By Jefferson Retallack
Mum makes me promise to never go to Dad’s during the week. “He’s a busy man,” she says.
Him? Yeah right. He can never tell me what he’s been up to when I ask. We see him every second Friday.
“You know the drill,” Mum always says. “You and your brother get home from school, take the bags I pack for you — nothing else — and get on the bus that I tell you to.
Then I don’t see you till Sunday night. Simple.” But, it is far from simple.
All my friends said their parents are way less strict since they’ve split up. Yeah right. There were so many rules now, at Mum’s and at Dad’s — especially since the accident:
Don’t go to the mall without telling them. “And take your brother.” Ugh. Why won’t he stop copying me?
Don’t talk about your accident with anyone. “Especially not with Grandpa. You know his dementia has only gotten worse.” I can’t even remember the accident. Is dementia contagious?
Don’t call Dad’s landline. “Ever.”
Don’t call Mum’s landline when we’re at Dad’s. “Also, ever.”
I’ve already tried. They’ve blocked the numbers from each other’s houses and any mobile I can get my hands on.
What the heck is all the fuss about?
I’m almost fifteen, basically an adult. Becky and I have already decided that we’re gonna move out together before uni. She’s been my best friend ever since Larissa, from my last school, stopped answering my calls.
Anyway, it’s Wednesday today and that’s why I wagged final period, still in my disgusting green uniform, to catch the bus to Dad’s house. It’s weird.
Travelling the route that I know so well, from my fortnightly bus ride, in daylight instead of at sundown. I can see my old school.
Hey. No fair. The mural that Jacob and I helped paint was gone.
My mum’s slogan echoes in my mind, “Life’s not fair.” I hate it when she’s right.
The bus pulls over. I look over the sea of matching blue legionnaire hats and uniforms. My heart races and my stomach goes all funny, like pop rocks. I move right to the back and hope that nobody recognises me.
That’s not true. Part of me hopes, just a bit, that someone does.
Can they recognise my new uniform? Did anyone even tell them which school I go to? Do any of them care?
“Natasha?!”
“Larissa!” We hug. My stomach settles instantly. “It’s so good to see you,” I say. “I feel like it’s been ages.”
“Yeah, I know,” Larissa says. “I thought you were sick?”
My cheeks hurt from the intensity of my smile. She does care. “I was, but I’m not supposed to talk about it.”
She zips her mouth shut, locks it, then throws away the tiny key. I’m no longer upset that we haven’t kept contact. I don’t even mention it, which is quite grown up of me. We talk about everything and nothing for the whole fifteen minutes to her house. It’s like I’d only seen her yesterday.
My eyes are wet when I wave goodbye to her through the window.
I round the final corner before my stop, my old stop. Some primary schooler up the front dings the bell for me. I can’t see their face, but they look pretty familiar.
My phone vibrates and I hop off the bus. I read only the notification from Becky to avoid leaving my girl on read:
Whered u go???? Miss u bb!!!! Call me bella.
Good. I haven’t offended her. And, there aren’t eight hundred missed calls from Mum. OMG. Did I get away with it?
The gate squeals as I open it.
The kid from the bus is at the door. He turns around. “What are you doing here, sicko?” It’s Jacob. How did I miss that? “Dad just left to pick you up from volleyball.”
Yuck, as if. Mum says volleyball gives you wrinkles. From all the jumping. “What are you talking about? And why are you wearing our old uniform? Wait, what are you doing here?”
Beep beep. Dad’s new Jeep. Or, as Mum calls it, the crisis-mobile.
He pulls into the driveway and gets out of the driver’s side door.
“Hey, Dad,” I say.
I see the entire white of his eyes. I’d never seen them open that wide. His mouth moves, but he says nothing.
Someone gets out of the passenger side, walks around the front of the car and when our stares meet, I can see that the girl in the volleyball outfit is exactly as scared as I am.
About The Author
Jefferson Retallack
Jefferson Retallack is an Australian writer of speculative fiction.
He is based in Adelaide.
His work draws influence from linguistic science fiction, the new weird and Australia’s big things.
Outside of the literary world, he skateboards on the weekends and spends afternoons on the beach with his partner, their son, and their Pomeranian, Tofu.
Ion Newcombe is the editor and publisher of AntipodeanSF, Australia’s longest running online speculative fiction magazine, regularly issued since January 1998, and conceived back around November 2007. He has been a zealous reader and occasional writer of SF since his childhood in the 1960s, and even sold a few stories here and there back in the '90s.
Mark Webb's midlife crisis came in the form of attempting to write speculative fiction at a very slow pace. His wife maintains this is a good outcome considering the more expensive and cliched alternatives. Evidence of Mark's attempts to procrastinate in his writing, including general musings and reviews of books he has been reading, can be found at www.markwebb.name.
Pixie is a voice actor, cabaret performer & slam poet From the Blue Mountains in NSW.
Laurie Bell lives in Melbourne, Australia. She was that girl you found with her nose always buried in a book. She has been writing ever since she was a little girl and first picked up a pen. From books to short stories, radio plays to snippets of ideas and reading them aloud to anyone who will listen.
David Whitaker is originally from the UK though has travelled around a bit and now resides in India. He has a degree in Journalism, however decided that as he’s always preferred making things up it should ultimately become a resource rather than a profession.
Margaret lives the good life on a small piece of rural New South Wales Australia, with an amazing man, a couple of pets, and several rambunctious wombats.
Garry Dean lives on the Mid Coast of New South Wales Australia, and has been a fan of SF for most of his natural life. Being vision impaired, he makes good use of voice recognition and text to speech in order to write. Many of his stories have appeared in AntipodeanSF over the years, and his love of all things audio led him to join the narration team in 2017.
Timothy Gwyn is a professional pilot in Canada, where he flies to remote communities. During a lull in his flying career, he was a radio announcer for three years, and he is also an author.
Mark is an astrophysicist and space scientist who worked on the Cassini/Huygens mission to Saturn. Following this he worked in computer consultancy, engineering, and high energy research (with a stint at the JET Fusion Torus).