Dreaming of Amelia Read online

  Then, smoothly, politely, Riley and Amelia would block them. It was never exactly, no thank you. It was more often a mild joke, a brief change of topic, even sometimes a gentle laugh. And then they would wander away.

  I watched this happen over and over. Always I would see the people left behind, blinking, confused, not sure what had happened — troubled, without knowing why.

  As far as I could tell, not a single person had had a genuine conversation with them. Nobody had successfully invited them to a social event.

  They did no extracurricular activities at school (besides swimming).

  I saw Mr Garcia fall to his knees, clasp his hands and beg them to sign up for the Ashbury-Brookfield Dramatic Production.

  I hoped they would agree. Lyd, Cass and I had signed up. I joined because I knew Amelia and Riley were extreme actors so I thought they’d be in it, and I made Lyd and Cass join. (Lyd was in a strange phase of wanting to participate anyway, and Cass is an obligatory friend.)

  But Riley and Amelia did not sign up at all.

  They laughed mildly at Mr Garcia on his knees, and then they helped him to his feet.

  Nothing, it seemed, could break into their self-contained world.

  Now, please follow me, gently, back to the school gate, on the last day of term.

  There we were, Cass and me. There they were, Riley and Amelia, walking side by side, away from us. And there was Lydia, alone, walking towards us.

  In a moment, their paths would cross.

  I glanced quickly at Cass. She was also watching, with mild interest, this impending crossing of paths.

  Now, a few paragraphs ago, I said that everybody at our school was intrigued by Riley and Amelia.

  There was one exception: Lydia.

  To her, they were just regular people. She remained completely unchanged when they were in the room. She scarcely glanced in their direction.

  I was both exasperated and impressed. How could anybody be as cool as that? All I could think was that she had spent time around celebrities, since her mother used to be famous, and so was accustomed to it.

  Cass, at least, was a human being and had learned the happiness of analysing Riley and Amelia.

  ‘There’s something ethereal about them,’ I said. ‘Like gazelles. I wonder where they’re going.’

  ‘I know where they’re going,’ said Cass. ‘It’s a scholarship thing — they’re interviewing them in the Art Rooms today. My mum’s over there now.’

  ‘It’s wrong how strict your mum is about confidentiality,’ I said to Cass. ‘She should totally tell us everything.’

  ‘I know,’ said Cass.

  We were quiet again, watching.

  The distance between Lydia and Riley-and-Amelia was closing. Lyd did not seem to have noticed them. She was thinking about something; she was checking her watch; she was looking up at the sky and then over at us and doing a sudden crazy face, which Cass and I could not quite understand. We held out our hands meaning, huh? And she just laughed. She looked our way again and pulled another face. I thought to myself: There is nobody else in this school who would be so free and easy — so much like themselves — with Riley and Amelia approaching.

  Nobody.

  The distance was closing.

  Lydia finally noticed who was heading her way. I thought: What will she do? Will she smile her Lydia smile?

  I saw her manner calm slightly — I mean, the way you become more serious when you realise you’re about to cross paths with somebody — you know, you don’t want to bump into them or anything — she was watching them and walking.

  And the distance closed,

  And the distance closed,

  And it closed.

  Lydia Jaackson-Oberman

  Student No: 8233410

  Last day of term something brightened.

  I finished my exam — German Listening — and walked out of the Art Rooms to a big blue sky, and suddenly everything seemed brighter.

  I’d been closing in, folding up, a chant in my head: I am alone. It was a statement, practical and flat. More a chat than a chant; more: of course, I kind of knew it all along.

  My parents were about to go away for three months. Taking the broken pieces of their marriage to Tuscany. (‘Does Tuscany get a say in this?’ I said. My parents turned towards me with their strained, pale, adult faces and then turned back to the brochures.)

  I guess it kind of surprised me they would leave. I don’t know why. I was 17 years old, so. You know.

  But the chanting started:I am alone.

  Alone in my family, alone without Seb.

  Anyway, this day, last day of term, the bright sky made me laugh at myself.

  I was crossing the oval thinking, I love the world, I love that stone wall, how it curves along the road, I love that tree and that broken hockey stick in the grass. I love that I’m young and smart and okay to look at, and soon I’ll leave school and start life, and I think I’ll be okay at life, and I love my friends —

  There they were by the gate: Emily and Cassie, waiting for me.

  I thought: They’re beautiful; they’re my best friends; they’re not going anywhere.

  I pulled mad faces to show them it was true.

  That’s when I saw Amelia and Riley crossing towards me.

  I felt sad for them. Before, they’d been ignored. Now they were celebrities and everybody wanted them as friends.

  They were the ones who were alone.

  The only person who’d seen them as special all along was Emily.

  As we got closer, I smiled at Amelia and Riley. They smiled back.

  Our paths crossed and I said: ‘People are coming to my place tonight if you want to come.’

  They paused; looked me right in the eye; didn’t even glance at one another. Then both at once they said, ‘Yeah. Okay.’

  We kind of laughed, and I told them my address, and then kept walking.

  Em and Cass were still waiting at the gate, watching me. They’d want to know what had just happened.

  Most of all, I thought, I love the expression that’s about to burst onto Em’s face.

  Riley T Smith

  Student No: 8233569

  We’d been watching them.

  That’s what you have to know.

  We’d been watching everyone at our new private school.

  And we’d chosen.

  There were three girls, best friends: Emily Thompson, Cassie Aganovic and Lydia Jaackson-Oberman. Em has a face that dimples madly when she smiles; Cass has a thin, sprinter’s body; Lydia, gorgeous in a way that she doesn’t dress up or paint over.

  We couldn’t help notice them. They were cool and they were hot, and from the first day there, Emily had followed us everywhere we went.

  Lydia turned out to be exactly what we wanted.

  Another thing you have to know.

  Em was hysterical, melodramatic and not very bright. Sheltered all her life, she’d stayed a little girl.

  Cass was quiet, and essentially pointless.

  And Lydia was one of those spoiled rich kids who know absolutely nothing, but put on a cool and cynical face because they think they know it all.

  None of them was worth a thing. None of them was real.

  Nothing about a private school is real. Those people are just playing roles; they’re all playing at life.

  Last day of Term 1, walking across the oval and there she was: Lydia.

  She made it easy.

  Asked us to a party at her place.

  We said yes, of course.

  PART TWO

  English Extension 3

  Assessment Task

  DUE DATE: FIRST DAY OF TERM 3

  ELECTIVE: GOTHIC FICTION

  1. THE GHOST STORY

  The Ghost Story is a literary form that always contains a ghost — or at least the possibility of a ghost. Its objective is to chill and terrify.

  2. YOUR TASK

  Write the Story of Term 2 as a Ghost Story.

 
Think back on the events of your life last term (Term 2). What happened to you? To the people around you? What ‘narrative’ can you draw from your life in Term 2? Now re-imagine that narrative as a Ghost Story. Write that Ghost Story.

  3. BEFORE YOU PANIC …

  Consider this: a ghost can be real, or it can be metaphoric. You may subscribe to, challenge, or subvert the ‘ghost story’ genre. A ghost could be a memory, an idea, or a darkness. You might be a ghost. A close friend might be a ghost … Look at your memories of Term 2 — and then look at them again. This time stretch the boundaries and study the shadows. This time find the ghost you never knew was there.

  1.

  Tobias Mazzerati

  THE STORY OF TERM 2 AS A GHOST STORY

  Once upon a time there was this guy named Toby (me) and also, once upon this exact same time, it was early on the morning of the first day of Term 2.

  Term 2, Year 12, Ashbury High.

  It’s a snappy morning and here I am at the Blue Danish Café, warming my hands on my mug of cappuccino, and there’s a ghost.

  Right beside me. A ghost! Seriously. A purple, headless ghost!

  Well. Okay. You got me. It’s not a ghost. Just a fuzzy purple cardigan hangin’ on the back of the chair to my right, but the way I was holding my cappuccino mug, it curved off the edge of my vision for a second, and — for just that moment — a furry purple guy was standing right beside me with no head.

  Anyhow, this is my personal story of Term 2.

  I’ve got myself a framework. Here it is: the term was ten weeks long.

  WEEK 1

  First day of Term 2, Blue Danish Café, warming my hands, cappuccino mug, etc.

  Across the table from me, a woman in black pants. That’s her purple cardigan hanging on the chair to my right. She took it off when she arrived.

  She’s eating a croissant and laughing at the flakes that keep floating to her clothes. Brushing them off. Laughing at herself.

  But you can’t blame yourself for croissant crumbs. They happen.

  Every table in this café is full. There’s a bunch of people from my school across the room, sitting by the window, including some buddies of mine.

  ‘Oh, your dad, Toby. What can I say? He’s kind of a black hole.’

  I don’t exactly hear that.

  I’m looking past the woman’s shoulder at my buddies over there. I’m thinkin’: they’ve been up all night. They’ve partied hard and they’ve thrown on their uniforms and tripped their way here so they can burn something sharp into their brains before school.

  I should have been at that party. I could be blending with them now: the way they’re leaning, slumping, melting. Girls’ hair falling, guys’ faces shadowing, and I can’t hear their words but I can tell that they’re melting together.

  Sometimes the morning after is my favourite part.

  ‘I still can’t believe that movie last night.’

  Now I’m thinkin’: What am I thinking? Cos I had fun last night.

  Hangin’ with my mum.

  We didn’t get trashed, we saw trash at the movies and we laughed until it hurt. Laughed some more when my mum fell asleep near the end. She’s chronically unable to stay up past ten. Had to sleepwalk her over to the taxi home, and she was making dumb jokes, laughing in that half-asleep way. It was good, clean, pure, sober fun.

  Whereas my buddies over there? They’re hurting right now. Their brains are fried.

  I can be stupid sometimes.

  My mum lives in Brisbane, but she was down the last few days. Hangin’ with me when she could. And now we’re hangin’ one last time before she flies.

  She flips open her phone to show a coupla photos, then she notices the time and she says: ‘No.’

  She always says it like that, that definite, absolute way — like this time she point blank refuses; this time it really can’t be true; this time she’s putting her foot down! — when she realises she has to say goodbye to me again.

  We share her taxi as far as my school: gives us five more minutes anyhow.

  Folks, if you’ll forgive me, I’m closing the curtains on the rest of this week. Leave me there at the Ashbury school gate, waving at a taxi.

  Cos that was a week of exam results.

  Close the curtains now.

  WEEK 2

  Open the curtains!

  Cos, second week of term I’m full of buzz and vim.

  I’m thinkin’: I’ll fix this situation.

  Ready with my sleeves rolled up, tool box out, hammer and — anyhow, just being metaphorical here. Sleeves were in their regular place.

  But I was concentrating hard.

  Sometimes, you know, I get a surge like this.

  I’m sitting on a couch in the Year 12 common room, foolscap folder on my lap. There’s a piece of paper resting on the folder.

  I draw a table. Three columns like this:

  SUBJECT

  MARK

  ACTION

  List my subjects in the far left column, then the mark I got in the half-yearly exams.

  No need to include them in this story. You employ your powers of invention but keep those powers turned way down.

  The third column is the wide one headed ACTION.

  I look at that a while.

  Write down mind-blowing, earth-exploding thoughts like: Download practice exams and Ask Bindy Mackenzie for her study notes.

  Then my mind gets bored and goes off on its own.

  I think about the Friday before, how I went out and drank to the blackness of the curtains — they truly were a deep, dark black — and I guess I got home fairly late.

  My dad was on the couch.

  He was watching TV, and everything about him was curved. Slump enough and you can get that curved. Your shoulders, your face, your eyelashes, your elbows — all curving inwards in the shadows of TV.

  My first thought was: I hear ya, Dad.

  Cos I felt the same way. Turns out alcohol does not erase exam marks.

  My second thought was: There should be disclaimers. On the alcohol bottles, I meant.

  So there I was, swaying to the humour of that thought — I was drunk so it was funny — still watching my dad — he hadn’t seen me yet, just a curved-in shadow. And it came back to me, what my mum said in the café.

  ‘What can I say?’ she said. ‘He’s kind of a black hole.’

  So my third thought that night was: Yeah.

  Now in the Year 12 common room, I stop work on my Action table and draw a circle further down the page. Colour it in with black ink. That takes a while, colouring it in. Now it’s a black hole.

  I’m staring at it hard when a friend lands on the couch by my side.

  ‘Toby,’ she says, ‘there’s a ghost in the Art Rooms.’

  ‘Yeah?’ I say.

  ‘But nobody believes me.’

  ‘I believe you,’ I say, and she gives a wise nod, like she knew I would.

  ‘I believe you,’ I repeat, ‘but now I’ve gotta go.’

  Now she gets a tragic look, like she knew that too.

  I did have to go. Had an appointment with Mr Garcia to discuss my History project.

  ‘Roberto,’ I say as I walk into his office — no disrespect, he’s a buddy of mine and of my dad’s — ‘Roberto, this is my Action week. Everything changes this week.’

  I show him my Action table and he looks at the exam result column.

  Now this is a remarkable man. He scans that column but his face doesn’t so much as twitch.

  Then he lights up.

  ‘Design and Technology!’ He points to the mark: the number 92 shining like a god. ‘At this, you are a genius!’

  ‘But the rest,’ I say.

  ‘The rest,’ he murmurs.

  In fact, the number 92 makes the other numbers look like dead leaves. If they only had each other, they might never have realised there’s a sky — might have been happy in the gutter.

  ‘If you didn’t have the number 92,’ Roberto says, ‘the
se other numbers would not look so bad.’

  Spooky. See that? The guy can read my mind.

  ‘Maybe you should have left the 92 out of the table,’ he says. ‘No! What am I thinking? Keep the 92 and get rid of the rest!’ And he starts scribbling out the other marks.

  Now, another teacher doing this scribbling act would have had some agenda. Like, say they were a prick like Mr Ludovico? They’d be being sarcastic. Or say they were up themselves, they’d be playing some ironic game. Or say they were the gentle, kindly-uncle type, they’d be doing this with a sparkle in their eye, watching to see if you were laughing — like cheering up a tear-stained kid.

  But not Garcia.

  He’s none of these types.

  Garcia will do something mad, and while he’s doing it, he’ll mean it — he’ll make you think, for just that moment, Well, why not? Maybe this is the solution?

  ‘Except for History.’ He stops scribbling and draws a circle around the History mark, which is bad. ‘History, and Design and Technology. They are everything. Especially History. Now, let us take action in relation to History and get this number higher! Get it as high as Design and Technology, why not?! Tell me about our friend named Tom. How is he doing?’

  He’s referring to my History project.

  And when he says Tom, he means Tom Kincaid.

  Irish guy. He was 17 years old when he stole a sheep and they shipped him out to Australia. Wrote letters home to his girlfriend Maggie and his mum, and now I’ve got copies of those letters. I’m going through them slowly now, filling in the details. Using, you know, History.

  ‘Well,’ I say, ‘it’s 1802, and he’s right here in Castle Hill with his buddy Phillip.’

  ‘Ah, Phillip Cunningham.’ Roberto grins, like he’s remembering the wild times he and Phil have had. ‘And what’s going down at Castle Hill?’

  ‘There’s around 300 men. They’re clearing the land for wheat and living in your basic bark huts.’

  Roberto takes a deep, contented breath, like he’s breathing in my facts. He’s totally into History, that guy.

  ‘And Tom is happy?’ he says.