‘It’s not really in my wheelhouse,’ I manage to say. He’s still giving me that considering look, apparently in no rush to fill in the gaps. ‘It’s not great,’ I continue, my mouth moving of its own accord. ‘Knowing no matter how hard you try you’re going to end up being … disappointing.’ I look up at him, but his face is trained on his locker door now. ‘I hate Mondays,’ I mumble.
He slips his books into his satchel. His fingers are tapping out a loose rhythm, and his eyes are focused somewhere far away. I don’t think he looks weirded out by me. More like … contemplative?
I shuffle backwards, the coin still tight in my palm. ‘I should go.’
‘Hey, um, Sophia?’ Joshua fiddles with his satchel straps. ‘Do you like milkshakes?’
My brain pokes at the question. It flips it over, and examines it again. My brain is capable of calculating falling factorials and multiplying huge numbers without a calculator, which, as Elsie points out, is really only useful as a party trick for a very sad party. Yet it can’t seem to parse this sentence.
‘No. I’m lactose intolerant.’
‘Oh,’ he says. ‘Okay then.’ I don’t know why, but I have the strangest suspicion that he is disappointed.
Behind him, Mr Finkler, our year-twelve coordinator, is waddling down the corridor, shooing stragglers to class. My feet seem to be cemented to the floor.
‘I like banana smoothies,’ I say, my voice projecting as if from a great distance. ‘With soy milk. And honey. Sometimes nuts.’
The shadowy lines on Joshua’s forehead disappear. The corners of his eyes crinkle in a smile. ‘Cool. Don’t worry about Drama. I’ll see you round.’ He turns and disappears, leaving me with a head full of data that I suspect would take more brainpower than I possess to unravel.
The walk to the Arts building, at an average human speed, takes about nine minutes. Considering that I, typically, drag my feet towards it like I’m heading into a nuclear accident sans HAZMAT suit, I almost always arrive late. Today, I creep into the theatre long after the bell, damp from the drizzle and even more frazzled than usual. No-one notices, or seems to care.
Built in the 1930s, our Arts building is a double-storey brick monstrosity that smells permanently of wet dog, with a peeling facade that Elsie likes to say would make the Bates Motel look welcoming. It’s tucked on the edge of the empty East Lawn, a row of identical pine trees behind it. It’s far enough from the rest of the school that the screeches from the year-eleven production of Rent are mercifully out of earshot. It was once the home of a contingent of Carmelite nuns, and used to be known simply as ‘The Convent’ until someone had the bright idea to rename it the ‘St Augustine’s Visual and Performing Arts Centre’. Strangely, installing a sign stencilled in ye olde lettering above the doors failed to make the isolated nightmare-house more hospitable.
Inside, the theatre is a cacophony of sound. The year-ten music club is tuning up in the shallow orchestra pit, and my class is scattered in clusters around the room. Chairs are stacked against the walls, leaving space for seventeen year twelves in various states of faux emotional breakdown.
I slump onto the brown carpet, pain immediately searing through my frontal lobe. I suspect the acoustics in this room could be more excruciating, but only if they’d been designed by North Korean torture specialists on one of their grouchy days.
Ms Heller is up on the stage. Her ponytail swishes behind her, as animated as if her hair were starring in a performance all of its own. In front of her are Romy Hopwood and Trevor Pine, who are, apparently, still trying to nail the emotional resonance of a clown and a sad-yet-hopeful circus elephant.
Romy stares into Trevor’s eyes. She reaches out to cup Trevor’s face in a way that, to me, looks like she’s about to give him a dental exam. Then Trevor stands, and unleashes a plaintive cry that reminds me of the sound Elsie’s Auntie Nirmala made that time she won fourth division in Tattslotto.
Ms Heller beams. I can’t even pretend to be contemptuous, because really? I can barely muster the talent to mime a proper sneeze.
I try to quell the low-grade nausea that I habitually experience in this class. I’m convinced that my pulse is visible in my throat.
I have no idea why I hate this so much. I think it’s because there is no clear theory, no facts or data I have managed to glean that make anything here comprehensible. There are no constants, no fundamental truths. It’s not like I’m not trying – I’ve read every book Ms Heller has set, devoured hours of articles on performance techniques. I’ve even sat through multiple insipid episodes of Inside the Actors Studio, in which celebrities discuss their profession with an earnestness that should be reserved for the discovery of the Higgs particle, or the invention of toilet paper.
‘Yo, Stephen Hawking,’ a voice crows beside me. ‘Sup?’
Damien Pagono throws himself on the floor and immediately occupies himself by digging at his teeth with a protractor. ‘Got ya, you little bastard!’ he crows. The pointy end of his protractor holds an unidentifiable glob the colour of brain matter. ‘Huh. When did I eat souvlaki?’
‘Congratulations,’ I mutter. ‘Your parents must be very proud.’
He waggles an eyebrow. ‘Side of wasabi with that snark?’
‘Piss off,’ I mumble, shuffling away from him and his teeth fossicking.
I sink lower, vaguely hoping that the laws of physics will rewrite themselves for the next forty minutes and render me invisible behind my backpack.
Tucked inside my Drama folder is the slim Penguin classic of Richard Feynman’s Six Easy Pieces that I’ve taken to keeping with me in case of emergency. I slip my hand inside, feeling the reassuring shape of the small orange paperback. I close my eyes, visualising the pages filled with Feynman’s basic, beautiful introduction to Physics that I first read when I was ten. I run the tips of my fingers over the edges of the waxy cover, drawing tiny crumbs of comfort from its well-worn pages, like an amulet against my current situation, like a cheap paper talisman –
Oh. Shit.
‘Ms Reyhart!’ Ms Heller crows. I tear my hands out of my folder. ‘Nice of you to grace us with your presence.’
She strides down the stage stairs, ponytail whipping behind her, one hand held out towards me, palm up. I have seen her make this gesture to appease nervous performers, and I think it’s supposed to be comforting, but all I can think is that it’s the exact same pose as the statue of Jesus that hangs above the stage. Any moment now I’m expecting Ms Heller’s head to spin around while expelling green vomit, which I think is something that Jesus did? Maybe I should start paying attention in Mass.
A cold drop of sweat runs down my spine. ‘Yes, Miss,’ I mumble as I stand. Her face keeps moving, all shifting eyebrows and rapid blinks, always too many expressions for me to decode.