My name is Claudia Cairns, and I've been living in Sydney's eastern suburbs for fifty-four days. I have a calendar that tells me so. Jake doesn't like my calendar much. He says because I count towards the future, I hold on to the past, but I know he counts too.
Jake counts everything. He was counting sixteen years ago when he screamed his way out of Mum, then watched me follow thirty minutes later. Those thirty minutes were Jake's claim to fame and gave him a healthy appreciation of what time can do for someone when treated respectfully.
We used to live in a stop-over town. During summer, cars clogged the main road, rushing east and then heading back two months later coated in sand and salt. Jake and I would watch from our eucalypt-shaded oval, kicking the soccer ball back and forth, dust puffing in our faces.
Sometimes we'd stand beside the highway with the other kids and run between the cars. The closest cut earned the highest respect, and Jake was frequently respected, and I, scared shitless.
When Mum found out, she threw an empty bottle at him.
"You know one day you'll get hit, not honked," she yelled.
"No, one day I'll ask for a lift out of here."
Jake's statement had provoked another bottle into flight and he'd scuttled out the door, calling for me to follow.
That's the way it had always been. Jake would get into trouble and bolt as I apologised and backed out after. Sometimes, I'd throw in a 'what can you do?' shrug to solidify my good-twin role. Not that anyone ever bought it. Everyone knew Jake and I were a team. We were the troublemakers of our town, the mischief that could not be managed. Infamous.
But then there was one cigarette. One gust of wind. One spark. And our lives changed forever.
"Claudia!"
My face is close enough to the window that when Aunt Sylvia shouts my name, I jerk forward and head-butt the glass.
"Shit!" I curse, grabbing my nose as pain explodes through my sinuses. "Oh my god. My nose! I've broken my nose."
I stumble around to find a blurry Sylvia silhouetted in the doorway.
"Claudia," she repeats. "Don't use that language in my house. Why aren't you changed yet? If you don't hurry, you won't have time for breakfast."
"Argh." I curl over and try to blink back the tears. "You've broken my nose, woman. How am I supposed to get changed?"
Sylvia huffs and moves over to me, grabbing my cheeks and lifting my face towards hers. She squints at me and then lets go.
"You're exaggerating. It's fine. Get dressed and come downstairs. There's scrambled eggs on the table."
I blink after her as she leaves, and once she's gone, I blink at my new uniform instead, hanging up on my door.
I let the seconds drag into minutes, standing there staring, because I already know I'm going to hate Randwick Girls High School. The idea of separating boys from girls is distressing to me, and that opinion only solidified after the school tours Sylvia insisted Jake and I attend.
There had been a lot of state-of-the-arts thrown around as they led us through the locker-lined corridors, alongside some world class's and engaging curriculums, but all I'd seen were bland lifeless buildings surrounded by rubbish strewn fields.
And the girls' uniforms...
White collared shirt, pleated green skirt, ankle socks, and clumpy black Clarks.
Disgusting.
After another moment of silent distress, I sigh and pull the clothes on, thumping downstairs and tugging at the fabric.
Jake and Uncle Peter are sitting at the kitchen table when I get there, shovelling eggs and toast down their throats and listening to the radio. I duck around them into my seat, wedging myself into the corner underneath the staircase, and pick up my fork.
"Have you packed your bags?" Sylvia asks as the kettle hisses.
"Yeah," Jake and I mumble.
"Good. We're leaving in ten minutes. I need to be back for Aleisha Meyers's lesson at nine. She's singing Ave Maria in her choir group and the poor girl can't hit the high F."
Uncle Peter raises an eyebrow, one that is outrageously bushy for a man so bald.
"Do you think you'll be able to cure her of this shortcoming?"
"I can very well try," Sylvia says, bustling out of the kitchen and down the corridor to her music studio with a water jug and two cups in hand.
"Oh, Peter," she calls over her shoulder. "Mary from next door was wondering if you could look at her plumbing today. The pipes are still shaking every time she turns on the water."
Uncle Peter grunts and gives us a tired smile.
"I guess that's my cue," he says, and then he stands and walks back upstairs. Dust shakes loose from the ceiling with every footstep, sprinkling onto my head as he passes overhead.
For a moment, Jake and I sit there quietly, but then he turns to me.
"How are you feeling?"
I shrug, but Jake continues to stare. At first, I pretend not to notice, but then he lifts his fork and pokes my cheek with it.
"That's not hygienic," I say.
"I know."
He falls silent again, and I let out a sigh.
"I'm okay, Jake, really. It's not awesome I'm dreaming again, but I suppose I should've expected it today."
He sits back, his gaze flooded with dark guilt. Jake always blames himself when I have the nightmares. He has no reason to, but he does anyway, as if my inability to recover from what happened is somehow his fault.
"School here might not be so awful," he says. "We'll still be able to talk through the fence and stuff."
I give him a small smile.
"Yeah, I know."
He waits for me to say more, but I don't, so he stands, drops his plate into the sink and makes his way upstairs.
Once he's gone, I stare at the wall, listening to Dean Lewis and contemplating how to best convince Sylvia that I'm deathly sick and consequently unable to attend school.
But then the radio switches over and the news begins.
Investigations into the ignition of the Dark Monday bushfires in eastern Victoria are ongoing as the affected families continue to put pressure on Victoria Police. The fires tore through 20,000 hectares of agricultural and residential land in the State's south east on Monday 10th December 2020, killing 112 people and displacing 6,000 more whose homes or commercial properties were destroyed in the event.
"We need answers," Jessica Green, the sister of a deceased farm worker, Thomas Costa, reports. "We need to know who did this, and we need to know why. Too many people have—"
The radio cuts short and my head jerks up. Sylvia is standing there, the power chord to the radio hanging from her hand.
"Are you alright?"
It isn't until she asks that I realise I'm shaking. I flush and stand up, knocking the chair into the corner.
"I'm fine," I mutter, and then I clatter around the table and rush upstairs.
20,000 hectares of agricultural and residential land.
I charge into my room and shut the door, pacing along the metre of carpet I have free between my wardrobe and my bed.
112 killed. 6,000 displaced.
I focus on my breathing, trying to calm something that has already run out of control.
Investigations into the ignition source still ongoing.
I close my eyes, grimacing against the darkness. And I'm there again.
"Hey Jakey, can you smell that?"
"What?"
"Smoke."
I open my eyes and grab my school bag.
Today was the day of forgetting. Today was the day for moving on.
For a moment, I allowed myself to believe that it could be that simple.
...
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- Skylar xx