Content Notice
Mention of drug use and suicide
My mother named me after Princess Charlotte because she’s obsessed with the royal family. It didn’t matter that every second girl born that year was named Charlotte, or that Princess Charlotte has had her fair share of scandals. Royal scandals are like heresy to my mother. She outright refuses to believe the family can do anything wrong.
Any day now, Australia will become a republic, and I’m genuinely worried for my mother’s mental health when it happens.
She named my older brother Louis, of course. He’s a year older than me and was the obsession of many girls in my class last year.
“Louis Fines is so fine.”
That’s what they used to say. I think they did it just to piss me off, and it worked. Nobody talks about Louis any more because he graduated, which is a relief. There’s one less piece of ammunition for Madison Brittley to hurl at me.
Louis used to tell me to ignore her. He’s like that. He can let things roll off his back, but words pierce me and get stuck inside. They burrow deep into my chest and explode in a mushroom of hatred. Madison is clever and, even when I try my best to hide it, she can see the cloud of rage growing inside.
“Awe, don’t get angry, Charlotte,” Madison says. “We’re just jabbing.”
She sits now at the front of the class, whispering with Holly Truman, their mousey blonde heads pressed almost together, hair pulled into identical low ponytails, all neat and clipped in place. They follow the rules, these girls. At least, they follow them in front of teachers; plaid ties fastened tight over the top button of pale blue winter shirts, no makeup or piercings, no jewellery or nail polish or anything that could distinguish a person as an individual. That’s not the point of Clariston Christian College.
“I asked you to give feedback on the class.” Mr Foster holds a pile of papers in each hand.
Oh, God. He’s printed our feedback. What a waste.
“These students gave a negative review”—he waves the thicker stack—“Coincidentally, they haven’t completed their latest assignments. These students”—he tilts his head towards three pieces of paper in his left hand—“they finished everything and gave positive feedback. So, I think you can see a trend.”
Foster is utterly incompetent, and the reason I may fail year twelve literature. That’s right. Can’t-get-her-nose-out-of-a-novel Charlotte Fines might fail VCE Lit because Foster has no idea what he’s doing, or how to prepare us for exams. He’s standing in for Mrs Grant who was excellent, but sick, and now he’s fumbling around trying to make it look it’s our fault that the class is noxious.
No. That’s just wrong.
I raise my hand.
Foster takes a deep breath. “Yes, Charlotte.”
“Sorry, but you’re wrong about that. I’ve finished everything, and I gave a negative review.”
His nostrils flare. “Don’t bait me.”
“I’m not trying to bait you. It’s just inaccurate, what you said.”
“Don’t bait me,” he screams, and thrusts a finger at the door. “Get out of my class.”
Madison swings around in her seat, eyes alight with glee. Standing to leave, I stare daggers back at her, and her face morphs into a goat’s skull; cracked white bone, cavities where the eyes should be, dark brown horns sprouting at sharp angles.
“Holy shit!” I take a step back, heart erupting in my chest.
The goat disappears, and Madison frowns in amused confusion.
“Unacceptable,” Foster growls. “Get out. Straight to Mr Watson’s office.”
A sleep deprived hallucination. I’m sure of it. I’ve been reading too much horror and staying awake half the night doing it. Waiting alone in Watson’s office makes my fingers itch for the pages of a novel. It’s bleak in here. All brown and beige and fastidiously tidy.
“Charlotte. In here again?” Watson marches in and takes a seat behind his desk.
“Yessir.” I cross my arms.
He shakes his balding head, and gropes around for something on his desk he can’t find. The man always has the worst rashes around his mouth, like he’s been savagely fishing with someone prickle-faced. “It’s not good enough. You’ve caused too many disruptions lately. I’ll have to call your father.”
I suck my lips in and swallow my laughter. “Sure, but I don’t think he’ll pick up.”
Watson’s head shoots up. “Why wouldn’t he?”
“Because he’s deployed in North Korea. He left just after D.C.”
His face opens into a look of surprise and respect, probably thinking Dad is a hero.
Of course, it’s brave of my dad to join the invading forces, and of course they needed to go because you can’t let a country drop a nuclear bomb without repercussions, but I just wish it wasn’t my dad. We need him here.
Watson shakes off the distraction. “Well, your mother then.” He opens a draw and retrieves an ancient phone. Fractured glass face. Touch screen. He has to hold the thing to his ear.
“Go right ahead,” I say.
He lets out a soft huff and the phone rings against his hairy lobe. It goes on ringing and ringing and Watson frowns. “Well, I’ll try again later. You’ve got detention in Mrs Delgado’s office, and get that hair off your face, for goodness’ sake. I don’t want to tell you again. Do you understand?”
As I open the door to leave, my fingers shake a little, so I shove both hands under my armpits.
Stupid goat-headed Madison Brittley.
“Get in trouble again today?” Louis calls out as I rummage in the fridge for a post-school snack.
“Yep.” I grab a block of tasty cheese, unwrap it, and take a bite while I head into the living room, where Louis reclines on the couch, drinking a can of VB.
“They do not like you, do they?”
“The feeling is mutual.” I shrug. “Only a few months left, then bye-bye.”
It’s one of those perfect Victorian winter days when the surf is big and clean. Our living room overlooks the Southern Coast. Wattle and eucalypt border the scene as A-frames peel neatly over the bank out front.
I realise the TV isn’t on, which is weird. “What have you been doing?” I ask Louis. “Just sitting here drinking?”
Louis gazes out the window at the vast ocean view, takes another sip, doesn’t answer. His black curls are dry and there’s no sign of salt in his hair.
“Did you surf today?” I ask.
“Nah.”
Silence stretches between us, and an uneasy feeling percolates in my gut. Louis has been strange since Dad left. Lacklustre. He used to surf three times a day.
“You okay?” I sit on the couch next to him and take another bite of cheese.
“So, why did you get in trouble, you little menace?” He smiles his big Louis grin, the one that used to make the girls at school fall in love. There’s something about his eyes, though. They don’t belong to my brother.
Louis worries about the future. I know that much because he got blackout drunk at Freddie Chan’s party and went on a rant about how we’ve all been screwed by a government who tackled climate change like a sloth crossing a four-lane highway.
“We are going to pay for it,” he said. “They’re going to die off and then we have to live in an apocalyptic hellhole if we don’t get blasted first. It’s too late. The world is a big old bucket of shit, Char, and nobody cares. Actually, that’s not true.” He wiggled a finger in my face. “They care, but they care about the wrong things, like Mum and her bloody royal family. Or Claritson. Half those teachers think it doesn’t matter what we do cause the ‘rapture’ is going to take them away, which is totally unbiblical, Char.” He tipped towards me, whisky spicy on his breath. “Where do they get these ideas? Seriously, where?”
I’m pretty sure he doesn’t remember saying that stuff. I don’t ask him about it now because I’m unsure if it would be helpful or make things worse. Instead, I joke about Foster’s ineptitude and Watson’s insistence on phoning North Korea. I leave out Madison Brittley. That mental burp is better forgotten.
“Those guys are just on a power drone.” He guzzles the rest of his beer and stands up. “Get through without getting expelled, and you’ll never have to think about them again.” He walks off toward the kitchen.
“Where’s Mum?”
“Monarchy Preservation meeting.”
Of course, she is. I didn’t really need to ask.
The next day, Watson calls an assembly. We’re all packed into the auditorium and trying to be quiet. A few people whisper here and there. Watson stands on stage, face redder than ever. His eyes dart towards Mrs Delgado, who sits on a plastic chair, pushed up against the wall. She gives him a gentle nod.
“We have some devastating news to share. Last night Madison Brittley passed away.”
An electric tingle sweeps across my chest and down my arms, making me weak and breathless. Whispers wrap around me, and some girls cry.
“Overdose. She was at Holly’s house.” The quiet voice comes from behind.
I sit frozen, listening.
“No way?”
“Yep. Definitely an overdose. She’d been doing it for a while. Jenna was there. She called the ambulance.”
“Holy crap.”
“Yep. What a guffin. She’s probably burning in hell.”
I whip around at this last statement and find it’s Nick Scott who said it, school captain.
“What are you even talking about?” I say and realise I’m too loud, because everyone else falls silent to listen. “Are you God? Do you get to decide who goes to heaven and who goes to hell?”
“Charlotte.” Watson’s voice booms over the crowd, but I don’t care.
“Madison is dead.” I spit the words in Nick’s face. “Have some respect.”
Nick purses his lips, anger in his dark eyes. “You’re acting like you two were locked, but didn’t she kind of hate you?” he whispers, too quiet for the teachers to hear.
It’s too much. I stand and push my way out, cracked bone and sharp horns vivid in my memory.
Mum cracks my bedroom door open. “I’m sorry to hear about your friend.” She walks in and sits on my bed.
I close Dad’s battered old copy of T. Kingfisher’s What Feasts at Night and place it on my bedside table. My stomach gurgles, but there’s no way I could eat.
“It was drugs, wasn’t it?” Mum puts a hand on my doona-covered leg and applies gentle pressure.
There’s no use telling her we weren’t friends because Mum isn’t interested in Madison Brittley.
“No,” I say. “I’m not doing drugs. No. I don’t think I’ll ever do them. Okay, Mum? Satisfied?”
Her face crumples, and she hides behind her hands, sniffling.
I sigh and pat her shoulder. “Sorry.”
She looks up at me, tears running down her cheeks. “I just couldn’t take it if … if…”
“Stop it, Mum. You’re stuck with me, okay?” My chest pulls so tight I can hardly breathe. This happens every time life throws us a challenge.
Mum cries. Louis and I comfort her.
That night I dream of Madison Brittley snorting a line of cocaine through the bony nasal cavity of a goat’s skull.
Weeks go by and school slips into a normal routine; Madison left to memory.
The moment he thumps his hand against the rusty bonnet of my car, I know it’s Mr Watson. “Charlotte.” His livid voice comes muffled through my closed window.
“Oh God,” I say to Benjamin Sinaga, who sits in the passenger’s seat. The two guys in the back laugh and duck their heads, trying to see past our surfboards stacked in the boot, protruding through the lowered middle seat.
I roll the window down slowly and stare up at Watson’s fuming face. “Hello.” I try to make the greeting as casual and infuriating as I can.
“Do you have notes from these boys’ parents permitting them to be in the car?”
I look at the guys and pull a face, though underneath my heart is beating hard. I’m sick of getting in trouble. Sick of this endless anger smouldering in my lungs.
I turn back and Watson’s head is gone, replaced by the skull of a massive Grouper fish; tiny teeth prickled along a thick jaw, creamy bones overlapping like origami, a slew of grotesque and gaping sockets. “Do you have notes?” His voice is revolting, like gravel scraping across cement.
Stunned, I glance at Ben, who frowns at my silence.
“Charlotte!” It’s Watson’s normal voice again, his red raw mouth moving, eyes and nose back in place. “My office tomorrow morning, Charlotte. Get out of the car, boys.”
My hand shakes when I knock on Watson’s door the next morning. I’m not sure I can handle another apparition. I spent the night awake, heart thundering in my eardrums, wondering how long it takes a person to descend into total madness. If I see anything today, that’s it. I’ll tell Mum and get her to take me straight to the Acute Psychiatric Unit.
“Come in.” The voice belongs to Mrs Delgado, which surprises me. I poke my head around, and find her sitting in Watson’s seat, face bone white. “Charlotte.” Her voice is a thin whisper.
Something is wrong.
“Where’s Watson? I mean, do you know where Mr Watson is? He told me to—”
“Charlotte.” She shakes her head, and her eyes fill with tears. “Greg’s been in an accident. A car accident. He…” She wipes a sleeve under her nose. “He didn’t make it.”
My legs tremble, breath stuck like a gobstopper has been shoved down my throat. I can’t move or speak. The skeletal Grouper flashes dark in my mind, pointing a bony fin, telling me what I already know.
“I killed him.” I drop onto a chair, defeated.
Mrs Delgado sits straighter and leans towards me. “What did you say?”
“I killed Watson with my hatred.” My gut boils with guilt.
She leans back, a look of relief and maybe annoyance on her face. “This has nothing to do with you, Charlotte.”
“I’m serious. Before Madison died, I saw her as a dead goat, then yesterday morning I saw Watson as a dead fish, and I hated them both.” The tears come now, hot and angry, rolling fat down my flaming cheeks. “I killed them.”
Mrs Delgado stands and walks around the desk. Without a word, she takes me gently by the arm and leads me to the sick bay.
Mum hovers over me, tucking and re-tucking the doona around my prostrate body as if I’ve had an operation and can’t move.
“Stop it, Mum. I’m fine.”
“No.” Her voice wavers, though I can hear she’s trying to be strong. “No. You’re not fine. You’re sick, and probably in shock, and that’s okay because we’re getting help, and everything will be alright. I’ll call Dad and let him know and—”
“Do not tell Dad.”
“Darling, this isn’t—”
“Mum.” I sit up, grasp her busy hands, and hold them still.
This is too important to let Mum just be Mum. If I don’t stop her, she’ll call Dad and dump everything on him, expecting him to prop her up from seven thousand kilometres away. He can do it. He always does, but he shouldn’t have to. Not this time.
“I’m serious,” I say. “I’ll take medication. Go to the psych. That’s all good and helpful. Just don’t tell Dad, please. He doesn’t need the distraction.”
She hesitates. Her eyes crinkle with worry and her fingers press down hard on mine, like she’s afraid I might evaporate.
“If you’ve listened to nothing else I’ve ever said, please listen to this.” My tone is direct and pleading. “Dad needs to concentrate on what he’s doing over there, or he might die. So, just keep it to yourself until he comes home. Okay?”
That night I dream my brother is a seal, hanging in the air over a black ocean that swells and churns beneath him. His silky coat shimmers in the light of a violent electrical storm, and his pink tongue lolls, round eyes brown and slick and bulging, ready to pop right out.
I wake sweaty and shaking, anxiety crawling across my skin like a thousand fleas. I jump out of bed, trip, and slam my head against the door frame. Stabbing pain radiates through my skull.
The clock beside my bed says it’s three am. Hour of the dead. The time most people die in their sleep. Glowing bright green in the dark, the numbers tell me to go.
Move. Get to Louis.
I pick myself up and sprint down the hallway towards Louis’ bedroom at the far end, but Mum pops out in front of me. “Charlotte. What on earth?” She grabs me by the biceps.
I try to yank away, but she’s surprisingly strong. She threads an arm around my waist and pulls me into her, shushing as though I’m deranged.
“Get off me!” I scramble for release, but her arm is iron-tight. The image of seal-Louis hangs in my mind and hammers against my forehead, spurring me on. I bite Mum’s forearm. She yelps and lets go.
I dash away, reach Louis’ door, and rip it open. There he is, standing in his closet beside a kitchen chair with a brown leather belt in his hand.
Chelsea Chong
Chelsea Chong lives on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland with her husband and two fiery daughters. She holds a Masters in International Development and works as a freelance grant writer. Her short stories have appeared in Australia’s MindFOODmagazine,The Bristol Short Story Prize Anthology Vol.13, Halfway Down the Stairs,and Five on the Fifth. She recently received a scholarship to The Faber Academy where she is working on a speculative novel. When not writing, Chelsea can be found swimming in the river with her kids or rifling through local op shops for second hand clothes.