Brenton
itumeleng kganyago
Shea
Always Eighteen
AhmedStars in My Head: Part One; Chapter Six
December 20th 2007 12:58
SHARNEE’S BOOK
Faith is better. So it seems at least. She rang me up last night, saying oh how great Michael is and, Oh how cool he is. She didn’t actually say how cool he is (cos he isn’t) but you get the picture.
I can’t believe I’m so jealous.
What a Bitch I am.
Faith is better. So it seems at least. She rang me up last night, saying oh how great Michael is and, Oh how cool he is. She didn’t actually say how cool he is (cos he isn’t) but you get the picture.
I can’t believe I’m so jealous.
What a Bitch I am.
“You believe in God?”
“Eh?”
Sharnee turned to look at the kid who had spoken, behind her. He was a little twerp with bright orange hair and big ears. She leaned over the crusty reddish-brown lino covered seat of the bus. The back seat rebels shot rubber band powered paper-wasps at screaming infants.
“No. I wish I did.”
“Why don’t you?”
“I can’t”
“Yes you can. You’d better hurry.”
“What?”
“You’d better hurry. Times running out.”
“Are you talking about the apocalypse?”
“Nope. Just life. See, you could get to school, jump of the bus and be creamed by a car. Over that quick”
“S’pose”
“Then you go down there. And get…” He paused for what seemed to be dramatic effect.
“…The Sting”
“What, there’s bees in hell?” she asked, testing for reaction. He looked at her in pity.
“No… The Sting gives you Pain! For Five Months!”
“And after that?”
“Dunno. It stops I guess.”
“Cool”
“Have you ever wondered what it’s like being hit by a car?”
“Some things are better not to think about.”
“Why?”
“There’s just some strange fascination with death that’s better left untouched. When you think of death it’s all clean and neat. Even in movies, they just have one clean cut wound. But seeing death, seeing what it really look like, scares you shitless”
The kid kept quiet for a few seconds.
“You saw her didn’t you? My sister. Lola.” Sharnee was quiet. “She was hit by a car. She’s gone to heaven. She looked different in hospital. All white. Stuff in her. I put a picture of what she used to look like in there. To let people know what she looked like.”
The bus stopped. Sharnee scooped up her bag and went into the school.
She didn’t jump of the bus and get creamed by a car.
***
Michael and Faith sat next to each other through science. Their teacher walked around the front jabbering on about chemical equations. He watched Tom and Faith scribbling down notes and raised his one and only eyebrow.
For all he understood, the teacher may just as well been teaching Chinese, or why Americans say ‘Y’all’. Faith stopped writing, tore out a page and gave it to Mike.
G’day Michael
Hi! How are you? I’m good. Guess what, I don’t understand chemicals. Oh well. Hey have u and Sharn had a fight or something? She seems a Bit out of it. She bitched at Tom for somhing this morning. Dunno what. OK well gotta go.
Luv, F@! #.
***
“Hey Sharn!” called Michael. She turned to face him.
“Yeah? What?”
“You right?”
“Course I’m right. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Faith said you were out of it. Thought we’d had a fight.”
“Have we?”
“Not that I know of”
“Oh, well, I’m glad we got that cleared up then”
“She said you bitched at Tom”
“Well he got me with a bloody paper wasp eh?”
“Tom?”
“Yeah Tom! Well, he was aiming at George…”
“Ahh”
“But even so!”
“Y’know, she’s right. You do seem a bit iffy.”
“Well it gave me a bloody welt on my back!”
“Nah, I mean just… generally like.”
“I’m fine”
“You seem stressed”
“I’M NOT STRESSED!” As Michael jumped back, two teachers, fifteen high school students and twenty-four grade twos turned to look at her. Sharnee sat down and took a breath.
“OK, maybe a little stressed. But no more than usual. I’ve got a few assignments, no sleep, study, whatever. Nothing serious.”
“Good. I’ll see you later Sharn.”
“Later Mike.”
***
“Hey.”
“Hey.” Faith sat down beside Michael, behind the Sports Shed on a bale of hay. The project club had bought the hay for some project either delayed, canceled, forgotten, or just designed to make biological seats in the out of bounds area. Faith turned to Michael.
“I wanted to know something. When we had lunch, first date, I said something about being a suicidal nut. Did you know then about… well you must have. But I never told anyone. And I kept my arm all covered up. Did you guess? Or did someone tell you?”
“Sharnee told me”
“I thought so. Is that why you went out with me? To stop me killing myself?”
There was an uncomfortable silence.
“At first, yeah, partly, sorta. But I still like you! I really do. I really wanna keep this thing going. Please?”
“Why? Cos you love me? Or to stop this?” She unbuttoned her shirt sleeve. A series of red marks criss-crossed across her white arm. Michael’s heart jumped. He was expecting… not expecting anything really. But he had pictured one long clean red line across her wrist. Instead he saw a long line of crusty, badly done shaky scabs. Faiths eyes stuck on his face.
Slowly he lifted her arm, then bent his neck to kiss it. He let his fingers stroke it’s softness.
“Because I love you.”
It was, he thought, one of the classier things he’d achieved.
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