Chapter Eleven

Carlie hardy slept that night. Her mind kept on swirling around the events of the day and contemplating all of the things that could go wrong when they took their case to Mrs. Hoskins.

It felt weird to get up and put regular clothes on instead of her school uniform on a week day. It also felt weird to have both her mum and her dad hanging around the house rather than rushing off to work. After they’d finished with the documentary last night they’d sat down to watch it in the studio one last time, and her dad had been so happy that he’d said he wanted to come to the school with them to see Mrs. Hoskins’ face when she saw it.

“Carlie is my daughter too,” he’d said to her mum. “I’d like to be there to witness her debut as a news woman.”

She was eating her weet-bix at the dining room table when her mum came to sit beside her with her coffee.

“Carlie… I was thinking about it…” She turned the mug around in her hands nervously.

“Mm?”

“You said that you fell off the treadmill in the first week of school?”

“Yeah.”

“Back then you and Lucas weren’t friends, right? In fact, you were pretty upset about him being here at all.”

“Yeah, so?”

“Well… it’s just that… I think you made the right choice by not lying and saying that he touched you. I can see how that could have been tempting and I’m proud of you for having the strength to tell the truth.”

There was an awkward silence as Carlie felt her face turn red from embarrassment.

“And, you know, in the end I think you’ll find that the people who are worth being friends with are not necessarily cool or popular.”

“Yeah, I know mum,” she mumbled.

“Penelope seems like a nice girl, do you want to invite her to do something for your birthday this weekend?”

“What about Lucas’ race? I thought we were going to go and watch his swimming carnival?”

“I think it would be nice of us to go and support him for a while, but we don’t have to do that all weekend. It’s your birthday. We should do something that you want to do.”

“Can we go out for lunch?”

“Yes, wherever you want. We could go and pick up Penelope from her house…”

She cut her off. “No, I mean, could you and I go out for lunch?”

Her mum’s eyebrows rose. “Just the two of us?”

“Yeah. Why’s that so strange?”

“No, no, it’s fine. I just didn’t realize that was something you might like.”

“We could go afterwards and get my ears pierced and buy makeup, and then get Penelope and go to the swimming carnival.”

Her mum gave her a wry smile. “I was hoping you might have forgotten about the ear piercing and makeup.”

“Mum, you promised I could when I was fourteen,” she complained. “I’m not a little kid anymore.”

She held her hands up in defense. “Okay. A deal’s a deal. You can get your ears pierced on Saturday and I’ll buy you some makeup for your birthday.”

Before long Lucas was out of the shower and they all went up to her school together. Today Mrs. Hoskins was wearing a severe looking dark grey tweed suit with enormous shoulder pads, a ruffled blouse underneath and a striped blue and white scarf around her neck that made her look comically sea-faring.

Her mum insisted that Carlie and Lucas should be allowed to come into the office to discuss their suspensions and Mrs. Hoskins reluctantly agreed. There weren’t enough seats and Lucas offered to stand but her mum disagreed.

“I’ll be fine standing today.”

Mrs. Hoskins look up at Carlie’s mum with an expression of distaste. “Rachel,” she began. “I expect you will want to know what happened yesterday.”

“No Gwen,” her mum replied. “I know what happened yesterday. What I want to know about is what preceded yesterday. How you came to possess a bag of marijuana, and how you broke into Lucas’ locker to set him up for a very serious crime. How you have been systematically defaming his character, and finally, how on earth you thought you’d get away with it.”

Mrs. Hoskins’ eyes were wide with anger. “Well, I never!”

“No Gwen, I never. In all my years as a public defendant or as a criminal defense lawyer, I have never seen such filth. I have never seen a grown woman so thoroughly abuse the power entrusted to her to guide and educate the next generation. Children Gwen. Children. You have manipulated and abused children. You have used your power to set up and defame a perfectly innocent, sweet, trusting boy.”

Mrs. Hoskins’ face was red and scrunched into a glare so potent Carlie had no idea how her mother was enduring it. “That boy is anything but sweet and innocent! He is an American hooligan! He gallivants around this school, touching the girls inappropriately, offering them drugs. For all I know he could be seducing them into sexual relations!”

Her mum shook her head. “We both know that’s not true. Lucas has done nothing of the sort. You are the perpetrator here, and we have the proof.” She laid the DVD of Carlie’s documentary on the shiny polished desk.

“What is that?”

“It is a news report that uncovers this whole sordid affair.”

Mrs. Hoskins took a deep breath and held her head high. “Rachel Stewart,” she spat out Carlie’s mum’s maiden name. “You have always been a trouble maker. From the first day I laid eyes on you when you were twelve years old, I knew you would amount to no good.”

Her mum’s eyebrows rose. “A trouble maker? As I recall I was the dux of my year.”

“Not with my blessing you weren’t. I never did like you. You were always pushing the edge of the rules. Wearing powder blue ribbons in your hair instead of royal blue ones, wearing socks in winter instead of stockings. You always had an unhealthy appetite for debate with your superiors.”

She smiled. “And look where that has led us. I am holding the key to your demise in my hand. I am quite happy for my husband to air this tonight… unless of course you would like to see it first.”

“I don’t have a television in here. I’m afraid I cannot watch it.”

Lucas snorted. “I’m pretty sure there’s a TV in the health class room.”

Carlie and Lucas lead them over to the health classroom, which was unoccupied, and her dad messed around with the TV on the stand in the corner until he got the DVD player to work.

Carlie watched Mrs. Hoskins as the documentary played. She knew it pretty much by heart by now so she knew that when her dad’s voice was talking about how Lucas had come over on an exchange from America there was footage of him trying (and failing) to play cricket with the sound and lighting crew on the lawn outside of the TV station.

She knew that when her dad’s voice said, “All Lucas wanted was the chance to get to know the Australian culture and make new friends,” there was a close up of his face with a big broad smile. He had been smiling at her as she tried to demonstrate how to use the cricket bat when that was shot. For some reason he wanted to stand upright and swing it like a baseball bat.

Mrs. Hoskins’ face was twisted into an evil scowl as she watched the footage that made Lucas look like the big, clumsy, loveable boy that he was.

“But that wasn’t to be, because of one woman.” Ominous music signaled a change in tone of the report as the scene cut to a slow motion snippet of Mrs. Hoskins walking out of the administration building, looking extremely pompous and full of herself.

Carlie watched Mrs. Hoskins face fall as Zoe’s interview and then her statement were played. Then there was the part with Lucas and Mr. Crossey trying to open the lock with Lucas’ key. By the time the footage of her trying to avoid the camera as she got into her expensive car was played her face was drawn and she had a far-away look to her.

“What do you want?” She asked weakly.

“We are willing to refrain from airing this report if we can come to a satisfactory agreement with you.”

Her mum laid out what they wanted. “As an old girl of the school, the last thing I want is for a scandal like this to sully its good name. You will see out the rest of the semester as the principal and then retire on the basis of poor health.”

Mrs. Hoskins hesitated for a moment before she nodded.

“You will keep your distance from Carlie and Lucas and anyone else who they associate with. If there are any problems with my children they will see the deputy principal, not you. If I so much as hear a whisper that you are trying to sabotage them in any way this report will be aired that same day, no questions asked.”

Mrs. Hoskins agreed to all of the conditions that Carlie’s mum laid out.

Finally, as they were getting ready to leave, her mum turned to Mrs. Hoskins and said, “Oh Gwen, about the Marijuana, if I were you I would get rid of it as quickly as you can. I’ve heard burying it in your back yard is the best method. Rumor has it that it floats if you try to flush it down the toilet.”

Carlie looked over at Lucas and their eyes locked. He was biting down on his lip, trying to contain his amusement. As soon as they were out of the classroom they were both laughing hysterically.

Her dad took them all out for a celebratory breakfast of French Toast and cappuccinos and then her mum had to go back to work.

“You were fabulous Rachie,” she heard her dad say as he squeezed her mom to him and kissed her on the lips before she left.

“Urgh, gross,” Carlie said, embarrassed by the abnormally high level of affection they’d been showing each other lately.

Carlie and Lucas didn’t have to go back to school until the next day so they got to tag along with her dad all day. It was really fun. He was covering an interview with Queensland’s Governor General in the Southbank Parklands. The Governor was having some problems with his public image, so he was presenting the awards for ‘Young Queenslanders of the Year,’ and then doing a live interview afterwards where he would talk to the young people and try to convince the public that he was ‘hip’ and ‘with it’.

Carlie stood beside her dad and every now and then he’d lean over to her and whisper about the best way to shoot a frame, or how to know when to cut away to a different angle. She watched Tracy Grimshaw expertly guide the Govenor through a ‘casual talk’ with the teenagers and young adults who had won the prizes.

Lucas sat off to the side under the shade of an awning. He wasn’t feeling well because he’d eaten too much for breakfast and then had to sit in the back of a news van with no windows as it swerved and weaved in and out of traffic on the way out to Southbank.

After a while all of the young people went out on the lawn to play a game of pick-up cricket with a set that the Governor’s advisors had brought along while Tracy asked the Governor a few more questions.

When her dad queued the girl who was batting, she called out for the Governor to join in the game and he acted as if it was a big surprise. He rolled the cuffs of his business shirt up as he jogged out on to the patch of lawn and took the bat from the girl. The camera switched from the boy who was bowling to the Governor taking an embarrassing far-off swing at the ball.

“God, he’s terrible,” her dad muttered under his breath. “We’ve got to do something. Go in and relieve him of that bat,” he told her.

“No way! I’m not going in there.”

The Governor took another ridiculous swing at a slow easy ball.

“Well shit, we’ve got to do something… Lucas! Lucas, get in there and have a go at batting. Tell the Governor to try bowling for a change. Joke around and smile with him a bit.”

Lucas looked a little green as he got to his feet, but he did as he was told. He was a much more obedient child than she was. He swerved a little as he jogged to where the Governor was swinging the bat around.

“Get a close up of this,” her dad ordered the cameraman.

Carlie and her dad watched as Lucas approached the Governor. He was smiling but it didn’t look quite right. He looked a bit groggy. His eyebrows were squished down a bit, as if he were slightly demented.

The Governor smiled back and held the bat up for Lucas to take. Lucas lifted his hand towards the bat, but his other hand went to his stomach and the smile fell from his face. He bent a little at the middle. His shoulders hunched.

Oh shit.

A wave passed from his abdomen, through his shoulders and neck, and then French Toast and cappuccino was hurtled from his mouth all down the front of the Governor on live TV.

The Governor stood, aghast, his arms outstretched as vomit dripped from his silk tie.

“Should we cut?” The cameraman asked.

Carlie looked up at her dad. He was biting on his lip and had his eyes narrowed. “No. Keep rolling. Keep the camera on the Governor.”

It took a second for the Governor to compose himself, but then he put his hand on Lucas’ back and bent his head towards him to say something. Lucas nodded.

“Somebody get this boy some water,” the Governor called out as he walked Lucas back to a bench in the shade of a big tree.

“Keep rolling,” her dad said.

One of the Governor’s aids jogged over to the bench with a bottle of water, which she handed to him then stood off to the side.

“Close in on him talking to the boy,” her dad said.

The Governor handed Lucas the bottle of water and was saying something to him as Lucas sat with his head bowed and his elbows resting on his knees. He must have made a joke because Lucas looked up at him and laughed and then the Governor smiled and laughed too.

“Okay, you can cut now,” her dad said. “If that doesn’t get him reelected nothing will.”

He was right. Lucas throwing up on the Governor was all over the news that night. Whenever the Governor was on TV he was talking about how he’d reacted to being thrown up on. His obvious concern for Lucas showed his human side a lot better than trying to play cricket did.

“I don’t know how dad knew to keep on filming,” Carlie told her mum at the dinner table. “If it had been up to me I probably would have cut to a commercial as soon as I saw he was going to barf.”

Her mum reached over the table and squeezed her dad’s hand and he gave her a little grin.

The next day Carlie and Lucas went back to school. The official story they were supposed to tell everyone was that someone from Lucas’ swimming club had tried to set him up, but of course they told Penelope the truth, and Tamika too.

Carlie had been surprised when she’d walked up to their usual lunch spot and Tamika had been sitting there in her school hat, looking like a dork.

“Um… Penelope said it was okay for me to sit here,” Tamika said.

“Yeah, that’s fine. I’m Carlie, by the way.”

Carlie didn’t know why Tamika refused to take her hat off but after a while she just got used to it and stopped thinking about it. Tamika was actually the same age as the rest of them, even though she was only in eighth grade.

Carlie told her and Penelope all about how she was going to get her ears pierced and get makeup for her birthday that weekend and invited Penelope over to stay the night on Saturday. She noticed Tamika looked away when she said that and even though she didn’t really know her, she invited Tamika to come too.

“Really? You’d really want me at your party?” She asked skeptically.

“Well it’s not really a party. We’ll just go and watch Lucas swim in his races on Saturday afternoon and stay up late and watch movies or something that night. My real birthday is on Sunday but mum wont let me have people over late on a school night.”

“Well… I’d like to come, but I’m not sure what my mum will say. Can I have your phone number so my mum can talk to your mum?”

That night Carlie stayed up to watch Lucas’ favorite show with him, “Ladette to Lady.” They both spent the vast majority of the time in stitches over the ridiculous girls at Eggleston Hall and the even more ridiculous teachers.

When she went into her room to get ready for bed her mum came in to talk to her.

“Carlie, you know your friend Tamika?”

“Yeah?”

“I just got off the phone with her mum.”

“Oh, about this weekend? I invited her to stay over on Saturday.”

“Mm… honey, Tamika has a skin condition which causes her hair to fall out.”

“Huh? Really?”

“Yes. It’s called Alopecia. Her mum says she’s very self conscious about it.”

“Is it contagious?”

“No. You can’t catch it.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“Mm… so, if you still want her to come over you’ll need to be sensitive about her hair. You wont be able to do your beauty treatments like you do with Penelope.”

Carlie snorted. “They don’t work anyway. I think they just write those things in magazines to torture girls like us.”

“So do you still want her to come over? I told her mum I’d call her back.”

“Yeah. I think it’ll be alright, don’t you?”

Her mum smiled and touched her on the shoulder. “I think you’ll handle it just fine.”

After she said goodnight to her mum Carlie couldn’t figure out why she felt so happy. Even though there had been the huge drama of Lucas’ and her suspensions, everything seemed to be going so well lately. Her mum had told her that she was proud of her. Her dad had said that she was a real news woman. And she had friends. Friends who wanted to come over to hang out with her, not just to use the pool and her parents surround sound entertainment system. It was strange how the people you would never think to look twice at could make you happy.