The Piper's Son by Melina Marchetta Page B

other woman has an accent.
    On my left is Mohsin the Ignorer and I don’t know why it gets to me that he doesn’t talk, but it does. I think he’s a racist and that makes me sound petty, but that’s the way I’m calling it. Except there’s something that makes me want to talk to him, which could have a lot to do with the fact that I don’t talk to many people these days except for Georgie and Sam and my sister on the Net. Did you know Anabel was living in Brisbane with my mum? Shit, not seeing that kid kills me and some days I feel like just stealing Georgie’s car and driving up to be with them. I haven’t spoken to my mother in eleven months, you know. She sends me a text message a couple of times a week and I know she speaks to Georgie almost every second day. I don’t have the guts to go there, because I’m ashamed. I called her something pretty bad when she left my dad. Don’t worry, because I won’t repeat it in this e-mail. I know how you feel about that word. But I’ll never forget the look on her face.
    Except there seems to be other stuff to stress over, like the whole thing with Georgie having this baby. Not even when the Sam betrayal happened or when Joe died did she seem this bad. I think a nervous breakdown is coming and it’s coming fast, and I have front-row seats to it all. Not that I’ll be able to stop it, because I would have no idea how, but in a strange way Sam seems to help. When he’s around, she’s less highly strung and anxious, and somehow she allows him over a lot more because I’m there. It’s like I’m the buffer, so I’m going to allow myself to get buffed for the sake of Georgie’s sanity.
    Write back.
    See ya,
    Tom
    He takes to getting to work at the Union earlier each day. Most of it is about boredom, but usually whoever arrives first has dibs on the MP3 player the moment the day shift clocks off at five. Lately Francesca’s been going through the I-miss-Will compilation he burned for her and it’s a whole lot of Bloc Party and Augie March and not quite Tom’s thing, and then there’s what he calls Ned the Cook’s emo music and Justine’s Monsieur Camembert, and worse still, Stani’s talkback.
    Today Francesca is in even earlier than Tom, taking advantage of the quiet time until the five o’clock crowd comes in. She’s practicing guitar in the back room and he hears a few of the words but doesn’t recognize them and figures that it’s one of her own.
    “Change it to a minor,” he tells her from the doorway.
    She pauses for a moment but does what he says. Although she’s got a good ear for music, her bends are dodgy and he stays to listen.
    “You bend like a girl.”
    He walks over and changes the placement of her three fingers on the neck of the guitar.
    “And cut your nails.”
    “I love my nails,” he hears her mutter as he walks out.
    To: [email protected]
    From: [email protected]
    Date: 30 July 2007
    Dear H-anibal,
    Yes, for the billionth time, Georgie is very excited about you coming for the Christmas holidays. Don’t say she didn’t tell you on the phone last night a thousand times, because I heard her. Tell J-Lo she finally told Nanni G and Bill about the baby and I get a sense Nanni G wants to come up earlier because she rings almost every second night.
    And no, I don’t think it’s uncool for a girl to play the trumpet. Can you stop listening to Trixie the Antichrist and Ginger the Ninja? If you give up playing just because you’re measuring yourself up against someone else’s cool meter, then I’ll be pretty disappointed, Anabel Georgia.
    Love, Tom
    P.S. And may I remind you that I don’t care if Luca Spinelli is only one and a half years older than you. He’s in Year Ten. You’re in Year Eight. What kind of a pervert is he, thinking he can send you a playlist to remember Sydney by? Is he your counselor or something? Have you left Sydney for good and are never coming back? Nip this in the bud or I’m telling J-Lo and