Dreaming of Amelia Read online

  3. They were always together.

  4. (Except when they were in different classes.)

  That’s it.

  When I say they were ‘always together’ I don’t mean in the way of other couples. Those couples who walk around making gurgling noises into the sides of each other’s necks?

  No.

  Those couples are as disgusting as a gothic sewerage system.

  Riley and Amelia had rhythm that matched and yet they were separate. Like bicycle wheels.

  Sometimes they spoke and it’s true that their voices were murmurs. But not the too-much-cheap-chocolate-weirdfeeling-in-my-chin murmur of those other couples. It was more like the way my parents talked this one time when we went camping. It was late, and my brother and I were in our sleeping bags in the tent, and we could hear Mum and Dad by the campfire. Their low voices talked about strange, important things, and I couldn’t really catch what they were saying. But it seemed to me to be all about how their kids were kind of stupid, but funny.

  That’s the kind of murmuring Riley and Amelia shared.

  They never spoke to anybody else. Only to each other.

  That is a lie.

  They did speak to other people. Yet, confusingly, they spoke without actually speaking.

  They were different in this way: Amelia did not look at anybody. Only at teachers and other inanimate objects. When spoken to, she answered in her murmuring voice, so people leaned in closer to hear. At that point she stopped talking and turned away, as if that was the end of it.

  Riley, however, looked deep into the eyes for brief moments.

  When that happened — when Riley’s eyes looked deeply into yours — it made you feel as if a dragon was breathing fire in your chest.

  And he chatted. He was a charmer. He spoke in friendly sentences. But nobody could remember what he said.I mean, once I saw him talking to someone and I said, ‘What was that about?’ And the person looked confused, like, what did I mean?

  So, you see, they spoke without actually speaking.

  I tried to get close enough to hear what they said, but that was tricky. And it made me look ridiculous, eg the time I fell over Riley’s foot and landed in Amelia’s path. They were calm when I did that. They stopped and waited for me. I said, ‘Sorry, sorry,’ and they both half smiled in a distant, patient way.

  It was one of the low moments in my life, and I stopped following them around for a few days. For my dignity.

  But then I started again.

  And sometimes I saw this: Riley and Amelia looking about them like lions. Just as they had at the doorway to the Year 12 common room that first day.

  When they did this, they almost never fixed on anybody. They never seemed to choose amongst their prey. They simply moved their eyes in a steady, roaming way.

  Here is the strangest thing: I wanted to hold their gaze.

  I confess. That’s what I wanted.

  I was chilled, terrified, I wished to flee!

  But when their predatory gaze began to wander, I wanted, more than anything, for Riley and Amelia to choose me.

  Here, you will be pondering: why not simply ask them some questions?

  Or, in Lyd’s words: ‘Em, would you talk to them, already?’

  Ah, that makes me laugh! Ha ha ha! You naive waif! (I said to Lyd.) Do you not see the invisible barrier around them? (Like the gothic moat around a gothic castle.) Nobody approached Riley and Amelia.

  ‘I don’t get it,’ Cass said. ‘They’re beautiful, but they’re just, like, a girl and a guy. What’s with the obsession?’

  A girl and a guy! (I said to Cass.) They are aliens, ghosts, or vampires! They are former assassins in a witness protection program! They are undercover police officers! I don’t know what they are, actually, but I know they are more than just a girl and a guy! I sense it.

  ‘That’s quite an imagination you’ve got there,’ said Mr Ludovico, walking by like a swarm of wasps. He is my Economics teacher, and also became school principal last year. ‘It’s not going to impress your clients,’ he called back over his shoulder, ‘if you do end up as a lawyer one day.’

  That ‘if you do’ was like a wasp’s sting to my heart.

  ‘Spilled something on your tie,’ Lyd called, not even looking at him, and Mr L frowned down at the stain on his tie.

  But behold! The mystery of Amelia and Riley was about to take off.

  It was the third week of term, and there came to be a Monday. (They oft happen, Mondays, and that is a gothic tragedy.)

  I awoke with a paroxysm of terror in my soul.

  Here’s a funny thing about me, I often sense, via a paroxysm of terror, when I’ve got a new pimple.

  And behold, there it was, a pimple of gothic proportions. I won’t distress you by describing it, except to say that it was on my chin, where a witch will oft keep a wart.

  I made the mistake of squeezing it and it turned into a volcano.

  But things were about to get worse.

  At the breakfast table, I beheld my younger brother in his winter school uniform. I was, like, ha ha, William, you lose, haven’t you noticed the temperature outside, dude, it’s like a million degrees, etc.

  Making fun of him but in a friendly, sisterly way.

  And then my mother, who was listening to this while she peeled bananas for the blender — my mother said, ‘I guess you’re supposed to be wearing the winter uniform too, aren’t you, Em?’

  And oh! Horror upon horrors! She was right. (And she had cruelly let me go on with the teasing of my brother before she said anything.)

  It was school photograph day! (You wear the winter uniform that day.)

  William kept on eating his crumpets with honey, and he hunches over the table to do this, so he hadn’t looked up and seen my face, or he would have had plentiful material for his vengeance.

  I went to school with all the makeup I owned on my chin. I was profoundly depressed. Maybe you think I am exaggerating and you are right, but the fact is: this was going to be our last school photograph ever.

  (I don’t think they do school photographs at uni, do they? No. And definitely not at work.)

  So!! This would be the last time I would ever be an innocent schoolgirl standing on those metal seats, surrounded by all my friends, while a photographer tries to make us stand up straight and smile!

  And it was going to be ruined by a zit.

  Lyd and Cass were kind, and said they didn’t think it would even show up in the photo. This proved to me that it was a monstrosity. Normally, Lyd would say, ‘Yeah, you’ve got a piece of rotten fruit growing on your face, Em; get over it, it’ll pass.’

  Not in a cruel way, just because she believes in honesty, and in using opportunities for humour.

  Yet, this day, she was gentle, so I knew the pimple was terminal.

  Year 12 walked up to the oval to be photographed in front of the Art Rooms, as that’s the oldest, most charismatic building of our school, and also is now the KL Mason Patterson Centre for the Arts. So, two strikes and you’re out. With one stone.

  Every person in our year was laughing, messing around, making jokes — every single person except me.

  I was so despondent I didn’t even look out for Riley and Amelia!

  Which was ironical, because guess what, after the teachers and photographer had rushed around getting us arranged, and finally we were ready, teetering and squished . . . I realised I was next to Amelia.

  Right beside her.

  I did not know what to do.

  I decided I would turn to her, point to the giant pimple on my chin, and say, with humorous irony: ‘It’s the little things, you know?’

  Then I decided against that.

  Then I was aghast at the idea that I had almost done that.

  I began to hyperventilate, quietly.

  On no account could she see the pimple. She was too beautiful and mysterious for the things of adolescence.

  I started chatting with someone two rows behind me, as that
gave me a reason to crane my neck so that my chin was the greatest distance possible from Amelia. And that’s why I did not notice at first when the photographer called out: ‘Okay, could you just close that gap?’

  He called this twice. Someone said, ‘Emily?’

  I looked around and the photographer was pointing to a gap right beside me.

  It was the space where Amelia had been.

  She had vanished.

  Leaving naught but a gap.

  We pressed together and the photographer started snapping, and every chance I could, I searched about me. Yet Amelia had simply gone!!!

  I could hardly concentrate on smiling, let alone smiling in a way that concealed my chin. For I could not comprehend how she had done it. We were crammed together like a chunk of frozen peas. I was in the middle of the third row back, people pressed behind, beside, and in front. That is to say, trapped.

  Let’s say I’d wanted to get off the bench? Say to go to the bathroom? I would have had to say, ‘Excuse me, excuse me’, and half a row of people would have had to jump to the ground, complaining, talking, tripping — it would not have been worth it. I would have just had to hold on.

  Yet Amelia had simply faded away.

  It was impossible.

  Moments later, when we were all climbing down, shaking our arms and legs, I saw her. Way across the oval. Slipping back into the main part of the school.

  If that were not enough, the very next day was the swimming carnival.

  The entire school was agog, but I will simply say this:

  Amelia is the fastest swimmer in the history of water. (And Riley is pretty fast, too.)

  Lydia Jaackson-Oberman

  Student No: 8233410

  Every day, the first few weeks of term, Amelia and Riley arrived late.

  With wet hair, bloodshot eyes and swimming goggles.

  Was it really such a stretch to think that they might, I don’t know, do okay at the swimming carnival?

  Turns out it was.

  I was profoundly disappointed by humanity that day.

  The shock! Everyone turning to everybody else: ‘Did you know?’

  My friend Em was so astounded that her face fell right off her skull. Sewed it back on while she was busy shrieking out her disbelief.

  And even Cass was kind of psyched. Time was, Cass didn’t even know what house she was in. But this day, the three of us were sitting eating Pringles and watching the green crowd (Lawson) go wild. Cass was looking thoughtful. ‘So Amelia and Riley are in Lawson?’ she said. ‘How’d you guess?’ Em said. Another few moments of crunching went by. ‘I’m in Lawson too, aren’t I?’ Cass said, eventually. Then she reached over, tore the green cover off my notebook, and stuck it to her forehead with some gum.

  Amelia and Riley entered every race they could.

  They won every single one.

  Riley’s victories were solid. He was always maybe a swimmer’s length or two in front.

  But Amelia won by a pool’s length.

  To be honest, that was kind of a rush, even for me. Watching someone move that fast. It’s mesmerising. The strange thing was, she looked slow. From up in the stands it honestly seemed like the other swimmers were the fast ones: they were sprinting and thrashing through the water, while Amelia was out for a dip.

  It was like she had a different way with water from everybody else.

  No. It was more than that. It was like she had a different way with time.

  She broke every Ashbury record, and they made her Champion of the Day.

  So, they were swimmers. Great. I didn’t let it make my head explode.

  The thing that interested me was the trophy presentation. Amelia smiled but her eyes were searching. I thought she was searching for Riley, and I found him myself in the crowd. (Never seen so much pride in such a trace of a smile.)

  Then I looked back at Amelia. She’d found Riley too; her eyes stayed on him a moment — and then they looked away and kept on searching.

  Later that night, I was walking to my car from the Seven Eleven in Castle Hill. I remember I was eating a Magnum. Coming towards me in the summer dusk: a family. The woman was wearing jeans and a baseball cap. The man was carrying a baby in one of those pouches that you strap to your chest. The baby was facing forwards, arms and legs hanging out. I was looking at the baby. A bright light flashed from somewhere. I was in a bad mood. I cracked a piece of chocolate from the Magnum with my teeth. I was ready to stare the baby down. You know the way you smile at babies and they just look back with bland indifference? I was going to give this baby some indifference of my own. But as I got closer the baby gave an unexpected wide-mouthed grin. I accidentally laughed aloud.

  A light flashed again.

  I looked up and realised that the man had a camera in his hands.

  He’d taken a photograph of me.

  I stopped. The flash was in my eyes and in my chest. I was ready with: how dare you take my —

  Then a streetlight hit the faces of the couple and I realised who they were.

  Amelia and Riley.

  I kept walking.

  Riley T Smith

  Student No: 8233569

  Amelia’s a tightly rolled newspaper, caught in a coil of rubber band.

  Not usually.

  Just in these situations: she’s thinking of making spaghetti carbonara for dinner but she hasn’t got any spaghetti; she hasn’t had time to play her guitar for three days; someone asks her, in a nice, polite way, to stop doing something annoying like kicking the side of their chair.

  It’s the politeness she can’t stand. They must be so pissed, she says, they’re sitting in a café and she’s kicking their chair, why are they being so sweet?

  And competitive swimming.

  It goes like this: she starts the day not caring, wins the first race, and realises she cares too much. That makes her mad. And terrified she won’t win again.

  Not just win, either: win in a way that causes frenzy.

  The world presses in and that makes it worse. It’s the frenzy that she wants but she can’t stand it. After every race, she curls tighter.

  Swimming carnival at our new private school. Sports teachers asking who her trainer is. Relay teams catching her in victory dances. (They could have waded down the pool, Amelia would still have won it for them.) Yearbook wanting her photograph. She never lets anybody photograph her. She knows she’s a ghost and won’t show up.

  We had to be out late that night, starting 2 am.

  The music helped — it helps us both. We’re not musicians, we’re average, but playing music makes us feel like gods.

  But then she’s on the dance floor, and Amelia’s a newspaper that just got loose.

  Pieces of her flying wild.

  Flashes of her face, hands in the air, that piece of black string with the tiny white opal that she knots around her wrist.

  At three, I find her by an exit door, some huge purple cocktail cold between her hands, a joint between her teeth, a beer held tight beneath her arm.

  I’m thinking that I have to get her home.

  Some guy is leaving. His hand hits the exit door just above Amelia’s shoulder. There’s a moment when he realises: push the door, the girl will fall. He stops.

  Then he looks sideways. ‘Amelia,’ he says. ‘Hey.’

  I see his mouth say this. Can’t hear his voice over the noise.

  Amelia stares back, breathes in through her nose. Her eyes give him a smile, like she likes the look of him.

  ‘You were amazing today,’ says his mouth.

  So he was at the swimming carnival. He’s someone from our new private school.

  I’m staring at his face, his clothes, his body language. He’s a big guy. Looks okay.

  We hit the exit door together, so I can find a taxi. He helps me look a moment, then he asks me where she lives. Says that’s on his way.

  I call her from the Goose and Thistle, half an hour later. She answers in her sleep.

  The n
ext day she’s forgotten it all. I see the guy, point him out. He’s running up a flight of stairs.

  ‘Oh, yeah, him,’ she says. ‘I think he’s in my History class. Why?’

  ‘He drove you home last night.’

  And she laughs like she doesn’t believe me.

  That time in the café, she was kicking someone’s chair and she didn’t even realise she was doing it. She was sideways on her own chair, elbow on the table, sucking on a straw, talking to me, and one foot was doing this slam, slam, slam against the side of the chair at the next table. A middle-aged woman was sitting there. Didn’t say a word until a kick so hard that the chair almost tipped to the floor.

  Tobias George Mazzerati

  Student No: 8233555

  It’s just like with mapquest. You’ve gotta zoom out sometimes.

  Before I can give you Tom Kincaid’s story, I’m going to have to give you the History of Australia. Starting from the point when England took it from the locals.

  Sorry about that, but here it is.

  The History of Australia

  Okay. Guy named Captain Cook was taking in the night sky in Tahiti, when he got a text message from back home:

  While U R down that way, pls check out the southern oceans for the Great Southern Land? Thx XX

  So he packs up, sails around, and runs smack-bang into the right-hand side of the Great Southern Land. (One day to be named Australia.)

  He sends a text back:

  Just arrived. They’ve got kangaroos Soil looks gr8. Let’s take it.

  He goes to write a cheque for the deposit, but then he remembers: it’s 1770! You just take it! Feeling proud, he messages the King:

  George III! Word is U R about to lose America? War of Independence to start in 5 yrs? Sorry to hear it. But good news: have picked up gr8 new property for you: cld keep prisoners here? Sthrn exposure; gr8 beaches; plenty of flax. Spk soon. Luv Cptn Cook. XXX

  That’s why, twenty years on (more or less), you’ve got your English ships crammed full of convicts sailing down this way to get a country under way.