Christian Read online

  I walk into class late. Patrick sends me to Mr Kennedy’s office. ‘New regime, new rules,’ Patrick says, apologetic but firm.

  Mr Kennedy frowns at me. ‘What’s going on Christian?’

  ‘I had to see my lawyer. He wants a personal reference.’

  ‘And what should it say, “Christian used to come to class but now can’t be bothered”?’

  ‘You can say whatever you like.’ I stand up to go.

  ‘Sit. The Board is serious about its new “Back to Ballet” policy. Our teaching methods are being scrutinised. Even having you here, under bail conditions, is something they’ve questioned.’

  It sounds like he’s saying that, as far as the National Academy is concerned, things would be better if I did go to juvie. ‘I’m sorry to make things hard for you.’

  ‘That’s not what I meant,’ Mr Kennedy insists. ‘I just need you to work with me a little.’

  Deep down, I know he cares about what happens to me. But I don’t want this old man on my conscience too. ‘You know what? Don’t worry about it.’

  Outside I almost bump into Tara.

  ‘Hey,’ she says, awkwardly.

  ‘Hey.’

  ‘What did Mr Kennedy say? Does he know you’ve been missing classes?’

  ‘Didn’t think you’d noticed,’ I grunt.

  She turns away, annoyed. ‘Don’t worry about it.’

  ‘Tara,’ I take her arm to stop her walking away. If anyone can stop me driving myself crazy, it’s her. ‘Can we go somewhere and talk?’

  ‘Now?’ she hesitates. ‘I’m supposed to be meeting …’ her eyes wander over my shoulder. I follow her gaze. ‘Ethan,’ she says as he approaches. ‘He’s helping me with my rehab.’

  ‘Good for him.’

  I split. I go searching for Aaron and find Kaylah instead, dancing down at the skate bowl near the beach with the regular crew.

  She dances over to me. ‘Hey stranger!’

  ‘You seen Aaron?’

  ‘Hey Kaylah, how’s things?’

  ‘Have you seen him?’

  ‘He’s gone up north. Why?’

  ‘Our sentencing hearing’s next week.’

  She exhales sharply. ‘I’ll kill him.’

  We watch the dancing for a while, but I can’t get into it. I nod towards the beach and she walks with me, wrapping her arms around herself.

  ‘I’m sorry, Christian.’

  ‘Yeah, me too.’

  We sit down and watch the waves for a while. Then she starts talking about the flats, about my old school and dance classes at the Y, all the trouble we used to get into.

  ‘Remember that time,’ she says, over and over again, story after story. None of it bad stuff, just a bunch of bored, hyperactive kids, bouncing around a few tiny flats, or running wild through Malabar.

  ‘His gran actually had a rolling pin, remember?’ she finishes one story.

  ‘I remember you and Aaron on the other side of the street laughing at me, letting me cop all the abuse.’

  ‘Price you pay for being an idiot.’ She grins at me. And I think, this is the girl who knows me best, knows what I am and likes me for it, doesn’t expect me to be something else. And I think, stuff it. Stuff everything. I lean forward to kiss her.

  She pulls away. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Haven’t you ever thought about it?’

  She shakes her head. ‘Too much history.’

  It doesn’t faze me. I feel this weird energy seeping into me. Nothing matters, I realise. The thing I’ve been dreading. It’s just going to happen. One day soon, I’ll be in court, Aaron won’t show, and I’ll be sent to juvie. I’m like a man with seven days to live. How do I want to spend that time? Imprisoned in the Dance Academy? Or living? Really living?

  ‘Aaron’s not coming back. Is he?’

  ‘He might.’

  ‘I can’t think about it anymore, I don’t care.’ It feels good to say it out loud. I shout it into the world: ‘I. Don’t. Care!’

  ‘Yeah you do.’

  ‘No. No, I’m done. The future can be whatever it’s gonna be.’ I pull her to her feet. ‘I don’t want to sit anymore,’ I tell her.

  ‘What do you wanna do? You want to dance?’ She pops a move.

  ‘No. I want to skate.’

  ‘Boring. What am I supposed to do? Sit around and watch?’

  ‘So go home then.’

  She glances at me, worried. Somehow I know she’s going to stick around.

  Sammy finds us at the skate bowl. It only takes me a second to realise that he must have called my mobile, and Kaylah told him where to find us. I don’t care though. I’m happy to see him.

  ‘Sammy!’ I skate up to him, jump off my board and give him a man hug.

  ‘Is he drunk?’ Sammy asks Kaylah.

  She shakes her head.

  ‘Just high on life,’ I tell him. ‘Oh come on, you’re not here to give me a lecture are you?’

  ‘Well … no.’ Sammy glances at Kaylah. ‘You could have told me what was going on, though, bro.’

  ‘You told him?’ I ask Kaylah.

  She doesn’t even bother to look embarrassed. ‘Course I did.’

  I shrug, cause it doesn’t matter anyway. Nothing matters, except, ‘Come on. I’m starving.’

  ‘Burgers,’ Kaylah tells Sammy, knowing me as well as I know myself.

  ‘Best burgers. Wait here.’ I skate over to the kiosk on Beach Road and order six with the lot.

  ‘Seriously one is enough,’ Sammy says, pushing the other one away.

  ‘Next weekend I’ll be eating prison food,’ I tell them, relishing each mouthful.

  ‘Ugh, will you stop it,’ Kaylah scowls.

  Sammy sides with Kaylah. ‘My aunt’s a barrister. I can talk to her, get some legal advice.’

  ‘Sammy, I’m sick of advice. I’ve got one week left of freedom and I’m going to enjoy myself.’

  ‘Then you’re an idiot,’ Kaylah snaps.

  ‘I’m sorry you feel that way.’

  ‘You make one massive mistake and then a whole bunch of really good things happen for you and you’re going to throw them away because Aaron let you down. Again.’

  ‘Out of my hands.’

  Kaylah charges off down the beach. She’s just like the others after all, I decide, wanting me to be more than I am.

  ‘She’s always like that,’ I tell Sammy. I nod at the burger sitting beside him. ‘Go on, have another one, we haven’t even started on today’s list of things to do.’

  I take him to my favourite spot on the top of the rocks, overlooking the whole beach.

  ‘We’re jumping,’ I tell Sammy.

  Sammy squints down at the water.

  I pat his shoulder. ‘Trust me it looks worse than it is. There are no rocks. Aaron and I used to do it all the time.’

  ‘May I ask why?’

  I look at him, and smile. ‘Cause life is short Sammy.’

  I step off the rock. It always feels like it takes ages to fall, the air pushing up at you, the moment where you seem to be suspended in time and space. Then you hit the water and time speeds up. It’s a rush.

  I wait for Sammy. For a second I think he’s going to wuss out, but the truth is, he needs this almost as much as I do. He hits the water next to me. We swim in together and drag our sorry carcasses up on to the beach, collapsing in the sand.

  ‘That was awesome!’ he shouts.

  ‘Told ya.’

  ‘You were right.’ He pauses. ‘But you’re wrong about your court hearing. You’re running away, just like Kaylah said.’

  ‘What am I supposed to do?’

  ‘Gee I don’t know, get legal advice and keep going to class so that you get a reference from the Academy?’ Sammy says it like it’s the easiest thing in the world.

  I feel a lump swell up in my throat. ‘I was there. We robbed the servo. We totally did that guy over.’ And I realise that’s where this energy is coming from. It’s relief. Heady, feverish r
elief. I want to be punished. I want to serve time. I want my guilt, this guilt that I carry around with me all the time, I want to get rid of it.

  ‘You going to do it again?’ Sammy asks me.

  ‘What do you think? I regret it. Every day.’

  ‘Exactly. So why are you sitting around here? They need to know that.’

  I look at him. And I think if Sammy can forgive me, maybe … ‘You know,’ I tell him, ‘you’re like a forty-year-old man trapped in a geeky sixteen-year-old body.’

  So I go back to school with Sammy. In the days leading up to the court date, I throw myself back into my dancing. I want to earn my reference, earn back Mr Kennedy’s support. I don’t want special treatment, or to take any shortcuts.

  ‘That’s it,’ says Patrick, critiquing my technique. ‘You’re really committing.’

  Sammy sticks beside me, as if he’s afraid he’s going to lose me to the dark side again. My dark side.

  ‘It’s about keeping your eye on the prize,’ Sammy says. ‘Let me hear the magic words.’

  ‘Suspended sentence,’ I mutter.

  He cups his ear with his hand. ‘Sorry, what was that?’

  I don’t say it any louder. ‘Suspended sentence.’ But I appreciate his efforts, his faith in me. It’s just a relief that someone is in my corner.

  Suspended sentence. I can do this. I can.

  CHAPTER 14

  Deep down, I know Aaron will come back before the hearing, and he does, showing up at the Academy when Sammy is at Shabbat, and I am, for once, alone. Of course he doesn’t just say hello, like normal people. He grabs my bag and pretends to run off with it and, not realising it’s him, I take the bait and give chase. It’s all some great big joke, but I can see he’s scared and I wonder if he just wanted to make sure I’m alone, away from the Academy.

  ‘Get your gear, mate,’ he says. ‘Let’s go surfing. Old time’s sake, eh?’

  We sit at the beach, surfboards beside us, and it is like old times–same beach, same waves. Same us … sort of.

  ‘How many hours do you reckon we’ve spent out here?’ Aaron asks me, wistfully. ‘I don’t know if I’m going to survive jail.’

  I flinch. ‘The Legal Aid lawyer says that’s not the case if we make a decent impression.’

  ‘If you do.’ He looks at me. ‘You’re a good kid at a fancy ballet school. I’m the bad influence who led you astray … Christian, I’m eighteen, I’m the one who took the knife. They’re not going to let me out of this with a slap on the wrist.’

  I hadn’t thought about it like that before. I stare at him. He picks up his board and runs back into the surf, calling me in after him.

  It’s not like he asks me to take the fall.

  ‘Listen,’ I say, as he walks me back to the Academy. ‘What if … what if I tell them I had the knife? You wouldn’t go to jail then?’

  ‘I couldn’t ask you to do that,’ he says, gazing over at the city skyline. He squints in my direction, and then says softly, ‘Would you?’

  I take a breath. ‘We’re best mates. We’ve got each other’s back, right? Same as always.’

  He smiles tightly. Nods and reaches a hand over and squeezes my arm. He doesn’t have to say anything.

  ‘Christian, can you read your statement and confirm it’s an accurate record of events?’ the lawyer asks me.

  I take it and hold it in my shaking hands. I hear Mr Kennedy say something about a model student, and the lawyer reply with the words ‘no prior convictions’ and ‘led astray’. It’s clear my case is against Aaron. The way that I stay out of juvie is by sending Aaron to jail.

  ‘I need to change this statement,’ I tell them. I swallow. ‘It says here I didn’t know about the knife. I did know. It was mine.’

  Outside, Sammy is furious with me. ‘Do you want to go to juvie?’

  ‘You heard him. I’m a model citizen.’

  ‘The knife changes everything, Christian.’

  ‘I don’t remember you getting your law degree.’

  ‘We were on track, I don’t understand–’

  Aaron’s waiting for me outside, sitting halfway up a flight of steps.

  ‘Done,’ I tell Aaron, trying to forget Sammy standing behind me. I grip Aaron’s hand. ‘We’re sweet.’

  This time, instead of running, instead of skating, what I really want to do is dance. When I first came here, dancing was a reminder that I was in a sort of prison. It was a reminder of my crime. Now I feel free, because all of a sudden it’s the thing I stand to lose. This could be the last time I dance in this place and I push myself like I never have before.

  Sammy and Kaylah find me in the studio.

  ‘Ballet boy!’ Kaylah grabs the remote and turns down the music. ‘Thought I’d check out the famous Academy. Figured it was my last chance since you’re not going to be here much longer.’

  ‘You two friends now?’ I ask Sammy.

  ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ Sammy says, and slinks out of the room.

  ‘He’s a good mate,’ Kaylah says.

  I know what she’s getting at. ‘Unlike Aaron?’

  ‘You’ve changed your life. He’s doing the same old stuff, with the same old people.’

  ‘You should go home, Kaylah.’

  But she’s not going to make it easy for me. ‘Is this what you were trying to do?’ She leaps into the air and spins. She’s not intimidated by the space, she owns it, dancing her way through the beats. ‘A whole year at this fancy dance school, hey? Maybe I should audition.’ I watch her. And she’s right, she’s fresh and raw and has heaps of energy, exactly the way I was a year ago. I can see though, in spite of myself, where her technique lacks discipline. Watching her I can see how far I’ve come over the year.

  She stops, and looks maybe even a little wistful as she gazes around the practice room. That brief flash of longing on her face ignites something in me, too.

  I walk her out.

  ‘I knew you’d end up in a place like this,’ she says.

  ‘It could have just as easily been you.’

  ‘No. It’s like you’ve got this thing around you. Like a light or something. You’ve got to stop feeling guilty for getting chances.’ She hugs me close, and it feels good. ‘I love him too, but you don’t owe him this.’

  I can’t sleep and I can’t bear the bright, friendly noise of the common room. I take my skateboard outside, wanting to stay close so I don’t miss curfew. Because I’m a good boy. A model student.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Tara stands under a streetlight. Sammy’s number two weapon. ‘You know everything about me! Every stupid little thing!’

  ‘You knew about Aaron.’

  ‘You let me think it was shoplifting. I didn’t know it was a knife and a criminal record. How could you not tell me that?’

  ‘What do you want to know, Tara?’ I don’t want her pity. I don’t want her self-righteous, it’s-all-about-me, pained eyes fixed on me. I just want her to go away. ‘You want to know that I robbed a service station? That we scared the guy so much he hasn’t worked since? Or do you want to know that for about a year I slept on Aaron’s couch every night. That he was the only person who gave a crap?’

  ‘Christian …’

  ‘Maybe you want to know that every member of my family has screwed up their life and I’m probably going to do the same. Is that the kind of stuff you want to know, Tara?’ But it’s too late to play Patrick’s trust, unity and communication game. ‘You don’t know me,’ I tell her. ‘And if you’re honest, you don’t want to.’

  I walk away. I don’t have to turn around to know that she’s slipped back, heading away from the lonely darkness, into the warmth and the chatter and the light.

  ‘After this is over, it’s Indonesia,’ I tell Aaron. ‘You, me, surf. The old dream.’

  ‘You don’t want to go back to ballet land?’

  ‘I don’t think they’d have me back if I’ve been in juvie.’

  He looks shocked. ‘But … with
the references and everything? Even if you say you took the knife, you’re still going to get a suspended sentence, right?’

  ‘Oh yeah, you know. Worst case scenario.’

  ‘They’ve called us in,’ the lawyer tells us from the doorway.

  Before I go in, I tell Sammy thanks. ‘No one’s tried that hard for me before.’

  Sammy nods, seriously. Then a smile creeps across his face. ‘Hey. Check it out.’

  I follow his line of sight. It’s Tara. Kat too, and Ethan, even Abigail.

  Mr Kennedy calls from inside the foyer. ‘Christian. It’s time.’

  As we walk in, Aaron leans towards me and says, ‘We’re going to tell the judge I’m the one who brought the knife.’

  ‘But–’

  ‘We’re not going to argue about this. Tell the truth, yeah? I don’t want you on my conscience.’

  So Sammy gets his wish. Or I get mine, I guess. Maybe Sammy’s the fairy godmother in this case, and saw deeper into me than I was willing to go.

  ‘Let me hear those magic words,’ Sammy calls.

  ‘Suspended sentence.’

  Ethan and Kat raise their glasses in a toast. ‘Suspended sentence!’

  ‘What are you thinking about?’ Tara asks me.

  I smile. ‘The future.’

  The next time I dance, I do it for me. I do it with lightness in my chest. I do it to feel the muscles expand and contract, to get the technique right. I dance for freedom and for the future. I dance because at the Academy, they expect the best of me, but ask for nothing that I’m not willing to give.

  ‘Contemporary: Distinction. Pas de deux: High Distinction. General comment: Christian lives up to his potential.’ I lay the flowers on her gravestone. ‘I just wanted to say thanks, Mum. For making me audition.’

  It feels like she’s close, like she’s listening. I sit down and keep talking. There’s suddenly so much to say.

  ‘So anyway, there’s this girl …’

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