The Full Ridiculous by Mark Lamprell Read Free Book Online

suspend her, this meeting would have been short and sweet. It’s obvious that the appropriate response to Rosie’s behaviour is a short suspension. But there is no way Christina Bowden can turn her back on the Pessites money. You see now that this woman before you has no choice. It’s not that she wants to expel Rosie. She has to. And she has to be seen to be doing it for all the right reasons. This inquiry is a means of convincing everyone—even herself—that justice is being done. But the instant Rosie O’Dell hit Eva Pessites, her fate was sealed.
    ‘Your letter made quite an impression,’ begins Christina.
    You brace yourself for the systematic dismissal of all of Wendy’s finely penned arguments and think not without a fight, Honey Bunch, you’re not getting rid of us that easy . You shift in your seat and a fabricated fart rips through the room. But this time you’re glad. You only wish it came with a smell.
    ‘The letter made an impression, did it?’ you ask, edging your disdain with a tint of anger.
    Wendy turns, startled by your tone. The headmistress draws herself up in her chair and presses on. ‘I took the liberty of sharing it with the deputy and the school board.’ Here she pauses for dramatic effect but you’re not putting up with any of that shit.
    ‘And?’ you say, sounding incredibly bored.
    Wendy places her hand on yours. To the casual observer, it would appear she is resting it there as a sign of support and affection but underneath there is a vice-like grip that warns: one more word and I’ll snap your fingers off.
    Call-me-Christina smiles. ‘We all agree that expulsion would be an excessive response to these particular circumstances.’
    Rosie is recalled to the room and informed that she will be suspended for two and a half weeks until the holidays. She may resume classes and make a fresh start in the new term. She sags with relief and her little face crumples into tears. Wendy hugs her and you rub her back as she sobs her gratitude to the headmistress.

10
    You have no idea why, but on the way home your robust good humour withers. You feel like the drugs are no longer doing their trick. The rampart corrodes. Pain leaks in through the cracks and fissures. You stagger into bed and sleep. Time becomes liquid. Your mind and body float, absorbed in an orchestration of healing. You wake regularly—every hour or so—because of the Dream.
    The Dream—with minor variations—goes like this: you’re running down a road, not the road, not Hastings Road, just some generic street. The ground cracks open at your feet. Sometimes some kind of furry little marsupial scurries out of the crack. Sometimes it’s not a road, it’s a forest path, or a beach track, or a city sidewalk. But the ground always cracks open and that’s when you leap. Sometimes you leap over the crack and/or marsupial and sometimes you leap backwards, stopping just before you plummet into the abyss.
    But you always leap, jerking your legs in a reflex that sends hot spurs of pain spearing through your swollen left thigh. You wake in agony, writhing on the bed. After the initial horror, you almost like it. Your waking hours are unequivocally occupied; there is no room in your schedule to angst over your book or panic over your impending financial doom or worry about your children. There is only pain.
    Four and a half days after you are run down by Frannie Prager’s blue Toyota and two days after the Victory at Boomerang, you wake from the Dream to realise that your sister Tess is sitting in the room. She frowns, says, ‘Hello,’ and lifts the sweaty fringe of hair plastered onto your forehead. She is right next to you, touching you, but so far away you cannot speak to her. Ingrid’s daughter, Mel, hovers in the doorway, frowning. You drift back into the darkness.
    Across town, parents and pupils applaud as a burgundy velvet curtain lowers on the Boomerang school choir. The girls have completed another successful annual