Bangs by Stevan Eldred-Grigg

Author:Stevan Eldred-Grigg [Eldred-Grigg, Stevan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781742532707
Publisher: Penguin Random House New Zealand
Published: 2013-03-18T00:00:00+00:00

Meridee

Right, ready to rock! Saturday night, eleven o’clock. Brent’s out with his rugby mates. Mum and Dad, having tucked themselves up in bed, have left their door open as always. The sound of their snores makes it easy for me to make my getaway. I’ve been lurking. Now, grooved up in my gear and caked with makeup, I sneak out the back door, tiptoe down the driveway and nip into Olivine Street. Only a hundred paces or so, in my toe thongs, and I’m at the bus stop.

Toe thongs are trendy.

They’re cold, though. I stand at the bus stop, waiting for the ten past eleven to Cathedral Square. I glance down at the dark grass. No silver shillings. I stare up at the night sky. The sky, bitter, shows the hard glitter of a few stars through the smog. My breath comes out in clouds of vapour. I’m freezing, shivering, cause the last thing my sexy threads can do is keep you snug. Style not snug is my watchword. A scooter comes parping along. Astride its black vinyl saddle is a grinning young guy.

‘Where ya going?’ he says, his grin growing wider. ‘Need a lift?’

I check him out. A white boy. Okay looking. Sixteen years old, I’d say. Too young. I’m after a guy who knows a thing or two. I want a guy with at least a few stray dollars.

‘Come back when you’ve got a car,’ I say, giving him a bit of a smirk.

‘Aw, go on,’ he says. ‘Just a ride around the block.’

‘Piss off.’

He looks hangdog and parps away.

The bus, alight with yellow in the dark night, turns a corner, shitting diesel smoke. I clump up the steps. The bus wends through the suburb. Sharon jumps on at Shirley Road. Seated side by side, we look over each other’s outfits.

‘Whaddya think of my eye makeup?’ I ask her. ‘Too much?’

‘You can never have too much eye makeup in a nightclub,’ says Sharon. ‘It’s gonna be really dark inside.’

She’s been to a club once already.

‘What about the disco ball and the strobe lights? Won’t they be bright?’

‘Yeah, but they flash off and on, and only on the dance floor.’

Cathedral Square. The cathedral, walled in by pillared and arcaded old buildings from last century, and glassy new office blocks from our century. Cars, buses, neon lights. I’ve got two dollars in my purse, and that’s what it costs to get into the club. Our plan is to find some guys with a car to get us home, after we’ve had sex.

‘Hope they’ll let us in!’ I say.

The club only allows you inside if you’re eighteen years or older and have bought a food ticket, or if you haven’t bought a food ticket but are twenty years or older. No way I can afford a food ticket, so I’m aiming to pass as twenty.

‘Course they will, look at those!’ says Sharon, pointing at my boobs. ‘Wish mine were a third of yours instead of so fucking flat.’

‘Hope we get ourselves

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