Escape from Year Eight Read online

  Oh, no! Mum’s starting to snore. It’s pretty soft at the moment, but I know from staying with her in motels that she can build up to bagpipe volume. Maybe if I nudge her a bit she’ll ease off. Nope. She just shifts a little and gets louder. I think the business woman is giving her a disapproving look from behind her sleep mask. Which Mum is obviously not aware of, since she snores more blissfully with every breath.

  The baby in front of us only went to sleep half an hour ago. I know because he played peekaboo over the seat with me for so long that I got sick of the sight of his sweet little face. When his mother finally held him down in her arms, he bawled like anything for ages. If Mum wakes him up, we’ll all be sorry. And she’s snoring so lustily now that she’s in danger of rousing the entire economy section.

  ‘Mum!’ I give her a good prod in the side. ‘Wake up!’

  ‘What?’ She answers groggily. ‘Are we there?’

  ‘No.’ I push her arm back onto her own seat. ‘You were snoring.’

  ‘You woke me up for that?’

  ‘You sounded like a stranded elephant seal.’

  ‘Thanks a lot! That’s really considerate, Kaitlin.’

  ‘Jeez, you don’t have to be so grumpy.’

  ‘Of course I’m going to be grumpy if you wake me up out of a sound sleep! I bet I’m not the only one who was snoring.’

  ‘You were the only one I could hear.’

  ‘Well, I hope you’re satisfied. I hope you’re not embarrassed any more. Now I’ll never get back to sleep.’

  ‘I don’t know how Rick puts up with you at night.’

  The last few months, Rick has stayed over two or three times a week.

  ‘He’s never complained,’ Mum says sourly.

  ‘Then he must wear earplugs. Either that or he’s some sort of saint.’

  ‘Well, I’m glad you like him so much!’ Mum’s voice has reached almost the same volume level as her snoring. ‘Too bad you’re not the one he’s pressuring to marry him.’

  I turn on my reading light and stare at Mum. ‘Rick asked you to marry him?’

  ‘Yes,’ she says, her voice a bit softer now, ‘about fifty times.’

  ‘What?!’ I say, loud enough to wake up a good few rows. ‘How come you never told me?’

  This makes her think. She looks a bit guilty, then says quietly, ‘I know how much you like him, and he’s been really great with you. But… I need to make this decision for myself. You’ll be off at uni or gallivanting around the world in a few years’ time. If I do get married again, this time I want it to last. Does that make sense?’

  I nod absently. At least it sounds like she’s given it some thought. But what other secrets has she got stored away underneath that silky blue shirt?

  Wednesday 5 September

  9.55 p.m. (Nevada time)

  ‘That was awesome!’

  ‘Sure was,’ Mum says, clutching her stomach. ‘I haven’t had so much fun since I had morning sickness twenty-four-seven. And both things were both your fault!’

  ‘I guess I did kind of force you into going on the roller-coaster,’ I laugh. ‘But I don’t think I had anything to do with you getting pregnant. Let’s go on the Laser Blast!’

  ‘No,’ Mum groans, ‘I’m not going on that.’ But she follows me anyway, through the indoor theme park that’s part of this humungous hotel we’re staying in. Circus Circus, it’s called. Which reminds me…

  ‘Hey,’ I say, consulting the purple digital watch I won in the Claw Machine, ‘it’s time for the next act. We’ll go on the Blast later.’

  ‘I’ll look forward to it,’ Mum replies in her ironic voice as we pass by gift shops, restaurants and a pharmacy, which the Americans call a drug store. It’s like there’s a whole city inside this hotel. Finally we get to the Big Top. They do a live circus act here every hour, on the hour, twenty-four hours a day. At 8 p.m. we saw a magician who did the best tricks I’ve ever seen, and at 9 p.m. there were some amazing trapeze artists. Vi was right: Las Vegas is cool!

  There are quite a few people sitting in the bleachers that surround the circus ring, but Mum and I manage to find a spot in the fourth row. Just as we’ve settled into our seats, loud jazzy music starts up and a woman in a spangly silver jumpsuit comes riding into the ring on a unicycle. Every time she completes a circuit of the ring, a guy in a gold jumpsuit holds something up to her on the end of a pole: a dinner plate, a book, then the American flag. She balances all the stuff on her head and keeps riding.

  As the silver woman swoops by to grab a fruit bowl from the golden guy, I turn to Mum and say, ‘Let’s spend our whole time here and forget about going to school in the middle of nowhere.’

  Mum looks at me like she’s pleased and apprehensive at the same time. ‘I think your education might suffer a bit if we did that.’

  ‘No it wouldn’t. I could learn heaps here.’ The uni-cycle woman has now added a posy of flowers to the stack on her head. ‘Maybe she could teach me how she does that,’ I suggest as she glides past us.

  ‘Like balancing flowers on your head is really useful.’

  ‘More useful than some of the stuff they make us do at school!’

  When the act’s over, we follow the crowd out to a huge foyer. Most of the adults disappear into the dim rooms beyond, where fairy lights blink and pokies clatter. I’m not allowed to go in there because I’m underage. And even though we’ve been here for two days, Mum hasn’t done any gambling either.

  ‘Why don’t you have a go?’ I suggest, gesturing towards the enticing semi-darkness. ‘I can look after myself for a couple of hours.’

  ‘I don’t know…’ Mum hesitates. I can tell she wants to. She and Rick have been to the casino back in Melbourne a few times. They take a certain amount of cash, like twenty dollars each, and when that’s gone they leave. Sometimes they’ve only had a few minutes of fun, but there’ve been other nights where they’ve stayed for hours and come home with more money than when they left. Rick says Mum is corrupting him. Mum says it doesn’t take much to corrupt a man whose former main entertainment was growing native orchids.

  ‘Go on,’ I urge. ‘I am fourteen years old.’

  ‘Only since three weeks ago,’ Mum points out, as if that proves something.

  ‘You’ve got to let me do stuff on my own sooner or later,’ I protest. ‘I’ll just look around for a while and then go back to the room.’ Even doing that is fun in this place. There are so many rooms and they’re so far from the main attractions that you get to ride to your bed on a train. Well, not quite to your bed, but near enough. And inside the rooms, the walls are covered with pictures of circus stuff: clowns and balloons and bunches of fairy floss. I wish Jake and Ali could see it.

  ‘What if a stranger talks to you?’ Mum wants to know.

  ‘Jeez, Mum, I’m not five years old!’

  That answer doesn’t impress her, so I say, ‘I’ll assess the situation. If the person who’s so desperate to talk to me seems like a serial killer, I’ll pretend I don’t speak English. And then I’ll run over to the nearest grandmother.’

  Mum still looks doubtful.

  ‘I know,’ I say, ‘grandmothers can be serial killers, too. They didn’t teach us self-defence in PE for nothing.’

  That makes her smile. ‘All right,’ she says. ‘I’ll only be an hour or so. Promise you won’t leave the hotel?’

  I roll my eyes. ‘No, I thought I’d go down to Caesars Palace and sell myself into white slavery.’

  ‘That’s what I’m afraid of.’ Her ironic tone makes it sound like she partly means it.

  ‘Go!’ I give her a shove. ‘The blackjack tables are in that direction.’

  She goes, at last. And I’m on my own in the great United States of America. I scan the people walking through the foyer, to see if I can spot any rapists or perverts.

  ‘Excuse me?’ a voice inquires above my left ear.

  I turn and see a tall boy, about sixteen or seventeen. I’ve only been alone for thirty secon
ds and already a stranger’s talking to me! And he’s gorgeous.

  ‘Howdy. Ya got the time?’ he asks in a way I’ve only heard in the movies.

  I consult my purple watch and read, ‘10.27 p.m.’ Jeez, that was dorky. I sound like a member of the chess club. Why didn’t I just say it was nearly 10.30? Maybe if I distract him quick enough he’ll let it pass. ‘Where’s your accent from?’ I ask.

  ‘I haven’t got an accent.’ He says ‘ack-sent’, emphasising the second syllable. He grins at me and says in his slow drawl, ‘You’re the one with the accent.’

  ‘No, I’m not! I’m the only one here who doesn’t have an accent. Everybody else has an American accent. Yours is kind of a different American accent, though.’ Why do I always talk so much when I’m nervous? Why can’t I be one of those girls who’s all tongue-tied and charming?

  The boy doesn’t seem to mind too much. He’s still smiling at me. ‘I’m from Tennessee,’ he says. ‘And you’re from Australia, aren’t you?’

  ‘How’d you know?’

  ‘I heard you and your mom talkin’. You sounded like the crocodile hunter that used to be on TV.’

  ‘Oh, right.’ That’s better, Kaitlin. Two words will do. No need to tell him how you tasted a crocodile burger when that guest speaker on native foods came to school.

  The boy holds out his hand for me to shake, at the same time saying, ‘My name’s Evan.’

  ‘Hi, I’m Kaitlin.’ I hope I’m exerting the right amount of pressure as I shake his hand. Mum’s always going on about what a big deal it is not to have a limp handshake.

  I guess my pressure level was okay because Evan asks, ‘You wanna get a cup of coffee?’

  Is he trying to pick me up? His eyes are bluey-green and his hair is wavy brown. He reminds me a little of James, the guy I met in detention last year. I say, ‘Sure.’

  We go into the cafe that opens off the foyer. Evan leads me to one of the bright-blue booths. A waitress brings us glasses of iced water and giant plastic menus with pictures of the food you can get. ‘That looks so good,’ I moan, pointing to the hot fudge sundae on the front. ‘Too bad it’s got a million megagrams of fat.’

  ‘You don’t need to worry,’ Evan says, looking at me as if he likes what he sees.

  I open my menu and hold it in front of my face before he can notice how red it’s gone. ‘I could have a salad,’ I say. ‘Hey, they reckon they serve them in bowls you can eat!’

  ‘They don’t have those in Australia?’ he chuckles.

  Is he making fun of me? I lower my menu just enough to look at him. ‘We’re such an uncivilized country, we only eat what’s in the bowls.’

  Evan laughs. He looks really nice, not mean at all.

  ‘They make them out of breadsticks,’ he explains. ‘They twist them together before they bake them.’

  The waitress has appeared that our table. ‘Ready to order, doll?’ she asks Evan.

  Without even looking at his menu he says, ‘I’ll have apple pie à la mode, thanks. And black coffee.’

  The waitress writes down Evan’s order and turns to me. ‘How about you, honey? You decided yet?’

  ‘I’ll have the same as him,’ I say, even though I don’t have a clue what a ‘mode’ is. Hope I like it. And come to think of it, how am I going to pay for it? Guess I’ll put it on the room tab, like Mum did last night when we went to the all-you-can-eat restaurant and stuffed ourselves silly. Mum moaned and complained for two hours afterwards and swore she’d rather share a cell with Sarah than set foot in one of those places again.

  ‘So,’ Evan says after the waitress has collected our menus and gone, ‘how long are you in Vegas for?’

  ‘Only a couple of days. How about you?’

  ‘Just for the weekend. My parents come out here a couple times a year, when the airlines are runnin’ cheap deals.’

  I love hearing him talk – and looking at him. It’s like sitting across from a guy in the movies. I can’t wait to write to Vi about this! But now it’s my turn to say something. Wish I had a good scriptwriter. I come up with, ‘What do you do while your parents are gambling?’

  He gives me a wicked grin and says, ‘Look around for pretty girls.’

  Now I don’t have the giant menu to hold in front of me. I beg my face not to go red, but of course it doesn’t cooperate. Thank goodness the waitress distracts his attention by coming back to call us ‘doll’ and ‘honey’ and pour our coffees. I take a sip of mine. It’s bitter, but it tastes grown-up.

  ‘So, where ya headin’ to after this?’ Evan asks. ‘Disneyland?’

  ‘No,’ I answer, ‘we’ve already been there. Next stop is Iowa.’

  ‘Iowa? Nobody goes on vacation there.’

  The waitress has arrived with our pie. As she sits mine in front of me I notice that ‘à la mode’ means a huge scoop of vanilla ice-cream dusted with cinnamon. It looks good, but the subject of Iowa has made me lose my appetite.

  ‘We’re not going there on a vacation,’ I say, pushing my ice-cream around on the warm pie so that it starts to melt. ‘My mum’s upgrading her qualifications at some random college she found on the internet. We’re staying for four months. She thinks it’s going to be a great experience for me to go to an American school.’

  ‘Maybe it will be.’ Evan takes a large, cheerful bite of his pie. ‘They’re pretty big on girls’ basketball out there.’

  ‘As if! I’m hopeless at sports. The only team anybody wants me on is debating. I got the ball once when we were playing soccer in PE and got so mixed up I kicked it straight to our goalkeeper.’

  Evan’s grinning at me like that was the best joke. He’s got such a beautiful smile. Why can’t we just sit here in this blue booth and have a nice waitress ask us if we want more coffee forever?

  ‘I don’t want to be the new kid,’ I confess. ‘Everybody’ll be watching me, waiting for me to say something stupid. And I’ve got no idea what’s stupid in an American school.’ I take a bite of pie so I’ll have something to squash between my teeth. ‘I might as well change my name to Justine.’

  ‘Who’s she?’

  ‘This loser nerd I know.’

  Evan’s smiling at me again. ‘A girl like you,’ he says, shaking his head, ‘you don’t need to care what anybody thinks.’

  Friday 7 September

  6.30 p.m. (Iowa time)

  I lean my head against the cool glass of the car window and stare out across green fields tinged with gold. They stretch on for kilometres, until they meet a purply blue sky in the distance. We have arrived in the middle of nowhere.

  I’m in the back seat and Mum’s up the front, burbling on and on to the real estate agent who picked us up at the airport.

  ‘This is such gorgeous countryside,’ Mum gushes. ‘I couldn’t believe it when I spotted your ad on the net. A whole farmhouse for the price of a tiny little apartment where we come from.’ I’ve never heard Mum use this thrilled-with-everything tone before. She must have been saving it up for her Big Adventure.

  ‘To tell you the truth,’ the real estate agent is saying in a voice only a little less bubbly than Mum’s, ‘it never entered my head that I’d get a tenant from Australia. Another state, maybe. But another country? You could have knocked me over with a feather.’

  I doubt that. She’s shorter than me but she must weigh at least three times as much. She’s packed into her capris tighter than an orange in its peel. It’d take an industrial-sized dumpster full of feathers to knock her over. Her name’s Janice.

  Mum was so happy when we walked out to the baggage claim at Des Moines airport and there was this basketball-like woman holding up a sign that said, ‘Laura and Kaitlin’. Mum squeezed my arm and said, ‘It’s just like the movies.’

  ‘Yeah, sure.’ A horror movie where the teenage heroine is so traumatised at having to face a whole classroom full of foreigners, she develops special powers so she can instantly vaporise anyone who looks at her like they think she said anything even slightly
stupid.

  I didn’t actually say that to Mum, but she wouldn’t have noticed even if I did, because by that time Janice had introduced herself and she and Mum were chattering away like they were long-lost twins separated at birth.

  ‘We’re nearly there!’ Janice chirps, looking over her shoulder at me. ‘You excited, Kaitlin?’

  ‘Hmm,’ I reply. I hate it when adults try to stick some emotion on me, just because they think that’s what I should be feeling.

  ‘She’s fourteen,’ Mum says. ‘She doesn’t like to get too enthusiastic.’

  I also hate it when Mum explains me. Thank goodness they go back to chatting with each other. Janice is saying that the corn, which is what the gold and green fields are full of, has grown especially well this season.

  ‘We picked a good year to come then,’ Mum says brightly.

  ‘Good as any,’ Janice answers in a not-so-bright way. ‘But the truth is, you can’t hardly make a livin’ on a regular farm around here any more. You gotta have a thousand acres and make it a huge operation. Bob – he owns the place you’re rentin’ – he’s been tryin’ to hang onto the land his folks left him, but he just keeps getting further and further into debt. That’s why he had to go off to Kansas City and get a job.’

  ‘I guess our rent money will help a bit,’ Mum suggests.

  ‘That’s the idea,’ Janice agrees.

  We’ve turned off the highway now, onto a gravel road. The countryside’s changed from flat to hills. The corn grows a lot closer to the road here, and it’s so tall you can barely see over it. It’s like we’re being pulled through a living tunnel. In my head, that guy who does the voice-overs for movie trailers is saying dramatically, ‘They creep deeper and deeper into the centre of nowhere.’

  ‘There she is!’ Janice announces as we turn another corner. Sure enough, on to the top of the hill is the big white house Mum showed me on her bungalow/ office computer.