Green Valentine, page 6
‘Of course I’m not suggesting that.’
‘Then what? What’s the solution?’
‘You don’t fail.’ My own voice sounded cold and brittle.
I heard Dev sigh. ‘Well, sometimes you don’t get to decide that. Sometimes you fail, and you pick yourself up, learn from your mistakes and try again. And next time it’ll be better.’
He didn’t understand. He didn’t get it. I couldn’t just try again later. If the garden failed, then Mr Webber would win. Nothing would change, and we’d just go round and round again, forever, until the polar icecaps melted and we all died.
‘Look,’ said Dev, ‘I have to go. I’ll see you at school.’
He hung up without waiting for me to say goodbye. I sat staring at my phone. I knew I wasn’t exactly being a stellar friend. I shouldn’t have been so dismissive of his new crush. But didn’t he get that what I was trying to do was important? My phone pinged again.
Hiro: Are you still out there?
I hesitated. Was I? Hiro and I had shared a moment that afternoon – a connection, and he’d thrown it away. He’d judged me the second he first saw me, and nothing was going to change that. As far as he was concerned, I was a Missolini. I was bitchy and shallow and spoilt. He was never going to change his mind.
And yet …
I wanted to talk to him. He’d understand how I felt. Dev didn’t. Paige wouldn’t either. My parents were too wrapped up in their own dramas to care about little things like saving the planet. Only Hiro. He was the only one who’d really heard me. I turned to my phone.
Me: Yep. Sorry about before, I was busy.
Hiro: Doing what?
I bit my lip.
Me: School stuff.
Hiro: :-(
Me: How has your afternoon been?
Hiro: Oh, you know. Boring detention. Then the usual dramas at home.
I was hurt again by boring detention, but was too overcome with curiosity to care too much about it.
Me: What kind of drama? Did you get in trouble about the detention?
Hiro: Nah, nothing like that. I don’t think they even noticed I’d been in detention. My house is crazy at the moment. A week ago, my perfect sister told our parents that she’s moving out of her college dorm into an apartment with her girlfriend.
Me: They don’t like her girlfriend?
Hiro: They didn’t know she was gay.
Me: Oh! Really?
Hiro: Yeah. Dad’s fine with it, but Mum is … being weird. She likes order. This doesn’t fit her idea of the perfect family.
Me: What about you? Were you surprised?
Hiro: Oh, I’ve known forever. Michi told me when I was five, and she was eleven. Her girlfriend is awesome. Plus the new apartment is in the city and Michi says I can crash there sometimes.
Me: Well, that’s cool. I’m sure your parents will get used to the idea. It must be a bit of a shock.
Hiro: Yeah. They’re supposed to be mature adults though. They could be more supportive. I get why Michi didn’t tell them for so long.
Me: At least she has you!
Hiro: What about you? Any gay siblings? Mad aunts locked in attics? How’s your family?
I hesitated. I hadn’t actually told anyone about Mum and Dad splitting up. Not even Dev or Paige. Every time they’d suggested coming over to hang out, I’d made up some excuse, like we were having the carpets steam cleaned, or a distant relative was staying. I wasn’t quite sure why I hadn’t told them. It seemed too private. And also … a big part of who I was at school hinged on me being, well, perfect. I had this perfect life where I was pretty and popular and smart. I didn’t want to admit that some parts of my life were far from perfect.
But Hiro didn’t think I was perfect. Hiro didn’t know me, or my reputation.
Me: Not great. My parents are breaking up.
Hiro: Wow. That sucks. I’m sorry.
Me: It does suck. Dad cheated on Mum so she kicked him out. I’m not convinced it was the first time, or even that he’s stopped doing it. I still love Dad, but I think maybe Mum is better off without him.
Me: That was a bit of an emotional unload, sorry. I haven’t really talked to anyone about this.
Hiro: That’s okay. I’m glad you trust me.
Me: :-)
Hiro: I like talking to you, Katy. You make being different feel less lonely.
Me: Are you lonely?
Hiro: If there’s anything I’ve learned from comic books, it’s that people who are different are always lonely.
My thumb hovered over the phone, ready to reply. But I didn’t know what to say. Lonely? I’d never been lonely. I’d always had friends. More than I needed, and then plenty of others who wanted to be my friend. And even though my parents didn’t seem to like each other very much anymore, I knew that they both loved me. But was I different? And what did that even mean?
I thought about how Dev sounded on the phone, and realised I’d barely seen him and Paige over the last week, except in class. My brain had been so full of the kitchen garden, and Hiro. Dev’s latest romantic adventure and Paige’s obsession with reality TV seemed … inconsequential. Maybe I was becoming different.
Hiro: I’ve been thinking about what my superpower might be.
Me: Yes?
Hiro: I can’t find it. I’d love to ride dragons, or be able to turn into a wolf, or control some kind of elemental force, like darkness or fire or water. But none of those feel right. I don’t know, maybe I don’t have one. Or worse, maybe I’ve got a lame one, like HEART.
Me: Um, isn’t it obvious?
Hiro: What?
Me: Your superpower. It’s obvious.
Hiro: It is the opposite of obvious.
Me: You make things grow.
As soon as I’d hit send, my hands turned clammy and I wished I could take it back. How could I have been so stupid? My blood ran cold, and I waited for a reply.
And waited.
And waited.
I’d blown my cover. Hiro had to realise who I was now. It was all over. He’d be furious. Wouldn’t he?
Ping.
Hiro: What makes you say that?
Um. You know that girl at school who you kind of hate?
Me: You said you did a lot of gardening. With your Nonna. When you were little.
I needed more.
Me: Oh, and because you’re Shopping Trolley Guy. You start off with one shopping trolley, and you grow them until you have a whole stack, that you can use to corral baddies. Or form bridges to rescue poor orphans dangling off cliffs. Hiro: My superpower is growing tomatoes and trapping villains with shopping trolleys.
Me: Yes.
Hiro: … okay. I don’t know if that’s enough to get me into superhero school, but if you say so, Lobstergirl, then it is so. Me: Good. Anyway, I should probably go to bed. It’s late. Hiro: I’m already in bed.
I felt an excited shiver run over my skin. Hiro was in bed. What was he wearing? Pyjamas? Boxer shorts? Nothing? I wondered what his room looked like. What kind of doona cover did he have? Did he sleep on one pillow, or two? What posters did he have on his walls?
This was bad. Very bad. I’d thought that my feelings were going away, but they weren’t. They were getting stronger. I brushed my teeth as quickly as I could and changed into pyjamas, slipping into bed with my phone clutched in my hand.
Me: Are you still awake?
Hiro: Just.
I pressed my phone against my cheek for a moment.*
Me: Goodnight, Shopping Trolley Guy.
Hiro: Sweet dreams, Lobstergirl.
*
* One of the biggest drawbacks of my no-car vow was having to eat at local restaurants. Like everything else in Valentine, our local eateries are either fast and multinational, or old, ugly and utterly joyless.
* I think about you all the time. Your eyes are like two sparkling sapphires in a pool of milk EW EW EW.
** … Yeah, I’m not reproducing any of those.
* I know, I know. I was probably giving myself some sort of horrific face cancer.
After all my efforts in the garden, I finally had something to show. Lettuce, basil, tomatoes and capsicum had all sprouted and were valiantly pushing up into the light a little further each day. And Hiro was thawing a bit, too. He was still sullen, but he’d talk to me about gardening. It made my insides feel like they were on spin cycle. Seeing Hiro, being physically close to him, was electric. Our texting sessions were getting longer and more intimate. Sometimes it was as if he was right there in my bedroom with me. Sometimes I felt I’d go mad because he wasn’t. So standing next to him in front of a garden bed, close enough that I could reach out and touch him, was a kind of exquisite torture.
Sometimes I’d forget that it was Katy that he liked, and that he only barely tolerated Astrid.
Something had changed between me – Katy-me, not Astrid-me – and Hiro. It wasn’t as though we’d done anything, or even said anything. And he still didn’t know that I was Lobstergirl. But something had changed. Texting in bed – even though we weren’t texting anything, you know, sexy – still felt intimate. It wasn’t something casual friends did. Texting in bed brought a closeness. A privacy. A promise of more to come.
He slouched in twenty minutes after the end of school as per usual on Thursday. I’d spotted him loitering by the canteen with his friends Kyle and Barney. I couldn’t believe Hiro was friends with such stonery losers. Kyle and Barney always looked half asleep, and seemed to move at a different frame rate to everybody else. They said incomprehensible things to each other and guffawed loudly, but never spoke to anyone else or participated in class. I didn’t see the point of being alive, if the only thing you were ever going to do was slouch around and eat salt and vinegar chips. What on earth did Hiro see in them? Hiro, who was smart and sensitive and cared about the world? Hiro who texted me such sweet things deep into the night?
I tried to tell myself that if the rumours were true, Hiro was also the one who had broken into his homeroom before school one morning and filled it with about five hundred plastic cups, each one half filled with water. This was horrific for three reasons – firstly they had to be removed one by one so as not to spill the water and ruin the carpet, which meant the teacher had to skip homeroom and English. Secondly, plastic cups. Thirdly, water. What a waste! And for what? But maybe Hiro hadn’t been the one behind it all. Maybe it had been Kyle or Barney’s idea. Maybe. But if I was honest with myself, I knew it was too clever for Kyle or Barney.
‘Hey.’ He nodded at me and went to check on the seedling trays.
In some ways, it was a victory. He’d never greeted me before. He’d sounded almost friendly. But I wanted more. I was hungry for it. I nearly pulled out my phone and texted him. I nearly told him everything.
‘Tomato seedlings looking good,’ he said.
I went over to look, but I could barely focus on the little fuzzy green tendrils. Hiro was close enough to touch. Close enough that I could smell laundry detergent and deodorant and something else, a boy-smell that made my heart pound. I wanted to touch him. I ached to touch him.
‘I got a reply from the mayor,’ I said, in a desperate effort to keep things civil.
‘Really?’ said Hiro, looking dubious. ‘An actual reply? Not a form reply, or something written by an underling?’
‘An actual reply.’
It had been pretty exciting, really. Mayor Tanaka had written to me personally, thanking me for the information about the kitchen garden program, and commending me for my efforts. Then she’d told me how committed she was to transforming Valentine into a truly beautiful suburb – a suburb where people actually wanted to live. The way she’d described it all … it was exhilarating. Finally, things were going to change. I’d replied immediately with my ten-point plan to make Valentine the most sustainable suburb in the country, and was checking my email every five minutes to see if she’d written back.
Hiro was looking sceptical. ‘Did she actually say she was going to do anything? About the food supply deal with the canteen?’
‘It was definitely implied,’ I said.
‘Implied.’
‘Trust me,’ I said. ‘She’s on our side.’
Hiro raised his eyebrows. ‘If that’s what you want to believe.’
I was getting irritated with him again, but confusingly that made me want to kiss him even more. ‘Why are you so anti-mayor?’ I asked. ‘Do you know her or something?’
‘I’m sorry?’ Hiro drew back. ‘You think that because she has a Japanese name, we must know each other? Do you think we’re all related?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Of course not. I—’ I shook my head, confused, and took a deep breath. ‘Never mind. What do we do with these tomato seedlings?’
Hiro shot me a long, scowly stare, but turned back to the tray of seedlings. ‘Once they grow their second set of leaves, we pick out the best-looking ones and put them in their own pots.’
‘Okay.’
‘But today we’ll sprinkle them with a little diluted Seasol.’
He walked away, and I felt myself being drawn after him. There was nothing else for it. I pretended to stumble, and fell against him. My cheek brushed his hoodie and I put out my hands to steady myself on his arms. He felt warm and solid and strong and real. More real than anything I’d ever touched before. I closed my eyes, trying to drink it all in so I could remember it and replay it over and over in my head.
‘Whoa,’ said Hiro, pushing me upright again. ‘Have you been drinking?’
I mumbled an apology. What was wrong with me? I was supposed to be Hiro’s supervisor. Faking accidents just so I could grope him was sexual harassment. I was a terrible person, and I needed to get a grip on myself.
‘So I read this interesting article last night,’ I said, trying to focus my mind on something else. ‘There’s this organisation in the UK running a program where they give refugees and asylum seekers garden allotments and help them to grow their own vegetables.’
Hiro shrugged. ‘So?’
‘So it’s such a great idea. Helping people find a new home by encouraging a connection with the land. Enabling them to be self-sufficient.’
‘Um, I think you’re mistaking me for someone who cares.’
My desire evaporated, and I felt myself physically recoil. Why was he so nice to Katy, and so mean to Astrid? This double-identity thing was no fun. I’d spent so long wishing Batman or Spiderman would take off their masks so their romantic interests could know the truth. Yet every day I dreaded my unmasking more and more. I knew it was inevitable, but I also knew that it definitely wasn’t going to be like it was in the movies.
‘Are you okay?’ asked Hiro. ‘Sure you’re not drunk?’
I felt drunk. This was crazy. This wasn’t me. I’d decided not to do this anymore. I’d already returned the lobster costume. I had to let it go.
My phone pinged on Saturday afternoon as I was working on an essay for English.
Hiro: Have you given up on the lobster campaign?
Maybe just one more text. Just to clarify my position. Something cool and noncommittal.
Me: Yeah. It wasn’t very effective.
Hiro: You converted one poor ignorant soul.
Me: You didn’t sign my petition.
Hiro: I guess you’ll have to come back to the shopping centre so I can.
Me: Nice try.
Hiro: It was so boring today without you. I stacked at least two hundred trolleys, but didn’t see a single supervillain or dangling orphan. Just morons stuffing their faces with junk food.
Me: Too bad. Maybe next time.
Hiro: Maybe. Anyway, I missed you. You’re the only thing that makes Saturday worthwhile.
Me: I’m sure you don’t work at the supermarket out of the goodness of your heart.
Hiro: Yeah, but that’s only money. Money doesn’t make you FEEL anything.
Me: And I do?
Hiro: … I realise that you can’t see me right now, but I am looking embarrassed and attempting a manly cough. Now I’m going to try changing the subject.
Okay, so the not-texting thing clearly wasn’t working. Fireworks were exploding inside me. I couldn’t stop thinking about his smell, and the feeling of his arms under my hands.
Hiro: So how goes your plan to save the world?
I thought about the email from the Mayor. But I couldn’t tell Hiro about that – he’d guess the truth.
Me: The Hairy Marron is still endangered. There still aren’t any wind turbines along the dried-out creek bed. Our recycling program is a joke. But I’m still fighting the good fight.
Hiro: So … what exactly do you want to achieve?
Me: I want to make people care. I’m sick of being the only one who cares.
Hiro: Good luck with that. People suck.
Me: *sigh* I’m beginning to think you might be right.
Hiro: You will come to understand that I am ALWAYS right.
Me: Uh-huh. Sure.
Hiro: So … when do I get to see you, then?
Me: You want to see me?
Hiro: Yes. Ideally sans claws.
Me: Why?
Hiro: Because you’re funny and interesting and I’d like to know what you look like when you’re not a lobster.
Me: What if I’m ugly?
Hiro: I don’t care. You’re not ugly on the inside, and that’s all that matters to me.
Me: That is very sweet. But we’ll see if it holds up when you realise that my face is an oozing mass of slimy tentacles.
Hiro: Sounds hot.
Me: You have no idea.
Hiro: So?
Me: So what?
Hiro: Will you come out with me? Tentacles and all?
Me: Like … a date?
Hiro: Gah. You know I don’t like using that kind of Missolini cultural bullshit. Could we say … a Meeting of Like Minds?
Me: If it’s my mind you’re interested in, then why so eager for me to leave the lobster suit at home?
Hiro: You’re cruel.
Me: I know.
Me: …
Me: I’m waiting.
Hiro: You’re going to make me say it?
Me: Yes.
Hiro: Fine. Would you like to join me for a Meeting of Like Minds with Possible Romantic Consequences?
