I reach for my headphones as we roll across the tarmac. Not the wireless Bluetooth kind endorsed by the likes of Will-I-Am; the cheaper option with string perennially tangled. I’m ready to listen to a meditation podcast called ‘Fear to Fun: gently guiding you from the state of fear into creating more fun and excitement in your life’. With Frankie magazine and reusable pink water bottle jammed into the seat pocket, I press the button on the armrest to recline my seat, fully prepared to enter a state of repose on this flight. I’m wearing a cotton mandala-print scarf, floral harem pants and yellow cross-trainers; a trusted ensemble for traversing airport terminals with the utmost efficiency while ensuring I am stylish and comfortable. Aware that I’m giving off serious mum vibes, I feel a strange urge to ask someone else’s kids if they packed sunscreen.
Due to an unforeseen cancellation last night (budget airline, two-minute thunderstorm, nothing they can do), I find myself on the Saturday Morning Schoolies Flight from Sydney to the Gold Coast. Surfers Paradise: the number one destination every November for Year 12 students who have finished their final exams. As a rite of passage and acceptable social norm, Schoolie teenagers feel the need to consume more alcohol than a seasoned LA rock star, wear tank-tops with arm holes cut out into half-moons, and dance on sandy beaches like confused lobsters struck by the disorienting midday sun.
Although her head is bowed over the tray table in deep concentration, there aren’t many numbers in her squares.
‘Why are you being such a nerd?’
There are no visual cues that mark her as the popular one. Like everyone else in the group, she’s wearing Adidas slides, singlet with half-moon arm holes, and shorts that could be classified as underwear (now I really feel like a mum). Status is therefore established through actions alone. She turns to the row behind her. Her similarly attired friend pulls out a sudoku book, then waves her hand in the aisle to flag down the flight attendant.
‘Hey, do you have a spare pencil? I just really want to finish my sudoku, I’m going so well.’
Although her head is bowed over the tray table in deep concentration, there aren’t many numbers in her squares. One minute into my mindfulness podcast, the two girls decide to hark back to their unresolved conflict from Miss Baxter’s class in Term 3.
‘I didn’t want you out of the group, I never said that.’
‘Yes you did. I heard the words come out of your f***ing mouth.’
‘Don’t swear. There are other people here.’
‘I don’t give a shit.’
The flight attendant runs down the aisle. ‘Could you ladies please be quiet? Everyone needs to hear the in-flight emergency procedure.’
I curl up my headphones and scrunch them into my backpack. Perhaps I can learn more about fun and excitement from these Schoolies than from a soft-spoken meditation expert based in Boca Raton (living there, of course she would be chilled). Pretending to fall asleep, I eavesdrop on vivid conversations: twilight beach parties, theme parks, how to meet hot guys. I’m transported into a world more spontaneous than mine, wilder than my current dilemma of whether to have more than two coffees today.
Halfway to the Gold Coast, the long-suffering steward softens like a square of butter on a hot bread roll (a menu item one would pay $11.95 for on this flight).
An audible cheer as the drinks trolley clinks up the aisle. The flight attendant rolls her eyes, asks for ID, sighs as she shovels ice into plastic cups.
‘Three Coronas please.’
‘Do you have Jack Daniels?’
‘We’ll have four VBs.’
It’s just past 10am. I didn’t think the song lyric ‘It’s five-o-clock somewhere’ applied to a domestic flight with total duration of one hour ten minutes, but here we are.
Halfway to the Gold Coast, the long-suffering steward softens like a square of butter on a hot bread roll (a menu item one would pay $11.95 for on this flight). I wonder if, like me, she’s overcome with nostalgia.
‘Wow, youse are the most well-behaved Schoolies I’ve ever seen,’ she says, addressing the row of boys behind me.
‘Ah…thanks.’
Longest pause ever known to humanity.
‘Can I get another Corona?’
My own Schoolies experience was, well, interesting. Not because we could only afford to go to Port Macquarie, or because I was still seventeen and most of my friends were eighteen. At a friend’s pre-formal drinks, a platter of food gravitated in my direction: tiny parcels of gleaming orange salmon atop sticky white rice. I had no time for lunch that day, preparing for the formal with back-to-back hair styling and Napoleon make-up appointments. I consumed several portions of sushi.
Big mistake.
I vomited throughout my entire formal. My parents, seemingly in denial that anything bad was happening, danced to the music while steering my fellow classmates away from the toilet I was in (which didn’t lock, and happened to be in full view of the dance floor).
In the days that followed, food poisoning mutated into an unexplained virus. My friend’s mother, who drove some of us to Port Macquarie, prescribed every remedy in her arsenal to cure my mystery affliction: ginger beer, Eno, Nurofen. Nothing worked.
We arrived at our Port Macquarie hotel and realised we were on our own. Freedom. Photos of the time show me smiling, with a new pixie haircut and no outward sign of how I felt. I tried to join in the festivities as best I could. Buying nachos ingredients to cook together for dinner, riding back to the hotel cross-legged in the shopping trolley, drinking vodka and soda, sticky-taping each other to chairs. Although it defies medical science, these things made me feel better, not worse. Sitting on the beach at night with my best friend, watching the lights from the RSL on the headland beam over crashing waves: I felt free for the first time. Back when I didn’t need a podcast to remind myself how to have fun.
‘Cabin crew, be seated for landing.’
My stomach leaps. I tighten my seatbelt, an illusion of control over unexpected turbulence. The girl attempting to play sudoku screams and curls into a ball.
‘Why are you stroking my leg?’ she asks the popular girl.
‘I don’t know. I’m just trying to help.’
‘Well stop. It’s f***ing weird.’
‘I told you to stop swearing. There are people around.’
‘No-one cares. Look. They’re not even listening to us.’
Danielle Catherine 