Cataindar

CHAPTER FIFTY SEVEN

Luisa put on her school uniform.  She had grown. It was tight around the back… and the front.  Luisa’s Mum laughed a little. “Growing up into quite the young lady aren’t we!”

“Mum god!” Luisa whined.

So embarrassing.

Stacey met Luisa at the gate. 

They began to catch up from summer. Luisa had gone with the story that she had to have her kidney out because it was infected. Stacey walked along with her usual swagger, “Oh my god babe, do you like, have a scar?”

Luisa did have a bad scar, though the doctors said it would heal in time, right now it didn’t look good.

“Yeah, I do,”

“Can I see it?” Stacey stopped.

“No Stacey, you can’t. It’s not funny”

Luisa stared at her, eyes hard.

Stacey rolled her eyes and put her heavily ringed hands up. “Oh aw’right. Don’t crap your pants.”

Luisa was back in school. They were year ten’s now.  One more step up the pecking chain. She saw Terry stalking through the corridors, looking preoccupied.  She hadn’t seen Matthew. She would see him in English tomorrow. She swallowed hard.  They hadn’t spoken since the hospital visit.  Luisa cringed. The memories from being in psych ward were blurry to say the least, but that one was clear. She absentmindedly felt for her pendant. 

Gone. What I would give to have it back.

Later that day, she was in the toilet. Washing her hands, thinking about Cataindar.  She wondered what was happening there.  How were Finn, Clearwater, Thorne, the abbot, the catains, what had happened since the king and Darcius escaped. 

It was real.  It was, wasn’t it? She had a massive cut in her stomach to say it was. 

She shook her head. Back here in White Manor, with lessons and the drama of the school already bubbling up, Cataindar felt so far away.  She was deep in thought she hardly noticed the door open and someone enter. 

She was looking down watching the water bubble down the drain.  She heard a sniff behind her.

It was Oliver.  He was looking her up and down.  He spoke.

“So… You come back from summer looking kinda’ different. I’m thinking maybe you wanna be ma girl, I’m finking I give you a bit of a trial run, you get me?”

The tap was still running. Luisa was frozen. “Oliver what are you doing in the girls.  If you want to talk, let’s talk outside, yeah?”

“Nah.” His eyes met hers. “For what I got in mind girl, right here is jus’ fine.”

Luisa’s heart began to beat, her old friend fear was at her shoulder.  She could sense where this was going.

“What do you mean?”

“You wanna let me have a go, get me?”

His eyes flicked over her body.

Luisa took a sigh. 

No.  She had fought a nine-foot giant rat.  She wasn’t taking this any more.

 “You could be better than this Oliver. Not some creep, people actually respect you in this place. That’s power – you could help people, instead of creeping up on girls in the toilet.”

Oliver’s eyes narrowed.

“Bitch I wasn’t asking.” He took a step closer and reached out.

Luisa reacted, grabbing his hand she quickly twisted it, just as Finn had taught her and carefully placed her foot behind Oliver’s knee she guided him to the floor.

“Ooaff!”

Oliver was pushed to his knees looking up in total bafflement and surprise at Luisa.

She twisted his hand.

“Arrrrrrgh,”

“I’m disappointed.”

Oliver’s eyes narrowed. “Fuck you.”

“No swearing.  I could break your hand” she twisted it again and Oliver grimaced.  Sucking in breath.

“Do it then – see what happens of you do.”

“No Oliver, because I don’t have to, see – I’m showing you how easy it is not to be a dickhead.”

Oliver’s face contorted as he wrestled with more simultaneous thoughts than he had had all day.

Luisa let go. 

Oliver looked down.

“See you later Oliver.”

Luisa walked out the bathroom, head high, leaving Oliver on his knees staring at the floor.

That day as Luisa walked home, Stacey was chatting away, apparently Oliver had stopped a bunch of year eights beating up some year seven loser.  For no reason. At all. He just, like, helped. No one could understand it, he was usually the worst one for beating up the younger years. Luisa, looked up at the first leaves starting to turn to a deep red.  She let her hand bounce along the wall. 

Maybe being a year ten would be OK.