by Thalia Lark
‘Well, it used to be like that, but most high schools have introduced this new system now where tenth graders still have the option of taking general science and history and stuff, but they can choose to specialise early if they want a head start on their senior years. There were just too many cases of stress overload and burnout in grade eleven and twelve because of the academic pressure, you know? So they designed it so that the subjects in grade ten give a brief overview of the content covered in grade eleven and twelve, so when you reach the senior years the work is a little less daunting.’
‘They didn’t do that at my old high school.’
‘I think it’s mostly a city thing. It’s been working well so far though. I love it because it means I can take modern. I’m a bit of a history buff, if you didn’t pick up. Mostly I’m interested in twentieth-century warfare – I’ve made prototypes of every model of plane they used in both the Great Wars, the Vietnam War and the Cuban Missile Crisis. I’m looking at the Korean War now, but of course I can only work on my models when I’m at home – there’s no time here what with all the assignments we’re given! Plus, I’d be scared of people breaking them. I use this really soft wood to build the prototypes because it’s more malleable and absorbs the glue better, but it’s very fragile – I snapped a wing on my Aeromarine 39 model just by knocking it against the curtain…’
I nodded along in vague assent and continued walking, drowning his chatter out until it became a quiet hum in the background.
Only a Little Scared
There was a small group of students waiting at the edge of the oval when we arrived for recreation studies that afternoon, and another two helping Mr Clifford unload mountain bikes from a white trailer. Harvey and I joined the group of onlookers, and I watched with an uneasy stirring in my stomach. I prided myself on never being afraid to try something new, and never being scared to rough it outdoors. But I felt nauseous looking at those bikes and thinking I’d soon be forced to get on one. What if I stacked it and humiliated myself in front of the rest of the students, most of whom were guys whose names I didn’t even know yet? That was not exactly the way I wanted to start out. My palms grew sweaty against my workbook and I was forced to wipe them on the side of my skirt.
Harvey looked at me with confusion. ‘What’s the matter? I thought you liked mountain biking.’
‘I do.’ My brow furrowed as I surveyed the row of bikes standing waiting for their respective students to board. Mr Clifford lowered the last two to the ground and then dusted his hands off on his shorts. ‘I’m just – not feeling well,’ I said.
‘Oh.’ Harvey looked a little nervous at this. ‘What, like you might be sick or something?’
I shrugged.
Mr Clifford chose this moment to address us all cheerfully. ‘Howdy everyone,’ he said, putting his hands on his hips. ‘We’re going to get cracking on putting some of that theory into practice today. Sound good?’ Everyone threw in their agreement, and he swept an arm towards the bikes. ‘Alright then. Grab a bike and adjust the saddle as necessary. Five minutes, folks.’ Mr Clifford noticed Harvey and me awkwardly standing a little apart from the others, and he moved towards us as the rest of the class advanced towards the bikes. ‘Julianne?’ the teacher said, holding up his hands with his forefingers and thumbs pointed towards me like pistols.
I clenched my teeth together, my stomach churning. I hadn’t looked through the content of the subjects when I’d enrolled in them a month ago. I’d just chosen recreation studies because it was an outdoors subject and the rest of the electives on that line were lousy. Now I was here, the reality of not being able to ride a bike was even more humiliating than I’d imagined. There was no way I could go through with this. Faking sick seemed like the best option to get me out of class. Maybe if I went and lay down, I could figure out a way to transfer from rec to home economics before my next class.
‘She’s not feeling very well,’ Harvey said.
Mr Clifford frowned and put his hands on his hips. ‘What’s not feeling well?’
I shrugged, my face turning sullen. ‘Stomach.’
‘Do you feel up to riding? The fresh air might do you some good.’
I shook my head, clutching my workbooks to my chest and feeling like a complete idiot.
Mr Clifford blew air out of his lips. ‘Alright, well, why don’t you go lie down in sickbay for a bit? You can come back down when you feel better.’ He turned his head to look at Harvey. ‘Can you take her up?’
Harvey nodded.
When I suggested that I go by myself, Mr Clifford narrowed his eyes at me. He’d been one of the teachers who’d found me that first day when I’d tried to escape over the fence, so it was stupid of me really to hold any hope that he’d actually let me take myself to the sickbay. I wouldn’t be allowed to wander off on my own for a long time after that. ‘Harvey can take you,’ he said. ‘Catch you if you faint or anything.’
I resisted the urge to respond grudgingly and instead followed Harvey back up to the dormitories in silence. He didn’t chatter on our way to the sickbay. He only shot anxious glances at me every so often and kept a safe distance. I could tell he was nervous I might throw up, though he at least had the courtesy to say “feel better” as the nurse, Mrs Donovan, ushered me inside the sickbay.
She felt my forehead as I sat down on the edge of one of the beds, and ran through the usual list of flu symptoms, most of which I denied irritably. ‘So it’s just your stomach,’ she continued crisply, narrowing her eyes at me. ‘You didn’t eat anything funny for breakfast? No allergies?’
I shook my head.
She looked me over somewhat suspiciously, then exhaled slowly as she rested her hands on her broad hips. When I glanced up at her face, her expression had softened a little, though her eyes were still slightly narrowed. ‘Is something troubling you?’
‘No,’ I said, scowling at the mattress beside me. ‘I just don’t feel well.’
‘Alright, well…lie down for a bit and hopefully it will pass. Do you want some lemonade?’
After I shrugged, she disappeared through a doorway into a small room where a fridge was humming. I lay down on my side, resting my head in the crook of my elbow rather than on the pillow. I was alone in the peace and quiet of the building until voices sounded outside and footsteps pattered towards the front entrance. I frowned, wanting to get up and push the door to so whoever passed by couldn’t see me, but I couldn’t be bothered. I soon wished I’d put in the effort though, because suddenly three eleventh-grade girls appeared, and the one that spotted me and halted in surprise was the last person I wanted to see me.
Alex stood in the doorway, looking tall and serious. She frowned, wisps of her auburn hair already escaping from her ponytail and sweeping her temples. ‘What’s the matter?’
I pressed my lips, my forehead furrowing. ‘Nothing.’
She frowned back at me, her eyes annoyed but concerned. ‘You’re in the sickbay.’
I sat up, glancing towards the office to make sure the nurse hadn’t reappeared. ‘Well, I’m fine,’ I said. ‘Just go away.’
Alex turned towards her friends and said, ‘I’ll be there in a second.’ Then she entered the sickbay and came to stand in front of me, her arms folded across her chest.
Mrs Donovan reappeared at that moment carrying a glass of lemonade, and set it in my hands. She narrowed her eyes at Alex. ‘Miss Calvin, you should be in class.’
‘We had to come collect something from our dorm,’ Alex said. ‘I just came to check she was alright. I can sit with her a moment if you’d like.’
Mrs Donovan looked at her tersely. ‘As long as your teacher knows where you are.’ Then she bustled out to the corridor and turned towards the eighth and ninth grade dormitories. As soon as she was gone, I turned my head to glare at Alex.
‘Stop treating me like a child,’ I said.
She sat down on the edge of the bed beside me as though she hadn’t heard, relaxing her posture and leaning back on h
er hands. ‘I wasn’t trying to treat you like a child.’ She paused, jutting out her bottom lip as she appraised me guardedly. ‘Why are you in sickbay? You were fine this morning.’
‘Do I look like a doctor to you?’
She narrowed her eyes at me. ‘No need to get all snappy.’
I met her eyes and frowned at the sincere concern I found in them. We continued to study each other in silence for a moment. Alex’s hazel eyes were so deep I started to visualise an unfathomable crevice in her mind in which she’d keep anybody’s secrets with no risk whatsoever of them being shared. Then I sighed in resignation and gave up the pretence, an overwhelming sense of trust shrouding my senses. ‘I don’t know how to ride a bike.’
I was expecting her to laugh. ‘So?’ she said.
‘So, I have recreation studies and we’re mountain biking.’
She stared at the floor for a while in peaceful contemplation, swinging her legs a little and thinking deeply. Then her expression lightened. ‘I have an idea.’
‘Will it teach me to ride a bike?’
‘Duh.’ She slipped off the bed and turned to look at me. ‘Just fake sick for the rest of this lesson. Do you have rec tomorrow or Monday?’ When I shook my head, she nodded once looking relieved. ‘Good – I’ve got stuff on ’til then. Meet me at the tennis courts on Monday night at about six thirty, alright?’
I pressed my lips. ‘Should I be scared?’
She grinned and winked, her face so brilliantly radiant it made my stomach flop in place. ‘Only a little,’ she said.
Girl Crushes
I couldn’t seem to think of much else for the rest of that week. All through my lessons I kept picturing Alex Calvin’s face. She shouldn’t have been so hard to not think about, I told myself in frustration. But every time I scribbled out an equation, or copied out a line of Shakespeare that I didn’t understand, my thoughts floated right out the window, right to where I could see her slender frame in the doorway, her hazel eyes deep in thought as they watched me intently. Each time I had to pull myself back to the present moment forcefully, and each time I clenched my fist against my workbook in increasing vexation. I didn’t like the way I couldn’t stop thinking about her. I didn’t like the fluttering in my chest when I did. It made me feel vulnerable and out of control, and I’d had enough of that to last a lifetime already.
Deep, deep down in my chest, I had nagging suspicions that I was experiencing the same feelings towards Alex that Nell was towards James, but I refused to accept it as a lasting thing. They probably weren’t even genuine, I told myself firmly. My brain was probably just trying to unscramble the mess of emotions which had become my head. And if they were sincere, I knew that given time they would fade, and I’d be able to move my focus to other aspects of my existence, ones that could really do with a little more attention. Besides, I already had a potential relationship brewing with Harvey. I didn’t have the energy to worry about a simple and inconsequential infatuation as well.
That weekend was the weekend that I started to mentally map out the development of Harvey’s and my relationship, to reassure myself that whatever this thing was with Alex wasn’t permanent. Eventually, I knew, I’d become used to Harvey’s flirtatious endeavours. I’d gradually warm to him and really notice how boyish and cute he was, then I’d start to feel shy around him like my friends felt around their crushes, then maybe he’d ask me out on a date, if dating was even a possibility at boarding school. Then we’d start going out and eventually fall in love and marry and have kids.
Just to be on the safe side though, I cornered Lori in the recreation room over the weekend to ask her opinion. It felt strange to feel dependent on a girlfriend for moral support, but it was comforting nevertheless.
Lori was sitting on one of the couches, so deeply absorbed in the novel she was reading that she didn’t notice my presence until I sat down beside her. She looked up from her book and smiled. ‘Hello!’
‘Hi.’ I frowned at my hands as I clenched them together in my lap uncomfortably.
She rested the novel against her knees and twisted her body around to face me curiously. ‘What’s wrong?’
I shrugged, then glanced around quickly to make sure nobody else could hear us. There were a few senior boys playing a game of pool in the corner, but they didn’t seem to even notice us sitting there. The rest of the room was vacant, most students busy in the library or study rooms poring over textbooks. My forehead furrowed a little as I glanced at Lori quickly before averting my eyes again. ‘Nothing’s wrong,’ I said slowly, choosing my words carefully. ‘I was just…I mean – I wanted to talk to you about something.’
‘Fire away.’
‘Okay…’ I hesitated. ‘Well, you know how you like Gideon…?’
‘Yeah?’
I rubbed my hands against my skirt, my palms all clammy again. ‘Did you ever, you know, get those sorts of feelings – only fleetingly – for…well, a girl?’
She frowned in some confusion. ‘You mean like a girl crush?’
My expression brightened a little. ‘Yeah.’
Lori hesitated for a moment in thought, then nodded. ‘Actually, yes,’ she said, looking surprised at the sudden relaxation of my tense shoulders. ‘When I first came to St Peter’s, in grade eight, I sort of had a crush on one of the seniors, Kimberly Blake. I just totally idolised her – I used to follow her ’round and spy on her.’ She smiled in amusement at the thought. ‘You know, like I would watch her when she walked between classes, and when she was playing sports at lunchtime – one time I even sat outside the kitchens peering at her through the windows while she was cooking in home ec. Dunno what the meal was. I just thought she looked really pretty with her glasses on. It would probably creep her out a bit if she knew, but it was only harmless adoration. Why?’
I shrugged. ‘No reason, just wondering.’
‘Do you like a girl?’ I was sure she didn’t mean for it to sound rude, but her voice was startled, for all it was quiet. ‘I mean, that’d be fine,’ she said, trying hurriedly to recover her somewhat cynical outburst. ‘It’s just…well, you know…’
I quickly decided from her response that if Lori, the most generous and accepting girl in our grade, found the concept of me liking a girl so shocking, then it was within my best interests to keep this to myself, at least until it had passed. So I shook my head and laughed as though the idea was hilarious, thankful for my exceptional skills of deceit. ‘No, I was just curious. I’ve heard about girl crushes and I’ve just never asked anyone about it.’
‘Oh.’ Lori smiled, her face relaxing. ‘Well, in my experience the feelings are only superficial and fade pretty quickly. You’ll have to tell me if you start crushing on any of the twelfth graders or teachers,’ she added, lowering her voice and grinning. ‘That way I won’t be the only one… Actually, I know I’m not already. Shimona once told me she had a girl crush on one of her primary teachers when she was in grade six. But don’t tell her I told you that. She didn’t want anyone knowing in case they – you know – started calling her a lesbian or something.’
I shook my head, carefully keeping my face composed though anxiety was starting to creep into my stomach. Lori spoke of these “girl crushes” as something which happened when you were young, something which sexual maturity played no part in. I shook my head again once for myself, denying firmly that there was anything significant to my captivation with Alex Calvin. The feelings were superficial and would fade, as Lori had said – and that meant I didn’t need to stress over them.
‘So how’s your thing with Harvey been going?’
Lori’s question brought me back to the rec room with a jolt, but I answered willingly, eager to turn the conversation back to a more normal topic. ‘Um…good, I suppose.’ I worked a little more enthusiasm into my voice. ‘He’s a nice guy.’
‘Just nice?’
‘I mean, no, he’s…you know, much more than nice.’ I felt my face warm, feeling guilty at the thought of leading Lori
on like this, but also kind of jittery – as though thinking about Harvey was actually making me nervous. A sudden ray of hope flared inside my chest. Perhaps I really was into him, I thought, excitement filling me with newfound energy. Perhaps the rockets and fireworks metaphor was just a load of farce – maybe romance was nothing but a special kind of friendship, which was a very plausible goal for my future with Harvey Baxter. Just to confirm my musings, I pictured him briefly in my head – and smiled surreptitiously when my stomach fluttered in response.
‘He does like you, doesn’t he?’
‘I think so.’
‘What if he asks you out?’
‘I don’t know. I’m trying not to worry about that just yet.’
Lori grinned. ‘Well, get ready to start soon. He’s definitely going to ask you out one of these days. I have a supersonic radar for these kinds of things. I knew James liked Nell months before Nell found out, probably even before James realised it himself.’
I smiled. ‘Can I just leave it to you then? You can plan out my love life and save me the trouble.’
She laughed, drumming her fingers together in mock malevolence. ‘Where’s the fun in that? This way I get to watch you make all your own mistakes.’
I raised one eyebrow. ‘Fine. Then I get to watch you make all your own mistakes with Gideon.’
‘What? Gideon? I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘You’re the worst liar in the world.’
She grinned. ‘Yeah, I know.’ Then she sighed dramatically. ‘We’ve liked each other pretty much since grade eight, ever since we met in science and he spilt a tin of bicarbonate soda down my front. It was hilarious – he went bright red and started stuttering apologies and the teacher made me stand in the safety shower in case it was contaminated.’
‘I wish I’d been there to see.’
‘But I don’t know if we’ll actually start dating. It’s been two years and he still hasn’t asked me out.’
