Have You Seen Ally Queen? Read Free Page A

wasn’t there. And I might have missed the seal. All because of Mum being on one of her missions. She keeps telling me not to worry about things like boobs and clothes and hair and guys, but she doesn’t understand, let’s face it. It’s not important for her anymore—it’s not like she has to look good for Dad, or anything. I’m really tall and skinny and shapeless and my waist—well, it just doesn’t exist. I press my T-shirt against my chest. Mosquito bites. I tell you, I get mistaken for a boy all the time. Especially since Mumconned me into getting my hair cut short last year. I can’t bear growing it out—that in-between, nothing stage you have to go through. So it’s short hair and no boobs. A great look. Thanks, Mum. I’m not like most girls. I’m big and skinny and loud, and I really want a boyfriend but no one’s tall enough. And everyone knows the guy has to be taller than the girl. You see short guys walking around with tall girls and you do a double-take, like something’s definitely got to be wrong with one or both of them, apart from the fact that they look totally ridiculous together. Mum just doesn’t have a clue. Look at her and Dad: Dad’s taller than Mum. See? Even them. Ms Carey’s not tall. No one good is tall, apart from Steve Hooker and Ian Thorpe—and guess what? They’re guys!
     
    I open my diary. I feel almost too pissed off to write in it. I hate writing in my diary when I’m angry, but afterwards I always feel a bit better. On good days, I write notes about the day—people I see (not many anymore, since moving down here), things I’ve done, blah, blah, blah. It’s pretty boring, really. The juicy bits are when I’m dark. My handwriting goes big and swipes across the page, and I must press really hard with the pen because it scars the next few pages. I hide my diary, just in case Mum or Jerry snoop aroundwhen I’m not here. Dad would never do that. It would never occur to him. And he’d never resort to writing in a diary, either. He keeps to himself with stuff like that, goes out for a walk or fishing on his own when he needs to think.
     
    I shove the diary under my doona and fling Shel a quick text instead.
     
    Get me back there! City detox sucks. Mum on mycase. Hope ur cruising.
     
    The moon’s a yellow lampshade just above the water. A not-quite-full moon. They say it does funny things to people when it’s full. Dad says that’s crap. Mum says you shouldn’t snub what you don’t understand. She says the moon moves water and that can’t be all. She always says stuff like that these days. I tell you, she hasn’t been the same since that accident. I don’t really know why it affected her so badly, but something shifted in her brain, never quite slotted back in where it should have.
     

BEACHED
    Another school day done and dusted, and I’ve survived past the middle of week two. At the top of the path through the dunes, I stop for my first breath of the ocean.
     
    My mobile blimbles. Shel.
     
    Cruising, schmoozing ... but missing u, chick. Staycool, A, ur here with us all the time, even when ur not.
     
    My lungs fill. She’s a champ.
     
    I look out over the bluest water. It takes a moment to really see what I’m seeing. People—hundreds of them—lining the beach. In between, like big inverted commas, are whales. Maybe forty of them, all different sizes. There’s heaps of movement and it takes a while for it to sink in, what’s going on. There are 4WDs on the sand, boats in the water. There are whales on the beach. On our beach.
     
    Energy surges into me. I vault homewards to tell Mum, Dad and Jerry.
     
    The house is empty. If Cathy Freeman had been there, I would have just beaten her in a series of sand-dune time trials. I dump my gear and climb upstairs, calling out. No one’s around—they must be down there already, among all those people.
     
    Right. Think! I need equipment. I throw things around in the shed, cursing Dad for being so messy,