Laurinda Read Free Page B

even old Mrs Giap hid her surprise. That weekend she was coming for a toenail trimming – and even if I was the scholarship winner, my mother would not let me off this task.
    “Keep still, Grandma Giap,” I told her as I wedged her brown foot between my knees. It reminded me of a mummy’s foot, all brown and dry and crumpled in strange places. When I clipped her toenails, I had to close my eyes and mouth because the pieces would fly hard and fast.
    “Ah, my girl, you have done more schooling than I ever have in my seventy-eight years,” she sighed, and then told me that she had assumed Tully would get the scholarship. “She works harder than you. She’s probably smarter than you too.” Those Asian old folks had clearly never heard of the white lie. “But she didn’t deserve it.”
    White lies be damned, sometimes I loved the truth.
    I thought of Tully, and how her father had got her baptised just so she could get into a Catholic school. He’d called on Mrs Giap to be her godmother, as if Mrs Giap’s faith were a single-use instrument like a syringe. The difference between Tully and me wasn’t our smarts or our parents. The difference, I recognised, was that I was well liked and Tully wasn’t.
    That didn’t alleviate the guilt I was feeling. I’d never thought I would get into Laurinda, and had even supposed that after Tully left Christ Our Saviour, things would be less tense without her panic attacks and tears. The only reason Tully had missed out on getting into the state selective school was because she’d been down for a week before the exam with the flu. I had never imagined Tully being left behind.
    *
    The following Monday, the start of school holidays, I called the number at the end of the letter.
    “Laurinda Ladies College, Eunice Grey speaking.”
    This was the first time I had spoken to someone from the school, and I was nervous. I introduced myself and she replied, “Ah, yes, Lucy, I was expecting your call.” Then there was a pause, as if she’d forgotten something she was supposed to say. For a moment I thought she’d got me mixed up with Tully. Then she remembered: “Congratulations.”
    “Thanks.”
    She told me that I needed to come in for an interview next week with my parents, and we’d also sort out a few administrative things.
    “Okay.”
    “Tuesday at eleven?”
    “Okay.”
    “I look forward to meeting you then.”
    “Okay.” Then I added again, “Thank you.”
    It was only after I hung up that I realised I had not thought to check with my father to see if he was working a shift then. Mrs Grey had spoken so authoritatively that I presumed our meeting time was set. If my father couldn’t make it, I decided, I would go alone.
    I was used to sorting out phone billing errors, insurance claims and doctors’ appointments for my parents. Sometimes, to avoid the hassle of explaining that I was acting on their behalf, I simply pretended to be my mother over the phone. She even let me forge her signature on forms. I’d never understood the brats on television who threw tantrums when their dads missed their soccer matches, as if the world of adults revolved around their games. If the Lamb grew up to be one of those boys who resented our father working on Saturdays and missing his school footy finals, he’d get a slap on the bum from either Mum or me for his selfishness. That was the way things were with our family.
    But Dad was taking this unexpected miracle of a scholarship so seriously that he got some time off work.
    *
    My father parked his Camry beside the only other car at the school, a silver BMW. The college was deserted, but the wooden front door of the main building opened when I pushed it. A stained-glass window depicting the college crest took up an entire wall. On the mahogany reception desk was a vase of heavy flowers, the likes of which I’d never seen in Stanley – they looked as if they’d been plucked from some heady Brazilian rainforest. Behind the desk was a