The Mimosa Tree by Antonella Preto Page B

weighing heavily on me and I feel exhausted, like I’ve lost blood. Study I can’t stand, stupid family, looming Apocalypse; it all just gets too much sometimes. Felicia’s delusions about everything turning out fine might work for her but I’m not naive enough to be comforted by mere hope.
    When I notice a gravel track that leads through a grove of golden trees I take it. I let myself drift along this new path, stepping over autumn leaves, following the sounds of birds to a lake with a wide, grassed clearing full of sunlight. I sit down, take a moment to suck it all in. All I can hear is the rustle of leaves and the frustrated leg rubbings of cicadas.
    Now that I am here I can’t leave, and it’s not so much a decision but more an overwhelming lethargy. I feel a little guilty that Felicia is waiting for me, but I figure as long as I am back at the car on time she will never know, and everyone can go on thinking that things are exactly as they should be. I lean back on my elbows, and watch a family of ducks making their way to the water, quacking warnings to each other and casting worried looks in my direction. When they reach the muddy edge, the first duck quacks the others through before jumping in itself. Around me dried gum leaves lift and tumble, above me birds weave confused paths across the sky. I let my eyelids close against the hot sun and all the thoughts I would rather not be having.
    â€˜You like ducks?’ says a voice at my shoulder, and I spin round, clutching at my chest like an Italian grandmother.
    It’s Student-number-eight, from my painting class. Even with the sunglasses, there is no mistaking the hair and the trench coat, and that disturbing ability to look extremely comfortable in uncomfortable situations. I don’t know whether to sit up, or stay half reclined, as he leans over me, waiting for an answer to a question I have already forgotten.
    â€˜Der- ucks, ’ he says again, creating new syllables like he’s talking to a foreigner. ‘Do you like them?’
    â€˜I’ve never eaten one,’ I say stupidly before realising it was a question of aesthetics not gastronomy. Curse my family and its constant focus on all things food! I’m ruined for normal society.
    His lips pinch to the right in a half smile. ‘Are you planning to? Should I warn these guys maybe?’ he says nodding over to the ducks now swimming happily on the lake.
    Immediately I start remembering the day Via’s husband, Zito, caught a duck at our local pond. I can still picture it kicking as Zito held its head in a bucket of water, and then Via and Mum chatting happily in a cloud of steam as they plucked it clean. I remember the sick smell of boiled feathers and shudder.
    â€˜They’re safe with me,’ I say finally.
    â€˜I’m sure that’s a relief to them,’ he says sitting down. ‘Wouldn’t want to leave those ducklings orphaned.’
    He pushes his fringe from his face then pulls a red tin from an inside pocket of his coat. Resting the tin on his knee, he takes out a pinch of very green looking tobacco and begins toroll it into a cigarette. ‘So you’re wagging?’
    â€˜I guess.’
    â€˜Nice day for it,’ he says, looking around. ‘Nice place for it.’
    â€˜Are you wagging too?’
    â€˜Nah. I’m on a break. I was sitting under a tree back there when I saw you go by. I watched you turn down this path,’ he says, pausing to lick his cigarette closed. He holds up the cigarette he has rolled and inspects it. It’s fat in the middle and thin at either end. He shrugs and puts it into another coat pocket without smoking it.
    I stare at him, try to take in what he has said. ‘So you followed me?’ I say.
    He shrugs. ‘I guess I did.’ He leans back on his hands and looks around appreciatively then lies down using his backpack as a pillow. ‘So who’s the preppie girl