Plastic Budgie ePub by Olivia de Zilva

Author:Olivia de Zilva [Zilva, Olivia de]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2025-07-16T11:10:13+00:00

‘You will eat from the canteen each day at ten and twelve. There you will find a range of fresh food to choose from.’ I tried to ask her a question but she interrupted me. ‘There will only be Australian food available, but we find that our foreign students get more sustenance from proteins that aren’t filled with MSG.’

As the eight-thirty school bell rang, the principal led me to my classroom, which was air-conditioned and decorated with painted portraits of past scholars rather than posters left over from Scholastic book fairs. The desks were a deep oak with no rude engravings. The principal introduced me and the girls in the class gazed at me like a shiny new toy. I tried to smile at each Lucinda and Lillian, but I got disorientated at the blur of delicate porcelain doll faces. I took a seat next to a tanned specimen named Fran who was to be my buddy for the day. Her golden hair was woven into delicate braids that sat lightly on her shoulders. She didn’t so much smile at me as she did examine me up and down like Dr Howser. She wrinkled her nose a bit and offered me some gum. I smiled and then realised that the taste of Poh Poh’s jook (rice porridge with ginger and fish) was still on my lips. I chewed the gum before anyone would notice. The classroom teacher, an older woman with a combover and whose own breath smelt like mothballed antiques, invited me to the front of the class to sing the school song as some kind of ancient initiation ritual.

I struggled through the classes and felt myself shrink smaller and smaller, back into my comfortable cocoon where I was okay with not having any friends. Soon enough, I wasn’t the fun and shiny new toy, I was the rusted one that was left in the corner. When I saw Natashya, I told her about this isolation and how I was beginning to be okay with being alone.

When my mum came to parent-teacher information night in her shop uniform, a dirty grey polo and brown trousers stained with newspaper ink and instant coffee, the other mothers in Prada and Chanel couture asked if I was a scholarship student. Because of my mum’s busy work schedule and my dad’s night shifts, my grandparents would usually accompany me to parent assemblies or school gatherings. As Gong Gong got older, he hobbled with a cane and his face was shaped more and more like a gherkin. Poh Poh was loud and often scared the other parents with her accent and intensity, although she always meant well. When the principal spoke at assembly about the importance of school pride, my grandparents would whoop and cheer. When the teacher showed off what we had made in art class, Gong Gong would beam and state velly good, velly velly good at all of the girls until they ran away. Each morning, they would still sneak

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