The Punk Rocker

Conrad

Evie sat at her school desk on Monday, her eyes going back and forth between the clock and the piece of paper before her. Restlessly, her leg bounced against the carpeted floor, making a dull thumping noise. Michael scribbled beside her, pen moving fast and the end waggling mesmerisingly in little circles and straight lines as he wrote. His handwriting was an untidy scrawl of spidery black letters on the clean white page. The 'g's and 'q's dipped below the blue ruled lines of the notebook paper and his capital letters stretched towards the one above. Lost in her train of thought, Evie was neglecting her own schoolwork. The bell rang and there was a sudden noise of great shuffling and of zips being done up as everyone within the classroom and the ones on either side of it packed away their belongings and made off towards the door.
"No no- wait for me to dismiss you!" The substitute maths teacher trilled from the front of the room, near the board. The teenagers ignored her, of course and filed out.
Evie had already thrown everything haphazardly into her bag and slung it over her shoulder. Michael had packed more neatly and just done up the zip. He put his bag on his back and together they made for the door.
As they stepped out, Connor's bulk could be seen hurrying towards them. He came to a halt before them and passed them a sheet of paper each and then made off again, yelling,
"See yas, hope you can make it!", and disappeared through the door at the end of the block.
"What was that about?" Michael asked, Evie unfolded the bit of paper and read aloud;
"To- Evie
you are invited to Conrad's 18th birthday party
Time- 8PM to 3AM
Date- Saturday 9th
place- 5 Kellie lane.
RSVP- Thursday 7th
Hope you can make it
bring your own alcohol." She looked up to Michael,
"Oh- yeah that makes sense."
"It's this Saturday." Evie commented,
"Shit it is!" Michael exclaimed, staring at his own invite. "You gonna go?" He asked as they began to walk towards the exit.
"Yeah, I'd like to but I don't know if I can." She frowned slightly, tugging her bag strap higher on her shoulder as they reached the main gates to the school.
"Why?" Michael questioned,
"My dad." Came her simple response. The bus pulled up, making a noise like air escaping a bottle as it did 'pshhhht'.
----
The week passed uneventfully. Evie scraped more desks of gum, Michael skipped more detentions and near the end of the week, Janie was (thankfully) back at school. On Thursday, Evie told Conner she may or may not make it but to be prepared in case she was there.
On Friday Evie asked her dad if she could sleep at Freda's place on Saturday.
"Where are you really gonna be?" Bruce Starr's tone was deadly calm and quiet as he relaxed casually against the backrest of the couch.
"W- what do you mean? At Freda's!" She exclaimed, but her falter had given her away, and her father pounced on it like a big cat on its prey,
"Well if you were where you were supposed to be-" her father rose from his place on the couch, picked up a wine glass from the coffee table and poured out a glass of the red liquid from the bottle on the couch.
He held the glass with the stalk between his index and middle finger and sipped the drink.
"-why did you stutter?" His face held an expression blanker then the pages of a brand new notebook. "And why did your friends Freda and Bree come around last week when you were apparently sleeping at Bree's place- only to tell me that you'd had a falling out and they came to apologise?" Her father came closer and with each step he took towards her, she took one step back, until she was pressed against the wall. His breath fanned over her face, the stench of alcohol so strong she almost gagged.
"Uhhh-" Evie panicked. What was going to happen next?!
"Evie, Evie, Evie. You know daddy doesn't like liars." He then proceeded to tip his wine over her head and dropped the glass against the floorboards, where it shattered into a thousand sharp fragments. As he made his leave, he called
"You're grounded and if I have to deal with your misbehaviour again, then I'll have my friend come back and do to you what he did to Janie." Evie stood, covered in sticky red wine and surrounded by a pool of shattered glass, in shock. Was that all? A mess and a threat? Somebody was feeling happy.
----
Saturday 9th 7:37 PM
Evie was halfway out her bedroom window, bracing herself to jump down. It being dark, she had to remember where things were in order to jump. Once she thought she had a good mental image, Evie swung her second leg over the windowsill and felt herself fall. She let her legs bend under her as she landed, and performed a commando roll to take out the impact further.
She stuck close to the house and slinked towards the fence bordering their yard, and then out towards the footpath. There she began to jog away. Evie had decided she would attend Connor's party, regardless of being grounded.
---
Three hours later...
Evie felt like the closest one to being sober in the entire house. Michael was standing on the dining table singing a slurry, out of tune impression of the national anthem, and Connor was standing beside the table doing a retarded jig along to Michael. There were people strewn about on the ground, two guys were wrestling each other in the corner and on the couch a couple was doing another kind of wrestle. It was getting late, and Evie knew she needed to disappear before her father noticed her absence. She said goodbye to Michael, who was belting out the second verse of the anthem, and so made no reply and then made her exit.
Once she finally got home and climbed up, through her window and into her bed, she fell asleep in a moment, completely exhausted but having had a wonderful night.