Chapter 11 : Wednesday Afternoon

Mum arrived at school with her own version of stone face on. Her stone face is a kind of half-smile that fools a lot of people into thinking she’s being nice. They relax and think they’re safe and then she lashes out with vicious swipes and they find themselves spurting metaphorical blood from dozens of wounds – metaphorical wounds that is. Tara and I weren’t fooled. We’d seen that smile enough to recognize it. Mum was angry and the smile was pasted over her face like a mask to hide her anger from the world.

Angie had toddled after Mum into reception, but when she saw Tara and me sitting there, she bolted across the room towards us and took a flying leap into our arms. Angie immediately started telling us this story about some scary man in the car park. Mum glanced at us then marched over to the receptionist to sign the form saying she’d collected me.

Eventually Tara and I between us managed to figure out that Angie was talking about the school’s security man who’d apparently objected to where Mum parked her car. From what we could tell from Angie’s garbled account, Mum had told him where he could stick his rules!

While Mum was at the reception desk, Miss Webster came out to talk to her. Miss Webster had stone face on and I could see Mum’s half-smile get half-smileyer (is that a word?). I figured things were about to get seriously bad. Normally I wouldn’t mind seeing Mum face off with the school. Line up every teacher in the school on one side and put Mum on the other side and I’d be betting on Mum every time, with very few survivors. The problem was, with what they thought about Mum at the moment, if she charged in with all claws out it would probably make things worse and not better. And I had to keep coming to school each day.

I left Angie with Tara sitting on the bench and I went to stand beside Mum. As soon as I left Tara, and therefore had to let go of her hand, my own hand felt empty and lost. In those few steps between Tara and Mum I already felt myself get trembly from not having someone to hold onto. As soon as I got to Mum I slid my hand into hers and the trembles started to go away again. I thought I’d mostly gotten over that meeting but apparently I hadn’t.

Mum squeezed my hand but apart from that kept her attention on Miss Webster. Mum was in the middle of asking Miss Webster for an explanation of how she’d come to be accused of hitting me based purely on the evidence of my black eye. Miss Webster started an apology but Mum cut her off.

“I saw on my way in that the Forentz boy is on crutches this week. Did you call him into your office and grill him about whether his mother hit him? Last summer Tara fell during a track meet and had her arm in a sling for three days. I didn’t hear any nonsense then about me hitting my children. What’s different now that made you assume my Bec had got her black eye from the blunt end of my fist?”

Miss Webster cleared her throat slightly but the stone face didn’t slip. “Well, we were told that there were some issues with your mental health this week and...”

Again Mum cut her off, “And are you an expert on mental health? No? Well neither am I, but what little I do know tells me there are a hell of a lot of people out there with mental health problems and very, very few of them become violent.”

Miss Webster nodded, “Yes, Mrs Freeman, I accept that and once again I apologize that our meeting didn’t go as well as it should.”

I was standing there listening to Miss Webster take the blame when it was Mr Shankie who did all the stuffing up. I couldn’t work out why she would do that. I wanted to stop Mum from blaming Miss Webster.

“Mum, it was Mr Shankie who said all that stuff. Miss Webster didn’t say anything, it wasn’t her fault.”

“And who is this Mr Shankie?”

“Mr Shankie is our Student Welfare Officer, Mrs Freeman.”

“Student Welfare?” Mum snorted in disgust. “And is this Mr Shankie more of an expert on mental illness than you are?”

“Mr Shankie has completed the appropriate training courses to fill the role of Student Welfare Officer.”

Mum snorted again, “Student Welfare? It sounds like this Mr Shankie shouldn’t be in charge of the welfare of a rabbit, let alone the welfare of hundreds of children.”

Miss Webster didn’t respond. She was standing very still. Not just her face was stone, her whole body was. I realized that she’d given a non-answer to Mum’s question. I also realized she wasn’t going to respond to Mum’s comments. Anything she said would either be a criticism of Mr Shankie and she wasn’t going to do that or would be defending Mr Shankie when she knew he was wrong, and she wasn’t going to do that either. So Miss Webster had no choice but to stand there and impersonate a statue and let Mum rant at her.

“I still don’t understand how he could jump to such a conclusion based on just ignorance about mental illness and a black eye,” said Mum.

“There was my picture too, Mum,” I said.

“What picture?”

I had to go fetch it out of my book bag which was sitting on the bench beside Tara and Angie. Angie was sitting on Tara’s lap playing with the collar on Tara’s top and talking about some butterfly she’d seen. Tara gave me a smile, so I kind of smiled back and then hurried back to Mum. Somehow I managed to do all that without getting the shakes.

I held out the paper and Mum took it from me and looked at the picture. I looped one hand around her elbow and held on. That felt better.

“Mr Shankie didn’t understand it. He thought it was me trying to escape through a window. That’s why he thought something bad was happening.”

Mum didn’t say anything. She kept looking at the picture. I could see her eyes flicking around all the details of the drawing. She’d shifted into art mode and was looking at it like it was done by some artist.

“I did it on the back of that science test I told you about. I knew I did badly.” I turned the paper over in her hands so she could see the mark. I felt another twinge in my brain as I saw again how bad the mark was.

“Never mind about that now; I’m sure you’ll do better next time.” With that, she turned the paper back so she could finish looking at the picture.

“Miss Webster has scheduled a make-up test for me next week,” I told Mum.

“That was good of her. I hope you said thank you.”

I rolled my eyes at Mum. She’d said it so automatically, like she always did. Maybe when I was six I needed reminding, but ever since then I’d been so well trained that of course I’d said thank you. That never stopped her reminding me though.

“This brings up another issue I have with this school.” Mum held out the picture to Miss Webster. “Can you explain to me how any child who draws like this can be given a C grade for Art?”

“Mrs Billings has assured me that the grades Rebecca has been given have been appropriate.”

“Mrs Billings!” Mum frowned as she tried to remember something. “Is that Eva Billings?” Miss Webster nodded. “I recall seeing only one piece by Eva Billings at art shows in the last few years. It didn’t sell. It didn’t sell because it lacked passion. That display of student work I walked past in the entrance had the same problem. No passion. This...” Mum waved my picture at Miss Webster. “This has passion! And Eva Billings grades the artist who drew this with a C!”

Mum snorted in disgust – again.

I blinked a couple of times. Mum had called me an artist! I looked at Miss Webster and figured she wasn’t going to reply to that either. I pushed at Mum. “Can we leave now? I want to go home.”

I glanced over at Tara and wagged my head at her. Tara scooped Angie up in her arms, picked up my book bag and headed over to us.

Mum glanced at me and nodded, and then looked back at Miss Webster. In the space of that quick glance, I could feel Mum relax a bit. Mum’s half-smile was gone and there was now a more pleasant look on her face.

“I expect Rebecca will be back at school tomorrow. Before we leave, could I please get a message to Elizabeth Davidson?”

“Elizabeth Davidson?” Miss Webster frowned in confusion. “I don’t understand.”

“Elizabeth’s father is out of town. She’s staying with us for a couple of days. With Bec leaving early, I wanted to make sure she knew that we would still be expecting her this afternoon.”

“I’ll tell her, Mum,” put in Tara while she transferred Angie to me and handed Mum my book bag. “It’s already sorted. I’ll catch up with her after class and ride the bus home with her.”

Miss Webster nodded at Tara. “If you wait with me for a moment, I’ll get her paged so you can talk to her before classes start.” The bell for the end of lunch period chose that moment to ring. “Ah! Well, we shall try not to make you too late for class anyway.”

Angie clung tightly around my neck and tucked her head over my shoulder as I settled her astride my hip. I had to shift her arms a bit so I didn’t choke but it was really nice to have her holding me like that so I stood there with my hip tilted to hold her weight and enjoyed the warmth of her little body hugged against mine.

Mum turned to Tara. “I’ll see you this afternoon. Stay out of trouble. I don’t think either Miss Webster or I could survive another meeting today.”

Mum’s smile had turned slightly ironic. Tara rolled her eyes at Mum. Mum had been in several conferences with Miss Webster about Tara. It was usually because of something Laura DiMartino had got her to do – not that either Mum or Miss Webster seemed to have worked that out.

Mum reached out and shook hands with Miss Webster. “It was nice talking to you again, Miss Webster. We should talk more often.”

Miss Webster’s stone face was a bit less severe. “Thank you for sharing your concerns with me, Mrs Freeman.”

I glanced between the two of them. It was like two opposing sportswomen shaking hands after a game. They’d both played as hard as they could but now the game was over so they shook hands and said how well the other one had played. Was that what this had been? Had this been a game to Mum and Miss Webster? No it hadn’t! Mum was really angry when she arrived. She’d told Miss Webster what she thought and Miss Webster had listened, like she was supposed to, so now Mum was calmer. Mum obviously knew that and didn’t mind. In fact I could see now that Mum respected Miss Webster too. Maybe that was part of the job of Principal – to listen to angry parents and calm them down. If it was, Miss Webster had done a good job with Mum. I thought of the times Mum had been angry with me and wished I could do it as well as Miss Webster. I wanted to shake her hand too, but that would have felt a bit weird.

We split up. Tara and Miss Webster went to the reception desk and Mum and I headed out the school entrance. We only made it as far as the art display though. Mum waved at the board covered with student art.

“You see? No passion.”

“How do you put passion into a bowl of fruit, Mum?” I asked, pointing at the handful of nearly identical pictures all grouped together. The ones on display all had a little red A prominently marked in one corner.

“Well, you did it by putting in flies and maggots.” Mum grinned at me.

I rolled my eyes at her. “Yes, but apart from that!”

Mum steered me so I was standing in front of the fruit pictures. I hoped I wasn’t in for a long lecture because I was carrying Angie. Angie wasn’t that heavy and she wasn’t wriggling around so it wasn’t too bad, but...

“Look at these. Which one of them is the best – artistically?”

I looked. Mum and I had been through this routine dozens of times at art shows. This was the first time I’d had to judge my own classmates’ work though. I looked. They were all pictures of fruit piled up in a bowl – the same fruit piled up in the same bowl. There was not much there to get excited about. I saw that one of them was by Liz. I wanted to pick hers out of sheer loyalty, but hers was the same as the others. My eyes were drawn to one and I pointed it out.

“Good! I agree. That one definitely deserved its A. What made you choose it?”

“I like the way the shadows curve under the edges of the fruit and also there are some little dimples and marks; imperfections in the fruit. They make the fruit look realer than the others.”

“Yes indeed. Though I wish you would use a better word than ‘realer’! The fruit in that picture looks real. It makes me want to pick up the apple and take a bite. Appetite is an emotion. Real food makes us think about eating. Plastic imitation food does nothing for us. The rest of these pictures are drawings of plastic food.”

“I get that.” I peered closer to read the name of the student. I had to peer because it was in tiny print.

“April Bohm! She’s pretty good at drawing. She does these beautiful little horses all across her workbooks. The teachers sometimes get cross at her because of them but she keeps doing them so mostly they’ve given up complaining.”

I didn’t know much else about April, except that she looked asian despite her name! I was pretty sure there was a story behind that; I just didn’t know what it was.

“There you are! There’s her passion. Teenage girls and horses! It’s a stereotype because it’s so often true. Thankfully you two have mostly been free of that particular passion. Our backyard is far too small for a Shetland Pony, let alone a proper horse.”

With that, Mum turned and led me out of the school.

I quickly worked out why the school’s security guy was upset. Mum had parked in the no-parking zone right in front of the front doors. He was still hovering there when we came out of the school.

Mum glared at him. “I hope you aren’t expecting a tip for guarding my car while I was inside!”

He stuttered something and seemed to suddenly remember he needed to check the back of the school and hurried off. Mum barked a short little laugh at his retreating back and then opened the door for me so I could put Angie into her seat.

“Did you notice?” Mum asked.

“Huh?”

Mum leant past me and flipped up Angie’s dress, revealing a pretty pair of pink panties with kittens all over them. “See? Proper knickers!” Then she tucked the dress down again, tickled a half-asleep Angie under the chin and moved around to the driver’s side of the car so she could get in.

I wasn’t surprised, so a bit of my brain must’ve noticed when I was holding her but I hadn’t noticed noticed – if you know what I mean.

“Peter told me she’s going to the potty properly since Saturday. I’m impressed. Pretty much overnight she’s potty trained. You took weeks and weeks! I figured I’d try her without nappies and see how she goes.”

“Mum we’re in America now! They’re called diapers. If you walk into a shop and ask for nappies, no one will know what you mean. I think ‘nappies’ means something else here.”

“I don’t walk into a shop and ask for anything,” she said. “I walk into the supermarket and there they are on the shelf. I think to myself ‘I need some nappies’ and I throw them in the trolley. They’re labelled diapers and that reminds me I’m in America, but they still look the same. They still work the same too. They’re even made by the same company for heaven’s sake. All the company does is put a different wrapper around them depending on where they’re going to sell the nappies – or the diapers.”

I rolled my eyes at Mum and did up my seat belt.

“Why? What else does ‘nappy’ mean?” she asked.

“Um! I think it’s rude or something.” I said.

To be honest I didn’t know. I just heard it being used about some people at school in a way that sounded like an insult. It didn’t make sense at the time.

Mum raised an eyebrow at me and then shook her head. She did her own seatbelt up as she muttered to herself about needing to buy an American dictionary.

As I sat there, I felt like something was missing. I reached out and rested my hand on Mum’s thigh. That felt better. She dropped her hand over mine and squeezed it, and then put both hands back on the wheel so she could steer the car out onto the street.

“I guess you were pretty upset in that meeting with Miss Webster and Mr Student Welfare?”

“Yeah, I guess. Mr Shankie started going on about putting me in a foster home and I kind of freaked out.”

Mum slammed the brakes on and pulled into the side of the road – completely ignoring the sudden honking from an annoyed driver behind us. Once the car was stopped, she twisted in the seat so she was looking straight at me. Her half-smile was back.

“He what?” Her voice was low and calm. That dangerous sort of calm that they talk about in movies before the storm hits or before the big battle starts. That sort of calm!

“He was convinced you were hitting me so he was saying that if it was true I’d be put in a foster home.”

I figured I’d better calm Mum down before she turned the car around and drove us back to the school and did something extreme.

“I wanted to tell him that if you ever did hit me, I’d pretty much be in hospital for a month, but I figured that would be a bad thing to say.” I managed a little grin at her to tell her I was joking. “I was pretty upset then but I’m mostly okay now.”

I tried to look calm as I turned and faced forward, looking out the window at the trees beside the street. That’s the direction I was facing, but every bit of me was paying attention to Mum and her reactions. The trembles had come back so I guess I wasn’t mostly okay but I wasn’t going to tell her that.

She held her breath for a moment, and then out of the corner of my eye, I could see her relax a bit and breathe out steadily. Then she grinned. “You’re right, that would probably not’ve been a helpful thing to say.” She paused, “And Mr Shankie was right too. If a child is being beaten at home, it’s his job to call in the protection agencies.”

That surprised me. I thought about it and I realized that Mum was right. It also surprised me that she went from being mad to saying he was right so quickly. I hoped that I helped her do that. I decided that it didn’t matter that he was right – he still stuffed up the way he did it.

Mum picked my hand off her thigh, lifted it to her mouth, kissed it and then returned it to her leg. “Also if I ever hit you, with the way your father and brother are so protective of you, I’d probably end up in the hospital bed next to yours.”

We grinned at each other. Then Mum’s face got serious. “Honey, I’m not one of those people that preach about how violence is always wrong. If you get attacked and don’t think you can talk your way out of it you should bloody well fight back with everything you have. If you see someone who needs defending, you do it however you can. In a violent situation it’s really hard to think clearly, but try to remember that your brain is always your best weapon. Use it first! And if you have to hit someone, make it count! A person’s head is really hard. Aim for something softer!”

Mum looked at me steadily and I nodded. I knew where she was telling me to aim – especially if it was a guy!

“The sort of hitting that Mr Welfare was talking about is completely different. He’s not even talking about a few smacks on the back of your legs which I might be prepared to do if you ever did something so outrageous that you deserved that. He’s talking about full on belting you. I can’t imagine ever being so out of control that I would hit one of you like that. There’s nothing about my condition that would make me do something like that either. You understand that, don’t you?”

“I understand Mum. I completely knew all that today in that stupid meeting. What freaked me out was the idea I might not be able to convince Mr Shankie and Miss Webster. I was all panicked that no matter what I said, they’d take me away from you. I was so scared I could hardly move. I could hardly talk.” I snapped my mouth shut. Damn I didn’t mean to say that. This might set her off again. I looked at her carefully, and then relaxed a bit because she was just sitting there looking at me with a thoughtful expression on her face.

“And all of this because he misunderstood that picture you drew?”

“Yeah!”

“Honey, it’s a very good drawing. It’s really well-drawn and insightful as well.”

I shrugged. “The hands aren’t right! And the reflections in the pieces of broken mirror don’t show up very well, and it only shows the top half of me – it kind of fades out below my navel.”

Mum nodded at me. “That might be true, but it’s still a very good drawing. Perfection usually takes a little longer. Everyone finds hands hard to draw; that’s normal. There are a few tricks I can show you to get your hands looking more realistic. After that, all it takes is practice; lots and lots of practice.”

Mum sat drumming her fingers on the steering wheel and looking out the front window for a moment. She was obviously thinking hard about something. I had no clue what, so I had no choice but to sit there and watch the traffic whiz past us.

“Honey, I have an important question for you.”

I looked at her curiously, “Okay!”

“How important is your art to you?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, do you feel driven to always be drawing something? Or is drawing something you like to do as much as you like to play basketball and fight with your sister and all those other things you like to do?”

“I don’t ‘like’ to fight with Tara. Sometimes I can’t help it, but I don’t like it. Why are you asking?”

“If you’re going to be an artist, I should find a proper art teacher for you. Or get you into a school which specialises in teaching art properly. I don’t think Eva Billings has a lot to teach you. If you want to be a person who does something else but is good at art, then I’ll teach you what I can for now and we’ll take pot luck that you get a decent art teacher when you get to high school.”

My head whirled. It was a big decision Mum was asking from me. I wasn’t ready for it. “Mum, can I think about this for a while?”

“Sure honey. Take your time. There’s no rush. In the meantime, you and I will make some art together from time to time. It’ll be fun!”

“I’d like that, Mum.”

“Wonderful!” Mum glanced over her shoulder at Angie. “Well, Angie’s asleep and we have nowhere we have to be in a hurry. There’s no time like the present. Open the glove box for me honey.”

I opened the glove box in front of me and sure enough, tucked inside were one of Mum’s sketchbooks, a handful of pencils and an eraser. I handed the sketchbook and two of the pencils to Mum, then dived into my book bag that was tucked under my feet, hoping to find something I could use. I didn’t have a sketchbook with me, of course. All I had was the workbook I use for math – it would have to do. I opened my workbook to a blank page and put it flat on my lap.