‘What were you doing out there?’ I said to Wally.
Wally barely opened his mouth, mumbled something that I couldn’t hear. He pointed at Ian.
‘Where’s the torch, Wally?’ I said. ‘Where are your shoes?’
Wally looked down at his hands, opening and closing his fists. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. His face was white and there were lumps of sick all down his chin.
‘Thanks,’ Cassie said to Ian. ‘Thanks for getting him.’
Wally wandered past us into the yard. ‘I’m going now,’ he said, pointing to the house. ‘I’m going inside.’
Cassie looked back out into the paddock and Ian pulled out his smokes from his pocket. They wandered over to the gate as Wally thudded up the stairs.
I looked at Tilly. She was still clutching her elbows, shrunken in on herself like a prune. ‘What were you doing out there?’ I asked.
‘Nothing,’ she said. She reached up to brush the hair out of her eyes and her fingers trembled. Then she saw me looking and clasped her hands together like she was holding something, hiding something.
‘I thought you went home,’ I said.
‘I was looking for Wally.’
She looked pale as a seed. I just knew she was lying.
‘What’s wrong with you?’ I said. ‘Did you go to the knackery too?’
‘Just leave me alone, alright?’ she said. ‘You’re a little kid. You don’t know anything.’
‘Fine then,’ I said.
Tilly kicked at a rock by her foot, looked out to the paddock. There was a smear of blood running between her legs. I’d seen older girls at school with blood on their skirts, knew what it meant.
‘Tilly’s bleeding,’ I said, loud enough so Cassie could hear. I pointed between her legs, scrunched up my nose. ‘Do you have your period or something?’
Tilly glanced down, looked over to Ian.
‘See?’ I said, glad to have embarrassed her. ‘I do know things.’
Cassie walked over to us. ‘Are you alright?’ he said to Tilly. He went to put his hand on her shoulder, but it hovered in the air for a second, fell by his side.
‘I’m fine.’ She squeezed her legs together, her hands hovering around the front of her shorts.
‘You shouldn’t have gone out there alone. Your mum would kill me if she knew I let you go out there by yourself.’
‘I wasn’t alone,’ she said, shrugging.
Cassie took a step back. I couldn’t see his eyes, but his shoulders went tense.
He turned to Ian. ‘What did you do?’ he said.
‘Hey?’ Ian said.
‘She’s bleeding,’ said Cassie.
Ian shrugged. ‘You heard Cub,’ he said. ‘She’s on her rag. Why are you making such a big deal out of this?’
‘Did something happen?’ Cassie asked Tilly. ‘In the paddock?’
‘Fuck off, Cassie,’ Ian said.
‘Nothing happened,’ Tilly said.
Cassie grabbed Tilly by the wrist. ‘Tell me.’
Tilly yanked her hand away, took a step back. ‘Why don’t you just run off and tell Mum about it, then? I know you’re completely obsessed with her.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Cassie said.
‘It’s so obvious. But she thinks you’re a little kid. She doesn’t even like you.’
Tilly stood there for a moment longer. She’d seemed brave at first, yelling at Cassie like that, but then she seemed to deflate. She looked over at Ian, and then she turned and ran.
I got that feeling creeping up my legs, entering my blood through my skin, of something happening over my head, something I didn’t understand. What Tilly had said about Cassie being obsessed with Helena, her bleeding, and why Cassie was so mad at Ian for bringing Wally home. Cassie looked over at Ian, scratched his foot at the ground. My gaze shifted to Ian, and he came into bright focus. Ian’s eyes glowed but there was no expression on his face; it was blank as a spoon. He looked right at me, but through me, as though he was looking through glass, like I was made of glass and he couldn’t even see me standing there.
12.
WHEN WALLY WOKE UP THE next day his sheets were as filthy as he was, mucky with dirt and grass from his clothes. I was half asleep, and watched him lean up on his pillows and chug a glass of water next to his bed. He hadn’t changed into his pyjamas, and he reached his hands under his t-shirt, behind his back.
When he got up he was slow, shrivelled, like he was trying to take up no space in the world.
‘Are you okay?’ I asked.
He ignored me.
I got out of bed and followed him into the bathroom. ‘You look dead or something.’
He peeled off his shirt, turned around so he could see his back in the mirror. I let out a little yelp, clamped my hand over my mouth. It looked like he’d been mauled by something wild. There were welts down his spine, bruises made up of tiny purple and red dots. Some of them had started to blister and burst, clear yellow pus weeping onto the skin like sap. Wally touched one of the wet flaps of skin and then stuck his fingers under his nose and sniffed.
‘What happened?’ I said. I went to touch one of the sores but he flinched and sat down on the floor. ‘Did Ian do that?’
‘No,’ Wally said.
‘I bet he did. Tell me what happened in the paddock. What happened to Tilly? She was bleeding all down her legs. Cassie thinks that Ian did something to her.’ I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it, and was more than sure something had happened. Cassie wouldn’t accuse Ian over nothing, and there’s no way Tilly would have gone into the paddock alone either.
‘Don’t remember.’
‘Why are you bleeding then?’
Wally turned his face to me, stared in an awful way. ‘Because of you.’
‘What?’ I said. ‘What did I do?’
‘Yesterday,’ he said. ‘You were dragging me around in the kitchen. This is because of you.’
‘Oh,’ I said. I remembered the sound of screeching against the lino, but Wally had been laughing. I was surprised that I could make such a bad mark without even realising.
‘Go away,’ he said, jabbing his hand out to try and hit me on the leg even though I was standing across the tiles. ‘Just ping off and leave me alone.’
I felt a wave of heat move through my insides, felt furious all of a sudden—not just at Wally for trying to make me feel guilty and keeping me out of things again, but at everything, at everyone. I lunged across the room. Wally was still on the ground and I tried to reach his back so I could whack his sores. I wanted to scratch off the sticky scabs and make them bleed again.
‘Get away,’ he said, thrashing his legs and kicking me in the stomach. ‘Get away, you dumb slag.’
I ran into our room and locked the door. I tried to think of something to do to his stuff, but I couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t think of anything good. I spat in the glass of water next to his bed, ripped off a fingernail and left it in his shoe.
I stayed away from Wally all day, but the next morning he woke me up again as he climbed out of bed. It wasn’t even daytime yet, and the tip of the sun had turned the air TV blue. He usually woke up early to watch cartoons, so I didn’t pay attention to where he was going, what he was doing. But when I got up to pee Wally was standing by the sink.
‘What are you doing?’ I asked. Normally I wouldn’t care about peeing in front of him, but I was still annoyed that he was mad at me.
‘I can’t get the smell off,’ he said, holding his hands under the tap. His voice was small. ‘Come smell them.’
‘I don’t want to smell your stinky hands,’ I said.
Wally left the water running and shoved his wet hands in front of my face. I sniffed them, then shrugged. ‘They smell like soap,’ I said.