The Incredible Adventures of Cinnamon Girl (3 page)

I’ve laid out food on one of the tiny ornate tables that dot the yard. He reaches for a cupcake, but I slap his hand away. ‘Can’t. Strawberry.’

He drops the cupcake like it’s a live landmine. ‘I knew it. You
are
trying to kill me. I don’t even get a warning?’

I spin the plate and point to the giant pink post-it stuck right in front. It reads:
STRAWBERRY BIOHAZARD. HANDS OFF D.G.

‘Sorry, Mr Everson donated a box and Mum didn’t want to waste them. But, see, I drew you a picture. It has your hair, and look, even a teeny chalk outline, right here.’

Grady wrinkles his nose. ‘You couldn’t have used them for compost? Why didn’t you just draw him convulsing in anaphylactic shock?’

But I don’t have a chance to respond, because a hulking arm grabs Grady around the neck from behind, while its meat-mallet counterpart punches him in the ribs.

‘Yo, butt-face. How goes it, G-man?’

Grady grimaces. ‘Eddie, get off me man,’ he growls.

‘Aw, not in the mood for shenanigans, Domenic? Not what you said last night –’

Grady throws a cupcake at Eddie’s head. ‘Ed, I know you can’t keep your hands off me, but could you at least try when we’re in public?’

‘Will do my best. I can’t help it that you’re so fecking cute.’ Eddie grins at me. ‘Aloha, gorgeous,’ he says in his rumbly baritone. ‘You are looking especially hot today. Remind me again why we never went out?’

I hand him a Danish and a coffee, four sugars, his usual beverage for his usual conversation. ‘Thanks, Ed! And I never went out with you because, well, a) you never asked and, b) I love you, but you’re kind of an arsebag.’

‘Fair enough,’ Eddie says as he polishes off half the Danish with one bite.

If he were a character from an American movie, Eddie would be that meathead linebacker with a name like Biff or Chud. If he were a comic-book character, he’d most likely be surrounded by minions, or swanning around seeking indiscriminate revenge with half his freckly face melted off. But since he was born and raised in Eden Valley, Francis Edwin Palmer is neither a supervillain nor – despite what he would have us believe – a total meathead. If the universe worked the way it’s supposed to, then Ed should be hanging with the thick-necked boys from Merindale football team, or the workers from his parents’ farm. But deep down, Eddie is a sweetheart, and he’s been our friend forever. He
does
tend to use the ‘f’ word a lot – but since I am telling this story, and I really don’t want to drop it every seven seconds – I’m gonna use ‘feck’ instead.

‘Fecking hell, it’s hot as feck,’ Eddie says as he slumps on the ground. He glances at Caroline with a start. ‘And what the feck have you done to your hair, Gresham?’

Caroline smooths a hand over the awesome violet streaks in her blonde hair. ‘Shut it, Ed. I’m finally free from twelve years of uniform hell – the only reason I haven’t got my tongue pierced is cos Dad threatened to use Gran’s graduation money to redo the driveway if I did. Anyway, I didn’t ask for your approval. And I didn’t ask for your opinion.’

‘Maybe you should’ve asked for a mirror?’ Eddie says, ducking away before she can punch him.

‘Well, I like it!’ I say, stretching out on my banana lounge next to Grady, who is devouring a cinnamon scroll. He shuffles over to make room. ‘Add some spandex and you’d look just like a character from
X-Men
.’

‘Who’s wearing spandex?’

Pete pushes through the gate with his bike in hand. He drops it with a thud and heads straight for the food.

Eddie gives him a two-fingered wave. ‘Petey! So Mum was watching
Water for Elephants
on TV last night. It was fecking shithouse, but it made me think of you. Circus tents, acrobats – isn’t that, like, porn to your people?’

Pete’s face turns scarlet. ‘Eddie, are you ever gonna let that go?’ he whines. ‘And can we
please
stop talking about it in front of my girlfriend?’

Eddie bursts into howly laughter. Even Grady fails to hide a chuckle. ‘Sorry, man,’ Eddie says with a dismissive wave. ‘Just trying to support your lifestyle choices.’

Grady and I had always half-suspected that Peter Nguyen was gay, until the summer after year nine when Pete tagged along with Ed and his brothers on a camping weekend. Which happened to coincide with a certain circus-training weekend at the same campsite. Apparently, as Grady informed me, Pete was caught – ahem –
entertaining
himself after watching the girls’ juggling. Needless to say, I’ve never been able to look at Cirque du Soleil in quite the same way again.

‘Don’t listen to him, Petey,’ I say, flashing him my sweetest smile. ‘You can’t help how you were born.’

‘Dude, the love between man and clown is nothing to be ashamed of,’ Caroline adds innocently.

‘I hate you all,’ Pete mumbles as he grabs a muffin and slumps besides Tia.

Nothing much grows here. The only living things are the eucalypts, and the plum trees Dad planted along the wire fence that separates our yard from Ed’s farm. The real grass is gold and crunchy like straw, impossible to sit on with bare legs. But a couple of years ago Mum and I saw this picture in a magazine, some city bar decked with fake grass and plastic palm trees. So we decided to replicate it, even adding some pink flamingos on sticks and strings of little lanterns between the verandah trellising. I know people around here think it’s tacky, but I love it – sort of a kitschy, tropical Secret Garden.

‘So get this,’ Eddie says as he slurps coffee. ‘Guess who showed up at my door last night?’

Pete groans. ‘Eddie, is this one of your bogus sex stories –’

‘Naw, unfortunately your mum was busy,’ Eddie says with a wink. ‘No – Baxter came to see me.’

I pick up my sketchpad from the grass. ‘Mr Baxter? Ed, maybe you should give the poor guy a break. Let him have a summer of peace before you make him cry again.’

Eddie looks out over his farm. ‘Yeah, well, that’s what he wanted to talk about. I’m not going next year. To year twelve. I’ve been thinking about it and … yeah. Thought of being stuck in class for another year makes me break out in hives. So I’m leaving.’

Grady bolts upright. ‘Eddie. You cannot be serious?’

Eddie shrugs. ‘Why not? It’s not like I’m heading to Mensa. Feck, thought Baxter’d be the first one throwing a party.’

‘Mensa isn’t a place, Ed,’ Grady says carefully. ‘And come on. You’ve only got one year left – the rest of us managed it – how can you think about quitting?’

‘Yeah, well, not all of us are gonna be brainiac lawyers. And ’sides, there’s plenty of work on the farm and … it’s not like I was ever gonna go anywhere else. Right?’

Pete looks curiously at Eddie. Tia looks uncertainly at Pete. Grady and Caroline stare, horrified, at Ed. I drop my eyes to my sketchpad.

‘Francis Edwin,’ Caroline says slowly. She picks up a stray branch and jabs him in the arm. ‘Are you seriously saying you’re contemplating a future in Eden Valley? You’re
really
thinking of becoming one of those morons we’ve made fun of for years? You planning on losing your hair and your teeth and spending every Saturday for the rest of your life at the Junction Pub?’

Grady leaps out of the banana lounge. ‘Yes, thank you, Caroline! Eddie, I’m sorry, but this is so stupid! Even Caroline’s made it through year twelve, and she only punched two people during exams –’

‘Three if you count that cardboard Jamie Oliver at the grocery store,’ Caroline says flatly. ‘Smug tool. What the hell is a courgette –’

Grady glares at her. ‘The
point
, Eddie, is that you’re smart enough to graduate. Then who knows, there’s uni and Melbourne and –’

‘What, we’re all gonna move to the city and live in one house and throw dinner parties or whatever like some shite sitcom? Dude. You’ve met me, right?’ Eddie glances out over his parched farmland. ‘Anyway. Only reason I stuck it out this long was cos of you losers …’ He clears his throat. And then he throws a stick at Grady with a grin. ‘Bit pointless now, but. Isn’t it?’

Grady sits heavily on the edge of the banana lounge. ‘Alba! Help me out here!’

I focus on my sketchpad. Pete’s been trying to get me to draw him for ages, though I’m not sure I have the skills to do what he wants. I’m taking some inspiration from Sara Pichelli’s Spider-man, but honestly? It might take abilities beyond mine to transform scrawny Petey into a ‘kick-arse ninja warrior’, as was requested.

From the corner of my eye, I can see that Grady is still looking at me. Though I’m not sure why he thinks I’d have anything useful to say. Once upon a time, all Eddie wanted to be was a pilot. When we were kids he even had a whole mess of model planes hanging from his bedroom roof, though the planes are long gone now. But once upon a time, Tia wanted to be an astronaut, and Caroline dreamed of having her own show on the Disney Channel. I think Pete still dreams about being a DJ, or a ninja – though since his less-than-stellar results came in, he just mumbles ‘business or something’ whenever anyone asks about his future plans, and then changes the subject.

And me? Apart from abandoning my pubescent ambition of becoming Wonder Woman, my dreams have always been solid, and unshakable. Until recently anyways.

‘Eddie can do what he wants. Not everyone is destined to go to uni,’ I say as I run my pencil over the page. My fingers suddenly feel stiff. A finished action figure is only as good as the structure beneath it, and right now my skeleton of action-Pete looks like it’s in the middle of a largish stroke. I tear out the page and scrunch it into a ball.

‘Mr Baxter won’t know what to do without you, Ed. You’re the only person on the planet who can make his face turn that shade of burgundy.’ I glance at Grady, who is glaring at me. ‘But Eddie, if that’s what you want to do, then that’s what you should do,’ I say firmly.

Tia picks at the fake grass. ‘Alba’s right. People are allowed to change their mind about their plans –’

Grady scowls. ‘Right, because you’re going to be a famous designer here in the Valley? Hey, if you’re lucky, the guys from Anthony’s garage might let you design their overalls –’

‘Easy, Grady,’ Tia says lightly as Pete reaches for her hand. ‘Don’t take your issues out on me.’

Grady looks desperately from her to Pete. ‘Sorry, Tia – but Petey, come on man! Tell Eddie he cannot drop out of school to work his parents’ farm. If for no other reason than he can’t be such a dodge cliché.’

Pete snorts. ‘Dude, you’re talking to the Asian kid whose parents own the fish-and-chip shop. No comment.’

I drop my sketchpad. ‘Grady, leave it.’ I give him the other half of my cinnamon scroll. ‘It’s a beautiful day, and I’d rather not spend it watching you and Ed go at it. You know Eddie’ll beat you to a bloody pulp.’

Eddie grins. ‘You know it, gorgeous.’

Grady slumps onto the grass and gives his snoozing dog a rough pat. ‘Fine. Whatever. Do what you want.’

Caroline scowls. ‘Even if what you want is retarded, Eddie.’ She and Grady share a look, but thankfully neither of them says anything more.

No-one on the planet is as well acquainted with Grady’s stubbornness as me; the last thing I need is for him to be fixating on this all summer. And sue me, but I hate this conversation; who’s staying and who’s going and who’s doing what when. Not least because it makes my stupid hands feel all seized up and icy cold.

The only sounds in my backyard are the familiar warble of magpie song, and the munching of my friends who are all finding the distant hills and empty sky fascinating. From somewhere in the ether, a lone cow moos.

Just to break the silence, I’m about to launch into the story of the time when Tia and I watched
The Sound of Music
and then tried to redesign Caroline’s wardrobe using her mum’s curtains, when we’re rudely interrupted by the boom of a backfiring engine. Foghorn honks echo through the air from a car that I don’t recognise.

‘Feck was that?’ Eddie mutters as he heaves himself to his feet.

I haul myself up and push through the gate, my friends and Clouseau trailing behind.

A few locals are dotted on Albany’s verandah, pots of tea and pastries in front of them. Mrs Garabaldi is hunched in her corner table with a slice of toast halfway to her mouth. Everyone seems to be peering suspiciously down at Main Street.

An orange-and-blue VW Kombi van is parked in front of our bluestone path. Its back windows are covered by fraying purple curtains, and a couple of surfboards are strapped to the roof.

The driver sticks his head through the window. He has one of those arrow bolts through the middle of his nose, and a bunch of neck tattoos that look pretty cool, though I can’t make out the art under the beard that’s covering half his face.

‘Hello?’ he calls out. ‘Can you tell us how to get to Eden Valley?’

‘Dude. You’re in it,’ Pete replies from behind me.

The guy leans out the window and squints down the empty road. ‘Really? This is it?’

Grady heads over, hands in the pockets of his jeans. ‘Yeah. I have that same reaction every morning. You looking for something in particular?’ he says shyly.

‘Think your GPS is off,’ Eddie mutters, his eyes on the surfboards. ‘Beach is about a thousand kilometres thataway –’

The curtains at the back of the van stir, and another sweaty face appears. A girl with a knot of ash-blonde dreads peers sleepily out at us. A long row of piercings line one ear. She’s also wearing the teeniest yellow bikini I think I’ve ever seen in real life.

Eddie’s face turns the colour of raspberry jam. He drops his eyes to his feet, his feet shuffling up clouds of dirt. He makes this sound effect that’s something like
garmurwedgie
, and I know that this is the last we will hear from Eddie Palmer for the foreseeable future.

‘Hey there,’ I say with a wave. ‘Can we help you?’

The girl waves back. ‘Heya. You guys know if there’s a campsite or something round here?’

Pete shoves past me, skinny arms gesturing to the paddocks behind the bakery. ‘That’s the Palmers’ farm. We don’t get many visitors, I mean, from outside the Shire, and you know, sometimes a few arsebags from Merindale – but the Palmers did let some backpackers hire a bit of field once before. Keep going straight, then take the road on the left, just past the post office – that’s the building with the red tin roof. You can’t miss it. The Palmers’ house looks like it’s been dropped out of a tornado.’