A Thousand Perfect Notes(10)

‘I don’t know your favourite colour,’ Joey says indignantly.

‘It’s blue.’ Beck says it without thinking and then blushes dark enough to make a beetroot proud.

August meets his eyes with a smirk on the corner of her lips. ‘Trophy for Keverich. What gave me away?’

The blue anklets and blue doodles on her feet and blue wool twined around some of her hair.

‘Random guess,’ Beck says.

Joey jerks her hand free to run a few metres ahead and leaps over a huge crack in the cement. She lands with a thump and her bell necklace clangs.

August moves ever so slightly closer to Beck. ‘You don’t smell like coffee today.’

‘I’ve come to realise I hate coffee.’

‘Then my bribe isn’t going to work, is it?’ August jiggles her satchel. ‘I have a mango. Totally unseasonal mango and probably imported but I’m willing to share.’

Only one more block and they’re at school. She makes him so uncomfortable.

‘I’m not taking your mango,’ he says. ‘We’re not friends.’

‘We’re not,’ August agrees, ‘we’re essay partners. I want good grades and you don’t want to get expelled.’

‘Why don’t you just ask Mr Boyne to swap you? With someone who cares?’

August presses her lips together. ‘You say you don’t care, but your eyes say differently.’

His eyes?

‘Dude,’ August says, ‘your eyes have this permanent devastated look, like someone stole your ice cream and stabbed your puppy and then told you sprinkles were illegal. Your eyes clearly say they want to pass this assignment.’

They’re at the school gate and Beck has never been so glad to see it. He could hug the broken wire fence right now. Being with August is like a hurricane of confusing emotions.

‘Maybe sprinkles are illegal,’ Beck says, ‘and no one’s told you yet.’ He grabs Joey’s hand and drags her towards the preschool.

Amongst the clamour of hundreds of kids elbowing their way to class, August shouts, ‘I’ll see you after school!’

Beck walks faster.

The high, primary and preschool are all squashed into two massive buildings. They’re old. The air conditioners never work, so forget about heating. Most of the bathroom doors don’t lock, if they’re lucky enough to have a door. There isn’t even a covered eating area, so rain or shine, kids wander about the sports oval and leave muesli bar wrappers everywhere they go. It’s a dump. Beck feels sick dread for when Joey graduates to primary school and has to face these horrors.

He leaves her behind the safe, high fences – covered in rainbow streamers – of the preschool and trudges to class.

While the teachers drone about maths or biology, Beck writes music. His pencil squeaks a vicious storm – but it doesn’t block out August.

She’s going to be sticky about this, isn’t she? And it’s not just the assignment; she seems hell-bent on prying into the rest of his life. Maybe she thinks he’s interesting? He’s tried to be unremarkable. But if she found out about the piano or the reasons behind his bruises or the Maestro in general and told people – he can’t even think about it. He’d be so embarrassed. What kind of fifteen-year-old guy is scared of his mother?

Beck tries to approach Mr Boyne – even though he has a strict no-teacher-contact policy – about changing partners to someone who doesn’t care about school, but Mr Boyne waves him away.

‘August is great. You’ll be fine.’

‘That isn’t what I—’

But Mr Boyne flaps off to accost a student stealing whiteboard markers.

Can nothing in his gottverdammten Leben go right, for once?

Even getting Joey out fast fails because her teacher corners Beck to give a disapproving analysis of Joey’s recent violent behaviour and how unacceptable it is. Beck has only just wriggled free of that when he realises Joey’s made a robot costume out of boxes and they have a long, heated argument about the fact that she can’t take it home. She howls at him for a few minutes and then goes boneless so he has to carry her out, which douses any notion of getting away before August can catch up.

August swings on the fence, a little less bouncy than usual.

‘Why is your foot bleeding?’ Joey demands.

‘I kicked someone.’ August gives a wan smile.

Beck hauls Joey up for a piggyback ride and tries to balance his backpack on one shoulder and hers on his other. He really doesn’t have time to focus on August’s freaking feet.

August reaches for his bag. ‘I can carry—’

‘I’m fine,’ he says sharply.

She pulls back and he asks himself, for the millionth time, why he’s such a devil. But it has to be this way. If she goes to Mr Boyne for a new partner, she’ll get her way. He just has to suck enough to drive her to it.

August limps – unusually quiet – a few steps behind them. Good, maybe he can lose her.

But Beck finds himself walking slower and slower and then finally turns back to see how bad it is.

She’s leaving bloodied footprints.

‘Meine Güte,’ Beck says sharply. ‘You could’ve said you were dying.’

August stops and looks down. Her face is paler than usual, freckles sticking out, and she winces every time she steps.