Puberty Blues Read online

  ‘What’s going on?’ boomed the bus driver, pulling on the brake at the uproar. ‘Yews can get orf!’ he shouted.

  ‘Ya gunna stop?’ I asked, tough but almost in tears. Tracey loosened her grip. We went back to our seats. My head was ringing. The last thing I felt like was an exam.

  2

  gang girls

  THE bell rang. Mr Fairburn directed us in long files from the front to the back of the auditorium. A row of boys. A row of girls. A row of boys. I rushed to sit behind Sue. Cheryl Nolan was behind me. The papers were handed out.

  ‘Keep them face down.’

  A deadly hush descended on the hall.

  ‘Thirty seconds to go.’

  The air was thick and tense.

  ‘Fifteen seconds to go.’

  Mr Fairburn raised his hand, index finger extended towards the ceiling.

  ‘Ten … nine … eyes to the front, Basin … seven … six … five … pens poised … three … two … one …’ his arm released like a guillotine. ‘Go!’

  There was a rustle of paper and a bowing of heads. About fifteen minutes into the exam, a few of the girls got itchy legs.

  The boys had no easy means of cheating. Jeff Basin, who was sitting across the aisle from me, got stuck on number sixteen.

  ‘Deb …,’ he whispered out of motionless lips, ‘Hey … Deb. Sixteen?’

  I glanced over.

  ‘Sixteen,’ he mimed, his eyebrows puckered.

  I casually consulted my thigh. The answer was way up under the elastic of my pants. Without answering straight away, I gazed at the ceiling, crossed my legs, chewed my pen as if in thought, glanced at Mr Fairburn, then hissed the answer across the aisle.

  ‘Nineteen twelve.’

  Cheryl leant forward to whisper a question. I held up my paper, a little to the right so she could see it. We were all going for it up the back of the hall. Answers were being whispered. Tunics were pulled up. Mr Fairburn was pretty deaf and pretty blind. He was way up the front.

  ‘One more, Deb?’ pleaded Jeff.

  It was near the end of the exam.

  ‘Forty-six?’

  I checked the answer and scribbled it on my rubber. I waited till Mr Fairburn’s back was turned. He was pacing up the front aisle saying, ‘Five more minutes.’ My rubber thudded softly into the aisle between us. Jeff waited a while and retrieved it with his foot. He’d just written down the answer on his paper when his neck was seized in a strangling clamp. A big hairy hand crashed down on his desk. It was the deputy head.

  ‘Hand it over, Basin.’

  He gulped and tried to wiggle out of Mr Berkoff’s grasp. Berkoff hauled him up by the neck. ‘Get to the office boy!’ he said. He turned and began to tap the other culprits on the head with his Bic biro. ‘And you, you girls—Susan Knight, Deborah Vickers. Headmaster’s office, right this minute. Pronto.’

  Sue and I slunk out to the quadrangle for lunch. The Greenhills Gang were on their usual seats in the sun.

  ‘Debbie! Sue!’ Cheryl called out to us. ‘Come here! What’d Bishop say? Did he go off?’ she asked us.

  ‘Oh, yeah.’ I shrugged coolly.

  ‘Is he gunna send a letter home to ya olds?’

  ‘S’pose.’

  ‘So he craked ’eh? Didja dob?’

  ‘On you? … No way.’

  Cheryl smiled and nodded to the others and even Tracey Little looked approving. Dobbing was the weakest act anyone could pull. The gang girls gathered around to put us to the final test. We may have failed our history exam, but this exam was far more important.

  ‘What’s a sixty-niner?’ Cheryl interrogated.

  ‘Oh … you know,’ Sue said, glancing nervously at the listening boys.

  ‘What then?’

  ‘Head to tail.’

  ‘What does buckin’ mean?’ asked Kim Cox.

  I demonstrated, jerking my pelvis backwards and forwards. Susan followed suit. The boys guffawed crudely.

  Tracey looked us up and down. ‘Comin’ down the dunnies for a fag?’

  She led the way. Kim kept guard at the door of the girls’ toilets. The rest of us disappeared into separate cubicles. We closed the toilet lids and stood up on them. Our heads emerged over the top of the adjoining walls and, as usual, the first formers pulled up their pants and rushed out of the toilet block, screaming.

  ‘Here yar.’ Cheryl dealt out the cigarettes. We lit up. I dragged back and swallowed a huge gulp of smoke, held on to it for a few seconds and then blew two professional looking ribbons of smoke from my nostrils. Feeling confident, I manoeuvred my mouth into my smoke-ring position, but they hatched in furry, fluffy blots.

  ‘Oh, handle it, Debbie,’ Cheryl sneered, blowing three perfect rings from large to small, with the smallest sailing elegantly through the larger ones.

  ‘Deadset!’ said Sue.

  ‘Perf!’

  Kim’s head shot round the toilet door. ‘It’s Yelland! Quick!’ Our heads bobbed down and the toilets flushed simultaneously. The other girls sauntered out.

  ‘Meetcha up the back of the bus this arvo,’ Tracey hissed to Sue. I pulled the chain again and again, but the cigarette butt floated obstinately in the toilet pool. I stuffed my mouth with peppermint Lifesavers and walked out as casually as I could. The girls’ counsellor was standing there.

  ‘Eating in the toilets, Deborah?’ Mrs Yelland eyed me suspiciously. ‘You’re cultivating bad habits.’

  That afternoon we’d made it. We were sitting up the back of the bus—sucking oranges, doing the drawback and knocking the kids who sat up the front. We were tough. We were accepted. We were part of the sacred set.

  ‘K’niver drag Darren?’

  Once we were admitted into the gang by Tracey and Cheryl and the rest of the girls, they arranged a match for us with two of the boys.

  ‘He’ll roolly suit ya.’

  ‘Yeah, you’ll look roolly good together.’

  The best thing about being in the gang, was that all the spunkiest guys on Cronulla Beach were in it. It didn’t matter what boy picked you, ’cause in the looks department, you never got a bummer.

  3

  a roolly good couple

  ‘BRUCE Board likes you.’

  ‘I’ve never seen ’im but.’

  ‘He’s seen you.’ Kim had cornered me in the canteen.

  ‘You’ll like ’im. You really will Debbie.’

  ‘What does he look like?’

  ‘He’s got long blonde hair,’ said Kim, sinking her teeth into a cream doughnut and spraying icing sugar all over both of us.

  ‘But does he like me?’

  ‘Yeah. You’ll make a roolly good couple.’

  ‘Who told you but?’

  ‘I can’t tell ya … but believe me.’

  ‘Yeah, but what if he doesn’t like me?’

  ‘He does. Ask Tracey. Trace!’

  Tracey sauntered across the canteen. She had long blonde hair, a good figure and a top boyfriend. She was pretty, but she was tough.

  ‘Want a bite?’ I asked, eagerly extending my finger bun—a long, thick, usually stale bun with a strip of pink icing.

  ‘Thanks.’ Tracey took a huge bite and opened up the bun.

  ‘Oh, mint of the margarine. Check out how much they give ya.’

  She displayed two measly dabs of margarine inside the slobbery yellow bun.

  ‘Scabs,’ I agreed.

  ‘She won’t believe me,’ said Kim.

  ‘I do!’

  ‘Wot?’ asked Tracey.

  ‘That Bruce Board likes her.’

  Tracey turned on me seriously. ‘He does,’ she said, her mouth full of pineapple doughnut. ‘Look, we’ve arranged it.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Be down the paddock this Friday afternoon.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Bruce wants to meetcha.’

  ‘But what if he doesn’t like m …’ Bbbbrrring. It was the end of lunchtime. Masses of kids full of cream buns and Coca-Cola began to mo
ve out of the canteen into the quadrangle. Tracey, Kim and I stuffed our used cake wrappers into the bubbler and gave the drink machine a kick.

  Jeff Basin rushed over. ‘Lend us three cents will ya?’

  ‘Nu. Haven’t got none. Comin’ down the paddock on Friday?’ asked Tracey.

  ‘Bloody oaf. Gunna meet Boardie, Debbie? … Ha, ha, ha, ha …’

  Friday morning I packed black, straight-legged Levis and blue jumper into my school bag. I buried a packet of Marlboro in the depths of my bag and went to school. I was packin’ shit all day.

  ‘What’ll I say but?’

  ‘You’ll be all right.’

  ‘What if he doesn’t like me?’

  ‘Oh, shut up.’

  I changed in the back of the bus, dodging cigarettes and airborne orange peels. I pulled my jeans up under my uniform. I left on my white school shirt, tucked it in and pulled the tunic over my head. The bus driver grinned at me in the rear-vision mirror.

  ‘Lend us ya brush Sue.’

  ‘Here ya.’

  Sue had changed into straight-legged Levis and a green jumper.

  Tracey, Sue and I got off at Waratah Street and made the trek to the paddock.

  ‘Do I look all right?’ I kept saying.

  We walked past Kim’s place. Her elder brother Danny was out the front washing the car. He checked us out as we walked past.

  ‘Hey, Debbie?’ he called.

  ‘Hi Danny.’

  ‘Come here.’ I went over. ‘Is that Susan Knight?’ he said, eyeing Sue up and down.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Is she goin’ round wiv anyone?’

  ‘Oh … um … ah … No.’ They were both short with long blonde hair and would make a good couple.

  ‘Yews goin’ down the paddock?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘See yas there later.’

  We walked off down the highway.

  ‘He likes you Sue.’

  ‘He does not.’

  ‘He does.’

  ‘How would you know?’

  ‘He wants to know if you’re going’ roun’ wiv anyone.’

  ‘I don’t like him. I’m goin’ roun’ wiv Wazza anyway.’

  ‘Sue!’ I shrieked in disgust. ‘Drop Waz! Danny can surf almost as good as Deakin. Don’t you know?’

  The flame trees in the paddock were swaying and tossing. It was a cold and windy afternoon. The whole gang was waiting for us—Dave Deakin, Wayne Wright, Seagull, Johnno, Glen Jackson, Steve Strachan and Hen. All the girls were on their horses.

  ‘Ah, Kim’s a good bucker!’ cried Steve Strachan as Kim rode Cochise into the scene. The boys sniggered and nudged one another. It was well known a girl was a better root if she rode a horse.

  Everyone checked us out as we walked across the paddock. We’d learnt the special walk—small swivel of the bum, head hanging, hands glued to sides and a terribly casual bounce.

  ‘That’s him over there,’ whispered Tracey. Bruce Board was tall, blonde and drove a panel van. He’d left school early, like some of the boys in the gang. He was a top guy ’cause he had money, a car and a brand-new board. Now all he needed was a brand-new chick.

  Bruce and I sauntered towards each other. The gang circled the chosen two, jeering and prodding.

  ‘Go get ’er Brew.’

  ‘Kiss ’er Boardie. Go on.’ The ring closed in around us. My heart was thumping.

  ‘Come on … We’re waitin’ …’

  ‘Rip in Brew. Don’t be shy …’ Sneer, snigger.

  This was it. He took me by the shoulders and we kissed.

  ‘Yyaaaay.’

  ‘Ooooooh. Woo.’ Whistle.

  ‘We’re goin’ for a walk,’ he told me, leading me off to the bushes by the hand.

  ‘It only takes ten minutes,’ called out Strack after us. The boys roared with laughter.

  Behind the lantana we kissed again.

  ‘Will you go round wiv me?’ he said.

  And that was the courting ceremony in Sylvania Heights, where I grew up. Everyone was ‘going around’ with somebody. If a guy didn’t have a girlfriend, he’d just pick one from a distance. Someone about his height, his hair colour, not too fat, not too skinny and always wearing a pair of straight-legged Levis. Danny picked Sue that way.

  You didn’t necessarily have to like a guy to go out with him. If he was part of the gang and he chose you, you felt privileged. You’d go out with him about three times … well, you wouldn’t actually go out with him. You’d go out with his gang to a party and when everyone else paired off, he’d lead you outside for a pash on the front fence, or a ‘finger’ behind the Holden, or a ‘tit-off’ down the other end of the hall nearly in the linen press. You wouldn’t talk, you’d just ‘be with’ him. From that night on, you’d know you were going around with him.

  At South Cronulla we’d let the boys ‘tit-us-off’ and occasionally get a hand down our pants. At North Cronulla we’d progressed to dry roots. When we graduated to our new gang at Greenhills, we’d hit the big time. It was time for the spreading of the legs and the splitting up the middle.

  You had to ‘go out’ with a guy for at least two weeks before you’d let him screw you. You had to time it perfectly. If you waited too long you were a tight-arsed prickteaser. If you let him too early, you were a slack-arsed moll. So, after a few weeks, he’d ask you for a root, and if you wanted to keep him, you’d do it.

  4

  that’s the way it goes for girls

  I was thirteen.

  I’d been out of primary school a year.

  It was in the back of a panel van.

  I hadn’t even got my periods yet.

  I didn’t even know where my hole was.

  Actually, I thought there was only one hole, for pissing and having sex.

  I tried to find out about it at school that day. I couldn’t ask Sue ’cause she knew as much as me. I asked Tracey and Cheryl and the gang. I hadn’t learnt that girls don’t talk about doing it.

  ‘What am I s’posed to do?’

  ‘Just lay back. He’ll know what he’s doin’.’

  He’d kissed me the first night. Titted-me-off the second night. And fingered me the next night. I bluffed it for a few days … ‘Oh, I’m on m’ rags.’ But it was my duty on Friday night at the drive-in, to go all the way. I counted the hours to my initiation.

  ‘Six … seven … eight hours to go … I’m packin’ shit.’

  ‘Look, you’ve used a Med, haven’t you?’ Tracey reassured me.

  ‘No.’

  A flicker of concern crossed her face. ‘Oh. You’ll be all right.’

  There were six of us in the panel van. I sat in the front, calmly smoking a cigarette, listening to the suppressed screams of agony as Sue lost her virginity to Danny in the back.

  That’s the way it goes for girls. Every car in the parking lot was doing it … rocking up and down to the panel-van bop. Then it was my turn. I couldn’t say no. Bruce had picked me out of all the other girls. Bruce was the top guy of the gang. Even better than Darren Peters. He was the eldest. He had a car, a job, money and the biggest prick.

  He parted the purple curtains his mother had made for him, and pulled me over the seat. We undressed in silence, hauling off our jumpers and straight-legged Levis. I stretched out on the pink mattress. The windows began to fog.

  He had a little tin in the back of the panel van, that everyone called the ‘Tool Kit’—full of frenchies. He used one with me.

  After much fumbling …‘Ah …’ A groan of satisfaction. ‘Now I’m gettin’ somewhere.’

  ‘That’s my bum hole,’ I whispered, embarrassed.

  I produced the jar of vaseline he’d asked me to bring. Things got mighty slippery … but it still hurt. I thought I was going to pass out.

  He grunted and pushed harder. I clutched on to his hips.

  ‘Stop squeezin’ m’ hips.’ I pressed my feet up against the back of the seat. He groped around for my breast. It was so small he cou
ldn’t find it.

  After a while he gave up. I didn’t know whether it’d worked or not. I didn’t know what it was supposed to feel like.

  I don’t remember what happened next. We were just putting on our clothes … strapping myself into a bra that was holding up air.

  ‘I can’t find my underpants.’ I fumbled around and put everything on inside out. We climbed into the front as Kim and Dave got in the back. ‘K’niver cigarette?’ I asked.

  And that was the initiation in the Greenhills gang. That’s the way every girl in the gang lost her virginity. The boys had to be good surfers and the girls had to be good screws.

  Well, at least I was doing something on Saturday nights.

  5

  top guys

  BEING with the boys made me feel important. They had a ‘thing’ in life. Sort of like a religion. And they were devout. They went anywhere, in any kind of weather to any kind of surf. And we trotted along to entertain them when the sun went down. We went to any lengths to be with them. We’d sneak out of bedroom windows. Truant. Lie. Run away from home. Walk down to the beach in the pouring rain or sit on the sandhills in the blazing sun from dawn to dusk to watch their flick-outs and drop-ins. We’d go to the drive-in and come home three hours late when we knew our mothers would have rung up all the neighbours and the police and would be sitting up, waiting, with the feather duster.

  It didn’t matter what the consequences were ’cause if you were with the surfers you felt as though you were doing something. The surf really mattered. Surfing was immortal and everything else was secondary. During the day they were just a bunch of black specks paddling out to sea. The only time we had any chance of getting any affection or attention was at night when it was too dark to check out the tubes. Then he’d rip into you. He’d be sun-soaked, salty, strong, soft and warm. Sometimes you’d think it was all worth it. But next day you may as well have been a baked dinner that he’d gorged, enjoyed and forgotten.

  The next day he’d be back down the Point, checking out the southerly swells and right-handers.