Miss Understood (12 page)

‘So you didn’t actually see anyone?’ she asked when I’d finished.

‘No.’

‘You saw some light?’

‘Maybe.’

‘You
maybe
saw some light in the window? But not for sure?’

‘No, not for sure.’

‘Did you hear anything?’

‘No.’

‘So you didn’t
actually
see anything, and you
definitely
didn’t hear anything?’

‘Yeah, that’s right,’ I admitted.

‘Cool story, Lizzie,’ she said. ‘So you went next door, and you didn’t hear anything, and you didn’t see anything. Wow . . .’

‘Muppet was barking a lot.’

‘Muppet always barks a lot.’

She was right. Yes, she was right, and when she put it like that, I could see how silly my story really was.

‘All right, well, I’m going to sleep now,’ I said. ‘I’m working at the charity shop tomorrow. Hey, you want to come in and visit?’

She paused for a second. Then she said, ‘I’m going to be at school, remember? Boy, you are so lucky!’ Then her voice got all excited. ‘Hey, what time will you finish? Because maybe me and Amanda could come in and see you!’

‘I’ll finish at lunchtime, I think. So I won’t be there after school.’

And you know what? I was so glad that I could say that. The last thing I wanted was Amanda Jenkins going around touching everything and looking at me all sneery.

I
didn’t sleep very well that night. There were three reasons for this.

First, I didn’t like that Dad hadn’t even looked at me when I said goodnight.

Second, I was nervous about working at Helping Hands the next morning.

And third, I kept hearing noises. Maybe they were the normal noises that happen at night, like the wind, and possums, and night birds. But even if that’s what was making those noises, every time I heard something, I imagined it was a person. A person living in the house next door. And that person had a face that I couldn’t quite make out, and a beard, and dark shadows instead of eyes, and he didn’t smile. I also imagined that he might even have had crooked teeth and long, dirty fingernails for tapping on the glass of my bedroom window.

I finally got to sleep when it was really, really late, and the next morning, when Mum woke me up by shaking me, it took me a few seconds to remember where I was.

‘You all right, Lizzie?’ she asked me. ‘You look pretty rough, my love.’

‘I didn’t sleep very good,’ I told her.

‘You didn’t sleep very well.’

‘I know – I just told you that.’

She sighed, but I wasn’t sure why. ‘So, was it because you were nervous about today?’

‘Yes,’ I said, because this was true. Well, it was half of the truth, but I reckon that’s better than none at all.

That was when Dad walked past my bedroom door with a towel around his waist. He was singing. Loudly. So at least he’s in a better mood, I thought.

And this is what he was singing: ‘Oh my darling, oh my darling, oh my darling lemon pie . . .’

‘Dad!’ I called. ‘Dad, it’s Clementine!’

He stopped halfway along the hall, then came back to my door. ‘What’s that, Betty?’ he asked, looking all confused. And a bit naked, except for the towel.

‘That song – you’re not singing it right,’ I told him.

‘I’m not?’

‘No. It’s “oh my darling
Clementine
”, not “lemon pie”.’

‘Are you sure?’

I nodded. ‘Definitely. We used to sing it at school.’

‘Huh,’ he said with a shrug. ‘I guess that would make more sense once you get to the next line.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, a girl called Clementine might chew gum, but a lemon pie wouldn’t.’

Mum tilted her head to one side. ‘Marty, what
are
you going on about?’

So Dad began to sing again, just to show her what he meant. ‘Oh my darling, oh my darling, oh my darling Clementine, you have lost your gum forever, dreadful sorry Clementine.’

I pulled my doona up over my face. He couldn’t be that stupid. Could he?

‘Go and put some clothes on, Marty,’ Mum said. ‘And you, young lady, out of bed and get something to eat. Your dad’s going to drive you to the shop as soon as you’re ready.’

‘I hope he stops singing before then,’ I said.

About ten minutes later, I was ready to go. What I mean is, I was dressed to go, and I’d brushed my hair, and put a muesli bar and a juice box in my bag. So I was
mostly
ready to go.

Unfortunately my tummy wasn’t ready. It was all churny, like when I was waiting outside Mr Hilder’s office all those times, but because I didn’t have to ask the office ladies every time I wanted to use the toilet, I went about three times before I even got my shoes on.

‘You good to go, Betty?’ Dad asked me.

‘Yes,’ I said, even though I’d promised not to tell any more lies.

‘I wonder if you should run over to Miss Huntley’s place and see if she needs a lift,’ he suggested.

I didn’t actually run across the road – I walked, after checking for traffic. But when I knocked on Miss Huntley’s door, there was no reply.

‘She must have already gone,’ I told Dad when I was in the car. ‘She does leave pretty early.’

‘Never mind,’ Dad said. ‘Maybe when you see her you could mention that we can give her a ride next time.’

‘Dad, can I ask you something?’ I asked as we reached the tiny roundabout at the end of our street.

‘Of course,’ he said, turning down the volume on the radio. ‘What’s on your mind, Betty?’

‘Why were you grumpy last night?’

‘Was I grumpy last night?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘You were really grumpy. I know that sometimes I forget to do things like the bins, but it’s never on purpose. Sometimes I just forget. Don’t you ever forget anything?’

He took a deep breath, which is something he does when he’s trying to think of the right thing to say. Then, after he’d been thinking for a bit, he looked at me. ‘Yes, I do sometimes forget things, Betty.’

‘Like what?’

‘I forgot your mum’s birthday last year.’

‘Oh, yeah,’ I said. I remembered that, and it wasn’t a very good day, with Dad jumping in the car and rushing up to the shops while Mum was in the shower, and then coming back with a bunch of droopy, daggy flowers. Plus he’d accidentally bought a sympathy card instead of a birthday card, which he’d chosen because it had the same coloured flowers on the front as the tired old bunch he’d bought. The message inside was so bad that I memorised it word for word:
I know how hard it must be, after so many years. Thinking of you at this difficult time.

I smiled as I remembered Mum trying to be nice to me and Richie while she was cross with Dad.

‘It was pretty funny, you know,’ I said. ‘I never thought Mum would actually throw a vase inside the house.’

‘Well, it wasn’t funny for me,’ Dad answered. ‘But you see? I forget things too. And yes, people get grumpy with me as well when I forget things. I remember one time when I did a review for a new medieval-style restaurant in Melbourne, and they told me that they were going to serve me their signature dish, which was a duck and trout terrine with truffle oil venison or something bizarre, and I told them how much I loved it, and I promised that I would mention it in the review and say how amazing it was. But then I forgot, and they were pretty cross, mainly because they’d ordered about a thousand ducks, ready for all the people who were going to read my awesome review. So yes, I get in trouble too.’

‘But it was just the kitchen bin,’ I said. ‘All you had to say was –’

‘I say it all the time, Betty! But you’re right, I was probably more abrupt than I needed to be. I was having a bad night, I guess. Ooh, I like this song!’

He turned up the radio and began to sing about someone not being able to read his cocoa face.

‘Dad. It’s not “cocoa”. It’s “poker”.’

‘Don’t care,’ he said. ‘I prefer my version. Sing with me, Betty!’

But I didn’t. I was way too nervous.

We arrived at Helping Hands about ten minutes earlier than we needed to. There was no hint of movement in the shop, and the sign on the door said that it was closed.

‘Do you want me to wait with you?’ Dad asked me.

‘Nah,’ I said. ‘I’ll be fine.’

‘Was it the singing?’ he asked, and I just grinned at him. ‘Got your phone, Betty?’

‘Yep.’

While I waited for the shop to open, I sat in the doorway and watched people, which is kind of fun if you’re a bit bored. Plus it was a weekday morning, and I wasn’t going to school or anything, so that was pretty cool.

It was a fairly typical morning, I guess – people going shopping, or taking their kids to school (poor things). A man walked past me with a newspaper under his arm and a tall takeaway coffee in his hand. He muttered something about kids wagging school and clogging up the footpath, and I guessed he was talking about me.

I stared at the back of his head. I wanted to say something. I wanted to go, ‘You didn’t trip over me, and you don’t even know why I’m here, so what difference does it make to you?’

But then I imagined him saying, ‘If you’re not going to school, why don’t you get a job?’

And I would then say, ‘I do have a job, here, at the charity shop. See you next time you need to buy another pair of baggy second-hand trackie-dacks.’

Then I imagined him stomping away, because there’d be nothing he could say to that.

(Do you ever think that imagining what you
could
have said is better than actually saying it? I do.)

Suddenly the shop door rattled behind me, and I turned around, expecting to see Miss Huntley standing there. But she wasn’t. It was a different old lady, quite a bit taller than Miss Huntley, and with her straight grey hair tied up. I used to play a game on Dad’s computer, where you had to make people live their lives, and you’d make their houses, and they’d start out young and go to school and get jobs and buy stuff, then they’d get old, and then one day they’d fall over in their kitchen, and they’d go all see-through and floaty, and then their friends would cry and be all sad for a couple of days. The old lady out the front of the shop looked like one of the people that I made, just before she went all see-through and floaty.

So I was a bit surprised when she said something, and the words she used were real words, and not the weird garbly words the people used on that game.

‘Can I help you?’ she asked.

‘You’re not Miss Huntley,’ I said.

She didn’t seem surprised to hear this exciting news. ‘No, I’m Mrs Gardiner,’ she said. ‘And you are?’

‘I’m Lizzie,’ I replied.

‘Oh, the girl.’ She glanced up and down the street like we were meeting in secret or something. ‘You’d better come in, then. Ivy’s just called – it turns out she’s not coming in today.’

‘She’s not? Is she okay?’ I asked, as my tummy churned even more.

‘She didn’t say. Come in quickly. We aren’t open quite yet, and we don’t need anyone thinking that we are. Quickly!’

I followed Mrs Gardiner into the shop.

‘Close the door,’ she said, walking away between the racks of clothes. ‘I don’t suppose you want tea.’

‘I’d love some tea,’ I said.

She stopped, and turned around. ‘You would? Really?’

‘Yes, please. I love tea.’

‘Well, we’ve only got low-fat milk,’ she said.

‘That’s okay. And one sugar. Please.’

She hesitated. ‘White with one. I’ll be right back.’

‘I hope you’ve got enough cups,’ I joked, spotting the long glass shelf that ran along one wall. It was loaded with cups and mugs that people didn’t want any more. ‘I don’t know where you’d get a cup from at this time of morning.’

Mrs Gardiner frowned at me like my brain was made of cement. ‘We’d just use one of those,’ she said, pointing at the shelf. ‘We’ve got
so
many cups.’

‘Oh,’ I replied. What else could I have said? That I was making a joke that she didn’t get? That I wasn’t an idiot, but a smart girl with a sense of humour? ‘That’s a good idea – you could definitely use one of those cups,’ I said.

‘I know. That’s why I said it.’

While Mrs Gardiner busied herself out the back of the shop, beyond the orange curtain with
STAFF ONLY
written above it, I wandered around looking at all the stuff. Someone had divided it into sections. Men’s trousers and jeans, women’s slacks and jeans. Men’s shirts, women’s blouses. Sweaters, jackets, shorts, T-shirts. Children’s clothes, shoes, hats. Kitchenware – casserole dishes and cups and saucers and serving spoons and salad bowls and mixing jugs and brass kettles and saucepans. Records and videos. I didn’t see many DVDs, but I saw plenty of those huge video cassettes – learn to speak Italian, learn to knit a sweater, learn how to bend yourself into a pretzel shape when you’re pregnant. I flipped through the records and CDs. I hadn’t heard of any of the people on those record covers, and judging by their pictures, I began to understand why no one buys record players any more.

I wandered over to the book section. So many books! Romance books, mystery books, travel books, skinny vegetarian cookbooks, fat country-style roast cookbooks, books about sailing, books about castles, books about the kinds of people I’d seen on the record covers. Kids’ books, grown-ups’ books, books for babies, books about babies, books about animals, books about knitting.

Then there was bric-a-brac. I wasn’t sure what bric-a-brac was (and I’m still not), but that’s what the sign above that section said, and in the baskets and tubs I found little dolls made out of corn husks, and snow domes from places with names like Maine and Anchorage and Lightning Ridge. There were postcards and picture frames, wooden boomerangs and plastic ukuleles, beer coolers from Broome and Birdsville, bottle openers, silver souvenir spoons. I was starting to think that maybe bric-a-brac was another name for stuff that people bought, then gave away when they’d forgotten why they bought it in the first place.

Pretty soon Mrs Gardiner was back with my tea. ‘Here you go,’ she said, holding out a steaming cup. ‘White. With sugar. We don’t have any biscuits.’

‘That’s fine. Thank you. So, do people just get sick of stuff, and give it to Helping Hands?’ I asked her.