Dreaming of Amelia Read online

  Nonetheless!

  I turned to my friends in amazement. Lydia raised a single eyebrow. Cassie raised both eyebrows and gave me one of her dimples-in-the-corner-of-her-mouth looks which means she is trying not to laugh. I will say this about Cass: when a person is supposed to find something dramatic and mysterious, she will often find it funny.

  I will also say this. That I wondered when I would see Riley and Amelia again.

  I did not have to wonder long. It was four minutes later.

  The girl (Amelia) was in History Extension 1 with Mr Garcia.

  And so was I!!

  But nothing of note happened in that class.

  Plus, I couldn’t see her. She was three seats behind me.

  By the next day, I knew they were here on scholarships. In fact, Cassie’s mother is on the committee that chose them! But she couldn’t tell Cassie (or me) anything about their backgrounds, because it was ‘confidential’. Hmm, I thought.

  That day, Amelia was in English Extension 3 with Mr Botherit . . . and so was I!!!!!

  And so, normally, was Lydia. But she was not at school.

  Now, I will here display two details which might seem shady now, but later? — the blood-red moon will shine upon them.

  First! Our English class took place in Room 27B in the Art Rooms across the oval.

  The Art Rooms? Oh, you don’t know how important that is! Hearken! I will tell you!

  Well, the Art Rooms are not the Art Rooms any more. Oh no! That building is now the KL Mason Patterson Centre for the Arts. Because it turns out that a very rich man succumbed to death, and left a HUGE FORTUNE to our school.

  A fortune which I could have taken off his hands with ease if he had only had the foreskin to ask me. But oh no, he had to go and waste it on our school.

  Therefore, there is now a committee going mad, trying to think up ways to spend the money. I’m sure they have better reasons to go mad. But did KL think of that? No.

  One thing they have spent the money on is, of course, scholarships. Another is the crazed renovation of the Art Rooms.

  The Art Rooms were once the building where students slept, back in the olden days when our school was a boarding school! Anyhow, but then it became the Art Rooms, and now it has been renovated and includes conference rooms, drama theatres, auditoriums, art galleries, kitchens and ‘state of the art resource centres’ (ie classrooms), and furthermore its name has grown so long you need mouthwash to loosen up the muscles of your teeth before you say it.

  But we all still call it the Art Rooms.

  Second! Mr Botherit talked about how English Extension 3 is a new subject this year with an emphasis on ‘memoir’ and so he thought we should write blogs.

  I had a lot to say about this idea, but Amelia, who happened to be sitting five seats away from me (horizontally speaking), paid no heed to me.

  She spoke to not a soul. She was as silent as a chocolate bar.

  Her posture was good. I’m not suggesting here that she hunched over or hid behind her hair or suchlike. Oh no. She was poised and clear-eyed and her posture was exquisite — and her eyes followed the teacher every moment.

  He pranced around the room (as he responded to my many things to say), and Amelia’s eyes followed so closely it was as if he had magnets in his face.

  (I’m not suggesting here that Mr B is hot.)

  Eventually, Mr B asked me to stop talking. He said he was going to give us topics for our blogs, and the first one was, ‘My Journey Home’.

  And then I had a lot more to say.

  Nevertheless, in the end, I wrote my blog. And as I typed, I heard the sound of Amelia typing. I looked across at her. Her long hair slid down her back like a waterfall. (I don’t mean that it was wet; I’m being meteorological.) She would type very quickly and then she’d stop. There’d be a long, silent pause.

  Her fingernails were the extreme short of someone who bites their nails overtly. And her fingers wandered across the keys, gently stroking them whenever she paused.

  It was just as if we did not exist.

  At the end of the lesson, she drifted back across the oval. A lot of the boys in our class stopped to watch her go. They’d been checking her out the whole lesson, both openly and stealthily. A mixture of both.

  And then, at the other side of the oval, Amelia stopped. I looked in the direction of her gaze. It was Riley. He reached her. I did not see them speak. I did not see them touch. I simply saw the space between them close, and then I saw them gliding calmly onward.

  The boys in our class uttered a silent, plaintive sigh.

  Lydia Jaackson-Oberman

  Student No: 8233410

  The second day of term, I didn’t see Amelia and Riley at all.

  I stayed home from school.

  Had to stay at home because my head exploded.

  I was sweeping up the pieces of my head when my mum wandered into the room. She was half-asleep-hungover in her bathrobe. She’d been celebrating the night before — bought herself an independent record label just the other day. My mother picks up companies like other people pick up milk.

  ‘Watch your feet,’ I said.

  Her eyes flew open. Then she whimpered quietly: opening her eyes had hurt. She closed them fast.

  ‘Seriously,’ I said, ‘there’s broken head all over the place in here.’

  Mum sighed and drifted to the hallway. I could hear her telling Dad to stay out of the kitchen. I couldn’t hear his answer, just his tone. It was: deep, low, hmm, well, really, I’m too important a man to have to stay out of my own kitchen, aren’t I?

  Mum replied with her own tone: huh, interesting. Are you?

  I finished sweeping up my head and then, for a laugh, picked out a couple of the bigger pieces and juggled them.

  That was funny. You should have seen our dog, Pumpernickel. He thought it was a game just for him — he was doing these frantic bounces, like, spring! spring!, all the time getting closer, desperate to snatch one of the pieces of my head from the air. And I was shaking my head. I mean that literally. I’d put the rest of the head in a martini glass and I was: shake, shake, shake. And Pumpernickel —

  Ah, just kidding.

  My head didn’t explode.

  What, are you as stupid as my dog?

  No, I stayed home because my mother asked me to let the roofing guys in. She had some appointment to take her hangover to, and Dad had to go rule the world! (That’s what he does. He rules the world! Or at least he judges it. He’s a judge.)

  Anyway, I needed a break.

  Don’t think I can’t hear you, Exam Marking Person. This is what you’re saying: ‘What?! She needed a break? Isn’t it the second day after the summer holidays here? And she already needs a break? Isn’t that just like her generation?! I don’t know about the future when —’

  Take it easy or you’ll spill your herbal tea.

  You’re forgetting that you don’t know everything.

  Surprise!

  You don’t.

  At the start of the summer holidays last year, my best friends, Em and Cass, flew away (Em on a Canadian ski trip; Cass to voice training in Melbourne).

  While they were gone, my boyfriend and I broke up. And my dad moved out of the house. (Three weeks later, he moved back in.)

  The summer disappeared.

  Not a single drop of light. Pure darkness. An eclipse.

  I’m much more sane than I sound. But this last year some kind of madness has found its way underneath my nails. This last year, I’ve made the worst mistakes of my life.

  I’ll get to the mistakes.

  The point for now is this: at the start of the year — after that dark summer — I was not myself at all.

  Or maybe I was. Maybe I’d been cut down to my essence.

  4.

  www.myglasshouse.com/emthompson

  TUESDAY 5 FEBRUARY

  My Journey Home

  I journeyed home from school yesterday.

  I have nothing more to say about
that.

  Who knew then that I would have to write about it today?

  Nobody.

  Not even me.

  And therefore I didn’t pay attention.

  Now if Mr B had given us notice that he was going to make us write blogs about our journey, well!

  I would have paid attention. And then, now, I might have something to say.

  I suppose I can say that Lydia was driving and Cass was in the back seat. I remember that. And I remember one time when Lyd put her foot down to get through an orange light and I breathed in sharply because she almost got us all annayialated. She’s always doing that sort of thing when she’s driving.

  That’s it though. That’s all I have to say about my journey home. The car drove along. The car stopped. I got out. The end.

  And to be honest, I have neither the time nor the inclination to maintain a new blog. As I just now said to Mr B, I’m already busy enough with MySpace and Facebook and constant IMing. Not forgetting homework and other extracurricular activities such as being a member of a family.

  So, Lyd and Cass, where are you? Did you get my texts? You can comment now. I don’t want to write any more. It’s too hot, and I’m all used up because I’ve been lecturing Mr Botherit.

  And can someone tell me how to spell that word I used up there? Aniialate. Anayalate. I don’t have a clue.

  Great.

  Thanks.

  Seeya. Em.

  41 comments

  Lyd said . . . Hi Em. Thanks for the urgent text telling me to read your unjustified attack on my driving.

  Em said . . . Well, you know, Lyd, there is such a thing as RECKLESSNESS and I think you have it. And there is such a thing as DANGEROUS DRIVING and I think you have that too. And I just wonder. I really just wonder. Did you actually get your licence?

  Cass said . . . There was plenty of green left in that orange light, Em.

  Em said . . . Great to see your voice, Cass, but, listen, shut up, okay? You were looking out your window when Lyd drove through that light at a death-defying pace.

  Cass said . . . Mr Botherit is making you write blogs? He’s the anti-technology man, right? Didn’t he make us do that letter-writing exchange in Year 10, the one with Brookfield, cos he wanted to bring back the ‘joy of the envelope’? Maybe he gets off on sniffing the glue on envelopes and that’s why they’re joyous to him.

  Em said . . . Lyd, have you explained to your mum that she has to change the name of her new record company? ‘Distressed Weasel Records’ makes me feel unwell. Actually, has it made you unwell? Cos why aren’t you here? It’s only the second day.

  Em said . . . And I KNOW, Cass, don’t get me started about Mr B and his transportation of character. You should hear him go on about new technologies now!!! He wants us to spend all our time delivering content all over the place like we’re bicycle couriers. He’s disturbing me. You know how I feel about change. I told him that incontinence is a character flaw.

  Lyd said . . . I’ll be back at school tomorrow. You two can come over to my place tonight if you want. Do you mean inconsistency?

  Cass said . . . I can look it up for you if you want. I’m in the library cos I didn’t feel like going to English. OMFG.

  Lyd said . . . What?

  Cass said . . . Nothing. People never chat online without saying OMFG at least once so now I’ve done it twice you two can stop worrying.

  Em said . . . Okay but this isn’t online chatting, Mr B said we can’t do that in his class. I’m just, like, responding to comments on my blog, which is technically blogging.

  Lyd said . . . There were leaks in our roof in the storm last night. So I told Mum I’d stay home to let the roofing guys in. And you know what?

  Em said . . . What?

  Lyd said . . . I didn’t need to let them in. The roof is outside.

  Em said . . . Can you believe the subject of the blog? Don’t think for a minute that it was my idea. As you can see it has sapped all my imagination. And I said to Mr B, excuse me? Our journey home from school? I said, well, no offence but is that really interesting? Is it, maybe, a little juvenile?

  I said: You are new to technology, Mr B, and so you are a naive waif and do not know that it’s a cutthroat world and if I write a blog about my journey home I am effectively inviting online stalkers to follow me home and cut my throat.

  Cass said . . . What did he say?

  Em said . . . He said we could set up a profile with the highest level of privacy settings.

  Em said . . . And he has this weird idea that he can teach without TEACHING. I mean, he says this is just like an exercise class in which we flex our writing muscles or something. And he’s not going to read it, and I said you can’t flex muscles without a personal trainer and he said — I don’t know what he said. I got bored and stopped listening to him.

  Lyd said . . . I think someone just fell through the roof. Gotta go.

  Em said . . . And GUESS WHO’S IN THIS CLASS?

  Cass said . . . Who?

  Em said . . . AMELIA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  Cass said . . . Who’s that?

  Em said . . . WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?! AMELIA!!! The new girl! The one with the new guy named Riley! I can’t BELIEVE you’ve forgotten those two already! We TALKED about them so MUCH yesterday afternoon!!!

  Or I did anyway.

  Cass said . . . Just kidding. What’s she like?

  Em said . . . I think she’s stupid.

  Cass said . . . Okay.

  Em said . . . And she’s not SAYING anything or LOOKING at anybody. And she’s even more beautiful in person.

  Cass said . . . When have you seen her not in person?

  Em said . . . I mean, close up. I haven’t seen her this close before and she’s even more beautiful. I am LOOKING AT HER RIGHT NOW while I’m typing.

  Cass said . . . What’s she doing?

  Em said . . . She’s just sitting there. Okay, she’s typing now. Now she’s stopped. Now she’s breathing. Okay, now I can’t hear her breathing. No. She’s breathing again. Really quietly though. Now she’s typing again — no. She’s stopped. Okay, she’s typing.

  Cass said . . . Lydia? Are you back yet?

  Em said . . . Ha ha. But come on, don’t you think there’s something kind of tranquilising about her? Don’t you want to know where she comes from and why she’s here and what mysteries are trapped within the complicated confines of her mind?

  Cass said . . . I thought you said she was stupid.

  Em said . . . I have no basis for that.

  Cass said . . . I think I have to go. My English class just walked past the library window and Ms W looked right in at me. She’s frowning to herself like she knows she’s seen me somewhere before. What the f— are they doing walking around outside? See ya.

  Lyd said . . . I’m back. It wasn’t a person, it was a wrench. The roofing guy dropped his wrench through the skylight in the upstairs bathroom. Now the skylight has a hole shaped exactly like a dolphin. Gotta go again though. Roofing guy looked so depressed about the skylight I had to invite him in for coffee. See ya tonight?

  Em said . . . Okay. Mr B is saying some ridiculous things so I’m going to have to stop now anyway. Have fun. Pick me up from school if you want. Is the roofing guy hot?

  Lyd said . . . I’ll pick you up at 3.30. Annihilatingly hot.

  www.myglasshouse.com/shadowgirl

  TUESDAY 5 FEBRUARY

  My Journey Home

  So this is me walking the bus shelter route with a

  Kit Kat.

  Lost Cockatoo on the telegraph pole.

  Zombies face-up on the footpath.

  Ledges of chocolate, answers to Poppy.

  Thinkin maybe I’ll make me a Zombie.

  GarAge Sale at Undercliffe Street.

  Maybe I’ll buy me a GArage.

  And we miss her and please send her home.

  Edges of ledges of chocolate.

  And please send our Poppy back home.


  So this is me thinking: not Undercliffe Street.

  There’s no effin ‘e’ at the end of the cliff.

  How can you live in a street long enough

  and not know the street by its name?

  To get enough junk for a sale.

  Thinkin Undercliff Street is a band name.

  A lot of guitar and long hair.

  The band is straight rock without angles.

  The name’s on an angle, the name’s like a ledge,

  like the ledge at the back of that moving truck now,

  grenadine, lime juice and Jamaican rum,

  and please send our Poppy back home.

  0 comments

  5.

  Emily Melissa-Anne Thompson

  Student No: 8233521

  Anyway, the term tumbled onward like cobwebs swept from the staircase of a large, gothic mansion.

  And everywhere I turned: Riley and Amelia.

  I suppose this could have been because I was always following them around.

  But still! Why was I doing that?

  I know not.

  I had never followed people around before! I mean, I’m a busy person with a life.

  I guess it can only be explained using the dynamics of first impressions and drawing on my knowledge of gothic fiction. (*Sigh*)

  But, listen! The more I followed Riley and Amelia, the less I knew of they.

  Who were they? Whenceforward had they come? Why? Why not? What did they want with our school?

  These and other questions gripped me like a stuffed toy in the claws of a shopping centre skilltester machine.

  And yet, what answers beheld me?

  None. Three weeks passed, and all that I knew was this:

  1. They were named Riley and Amelia, and they were here on scholarships.

  2. They went swimming before school. (Lydia told me that.)