if only

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Smacking her gum obnoxiously off her roof of her mouth, Mal slammed her front door shut behind her. She figured the noise might rouse Evie from her beauty sleep, but a complete lack of humility left her pretty uncaring about that. It was after noon anyway and if Evie wanted to snooze away her day then that was her prerogative, but Mal wasn’t going to tiptoe around like a timid little mouse to accommodate for the other girl, even if she was her best friend. But that was only something she’d admit under duress.

She pulled her hood up over her purple locks, and slung one strap of her backpack over her shoulder before stalking off. The rattle of spray cans sounded from her bag, but it wasn’t like there was anyone around to prod their nose into her business. At this time, the citizens of Cherry Grove were probably tucked away in the nearby café or having some sort of afternoon tennis match up at the country club. At Evie’s pleading request, Mal had relented and trudged up to the complex last week so her best friend could snoop around and take WhatsApp pictures for her mother to fawn over. The whole place was drowning in teacups and doilies and Mal’s fake retching had been tutted at numerous times, but never outrightly scolded.

She’d seen a couple of the rich kids dressed in their pristine white tennis skirts playing a game which didn’t seem to be competitive at all. Every point scored was met with a ‘good shot!’ from their opponent, whereas back in Mal’s hometown, a loss would be accompanied by a hostile ‘fuck you!’ before someone stuck a Swiss Army knife into the tennis ball.

Still, the visit hadn’t totally been in vain as the country club was made up of a number of towering and unmarked walls that were dying for a lick of paint. Mal had heard the treasurer say so, even though she was pretty sure that her idea of a makeover was vastly different from what he had in mind. But who said that Mal didn’t have any sense of community spirit?

Instead of waltzing through the front entrance with her dirty combat boots like she had last time, Mal ducked under a nearby fence instead, ending up on the outskirts of the golf green and upsetting a tiny circle of children playing some sort of Duck, Duck, Goose game. They sat on a picnic blanket and stared gormlessly at her, up until she reached out and plucked a lollipop from one of the younger boy’s pudgy hands. Pulling the wrapper off, she popped it in her mouth and strode off, listening to him wail as she went. God, kids were such suckers.

Security around this placed seemed to be lax, as the group of infants were the only thing remotely close to an obstacle that Mal encountered. Coming around to the back of the building, she was pleased to see that the place was deserted, figuring that all the adults were crowded inside for high tea so they could discuss the ongoings of their rich society lives. It made her nauseous just to think about and she dropped her backpack by her side before hitching up the bandana she’d tied around her neck so it covered her mouth, protecting her from any fumes.

Pulling a purple can from her bag, she gave it a vigorous shake then began coating the wall in front of her with her signature colour. It was bright and sharp and contrasted the pale, pastel aesthetic of her surroundings perfectly. She’d nearly finished her large ‘M’ when a crunch of pebbles from behind alerted her to someone approaching. Whirling around, bandana still obscuring the bottom half of her face and her bangs covering the top half bar her eyes, her short-lived fear dissolved into amusement.

The person staring back at her was tall and burly enough to be a figure of authority, but he was wearing clothes more suited to a hiking trail and his fluffy hair reminded Mal of one of Evie’s American Girl dolls that she’d dutifully styled when they were kids. Mal didn’t think this guy was a threat at all so she quirked an eyebrow at him.

“Can I help you?” she asked pointedly.