Maddie in the Middle Page 8

  It is a big, fat line. And once I cross it, I can never go back.

  ‘And Maddie,’ Samara says. ‘There’s one more thing.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  Samara pauses. ‘I don’t like to ask you this. I already know how much I will owe you for doing this.’

  ‘I want to,’ I say. If it isn’t quite true, I say it as if I mean it. Because it is true that I want to help Samara, Tom and Dayna. I would prefer to be doing it some other way, like by telling Dad and getting him to work it out, but Samara is smart, and if Samara can’t think of another way, I know that there must be no other way.

  ‘Well,’ Samara says. ‘If you get caught, which you won’t –’

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘I can’t get caught. I really can’t. My dad –’ I swallow. ‘I can’t imagine what my dad would do.’

  ‘Of course,’ Samara says. ‘But if the very worst happens, and you do get caught, or if I get caught – I need you to do one more thing.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I need you to say it was your idea,’ Samara says. ‘That you wanted whatever it is you are caught with. Because if the authorities realise how bad my mum is, and that my dad’s run away – well, they might take us away from her. That’s what they do.’

  ‘Really?’ I say. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes,’ Samara says. ‘It happened to a family in our town, whose mum was sick like my mum gets. It happens. It’s the thing that scares Mum the most about being the way she is.’

  ‘Well,’ I say. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Samara says. ‘I can’t ask you that, can I? Forget it.’

  I think for a moment. I imagine being arrested by a police officer in the middle of the chocolate aisle. I imagine the dread and fear of it. I’ve never thought of myself as especially good, but I’ve never taken so much as a pencil from anyone without asking. I don’t understand how some kids at our school – kids like Zac – seemed to enjoy getting in trouble. I hate it when teachers or Dad look at me disapprovingly. How would it feel to be arrested?

  Then I imagine taking a deep breath, squaring my shoulders, and saying, ‘I’m sorry, Officer. It was all my fault. Go ahead and arrest me. Send me to jail.’

  I imagine being thrown in jail – a kind of dark, hard version of the time-out room I’d been past but never in at school. I imagine sitting there, knowing I am there because I was helping someone. Helping Samara and Tom and Dayna. Helping their mum, the great piano player who no longer has a piano.

  If I do that, something so scary and secret, something that nobody knows about except Samara, I really will be the best person I could be. It is more than just practising clarinet or doing my homework. It is doing something that might hurt me because it helped other people who needed it.

  And I feel suddenly confident, newly strong.

  I step over the line, as if it is nothing. As if it isn’t a divider between my past life and a new life. Between my old self and my new one.

  ‘You can count on me,’ I say.

  And the look of relief on Samara’s face makes me feel warm inside, makes my eyes water with happy tears. To have a friend is one thing. But to make a difference to a friend, to truly help them – that is something I have never felt with someone like Katy, who never needs anything from me.

  ‘Selfie?’ Samara gets out her phone – it is an old phone, which was probably why she doesn’t post much – and we put our heads together, and smile.

  After deciding I will help Samara, I go home, full of determination and feeling proud about my decision, almost running with giddy energy. But as soon as I walk in the door, and Wolfie nudges his head against my leg in greeting, and Dad cheerfully calls out that I am late and it is time to set the table, my determination and pride shrink. By the time I finish dinner, I am almost on the verge of telling Dad what I have agreed to.

  ‘You all right, sweetheart?’ Dad asks, after I’ve picked at my spinach lasagne, normally one of my favourites. I think of Samara and her family, at home eating peanut butter sandwiches, and feel bad at what I haven’t eaten. Then I feel conflicted again. I am going to help them, aren’t I? Then why do I suddenly feel this nugget of fear and doubt, when before I’d been floating on happiness about my decision?

  ‘I’m fine, Dad,’ I respond automatically. Then I say, ‘There’s a new girl at school who I’ve made friends with.’

  ‘Because Katy’s so busy?’ Dad asks.

  ‘Sort of,’ I answer.

  ‘Well, invite her to dinner sometime.’ Dad stands up, and begins clearing away my half-eaten food.

  ‘I will,’ I say. ‘I’ll message her now.’

  But I don’t message Samara. I’d feel bad, asking Samara but not Tom and Dayna as well. I could ask all of them, I guess, but it would seem strange. And anyway, I know Samara won’t leave her mother at night.

  I pick up my clarinet case and quickly put the instrument together, to keep my mind off things. I play ‘Pachelbel’s Canon’ and ‘Baby Elephant Walk’. By the time I finish practising, I’ve almost forgotten about what I promised to do.

  Then a picture pops up on my tablet.

  It is the selfie Samara had taken earlier. The two of us are smiling into the camera, grinning like we have nothing to worry about in the whole world. Samara looks even prettier in the picture than she does in person. I look young and ordinary next to her.

  Below it is a caption: True friend.

  ‘I can’t do it,’ I say to Samara.

  We’ve travelled on a bus and a train to a busy shopping centre a few suburbs away, somewhere we won’t run into anyone we knew. This is important for my first time, Samara explains. I need to be completely focused on what I am doing. I don’t have any particular thing I have to get, only something small. The important thing is to go through with it.

  ‘You’ll be fine,’ Samara says.

  ‘I’m going to be sick,’ I say.

  It is true. I feel dizzy, my palms are sweaty, and my heart is throwing itself against my ribs. I can’t feel my limbs properly.

  I feel like I am going to faint. Or die. Or both.

  ‘You’re just nervous,’ Samara says. ‘It’s normal.’ She puts her hand on my shoulder. ‘Breathe,’ she instructs.

  I breathe. What am I doing here? I’d said to Samara, after last week, that maybe I could get some food to give her, from my house, but Samara had said, ‘That’s kind. But we have to help ourselves, and we don’t only need food. The electricity bill needs to be paid, for a start. Besides, wouldn’t your dad want to know why you were giving things to us?’

  This was true, but what I really wanted was another way to help Samara. So I wouldn’t have to do this. But I couldn’t think of one, so here I was.

  ‘Okay, I’ll wait outside for you,’ Samara says. ‘We can do it together other times, but this time –’

  ‘I know,’ I say. Then I look squarely at Samara, remembering why I am doing this. To help Samara. To be a good friend.

  ‘Okay,’ I say, a little more confidently. ‘I’m going.’

  Samara waves at me.

  I breathe in deeply, and walk past the trolleys and through the wide entrance of the supermarket. I nod at the security guard, who stares back at me without smiling, and select my shopping basket. The top one is jammed against the next, and with my slippery hands I have to work hard to yank them apart. I am aware of my thudding heart, but tell myself, as Samara had, that nobody can see what I am thinking, what I intend to do. I am a normal kid buying normal things. That’s what people will see.

  But still, I can feel my cheeks burning.

  I pause at the fruit section, select two shiny red apples, and place them on the hard plastic base of the basket, but they roll around as I continue on, past the other fruit, past the veggies, past the bread to the back of the store.

  Slowly I wander past the chill air coming from the meat section, and make a show of reading all the aisle descriptions hanging from the ceiling. Cereal, tea and coffee, tin
ned vegetables, beans and pasta, biscuits and crisps. Then the confectionery aisle.

  I casually turn into the aisle, which is filled with shelves of snack bars in their shiny packages, puffy bags of chips from small to large, tubs of liquorice and giant bags of party favours. Then I come to the section with the small but expensive chocolate, gourmet brands Dad only ever buys on special occasions.

  As I scan the shelves, I turn my head this way and then the other, making sure there is no one nearby, that the cameras aren’t on me, not that I can tell, although I know I have to sneak the chocolate so that nobody will notice, even if they are looking.

  ‘Breathe,’ I say to myself.

  I reach forward and pick up one bar, and then another. And then, just as Samara has told me, I slip one up my sleeve.

  As I hook my arm through the handles of the basket, the chocolate bar falls safely back toward my elbow.

  ‘You’ll need to be careful,’ Samara had said. ‘When you get used to it, you’ll be able to transfer it to one of your pockets, or slip it down your tank. But for this time, keep it in your sleeve. Just remember not to straighten your arm and you’ll be fine.’

  Now, I measure my pace, look at the confectionery for a little while longer, then head for the checkout.

  ‘Just these?’ the girl says.

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Want to check my bag?’

  I hold my bag up, partly to make sure the chocolate doesn’t fall out of my sleeve, and the girl glances in and says, ‘Thanks.’

  It seems to me that the girl takes forever to weigh the apples, scanning a list to work out which type they are. I keep my face as still as I can, but I can feel heat creeping up my neck. And I dare not look back in case the security guard has followed me, seen me steal, and is waiting for me to leave the store before he arrests me.

  ‘Two dollars forty,’ the girl eventually says.

  I slip a note out of my purse and hand it over. ‘Expensive,’ I say, testing my voice to see how casual I can make it.

  The girl shrugs, scoops the change from the till, and places it in my palm with a receipt.

  ‘Have a nice day,’ she says automatically.

  ‘You too,’ I say in a feather-light voice.

  I slip the change into my bag and pick up the apples, holding them so my sleeve is at the right angle, making sure the receipt is visible. I badly want to run, now, but I know that the staff will still be watching, so I try to walk at a normal pace.

  I head for the exit. I pass a doughnut and coffee stand, a two-dollar shop, hair salon, a phone shop. I keep my eyes on the sliding doors leading to the outside of the shopping centre, and freedom. My veins feel fizzy with relief, and as soon as I pass through the doors, I begin grinning.

  I’ve done it. I’ve done what Samara asked.

  I, Madeleine Lee, a normal year six girl, clarinet player, former member of the Rule of Two, dreamer, owner of Wolfie, have stolen something.

  I should feel bad. But right now, I don’t feel bad at all.

  Samara is waiting for me across the car park, near a bus stop. When she sees me, she raises her eyebrows.

  I nod, grinning.

  ‘Oh fantastic,’ Samara says. She checks behind me, but nobody is following. ‘What did you get?’

  I hand Samara the two apples, then slip the bar out of my sleeve.

  ‘That’s great,’ Samara says. ‘The boys will be able to sell that easily.’

  She puts the bar in her own bag, then takes my hands. They are still clammy, but Samara doesn’t seem to notice.

  ‘We are going to make a brilliant team,’ Samara says. ‘I can’t thank you enough.’

  ‘I’m so – happy!’ I say. ‘I can’t believe I did it. I just want to run.’

  ‘Adrenaline,’ Samara smiles. ‘Maybe you can come and kick the soccer ball with Tom at the park?’

  ‘I’d love to,’ I say. ‘Let’s go.’

  In the few weeks before the holidays, I am never sure of when we are going to have to ‘go shopping’, as Samara calls it. Sometimes we are closer to home; other times we go to suburbs I’ve only driven past. We never go to the same place twice.

  I never get used to taking things. Every time I am nervous, and I have to work hard to slow my breathing and pretend nothing is happening. But sometimes, afterward, like the first time, I get a rush of exhilaration when we walk out of a shop, knowing what I’ve done to make sure Samara, Tom and Dayna stay together. It’s not like I’m enjoying it, exactly. But the relief of it being over gives me a feeling of something like happiness.

  But it doesn’t last long.

  Sometimes I wake up in the morning with dread, wishing there was another way to get money for Samara’s family. But I know what is at stake, and I know if there was another way, Samara would have found it. And it’s only temporary, that’s what Samara said. But all that doesn’t stop me feeling worried about what I am doing. On the one hand, I am proud that I am helping. On the other, I know it is wrong. Some days, I am sure that the helping outweighs the stealing. Other days, I’m not.

  At school, nothing much is different on the surface, but underneath, everything feels different. Katy is still ignoring me as much as she can. In rehearsals, she’s cool and clipped with Samara, and speaks to me only when she has no other choice, or else to make a negative remark about my playing. She makes suggestions to Mrs C about the pieces we are going to play, all of which Mrs C agrees with. She stops Samara and me at certain points and makes us play any tricky sections again and again until we have them right. I am sure that if she wasn’t playing flute herself, she would conduct as well.

  To try to make sure Katy has as little as possible to pick on me about, I practise more than I have before. It also gives me something to focus on, when I start to think about what I am doing for Samara.

  So I practise and practise. When I am playing long notes, concentrating on tricky fingering, or smoothly transitioning between low and high registers, there is nothing else I can think about.

  One of the only good things is that I’ve figured out how it is that Samara was so cool when she first came to the school. She’s had plenty of practice pretending nothing is wrong, of hiding all the bad things, only showing a glossy surface that nobody can see beneath.

  And now I’m getting plenty of practice at that too.

  On the last day of term, there is a merit-award assembly. It is the first performance of the ensemble.

  Before assembly, Samara and I arrange ourselves on the stage. Samara is playing the shiny black upright piano that is usually rolled into the wings; I am on the other side of Katy. Katy angles our music stands so they are facing directly out at the audience, instead of facing slightly toward each other, the way they do in rehearsal. She says it is better for the acoustics that way, but I’m pretty certain it is to make absolutely sure we don’t make any more eye contact than we have to.

  ‘It’s been a successful first term for us all, no doubt helped by our school motto,’ Katy says into the microphone, after the school has crowded into the gym. ‘Okay, repeat after me: Do your best, help the rest, put your spirit to the test!’

  The year fours, as always, are the loudest at chanting the motto. I see Tom and Zac shouting along, and smile to myself.

  ‘Now, this is the first performance for our new ensemble,’ Katy says. ‘We haven’t decided on a name yet –’

  Samara and I look at each other. We haven’t decided on a name for the very good reason that Katy hasn’t suggested we need one.

  ‘But the first piece we would like to play you is called ‘Lullaby’. Although please don’t go to sleep during it!’

  Kids laugh, and Katy picks up her flute and sits down, looking pleased with herself. She begins counting in, and glances at Samara and me long enough to make sure we are with her.

  The piece sounds beautiful. As we are playing, I get lost in the lilting melody that the flute holds, the calm piano behind, my clarinet playing its long, low notes underneath. We sound pretty good
, I have to admit.

  The school applauds politely when the piece is finished. I look over at Katy. Surely she could hear how good that was? We’d created something amazing, the three of us, playing in perfect time.

  But Katy’s face is stony. She holds my gaze for a mere second or two, then gets back up to the microphone without smiling. As if I am somebody she barely knows.

  I was supposed to go to Port Hedland over the holidays, to stay with Mum. But I begged to be able to stay home and go up in the next lot of holidays. I said I was in a routine with my music practice and I had homework I wanted to catch up on, and I couldn’t do it with the two annoying stepbrothers around. Dad argued with me for a bit but then gave in. He never says anything, but I know he doesn’t like me going up there. Mum was really disappointed, and said I’ll definitely have to come up in July.

  I feel a little bit bad lying to Dad and Mum about why I really want to stay at home. But it is the truth that I don’t want to go to Port Hedland, and I really don’t want to spend any time with the boys. So I don’t think about it anymore.

  I don’t ask how Tom is arranging to sell what we acquire during the holidays, but he must be, because one day Samara texts me and says, ‘It’s on! Come over!’

  For a moment I don’t know what Samara is talking about, then I realise she must mean the electricity. I rush out of the house and half skip, half walk to Samara’s.

  The musty smell in the unit has been replaced with the odours of something delicious cooking, and even though all the boxes are still there, it seems tidier than the last time.

  Tom opens the door, bows low and gestures for me to come inside. ‘Welcome to our humble abode,’ he says in a deep voice.

  ‘Hey Maddie!’ Dayna rushes up and hugs me around the middle, the way she does with Samara.

  ‘Hey Dayna!’ I scruffle her hair.

  ‘Come in!’ Samara calls. Her voice is cheerful: I’ve never heard her sound so happy. ‘I hope you’re hungry, I’ve made enough to feed an army!’

  To my surprise, Samara’s mum is out of bed. She doesn’t look the way she did the first time I’d visited, but she says, ‘I’m sorry I’m such a mess. It’s not right. I should be a better mother.’