John Marsden - While I live

I asked Jess about Jeremy, just to turn the tables a bit. I was pretty casual. ‘So, have you seen Jeremy Finley lately?’

She did go quite red. She leant back in her chair and fixed her strong eyes on me. ‘Oh, yes, at the weekend. Just for a barbecue. We should have asked you.’

It had already struck me that no-one was asking me to anything these days, I suppose because they were still nervous of me after Mum and Dad’s death. Maybe they thought I was too busy? I kind of hoped these were the reasons. I’d hate to think it was for anything more personal, like I had a bad dose of BO, or my sense of humour didn’t rate anymore, or I was too up myself.

‘So how’s Jeremy?’ I asked.

She’d got back her cool. ‘Sexy as ever.’ She laughed. ‘I’m making some progress. I’ll keep you posted.’

Bronte opened the lid of her lunchbox. It looked pretty interesting in there. Riceballs and something a bit sushi-ish, and silver beet and something light green. Not the typical contents of a Wirrawee lunchbox. ‘What’s that stuff?’ I asked, pointing to one of the vegetables.

‘Celeriac,’ she said.

‘Celeriac.’ Nice word. Up there with insouciance, tissue and alligator.

When the first bell rang I walked back with her. But as we arrived at the lockers I saw Ms Maxwell striding towards me. My heart suddenly sagged inside my chest.

‘Oh, Ms Maxwell,’ I said.

‘Ellie, you were meant to come and see me at recess.’

‘I’m sorry, Ms Maxwell, I clean forgot.’

‘Well, you can come and see me now, thank you.’

‘But Ms Maxwell, we’ve got Drama.’

‘I’m sure Mr Elliot can do without you for twenty minutes.’

I followed Ms Maxwell along the corridor, staring gloomily at her back. She wore one of those tailored suits, an olive green pattern that looked like wallpaper. It made her bum look big. One side of her bum was having a pillow fight with the other side.

In her office she settled herself comfortably at the desk. I settled uncomfortably on the other side. She checked a file then looked over her glasses at me. ‘Ellie, I know life has hardly been easy for you lately.’

She seemed to expect an answer so I nodded obediently. ‘Yes, Ms Maxwell,’ I said, not really thinking much, because people said stuff like that to me so often these days that it no longer had an impact.

‘And we have every sympathy for you, and every desire to help you.’

‘Yes, Ms Maxwell.’

‘But at the end of the day we have to operate within guidelines laid down by the Department.’

‘Yes, Ms Maxwell.’ Teachers mentioned the Department in the same way that priests mentioned God.

‘And, Ellie, I have to say that I can’t see how you are going to meet the Department’s minimum requirements for a pass.’

I sat there numbly. So much to deal with, and now this.

‘You’ve missed so many classes, you’re way behind on assignments, you’re scoring failing grades right across the board.’

I’d given up saying ‘Yes, Ms Maxwell.’

‘There is one thing. You can plead special circumstances. Certainly in your case there are a lot of special circumstances. There’s your wartime experiences — and of course nearly everyone can claim some kind of special circumstances as a result of the war — but more particularly there’s the death of your parents.’

I nodded.

She waited quite a while but I couldn’t think of anything to add. So she went on: ‘To tell you the truth, Ellie, I’m a traditionalist. Yes, if you put in for it, I have no doubt you’d get special consideration. But where does that leave you? You’d get a pass without earning it. You’d get a pass even though you don’t have the same knowledge other students have. And what happens next year, and the year after that? For how many years would you keep getting special consideration?’

She leaned forward and looked at me earnestly. ‘I know a lot of people would say I’m being hard on you. And I’m not saying you should “get over” your problems and “get on” with life. You can’t force that, believe me, I know. It will only happen when it happens. I am saying that if you can’t pass this year you should repeat the year, and see how you go the second time around. Better that than to get credit you haven’t earned, better that than to go on to university and have lecturers assume you know things you don’t.’

I left her office in a state of confusion. I thought the idea of special consideration was that you would have passed the exams except for some disaster. That seemed fair enough. I mean, if I got that and eventually went to university, I might have problems. But not in all subjects. I didn’t think it would matter so much in English or History, for example.

I didn’t want to seem like I was looking for excuses though. Maybe Ms Maxwell was right. I didn’t know. It was awfully confusing having to think a problem like this through, to work it out on my own. I wanted to sit with someone at the kitchen table for hours, exploring it inside out and upside down, then taking it on a long walk through the paddocks. But instead it just had to take its place in the queue.

I couldn’t believe how quickly the court case snuck up on me. So much had happened since the first one, and I’d almost forgotten Mr Sayle was doing his level best to get control of my farm, my money, and my life.

Two days before the next hearing I rang Fi’s mum in the city and was devastated to hear that she couldn’t come.

‘I’m sorry, Ellie, but I’ve got a meeting of the Advisory Council. Did I tell you I’d been elected to the Advisory Council?’

‘No, congratulations.’

I felt bitter. I hardly heard my own voice. All at once the death of my parents, always so close at hand, welled up again, and I was filled with anger at the way I’d been deserted. At the same time as I knew ‘deserted’ was a desperately unfair word I felt it pounding inside my heart and aching in my head. I’d had the same feelings when I thought Homer and Fi and the others had been killed in the attack on the petrol station during the war.

‘To be loved is nothing; it is to be preferred that I desire.’ So many times since my parents died I’d wanted to have the total undivided attention of a large number of people, including Fi’s mother, Homer’s parents, Homer, Fi, Lee, and half the teachers at Wirrawee High. Now, as I leaned against the kitchen bench, glaring at the Aga, the phone hanging off my ear, holding a mental rollcall of all the people who had betrayed me, Gavin wandered past, grabbed a banana, peeled it and sat there grinning at me and eating it like he was a monkey.

I couldn’t help grinning back. For better or for worse he was still around.

‘So what do I do about Mr Sayle?’ I asked Fi’s mum.

‘It seems to me that the main issue for the magistrate was that she didn’t have much confidence in Mr Yannos to look after your finances. So you’ve got to convince her that she’s wrong about that.’

‘How?’

‘Now come on, Ellie, you’re one of the more resourceful young people I’ve ever met. I’m sure you can think of ways. References, evidence of successful financial activity, whatever. I’ve got to go. That bank loan you got, the one Mr Sayle didn’t like, if you can prove that was a good move, it’d help a lot. Sorry, Ellie, I really have to run.’

The following night I went over to see Mr Yannos. While Mrs Yannos fussed over Gavin, giving him cup-cakes, which he loved, and Turkish delight, which he didn’t love, I sat down with Mr Yannos. He was very methodical, but slow. He wrote everything on a pad of green writing paper. He took ages, and I got quite frustrated waiting for him to finish each point.