Claire Zorn - The Sky So Heavy

‘Sir.’

Effrez flicked his scarf over his shoulder and strolled over.

‘I’m fairly certain this area is considered out of bounds,’ he said.

‘Would you be more comfortable if we were smoking cigars, sir?’

‘Slightly. I should give you each a detention.’

‘Except you’re down here smoking a cigar, sir,’ Lokey said.

‘Except I know that another detention for you, Mr Loke, and you’ll be up for a suspension. Don’t see why you should get a holiday.’

‘Looking out for us, sir?’

‘Always. You did an excellent job in class today, Mr Heath, bluffed your way through an entire conversation.’

I wasn’t sure whether to thank him or apologise.

‘Interesting how as soon as a book becomes mandatory reading no one wants to read it. You do read though, don’t you, Fin?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘What was the last thing you read?’

‘ The Road , sir. Cormac—’

‘McCarthy. Excellent. Read Heart of Darkness , Mr Heath. Read it in light of McCarthy’s work. McCarthy, like most of us, owes a great deal to Joseph Conrad.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Good. Will you gentleman all be attending the protest march tomorrow?’

Lokey pushed the toe of his sneaker through the dirt.

‘Don’t see the point, sir. It’s got nothing to do with us. If they want to blow each other up that’s their business.’

The bell rang. Mr Effrez stubbed the end of his cigar against a tree trunk. He took a small metal box from his pocket and placed the cigar end inside it. He turned and started walking back toward the school. Then he stopped and looked at Lokey over his shoulder.

‘I dare say it’ll be your business, Mr Loke. You can trust me on that.’

The guy with the gun is screaming now. He’s saying something about Max again. He grabs a handful of my hair and wrenches my head back. His mouth is next to my ear, his breath tobacco-drenched and foul. My eyes try to focus in the dark, but all I can make out is the pattern of the brick wall in front of my face.

I found Lucy in the corridor after last period. She was standing with two of her friends. They looked me up and down in that way girls do; I must have passed their examination because they relinquished her.

‘Do you still want to go to the library? Or do you just wanna go home?’ I tried to sound like I was completely neutral.

She grinned. ‘You really think I’m going to give up that easy? There’s no way you’re beating me on this essay, Findlay. Your arse is mine.’

I swallowed.

The school library was empty except for a few other seniors. The librarian gave Lucy and me a warning look, as if she suspected us of using the reference section for purposes other than research (I wish). We actually got more work done than I was expecting. Lucy was a good influence. After we were done photocopying, Lucy started to pack away her things and I thought that maybe it was going to be nothing more than a study session. Maybe I had imagined this thing between her and me and she really was way out of my league. Maybe I was just a curiosity to her. Maybe she was just toying with me; practising for someone more popular. We’d been friends ever since that first modern history lesson. Maybe what I saw as flirting she saw as a way to ease her boredom. She laughed at my jokes. That was a good sign, wasn’t it?

‘So, Findlay, tell me. What do you like to draw, I mean, besides people you are stalking, of course.’

‘Of course. Um, people mostly. At the moment it’s usually people with, like random things.’

‘Random things?’

‘Objects that they are kind of linked to, in my head, in an abstract way. But, um, I like to play with the scale, so I did a drawing of my mum sitting next to an alarm clock, but the alarm clock was bigger than her. It sounds really dumb when I say it like that. But I think if you met her you’d understand. I did another one of her with a massive empty birdcage. With one of those mirrors that people put inside them, for birds to look at themselves or whatever. I did that one after she left. So, you know, paging Dr Freud.’

‘Your mum left?’

‘Yeah. Two years ago. My brother and I got home and there was all this stuff missing from the house. I thought we’d been robbed, but I couldn’t work out why a burglar would take our kitchen clock. Then I found this letter on the table in the hallway. My dad was supposed to be home earlier that day. He was supposed to find it, not us. But he didn’t come home, so I was the one who found it and I… read it. I shouldn’t have. I really wish I hadn’t, but…’

‘Shit, Fin.’

‘Yeah. I mean we still see her a lot and stuff, but she made it pretty clear she didn’t want to be at home with us any more.’

Lucy looked at me intently, like she expected me to continue.

‘She was really young when she had us so maybe that has something to do with it… She’s really smart, she’s done a lot of study into human behaviour, had some stuff published. She was offered some amazing jobs when we were younger. What I mean is, I think she missed out on a lot, having us so young. And Dad can be a total prick. He stuffed up a fair bit…’ I could feel my throat tightening. I hadn’t talked much about this stuff, wasn’t the kind of thing you could really debrief with Lokey.

‘But, to leave? That’s horrible.’

‘Yeah. It’s pretty bad.’

‘I understand about drawing her. I don’t draw, but I play the piano a bit. Write songs.’

I had seen her play. It should be illegal to look that sexy in a school hall.

‘I think it’s how I process things. My sister was quite sick a few years ago. Eating disorder; she nearly died. I wrote a lot of music around then. For me, it’s like I’m not thinking about the thing I’m writing about, not directly anyway. But something clicks over in my head and music comes out and I don’t even know where it comes from. Does that make sense?’

‘Totally. If you asked me to talk about how I feel about stuff, I can’t. But I can draw it.’

As she looked at me I could feel her gaze reaching right inside of me. Like she could see into the tunnels of my mind that no one had ever seen before. She didn’t speak. I inhaled slowly, trying to get the balls to do what I wanted to do. I leaned toward her, testing a little to see if she would shift away. She didn’t.

My phone rang, shrill in the quiet of the library. I grabbed it. Mum. I blocked the call. It rang again.

‘Jealous girlfriend?’ asked Lucy.

‘Yeah. Sorry, I better get this.’

‘It’s your mum, isn’t it?’

‘Yeah.’

She laughed. I gave her the finger and answered the phone.

‘Fin?’ Mum was panicked. I could tell from the pitch of her voice. It wasn’t an unfamiliar sound.

‘Yeah, Mum. Who else would it be?’ I rolled my eyes at Lucy.

‘Where are you?’

‘School. The library.’

‘Have you seen the news?’

‘What? No. What’s wrong?’

‘God, Fin. Get home. Where’s Max?’

‘I don’t know. What’s wrong, Mum? Would you just chill for a minute?’

‘Fin, go to the supermarket, get as much non- perishable food as you can carry. And water. Get water—’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘The missiles, Fin. Something’s gone wrong, very wrong. We don’t know much, but it looks as though regions in the north of Asia have been hit as well as the Gobi Desert. Word is it’s a nuclear test gone wrong, but it might have been deliberate. We don’t know—’

She dropped out.

‘Mum?’

‘Fin? Can you hear me?’

The line crackled. ‘Just,’ I answered.

‘I’ve tried to get on to your dad but I can’t. I can’t get Max either. I want you both at home as soon as possible, but you need to get food and water, Fin, understand?’