Daylesford Tech High, Victoria, 1987

When I heard the exhibition Elvis Direct from Graceland was heading to Bendigo Art Gallery next year, my mind would have turned to the King of Rock ‘n Roll and screen heart-throb if it weren’t for 1987 …

Ooh, ooh, ooh, in Graceland, in Graceland, I’m going to Graceland

… Skipping, rolling and stepping our way through routine after routine, Paul Simon’s Graceland lyrics were etched into memory as we followed a chameleon choreographer’s lead.

Somehow a patient secondary school lab assistant, turned voluntary Rock Eisteddfod legend, managed to have each and every student who put their hand up for the challenge stage ready by July.

A couple of teenagers had attended the odd dance class but the rest of us hadn’t ventured beyond moving to “Agadoo doo doo, push pineapple shake the tree, Agadoo doo doo, push pineapple grind coffee, to the left, to the right, jump up and down and to the knees …” at the monthly under 18 disco in the town hall.

Personally, I had the coordination of a gangly newborn calf and wouldn’t have stepped into the Rock Eisteddfod space if it wasn’t for my friend, Donna, who appeared mid-term the year before, as mysteriously as she disappeared the following.

Donna could swim, dance and draw. She was bubbly, loyal and fun. Donna also seemed to understand the depth of Paul Simon’s Graceland lyrics in a way I couldn’t.

As Wayne the magician choreographer called out “do it again”, “one more time”, “keep going” to the bulk of us, Donna appeared to move through the musical routine effortlessly. Knowingly.

Outside school, at my house, we recited Anne of Green Gables, we wrote love letters we never sent, spraying them with cheap perfume and marking them with hot pink lipstick kisses.

Visits to Donna’s house were waylaid.

Instead, we met for school holiday screenings of La Bamba and Dirty Dancing at the same tech high gym where we painted thick black circles around our eyes and teased our hair until it looked like Jon Bon Jovi’s – ahead of our Rock Eisteddfod pilgrimage to The Royal Melbourne Showgrounds.

A few days before Donna disappeared, she pulled a compass out of her pencil case, pricked her finger and passed the silver instrument to me.

“Blood sisters, my Anne with an ‘E’?”

Images of the grim reaper advertisement momentarily flashed before scrunched eyes as I took a deep breath and plunged the compass into soft flesh.

The next week she was gone without explanation. From school. From town.

I like to think Donna fell on her feet.

She certainly got mine moving.

Stereo Story #639

 

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Kate Foulds is a Central Victorian short fiction/memoir writer who grew up on the family farm in Musk. She completed a post-graduate journalism cadetship at Kyneton’s Midland Express and cultivated her craft at The Bendigo Advertiser. ‘Grandma’s gift’ was published in Mother – Memories, Moments & Stories, as part of the 2020 Bendigo Writers Festival Programme. ‘Acorn’ was shortlisted in the inaugural Minds Shine Bright writing competition and was published in the 2022 Confidence anthology. Kate’s debut children’s book, 'Grumps and the green fishing rod', will be published in May.