Evie Wyld: All the Birds, Singing

Lloyd looked at me for a long time.

‘This is your house,’ he said, ‘and those are your sheep. But I’m not going to let you do that.’

‘I’ve got to protect them somehow,’ I said, but even as I said it I felt like I wouldn’t win, that I wouldn’t be able to do it without him. I thought of the sheep I shot in the neck and put my head on the table. Dog rested his chin on my knee and Lloyd poured us both a whisky but I pushed mine away.

Something nested outside the window, and it sang loudly, Chip, chjjjj, chewk, jaay and jaay-jaay, tool-ool, tweedle-dee, chi-chuwee . It should have been me that finished her, she should have died thinking it was all going to be fine. Tool-ool, tweedle-dee, chi-chuwee. I wondered if the other ewes knew it was me.

‘Coffee then?’ Lloyd said.

He made a pot and took it to the kitchen table and there was a small spillage, just a splash. He got two mugs. He placed the sugar on the table with a spoon and sat down.

‘Do you think I’m mad?’ I asked. The question wasn’t answered, instead Lloyd stretched over and put his hand over mine for a moment. Then he put three spoonfuls of sugar in a mug and poured coffee into it, stirred and passed it to me. I had to hold on to it with both hands because of the shake in my arms.

‘Where’s the lamb?’ I asked, looking at the empty dog bed by the stove. We both listened but there was no other sound from the house.

I’m stealing looks at Denver Cobby, the half-Aboriginal kid from the year above. He is outside the gates, smoking and talking with another boy. He doesn’t care that anyone can see him, and because of that the teachers don’t ever hassle him. He’s that cool. I’m pretending to be really into the pebble I’m thumbing, like it’s an interesting one or a fossil or something, when Hannah and Nerrida come up to me and start going on.

‘How’s it going, homo?’ Nerrida asks, and I don’t look up. They might go away if I ignore them.

‘Hey!’ Hannah barks. ‘We’re talking to you.’ And I pretend that I’ve found something far more interesting than them on my stone. Hannah flicks her hair over to the other side of her head. ‘Rude bitch,’ she says. ‘Your sister’s stuck up too — but at least she’s fuckin’ got a pair of balls.’

Nerrida shoves my arm, and my stone drops between my knees and bounces onto the floor. Now I have nothing to train my attention to. I’ve seen Nerrida go for girls before, her older sister has a scar on her cheek where Nerrida dug her nails in one time.

‘Look at me when I’m talking to you,’ she says and she grabs my face in her claws and yanks it round so I’m looking at her. ‘Fucking dyke,’ she says, and someone shouts, ‘You girls, leave her the fuck alone,’ and they both turn around with looks on their faces like someone’s going to die, but then they see it’s Flora Carter that’s spoken, and Nerrida drops her hand from my face.

‘We were just playin’ with her,’ Hannah complains, but Flora points to the other side of the yard and they start to leave without saying anything apart from Nerrida who mumbles ‘Sorry’ as she passes Flora.

Flora Carter picks up the stone I was holding and passes it back to me. ‘You all right?’ she asks, and I’m bright red in the face. Over her shoulder I can see that Denver is looking.

After school, I’m supposed to be waiting for Iris, but she hasn’t shown. Bad things always happen when you’re waiting for Iris.

‘I fucked your dad last night,’ says Nerrida outside the gates. ‘How’d you like me as a stepmum?’ Hannah is having hysterics behind Nerrida, wiping tears from her eyes. I pull my shoulders into my body, try and become small and I look away from them both. ‘Don’t worry,’ she carries on, ‘I wouldn’t marry him — his dick’s like that.’ She holds up her little finger and wiggles it at me. I’m offended on Dad’s behalf.

‘Reckon you’ve got a bigger dick than your dad,’ Hannah pipes up, which sets them both off, but Nerrida recovers quickly, in time to get close enough for me to smell her breath of raspberry Icy Pole.

‘Have you got a big dick, Brick Shit House?’ I’ve waited for Iris long enough, and I turn to walk away, but Nerrida grabs my arm and yanks me back round. ‘When will you learn to be respectful to your elders?’ she shrills like a mum, not my mum but one of the ones that comes out of the church.

‘Hey. You want me to walk you home?’ Denver Cobby has appeared next to me. I can feel the heat of his blood through his arm, even though it’s not touching mine. Hannah smiles and blushes a little.

‘That’d be nice, sure,’ she says. There’s a pause.

Denver snorts. ‘Not you,’ and Nerrida looks up, a smile just about to form on her lips when Denver puts his hot arm around my waist. I try not to jump. As he walks me away I hear Nerrida say, ‘What the fuck?’ and it is the most triumphant moment of my life, even though I will pay for it tomorrow.

Denver walks me to the end of our drive — he’s talked the whole way about his favourite footy stars, and I don’t mind because I can’t think of anything to say back, just enjoy that he is talking to me. I wish Iris was here to see, I wish someone had passed us on the road home, to stop and think, That Whyte girl’s making friends in interesting places.

‘Anyway,’ he says, a whip of a smile on his lips, like he wants to ask me something but can’t bring himself to. ‘Ignore Nerrida, she’s a skank. I can walk you home tomorrow. If you want.’ And he’s off again, but he treads off the path, goes into the bush and disappears. It’s what Mum would call the Magic of the Abos. I’m still standing there looking at the spot he was in, when he reappears. He sees me watching and waves. ‘Just having a piss!’ he calls, and carries on down the road.

The next morning, I dress carefully. Iris has a new netball skirt I think about thieving, but I wouldn’t make it out the door with my eyeballs in my head. Instead I pinch a padded bra from her dirty clothes basket, and I roll my cut-offs up a notch. I have a checked shirt and I experiment with tying it at my navel like Nerrida does. In the end I decide it’s better hanging loose — it disguises the strange high shape of the bra. I brush my hair which is not normally something I get round to. With a bit of lipstick I look all right I reckon. There’s nothing to be done about my plimsolls, which stink if you get too close. I wonder for the first time about getting a job like Iris has at the Gladioli Tea Shop so I could buy the sandals and nail polish she gets hold of. I think for a second about taking her sandals in my bag, shudder at what she’d do to me when she found out. The bra is a big enough risk.

I am proud of my new string bikini from Target. ‘You’ll look like a hooker,’ Mum’d said, but she gave in because at least it was on special. I wonder about wearing it over the top of the padded bra — if it comes to swimming, that bridge will have to be crossed.

At school, no one comments on the new look, which I take as a sign I have it exactly right. Nerrida gets me in the toilets, just her on her own without Hannah. She gets me by the wrist and digs her nails in. She’s just put more scented lip gloss on, and so her lips are very wet and they smell of plastic oranges. It’s like being in a snake’s mouth, having her claws around my wrist — the more I try and pull away, the deeper into my wrist the nails go.

‘Listen, you little bastard,’ she says, and she’s got that church-mum tone to her voice again, and with the other hand she holds up a finger to shake at me. ‘You need to know that you are fucking dead.’ She pulls me closer so that our foreheads are almost touching. ‘Did you hear what I said, were you paying attention, you massive fucking ape? I’m going to kill you.’ She lets go of my wrist and you can hear the sound of her nails unplugging from my skin. She loves him too, I think. But it’s me he picks up after class.