Lisdalia by Brian Caswell Page A

bleeds a lot?”
    â€œHalf a dog!”
    What did I tell you? S.I.C.K. Sometimes, I think she’s totally beyond help. But I couldn’t help laughing; she looked so funny trying not to crack up at her own joke.
    Tanja’s really great to have around. You can’t stay unhappy when she’s in one of her jokey moods — which is just about all the time.
    I’d got to school feeling pretty down. Again. And she must have noticed, because she slipped into her routine almost as soon as she saw me walk in through the gate.
    Boundary Park High School. Government-issue dark-red brick, with the trim painted a sort of unripe apple-green — some kind of effort by the Education Department to add a little life to the place. I guess. They’d planted trees, too. Mostly mimosa, wattle and bottlebrush and a few other natives. We learned the names in one of our first science lessons in the place. At least, I did.
    That’s one of my big problems. I learn things. I’ve never had any trouble remembering facts. Gets you great marks at school, but it makes it pretty hard to keep friends. It worked like that all through Primary and after the first two weeks of High School, it didn’t look like anything much was going to change.
    That’s why Tanja was so important. She knew how hard it could be to fit in, and she didn’t give a damn. She certainly wasn’t the most incredible looking girl in Year Eight. In fact, if you showed a school photo to a total stranger, she probably wouldn’t even rate a mention. She wasn’t ugly either, mind you, but with Tanja it didn’t matter. She could have looked like the princess or the frog — it wasn’t her looks that grabbed your attention, it was her personality. You couldn’t ignore her. She simply wouldn’t allow it. And she absolutely wouldn’t allow you to feel down.
    â€œOkay, what’s got four legs and flies?” This time, she didn’t even wait for a reply. “A dead cat!” She paused for effect, then punched me gently on the shoulder. “Flies! Get it? A dead cat.”
    I smiled slightly.
    â€œCome on. Out with it. What’s up?” Suddenly, the clown’s mask was gone and she was serious. That’s what I really liked about Tanja. She wasn’t half as stupid as she liked to have people think she was. She understood.
    Not many people did.
    I could talk to Michael, of course, and to Miss Vegas, my English teacher, who just happened to be Year Seven coordinator — but apart from them, Tanja was it.
    â€œWhat do you mean, ‘What’s up’?”
    I really didn’t feel like talking, so I tried the standard bluff. As usual, it didn’t work.
    â€œCome on, Lisdalia. You could chop firewood on your face. What is it this time?”
    â€œOh, nothing. And everything. Just the usual. I get so damn mad sometimes. Tony and John can go wherever they want and do whatever they want, and no one says boo. They never do a damn thing around the house, either, but me …” I trailed off. It was an old complaint and I didn’t see any point in boring her — or myself — by repeating it for the million-and-seventh time, when there wasn’t a thing anyone could do about it.
    â€œWhat happened?” She wasn’t going to let go so easily.
    â€œI got grounded again. For a week.” She just nodded. Nothing new in that; she was waiting for the full story. I went on: “You’d think I’d learn, wouldn’t you. I’ve been living in the same house as the guy for almost twelve years, and he’s always been the same, but I keep pushing, as if one day it might make a difference.”
    I slumped down on one of the benches in the quad and watched a group of boys cheating at handball. “ ‘Wash the dishes,’ he said. No ‘please’, just ‘Wash the dishes’. I had my History assignment half-done, I hadn’t even