Frankie by Shivaun Plozza

a raspberry and then checks her phone. ‘I got to go. School’s almost starting. If I get another detention for being late, Mum will flip. Nepal. Walk me?’
    We run up the steps, two at a time.
    â€˜I’m not really allowed near the school.’
    â€˜So wear a hessian bag over your head. People already think you’re in a cult that only wears hessian. It’s karma. No, I mean fortuitous. Do I mean fortuitous?’
    My phone vibrates. ‘Wait up.’ I hang back a couple of steps from the top. The screen is cold against my ear. ‘Yeah?’
    â€˜That shit turned up?’
    Ugh. Bill Green.
    Cara waits at the top of the stairs, looking down at me. Her dress is so short I’ve got a good view of her pink knickers from here. She motions for me to hang up.
    â€˜How much does he owe you, Bill?’
    â€˜He’s my son. I’m concerned about his welfare.’
    â€˜Oh yeah, you sound all broken up.’
    â€˜You’d be all broken up if someone stole your credit card and maxed it out at some bloody record store you’d never heard of.’
    And there it is. A hot, niggling sensation deep in my chest. The same feeling I got when I hid beneath the cubby house eating Gregory Vu’s lunch because he’d laughed at me for being relegated to the stupid table in Maths. He deserved it, but those spring rolls sure tasted bitter.
    I grip the railing. ‘Record store? You mean Vinyl Underground?’
    â€˜How’d you know that?’
    Shit, shit, shit, shit.
    Cara is giving me big eyes and even bigger hang-up-the-phone charades. I wave at her in a way I hope approximates ‘I’m coming – take a chill pill’. She gives me the finger.
    I hold a hand over my mouth and the phone, and turn away. ‘I just . . . I mean, when you say “maxed out” you mean . . . ?’
    â€˜Four and a half.’
    Shit. ‘Hundred?’
    â€˜Try thousand, little girl. So you can tell that shit-for-brains kid of mine I’m going to wring his bloody neck when I see him. And he’ll be paying me back every cent.’
    Beep.
    I stare at my phone, chest and throat burning.
    I think there’s another c-word I might be about to use.
    â€˜Who was –?’
    â€˜Latvia.’ I wonder if my face is as flushed as it feels. I hurry up the last couple of steps.
    I mean, holy shit just doesn’t cover it.
    Cara wiggles her eyebrows at me. ‘Latvia? That’s an expensive call.’
    I give her a weak smile.
    FOUR AND A HALF THOUSAND? Did he mean Australian dollars or some foreign currency where four and a half thousand is equivalent to five cents? Now I want to take a sledge hammer to my brain and punish it for being stupid enough to think Xavier was an innocent kid who’d been led astray by mean old Shia LaBeouf.
    Four and a half thousand.
    That’s an overseas holiday.
    That’s two MacBook Pros.
    That’s a whole wardrobe of fancy clothes with change left over for about a hundred churros.
    That’s Juliet Vega.
    â€˜Are you listening?’ Cara tugs on my arm. ‘I’m going to be late. Do you want me to get a detention? Oh, and Algeria.’
    I let her pull me along but I can’t even fake a smile right now.
    I’ve got four and a half thousand reasons why not.

I’m
not
talking to Xavier. If I was, I’d tell him what a dickhead he is. Stealing his dad’s credit card to buy me a gift I don’t need, then shoving me against a dumpster and walking away with that smug bastard Nate instead of dropping to his knees and begging me for forgiveness.
    I am
not
speaking to the thieving little bastard, but if I was I’d tell him he can forget about his free kebab. He can forget about me, about dumplings, about a total musical overhaul. He can rot in musical purgatory for all I care.
    I slam the door to my room; it rattles in the frame as I collapse onto the bed.
    I am not