Maddie in the Middle by Julia Lawrinson

Author:Julia Lawrinson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Fremantle Press
Published: 2019-11-18T16:00:00+00:00

Samara changes out of her uniform, and lends me some of her clothes, a loose-fitting blouse and the kind of pants I’d been wanting for ages. The blouse smells lemony, and when I look in the mirror, I don’t recognise myself. I look sophisticated, older. A bit like Samara.

‘You stay here with Dayna,’ Samara says to Tom, who has emerged from his room, still looking sulky.

‘Can’t we go to the oval?’ he says. ‘I want to practise.’

Samara just looks at him, and he lowers his head. ‘Okay, okay.’

I pick up my bag from near the door but Samara says, ‘Leave it.’

‘Okay,’ I say.

Outside, the sun has disappeared behind a cloud, and a cool breeze wafts over us.

‘Where are we going?’ I ask as we walk.

‘To the shopping centre,’ Samara says.

‘But it’s over there.’ I point in the direction of the school.

‘Not that one, of course,’ Samara says.

I don’t know why she says ‘of course’. As we walk, I try to think of things to say. I really want to know more about Samara’s dad, and Tom’s accident, and where they’d lived before, but I can see how difficult it has been for Samara to tell me as much as she has, so I don’t ask. I think about bringing up Katy, or the piece we are doing for music, or the fact that school holidays are in a couple of weeks and I am probably going to have to go to Port Hedland. But each thought, as I say it to myself, sounds silly, after what Samara has told me. So we walk in silence. I comfort myself by thinking that Samara is normally happy enough without having to talk. That hopefully she doesn’t feel that I am boring.

In the shopping centre, Samara seems to glide down the shiny floors leading to the supermarket.

‘What are you getting?’ I ask.

‘We’re just looking,’ Samara says.

‘I should have brought my purse,’ I say. ‘I could have got you something proper to eat.’

Samara turns and gazes evenly into my eyes.

‘Just watch,’ Samara says.

We wander up the aisles. I am feeling hungrier and hungrier, as we wander through the middle of the supermarket, shelf after shelf of chocolates, nuts, chips.

‘Dayna likes these,’ Samara says, picking up a small packet of salty nuts.

‘I could have bought some for her,’ I say. ‘Can we go back and get my bag?’

I think of the packets of two-minute noodles, the tins of baked beans, the jar of peanut butter, the cereal. I don’t know how you would cook two-minute noodles without a kettle, and even though I like baked beans and cereal fine, it isn’t something you’d want to eat for dinner every night.

‘Don’t worry,’ Samara says. ‘So, Maddie, if you had the choice of whatever you wanted here, what would it be?’

‘Oh,’ I say. ‘This – that – that – and that.’

‘Is that all?’ Samara smiles.

‘My dad says I’d get sick of them if I ate them all the time,’ I say. ‘I disagree.’

We wander up and down a little more, picking up things that catch our eye, putting them back again.

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