lacking, but Plum closes the lid satisfied, and shunts the briefcase under her bed.
She has a bike she used to ride when she was younger: lately she feels ridiculous upon it and prefers to walk. Outside, the heat presses on her head like the muscular palm of a revivalist. She lingers at the end of the fence, where the weedy corner of Coyle lawn meets the manicured edge of the Wilks’.
Bernie:
that’s the name of Mr. Wilks, the man who drives the Datsun — she couldn’t remember it before. The kind of man who says, “Another week gone,” when you meet him putting out the rubbish bins. Plum hangs against the fence, picking at timber splinters. She could knock on Maureen’s door, maybe get some party leftovers; she could tell her neighbor about the lunchtime conversation between herself and her friends. “They laughed at me,” she would say, “because of what you said. You promised you’d be my friend, but then I never saw you, your door was closed to me.” The thought makes Plum push away from the fence — she is, as always, forsaken. She is like the poor bird who is stoned to death in
A Girl Named Sooner,
which was a made-for-TV movie, but really good anyway. She crosses the road in depressed wandering steps; then remembers, on the footpath opposite, that she is superior, that suffering makes her strong. The cult leader’s hand pushes hard on her head, but Plum ignores it. The heat is mighty, but she is mighty too.
The suburb in which she lives is muted and leafy, tall-treed and tile-roofed. Many of its residents have survivedwell beyond their necessity. Although the neighborhood is her home just as her bones are her own, Plum has never learned the street names, nor the names of the gardeners she sees in flower beds, nor the names of the flowers. Once in a bluish moon, an ambulance pulls up outside one of the houses; generally, however, the neighborhood is a place of nonevent. The loudest noise comes from mynas chastising cats, and from motor-mowers. Nothing happens, there is nothing to do, but Plum has hardly realized that yet. So far, it has been enough.
The neighborhood is served by a cluster of shops that line one side of an almost-busy road. Journeying, Plum traverses a cricket field where cricket is never played. The park hasn’t been mown for some weeks, and pink daisies dot the grass. It’s only when she is halfway across the oval that she remembers being stung by a bee while crossing this same grass wearing these same sandals one afternoon last summer. The bee, trapped between instep and sandal sole, had writhed in frenzy while Plum, screaming, had scrabbled in the grass like a broken-backed mule. The recollection makes her scan the daisies tensely, driving from her mind her usual park-induced thought, which is that she wishes she had a dog — a floppy cocker spaniel, or a bony Afghan hound. At home and at school she forgets the idea, as she would probably forget the dog. She is not really a nurturing person.
She arrives at the shops sweating, the preacher’s hand on her head very tight and crawly, a hand which commitsunpleasant sins. The shopping strip consists of a milk bar, a fish-and-chippery, an accountant’s, and a hairdresser who deals with hair as an abattoir deals with life; as well as a news agency, which Plum enters. She wanders the length of the greeting-card rack until she reaches the party invitations. A poor or a daggy person might make her own invitations, but Plum is neither of these, so she needn’t go to that trouble. After some indecision, she selects the dancing silhouettes of
There’s going to be a party!
over the cavorting cavies of
Party’s happening!
There are twelve cards in the box, so she will be able to make mistakes and give a spare to herself, as a joke.
Her fourteenth birthday. Her fifteenth year. Invitations that suggest youthful maturity combined with fun. Plum is happy. She spends her mother’s change on a bag of Pop Rocks.
Paranoid about bees, she takes
She has a bike she used to ride when she was younger: lately she feels ridiculous upon it and prefers to walk. Outside, the heat presses on her head like the muscular palm of a revivalist. She lingers at the end of the fence, where the weedy corner of Coyle lawn meets the manicured edge of the Wilks’.
Bernie:
that’s the name of Mr. Wilks, the man who drives the Datsun — she couldn’t remember it before. The kind of man who says, “Another week gone,” when you meet him putting out the rubbish bins. Plum hangs against the fence, picking at timber splinters. She could knock on Maureen’s door, maybe get some party leftovers; she could tell her neighbor about the lunchtime conversation between herself and her friends. “They laughed at me,” she would say, “because of what you said. You promised you’d be my friend, but then I never saw you, your door was closed to me.” The thought makes Plum push away from the fence — she is, as always, forsaken. She is like the poor bird who is stoned to death in
A Girl Named Sooner,
which was a made-for-TV movie, but really good anyway. She crosses the road in depressed wandering steps; then remembers, on the footpath opposite, that she is superior, that suffering makes her strong. The cult leader’s hand pushes hard on her head, but Plum ignores it. The heat is mighty, but she is mighty too.
The suburb in which she lives is muted and leafy, tall-treed and tile-roofed. Many of its residents have survivedwell beyond their necessity. Although the neighborhood is her home just as her bones are her own, Plum has never learned the street names, nor the names of the gardeners she sees in flower beds, nor the names of the flowers. Once in a bluish moon, an ambulance pulls up outside one of the houses; generally, however, the neighborhood is a place of nonevent. The loudest noise comes from mynas chastising cats, and from motor-mowers. Nothing happens, there is nothing to do, but Plum has hardly realized that yet. So far, it has been enough.
The neighborhood is served by a cluster of shops that line one side of an almost-busy road. Journeying, Plum traverses a cricket field where cricket is never played. The park hasn’t been mown for some weeks, and pink daisies dot the grass. It’s only when she is halfway across the oval that she remembers being stung by a bee while crossing this same grass wearing these same sandals one afternoon last summer. The bee, trapped between instep and sandal sole, had writhed in frenzy while Plum, screaming, had scrabbled in the grass like a broken-backed mule. The recollection makes her scan the daisies tensely, driving from her mind her usual park-induced thought, which is that she wishes she had a dog — a floppy cocker spaniel, or a bony Afghan hound. At home and at school she forgets the idea, as she would probably forget the dog. She is not really a nurturing person.
She arrives at the shops sweating, the preacher’s hand on her head very tight and crawly, a hand which commitsunpleasant sins. The shopping strip consists of a milk bar, a fish-and-chippery, an accountant’s, and a hairdresser who deals with hair as an abattoir deals with life; as well as a news agency, which Plum enters. She wanders the length of the greeting-card rack until she reaches the party invitations. A poor or a daggy person might make her own invitations, but Plum is neither of these, so she needn’t go to that trouble. After some indecision, she selects the dancing silhouettes of
There’s going to be a party!
over the cavorting cavies of
Party’s happening!
There are twelve cards in the box, so she will be able to make mistakes and give a spare to herself, as a joke.
Her fourteenth birthday. Her fifteenth year. Invitations that suggest youthful maturity combined with fun. Plum is happy. She spends her mother’s change on a bag of Pop Rocks.
Paranoid about bees, she takes
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