It Takes a Village

Please enable game mode by clicking “Start Game" on the right-hand side of this page. Many chapters will not make sense without it, and some will not even display content. This allows the story to converge at points and avoid unnecessary duplication, while taking into account the story so far.

On the outskirts of Sydney stood a brutalist sculpture of grey concrete, red brick, steel rails and sheets of dull green galvanised iron that someone had decided to call a school. Within this school, a boy and a girl sat on opposite sides of an upstairs classroom, with no idea that they were both thinking about each other, but in rather different ways.

The girl, who was pretty, buxom and blonde, sat on the edge of a desk with her bare legs dangling over its front. She was part of a circle of uniformed students, the rest of whom were staring at her so expectantly that none of them noticed the white knuckles of her hands, which gripped the edge of the desk as though she was afraid of falling off.

Courtney was, however, mostly afraid of pissing herself out of terror and embarrassment. She opened her mouth and gave a strained, shout, the kind of shout that didn't really want to be heard, like one would use to warn an unpleasant person that they were about to step into the path of an oncoming bus. “I love Sebastian Barlow!”

Her face burnt as guffaws erupted from the gaggle of students near her. Some of her classmates shot furtive glances across the classroom to the boy, who sat alone and had turned his head reflexively at the sound of his name. He was tall and handsome, in a brooding kind of way. Thin strands of ebony hair fell across the thick-rimmed plastic glasses that windowed his cobalt eyes and obscured his vision, but not before his eyes lighted on Courtney. She was decidedly not looking at him.

As his own cheeks flushed, Sebastian turned away. His heart sank and his eyes stung. A single tear rolled down the side of his nose and smudged the date in his diary. 19 December 2008. The last day of term. Sebastian wasn't so much looking forward to the summer holidays as he was relieved that term was mere hours from ending. Six weeks of compassionate leave from Cobham High lay before him. Six weeks without regimented lessons. No homework. No humiliation. No Courtney.

Though Sebastian was used to being bullied and many of the perpetrators were gathered around Courtney, she herself had never done anything to hurt him apart from seeming indifferent to his existence. Now he couldn't help think of her as a collaborator working with the enemy.

Declaring love for Sebastian was a suitably humiliating dare, but it caused Sebastian usual pain because those were precisely the words he longed to hear from Courtney. When they first met, Courtney was nothing like the girls Sebastian had known in primary school. Even at thirteen she had been more woman than girl, and Sebastian was instantly smitten with the tall, shapely girl whose infectious laugh was confident and genuine. But life at Cobham High was hard enough without being teased for having the temerity to think he had a chance with Courtney. Fearing the consequences of inevitable rejection, Sebastian had but to pine for the girl he loved and try to wank himself senseless for the next five years. It had almost worked.

Courtney, who had no inkling of this, was not thinking about Sebastian's feelings whatsoever. Conversely, Sebastian was only thinking about his own feelings. That, in a nutshell, was the problem that defined their dynamic. One can quite easily openly state one's revulsion at something disgusting — like a slug, cockroach or used car salesman — without having any regard for how that makes the something feel. The slug, cockroach or used car salesman doesn't think of themselves as revolting, nor know why they are, and only one of them really ought to know.

Had Courtney stopped to think, she might have realised that it was not she, but Sebastian, who was being humiliated by the dare, and that the reasons for humiliating him were not particularly good. Instead, she was just glad when the game moved on and she was no longer the centre of attention.

Six weeks later, Laura Schmidt was busy at the stove and singing along to Duran Duran's “Hungry Like the Wolf”, which blared from the clock radio on top of the refrigerator. It was only nine o'clock in the morning, but already the heat of the midsummer sun was forcing its way into the house. Reflecting that state of affairs, Laura's flaming hair was tied up in a bun and her full figure was clothed in a pink singlet and denim Daisy Dukes.Breakfast was the traditional last-Sunday-of-the-month fry up, her way of trying to make her nephew feel at home. Sausage, bacon, eggs, beans, tomato and mushrooms, all with a side of buttered toast and a mug of builder's tea. She had even negotiated with the local butcher to get the right kind of sausage and cut of bacon.

Upstairs, a half-conscious Sebastian groped clumsily on his bedside table in an effort to seek and destroy his alarm clock, which was clanging urgently. He cursed under his breath as his glasses and wristwatch clattered to the floor, the sound reverberating through his skull like a demonic cackle. When silence was finally restored, he rolled onto his back and stared bleary-eyed at his bedroom ceiling. Australia was Hell's waiting room. The summers were brutal and Sebastian hated it. His body was sticky and his mouth was dry and tasted sour. Foolishly, he took a swig from the bottle of tepid water beside his bed. All it did was make him grimace.

With a quiet, self-pitying sigh, he kicked his thin cotton sheet unceremoniously to the foot of his bed and sprawled out, naked but for his black briefs. The alarm had exorcised yet another of Courtney's nocturnal apparitions, which continued to haunt him even now, as the summer holidays were drawing to a close. Cautiously, Sebastian slipped a hand into his briefs. “Dry,” he muttered nonchalantly.

Swinging his legs off the bed, Sebastian stood, stretched and yawned, then stooped in front of his bedside table to pick up his glasses and watch. His bedroom came into focus when he jammed his glasses onto his face and he saw that he had also knocked down the cards he'd received for his eighteenth birthday. There were only four of them, including one from his aunt, but Sebastian kept them near to remind him that he at least had some friends.

Unfortunately, the cards also reminded him that Courtney had also turned eighteen that summer and, once again, he'd failed to find an appropriate way to wish her a happy birthday.

Refusing to dwell on that, Sebastian found yesterday's discarded trousers and t-shirt crumpled in a corner. He picked them up, determined they were clean enough for breakfast, and pull them on.

As Sebastian descended the stairs, he passed a portrait of a man and a woman who hung in silent judgement. The man bore a close resemblance to Sebastian, as though a reflection of Sebastian's own future. His companion was an attractive woman with long, fiery locks like Laura's. Although Sebastian wasn't sure Heaven existed, he hoped his parents weren't looking down in disappointment at their pathetic son. He liked to think they had better things to do up there.

Until Sebastian moved in, Laura was used to getting around the house in her underwear. It was only after she noticed that her then-pubescent ward didn't know where to look that she started covering up. Sebastian appreciated any effort to keep latent incestuous urges at bay, but Laura's shorts and singlet did little to conceal her figure. He was therefore mildly annoyed to enter the kitchen and find his aunt had dressed down that morning. Though, as usual, not annoyed enough to broach the subject.

“Morning!” he shouted over the radio, which was now playing A-ha's “Take on Me”.

Laura turned, a bucktoothed smile forming on her plump lips, and turned down the radio. “Good morning,” she replied in a silvery voice. “Tea won't be long. You can take the plates and set the table.”

Laura was the only close family Sebastian had left. He was ten years old when his parents were killed in a car crash. After one last Christmas and birthday in London, he was sent halfway around the world to live with his aunt in Mansfield, a small town full of small minds on the edge of the sprawling Sydney metropolis. For most of his subsequent schooling, Sebastian had been bullied for being different. Foreign. Bookish. Friendless. A natural outsider and an easy target.

Sebastian knew all of that should have put his infatuation with Courtney into perspective, but it didn't. Teenage angst overshadowed all as unrequited love's acute pangs stabbed him through the heart.

Laura watched as her nephew sat at the table, idly picking at his breakfast. No one was more shocked than her at the of Sebastian's parents except Sebastian himself. Laura was only twenty-two at the time, barely a decade older than Sebastian. Though young and single, Laura had her own home and steady work as an accountant. Along with their flaming heads of hair, Laura and her sister had inherited the house in Mansfield from their mother. After her sister married Sebastian's father, an Englishman, the couple moved to London where Sebastian was born, leaving Laura to live in the house alone. Upon the of her sister, Laura became the sole owner. That had been a tick in the right column when it came to custody of Sebastian: the authorities felt entrusting her with Sebastian was preferable to putting him in an orphanage or foster home.

“Everything okay?” Laura asked, setting the mugs down and slipping into the chair opposite Sebastian. She had never really settled into a parental role, something which she put down to their closeness in age, but she strived valiantly to find a compromise between mother, aunt and big sister.

Her nephew looked up from his plate. “Oh,” Sebastian said in a voice that almost succeeded in sounding off-handed. “Yes.”

Laura tucked a wayward strand of hair behind her ear and eyed Sebastian briefly. “Courtney?” she ventured, and smiled sympathetically when Sebastian nodded. “Well, I'm here if there's anything you need to get off your chest.” She gave his arm a gentle pat. That was all she could do, and all Sebastian wanted her to do.

They turned their attention to breakfast and the room was soon full of the sound of cutlery scraping on ceramic plates.