To My Heart I Must Be True - Final-er Draft
5826 Words :D
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Content warning: period-typical homophobia and transphobia (villains, not any main characters), violence, gender dysphoria, very vaguely implied use of slurs (cut off after the first letter), mourning, misgendering (accidentally by the characters)
Songs referenced (in order): ‘You’re The One That I Want’ by John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John (From Grease), ‘Ode to a Gym Teacher’ by Meg Christian (and/or the cover by Samantha Cunha), and ‘Glad to Be Gay’ by Tom Robinson.
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Dedicated to everyone who’s been in an awkward situation and didn’t know what to say or how to express yourself.
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Hannah moaned, squeezing her eyelids against the too-bright light assaulting her brain. She turned over a little bit, making her stomach lurch.
“He's awake!”
Hannah’s groans reached a crescendo and she peeked through her lashes. Leaning in front of her were four teenagers, like her; a girl with fiery hair, a boy with impressive sideburns, a young woman in overalls and a paisley shirt and a girl with freckles spattered across her face. Their figures blurred as tears filled her eyes.
“Easy, there,” freckle girl said, “You’ve had quite a fall,”
Two of them grabbed Hannah’s arms and hauled her up, only for her to stumble again. Her mouth hit the ground and she tasted the grass of Whitlam Park. No grass tastes nearly as good, she thought dreamily. She looked up at the statue of Ceeny the thylacine, but it wasn’t there. Eh. Her head felt so fuzzy that she probably wouldn’t know what direction she was facing. She slowly spun around on her hands and knees, trying to spot it.
It wasn’t there.
She frowned, both to think and to block out the sun. The statue was constructed a couple of years ago to commemorate the death of the last Tasmanian tiger. She screwed her eyes shut, and then opened them wide.
“Great Scott,” Hannah murmured. Then she fell face first into the ground again.
On Monday afternoons, Hannah was usually looked after by her Aunty Jennifer. Her aunt didn’t know, of course. Nobody knew.
This wasn’t just any Monday, however. This Monday was the twentieth of June, the time of year when her aunt reminisced about her old lover and was lost in thoughts of what could have been.
“You would’ve loved Arty, Ethan,” she told her ‘nephew’, “Arty loved sports and the outdoors, just like you. You’d never meet anyone as gentle, kind, spirited, compassionate…”
“Where is he now?” Hannah asked, and Aunty Jennifer’s eyes crinkled and she let out a sad little laugh.
“Arty left with the rest of my friends to find opportunities elsewhere,” she sighed, mouth curled in a bittersweet smile, “It was around this time of year, actually. Nothing has ever been the same since they left…”
“Since you lost your true love,” Hannah finished forlornly.
“Yes…” Aunty Jennifer looked straight ahead, her gaze unfocused. Maybe part of her was still watching her friends walk away.
When Hannah came to, she was on the bench in Whitlam Park with four concerned faces hovering over her. She ran a hand over the back of the bench and found that, indeed, the plaque dedicated to her best friend’s great-uncle who died when they were in year one was missing.
“How’re you feeling?” one of the people around her asked gently. Their face resolved into a particular someone’s but who how why because why not but isn’t this the past yet of course she’s here it’s the past and are those her friends?
“The tiger…?” Hannah slurred, weakly lifting a hand to clamp on her eyes because the world was too bright.
“What’s your name?” another voice trepidatiously queried.
“Hannah,” she mumbled after a couple of seconds.
“And I called you a boy earlier!” the same voice cried, sounding horrified, “Gosh, I’m really sorry!”
“Y-Yveltal,” she murmured a moment later. Then she tried to get up, only to get held down on the bench by four sets of hands.
“We’re going to take you to my dad, okay? He’s a doctor,” someone said soothingly.
“Social distancinnnn…” she mumbled, turning away slightly.
“What’s she saying?”
“I don’t know,”
“To Arty’s house!”
“One… Two… Three… LIFT!”
She was gently pulled off the chair and felt arms on her shoulders and back, guiding her somewhere. Her heart beat to the pounding of her head and she wobbled a thousand metres toward a chair to slump on.
“Hey Ethan!” her mum smiled at her, ignorant to the shiver of dysphoria her daughter felt when she was called that name, “How was school?”
“Good,” she answered, wearing a grin that didn’t quite meet her eyes, “I played cricket with my friends, but the brownies ran out at the cafe,”
Mum’s eyes lit up. “About cricket - I was talking to some other parents and they recommended this cricket club. It’s at the oval on Thursday after school with other boys your age,”
Hannah’s throat closed off as she looked at the pamphlet Mum gave her. Blue and red, scenes of action and victory and sweaty boys with their arms around each other in a show of friendship. ‘Leaping ’Roos Boys’ Cricket Club’.
“I’ll give it a try,” she forced out, “Thanks, Mum,”
“I know you’ll do great, darling,” Hannah’s mum said, ruffling her short, scruffy hair that she wished she could grow and plait. Hannah pushed down all of the desires she felt that society deemed ‘feminine’ and smiled.
Forty-four years in the past, the same girl stared out of a window, watching the boxy cars go by. Hannah was still healing from the mild concussion she woke up with half a week ago. She was staying at one of her Aunty’s old friend’s house and wasn’t allowed to do much while she recovered. Every day, Arty looked after her. It was fortunate since she had a lot of things to wrap her head around after waking up in 1978, and her head wasn’t in the best condition right now.
One of the things she had to wrap her head around was Arty ‘him’self.
“Hi,” Freckle Girl had quietly said as she opened the door to the room where Hannah woke up. She was carrying a cup of water which Hannah happily tried to accept before realising that her hands were probably too clumsy to consider it. Freckle Girl put it on top of a small cupboard next to the bed Hannah was on and slipped a straw inside. Hannah wriggled over and sipped at it.
“My name is Artemis,” the young woman previously known as Freckle Girl introduced herself, “But all my friends call me Arty. Your name is Hannah, right?”
“YeahooooOOOOOOOHH,” Hannah began before realising.
“Uh oh. Umm, Dad!” Arty called over her shoulder. Hannah cursed heteronormativity and lack of representation and herself for not realising that Aunty Jennifer never said that her true love was a man as Arty’s dad came over to check if Hannah had a headache or was feeling dizzy. She was feeling dizzy, but it was less of a the world is spinning dizziness and more of a the world as I knew it was a lie dizziness.
A couple of days later, Arty’s friends came to meet the girl who had apparently fallen from a tree in Whitlam Park. Hannah could now recognise the young woman who’d been in overalls as her Aunty Jennifer, but she was meeting the other two for the first time.
“My name’s Lori,” Fiery Hair Girl greeted, smiling, “Sorry for mistaking you for a boy earlier,”
“That’s okay,” Hannah said, “I… It’s not the first time that’s happened,”
Lori grinned apologetically and Sideburns Guy stepped forward vivaciously.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you at last, ma’am,” he bowed, offering his hand, “This humble gentleman that you see before you is called Jim. You are the fair Hannah, I presume?”
“I am indeed,” Hannah grinned, shaking his hand.
“And JIM is melodramatic,” Aunty Jennifer shoved past him jokingly and they shared a smile as she moved next to Arty. “My name’s Jenny,”
Hannah politely nodded. It was odd seeing her usually serene aunt as a lively teenager.
“Do you know where you are?” Jenny asked.
“Kangaroo Paw, just outside of Sydney,” Hannah answered almost immediately. Her head wasn’t completely better, but it had greatly improved since earlier this week.
“Excellent. Do you live here?”
“Y… Yes. I do,” Hannah hesitated a bit. She wasn’t sure how much she wanted to tell them.
“Where’s your house? Your parents are probably worried sick!”
There it was. Hannah swallowed and thought as much as her sore brain could.
“Umm… Not- Not really,” she carefully said, watching her aunt’s already concerned friends from the past grow even more worried.
“Were you kicked out?” Jim asked. His eyebrows were scrunched and so high up that they almost disappeared into his hair. “Sorry- it’s none of my business,”
“Yeah, kind of. I was kicked out of my time,” Hannah explained, watching four people reach the wrong conclusion. It was kind of funny watching them awkwardly look at each other, trying to figure out what was tactful enough to say. Hannah almost let them carry on, but she’d been in a few too many scenarios like this. She decided to spare them.
“I’m from 2022,” she clarified a little, giving it time to sink in.
“R-really?” Lori said in a high-pitched voice.
“Yes,” Hannah confirmed before continuing, “I don’t know how or why I time travelled, though,”
They all sat in silence for a while.
“Can you prove it?” Jenny asked quietly.
“I think I can, Jennifer Anderson,” Hannah purred. Her quiet words carried across the whole room. “You were raised in Kangaroo Paw and haven’t ever known another home. Your favourite cardigan was handwoven by your true love, whose name is Arty, for your fifteenth birthday, which was in April. In fact, you’re wearing it right now,”
The four teenagers from 1978 looked at the girl from the future and gulped.
The cricket club session passed in a blur of “You can do it, man!”s and “Let’s go, boys!”s. Before Hannah knew it, she was walking through the oval’s gate and into her dad’s arms.
“How’d it go, my bo- Ethan? Are you okay?”
Hannah stayed silent, just like she had every time she was grouped with ‘the boys’ and when the coach had said “Way to go, dude!” when she hit the ball right over the bowler’s head. She couldn’t count how many times she’d been misgendered in that afternoon alone.
“Cricket didn‘t go well, I think,” Dad said to Mum when they got home and Hannah had plodded despondently to her room. Her mum murmured something in response. Hannah couldn’t really hear. Didn’t matter. She opened her Pokémon school bag and rummaged around until she found her recent health assignment before remembering what it was.
‘Identity and the Impact of Support’
She flung the paper in the general direction of her bag and started doing maths instead. She had just finished the exercises on the gradient formula when her mum softly knocked on the door.
“Come in,” Hannah said, sounding neutral. She’d forced the wobble out of her voice when she started revising coordinates.
“How are you feeling, darling?” Mum quietly asked as she entered Hannah’s room.
“I’m feeling as good as my mountain of homework lets me,” she joked.
“Mhmm…” Mum clearly had something on her mind. “Your Dad told me that you didn’t seem very happy after cricket. Can you tell me why?”
Hannah searched for words that wouldn’t reveal her secret.
“It just seemed too… formal,” she tried. “A-and I didn’t really know anyone. I prefer playing with my friends or my class,”
“Fair enough,” Mum nodded, “You don’t have to go to that cricket club if you don’t want to, Ethan,”
Mum offered a hug and Hannah leaned into it, pretending that her mum had said her real name, not her dead one.
“Meeeeeeeeeeeeeshaa!” Jenny leaned down to lift her little sister into her arms, “My mini Misha, meet your daughter from the future!”
“Ooooooooooooooh,” Misha looked at Hannah’s face, “He’s pretty,”
Hannah silently swallowed as she smiled at her four-year-old mum.
“No, Misha, she’s a she. She might LOOK like a boy, but inside, she feels like a girl,” Jenny explained.
“Oh,” Misha blinked, “Okey. Sorry,”
“It’s alright,” Hannah grinned, “You know now,”
This was the first time she’d ever told anyone that she was a transgender girl. It was incredibly freeing to not have to pretend to be something she wasn’t.
“MISHIII!!!!” Lori cried, coming into the room with the rest of Jenny’s friends.
“LORRYYYYY!!!” Misha cried, noticing.
Misha wriggled out of her big sister’s arms and ran over to Lori. Lori knelt so they could bump wrists. Hannah noticed that they were wearing matching friendship bracelets.
“Heyyyyy Misha,” Arty smiled at Misha, but Misha crossed her arms and turned away.
“I don’t wanna talk to YOU,” she huffed.
“Why?” Arty asked, eyebrows raised.
“You’re taking my big sister and my bestestest friend to that party!” she pouted, “But not meee!”
Arty let out a little patient huff and smiled. “It’s a grownup party. It’d be reeeaally boring for a kid like you,”
Misha glared suspiciously at her. “But I saw Jim getting dress ups for it! You can’t trick me!”
“Alright,” Arty said, “But you still can’t come. It’s way past your bedtime when it starts, and it’s a walking party,”
“What’s a walking party?” Misha frowned.
“It’s where you’re outside and it’s really cold and you walk for ages and ages,” Jenny explained, looping an arm around Arty’s shoulders. Arty leaned against her gently and put an arm on her back.
“You’re right! It does sound boring,” Misha said, sticking her tongue out, “Can you bring me a drink from the party pleeeaase?”
Jim burst out laughing and Misha frowned at him.
“G-grown up drinks…” he wheezed.
“Ohh…” Misha muttered, looking at the ground.
“Don’t worry!” Lori piped up, “We’ll find something else for you,”
Misha grinned and hugged her, laughing when she was picked up off the ground and swung in a circle.
“A party?” Hannah asked Jenny.
“Kind of,” Jenny shrugged, “More of a protest,”
“What cause?”
“It’s a protest against the harassment of gay people and to show support for gay men and lesbians and allies in San Francisco. They’re fighting a homophobic politician trying to pass a law that would give schools the power to fire teachers that support gay rights or are gay,” Jenny whispered, “Me and my friends are going. It’s tomorrow night,”
“What day is it?” Hannah asked, feeling sheepish. Behind her gently smiling face, her mind was running at a thousand kilometres per second. Her aunt’s gay/supportive friends go to an LGBTQIA+ rally and leave Kangaroo Paw in the future.
It was around this time of year, actually.
“The twenty-fourth of June,”
June 24. June 24.
The first Saturday of March?
Not now. Not in this time.
“Where is it going to be?” Hannah said, her pitch slowly rising with her eyebrows.
“Do you want to go?” Jenny frowned, “I’m not sure if that’s a good idea. You’re still healing and Arty’s sister barely let us go,”
“I would,” Hannah asserted, rolling her shoulders back, “Where is it?”
“It’s starting in Taylor Square in Sydney and it’s going to move down Oxford Street,” Jenny answered reluctantly, “It really isn’t a good idea for you to go, not with your injury…”
Hannah didn’t want to stay put and be silent. She knew what would happen through hours of searching through incognito browser tabs for affirmation after a particularly dysphoric day.
“Please let me go,” Hannah whispered, “I’ve had a week to recover,”
Hannah thought about it for a second.
“About a week,” she corrected herself, “I think I’ve had about a week,”
Arty and Jenny looked at her sceptically.
“Dad said it would’ve mostly healed in a week,” Arty muttered, sounding like she didn’t quite believe herself.
On Friday Hannah visited her aunty again. Her mum had suggested it after Cricket Club went badly the day before and after she looked at the calendar and noticed an unexpected P&C meeting that was on that afternoon. Aunty Jennifer lived with Hannah’s grandparents in their house, which was a short walk away from Kangaroo Paw High and in the neighbourhood of Whitlam Park, a green space with a bench, a commemorative statue, a Pokéstop and the best-tasting grass in the universe. Hannah’s grandparents were going to Sydney for the week to visit a friend and her mum didn’t want Aunty Jennifer to be alone.
“Especially not today,” Her mum had whispered, looking down at Hannah’s half-packed Team Rocket lunchbox.
Hannah padded up the low steps to the verandah, rang the old plastic doorbell and unlocked the door. The house was dead silent, the lights were off and most curtains were drawn. She shifted a little and closed the door behind her. Looking around, she kicked her shoes off and started looking for her aunt.
The living room was empty. No one sat on the plush leather sofas.
The only thing out of place in the dining room was a lukewarm bowl of two-minute noodles with a fork tangled up in it.
Nothing in the kitchen.
Nobody was upstairs.
The last place Hannah checked was Aunty Jennifer’s bedroom. For as long as she could remember, entering an adult’s private space was taboo. That’s why she opened the door by a fraction of a millimetre per second, hardly daring to breathe.
Aunty Jennifer was sitting on her bed, hugging her cardigan up to her chest and looking at something in her hands. Hannah crept to quietly stand behind her.
“Today,” Aunty Jennifer rasped, “Th-they left,”
Hannah’s lips tightened and she swallowed. She knew she should offer comfort in some way, but what should she do? What should she say?
What could she say?
“T-t-today,” Aunty Jennifer continued, “The twen-ty-for-r-rth of June,”
The same day as the first Mardi Gras. Huh.
Aunty Jennifer held out what she was holding with shivering fingers so Hannah could peek at it over her shoulder.
It was a small framed photo of a younger version of her aunt in overalls with her arm around the most heavily freckled girl Hannah had ever seen. A girl with bright auburn hair that fell in waves around her face had her arms splayed, revealing a woven friendship bracelet on one wrist. A boy stood on the other side of the group, one hand on his waist, the other ruffling his hair. He had very impressive sideburns. They were all grinning and the edges of their figures were slightly blurred, like the picture had been taken mid-laugh.
“Was she your best friend?” Hannah murmured, carefully pointing at the freckled girl. This interaction was balancing on a tightrope and Hannah realised a split second too late that she’d just pulled on one side of its balancing pole. Aunty Jennifer let out a wounded keen, desperately clutching the cardigan closer like it was a dying loved one.
“I miss her so much,” she whispered hoarsely, “I miss Arty. I miss them all,”
“I got chiiiills, they’re multiplyin’,” Arty sang along to the music in her big sister’s car, “And I’m looooooooosin’ contro-oool! ‘Cause the pooooweeeer… You’re supplyin’…. It’s ELECTRIFYIN’!”
“You better shape up - do, do, doo, - ‘Cause I need a gaaal…” Jenny sang over the actual lyrics, “And my heart is set on you-ou-ou! You better shape up - do, do, doo - You better understaaa-aa-aaand… To my heart I must be truuuuuuuueeee!”
“Nothin’ left, nothin’ left for me to do!”
“You’re the one that I want!” they sang together for the chorus.
“You are the one I want!” Arty’s sister Debra backed, both hands on the wheel.
“Ooh, ooh ooh, honey…!”
Hannah bopped along to the song and occasionally joined in singing. Her school had performed Grease a couple of years ago and she’d been a chorus member. Her shoulders slowly relaxed into the seat as she listened.
She knew what was going to happen, even more than she had in the ‘future’. She could do this. She knew she could save her aunt’s friends and lover. She knew she could. When she got back to the future - when, not if - she was going to tell her family who she really was. If Aunty Jenny could live through decades of having lost her true love and best friends and being unable to tell anyone the true identity of the person she fell for, Hannah could live through one difficult conversation with her parents. Meeting tiny Misha would make that much easier. Hearing her mum’s past self apologise for misgendering her felt like a hug from a potential future. That Hannah would return to and create. She refused to think of any other possibility.
“We’re at the hotel!” Debra called, stopping the car and letting Hannah, Jenny and Arty out. They grabbed suitcases and stepped inside the hotel. Debra strode toward a desk. Hannah had felt relaxed yet apprehensive in the car, but now her legs felt like they could barely support her weight and her mouth felt dry. She looked around warily.
“Jim! Lori!” Jenny grinned. The aforementioned teenagers waved back and lugged their suitcases towards the group.
“We have six hours to get ready,” Jim said, checking his silvery watch. His hair flipped as he looked up again.
“Ready?” Debra echoed with a smile, turning around and waving a room key at them.
An hour later, Hannah’s bag vibrated twice. She slid her phone out of it to check her messages, glancing up at Aunty Jennifer. She was slumped on a sofa in the living room, one hand on her cardigan, which was crumpled on her lap. She was gazing out the window with the same odd expression Hannah had noticed on Monday. Hannah’s eyes slid back to her phone’s glowing screen. The first message was from Mum.
Meeting’s finished! On my way xoxo
The second was from her best friend Jonathan.
Want to meet up at Whitlam Park? Hayley brought cricket stuff :)
Sounds fun! I’ll ask Mum :)))
she replied.
In what seemed like no time at all, her mum was there and hugging her.
“Hey Ethan! How’re you feeling?” Mum asked with her eyebrows scrunched and a small smile on her face.
“Good,” Hannah forced herself to return the smile, “Could I please play cricket with my friends? It’s at Whitlam Park,”
“Of course!” Mum allowed, grinning, “As long as you have fun,”
Hannah beamed, swung her backpack over one shoulder and sauntered out the door.
“You can go on your phone to use that GPS game, but only for a couple of minutes! I want you to SOCIALISE, remember?!” Mum called after her.
“Alright,” Hannah said, pretending to feel dejected for a second before smiling. She grinned like a Cheshire Cat as she walked around the corner to her favourite park and her favourite people.
“Heyyy Ethan!” Jonathan called. Hannah waved both arms in greeting as she ran into the park.
“Ready for cricket?” Sophie asked, holding a cricket ball. She was wearing a gorgeous jumper in rainbow colours and had a new sequin scrunchie keeping her lovely dyed green hair out of her beautiful face.
“R-ready,” Hannah smiled, refocusing. She put her bag near her friends’ next to the statue of Ceeny the Thylacine and patted their sun-warmed nose.
“Great!” Jonathan cheered, “Dibs first bat!”
Hannah grinned as she backed up a bit to be a fielder. This was what cricket was supposed to be in her mind. A bunch of friends playing around, trying to hit the ball as far as they could.
“Batter up!” Jo yelled, getting in the right position to bowl, “One, two, THREE!”
She bowled it as hard as she could and Crack! Jonathan hit it with equal force. Hannah’s eyes crossed to see the ball. She realised a second too late that it was speeding toward her f-
“ETHAN?!”
“Oh no,”
“I’m re-eally s-sorry! Please g-get up…”
“Mate, can you hear us?
“Ethan? You okay?”
“He’s awake!”
“Easy, there. You’ve had quite a fall,”
“One… Two… Three… Open your eyes!”
Hannah looked up to the mirror and had to remember to breathe. It wasn’t Ethan’s face that gaped back at her. For the first time ever, she saw Hannah. Ethan’s short, spiky mousy brown hair was covered by a wig of smooth chocolate-coloured hair, swept into a long plait that fell over her shoulder. Her lashes had been darkened with mascara and when she winked an eye, she saw a smear of pink over her eyelid. Little painted rose-coloured stars formed constellations across the bridge of her nose. The white and pink of the ball gown she was wearing made her whole ensemble look stunning. She had also thrown a baby blue scarf and gloves on to form the transgender flag, though nobody from 1978 would understand it yet.
“That good, huh?” Jim grinned, putting the makeup away. He was wearing a pink beehive hairdo wig with the consistency of fairy floss. It left his impressive sideburns exposed, to the amusement of everyone in the hotel room when he had paraded out of the bathroom. He was barely recognisable. Debra approved.
“It’s- It’s absolutely amazing,” Hannah blustered, eyes wide.
“We’re lucky that I had a growth spurt after getting this dress and you fit it,” said Jim. He fiddled with a green carnation on his voluptuous dress.
“Are you ready yet?” Hannah heard Lori yell from the living room.
“Yeah! The lady loves her look!” Jim called jovially back.
Lori half opened the door, peeked inside and smiled. “Come on out then,”
The others were spectacularly dressed too: Lori wore a gorgeous light purple frock and a bonnet covered in lavenders. Jenny and Arty were wearing purple capes over their day clothes and when they turned around, grinning from ear to ear, two interlocking Venus symbols joined when the edges of their capes touched.
“Ready to go?” Debra tilted her head to one side, showing off an intricate tiara artfully made of twisted wire perched on her curly nut brown hair, “And remember, if things go badly, you guys leave as fast as you can. Understand?”
“Yep,”
The hotel was pretty close to the rendezvous so they walked there. Hannah’s throat felt a bit dry and her legs felt a bit weak. She wondered if Pokémon Go would’ve been tracking her steps if she had her phone. Eventually, they could just follow the sound of music.
“…Like a leaf sticks to a tree. One girl who runs the errands, and who chases all the balls.” Hannah heard as their colourful group neared Taylor Square, “One girl who may grow up to be the gayest of all…!”
Hannah felt her spirits rise as she danced over to the music and saw the protest. Dozens of people parading, following a truck blasting songs. There was a huge banner being carried that Hannah could only catch a glimpse of before her group joined the march. Debra steered them toward some women her age wearing hot pink lipstick and vests with protest pins scattered on them. Hannah’s heart stuttered as she noticed that she and her little group were some of the only people wearing costumes.
“OUT OF THE BARS AND INTO THE STREET!!!” protesters yelled. Hannah gasped, grinning, as she realised that people were poking their heads out of the buildings on Oxford Street. Two men, holding hands, stepped out of a house and joined the march. The next glance Hannah caught of them was of one caressing the back of the other’s head and leaning in close.
“Hurry up!” someone yelled, close to the truck. Hannah craned over the crowd and spotted some adults in navy blue uniforms. She inhaled quickly and ducked back down, deciding to focus on the music and the swishing of her dress instead.
“SIIIIIING if you’re glad to be gay,” the crowd belted, cheering and whistling, “Sing if you’re happy that way,”
“Siiing if you’re glad to be gay,” she breathed, clenching one fist, “Sing if you’re happy that way,”
By the time they reached Hyde Park, the march contained hundreds of people in the most fabulous outfits Hannah had seen since secretly bingeing footage of the 2022 Mardi Gras at a stupid hour of the morning. The truck stopped and there were shouts. The uniformed adults had pulled the truck’s door open and were grabbing at something - or someone - inside. A person was harshly tugged out of the driver’s seat. Hannah swallowed, standing on the tips of her toes to see. The truck’s horn blared and it drove off, manned by police. Yells came from the protesters. A couple darted forward and grappled with police, punching and kicking.
“TO THE CROSS!!!” one of Debra’s friends shouted. The chant was picked up by the rest of the crowd. They surged as one toward King’s Cross. Hannah lifted her skirt and ran too. Every breath felt ragged. The crowd thinned as they arrived at King’s Cross. Hannah stumbled, buffeted around by the protesters. Her head pounded. Her arm was tugged and twisted around someone else’s. A grim, freckled face stared back at her. People jostled her forward. White van-looking cars were driving by. She felt herself being turned by the crowd. Stern police officers pointed to the left and Hannah was pushed further forward. She couldn’t see them anymore. No matter how hard she tried to turn or walk away, the force of the crowd drove her onward. She could see some protesters at the front reach a fountain that looked like a dandelion clock spraying water. They were talking to the police. The police yelled something back that made them tense. She was pushed along again. Through dazed eyes, she saw adults in uniform blocking the roads.
“ROBIN!!” someone shrieked. Hannah realised that it was Debra. One of her friends had been grabbed by the hair and was being pulled into a van. Debra and other nearby protesters that Hannah had never seen before grabbed one of Robin’s arms and tugged her away from the van. The police pulled her other arm right back. They were playing a sick game of tug-of-war. A camera went SNAP. A bottle flew past the heads of the police and shattered in the van. It made them flinch and drop Robin, who scrambled away. Hannah had let go of Arty’s arm and she realised that she couldn’t see her.
“Arty?” Jenny gasped, her face in an odd expression that looked painfully familiar, “Arty?! ARTY?!?!”
“THERE!!!” Hannah screamed as she spotted a flash of Arty’s purple cape.
“ARTY!” Jim called, running over.
“G-get OFF me, you-” Lori was being grabbed as well. Hannah dashed over as best she could and yelled “HELP HER!” to the protesters nearby. Several startled and held on to Lori. The police showered down blows with fists and batons, but they held firm and pulled her away. Someone called over taxis and was trying to help Hannah, Lori and younger queer folk toward them. Hannah moved out of the way. Two violet capes were flying back and forth near a van. Their wearers were fighting police. Hannah pulled Jim back.
“Go!” she yelled over the din, “There are taxis!”
“But-” he gazed worriedly at his friends.
“Lori’s over there,” she continued, “You won’t help anyone if you get arrested,”
Jim grimaced, nodded and took off in the direction she’d pointed in. Hannah took a big breath and ran to the van like there were hellhounds snapping at her heels. Arty was halfway into the van, being dragged by her hair and wrists. Jenny was screaming and tugging her back by the waist, helped by some men in frocks and fairy wings.
“HEEEELP!!!” Hannah cried, holding Arty’s ankle, “WE NEED HEEELL-”
She squeaked as she was grabbed from behind. Her wig slipped off and she stumbled backwards.
“Stay quiet and stop fighting,” a police officer snarled in her ear, “or I’ll have to respond with for- EEW!”
He took his hand off her face, shaking it. She spat on the ground to get the disgusting taste of bigot out of her mouth.
“He licked me!” the officer said in disbelief, “That little f-”
“GET THE HELL OFF HER!!!”
Sequins flashed as Debra flew over like a guardian angel and socked the officer holding her in the jaw. He wobbled for a moment and let go as he slumped to the ground. Debra grabbed Hannah by the hand and dragged her toward the taxis. Hannah spotted Arty and Jenny hovering by one. When they saw Debra approaching with her in tow, they dashed into a taxi. Hannah smiled as she saw the interlocking Venus symbols on the back of their capes join up. She breathed out and felt a harsh tug pull her out of Debra’s grip. Debra turned around, eyes wide and teeth clenched. Hannah shrieked and clawed at whoever held her and felt a cr-
“Go AWAY!”
“HANNAH!!!”
“Get off them, you-”
“GIVE HER BACK YOU B-”
Hannah slowly peeked her eyes open. The sun was bright, but not too bright. The grass was green and smelled delicious. A statue of a Tasmanian Tiger grinned at her on the other side of the park. Whitlam Park! Hannah shot up and looked around. Her backpack was next to the bench which, when she ran her hand over the back of it, had a plaque dedicated to Jonathan’s great-uncle. She slung her bag over her shoulder, stood, and frowned. Her head felt heavy, but not in a traumatic brain injury way this time. She looked over her shoulder and felt something bump against her back. She tried to touch it and realised. She gently grabbed it and brought it around to the front of her body. Her hair was in a long plait that almost reached her belly button. She flung it around and checked her phone. The latest text from Jonathan read:
Hey Hannah! Can’t wait for cricket club on Saturday :DD
She gulped and scrambled around in her bag for answers. Crammed in the back where she’d put the Leaping ‘Roos pamphlet was a flyer for ‘Teen Tigers Cricket Club! Teenagers of all genders and experience levels are welcome!’. She smiled at it and its pictures of kids posing with cricket bats, wickets and balls. Carefully, she folded it and put it back, then started to walk away from the park. Five minutes later, she approached the veranda of her grandparent’s house. She heard music and slowed.
“If you’re fiiiiiiiilled with affectiiooon you’re too shyyyyyy to conveyeyy, meditaaa-aaaate in my directiiooon, feel your way…”
Aunty Jennifer and Aunty Artemis were sharing a bowl of noodles and singing to a familiar song coming from a speaker.
“I better shape up, ‘cause you neeeed a gaaal,” Aunty Artemis sang.
“I need a gaaal, who can keep me satisfiiii-ii-ied,” Aunty Jennifer replied.
“I better shape up, if I’m gonna prooove,”
“You’d better prooove,” Aunty Jennifer twirled noodles around her fork, smiling at her true love, “That my faith is justifiiiied,”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure down deep inside,” they harmonised.
They began to sing along to the chorus and they spotted Hannah. Aunty Jennifer grinned and mimed painting stars on her cheeks. Hannah smiled to herself and sheepishly hoped that she had started writing that health essay in this new timeline. Humming, she started walking home.