Stories on the Four Winds by Brian Bargh

Author:Brian Bargh
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Huia (NZ) Ltd

That Last Summer

K-T HARRISON

The last week of that fourth form year limped towards its end. My restless legs wanted to race out of that stuffy classroom and leap into the rest of summer. My wound-up desk-cramped body ached, just ached; surely, surely, and truly; ached to burst out of the too tight and too short school uniform that was keeping me in. Wait, I told myself, be patient. Ever since Monday it had seemed that the clock on the wall had been holding on to time, holding it back, holding it up, holding it still and holding it to ransom. So I waited as patiently as I could – I glared at the clock – I willed it to go the same speed as the thumping noise my racing heart made in my ears, but it only tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tocked at its own sweet pace.

By eight minutes past nine each morning, the sweat that glued my white blouse to my back and stunk-up my armpits had dried and become wet again, dried and become wet again, and dried, leaving the salty residue to sit on my skin, prick at it and make it itch. But I wasn’t the only one with itchy-prickly skin. My friends – Jo, Max, Frankie, Georgie and Belinda – itched too. Ever since the end of October we’d been moaning to one another about having to breathe in the fried onion pong that radiated out of our heating-up sweaty bodies. And although we washed thoroughly each day before school, dusted our skins white with talcum powder, sprayed ourselves silly with anti-perspirants, rolled on yards and yards of roll-on deodorant and dotted our face spots with anti-pimple cream, at fourteen years old it seemed we could do nothing to stop the hormonally predetermined sweat, stink, itch, and pimples that plagued us all. All except for the rich girls. They always looked so, so cool. So very cool.

At interval on Tuesday, I’d overheard Diana, Michelle, Paulina and Jacqui talk about the holidays they would have at their family baches at Whangamatā, Whitianga or the Mount.

‘Again,’ Diana said as Michelle nodded her head and Paulina and Jacqui rolled their eyes. In loud whispers, they shared their dreamed-up imaginings with one another – what they would look like in their new bikinis with their bronze tans, their sun-bleached golden hair – and the summer boys they would attract.

‘Those boys,’ Michelle said. ‘They make those six weeks almost bearable.’

‘Shhhh,’ Paulina said. ‘Big Ears is listening.’

‘Oh, let her,’ Jacqui said. ‘Let her dream a little. God knows the dreary lives her and her lot must lead.’

‘Oh yes indeed,’ Diana said. ‘Have you ever been down Rata Avenue? They live in such pokey little box houses. My driving instructor made me drive along that godawful street. They don’t have cars, you see – can’t afford them, so what better place to practise? Of course, you have to mind out for the umpteen children playing on the street.’

‘Really?’ Michelle said.

‘Oh yes,’ Diana said.

‘The actual road?’

‘Yes.

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