Crow's Breath by John Kinsella

Author:John Kinsella
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780995359406
Publisher: Transit

SHINE YOUR LIGHT ON ME

Damien first noticed her at church. He’d come in late, as usual, slipping into the half-space at the end of the pew next to his family. She was across the aisle and three places in, but he could see her well enough if he delayed kneeling to pray, and if he delayed getting up after he’d prayed. His dad gave him a disguised clip under the ear for dawdling, and he grinned when he saw that she’d noticed. The manner of gaining her attention had been established. He was an adept class clown.

School started again, and they were in the same class. Second-year high school. Though it was a district high school and went to Year Ten, Damien overheard her telling other girls that she would only be at the school for one year – her parents were sending her to a private school in the city. I couldn’t get in this year because it was too short notice, she explained, with just the right tone … my dad didn’t know he’d end up here. That opening speech brought her equal admiration and enmity according to the social split that had existed among the girls since the first grade. Damien knew that she was not in his league (he hated that expression) – and anyway, the up-themselves girls wouldn’t allow it now, no matter what she actually thought of him. The snob thing was a fortress that could not be breached.

They only let Damien mix with the ‘sluts’, as they called them – the bush pigs and the slags. They were much better than the snob girls anyway, you could talk to them and they’d listen to music or go out into the bush and even muck around a bit. But wherever a No Trespassing sign was put up, Damien wanted to tear it down. Gerry was the best of the bush pigs. She was a good laugh, and smart as well. The snobs really hated her. She didn’t get good marks because she read sci-fi books when she should have been doing school work, but she was real sarcastic and didn’t seem to care what the snob girls said to her. And she put so much black around her eyes everybody said she looked like a zombie. But Damien didn’t think that much about her, and she didn’t seem really interested in him. She laughed at his jokes in a strange way – an almost-laugh.

Damien did have some cred with the snobs – they enjoyed him making a fool of himself and getting told off by the teachers. They laughed. They laughed a lot. Stop clowning around, Damien, you clown. The double clown carried some weight. And he did his clowning with gusto and even, sometimes, with something like wit. He made fart noises, fell off his chair, and imitated the teacher’s mannerisms. He ensured he got suitably low grades to keep in with his own crew, and picked on the odd kid in a lower grade to show that he meant business.

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