchen.

  The fritters and avocado dip are in the middle of the table. I grab plates, knives and forks, serving tongs, a salad spoon. After putting Wolfie’s dish down in the laundry, Dad serves me.

  ‘Yum, Dad,’ I say through a mouthful of fritter. ‘So good.’

  Dad bows with a flourish, before he takes his seat. ‘MasterChef Michael, at your service.’

  Apparently my dad couldn’t always cook. But when Mum left, and I stayed with Dad so I didn’t have to move schools, he taught himself. After a while of us mostly having fish fingers or occasionally toast and Vegemite for dinner, he started watching videos and went to cooking classes. Now, his food is delicious. When Katy comes over, she’s always angling to be asked to stay for dinner.

  ‘You’re so lucky,’ she said to me, once, after she’d demolished pasta with creamy fake-bacon sauce that Dad made specially for her.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘It’s great that my mum is living in Port Hedland with Adam and the droobs, thus forcing my dad to learn to cook.’

  ‘I didn’t mean that,’ Katy said quickly. ‘I just meant – well, you’ve eaten at my house, right?’

  It was true. Katy’s parents were super smart, like Katy. Her dad was a teacher and her mum did medical research, but everything they cooked was either burned, raw or completely tasteless.

  ‘It’s okay,’ I said, even though it wasn’t.

  ‘No, no,’ Katy insisted. ‘I’m really sorry. I’m sorrier than the sorriest person in the whole entire universe. I’m sorrier than all the people who voted for Donald Trump. I’m sorrier than that guy from the bus who ran face-first into the light pole.’

  I started laughing, remembering how during the holidays this teenager had been calling horrible things to this girl, and then he stepped off the bus and slammed straight into a pole.

  Katy got down on her knees. ‘I’m sorrier than the dog in that video when the cat rode around on its back and it couldn’t shake it off. I’m sorrier than –’

  ‘Katy, it’s okay,’ I said, dragging Katy up by her arm and shoving her onto the couch.

  This time, I meant it. Because Katy might be loud and overenthusiastic and sometimes her enthusiasm spills over into bossiness. But she tries hard not to hurt anyone’s feelings, and if she does, she tries to make it better.

  ‘So, beginning of the last year of primary school,’ Dad says, snapping me back to the present.

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘We’re the queens of the school, apparently.’

  ‘Exciting,’ Dad nods, spooning out another big helping of guacamole onto my plate before he adds some more to his.

  ‘I’ve even done my first S&E homework,’ I say.

  ‘No,’ Dad says in mock horror. ‘Not so soon. You’ll burn out!’

  ‘Haha,’ I say.

  ‘So how’s Katy going to juggle her highly responsible head councillor duties with her arduous academic load and musical ambitions?’

  ‘Katy is Katy.’ I don’t mean to sound like I am annoyed with Katy, but there is an edge to my voice.

  Dad raises his eyebrows. ‘So, anything else notable, first day?’

  I think of the new girl, and how she’d been surrounded by Grace, Elsa and Jordi, but how she’d smiled at me anyway.

  ‘Nothing,’ I say. I feel tiredness wash over me, making my limbs turn to lead. I take a bite of the fritter, but find it hard to chew.

  ‘You all right, sweetheart?’

  Clever Katy. Mysterious new girl. And me. Plain, old, ordinary me. Even if I do do my best, how am I ever going to be somebody special, somebody important, somebody who matters?

  ‘Just tired, Dad.’ I try to smile.

  ‘Then let’s go watch Family Guy, shall we?’

  Family Guy is something we always watch when we’ve had a bad day, or something hasn’t gone right. Or on days after Mum has Skyped, and the conversation felt weird, or I missed her. Today, though, I just don’t feel like it. But Dad is looking at me, expecting me to say yes like usual. So I say, ‘All right,’ and we watch it, Wolfie curled on the couch next to us. After a while, we laugh where we always laugh, and my weird mood gets lost in the funny bits.

  When I go to bed, later, I look at my banner, and I get a warm feeling in my heart. Tomorrow is a new day, and I will see the new girl, and everything will be all right.

  The next day I go to school, determined that I will talk to the new girl, or at least find out what her name is. I don’t know why I want to meet her so badly. It feels like a kind of fate: I have this strange certainty that the new girl has been sent specially to me, and that all I need to do is introduce myself, and then – and then my life will change.

  As it turns out, I don’t get to meet her, exactly. But by the end of lunchtime, everybody knows who the new girl is.

  At recess Katy and I go to the music room to meet with Mrs C, our music teacher. Katy had the idea that we should have a year six ensemble to perform at special assemblies, like the graduation assembly, and the end of term award assemblies, but the only person who really wanted to be in an ensemble was Katy. I’d suggested that Katy just do a solo, but Katy insisted that ensemble music was more interesting.

  Today, Mrs C plays the first piece we are going to learn, so we can hear what it sounds like. Katy can read music better than me: I still need to hear something before I can start playing it.

  ‘Are you paying attention?’ Katy says, nudging my arm. ‘My bit is harder than yours, but yours is still complicated.’

  ‘I like it,’ I say, but Katy is right. I’m not thinking about the music. I am impatient to get back to the undercover area, to see where the new girl is. If she is still with Grace and that group. But the siren goes, just as Mrs C is handing Katy the music.

  ‘We’ll have to schedule this so it doesn’t interfere with your MCing duties,’ Mrs C smiles at Katy.

  ‘I’m sure that can be arranged,’ Katy says.

  ‘Maybe you can play the flute and announce at the same time,’ I tease. ‘That would be something different.’

  I mean it as a joke, but Katy frowns. ‘I take my responsibilities seriously.’

  ‘I know,’ I say. ‘I just – never mind.’

  In class, I try to focus on what we are doing. I sit next to Brooke, in a group with Max and Leo. Katy is with Dana, Toby and Simon. Katy had begged to be allowed to sit with me, but Mrs L insisted that it was good for everyone to be mixed up, so we got to know different people. I don’t mind sitting next to Brooke, because Brooke is always drawing on whatever is closest to hand. Today, she is concentrating on her pencil case, making swirling designs with her Sharpie. I can’t take my eyes off the hypnotic movement of her hand. This isn’t a problem until Mrs L asks me for the answer to one of the questions.

  ‘Um,’ I say. ‘Um.’

  ‘Brooke?’

  ‘Forty-two,’ Brooke answers in her soft voice, her marker still moving over the fabric of her pencil case.

  Katy, from the other table, raises her eyes and gives me a look. I poke my tongue at her, and she turns back. Usually she’s sympathetic when I can’t answer something in class, but she doesn’t seem so sympathetic now.

  I force myself to go back to the beginning of the worksheet, to look at the numbers, remember the rules, apply them. But I am relieved when the siren goes.

  ‘I couldn’t concentrate,’ I say to Katy, as we head for the undercover area with our lunchboxes.

  ‘I noticed,’ Katy says.

  ‘Hey,’ I say. ‘No need to judge.’

  ‘What? Just saying.’

  ‘I’m trying hard this year,’ I say. ‘It’s just – maths.’

  ‘I can always help you, you know.’ Katy’s voice softens, and she gives me a playful push with the tips of her fingers. ‘The Rule of Two, me and you.’

  ‘Nobody can help me concentrate when Mrs L is explaining fractions,�
� I answer, pushing Katy lightly back. ‘My brain collapses in on itself and my ears close over. Not even you could unclose them.’

  The undercover area is crowded, and the air is humid and hot. We manage to find a bit of bench and squeeze onto it, lunchboxes on our laps. I spot Jordi with the new girl next to her, Elsa and Grace behind.

  Grace and Elsa get in line to buy their lunch – they always buy theirs – and the new girl stands to the side. Jordi is talking, a superior look on her face, and the new girl nods and smiles. But to me she seems like she isn’t too interested. Like she is only listening to be polite. People coming in notice the new girl, and pause to talk to the group and be introduced. I’m not sure if it is because the new girl is with Jordi, or because she is so pretty, or both.

  Suddenly, a bunch of young boys barge their way into the crowd of senior students. There are two boys leading, one is a boy I don’t know, who is crying so much his cheeks are slick, and the other is Zac. Zac is a year four boy, one of those loud boys who is always strutting around the school, and who now also happens to be bleeding from his nose. Zac looks like a giant next to the other boy, who is skinny and freckly and has a scar that runs over his forehead and cuts into the skin under his left eye.

  ‘Oh my goodness,’ Katy says, shoving her sandwich in her lunchbox and standing up. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Councillor Katy to the rescue,’ I say. I get up and follow Katy, because the boys are heading for Jordi. For a second I wonder why the boys would want Jordi to sort out their problems, before I see who it is they are actually going up to.

  ‘Samara,’ the crying boy says. ‘I didn’t mean to.’

  Jordi frowns at the boys and crosses her arms. People like Jordi don’t usually get involved with young boys’ business.

  ‘Yes he did!’ Zac says. ‘I didn’t even do anything!’

  ‘You did so!’ the crying boy says. ‘You called me names!’

  ‘You hit me! Straight in the face!’

  ‘You can’t say things like that! It’s not fair!’ The crying boy says to the new girl, ‘Samara, tell him he can’t!’

  The new girl – Samara – smiles at both boys. She produces a tissue from her pocket, and approaches Zac.

  ‘Can I take a look?’ she asks.

  ‘Ew,’ Jordi says. ‘He’s bleeding.’

  Zac shrugs. He doesn’t look happy, but he doesn’t back away, either. Samara moves closer and dabs her tissue here and there, removing the stream of blood, so there is only a mild pink stain left around the boy’s nostril. She puts the bloodied tissue in her skirt pocket. Jordi pulls a face.

  I keep close behind Katy as she pushes through the circle that is forming around the group. ‘What’s going on?’

  The skinny boy says, ‘He laughed at my lunch. And then he said – he said – he called me a name.’ He looks at Samara. ‘I don’t want to say it.’

  ‘Come here,’ she beckons the boy, bends over a little. The boy rushes up and whispers something in her ear. When she straightens up, she says to Zac, ‘Is that true?’

  ‘So what?’ says Zac. ‘It’s a free country.’

  Samara just keeps looking at Zac, whose eyes slide this way and that. He glances at the other boys standing around him. I don’t know their names, but I’ve seen them hanging around Zac, like he is a king. Now, most of them won’t meet his eyes. They are looking at Samara, or at their own shoes, or at the underside of the tin roof.

  Finally, Zac spits, ‘Okay, okay. Maybe I shouldn’t have said what I did, but he shouldn’t have hit me.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Katy pronounces. ‘Physical violence is unacceptable in this school.’ Zac starts to tilt his chin up, until Katy adds, ‘And so is name-calling. This needs to be reported.’

  ‘No!’ the boy and Zac both yell.

  ‘Katy,’ Jordi says, ‘it’s none of your business.’

  ‘I’m head councillor,’ Katy replies. ‘Of course it’s my business.’

  Samara turns to Katy, puts a hand on her arm.

  ‘It’s okay,’ she says. ‘We’ve sorted it out. Haven’t we, boys?’

  ‘Yes,’ says Zac. He turns to the boy. ‘Tell her.’

  ‘It’s sorted out,’ the boy says.

  ‘I’m not comfortable with this.’ Katy shakes her head.

  ‘Really?’ Jordi says. ‘Who cares? It’s over.’

  ‘I promise,’ Samara says. ‘This is the last you’ll hear of it.’

  Katy frowns.

  ‘Zac?’ Katy says. ‘You don’t have to put up with being assaulted.’

  ‘Please,’ Zac says. ‘Can we just go?’

  ‘And you,’ she says to the skinny boy. ‘You have the right to be treated with dignity, the same way as everyone else. But even so –’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ the boy says, and he really does sound sorry. Worried. ‘I just – I won’t do it again. I promise.’

  ‘All right.’ Katy points toward the junior school. ‘Now go. If I see anything like this again, I’m going to have to take it further.’

  The group of boys don’t wait a moment more: they race away from the undercover area. All except the skinny boy, who wipes his eyes and takes a deep breath before he walks away. He glances back, and Samara nods. The boy doesn’t smile, but his shoulders straighten up, just a little.

  ‘Your brother?’ Katy says to Samara.

  ‘Yes,’ Samara replies.

  ‘You’re all … new,’ Katy says. Then she peers at Samara with an expression that Maddie can’t work out. As if she is going to say something else, but stops herself.

  ‘It’s a good school,’ Samara says. ‘He’ll get used to it. I’ll talk to him later.’

  ‘Well,’ Katy says. She tips her head to the side, and says, ‘Welcome. I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to speak to you yesterday.’

  ‘It’s fine, Katy,’ Samara says. ‘We like it here.’

  ‘I’m Maddie,’ I pipe up. ‘Hi.’

  I give an awkward wave, and feel stupid the minute I do. I just want the new girl to know who I am. To notice me. I realise how pathetic it seems, even as I think it.

  ‘Hi Maddie,’ Samara says, and her eyes return to Katy. ‘You’re all very kind.’

  ‘Come on,’ says Jordi. She begins walking toward Elsa and Grace, who have emerged from the canteen line. Samara gives a small nod, then follows Jordi.

  Katy and I return to our spot on the bench. I pick up my lunchbox, but don’t open it. My heart is racing, as if I’ve been the one in the fight. Or the one trying to calm the boys afterward.

  Katy is gazing across the undercover area, to where the boys had been. She has the same expression as when she reads something about disappearing frogs, or the number of polar bears left in the world.

  ‘What did he say, do you think?’ I ask Katy.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Katy says. ‘But I can guess.’

  ‘Me too,’ I say, thinking of the scar, and knowing what boys like Zac could be like. I feel sad for the skinny boy, remembering his crying face. Even though we’ve had lessons in health ed about how it’s okay for boys to cry, they normally don’t, not like this boy had. And yet he’d hit a boy twice his size. That was brave.

  Katy turns back to her lunchbox. She picks up what is left of her sandwich and chews slowly.

  ‘I like her,’ I say. ‘Samara.’

  Katy gives me an odd look, keeps chewing. I check what Dad has packed for my lunch: a cheese muffin with a smiley cheese face on the top, some grapes in a container on one side, some cut-up strawberries on the other, a smaller container of chocolate freckles under the strawberries. I know I’m old enough to make my own lunch, but I begged Dad to keep making them, just for this year, just until high school. I pick off the smiley face and eat it. Dad’s cheese muffins are usually one of my favourites, but suddenly I don’t feel hungry.

  ‘Can I have it?’ Katy says in a bright voice, nodding in the direction of my lunch. Her voice sounds higher than normal, like she is also making a big effort to sound
cheerful.

  ‘I’ve eaten the top off it,’ I tell her.

  ‘But you haven’t licked it, right?’ Katy says, leaning over and taking it. She takes a huge bite and then grins, cheesy crumbs dropping over her lap.

  ‘You might be head councillor, but you are still disgusting,’ I say.

  ‘Why thank you,’ she says, causing more crumbs to spray from her mouth.

  I want to say something witty, something casual, but my throat is glued shut. Katy chews and swallows, says ‘ah!’ and pats her stomach. The unsettling feeling I’ve had since seeing the skinny boy and Zac is still making everything sound slightly wrong in my ears. Plus, I still feel a bit annoyed at Katy, although I have no reason to, not really. I am relieved when the siren goes and we head back to class, Katy chatting about what she is doing for English in her extension class. I say ‘yeah’ and ‘really’, but I’m not thinking about what Katy is saying.

  I’m thinking about the look on the boy’s face when he came into the undercover area, how upset he was then, how much calmer he was when he left. How his sister had made him calm.

  And I am thinking that at least I know her name, now. Samara.

  The first thing I want to do when I get home is search for Samara. But I don’t.

  It is all part of my Do My Best campaign.

  I decide that I need to show that I have some discipline. I let myself in the door: Dad won’t be home from work for another hour or so. I eat a banana, even though I would prefer a big glass of Milo. I march to my room, pausing to give Wolfie, who is curled on my bed, a quick pat. I switch off the wi-fi on my tablet so I won’t be tempted and sit down at the desk, ready for action.

  First, I will do my homework.

  Second, I will do my clarinet practice.

  Then, only then, I’ll let myself look for Samara.

  My homework is finishing the creative writing piece we’d started in class. At the beginning of the lesson Mrs L asked us each to come up with a topic – something general, something short – and write it on a piece of paper. ‘Nothing too complicated. No brand names. No superhero characters,’ Mrs L had said, and half the room groaned with disappointment. After some pen-chewing and staring out of windows, we wrote out our topics and put them into a big multicoloured box. I’d tried to think of an exciting topic, but ran out of time and ended up writing ‘fruit’, on account of the apple that Brooke had on her desk. Then Mrs L chose Lachy to pick out the first topic.