Mum frowns at us and puts her bag on the floor by the door. ‘Taylor, I don’t want you walking around the caravan park in that skirt.’
‘What skirt?’
Mum rolls her eyes. ‘Lord give me strength. The one you’re wearing.’
Taylor looks down at it. ‘What’s wrong with it?’
‘It’s tiny.’
‘It’s a standard netball skirt!’
‘And I want you both home before dark.’
‘Our curfew’s ten!’
‘Your curfew is whenever I say it is. And from now on, it’s whenever the sun goes down.’
Taylor swears under her breath and I suppose she’ll probably spend most of the summer wearing her netball skirt around the caravan park after dark just to prove a point. Without her self-defence corkscrew. Sometimes the idea of being Taylor is completely exhausting.
Mum looks closely at Taylor and me and then disappears into the bunkroom. Taylor turns down the volume a bit on the television.
‘Where were you when the girls got home?’ we hear Mum demand in a low voice.
‘Helping the lady across the road with a leaking window! You can go ask her if you like!’
‘I will.’
Dad sighs. ‘Judy . . .’
‘Don’t Judy me.’
‘I’m so sick of this.’
‘Me too, Charlie,’ says Mum. ‘I’m sick of this, too.’
Taylor turns the volume of the television up so loud that it makes me jump. A moment later, Mum disappears out the door and we see her going across the gravel road and knocking on the door of the cabin there, her arms wrapped tightly around her chest.
***
Taylor wakes me up. It’s still dark and she’s trying to climb out through the window above the bed.
‘Taylor, lie down.’
‘We need to start baking the bread before the ants come,’ she says patiently.
‘I know. But we need to nap first.’
‘No! We have to get started!’
‘Taylor?’ Mum comes in and sighs. ‘Oh, Taylor. Don’t do that, love. Hop back into bed, there’s a good girl.’
‘No! The ants are coming!’
‘Okay,’ Mum says. She reaches up and strokes Taylor’s cheeks. ‘Okay.’
Taylor settles back in bed and goes to sleep. We peer down at her, wondering if she’s going to stay down. ‘She looks pretty out,’ I say.
Mum yawns. ‘Get me if she starts walking again.’
‘I will.’
‘Night, Stella.’
‘Night, Mum.’
***
The next morning, Taylor takes too long in the shower and I hammer on the door. Mum’s already gone to work and Dad’s curled up on the top bunk, valiantly pretending to be asleep.
‘Taylor!’ My fists are starting to tingle, but I keep pounding and pounding against the vinyl door. ‘Hurry up!’
‘You’re so impatient,’ Taylor says when she at last opens the door.
‘Are you seriously calling someone else impatient? You?’
She pushes past me and I grab her arm and pinch her. For a moment, we stare at each other. It’s been years since I’ve pinched Taylor. Finally, she shrugs me off and goes to our bedroom. I have a quick shower and pile my hair into a messy bun.
On the way out, I poke Dad until his eyes flutter open. ‘You haven’t been sleeping that well, have you?’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘I can just tell.’
‘Oh.’
‘You should go sit outside in the sun when you wake up. It helps your sleep cycles.’
‘Alright.’
‘Are you going?’
‘Not just yet, Stell.’
‘When?’
‘Soon! Go on. You’ll be late.’
As we’re heading out of the annex, Taylor glances at me. ‘Why are you like that?’
‘Like what?’
‘Always trying to fix everyone. It’s weird.’
‘It’s not weird!’
‘It’s weird. Reading all those self-help, voodoo, wishywashy magazines at the library. Like you’re having a mid-life crisis.’
I glare at her and start rummaging in the grocery boxes. My friends say it’s weird, too, the helping thing. But they say it sort of affectionately, not how Taylor says it. Like there’s something wrong with me.
She grabs my arm.
‘Ow! What?’
‘Nothing,’ she says.
Matthew Clarke walks by with Richard, talking about how Carl and his mates had pulled up all the flowers from outside the cabin Richard shares with his mum.
‘Are you hiding from Matthew?’ I ask, pulling my arm free. ‘Why?’
‘I’m not hiding from anyone!’ Taylor snaps, stalking out into the yard. ‘Richard just doesn’t stop talking.’
I go out after her, watching as she walks slowly down the gravel road towards the front gates, as though there’s someone up ahead she really doesn’t want to catch up to.
CHAPTER FIVE
It’s not like I’m avoiding opening my letter. I’m way too in touch with my inner emotional world to do something as basic as avoiding opening a letter. Clem says I’m a massive wuss and need to just get it over with, but Clem doesn’t understand the nuances of emotions like I do. I’ll open my letter at the perfect time and waiting for that perfect time is not avoidance.
It’s not.
Richard gets yelled at in front of the whole school for getting Carl’s undies stuck up over his head. Apparently, Carl had to go to the hospital but was expected to make a full recovery.
School finishes for our year on Friday. I walk home by myself with this weird feeling of time moving too quickly. How can I be about to turn eighteen? How can we be faced with Year Twelve and licences and buying our own drinks? At least Lara, Zin and Clem are a bit older than me. It makes it all feel less scary, somehow.
I stop in at a couple of pubs on the way home, but don’t see Dad. Not that I really expect to. When I stop at the River Pub, I notice a familiar white-blonde head peeking over the bar. ‘It’s a disgrace – having pokies so close to the caravan park. You should be ashamed of yourself!’
The man behind the counter blinks up at Taylor.
‘I reckon you’re going to tell me that it’s just a bit of fun and I don’t know what I’m talking about, but I do, alright? My dad’s gambled away our house and we’re up to our eyeballs in debt. This is him!’ She waves the printout of Dad’s face over the bar. ‘If you let him in, you’re basically stealing food out of my and my sister’s mouths. Is that what you want?’
‘Ah, no.’
‘You know what? I . . . Oh! Hi, Stella!’
‘Sorry,’ I say to the man. ‘Taylor, I think you’ve made your point. Let’s go.’
‘Stick it up!’ Taylor bellows as I drag her towards the door. ‘Stick the picture of our dad up behind the bar with a big cross through it so all your staff know not to let him into the pokies!’
The man stares after us.
‘Taylor! You can’t do that!’
‘Do what?’