The Gaps by Leanne Hall (classic literature list .TXT) 📕

into our stories. The exercise book we scribbled our secret language in, and the written history of our lands, our spells.

At the bottom, the greatest treasure, the worn piece of paper that we’d spent hours on. We always fought over who got to keep it at their house. I had the stronger will, even then.

A map of our home kingdom and the rival kingdoms surrounding it. Drawn lovingly in gel pens and Derwent pencils.

Wingdonia.

Oh, so childish.

I haven’t seen it for years, and it’s surprisingly detailed. The mountain ranges come back, the waterfalls and valleys, villages and ports. Wingdonia was shaped like a boot; it kicked the neighbouring kingdom of Plentificent off into the Aerie Ocean.

Yin had the best ideas about the geography, because of the dozens of fantasy novels she’d read, but I had the best ideas about the people, the families and the politics.

There were four clans, each with their own back story and special powers.

Have I been homesick all these years for a place that doesn’t exist?

Yin and I were travelling warrior queens of the Opal clan, fairy immortals imbued with magic, but masquerading as flesh-and-blood humans. We’d built our world from scratch, painstakingly, over the years. Etching the lines deep and adding sprinkles of glitter. There’d been times when Wingdonia had seemed more real than reality.

But the kingdom crashed, war broke out and the game ended. It didn’t make it through the transition to high school, and neither did our friendship.

Everything goes back into the suitcase again, except for the map, which I fold up into a small rectangle and slide into the hidden compartment in my purse, wedging it up against a condom that Liv gave me.

I go to the mirror and look at my dry eyes, trying to see beyond myself, underneath to where the ten-year-old might still live, but there’s nothing there. I try to picture Yin standing behind my shoulder, but I can’t conjure her.

Why did I push her away? I can’t remember now.

I have a huge red pimple welling up on my chin and a few suspect bumps on my cheek, and it’s typical that I had good skin all week but now I’m breaking out for the weekend.

I unscrew the jar of expensive clay mask that Mum’s allergic to and paint thick lines across my face with the plastic spatula, tough battle lines like a rugby player, and then I don’t stop, I paint my whole face out until it’s nothing but crackly pink mud and I erase all my thoughts with it until I have a blank blank brain.

DAY 10

As soon as school ends I join the trail of girls walking across the main oval to the tram stop. The parklands adjoining the school are visible through the wire fence. Police in navy and hi-vis yellow walk up and down the U-shaped trough of the creek, sweeping across the park in rough lines. They weren’t there last week, so I wonder what’s happened to bring them out now.

‘Let’s see if any of them are hot.’

A gaggle of Year Nines peel off and plaster themselves to the fence. I slow so much that someone behind me treads on the back of my shoe.

More police, in orange overalls and waterproof waders, push through the water. One of the closest police officers—a normal navy-and-yellow—looks up and sees us staring. For a moment it seems she might come over and talk to us, but then one of her colleagues calls her away.

‘I don’t like it. It’s scary.’ A tiny Year Seven looks close to tears. One of her friends hooks her arm and comforts her.

The teacher manning the gate gets impatient.

‘Come on girls! Pick up the pace!’

There are more cars than usual on the side street, a long queue from the gate almost to the highway. Some parents or drivers are paranoid enough to congregate around the gate, scrolling on their phones.

I cram on the tram with the mass of Balmoral students, my face right up against a Year Twelve’s armpit. Three separate groups of Year Tens dominate the rear of the tram; talking too loud and checking their phones and oversharing. More than a few of them hold the letter we’d been given at final roll call, the one marked strictly for parents or guardians. I guess what it contains is too sensitive for an email.

Eventually, inevitably, someone cracks and rips the envelope open.

I hang onto an overhead handle and eavesdrop.

‘It’s an emergency parent info night.’ The girl scans the letter. ‘This Thursday night. That’s not much notice.’

‘Something must have happened.’

‘What is there to say? Don’t be scared even though there’s a Hannibal Lecter on the loose?’

‘Please don’t take your daughter out of school because we need your money to build a new theatre?’

‘Shit, do you think Grace’s party is going to get cancelled?’

This causes a wave of panic through most of the Year Tens. Grace Chapman’s sixteenth has dominated conversations this week. It’s amazing how people can switch from gossiping about our teachers providing DNA samples to what they’re going to wear on Friday night in one breath.

Teaghan sits behind Brooke, braiding her hair. ‘Can’t they see we want to have one night where we don’t have to think about anything?’

I jump off at the Junction with dozens of other Balmoral girls, feeling as if I’ve collected strands of everyone else’s hair on my blazer and need to shower.

After acquiring my usual can of lemonade and apple scroll from the bakery, I move on to the bus stop. I could do this trip in my sleep, if I had to. It takes me forty-five minutes to get home: a tram and a bus. The first three years of high school I could walk for ten minutes and be at the entrance to Morrison High.

A handful of army-green All Saints boys are at the bus stop, along with two pensioners and a tired mum with a stroller containing a sleeping toddler. The bus is late. I haven’t