Shauna's Great Expectations Read online

  A few years before I arrived at Oakholme there was a student who was almost bullied to death. I mean she was literally suicidal after finding a webpage set up by fellow students dedicated to mocking and denigrating her. The legacy of those morons – they remained at the school and the victim left – is a ban on using mobile phones and social media at school. Everyone grumbles about it, and there’s certainly a lot of covert online activity, but as the only boarders who don’t own mobile phones, Lou-Anne and I don’t give a hoot. Some of the boarders’ parents complain, too, because they can’t contact their kids as frequently. Still, the policy has, in theory, stuck. Any boarder who wants to make a phone call has to use the landline in Miss Maroney’s office.

  As far as I know, Keli has never set up a webpage committed to my denigration. She prefers to air her gripes the old-fashioned way. She coughs, splutters and scoffs racist taunts in Lou-Anne’s and my direction. I’m a bigger target, I think, because, as a Kamilaroi on Dad’s side, I look more like the kind of black that Keli speeds past on the main street of Coleambally in her mum’s Rolls. I’m tall and rangy, with big, flashing eyes. Lou-Anne, whose people are from Thursday Island, is more of a gentle, benign island princess, even though she could probably kill you with a well-placed headbutt if she chose to.

  I must admit that although Keli’s harassment is galling, the longer it goes on, the more idiotic her hatred and snobbery seem. Last year we started to bite back. Lou-Anne had always been the one to tell me to calm down and ignore Keli, but even she retaliated.

  One of Keli’s many well-aired grievances is that we’re here on scholarships whereas her parents have to pay school fees. She was complaining stridently about it in the row behind us during assembly one morning.

  ‘. . . and our parents are paying for these freeloaders to be here.’

  ‘And our tax pays for their parents’ welfare,’ added one of the coven.

  I couldn’t help myself. I whipped around.

  ‘My parents aren’t on welfare,’ I pointed out. ‘My dad’s a truckie and my mum’s an artist.’

  ‘Drink driving and dot paintings don’t count,’ said Keli, and everyone giggled.

  Then Lou-Anne turned around too. ‘My parents are on welfare,’ she said, grinning and looking Keli right in the eye. ‘So say thanks to your dad for us, Keli.’

  ‘Yeah, Keli,’ I said. ‘Say thanks to your dad. We’ll pay him back one day.’

  Keli fell silent and blushed so badly that her skin matched her long, fiery plait and even her ears turned red. She never mentioned her father’s dollar again, but we do. Now, practically every time we see her, we coo, ‘Say thanks to your dad, Keli!’ She always turns to her friends and they gather together in conspiratorial whispers before erupting into carefree laughter. They’re pathetic. I can hear their grubby squawks from my dorm room.

  Most of the girls at Oakholme College aren’t like that. Most of the daygirls are falling over themselves to be nice to us. I have one real daygirl friend and her name is Jenny Bean. Jenny’s very intelligent and will probably be dux of the school. Although we were in some of the same classes when I arrived at Oakholme College in Year 8, we didn’t become friends until a school trip to Toulouse in Year 10, when we got billeted by the same French family. We’re both nuts about the French language and culture and, ever since the trip, we’ve been planning to travel to France together after the HSC. This time: Paris. Forget schoolies week on the Gold Coast, we’re hitting the Champs-Élysées! For the last two years we’ve been reading books and watching films set in Paris, and we just can’t wait. It’s one of the roots of our friendship.

  Jenny isn’t one of the ‘nice’ girls who go cross-eyed pretending that they haven’t noticed I’m Aboriginal, or act like it doesn’t matter. She’s always been curious about my family and what I do during the holidays. She never tries to sweep the differences between her and me under the carpet and make out like life’s the same for both of us. Though we attend the same school, I’m a boarder and she’s a daygirl. Friendships across this divide are pretty rare.

  To me, the daygirls get liberties that we boarders can only dream of, like free time and privacy. The life of a boarder is strictly regimented, and that’s why I enjoy arriving at school a day early at the beginning of term. When there are just a few boarders around and no daygirls, Oakholme feels like a luxury holiday camp. When school’s in full swing, it seems much more like the institution that it is, with a Monday-to-Friday routine enforced to the minute. Showers, breakfast, roll call, school, prep. (a posh word for homework), recreation, dinner, private study, bedtime. We muck up when we can but there’s not much wiggle room. Even the weekends are structured, with an early morning prep. session on Saturday for boarders like me who don’t do sport and don’t want to cheer the others on. Sunday afternoon there’s chapel, like it or not. From Year 10 onward, we are allowed to go out unaccompanied on Saturdays and Sundays. We usually go to the city to look at shops and eat takeaway in the Botanic Gardens, but we have to be back at school by 6 p.m. Only during school holidays are we truly off the leash.

  I unpack my clothes from my bags and place everything neatly in the wardrobe I share with Lou-Anne. By the end of term, all our clothes will be rolled together in an unholy jumble at the bottom. Nothing will be folded or hung. Garments will be sniffed to check whether they’re dirty or clean. We always begin the term with such fine intentions and end it such incurable slobs. In spite of weekly inspections, which we anticipate by kicking stuff under furniture, our dorm tends towards pigsty.

  For the moment, though, our room is pristine and actually very beautiful. All the dorm rooms are gigantic, with wide, oak floorboards and high, ornate ceilings. They’re pretty plush, and even with the beds, wardrobes and a couple of Chesterfield lounges, they don’t feel cramped. Once everyone arrives, the deluxe feel will be destroyed by doonas, photos, toys and ornaments, but it will feel a lot more like home.

  As boarders at Oakholme College, we’re in the minority. Most of the students are daygirls – rich eastern-suburbs princesses, either from stuck-up old Anglo families or from new Greek, Italian or Chinese money. There are only about forty boarders spread across eight dorm rooms.

  On the pinboard above my desk I always stick the same old photo of my family and me. I’m about ten, and we’re standing out the front of my real home. The house where my brother and I were raised in Barraba, in northern New South Wales, is a three-bedroom fibro cottage on cinder blocks with a view of the back fence. It’s about as far from fancy as it gets, but apart from Oakholme, it’s the only place I’ve ever lived. It’s weird to be back at school after the school holidays. For the first few days, whenever I close my eyes, I see my mum in her scuffs in the kitchen and my dad walking across the backyard from his man cave. Then I accept that I’m just not there anymore.

  In summer, it’s stinking hot in Barraba, and there are hardly any trees for shade in the suburban area, but Dad keeps the lawn sprayed so you can walk around the whole yard without shoes. That’s one thing I miss about home during the warmer months – the feeling of trodden, brown grass on the soles of my feet on a sunny day. I almost never go barefoot at school.

  Still, I don’t think student accommodation comes much flasher than the Oakholme dorms. I remember the first time I walked into the building, when the grandest establishment I’d ever set foot in before was the Barraba courthouse. It was like entering an expensive shop full of stuff I could never afford to buy. On the wall alongside the staircase, there was a life-size painting of the school’s founder, the Reverend Doctor Sterling McBride, that just about scared the life out of me. He’s still hanging around the staircase looking thin-lipped and disapproving, but he doesn’t scare me anymore. In fact I’d like to ask him what those beady little eyes are doing in a girls’ dormitory house!

  My dorm buddies and I are always cutting up about Reverend McBride, even though he’s long dead. The other dead guy we poke fun at is Sai Baba, Indu’s spiritual master. It’s his
image she pins above her desk. His eyes are kinder than Reverend McBride’s, but they still seem to dart around the room watching us.

  Indu has an outrageous sense of humour and is in on our joke, but you can only push her so far. Hinduism is her religion, after all. She literally worships the bearded Sai Baba, who sits cross-legged, barefooted and naked from the waist up (in the image). Back in Year 8 she got called into Reverend Ferguson’s office one day for religious counselling because the school didn’t approve of her worshipping false idols. Yes, incredibly, this is the kind of thing that can happen at Oakholme College.

  According to Indu, Reverend Ferguson was super-embarrassed to even broach the issue, which tells me that our dear principal was the real one behind the intervention. Reverend Ferguson’s full name is Reverend Sally Russell-Ferguson – Lou-Anne and I call her ‘SRF’ or ‘Self-Raising Flour’ because she’s so puffed-up, flustered and theatrical. She’s a notorious softie. Following some hot licks from Indu about Sai Baba being a real historical figure and not just some statue, symbol or holy spirit, Reverend Ferguson actually apologised. The tapestry of Sai Baba was never mentioned again by the powers-that-be.

  Indu’s parents are both doctors in Mumbai and she would be almost alone in Sydney if it weren’t for us. She has an aunt here who she stays with during the shorter school holidays, but she’s admitted more than once that she feels closer to us than to her aunt and her aunt’s family. This is kind of strange, because at school she stands out as being different even more than Lou-Anne and I do. She speaks with a very un-Australian accent that screams of her native India but also hints at something more English than English itself. Her vocabulary can be odd, too. Every now and then she’ll come out with a word only a great-grandmother would use, like ‘cross’ (when she means angry) or ‘nonsense’, or a phrase like ‘until and unless’.

  Bindi, whose dad is Greek, is the final quadrant of our ‘ethnic’ circle. She’s very shy until she trusts you, but once she does trust you, you get too much information. There’s really nowhere she won’t go. Though she can be invasive at times, the upside is that she’s staunchly loyal. You can have a flaming argument with her one moment, but the next she’ll be defending you to someone who’s gossiping about you behind your back.

  The four of us oddballs look after each other, and we’re virtually inseparable out of school hours. On my pinboard, along with the photo of my family, I stick a photo of us on the night of the Year 9 and 10 formal. We all thought we looked so great at the time, but now the image is just funny because it’s so embarrassing. There’s way too much of everything that was important to us back then – make-up, push-up bras and trout mouths.

  Out of nowhere, a perfectly sung arpeggio comes echoing from the direction of the staircase. I hang one more blouse in the wardrobe before sprinting up the hall and down the stairs. The arpeggio turns to a squeal when Lou-Anne spots me. She drops her luggage and leaps up the stairs, arms outstretched. We meet on the landing by Reverend McBride and hug amid a volley of shrieked greetings. Then we go upstairs together, start making our beds, and end up running around the dorm with our pillowslips on our heads.

  2

  OLIVIA PIKE IS waiting for me in the withdrawing room. It sounds like she’s in rehab, I know, but at Oakholme all the rooms in the admin. building have official names like that. It’s totally Old English and wanky, but still, when you get invited to one of those rooms it makes you feel like you’re part of some hallowed class.

  Anyway, I get the note at roll call:

  Shauna, your mentee, Olivia Pike, will be waiting to meet you in the withdrawing room at 9 a.m. sharp. SRF.

  After roll call, I head down to the admin. building, which is Victorian-era, three-storey, the original boarding house back in the day. I make my way to the withdrawing room and there’s this blue-eyed, blonde-haired kid sitting at the boardroom table. She has an air of confidence about her, so I know right away that she can’t be Olivia Pike.

  Olivia Pike is this year’s recipient of the Indigenous scholarship. I sat in the very same chair in the very same withdrawing room four and a half years ago, wondering if they ever used the fireplace, because it seems really real. (It is.)

  After one glance at this prissy blonde chick, I click my tongue and stalk right back out. I’m missing my French class to be here and we’re working on the subjunctive, which totally confuses me. I really wish I were there and not here (an example of the correct use of the subjunctive, I think).

  Annoyed that my time’s being wasted, I go to Reverend Ferguson’s office to tell her that Olivia Pike’s not in the withdrawing room.

  ‘She seems to have withdrawn,’ I say, never short of a joke, even when the circumstances irritate me.

  Reverend Ferguson clasps the end of her desk in panic. ‘Oh, don’t tell me . . .’

  Even though the Indigenous scholarship is competitive (you have to do an exam and provide references), the recipients have a habit of going AWOL. You know, walkabout. The school board thinks they’re doing this great thing for the Aboriginal community by plucking a cute little button-nosed black girl out of her unwholesome environment and giving her a proper education and upbringing. What they don’t understand is the pull of home and family that drags us back, the way the moon drags the tide. For a while there were rumours that the school wouldn’t hand out any more Indigenous scholarships because of the failure rate. Since the program began ten years ago, seven out of the ten scholarship recipients have taken off for home within the first twelve months.

  Olivia Pike has set a record though, scarpering in the first five minutes.

  I follow Reverend Ferguson as she races to the withdrawing room.

  ‘Olivia?’ she cries in a pained voice as she flings open the door.

  ‘Yes, Reverend Ferguson?’ the blonde girl says calmly.

  Reverend Ferguson half-screams, half-laughs, grabbing my upper arm as if she’s drowning.

  ‘Oh, Shauna, you had me scared to death!’

  ‘That’s Olivia Pike?’

  Reverend Ferguson lets go of my arm and straightens herself up. She’s a larger lady, our Self-Raising Flour, and like self-raising flour she tends to get bigger when heated up. Her forehead pops sweat beads and her clothes seem suddenly too small. She opens her jacket, adjusts her skirt and finally exhales. Sometimes it’s hard to believe that Self-Raising is one of God’s earthly vessels.

  ‘Olivia, this is Shauna Harding. Shauna’s going to be your mentor this year.’

  Olivia Pike smiles for just long enough to show dimples and a dental plate.

  ‘Hello, Shauna,’ she says.

  ‘Hi.’

  I’m still in shock. I can’t believe they’ve given the Indigenous scholarship to a piece like this. Jesus Christ. She’s not even black. I guess she must be one of those confused souls who identifies as Aboriginal but doesn’t have a black gene in their body. I mean, she’s practically albino.

  ‘I’ll leave you two alone to get to know one another,’ says Reverend Ferguson, closing the door behind her.

  There’s a seat at the table opposite Olivia Pike, but I don’t sit. I had a nice speech prepared in the vein of ‘if you ever have any problems or need any advice, don’t hesitate’ but I don’t deliver it.

  ‘Look, I have to get back to class, but, um, I’m Shauna Harding and I’m in Year 12.’

  Olivia Pike blinks at me like a camel, then her pretty face twists. ‘I don’t want anything to do with you,’ she says nastily.

  ‘What? What do you—’

  ‘I don’t want anyone to know about my background. I’ve told Reverend Ferguson and she’s promised not to tell a soul. So if word gets around, I’ll know who let slip.’

  ‘Fine with me,’ I say, completely bowled over. Usually there’s no announcement about who has won the Indigenous scholarship. It’s kind of obvious because a random Aboriginal girl pops up and everyone knows how she got here – her rich parents! (joke). I’m happy not to make a big deal of it, but cri
key, the attitude on this girl!

  ‘So don’t ever come and talk to me.’ She looks at me in disgust, like I’m something stuck in the tread of her shoe. ‘Don’t even look at me, all right?’

  ‘Fine with me,’ I say again. I’ve got my hand on the door handle, about to walk out, when I think of something to burst her bubble.

  ‘People will find out,’ I say. ‘They always find out.’

  ‘Maybe in your case, Jedda.’

  ‘My name’s Shauna.’

  ‘Well, you’re as brown as a walnut, Shauna.’ (Which is not true, but I am darker than her.) ‘I’m passable,’ she says.

  ‘That’s what you think,’ I reply icily before leaving the room.

  Reverend Ferguson’s hovering in the hallway.

  ‘That was quick,’ she says uncertainly. ‘Now, you do know that Olivia wants to keep her background confidential . . .’

  ‘Olivia doesn’t want a mentor,’ I tell her, leaving her mouthing like a goldfish as I head to the language lab.

  Jedda, I mull furiously, trying to remember how to conjugate être in the subjunctive mood. How dare she! That little Year 7 shit!

  Of course the first thing I do after French is tell Lou-Anne all about Olivia Pike.

  ‘Passable,’ repeats Lou-Anne. ‘What does she mean by that?’

  ‘Well, she obviously thinks she can pass for white.’

  Lou-Anne takes a minute to process that. She never says anything she doesn’t mean, not even to be nice, which she always is – sometimes painfully so. I know she’s not going to say something like Why would she want to do that? We know damn well why she would want to do that. We’re not ashamed of our heritage, but we’ve both had the feeling at times that life would be a lot easier if we could just turn white for a few hours. We’ve talked about it before. How only white people can be Australian. How everyone else, including us, the originals, needs to justify themselves with an adjective. Chinese Australian. Greek Australian. Indigenous Australian.