Tall Story - Candy Gourlay [56]
‘Louie Robins, put your shirt on this minute!’ Mrs Green reached to grab the shirt.
But Louie wouldn’t let go. ‘Andi, they’re KILLING us out there. We need you!’
I stared at him. What did he mean?
Louie stamped his foot like a toddler who’d been refused a sweet. ‘ANDI!’
Mrs Green put her hand on his shoulder and shook him. ‘Louie, explain yourself properly. You’re not making sense.’
But he was so beside himself he just waved the shirt at me.
Mrs Green peered at him like she was examining a cockroach on the wall.
‘I don’t understand …’ I stuttered.
Louie began to pull his shorts off. There was a blue Smurf pattern all over his boxers. I was so shocked I didn’t even think to snigger. Instead of stopping him or averting her eyes, Mrs Green snatched the shorts and shirt away from him and grabbed my hand.
‘Mrs Green!’
‘Quick, to my office, it’s just round the corner.’
‘But …’
She glared at me.
‘Andi Jones, are you not paying attention? The Souls need you. You are going to put on Louie’s uniform and save that game.’
7
Bernardo
Jabby. Jabby.
Icy sweat trickled into my eyes. I fumbled with the phone. Call him. Tell him it will be OK.
Do you need help, Jabby? Where are you?
But my fingers scratched uselessly against the keypad, grotesque claws, my hands were twisting, curling, hardening. The phone fell to the living-room floor with an obscene clatter.
It was happening again.
Ma, where was Ma? Ma, help! But my vocal cords produced no sound.
I was bent down, down, the world riding my back again. And there was a shrill screeching noise, like a thousand bats ejected from deep inside a cave. And I realized it was humankind shouting in horror … because I was buckling under the weight, it was so heavy; I could not hold it up, and the Earth was falling.
It slid down my back, quivering like a giant jelly. Earth and rock, tree and root crumbled through my wooden fingers.
Down, down.
It landed on the ground with a great crack, red tongues of flame licking out of the fractured shell.
And the screeching became higher, sharper, thinner, piercing my eardrums like a knitting needle.
8
Andi
It had worried me at first. At one point, Mum actually apologized. ‘Andi, I didn’t change shape until I was fifteen. I’m sorry. It’s in our genes.’
All the girls my age were wearing junior bras and training bras and crop tops. They had all grown hips and bumpy little chests while I had remained as straight and flat as a plank.
Or a boy.
So Louie’s basketball kit fitted me perfectly.
‘Are you ready?’
I stared into the mirror in Mrs Green’s office and tried to ignore the fact that the shirt was soaking wet with Louie’s sweat and pungent with Louie’s smell.
Mrs Green’s reflection gazed at me critically from over my shoulder.
‘You need something. Something to make you look less like a girl. Give me a second.’
She began to rummage through her desk, opening and closing drawers.
I pretended to examine myself in the mirror. But I was really studying a framed picture hanging next to it. It was a group picture of a girls’ basketball team. The teenage girls in the picture had weird blow-dried hairstyles from some long-ago era. In the front row, a ball clasped in front of her, was a young Mrs Green, the tight little smile unmistakable in the smooth face, the short iron-grey bob replaced by a blonde perm. In a discreet little frame next to it was an autographed photograph of Michael Jordan. To my biggest fan, it said.
Mrs Green, a basketball fan? Was that why she always just happened to be prowling around the gym, catching me out? Maybe she was shooting hoops when nobody was looking!
‘Here.’ She held up a tube of hair gel. ‘Confiscated this from one of the girls the other day. Some children cannot tell the difference between a classroom and a hairdresser’s. I’m sure she won’t mind donating some to a worthy cause.’
She squeezed a dollop onto her hands and began to muss my hair. ‘There!’
It was rich, Mrs Green complaining about