Chapter One
“What are you doing in there?”
“Nothing. Go away.”
“Are you sulking because Mum said you couldn’t have a new iPhone cover?”
“No.”
“Then open the door.”
“No.”
It was 4pm on Thursday. I was lying sideways on the bed in my room with the door firmly closed against my nosy 10-year-old sister, who lay on the floor on the other side of it. I could hear her adenoidal breathing through the gap under the door. I knew what that meant. Any minute now she would be barging in. That’s because my sister has no personal boundaries whatsoever – yet another of my crosses to bear.
Scuffle. The door handle rattled. I looked upside down around my room for a weapon. Nothing hard was at hand so I stretched for my 1D memorabilia cushion and waited for the myopic brown eye that would be soon be peering through the crack. There. Whoosh. Missed. Damn.
And there she was: my sister, who had the proportions of Angelina Ballerina, pirouetting into my private space.
I sat up. “Get out.”
“No.”
“What’s the rule?”
“Closed Door. No Entry.” Milly didn’t look at me as she spoke. It was a resented rule.
“So? What are you still doing here?”
Mill extended a pointed toe, bent and twiddled with my silver dog ring holder. “I just want to make sure you’re okay.”
I fell back on the bed. “I’m okay. Now please just go.”
Milly lifted up my aqua handled hairbrush and twirled it in the air. “So, you’re not mad at me?”
“Nope. Put that down.” My eyes narrowed. “Why?”
“Nothing.” She put down the brush and nonchalantly stroked my silver dolphin pendant on black cord.
I sighed. “What did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything… It was Ms Patrina. I was only going to wear it during warm-up.” “It” turned out to be my favourite black jumper. Milly’s ballet teacher had confiscated for it not being regulation pink. “But I’ll get it back. Pinky promise.”
It wasn’t the first time Milly had borrowed my things and, for the millionth time, I wished I could put a padlock on my door. Or, even better, move into my own apartment. As if that was going to happen. I couldn’t even afford a new cover for my phone.
You’re probably thinking I sound like just another 15-year-old girl obsessed with privacy and her iPhone. But until this year, I didn’t even have a phone.
I was living in the middle of whoop-whoop on the west coast of Australia being home-schooled by my mother who was a teacher. Though we were originally from Sydney, we’d moved to the middle of nowhere three years ago when my dad, a geologist, got a job working for a mining magnate. Apart from Milly’s light fingers, it wasn’t so bad. We had Skype. I also got to rescue a lot of native animals which was really cool.
At the end of last year, everything changed. First, my dad lost his job and we had to move back to Sydney. We couldn’t go back to our old house because we’d sold that so we ended up in a derelict rental with the landlord from hell. On the upside, I got accepted into this great school on a part scholarship. To celebrate, my parents bought me an iPhone.
“It’s not the latest model, honey, but it’s got all the bells and whistles just like all you girls need,” said my dad.
One minute I was dressed in shorts on the verandah listening to tame magpies, summarising six chapters of To Kill a Mockingbird and answering questions about its main themes – prejudice, racism and loss of innocence – and reciting the reasons for the Vietnam War for history, the next I was dressed in a regulation knee-length uniform attending Northcote Grammar School for Girls with a data plan and about a zillion school rules to remember.
All of this I could handle.
It was the girls themselves that had me freaked. Or, more specifically, a group of girls whose behaviour in the playground was nothing like I’d encountered before. It was like being dropped in a foreign country with a new language and customs to learn and I’d brought along the wrong guide book. I hated that feeling: of not being prepared. If it wasn’t for Brigitte, I don’t know what I would have done.
Brigitte Riley had been my best friend in kindergarten. We’d met in the sandpit. Brigitte made the best mud pies back then. I was her best customer. We stayed in touch when I moved away and she was the first person I told when I found out we were coming back and I’d gotten in to Northcote Grammar School for Girls. She was ecstatic. She’d been there since Year 7.
On my first day, she met me on the corner of my street and Trafalgar Road and we walked to school together. She’d also gotten me a job with her at the local golf club where we were paid the minimum wage by Brigitte’s aunt, the club’s social secretary, to hand around food on sticks to new members. We spent most Sunday nights watching Doctor Who. Recently, her mum had invited me to see Guys and Dolls with them for Brigitte’s 16th birthday which was in a few months. Brigitte had always been into musicals. I’d said yes even though I wasn’t.
It still didn’t help. Nothing helped. Not even crying on my bed after school which is what I had been doing this afternoon when Milly barged in pretending to be starring in Dance Academy.
My bedroom door opened up again. Mum. It was ballet time and she was looking for Milly.
“Great,” I said. “Everyone come in. Please.”
Mum squinted at me.
“Have you been crying?”
“No! I just want to be left alone.”
Mum frowned. “Is this about your phone cover?”
“No! Yes. I don’t see why I can’t get a new one?” All the girls at school had these cool covers that resembled wooden tablets. Mine was fluoro and sparkled so much Milly coveted it – I rest my case.
“This is so unlike you.” Mum began to pick up clothes from my floor, folding them and putting them away. Then I saw her expression change. Oh no. I knew that look. It meant she was going to give me a pep talk. I had to stop her.
“Mum. It’s nothing. I’m fine.”
She sat down on the bed anyway.
“Going to school after three years of being home-schooled with your sister is a huge adjustment. You’re feeling anxious. I completely understand that. It’s okay to be scared and overwhelmed. But you’re going to be fine. You’re a smart, strong and beautiful person, inside and out. All the girls will soon see that.”
“Yes, I know. You’ve told me this, like, a million times. It’s not even about that.”
“Ah. A boy…”
I could almost see the synapses firing inside mum’s brain as she latched on to her second favourite topic: my hormones.
“Muum.”
“…Well, of course this is all completely natural what you’re feeling…you are nearly 16, after all, and…” she was off. It was so embarrassing. I fell back on the bed.
Since coming to Sydney, I had totally become obsessed with boys but I didn’t want to discuss it with my mother. I just wanted a new iPhone cover.
“..If it’s that important to you to feel like you fit in, you can have it…”
Huh? Since when did we switch back to phone covers? I sat up.
“It is. It really is.”
“Not too expensive, though. Until dad gets a new job and I stop being a substitute, money’s tight.”
“Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
I hugged her hard. She smiled.
“I can drop you at the shopping centre when I take Milly to ballet. But you’ve got to get ready now” – I nodded and opened my mouth, but mum interrupted – “I know, you were born ready. Just like your dad. Could you buy some milk? Oh, and you’ll have to catch the bus home. I can’t wait. I have to collect Gert.”
I quickly brushed my hair – you never knew what boys might be lurking at the shops – and put on my dolphin necklace. It had been a present from Aunt Gert for my last birthday. I loved it. Gert was my father’s great aunt and, at 90, she was ancient. She lived in a hermetically-sealed old people’s home and every week she’d have dinner at our place. Tonight, it was soup on account of Aunt Gert’s ill-fitting dentures. She was also a stickler for punctuality so Mum practically burned rubber as she left us at the entrance of the community hall, next door to the shops, and the place where Ms Patrina vainly attempted to turn a leotard-clad elephant called Milly into a graceful ballerina.
I winced at the squeaky music coming through the open window of the community hall. Thank God the bus stop was far away on the other side of the shopping centre.
I bought a container of milk and the phone cover. I put it on straightaway, stroking the smooth wood finish, then headed inside the splendour of our local pharmacy to test fragrances and one lip gloss after another in stripes on the inside of my wrist. I knew it was time to go when the salesperson began to hover. I dabbed the winner – Pink Kisses – on my lips, grabbed the bag containing the milk and headed to the bus stop.
As I stared at my phone trying to figure out what bus to catch, I heard a popping sound. Slowly, I became aware of a sweet scent with which I’d just become familiar: Vera Wang Princess. In the pharmacy, it smelled beautiful and exotic and full of promise – and came with a whopping $89 price tag. Out there in the afternoon sun and low hum of traffic, it was like being transported to another world.
I looked up to discover its source. A girl wearing a cap and one of those shorty jumpsuits that I wasn’t allowed but coveted stood beside me, pulling at a wad of lurid pink bubble gum from her mouth and blowing on it before returning it. It was Natasha Fielding, one of the popular girls in my year at school. I was about to say hi, then remembered that she hadn’t spoken to me all term even though we were in the same English class. I ducked my head back to my bus app and did my best to ignore her even though all I could hear was her snapping gum between sighs. When she eventually spoke, I assumed she wasn’t talking to me.
“God, I hate public transport.” A pause. Then, “Tell me you agree.”
I glanced up in surprise and saw her looking at me.
“What? Sorry? Were you talking to me?”
She chewed slowly and rather thoughtfully, not answering me straightaway. After what felt like forever, but was probably only a second or two, she seemed to come to a decision.
“You’re the new girl at school, aren’t you?” She said, giving me an encouraging smile.
I nodded, “Yes, I’m Lucy.”
“I’m Natasha. Welcome to our school.” I didn’t bother to correct her that, technically, I was no longer new; that term one was nearly over. I was just pleased, I guess, that she had noticed me. She kept talking, like we were already friends. She had been at the shops, too, with her mum. But her mum had left her there, barefoot, in the car park, and she hadn’t a clue why.
“She’s basically crazy.” She twirled her forefinger around her ear in the universal gesture for kooky and blew an enormous bubble, practically the size of a balloon. She held it like that for a while and then sucked the sweet air back into her mouth. She chewed again, more grimly this time.
“There’s no way I’m getting on a bus. No way. I’m ringing my dad. He’s mad at me for getting a D for maths, but he’ll pick me up.” She sounded confident. “He’s going to freak when he hears how Mum abandoned me. Again.” She stretched the word out to emphasise her point, then stepped closer, looking at the dolphin around my neck. “Nice necklace.”
She adjusted her cap so that her hair fell in a ponytail through the gap in the back. She was close enough that I could smell her shampoo beneath the Vera Wang fragrance. She smiled brightly into the afternoon sun.
“He can give you a lift. If you want,” and, without waiting for my answer, hit her dad’s number.
With a satisfied air, she hung up. “He’s coming,” and she adjusted her bag with flowered handles and tugged the bubble gum from her mouth, rolling it around in her fingertips while she searched for a bin. There was one about 20 metres away. I watched her closely as she headed for it. Two boys, thongs clamped on dirty feet and blond hair crusty with salt, whistled loudly as they skateboarded past. She wriggled her shoulder in acknowledgement of the compliment, but didn’t glance their way. What had she got that I hadn’t?
The answer was simple. Everything. Her legs were tanned to a golden brown, her toenails were painted a lush strawberry red and her eyes were rimmed in dark green kohl.
When she returned, she took out a sample-sized bottle of perfume and gave herself a spritz. “Want some? Hold out your wrist.”
I did as I was told and she squirted me, too.
“Snap.” She’d noticed the candy-coloured stripes of lipgloss on my wrist. She held out her own which was striped just like mine. I breathed in the fruity fragrance and thought that maybe we weren’t so different, after all. Natasha held out the bottle.
“Here, take it.”
I stared at her. “Really?”
What was the catch? But there was none. She was just being generous. She pushed the bottle into my hand.
“Have it. I’ve got another one at home. Here’s Dad.”
A shiny black Mercedes pulled in. A man stuck his bald pate out of the rolled-down driver’s window like a hound in the breeze and said, “Hi, princess.” She grabbed for the door handle but missed when the car skipped forward. He grinned, enjoying his prank. She tried again to open the door. And, again, the car rolled forward, just an inch, but enough to throw her off balance.
“Stop it, Dad! Just let us in.”
“Sure thing,” but, again, her dad tapped the accelerator. Natasha had had enough. She stamped her foot. I stood still, pop-eyed.
“I wish I’d caught the bus now.” She yanked so fiercely at the moving door, her bag slid off her arm, the contents spilling out: a hairbrush, a bunch of lip gloss pots and several packets of gum.
“Fuck,” she said, scrambling to pick everything up.
“What did you just say?” her dad said, raising his eyebrows.
“Nothing. I said ‘fruit’.” Natasha rearranged her bag, herself and her visor.
“Just get in the car,” he said suddenly as if he’d lost interest in the prank and all of it.
She got in.
“I should go,” I said.
Natasha leaned out, “No, wait. Dad’ll give you a lift.”
I tentatively put a foot towards the car, half expecting Mr Fielding to take off. But he didn’t.
“What star sign are you?” she said to me as I climbed into the scruffy back seat after her.
“Um, Cancer.” I collapsed on the leather that stuck a bit to my thighs and, after slipping the perfume sample she’d given me inside my bag, shoved it between my knees.
“I thought you were spending the afternoon shopping with your mother.” Mr Fielding ground the car into gear.
“She had a caftan crisis or something and had to run.”
“Typical.” He started whistling Born to Run, glancing back in the rearview mirror. “I haven’t met you before, have I?”
“That’s because she’s new. She’s the Scholarship Girl.” Natasha made it sound exotic, rather than desperate.
“Hi, Mr Fielding,” I said. “Thanks for giving me a lift.”
“Do you like the Boss, Lucy? You’d better, if you want a lift home.”
“Um, yes. He’s great,” I said as convincingly as I could.
He nodded his approval.
“Dad’s a Leo and he’s into Springsteen,” said Natasha. “I’m Scorpio.”
I couldn’t think of anything more to say so lapsed into silence. The Boss played on.
“See you Monday,” I called after the brake lights as Mr Fielding’s Mercedes disappeared down the hill. I stood for a minute on the driveway, my bag with the milk, my faux-wood phone cover and a little bottle of fragrance slung over my shoulder, the new girl in town who did extra homework and believed in climate change staring at the place where I’d last seen Natasha Fielding.
As I sniffed my wrist again, I noticed the time on the phone in my hand. It was five o’clock. I had been in Natasha’s orbit for approximately 20 minutes and already I felt different. I felt special. I breathed in the exotic base notes of the fragrance that Natasha had given me. Was it really only ten hours since I got up and ate my usual breakfast and lived my usual boring life?
Now I’d met Natasha, all that was about to change. I thought about the way the boys openly stared at her, at her long legs and golden hair. I closed my eyes and inhaled once again and thought of how she’d given me her perfume and a lift home. I was on the brink of something momentous. I was sure of it, and I was ready.
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