The Anti-Cool Girl by Rosie Waterland Page A

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    And although I’d had my doubts about Karralika being any different from any other place we stayed, there actually was one major development while we were there. It had nothing to do with Mum; she would start drinking the day we left. No, the thing that was different when we went to Karralika was me.
    In a turn of events that would shock me and leave Rhiannon completely baffled, in Canberra, I was considered cool. Cool! It had nothing to do with me; I was still my usual, clueless, bungling self. But Canberra was like this alternate universe where the cool standards were so low, I was basically like a rock star the minute we crossed the border.
    I immediately realised something was up on our first day of school. I was only in Year 4, but I’d been to so many schools by that point, I knew exactly how to play my first day. Thingswere different for me than they were for Rhiannon. She would just walk into a classroom and the kids would realise they were in the presence of a better human. Not unlike how I imagine it is for Oprah every time she walks into a room. Rhiannon didn’t make friends – friends just immediately appeared at her side. By the end of the day, all the girls would be wearing their hair like hers and all the boys would be obsessed. It would take her exactly one day and zero effort to become Queen Bee.
    I, on the other hand, had to tackle things very differently. I would walk into a classroom and the kids would realise they were in the presence of an average human. I knew I was going to be low on the ladder, so my best strategy was to try and at least avoid being the very bottom rung. I would generally start with a scan of the room for potential friends. I had to play this carefully – it was a very delicate balancing act. I couldn’t go after the total weirdos, but I also had no chance with the cool kids, so I had to try and find the ones who seemed in my league but were also nondescript enough that they didn’t get bullied. Sometimes I managed this and sometimes I didn’t. At one school I misjudged and headed straight for the cool girls; by the end of the day I was playing the dog in their game of ‘house’. At another school I experimented with going it alone, but that was just as much of a mistake. School is like prison – lone drifters are weak and vulnerable to attacks. You need some kind of crew as a buffer.
    So, with many lessons from many schools already learned, and having accepted that I would never own a crowd like Rhiannon, I walked into my new Canberra classroom ready to get to work.
    What happened next confused and frightened me. I didn’t have to make friends – friends immediately appeared by my side. And not the rejects, I’m talking long-blonde hair, probably-all-called-Tiffany cool girls. Everyone kept telling me they liked my hair and my pencil case. There was practically a fistfight when the teacher asked who wanted to be my desk buddy. At recess, I had girls following me around. By lunch, word got out that the coolest and cutest boy in class had an Official Crush on me. In the afternoon, I answered one question correctly and a rumour began to spread that I was some kind of child genius. Waiting to be picked up at the end of the day, I was surrounded by girls wanting to invite me to whatever it was that people did in Canberra. Rhiannon looked perplexed. She’d obviously already taken over her class, but to see me in the same position was a foreign and unsettling experience for both of us.
    And that’s when I realised what had happened. The standards in Canberra were so low, that I’d somehow stumbled across the one school on earth where I was considered the coolest person in class.
    I was a fraudulent Queen Bee.
    And I knew we weren’t going to be in Canberra forever, so I wasted no time taking advantage of my newfound status. I learned how to control my minions and ruled over the class with a tough, charismatic and