Music From Standing Waves by Johanna Craven

up his window. “Hey did you ever find out who gave you that
violin?”
    “It was probably my dad. When I asked him, he
said he didn’t do it, but I figure that’s just because he was
scared of what my mum would say.”
    “That was really nice of him.”
    “Yeah. Now if I could only get him to sign my
audition form…” I sighed. At seventeen, I had all but given up on
my parents. In just a year I could cut myself loose from them. Fly
away and never come back.
    “Have you got your learner’s yet?” asked
Andrew.
    “I’m still getting around to it.”
    “Lazy thing. I was going to let you drive my
car.”
    “Sure you were.”
    “I was!”
    I crossed my legs. “I bet my mum would love
that.”
    Andrew smiled to himself. “Yeah well, your
mum already hates my guts, so I figured-”
    “She doesn’t hate you,” I said.
    “Yes she does.”
    I sighed. “She hates everyone. It’s not
personal.” I knew it was. I knew Andrew knew it was too.
    I had told my mother I was going on a school
trip. “It’s very educational,” I said. “We’re going to study the
historical buildings in Brisbane.”
    I hoped Sarah would be too caught up in the
trials of the caravan park to wonder why I was the only person from
school who was going.
     
    We picked up Andrew’s friend Lily in
Townsville. She had long black dreadlocks tied back with a woven
scarf and matching silver pins through her nose and eyebrow. Her
dress was made from a tie-dyed petticoat with ribbons sewn along
the hem. I thought she would probably like Michelle’s wheat-grass
malarky.
    Andrew and Lily talked about uni and laughed
a lot.
    “Hey Lil, remember that party when you puked
in some guy’s hiking boot?”
    “What about that choir concert we all turned
up to tanked?”
    Lily’s laugh was high-pitched and made her
breathe the way my great-uncle had before he had died of emphysema.
At the end of each fit of hysteria, she let out a long sigh and
brushed Andrew’s arm. She looked over her shoulder at me.
    “Sorry,” she giggled. “Don’t mean to leave
you out. You’ll have some good stories too if you go to uni.” She
flashed a mouthful of white teeth, which I decided looked too big
for her face.
     
    Andrew slept in the back so he could drive
through the night and I sat in the front beside Lily. We drove for
a while in a silence I barely noticed; my attention with the
changing landscape as we snaked down the coast. Sugar fields and
paddocks became knitted grey green bush. Gum trees made twisted
silhouettes as the sun sunk into a pink sky. Lily flicked on the
headlights and a giant bug exploded on the windscreen. Finally, she
said:
    “Pass me my water bottle, mate.”
    I unscrewed the lid and handed it to her.
    She took a mouthful. “Can’t wait to get back
to the city.”
    “I’ve never been,” I told her, then wished I
hadn’t. She raised her eyebrows and the silver pin flickered like
an electric spark.
    “You’re kidding. You spent your whole life in
that little hell hole?”
    I got suddenly defensive, without having the
faintest idea why. I had always been the biggest advocate of Acacia
Beach’s hell hole-ish qualities. Thrived on gossip, smelled like
fish, etcetera, etcetera.
    “It’s not that bad,” I said. “We have a nice
beach. Snorkelling and stuff… you know…”
    “Great.” I couldn’t tell if she was being
sarcastic or if it was just her usual bedside manner.
    “Andrew likes it,” I said. “He chose to be
there.”
    Lily snorted. “Yeah well Andrew stopped
thinking with his head some time ago.” She took another sip out of
the bottle, then held it back to me to put the lid on.
    “So you’re a muso?” she asked.
    I wanted to say yes, but wasn’t sure if I
qualified. “Kind of.”
    “What do you play?”
    “Violin.”
    “Oh,” said Lily. “I didn’t know Andrew taught
violin.”
    “What about you?” I asked curiously.
    “Flute.” Lily seemed to fit better at the
front of some grunge band than