Eva's Journey by Judi Curtin Page A

I’ve really got to go. I’ll see you tomorrow, and maybe you can come and sit next to me and my friends.’
    â€˜Do you think Mr Gowing would let me change places?’
    She laughed.
    â€˜I think I might be able to sort that one out.’
    I laughed too.
    â€˜Oh, and one more thing,’ she said. ‘Call me Ella. Everyone does – except for my dad – and he only uses my full name because he knows it annoys me.’
    She gave me another hug, and then she ran on to catch up with her friends.
    And I walked slowly home.

    Victoria phoned that night, and I told her all about my new school.
    â€˜So no knives and no guns and no cat-fights?’ she said. ‘Sounds totally boring to me.’
    Then I told her about Ella, and how I had tried to help her.
    â€˜That was so nice of you,’ she said – when she’d finally stopped laughing. ‘Imagine trying so hard to help someone on your very first day.’
    I didn’t answer. I felt bad that Victoria thought I was being nice for the sake of being nice. I’d sort of neglected to mention Madam Margarita’s part in the whole story.
    â€˜Do you think you and Ella might become friends?’ asked Victoria then.
    â€˜Are you getting jealous,’ I shot back, before remembering that Victoria is far too generous to ever feel jealous of anyone.
    â€˜No,’ she said. ‘I’d just like you to have a friend in your new school, that’s all. And Ella sounds nice.’
    â€˜You mean nicer than my friends from The Abbey?’
    Now it was Victoria’s turn to hesitate. She had never much liked my friends from my old school. She said they weren’t interested in people, that they were only interested in fancy cars and exotic holidays. (Although, when she turned out to be right, and they all managed to forget me overnight, she was kind enough not to mention it.)
    Even though Victoria wasn’t giving me a hard time, I felt a sudden need to defend my old school.
    â€˜You know, there were nearly two hundred girls in The Abbey,’ I said. ‘And they weren’t all mean.’
    â€˜Just the ones you chose for your friends?’
    I thought about arguing but then didn’t bother. I knew Victoria was right. I
had
chosen my friends badly. When the going got tough, they got going – right out of my life.
    â€˜Sorry,’ said Victoria. ‘I shouldn’t have put it like that. Forget them, Eva. You’re better than the whole lot of them put together.’
    â€˜Anyway,’ I said, changing the subject quickly. ‘I have heaps of history homework.’
    And we talked about totally boring schoolwork until Mum called me for my tea.

Chapter Eleven
    A s I walked to school the next day, stomping along in my heavy brown shoes, I made up my mind that I’d just have to try harder. I had let a whole day go by without actually managing to help anyone. If I continued like that I’d never get my old life back.
    I hadn’t really believed Madam Margarita when she said it wasn’t going to be easy – and that was sure turning out to be a mistake.
    When I got to my classroom, Ella called me over. ‘You can sit here, Eva,’ she said. ‘With Chloe and Amy and me. It’s all sorted with Da— I mean Mr Gowing.’
    I smiled.
    â€˜Thanks.’
    I still didn’t plan on staying in that dump of a school for long, but while I was there. I figured I might as well make the most of it.

    I’d decided to spend the day watching the other kids in the class. There were thirty of them – surely one of them would need some help.
    Surely one of them would be my passport out of there.
    Soon though, I discovered that lots of the kids needed help – but none of them needed help in a way that I could do anything about.
    How could I help the boy called Joshua who kept tearing pieces of paper from his schoolbooks and flicking them around the room?
    How