Saving Francesca Read Online Free PDF Page B

‘learn’ in it,” Thomas Mackee tells him. He adopts the voice of a deep and meaningful television psychologist, matching his words to hand actions. “He wants us to take control of our misbehavior so we can self-discipline ourselves.”
    Jimmy Hailler looks over my shoulder and reads what I’ve written.
    “I must not underestimate the wisdom of my learned teachers .
    Butcher’s paper is not just for wrapping sausages, but for learning .”
    “That was mine,” Thomas Mackee says. He’s very proud.
    Jimmy Hailler looks at me and I nod in confirmation.
    “Wow.”
    “Learn Baby Learn, Disco Inferno .”
    “Hers,” Thomas Mackee says. “Have no idea what it means.”
    “I came, I mucked around, thus I did not learn.”
    When we’re allowed to go, I leave as quickly as possible. Through Hyde Park, I walk ahead of them, hoping that they don’t speak to me. On the bus, Thomas Mackee and I sit at opposite ends. I’m grateful that he doesn’t see solidarity in our detention. I figure he lives somewhere around Stanmore, because he gets off the stop before mine.
    At Stella’s, we all came from the same area, and I liked the closeness of it all. Here, I don’t feel a sense of community. The city is too big and the school is like an island at the edge of it. An island full of kids from all over Sydney, rather than from one suburb. Nothing binds it together; no one culture, no one social group. You could be on the same bus or train line with someone and still live miles apart. My bus line travels along Parramatta Road from the inner city, past the University of Technology, where Mia works, past the University of Sydney, and then into the beginning of the inner west. Most of the time I don’t travel with Luca because he has choir practice or soccer or I have a three-unit class after school. At Stella’s, our bus was a School Special and the trip home was the best part of the day. Here, it’s almost the worst.
    I get off at my usual stop on Parramatta Road and walk down Johnston Street. Sometimes Annandale feels like a small country town, ten minutes from downtown. There’s still a working-class quality to it, but, sprinkled with academics, musicians, and professionals, it tends not to have a “type,” which suits Mia, who goes on about “types” all the time.
    Once in a while, my parents toss up whether or not to move. My dad thinks that not providing us with space will stunt our emotional growth and that it’s cruel to have a dog and children when you’ve got a tiny backyard. But we’re not interested in that type of space, and neither is our dog. He loves having his puppaccinos at Cafe Bones over in Leichhardt every Saturday morning or sitting outside Bar Italia while we have gelato and coffee. Luca named him because Mia’s into that. I got to name Luca, so he got to name the dog, and I thank God he’s younger than I am, because the dog’s name is Pinocchio. I named Luca after a character in a Suzanne Vega song. I didn’t realize until I was older that the person in the song gets abused. I just loved the certainty the character had about who he was.
    Luca’s one of those blessed kids. Incredibly cute, smart, and has the voice of an angel, which is why he’s in a composite class of Year Five and Six for choir kids at St. Sebastian’s. William Trombal used to be a choirboy as well, but these days his role is merely to take the choirboys over for morning practice. According to Luca, he lets them play cricket in the middle aisle of the cathedral with a hacky sack. Apparently, the hacky sack once hit Christ on the cross, and William Trombal said that if Christ’s hands weren’t nailed on to that cross, he would have caught the ball himself.
    Luca says that when he grows up, he wants to be just like William Trombal. Fantastic. My little brother’s ambition is to be a stick-in-the-mud moron with no personality.
    I have absolutely no idea what I want to be when I grow up. I’ve changed my mind one