Posse (6 page)

When I open my eyes I see a dark mass of hair rising around my nose like a storm cloud. It's smelly down here. Sweaty and rank. I straighten up and put my hand over my mouth to suppress a gag.

‘Ew, yuck!' I can't help shrieking.

‘You can't just
do
this to a man, Amy,' Bevan says in an
I'm-not-angry-I'm-just-disappointed
tone. He
examines his deflating dick delicately, shaking his head in annoyance, as if I'll be held responsible for any breakages.

I take the chance to spring from the bed and his putrid lap, landing inelegantly on the concrete floor. My knees ring and throb with pain. I stand up and rub them.

‘I don't even like men,' I say, and my voice is unexpectedly shrill.

‘Yeah, I heard that.' He snorts and raises his eyebrows, smirking faintly. ‘You don't like men.'

I'm aware that he's taking the micky and I won't let him get away with it.

‘What do you mean?' I press him. ‘Because Clare called me a dyke this afternoon?'

‘And some of the teachers thought you might be going through a phase …'

‘The teachers told you? Who?'

‘Oh, I don't remember.'

‘How the hell would the teachers know!'

I've always known that the teachers gossiped
about me. Of course they do. Marina and I have scandalised the whole school. But for the teachers to come to a place like this and tell all the instructors about my sexual preferences is beyond the pale. It really is. My face grows hot and prickly with outrage.

‘Amy, come on. It's something you'll get over anyway. God will set you on the right path if you let Him into your life. God doesn't approve of homosexuality …'

‘And He
does
approve of
this
?'

‘I have my own demons to deal with, Amy … but … oh, come over here, will you?' He extends his hand towards me. When I back away, he gives me a worried smile. ‘C'mon. Let's talk about it.'

So after skewering my eye with his erection and judging me about my sexuality, he wants to talk! What a hypocrite.

‘You're really annoying me, Bevan,' I say.

And he is. I'm mad as hell. I take a look around
his room. It's so neat. And he's so sneaky. I can't suppress the urge to fix him.

Grabbing the Bible from its place near his pillow, I fling it across the room. God doesn't say a word.

‘Amy! Are you insane?'

‘Yep.'

‘I wish we could talk about it, Amy. You said you wanted to talk. My ears are open.'

‘You can take your ears and … and stick them up your bottom!'

I get such a strange thrill out of saying that to him that I wait a moment to see his reaction. I don't know exactly what I'm expecting – a lightning bolt or some speaking in tongues, perhaps – but he just goes to his Bible and picks it up. He stands there examining it, with his dick still dangling limply out of the top of his shorts.

I shoot out the screen door, slamming it behind me. I take off through the bush, my thongs slapping steadily on the narrow gravel road. I run all
the way back to our hut, laughing so hard that there are tears in my eyes. Or am I crying? I crack up through the sobs when I recall the image of Bevan with his Good Book in one hand and his Big Cock in the other.

My first and final relationship with a man. Thrilling, terrifying, mostly disgusting. And short. It lasted all of an hour. Still, I'm reeling and I have to tell someone. Wait till the posse hears about this – possibly the juiciest event of my life so far.

W
HEN
I
RETURN TO THE
huts, I find ours empty. The girls must still be in the shower block. I kick Clare's clothes off my sleeping bag and throw myself face-down onto it.

I feel a quick pang of something for Bevan, but it quickly disappears. What was it? Fear? Guilt? Regret?

Mum's right. Men
are
amazing. Bevan, Tom, Dad – they've all put their grubby hands and other parts where they shouldn't. I'll stick to women,
thank you very much. I'm never changing teams again.

When the posse returns from the shower, I'm still flat out on my sleeping bag. My lip and the eye that got dicked are sore. I must look a wreck.

‘Where the hell have you been?' says Clare, rubbing her hair with a towel. ‘You were in the hall one minute and gone the next. You haven't been with some loose woman, have you, Amy?'

She's so snide, I decide to drop the bomb on her here and now.

‘Actually, I've been with a man.'

That wipes the smirk off her face. If she's been keeping an eye on
me
tonight, you can bet she's been keeping an eye on Bevan. She would have noticed that we were both gone at the same time, but never, not in a hundred million years, would she have thought we were together.

But now she knows. I watch her expression change like a twisting kaleidoscope. She knows, all right. The rest of the posse doesn't though.

‘Who? Who? Who?' asks Jo, jumping on the spot like a chimpanzee.

‘Bevan. He wanted to apologise for smacking me in the mouth. So he took me back to his hut and tried to have his wicked way with me!'

Jo and Patricia shriek with laughter. Deborah smiles and shakes her head.

But it's Clare I'm watching, Clare whose mouth has formed a tight little rosebud. She's not looking at me. She's not looking at anything or saying anything. She turns around and walks out of the hut. Which is not really what I was expecting. I was expecting her to snipe or sulk or doubt me. Maybe some fireworks. I hadn't really bargained for storming off without a word. Apart from making me look like a lousy friend, she has completely squashed my story. What a stunt.

Patricia goes to trot after her, but I put a stop to that quick smart.

‘Let her go,' I say. ‘She's been a moody bitch all day.'

Well, I for one am determined to pick over the details of my little jaunt with Bevan, with or without Clare. So for the next half-hour or so the four of us sit cross-legged on the concrete floor of our hut, doing just that. The problem is, with Clare off in a huff somewhere, having fun isn't as easy as usual. The only one of us enjoying the story with total abandon is Jo. Giggling and snorting at the lewder details, she has to know everything. Even I am shocked by the explicitness of some of her questions.

‘Can't I leave anything to your imagination?' I ask her.

‘It's all in
your
imagination, isn't it, Amy?' she says in a superior tone.

This really surprises and annoys me.

‘It's true,' I say.

‘Oh, I'm sure it is,' she says, still tittering.

‘It
is
.' I have to make an effort to keep my voice down.

‘Come on, Amy. He's going to be a
minister
.
He's not the type of person who would do that. And why would he do it with …' She trails off, the smirk leaving her face as the hut falls silent. I'm offended.

‘Why would he do it with me?' I say finally.

‘Well, if it's true, it's disgusting,' says Jo.

‘I didn't say it wasn't disgusting,' I say.

There's a short, uncertain silence before we all crack up, easing the tension a little. But I'm still smarting about Jo's doubts and I have nothing further to add about Bevan. If she doesn't believe me, then I'm casting pearls to the swine.

Anyway, we're all getting worried about Clare. With a twinge of resentment, I marvel at how she manages to be the centre of attention when she's not even present.

When we hear Mrs Ricci outside calling ten minutes until lights off, Patricia goes out to look for Clare. In just a few minutes she's back. She's anxious. It looks like Clare has disappeared.

‘I checked the mess hall, the shower block, the
dam …' She's red-faced and puffing. She looks as if she's about to cry. ‘I think we should tell the teachers. I really do.'

‘Don't tell the teachers,' says Johanna. ‘This is just one of her tantrums. She'll be back in a minute. I'll go and check the other huts.'

As soon as Jo's out the door, Patricia bursts into tears. Deborah tries to hug her, but she stiffens right up. I glare at Patricia.

‘Clare's in love with Bevan,' she says. ‘How could you do this to her?'

I laugh in her face. It's not something I like to do to Patricia, but this is just crazy talk. Clare is
not
in love with Bevan. I suppose it was insensitive of me to go off with Bevan and then brag about it. But it's exactly the kind of thing Clare would do. She'd probably chase Marina if she thought it'd get a rise out of me.

‘Patricia! Ten minutes ago you were laughing along with the rest of us. Do you really think Clare's in love with Bevan?'

‘That's what she said.' God, she's gullible. Very sweet, though.

‘Clare's not into anyone but Clare,' I point out.

‘She's been gone for an hour! Where could she be? What if she's killed herself?'

Patricia collapses onto her sleeping bag and cries into her pillow. Deborah looks at me and we sigh in unison. Sometimes Patricia can be pretty useless. She gets so sentimental. And in a crisis she sort of just pleads insanity and has to be carried off on a stretcher. But she's a good friend. Very loyal. Clare doesn't deserve to have such a good, loyal friend.

Soon Johanna returns from her search. No one's seen Clare. She's not in any of the other girls' huts. Jo's worried, but she won't even hear of raising the alarm.

‘Let's give her some more time,' she says. ‘I can see this all blowing up into something it isn't. If we just give her some time to get over it …' She rubs her neck and frowns. ‘We don't want any
of this stuff about Bevan to get out. We'll all be in trouble. They've already got their hands on Deborah's pictures.' She squats beside Patricia. ‘You've got to stop this, Patricia. They're going to know something's up. Get a bloody
grip
.'

On the word ‘grip', Jo pokes Patricia in the back. Patricia jolts, rolls over, and stops crying.

Jo rises and paces the tiny room.

‘Now, listen. If the teachers realise she's gone, here's what we'll say – she told us she was going to have a shower. We were just talking and we lost track of time. Don't mention anything about Bevan …'

Jo's really on the rampage. Usually I'm the boss of our posse, but Jo's the one with the reins now. I guess she puts lot of effort into brown-nosing and she doesn't want something like this to affect her reputation at school. I don't give a hoot what the people at school think of me, but I do agree with Jo. Clare hasn't been gone that long. What's the point of making a fuss? When
she's satisfied she's tortured me enough, she'll come back.

‘Everyone into bed,' says Jo. ‘Now.'

She switches off the light and we lie on our sleeping bags, wide awake. We can hear the teachers go from hut to hut, telling girls to go to bed and turn the lights off. Eventually they're at our hut. When our door swings open we all stay completely still and silent. It's Mrs Kerr.

She says nothing for a few seconds and then she says, ‘Sound asleep. The Devil's work must be exhausting.' I can hear the teachers outside laughing. She's a witty girl, Mrs Kerr. Ordinarily, I'd have some smart comment to throw back at her, but it's just not the time for pithy comebacks. Jo would poke a hole right through my body.

I lie in the dark as the minutes pass. I can feel my throat and chest getting tight and I try not to think about the terrible fate that Clare might have met. I can't find a comfortable position or thought and I roll from one side to the other.
Everything's annoying me – the heat, the mozzies, the stuffiness of the hut, the plastic on my sleeping bag. Eventually it's a full bladder that gets me out of bed. I can't believe it, I actually ask Jo for permission to get up and go to the shower block.

‘Be quick,' she says.

I see that Patricia, for all her loyal concern, is unconscious and snoring loudly. Deborah hasn't stirred for a while either. Which is good, I suppose. There's no point in all of us panicking. And I
am
starting to panic now.

I pull on my thongs. As I'm shuffling to the shower block, I face the fact that keeping Clare's disappearance a secret is seriously irresponsible. An hour ago it might not have been, but now there's no doubt that she's actually missing. I mean, she hasn't just gone for a bush walk, has she? For starters, she's far too lazy. She's been complaining about the walk from the huts to the mess hall, for God's sake. After all this time, even the best-case
scenario isn't looking so good. At
best
she's lost in the dark and being eaten alive by mozzies.

I can't let this continue. Once I've been to the toilet, I'm going straight to Mrs Kerr. It's the only sensible option. Jo's just going to have to suffer the fallout, whatever she thinks that's going to be. I actually don't know what she's got to worry about. She hasn't done anything wrong. None of us has, really. Well, they wouldn't approve of me visiting a man's hut, but that's not the issue here. And there are about a million degrees of separation between Jo and anything likely to make a teacher's lip curl.

As I'm entering the shower block a sound distracts me. I stand still and strain to hear it again. It's coming from further inside. I follow it, treading softly past the toilet cubicles and towards the showers.

The sound doesn't scare me but it's certainly unpleasant. There's pain in it. It reminds me of the noise Mum's dog made when she ran over him in
the driveway and he was in his death throes – a long, high, whimpering winding-down. The closer I get to it, the more it bothers me. I think I know who's making it.

I pull back the curtain of the first shower cubicle and flinch. Sitting on the wet, mouldy tiles with her knees pulled up to her chest is my best friend in the world. I squeal when our eyes meet. Her beautiful face is red, tear-streaked and fixed with anguish. It looks like she's been crying long and hard.

‘Clare! What's going on?'

I rush into the cubicle and drop to my knees. I notice that her singlet top is ripped from her armpit to her waist. The rounded underside of her breast is visible.

‘It was … Bevan,' she sobs.

‘What did he do to you?'

‘I … I went to see him. I just wanted to know why …'

Her voice cracks and she buries her face in her
hands. She doesn't attempt to tell me anything more and I don't demand it. I help her to her feet and ask if she wants a shower. She nods and removes what's left of her clothes, handing them to me. I run the shower and step out of the cubicle.

As the water beats down on Clare's head and back, I examine her body for cuts and bruises. There's nothing obvious, but it occurs to me that we might be washing away evidence. I reach past her and turn off the taps.

We have nothing to dry her with except the clothes she just took off. I pass her the torn singlet and she uses it to pat herself dry. She seems to have settled down. She steps into her underpants and shorts and we walk back to the hut in silence.

Johanna's standing in the doorway when we return. She looks crazed. Even in the dark I can see the whites of her eyes.

‘Oh, thank God, thank Christ, you're back,' she says to Clare. ‘Are you topless?'

‘Get a t-shirt out of her bag,' I say.

‘What's happened?'

‘Just get her a t-shirt.'

I end up pulling a t-shirt out of Clare's pile of clothes myself while Jo stands there like a pillar of salt.

‘She's been
raped
,' I whisper in her ear.

Jo's hands fly up to her gaping mouth.

‘But who …?'

‘Bevan.'

‘Jesus Christ, oh … oh, Clare, are you okay? I mean, you can't be okay, but are you hurt?'

Clare shrugs and sniffs.

‘Should we take her to see Mrs Lovas?' Jo asks.

‘That's where I'm taking her right now, and I suppose we'll have to call the police …'

‘No!' cries Clare, covering her eyes with her hands. ‘No, I just don't want to do any of that right now. I want to go to bed.' She kicks a mound of her stuff off her sleeping bag and crumples onto it. ‘I'll do all that in the morning. I just … I can't … He's such a bastard! I could kill the stupid prick!'

‘Clare,' I say, ‘the police have to test you, don't they? I mean, there must be … evidence …'

‘I'm going to bed.'

Patricia stirs and sits up. ‘Clare?'

‘I'm back. Go to sleep.'

‘Everything all right?'

‘Fine, fine.'

‘We were really worried.'

‘I know. Go to sleep.'

Patricia rolls onto her back and starts snoring again. Deb hasn't moved.

Jo and I stare at each other in the dark. Neither of us knows what to do.

‘At least she's back,' I whisper.

Jo shakes her head. ‘I can't believe it. I just can't believe it.'

‘I should have known she'd go and see him. If I'd thought about it,
really
thought about it, I would have realised …'

‘Let's not do anything now,' says Jo, and then she switches into an unnaturally soothing voice.
‘It'll make more sense in the morning when we've all calmed down.'

‘But what if …'