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

then I quickly double back, hiding myself behind a group of younger girls trying to sell chocolate bars to the Year Tens because of our reputation for emotional eating.

The corridors are an unpleasant, desperate end-of-lunch-hour whirl, a dizzying blend of colours and voices, a frozen yoghurt gone way too far with flavours and popping candy and too much syrup.

Chloe and Petra are both still near their lockers, even though they aren’t talking anymore.

‘Miss Cardell.’ I give Chloe a formal nod and she raises her eyebrows. ‘Have you found a place yet for this weekend?’

She frowns. ‘Not quite.’

‘I’ll wait to hear from you, then,’ I say and I’m a girl made of concrete, a veritable feelings bunker, so I cut my losses and turn away.

DAY 39

Liv’s hair sticks up in points, her eyes are pillow-puffy. I swing my school bag and gym bag onto the bench and sit down.

‘You just woke up.’

Liv massages the hollows of her cheeks, as if that can revive her. ‘Nah babe, I’ve been awake for hours.’

‘Liar.’

Liv is almost entirely nocturnal, possibly even a vampire.

I take off my school jumper, remove my tie, muss up my hair. As if I want to be in a hipster cafe in my dirty old man’s dream of a school uniform. Liv almost always makes me come to her. I wouldn’t take that from a friend, but she’s been lording it over me since I was a baby, so what hope do I have?

‘What’s in the bag?’

She’s better than a beagle at sniffing things out.

‘PE stuff.’

‘Doesn’t sound like it.’

‘Alright, Sherlock. Stuff for an art project, then.’ Both of these answers could be true, but neither are.

Liv orders coffees for us and smiles too long at the waitress. When our coffees come, she smiles again, in case the waitress missed it the first time. The waitress is petite and olive-skinned and has a Spanish accent, so exactly Liv’s type.

‘Wow.’ I stir two heaped sugars into my coffee, destroying the heart poured into the foam. ‘Did you notice how big that waitress’s nostrils are? I couldn’t stop looking at them. You could fit this whole biscotti up there.’

I can see doubt on Liv’s face as she regards the foxy little waitress, which means my work here is done. Even with the sugar this coffee tastes gross.

‘So, what’s the drama, Tal?’

I pull an innocent face.

‘You only message me when you’re upset.’

‘I don’t,’ I say, but I do and I have.

Even though the cafe is overheated and too noisy, even though the guy next to us deserves a punch in his face for his hipster glasses and porn moustache, it’s nice to see my sister across the table. To call her and know she will come running. Or allow me to go running to her.

She stares me out. We have the same eyes but her gaze lasts longer and I yield.

‘The police came to our house and interviewed Dad. At the house. Which they also searched.’

‘When?’ Liv is surprised enough to grab my arm. Venue stamps line the inside of her wrist.

‘Sunday.’ I pull free.

‘What did they want to know?’

‘Where he was on certain dates and certain times. They asked about his habits, I don’t know what else. Bear in mind that he wouldn’t tell me this himself, I had to pester Mum to tell me.’

I leave out Marley’s stuff about pyjamas and slippers, and all the other rumours that have been floating around school this week.

‘They asked Mum if he has any catchphrases and sayings, or funny nicknames for us. And then they asked her to run a list of creepy words by me.’

‘That’s disturbing.’ Liv’s fingers rip a napkin to shreds. ‘What were they?’

‘Like, I don’t know, honey-bunnies and slumber parties.’

‘Yuck.’ Liv pulls a face. ‘That is warped. I’m so sorry.’

I picture a sister-wall forming around us, keeping all the unwanted armies out. I already feel better.

‘Other people’s dads have been questioned as well. You know Marley?’

‘Marley with the muso parents? That doesn’t surprise me. Well, that makes me feel a bit better, then, that they’re doing other parents as well.’ Liv stops worrying away at her napkin. ‘Maybe it’s something to do with Dad’s indecent exposure thing.’

I spray biscotti crumbs for kilometres. ‘What?’

Porn moustache glances sharply at us. I lower my voice but not before greasing him off. Go sit in the library if you want quiet, loser.

‘They never told you? It was at some interstate conference Dad went to, with the whole firm. Everyone got trashed, and Dad agreed to do this ridiculous dare. You know how competitive he gets. He had to streak naked up and down the street, and then dance in the hotel fountain. Police came by, Dad got mouthy, refused to cover up or get out of the fountain, and he was arrested. Our father is, officially speaking, a pervert.’

‘Eww.’ I try to banish the mental image of Dad frolicking naked in a public water feature. It’s bad enough when he wears his cycling lycra. And it’s so typical that Mum would tell Liv and not me. ‘Was this part of his breakdown?’

‘I don’t remember, Tal, I don’t think so. He only got a warning but I bet it’s on his record. That would be enough to make the police visit. I wouldn’t worry, it sounds like they’re just ticking the boxes.’

‘Yeah, I know, you’re right,’ I say, but my coffee’s lukewarm and I feel sick. The last thing I need is to start worrying about Dad, but he’s been working long hours and drinking a lot and I don’t want him to go off the rails. He had a rough patch when I was around ten, but I was too young to understand it. I don’t even know what really happened, and no one in our family ever mentions it. Is it only my family that never talks about anything important or real?

‘I saw in the paper,’ Liv says. ‘The reward.’

The tabloids keep running Chunjuan’s statement, laying it out like a sappy handwritten