Up Over Down Under (18 page)

“I hope you're right,” Eliza said doubtfully. “I can't help but wonder if maybe I should have just been honest with them from the get-go. No matter what, you can bet I'll be on a short leash from now on.” It was too awful to contemplate. And here she'd thought the Echolses were overprotective even before any of this mess had transpired.

Jess gave Eliza a hug and another sympathetic smile before they turned and headed back to the kitchen, where their parents were waiting.

Following some cursory good-byes and an apology to Jess's father, they were in the car cruising back home. Frank didn't speak a word to her. She felt like a villain in a comic book,
The Evil American
. She'd been exposed as the embodiment of every negative image people had of Americans—brash and arrogant, self-centered and obnoxious. And manipulative. She couldn't leave out manipulative. Not only had she let the Echolses down, but now Jess's family was onto her, as well. She wasn't used to being thought of as a troublemaker.

This was a disaster, an absolute disaster. The rest of the semester suddenly seemed like an endless expanse, indeed.

 

 

Eliza's life became considerably less free over the next few weeks. She was under a strict curfew, which the Echolses enforced stringently by insisting on driving her to, and picking her up from, her various activities. When they couldn't be there themselves, they asked that the teacher or supervisor in charge call them to make sure Eliza had shown. It was humiliating. She was being treated like a prisoner out on parole.

For her own part, Estelle was determined to get Eliza back on track with her internship. She drove Eliza down to the site an hour early the following Saturday to meet with Mr. Winstone to discuss how Eliza could make up for her behavior with some extra-credit work. They arrived at the cramped warehouse office where the lab kits and equipment were kept to find Mr. Winstone awaiting them grimly. He gestured to two rickety folding chairs that faced his desk, indicating that they should sit, and so they did.

Eliza nervously picked at a cuticle and tried to avoid looking at either of the adults as the “sick day” excuse she had used a couple weeks earlier also came to light.

“Eliza, I have to say I'm very disappointed about this whole affair.” Mr. Winstone looked genuinely angry. “I had trusted you, and to be honest, a stunt like this could jeopardize your eligibility to continue on as a S.A.S.S. student.”

Eliza gulped. It hadn't occurred to her that she could be booted from the program. How would she ever live that down? And what would it mean for her father? A scandal like that was the sort of thing on which snarky bloggers thrived. There'd be no way to keep something like that under wraps.

Mr. Winstone sighed and continued. “However, we do believe in second chances here. So rather than get S.A.S.S., the school, and your parents involved at this point, we are willing to explore make up options with you.”

Eliza felt a rush of relief so strong that she wanted to jump across the desk and kiss Mr. Winstone. She managed to restrain herself as he went on.

“Believe me when I say that this will be your last chance. I must underline what I'm saying: this program was competitive, and you are here in place of many other qualified students who wanted to be here, and who I do suspect would take this program a good deal more seriously.”

“I know, and I'm sorry,” Eliza said, hoping he could hear the sincerity in her voice. “I really appreciate being given a chance to show you how much this opportunity means to me.” And it was true; as much as the internship wasn't what she had expected, she wasn't ready to give it up. “I know I've really messed up, but I promise that I'll do better. I think I just got carried away with all the excitement of meeting new people and trying new things. You know, it's my first time away from home and all.”

“Mr. Winstone, about the make up options: is there some sort of extra credit that Eliza might be able to do that would get her back into the swing of things?” Estelle asked.

“It's not something I've had to deal with before, but I'm sure that I can come up with something, and we can see how things go. Perhaps you can do some work during the spring break?” Mr. Winstone looked thoughtful. “Some sort of special project?”

“That would be fine. Whatever you want,” Eliza said quickly. The idea of working over her break wasn't perfect, but at least she wouldn't be sent home.

Mr. Winstone turned to Estelle. “I understand from Eliza that you will be spending the break down on the Mornington Peninsula. I have a friend who is a ranger on Prince Phillip Island, and I am certain he could use a hand counting and tagging the fairy penguins for a couple of days. He and his crew are responsible for monitoring the penguin population down there. It's important work but also, I should think, fun. Perhaps Eliza could help him out and write a report for me about it afterward? It would be a nice extension of the studies we have been doing on aquatic life in the bay here, and the interconnected ecosystems. Besides, Eliza—I'm told the young penguins are rather adorable.”

“Why, yes! That sounds like an excellent idea for a project,” Estelle enthused. “The twins have never been to Prince Phillip Island, so it will give us a good excuse to take them.”

Eliza was pleasantly surprised. She smiled and accepted that this was the best possible outcome of being caught on her little personal walkabout. The weather would be warming up, and she could spend some time with cute and cuddly penguins—it had to be a step up from the mollusks, right?

Penguins: cute,
Eliza thought to herself with determination.
Macca: even cuter.

 

 

Of course, Jess and Nomes had been amused by what had happened. It seemed that her clandestine partying was seen by them as a rite of passage, and Eliza had passed with flying colors.

“So when are you going to be free to come out again? I'm sure Macca would love to see you,” Jess prodded as they walked to the cafeteria on Monday.

Eliza blushed. “I don't have a clue. Spring break is coming up, and the Echolses have a house down by the sea and some sort of shop…”

“FISHY WISHY!” the other two girls chorused, startling Eliza enough that she nearly walked right into another student.

“What?”

“Fishy Wishy,” Jess repeated, grinning. “I can't believe you're going to work there.”

“It's a fish-and-chips place down in Sorrento,” Nomes added. “Everybody knows it. Everybody goes down to the Mornington Peninsula since we were kids. You're going to love the uniforms. And you thought the St. Cat's outfit was bad!”

Jess must have noticed the look of panic spreading across Eliza's face. “Don't worry,” she consoled her. “It won't be so bad. You'll be there for two weeks. I know you'll get some time to hit the beach.”

“I appreciate the thought. Hopefully they'll start easing up on me soon. I've been playing everything very by the book, and they seem to appreciate that, so maybe they'll give me a bit of a break once we get there.” She sighed, feeling extremely sorry for herself. She knew she'd made her own bed, but that didn't make lying in it any less irksome. . . .

“Listen, who knows? Once you're down there, things might turn out differently than you expect. Maybe the Echolses will loosen up. Just be sure to be on your best behavior for a bit.” Jess tried her best smile of encouragement, but it wasn't quite enough in the face of this sad situation.

“I have been,” Eliza said. “It's just, I'm not the kind of girl who usually has to be
told
to be on her best behavior.” She shrugged. “Never mind. So what are you guys up to later?”

“The weather is supposed to finally turn, and if it's warm, we're going to spend the evening at Luna Park checking out the rides.” Nomes looked hopefully at Eliza.

“Lucky you. With my curfew I'm
definitely
not allowed out to go to Luna Park. Besides, I think we're going to see some old steam train so the twins can ride around on it for a while. Do you know anything about that?”

“Oh, man. Puffing Billy? I haven't been there since I was a kid.” Jess rolled her eyes. “The thing runs around this track for no reason at all, and after a couple hours you're back where you started. It's not so bad, I guess; the scenery is nice. I'm sure it'll keep the twins happy.”

The girls fell silent, and Eliza stared at the ground as they walked into the cafeteria. The twins had their whole lives to explore Australia. Eliza had only this one semester.

“Hey,” Jess said as she put her arm around Eliza. “You buck up, all right? Remember, there's a reason we say ‘no worries' down here. We're going to find a way to make your time a good one, I promise.” She jerked her head meaningfully at Nomes.

“Yeah, we promise,” and Nomes put her arm around Eliza's opposite shoulder.

Sandwiched between her two friends, Eliza couldn't help but laugh. “Well, okay,” she conceded, “but only since you both
promise.
” She lifted her chin and threw her shoulders back like she was in the military, causing Jess and Nomes to giggle. “No worries!” she said brightly.

She only hoped it turned out to be true.

The thing about busywork, Billie was learning, was that it could be so very…
busy
. Stuffing envelopes, making copies, and occasionally even—gasp…collating!—didn't sound like very hard work, and really, it wasn't. But it was soulcrushingly dull, mind-numbingly boring, and completely and utterly
not
inspirational. Not one bit.

Billie wasn't above paying her dues with a little administrative work, but none of this made her feel like an environmental crusader. Rather, as time passed and she grew old and wrinkly under the dull glow of fluorescent lighting, Billie only felt increasingly smoggy. Her brain, that was. Her brain was as black and dusty as the inside of a vacuum cleaner. Or as soggy and polluted as a compost heap. She'd been keeping up with her habit of daily jogs at sunrise, mainly because it was the only time of day she got to take in fresh air, but it wasn't the same as being back home, out on the surf. She was starting to feel like a landlocked mermaid, or a goldfish that had tripped from the bowl.

She sighed heavily and almost completely subconsciously, her entire upper body shuddering with the weight of it, and was startled when Parker, her partner in said busywork (today it was gluing dozens and dozens of address labels to big, fat first-class mailers—would the paper trail never end?) responded to her with a chuckle.

“It's not that bad,” he said. He slapped a mailing label onto an envelope with gusto, sticky-side down, just for emphasis.

“Maybe not,” Billie said, “but I sure wouldn't want to see it get much worse.”

“It could be cold calls.” Parker waggled his eyebrows. “You could be phoning people for surveys. And phoning, and phoning, and phoning—”