Lion Rock
Title: Lion Rock
Topic: Easy
Wordcount: ~2,270
Notes: I can write things that aren't morbid and creepy, really! They just... still aren't exactly happy. Bugger.
Jumping off Lion Rock is easy, everyone has always told me. There's nothing to it. It's the summer I turn seventeen, the last summer of my childhood, or so my friends and I tell each other, gleeful, full of the belief that the moment we graduate from high school we'll be adults. It's a summer of opportunity, as far as we're concerned: we're the eldest of the young, drunk with power over the younger kids, whom we boss around the neighbourhood pool, and 'borrow' money from.
And it means, finally, that Lion Rock is ours. I've waited for this moment since I was twelve, and they first let me watch. From the ground, mind, staring up at the brilliantly blue sky, shading our eyes from the sun, as one after another, they launched themselves from the lion's head, hurtling down to the crisp, cool bay below. I am afraid of heights, but I ached to be allowed to join them.
Lion Rock gets passed down, year after year, so that the group about to embark on their last year of school has a summer they'll never forget. It seems cliched, downright fanciful, in retrospect, but we ached for that privilege. I've known kids to stay on at school for that alone - those that don't are disallowed, but it's different for them. They have jobs, responsibilities. Summer doesn't mean the same thing, once you finish school. There's no one in this town that can afford to throw money away on further study.
We've been talking about it for months, as winter crept into spring, and spring into summer. The days grew longer, and the sun shone bright enough that it was good swimming weather, and we frolicked in the bay, as soon as we were done with school, chores, and our after-school jobs. Tradition says that Lion Rock is untouchable until the bell rings on the final day of school.
So, you can imagine the rush to escape, on that day in mid-December, the twenty-one kids in our year-eleven class making a mad dash for the cliffs, scrambling up the steep sides of the rock as if we've been up there a thousand times, and not never once before. Once up there, there's an air of eerie anticipation, as if, now that we're here, we're not quite sure what to do with ourselves.
Jas, my boyfriend of two months, puts his arm around me, and we cuddle, as the group forms a natural, if wonky, circle on the lion's head. Books are dumped unceremoniously; one of the boys shakes out all his notebooks over the edge, and we watch as paper rains down upon the bay. A few people laugh. Free. We're free!
And Lion Rock is ours.
There are no jumpers, tonight. As the evening gets cooler, a couple of the guys build a fire, and we sit around it, talking. Ben's going away - going to get a job in the city, as soon as the summer's over. Lisa wants to start working part-time at the hairdresser, or maybe just the department store on Sturt Street, in town. "But only part-time," she assures us, her dark eyes lit up by sparks coming off the fire. "I don't want to miss too much."
No one's brought any food, nor anything to drink. So we make plans. Rita is going to get some stuff from the grog shop, since her dad owns it and she works there some of the time anyway, even though she's not eighteen, and not really supposed to. Dave'll get sausages from his dad's. Between us, we've connections to most of the things we need in town. Tomorrow, we agree, we'll have a real party.
Eventually, hungry, if reluctant, we start to peel off in groups. Andy insists he's going to stay the night, and tries to convince Jas to stay with him, but Jas insists on taking me home. "I'll bring back food," he offers, and Andy looks pleased. I'm a little disappointed: I had hoped he might come in for a bit.
But on the way home, we have a searingly hot make-out session against the window of Ted's Supermarket, and I'm still blushing by the time we repeat the process two blocks later, against the shed behind Mum and Dad's. I get a lecture about being so late, and my sister, Cara, smiles knowingly at my flushed face, but they've all been seventeen, too, and remember Lion Rock.
In the morning, my best friend, Sara, drops by on her bike just as I'm finishing breakfast. Mum and Dad are long gone - they run a cafe and antique shop just off the highway, for the tourists - and Cara left about half an hour ago, to her job at the petrol station. She's working there until her fiance finishes his apprenticeship at the garage, and they can get a house and have a family, but she hates it.
I finish my vegemite toast, and Sara hovers against the bench, looking uneasy. "What's up?" I ask, eventually, swirling the juice in my glass. I'm eager to get going, but Sara's going to be impossible unless I actually get the whole thing out in the open, right now.
"Mum saw my report, last night."
Mine's still stuffed somewhere in my backpack, not yet unpacked. I know roughly what it looks like, and it doesn't bother me, much. I'm still at school because it's better than working, and because having your HSC could be useful down the line, not because I'm good at it.
Sara's different, though. Top of our class. Really smart. And her mum's from the city, one of the few people in town who went to university. She's always wanted Sara to do the same, and maybe that's not a bad idea, except that Sara doesn't seem to want to get out of this place. It's home.
"Getting on your back again?"
She nods, her face showing her frustration as much as her balled fists do. "I told her to leave off, but she won't. Nancy at the library says she'll take me on full time, when I finish next year, and that's good enough for me. I don't want to leave here." She sounds close to tears.
I sigh. "No one can make you do anything, Sara. You're older than most of us - you'll be eighteen before we finish school. So you can work for Nancy, and just move out, or something." Sara may well have been my best friend, but she kind of drove me nuts, sometimes. I didn't /get/ her - why she'd want to work in a library, why she couldn't just stand up to her mother.
"Yeah, but..."
"You have to make choices for yourself sometime, babe."
She smiles uncertainly. "Maybe. I'll try. I wish my Mum was like yours, though."
I make a face. My greatest ambition is to maybe work at the bank - I quite like the idea of wearing skirts and pantyhose, and being kind of posh - and /my/ Mum thinks I'm being silly, and should just join her and Dad in the cafe. Ugh. "I dunno. C'mon, let's go." I grab my water bottle, and a sandwich.
And so, we go back to Lion Rock, where half our class is already laid out on towels, or swinging their legs over the ledge. A couple are down in the water, but no one, we discover in short order, has made the jump yet.
The Jump. It hangs in the air, somehow ominous. It was a long way down, to the bay. Go down the wrong way, and you'll break your neck. It hasn't happened, not in all the years and years of the tradition, but that doesn't make the jump any less scary, not even for most fearless among us. Or perhaps it's just respect, for them. Waiting, until we're all ready.
Christmas comes and goes. Jas and I stay out later and later, our kisses growing more and more heated. On boxing day, he cups my breast in his hand, stroking it with calloused fingertips beneath my bra, and I shiver. I know he's moving slowly - for my sake, because I'm uncertain - but time is passing quickly. Perhaps, he suggests, we should have some time to ourselves on New Year's Eve.
We have a big party planned. On Lion Rock, of course. Champagne for the girls, beer for the guys. Food, all kinds. And, unspoken but obvious, the suggestion that then, at midnight, is the right time for The Jump. It terrifies me. The Jump, in and of itself, yes. But doing it at midnight? Jumping into inky blackness? It overshadows even my nervousness over what Jas wants.
That day comes. We're camped out on the lion's head from early in the morning, with our collection of towels and hats, and a few beach umbrellas. The champagne gets uncorked by lunch time, and by dinner, most of us are already well and truly tipsy - if not drunk. I have a tight knot in my stomach. I feel ill.
Jas spends most of the evening talking cars with some of the guys. I end up consoling Sara, whose mother has decided she should go to the city for some summer classes, starting next week. She's close to tears, and my head is aching.
Everyone else is talking, in low voices, in ones and twos, about The Jump. It's not really unspoken, now, but it's not - confirmed. Just a rumour, spreading through a group of teenagers, gaining solidity with every step.
But it's anti-climactic. Or perhaps not? At 11:30, a fight breaks out, and Scott Branson launches himself at Will Simms, and before you know it there are broken champagne glasses everywhere, and in an attempt to escape retribution, Scott has launched himself off the side of the rock. Everything goes very still.
Finally: splash!
We all look down, and Scott's head bobs up, after a moment more. He waves, and even from this height, we can see that he's beaming, as if he intended to be the first, all along, and it was all just a stunt. Maybe it was. Will dives after him, and then Ben. Dave. Joe. Ellie is the first of the girls, a daredevil as always. To my surprise, weepy Sara follows her. Jas offers me his hand, and I shake my head, motioning him to go without me.
"Don't be an idiot," he tells me, grabbing out for my hand. I try and duck away, but he's too quick for me. Even so, he can't get me to stand up, and before long, we're the last people on the rock, just staring at each other.
"I can't do it. I don't like heights."
"You have to! It's tradition."
"I can't. I just can't."
"But it's easy!"
"You haven't done it. How do you know?"
"Ask anyone. Your parents. Your sister. Everyone in this town has done it. Do you want to be the only one who hasn't?"
"No. But..."
"But nothing. Up. Now."
And then, it's all a blur. We jump, and I clutch onto his hand for dear life, screaming as we fell. The water is cold, and hard, and we sink deep into it, and I come up gasping for breath. My bikini top has come undone, my breasts on view to the world, but no one is looking at me because Jas is clutching his arm and trying to tread water, tears in his eyes.
He's broken his god-damned arm. Joe drives him to the hospital, because he's the most sober of all of us, but I don't come because... I don't know. I just don't. It doesn't feel right. I go home, instead, and cry into my pillow because everything feels wrong, and I'm still mad at him for making me do it, even though he's now hurt because of me, so I should feel guilty. So it's all screwed up in my head, and weird.
And that kind of takes the fun out of everything. Jas is okay - in plaster for the rest of the summer, but okay. He's home the next day, and I go to see him, but it's strange. I don't stay long. We both stay away from Lion Rock, though separately, and it's lonely, because Sara's going off to the city, and I'm just not as close to everyone else.
I end up working for my parents, saving money. I don't know what for, but it seems more worthwhile than anything else I could do.
On my seventeenth, Jas and I break up officially, and the day after, he and Lisa are seen together. She was one of my friends, until then. I feel cold inside.
So it's kind of a relief when school goes back, because Sara's back, and there's school to keep me busy, and it's all one step closer to being beyond all this.
By Spring, there's nothing the year elevens can talk about, except having Lion Rock. We smile knowingly, because it's nothing but a memory, to us, of a time now past. We have exams to take, and then, lives to get on with. Sara's going to Sydney after all, but intends to come back once she has her degree. Mum's going to train me in accounts, and I'm going to help manage the cafe and the shop.
Things change so quickly when you're young. I wish I'd known that when it would have been of some use, before I let everything matter so much.
Topic: Easy
Wordcount: ~2,270
Notes: I can write things that aren't morbid and creepy, really! They just... still aren't exactly happy. Bugger.
Jumping off Lion Rock is easy, everyone has always told me. There's nothing to it. It's the summer I turn seventeen, the last summer of my childhood, or so my friends and I tell each other, gleeful, full of the belief that the moment we graduate from high school we'll be adults. It's a summer of opportunity, as far as we're concerned: we're the eldest of the young, drunk with power over the younger kids, whom we boss around the neighbourhood pool, and 'borrow' money from.
And it means, finally, that Lion Rock is ours. I've waited for this moment since I was twelve, and they first let me watch. From the ground, mind, staring up at the brilliantly blue sky, shading our eyes from the sun, as one after another, they launched themselves from the lion's head, hurtling down to the crisp, cool bay below. I am afraid of heights, but I ached to be allowed to join them.
Lion Rock gets passed down, year after year, so that the group about to embark on their last year of school has a summer they'll never forget. It seems cliched, downright fanciful, in retrospect, but we ached for that privilege. I've known kids to stay on at school for that alone - those that don't are disallowed, but it's different for them. They have jobs, responsibilities. Summer doesn't mean the same thing, once you finish school. There's no one in this town that can afford to throw money away on further study.
We've been talking about it for months, as winter crept into spring, and spring into summer. The days grew longer, and the sun shone bright enough that it was good swimming weather, and we frolicked in the bay, as soon as we were done with school, chores, and our after-school jobs. Tradition says that Lion Rock is untouchable until the bell rings on the final day of school.
So, you can imagine the rush to escape, on that day in mid-December, the twenty-one kids in our year-eleven class making a mad dash for the cliffs, scrambling up the steep sides of the rock as if we've been up there a thousand times, and not never once before. Once up there, there's an air of eerie anticipation, as if, now that we're here, we're not quite sure what to do with ourselves.
Jas, my boyfriend of two months, puts his arm around me, and we cuddle, as the group forms a natural, if wonky, circle on the lion's head. Books are dumped unceremoniously; one of the boys shakes out all his notebooks over the edge, and we watch as paper rains down upon the bay. A few people laugh. Free. We're free!
And Lion Rock is ours.
There are no jumpers, tonight. As the evening gets cooler, a couple of the guys build a fire, and we sit around it, talking. Ben's going away - going to get a job in the city, as soon as the summer's over. Lisa wants to start working part-time at the hairdresser, or maybe just the department store on Sturt Street, in town. "But only part-time," she assures us, her dark eyes lit up by sparks coming off the fire. "I don't want to miss too much."
No one's brought any food, nor anything to drink. So we make plans. Rita is going to get some stuff from the grog shop, since her dad owns it and she works there some of the time anyway, even though she's not eighteen, and not really supposed to. Dave'll get sausages from his dad's. Between us, we've connections to most of the things we need in town. Tomorrow, we agree, we'll have a real party.
Eventually, hungry, if reluctant, we start to peel off in groups. Andy insists he's going to stay the night, and tries to convince Jas to stay with him, but Jas insists on taking me home. "I'll bring back food," he offers, and Andy looks pleased. I'm a little disappointed: I had hoped he might come in for a bit.
But on the way home, we have a searingly hot make-out session against the window of Ted's Supermarket, and I'm still blushing by the time we repeat the process two blocks later, against the shed behind Mum and Dad's. I get a lecture about being so late, and my sister, Cara, smiles knowingly at my flushed face, but they've all been seventeen, too, and remember Lion Rock.
In the morning, my best friend, Sara, drops by on her bike just as I'm finishing breakfast. Mum and Dad are long gone - they run a cafe and antique shop just off the highway, for the tourists - and Cara left about half an hour ago, to her job at the petrol station. She's working there until her fiance finishes his apprenticeship at the garage, and they can get a house and have a family, but she hates it.
I finish my vegemite toast, and Sara hovers against the bench, looking uneasy. "What's up?" I ask, eventually, swirling the juice in my glass. I'm eager to get going, but Sara's going to be impossible unless I actually get the whole thing out in the open, right now.
"Mum saw my report, last night."
Mine's still stuffed somewhere in my backpack, not yet unpacked. I know roughly what it looks like, and it doesn't bother me, much. I'm still at school because it's better than working, and because having your HSC could be useful down the line, not because I'm good at it.
Sara's different, though. Top of our class. Really smart. And her mum's from the city, one of the few people in town who went to university. She's always wanted Sara to do the same, and maybe that's not a bad idea, except that Sara doesn't seem to want to get out of this place. It's home.
"Getting on your back again?"
She nods, her face showing her frustration as much as her balled fists do. "I told her to leave off, but she won't. Nancy at the library says she'll take me on full time, when I finish next year, and that's good enough for me. I don't want to leave here." She sounds close to tears.
I sigh. "No one can make you do anything, Sara. You're older than most of us - you'll be eighteen before we finish school. So you can work for Nancy, and just move out, or something." Sara may well have been my best friend, but she kind of drove me nuts, sometimes. I didn't /get/ her - why she'd want to work in a library, why she couldn't just stand up to her mother.
"Yeah, but..."
"You have to make choices for yourself sometime, babe."
She smiles uncertainly. "Maybe. I'll try. I wish my Mum was like yours, though."
I make a face. My greatest ambition is to maybe work at the bank - I quite like the idea of wearing skirts and pantyhose, and being kind of posh - and /my/ Mum thinks I'm being silly, and should just join her and Dad in the cafe. Ugh. "I dunno. C'mon, let's go." I grab my water bottle, and a sandwich.
And so, we go back to Lion Rock, where half our class is already laid out on towels, or swinging their legs over the ledge. A couple are down in the water, but no one, we discover in short order, has made the jump yet.
The Jump. It hangs in the air, somehow ominous. It was a long way down, to the bay. Go down the wrong way, and you'll break your neck. It hasn't happened, not in all the years and years of the tradition, but that doesn't make the jump any less scary, not even for most fearless among us. Or perhaps it's just respect, for them. Waiting, until we're all ready.
Christmas comes and goes. Jas and I stay out later and later, our kisses growing more and more heated. On boxing day, he cups my breast in his hand, stroking it with calloused fingertips beneath my bra, and I shiver. I know he's moving slowly - for my sake, because I'm uncertain - but time is passing quickly. Perhaps, he suggests, we should have some time to ourselves on New Year's Eve.
We have a big party planned. On Lion Rock, of course. Champagne for the girls, beer for the guys. Food, all kinds. And, unspoken but obvious, the suggestion that then, at midnight, is the right time for The Jump. It terrifies me. The Jump, in and of itself, yes. But doing it at midnight? Jumping into inky blackness? It overshadows even my nervousness over what Jas wants.
That day comes. We're camped out on the lion's head from early in the morning, with our collection of towels and hats, and a few beach umbrellas. The champagne gets uncorked by lunch time, and by dinner, most of us are already well and truly tipsy - if not drunk. I have a tight knot in my stomach. I feel ill.
Jas spends most of the evening talking cars with some of the guys. I end up consoling Sara, whose mother has decided she should go to the city for some summer classes, starting next week. She's close to tears, and my head is aching.
Everyone else is talking, in low voices, in ones and twos, about The Jump. It's not really unspoken, now, but it's not - confirmed. Just a rumour, spreading through a group of teenagers, gaining solidity with every step.
But it's anti-climactic. Or perhaps not? At 11:30, a fight breaks out, and Scott Branson launches himself at Will Simms, and before you know it there are broken champagne glasses everywhere, and in an attempt to escape retribution, Scott has launched himself off the side of the rock. Everything goes very still.
Finally: splash!
We all look down, and Scott's head bobs up, after a moment more. He waves, and even from this height, we can see that he's beaming, as if he intended to be the first, all along, and it was all just a stunt. Maybe it was. Will dives after him, and then Ben. Dave. Joe. Ellie is the first of the girls, a daredevil as always. To my surprise, weepy Sara follows her. Jas offers me his hand, and I shake my head, motioning him to go without me.
"Don't be an idiot," he tells me, grabbing out for my hand. I try and duck away, but he's too quick for me. Even so, he can't get me to stand up, and before long, we're the last people on the rock, just staring at each other.
"I can't do it. I don't like heights."
"You have to! It's tradition."
"I can't. I just can't."
"But it's easy!"
"You haven't done it. How do you know?"
"Ask anyone. Your parents. Your sister. Everyone in this town has done it. Do you want to be the only one who hasn't?"
"No. But..."
"But nothing. Up. Now."
And then, it's all a blur. We jump, and I clutch onto his hand for dear life, screaming as we fell. The water is cold, and hard, and we sink deep into it, and I come up gasping for breath. My bikini top has come undone, my breasts on view to the world, but no one is looking at me because Jas is clutching his arm and trying to tread water, tears in his eyes.
He's broken his god-damned arm. Joe drives him to the hospital, because he's the most sober of all of us, but I don't come because... I don't know. I just don't. It doesn't feel right. I go home, instead, and cry into my pillow because everything feels wrong, and I'm still mad at him for making me do it, even though he's now hurt because of me, so I should feel guilty. So it's all screwed up in my head, and weird.
And that kind of takes the fun out of everything. Jas is okay - in plaster for the rest of the summer, but okay. He's home the next day, and I go to see him, but it's strange. I don't stay long. We both stay away from Lion Rock, though separately, and it's lonely, because Sara's going off to the city, and I'm just not as close to everyone else.
I end up working for my parents, saving money. I don't know what for, but it seems more worthwhile than anything else I could do.
On my seventeenth, Jas and I break up officially, and the day after, he and Lisa are seen together. She was one of my friends, until then. I feel cold inside.
So it's kind of a relief when school goes back, because Sara's back, and there's school to keep me busy, and it's all one step closer to being beyond all this.
By Spring, there's nothing the year elevens can talk about, except having Lion Rock. We smile knowingly, because it's nothing but a memory, to us, of a time now past. We have exams to take, and then, lives to get on with. Sara's going to Sydney after all, but intends to come back once she has her degree. Mum's going to train me in accounts, and I'm going to help manage the cafe and the shop.
Things change so quickly when you're young. I wish I'd known that when it would have been of some use, before I let everything matter so much.