The Full Ridiculous Read Online Free PDF Page A

narrow. Other girls stop to look at her. She turns back to her locker and takes her time closing it. For a while it seems she has cut Rosie dead, leaving her question adrift in the ether. But Eva is enraged. She flicks a smile at Rosie, ‘How the fuck would I know?’ she says breezily. ‘I’m not my fucking mother, am I?’
    Her admiring audience titters and Eva turns and heads out of the locker room.
    Rosie calls after her, ‘But you could have stopped her.’
    Eva stops dead and looks at Rosie like she’s inspecting a dog turd. ‘So? Who cares?
    ‘I do.’
    ‘You should mind your own business.’
    ‘It is my business.’
    ‘Is not.’
    ‘It is if my friend can’t come on the tour.’
    ‘Ursula O’Brien is not your friend.
    ‘Is too.’
    ‘She hates you.’
    ‘No, she hates you, Eva, but that’s no reason for her not to come on the tour. Not until your mother stuck her big nose in it.’
    Eva is a second-generation Albanian and, although Rosie cannot know this, her mother had a prominent nose before surgery corrected it. Thinking on her feet, Eva decides to misinterpret Rosie’s comment as a racist jibe about proboscisly endowed Albanians and go for the outraged immigrant angle. She counters that Rosie is a ‘skanky skip’ ( skip meaning someone who is several generations Australian). What Rosie’s Irish Catholic and Lithuanian Jewish grandparents would make of all this, no one can say but Rosie is so infuriated by the sudden disintegration of the argument that her synapses explode. ‘Piss off, you dumb bitch!’ she blurts uninventively.
    ‘Racist slut!’ Eva proclaims as she glides away in triumph.
    Rosie, slipping further behind in the originality stakes, fires a final projectile at Eva. ‘Suck my dick!’
    Once again, Eva stops. Once again, she turns. A sea of girls parts, opening a path between Rosie and Eva. ‘Why don’t you go suck your black boyfriend’s cock, slut!’
    Some of the girls snigger.
    A crimson wave roars into Rosie’s head and she charges forward. Eva also charges forward and thrusts her textbooks into Rosie’s chest. Rosie lets fly with a great gob of spit which lands with spectacular accuracy in Eva’s open mouth. Eva emits a howl of horror and, spitting compulsively, grabs Rosie’s ear. Rosie slaps her hand across the side of Eva’s head. Eva crumples to the ground, screaming like her legs have been amputated without anaesthetic.
    Rosie sees that Eva is already amplifying the extent of her injuries as part of a strategy to have Rosie nailed as the unprovoked perpetrator of this attack. Rosie no longer gives a flying fuck. She draws back her right foot, intent on shutting down Eva’s left kidney, just as Mrs Millington comes sailing round the corner in her signature tartan skirt, red cheeks blazing.

6
    You wake up. Or not. Where are you? Banks of fluorescents swirl overhead. An institution. You are in some kind of institution. You’re ill, trapped in a night terror dream. Wake up! No, you are awake. Shapes . People? Wendy and that doctor, the Indian one, and other doctors. Fresh Face looks frightened. They’re staring at you.
    You feel like you’ve died but the Indian doctor tells you that you passed out. You had a little fit and you passed out. It’s probably a reaction to having things put in your veins. Some people get it. Not to worry too much. They’ll keep an eye on you.
    Wendy looks sick. She kisses your hand. You close your eyes.
    Who’s shouting? Why does there have to be shouting? That Indian girl. Indira bloody Gandhi. She wants someone to open their eyes. You. She wants you to open your eyes. You don’t want to but you open them to shut her up. Bossy doctor. Questions. Blah blah questions and you answer blah blah. And you feel…
    the feeling…
    the feeling of…floating.
    You are floating.
    You are
    You’re thirsty. Parched. Water. You open your eyes to find Wendy sitting next to you. She smiles. You try to say water but your lips stick