to hold music recitals in our new music rooms. Do you play an instrument, Swee Ling?”
When this happened, Katie would smile at me and I would smile back, and I felt like we were in this together. It didn’t take me very long to figure out that Katie was a loner, and why she was. She just couldn’t stop talking. But I liked Katie and I let her talk.
The Cabinet paraded through the college at lunchtimes. They could talk to everyone and anyone, even though they did not do so too often, but no one talked to them for fear of being ignored.
“Oh my god, that was sooo hard,” Brodie exclaimed after a maths test one afternoon.
“I know, hey?” said Chelsea. “That last page was crazy scary.”
Brodie turned to the girl behind her. “Did you find it difficult, Nicola?”
“Not really,” replied Nicola, flattered to be asked. “I’ve been studying really hard for it for a week.”
“You mean you didn’t find it very difficult?” asked Brodie. “Wow, Nicola. Wow. Everyone found the last page impossible. I thought there were some trick questions in there. In fact, I’m sure there were.”
Nicola’s face crumpled. “What do you mean?”
“You know.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Oh, then don’t worry about it. You must have aced the test! You are a maths genius, Nicola.”
And with that they walked away, leaving poor Nicola to fret for days until the results came back.
I t was bad timing that Laurinda held the annual Senior School Art Retrospective Exhibition on Valentine’s Day, especially as it was at Auburn Academy. The exhibition was supposed to showcase the works of last year’s students, but nobody cared about them when the fresh scent of hormones from this year’s male cohort was in the air.
We were walking to the boys’ school, a little way up the street, when Mrs Grey noticed that Gina’s face had the flat brown colour and texture of an unsliced supermarket bread loaf. “Gina Grant, what is that on your face?” she yelled.
We all turned back to look. Even a neighbourhood old guy watering his camellias jolted, his hose making an arc across the footpath.
“My features, Miss.”
“Answer my question seriously! I’m sick of your antics. Are you wearing makeup?”
Gina was sent back to Laurinda to wipe it off. “Look at the shitload of makeup on your face, Growler,” she muttered as she turned back.
Just as she passed the Cabinet, Amber sang in a whispery voice, very quietly and almost imperceptibly, “Slut, slutty slut slut.”
*
At the exhibition, we went around looking at paintings and sculptures on themes such as despair and anorexia and war, while the boys snaked their way around us in sniggering huddles. Basically, we pretended that they were there to inconvenience us, blocking our view.
Gina was the only one making it obvious that she was excited to be around the opposite sex. Others were more discreet, although I noticed the Cabinet were not immune to the charms of the Auburn boys. They had begun acting coy. You’d never think that these were the same girls who planned world domination in our Politics class.
I happened to be standing near them, beside a sculpture of a pink papier-mâché brain with electrical wires jutting out of it, when an Asian boy with glasses walked by. Amber nudged me. “Look, there’s one for you.” She and Chelsea giggled.
It was incredible how they assumed that I would not be interested in any other type of boy, but that’s how they were. In their white-daisy bouquet of slim pickings, they cast out all the yellow chrysanthemums, and anything brown was considered wilted.
Back at Christ Our Saviour, a cute boy was a cute boy, even if he was a bit of a derro. But here it seemed that cuteness had to be filtered through quite a few lenses. It reminded me of going to the optometrist and having to read the letters on the wall, how each lens would be placed before my eyes until the fuzziness disappeared and the letters became sharp and distinct.
When this happened, Katie would smile at me and I would smile back, and I felt like we were in this together. It didn’t take me very long to figure out that Katie was a loner, and why she was. She just couldn’t stop talking. But I liked Katie and I let her talk.
The Cabinet paraded through the college at lunchtimes. They could talk to everyone and anyone, even though they did not do so too often, but no one talked to them for fear of being ignored.
“Oh my god, that was sooo hard,” Brodie exclaimed after a maths test one afternoon.
“I know, hey?” said Chelsea. “That last page was crazy scary.”
Brodie turned to the girl behind her. “Did you find it difficult, Nicola?”
“Not really,” replied Nicola, flattered to be asked. “I’ve been studying really hard for it for a week.”
“You mean you didn’t find it very difficult?” asked Brodie. “Wow, Nicola. Wow. Everyone found the last page impossible. I thought there were some trick questions in there. In fact, I’m sure there were.”
Nicola’s face crumpled. “What do you mean?”
“You know.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Oh, then don’t worry about it. You must have aced the test! You are a maths genius, Nicola.”
And with that they walked away, leaving poor Nicola to fret for days until the results came back.
I t was bad timing that Laurinda held the annual Senior School Art Retrospective Exhibition on Valentine’s Day, especially as it was at Auburn Academy. The exhibition was supposed to showcase the works of last year’s students, but nobody cared about them when the fresh scent of hormones from this year’s male cohort was in the air.
We were walking to the boys’ school, a little way up the street, when Mrs Grey noticed that Gina’s face had the flat brown colour and texture of an unsliced supermarket bread loaf. “Gina Grant, what is that on your face?” she yelled.
We all turned back to look. Even a neighbourhood old guy watering his camellias jolted, his hose making an arc across the footpath.
“My features, Miss.”
“Answer my question seriously! I’m sick of your antics. Are you wearing makeup?”
Gina was sent back to Laurinda to wipe it off. “Look at the shitload of makeup on your face, Growler,” she muttered as she turned back.
Just as she passed the Cabinet, Amber sang in a whispery voice, very quietly and almost imperceptibly, “Slut, slutty slut slut.”
*
At the exhibition, we went around looking at paintings and sculptures on themes such as despair and anorexia and war, while the boys snaked their way around us in sniggering huddles. Basically, we pretended that they were there to inconvenience us, blocking our view.
Gina was the only one making it obvious that she was excited to be around the opposite sex. Others were more discreet, although I noticed the Cabinet were not immune to the charms of the Auburn boys. They had begun acting coy. You’d never think that these were the same girls who planned world domination in our Politics class.
I happened to be standing near them, beside a sculpture of a pink papier-mâché brain with electrical wires jutting out of it, when an Asian boy with glasses walked by. Amber nudged me. “Look, there’s one for you.” She and Chelsea giggled.
It was incredible how they assumed that I would not be interested in any other type of boy, but that’s how they were. In their white-daisy bouquet of slim pickings, they cast out all the yellow chrysanthemums, and anything brown was considered wilted.
Back at Christ Our Saviour, a cute boy was a cute boy, even if he was a bit of a derro. But here it seemed that cuteness had to be filtered through quite a few lenses. It reminded me of going to the optometrist and having to read the letters on the wall, how each lens would be placed before my eyes until the fuzziness disappeared and the letters became sharp and distinct.
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