Free Saving Francesca by Melina Marchetta Page B

looking over my shoulder. She’s always done that. Wherever you are, whoever you are, she’ll always look over your shoulder to see if there’s someone more exciting to speak to. It used to make me feel paranoid.
    I don’t answer. They haven’t noticed Justine Kalinsky. They never noticed her at Stella’s either, except to make fun of her.
    “I rang the other night,” I tell Michaela, changing the topic.
    “Really. Did you leave a message?”
    “Kind of.”
    “Is everything okay?”
    I feel awkward with Justine sitting next to me. She takes out a music book and studies it intently.
    “My mum’s sick,” I say in a hushed tone, turning my body to face them so Justine Kalinsky doesn’t hear.
    “Oh my God, Francis. Is she okay?”
    I look at them and I don’t know what to say. It’s the first time I’ve said it out loud, and I find I can’t really describe what Mia has. People want symptoms. They want physical evidence. This thing my mum has is like the X-Files. It can’t be explained to the non-believer, and I’m just not ready to describe it at all right now. Not to someone who’s looking over my shoulder.
    Thankfully, the dreaded Tina is walking down the aisle. I’m about to snicker something to the girls, but she arrives first.
    “We’re getting off at the Forum for coffee,” she says before walking away, and I realize she’s speaking to Michaela and Natalia.
    “Cool,” Natalia says.
    This time it’s my turn to look over their shoulders. “You hang out with Tina? We hate Tina.”
    “We hang out with everyone,” Natalia says defensively.
    “She’s a bitch.”
    “Once you get to know her, she isn’t.”
    What is it with that argument? Why is it that you have to jump through hoops of fire to find out that someone’s decent? The fact that someone is a bitch on the surface says heaps about them.
    “She treated us like dirt.”
    “No she didn’t. She only treated you that way. You take things too personally, Francis. You always have.”
    Justine’s stop approaches and she presses the button. She bumps past me, but I’m still looking at them.
    “Come for a coffee with us,” they plead. “We haven’t spoken for ages.”
    They look as if they mean it.
    “Another time,” I tell them, and I get off the bus with Justine. I just don’t want to be on the bus for another second. Justine doesn’t ask why I’m following her home. Justine Kalinsky never questions anything. She doesn’t even look smug. She just walks, her bag bumping against her hip, her ginger hair coming out of its clasp.
    “Are you okay?” she asks after a while.
    “Just having one of those days.”
    “No. I mean are you okay in general? You don’t seem to be. You haven’t all term.”
    It’s the most we’ve ever spoken. I don’t want to be her bosom buddy and I don’t want to tell her about my mum.
    “It’s just Sebastian’s getting to me,” I half-lie. “At least the Pius girls seem to be having a better time than us.”
    “I’m having a great time.”
    I glance at her.
    “No, it’s true,” she says, “compared to Stella’s. I hated Stella’s.”
    “Then what about all the protest Tara Finke goes on about? Why do you go along with her if you love the place?”
    “Because she has every right to. It’s unfair what we have to put up with there. But that doesn’t make me hate the school. It’s better than complaining about nothing or discussing the tragic return of the off-the-shoulder T-shirt,” she says, referring to Natalia and Michaela’s conversation and revealing a bit of a bitchy streak. Which I kind of like.
    After a while, I ask, “What was wrong with Stella’s? We had nothing to complain about.”
    She shrugs. “Yes we did. People just convinced you that we didn’t.”
    “‘You,’ singular or plural?”
    She looks at me. “You think people chose not to hang out with me, don’t you? But it was my choice. I chose not to hang out with them. The only people I wanted to hang out