beside me.
I was so stunned I could barely move my mouth to reply. ‘Uh, yeah,’ I finally managed. I looked up at him through my hair.
‘Good,’ he said. He glanced at Cassidy, who was now sitting in the front row, and shook his head. ‘Cassidy can be such an idiot sometimes. I guess you get what you give.’
He started off towards her and then turned and smiled at me. ‘Your accent sounds cool.’
I suddenly couldn’t look at him a second longer. When I did dare to peer up again he was standing next to Cassidy, taking a handkerchief from his pocket. He held it gently to her mouth to help staunch the flow of blood. What an old-fashioned, gentlemanly gesture. It was kind of hot.
He addressed the bus as she moaned: ‘She’ll be all right, it’s just a split lip.’
A volunteer emergency crew turned up. One man directed traffic, such as it existed for Summerland, to a detour. The rest of the brigade got to work clearing the tree from the road. Eventually everyone in the bus had calmed down enough that the driver decided we could get moving again and put the bus into reverse.
Just because Cassidy was so nasty didn’t mean I had to be. I decided I was glad she wasn’t hurt too badly. I was actually smiling as we continued on our way.
But as I walked home later my expression turned from a smile to a frown. I couldn’t help thinking about what had happened with the tree . . . and how angry I had been just before it happened. It almost felt like I had caused it to come crashing down like that. But that was just not possible. Was it?
Then again, freaky stuff was always happening around me. I wasn’t a loner for nothing: if you hung around me long enough something strange always happened. I didn’t know why. But this was the first time anyone had ever got hurt.
At dinner that night I decided I couldn’t tell my parents about the tree incident. It was just too weird, and dinner was turning into the usual drama anyway. The last thing I wanted was to cause even more problems.
My mother had gone to a lot of effort to roast an enormous piece of beef. It looked and smelled great . . . if you were a meat-eater. I wasn’t, so it stank and looked disgusting to me.
‘Mum, I can’t eat that, you know I can’t. I’m vegetarian.’
My mother rolled her eyes and turned to my father. ‘Keith?’
Dad glared at me. ‘Vania, you were brought up eating meat and you are perfectly healthy. God put animals on this planet to feed us, and you are going to eat that meat.’
All my life, there had been no getting around my father’s authoritarian attitude. He wasn’t a decorated senior police officer for nothing – he excelled at and relished keeping people in line. And being his only child, I was unfortunately always on his front line. I knew from previous experience that at this point, one more word from me would mean I would be grounded for a week, so I kept my mouth shut.
Mum dished meat and vegetables onto a plate for me. ‘Honey, I cooked some nice green beans for you.’
I smiled at her a little before picking up my fork and gingerly stabbing one of them. I put it in my mouth, but
I could taste the rank flavour of dead cow. I put my fork down again – the bean still attached.
My father clipped me over my ear with his hand. ‘EAT!’ he bellowed.
I watched my mother smother her food in salt and I elected to not put any on mine from that day forward. Somehow I would maintain my individuality in this house. I didn’t want to end up stuffy and repressed like my parents. I picked up the fork again and ate the bean.
Two hours later I was finally in bed, still trying to forget the bus accident. At dinner I’d managed to get away with not eating any meat by cutting it into small pieces and hiding it in my serviette. But I had eaten the beans. And then I’d washed up and taken out the garbage, and by the time I’d said goodnight my father had almost smiled at me. I generally kept up the ‘dutiful daughter’ act as much as I could stomach it.
Now I was alone. Well, as alone as you could be in a house with