The Wall Between the Worlds Read online

  ‘Mrs Hildebrand asked me to speak to you,’ she says, following me. ‘You need tutoring?’

  ‘Um, no,’ I say. ‘I mean, yeah, I guess. But I –‘

  ‘Well, we’ll get started on Monday, okay? I’m in all your classes anyway, except for Drama, so it’ll work out great.’

  ‘Really?’ I groan inwardly. I don’t exactly hate Sharna, but there are a thousand other people I’d rather spend the day with.

  ‘Yeah!’ She grins enthusiastically. ‘And we can do some work in the evenings, too, right? I’ll make sure you’re getting all your homework done. You’ll be getting great marks in no time.’ She looks up at the birds in the trees, distractedly, and frowns, murmuring: ‘It’s strange for there to be so many magpies around at this time of year . . .’

  ‘Great.’ Could this day get any better? I feel like banging my head on a brick wall. Then, suddenly, an idea hits me. ‘Oh, hey, you know? That English essay about ‘Something that’s important to you’. I haven’t even started yet.’

  Her eyes light up like I’ve given her a present. ‘Perfect! We can start right now!’

  I nod. ‘Yeah. Perfect.’

  ***

  Sure enough, when we get home, Mum’s sitting at the kitchen table waiting for me. I miss the way she spent so much time at work she was hardly ever at home. I miss the way she used to bury herself in her study whenever she was home.

  ‘Mikhal,’ she says, then notices I’m not alone. ‘Oh. Hello.’

  ‘Mum, this is Sharna.’ I lead her into the kitchen, and she looks around, reminding me of an owl with her unblinking eyes. ‘She’s going to be my tutor.’

  Mum looks suspicious. ‘Oh. I see.’

  ‘We’re going to get started right away,’ I tell her, edging out of the room. ‘I’ve got an English essay.’

  Mum stands up and catches me just before I get to the door. ‘I think we should have a family dinner tonight,’ she says quietly.

  I nearly choke.

  ‘Um –’ The last time we ate at the table together I’d cooked a dinner for her birthday because I’d heard her complaining on the phone the night before, to one of her gardening club friends that she missed her mum’s tuna rice casserole.

  I spent ages preparing it. I’m not really a culinary chef. I’d propped my laptop on the kitchen bench and listened to some British dude’s YouTube instructions. It came out a bit blackened at the edges, and I think I used too much rice and it ran over the sides in the oven and stuck to the element, so the kitchen smelled like garlic for three days. Anyway, it turned out I should have set a place at the table for her Blackberry, though, because she spent the whole meal talking to a client about injunctions and cross claims.

  She didn’t eat a bite of the tuna rice casserole.

  ‘We’ve got some things to discuss when your dad gets home,’ she goes on, interrupting my thoughts. ‘So I thought we’d get some pizzas delivered.’

  ‘Pizza?’ She’s all surprises tonight. ‘Sure. Okay.’ And then I turn to Sharna, who’s paused just outside the door, waiting for me but politely not paying attention. ‘Sharna, you like pizza, right?’

  Mum glares at me, knowing exactly what I’m doing, and I feel bad. I really do, especially when Sharna leaps on the invitation like a starving person. ‘I’m vegan. But Pizza Place does a cheese-free option.’

  We go into the lounge room to work. I choose this room because that’s where the Playstation is, and as soon as we sit down I sign into Third Planet Invasion. ‘You can play on Baz’s user account,’ I tell her. ‘He’s got a crap score, so you can boost him up –’

  ‘What do you want to do your essay on?’ she interrupts, opening a folder on the coffee table. ‘I’ll tell you a secret – if you choose something you’re interested in, it makes it so much easier. You can write as much as you want and then just cut it down.’

  I stare at her, astounded. ‘Why would I write more than what I have to?’

  ‘Because . . .’ she shakes her head, just as bewildered as I am, but for different reasons. ‘Anyway. What do you really care about?’

  ‘Um . . . zombie games.’ I say. ‘Hey! I could compare two really great games –‘

  ‘I don’t think that’s deep enough. It’s not going to give you much room to explore.’

  I sigh and look back at the screen. My guy is getting murdered by rabid zombies, and there’s a lot of blood and gore, but somehow I get the feeling Sharna isn’t going to let me take a break to rescue him before we’ve even started working.

  ‘What about your mum and dad’s legal work? You could look into what they do with their clients . . .’

  ‘Yeah, but I don’t care about that. It’s boring. It’s really, really, boring.’

  Sharna sighs, exasperated, and I wonder if she’s having second thoughts about tutoring me.

  I try to reign in my boredom as I get my laptop from my room and start tapping in a few words. Sharna leans in over my shoulder. ‘Are you sure you want to start like that?’ It’s safe to say that by the time the doorbell rings, I’m already over this whole tutoring thing. ‘Gotta get that!’ I leap up so fast you’d think the house was on fire. Downstairs, I’m grateful to see that the delivery guy is my friend Donnie.

  He’s already heard about me being sent to the Principal’s office again – I guess everyone’s talking about it – and asks for details.

  ‘Dude,’ I whisper. ‘I’m dying here. Mum’s never been this weird before. She’s not yelling, or anything. I think she’s planning to kill me and bury my body under one of her rosebushes.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Donnie gives a knowing wink. ‘Double Pepperoni with extra cheese and a small vegan-veggie-tasteless-special. I put in a box of Dipsticks as well. You’ll be set to face anything after that.’

  Never ask a pizza delivery boy for life advice.

  He shrugs. ‘I’d stay and help you out, man, be a buffer or whatever, but I’ve got three more runs to make and if the pizzas don’t arrive on time, hot, and with a smile, I get docked.’

  I tell him to get lost then. ‘I’ve got a friend around, anyway.’

  He looks past me and through the arched door to the living room he sees Sharna sitting on the couch. He raises his eyebrows.

  ‘She’s tutoring me,’ I explain, and roll my eyes. Donnie gives me a sympathetic look before he leaves, and I tell Sharna to come and eat.

  Mum’s waiting for us in the dining area of the kitchen. She’s even lit the old-fashioned wood stove. The crackling fire makes the room seem warm and comfy in a way it hasn’t for a long time. ‘Harry?’ she calls.

  Dad has super-tuned hearing, which I think comes from twenty years of listening to clients mutter their secrets on the witness stand. He once heard me flushing a piece of Grandma’s disgusting three-bean pie down the ensuite toilet in one of the guest bedrooms at the other end of the house.

  He’d made me clean all three bathrooms under Anna’s supervision. And Anna doesn’t let a speck of soap scum pass her inspection.

  So he arrives a few moments later, and sits down next to Mum, leaving me to face them like I’m on trial. And poor Sharna is left sitting on the end. She doesn’t look uncomfortable, which is good, but I can’t help feeling that she must know she’s here to be a buffer, not because I actually want her.

  They’re both silent, so I reach for a piece of pizza, which smells darn good. Dad chooses that moment to clear his throat. I take my hand back guiltily.

  ‘So, Sharna,’ he says. ‘I knew your mother. It’s nice of you to help Mikhal out.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t mind. I don’t have a very busy schedule.’ She speaks in the way my parents like people to speak – concise, polite. I can feel them radiating approval.

  ‘Still, it’s very generous of you to volunteer your time. Mikhal has certain problems with –’

  ‘Hang on,’ I burst in. ‘I’m sitting right here!’

  ‘Mikhal,’ he says levelly. ‘You know we love you, and we want the best for you.’

  I nod. Nothing good ever follows a sentence like that.

  ‘We had a call from your school today,’ Mum jumps in. I can tell this is it. The floodgates are open now, and nothing’s going to hold them back, not even Sharna’s presence. ‘They’re very concerned about your performance.’

  I nod again, waiting for it.

  ‘Bad marks –’ explodes Mum. ‘That’s bad enough, but –’

  ‘Fighting?’ Dad splutters. ‘I would have thought better of you.’

  ‘If you can’t control yourself around other students –’

  ‘I thought we’d bought you up knowing –’

  ‘About conflict resolution.’

  ‘Putting a boy in hospital? I’m ashamed of you, Mikhal. You and Andrew used to be friends. What happened?’

  I could tell them so many things, but I don’t think my words will be heard under this barrage.

  Finally, Dad says: ‘Mrs Hildebrand made some helpful suggestions.’

  ‘Dad,’ I say carefully and calmly. ‘I don’t really need to do that stuff. I promise I’ll work harder. I’ll do my homework. I’ll go to all my classes. And Sharna . . .’

  I look across at her, and see that she’s frozen, her hands on the edge of the table. Her lips are pinched. I feel like an absolute tool for putting her in the middle of this.

  ‘Mikhal, you know that’s not going to be enough. I really think there’s something to this. That’s what your mum and I have been talking about.’

  ‘This is what we’ve decided,’ Mum says. ‘You’ll help me out with the charity drive. Volunteer work is such a rewarding experience, Miky. You can really make a difference.’

  I glare at her. ‘You want me to sell hotdogs outside the church? How is that supposed to help my schoolwor
k?’

  ‘It’s not forever,’ she tells me quietly. ‘And Mrs Hildebrand agreed it was a good idea.’

  ‘It’s community service! They make criminals do shit like that –‘

  ‘Miky! Watch your mouth!’ she snaps. ‘You could have been expelled. Or worse. Andrew’s parents had every right to press charges.’

  ‘They wouldn’t,’ I mutter. ‘They know who you are.’

  ‘That’s enough!’ Dad slaps the table. ‘You’re doing this, and if it doesn’t teach you to fly straight and take some responsibility for your actions and your life, nothing will.’

  Dad’s good at making speeches. He loves it, especially if he can make it sound like he’s smart and philosophical. He is smart and philosophical, of course, but that’s beside the point, and the point is that speeches are completely useless in the real world. You can’t fix everything by stringing a load of long words together. You can’t fix me.

  ‘Look,’ Mum says, sounding calm and collected now that Dad’s the one playing Bad Cop. ‘We’ll work this out, okay? There are plenty of options. We’ll just find one that suits you.’

  I swallow all my angry protests and nod because there’s nothing I can say that they will actually listen to.

  Dad smiles tightly. He takes a slice of pizza, puts it on a plate, leans over to rub my shoulder, and leaves the room.

  Mum takes out her Blackberry.

  ‘So,’ Sharna says. ‘You could do your essay on charities! That would be ideal. You could look at the different ways people are receiving help . . .’

  I sigh and start shovelling pizza into my mouth. It’s already cold.

  ***

  My room is my sanctuary. It’s on the third floor, which is a converted attic, fitted under the roof so the ceiling slopes and my band posters keep falling off it. Fall Out Boy has a rip down the centre, and Brand New sags alarmingly. Blink 182 – old-school, but nevertheless worthy – spends more time on the floor than in it’s rightful place above the Silversun Pickups, and next to Alter Ego.

  I have a pact with Anna that while she can vacuum my floor or change my sheets any time she wants, she doesn’t touch my desk.

  She says she doesn’t get paid enough to reconstruct a bomb site anyway.

  It works out well for both of us.

  She’s in there when I climb the stairs after finally getting Sharna to go home. She’s hanging a few shirts in the wardrobe.

  ‘There’s pizza in the fridge,’ I tell her. ‘If you want some. And anyway, shouldn’t you be home?’

  She raises an eyebrow. ‘Trouble?’

  ‘What else?’

  She smiles gently and changes the subject. ‘How’s Roger?’

  For my birthday, Mum wanted to get me a new laptop. Instead, I got her to take me to the music shop in the mall. They don’t like me in there because I was always going in there to look at the green guitar and not buying anything.

  Ron, the owner, was overjoyed to finally sell him to me. Roger is second hand and a shiny green. I knew as soon as I saw him that I needed that guitar. And even though there is a scuff mark on the fret board, and the previous owner somehow felt the need to draw a little smiley face above the input jack, I knew it was my guitar.

  Roger hooks up nicely to my stereo system. He sits there, waiting for me to play him. But I haven’t had the courage yet.

  ‘Good.’ I say this earnestly. ‘He’s good. I’m . . . not so much.’

  ‘Hey,’ she slaps my hand. ‘None of that. I’ve heard you play.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘I’m just too scared. But I replaced the pickups and I got a new strap . . .’

  ‘I’ll pretend I know what you’re talking about,’ Anna says. ‘Anyway, he looks handsome.’

  I change the subject. ‘You’re not usually here this late.’

  ‘Your mum is letting me put in a few extra hours. I’m a bit strapped for cash at the moment. Lily – there’s this special school. They cater to kids with severe disabilities. If I had enough to cover the fees –’

  Lily is Anna’s daughter. She was born with a weak heart and all kinds of health problems. She needs constant care. Even though she never complains, I know it must be really hard for Anna to deal with.

  ‘Better get back to it,’ she says with a smile. ‘Just be good, okay, Miky? This will all work out.’

  I smile at her, because no matter what my problems are, hers are so much worse, and I feel selfish being miserable about them.

  She leaves, flicking off the light as she goes because she knows I prefer the dark. I look at Roger in the light coming from my laptop screen. I grab my notebook out of my pocket and flick it open to my latest song. I wrote this one for Roger.

  But I can’t do it, not tonight. I pick up Old Faithful, the acoustic guitar I’ve had since forever, and strum out a tune.

  It’s easy to create music.

  ‘Music is a force,’ Mr Jackson is always telling us in music class. ‘It’s powerful enough to make you feel and remember. It’s a formidable tool.’

  He always says things like that, and he sounds kind of half-crazy when he does, but I can see exactly what he means every time I pick up my guitar or sing a few lines of a song.

  If only life was made up of notes and melody, the way songs are. I could just cross it out and rewrite it all. Only better.

  Chapter Two:

  Bridges

  It’s Charity Day.

  I stopped thinking of Saturdays as Saturdays a few weeks ago, when our house stopped being a house and started being Charity Collection Headquarters. On Saturdays, every bag and box of donated goods in Cassidy Heights ends up in our garage, and the Charity Mums show up to sort them, catalogue them, and drive them all over town.

  ‘No!’

  Mum storms in. If there was a cartoon thundercloud hanging over her head, shooting little lightning bolts, she couldn’t look more angry.

  ‘I labelled those boxes specifically. They were supposed to go to the city centre.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Nina says. Nina is engaged to my friend Jake’s dad. She’s the one who started all this charity stuff, so I guess I can blame her for it all . . . but I can’t help liking her anyway. She’s always kind and she puts up with my mum snapping at her like it’s no big deal, like she gets that Mum doesn’t really mean it. ‘It’s my fault. I left Hayley in charge. That box was with all the others. When the truck showed up, she just told them to load everything.’

  Mum sighs. ‘It’s the second time it’s happened.’

  ‘It’s not the end of the world,’ Nina says, pausing for a moment to pat her stomach.

  ‘Oh, would you please sit down for a minute, at least?’ Mum scolds her. ‘You’re making me nervous.’

  Nina smiles. She’s been doing that a lot, and it suits her. But I think she’s had enough of people hovering around her. ‘Don’t be ridiculous! I’m pregnant, not dying. There’s so much work to do . . .’

  Mum spies me. ‘Mikhal, you can go and help Keira in the garage for a while, can’t you?’

  ‘I was going to go and see Baz –’

  Mum gives me a Look. It’s the kind of Look that needs a capital ‘L’, the kind you don’t argue against.

  I head for the garage.

  It’s a big garage. It fits six cars, but Mum usually parks her Jeep in the driveway, and Dad’s Mercedes is never here because neither is he. I used to be able to skateboard in here. Not anymore though; every inch of it is boxes and crates and those big garbage bags, and tables with folded clothes and cans of food and blankets, and all kinds of the junk that turns up in charity bins.

  It smells.

  It’s not a bad smell. It’s just a smell of a hundred different people, and households, and materials all rolled into one. It’s the smell of dust, and mildew, and blankets that have been folded up in cupboards for too long. Even with the door open and a cold breeze blowing in, it’s almost overpowering.

  My lip curls up. There are a thousand things I’d rather be doing than this.

  There are two other people in the garage, folding clothes into two piles. Keira and Aaron.

  ‘Nina’s got a load of boxes in her car,’ Keira says. ‘We just need to bring them in. Aaron, you want to help us?’