Bad Behaviour Page 2

  I leave my suitcase in the doorway and have a quick look around the rest of the house. Attached to the dorm is the study, with a large fireplace in the centre. Some desks already have books on them, but most are empty.

  Nametags are stuck on the desks and I find mine is nearest the door. This is where I’ll have to sit for our two hours of prep each night, after dinner and before bed. I know about prep from the well-thumbed prospectus kept on top of the microwave in the kitchen at home: it’s what boarding schools call homework.

  Next to the study is a small kitchen with a toaster and kettle, and lockers built into the wall to store our snacks sent from home. Not snacks, I remind myself, but tuck.

  Around the side is the boiler room with piles of old newspapers and a bin full of kindling. In the middle is a blackened cast-iron boiler for the house’s hot-water supply. The deck overlooks the drive and a stooping basketball hoop, a small shed shaped like a kennel and filled with wood, and an axe lying beside a block. At the back is an expanse of dense bush, full of gums and wattles and other trees I don’t know the names for. I can’t see any fences or gates.

  Back inside, I drag my suitcase along the floor. There are a few girls in the dorm now, sitting on beds. The beds are also arranged alphabetically and I find mine in the middle, covered in stuff—a doona, clothes, books and a bag. A sullen girl sits on the next bed, chewing gum. She’s wearing jeans torn at the knee and a pair of tatty boots. She eyes me up, half smiling, freckles scattered across her nose. Another girl sits beside her and she grins at me quickly before looking away.

  ‘I guess you want me to move that?’ says the girl with freckles, nodding towards my bed. Her own area is neat, with a few photographs propped up on the bedside table.

  ‘If you don’t mind,’ I murmur.

  I feel the girls’ eyes on me as I unpack. Once or twice I look up to see them watching. The shy girl’s name, I discover, is Lou. The other girl is Emma.

  ‘You know everyone else here?’ she asks.

  I shake my head. ‘Not really.’

  Finally they rise from their beds, mutter to each other in low voices. I hold my breath, willing them to go. But they linger, staring down at my nametag.

  ‘Rebecca,’ says Emma. Slowly, like a challenge. Lou giggles, her head lowered, shrinking into herself. I catch sight of her hands, her long fingers, grubby nails. They are trembling.

  ~

  I’ve brought too many clothes. Woollen jumpers, polar fleeces, shirts and shorts, as well as work boots, casual shoes and running shoes bulge from my shelves. Socks and underwear make up most of my first drawer—I’ve a dozen pairs of hiking socks, a week’s worth of running socks and another of day socks, and as many pairs of undies and bras. Toiletries, towels, pyjamas, bedding, a couple of blankets, and handkerchiefs stacked like a wad of cash.

  I’m adjusting my doona cover when a young woman appears in the dorm. ‘You must be Rebecca,’ she calls, smiling.

  This is Miss Lacey, the head of Red House. How is that possible? I wonder, looking at her more closely. She seems barely an adult herself, bouncing on the balls of her feet, her blonde hair tied high in a scrunchie. She darts around the dorm, and after inspecting my drawers and my tog room locker where my hike gear is stored, she nods in satisfaction.

  Next she takes Mum aside to explain some of the house rules, pointing to the jobs roster, which is a pie chart hanging from the wall.

  ‘And where are your living quarters?’ Mum asks, glancing around the dorm.

  Miss Lacey laughs. ‘Oh, I don’t live here! My house is down the road. No, the girls are very much on their own. It’s deliberate, of course, so the houses can be self-regulating.’

  ‘I see,’ says Mum.

  Miss Lacey wanders to my bedside, picking up one of my pink-haired trolls. ‘I’ve heard a lot about you, Rebecca,’ she says. ‘I’m looking forward to big things.’

  She is talking about my scholarship. Every teacher seems to know about it long before I meet them. On my first day at the junior campus, the scholarship kids were lined up at assembly for a special introduction. I suppose they thought it nice to single us out, but it only made me feel like an outsider, and since then I’ve always worried that the teachers would expect much more of me than of everyone else.

  But when I look up Miss Lacey just smiles, her eyes crinkling, and I know, instantly, she isn’t like other teachers, that I want to be her friend. And I guess I am different in this place, which over the years has had princes and future politicians and media heirs and heiresses as students.

  ‘Now,’ she says, standing tall. ‘You already know Simone, but what about the others?’

  There are no clues in quilts or teddy bears. I shake my head.

  ‘No problem.’ She checks her watch. ‘You can meet the rest of the house at dinner, which is at six o’clock tonight. Try not to be late.’

  After Miss Lacey has gone, Mum rifles through her handbag for her car keys. ‘I better make a start home,’ she says.

  I walk her to the deck, staring at her hand, which hangs loose at her side. I want to hold it. Her leaving seems wrong. This should be happening to another girl, someone who lived a hundred years ago, in England. Not to me.

  ‘Make sure you eat properly,’ Mum says, slinging her handbag over her shoulder. ‘Don’t stay up talking too late at night, either. You’ll need your sleep.’

  She smiles and her teeth shine in the shadows. ‘And don’t forget to write,’ she says.

  Mum’s eyes seem enormous. I nod, knowing she is anxious about what I might say. Mum’s old friends from her university days always remark on how alike we are. That we have the same round face, the same bump in our nose. It used to make me cringe hearing that, but now I feel a painful swell of pride, which is unexpected and confusing, and my eyes drop to the ground.

  ‘Well, bye-bye, darling.’ Her lips brush against my cheek. ‘See you soon, okay?’

  I watch her walk down the gravel path and climb into the driver’s seat. She sits there for a moment, unmoving, then in the dim interior light she reapplies her lippy. Seeing me watching she waves. I want to run to the car and throw open the passenger door. I want to go home with her and never come back here. But when the car rolls past, I raise my hand. ‘It’s okay,’ I say under my breath. ‘It’s okay.’

  I stay out on the deck until the sun has sunk behind the hills. Smoke drifts through the air. A small flame robin perches on the banister, tweeting to other birds in low-hanging branches. I watch them until a thick feeling forms in my throat. This isn’t how I imagined my arrival—I had pictured the open arms of instant new friends, laughter and smiles. Not this deep, black loneliness.

  Ten minutes before six, I set off along the same road we’d driven up only a couple of hours ago. On my way I pass a brown house with a light on in the front room and children’s laughter breaks through the quiet. I don’t really know where I’m going, only that if I head down the hill I’ll eventually find the dining hall.

  I veer off the road, down a stone path beside the chapel, which is an enormous A-frame set high above the classrooms. It’s spooky walking through the school for the first time like this, on my own, the sound of my footsteps bouncing off the empty buildings. Normally I’d love creeping around in the half-light, inventing all kinds of scenarios that made the school so still and silent (an invasion, maybe, or a deadly plague?). But tonight I long for noise. Television, the radio bleating talkback, Dad clattering in the kitchen.

  Near the art school are some concrete steps leading to another road. Between the trees I glimpse a few boys running, their liquid movement like dogs on a hunt. Finally I reach the top of the stairs overlooking the amphitheatre and the dining hall, whose enormous green roof is camouflaged against the grassy slope. I linger here for a moment, my heart throbbing in my chest. Kids are everywhere, a couple of hundred at least. Two teachers patrol the landing.

  I glimpse Simone in the line furthest from the stairs and feel a surge of relief. But when
I take my place at the back, no one turns to say hello, not even Simone. All eyes are fixed to the front, on the teachers barking out the roll call. Where am I going to sit? My guts are burning at this thought until I become aware that the girl in front has turned around and is gesturing at me. My name was called and I didn’t even hear it.

  ~

  Dinner is flame-grilled chicken with soggy vegetables and packet mash. It smells like the food served in hospitals. But this is a good meal, apparently—the dining hall always serves the best meals on the first day of term or when we are about to see our parents.

  Seating around the table is crowded. I can barely move to reach for anything. Not that I’m hungry. When I dare to look around, I recognise a few faces from the main campus, which everyone calls the Big School; girls I’ve met once or twice at the interschool athletics or swimming carnivals. They probably wouldn’t remember me—the Big School girls always looked down on us at those gatherings. The rest of the girls around the table appear to be new.

  After we’d filed into the dining hall, Simone had motioned for me to sit next to her. She’s already struck up a conversation with the girl on her other side. I’m thankful for the chatter—it means I don’t need to do much talking. She’s telling a story I’ve heard before and I relax a little, sipping at my cordial.

  Emma and Lou sit across the table, deep in their own conversation. Lou is very pretty, pale-skinned with a soft blush on her high cheekbones. There is something sturdier about Emma, brasher, with the gap between her teeth and those obnoxious freckles. But she has a kind smile.

  ‘That’s Portia down there,’ Simone murmurs, nodding towards the end of the table where girls have their backs turned. I can’t really see Portia, just the crop of her dark hair and a thick brown arm, which I glimpse as she reaches for the salt.

  ‘And that’s Veronica next to her. But everyone calls her Ronnie. Apparently Portia and Ronnie nearly got expelled last year from the Big School.’

  I chew on a stale piece of bread. ‘Oh yeah?’

  ‘Yeah. And the deputy headmaster told them they should be tied to the fountain in the quadrangle and flogged.’ Simone frowns. ‘Is he even allowed to say that?’

  I have a better view of Ronnie. She has auburn hair and a smooth angular face. When she turns, I see her eyes are a silky green colour—I don’t think I’ve ever seen a girl more beautiful. She could be a Dolly model. But there is something else about her demeanour, something nearly savage in the way she shovels food into her mouth and throws her long arms around. I don’t know why but it troubles me, and I drag my eyes away.

  ‘Ronnie lives in Brunei,’ Simone continues, in a whisper now. ‘Her dad does some sort of work in mining.’

  ‘She looks a bit . . . intense,’ I say.

  ‘Well, I heard she’s been a boarder since she was six. I guess that’s why she’s a bitch.’

  At the end of the table Red House’s slushie, Kendall, serves the last of the food from a trolley. On a weekly rotation, the slushie—a girl or boy from the particular house—serves everyone’s breakfast, lunch and dinner, as well as clearing the dirty crockery and cutlery and taking it through to the stinking industrial washer deep in the belly of the kitchen.

  Kendall’s movement around the trolley is quiet, careful, and her gaze is lowered the whole time. When she does look up, I see how bright her blue eyes are, with lashes so fair they’re almost invisible.

  Once I’ve looked at her properly I find I can’t stop. It’s her hair; white-blonde and gathered in a plait that hangs to her waist. She’s dressed in a T-shirt many sizes too big and no-brand jeans, which is at odds with the Canterbury sweaters and brown T-bars that are the predominant fashion of the dining hall.

  ‘Ken-daaall!’ Ronnie bangs her glass on the tabletop. ‘More cordial. Please.’

  As Kendall lopes off Ronnie says something that makes the girls around her swivel. They watch Kendall cross the floor before laughing, Ronnie’s shriek piercing the hall. As they rock back and forth, wheezing over their chicken, Portia turns and catches my eye.

  There is chatter around the dorm before lights-out but I stay quiet, reading my book. A couple of girls sneak into the tuck room where they stay for hours, the thick line of yellow light glowing beneath the door.

  It takes me a long time to fall asleep. I can’t stop thinking about Mum driving away and how I wish I’d told her I love her.

  I wake during the night, my heart pounding. Hunger scrabbles at my stomach. I sit up and look over the dorm. How menacing it seems in the moonlight. Settling back down, I notice Lou beside me, propped up by her pillows, staring into space.

  The next morning she is already up and dressed before I wake, hunched over the bed and tinkering with her watch. ‘You make noises in your sleep, you know,’ she says.

  I squirm beneath the doona. ‘Sorry. Hope I didn’t sound like a freak.’

  Her laugh is high-pitched, more like a bird than a person. ‘No,’ she says. ‘You sound like a kitten.’

  She looks at me then, still shy, and we both smile.

  Classes begin the following day and I discover school at Silver Creek isn’t much different from last year. There are two periods in the morning, two after recess, and another two in the afternoon. We don’t have to wear school uniform, so I dress in an old pair of jeans and Dad’s brown jumper. Most kids wear an item of uniform anyway, usually a grey jumper with a blue band, or a long-sleeved sports sweater.

  Our form groups are called sets. I’m in Set 4, along with Ronnie, and we share English, Science, Maths, Religion, Art, PE and Outdoor Education. The sets are mixed with kids from all different houses—boys and girls. I don’t know any boys in my set. They don’t really talk to the girls, sitting instead at the back of the classroom in a long surly line, chairs tilted beneath their desks. Only in the labs do we have to sit in alphabetical order, which means I share a desk with Ronnie and a boy named Rich Browne.

  I had expected Ronnie to be wildly extroverted, but she is quiet and rather studious in class, scribbling down notes in handwriting full of circles and stars. In fact she hardly says a word to me, except to ask if she might borrow my eraser from time to time.

  But at lunchtime she saves me a seat at the table next to Portia. Huddled together, they talk about their classes. Portia does most of the talking, complaining about the teachers—‘Isn’t Mr Greig just foul? What a toad!’—which makes Ronnie laugh.

  Up close, Portia’s face is as brown as her arms, and she has freckles scattered across the bridge of her nose. Her eyes are a dull blue, with steely flecks around the small irises, and her face is square and flat. She isn’t pretty at all; rather boyish, really. But there is something magnetic about her. I don’t want her to stop talking.

  ‘Anyone you don’t like in your set, Starford?’ she asks, biting down on an apple.

  It’s strange to be called Starford, but it seems everyone at Silver Creek has some sort of nickname, most often based on their surname: Willo, Rusty, Smithy.

  I wipe my mouth, giving Ronnie a sideways look. ‘Well,’ I say, ‘the other girls are pretty annoying.’

  ‘Yeah?’ Portia says, edging forward. ‘Who?’

  ‘Lauren,’ Ronnie drawls. ‘What a sucky bitch. Like in English—her hand was up for every question. Wasn’t it, Bec?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I say, shifting in my seat. ‘Total suck.’

  At the end of lunch, before Kendall clears our plates away, the cowbell is struck a few times and everyone falls quiet as Mr Bishop, the running master, stands up. He’s young, with dark hair turning grey at the temples. He threads his way through the tables, explaining how after school every student is required to line up outside the library for our first crossie.

  A few girls on our table glance at one another, confused, but I know all about crossies from the prospectus. They’re compulsory cross-country runs, held most days of the week. Each term the route will change, growing longer and harder. This first route, Mr Bishop says, is around six kilome
tres—‘A walk in the park,’ he drawls.

  As well as the crossies, we all have to participate in a weekly ‘long run’, a ten- to fifteen-kilometre race; there’s one scheduled for the next day. This elicits a few mutters from around the hall.

  ‘As most of you know,’ Mr Bishop continues, louder now, ‘this running is in preparation for the Silver Creek Marathon, a thirty-two-kilometre race in the final week of the school year. The fruits, if you like, of months and months of hard physical work.’

  There are more groans now. Mr Bishop laughs and sits back down. ‘Rotten fruit, more like,’ I hear Emma mutter from the other end of our table.

  It is the hottest time of the day. The dry, baking heat shimmies from concrete and makes long grass coil. Boys are dressed in football shorts and navy singlets, girls in bike shorts and crop tops, some with white socks pulled up to the knee.

  I move to the front of the line. I’m looking forward to this. I’m a good runner; I was on the athletics squad last year and all summer I did training runs with Dad.

  He’s always encouraged my running. Before I was born he was a football umpire, so fit he could run for hours at a time. We often head out together for an afternoon run. It’s never far: past the hospital and along the footpath next to the train tracks, then past the bowls club and the park where people take their dogs, and down the street with the strip of blue water on the horizon. I always turn off for home at the big house with the attic, glimpsing Dad before he disappears behind a hedge.

  One time I went further on, all the way to the beach, and as we jogged along the sand Dad began yelling at anyone with his or her dog off the leash. ‘Read the signs,’ he shouted. ‘On the leash. On. The. Leash!’ He gestured angrily, his voice growing more manic with each stride, while I ran along beside him, too breathless with embarrassment to sprint away.

  I’m still turning over this memory when the teacher blows a whistle. The scrum tightens, and someone jabs me in the ribs. I don’t know the etiquette for this crossie—is it a race too? But before I can ask the gun is fired and everyone bolts in a billow of dust. For a moment I’m disorientated and, jostling for space and air, I drop behind the pack, eyes fixed on the clay road.